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+Charles Robert Darwin FRS FRGS FLS FZS[2] (/ˈdɑːrwɪn/;[5] 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist,[6] best known for his contributions to the science of evolution.[I] His proposition that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors is now widely accepted, and considered a foundational concept in science.[7] In a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding.[8] Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history,[9] and he was honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey.[10]
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+Darwin published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species.[11][12] By the 1870s, the scientific community and a majority of the educated public had accepted evolution as a fact. However, many favoured competing explanations which gave only a minor role to natural selection, and it was not until the emergence of the modern evolutionary synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s that a broad consensus developed in which natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution.[13][14] Darwin's scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences, explaining the diversity of life.[15][16]
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+Darwin's early interest in nature led him to neglect his medical education at the University of Edinburgh; instead, he helped to investigate marine invertebrates. Studies at the University of Cambridge (Christ's College) encouraged his passion for natural science.[17] His five-year voyage on HMS Beagle established him as an eminent geologist whose observations and theories supported Charles Lyell's conception of gradual geological change, and publication of his journal of the voyage made him famous as a popular author.[18]
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+Puzzled by the geographical distribution of wildlife and fossils he collected on the voyage, Darwin began detailed investigations, and in 1838 conceived his theory of natural selection.[19] Although he discussed his ideas with several naturalists, he needed time for extensive research and his geological work had priority.[20] He was writing up his theory in 1858 when Alfred Russel Wallace sent him an essay that described the same idea, prompting immediate joint publication of both of their theories.[21] Darwin's work established evolutionary descent with modification as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature.[13] In 1871 he examined human evolution and sexual selection in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, followed by The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). His research on plants was published in a series of books, and in his final book, The Formation of Vegetable Mould, through the Actions of Worms (1881), he examined earthworms and their effect on soil.[22][23]
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+Charles Robert Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, on 12 February 1809, at his family's home, The Mount.[24][25] He was the fifth of six children of wealthy society doctor and financier Robert Darwin and Susannah Darwin (née Wedgwood). His grandfathers Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood were both prominent abolitionists. Erasmus Darwin had promoted theories of evolution and common descent in his Zoonomia (1794), anticipating his grandson's work.[26]
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+Both families were largely Unitarian, though the Wedgwoods were adopting Anglicanism. Robert Darwin, himself quietly a freethinker, had baby Charles baptised in November 1809 in the Anglican St Chad's Church, Shrewsbury, but Charles and his siblings attended the Unitarian chapel with their mother. The eight-year-old Charles already had a taste for natural history and collecting when he joined the day school run by its preacher in 1817. That July, his mother died. From September 1818, he joined his older brother Erasmus attending the nearby Anglican Shrewsbury School as a boarder.[27]
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+Darwin spent the summer of 1825 as an apprentice doctor, helping his father treat the poor of Shropshire, before going to the University of Edinburgh Medical School (at the time the best medical school in the UK) with his brother Erasmus in October 1825. Darwin found lectures dull and surgery distressing, so he neglected his studies. He learned taxidermy in around 40 daily hour-long sessions from John Edmonstone, a freed black slave who had accompanied Charles Waterton in the South American rainforest.[28]
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+In Darwin's second year at the university he joined the Plinian Society, a student natural-history group featuring lively debates in which radical democratic students with materialistic views challenged orthodox religious concepts of science.[29] He assisted Robert Edmond Grant's investigations of the anatomy and life cycle of marine invertebrates in the Firth of Forth, and on 27 March 1827 presented at the Plinian his own discovery that black spores found in oyster shells were the eggs of a skate leech. One day, Grant praised Lamarck's evolutionary ideas. Darwin was astonished by Grant's audacity, but had recently read similar ideas in his grandfather Erasmus' journals.[30] Darwin was rather bored by Robert Jameson's natural-history course, which covered geology—including the debate between Neptunism and Plutonism. He learned the classification of plants, and assisted with work on the collections of the University Museum, one of the largest museums in Europe at the time.[31]
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+Darwin's neglect of medical studies annoyed his father, who shrewdly sent him to Christ's College, Cambridge, to study for a Bachelor of Arts degree as the first step towards becoming an Anglican country parson. As Darwin was unqualified for the Tripos, he joined the ordinary degree course in January 1828.[32] He preferred riding and shooting to studying. During the first few months of Darwin's enrollment, his second cousin William Darwin Fox was also studying at Christ's Church. Fox impressed him with his butterfly collection, introducing Darwin to entomology and influencing him to pursue beetle collecting.[33][34] He did this zealously, and had some of his finds published in James Francis Stephens' Illustrations of British entomology (1829–32).[34][35] Also through Fox, Darwin became a close friend and follower of botany professor John Stevens Henslow.[33] He met other leading parson-naturalists who saw scientific work as religious natural theology, becoming known to these dons as "the man who walks with Henslow". When his own exams drew near, Darwin applied himself to his studies and was delighted by the language and logic of William Paley's Evidences of Christianity[36] (1794). In his final examination in January 1831 Darwin did well, coming tenth out of 178 candidates for the ordinary degree.[37]
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+Darwin had to stay at Cambridge until June 1831. He studied Paley's Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity (first published in 1802), which made an argument for divine design in nature, explaining adaptation as God acting through laws of nature.[38] He read John Herschel's new book, Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy (1831), which described the highest aim of natural philosophy as understanding such laws through inductive reasoning based on observation, and Alexander von Humboldt's Personal Narrative of scientific travels in 1799–1804. Inspired with "a burning zeal" to contribute, Darwin planned to visit Tenerife with some classmates after graduation to study natural history in the tropics. In preparation, he joined Adam Sedgwick's geology course, then on 4 August travelled with him to spend a fortnight mapping strata in Wales.[39][40]
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+After leaving Sedgwick in Wales, Darwin spent a week with student friends at Barmouth, then returned home on 29 August to find a letter from Henslow proposing him as a suitable (if unfinished) naturalist for a self-funded supernumerary place on HMS Beagle with captain Robert FitzRoy, emphasising that this was a position for a gentleman rather than "a mere collector". The ship was to leave in four weeks on an expedition to chart the coastline of South America.[41] Robert Darwin objected to his son's planned two-year voyage, regarding it as a waste of time, but was persuaded by his brother-in-law, Josiah Wedgwood II, to agree to (and fund) his son's participation.[42] Darwin took care to remain in a private capacity to retain control over his collection, intending it for a major scientific institution.[43]
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+After delays, the voyage began on 27 December 1831; it lasted almost five years. As FitzRoy had intended, Darwin spent most of that time on land investigating geology and making natural history collections, while HMS Beagle surveyed and charted coasts.[13][44] He kept careful notes of his observations and theoretical speculations, and at intervals during the voyage his specimens were sent to Cambridge together with letters including a copy of his journal for his family.[45] He had some expertise in geology, beetle collecting and dissecting marine invertebrates, but in all other areas was a novice and ably collected specimens for expert appraisal.[46] Despite suffering badly from seasickness, Darwin wrote copious notes while on board the ship. Most of his zoology notes are about marine invertebrates, starting with plankton collected in a calm spell.[44][47]
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+On their first stop ashore at St Jago in Cape Verde, Darwin found that a white band high in the volcanic rock cliffs included seashells. FitzRoy had given him the first volume of Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology, which set out uniformitarian concepts of land slowly rising or falling over immense periods,[II] and Darwin saw things Lyell's way, theorising and thinking of writing a book on geology.[48] When they reached Brazil, Darwin was delighted by the tropical forest,[49] but detested the sight of slavery, and disputed this issue with Fitzroy.[50]
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+The survey continued to the south in Patagonia. They stopped at Bahía Blanca, and in cliffs near Punta Alta Darwin made a major find of fossil bones of huge extinct mammals beside modern seashells, indicating recent extinction with no signs of change in climate or catastrophe. He identified the little-known Megatherium by a tooth and its association with bony armour, which had at first seemed to him to be like a giant version of the armour on local armadillos. The finds brought great interest when they reached England.[51][52]
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+On rides with gauchos into the interior to explore geology and collect more fossils, Darwin gained social, political and anthropological insights into both native and colonial people at a time of revolution, and learnt that two types of rhea had separate but overlapping territories.[53][54] Further south, he saw stepped plains of shingle and seashells as raised beaches showing a series of elevations. He read Lyell's second volume and accepted its view of "centres of creation" of species, but his discoveries and theorising challenged Lyell's ideas of smooth continuity and of extinction of species.[55][56]
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+Three Fuegians on board had been seized during the first Beagle voyage, then during a year in England were educated as missionaries. Darwin found them friendly and civilised, yet at Tierra del Fuego he met "miserable, degraded savages", as different as wild from domesticated animals.[57] He remained convinced that, despite this diversity, all humans were interrelated with a shared origin and potential for improvement towards civilisation. Unlike his scientist friends, he now thought there was no unbridgeable gap between humans and animals.[58] A year on, the mission had been abandoned. The Fuegian they had named Jemmy Button lived like the other natives, had a wife, and had no wish to return to England.[59]
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+Darwin experienced an earthquake in Chile in 1835 and saw signs that the land had just been raised, including mussel-beds stranded above high tide. High in the Andes he saw seashells, and several fossil trees that had grown on a sand beach. He theorised that as the land rose, oceanic islands sank, and coral reefs round them grew to form atolls.[60][61]
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+On the geologically new Galápagos Islands, Darwin looked for evidence attaching wildlife to an older "centre of creation", and found mockingbirds allied to those in Chile but differing from island to island. He heard that slight variations in the shape of tortoise shells showed which island they came from, but failed to collect them, even after eating tortoises taken on board as food.[62][63] In Australia, the marsupial rat-kangaroo and the platypus seemed so unusual that Darwin thought it was almost as though two distinct Creators had been at work.[64] He found the Aborigines "good-humoured & pleasant", and noted their depletion by European settlement.[65]
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+FitzRoy investigated how the atolls of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands had formed, and the survey supported Darwin's theorising.[61] FitzRoy began writing the official Narrative of the Beagle voyages, and after reading Darwin's diary he proposed incorporating it into the account.[66] Darwin's Journal was eventually rewritten as a separate third volume, on natural history.[67]
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+In Cape Town, South Africa, Darwin and FitzRoy met John Herschel, who had recently written to Lyell praising his uniformitarianism as opening bold speculation on "that mystery of mysteries, the replacement of extinct species by others" as "a natural in contradistinction to a miraculous process".[68]
+When organising his notes as the ship sailed home, Darwin wrote that, if his growing suspicions about the mockingbirds, the tortoises and the Falkland Islands fox were correct, "such facts undermine the stability of Species", then cautiously added "would" before "undermine".[69] He later wrote that such facts "seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species".[70]
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+By the time Darwin returned to England, he was already a celebrity in scientific circles as in December 1835 Henslow had fostered his former pupil's reputation by publishing a pamphlet of Darwin's geological letters for select naturalists.[71] On 2 October 1836 the ship anchored at Falmouth, Cornwall. Darwin promptly made the long coach journey to Shrewsbury to visit his home and see relatives. He then hurried to Cambridge to see Henslow, who advised him on finding naturalists available to catalogue Darwin's animal collections and who agreed to take on the botanical specimens. Darwin's father organised investments, enabling his son to be a self-funded gentleman scientist, and an excited Darwin went round the London institutions being fêted and seeking experts to describe the collections. British zoologists at the time had a huge backlog of work due to natural history collecting being promoted and encouraged through the British Empire, and there was a danger of specimens just being left in storage.[72]
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+Charles Lyell eagerly met Darwin for the first time on 29 October and soon introduced him to the up-and-coming anatomist Richard Owen, who had the facilities of the Royal College of Surgeons to work on the fossil bones collected by Darwin. Owen's surprising results included other gigantic extinct ground sloths as well as the Megatherium, a near complete skeleton of the unknown Scelidotherium and a hippopotamus-sized rodent-like skull named Toxodon resembling a giant capybara. The armour fragments were actually from Glyptodon, a huge armadillo-like creature as Darwin had initially thought.[73][52] These extinct creatures were related to living species in South America.[74]
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+In mid-December, Darwin took lodgings in Cambridge to organise work on his collections and rewrite his Journal.[75] He wrote his first paper, showing that the South American landmass was slowly rising, and with Lyell's enthusiastic backing read it to the Geological Society of London on 4 January 1837. On the same day, he presented his mammal and bird specimens to the Zoological Society. The ornithologist John Gould soon announced that the Galapagos birds that Darwin had thought a mixture of blackbirds, "gros-beaks" and finches, were, in fact, twelve separate species of finches. On 17 February, Darwin was elected to the Council of the Geological Society, and Lyell's presidential address presented Owen's findings on Darwin's fossils, stressing geographical continuity of species as supporting his uniformitarian ideas.[76]
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+Early in March, Darwin moved to London to be near this work, joining Lyell's social circle of scientists and experts such as Charles Babbage,[77] who described God as a programmer of laws. Darwin stayed with his freethinking brother Erasmus, part of this Whig circle and a close friend of the writer Harriet Martineau, who promoted Malthusianism underlying the controversial Whig Poor Law reforms to stop welfare from causing overpopulation and more poverty. As a Unitarian, she welcomed the radical implications of transmutation of species, promoted by Grant and younger surgeons influenced by Geoffroy. Transmutation was anathema to Anglicans defending social order,[78] but reputable scientists openly discussed the subject and there was wide interest in John Herschel's letter praising Lyell's approach as a way to find a natural cause of the origin of new species.[68]
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+Gould met Darwin and told him that the Galápagos mockingbirds from different islands were separate species, not just varieties, and what Darwin had thought was a "wren" was also in the finch group. Darwin had not labelled the finches by island, but from the notes of others on the ship, including FitzRoy, he allocated species to islands.[79] The two rheas were also distinct species, and on 14 March Darwin announced how their distribution changed going southwards.[80]
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+By mid-March 1837, barely six months after his return to England, Darwin was speculating in his Red Notebook on the possibility that "one species does change into another" to explain the geographical distribution of living species such as the rheas, and extinct ones such as the strange extinct mammal Macrauchenia, which resembled a giant guanaco, a llama relative. His thoughts on lifespan, asexual reproduction and sexual reproduction developed in his "B" notebook around mid-July on to variation in offspring "to adapt & alter the race to changing world" explaining the Galápagos tortoises, mockingbirds and rheas. He sketched branching descent, then a genealogical branching of a single evolutionary tree, in which "It is absurd to talk of one animal being higher than another", discarding Lamarck's independent lineages progressing to higher forms.[81]
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+While developing this intensive study of transmutation, Darwin became mired in more work. Still rewriting his Journal, he took on editing and publishing the expert reports on his collections, and with Henslow's help obtained a Treasury grant of £1,000 to sponsor this multi-volume Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, a sum equivalent to about £92,000 in 2018.[82] He stretched the funding to include his planned books on geology, and agreed to unrealistic dates with the publisher.[83] As the Victorian era began, Darwin pressed on with writing his Journal, and in August 1837 began correcting printer's proofs.[84]
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+As Darwin worked under pressure, his health suffered. On 20 September he had "an uncomfortable palpitation of the heart", so his doctors urged him to "knock off all work" and live in the country for a few weeks. After visiting Shrewsbury he joined his Wedgwood relatives at Maer Hall, Staffordshire, but found them too eager for tales of his travels to give him much rest. His charming, intelligent, and cultured cousin Emma Wedgwood, nine months older than Darwin, was nursing his invalid aunt. His uncle Josiah pointed out an area of ground where cinders had disappeared under loam and suggested that this might have been the work of earthworms, inspiring "a new & important theory" on their role in soil formation, which Darwin presented at the Geological Society on 1 November 1837.[85]
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+William Whewell pushed Darwin to take on the duties of Secretary of the Geological Society. After initially declining the work, he accepted the post in March 1838.[86] Despite the grind of writing and editing the Beagle reports, Darwin made remarkable progress on transmutation, taking every opportunity to question expert naturalists and, unconventionally, people with practical experience in selective breeding such as farmers and pigeon fanciers.[13][87] Over time, his research drew on information from his relatives and children, the family butler, neighbours, colonists and former shipmates.[88] He included mankind in his speculations from the outset, and on seeing an orangutan in the zoo on 28 March 1838 noted its childlike behaviour.[89]
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+The strain took a toll, and by June he was being laid up for days on end with stomach problems, headaches and heart symptoms. For the rest of his life, he was repeatedly incapacitated with episodes of stomach pains, vomiting, severe boils, palpitations, trembling and other symptoms, particularly during times of stress, such as attending meetings or making social visits. The cause of Darwin's illness remained unknown, and attempts at treatment had only ephemeral success.[90]
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+On 23 June, he took a break and went "geologising" in Scotland. He visited Glen Roy in glorious weather to see the parallel "roads" cut into the hillsides at three heights. He later published his view that these were marine raised beaches, but then had to accept that they were shorelines of a proglacial lake.[91]
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+Fully recuperated, he returned to Shrewsbury in July. Used to jotting down daily notes on animal breeding, he scrawled rambling thoughts about marriage, career and prospects on two scraps of paper, one with columns headed "Marry" and "Not Marry". Advantages under "Marry" included "constant companion and a friend in old age ... better than a dog anyhow", against points such as "less money for books" and "terrible loss of time."[92] Having decided in favour of marriage, he discussed it with his father, then went to visit his cousin Emma on 29 July. He did not get around to proposing, but against his father's advice he mentioned his ideas on transmutation.[93]
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+Continuing his research in London, Darwin's wide reading now included the sixth edition of Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population, and on 28 September 1838 he noted its assertion that human "population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty five years, or increases in a geometrical ratio", a geometric progression so that population soon exceeds food supply in what is known as a Malthusian catastrophe. Darwin was well prepared to compare this to de Candolle's "warring of the species" of plants and the struggle for existence among wildlife, explaining how numbers of a species kept roughly stable. As species always breed beyond available resources, favourable variations would make organisms better at surviving and passing the variations on to their offspring, while unfavourable variations would be lost. He wrote that the "final cause of all this wedging, must be to sort out proper structure, & adapt it to changes", so that "One may say there is a force like a hundred thousand wedges trying force into every kind of adapted structure into the gaps of in the economy of nature, or rather forming gaps by thrusting out weaker ones."[13][94] This would result in the formation of new species.[13][95] As he later wrote in his Autobiography:
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+In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work...[96]
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+By mid-December, Darwin saw a similarity between farmers picking the best stock in selective breeding, and a Malthusian Nature selecting from chance variants so that "every part of newly acquired structure is fully practical and perfected",[97] thinking this comparison "a beautiful part of my theory".[98] He later called his theory natural selection, an analogy with what he termed the "artificial selection" of selective breeding.[13]
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+On 11 November, he returned to Maer and proposed to Emma, once more telling her his ideas. She accepted, then in exchanges of loving letters she showed how she valued his openness in sharing their differences, also expressing her strong Unitarian beliefs and concerns that his honest doubts might separate them in the afterlife.[99] While he was house-hunting in London, bouts of illness continued and Emma wrote urging him to get some rest, almost prophetically remarking "So don't be ill any more my dear Charley till I can be with you to nurse you." He found what they called "Macaw Cottage" (because of its gaudy interiors) in Gower Street, then moved his "museum" in over Christmas. On 24 January 1839, Darwin was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).[2][100]
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+On 29 January, Darwin and Emma Wedgwood were married at Maer in an Anglican ceremony arranged to suit the Unitarians, then immediately caught the train to London and their new home.[101]
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+Darwin now had the framework of his theory of natural selection "by which to work",[96] as his "prime hobby".[102] His research included extensive experimental selective breeding of plants and animals, finding evidence that species were not fixed and investigating many detailed ideas to refine and substantiate his theory.[13] For fifteen years this work was in the background to his main occupation of writing on geology and publishing expert reports on the Beagle collections, and in particular, the barnacles.[103]
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+When FitzRoy's Narrative was published in May 1839, Darwin's Journal and Remarks was such a success as the third volume that later that year it was published on its own.[104] Early in 1842, Darwin wrote about his ideas to Charles Lyell, who noted that his ally "denies seeing a beginning to each crop of species".[105]
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+Darwin's book The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs on his theory of atoll formation was published in May 1842 after more than three years of work, and he then wrote his first "pencil sketch" of his theory of natural selection.[106] To escape the pressures of London, the family moved to rural Down House in September.[107] On 11 January 1844, Darwin mentioned his theorising to the botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker, writing with melodramatic humour "it is like confessing a murder".[108][109] Hooker replied "There may in my opinion have been a series of productions on different spots, & also a gradual change of species. I shall be delighted to hear how you think that this change may have taken place, as no presently conceived opinions satisfy me on the subject."[110]
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+By July, Darwin had expanded his "sketch" into a 230-page "Essay", to be expanded with his research results if he died prematurely.[112] In November, the anonymously published sensational best-seller Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation brought wide interest in transmutation. Darwin scorned its amateurish geology and zoology, but carefully reviewed his own arguments. Controversy erupted, and it continued to sell well despite contemptuous dismissal by scientists.[113][114]
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+Darwin completed his third geological book in 1846. He now renewed a fascination and expertise in marine invertebrates, dating back to his student days with Grant, by dissecting and classifying the barnacles he had collected on the voyage, enjoying observing beautiful structures and thinking about comparisons with allied structures.[115] In 1847, Hooker read the "Essay" and sent notes that provided Darwin with the calm critical feedback that he needed, but would not commit himself and questioned Darwin's opposition to continuing acts of creation.[116]
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+In an attempt to improve his chronic ill health, Darwin went in 1849 to Dr. James Gully's Malvern spa and was surprised to find some benefit from hydrotherapy.[117] Then, in 1851, his treasured daughter Annie fell ill, reawakening his fears that his illness might be hereditary, and after a long series of crises she died.[118]
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+In eight years of work on barnacles (Cirripedia), Darwin's theory helped him to find "homologies" showing that slightly changed body parts served different functions to meet new conditions, and in some genera he found minute males parasitic on hermaphrodites, showing an intermediate stage in evolution of distinct sexes.[119] In 1853, it earned him the Royal Society's Royal Medal, and it made his reputation as a biologist.[120] In 1854 he became a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, gaining postal access to its library.[121] He began a major reassessment of his theory of species, and in November realised that divergence in the character of descendants could be explained by them becoming adapted to "diversified places in the economy of nature".[122]
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+By the start of 1856, Darwin was investigating whether eggs and seeds could survive travel across seawater to spread species across oceans. Hooker increasingly doubted the traditional view that species were fixed, but their young friend Thomas Henry Huxley was still firmly against the transmutation of species. Lyell was intrigued by Darwin's speculations without realising their extent. When he read a paper by Alfred Russel Wallace, "On the Law which has Regulated the Introduction of New Species", he saw similarities with Darwin's thoughts and urged him to publish to establish precedence. Though Darwin saw no threat, on 14 May 1856 he began writing a short paper. Finding answers to difficult questions held him up repeatedly, and he expanded his plans to a "big book on species" titled Natural Selection, which was to include his "note on Man". He continued his researches, obtaining information and specimens from naturalists worldwide including Wallace who was working in Borneo. In mid-1857 he added a section heading; "Theory applied to Races of Man", but did not add text on this topic. On 5 September 1857, Darwin sent the American botanist Asa Gray a detailed outline of his ideas, including an abstract of Natural Selection, which omitted human origins and sexual selection. In December, Darwin received a letter from Wallace asking if the book would examine human origins. He responded that he would avoid that subject, "so surrounded with prejudices", while encouraging Wallace's theorising and adding that "I go much further than you."[124]
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+Darwin's book was only partly written when, on 18 June 1858, he received a paper from Wallace describing natural selection. Shocked that he had been "forestalled", Darwin sent it on that day to Lyell, as requested by Wallace,[125][126] and although Wallace had not asked for publication, Darwin suggested he would send it to any journal that Wallace chose. His family was in crisis with children in the village dying of scarlet fever, and he put matters in the hands of his friends. After some discussion, with no reliable way of involving Wallace, Lyell and Hooker decided on a joint presentation at the Linnean Society on 1 July of On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection. On the evening of 28 June, Darwin's baby son died of scarlet fever after almost a week of severe illness, and he was too distraught to attend.[127]
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+There was little immediate attention to this announcement of the theory; the president of the Linnean Society remarked in May 1859 that the year had not been marked by any revolutionary discoveries.[128] Only one review rankled enough for Darwin to recall it later; Professor Samuel Haughton of Dublin claimed that "all that was new in them was false, and what was true was old".[129] Darwin struggled for thirteen months to produce an abstract of his "big book", suffering from ill health but getting constant encouragement from his scientific friends. Lyell arranged to have it published by John Murray.[130]
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+On the Origin of Species proved unexpectedly popular, with the entire stock of 1,250 copies oversubscribed when it went on sale to booksellers on 22 November 1859.[131] In the book, Darwin set out "one long argument" of detailed observations, inferences and consideration of anticipated objections.[132] In making the case for common descent, he included evidence of homologies between humans and other mammals.[133][III] Having outlined sexual selection, he hinted that it could explain differences between human races.[134][IV] He avoided explicit discussion of human origins, but implied the significance of his work with the sentence; "Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history."[135][IV] His theory is simply stated in the introduction:
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+As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.[136]
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+At the end of the book he concluded that:
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+There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.[137]
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+The last word was the only variant of "evolved" in the first five editions of the book. "Evolutionism" at that time was associated with other concepts, most commonly with embryological development, and Darwin first used the word evolution in The Descent of Man in 1871, before adding it in 1872 to the 6th edition of The Origin of Species.[138]
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+The book aroused international interest, with less controversy than had greeted the popular and less scientific Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation.[140] Though Darwin's illness kept him away from the public debates, he eagerly scrutinised the scientific response, commenting on press cuttings, reviews, articles, satires and caricatures, and corresponded on it with colleagues worldwide.[141] The book did not explicitly discuss human origins,[135][IV] but included a number of hints about the animal ancestry of humans from which the inference could be made.[142] The first review asked, "If a monkey has become a man–what may not a man become?" and said it should be left to theologians as it was too dangerous for ordinary readers.[143] Amongst early favourable responses, Huxley's reviews swiped at Richard Owen, leader of the scientific establishment Huxley was trying to overthrow.[144] In April, Owen's review attacked Darwin's friends and condescendingly dismissed his ideas, angering Darwin,[145] but Owen and others began to promote ideas of supernaturally guided evolution. Patrick Matthew drew attention to his 1831 book which had a brief appendix suggesting a concept of natural selection leading to new species, but he had not developed the idea.[146]
+
+The Church of England's response was mixed. Darwin's old Cambridge tutors Sedgwick and Henslow dismissed the ideas, but liberal clergymen interpreted natural selection as an instrument of God's design, with the cleric Charles Kingsley seeing it as "just as noble a conception of Deity".[147] In 1860, the publication of Essays and Reviews by seven liberal Anglican theologians diverted clerical attention from Darwin, with its ideas including higher criticism attacked by church authorities as heresy. In it, Baden Powell argued that miracles broke God's laws, so belief in them was atheistic, and praised "Mr Darwin's masterly volume [supporting] the grand principle of the self-evolving powers of nature".[148] Asa Gray discussed teleology with Darwin, who imported and distributed Gray's pamphlet on theistic evolution, Natural Selection is not inconsistent with natural theology.[147][149] The most famous confrontation was at the public 1860 Oxford evolution debate during a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, where the Bishop of Oxford Samuel Wilberforce, though not opposed to transmutation of species, argued against Darwin's explanation and human descent from apes. Joseph Hooker argued strongly for Darwin, and Thomas Huxley's legendary retort, that he would rather be descended from an ape than a man who misused his gifts, came to symbolise a triumph of science over religion.[147][150]
+
+Even Darwin's close friends Gray, Hooker, Huxley and Lyell still expressed various reservations but gave strong support, as did many others, particularly younger naturalists. Gray and Lyell sought reconciliation with faith, while Huxley portrayed a polarisation between religion and science. He campaigned pugnaciously against the authority of the clergy in education,[147] aiming to overturn the dominance of clergymen and aristocratic amateurs under Owen in favour of a new generation of professional scientists. Owen's claim that brain anatomy proved humans to be a separate biological order from apes was shown to be false by Huxley in a long running dispute parodied by Kingsley as the "Great Hippocampus Question", and discredited Owen.[151]
+
+Darwinism became a movement covering a wide range of evolutionary ideas. In 1863 Lyell's Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man popularised prehistory, though his caution on evolution disappointed Darwin. Weeks later Huxley's Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature showed that anatomically, humans are apes, then The Naturalist on the River Amazons by Henry Walter Bates provided empirical evidence of natural selection.[152] Lobbying brought Darwin Britain's highest scientific honour, the Royal Society's Copley Medal, awarded on 3 November 1864.[153] That day, Huxley held the first meeting of what became the influential "X Club" devoted to "science, pure and free, untrammelled by religious dogmas".[154] By the end of the decade most scientists agreed that evolution occurred, but only a minority supported Darwin's view that the chief mechanism was natural selection.[155]
+
+The Origin of Species was translated into many languages, becoming a staple scientific text attracting thoughtful attention from all walks of life, including the "working men" who flocked to Huxley's lectures.[156] Darwin's theory also resonated with various movements at the time[V] and became a key fixture of popular culture.[VI] Cartoonists parodied animal ancestry in an old tradition of showing humans with animal traits, and in Britain these droll images served to popularise Darwin's theory in an unthreatening way. While ill in 1862 Darwin began growing a beard, and when he reappeared in public in 1866 caricatures of him as an ape helped to identify all forms of evolutionism with Darwinism.[139]
+
+Despite repeated bouts of illness during the last twenty-two years of his life, Darwin's work continued. Having published On the Origin of Species as an abstract of his theory, he pressed on with experiments, research, and writing of his "big book". He covered human descent from earlier animals including evolution of society and of mental abilities, as well as explaining decorative beauty in wildlife and diversifying into innovative plant studies.
+
+Enquiries about insect pollination led in 1861 to novel studies of wild orchids, showing adaptation of their flowers to attract specific moths to each species and ensure cross fertilisation. In 1862 Fertilisation of Orchids gave his first detailed demonstration of the power of natural selection to explain complex ecological relationships, making testable predictions. As his health declined, he lay on his sickbed in a room filled with inventive experiments to trace the movements of climbing plants.[157] Admiring visitors included Ernst Haeckel, a zealous proponent of Darwinismus incorporating Lamarckism and Goethe's idealism.[158] Wallace remained supportive, though he increasingly turned to Spiritualism.[159]
+
+Darwin's book The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication (1868) was the first part of his planned "big book", and included his unsuccessful hypothesis of pangenesis attempting to explain heredity. It sold briskly at first, despite its size, and was translated into many languages. He wrote most of a second part, on natural selection, but it remained unpublished in his lifetime.[160]
+
+Lyell had already popularised human prehistory, and Huxley had shown that anatomically humans are apes.[152] With The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex published in 1871, Darwin set out evidence from numerous sources that humans are animals, showing continuity of physical and mental attributes, and presented sexual selection to explain impractical animal features such as the peacock's plumage as well as human evolution of culture, differences between sexes, and physical and cultural racial classification, while emphasising that humans are all one species.[161] His research using images was expanded in his 1872 book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, one of the first books to feature printed photographs, which discussed the evolution of human psychology and its continuity with the behaviour of animals. Both books proved very popular, and Darwin was impressed by the general assent with which his views had been received, remarking that "everybody is talking about it without being shocked."[162] His conclusion was "that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system—with all these exalted powers—Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin."[163]
+
+His evolution-related experiments and investigations led to books on Orchids, Insectivorous Plants, The Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom, different forms of flowers on plants of the same species, and The Power of Movement in Plants. He continued to collect information and exchange views from scientific correspondents all over the world, including Mary Treat, whom he encouraged to persevere in her scientific work.[164] His botanical work[IX] was interpreted and popularised by various writers including Grant Allen and H. G. Wells, and helped transform plant science in the late 19th century and early 20th century. In his last book he returned to The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms.
+
+In 1882 he was diagnosed with what was called "angina pectoris" which then meant coronary thrombosis and disease of the heart. At the time of his death, the physicians diagnosed "anginal attacks", and "heart-failure".[165] It has been speculated that Darwin may have suffered from chronic Chagas disease.[166] This speculation is based on a journal entry written by Darwin, describing he was bitten by the "Kissing Bug" in Mendoza, Argentina, in 1835;[167] and based on the constellation of clinical symptoms he exhibited, including cardiac disease which is a hallmark of chronic Chagas disease.[168][166] Exhuming Darwin's body is likely necessary to definitively determine his state of infection by detecting DNA of infecting parasite, T. cruzi, that causes Chagas disease.[166][167]
+
+He died at Down House on 19 April 1882. His last words were to his family, telling Emma "I am not the least afraid of death—Remember what a good wife you have been to me—Tell all my children to remember how good they have been to me", then while she rested, he repeatedly told Henrietta and Francis "It's almost worth while to be sick to be nursed by you".[169] He had expected to be buried in St Mary's churchyard at Downe, but at the request of Darwin's colleagues, after public and parliamentary petitioning, William Spottiswoode (President of the Royal Society) arranged for Darwin to be honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey, close to John Herschel and Isaac Newton. The funeral was held on Wednesday 26 April and was attended by thousands of people, including family, friends, scientists, philosophers and dignitaries.[170][10]
+
+By the time of his death, Darwin and his colleagues had convinced most scientists that evolution as descent with modification was correct, and he was regarded as a great scientist who had revolutionised ideas. In June 1909, though few at that time agreed with his view that "natural selection has been the main but not the exclusive means of modification", he was honoured by more than 400 officials and scientists from across the world who met in Cambridge to commemorate his centenary and the fiftieth anniversary of On the Origin of Species.[171] Around the beginning of the 20th century, a period that has been called "the eclipse of Darwinism", scientists proposed various alternative evolutionary mechanisms, which eventually proved untenable. Ronald Fisher, an English statistician, finally united Mendelian genetics with natural selection, in the period between 1918 and his 1930 book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection.[172] He gave the theory a mathematical footing and brought broad scientific consensus that natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution, thus founding the basis for population genetics and the modern evolutionary synthesis, with J.B.S. Haldane and Sewall Wright, which set the frame of reference for modern debates and refinements of the theory.[14]
+
+During Darwin's lifetime, many geographical features were given his name. An expanse of water adjoining the Beagle Channel was named Darwin Sound by Robert FitzRoy after Darwin's prompt action, along with two or three of the men, saved them from being marooned on a nearby shore when a collapsing glacier caused a large wave that would have swept away their boats,[173] and the nearby Mount Darwin in the Andes was named in celebration of Darwin's 25th birthday.[174] When the Beagle was surveying Australia in 1839, Darwin's friend John Lort Stokes sighted a natural harbour which the ship's captain Wickham named Port Darwin: a nearby settlement was renamed Darwin in 1911, and it became the capital city of Australia's Northern Territory.[175]
+
+Stephen Heard identified 389 species that have been named after Darwin,[176] and there are at least 9 genera.[177] In one example, the group of tanagers related to those Darwin found in the Galápagos Islands became popularly known as "Darwin's finches" in 1947, fostering inaccurate legends about their significance to his work.[178]
+
+Darwin's work has continued to be celebrated by numerous publications and events. The Linnean Society of London has commemorated Darwin's achievements by the award of the Darwin–Wallace Medal since 1908. Darwin Day has become an annual celebration, and in 2009 worldwide events were arranged for the bicentenary of Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species.[179]
+
+Darwin has been commemorated in the UK, with his portrait printed on the reverse of £10 banknotes printed along with a hummingbird and HMS Beagle, issued by the Bank of England.[180]
+
+A life-size seated statue of Darwin can be seen in the main hall of the Natural History Museum in London.[181]
+
+A seated statue of Darwin, unveiled 1897, stands in front of Shrewsbury Library, the building that used to house Shrewsbury School, which Darwin attended as a boy. Another statue of Darwin as a young man is situated in the grounds of Christ's College, Cambridge.
+
+Darwin College, a postgraduate college at Cambridge University, is named after the Darwin family.[182]
+
+In 2008–09, the Swedish band The Knife, in collaboration with Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma and other musicians from Denmark, Sweden and the US, created an opera about the life of Darwin, and The Origin of Species, titled Tomorrow, in a Year. The show toured European theatres in 2010.
+
+The Darwins had ten children: two died in infancy, and Annie's death at the age of ten had a devastating effect on her parents. Charles was a devoted father and uncommonly attentive to his children.[17] Whenever they fell ill, he feared that they might have inherited weaknesses from inbreeding due to the close family ties he shared with his wife and cousin, Emma Wedgwood.
+
+He examined inbreeding in his writings, contrasting it with the advantages of outcrossing in many species.[183] Despite his fears, most of the surviving children and many of their descendants went on to have distinguished careers.
+
+Of his surviving children, George, Francis and Horace became Fellows of the Royal Society,[184] distinguished as astronomer,[185] botanist and civil engineer, respectively. All three were knighted.[186] Another son, Leonard, went on to be a soldier, politician, economist, eugenicist and mentor of the statistician and evolutionary biologist Ronald Fisher.[187]
+
+Darwin's family tradition was nonconformist Unitarianism, while his father and grandfather were freethinkers, and his baptism and boarding school were Church of England.[27] When going to Cambridge to become an Anglican clergyman, he did not doubt the literal truth of the Bible.[36] He learned John Herschel's science which, like William Paley's natural theology, sought explanations in laws of nature rather than miracles and saw adaptation of species as evidence of design.[38][39] On board HMS Beagle, Darwin was quite orthodox and would quote the Bible as an authority on morality.[189] He looked for "centres of creation" to explain distribution,[62] and suggested that the very similar antlions found in Australia and England were evidence of a divine hand.[64]
+
+By his return, he was critical of the Bible as history, and wondered why all religions should not be equally valid.[189] In the next few years, while intensively speculating on geology and the transmutation of species, he gave much thought to religion and openly discussed this with his wife Emma, whose beliefs also came from intensive study and questioning.[99] The theodicy of Paley and Thomas Malthus vindicated evils such as starvation as a result of a benevolent creator's laws, which had an overall good effect. To Darwin, natural selection produced the good of adaptation but removed the need for design,[190] and he could not see the work of an omnipotent deity in all the pain and suffering, such as the ichneumon wasp paralysing caterpillars as live food for its eggs.[149] Though he thought of religion as a tribal survival strategy, Darwin was reluctant to give up the idea of God as an ultimate lawgiver. He was increasingly troubled by the problem of evil.[191][192]
+
+Darwin remained close friends with the vicar of Downe, John Brodie Innes, and continued to play a leading part in the parish work of the church,[193] but from around 1849 would go for a walk on Sundays while his family attended church.[188] He considered it "absurd to doubt that a man might be an ardent theist and an evolutionist"[194][195] and, though reticent about his religious views, in 1879 he wrote that "I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. – I think that generally ... an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind".[99][194]
+
+The "Lady Hope Story", published in 1915, claimed that Darwin had reverted to Christianity on his sickbed. The claims were repudiated by Darwin's children and have been dismissed as false by historians.[196]
+
+Darwin's views on social and political issues reflected his time and social position. He grew up in a family of Whig reformers who, like his uncle Josiah Wedgwood, supported electoral reform and the emancipation of slaves. Darwin was passionately opposed to slavery, while seeing no problem with the working conditions of English factory workers or servants. His taxidermy lessons in 1826 from the freed slave John Edmonstone, whom he long recalled as "a very pleasant and intelligent man", reinforced his belief that black people shared the same feelings, and could be as intelligent as people of other races. He took the same attitude to native people he met on the Beagle voyage.[197] These attitudes were not unusual in Britain in the 1820s, much as it shocked visiting Americans. British society became more racist in mid-century,[28] but Darwin remained strongly against slavery, against "ranking the so-called races of man as distinct species", and against ill-treatment of native people.[198][VII] Darwins interaction with Yaghans (Fuegians) such as Jemmy Button during the second voyage of HMS Beagle had a profound impact on his view of primitive peoples. At his arrival to Tierra del Fuego he made a colourful description of "Fuegian savages".[199] This view changed as he came to know Yaghan people more in detail. By studying the Yaghans Darwin concluded that a number of basic emotions by different human groups were the same and that mental capabilities were roughly the same as for Europeans.[199] While interested in Yaghan culture Darwin failed to appreciate their deep ecological knowledge and elaborate cosmology until the 1850s when he inspected a dictionary of Yaghan detailing 32-thousand words.[199] He recognised that European colonisation often led to the extinction of native civilisations.[200]
+
+He thought men's eminence over women was the outcome of sexual selection, a view disputed by Antoinette Brown Blackwell in her 1875 book The Sexes Throughout Nature.[201]
+
+Darwin was intrigued by his half-cousin Francis Galton's argument, introduced in 1865, that statistical analysis of heredity showed that moral and mental human traits could be inherited, and principles of animal breeding could apply to humans. In The Descent of Man, Darwin noted that aiding the weak to survive and have families could lose the benefits of natural selection, but cautioned that withholding such aid would endanger the instinct of sympathy, "the noblest part of our nature", and factors such as education could be more important. When Galton suggested that publishing research could encourage intermarriage within a "caste" of "those who are naturally gifted", Darwin foresaw practical difficulties, and thought it "the sole feasible, yet I fear utopian, plan of procedure in improving the human race", preferring to simply publicise the importance of inheritance and leave decisions to individuals.[202] Francis Galton named this field of study "eugenics" in 1883.[VIII] After Darwin's death, his theories were cited to promote eugenic policies that went against his humanitarian principles.[200]
+
+Darwin's fame and popularity led to his name being associated with ideas and movements that, at times, had only an indirect relation to his writings, and sometimes went directly against his express comments.
+
+Thomas Malthus had argued that population growth beyond resources was ordained by God to get humans to work productively and show restraint in getting families; this was used in the 1830s to justify workhouses and laissez-faire economics.[203] Evolution was by then seen as having social implications, and Herbert Spencer's 1851 book Social Statics based ideas of human freedom and individual liberties on his Lamarckian evolutionary theory.[204]
+
+Soon after the Origin was published in 1859, critics derided his description of a struggle for existence as a Malthusian justification for the English industrial capitalism of the time. The term Darwinism was used for the evolutionary ideas of others, including Spencer's "survival of the fittest" as free-market progress, and Ernst Haeckel's polygenistic ideas of human development. Writers used natural selection to argue for various, often contradictory, ideologies such as laissez-faire dog-eat-dog capitalism, colonialism and imperialism. However, Darwin's holistic view of nature included "dependence of one being on another"; thus pacifists, socialists, liberal social reformers and anarchists such as Peter Kropotkin stressed the value of co-operation over struggle within a species.[205] Darwin himself insisted that social policy should not simply be guided by concepts of struggle and selection in nature.[206]
+
+After the 1880s, a eugenics movement developed on ideas of biological inheritance, and for scientific justification of their ideas appealed to some concepts of Darwinism. In Britain, most shared Darwin's cautious views on voluntary improvement and sought to encourage those with good traits in "positive eugenics". During the "Eclipse of Darwinism", a scientific foundation for eugenics was provided by Mendelian genetics. Negative eugenics to remove the "feebleminded" were popular in America, Canada and Australia, and eugenics in the United States introduced compulsory sterilisation laws, followed by several other countries. Subsequently, Nazi eugenics brought the field into disrepute.[VIII]
+
+The term "Social Darwinism" was used infrequently from around the 1890s, but became popular as a derogatory term in the 1940s when used by Richard Hofstadter to attack the laissez-faire conservatism of those like William Graham Sumner who opposed reform and socialism. Since then, it has been used as a term of abuse by those opposed to what they think are the moral consequences of evolution.[207][203]
+
+Darwin was a prolific writer. Even without publication of his works on evolution, he would have had a considerable reputation as the author of The Voyage of the Beagle, as a geologist who had published extensively on South America and had solved the puzzle of the formation of coral atolls, and as a biologist who had published the definitive work on barnacles. While On the Origin of Species dominates perceptions of his work, The Descent of Man and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals had considerable impact, and his books on plants including The Power of Movement in Plants were innovative studies of great importance, as was his final work on The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms.[208][209]
+
+I. ^  Darwin was eminent as a naturalist, geologist, biologist, and author. After working as a physician's assistant and two years as a medical student, he was educated as a clergyman; he was also trained in taxidermy.[210]
+
+II. ^ Robert FitzRoy was to become known after the voyage for biblical literalism, but at this time he had considerable interest in Lyell's ideas, and they met before the voyage when Lyell asked for observations to be made in South America. FitzRoy's diary during the ascent of the River Santa Cruz in Patagonia recorded his opinion that the plains were raised beaches, but on return, newly married to a very religious lady, he recanted these ideas.(Browne 1995, pp. 186, 414)
+
+III. ^  In the section "Morphology" of Chapter XIII of On the Origin of Species, Darwin commented on homologous bone patterns between humans and other mammals, writing: "What can be more curious than that the hand of a man, formed for grasping, that of a mole for digging, the leg of the horse, the paddle of the porpoise, and the wing of the bat, should all be constructed on the same pattern, and should include the same bones, in the same relative positions?"[211] and in the concluding chapter: "The framework of bones being the same in the hand of a man, wing of a bat, fin of the porpoise, and leg of the horse … at once explain themselves on the theory of descent with slow and slight successive modifications."[212]
+
+IV. 1 2 3 
+In On the Origin of Species Darwin mentioned human origins in his concluding remark that "In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history."[135]
+
+In "Chapter VI: Difficulties on Theory" he referred to sexual selection: "I might have adduced for this same purpose the differences between the races of man, which are so strongly marked; I may add that some little light can apparently be thrown on the origin of these differences, chiefly through sexual selection of a particular kind, but without here entering on copious details my reasoning would appear frivolous."[134]
+
+In The Descent of Man of 1871, Darwin discussed the first passage:
+"During many years I collected notes on the origin or descent of man, without any intention of publishing on the subject, but rather with the determination not to publish, as I thought that I should thus only add to the prejudices against my views. It seemed to me sufficient to indicate, in the first edition of my 'Origin of Species,' that by this work 'light would be thrown on the origin of man and his history;' and this implies that man must be included with other organic beings in any general conclusion respecting his manner of appearance on this earth."[213] In a preface to the 1874 second edition, he added a reference to the second point: "it has been said by several critics, that when I found that many details of structure in man could not be explained through natural selection, I invented sexual selection; I gave, however, a tolerably clear sketch of this principle in the first edition of the 'Origin of Species,' and I there stated that it was applicable to man."[214]
+
+V. ^  See, for example, WILLA volume 4, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Feminization of Education by Deborah M. De Simone: "Gilman shared many basic educational ideas with the generation of thinkers who matured during the period of "intellectual chaos" caused by Darwin's Origin of the Species. Marked by the belief that individuals can direct human and social evolution, many progressives came to view education as the panacea for advancing social progress and for solving such problems as urbanisation, poverty, or immigration."
+
+VI. ^  See, for example, the song "A lady fair of lineage high" from Gilbert and Sullivan's Princess Ida, which describes the descent of man (but not woman!) from apes.
+
+VII. ^  Darwin's belief that black people had the same essential humanity as Europeans, and had many mental similarities, was reinforced by the lessons he had from John Edmonstone in 1826.[28] Early in the Beagle voyage, Darwin nearly lost his position on the ship when he criticised FitzRoy's defence and praise of slavery. (Darwin 1958, p. 74) He wrote home about "how steadily the general feeling, as shown at elections, has been rising against Slavery. What a proud thing for England if she is the first European nation which utterly abolishes it! I was told before leaving England that after living in slave countries all my opinions would be altered; the only alteration I am aware of is forming a much higher estimate of the negro character." (Darwin 1887, p. 246) Regarding Fuegians, he "could not have believed how wide was the difference between savage and civilized man: it is greater than between a wild and domesticated animal, inasmuch as in man there is a greater power of improvement", but he knew and liked civilised Fuegians like Jemmy Button: "It seems yet wonderful to me, when I think over all his many good qualities, that he should have been of the same race, and doubtless partaken of the same character, with the miserable, degraded savages whom we first met here."(Darwin 1845, pp. 205, 207–208)
+
+In the Descent of Man, he mentioned the similarity of Fuegians' and Edmonstone's minds to Europeans' when arguing against "ranking the so-called races of man as distinct species".[215]
+
+He rejected the ill-treatment of native people, and for example wrote of massacres of Patagonian men, women, and children, "Every one here is fully convinced that this is the most just war, because it is against barbarians. Who would believe in this age that such atrocities could be committed in a Christian civilized country?"(Darwin 1845, p. 102)
+
+VIII. 1 2 Geneticists studied human heredity as Mendelian inheritance, while eugenics movements sought to manage society, with a focus on social class in the United Kingdom, and on disability and ethnicity in the United States, leading to geneticists seeing this as impractical pseudoscience. A shift from voluntary arrangements to "negative" eugenics included compulsory sterilisation laws in the United States, copied by Nazi Germany as the basis for Nazi eugenics based on virulent racism and "racial hygiene".(Thurtle, Phillip (17 December 1996). "the creation of genetic identity". SEHR. 5 (Supplement: Cultural and Technological Incubations of Fascism). Retrieved 11 November 2008.Edwards, A. W. F. (1 April 2000). "The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection". Genetics. 154 (April 2000). pp. 1419–1426. PMC 1461012. PMID 10747041. Retrieved 11 November 2008.Wilkins, John. "Evolving Thoughts: Darwin and the Holocaust 3: eugenics". Archived from the original on 5 December 2008. Retrieved 11 November 2008.)
+
+IX. ^ David Quammen writes of his "theory that [Darwin] turned to these arcane botanical studies – producing more than one book that was solidly empirical, discreetly evolutionary, yet a "horrid bore" – at least partly so that the clamorous controversialists, fighting about apes and angels and souls, would leave him... alone." David Quammen, "The Brilliant Plodder" (review of Ken Thompson, Darwin's Most Wonderful Plants: A Tour of His Botanical Legacy, University of Chicago Press, 255 pp.; Elizabeth Hennessy, On the Backs of Tortoises: Darwin, the Galápagos, and the Fate of an Evolutionary Eden, Yale University Press, 310 pp.; Bill Jenkins, Evolution Before Darwin: Theories of the Transmutation of Species in Edinburgh, 1804–1834, Edinburgh University Press, 222 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXVII, no. 7 (23 April 2020), pp. 22–24. Quammen, quoted from p. 24 of his review.

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+Food is any substance[1] consumed to provide nutritional support for an organism. Food is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ingested by an organism and assimilated by the organism's cells to provide energy, maintain life, or stimulate growth.
+
+Historically, humans secured food through two methods: hunting and gathering and agriculture, which gave modern humans a mainly omnivorous diet. Worldwide, humanity has created numerous cuisines and culinary arts, including a wide array of ingredients, herbs, spices, techniques, and dishes.
+
+Today, the majority of the food energy required by the ever-increasing population of the world is supplied by the food industry. Food safety and food security are monitored by agencies like the International Association for Food Protection, World Resources Institute, World Food Programme, Food and Agriculture Organization, and International Food Information Council. They address issues such as sustainability, biological diversity, climate change, nutritional economics, population growth, water supply, and access to food.
+
+The right to food is a human right derived from the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), recognizing the "right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food", as well as the "fundamental right to be free from hunger".
+
+Most food has its origin in plants. Some food is obtained directly from plants; but even animals that are used as food sources are raised by feeding them food derived from plants. Cereal grain is a staple food that provides more food energy worldwide than any other type of crop.[2] Corn (maize), wheat, and rice – in all of their varieties – account for 87% of all grain production worldwide.[3][4][5] Most of the grain that is produced worldwide is fed to livestock.
+
+Some foods not from animal or plant sources include various edible fungi, especially mushrooms. Fungi and ambient bacteria are used in the preparation of fermented and pickled foods like leavened bread, alcoholic drinks, cheese, pickles, kombucha, and yogurt. Another example is blue-green algae such as Spirulina.[6] Inorganic substances such as salt, baking soda and cream of tartar are used to preserve or chemically alter an ingredient.
+
+Many plants and plant parts are eaten as food and around 2,000 plant species are cultivated for food. Many of these plant species have several distinct cultivars.[7]
+
+Seeds of plants are a good source of food for animals, including humans, because they contain the nutrients necessary for the plant's initial growth, including many healthful fats, such as omega fats. In fact, the majority of food consumed by human beings are seed-based foods. Edible seeds include cereals (corn, wheat, rice, et cetera), legumes (beans, peas, lentils, et cetera), and nuts. Oilseeds are often pressed to produce rich oils - sunflower, flaxseed, rapeseed (including canola oil), sesame, et cetera.[8]
+
+Seeds are typically high in unsaturated fats and, in moderation, are considered a health food. However, not all seeds are edible. Large seeds, such as those from a lemon, pose a choking hazard, while seeds from cherries and apples  contain cyanide which could be poisonous only if consumed in large volumes.[9]
+
+Fruits are the ripened ovaries of plants, including the seeds within. Many plants and animals have coevolved such that the fruits of the former are an attractive food source to the latter, because animals that eat the fruits may excrete the seeds some distance away. Fruits, therefore, make up a significant part of the diets of most cultures. Some botanical fruits, such as tomatoes, pumpkins, and eggplants, are eaten as vegetables.[10] (For more information, see list of fruits.)
+
+Vegetables are a second type of plant matter that is commonly eaten as food. These include root vegetables (potatoes and carrots), bulbs (onion family), leaf vegetables (spinach and lettuce), stem vegetables (bamboo shoots and asparagus), and inflorescence vegetables (globe artichokes and broccoli and other vegetables such as cabbage or cauliflower).[11]
+
+Animals are used as food either directly or indirectly by the products they produce. Meat is an example of a direct product taken from an animal, which comes from muscle systems or from organs (offal).
+
+Food products produced by animals include milk produced by mammary glands, which in many cultures is drunk or processed into dairy products (cheese, butter, etc.). In addition, birds and other animals lay eggs, which are often eaten, and bees produce honey, a reduced nectar from flowers, which is a popular sweetener in many cultures. Some cultures consume blood, sometimes in the form of blood sausage, as a thickener for sauces, or in a cured, salted form for times of food scarcity, and others use blood in stews such as jugged hare.[12]
+
+Some cultures and people do not consume meat or animal food products for cultural, dietary, health, ethical, or ideological reasons. Vegetarians choose to forgo food from animal sources to varying degrees. Vegans do not consume any foods that are or contain ingredients from an animal source.
+
+Adulteration is a legal term meaning that a food product fails to meet the legal standards. One form of adulteration is an addition of another substance to a food item in order to increase the quantity of the food item in raw form or prepared form, which may result in the loss of actual quality of food item. These substances may be either available food items or non-food items. Among meat and meat products some of the items used to adulterate are water or ice, carcasses, or carcasses of animals other than the animal meant to be consumed.[13]
+
+Camping food includes ingredients used to prepare food suitable for backcountry camping and backpacking. The foods differ substantially from the ingredients found in a typical home kitchen. The primary differences relate to campers' and backpackers' special needs for foods that have appropriate cooking time, perishability, weight, and nutritional content.
+
+To address these needs, camping food is often made up of either freeze-dried, precooked or dehydrated ingredients. Many campers use a combination of these foods.
+
+Freeze-drying requires the use of heavy machinery and is not something that most campers are able to do on their own. Freeze-dried ingredients are often considered superior to dehydrated ingredients however because they rehydrate at camp faster and retain more flavor than their dehydrated counterparts. Freeze-dried ingredients take so little time to rehydrate that they can often be eaten without cooking them first and have a texture similar to a crunchy chip.
+
+Dehydration can reduce the weight of the food by sixty to ninety percent by removing water through evaporation. Some foods dehydrate well, such as onions, peppers, and tomatoes.[14][15] Dehydration often produces a more compact, albeit slightly heavier, end result than freeze-drying.
+
+Surplus precooked military Meals, Meals, Ready-to-Eat (MREs) are sometimes used by campers. These meals contain pre-cooked foods in retort pouches. A retort pouch is a plastic and metal foil laminate pouch that is used as an alternative to traditional industrial canning methods.
+
+Diet food (or "dietetic food") refers to any food or beverage whose recipe is altered to reduce fat, carbohydrates, abhor/adhore sugar in order to make it part of a weight loss program or diet. Such foods are usually intended to assist in weight loss or a change in body type, although bodybuilding supplements are designed to aid in gaining weight or muscle.
+
+The process of making a diet version of a food usually requires finding an acceptable low-food-energy substitute for some high-food-energy ingredient.[16] This can be as simple as replacing some or all of the food's sugar with a sugar substitute as is common with diet soft drinks such as Coca-Cola (for example Diet Coke). In some snacks, the food may be baked instead of fried thus reducing the food energy. In other cases, low-fat ingredients may be used as replacements.
+
+In whole grain foods, the higher fiber content effectively displaces some of the starch components of the flour. Since certain fibers have no food energy, this results in a modest energy reduction. Another technique relies on the intentional addition of other reduced-food-energy ingredients, such as resistant starch or dietary fiber, to replace part of the flour and achieve a more significant energy reduction.
+
+Finger food is food meant to be eaten directly using the hands, in contrast to food eaten with a knife and fork, spoon, chopsticks, or other utensils.[17]  In some cultures, food is almost always eaten with the hands; for example, Ethiopian cuisine is eaten by rolling various dishes up in injera bread.[18]  Foods considered street foods are frequently, though not exclusively, finger foods.
+
+In the western world, finger foods are often either appetizers (hors d'œuvres) or entree/main course items. Examples of these are miniature meat pies, sausage rolls, sausages on sticks, cheese and olives on sticks, chicken drumsticks or wings, spring rolls, miniature quiches, samosas, sandwiches, Merenda or other such based foods, such as pitas or items in buns, bhajjis, potato wedges, vol au vents, several other such small items and risotto balls (arancini). Other well-known foods that are generally eaten with the hands include hamburgers, pizza, Chips, hot dogs, fruit and bread.
+
+In East Asia, foods like pancakes or flatbreads (bing 饼) and street foods such as chuan (串, also pronounced chuan) are often eaten with the hands.
+
+Fresh food is food which has not been preserved and has not spoiled yet. For vegetables and fruits, this means that they have been recently harvested and treated properly postharvest; for meat, it has recently been slaughtered and butchered; for fish, it has been recently caught or harvested and kept cold.
+
+Dairy products are fresh and will spoil quickly. Thus, fresh cheese is cheese which has not been dried or salted for aging. Soured cream may be considered "fresh" (crème fraîche).
+
+Fresh food has not been dried, smoked, salted, frozen, canned, pickled, or otherwise preserved.[19]
+
+Freezing food preserves it from the time it is prepared to the time it is eaten. Since early times, farmers, fishermen, and trappers have preserved grains and produce in unheated buildings during the winter season.[20] Freezing food slows down decomposition by turning residual moisture into ice, inhibiting the growth of most bacterial species. In the food commodity industry, there are two processes: mechanical and cryogenic (or flash freezing). The kinetics of the freezing is important to preserve food quality and texture. Quicker freezing generates smaller ice crystals and maintains cellular structure. Cryogenic freezing is the quickest freezing technology available utilizing the extremely low temperature of liquid nitrogen  −196 °C (−320 °F).[21]
+
+Preserving food in domestic kitchens during modern times is achieved using household freezers. Accepted advice to householders was to freeze food on the day of purchase. An initiative by a supermarket group in 2012 (backed by the UK's Waste & Resources Action Programme) promotes the freezing of food "as soon as possible up to the product's 'use by' date". The Food Standards Agency was reported as supporting the change, providing the food had been stored correctly up to that time.[22]
+
+A functional food is a food given an additional function (often one related to health-promotion or disease prevention) by adding new ingredients or more of existing ingredients.[23] The term may also apply to traits purposely bred into existing edible plants, such as purple or gold potatoes having enriched anthocyanin or carotenoid contents, respectively.[24] Functional foods may be "designed to have physiological benefits and/or reduce the risk of chronic disease beyond basic nutritional functions, and may be similar in appearance to conventional food and consumed as part of a regular diet".[25]
+
+The term was first used in Japan in the 1980s where there is a government approval process for functional foods called Foods for Specified Health Use (FOSHU).[26]
+
+Health food is food marketed to provide human health effects beyond a normal healthy diet required for human nutrition. Foods marketed as health foods may be part of one or more categories, such as natural foods, organic foods, whole foods,  vegetarian foods or dietary supplements. These products may be sold in health food stores or in the health food or organic sections of grocery stores.
+
+A healthy diet is a diet that helps to maintain or improve overall health. A healthy diet provides the body with essential nutrition: fluid, macronutrients, micronutrients, and adequate calories.[27][28]
+
+For people who are healthy, a healthy diet is not complicated and contains mostly fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and includes little to no processed food and sweetened beverages.  The requirements for a healthy diet can be met from a variety of plant-based and animal-based foods, although a non-animal source of vitamin B12 is needed for those following a vegan diet.[29]  Various nutrition guides are published by medical and governmental institutions to educate individuals on what they should be eating to be healthy. Nutrition facts labels are also mandatory in some countries to allow consumers to choose between foods based on the components relevant to health.[30]
+
+A healthy lifestyle includes getting exercise every day along with eating a healthy diet. A healthy lifestyle may lower disease risks, such as obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and cancer.[27][31]
+
+There are specialized healthy diets, called medical nutrition therapy, for people with various diseases or conditions.  There are also prescientific ideas about such specialized diets, as in dietary therapy in traditional Chinese medicine.
+
+The World Health Organization (WHO) makes the following 5 recommendations with respect to both populations and individuals:[32]
+
+Live food is living food for carnivorous or omnivorous animals kept in captivity; in other words, small animals such as insects or mice fed to larger carnivorous or omnivorous species kept either in a zoo or as a pet.
+
+Live food is commonly used as feed for a variety of species of exotic pets and zoo animals, ranging from alligators to various snakes, frogs and lizards, but also including other, non-reptile, non-amphibian carnivores and omnivores (for instance, skunks, which are omnivorous mammals, can technically be fed a limited amount of live food, though this is not a common practice). Common live food ranges from crickets (used as an inexpensive form of feed for carnivorous and omnivorous reptiles such as bearded dragons and commonly available in pet stores for this reason), waxworms, mealworms and to a lesser extent cockroaches and locusts, to small birds and mammals such as mice or chickens.
+
+Medical foods are foods that are specially formulated and intended for the dietary management of a disease that has distinctive nutritional needs that cannot be met by normal diet alone. In the United States they were defined in the Food and Drug Administration's 1988 Orphan Drug Act Amendments[35] and are subject to the general food and safety labeling requirements of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. In Europe the European Food Safety Authority established definitions for "foods for special medical purposes" (FSMPs) in 2015.[36]
+
+Medical foods, called "food for special medical purposes" in Europe,[37] are distinct from the broader category of foods for special dietary use, from traditional foods that bear a health claim, and from dietary supplements. In order to be considered a medical food the product must, at a minimum:[38][39]
+
+Medical foods can be classified into the following categories:
+
+Natural foods and "all-natural foods" are widely used terms in food labeling and marketing with a variety of definitions, most of which are vague. The term is often assumed to imply foods that are not processed and whose ingredients are all natural products (in the chemist's sense of that term), thus conveying an appeal to nature. But the lack of standards in most jurisdictions means that the term assures nothing. In some countries, the term "natural" is defined and enforced. In others, such as the United States, it is not enforced.
+
+“Natural foods” are often assumed to be foods that are not processed, or do not contain any food additives, or do not contain particular additives such as hormones, antibiotics, sweeteners, food colors, or flavorings that were not originally in the food.[40]  In fact, many people (63%) when surveyed showed a preference for products labeled "natural" compared to the unmarked counterparts, based on the common belief (86% of polled consumers) that the term "natural" indicated that the food does not contain any artificial ingredients.[41] The terms are variously used and misused on labels and in advertisements.[42]
+
+The international Food and Agriculture Organization’s Codex Alimentarius does not recognize the term “natural” but does have a standard for organic foods.[43]
+
+A negative-calorie food is food that supposedly requires more food energy to be digested than the food provides. Its thermic effect or specific dynamic action – the caloric "cost" of digesting the food – would be greater than its food energy content. Despite its recurring popularity in dieting guides, there is no scientific evidence supporting the idea that any food is calorically negative. While some chilled beverages are calorically negative, the effect is minimal[44] and drinking large amounts of water can be dangerous.
+
+Organic food is food produced by methods that comply with the standards of organic farming. Standards vary worldwide, but organic farming in general features practices that strive to cycle resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity. Organizations regulating organic products may restrict the use of certain pesticides and fertilizers in farming. In general, organic foods are also usually not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents or synthetic food additives.[45]
+
+Currently, the European Union, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, and many other countries require producers to obtain special certification in order to market food as organic within their borders. In the context of these regulations, organic food is produced in a way that complies with organic standards set by regional organizations, national governments, and international organizations. Although the produce of kitchen gardens may be organic, selling food with an organic label is regulated by governmental food safety authorities, such as the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) or European Commission (EC).[46]
+
+Fertilizing and the use of pesticides in conventional farming has caused, and is causing, enormous damage worldwide to local ecosystems, biodiversity, groundwater and drinking water supplies, and sometimes farmer health and fertility. These environmental, economic and health issues are intended to be minimized or avoided in organic farming. From a consumers perspective, there is not sufficient evidence in scientific and medical literature to support claims that organic food is safer or healthier to eat than conventionally grown food. While there may be some differences in the nutrient and antinutrient contents of organically- and conventionally-produced food, the variable nature of food production and handling makes it difficult to generalize results.[47][48][49][50][51] Claims that organic food tastes better are generally not supported by tests.[48][52]
+
+Peasant foods are dishes specific to a particular culture, made from accessible and inexpensive ingredients, and usually prepared and seasoned to make them more palatable. They often form a significant part of the diets of people who live in poverty, or have a lower income compared to the average for their society or country.
+
+Peasant foods have been described as being the diet of peasants, that is, tenant or poorer farmers and their farm workers,[53] and by extension, of other cash-poor people. They may use ingredients, such as offal and less-tender cuts of meat, which are not as marketable as a cash crop. Characteristic recipes often consist of hearty one-dish meals, in which chunks of meat and various vegetables are eaten in a savory broth, with bread or other staple food. Sausages are also amenable to varied readily available ingredients, and they themselves tend to contain offal and grains.
+
+Peasant foods often involve skilled preparation by knowledgeable cooks using inventiveness and skills passed down from earlier generations. Such dishes are often prized as ethnic foods by other cultures and by descendants of the native culture who still desire these traditional dishes.[citation needed]
+
+Prison food is the term for meals served to prisoners while incarcerated in correctional institutions. While some prisons prepare their own food, many use staff from on-site catering companies. Many prisons today support the requirements of specific religions, as well as vegetarianism.[54] It is said that prison food of many developed countries is adequate to maintain health and dieting.[55][unreliable source?]
+
+"Seasonal" here refers to the times of the year when the harvest or the flavor of a given type of food is at its peak. This is usually the time when the item is harvested, with some exceptions; an example being sweet potatoes which are best eaten quite a while after harvest. It also appeals to people who prefer a low carbon diet that reduces the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from food consumption (Food miles).
+
+Shelf-stable food (sometimes ambient food) is food of a type that can be safely stored at room temperature in a sealed container. This includes foods that would normally be stored refrigerated but which have been processed so that they can be safely stored at room or ambient temperature for a usefully long shelf life.
+
+Various food preservation and packaging techniques are used to extend a food's shelf life.  Decreasing the amount of available water in a product, increasing its acidity, or irradiating[56] or otherwise sterilizing the food and then sealing it in an air-tight container are all ways of depriving bacteria of suitable conditions in which to thrive. All of these approaches can all extend a food's shelf life without unacceptably changing its taste or texture.
+
+For some foods, alternative ingredients can be used. Common oils and fats become rancid relatively quickly if not refrigerated; replacing them with hydrogenated oils delays the onset of rancidity, increasing shelf life. This is a common approach in industrial food production, but recent concerns about health hazards associated with trans fats have led to their strict control in several jurisdictions.[57] Even where trans fats are not prohibited, in many places there are new labeling laws (or rules), which require information to be printed on packages, or to be published elsewhere, about the amount of trans fat contained in certain products.
+
+Space food is a type of food product created and processed for consumption by astronauts in outer space. The food has specific requirements of providing balanced nutrition for individuals working in space while being easy and safe to store, prepare and consume in the machinery-filled weightless environments of crewed spacecraft.
+
+In recent years, space food has been used by various nations engaging in space programs as a way to share and show off their cultural identity and facilitate intercultural communication. Although astronauts consume a wide variety of foods and beverages in space, the initial idea from The Man in Space Committee of the Space Science Board in 1963 was to supply astronauts with a formula diet that would supply all the needed vitamins and nutrients.[58]
+
+Traditional foods are foods and dishes that are passed through generations[59] or which have been consumed many generations.[60] Traditional foods and dishes are traditional in nature, and may have a historic precedent in a national dish, regional cuisine[59] or local cuisine. Traditional foods and beverages may be produced as homemade, by restaurants and small manufacturers, and by large food processing plant facilities.[61]
+
+Some traditional foods have geographical indications and traditional specialities in the European Union designations per European Union schemes of geographical indications and traditional specialties: Protected designation of origin (PDO), Protected geographical indication (PGI) and Traditional specialities guaranteed (TSG). These standards serve to promote and protect names of quality agricultural products and foodstuffs.[62]
+
+This article also includes information about traditional beverages.
+
+Whole foods are plant foods that are unprocessed and unrefined, or processed and refined as little as possible, before being consumed.[63] Examples of whole foods include whole grains, tubers, legumes, fruits, vegetables.[64]
+
+There is some confusion over the usage of the term surrounding the inclusion of certain foods, in particular animal foods. The modern usage of the term whole foods diet is now widely synonymous with "whole foods plant-based diet" with animal products, oil and salt no longer constituting whole foods.[65]
+
+The earliest use of the term in the post-industrial age appears to be in 1946 in The Farmer, a quarterly magazine published and edited from his farm by F. Newman Turner, a writer and pioneering organic farmer. The magazine sponsored the establishment of the Producer-Consumer Whole Food Society Ltd, with Newman Turner as president and Derek Randal as vice-president.[66] Whole food was defined as "mature produce of field, orchard, or garden without subtraction, addition, or alteration grown from seed without chemical dressing, in fertile soil manured solely with animal and vegetable wastes, and composts therefrom, and ground, raw rock and without chemical manures, sprays, or insecticides," having intent to connect suppliers and the growing public demand for such food.[66] Such diets are rich in whole and unrefined foods, like whole grains, dark green and yellow/orange-fleshed vegetables and fruits, legumes, nuts and seeds.[63]
+
+Most food has always been obtained through agriculture. With increasing concern over both the methods and products of modern industrial agriculture, there has been a growing trend toward sustainable agricultural practices. This approach, partly fueled by consumer demand, encourages biodiversity, local self-reliance and organic farming methods.[67] Major influences on food production include international organizations (e.g. the World Trade Organization and Common Agricultural Policy), national government policy (or law), and war.[68]
+
+Several organisations have begun calling for a new kind of agriculture in which agroecosystems provide food but also support vital ecosystem services so that soil fertility and biodiversity are maintained rather than compromised. According to the International Water Management Institute and UNEP, well-managed agroecosystems not only provide food, fiber and animal products, they also provide services such as flood mitigation, groundwater recharge, erosion control and habitats for plants, birds, fish and other animals.[69]
+
+Animals, specifically humans, have five different types of tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. As animals have evolved, the tastes that provide the most energy (sugar and fats) are the most pleasant to eat while others, such as bitter, are not enjoyable.[70] Water, while important for survival, has no taste.[71] Fats, on the other hand, especially saturated fats, are thicker and rich and are thus considered more enjoyable to eat.
+
+Generally regarded as the most pleasant taste, sweetness is almost always caused by a type of simple sugar such as glucose or fructose, or disaccharides such as sucrose, a molecule combining glucose and fructose.[72] Complex carbohydrates are long chains and thus do not have the sweet taste. Artificial sweeteners such as sucralose are used to mimic the sugar molecule, creating the sensation of sweet, without the calories. Other types of sugar include raw sugar, which is known for its amber color, as it is unprocessed. As sugar is vital for energy and survival, the taste of sugar is pleasant.
+
+The stevia plant contains a compound known as steviol which, when extracted, has 300 times the sweetness of sugar while having minimal impact on blood sugar.[73]
+
+Sourness is caused by the taste of acids, such as vinegar in alcoholic beverages. Sour foods include citrus, specifically lemons, limes, and to a lesser degree oranges. Sour is evolutionarily significant as it is a sign for a food that may have gone rancid due to bacteria.[74] Many foods, however, are slightly acidic, and help stimulate the taste buds and enhance flavor.
+
+Saltiness is the taste of alkali metal ions such as sodium and potassium. It is found in almost every food in low to moderate proportions to enhance flavor, although to eat pure salt is regarded as highly unpleasant. There are many different types of salt, with each having a different degree of saltiness, including sea salt, fleur de sel, kosher salt, mined salt, and grey salt. Other than enhancing flavor, its significance is that the body needs and maintains a delicate electrolyte balance, which is the kidney's function. Salt may be iodized, meaning iodine has been added to it, a necessary nutrient that promotes thyroid function. Some canned foods, notably soups or packaged broths, tend to be high in salt as a means of preserving the food longer. Historically salt has long been used as a meat preservative as salt promotes water excretion. Similarly, dried foods also promote food safety.[75]
+
+Bitterness is a sensation often considered unpleasant characterized by having a sharp, pungent taste. Unsweetened dark chocolate, caffeine, lemon rind, and some types of fruit are known to be bitter.
+
+Umami, the Japanese word for delicious, is the least known in Western popular culture but has a long tradition in Asian cuisine. Umami is the taste of glutamates, especially monosodium glutamate (MSG).[72] It is characterized as savory, meaty, and rich in flavor.[76] Salmon and mushrooms are foods high in umami.[77]
+
+Many scholars claim that the rhetorical function of food is to represent the culture of a country, and that it can be used as a form of communication. According to Goode, Curtis and Theophano, food "is the last aspect of an ethnic culture to be lost".[78]
+
+Many cultures have a recognizable cuisine, a specific set of cooking traditions using various spices or a combination of flavors unique to that culture, which evolves over time. Other differences include preferences (hot or cold, spicy, etc.) and practices, the study of which is known as gastronomy. Many cultures have diversified their foods by means of preparation, cooking methods, and manufacturing. This also includes a complex food trade which helps the cultures to economically survive by way of food, not just by consumption.
+
+Some popular types of ethnic foods include Italian, French, Japanese, Chinese, American, Cajun, Thai, African, Indian and Nepalese. Various cultures throughout the world study the dietary analysis of food habits. While evolutionarily speaking, as opposed to culturally, humans are omnivores, religion and social constructs such as morality, activism, or environmentalism will often affect which foods they will consume. Food is eaten and typically enjoyed through the sense of taste, the perception of flavor from eating and drinking. Certain tastes are more enjoyable than others, for evolutionary purposes.
+
+Aesthetically pleasing and eye-appealing food presentations can encourage people to consume foods. A common saying is that people "eat with their eyes". Food presented in a clean and appetizing way will encourage a good flavor, even if unsatisfactory.[79][80]
+
+Texture plays a crucial role in the enjoyment of eating foods. Contrasts in textures, such as something crunchy in an otherwise smooth dish, may increase the appeal of eating it. Common examples include adding granola to yogurt, adding croutons to a salad or soup, and toasting bread to enhance its crunchiness for a smooth topping, such as jam or butter.[81]
+
+Another universal phenomenon regarding food is the appeal of contrast in taste and presentation. For example, such opposite flavors as sweetness and saltiness tend to go well together, as in kettle corn and nuts.
+
+While many foods can be eaten raw, many also undergo some form of preparation for reasons of safety, palatability, texture, or flavor. At the simplest level this may involve washing, cutting, trimming, or adding other foods or ingredients, such as spices. It may also involve mixing, heating or cooling, pressure cooking, fermentation, or combination with other food. In a home, most food preparation takes place in a kitchen. Some preparation is done to enhance the taste or aesthetic appeal; other preparation may help to preserve the food; others may be involved in cultural identity. A meal is made up of food which is prepared to be eaten at a specific time and place.[82]
+
+The preparation of animal-based food usually involves slaughter, evisceration, hanging, portioning, and rendering. In developed countries, this is usually done outside the home in slaughterhouses, which are used to process animals en masse for meat production. Many countries regulate their slaughterhouses by law. For example, the United States has established the Humane Slaughter Act of 1958, which requires that an animal be stunned before killing. This act, like those in many countries, exempts slaughter in accordance with religious law, such as kosher, shechita, and dhabīḥah halal. Strict interpretations of kashrut require the animal to be fully aware when its carotid artery is cut.[83]
+
+On the local level, a butcher may commonly break down larger animal meat into smaller manageable cuts, and pre-wrap them for commercial sale or wrap them to order in butcher paper. In addition, fish and seafood may be fabricated into smaller cuts by a fishmonger. However, fish butchery may be done onboard a fishing vessel and quick-frozen for the preservation of quality.[84]
+
+The term "cooking" encompasses a vast range of methods, tools, and combinations of ingredients to improve the flavor or digestibility of food. Cooking technique, known as culinary art, generally requires the selection, measurement, and combining of ingredients in an ordered procedure in an effort to achieve the desired result. Constraints on success include the variability of ingredients, ambient conditions, tools, and the skill of the individual cook.[85] The diversity of cooking worldwide is a reflection of the myriad nutritional, aesthetic, agricultural, economic, cultural, and religious considerations that affect it.[86]
+
+Cooking requires applying heat to a food which usually, though not always, chemically changes the molecules, thus changing its flavor, texture, appearance, and nutritional properties.[87] Cooking certain proteins, such as egg whites, meats, and fish, denatures the protein, causing it to firm. There is archaeological evidence of roasted foodstuffs at Homo erectus campsites dating from 420,000 years ago.[88] Boiling as a means of cooking requires a container, and has been practiced at least since the 10th millennium BC with the introduction of pottery.[89]
+
+There are many different types of equipment used for cooking.
+
+Ovens are mostly hollow devices that get very hot (up to 500 °F (260 °C)) and are used for baking or roasting and offer a dry-heat cooking method. Different cuisines will use different types of ovens. For example, Indian culture uses a tandoor oven, which is a cylindrical clay oven which operates at a single high temperature.[90] Western kitchens use variable temperature convection ovens, conventional ovens, toaster ovens, or non-radiant heat ovens like the microwave oven. Classic Italian cuisine includes the use of a brick oven containing burning wood. Ovens may be wood-fired, coal-fired, gas, electric, or oil-fired.[91]
+
+Various types of cook-tops are used as well. They carry the same variations of fuel types as the ovens mentioned above. Cook-tops are used to heat vessels placed on top of the heat source, such as a sauté pan, sauce pot, frying pan, or pressure cooker. These pieces of equipment can use either a moist or dry cooking method and include methods such as steaming, simmering, boiling, and poaching for moist methods, while the dry methods include sautéing, pan frying, and deep-frying.[92]
+
+In addition, many cultures use grills for cooking. A grill operates with a radiant heat source from below, usually covered with a metal grid and sometimes a cover. An open-pit barbecue in the American south is one example along with the American style outdoor grill fueled by wood, liquid propane, or charcoal along with soaked wood chips for smoking.[93] A Mexican style of barbecue is called barbacoa, which involves the cooking of meats such as whole sheep over an open fire. In Argentina, an asado (Spanish for "grilled") is prepared on a grill held over an open pit or fire made upon the ground, on which a whole animal or smaller cuts are grilled.[94]
+
+Certain cultures highlight animal and vegetable foods in a raw state. Salads consisting of raw vegetables or fruits are common in many cuisines. Sashimi in Japanese cuisine consists of raw sliced fish or other meat, and sushi often incorporates raw fish or seafood. Steak tartare and salmon tartare are dishes made from diced or ground raw beef or salmon, mixed with various ingredients and served with baguettes, brioche, or frites.[95] In Italy, carpaccio is a dish of very thinly sliced raw beef, drizzled with a vinaigrette made with olive oil.[96] The health food movement known as raw foodism promotes a mostly vegan diet of raw fruits, vegetables, and grains prepared in various ways, including juicing, food dehydration, sprouting, and other methods of preparation that do not heat the food above 118 °F (47.8 °C).[97] An example of a raw meat dish is ceviche, a Latin American dish made with raw meat that is "cooked" from the highly acidic citric juice from lemons and limes along with other aromatics such as garlic.
+
+Restaurants employ chefs to prepare the food, and waiters to serve customers at the table.[98] The term restaurant comes from an old term for a restorative meat broth; this broth (or bouillon) was served in elegant outlets in Paris from the mid 18th century.[99][100] These refined "restaurants" were a marked change from the usual basic eateries such as inns and taverns,[100] and some had developed from early Parisian cafés, such as Café Procope, by first serving bouillon, then adding other cooked food to their menus.[101]
+
+Commercial eateries existed during the Roman period, with evidence of 150 "thermopolia", a form of fast food restaurant, found in Pompeii,[102] and urban sales of prepared foods may have existed in China during the Song dynasty.[103]
+
+In 2005, the population of the United States spent $496 billion on out-of-home dining. Expenditures by type of out-of-home dining were as follows: 40% in full-service restaurants, 37.2% in limited service restaurants (fast food), 6.6% in schools or colleges, 5.4% in bars and vending machines, 4.7% in hotels and motels, 4.0% in recreational places, and 2.2% in others, which includes military bases.[104][better source needed][relevant?  – discuss]
+
+Packaged foods are manufactured outside the home for purchase. This can be as simple as a butcher preparing meat, or as complex as a modern international food industry. Early food processing techniques were limited by available food preservation, packaging, and transportation. This mainly involved salting, curing, curdling, drying, pickling, fermenting, and smoking.[105] Food manufacturing arose during the industrial revolution in the 19th century.[106] This development took advantage of new mass markets and emerging technology, such as milling, preservation, packaging and labeling, and transportation. It brought the advantages of pre-prepared time-saving food to the bulk of ordinary people who did not employ domestic servants.[107]
+
+At the start of the 21st century, a two-tier structure has arisen, with a few international food processing giants controlling a wide range of well-known food brands. There also exists a wide array of small local or national food processing companies.[108] Advanced technologies have also come to change food manufacture. Computer-based control systems, sophisticated processing and packaging methods, and logistics and distribution advances can enhance product quality, improve food safety, and reduce costs.[107]
+
+The World Bank reported that the European Union was the top food importer in 2005, followed at a distance by the US and Japan. Britain's need for food was especially well-illustrated in World War II.  Despite the implementation of food rationing, Britain remained dependent on food imports and the result was a long term engagement in the Battle of the Atlantic.
+
+Food is traded and marketed on a global basis. The variety and availability of food is no longer restricted by the diversity of locally grown food or the limitations of the local growing season.[109] Between 1961 and 1999, there was a 400% increase in worldwide food exports.[110] Some countries are now economically dependent on food exports, which in some cases account for over 80% of all exports.[111]
+
+In 1994, over 100 countries became signatories to the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in a dramatic increase in trade liberalization. This included an agreement to reduce subsidies paid to farmers, underpinned by the WTO enforcement of agricultural subsidy, tariffs, import quotas, and settlement of trade disputes that cannot be bilaterally resolved.[112] Where trade barriers are raised on the disputed grounds of public health and safety, the WTO refer the dispute to the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which was founded in 1962 by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization. Trade liberalization has greatly affected world food trade.[113]
+
+Food marketing brings together the producer and the consumer. The marketing of even a single food product can be a complicated process involving many producers and companies. For example, fifty-six companies are involved in making one can of chicken noodle soup. These businesses include not only chicken and vegetable processors but also the companies that transport the ingredients and those who print labels and manufacture cans.[114] The food marketing system is the largest direct and indirect non-government employer in the United States.
+
+In the pre-modern era, the sale of surplus food took place once a week when farmers took their wares on market day into the local village marketplace. Here food was sold to grocers for sale in their local shops for purchase by local consumers.[86][107] With the onset of industrialization and the development of the food processing industry, a wider range of food could be sold and distributed in distant locations. Typically early grocery shops would be counter-based shops, in which purchasers told the shop-keeper what they wanted, so that the shop-keeper could get it for them.[86][115]
+
+In the 20th century, supermarkets were born. Supermarkets brought with them a self service approach to shopping using shopping carts, and were able to offer quality food at lower cost through economies of scale and reduced staffing costs. In the latter part of the 20th century, this has been further revolutionized by the development of vast warehouse-sized, out-of-town supermarkets, selling a wide range of food from around the world.[116]
+
+Unlike food processors, food retailing is a two-tier market in which a small number of very large companies control a large proportion of supermarkets. The supermarket giants wield great purchasing power over farmers and processors, and strong influence over consumers. Nevertheless, less than 10% of consumer spending on food goes to farmers, with larger percentages going to advertising, transportation, and intermediate corporations.[117]
+
+It is rare for price spikes to hit all major foods in most countries at once, but food prices suffered all-time peaks in 2008 and 2011, posting a 15% and 12% deflated increase year-over-year, representing prices higher than any data collected.[119] One reason for the increase in food prices may be the increase in oil prices at the same time.[120][121]
+
+In December 2007, 37 countries faced food crises, and 20 had imposed some sort of food-price controls. In China, the price of pork jumped 58% in 2007. In the 1980s and 1990s, farm subsidies and support programs allowed major grain exporting countries to hold large surpluses, which could be tapped during food shortages to keep prices down. However, new trade policies had made agricultural production much more responsive to market demands, putting global food reserves at their lowest since 1983.[122]
+
+Rising food prices in those years have been linked with social unrest around the world, including rioting in Bangladesh and Mexico,[123] and the Arab Spring.[124]
+Food prices worldwide increased in 2008.[125][126]
+One cause of rising food prices is wealthier Asian consumers are westernizing their diets, and farmers and nations of the third world are struggling to keep up the pace. The past five years have seen rapid growth in the contribution of Asian nations to the global fluid and powdered milk manufacturing industry, which in 2008 accounted for more than 30% of production, while China alone accounts for more than 10% of both production and consumption in the global fruit and vegetable processing and preserving industry.[127]
+
+In 2013 Overseas Development Institute researchers showed that rice has more than doubled in price since 2000, rising by 120% in real terms. This was as a result of shifts in trade policy and restocking by major producers. More fundamental drivers of increased prices are the higher costs of fertilizer, diesel, and labor. Parts of Asia see rural wages rise with potential large benefits for the 1.3 billion (2008 estimate) of Asia's poor in reducing the poverty they face. However, this negatively impacts more vulnerable groups who don't share in the economic boom, especially in Asian and African coastal cities. The researchers said the threat means social-protection policies are needed to guard against price shocks. The research proposed that in the longer run, the rises present opportunities to export for Western African farmers with high potential for rice production to replace imports with domestic production.[128]
+
+Most recently, global food prices have been more stable and relatively low, after a sizable increase in late 2017, they are back under 75% of the nominal value seen during the all-time high in the 2011 food crisis.
+
+Institutions such as hedge funds, pension funds and investment banks like Barclays Capital, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley[123] have been instrumental in pushing up prices in the last five years, with investment in food commodities rising from $65bn to $126bn (£41bn to £79bn) between 2007 and 2012, contributing to 30-year highs. This has caused price fluctuations which are not strongly related to the actual supply of food, according to the United Nations.[123] Financial institutions now make up 61% of all investment in wheat futures. According to Olivier De Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on food, there was a rush by institutions to enter the food market following George W. Bush's Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000.[123] De Schutter told the Independent in March 2012: "What we are seeing now is that these financial markets have developed massively with the arrival of these new financial investors, who are purely interested in the short-term monetary gain and are not really interested in the physical thing – they never actually buy the ton of wheat or maize; they only buy a promise to buy or to sell. The result of this financialization of the commodities market is that the prices of the products respond increasingly to a purely speculative logic. This explains why in very short periods of time we see prices spiking or bubbles exploding because prices are less and less determined by the real match between supply and demand."[123] In 2011, 450 economists from around the world called on the G20 to regulate the commodities market more.[123]
+
+Some experts have said that speculation has merely aggravated other factors, such as climate change, competition with bio-fuels and overall rising demand.[123] However, some such as Jayati Ghosh, professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, have pointed out that prices have increased irrespective of supply and demand issues: Ghosh points to world wheat prices, which doubled in the period from June to December 2010, despite there being no fall in global supply.[123]
+
+Food deprivation leads to malnutrition and ultimately starvation. This is often connected with famine, which involves the absence of food in entire communities. This can have a devastating and widespread effect on human health and mortality. Rationing is sometimes used to distribute food in times of shortage, most notably during times of war.[68]
+
+Starvation is a significant international problem. Approximately 815 million people are undernourished, and over 16,000 children die per day from hunger-related causes.[129] Food deprivation is regarded as a deficit need in Maslow's hierarchy of needs and is measured using famine scales.[130]
+
+Food aid can benefit people suffering from a shortage of food. It can be used to improve peoples' lives in the short term, so that a society can increase its standard of living to the point that food aid is no longer required.[131] Conversely, badly managed food aid can create problems by disrupting local markets, depressing crop prices, and discouraging food production. Sometimes a cycle of food aid dependence can develop.[132] Its provision, or threatened withdrawal, is sometimes used as a political tool to influence the policies of the destination country, a strategy known as food politics. Sometimes, food aid provisions will require certain types of food be purchased from certain sellers, and food aid can be misused to enhance the markets of donor countries.[133] International efforts to distribute food to the neediest countries are often coordinated by the World Food Programme.[134]
+
+Foodborne illness, commonly called "food poisoning", is caused by bacteria, toxins, viruses, parasites, and prions. Roughly 7 million people die of food poisoning each year, with about 10 times as many suffering from a non-fatal version.[135] The two most common factors leading to cases of bacterial foodborne illness are cross-contamination of ready-to-eat food from other uncooked foods and improper temperature control. Less commonly, acute adverse reactions can also occur if chemical contamination of food occurs, for example from improper storage, or use of non-food grade soaps and disinfectants. Food can also be adulterated by a very wide range of articles (known as "foreign bodies") during farming, manufacture, cooking, packaging, distribution, or sale. These foreign bodies can include pests or their droppings, hairs, cigarette butts, wood chips, and all manner of other contaminants. It is possible for certain types of food to become contaminated if stored or presented in an unsafe container, such as a ceramic pot with lead-based glaze.[135]
+
+Food poisoning has been recognized as a disease since as early as Hippocrates.[136] The sale of rancid, contaminated, or adulterated food was commonplace until the introduction of hygiene, refrigeration, and vermin controls in the 19th century. Discovery of techniques for killing bacteria using heat, and other microbiological studies by scientists such as Louis Pasteur, contributed to the modern sanitation standards that are ubiquitous in developed nations today. This was further underpinned by the work of Justus von Liebig, which led to the development of modern food storage and food preservation methods.[137] In more recent years, a greater understanding of the causes of food-borne illnesses has led to the development of more systematic approaches such as the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP), which can identify and eliminate many risks.[138]
+
+Recommended measures for ensuring food safety include maintaining a clean preparation area with foods of different types kept separate, ensuring an adequate cooking temperature, and refrigerating foods promptly after cooking.[139]
+
+Foods that spoil easily, such as meats, dairy, and seafood, must be prepared a certain way to avoid contaminating the people for whom they are prepared. As such, the rule of thumb is that cold foods (such as dairy products) should be kept cold and hot foods (such as soup) should be kept hot until storage. Cold meats, such as chicken, that are to be cooked should not be placed at room temperature for thawing, at the risk of dangerous bacterial growth, such as Salmonella or E. coli.[140]
+
+Some people have allergies or sensitivities to foods that are not problematic to most people. This occurs when a person's immune system mistakes a certain food protein for a harmful foreign agent and attacks it. About 2% of adults and 8% of children have a food allergy.[141] The amount of the food substance required to provoke a reaction in a particularly susceptible individual can be quite small. In some instances, traces of food in the air, too minute to be perceived through smell, have been known to provoke lethal reactions in extremely sensitive individuals. Common food allergens are gluten, corn, shellfish (mollusks), peanuts, and soy.[141] Allergens frequently produce symptoms such as diarrhea, rashes, bloating, vomiting, and regurgitation. The digestive complaints usually develop within half an hour of ingesting the allergen.[141]
+
+Rarely, food allergies can lead to a medical emergency, such as anaphylactic shock, hypotension (low blood pressure), and loss of consciousness. An allergen associated with this type of reaction is peanut, although latex products can induce similar reactions.[141] Initial treatment is with epinephrine (adrenaline), often carried by known patients in the form of an Epi-pen or Twinject.[142][143]
+
+Human diet was estimated to cause perhaps around 35% of cancers in a human epidemiological analysis by Richard Doll and Richard Peto in 1981.[144]  These cancer may be caused by carcinogens that are present in food naturally or as contaminants. Food contaminated with fungal growth may contain mycotoxins such as aflatoxins which may be found in contaminated corn and peanuts.  Other carcinogens identified in food include heterocyclic amines generated in meat when cooked at high temperature, polyaromatic hydrocarbons in charred meat and smoked fish, and nitrosamines generated from nitrites used as food preservatives in cured meat such as bacon.[145]
+
+Anticarcinogens that may help prevent cancer can also be found in many food especially fruit and vegetables. Antioxidants are important groups of compounds that may help remove potentially harmful chemicals. It is however often difficult to identify the specific components in diet that serve to increase or decrease cancer risk since many food, such as beef steak and broccoli, contain low concentrations of both carcinogens and anticarcinogens.[145]
+There are many international certifications in the cooking field, such as Monde Selection, A.A. Certification, iTQi. They use high-quality evaluation methods to make the food become safer.
+
+Many cultures hold some food preferences and some food taboos. Dietary choices can also define cultures and play a role in religion. For example, only kosher foods are permitted by Judaism, halal foods by Islam, and in Hinduism beef is restricted.[149] In addition, the dietary choices of different countries or regions have different characteristics. This is highly related to a culture's cuisine.
+
+Dietary habits play a significant role in the health and mortality of all humans. Imbalances between the consumed fuels and expended energy results in either starvation or excessive reserves of adipose tissue, known as body fat.[150] Poor intake of various vitamins and minerals can lead to diseases that can have far-reaching effects on health. For instance, 30% of the world's population either has, or is at risk for developing, iodine deficiency.[151] It is estimated that at least 3 million children are blind due to vitamin A deficiency.[152] Vitamin C deficiency results in scurvy.[153] Calcium, Vitamin D, and phosphorus are inter-related; the consumption of each may affect the absorption of the others. Kwashiorkor and marasmus are childhood disorders caused by lack of dietary protein.[154]
+
+Many individuals limit what foods they eat for reasons of morality or other habits. For instance, vegetarians choose to forgo food from animal sources to varying degrees. Others choose a healthier diet, avoiding sugars or animal fats and increasing consumption of dietary fiber and antioxidants.[155] Obesity, a serious problem in the western world, leads to higher chances of developing heart disease, diabetes, cancer and many other diseases.[156] More recently, dietary habits have been influenced by the concerns that some people have about possible impacts on health or the environment from genetically modified food.[157] Further concerns about the impact of industrial farming (grains) on animal welfare, human health, and the environment are also having an effect on contemporary human dietary habits. This has led to the emergence of a movement with a preference for organic and local food.[158]
+
+Between the extremes of optimal health and death from starvation or malnutrition, there is an array of disease states that can be caused or alleviated by changes in diet. Deficiencies, excesses, and imbalances in diet can produce negative impacts on health, which may lead to various health problems such as scurvy, obesity, or osteoporosis, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases as well as psychological and behavioral problems. The science of nutrition attempts to understand how and why specific dietary aspects influence health.
+
+Nutrients in food are grouped into several categories. Macronutrients are fat, protein, and carbohydrates. Micronutrients are the minerals and vitamins. Additionally, food contains water and dietary fiber.
+
+As previously discussed, the body is designed by natural selection to enjoy sweet and fattening foods for evolutionary diets, ideal for hunters and gatherers. Thus, sweet and fattening foods in nature are typically rare and are very pleasurable to eat. In modern times, with advanced technology, enjoyable foods are easily available to consumers. Unfortunately, this promotes obesity in adults and children alike.
+
+Some countries list a legal definition of food, often referring them with the word foodstuff. These countries list food as any item that is to be processed, partially processed, or unprocessed for consumption. The listing of items included as food includes any substance intended to be, or reasonably expected to be, ingested by humans. In addition to these foodstuffs, drink, chewing gum, water, or other items processed into said food items are part of the legal definition of food. Items not included in the legal definition of food include animal feed, live animals (unless being prepared for sale in a market), plants prior to harvesting, medicinal products, cosmetics, tobacco and tobacco products, narcotic or psychotropic substances, and residues and contaminants.[159]

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+Dolphin is a common name of aquatic mammals within the infraorder Cetacea. The term dolphin usually refers to the extant families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), and Pontoporiidae (the brackish dolphins), and the extinct Lipotidae (baiji or Chinese river dolphin). There are 40 extant species named as dolphins.
+
+Dolphins range in size from the 1.7-metre-long (5 ft 7 in) long and 50-kilogram (110-pound) Maui's dolphin to the 9.5 m (31 ft 2 in) and 10-metric-ton (11-short-ton) killer whale. Several species exhibit sexual dimorphism, in that the males are larger than females. They have streamlined bodies and two limbs that are modified into flippers. Though not quite as flexible as seals, some dolphins can travel at speeds 29 km/h (18 mph) for short distances[1]. Dolphins use their conical shaped teeth to capture fast moving prey. They have well-developed hearing which is adapted for both air and water and is so well developed that some can survive even if they are blind. Some species are well adapted for diving to great depths. They have a layer of fat, or blubber, under the skin to keep warm in the cold water.
+
+Although dolphins are widespread, most species prefer the warmer waters of the tropic zones, but some, like the right whale dolphin, prefer colder climates. Dolphins feed largely on fish and squid, but a few, like the killer whale, feed on large mammals, like seals. Male dolphins typically mate with multiple females every year, but females only mate every two to three years. Calves are typically born in the spring and summer months and females bear all the responsibility for raising them. Mothers of some species fast and nurse their young for a relatively long period of time. Dolphins produce a variety of vocalizations, usually in the form of clicks and whistles.
+
+Dolphins are sometimes hunted in places such as Japan, in an activity known as dolphin drive hunting. Besides drive hunting, they also face threats from bycatch, habitat loss, and marine pollution. Dolphins have been depicted in various cultures worldwide. Dolphins occasionally feature in literature and film, as in the film series Free Willy. Dolphins are sometimes kept in captivity and trained to perform tricks. The most common dolphin species in captivity is the bottlenose dolphin, while there are around 60 captive killer whales.
+
+The name is originally from Greek δελφίς (delphís), "dolphin",[2] which was related to the Greek δελφύς (delphus), "womb".[2] The animal's name can therefore be interpreted as meaning "a 'fish' with a womb".[3] The name was transmitted via the Latin delphinus[4] (the romanization of the later Greek δελφῖνος – delphinos[2]), which in Medieval Latin became dolfinus and in Old French daulphin, which reintroduced the ph into the word. The term mereswine (that is, "sea pig") has also historically been used.[5]
+
+The term 'dolphin' can be used to refer to, under the parvorder Odontoceti, all the species in the family Delphinidae (oceanic dolphins) and the river dolphin families Iniidae (South American river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (La Plata dolphin), Lipotidae (Yangtze river dolphin) and Platanistidae (Ganges river dolphin and Indus river dolphin).[6][7]
+This term has often been misused in the US, mainly in the fishing industry, where all small cetaceans (dolphins and porpoises) are considered porpoises,[8] while the fish dorado is called dolphin fish.[9] In common usage the term 'whale' is used only for the larger cetacean species,[10] while the smaller ones with a beaked or longer nose are considered 'dolphins'.[11] The name 'dolphin' is used casually as a synonym for bottlenose dolphin, the most common and familiar species of dolphin.[12] There are six species of dolphins commonly thought of as whales, collectively known as blackfish: the killer whale, the melon-headed whale, the pygmy killer whale, the false killer whale, and the two species of pilot whales, all of which are classified under the family Delphinidae and qualify as dolphins.[13] Though the terms 'dolphin' and 'porpoise' are sometimes used interchangeably, porpoises are not considered dolphins and have different physical features such as a shorter beak and spade-shaped teeth; they also differ in their behavior. Porpoises belong to the family Phocoenidae and share a common ancestry with the Delphinidae.[12]
+
+A group of dolphins is called a "school" or a "pod". Male dolphins are called "bulls", females "cows" and young dolphins are called "calves".[14]
+
+In 1933, three hybrid dolphins beached off the Irish coast; they were hybrids between Risso's and bottlenose dolphins.[16] This mating was later repeated in captivity, producing a hybrid calf. In captivity, a bottlenose and a rough-toothed dolphin produced hybrid offspring.[17] A common-bottlenose hybrid lives at SeaWorld California.[18] Other dolphin hybrids live in captivity around the world or have been reported in the wild, such as a bottlenose-Atlantic spotted hybrid.[19] The best known hybrid is the wolphin, a false killer whale-bottlenose dolphin hybrid. The wolphin is a fertile hybrid. Two wolphins currently live at the Sea Life Park in Hawaii; the first was born in 1985 from a male false killer whale and a female bottlenose. Wolphins have also been observed in the wild.[20]
+
+Dolphins are descendants of land-dwelling mammals of the artiodactyl order (even-toed ungulates). They are related to the Indohyus, an extinct chevrotain-like ungulate, from which they split approximately 48 million years ago.[21][22]
+
+The primitive cetaceans, or archaeocetes, first took to the sea approximately 49 million years ago and became fully aquatic by 5–10 million years later.[23]
+
+Archaeoceti is a parvorder comprising ancient whales. These ancient whales are the predecessors of modern whales, stretching back to their first ancestor that spent their lives near (rarely in) the water. Likewise, the archaeocetes can be anywhere from near fully terrestrial, to semi-aquatic to fully aquatic, but what defines an archaeocete is the presence of visible legs or asymmetrical teeth.[24][25][26][27] Their features became adapted for living in the marine environment. Major anatomical changes include the hearing set-up that channeled vibrations from the jaw to the earbone which occurred with Ambulocetus 49 million years ago, a streamlining of the body and the growth of flukes on the tail which occurred around 43 million years ago with Protocetus, the migration of the nasal openings toward the top of the cranium and the modification of the forelimbs into flippers which occurred with Basilosaurus 35 million years ago, and the shrinking and eventual disappearance of the hind limbs which took place with the first odontocetes and mysticetes 34 million years ago.[28][29][30] The modern dolphin skeleton has two small, rod-shaped pelvic bones thought to be vestigial hind limbs. In October 2006, an unusual bottlenose dolphin was captured in Japan; it had small fins on each side of its genital slit, which scientists believe to be an unusually pronounced development of these vestigial hind limbs.[31]
+
+Today, the closest living relatives of cetaceans are the hippopotamuses; these share a semi-aquatic ancestor that branched off from other artiodactyls some 60 million years ago.[32] Around 40 million years ago, a common ancestor between the two branched off into cetacea and anthracotheres; anthracotheres became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene two-and-a-half million years ago, eventually leaving only one surviving lineage: the hippo.[33][34]
+
+Dolphins have torpedo-shaped bodies with generally non-flexible necks, limbs modified into flippers, a tail fin, and bulbous heads. Dolphin skulls have small eye orbits, long snouts, and eyes placed on the sides of its head; they lack external ear flaps. Dolphins range in size from the 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in) long and 50 kg (110 lb) Maui's dolphin to the 9.5 m (31 ft 2 in) and 10 t (11 short tons) killer whale. Overall, however, they tend to be dwarfed by other Cetartiodactyls. Several species have female-biased sexual dimorphism, with the females being larger than the males.[35][36]
+
+Dolphins have conical teeth, as opposed to porpoises' spade-shaped teeth. These conical teeth are used to catch swift prey such as fish, squid or large mammals, such as seal.[36]
+
+Breathing involves expelling stale air from their blowhole, in an upward blast, which may be visible in cold air, followed by inhaling fresh air into the lungs. Dolphins have rather small, unidentifiable spouts.[36][37]
+
+All dolphins have a thick layer of blubber, thickness varying on climate. This blubber can help with buoyancy, protection to some extent as predators would have a hard time getting through a thick layer of fat, and energy for leaner times; the primary usage for blubber is insulation from the harsh climate. Calves, generally, are born with a thin layer of blubber, which develops at different paces depending on the habitat.[36][38]
+
+Dolphins have a two-chambered stomach that is similar in structure to terrestrial carnivores. They have fundic and pyloric chambers.[39]
+
+Dolphins' reproductive organs are located inside the body, with genital slits on the ventral (belly) side. Males have two slits, one concealing the penis and one further behind for the anus.[40] Females have one genital slit, housing the vagina and the anus, with a mammary slit on either side.[41][42][43]
+
+Dolphins have two pectoral flippers, containing four digits, a boneless dorsal fin for stability, and a tail fin for propulsion. Although dolphins do not possess external hind limbs, some possess discrete rudimentary appendages, which may contain feet and digits. Dolphins are fast swimmers in comparison to seals which typically cruise at 9–28 km/h (5.6–17.4 mph); the killer whale (orca), in comparison, can travel at speeds up to 55.5 km/h (34.5 mph). The fusing of the neck vertebrae, while increasing stability when swimming at high speeds, decreases flexibility, which means they are unable to turn their heads.[44][45] River dolphins, however, have non-fused neck vertebrae and are able to turn their head up to 90°.[46] Dolphins swim by moving their tail fin and rear body vertically, while their flippers are mainly used for steering. Some species log out of the water, which may allow them to travel faster. Their skeletal anatomy allows them to be fast swimmers. All species have a dorsal fin to prevent themselves from involuntarily spinning in the water.[36][38]
+
+Some dolphins are adapted for diving to great depths. In addition to their streamlined bodies, some can slow their heart rate to conserve oxygen. Some can also re-route blood from tissue tolerant of water pressure to the heart, brain and other organs. Their hemoglobin and myoglobin store oxygen in body tissues and they have twice the concentration of myoglobin than hemoglobin.[47]
+
+The dolphin ear has specific adaptations to the marine environment. In humans, the middle ear works as an impedance equalizer between the outside air's low impedance and the cochlear fluid's high impedance. In dolphins, and other marine mammals, there is no great difference between the outer and inner environments. Instead of sound passing through the outer ear to the middle ear, dolphins receive sound through the throat, from which it passes through a low-impedance fat-filled cavity to the inner ear. The dolphin ear is acoustically isolated from the skull by air-filled sinus pockets, which allow for greater directional hearing underwater.[48] Dolphins send out high frequency clicks from an organ known as a melon. This melon consists of fat, and the skull of any such creature containing a melon will have a large depression. This allows dolphins to produce biosonar for orientation.[36][49][50][51][52] Though most dolphins do not have hair, they do have hair follicles that may perform some sensory function.[53] Beyond locating an object, echolocation also provides the animal with an idea on an object's shape and size, though how exactly this works is not yet understood.[54] The small hairs on the rostrum of the boto are believed to function as a tactile sense, possibly to compensate for the boto's poor eyesight.[55]
+
+The dolphin eye is relatively small for its size, yet they do retain a good degree of eyesight. As well as this, the eyes of a dolphin are placed on the sides of its head, so their vision consists of two fields, rather than a binocular view like humans have. When dolphins surface, their lens and cornea correct the nearsightedness that results from the refraction of light; they contain both rod and cone cells, meaning they can see in both dim and bright light, but they have far more rod cells than they do cone cells. Dolphins do, however, lack short wavelength sensitive visual pigments in their cone cells indicating a more limited capacity for color vision than most mammals.[56] Most dolphins have slightly flattened eyeballs, enlarged pupils (which shrink as they surface to prevent damage), slightly flattened corneas and a tapetum lucidum; these adaptations allow for large amounts of light to pass through the eye and, therefore, a very clear image of the surrounding area. They also have glands on the eyelids and outer corneal layer that act as protection for the cornea.[49]
+
+The olfactory lobes are absent in dolphins, suggesting that they have no sense of smell.[49]
+
+Dolphins are not thought to have a good sense of taste, as their taste buds are atrophied or missing altogether. However, some have preferences between different kinds of fish, indicating some sort of attachment to taste.[49]
+
+Dolphins are often regarded as one of Earth's most intelligent animals. Comparing species' relative intelligence is complicated by differences in sensory apparatus, response modes, and nature of cognition. Furthermore, the difficulty and expense of experimental work with large aquatic animals has so far prevented some tests and limited sample size and rigor in others. Compared to many other species, however, dolphin behavior has been studied extensively, both in captivity and in the wild. See cetacean intelligence for more details.
+
+Dolphins are highly social animals, often living in pods of up to a dozen individuals, though pod sizes and structures vary greatly between species and locations. In places with a high abundance of food, pods can merge temporarily, forming a superpod; such groupings may exceed 1,000 dolphins. Membership in pods is not rigid; interchange is common. Dolphins can, however, establish strong social bonds; they will stay with injured or ill individuals, even helping them to breathe by bringing them to the surface if needed.[57] This altruism does not appear to be limited to their own species. The dolphin Moko in New Zealand has been observed guiding a female pygmy sperm whale together with her calf out of shallow water where they had stranded several times.[58] They have also been seen protecting swimmers from sharks by swimming circles around the swimmers[59][60] or charging the sharks to make them go away.
+
+Dolphins communicate using a variety of clicks, whistle-like sounds and other vocalizations. Dolphins also use nonverbal communication by means of touch and posturing.[61]
+
+Dolphins also display culture, something long believed to be unique to humans (and possibly other primate species). In May 2005, a discovery in Australia found Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) teaching their young to use tools. They cover their snouts with sponges to protect them while foraging. This knowledge is mostly transferred by mothers to daughters, unlike simian primates, where knowledge is generally passed on to both sexes. Using sponges as mouth protection is a learned behavior.[62] Another learned behavior was discovered among river dolphins in Brazil, where some male dolphins use weeds and sticks as part of a sexual display.[63]
+
+Forms of care-giving between fellows and even for members of different species[64] (see Moko (dolphin)) are recorded in various species –  such as trying to save weakened fellows[65] or female pilot whales holding up dead calves for long periods.
+
+Dolphins engage in acts of aggression towards each other. The older a male dolphin is, the more likely his body is to be covered with bite scars. Male dolphins can get into disputes over companions and females. Acts of aggression can become so intense that targeted dolphins sometimes go into exile after losing a fight.
+
+Male bottlenose dolphins have been known to engage in infanticide. Dolphins have also been known to kill porpoises for reasons which are not fully understood, as porpoises generally do not share the same diet as dolphins and are therefore not competitors for food supplies.[66] The Cornwall Wildlife Trust records about one such death a year. Possible explanations include misdirected infanticide, misdirected sexual aggression or play behaviour.[67]
+
+Dolphin copulation happens belly to belly; though many species engage in lengthy foreplay, the actual act is usually brief, but may be repeated several times within a short timespan.[68] The gestation period varies with species; for the small Tucuxi dolphin, this period is around 11 to 12 months,[69] while for the orca, the gestation period is around 17 months.[70] Typically dolphins give birth to a single calf, which is, unlike most other mammals, born tail first in most cases.[71] They usually become sexually active at a young age, even before reaching sexual maturity.[68] The age of sexual maturity varies by species and gender.[72]
+
+Dolphins are known to display non-reproductive sexual behavior, engaging in masturbation, stimulation of the genital area of other individuals using the rostrum or flippers, and homosexual contact.[68][73][74]
+
+Various species of dolphin have been known to engage in sexual behavior up to and including copulation with dolphins of other species. Sexual encounters may be violent, with male dolphins sometimes showing aggressive behavior towards both females and other males.[75] Male dolphins may also work together and attempt to herd females in estrus, keeping the females by their side by means of both physical aggression and intimidation, to increase their chances of reproductive success.[76] Occasionally, dolphins behave sexually towards other animals, including humans.[77][78]
+
+There are various feeding methods among and within species, some apparently exclusive to a single population. Fish and squid are the main food, but the false killer whale and the orca also feed on other marine mammals. Orcas on occasion also hunt whale species larger than themselves.[79] Different breeds of dolphins vary widely in the number of teeth they possess. The orca or killer whale usually carries 40-56 teeth while the popular bottlenose dolphin has anywhere from 72-116 conical teeth and its smaller cousin the common dolphin has 188-268 teeth so that the number of teeth each breed carries varies widely between individuals. Hybrids between common and bottlenose bred in captivity had an intermediate amount of teeth.
+
+One common feeding method is herding, where a pod squeezes a school of fish into a small volume, known as a bait ball. Individual members then take turns plowing through the ball, feeding on the stunned fish.[79] Coralling is a method where dolphins chase fish into shallow water to catch them more easily.[79] Orcas and bottlenose dolphins have also been known to drive their prey onto a beach to feed on it, a behaviour known as beach or strand feeding.[80][81] Some species also whack fish with their flukes, stunning them and sometimes knocking them out of the water.[79]
+
+Reports of cooperative human-dolphin fishing date back to the ancient Roman author and natural philosopher Pliny the Elder.[82] A modern human-dolphin partnership currently operates in Laguna, Santa Catarina, Brazil. Here, dolphins drive fish towards fishermen waiting along the shore and signal the men to cast their nets. The dolphins' reward is the fish that escape the nets.[83][84]
+
+In Shark Bay, Australia, dolphins catch fish by trapping them in huge conch shells.[85] In "shelling", a dolphin brings the shell to the surface and shakes it, so that fish sheltering within fall into the dolphin's mouth. From 2007 to 2018, in 5,278 encounters with dolphins, researchers observed 19 dolphins shelling 42 times. The behavior spreads mainly within generations, rather than being passed from mother to offspring.
+
+Dolphins are capable of making a broad range of sounds using nasal airsacs located just below the blowhole. Roughly three categories of sounds can be identified: frequency modulated whistles, burst-pulsed sounds and clicks. Dolphins communicate with whistle-like sounds produced by vibrating connective tissue, similar to the way human vocal cords function,[86] and through burst-pulsed sounds, though the nature and extent of that ability is not known. The clicks are directional and are for echolocation, often occurring in a short series called a click train. The click rate increases when approaching an object of interest. Dolphin echolocation clicks are amongst the loudest sounds made by marine animals.[87]
+
+Bottlenose dolphins have been found to have signature whistles, a whistle that is unique to a specific individual. These whistles are used in order for dolphins to communicate with one another by identifying an individual. It can be seen as the dolphin equivalent of a name for humans.[88] These signature whistles are developed during a dolphin's first year; it continues to maintain the same sound throughout its lifetime.[89] In order to obtain each individual whistle sound, dolphins undergo vocal production learning. This consists of an experience with other dolphins that modifies the signal structure of an existing whistle sound. An auditory experience influences the whistle development of each dolphin. Dolphins are able to communicate to one another by addressing another dolphin through mimicking their whistle. The signature whistle of a male bottlenose dolphin tends to be similar to that of his mother, while the signature whistle of a female bottlenose dolphin tends to be more distinguishing.[90] Bottlenose dolphins have a strong memory when it comes to these signature whistles, as they are able to relate to a signature whistle of an individual they have not encountered for over twenty years.[91] Research done on signature whistle usage by other dolphin species is relatively limited. The research on other species done so far has yielded varied outcomes and inconclusive results.[92][93][94][95]
+
+Because dolphins are generally associated in groups, communication is necessary. Signal masking is when other similar sounds (conspecific sounds) interfere with the original acoustic sound.[96] In larger groups, individual whistle sounds are less prominent. Dolphins tend to travel in pods, upon which there are groups of dolphins that range from a few to many. Although they are traveling in these pods, the dolphins do not necessarily swim right next to each other. Rather, they swim within the same general vicinity. In order to prevent losing one of their pod members, there are higher whistle rates. Because their group members were spread out, this was done in order to continue traveling together.
+
+Dolphins frequently leap above the water surface, this being done for various reasons. When travelling, jumping can save the dolphin energy as there is less friction while in the air.[97] This type of travel is known as porpoising.[97] Other reasons include orientation, social displays, fighting, non-verbal communication, entertainment and attempting to dislodge parasites.[98][99]
+
+Dolphins show various types of playful behavior, often including objects, self-made bubble rings, other dolphins or other animals.[7][100][101] When playing with objects or small animals, common behavior includes carrying the object or animal along using various parts of the body, passing it along to other members of the group or taking it from another member, or throwing it out of the water.[100] Dolphins have also been observed harassing animals in other ways, for example by dragging birds underwater without showing any intent to eat them.[100] Playful behaviour that involves another animal species with active participation of the other animal can also be observed however. Playful human interaction with dolphins being the most obvious example, however playful interactions have been observed in the wild with a number of other species as well, such as humpback whales and dogs.[102][103]
+
+Juvenile dolphins off the coast of Western Australia have been observed chasing, capturing, and chewing on blowfish.[104] While some reports state that the dolphins are becoming intoxicated on the tetrodotoxin in the fishes' skin,[105] other reports have characterized this behavior as the normal curiosity and exploration of their environment in which dolphins engage.[106]
+
+Dolphins are known to teach, learn, cooperate, scheme, and grieve.[107] The neocortex of many species is home to elongated spindle neurons that, prior to 2007, were known only in hominids.[108] In humans, these cells are involved in social conduct, emotions, judgment, and theory of mind.[109] Cetacean spindle neurons are found in areas of the brain that are homologous to where they are found in humans, suggesting that they perform a similar function.[110]
+
+Brain size was previously considered a major indicator of the intelligence of an animal. Since most of the brain is used for maintaining bodily functions, greater ratios of brain to body mass may increase the amount of brain mass available for more complex cognitive tasks. Allometric analysis indicates that mammalian brain size scales at approximately the ⅔ or ¾ exponent of the body mass.[111] Comparison of a particular animal's brain size with the expected brain size based on such allometric analysis provides an encephalization quotient that can be used as another indication of animal intelligence. Killer whales have the second largest brain mass of any animal on earth, next to the sperm whale.[112] The brain to body mass ratio in some is second only to humans.[113]
+
+Self-awareness is seen, by some, to be a sign of highly developed, abstract thinking. Self-awareness, though not well-defined scientifically, is believed to be the precursor to more advanced processes like meta-cognitive reasoning (thinking about thinking) that are typical of humans. Research in this field has suggested that cetaceans, among others, possess self-awareness.[114]
+The most widely used test for self-awareness in animals is the mirror test in which a mirror is introduced to an animal, and the animal is then marked with a temporary dye. If the animal then goes to the mirror in order to view the mark, it has exhibited strong evidence of self-awareness.[115]
+
+Some disagree with these findings, arguing that the results of these tests are open to human interpretation and susceptible to the Clever Hans effect. This test is much less definitive than when used for primates, because primates can touch the mark or the mirror, while cetaceans cannot, making their alleged self-recognition behavior less certain. Skeptics argue that behaviors that are said to identify self-awareness resemble existing social behaviors, and so researchers could be misinterpreting self-awareness for social responses to another individual. The researchers counter-argue that the behaviors shown are evidence of self-awareness, as they are very different from normal responses to another individual. Whereas apes can merely touch the mark on themselves with their fingers, cetaceans show less definitive behavior of self-awareness; they can only twist and turn themselves to observe the mark.[115]
+
+In 1995, Marten and Psarakos used television to test dolphin self-awareness.[116] They showed dolphins real-time footage of themselves, recorded footage, and another dolphin. They concluded that their evidence suggested self-awareness rather than social behavior. While this particular study has not been repeated since then, dolphins have since passed the mirror test.[115]
+
+Generally, dolphins sleep with only one brain hemisphere in slow-wave sleep at a time, thus maintaining enough consciousness to breathe and to watch for possible predators and other threats. Sleep stages earlier in sleep can occur simultaneously in both hemispheres.[117][118][119]
+In captivity, dolphins seemingly enter a fully asleep state where both eyes are closed and there is no response to mild external stimuli. In this case, respiration is automatic; a tail kick reflex keeps the blowhole above the water if necessary. Anesthetized dolphins initially show a tail kick reflex.[120]  Though a similar state has been observed with wild sperm whales, it is not known if dolphins in the wild reach this state.[121] The Indus river dolphin has a sleep method that is different from that of other dolphin species. Living in water with strong currents and potentially dangerous floating debris, it must swim continuously to avoid injury. As a result, this species sleeps in very short bursts which last between 4 and 60 seconds.[122]
+
+Dolphins have few marine enemies. Some species or specific populations have none, making them apex predators. For most of the smaller species of dolphins, only a few of the larger sharks, such as the bull shark, dusky shark, tiger shark and great white shark, are a potential risk, especially for calves.[123] Some of the larger dolphin species, especially orcas (killer whales), may also prey on smaller dolphins, but this seems rare.[124] Dolphins also suffer from a wide variety of diseases and parasites.[125][126]  The Cetacean morbillivirus in particular has been known to cause regional epizootics often leaving hundreds of animals of various species dead.[127][128] Symptoms of infection are often a severe combination of pneumonia, encephalitis and damage to the immune system, which greatly impair the cetacean's ability to swim and stay afloat unassisted.[129][130] A study at the U.S. National Marine Mammal Foundation revealed that dolphins, like humans, develop a natural form of type 2 diabetes which may lead to a better understanding of the disease and new treatments for both humans and dolphins.[131]
+
+Dolphins can tolerate and recover from extreme injuries such as shark bites although the exact methods used to achieve this are not known. The healing process is rapid and even very deep wounds do not cause dolphins to hemorrhage to death. Furthermore, even gaping wounds restore in such a way that the animal's body shape is restored, and infection of such large wounds seems rare.[132]
+
+A study published in the journal Marine Mammal Science suggests that at least some dolphins survive shark attacks using everything from sophisticated combat moves to teaming up against the shark.[133][134][135]
+
+Some dolphin species are at risk of extinction, especially some river dolphin species such as the Amazon river dolphin, and the Ganges and Yangtze river dolphin, which are critically or seriously endangered. A 2006 survey found no individuals of the Yangtze river dolphin, which now appears to be functionally extinct.[136]
+
+Pesticides, heavy metals, plastics, and other industrial and agricultural pollutants that do not disintegrate rapidly in the environment concentrate in predators such as dolphins.[137] Injuries or deaths due to collisions with boats, especially their propellers, are also common.
+
+Various fishing methods, most notably purse seine fishing for tuna and the use of drift and gill nets, unintentionally kill many dolphins.[138] Accidental by-catch in gill nets and incidental captures in antipredator nets that protect marine fish farms are common and pose a risk for mainly local dolphin populations.[139][140] In some parts of the world, such as Taiji in Japan and the Faroe Islands, dolphins are traditionally considered food and are killed in harpoon or drive hunts.[141] Dolphin meat is high in mercury and may thus pose a health danger to humans when consumed.[142]
+
+Queensland's shark culling program, which has killed roughly 50,000 sharks since 1962, has also killed thousands of dolphins as bycatch.[143][144] "Shark control" programs in both Queensland and New South Wales use shark nets and drum lines, which entangle and kill dolphins.[145] Queensland's "shark control" program has killed more than 1,000 dolphins in recent years,[144] and at least 32 dolphins have been killed in Queensland since 2014.[146] A shark culling program in KwaZulu-Natal has killed at least 2,310 dolphins.[147]
+
+Dolphin safe labels attempt to reassure consumers that fish and other marine products have been caught in a dolphin-friendly way. The earliest campaigns with "dolphin safe" labels were initiated in the 1980s as a result of cooperation between marine activists and the major tuna companies, and involved decreasing incidental dolphin kills by up to 50% by changing the type of nets used to catch tuna. The dolphins are netted only while fishermen are in pursuit of smaller tuna. Albacore are not netted this way, making albacore the only truly dolphin-safe tuna.[148]
+Loud underwater noises, such as those resulting from naval sonar use, live firing exercises, and certain offshore construction projects such as wind farms, may be harmful to dolphins, increasing stress, damaging hearing, and causing decompression sickness by forcing them to surface too quickly to escape the noise.[149][150]
+
+Dolphins and other smaller cetaceans are also hunted in an activity known as dolphin drive hunting. This is accomplished by driving a pod together with boats and usually into a bay or onto a beach. Their escape is prevented by closing off the route to the ocean with other boats or nets. Dolphins are hunted this way in several places around the world, including the Solomon Islands, the Faroe Islands, Peru, and Japan, the most well-known practitioner of this method. By numbers, dolphins are mostly hunted for their meat, though some end up in dolphinariums. Despite the controversial nature of the hunt resulting in international criticism, and the possible health risk that the often polluted meat causes, thousands of dolphins are caught in drive hunts each year.
+
+Dolphins have long played a role in human culture. Dolphins are sometimes used as symbols, for instance in heraldry.
+
+In Greek myths, dolphins were seen invariably as helpers of humankind. Dolphins also seem to have been important to the Minoans, judging by artistic evidence from the ruined palace at Knossos. During the 2009 excavations of a major Mycenaean city at Iklaina, a striking fragment of a wall-paintings came to light, depicting a ship with three human figures and dolphins. Dolphins are common in Greek mythology, and many coins from ancient Greece have been found which feature a man, a boy or a deity riding on the back of a dolphin.[151] The Ancient Greeks welcomed dolphins; spotting dolphins riding in a ship's wake was considered a good omen.[152] In both ancient and later art, Cupid is often shown riding a dolphin. A dolphin rescued the poet Arion from drowning and carried him safe to land, at Cape Matapan, a promontory forming the southernmost point of the Peloponnesus. There was a temple to Poseidon and a statue of Arion riding the dolphin.[153]
+
+The Greeks reimagined the Phoenician god Melqart as Melikertês (Melicertes) and made him the son of Athamas and Ino. He drowned but was transfigured as the marine deity Palaemon, while his mother became Leucothea. (cf Ino.) At Corinth, he was so closely connected with the cult of Poseidon that the Isthmian Games, originally instituted in Poseidon's honor, came to be looked upon as the funeral games of Melicertes. Phalanthus was another legendary character brought safely to shore (in Italy) on the back of a dolphin, according to Pausanias.
+
+Dionysus was once captured by Etruscan pirates who mistook him for a wealthy prince they could ransom. After the ship set sail Dionysus invoked his divine powers, causing vines to overgrow the ship where the mast and sails had been. He turned the oars into serpents, so terrifying the sailors that they jumped overboard, but Dionysus took pity on them and transformed them into dolphins so that they would spend their lives providing help for those in need. Dolphins were also the messengers of Poseidon and sometimes did errands for him as well. Dolphins were sacred to both Aphrodite and Apollo.
+
+When heraldry developed in the Middle Ages, not much was known about the biology of the dolphin and it was often depicted as a sort of fish. Traditionally, the stylised dolphins in heraldry still may take after this notion, sometimes showing the dolphin skin covered with fish scales.
+
+Dolphins are present in the coat of arms of Anguilla and the coat of arms of Romania,[154] and the coat of arms of Barbados has a dolphin supporter.[155][156]
+
+A well-known historical example of a dolphin in heraldry, was the arms for the former province of the Dauphiné in southern France, from which were derived the arms and the title of the Dauphin of France, the heir to the former throne of France (the title literally means "The Dolphin of France").
+
+"Dolfin" was the name of an aristocratic family in the maritime Republic of Venice, whose most prominent member was the 13th Century Doge Giovanni Dolfin.
+
+In Hindu mythology the Ganges river dolphin is associated with Ganga, the deity of the Ganges river. The dolphin is said to be among the creatures which heralded the goddess' descent from the heavens and her mount, the Makara, is sometimes depicted as a dolphin.[157]
+
+The Boto, a species of river dolphin that resides in the Amazon River, are believed to be shapeshifters, or encantados, who are capable of having children with human women.
+
+There are comparatively few surviving myths of dolphins in Polynesian cultures, in spite of their maritime traditions and relevance of other marine animals such as sharks and seabirds; unlike these, they are more often perceived as food than as totemic symbols. Dolphins are most clearly represented in Rapa Nui Rongorongo, and in the traditions of the Caroline Islands they are depicted similarly to the Boto, being sexually active shapeshifters.[158]
+
+The renewed popularity of dolphins in the 1960s resulted in the appearance of many dolphinaria around the world, making dolphins accessible to the public. Criticism and animal welfare laws forced many to close, although hundreds still exist around the world. In the United States, the best known are the SeaWorld marine mammal parks.
+In the Middle East the best known are Dolphin Bay at Atlantis, The Palm[159] and the Dubai Dolphinarium.[160]
+
+Various species of dolphins are kept in captivity. These small cetaceans are more often than not kept in theme parks, such as SeaWorld, commonly known as a dolphinarium. Bottlenose dolphins are the most common species of dolphin kept in dolphinariums as they are relatively easy to train, have a long lifespan in captivity and have a friendly appearance. Hundreds if not thousands of bottlenose dolphins live in captivity across the world, though exact numbers are hard to determine. Other species kept in captivity are spotted dolphins, false killer whales and common dolphins, Commerson's dolphins, as well as rough-toothed dolphins, but all in much lower numbers than the bottlenose dolphin. There are also fewer than ten pilot whales, Amazon river dolphins, Risso's dolphins, spinner dolphins, or tucuxi in captivity.[161] An unusual and very rare hybrid dolphin, known as a wolphin, is kept at the Sea Life Park in Hawaii, which is a cross between a bottlenose dolphin and a false killer whale.[162]
+
+The number of killer whales kept in captivity is very small, especially when compared to the number of bottlenose dolphins, with 60 captive killer whales being held in aquaria as of 2017[update].[163] The killer whale's intelligence, trainability, striking appearance, playfulness in captivity and sheer size have made it a popular exhibit at aquaria and aquatic theme parks. From 1976 to 1997, 55 whales were taken from the wild in Iceland, 19 from Japan, and three from Argentina. These figures exclude animals that died during capture. Live captures fell dramatically in the 1990s, and by 1999, about 40% of the 48 animals on display in the world were captive-born.[38]
+
+Organizations such as the Mote Marine Laboratory rescue and rehabilitate sick, wounded, stranded or orphaned dolphins while others, such as the Whale and Dolphin Conservation and Hong Kong Dolphin Conservation Society, work on dolphin conservation and welfare. India has declared the dolphin as its national aquatic animal in an attempt to protect the endangered Ganges river dolphin. The Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary has been created in the Ganges river for the protection of the animals.[164]
+
+There is debate over the welfare of cetaceans in captivity, and often welfare can vary greatly dependent on the levels of care being provided at a particular facility. In the United States, facilities are regularly inspected by federal agencies to ensure that a high standard of welfare is maintained.[citation needed] Additionally, facilities can apply to become accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), which (for accreditation) requires "the highest standards of animal care and welfare in the world" to be achieved. Facilities such as SeaWorld and the Georgia Aquarium are accredited by the AZA. Organizations such as World Animal Protection and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation campaign against the practice of keeping them in captivity. In captivity, they often develop pathologies, such as the dorsal fin collapse seen in 60–90% of male killer whales. Captives have vastly reduced life expectancies, on average only living into their 20s, although there are examples of killer whales living longer, including several over 30 years old, and two captive orcas, Corky II and Lolita, are in their mid-40s. In the wild, females who survive infancy live 46 years on average, and up to 70–80 years in rare cases. Wild males who survive infancy live 31 years on average, and up to 50–60 years.[165] Captivity usually bears little resemblance to wild habitat, and captive whales' social groups are foreign to those found in the wild. Critics claim captive life is stressful due to these factors and the requirement to perform circus tricks that are not part of wild killer whale behavior. Wild killer whales may travel up to 160 kilometres (100 mi) in a day, and critics say the animals are too big and intelligent to be suitable for captivity.[166] Captives occasionally act aggressively towards themselves, their tankmates, or humans, which critics say is a result of stress.[167]
+
+Although dolphins generally interact well with humans, some attacks have occurred, most of them resulting in small injuries.[168] Orcas, the largest species of dolphin, have been involved in fatal attacks on humans in captivity. The record-holder of documented orca fatal attacks is a male named Tilikum,[169][170][171] who lived at SeaWorld from 1992 until his death in 2017.[172] Tilikum has played a role in the death of three people in three different incidents (1991, 1999 and 2010).[173] Tilikum's behaviour sparked the production of the documentary Blackfish, which focuses on the consequences of keeping orcas in captivity. There are documented incidents in the wild, too, but none of them fatal.[174]
+
+Fatal attacks from other species are less common, but there is a registered occurrence off the coast of Brazil in 1994, when a man died after being attacked by a bottlenose dolphin named Tião.[175][176] Tião had suffered harassment by human visitors, including attempts to stick ice cream sticks down her blowhole.[177] Non-fatal incidents occur more frequently, both in the wild and in captivity.
+
+While dolphin attacks occur far less frequently than attacks by other sea animals, such as sharks, some scientists are worried about the careless programs of human-dolphin interaction. Dr. Andrew J. Read, a biologist at the Duke University Marine Laboratory who studies dolphin attacks, points out that dolphins are large and wild predators, so people should be more careful when they interact with them.[168]
+
+Several scientists who have researched dolphin behaviour have proposed that dolphins' unusually high intelligence in comparison to other animals means that dolphins should be seen as non-human persons who should have their own specific rights and that it is morally unacceptable to keep them captive for entertainment purposes or to kill them either intentionally for consumption or unintentionally as by-catch.[178][179] Four countries – Chile, Costa Rica, Hungary, and India – have declared dolphins to be "non-human persons" and have banned the capture and import of live dolphins for entertainment.[180][181][182]
+
+A number of militaries have employed dolphins for various purposes from finding mines to rescuing lost or trapped humans. The military use of dolphins, however, drew scrutiny during the Vietnam War when rumors circulated that the United States Navy was training dolphins to kill Vietnamese divers.[183] The United States Navy denies that at any point dolphins were trained for combat. Dolphins are still being trained by the United States Navy for other tasks as part of the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program. The Russian military is believed to have closed its marine mammal program in the early 1990s. In 2000 the press reported that dolphins trained to kill by the Soviet Navy had been sold to Iran.[184]
+
+Dolphins are an increasingly popular choice of animal-assisted therapy for psychological problems and developmental disabilities. For example, a 2005 study found dolphins an effective treatment for mild to moderate depression.[185] However, this study was criticized on several grounds. For example, it is not known whether dolphins are more effective than common pets.[186] Reviews of this and other published dolphin-assisted therapy (DAT) studies have found important methodological flaws and have concluded that there is no compelling scientific evidence that DAT is a legitimate therapy or that it affords more than fleeting mood improvement.[187]
+
+In some parts of the world, such as Taiji, Japan and the Faroe Islands, dolphins are traditionally considered as food, and are killed in harpoon or drive hunts.[188]
+Dolphin meat is consumed in a small number of countries worldwide, which include Japan[189] and Peru (where it is referred to as chancho marino, or "sea pork").[190] While Japan may be the best-known and most controversial example, only a very small minority of the population has ever sampled it.
+
+Dolphin meat is dense and such a dark shade of red as to appear black. Fat is located in a layer of blubber between the meat and the skin. When dolphin meat is eaten in Japan, it is often cut into thin strips and eaten raw as sashimi, garnished with onion and either horseradish or grated garlic, much as with sashimi of whale or horse meat (basashi). When cooked, dolphin meat is cut into bite-size cubes and then batter-fried or simmered in a miso sauce with vegetables. Cooked dolphin meat has a flavor very similar to beef liver.[191]
+
+There have been human health concerns associated with the consumption of dolphin meat in Japan after tests showed that dolphin meat contained high levels of mercury.[192] There are no known cases of mercury poisoning as a result of consuming dolphin meat, though the government continues to monitor people in areas where dolphin meat consumption is high. The Japanese government recommends that children and pregnant women avoid eating dolphin meat on a regular basis.[193]
+
+Similar concerns exist with the consumption of dolphin meat in the Faroe Islands, where prenatal exposure to methylmercury and PCBs primarily from the consumption of pilot whale meat has resulted in neuropsychological deficits amongst children.[192]
+
+The Faroe Islands population was exposed to methylmercury largely from contaminated pilot whale meat, which contained very high levels of about 2 mg methylmercury/kg. However, the Faroe Islands populations also eat significant numbers of fish. The study of about 900 Faroese children showed that prenatal exposure to methylmercury resulted in neuropsychological deficits at 7 years of age
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+Dolphin is a common name of aquatic mammals within the infraorder Cetacea. The term dolphin usually refers to the extant families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), and Pontoporiidae (the brackish dolphins), and the extinct Lipotidae (baiji or Chinese river dolphin). There are 40 extant species named as dolphins.
+
+Dolphins range in size from the 1.7-metre-long (5 ft 7 in) long and 50-kilogram (110-pound) Maui's dolphin to the 9.5 m (31 ft 2 in) and 10-metric-ton (11-short-ton) killer whale. Several species exhibit sexual dimorphism, in that the males are larger than females. They have streamlined bodies and two limbs that are modified into flippers. Though not quite as flexible as seals, some dolphins can travel at speeds 29 km/h (18 mph) for short distances[1]. Dolphins use their conical shaped teeth to capture fast moving prey. They have well-developed hearing which is adapted for both air and water and is so well developed that some can survive even if they are blind. Some species are well adapted for diving to great depths. They have a layer of fat, or blubber, under the skin to keep warm in the cold water.
+
+Although dolphins are widespread, most species prefer the warmer waters of the tropic zones, but some, like the right whale dolphin, prefer colder climates. Dolphins feed largely on fish and squid, but a few, like the killer whale, feed on large mammals, like seals. Male dolphins typically mate with multiple females every year, but females only mate every two to three years. Calves are typically born in the spring and summer months and females bear all the responsibility for raising them. Mothers of some species fast and nurse their young for a relatively long period of time. Dolphins produce a variety of vocalizations, usually in the form of clicks and whistles.
+
+Dolphins are sometimes hunted in places such as Japan, in an activity known as dolphin drive hunting. Besides drive hunting, they also face threats from bycatch, habitat loss, and marine pollution. Dolphins have been depicted in various cultures worldwide. Dolphins occasionally feature in literature and film, as in the film series Free Willy. Dolphins are sometimes kept in captivity and trained to perform tricks. The most common dolphin species in captivity is the bottlenose dolphin, while there are around 60 captive killer whales.
+
+The name is originally from Greek δελφίς (delphís), "dolphin",[2] which was related to the Greek δελφύς (delphus), "womb".[2] The animal's name can therefore be interpreted as meaning "a 'fish' with a womb".[3] The name was transmitted via the Latin delphinus[4] (the romanization of the later Greek δελφῖνος – delphinos[2]), which in Medieval Latin became dolfinus and in Old French daulphin, which reintroduced the ph into the word. The term mereswine (that is, "sea pig") has also historically been used.[5]
+
+The term 'dolphin' can be used to refer to, under the parvorder Odontoceti, all the species in the family Delphinidae (oceanic dolphins) and the river dolphin families Iniidae (South American river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (La Plata dolphin), Lipotidae (Yangtze river dolphin) and Platanistidae (Ganges river dolphin and Indus river dolphin).[6][7]
+This term has often been misused in the US, mainly in the fishing industry, where all small cetaceans (dolphins and porpoises) are considered porpoises,[8] while the fish dorado is called dolphin fish.[9] In common usage the term 'whale' is used only for the larger cetacean species,[10] while the smaller ones with a beaked or longer nose are considered 'dolphins'.[11] The name 'dolphin' is used casually as a synonym for bottlenose dolphin, the most common and familiar species of dolphin.[12] There are six species of dolphins commonly thought of as whales, collectively known as blackfish: the killer whale, the melon-headed whale, the pygmy killer whale, the false killer whale, and the two species of pilot whales, all of which are classified under the family Delphinidae and qualify as dolphins.[13] Though the terms 'dolphin' and 'porpoise' are sometimes used interchangeably, porpoises are not considered dolphins and have different physical features such as a shorter beak and spade-shaped teeth; they also differ in their behavior. Porpoises belong to the family Phocoenidae and share a common ancestry with the Delphinidae.[12]
+
+A group of dolphins is called a "school" or a "pod". Male dolphins are called "bulls", females "cows" and young dolphins are called "calves".[14]
+
+In 1933, three hybrid dolphins beached off the Irish coast; they were hybrids between Risso's and bottlenose dolphins.[16] This mating was later repeated in captivity, producing a hybrid calf. In captivity, a bottlenose and a rough-toothed dolphin produced hybrid offspring.[17] A common-bottlenose hybrid lives at SeaWorld California.[18] Other dolphin hybrids live in captivity around the world or have been reported in the wild, such as a bottlenose-Atlantic spotted hybrid.[19] The best known hybrid is the wolphin, a false killer whale-bottlenose dolphin hybrid. The wolphin is a fertile hybrid. Two wolphins currently live at the Sea Life Park in Hawaii; the first was born in 1985 from a male false killer whale and a female bottlenose. Wolphins have also been observed in the wild.[20]
+
+Dolphins are descendants of land-dwelling mammals of the artiodactyl order (even-toed ungulates). They are related to the Indohyus, an extinct chevrotain-like ungulate, from which they split approximately 48 million years ago.[21][22]
+
+The primitive cetaceans, or archaeocetes, first took to the sea approximately 49 million years ago and became fully aquatic by 5–10 million years later.[23]
+
+Archaeoceti is a parvorder comprising ancient whales. These ancient whales are the predecessors of modern whales, stretching back to their first ancestor that spent their lives near (rarely in) the water. Likewise, the archaeocetes can be anywhere from near fully terrestrial, to semi-aquatic to fully aquatic, but what defines an archaeocete is the presence of visible legs or asymmetrical teeth.[24][25][26][27] Their features became adapted for living in the marine environment. Major anatomical changes include the hearing set-up that channeled vibrations from the jaw to the earbone which occurred with Ambulocetus 49 million years ago, a streamlining of the body and the growth of flukes on the tail which occurred around 43 million years ago with Protocetus, the migration of the nasal openings toward the top of the cranium and the modification of the forelimbs into flippers which occurred with Basilosaurus 35 million years ago, and the shrinking and eventual disappearance of the hind limbs which took place with the first odontocetes and mysticetes 34 million years ago.[28][29][30] The modern dolphin skeleton has two small, rod-shaped pelvic bones thought to be vestigial hind limbs. In October 2006, an unusual bottlenose dolphin was captured in Japan; it had small fins on each side of its genital slit, which scientists believe to be an unusually pronounced development of these vestigial hind limbs.[31]
+
+Today, the closest living relatives of cetaceans are the hippopotamuses; these share a semi-aquatic ancestor that branched off from other artiodactyls some 60 million years ago.[32] Around 40 million years ago, a common ancestor between the two branched off into cetacea and anthracotheres; anthracotheres became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene two-and-a-half million years ago, eventually leaving only one surviving lineage: the hippo.[33][34]
+
+Dolphins have torpedo-shaped bodies with generally non-flexible necks, limbs modified into flippers, a tail fin, and bulbous heads. Dolphin skulls have small eye orbits, long snouts, and eyes placed on the sides of its head; they lack external ear flaps. Dolphins range in size from the 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in) long and 50 kg (110 lb) Maui's dolphin to the 9.5 m (31 ft 2 in) and 10 t (11 short tons) killer whale. Overall, however, they tend to be dwarfed by other Cetartiodactyls. Several species have female-biased sexual dimorphism, with the females being larger than the males.[35][36]
+
+Dolphins have conical teeth, as opposed to porpoises' spade-shaped teeth. These conical teeth are used to catch swift prey such as fish, squid or large mammals, such as seal.[36]
+
+Breathing involves expelling stale air from their blowhole, in an upward blast, which may be visible in cold air, followed by inhaling fresh air into the lungs. Dolphins have rather small, unidentifiable spouts.[36][37]
+
+All dolphins have a thick layer of blubber, thickness varying on climate. This blubber can help with buoyancy, protection to some extent as predators would have a hard time getting through a thick layer of fat, and energy for leaner times; the primary usage for blubber is insulation from the harsh climate. Calves, generally, are born with a thin layer of blubber, which develops at different paces depending on the habitat.[36][38]
+
+Dolphins have a two-chambered stomach that is similar in structure to terrestrial carnivores. They have fundic and pyloric chambers.[39]
+
+Dolphins' reproductive organs are located inside the body, with genital slits on the ventral (belly) side. Males have two slits, one concealing the penis and one further behind for the anus.[40] Females have one genital slit, housing the vagina and the anus, with a mammary slit on either side.[41][42][43]
+
+Dolphins have two pectoral flippers, containing four digits, a boneless dorsal fin for stability, and a tail fin for propulsion. Although dolphins do not possess external hind limbs, some possess discrete rudimentary appendages, which may contain feet and digits. Dolphins are fast swimmers in comparison to seals which typically cruise at 9–28 km/h (5.6–17.4 mph); the killer whale (orca), in comparison, can travel at speeds up to 55.5 km/h (34.5 mph). The fusing of the neck vertebrae, while increasing stability when swimming at high speeds, decreases flexibility, which means they are unable to turn their heads.[44][45] River dolphins, however, have non-fused neck vertebrae and are able to turn their head up to 90°.[46] Dolphins swim by moving their tail fin and rear body vertically, while their flippers are mainly used for steering. Some species log out of the water, which may allow them to travel faster. Their skeletal anatomy allows them to be fast swimmers. All species have a dorsal fin to prevent themselves from involuntarily spinning in the water.[36][38]
+
+Some dolphins are adapted for diving to great depths. In addition to their streamlined bodies, some can slow their heart rate to conserve oxygen. Some can also re-route blood from tissue tolerant of water pressure to the heart, brain and other organs. Their hemoglobin and myoglobin store oxygen in body tissues and they have twice the concentration of myoglobin than hemoglobin.[47]
+
+The dolphin ear has specific adaptations to the marine environment. In humans, the middle ear works as an impedance equalizer between the outside air's low impedance and the cochlear fluid's high impedance. In dolphins, and other marine mammals, there is no great difference between the outer and inner environments. Instead of sound passing through the outer ear to the middle ear, dolphins receive sound through the throat, from which it passes through a low-impedance fat-filled cavity to the inner ear. The dolphin ear is acoustically isolated from the skull by air-filled sinus pockets, which allow for greater directional hearing underwater.[48] Dolphins send out high frequency clicks from an organ known as a melon. This melon consists of fat, and the skull of any such creature containing a melon will have a large depression. This allows dolphins to produce biosonar for orientation.[36][49][50][51][52] Though most dolphins do not have hair, they do have hair follicles that may perform some sensory function.[53] Beyond locating an object, echolocation also provides the animal with an idea on an object's shape and size, though how exactly this works is not yet understood.[54] The small hairs on the rostrum of the boto are believed to function as a tactile sense, possibly to compensate for the boto's poor eyesight.[55]
+
+The dolphin eye is relatively small for its size, yet they do retain a good degree of eyesight. As well as this, the eyes of a dolphin are placed on the sides of its head, so their vision consists of two fields, rather than a binocular view like humans have. When dolphins surface, their lens and cornea correct the nearsightedness that results from the refraction of light; they contain both rod and cone cells, meaning they can see in both dim and bright light, but they have far more rod cells than they do cone cells. Dolphins do, however, lack short wavelength sensitive visual pigments in their cone cells indicating a more limited capacity for color vision than most mammals.[56] Most dolphins have slightly flattened eyeballs, enlarged pupils (which shrink as they surface to prevent damage), slightly flattened corneas and a tapetum lucidum; these adaptations allow for large amounts of light to pass through the eye and, therefore, a very clear image of the surrounding area. They also have glands on the eyelids and outer corneal layer that act as protection for the cornea.[49]
+
+The olfactory lobes are absent in dolphins, suggesting that they have no sense of smell.[49]
+
+Dolphins are not thought to have a good sense of taste, as their taste buds are atrophied or missing altogether. However, some have preferences between different kinds of fish, indicating some sort of attachment to taste.[49]
+
+Dolphins are often regarded as one of Earth's most intelligent animals. Comparing species' relative intelligence is complicated by differences in sensory apparatus, response modes, and nature of cognition. Furthermore, the difficulty and expense of experimental work with large aquatic animals has so far prevented some tests and limited sample size and rigor in others. Compared to many other species, however, dolphin behavior has been studied extensively, both in captivity and in the wild. See cetacean intelligence for more details.
+
+Dolphins are highly social animals, often living in pods of up to a dozen individuals, though pod sizes and structures vary greatly between species and locations. In places with a high abundance of food, pods can merge temporarily, forming a superpod; such groupings may exceed 1,000 dolphins. Membership in pods is not rigid; interchange is common. Dolphins can, however, establish strong social bonds; they will stay with injured or ill individuals, even helping them to breathe by bringing them to the surface if needed.[57] This altruism does not appear to be limited to their own species. The dolphin Moko in New Zealand has been observed guiding a female pygmy sperm whale together with her calf out of shallow water where they had stranded several times.[58] They have also been seen protecting swimmers from sharks by swimming circles around the swimmers[59][60] or charging the sharks to make them go away.
+
+Dolphins communicate using a variety of clicks, whistle-like sounds and other vocalizations. Dolphins also use nonverbal communication by means of touch and posturing.[61]
+
+Dolphins also display culture, something long believed to be unique to humans (and possibly other primate species). In May 2005, a discovery in Australia found Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) teaching their young to use tools. They cover their snouts with sponges to protect them while foraging. This knowledge is mostly transferred by mothers to daughters, unlike simian primates, where knowledge is generally passed on to both sexes. Using sponges as mouth protection is a learned behavior.[62] Another learned behavior was discovered among river dolphins in Brazil, where some male dolphins use weeds and sticks as part of a sexual display.[63]
+
+Forms of care-giving between fellows and even for members of different species[64] (see Moko (dolphin)) are recorded in various species –  such as trying to save weakened fellows[65] or female pilot whales holding up dead calves for long periods.
+
+Dolphins engage in acts of aggression towards each other. The older a male dolphin is, the more likely his body is to be covered with bite scars. Male dolphins can get into disputes over companions and females. Acts of aggression can become so intense that targeted dolphins sometimes go into exile after losing a fight.
+
+Male bottlenose dolphins have been known to engage in infanticide. Dolphins have also been known to kill porpoises for reasons which are not fully understood, as porpoises generally do not share the same diet as dolphins and are therefore not competitors for food supplies.[66] The Cornwall Wildlife Trust records about one such death a year. Possible explanations include misdirected infanticide, misdirected sexual aggression or play behaviour.[67]
+
+Dolphin copulation happens belly to belly; though many species engage in lengthy foreplay, the actual act is usually brief, but may be repeated several times within a short timespan.[68] The gestation period varies with species; for the small Tucuxi dolphin, this period is around 11 to 12 months,[69] while for the orca, the gestation period is around 17 months.[70] Typically dolphins give birth to a single calf, which is, unlike most other mammals, born tail first in most cases.[71] They usually become sexually active at a young age, even before reaching sexual maturity.[68] The age of sexual maturity varies by species and gender.[72]
+
+Dolphins are known to display non-reproductive sexual behavior, engaging in masturbation, stimulation of the genital area of other individuals using the rostrum or flippers, and homosexual contact.[68][73][74]
+
+Various species of dolphin have been known to engage in sexual behavior up to and including copulation with dolphins of other species. Sexual encounters may be violent, with male dolphins sometimes showing aggressive behavior towards both females and other males.[75] Male dolphins may also work together and attempt to herd females in estrus, keeping the females by their side by means of both physical aggression and intimidation, to increase their chances of reproductive success.[76] Occasionally, dolphins behave sexually towards other animals, including humans.[77][78]
+
+There are various feeding methods among and within species, some apparently exclusive to a single population. Fish and squid are the main food, but the false killer whale and the orca also feed on other marine mammals. Orcas on occasion also hunt whale species larger than themselves.[79] Different breeds of dolphins vary widely in the number of teeth they possess. The orca or killer whale usually carries 40-56 teeth while the popular bottlenose dolphin has anywhere from 72-116 conical teeth and its smaller cousin the common dolphin has 188-268 teeth so that the number of teeth each breed carries varies widely between individuals. Hybrids between common and bottlenose bred in captivity had an intermediate amount of teeth.
+
+One common feeding method is herding, where a pod squeezes a school of fish into a small volume, known as a bait ball. Individual members then take turns plowing through the ball, feeding on the stunned fish.[79] Coralling is a method where dolphins chase fish into shallow water to catch them more easily.[79] Orcas and bottlenose dolphins have also been known to drive their prey onto a beach to feed on it, a behaviour known as beach or strand feeding.[80][81] Some species also whack fish with their flukes, stunning them and sometimes knocking them out of the water.[79]
+
+Reports of cooperative human-dolphin fishing date back to the ancient Roman author and natural philosopher Pliny the Elder.[82] A modern human-dolphin partnership currently operates in Laguna, Santa Catarina, Brazil. Here, dolphins drive fish towards fishermen waiting along the shore and signal the men to cast their nets. The dolphins' reward is the fish that escape the nets.[83][84]
+
+In Shark Bay, Australia, dolphins catch fish by trapping them in huge conch shells.[85] In "shelling", a dolphin brings the shell to the surface and shakes it, so that fish sheltering within fall into the dolphin's mouth. From 2007 to 2018, in 5,278 encounters with dolphins, researchers observed 19 dolphins shelling 42 times. The behavior spreads mainly within generations, rather than being passed from mother to offspring.
+
+Dolphins are capable of making a broad range of sounds using nasal airsacs located just below the blowhole. Roughly three categories of sounds can be identified: frequency modulated whistles, burst-pulsed sounds and clicks. Dolphins communicate with whistle-like sounds produced by vibrating connective tissue, similar to the way human vocal cords function,[86] and through burst-pulsed sounds, though the nature and extent of that ability is not known. The clicks are directional and are for echolocation, often occurring in a short series called a click train. The click rate increases when approaching an object of interest. Dolphin echolocation clicks are amongst the loudest sounds made by marine animals.[87]
+
+Bottlenose dolphins have been found to have signature whistles, a whistle that is unique to a specific individual. These whistles are used in order for dolphins to communicate with one another by identifying an individual. It can be seen as the dolphin equivalent of a name for humans.[88] These signature whistles are developed during a dolphin's first year; it continues to maintain the same sound throughout its lifetime.[89] In order to obtain each individual whistle sound, dolphins undergo vocal production learning. This consists of an experience with other dolphins that modifies the signal structure of an existing whistle sound. An auditory experience influences the whistle development of each dolphin. Dolphins are able to communicate to one another by addressing another dolphin through mimicking their whistle. The signature whistle of a male bottlenose dolphin tends to be similar to that of his mother, while the signature whistle of a female bottlenose dolphin tends to be more distinguishing.[90] Bottlenose dolphins have a strong memory when it comes to these signature whistles, as they are able to relate to a signature whistle of an individual they have not encountered for over twenty years.[91] Research done on signature whistle usage by other dolphin species is relatively limited. The research on other species done so far has yielded varied outcomes and inconclusive results.[92][93][94][95]
+
+Because dolphins are generally associated in groups, communication is necessary. Signal masking is when other similar sounds (conspecific sounds) interfere with the original acoustic sound.[96] In larger groups, individual whistle sounds are less prominent. Dolphins tend to travel in pods, upon which there are groups of dolphins that range from a few to many. Although they are traveling in these pods, the dolphins do not necessarily swim right next to each other. Rather, they swim within the same general vicinity. In order to prevent losing one of their pod members, there are higher whistle rates. Because their group members were spread out, this was done in order to continue traveling together.
+
+Dolphins frequently leap above the water surface, this being done for various reasons. When travelling, jumping can save the dolphin energy as there is less friction while in the air.[97] This type of travel is known as porpoising.[97] Other reasons include orientation, social displays, fighting, non-verbal communication, entertainment and attempting to dislodge parasites.[98][99]
+
+Dolphins show various types of playful behavior, often including objects, self-made bubble rings, other dolphins or other animals.[7][100][101] When playing with objects or small animals, common behavior includes carrying the object or animal along using various parts of the body, passing it along to other members of the group or taking it from another member, or throwing it out of the water.[100] Dolphins have also been observed harassing animals in other ways, for example by dragging birds underwater without showing any intent to eat them.[100] Playful behaviour that involves another animal species with active participation of the other animal can also be observed however. Playful human interaction with dolphins being the most obvious example, however playful interactions have been observed in the wild with a number of other species as well, such as humpback whales and dogs.[102][103]
+
+Juvenile dolphins off the coast of Western Australia have been observed chasing, capturing, and chewing on blowfish.[104] While some reports state that the dolphins are becoming intoxicated on the tetrodotoxin in the fishes' skin,[105] other reports have characterized this behavior as the normal curiosity and exploration of their environment in which dolphins engage.[106]
+
+Dolphins are known to teach, learn, cooperate, scheme, and grieve.[107] The neocortex of many species is home to elongated spindle neurons that, prior to 2007, were known only in hominids.[108] In humans, these cells are involved in social conduct, emotions, judgment, and theory of mind.[109] Cetacean spindle neurons are found in areas of the brain that are homologous to where they are found in humans, suggesting that they perform a similar function.[110]
+
+Brain size was previously considered a major indicator of the intelligence of an animal. Since most of the brain is used for maintaining bodily functions, greater ratios of brain to body mass may increase the amount of brain mass available for more complex cognitive tasks. Allometric analysis indicates that mammalian brain size scales at approximately the ⅔ or ¾ exponent of the body mass.[111] Comparison of a particular animal's brain size with the expected brain size based on such allometric analysis provides an encephalization quotient that can be used as another indication of animal intelligence. Killer whales have the second largest brain mass of any animal on earth, next to the sperm whale.[112] The brain to body mass ratio in some is second only to humans.[113]
+
+Self-awareness is seen, by some, to be a sign of highly developed, abstract thinking. Self-awareness, though not well-defined scientifically, is believed to be the precursor to more advanced processes like meta-cognitive reasoning (thinking about thinking) that are typical of humans. Research in this field has suggested that cetaceans, among others, possess self-awareness.[114]
+The most widely used test for self-awareness in animals is the mirror test in which a mirror is introduced to an animal, and the animal is then marked with a temporary dye. If the animal then goes to the mirror in order to view the mark, it has exhibited strong evidence of self-awareness.[115]
+
+Some disagree with these findings, arguing that the results of these tests are open to human interpretation and susceptible to the Clever Hans effect. This test is much less definitive than when used for primates, because primates can touch the mark or the mirror, while cetaceans cannot, making their alleged self-recognition behavior less certain. Skeptics argue that behaviors that are said to identify self-awareness resemble existing social behaviors, and so researchers could be misinterpreting self-awareness for social responses to another individual. The researchers counter-argue that the behaviors shown are evidence of self-awareness, as they are very different from normal responses to another individual. Whereas apes can merely touch the mark on themselves with their fingers, cetaceans show less definitive behavior of self-awareness; they can only twist and turn themselves to observe the mark.[115]
+
+In 1995, Marten and Psarakos used television to test dolphin self-awareness.[116] They showed dolphins real-time footage of themselves, recorded footage, and another dolphin. They concluded that their evidence suggested self-awareness rather than social behavior. While this particular study has not been repeated since then, dolphins have since passed the mirror test.[115]
+
+Generally, dolphins sleep with only one brain hemisphere in slow-wave sleep at a time, thus maintaining enough consciousness to breathe and to watch for possible predators and other threats. Sleep stages earlier in sleep can occur simultaneously in both hemispheres.[117][118][119]
+In captivity, dolphins seemingly enter a fully asleep state where both eyes are closed and there is no response to mild external stimuli. In this case, respiration is automatic; a tail kick reflex keeps the blowhole above the water if necessary. Anesthetized dolphins initially show a tail kick reflex.[120]  Though a similar state has been observed with wild sperm whales, it is not known if dolphins in the wild reach this state.[121] The Indus river dolphin has a sleep method that is different from that of other dolphin species. Living in water with strong currents and potentially dangerous floating debris, it must swim continuously to avoid injury. As a result, this species sleeps in very short bursts which last between 4 and 60 seconds.[122]
+
+Dolphins have few marine enemies. Some species or specific populations have none, making them apex predators. For most of the smaller species of dolphins, only a few of the larger sharks, such as the bull shark, dusky shark, tiger shark and great white shark, are a potential risk, especially for calves.[123] Some of the larger dolphin species, especially orcas (killer whales), may also prey on smaller dolphins, but this seems rare.[124] Dolphins also suffer from a wide variety of diseases and parasites.[125][126]  The Cetacean morbillivirus in particular has been known to cause regional epizootics often leaving hundreds of animals of various species dead.[127][128] Symptoms of infection are often a severe combination of pneumonia, encephalitis and damage to the immune system, which greatly impair the cetacean's ability to swim and stay afloat unassisted.[129][130] A study at the U.S. National Marine Mammal Foundation revealed that dolphins, like humans, develop a natural form of type 2 diabetes which may lead to a better understanding of the disease and new treatments for both humans and dolphins.[131]
+
+Dolphins can tolerate and recover from extreme injuries such as shark bites although the exact methods used to achieve this are not known. The healing process is rapid and even very deep wounds do not cause dolphins to hemorrhage to death. Furthermore, even gaping wounds restore in such a way that the animal's body shape is restored, and infection of such large wounds seems rare.[132]
+
+A study published in the journal Marine Mammal Science suggests that at least some dolphins survive shark attacks using everything from sophisticated combat moves to teaming up against the shark.[133][134][135]
+
+Some dolphin species are at risk of extinction, especially some river dolphin species such as the Amazon river dolphin, and the Ganges and Yangtze river dolphin, which are critically or seriously endangered. A 2006 survey found no individuals of the Yangtze river dolphin, which now appears to be functionally extinct.[136]
+
+Pesticides, heavy metals, plastics, and other industrial and agricultural pollutants that do not disintegrate rapidly in the environment concentrate in predators such as dolphins.[137] Injuries or deaths due to collisions with boats, especially their propellers, are also common.
+
+Various fishing methods, most notably purse seine fishing for tuna and the use of drift and gill nets, unintentionally kill many dolphins.[138] Accidental by-catch in gill nets and incidental captures in antipredator nets that protect marine fish farms are common and pose a risk for mainly local dolphin populations.[139][140] In some parts of the world, such as Taiji in Japan and the Faroe Islands, dolphins are traditionally considered food and are killed in harpoon or drive hunts.[141] Dolphin meat is high in mercury and may thus pose a health danger to humans when consumed.[142]
+
+Queensland's shark culling program, which has killed roughly 50,000 sharks since 1962, has also killed thousands of dolphins as bycatch.[143][144] "Shark control" programs in both Queensland and New South Wales use shark nets and drum lines, which entangle and kill dolphins.[145] Queensland's "shark control" program has killed more than 1,000 dolphins in recent years,[144] and at least 32 dolphins have been killed in Queensland since 2014.[146] A shark culling program in KwaZulu-Natal has killed at least 2,310 dolphins.[147]
+
+Dolphin safe labels attempt to reassure consumers that fish and other marine products have been caught in a dolphin-friendly way. The earliest campaigns with "dolphin safe" labels were initiated in the 1980s as a result of cooperation between marine activists and the major tuna companies, and involved decreasing incidental dolphin kills by up to 50% by changing the type of nets used to catch tuna. The dolphins are netted only while fishermen are in pursuit of smaller tuna. Albacore are not netted this way, making albacore the only truly dolphin-safe tuna.[148]
+Loud underwater noises, such as those resulting from naval sonar use, live firing exercises, and certain offshore construction projects such as wind farms, may be harmful to dolphins, increasing stress, damaging hearing, and causing decompression sickness by forcing them to surface too quickly to escape the noise.[149][150]
+
+Dolphins and other smaller cetaceans are also hunted in an activity known as dolphin drive hunting. This is accomplished by driving a pod together with boats and usually into a bay or onto a beach. Their escape is prevented by closing off the route to the ocean with other boats or nets. Dolphins are hunted this way in several places around the world, including the Solomon Islands, the Faroe Islands, Peru, and Japan, the most well-known practitioner of this method. By numbers, dolphins are mostly hunted for their meat, though some end up in dolphinariums. Despite the controversial nature of the hunt resulting in international criticism, and the possible health risk that the often polluted meat causes, thousands of dolphins are caught in drive hunts each year.
+
+Dolphins have long played a role in human culture. Dolphins are sometimes used as symbols, for instance in heraldry.
+
+In Greek myths, dolphins were seen invariably as helpers of humankind. Dolphins also seem to have been important to the Minoans, judging by artistic evidence from the ruined palace at Knossos. During the 2009 excavations of a major Mycenaean city at Iklaina, a striking fragment of a wall-paintings came to light, depicting a ship with three human figures and dolphins. Dolphins are common in Greek mythology, and many coins from ancient Greece have been found which feature a man, a boy or a deity riding on the back of a dolphin.[151] The Ancient Greeks welcomed dolphins; spotting dolphins riding in a ship's wake was considered a good omen.[152] In both ancient and later art, Cupid is often shown riding a dolphin. A dolphin rescued the poet Arion from drowning and carried him safe to land, at Cape Matapan, a promontory forming the southernmost point of the Peloponnesus. There was a temple to Poseidon and a statue of Arion riding the dolphin.[153]
+
+The Greeks reimagined the Phoenician god Melqart as Melikertês (Melicertes) and made him the son of Athamas and Ino. He drowned but was transfigured as the marine deity Palaemon, while his mother became Leucothea. (cf Ino.) At Corinth, he was so closely connected with the cult of Poseidon that the Isthmian Games, originally instituted in Poseidon's honor, came to be looked upon as the funeral games of Melicertes. Phalanthus was another legendary character brought safely to shore (in Italy) on the back of a dolphin, according to Pausanias.
+
+Dionysus was once captured by Etruscan pirates who mistook him for a wealthy prince they could ransom. After the ship set sail Dionysus invoked his divine powers, causing vines to overgrow the ship where the mast and sails had been. He turned the oars into serpents, so terrifying the sailors that they jumped overboard, but Dionysus took pity on them and transformed them into dolphins so that they would spend their lives providing help for those in need. Dolphins were also the messengers of Poseidon and sometimes did errands for him as well. Dolphins were sacred to both Aphrodite and Apollo.
+
+When heraldry developed in the Middle Ages, not much was known about the biology of the dolphin and it was often depicted as a sort of fish. Traditionally, the stylised dolphins in heraldry still may take after this notion, sometimes showing the dolphin skin covered with fish scales.
+
+Dolphins are present in the coat of arms of Anguilla and the coat of arms of Romania,[154] and the coat of arms of Barbados has a dolphin supporter.[155][156]
+
+A well-known historical example of a dolphin in heraldry, was the arms for the former province of the Dauphiné in southern France, from which were derived the arms and the title of the Dauphin of France, the heir to the former throne of France (the title literally means "The Dolphin of France").
+
+"Dolfin" was the name of an aristocratic family in the maritime Republic of Venice, whose most prominent member was the 13th Century Doge Giovanni Dolfin.
+
+In Hindu mythology the Ganges river dolphin is associated with Ganga, the deity of the Ganges river. The dolphin is said to be among the creatures which heralded the goddess' descent from the heavens and her mount, the Makara, is sometimes depicted as a dolphin.[157]
+
+The Boto, a species of river dolphin that resides in the Amazon River, are believed to be shapeshifters, or encantados, who are capable of having children with human women.
+
+There are comparatively few surviving myths of dolphins in Polynesian cultures, in spite of their maritime traditions and relevance of other marine animals such as sharks and seabirds; unlike these, they are more often perceived as food than as totemic symbols. Dolphins are most clearly represented in Rapa Nui Rongorongo, and in the traditions of the Caroline Islands they are depicted similarly to the Boto, being sexually active shapeshifters.[158]
+
+The renewed popularity of dolphins in the 1960s resulted in the appearance of many dolphinaria around the world, making dolphins accessible to the public. Criticism and animal welfare laws forced many to close, although hundreds still exist around the world. In the United States, the best known are the SeaWorld marine mammal parks.
+In the Middle East the best known are Dolphin Bay at Atlantis, The Palm[159] and the Dubai Dolphinarium.[160]
+
+Various species of dolphins are kept in captivity. These small cetaceans are more often than not kept in theme parks, such as SeaWorld, commonly known as a dolphinarium. Bottlenose dolphins are the most common species of dolphin kept in dolphinariums as they are relatively easy to train, have a long lifespan in captivity and have a friendly appearance. Hundreds if not thousands of bottlenose dolphins live in captivity across the world, though exact numbers are hard to determine. Other species kept in captivity are spotted dolphins, false killer whales and common dolphins, Commerson's dolphins, as well as rough-toothed dolphins, but all in much lower numbers than the bottlenose dolphin. There are also fewer than ten pilot whales, Amazon river dolphins, Risso's dolphins, spinner dolphins, or tucuxi in captivity.[161] An unusual and very rare hybrid dolphin, known as a wolphin, is kept at the Sea Life Park in Hawaii, which is a cross between a bottlenose dolphin and a false killer whale.[162]
+
+The number of killer whales kept in captivity is very small, especially when compared to the number of bottlenose dolphins, with 60 captive killer whales being held in aquaria as of 2017[update].[163] The killer whale's intelligence, trainability, striking appearance, playfulness in captivity and sheer size have made it a popular exhibit at aquaria and aquatic theme parks. From 1976 to 1997, 55 whales were taken from the wild in Iceland, 19 from Japan, and three from Argentina. These figures exclude animals that died during capture. Live captures fell dramatically in the 1990s, and by 1999, about 40% of the 48 animals on display in the world were captive-born.[38]
+
+Organizations such as the Mote Marine Laboratory rescue and rehabilitate sick, wounded, stranded or orphaned dolphins while others, such as the Whale and Dolphin Conservation and Hong Kong Dolphin Conservation Society, work on dolphin conservation and welfare. India has declared the dolphin as its national aquatic animal in an attempt to protect the endangered Ganges river dolphin. The Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary has been created in the Ganges river for the protection of the animals.[164]
+
+There is debate over the welfare of cetaceans in captivity, and often welfare can vary greatly dependent on the levels of care being provided at a particular facility. In the United States, facilities are regularly inspected by federal agencies to ensure that a high standard of welfare is maintained.[citation needed] Additionally, facilities can apply to become accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), which (for accreditation) requires "the highest standards of animal care and welfare in the world" to be achieved. Facilities such as SeaWorld and the Georgia Aquarium are accredited by the AZA. Organizations such as World Animal Protection and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation campaign against the practice of keeping them in captivity. In captivity, they often develop pathologies, such as the dorsal fin collapse seen in 60–90% of male killer whales. Captives have vastly reduced life expectancies, on average only living into their 20s, although there are examples of killer whales living longer, including several over 30 years old, and two captive orcas, Corky II and Lolita, are in their mid-40s. In the wild, females who survive infancy live 46 years on average, and up to 70–80 years in rare cases. Wild males who survive infancy live 31 years on average, and up to 50–60 years.[165] Captivity usually bears little resemblance to wild habitat, and captive whales' social groups are foreign to those found in the wild. Critics claim captive life is stressful due to these factors and the requirement to perform circus tricks that are not part of wild killer whale behavior. Wild killer whales may travel up to 160 kilometres (100 mi) in a day, and critics say the animals are too big and intelligent to be suitable for captivity.[166] Captives occasionally act aggressively towards themselves, their tankmates, or humans, which critics say is a result of stress.[167]
+
+Although dolphins generally interact well with humans, some attacks have occurred, most of them resulting in small injuries.[168] Orcas, the largest species of dolphin, have been involved in fatal attacks on humans in captivity. The record-holder of documented orca fatal attacks is a male named Tilikum,[169][170][171] who lived at SeaWorld from 1992 until his death in 2017.[172] Tilikum has played a role in the death of three people in three different incidents (1991, 1999 and 2010).[173] Tilikum's behaviour sparked the production of the documentary Blackfish, which focuses on the consequences of keeping orcas in captivity. There are documented incidents in the wild, too, but none of them fatal.[174]
+
+Fatal attacks from other species are less common, but there is a registered occurrence off the coast of Brazil in 1994, when a man died after being attacked by a bottlenose dolphin named Tião.[175][176] Tião had suffered harassment by human visitors, including attempts to stick ice cream sticks down her blowhole.[177] Non-fatal incidents occur more frequently, both in the wild and in captivity.
+
+While dolphin attacks occur far less frequently than attacks by other sea animals, such as sharks, some scientists are worried about the careless programs of human-dolphin interaction. Dr. Andrew J. Read, a biologist at the Duke University Marine Laboratory who studies dolphin attacks, points out that dolphins are large and wild predators, so people should be more careful when they interact with them.[168]
+
+Several scientists who have researched dolphin behaviour have proposed that dolphins' unusually high intelligence in comparison to other animals means that dolphins should be seen as non-human persons who should have their own specific rights and that it is morally unacceptable to keep them captive for entertainment purposes or to kill them either intentionally for consumption or unintentionally as by-catch.[178][179] Four countries – Chile, Costa Rica, Hungary, and India – have declared dolphins to be "non-human persons" and have banned the capture and import of live dolphins for entertainment.[180][181][182]
+
+A number of militaries have employed dolphins for various purposes from finding mines to rescuing lost or trapped humans. The military use of dolphins, however, drew scrutiny during the Vietnam War when rumors circulated that the United States Navy was training dolphins to kill Vietnamese divers.[183] The United States Navy denies that at any point dolphins were trained for combat. Dolphins are still being trained by the United States Navy for other tasks as part of the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program. The Russian military is believed to have closed its marine mammal program in the early 1990s. In 2000 the press reported that dolphins trained to kill by the Soviet Navy had been sold to Iran.[184]
+
+Dolphins are an increasingly popular choice of animal-assisted therapy for psychological problems and developmental disabilities. For example, a 2005 study found dolphins an effective treatment for mild to moderate depression.[185] However, this study was criticized on several grounds. For example, it is not known whether dolphins are more effective than common pets.[186] Reviews of this and other published dolphin-assisted therapy (DAT) studies have found important methodological flaws and have concluded that there is no compelling scientific evidence that DAT is a legitimate therapy or that it affords more than fleeting mood improvement.[187]
+
+In some parts of the world, such as Taiji, Japan and the Faroe Islands, dolphins are traditionally considered as food, and are killed in harpoon or drive hunts.[188]
+Dolphin meat is consumed in a small number of countries worldwide, which include Japan[189] and Peru (where it is referred to as chancho marino, or "sea pork").[190] While Japan may be the best-known and most controversial example, only a very small minority of the population has ever sampled it.
+
+Dolphin meat is dense and such a dark shade of red as to appear black. Fat is located in a layer of blubber between the meat and the skin. When dolphin meat is eaten in Japan, it is often cut into thin strips and eaten raw as sashimi, garnished with onion and either horseradish or grated garlic, much as with sashimi of whale or horse meat (basashi). When cooked, dolphin meat is cut into bite-size cubes and then batter-fried or simmered in a miso sauce with vegetables. Cooked dolphin meat has a flavor very similar to beef liver.[191]
+
+There have been human health concerns associated with the consumption of dolphin meat in Japan after tests showed that dolphin meat contained high levels of mercury.[192] There are no known cases of mercury poisoning as a result of consuming dolphin meat, though the government continues to monitor people in areas where dolphin meat consumption is high. The Japanese government recommends that children and pregnant women avoid eating dolphin meat on a regular basis.[193]
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+Similar concerns exist with the consumption of dolphin meat in the Faroe Islands, where prenatal exposure to methylmercury and PCBs primarily from the consumption of pilot whale meat has resulted in neuropsychological deficits amongst children.[192]
+
+The Faroe Islands population was exposed to methylmercury largely from contaminated pilot whale meat, which contained very high levels of about 2 mg methylmercury/kg. However, the Faroe Islands populations also eat significant numbers of fish. The study of about 900 Faroese children showed that prenatal exposure to methylmercury resulted in neuropsychological deficits at 7 years of age
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+Conservation, research and news:
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+Photos:
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+Dolphin is a common name of aquatic mammals within the infraorder Cetacea. The term dolphin usually refers to the extant families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), and Pontoporiidae (the brackish dolphins), and the extinct Lipotidae (baiji or Chinese river dolphin). There are 40 extant species named as dolphins.
+
+Dolphins range in size from the 1.7-metre-long (5 ft 7 in) long and 50-kilogram (110-pound) Maui's dolphin to the 9.5 m (31 ft 2 in) and 10-metric-ton (11-short-ton) killer whale. Several species exhibit sexual dimorphism, in that the males are larger than females. They have streamlined bodies and two limbs that are modified into flippers. Though not quite as flexible as seals, some dolphins can travel at speeds 29 km/h (18 mph) for short distances[1]. Dolphins use their conical shaped teeth to capture fast moving prey. They have well-developed hearing which is adapted for both air and water and is so well developed that some can survive even if they are blind. Some species are well adapted for diving to great depths. They have a layer of fat, or blubber, under the skin to keep warm in the cold water.
+
+Although dolphins are widespread, most species prefer the warmer waters of the tropic zones, but some, like the right whale dolphin, prefer colder climates. Dolphins feed largely on fish and squid, but a few, like the killer whale, feed on large mammals, like seals. Male dolphins typically mate with multiple females every year, but females only mate every two to three years. Calves are typically born in the spring and summer months and females bear all the responsibility for raising them. Mothers of some species fast and nurse their young for a relatively long period of time. Dolphins produce a variety of vocalizations, usually in the form of clicks and whistles.
+
+Dolphins are sometimes hunted in places such as Japan, in an activity known as dolphin drive hunting. Besides drive hunting, they also face threats from bycatch, habitat loss, and marine pollution. Dolphins have been depicted in various cultures worldwide. Dolphins occasionally feature in literature and film, as in the film series Free Willy. Dolphins are sometimes kept in captivity and trained to perform tricks. The most common dolphin species in captivity is the bottlenose dolphin, while there are around 60 captive killer whales.
+
+The name is originally from Greek δελφίς (delphís), "dolphin",[2] which was related to the Greek δελφύς (delphus), "womb".[2] The animal's name can therefore be interpreted as meaning "a 'fish' with a womb".[3] The name was transmitted via the Latin delphinus[4] (the romanization of the later Greek δελφῖνος – delphinos[2]), which in Medieval Latin became dolfinus and in Old French daulphin, which reintroduced the ph into the word. The term mereswine (that is, "sea pig") has also historically been used.[5]
+
+The term 'dolphin' can be used to refer to, under the parvorder Odontoceti, all the species in the family Delphinidae (oceanic dolphins) and the river dolphin families Iniidae (South American river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (La Plata dolphin), Lipotidae (Yangtze river dolphin) and Platanistidae (Ganges river dolphin and Indus river dolphin).[6][7]
+This term has often been misused in the US, mainly in the fishing industry, where all small cetaceans (dolphins and porpoises) are considered porpoises,[8] while the fish dorado is called dolphin fish.[9] In common usage the term 'whale' is used only for the larger cetacean species,[10] while the smaller ones with a beaked or longer nose are considered 'dolphins'.[11] The name 'dolphin' is used casually as a synonym for bottlenose dolphin, the most common and familiar species of dolphin.[12] There are six species of dolphins commonly thought of as whales, collectively known as blackfish: the killer whale, the melon-headed whale, the pygmy killer whale, the false killer whale, and the two species of pilot whales, all of which are classified under the family Delphinidae and qualify as dolphins.[13] Though the terms 'dolphin' and 'porpoise' are sometimes used interchangeably, porpoises are not considered dolphins and have different physical features such as a shorter beak and spade-shaped teeth; they also differ in their behavior. Porpoises belong to the family Phocoenidae and share a common ancestry with the Delphinidae.[12]
+
+A group of dolphins is called a "school" or a "pod". Male dolphins are called "bulls", females "cows" and young dolphins are called "calves".[14]
+
+In 1933, three hybrid dolphins beached off the Irish coast; they were hybrids between Risso's and bottlenose dolphins.[16] This mating was later repeated in captivity, producing a hybrid calf. In captivity, a bottlenose and a rough-toothed dolphin produced hybrid offspring.[17] A common-bottlenose hybrid lives at SeaWorld California.[18] Other dolphin hybrids live in captivity around the world or have been reported in the wild, such as a bottlenose-Atlantic spotted hybrid.[19] The best known hybrid is the wolphin, a false killer whale-bottlenose dolphin hybrid. The wolphin is a fertile hybrid. Two wolphins currently live at the Sea Life Park in Hawaii; the first was born in 1985 from a male false killer whale and a female bottlenose. Wolphins have also been observed in the wild.[20]
+
+Dolphins are descendants of land-dwelling mammals of the artiodactyl order (even-toed ungulates). They are related to the Indohyus, an extinct chevrotain-like ungulate, from which they split approximately 48 million years ago.[21][22]
+
+The primitive cetaceans, or archaeocetes, first took to the sea approximately 49 million years ago and became fully aquatic by 5–10 million years later.[23]
+
+Archaeoceti is a parvorder comprising ancient whales. These ancient whales are the predecessors of modern whales, stretching back to their first ancestor that spent their lives near (rarely in) the water. Likewise, the archaeocetes can be anywhere from near fully terrestrial, to semi-aquatic to fully aquatic, but what defines an archaeocete is the presence of visible legs or asymmetrical teeth.[24][25][26][27] Their features became adapted for living in the marine environment. Major anatomical changes include the hearing set-up that channeled vibrations from the jaw to the earbone which occurred with Ambulocetus 49 million years ago, a streamlining of the body and the growth of flukes on the tail which occurred around 43 million years ago with Protocetus, the migration of the nasal openings toward the top of the cranium and the modification of the forelimbs into flippers which occurred with Basilosaurus 35 million years ago, and the shrinking and eventual disappearance of the hind limbs which took place with the first odontocetes and mysticetes 34 million years ago.[28][29][30] The modern dolphin skeleton has two small, rod-shaped pelvic bones thought to be vestigial hind limbs. In October 2006, an unusual bottlenose dolphin was captured in Japan; it had small fins on each side of its genital slit, which scientists believe to be an unusually pronounced development of these vestigial hind limbs.[31]
+
+Today, the closest living relatives of cetaceans are the hippopotamuses; these share a semi-aquatic ancestor that branched off from other artiodactyls some 60 million years ago.[32] Around 40 million years ago, a common ancestor between the two branched off into cetacea and anthracotheres; anthracotheres became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene two-and-a-half million years ago, eventually leaving only one surviving lineage: the hippo.[33][34]
+
+Dolphins have torpedo-shaped bodies with generally non-flexible necks, limbs modified into flippers, a tail fin, and bulbous heads. Dolphin skulls have small eye orbits, long snouts, and eyes placed on the sides of its head; they lack external ear flaps. Dolphins range in size from the 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in) long and 50 kg (110 lb) Maui's dolphin to the 9.5 m (31 ft 2 in) and 10 t (11 short tons) killer whale. Overall, however, they tend to be dwarfed by other Cetartiodactyls. Several species have female-biased sexual dimorphism, with the females being larger than the males.[35][36]
+
+Dolphins have conical teeth, as opposed to porpoises' spade-shaped teeth. These conical teeth are used to catch swift prey such as fish, squid or large mammals, such as seal.[36]
+
+Breathing involves expelling stale air from their blowhole, in an upward blast, which may be visible in cold air, followed by inhaling fresh air into the lungs. Dolphins have rather small, unidentifiable spouts.[36][37]
+
+All dolphins have a thick layer of blubber, thickness varying on climate. This blubber can help with buoyancy, protection to some extent as predators would have a hard time getting through a thick layer of fat, and energy for leaner times; the primary usage for blubber is insulation from the harsh climate. Calves, generally, are born with a thin layer of blubber, which develops at different paces depending on the habitat.[36][38]
+
+Dolphins have a two-chambered stomach that is similar in structure to terrestrial carnivores. They have fundic and pyloric chambers.[39]
+
+Dolphins' reproductive organs are located inside the body, with genital slits on the ventral (belly) side. Males have two slits, one concealing the penis and one further behind for the anus.[40] Females have one genital slit, housing the vagina and the anus, with a mammary slit on either side.[41][42][43]
+
+Dolphins have two pectoral flippers, containing four digits, a boneless dorsal fin for stability, and a tail fin for propulsion. Although dolphins do not possess external hind limbs, some possess discrete rudimentary appendages, which may contain feet and digits. Dolphins are fast swimmers in comparison to seals which typically cruise at 9–28 km/h (5.6–17.4 mph); the killer whale (orca), in comparison, can travel at speeds up to 55.5 km/h (34.5 mph). The fusing of the neck vertebrae, while increasing stability when swimming at high speeds, decreases flexibility, which means they are unable to turn their heads.[44][45] River dolphins, however, have non-fused neck vertebrae and are able to turn their head up to 90°.[46] Dolphins swim by moving their tail fin and rear body vertically, while their flippers are mainly used for steering. Some species log out of the water, which may allow them to travel faster. Their skeletal anatomy allows them to be fast swimmers. All species have a dorsal fin to prevent themselves from involuntarily spinning in the water.[36][38]
+
+Some dolphins are adapted for diving to great depths. In addition to their streamlined bodies, some can slow their heart rate to conserve oxygen. Some can also re-route blood from tissue tolerant of water pressure to the heart, brain and other organs. Their hemoglobin and myoglobin store oxygen in body tissues and they have twice the concentration of myoglobin than hemoglobin.[47]
+
+The dolphin ear has specific adaptations to the marine environment. In humans, the middle ear works as an impedance equalizer between the outside air's low impedance and the cochlear fluid's high impedance. In dolphins, and other marine mammals, there is no great difference between the outer and inner environments. Instead of sound passing through the outer ear to the middle ear, dolphins receive sound through the throat, from which it passes through a low-impedance fat-filled cavity to the inner ear. The dolphin ear is acoustically isolated from the skull by air-filled sinus pockets, which allow for greater directional hearing underwater.[48] Dolphins send out high frequency clicks from an organ known as a melon. This melon consists of fat, and the skull of any such creature containing a melon will have a large depression. This allows dolphins to produce biosonar for orientation.[36][49][50][51][52] Though most dolphins do not have hair, they do have hair follicles that may perform some sensory function.[53] Beyond locating an object, echolocation also provides the animal with an idea on an object's shape and size, though how exactly this works is not yet understood.[54] The small hairs on the rostrum of the boto are believed to function as a tactile sense, possibly to compensate for the boto's poor eyesight.[55]
+
+The dolphin eye is relatively small for its size, yet they do retain a good degree of eyesight. As well as this, the eyes of a dolphin are placed on the sides of its head, so their vision consists of two fields, rather than a binocular view like humans have. When dolphins surface, their lens and cornea correct the nearsightedness that results from the refraction of light; they contain both rod and cone cells, meaning they can see in both dim and bright light, but they have far more rod cells than they do cone cells. Dolphins do, however, lack short wavelength sensitive visual pigments in their cone cells indicating a more limited capacity for color vision than most mammals.[56] Most dolphins have slightly flattened eyeballs, enlarged pupils (which shrink as they surface to prevent damage), slightly flattened corneas and a tapetum lucidum; these adaptations allow for large amounts of light to pass through the eye and, therefore, a very clear image of the surrounding area. They also have glands on the eyelids and outer corneal layer that act as protection for the cornea.[49]
+
+The olfactory lobes are absent in dolphins, suggesting that they have no sense of smell.[49]
+
+Dolphins are not thought to have a good sense of taste, as their taste buds are atrophied or missing altogether. However, some have preferences between different kinds of fish, indicating some sort of attachment to taste.[49]
+
+Dolphins are often regarded as one of Earth's most intelligent animals. Comparing species' relative intelligence is complicated by differences in sensory apparatus, response modes, and nature of cognition. Furthermore, the difficulty and expense of experimental work with large aquatic animals has so far prevented some tests and limited sample size and rigor in others. Compared to many other species, however, dolphin behavior has been studied extensively, both in captivity and in the wild. See cetacean intelligence for more details.
+
+Dolphins are highly social animals, often living in pods of up to a dozen individuals, though pod sizes and structures vary greatly between species and locations. In places with a high abundance of food, pods can merge temporarily, forming a superpod; such groupings may exceed 1,000 dolphins. Membership in pods is not rigid; interchange is common. Dolphins can, however, establish strong social bonds; they will stay with injured or ill individuals, even helping them to breathe by bringing them to the surface if needed.[57] This altruism does not appear to be limited to their own species. The dolphin Moko in New Zealand has been observed guiding a female pygmy sperm whale together with her calf out of shallow water where they had stranded several times.[58] They have also been seen protecting swimmers from sharks by swimming circles around the swimmers[59][60] or charging the sharks to make them go away.
+
+Dolphins communicate using a variety of clicks, whistle-like sounds and other vocalizations. Dolphins also use nonverbal communication by means of touch and posturing.[61]
+
+Dolphins also display culture, something long believed to be unique to humans (and possibly other primate species). In May 2005, a discovery in Australia found Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) teaching their young to use tools. They cover their snouts with sponges to protect them while foraging. This knowledge is mostly transferred by mothers to daughters, unlike simian primates, where knowledge is generally passed on to both sexes. Using sponges as mouth protection is a learned behavior.[62] Another learned behavior was discovered among river dolphins in Brazil, where some male dolphins use weeds and sticks as part of a sexual display.[63]
+
+Forms of care-giving between fellows and even for members of different species[64] (see Moko (dolphin)) are recorded in various species –  such as trying to save weakened fellows[65] or female pilot whales holding up dead calves for long periods.
+
+Dolphins engage in acts of aggression towards each other. The older a male dolphin is, the more likely his body is to be covered with bite scars. Male dolphins can get into disputes over companions and females. Acts of aggression can become so intense that targeted dolphins sometimes go into exile after losing a fight.
+
+Male bottlenose dolphins have been known to engage in infanticide. Dolphins have also been known to kill porpoises for reasons which are not fully understood, as porpoises generally do not share the same diet as dolphins and are therefore not competitors for food supplies.[66] The Cornwall Wildlife Trust records about one such death a year. Possible explanations include misdirected infanticide, misdirected sexual aggression or play behaviour.[67]
+
+Dolphin copulation happens belly to belly; though many species engage in lengthy foreplay, the actual act is usually brief, but may be repeated several times within a short timespan.[68] The gestation period varies with species; for the small Tucuxi dolphin, this period is around 11 to 12 months,[69] while for the orca, the gestation period is around 17 months.[70] Typically dolphins give birth to a single calf, which is, unlike most other mammals, born tail first in most cases.[71] They usually become sexually active at a young age, even before reaching sexual maturity.[68] The age of sexual maturity varies by species and gender.[72]
+
+Dolphins are known to display non-reproductive sexual behavior, engaging in masturbation, stimulation of the genital area of other individuals using the rostrum or flippers, and homosexual contact.[68][73][74]
+
+Various species of dolphin have been known to engage in sexual behavior up to and including copulation with dolphins of other species. Sexual encounters may be violent, with male dolphins sometimes showing aggressive behavior towards both females and other males.[75] Male dolphins may also work together and attempt to herd females in estrus, keeping the females by their side by means of both physical aggression and intimidation, to increase their chances of reproductive success.[76] Occasionally, dolphins behave sexually towards other animals, including humans.[77][78]
+
+There are various feeding methods among and within species, some apparently exclusive to a single population. Fish and squid are the main food, but the false killer whale and the orca also feed on other marine mammals. Orcas on occasion also hunt whale species larger than themselves.[79] Different breeds of dolphins vary widely in the number of teeth they possess. The orca or killer whale usually carries 40-56 teeth while the popular bottlenose dolphin has anywhere from 72-116 conical teeth and its smaller cousin the common dolphin has 188-268 teeth so that the number of teeth each breed carries varies widely between individuals. Hybrids between common and bottlenose bred in captivity had an intermediate amount of teeth.
+
+One common feeding method is herding, where a pod squeezes a school of fish into a small volume, known as a bait ball. Individual members then take turns plowing through the ball, feeding on the stunned fish.[79] Coralling is a method where dolphins chase fish into shallow water to catch them more easily.[79] Orcas and bottlenose dolphins have also been known to drive their prey onto a beach to feed on it, a behaviour known as beach or strand feeding.[80][81] Some species also whack fish with their flukes, stunning them and sometimes knocking them out of the water.[79]
+
+Reports of cooperative human-dolphin fishing date back to the ancient Roman author and natural philosopher Pliny the Elder.[82] A modern human-dolphin partnership currently operates in Laguna, Santa Catarina, Brazil. Here, dolphins drive fish towards fishermen waiting along the shore and signal the men to cast their nets. The dolphins' reward is the fish that escape the nets.[83][84]
+
+In Shark Bay, Australia, dolphins catch fish by trapping them in huge conch shells.[85] In "shelling", a dolphin brings the shell to the surface and shakes it, so that fish sheltering within fall into the dolphin's mouth. From 2007 to 2018, in 5,278 encounters with dolphins, researchers observed 19 dolphins shelling 42 times. The behavior spreads mainly within generations, rather than being passed from mother to offspring.
+
+Dolphins are capable of making a broad range of sounds using nasal airsacs located just below the blowhole. Roughly three categories of sounds can be identified: frequency modulated whistles, burst-pulsed sounds and clicks. Dolphins communicate with whistle-like sounds produced by vibrating connective tissue, similar to the way human vocal cords function,[86] and through burst-pulsed sounds, though the nature and extent of that ability is not known. The clicks are directional and are for echolocation, often occurring in a short series called a click train. The click rate increases when approaching an object of interest. Dolphin echolocation clicks are amongst the loudest sounds made by marine animals.[87]
+
+Bottlenose dolphins have been found to have signature whistles, a whistle that is unique to a specific individual. These whistles are used in order for dolphins to communicate with one another by identifying an individual. It can be seen as the dolphin equivalent of a name for humans.[88] These signature whistles are developed during a dolphin's first year; it continues to maintain the same sound throughout its lifetime.[89] In order to obtain each individual whistle sound, dolphins undergo vocal production learning. This consists of an experience with other dolphins that modifies the signal structure of an existing whistle sound. An auditory experience influences the whistle development of each dolphin. Dolphins are able to communicate to one another by addressing another dolphin through mimicking their whistle. The signature whistle of a male bottlenose dolphin tends to be similar to that of his mother, while the signature whistle of a female bottlenose dolphin tends to be more distinguishing.[90] Bottlenose dolphins have a strong memory when it comes to these signature whistles, as they are able to relate to a signature whistle of an individual they have not encountered for over twenty years.[91] Research done on signature whistle usage by other dolphin species is relatively limited. The research on other species done so far has yielded varied outcomes and inconclusive results.[92][93][94][95]
+
+Because dolphins are generally associated in groups, communication is necessary. Signal masking is when other similar sounds (conspecific sounds) interfere with the original acoustic sound.[96] In larger groups, individual whistle sounds are less prominent. Dolphins tend to travel in pods, upon which there are groups of dolphins that range from a few to many. Although they are traveling in these pods, the dolphins do not necessarily swim right next to each other. Rather, they swim within the same general vicinity. In order to prevent losing one of their pod members, there are higher whistle rates. Because their group members were spread out, this was done in order to continue traveling together.
+
+Dolphins frequently leap above the water surface, this being done for various reasons. When travelling, jumping can save the dolphin energy as there is less friction while in the air.[97] This type of travel is known as porpoising.[97] Other reasons include orientation, social displays, fighting, non-verbal communication, entertainment and attempting to dislodge parasites.[98][99]
+
+Dolphins show various types of playful behavior, often including objects, self-made bubble rings, other dolphins or other animals.[7][100][101] When playing with objects or small animals, common behavior includes carrying the object or animal along using various parts of the body, passing it along to other members of the group or taking it from another member, or throwing it out of the water.[100] Dolphins have also been observed harassing animals in other ways, for example by dragging birds underwater without showing any intent to eat them.[100] Playful behaviour that involves another animal species with active participation of the other animal can also be observed however. Playful human interaction with dolphins being the most obvious example, however playful interactions have been observed in the wild with a number of other species as well, such as humpback whales and dogs.[102][103]
+
+Juvenile dolphins off the coast of Western Australia have been observed chasing, capturing, and chewing on blowfish.[104] While some reports state that the dolphins are becoming intoxicated on the tetrodotoxin in the fishes' skin,[105] other reports have characterized this behavior as the normal curiosity and exploration of their environment in which dolphins engage.[106]
+
+Dolphins are known to teach, learn, cooperate, scheme, and grieve.[107] The neocortex of many species is home to elongated spindle neurons that, prior to 2007, were known only in hominids.[108] In humans, these cells are involved in social conduct, emotions, judgment, and theory of mind.[109] Cetacean spindle neurons are found in areas of the brain that are homologous to where they are found in humans, suggesting that they perform a similar function.[110]
+
+Brain size was previously considered a major indicator of the intelligence of an animal. Since most of the brain is used for maintaining bodily functions, greater ratios of brain to body mass may increase the amount of brain mass available for more complex cognitive tasks. Allometric analysis indicates that mammalian brain size scales at approximately the ⅔ or ¾ exponent of the body mass.[111] Comparison of a particular animal's brain size with the expected brain size based on such allometric analysis provides an encephalization quotient that can be used as another indication of animal intelligence. Killer whales have the second largest brain mass of any animal on earth, next to the sperm whale.[112] The brain to body mass ratio in some is second only to humans.[113]
+
+Self-awareness is seen, by some, to be a sign of highly developed, abstract thinking. Self-awareness, though not well-defined scientifically, is believed to be the precursor to more advanced processes like meta-cognitive reasoning (thinking about thinking) that are typical of humans. Research in this field has suggested that cetaceans, among others, possess self-awareness.[114]
+The most widely used test for self-awareness in animals is the mirror test in which a mirror is introduced to an animal, and the animal is then marked with a temporary dye. If the animal then goes to the mirror in order to view the mark, it has exhibited strong evidence of self-awareness.[115]
+
+Some disagree with these findings, arguing that the results of these tests are open to human interpretation and susceptible to the Clever Hans effect. This test is much less definitive than when used for primates, because primates can touch the mark or the mirror, while cetaceans cannot, making their alleged self-recognition behavior less certain. Skeptics argue that behaviors that are said to identify self-awareness resemble existing social behaviors, and so researchers could be misinterpreting self-awareness for social responses to another individual. The researchers counter-argue that the behaviors shown are evidence of self-awareness, as they are very different from normal responses to another individual. Whereas apes can merely touch the mark on themselves with their fingers, cetaceans show less definitive behavior of self-awareness; they can only twist and turn themselves to observe the mark.[115]
+
+In 1995, Marten and Psarakos used television to test dolphin self-awareness.[116] They showed dolphins real-time footage of themselves, recorded footage, and another dolphin. They concluded that their evidence suggested self-awareness rather than social behavior. While this particular study has not been repeated since then, dolphins have since passed the mirror test.[115]
+
+Generally, dolphins sleep with only one brain hemisphere in slow-wave sleep at a time, thus maintaining enough consciousness to breathe and to watch for possible predators and other threats. Sleep stages earlier in sleep can occur simultaneously in both hemispheres.[117][118][119]
+In captivity, dolphins seemingly enter a fully asleep state where both eyes are closed and there is no response to mild external stimuli. In this case, respiration is automatic; a tail kick reflex keeps the blowhole above the water if necessary. Anesthetized dolphins initially show a tail kick reflex.[120]  Though a similar state has been observed with wild sperm whales, it is not known if dolphins in the wild reach this state.[121] The Indus river dolphin has a sleep method that is different from that of other dolphin species. Living in water with strong currents and potentially dangerous floating debris, it must swim continuously to avoid injury. As a result, this species sleeps in very short bursts which last between 4 and 60 seconds.[122]
+
+Dolphins have few marine enemies. Some species or specific populations have none, making them apex predators. For most of the smaller species of dolphins, only a few of the larger sharks, such as the bull shark, dusky shark, tiger shark and great white shark, are a potential risk, especially for calves.[123] Some of the larger dolphin species, especially orcas (killer whales), may also prey on smaller dolphins, but this seems rare.[124] Dolphins also suffer from a wide variety of diseases and parasites.[125][126]  The Cetacean morbillivirus in particular has been known to cause regional epizootics often leaving hundreds of animals of various species dead.[127][128] Symptoms of infection are often a severe combination of pneumonia, encephalitis and damage to the immune system, which greatly impair the cetacean's ability to swim and stay afloat unassisted.[129][130] A study at the U.S. National Marine Mammal Foundation revealed that dolphins, like humans, develop a natural form of type 2 diabetes which may lead to a better understanding of the disease and new treatments for both humans and dolphins.[131]
+
+Dolphins can tolerate and recover from extreme injuries such as shark bites although the exact methods used to achieve this are not known. The healing process is rapid and even very deep wounds do not cause dolphins to hemorrhage to death. Furthermore, even gaping wounds restore in such a way that the animal's body shape is restored, and infection of such large wounds seems rare.[132]
+
+A study published in the journal Marine Mammal Science suggests that at least some dolphins survive shark attacks using everything from sophisticated combat moves to teaming up against the shark.[133][134][135]
+
+Some dolphin species are at risk of extinction, especially some river dolphin species such as the Amazon river dolphin, and the Ganges and Yangtze river dolphin, which are critically or seriously endangered. A 2006 survey found no individuals of the Yangtze river dolphin, which now appears to be functionally extinct.[136]
+
+Pesticides, heavy metals, plastics, and other industrial and agricultural pollutants that do not disintegrate rapidly in the environment concentrate in predators such as dolphins.[137] Injuries or deaths due to collisions with boats, especially their propellers, are also common.
+
+Various fishing methods, most notably purse seine fishing for tuna and the use of drift and gill nets, unintentionally kill many dolphins.[138] Accidental by-catch in gill nets and incidental captures in antipredator nets that protect marine fish farms are common and pose a risk for mainly local dolphin populations.[139][140] In some parts of the world, such as Taiji in Japan and the Faroe Islands, dolphins are traditionally considered food and are killed in harpoon or drive hunts.[141] Dolphin meat is high in mercury and may thus pose a health danger to humans when consumed.[142]
+
+Queensland's shark culling program, which has killed roughly 50,000 sharks since 1962, has also killed thousands of dolphins as bycatch.[143][144] "Shark control" programs in both Queensland and New South Wales use shark nets and drum lines, which entangle and kill dolphins.[145] Queensland's "shark control" program has killed more than 1,000 dolphins in recent years,[144] and at least 32 dolphins have been killed in Queensland since 2014.[146] A shark culling program in KwaZulu-Natal has killed at least 2,310 dolphins.[147]
+
+Dolphin safe labels attempt to reassure consumers that fish and other marine products have been caught in a dolphin-friendly way. The earliest campaigns with "dolphin safe" labels were initiated in the 1980s as a result of cooperation between marine activists and the major tuna companies, and involved decreasing incidental dolphin kills by up to 50% by changing the type of nets used to catch tuna. The dolphins are netted only while fishermen are in pursuit of smaller tuna. Albacore are not netted this way, making albacore the only truly dolphin-safe tuna.[148]
+Loud underwater noises, such as those resulting from naval sonar use, live firing exercises, and certain offshore construction projects such as wind farms, may be harmful to dolphins, increasing stress, damaging hearing, and causing decompression sickness by forcing them to surface too quickly to escape the noise.[149][150]
+
+Dolphins and other smaller cetaceans are also hunted in an activity known as dolphin drive hunting. This is accomplished by driving a pod together with boats and usually into a bay or onto a beach. Their escape is prevented by closing off the route to the ocean with other boats or nets. Dolphins are hunted this way in several places around the world, including the Solomon Islands, the Faroe Islands, Peru, and Japan, the most well-known practitioner of this method. By numbers, dolphins are mostly hunted for their meat, though some end up in dolphinariums. Despite the controversial nature of the hunt resulting in international criticism, and the possible health risk that the often polluted meat causes, thousands of dolphins are caught in drive hunts each year.
+
+Dolphins have long played a role in human culture. Dolphins are sometimes used as symbols, for instance in heraldry.
+
+In Greek myths, dolphins were seen invariably as helpers of humankind. Dolphins also seem to have been important to the Minoans, judging by artistic evidence from the ruined palace at Knossos. During the 2009 excavations of a major Mycenaean city at Iklaina, a striking fragment of a wall-paintings came to light, depicting a ship with three human figures and dolphins. Dolphins are common in Greek mythology, and many coins from ancient Greece have been found which feature a man, a boy or a deity riding on the back of a dolphin.[151] The Ancient Greeks welcomed dolphins; spotting dolphins riding in a ship's wake was considered a good omen.[152] In both ancient and later art, Cupid is often shown riding a dolphin. A dolphin rescued the poet Arion from drowning and carried him safe to land, at Cape Matapan, a promontory forming the southernmost point of the Peloponnesus. There was a temple to Poseidon and a statue of Arion riding the dolphin.[153]
+
+The Greeks reimagined the Phoenician god Melqart as Melikertês (Melicertes) and made him the son of Athamas and Ino. He drowned but was transfigured as the marine deity Palaemon, while his mother became Leucothea. (cf Ino.) At Corinth, he was so closely connected with the cult of Poseidon that the Isthmian Games, originally instituted in Poseidon's honor, came to be looked upon as the funeral games of Melicertes. Phalanthus was another legendary character brought safely to shore (in Italy) on the back of a dolphin, according to Pausanias.
+
+Dionysus was once captured by Etruscan pirates who mistook him for a wealthy prince they could ransom. After the ship set sail Dionysus invoked his divine powers, causing vines to overgrow the ship where the mast and sails had been. He turned the oars into serpents, so terrifying the sailors that they jumped overboard, but Dionysus took pity on them and transformed them into dolphins so that they would spend their lives providing help for those in need. Dolphins were also the messengers of Poseidon and sometimes did errands for him as well. Dolphins were sacred to both Aphrodite and Apollo.
+
+When heraldry developed in the Middle Ages, not much was known about the biology of the dolphin and it was often depicted as a sort of fish. Traditionally, the stylised dolphins in heraldry still may take after this notion, sometimes showing the dolphin skin covered with fish scales.
+
+Dolphins are present in the coat of arms of Anguilla and the coat of arms of Romania,[154] and the coat of arms of Barbados has a dolphin supporter.[155][156]
+
+A well-known historical example of a dolphin in heraldry, was the arms for the former province of the Dauphiné in southern France, from which were derived the arms and the title of the Dauphin of France, the heir to the former throne of France (the title literally means "The Dolphin of France").
+
+"Dolfin" was the name of an aristocratic family in the maritime Republic of Venice, whose most prominent member was the 13th Century Doge Giovanni Dolfin.
+
+In Hindu mythology the Ganges river dolphin is associated with Ganga, the deity of the Ganges river. The dolphin is said to be among the creatures which heralded the goddess' descent from the heavens and her mount, the Makara, is sometimes depicted as a dolphin.[157]
+
+The Boto, a species of river dolphin that resides in the Amazon River, are believed to be shapeshifters, or encantados, who are capable of having children with human women.
+
+There are comparatively few surviving myths of dolphins in Polynesian cultures, in spite of their maritime traditions and relevance of other marine animals such as sharks and seabirds; unlike these, they are more often perceived as food than as totemic symbols. Dolphins are most clearly represented in Rapa Nui Rongorongo, and in the traditions of the Caroline Islands they are depicted similarly to the Boto, being sexually active shapeshifters.[158]
+
+The renewed popularity of dolphins in the 1960s resulted in the appearance of many dolphinaria around the world, making dolphins accessible to the public. Criticism and animal welfare laws forced many to close, although hundreds still exist around the world. In the United States, the best known are the SeaWorld marine mammal parks.
+In the Middle East the best known are Dolphin Bay at Atlantis, The Palm[159] and the Dubai Dolphinarium.[160]
+
+Various species of dolphins are kept in captivity. These small cetaceans are more often than not kept in theme parks, such as SeaWorld, commonly known as a dolphinarium. Bottlenose dolphins are the most common species of dolphin kept in dolphinariums as they are relatively easy to train, have a long lifespan in captivity and have a friendly appearance. Hundreds if not thousands of bottlenose dolphins live in captivity across the world, though exact numbers are hard to determine. Other species kept in captivity are spotted dolphins, false killer whales and common dolphins, Commerson's dolphins, as well as rough-toothed dolphins, but all in much lower numbers than the bottlenose dolphin. There are also fewer than ten pilot whales, Amazon river dolphins, Risso's dolphins, spinner dolphins, or tucuxi in captivity.[161] An unusual and very rare hybrid dolphin, known as a wolphin, is kept at the Sea Life Park in Hawaii, which is a cross between a bottlenose dolphin and a false killer whale.[162]
+
+The number of killer whales kept in captivity is very small, especially when compared to the number of bottlenose dolphins, with 60 captive killer whales being held in aquaria as of 2017[update].[163] The killer whale's intelligence, trainability, striking appearance, playfulness in captivity and sheer size have made it a popular exhibit at aquaria and aquatic theme parks. From 1976 to 1997, 55 whales were taken from the wild in Iceland, 19 from Japan, and three from Argentina. These figures exclude animals that died during capture. Live captures fell dramatically in the 1990s, and by 1999, about 40% of the 48 animals on display in the world were captive-born.[38]
+
+Organizations such as the Mote Marine Laboratory rescue and rehabilitate sick, wounded, stranded or orphaned dolphins while others, such as the Whale and Dolphin Conservation and Hong Kong Dolphin Conservation Society, work on dolphin conservation and welfare. India has declared the dolphin as its national aquatic animal in an attempt to protect the endangered Ganges river dolphin. The Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary has been created in the Ganges river for the protection of the animals.[164]
+
+There is debate over the welfare of cetaceans in captivity, and often welfare can vary greatly dependent on the levels of care being provided at a particular facility. In the United States, facilities are regularly inspected by federal agencies to ensure that a high standard of welfare is maintained.[citation needed] Additionally, facilities can apply to become accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), which (for accreditation) requires "the highest standards of animal care and welfare in the world" to be achieved. Facilities such as SeaWorld and the Georgia Aquarium are accredited by the AZA. Organizations such as World Animal Protection and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation campaign against the practice of keeping them in captivity. In captivity, they often develop pathologies, such as the dorsal fin collapse seen in 60–90% of male killer whales. Captives have vastly reduced life expectancies, on average only living into their 20s, although there are examples of killer whales living longer, including several over 30 years old, and two captive orcas, Corky II and Lolita, are in their mid-40s. In the wild, females who survive infancy live 46 years on average, and up to 70–80 years in rare cases. Wild males who survive infancy live 31 years on average, and up to 50–60 years.[165] Captivity usually bears little resemblance to wild habitat, and captive whales' social groups are foreign to those found in the wild. Critics claim captive life is stressful due to these factors and the requirement to perform circus tricks that are not part of wild killer whale behavior. Wild killer whales may travel up to 160 kilometres (100 mi) in a day, and critics say the animals are too big and intelligent to be suitable for captivity.[166] Captives occasionally act aggressively towards themselves, their tankmates, or humans, which critics say is a result of stress.[167]
+
+Although dolphins generally interact well with humans, some attacks have occurred, most of them resulting in small injuries.[168] Orcas, the largest species of dolphin, have been involved in fatal attacks on humans in captivity. The record-holder of documented orca fatal attacks is a male named Tilikum,[169][170][171] who lived at SeaWorld from 1992 until his death in 2017.[172] Tilikum has played a role in the death of three people in three different incidents (1991, 1999 and 2010).[173] Tilikum's behaviour sparked the production of the documentary Blackfish, which focuses on the consequences of keeping orcas in captivity. There are documented incidents in the wild, too, but none of them fatal.[174]
+
+Fatal attacks from other species are less common, but there is a registered occurrence off the coast of Brazil in 1994, when a man died after being attacked by a bottlenose dolphin named Tião.[175][176] Tião had suffered harassment by human visitors, including attempts to stick ice cream sticks down her blowhole.[177] Non-fatal incidents occur more frequently, both in the wild and in captivity.
+
+While dolphin attacks occur far less frequently than attacks by other sea animals, such as sharks, some scientists are worried about the careless programs of human-dolphin interaction. Dr. Andrew J. Read, a biologist at the Duke University Marine Laboratory who studies dolphin attacks, points out that dolphins are large and wild predators, so people should be more careful when they interact with them.[168]
+
+Several scientists who have researched dolphin behaviour have proposed that dolphins' unusually high intelligence in comparison to other animals means that dolphins should be seen as non-human persons who should have their own specific rights and that it is morally unacceptable to keep them captive for entertainment purposes or to kill them either intentionally for consumption or unintentionally as by-catch.[178][179] Four countries – Chile, Costa Rica, Hungary, and India – have declared dolphins to be "non-human persons" and have banned the capture and import of live dolphins for entertainment.[180][181][182]
+
+A number of militaries have employed dolphins for various purposes from finding mines to rescuing lost or trapped humans. The military use of dolphins, however, drew scrutiny during the Vietnam War when rumors circulated that the United States Navy was training dolphins to kill Vietnamese divers.[183] The United States Navy denies that at any point dolphins were trained for combat. Dolphins are still being trained by the United States Navy for other tasks as part of the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program. The Russian military is believed to have closed its marine mammal program in the early 1990s. In 2000 the press reported that dolphins trained to kill by the Soviet Navy had been sold to Iran.[184]
+
+Dolphins are an increasingly popular choice of animal-assisted therapy for psychological problems and developmental disabilities. For example, a 2005 study found dolphins an effective treatment for mild to moderate depression.[185] However, this study was criticized on several grounds. For example, it is not known whether dolphins are more effective than common pets.[186] Reviews of this and other published dolphin-assisted therapy (DAT) studies have found important methodological flaws and have concluded that there is no compelling scientific evidence that DAT is a legitimate therapy or that it affords more than fleeting mood improvement.[187]
+
+In some parts of the world, such as Taiji, Japan and the Faroe Islands, dolphins are traditionally considered as food, and are killed in harpoon or drive hunts.[188]
+Dolphin meat is consumed in a small number of countries worldwide, which include Japan[189] and Peru (where it is referred to as chancho marino, or "sea pork").[190] While Japan may be the best-known and most controversial example, only a very small minority of the population has ever sampled it.
+
+Dolphin meat is dense and such a dark shade of red as to appear black. Fat is located in a layer of blubber between the meat and the skin. When dolphin meat is eaten in Japan, it is often cut into thin strips and eaten raw as sashimi, garnished with onion and either horseradish or grated garlic, much as with sashimi of whale or horse meat (basashi). When cooked, dolphin meat is cut into bite-size cubes and then batter-fried or simmered in a miso sauce with vegetables. Cooked dolphin meat has a flavor very similar to beef liver.[191]
+
+There have been human health concerns associated with the consumption of dolphin meat in Japan after tests showed that dolphin meat contained high levels of mercury.[192] There are no known cases of mercury poisoning as a result of consuming dolphin meat, though the government continues to monitor people in areas where dolphin meat consumption is high. The Japanese government recommends that children and pregnant women avoid eating dolphin meat on a regular basis.[193]
+
+Similar concerns exist with the consumption of dolphin meat in the Faroe Islands, where prenatal exposure to methylmercury and PCBs primarily from the consumption of pilot whale meat has resulted in neuropsychological deficits amongst children.[192]
+
+The Faroe Islands population was exposed to methylmercury largely from contaminated pilot whale meat, which contained very high levels of about 2 mg methylmercury/kg. However, the Faroe Islands populations also eat significant numbers of fish. The study of about 900 Faroese children showed that prenatal exposure to methylmercury resulted in neuropsychological deficits at 7 years of age
+
+Conservation, research and news:
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+Photos:
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+David Robert Jones (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016), better known by his stage name David Bowie (/ˈboʊi/ BOH-ee),[2] was an English singer-songwriter and actor. He was a leading figure in the music industry and is considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. He was acclaimed by critics and musicians, particularly for his innovative work during the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, with his music and stagecraft having a significant impact on popular music. During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at over 100 million records worldwide, made him one of the world's best-selling music artists. In the UK, he was awarded ten platinum album certifications, eleven gold and eight silver, and released eleven number-one albums. In the US, he received five platinum and nine gold certifications. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. Rolling Stone placed him among its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and following his death in 2016, Bowie was dubbed "The Greatest Rock Star Ever" by the magazine.[3]
+
+Born in Brixton, South London, Bowie developed an interest in music as a child, eventually studying art, music and design before embarking on a professional career as a musician in 1963. "Space Oddity" became his first top-five entry on the UK Singles Chart after its release in July 1969. After a period of experimentation, he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with his flamboyant and androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust. The character was spearheaded by the success of his single "Starman" and album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which won him widespread popularity. In 1975, Bowie's style shifted radically towards a sound he characterised as "plastic soul", initially alienating many of his UK devotees but garnering him his first major US crossover success with the number-one single "Fame" and the album Young Americans. In 1976, Bowie starred in the cult film The Man Who Fell to Earth, directed by Nicolas Roeg, and released Station to Station. In 1977, he further confounded musical expectations with the electronic-inflected album Low, the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno that came to be known as the "Berlin Trilogy". "Heroes" (1977) and Lodger (1979) followed; each album reached the UK top five and received lasting critical praise.
+
+After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single "Ashes to Ashes", its parent album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), and "Under Pressure", a 1981 collaboration with Queen. He reached his commercial peak in 1983 with Let's Dance; the album's title track topped both UK and US charts. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including industrial and jungle. He also continued acting; his roles included Major Jack Celliers in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), Jareth the Goblin King in Labyrinth (1986), Pontius Pilate in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Nikola Tesla in The Prestige (2006), among other film and television appearances and cameos. He stopped touring after 2004 and his last live performance was at a charity event in 2006. In 2013, Bowie returned from a decade-long recording hiatus with The Next Day. He remained musically active until he died of liver cancer at his home in New York City, two days after his 69th birthday and the release of his final album, Blackstar (2016).
+
+Bowie was born David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947 in Brixton, London. His mother, Margaret Mary "Peggy" (née Burns; 2 October 1913 – 2 April 2001),[4][5] was born at Shorncliffe Army Camp near Cheriton, Kent.[6] Her paternal grandparents were Irish immigrants who had settled in Manchester.[7] She worked as a waitress at a cinema in Royal Tunbridge Wells.[8] His father, Haywood Stenton "John" Jones (21 November 1912 – 5 August 1969),[4][5] was from Doncaster, Yorkshire[9] and worked as a promotions officer for the children's charity Barnardo's. The family lived at 40 Stansfield Road, on the boundary between Brixton and Stockwell in the south London borough of Lambeth. Bowie attended Stockwell Infants School until he was six years old, acquiring a reputation as a gifted and single-minded child—and a defiant brawler.[10]
+
+In 1953, Bowie moved with his family to Bromley. Two years later, he started attending Burnt Ash Junior School. His voice was considered "adequate" by the school choir, and he demonstrated above-average abilities in playing the recorder.[11] At the age of nine, his dancing during the newly-introduced music and movement classes was strikingly imaginative: teachers called his interpretations "vividly artistic" and his poise "astonishing" for a child.[11] The same year, his interest in music was further stimulated when his father brought home a collection of American 45s by artists including the Teenagers, the Platters, Fats Domino, Elvis Presley, and Little Richard.[12][13] Upon listening to Little Richard's song "Tutti Frutti", Bowie would later say that he had "heard God".[14]
+
+Bowie was first impressed with Presley when he saw his cousin dance to "Hound Dog".[13] By the end of the following year, Bowie had taken up the ukulele and tea-chest bass, begun to participate in skiffle sessions with friends, and had started to play the piano; meanwhile, his stage presentation of numbers by both Presley and Chuck Berry—complete with gyrations in tribute to the original artists—to his local Wolf Cub group was described as "mesmerizing ... like someone from another planet".[13] After taking his eleven-plus exam at the conclusion of his Burnt Ash Junior education, Bowie went to Bromley Technical High School.[15]
+
+It was an unusual technical school, as biographer Christopher Sandford wrote:
+
+Despite its status it was, by the time David arrived in 1958, as rich in arcane ritual as any [English] public school. There were houses named after eighteenth-century statesmen like Pitt and Wilberforce. There was a uniform, and an elaborate system of rewards and punishments. There was also an accent on languages, science and particularly design, where a collegiate atmosphere flourished under the tutorship of Owen Frampton. In David's account, Frampton led through force of personality, not intellect; his colleagues at Bromley Tech were famous for neither, and yielded the school's most gifted pupils to the arts, a regime so liberal that Frampton actively encouraged his own son, Peter, to pursue a musical career with David, a partnership briefly intact thirty years later.[15]
+
+Bowie studied art, music, and design, including layout and typesetting. After his half-brother Terry Burns introduced him to modern jazz, his enthusiasm for players like Charles Mingus and John Coltrane led his mother to give him a Grafton saxophone in 1961. He was soon receiving lessons from baritone saxophonist Ronnie Ross.[16][17] He received a serious injury at school in 1962 when his friend George Underwood punched him in the left eye during a fight over a girl. After a series of operations during a four-month hospitalisation,[18] his doctors determined that the damage could not be fully repaired and Bowie was left with faulty depth perception and a permanently dilated pupil, which gave a false impression of a change in the iris's colour; the eye later became one of Bowie's most recognisable features.[19] Despite their altercation, Bowie remained on good terms with Underwood, who went on to create the artwork for Bowie's early albums.[20]
+
+Bowie formed his first band, the Konrads, in 1962 at the age of 15. Playing guitar-based rock and roll at local youth gatherings and weddings, the Konrads had a varying line-up of between four and eight members, Underwood among them.[21] When Bowie left the technical school the following year, he informed his parents of his intention to become a pop star. His mother arranged his employment as an electrician's mate. Frustrated by his bandmates' limited aspirations, Bowie left the Konrads and joined another band, the King Bees. He wrote to the newly successful washing-machine entrepreneur John Bloom inviting him to "do for us what Brian Epstein has done for the Beatles—and make another million." Bloom did not respond to the offer, but his referral to Dick James's partner Leslie Conn led to Bowie's first personal management contract.[22]
+
+Conn quickly began to promote Bowie. The singer's debut single, "Liza Jane", credited to Davie Jones with the King Bees, was not commercially successful. Dissatisfied with the King Bees and their repertoire of Howlin' Wolf and Willie Dixon covers, Bowie quit the band less than a month later to join the Manish Boys, another blues outfit, who incorporated folk and soul—"I used to dream of being their Mick Jagger", Bowie was to recall.[22] Their cover of Bobby Bland's "I Pity the Fool" was no more successful than "Liza Jane", and Bowie soon moved on again to join the Lower Third, a blues trio strongly influenced by The Who. "You've Got a Habit of Leaving" fared no better, signalling the end of Conn's contract. Declaring that he would exit the pop music world "to study mime at Sadler's Wells", Bowie nevertheless remained with the Lower Third. His new manager, Ralph Horton, later instrumental in his transition to solo artist, soon witnessed Bowie's move to yet another group, the Buzz, yielding the singer's fifth unsuccessful single release, "Do Anything You Say". While with the Buzz, Bowie also joined the Riot Squad; their recordings, which included one of Bowie's original songs and material by The Velvet Underground, went unreleased. Kenneth Pitt, introduced by Horton, took over as Bowie's manager.[23]
+
+Dissatisfied with his stage name as Davy (and Davie) Jones, which in the mid-1960s invited confusion with Davy Jones of The Monkees, Bowie renamed himself after the 19th-century American pioneer James Bowie and the knife he had popularised.[24] His April 1967 solo single, "The Laughing Gnome", using speeded-up thus high-pitched vocals, failed to chart. Released six weeks later, his album debut, David Bowie, an amalgam of pop, psychedelia, and music hall, met the same fate. It was his last release for two years.[25]
+
+
+
+Bowie met dancer Lindsay Kemp in 1967 and enrolled in his dance class at the London Dance Centre.[26] He commented in 1972 that meeting Kemp was when his interest in image "really blossomed".[26] "He lived on his emotions, he was a wonderful influence. His day-to-day life was the most theatrical thing I had ever seen, ever. It was everything I thought Bohemia probably was. I joined the circus."[27] Studying the dramatic arts under Kemp, from avant-garde theatre and mime to commedia dell'arte, Bowie became immersed in the creation of personae to present to the world. Satirising life in a British prison, meanwhile, the Bowie composition "Over the Wall We Go" became a 1967 single for Oscar; another Bowie song, "Silly Boy Blue", was released by Billy Fury the following year.[28] In January 1968, Kemp choreographed a dance scene for a BBC play, The Pistol Shot, in the Theatre 625 series, and used Bowie with a dancer, Hermione Farthingale;[29][30] the pair began dating, and moved into a London flat together. Playing acoustic guitar, Farthingale formed a group with Bowie and guitarist John Hutchinson named Feathers; between September 1968 and early 1969 the trio gave a small number of concerts combining folk, Merseybeat, poetry, and mime.[31] Bowie and Farthingale broke up in early 1969 when she went to Norway to take part in a film, Song of Norway;[32] this affected him, and several songs, such as "Letter to Hermione" and "Life on Mars?" reference her,[33][34] and for the video accompanying "Where Are We Now?", he wore a T-shirt with the words "m/s Song of Norway".[35] They were last together in January 1969 for the filming of Love You till Tuesday, a 30-minute film that was not released until 1984: intended as a promotional vehicle, it featured performances from Bowie's repertoire, including "Space Oddity", which had not been released when the film was made.[36]
+
+After the break-up with Farthingale, Bowie moved in with Mary Finnigan as her lodger.[37] In February and March 1969, he undertook a short tour with Marc Bolan's duo Tyrannosaurus Rex, as third on the bill, performing a mime act.[38] On 11 July 1969, "Space Oddity" was released five days ahead of the Apollo 11 launch, and reached the top five in the UK.[36] Continuing the divergence from rock and roll and blues begun by his work with Farthingale, Bowie joined forces with Finnigan, Christina Ostrom and Barrie Jackson to run a folk club on Sunday nights at the Three Tuns pub in Beckenham High Street.[37] The club was influenced by the Arts Lab movement, developing into the Beckenham Arts Lab and became extremely popular. The Arts Lab hosted a free festival in a local park, the subject of his song "Memory of a Free Festival".[39]
+
+Bowie's second album followed in November; originally issued in the UK as David Bowie, it caused some confusion with its predecessor of the same name, and the early US release was instead titled Man of Words/Man of Music; it was reissued internationally in 1972 by RCA Records as Space Oddity. Featuring philosophical post-hippie lyrics on peace, love, and morality, its acoustic folk rock occasionally fortified by harder rock, the album was not a commercial success at the time of its release.[40]
+
+Bowie met Angela Barnett in April 1969. They married within a year. Her impact on him was immediate, and her involvement in his career far-reaching, leaving manager Ken Pitt with limited influence which he found frustrating.[41] Having established himself as a solo artist with "Space Oddity", Bowie began to sense a lacking: "a full-time band for gigs and recording—people he could relate to personally".[42] The shortcoming was underlined by his artistic rivalry with Marc Bolan, who was at the time acting as his session guitarist.[42] The band Bowie assembled comprised John Cambridge, a drummer Bowie met at the Arts Lab, Tony Visconti on bass and Mick Ronson on electric guitar. Known as Hype, the bandmates created characters for themselves and wore elaborate costumes that prefigured the glam style of the Spiders from Mars. After a disastrous opening gig at the London Roundhouse, they reverted to a configuration presenting Bowie as a solo artist.[42][43] Their initial studio work was marred by a heated disagreement between Bowie and Cambridge over the latter's drumming style. Matters came to a head when an enraged Bowie accused the drummer of the disturbance, exclaiming "You're fucking up my album." Cambridge left and was replaced by Mick Woodmansey.[44] Not long after, the singer fired his manager and replaced him with Tony Defries. This resulted in years of litigation that concluded with Bowie having to pay Pitt compensation.[44]
+
+The studio sessions continued and resulted in Bowie's third album, The Man Who Sold the World (1970), which contained references to schizophrenia, paranoia, and delusion.[45] Characterised by the heavy rock sound of his new backing band, it was a marked departure from the acoustic guitar and folk rock style established by Space Oddity. To promote it in the US, Mercury Records financed a coast-to-coast publicity tour across America in which Bowie, between January and February 1971, was interviewed by radio stations and the media. Exploiting his androgynous appearance, the original cover of the UK version unveiled two months later depicted the singer wearing a dress: taking the garment with him, he wore it during interviews—to the approval of critics, including Rolling Stone's John Mendelsohn who described him as "ravishing, almost disconcertingly reminiscent of Lauren Bacall" – and in the street, to mixed reaction including laughter and, in the case of one male pedestrian, producing a gun and telling Bowie to "kiss my ass".[46][47]
+
+During the tour, Bowie's observation of two seminal American proto-punk artists led him to develop a concept that eventually found form in the Ziggy Stardust character: a melding of the persona of Iggy Pop with the music of Lou Reed, producing "the ultimate pop idol".[46] A girlfriend recalled his "scrawling notes on a cocktail napkin about a crazy rock star named Iggy or Ziggy", and on his return to England he declared his intention to create a character "who looks like he's landed from Mars".[46] The "Stardust" surname was a tribute to the "Legendary Stardust Cowboy", whose record he was given during the tour. Bowie would later cover "I Took a Trip on a Gemini Space Ship" on 2002's Heathen.[48]
+
+Hunky Dory (1971) found Visconti, Bowie's producer and bassist, supplanted in both roles by Ken Scott and Trevor Bolder respectively. The album saw the partial return of the fey pop singer of "Space Oddity", with light fare such as "Kooks", a song written for his son, Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones, born on 30 May.[49] (His parents chose "his kooky name"—he was known as Zowie for the next 12 years—after the Greek word zoe, life.)[50] Elsewhere, the album explored more serious subjects, and found Bowie paying unusually direct homage to his influences with "Song for Bob Dylan", "Andy Warhol", and "Queen Bitch", the latter a Velvet Underground pastiche. It was not a significant commercial success at the time.[51]
+
+Dressed in a striking costume, his hair dyed reddish-brown, Bowie launched his Ziggy Stardust stage show with the Spiders from Mars—Ronson, Bolder, and Woodmansey—at the Toby Jug pub in Tolworth in Kingston upon Thames on 10 February 1972.[52] The show was hugely popular, catapulting him to stardom as he toured the UK over the next six months and creating, as described by Buckley, a "cult of Bowie" that was "unique—its influence lasted longer and has been more creative than perhaps almost any other force within pop fandom."[52] The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972), combining the hard rock elements of The Man Who Sold the World with the lighter experimental rock and pop of Hunky Dory, was released in June. "Starman", issued as an April single ahead of the album, was to cement Bowie's UK breakthrough: both single and album charted rapidly following his July Top of the Pops performance of the song. The album, which remained in the chart for two years, was soon joined there by the 6-month-old Hunky Dory. At the same time the non-album single "John, I'm Only Dancing", and "All the Young Dudes", a song he wrote and produced for Mott the Hoople,[53] were successful in the UK. The Ziggy Stardust Tour continued to the United States.[54]
+
+Bowie contributed backing vocals, keyboards, and guitar to Reed's 1972 solo breakthrough Transformer, co-producing the album with Mick Ronson.[55] The following year, Bowie co-produced and mixed The Stooges album Raw Power alongside Iggy Pop.[56] His own Aladdin Sane (1973) topped the UK chart, his first number-one album. Described by Bowie as "Ziggy goes to America", it contained songs he wrote while travelling to and across the US during the earlier part of the Ziggy tour, which now continued to Japan to promote the new album. Aladdin Sane spawned the UK top five singles "The Jean Genie" and "Drive-In Saturday".[57][58]
+
+Bowie's love of acting led his total immersion in the characters he created for his music. "Offstage I'm a robot. Onstage I achieve emotion. It's probably why I prefer dressing up as Ziggy to being David." With satisfaction came severe personal difficulties: acting the same role over an extended period, it became impossible for him to separate Ziggy Stardust—and later, the Thin White Duke—from his own character offstage. Ziggy, Bowie said, "wouldn't leave me alone for years. That was when it all started to go sour ... My whole personality was affected. It became very dangerous. I really did have doubts about my sanity."[59] His later Ziggy shows, which included songs from both Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, were ultra-theatrical affairs filled with shocking stage moments, such as Bowie stripping down to a sumo wrestling loincloth or simulating oral sex with Ronson's guitar.[60] Bowie toured and gave press conferences as Ziggy before a dramatic and abrupt on-stage "retirement" at London's Hammersmith Odeon on 3 July 1973. Footage from the final show was released the same year for the film Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.[61]
+
+After breaking up the Spiders from Mars, Bowie attempted to move on from his Ziggy persona. His back catalogue was now highly sought after: The Man Who Sold the World had been re-released in 1972 along with Space Oddity. "Life on Mars?", from Hunky Dory, was released in June 1973 and peaked at No. 3 on the UK Singles Chart. Entering the same chart in September, Bowie's novelty record from 1967, "The Laughing Gnome", reached No. 6.[62] Pin Ups, a collection of covers of his 1960s favourites, followed in October, producing a UK No. 3 hit in his version of the McCoys's "Sorrow" and itself peaking at number one, making David Bowie the best-selling act of 1973 in the UK. It brought the total number of Bowie albums concurrently on the UK chart to six.[63]
+
+Bowie moved to the US in 1974, initially staying in New York City before settling in Los Angeles.[64] Diamond Dogs (1974), parts of which found him heading towards soul and funk, was the product of two distinct ideas: a musical based on a wild future in a post-apocalyptic city, and setting George Orwell's 1984 to music.[65] The album went to number one in the UK, spawning the hits "Rebel Rebel" and "Diamond Dogs", and No. 5 in the US. To promote it, Bowie launched the Diamond Dogs Tour, visiting cities in North America between June and December 1974. Choreographed by Toni Basil, and lavishly produced with theatrical special effects, the high-budget stage production was filmed by Alan Yentob. The resulting documentary, Cracked Actor, featured a pasty and emaciated Bowie: the tour coincided with the singer's slide from heavy cocaine use into addiction, producing severe physical debilitation, paranoia, and emotional problems.[66] He later commented that the accompanying live album, David Live, ought to have been titled "David Bowie Is Alive and Well and Living Only in Theory".[67] David Live nevertheless solidified Bowie's status as a superstar, charting at No. 2 in the UK and No. 8 in the US. It also spawned a UK No. 10 hit in Bowie's cover of Eddie Floyd's "Knock on Wood". After a break in Philadelphia, where Bowie recorded new material, the tour resumed with a new emphasis on soul.[68]
+
+The fruit of the Philadelphia recording sessions was Young Americans (1975). Biographer Christopher Sandford writes, "Over the years, most British rockers had tried, one way or another, to become black-by-extension. Few had succeeded as Bowie did now."[69] The album's sound, which the singer identified as "plastic soul", constituted a radical shift in style that initially alienated many of his UK devotees.[70] Young Americans yielded Bowie's first US number one, "Fame", co-written with John Lennon, who contributed backing vocals, and Carlos Alomar. Lennon called Bowie's work "great, but it's just rock'n'roll with lipstick on".[71] Earning the distinction of being one of the first white artists to appear on the US variety show Soul Train, Bowie mimed "Fame", as well as "Golden Years", his November single,[72] which was originally offered to Elvis Presley, who declined it.[72] Young Americans was a commercial success in both the US and the UK, and a re-issue of the 1969 single "Space Oddity" became Bowie's first number-one hit in the UK a few months after "Fame" achieved the same in the US.[73] Despite his by now well established superstardom, Bowie, in the words of Sandford, "for all his record sales (over a million copies of Ziggy Stardust alone), existed essentially on loose change."[74] In 1975, in a move echoing Ken Pitt's acrimonious dismissal five years earlier, Bowie fired his manager. At the culmination of the ensuing months-long legal dispute, he watched, as described by Sandford, "millions of dollars of his future earnings being surrendered" in what were "uniquely generous terms for Defries", then "shut himself up in West 20th Street, where for a week his howls could be heard through the locked attic door."[74] Michael Lippman, Bowie's lawyer during the negotiations, became his new manager; Lippman in turn was awarded substantial compensation when Bowie fired him the following year.[75]
+
+Station to Station (1976), produced by Bowie and Harry Maslin,[76] introduced a new Bowie persona, "The Thin White Duke" of its title-track. Visually, the character was an extension of Thomas Jerome Newton, the extraterrestrial being he portrayed in the film The Man Who Fell to Earth the same year.[77] Developing the funk and soul of Young Americans, Station to Station's synthesizer-heavy arrangements prefigured the krautrock-influenced music of his next releases. The extent to which drug addiction was now affecting Bowie was made public when Russell Harty interviewed the singer for his London Weekend Television talk show in anticipation of the album's supporting tour. Shortly before the satellite-linked interview was scheduled to commence, the death of the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco was announced. Bowie was asked to relinquish the satellite booking, to allow the Spanish Government to put out a live newsfeed. This he refused to do, and his interview went ahead. In the ensuing lengthy conversation with Harty, Bowie was incoherent and looked "disconnected".[78] His sanity—by his own later admission—had become twisted from cocaine; he overdosed several times during the year, and was withering physically to an alarming degree.[66][79]
+
+Station to Station's January 1976 release was followed in February by a 31/2-month-long concert tour of Europe and North America. Featuring a starkly lit set, the Isolar – 1976 Tour with its iconic colour newsprint Isolar concert program, highlighted songs from the album, including the dramatic and lengthy title track, the ballads "Wild Is the Wind" and "Word on a Wing", and the funkier "TVC 15" and "Stay". The core band that coalesced to record this album and tour—rhythm guitarist Carlos Alomar, bassist George Murray, and drummer Dennis Davis—continued as a stable unit for the remainder of the 1970s. The tour was highly successful but mired in political controversy. Bowie was quoted in Stockholm as saying that "Britain could benefit from a Fascist leader", and was detained by customs on the Russian/Polish border for possessing Nazi paraphernalia.[80]
+
+Matters came to a head in London in May in what became known as the "Victoria Station incident". Arriving in an open-top Mercedes convertible, Bowie waved to the crowd in a gesture that some alleged was a Nazi salute, which was captured on camera and published in NME. Bowie said the photographer caught him in mid-wave.[81] He later blamed his pro-fascism comments and his behaviour during the period on his addictions and the character of the Thin White Duke.[82] "I was out of my mind, totally crazed. The main thing I was functioning on was mythology ... that whole thing about Hitler and Rightism ... I'd discovered King Arthur".[79] According to playwright Alan Franks, writing later in The Times, "he was indeed 'deranged'. He had some very bad experiences with hard drugs."[83] Bowie's cocaine addiction, which had motivated these controversies, had much to do with his time living in Los Angeles, a city which alienated him. Discussing his flirtations with fascism in a 1980 interview with NME, Bowie explained that Los Angeles was "where it had all happened. The fucking place should be wiped off the face of the Earth. To be anything to do with rock and roll and go and live in Los Angeles is, I think, just heading for disaster. It really is."[84]
+
+After recovering from addiction, Bowie apologised for these statements, and throughout the 1980s and '90s criticised racism in European politics and the American music industry.[85] Nevertheless, Bowie's comments on fascism, as well as Eric Clapton's alcohol-fuelled denunciations of Pakistani immigrants in 1976, led to the establishment of Rock Against Racism.[86]
+
+Before the end of 1976, Bowie's interest in the burgeoning German music scene, as well as his drug addiction, prompted him to move to West Berlin to clean up and revitalise his career. There he was often seen riding a bicycle between his apartment on Hauptstraße in Schöneberg and Hansa Tonstudio, the recording studio he used, located on Köthener Straße in Kreuzberg, near the Berlin Wall.[87] While working with Brian Eno and sharing an apartment with Iggy Pop, he began to focus on minimalist, ambient music for the first of three albums, co-produced with Tony Visconti, that became known as his Berlin Trilogy.[88] During the same period, Iggy Pop, with Bowie as a co-writer and musician, completed his solo album debut The Idiot and its follow-up Lust for Life, touring the UK, Europe, and the US in March and April 1977.[89]
+
+The album Low (1977), partly influenced by the Krautrock sound of Kraftwerk and Neu!, evinced a move away from narration in Bowie's songwriting to a more abstract musical form in which lyrics were sporadic and optional. Although he completed the album in November 1976, it took his unsettled record company another three months to release it.[87] It received considerable negative criticism upon its release—a release which RCA, anxious to maintain the established commercial momentum, did not welcome, and which Bowie's former manager, Tony Defries, who still maintained a significant financial interest in the singer's affairs, tried to prevent. Despite these forebodings, Low yielded the UK No. 3 single "Sound and Vision", and its own performance surpassed that of Station to Station in the UK chart, where it reached No. 2. Leading contemporary composer Philip Glass described Low as "a work of genius" in 1992, when he used it as the basis for his Symphony No. 1 "Low"; subsequently, Glass used Bowie's next album as the basis for his 1996 Symphony No. 4 "Heroes".[90][91] Glass has praised Bowie's gift for creating "fairly complex pieces of music, masquerading as simple pieces".[92] Also in 1977, London released Starting Point, a ten-song LP containing releases from Bowie's Deram period (1966—67).[93]
+
+Echoing Low's minimalist, instrumental approach, the second of the trilogy, "Heroes" (1977), incorporated pop and rock to a greater extent, seeing Bowie joined by guitarist Robert Fripp. Like Low, "Heroes" evinced the zeitgeist of the Cold War, symbolised by the divided city of Berlin.[94] Incorporating ambient sounds from a variety of sources including white noise generators, synthesisers and koto, the album was another hit, reaching No. 3 in the UK. Its title-track, though only reaching No. 24 in the UK singles chart, gained lasting popularity, and within months had been released in both German and French.[95] Towards the end of the year, Bowie performed the song for Marc Bolan's television show Marc, and again two days later for Bing Crosby's final CBS television Christmas special, when he joined Crosby in "Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy", a version of "The Little Drummer Boy" with a new, contrapuntal verse. Five years later, the duet proved a worldwide seasonal hit, charting in the UK at No. 3 on Christmas Day, 1982.[96]
+
+After completing Low and "Heroes", Bowie spent much of 1978 on the Isolar II world tour, bringing the music of the first two Berlin Trilogy albums to almost a million people during 70 concerts in 12 countries. By now he had broken his drug addiction; biographer David Buckley writes that Isolar II was "Bowie's first tour for five years in which he had probably not anaesthetised himself with copious quantities of cocaine before taking the stage. ... Without the oblivion that drugs had brought, he was now in a healthy enough mental condition to want to make friends."[97] Recordings from the tour made up the live album Stage, released the same year.[98] Bowie also recorded narration for an adaptation of Sergei Prokofiev's classical composition Peter and the Wolf, which was released as an album in May 1978.[99]
+
+The final piece in what Bowie called his "triptych", Lodger (1979), eschewed the minimalist, ambient nature of the other two, making a partial return to the drum- and guitar-based rock and pop of his pre-Berlin era. The result was a complex mixture of new wave and world music, in places incorporating Hijaz non-Western scales. Some tracks were composed using Eno and Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategies cards: "Boys Keep Swinging" entailed band members swapping instruments, "Move On" used the chords from Bowie's early composition "All the Young Dudes" played backwards, and "Red Money" took backing tracks from "Sister Midnight", a piece previously composed with Iggy Pop.[100] The album was recorded in Switzerland. Ahead of its release, RCA's Mel Ilberman stated, "It would be fair to call it Bowie's Sergeant Pepper ... a concept album that portrays the Lodger as a homeless wanderer, shunned and victimized by life's pressures and technology." As described by biographer Christopher Sandford, "The record dashed such high hopes with dubious choices, and production that spelt the end—for fifteen years—of Bowie's partnership with Eno." Lodger reached No. 4 in the UK and No. 20 in the US, and yielded the UK hit singles "Boys Keep Swinging" and "DJ".[101][102] Towards the end of the year, Bowie and Angie initiated divorce proceedings, and after months of court battles the marriage was ended in early 1980.[103]
+
+Scary Monsters and Super Creeps (1980) produced the number-one hit "Ashes to Ashes", featuring the textural work of guitar-synthesist Chuck Hammer and revisiting the character of Major Tom from "Space Oddity". The song gave international exposure to the underground New Romantic movement when Bowie visited the London club "Blitz"—the main New Romantic hangout—to recruit several of the regulars (including Steve Strange of the band Visage) to act in the accompanying video, renowned as one of the most innovative of all time.[104] While Scary Monsters used principles established by the Berlin albums, it was considered by critics to be far more direct musically and lyrically. The album's hard rock edge included conspicuous guitar contributions from Robert Fripp, Chuck Hammer, and Pete Townshend.[105] As "Ashes to Ashes" hit number one on the UK charts, Bowie opened a three-month run on Broadway on 24 September, starring as John Merrick in The Elephant Man.[106]
+
+Bowie paired with Queen in 1981 for a one-off single release, "Under Pressure". The duet was a hit, becoming Bowie's third UK number-one single.[107] Bowie was given the lead role in the BBC's 1982 televised adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's play Baal. Coinciding with its transmission, a five-track EP of songs from the play, recorded earlier in Berlin, was released as David Bowie in Bertolt Brecht's Baal. In March 1982, the month before Paul Schrader's film Cat People came out, Bowie's title song, "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)", was released as a single, becoming a minor US hit and entering the UK Top 30.[108]
+
+Bowie reached his peak of popularity and commercial success in 1983 with Let's Dance.[109] Co-produced by Chic's Nile Rodgers, the album went platinum in both the UK and the US. Its three singles became Top 20 hits in both countries, where its title track reached number one. "Modern Love" and "China Girl" each made No. 2 in the UK, accompanied by a pair of "absorbing" promotional videos that biographer David Buckley said "activated key archetypes in the pop world. 'Let's Dance', with its little narrative surrounding the young Aborigine couple, targeted 'youth', and 'China Girl', with its bare-bummed (and later partially censored) beach lovemaking scene (a homage to the film From Here to Eternity), was sufficiently sexually provocative to guarantee heavy rotation on MTV".[110] Stevie Ray Vaughan was guest guitarist playing solo on "Let's Dance", although the video depicts Bowie miming this part.[111] By 1983, Bowie had emerged as one of the most important video artists of the day. Let's Dance was followed by the Serious Moonlight Tour, during which Bowie was accompanied by guitarist Earl Slick and backing vocalists Frank and George Simms. The world tour lasted six months and was extremely popular."[112] At the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards Bowie received two awards including the inaugural Video Vanguard Award.[113]
+
+Tonight (1984), another dance-oriented album, found Bowie collaborating with Tina Turner and, once again, Iggy Pop. It included a number of cover songs, among them the 1966 Beach Boys hit "God Only Knows". The album bore the transatlantic Top 10 hit "Blue Jean", itself the inspiration for a short film that won Bowie a Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video, Jazzin' for Blue Jean. Bowie performed at Wembley Stadium in 1985 for Live Aid, a multi-venue benefit concert for Ethiopian famine relief.[114] During the event, the video for a fundraising single was premiered, Bowie's duet with Mick Jagger. "Dancing in the Street" quickly went to number one on release. The same year, Bowie worked with the Pat Metheny Group to record "This Is Not America" for the soundtrack of The Falcon and the Snowman. Released as a single, the song became a Top 40 hit in the UK and US.[115]
+
+Bowie was given a role in the 1986 film Absolute Beginners. It was poorly received by critics, but Bowie's theme song, also named "Absolute Beginners", rose to No. 2 in the UK charts. He also appeared as Jareth, the Goblin King, in the 1986 Jim Henson film Labyrinth, for which he worked with composer Trevor Jones and wrote five original songs.[116] His final solo album of the decade was 1987's Never Let Me Down, where he ditched the light sound of his previous two albums, instead offering harder rock with an industrial/techno dance edge. Peaking at No. 6 in the UK, the album yielded the hits "Day-In, Day-Out" (his 60th single), "Time Will Crawl", and "Never Let Me Down". Bowie later described it as his "nadir", calling it "an awful album".[117] Supporting Never Let Me Down, and preceded by nine promotional press shows, the 86-concert Glass Spider Tour commenced on 30 May. Bowie's backing band included Peter Frampton on lead guitar. Critics maligned the tour as overproduced, saying it pandered to the current stadium rock trends in its special effects and dancing.[118] The tour influenced concerts by later artists, including Britney Spears, Madonna, and U2.[119][120]
+
+Bowie shelved his solo career in 1989, retreating to the relative anonymity of band membership for the first time since the early 1970s. A hard-rocking quartet, Tin Machine came into being after Bowie began to work experimentally with guitarist Reeves Gabrels. The line-up was completed by Tony and Hunt Sales, whom Bowie had known since the late 1970s for their contribution, on bass and drums respectively, to Iggy Pop's 1977 album Lust for Life.[121]
+
+Although he intended Tin Machine to operate as a democracy, Bowie dominated, both in songwriting and in decision-making.[122] The band's album debut, Tin Machine (1989), was initially popular, though its politicised lyrics did not find universal approval: Bowie described one song as "a simplistic, naive, radical, laying-it-down about the emergence of Neo-Nazis"; in the view of biographer Christopher Sandford, "It took nerve to denounce drugs, fascism and TV ... in terms that reached the literary level of a comic book."[123] EMI complained of "lyrics that preach" as well as "repetitive tunes" and "minimalist or no production".[124] The album nevertheless reached No. 3 and went gold in the UK.[123]
+
+Tin Machine's first world tour was a commercial success, but there was growing reluctance—among fans and critics alike—to accept Bowie's presentation as merely a band member.[125] A series of Tin Machine singles failed to chart, and Bowie, after a disagreement with EMI, left the label.[126] Like his audience and his critics, Bowie himself became increasingly disaffected with his role as just one member of a band.[127] Tin Machine began work on a second album, but Bowie put the venture on hold and made a return to solo work. Performing his early hits during the seven-month Sound+Vision Tour, he found commercial success and acclaim once again.[128]
+
+In October 1990, a decade after his divorce from Angie, Bowie and Somali-born supermodel Iman were introduced by a mutual friend. Bowie recalled, "I was naming the children the night we met ... it was absolutely immediate." They married in 1992.[129] Tin Machine resumed work the same month, but their audience and critics, ultimately left disappointed by the first album, showed little interest in a second. Tin Machine II's arrival was marked by a widely publicised and ill-timed conflict over the cover art: after production had begun, the new record label, Victory, deemed the depiction of four ancient nude Kouroi statues, judged by Bowie to be "in exquisite taste", to be "a show of wrong, obscene images", requiring air-brushing and patching to render the figures sexless.[130] Tin Machine toured again, but after the live album Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey, Baby failed commercially, the band drifted apart, and Bowie, though he continued to collaborate with Gabrels, resumed his solo career.[131]
+
+On 20 April 1992, Bowie appeared at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, following the Queen singer's death the previous year. As well as performing "Heroes" and "All the Young Dudes", he was joined on "Under Pressure" by Annie Lennox, who took Mercury's vocal part; during his appearance, Bowie knelt and recited the Lord's Prayer at Wembley Stadium.[132][133] Four days later, Bowie and Iman were married in Switzerland. Intending to move to Los Angeles, they flew in to search for a suitable property, but found themselves confined to their hotel, under curfew: the 1992 Los Angeles riots began the day they arrived. They settled in New York instead.[134]
+
+In 1993, Bowie released his first solo offering since his Tin Machine departure, the soul, jazz, and hip-hop influenced Black Tie White Noise. Making prominent use of electronic instruments, the album, which reunited Bowie with Let's Dance producer Nile Rodgers, confirmed Bowie's return to popularity, hitting the number-one spot on the UK charts and spawning three Top 40 hits, including the Top 10 single "Jump They Say".[135] Bowie explored new directions on The Buddha of Suburbia (1993), ostensibly a soundtrack album of his music composed for the BBC television adaptation of Hanif Kureishi's novel. Only the title track had been used in the television adaptation, although some of his themes for it were also present on the album.[136] It contained some of the new elements introduced in Black Tie White Noise, and also signalled a move towards alternative rock. The album was a critical success but received a low-key release and only made No. 87 in the UK charts.[137]
+
+Reuniting Bowie with Eno, the quasi-industrial Outside (1995) was originally conceived as the first volume in a non-linear narrative of art and murder. Featuring characters from a short story written by Bowie, the album achieved UK and US chart success, and yielded three Top 40 UK singles.[138] In a move that provoked mixed reaction from both fans and critics, Bowie chose Nine Inch Nails as his tour partner for the Outside Tour. Visiting cities in Europe and North America between September 1995 and February 1996, the tour saw the return of Gabrels as Bowie's guitarist.[139] On 7 January 1997, Bowie celebrated his half century with a 50th birthday concert at Madison Square Garden, New York, at which he was joined in playing his songs and those of his guests, Lou Reed, Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters, Robert Smith of the Cure, Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins, Black Francis of the Pixies, and Sonic Youth.[140]
+
+Bowie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 17 January 1996.[141] Incorporating experiments in British jungle and drum 'n' bass, Earthling (1997) was a critical and commercial success in the UK and the US, and two singles from the album – "Little Wonder" and "Dead Man Walking" – became UK Top 40 hits. Bowie's song "I'm Afraid of Americans" from the Paul Verhoeven film Showgirls was re-recorded for the album, and remixed by Trent Reznor for a single release. The heavy rotation of the accompanying video, also featuring Trent Reznor, contributed to the song's 16-week stay in the US Billboard Hot 100. Reznor also executive produced the Lost Highway soundtrack (1997) which begins and ends with different mixes of Bowie's Outside song "I'm Deranged".[142] Bowie received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 12 February 1997.[143] The Earthling Tour took in Europe and North America between June and November 1997.[144] In November 1997, Bowie performed on the BBC's Children in Need charity single "Perfect Day", which reached number one in the UK.[145] Bowie reunited with Visconti in 1998 to record "(Safe in This) Sky Life" for The Rugrats Movie. Although the track was edited out of the final cut, it was later re-recorded and released as "Safe" on the B-side of Bowie's 2002 single "Everyone Says 'Hi'".[146] The reunion led to other collaborations including a limited-edition single release version of Placebo's track "Without You I'm Nothing", co-produced by Visconti, with Bowie's harmonised vocal added to the original recording.[147]
+
+Bowie, with Reeves Gabrels, created the soundtrack for Omikron: The Nomad Soul, a 1999 computer game in which he and Iman also voiced characters based on their likenesses. Released the same year and containing re-recorded tracks from Omikron, his album Hours featured a song with lyrics by the winner of his "Cyber Song Contest" Internet competition, Alex Grant.[148] Making extensive use of live instruments, the album was Bowie's exit from heavy electronica.[149] Sessions for the planned album Toy, intended to feature new versions of some of Bowie's earliest pieces as well as three new songs, commenced in 2000, but the album was never released. Bowie and Visconti continued their collaboration, producing a new album of completely original songs instead: the result of the sessions was the 2002 album Heathen.[150]
+
+On 25 June 2000, Bowie made his second appearance at the Glastonbury Festival in England, playing 30 years after his first.[151] The performance was released as a posthumous live album in November 2018.[152] On 27 June, Bowie performed a concert at BBC Radio Theatre in London, which was released in the compilation album Bowie at the Beeb, which also featured BBC recording sessions from 1968 to 1972.[153] Bowie and Iman's daughter was born on 15 August.[154] His interest in Buddhism led him to support the Tibetan cause by performing at the February 2001 and February 2003 concerts to support Tibet House US at Carnegie Hall in New York.[155][156][157]
+
+In October 2001, Bowie opened the Concert for New York City, a charity event to benefit the victims of the September 11 attacks, with a minimalist performance of Simon & Garfunkel's "America", followed by a full band performance of "Heroes".[158] 2002 saw the release of Heathen, and, during the second half of the year, the Heathen Tour. Taking place in Europe and North America, the tour opened at London's annual Meltdown festival, for which Bowie was that year appointed artistic director. Among the acts he selected for the festival were Philip Glass, Television, and the Dandy Warhols. As well as songs from the new album, the tour featured material from Bowie's Low era.[159] Reality (2003) followed, and its accompanying world tour, the A Reality Tour, with an estimated attendance of 722,000, grossed more than any other in 2004. On 13 June, Bowie headlined the last night of the Isle of Wight Festival 2004 in what would prove to be his last live show in the UK.[160] On 25 June he suffered chest pain while performing at the Hurricane Festival in Scheeßel, Germany. Originally thought to be a pinched nerve in his shoulder, the pain was later diagnosed as an acutely blocked coronary artery, requiring an emergency angioplasty in Hamburg. The remaining 14 dates of the tour were cancelled.[161]
+
+In the years following his recuperation from the heart attack, Bowie reduced his musical output, making only one-off appearances on stage and in the studio. He sang in a duet of his 1971 song "Changes" with Butterfly Boucher for the 2004 animated film Shrek 2.[162] During a relatively quiet 2005, he recorded the vocals for the song "(She Can) Do That", co-written with Brian Transeau, for the film Stealth.[163] He returned to the stage on 8 September 2005, appearing with Arcade Fire for the US nationally televised event Fashion Rocks, and performed with the Canadian band for the second time a week later during the CMJ Music Marathon.[164] He contributed backing vocals on TV on the Radio's song "Province" for their album Return to Cookie Mountain,[165] and joined with Lou Reed on Danish alt-rockers Kashmir's 2005 album No Balance Palace.[166]
+
+Bowie was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award on 8 February 2006.[167] In April, he announced, "I'm taking a year off—no touring, no albums."[168] He made a surprise guest appearance at David Gilmour's 29 May concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The event was recorded, and a selection of songs on which he had contributed joint vocals were subsequently released.[169] He performed again in November, alongside Alicia Keys, at the Black Ball, a benefit event for Keep a Child Alive at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York.[170][171] The performance marked the last time Bowie performed his music on stage.[172]
+
+Bowie was chosen to curate the 2007 High Line Festival, selecting musicians and artists for the Manhattan event, including electronic pop duo AIR, surrealist photographer Claude Cahun, and English comedian Ricky Gervais.[173][174] Bowie performed on Scarlett Johansson's 2008 album of Tom Waits covers, Anywhere I Lay My Head.[175] In June 2008 a live album was released of a Ziggy Stardust-era concert from 1972.[176] On the 40th anniversary of the July 1969 moon landing—and Bowie's accompanying commercial breakthrough with "Space Oddity"—EMI released the individual tracks from the original eight-track studio recording of the song, in a 2009 contest inviting members of the public to create a remix.[177] A Reality Tour, a double album of live material from the 2003 concert tour, was released in January 2010.[178]
+
+In late March 2011, Toy, Bowie's previously unreleased album from 2001, was leaked onto the internet, containing material used for Heathen and most of its single B-sides, as well as unheard new versions of his early back catalogue.[179][180]
+
+On 8 January 2013, his 66th birthday, his website announced a new album, to be titled The Next Day and scheduled for release 8 March for Australia, 12 March for the United States, and 11 March for the rest of the world.[181] Bowie's first studio album in a decade, The Next Day contains 14 songs plus 3 bonus tracks.[182][183] His website acknowledged the length of his hiatus.[184] Record producer Tony Visconti said 29 tracks were recorded for the album, some of which could appear on Bowie's next record, which he might start work on later in 2013. The announcement was accompanied by the immediate release of a single, "Where Are We Now?", written and recorded by Bowie in New York and produced by longtime collaborator Visconti.[184]
+
+A music video for "Where Are We Now?" was released onto Vimeo the same day, directed by New York artist Tony Oursler.[184] The single topped the UK iTunes Chart within hours of its release,[185] and debuted in the UK Singles Chart at No. 6,[186] his first single to enter the Top 10 for two decades (since "Jump They Say" in 1993).  A second video, "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)", was released 25 February. Directed by Floria Sigismondi, it stars Bowie and Tilda Swinton as a married couple.[187] On 1 March, the album was made available to stream for free through iTunes.[188] The Next Day debuted at No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart, was his first album to achieve that position since Black Tie White Noise (1993), and was the fastest-selling album of 2013 at the time.[189] The music video for the song "The Next Day" created some controversy, initially being removed from YouTube for terms-of-service violation, then restored with a warning recommending viewing only by those 18 or over.[190]
+
+According to The Times, Bowie ruled out ever giving an interview again.[191] An exhibition of Bowie artefacts, called David Bowie Is, was organised by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and shown there in 2013.[192] The London exhibit was visited by 311,956 people, making it one of the most successful exhibitions ever staged at the museum.[193] Later that year the exhibition began a world tour which started in Toronto and included stops in Chicago, Paris, Melbourne, Groningen and Brooklyn, New York where the exhibit ended on 15 July at the Brooklyn Museum.[194] Bowie was featured in a cameo vocal in the Arcade Fire song "Reflektor".[195] A poll carried out by BBC History Magazine, in October 2013, named Bowie as the best-dressed Briton in history.[196]
+
+New information was released in September 2014 regarding his next compilation album, Nothing Has Changed, which was released in November. The album featured rare tracks and old material from his catalogue in addition to a new song titled "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)".[197] In May 2015, "Let's Dance" was announced to be reissued as a yellow vinyl single on 16 July 2015 in conjunction with the David Bowie Is exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne, Australia.[198]
+
+In August 2015, it was announced that Bowie was writing songs for a Broadway musical based on the SpongeBob SquarePants cartoon series.[199] Bowie wrote and recorded the opening title song to the television series The Last Panthers, which aired in November 2015.[200] The theme that was used for The Last Panthers was also the title track for his January 2016 release Blackstar which is said to take cues from his earlier krautrock influenced work.[201] According to The Times: "Blackstar may be the oddest work yet from Bowie".[202] On 7 December 2015, Bowie's musical Lazarus debuted in New York. His last public appearance was at opening night of the production.[203]
+
+Blackstar was released on 8 January 2016, Bowie's 69th birthday, and was met with critical acclaim.[204] Following his death on 10 January, producer Tony Visconti revealed that Bowie had planned the album to be his swan song, and a "parting gift" for his fans before his death.[205][206][207] Several reporters and critics subsequently noted that most of the lyrics on the album seem to revolve around his impending death,[208][209] with CNN noting that the album "reveals a man who appears to be grappling with his own mortality".[208] Visconti later said that Bowie had been planning a post-Blackstar album, and had written and recorded demo versions of five songs in his final weeks, suggesting that Bowie believed he had a few months left.[210] The day following his death, online viewing of Bowie's music skyrocketed, breaking the record for Vevo's most viewed artist in a single day.[211] On 15 January, Blackstar debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart; nineteen of his albums were in the UK Top 100 Albums Chart, and thirteen singles were in the UK Top 100 Singles Chart.[212][213] Blackstar also debuted at number one on album charts around the world, including Australia, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, and the US Billboard 200.[214][215]
+
+As of 11 January 2016[update], more than 1.3 million people had visited the David Bowie Is exhibit, making it the most successful exhibition ever staged by the Victoria and Albert Museum in terms of worldwide attendance.[216][217] The museum stated that the exhibition would continue to tour, with confirmed travel to Japan in 2017.[216] In September 2016 a box set was released covering Bowie's mid-70s soul period, including The Gouster, a previously unreleased 1974 album.[218]
+
+An EP, No Plan, was released on 8 January 2017, which would have been Bowie's 70th birthday.[219] Apart from "Lazarus", the EP includes three songs that Bowie had recorded during the Blackstar sessions, but were left off the album and subsequently appeared on the soundtrack album for the Lazarus musical in October 2016.[220] A music video for the title track was also released.[220] 2017 and 2018 also saw the release of a series of posthumous live albums, covering the Diamond Dogs tour of 1974, the Isolar tour of 1976 and the Isolar II tour of 1978.[221][222][223] In the two years following his death, Bowie had sold 5 million records in the UK alone.[224] In their top 10 list for the Global Recording Artist of the Year, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry named Bowie the second best-selling artist worldwide in 2016, behind Drake.[225]
+
+At the 59th Annual Grammy Awards on 12 February 2017, Bowie won all five nominated awards: Best Rock Performance; Best Alternative Music Album; Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical; Best Recording Package; and Best Rock Song. The wins marked Bowie's first ever in musical categories.[226] On 8 January 2020, on what would have been Bowie's 73rd birthday, a previously unreleased version of the song "The Man Who Sold the World" was released, and two new releases were announced: a streaming-only EP entitled Is It Any Wonder? and a 9 track album entitled CHANGESNOWBOWIE, set to be released on Record Store Day 2020.[227]
+
+While always primarily a musician, Bowie took acting roles throughout his career, appearing in over 30 movies, television shows and theatrical productions. Bowie's acting career was "productively selective," largely eschewing starring roles for cameos and supporting parts.[228][229] Many critics have observed that, had Bowie not chosen to pursue music, he could have found great success as an actor.[230][231] Other critics have noted that, while his screen presence was singular, his best contributions to film were the use of his songs in movies like Lost Highway, A Knight's Tale, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and Inglourious Basterds.[232][233]
+
+The beginnings of Bowie's acting career predate his commercial breakthrough as a musician. Studying avant-garde theatre and mime under Lindsay Kemp, he was given the role of Cloud in Kemp's 1967 theatrical production Pierrot in Turquoise (later made into the 1970 television film The Looking Glass Murders).[234] Bowie filmed a walk-on role for the BBC drama series Theater 625 that aired in May 1968.[235] In the black-and-white short The Image (1969), he played a ghostly boy who emerges from a troubled artist's painting to haunt him.[236] The same year, the film of Leslie Thomas's 1966 comic novel The Virgin Soldiers saw Bowie make a brief appearance as an extra.[236]
+
+In 1976, Bowie earned acclaim for his first major film role, portraying Thomas Jerome Newton, an alien from a dying planet, in The Man Who Fell to Earth, directed by Nicolas Roeg.[237] He later admitted that his severe cocaine use during the film's production left him in such a fragile state of mind that he barely understood the movie.[238] Just a Gigolo (1979), an Anglo-German co-production directed by David Hemmings, saw Bowie in the lead role as Prussian officer Paul von Przygodski, who, returning from World War I, is discovered by a Baroness (Marlene Dietrich) and put into her gigolo stable.[239] The movie was a critical and commercial bomb, and Bowie later expressed embarrassment at his role in it.[240]
+
+Bowie played Joseph Merrick in the Broadway theatre production The Elephant Man, which he undertook wearing no stage make-up, and which earned high praise for his expressive performance. He played the part 157 times between 1980 and 1981.[106] Christiane F. – We Children from Bahnhof Zoo, a 1981 biographical film focusing on a young girl's drug addiction in West Berlin, featured Bowie in a cameo appearance as himself at a concert in Germany. Its soundtrack album, Christiane F. (1981), featured much material from his Berlin Trilogy albums.[241] In 1982, he starred in the titular role in a BBC adaptation of the Bertolt Brecht play Baal.[242] Bowie portrayed a vampire in Tony Scott's erotic horror film The Hunger (1983), with Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon.[243] In Nagisa Oshima's film the same year, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, based on Laurens van der Post's novel The Seed and the Sower, Bowie played Major Jack Celliers, a prisoner of war in a Japanese internment camp.[244] Bowie had a cameo in Yellowbeard, a 1983 pirate comedy created by Monty Python members and directed by Mel Damski.[245]
+
+To promote the single "Blue Jean" Bowie filmed the 21 minute short film Jazzin' for Blue Jean (1984) with director Julien Temple, and played the dual roles of romantic protagonist Vic and arrogant rock star Screaming Lord Byron.[246] The short won Bowie his only non-posthumous Grammy award.[247] Bowie had a supporting role as hitman Colin in the 1985 John Landis film Into the Night.[248] He declined to play the villain Max Zorin in the James Bond film A View to a Kill (1985).[249] Bowie reteamed with Temple for Absolute Beginners (1986), a rock musical film adapted from Colin MacInnes's book of the same name about life in late 1950s London, in a supporting role as ad man Vendice Partners.[250] The same year, Jim Henson's dark musical fantasy Labyrinth cast him as Jareth, the villainous Goblin King.[251] Despite initial poor box office, the movie grew in popularity, becoming a cult film and arguably Bowie's most iconic movie role.[252][253] Two years later, he played Pontius Pilate in Martin Scorsese's critically acclaimed biblical epic The Last Temptation of Christ (1988).[254]
+
+In 1991, Bowie reteamed with director John Landis for an episode of the HBO sitcom Dream On[255] and played a disgruntled restaurant employee opposite Rosanna Arquette in The Linguini Incident.[256] Bowie portrayed the mysterious FBI agent Phillip Jeffries in David Lynch's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992). The prequel to the television series was poorly received at the time of its release, but has since been critically reevaluated.[257] He took a small but pivotal role as his friend Andy Warhol in Basquiat, artist/director Julian Schnabel's 1996 biopic of Jean-Michel Basquiat, another artist he considered a friend and colleague.[258] Bowie co-starred in Giovanni Veronesi's Spaghetti Western Il Mio West (1998, released as Gunslinger's Revenge in the US in 2005) as the most feared gunfighter in the region.[259] He played the aging gangster Bernie in Andrew Goth's Everybody Loves Sunshine (1999, released in the U.S. as B.U.S.T.E.D.),[260] and appeared as the host in the second season of the television horror anthology series The Hunger. Despite having several episodes which focus on vampires and Bowie's involvement, the show had no plot connection to the 1983 film of the same name.[261] In 1999, Bowie voiced two characters in the Sega Dreamcast game Omikron: The Nomad Soul, his only appearance in a video game.[262]
+
+In Mr. Rice's Secret (2000), Bowie played the title role as the neighbour of a terminally ill 12-year-old.[263] Bowie appeared as himself in the 2001 Ben Stiller comedy Zoolander, judging a "walk-off" between rival male models,[264] and in Eric Idle's 2002 mockumentary The Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch.[265] In 2005, he filmed a commercial with Snoop Dogg for XM Satellite Radio.[266] Bowie portrayed a fictionalized version of physicist and inventor Nikola Tesla in Christopher Nolan's film The Prestige (2006), which was about the bitter rivalry between two magicians in the late 19th century. Nolan later claimed that Bowie was his only preference to play Tesla, and that he personally appealed to Bowie to take the role after he initially passed.[267] In the same year, he voice-acted in Luc Besson's animated film Arthur and the Invisibles as the powerful villain Maltazard,[268] and appeared as himself in an episode of the Ricky Gervais television series Extras.[269] In 2007, he lent his voice to the character Lord Royal Highness in the SpongeBob's Atlantis SquarePantis television film.[270] In the 2008 film August, directed by Austin Chick, he played a supporting role as Ogilvie, a "ruthless venture capitalist."[271] Bowie's final film appearance was a cameo as himself in the 2009 teen comedy Bandslam.[272]
+
+In a 2017 interview with Consequence of Sound, director Denis Villeneuve revealed his intention to cast Bowie in Blade Runner 2049 as the lead villain, Niander Wallace, but when news broke of Bowie's death in January of the same year, Villeneuve was forced to look for talent with similar "rock star" qualities. He eventually cast actor and lead singer of Thirty Seconds to Mars, Jared Leto. Talking about the casting process, Villeneuve said: "Our first thought [for the character] had been David Bowie, who had influenced Blade Runner in many ways. When we learned the sad news, we looked around for someone like that. He [Bowie] embodied the Blade Runner spirit.".[273] David Lynch also hoped to have Bowie reprise his Fire Walk With Me character for Twin Peaks: The Return but Bowie's illness prevented this. His character was portrayed via archival footage. At Bowie's request, Lynch overdubbed Bowie's original dialogue with a different actor's voice, as Bowie was unhappy with his Cajun accent in the original movie.[274]
+
+Bowie's songs and stagecraft brought a new dimension to popular music in the early 1970s, strongly influencing both its immediate forms and its subsequent development. Bowie was a pioneer of glam rock, according to music historians Schinder and Schwartz, who credited Marc Bolan and Bowie with creating the genre.[275] At the same time, he inspired the innovators of the punk rock music movement.[276] When punk musicians were "noisily reclaiming the three-minute pop song in a show of public defiance", biographer David Buckley wrote that "Bowie almost completely abandoned traditional rock instrumentation."[277][278] Bowie's record company promoted his unique status in popular music with the slogan, "There's old wave, there's new wave, and there's David Bowie".[279]
+
+Musicologist James Perone credited Bowie with having "brought sophistication to rock music", and critical reviews frequently acknowledged the intellectual depth of his work and influence.[275][280][281] The Human League founder Martyn Ware remarked that he had lived his life "as though he were an art installation."[282] The BBC's arts editor Will Gompertz likened Bowie to Pablo Picasso, writing that he was "an innovative, visionary, restless artist who synthesised complex avant garde concepts into beautifully coherent works that touched the hearts and minds of millions".[283] U2 lead singer Bono commented, "I like Bowie when he’s evenly pulled in the direction of being a pop star and Picasso, where he's right down the middle. That’s usually my favorite, when the songwriting is disciplined but the recording is not. I love when he's pulled equally in the directions of art and populism."[284]
+
+Broadcaster John Peel contrasted Bowie with his progressive rock contemporaries, arguing that Bowie was "an interesting kind of fringe figure... on the outskirts of things". Peel said he "liked the idea of him reinventing himself... the one distinguishing feature about early-70s progressive rock was that it didn't progress. Before Bowie came along, people didn't want too much change". Buckley called the era "bloated, self-important, leather-clad, self-satisfied"; then Bowie "subverted the whole notion of what it was to be a rock star".
+
+After Bowie there has been no other pop icon of his stature, because the pop world that produces these rock gods doesn't exist any more. ... The fierce partisanship of the cult of Bowie was also unique—its influence lasted longer and has been more creative than perhaps almost any other force within pop fandom.
+
+Buckley called Bowie "both star and icon. The vast body of work he has produced ... has created perhaps the biggest cult in popular culture. ... His influence has been unique in popular culture—he has permeated and altered more lives than any comparable figure."[285]
+
+Through continual reinvention, his influence broadened and extended.[286] Biographer Thomas Forget added, "Because he has succeeded in so many different styles of music, it is almost impossible to find a popular artist today that has not been influenced by David Bowie."[287] In 2000, Bowie was voted by other music stars as the "most influential artist of all time" in a poll by NME.[288][289] Alexis Petridis of The Guardian wrote that Bowie was confirmed by 1980 to be "the most important and influential artist since the Beatles".[290] Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph stated that Bowie had "one of the supreme careers in popular music, art and culture of the 20th century" and "he was too inventive, too mercurial, too strange for all but his most devoted fans to keep up with".[291] The BBC's Mark Easton argued that Bowie provided fuel for "the creative powerhouse that Britain has become" by challenging future generations "to aim high, to be ambitious and provocative, to take risks". Easton concluded that Bowie had "changed the way the world sees Britain. And the way Britain sees itself".[292] Annie Zaleski of Alternative Press wrote, "Every band or solo artist who's decided to rip up their playbook and start again owes a debt to Bowie".[293] In 2016, he was dubbed "The Greatest Rock Star Ever" by Rolling Stone magazine.[3]
+
+Numerous figures from the music industry whose careers Bowie had influenced paid tribute to him following his death; panegyrics on Twitter (tweets about him peaked at 20,000 a minute an hour after the announcement of his death)[282] also came from outside the entertainment industry and pop culture, such as those from the Vatican, namely Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, who quoted "Space Oddity", and the Federal Foreign Office, which thanked Bowie for his part in the fall of the Berlin Wall and referenced "Heroes".[294][295]
+
+Belgian amateur astronomers at the MIRA Public Observatory in conjunction with Studio Brussel created a "Bowie asterism" in homage to Bowie in January 2016; it depicts the iconic lightning bolt of Aladdin Sane using the stars Sigma Librae, Spica, Zeta Centauri, SAO 204132, Sigma Octantis,[296] SAO 241641 and Beta Trianguli Australis which were near Mars at the time of Bowie's death.[297][298][299]
+
+On 7 January 2017, the BBC broadcast the 90-minute documentary David Bowie: The Last Five Years, taking a detailed look at Bowie's last albums, The Next Day and Blackstar, and his play Lazarus.[300] On 8 January 2017, which would have been Bowie's 70th birthday, a charity concert in his birthplace of Brixton was hosted by the actor Gary Oldman, a close friend.[301] A David Bowie walking tour through Brixton was also launched, and other events marking his birthday weekend included concerts in New York, Los Angeles, Sydney, and Tokyo.[302]
+
+On 6 February 2018, the maiden flight of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carried Elon Musk's personal Tesla Roadster and a mannequin affectionately named Starman into space. "Space Oddity" and "Life on Mars?" were looping on the car's sound system during the launch.[303]
+
+It was announced on 31 January 2019 that musician and actor Johnny Flynn would be playing Bowie in an upcoming biopic titled Stardust which will be set around Bowie's first trip to the United States in 1971. Christopher Bell is writing the script and Gabriel Range will direct. Actress Jena Malone has signed on to play Bowie's wife Angie while actor Marc Maron will play Bowie's record company publicist.[304]
+
+On 1 February 2019, Bowie's son Duncan Jones spoke out against the film saying that he knew nothing about it and was informed about it by a fan on Twitter. Jones also said that the film would not have permission to use any of Bowie's music. "Pretty certain nobody has been granted music rights for ANY biopic... I would know. I'm not saying this movie is not happening. I honestly wouldn't know. I'm saying that as it stands, this movie won't have any of dads music in it, & I can't imagine that changing."[305]
+
+From the time of his earliest recordings in the 1960s, Bowie employed a wide variety of musical styles. His early compositions and performances were strongly influenced by rock and rollers like Little Richard and Elvis Presley, and also the wider world of show business. He particularly strove to emulate the British musical theatre singer-songwriter and actor Anthony Newley, whose vocal style he frequently adopted, and made prominent use of for his 1967 debut release, David Bowie (to the disgust of Newley himself, who destroyed the copy he received from Bowie's publisher).[25][306] Bowie's music hall fascination continued to surface sporadically alongside such diverse styles as hard rock and heavy metal, soul, psychedelic folk, and pop.[307]
+
+Musicologist James Perone observes Bowie's use of octave switches for different repetitions of the same melody, exemplified in his commercial breakthrough single, "Space Oddity", and later in the song "Heroes", to dramatic effect; Perone notes that "in the lowest part of his vocal register ... his voice has an almost crooner-like richness."[308]
+
+Voice instructor Jo Thompson describes Bowie's vocal vibrato technique as "particularly deliberate and distinctive".[309] Schinder and Schwartz call him "a vocalist of extraordinary technical ability, able to pitch his singing to particular effect."[310] Here, too, as in his stagecraft and songwriting, the singer's role playing is evident: historiographer Michael Campbell says that Bowie's lyrics "arrest our ear, without question. But Bowie continually shifts from person to person as he delivers them ... His voice changes dramatically from section to section."[311] In a 2014 analysis of 77 "top" singers' vocal ranges, Bowie was 8th, just behind Christina Aguilera and just ahead of Paul McCartney.[312] In addition to the guitar, Bowie also played a variety of keyboards, including piano, Mellotron, Chamberlin, and synthesizers; harmonica; alto and baritone saxophones; stylophone; viola; cello; koto (in the Heroes track "Moss Garden"); thumb piano; drums (on the Heathen track "Cactus"), and various percussion instruments.[313][314][315][316]
+
+Bowie was also a painter and artist. He moved to Switzerland in 1976, purchasing a chalet in the hills to the north of Lake Geneva. In the new environment, his cocaine use decreased and he found time for other pursuits outside his musical career.[317] He devoted more time to his painting, and produced a number of post-modernist pieces. When on tour, he took to sketching in a notebook, and photographing scenes for later reference. Visiting galleries in Geneva and the Brücke Museum in Berlin, Bowie became, in the words of biographer Christopher Sandford, "a prolific producer and collector of contemporary art. ... Not only did he become a well-known patron of expressionist art: locked in Clos des Mésanges he began an intensive self-improvement course in classical music and literature, and started work on an autobiography."[318]
+
+One of Bowie's paintings sold at auction in late 1990 for $500,[319] and the cover for his 1995 album Outside is a close-up of a self-portrait (from a series of five) he painted that same year.[320] His first solo show was at The Gallery, Cork Street in 1995, entitled 'New Afro/Pagan and Work: 1975–1995'.[321][322] He was invited to join the editorial board of the journal Modern Painters in 1998,[323] and participated in the Nat Tate art hoax later that year.[324]
+
+In 1998, during an interview with Michael Kimmelman for The New York Times, he said "Art was, seriously, the only thing I'd ever wanted to own."[325] Subsequently, in a 1999 interview for the BBC, he said "The only thing I buy obsessively and addictively is art".[326] His art collection, which included works by Damien Hirst, Derek Boshier, Frank Auerbach, Henry Moore, and Jean-Michel Basquiat among others, was valued at over £10m in mid-2016.[323][327]
+
+After his death, his family decided to sell most of the collection because they "didn't have the space" to store it.[323] On 10 and 11 November, three auctions were held at Sotheby's in London, first with 47 lots and second with 208 paintings, drawings, and sculptures, third with 100 design lots.[328] The items on sale represented about 65 percent of the collection.[329] Exhibition of the works in the auction attracted 51,470 visitors, the auction itself was attended by 1,750 bidders, with over 1,000 more bidding online. The auctions has overall sale total £32.9 million (app. $41.5 million), while the highest-selling item, Jean-Michel Basquiat's graffiti-inspired painting Air Power, sold for £7.09 million.[328][330]
+
+"Bowie Bonds", an early example of celebrity bonds, were asset-backed securities of current and future revenues of the 25 albums (287 songs) that Bowie recorded before 1990.[331] Issued in 1997, the bonds were bought for US$55 million by the Prudential Insurance Company of America.[332][333] Royalties from the 25 albums generated the cash flow that secured the bonds' interest payments.[334] By forfeiting ten years worth of royalties, Bowie received a payment of US$55 million up front. Bowie used this income to buy songs owned by his former manager, Tony Defries.[335] The bonds liquidated in 2007 and the rights to the income from the songs reverted to Bowie.[336]
+
+In September 1998, Bowie launched an Internet service provider, BowieNet, developed in conjunction with Robert Goodale and Ron Roy.[337][338] Subscribers to the dial-up service were offered exclusive content, as well as a BowieNet email address and Internet access.[337] The service was closed by 2006.[337]
+
+Bowie married his first wife, Mary Angela Barnett on 19 March 1970 at Bromley Register Office in Bromley, London. They had an open marriage. Angela described their union as a marriage of convenience. "We got married so that I could work [to get a permit]. I didn't think it would last and David said, before we got married, 'I'm not really in love with you' and I thought that's probably a good thing," she said. Bowie said about Angela that "living with her is like living with a blow torch."[339] Their son Duncan, born on 30 May 1971, was at first known as Zowie.[340] Bowie and Angela divorced on 8 February 1980 in Switzerland.[341] Bowie received custody of their son. After the gag order that was part of their divorce agreement ended, Angela wrote, Backstage Passes: Life on the Wild Side with David Bowie, a memoir of their turbulent marriage.[342]
+
+On 24 April 1992, Bowie married Somali-American model Iman in a private ceremony in Lausanne. The wedding was later solemnised on 6 June in Florence.[343] They had one daughter, Alexandria "Lexi" Zahra Jones, born in August 2000.[344][345] The couple resided primarily in New York City and London, as well as owning an apartment in Sydney's Elizabeth Bay[346][347] and Britannia Bay House on the island of Mustique.[348]
+
+Bowie declared himself gay in an interview with Michael Watts for a 1972 issue of Melody Maker,[349] coinciding with his campaign for stardom as Ziggy Stardust.[60] According to Buckley, "If Ziggy confused both his creator and his audience, a big part of that confusion centred on the topic of sexuality."[350] In a September 1976 interview with Playboy, Bowie said, "It's true—I am a bisexual. But I can't deny that I've used that fact very well. I suppose it's the best thing that ever happened to me."[351] His first wife, Angie, supports his claim of bisexuality and alleges that Bowie had a relationship with Mick Jagger.[352][353]
+
+In a 1983 interview with Rolling Stone, Bowie said his public declaration of bisexuality was "the biggest mistake I ever made" and "I was always a closet heterosexual."[354] On other occasions, he said his interest in homosexual and bisexual culture had been more a product of the times and the situation in which he found himself than of his own feelings.[355][a]
+
+Blender asked Bowie in 2002 whether he still believed his public declaration was his biggest mistake. After a long pause, he said, "I don't think it was a mistake in Europe, but it was a lot tougher in America. I had no problem with people knowing I was bisexual. But I had no inclination to hold any banners nor be a representative of any group of people." Bowie said he wanted to be a songwriter and performer rather than a headline for his bisexuality, and in "puritanical" America, "I think it stood in the way of so much I wanted to do."[357]
+
+Buckley wrote that Bowie "mined sexual intrigue for its ability to shock",[358] and was probably "never gay, nor even consistently actively bisexual", instead experimenting "out of a sense of curiosity and a genuine allegiance with the 'transgressional'."[359] Biographer Christopher Sandford said, according to Mary Finnigan—with whom Bowie had an affair in 1969—the singer and his first wife Angie "created their bisexual fantasy".[360] Sandford wrote that Bowie "made a positive fetish of repeating the quip that he and his wife had met while 'fucking the same bloke' ... Gay sex was always an anecdotal and laughing matter. That Bowie's actual tastes swung the other way is clear from even a partial tally of his affairs with women."[360] The BBC's Mark Easton wrote in 2016 that Britain was "far more tolerant of difference" and that gay rights, such as same-sex marriage, and gender equality would not have "enjoyed the broad support they do today without Bowie's androgynous challenge all those years ago".[292]
+
+Over the years, Bowie made numerous references to religions and to his evolving spirituality. Beginning in 1967, he became interested in Buddhism and considered becoming a Buddhist monk.[361] After a few months' study at Tibet House in London, he was told by a Lama, "You don't want to be Buddhist. ... You should follow music."[362] By 1975, Bowie admitted, "I felt totally, absolutely alone. And I probably was alone because I pretty much had abandoned God."[356] In his will, Bowie stipulated that he be cremated and his ashes scattered in Bali "in accordance with the Buddhist rituals".[155]
+
+After Bowie married Iman in a private ceremony in 1992, he said they knew that their "real marriage, sanctified by God, had to happen in a church in Florence".[363] Earlier that year, he knelt on stage at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert and recited the Lord's Prayer before a television audience.[133][b] In 1993, Bowie said he had an "undying" belief in the "unquestionable" existence of God.[356] In a separate 1993 interview, while describing the genesis of the music for his album Black Tie White Noise, he said " … it was important for me to find something [musically] that also had no sort of representation of institutionalized and organized religion, of which I'm not a believer, I must make that clear."[364] Interviewed in 2005, Bowie said whether God exists "is not a question that can be answered. ... I'm not quite an atheist and it worries me. There's that little bit that holds on: 'Well, I'm almost an atheist. Give me a couple of months. ... I've nearly got it right.'"[365]
+
+"Questioning [his] spiritual life [was] always ... germane" to Bowie's songwriting.[365] The song "Station to Station" is "very much concerned with the Stations of the Cross"; the song also specifically references Kabbalah. Bowie called the album "extremely dark ... the nearest album to a magick treatise that I've written".[366][c] Earthling showed "the abiding need in me to vacillate between atheism or a kind of gnosticism ... What I need is to find a balance, spiritually, with the way I live and my demise."[368] Released shortly before his death, "Lazarus"—from his final album, Blackstar—began with the words, "Look up here, I'm in Heaven" while the rest of the album deals with other matters of mysticism and mortality.[369]
+
+In 1976, speaking as The Thin White Duke, Bowie's persona at the time, and "at least partially tongue-in-cheek", he made statements that expressed support for fascism and perceived admiration for Adolf Hitler in interviews with Playboy, NME, and a Swedish publication. Bowie was quoted as saying: "Britain is ready for a fascist leader... I think Britain could benefit from a fascist leader. After all, fascism is really nationalism... I believe very strongly in fascism, people have always responded with greater efficiency under a regimental leadership." He was also quoted as saying: "Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars" and "You've got to have an extreme right front come up and sweep everything off its feet and tidy everything up."[370][371] Bowie later retracted these comments in an interview with Melody Maker in October 1977, blaming them on mental instability caused by his drug problems at the time, saying: "I was out of my mind, totally, completely crazed."[372]
+
+In the 1980s and 1990s, Bowie's public statements shifted sharply towards anti-racism and anti-fascism. In an interview with MTV anchor Mark Goodman in 1983, Bowie criticised the channel for not providing enough coverage of black musicians, becoming visibly uncomfortable when the host suggested concerns among midwestern viewers was a reason.[373][374] The music videos for "China Girl" and "Let's Dance" were described by Bowie as a "very simple, very direct" statement against racism.[375] The album Tin Machine took a more direct stance against fascism and Neo-Nazism, and was criticised for being too preachy.[123]
+
+At the 2014 Brit Awards on 19 February, Bowie became the oldest recipient of a Brit Award in the ceremony's history when he won the award for British Male Solo Artist, which was collected on his behalf by Kate Moss. His speech read: "I'm completely delighted to have a Brit for being the best male – but I am, aren't I Kate? Yes. I think it's a great way to end the day. Thank you very, very much and Scotland stay with us."[376] Bowie's reference to the forthcoming September 2014 Scottish independence referendum garnered a significant reaction throughout the UK on social media.[377][378]
+
+In 2016, filmmaker and activist Michael Moore said he had wanted to use "Panic in Detroit" for his 1998 documentary The Big One; denied at first, he was given the rights after calling Bowie personally. "I've read stuff since his death saying that he wasn't that political and he stayed away from politics. But that wasn't the conversation that I had with him."[379]
+
+On 10 January 2016, two days after his 69th birthday and the release of the album Blackstar, Bowie died from liver cancer in his New York City apartment.[380] He had been diagnosed 18 months earlier but had not made the news of his illness public.[381] The Belgian theatre director Ivo van Hove, who had worked with the singer on his Off-Broadway musical Lazarus, explained that Bowie was unable to attend rehearsals due to the progression of the disease. He noted that Bowie had kept working during the illness.[382]
+
+Bowie's producer Tony Visconti wrote:
+
+He always did what he wanted to do. And he wanted to do it his way and he wanted to do it the best way. His death was no different from his life – a work of art. He made Blackstar for us, his parting gift. I knew for a year this was the way it would be. I wasn't, however, prepared for it. He was an extraordinary man, full of love and life. He will always be with us. For now, it is appropriate to cry.[383][384]
+
+Following Bowie's death, fans gathered at impromptu street shrines.[385] At the mural of Bowie in his birthplace of Brixton, south London, which shows him in his Aladdin Sane character, fans laid flowers and sang his songs.[386] Other memorial sites included Berlin, Los Angeles, and outside his apartment in New York.[387] After news of his death, sales of his albums and singles soared.[388] Bowie had insisted that he did not want a funeral, and according to his death certificate he was cremated in New Jersey on 12 January.[389] As he wished in his will, his ashes were scattered in a Buddhist ceremony in Bali, Indonesia.[1]
+
+Bowie's 1969 commercial breakthrough, the song "Space Oddity", won him an Ivor Novello Special Award For Originality.[390] For his performance in the 1976 science fiction film The Man Who Fell to Earth, he won a Saturn Award for Best Actor. In the ensuing decades he was honoured with numerous awards for his music and its accompanying videos, receiving, among others, six Grammy Awards[391][392][226] and four Brit Awards—winning Best British Male Artist twice; the award for Outstanding Contribution to Music in 1996; and the Brits Icon award for his "lasting impact on British culture", given posthumously in 2016.[393][394][395]
+
+In 1999, Bowie was made a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.[396] He received an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music the same year.[397] He declined the royal honour of Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2000, and turned down a knighthood in 2003.[398] Bowie later stated "I would never have any intention of accepting anything like that. I seriously don't know what it's for. It's not what I spent my life working for."[399]
+
+Bowie has sold over 100 million records worldwide.[400][d] In the United Kingdom, he was awarded 9 platinum, 11 gold, and 8 silver albums, and in the United States, 5 platinum and 9 gold.[402]
+
+Five of Bowie's albums appear on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[403] Four of Bowie's songs appear on the Rolling Stone list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Additionally, four of his songs are included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.[404] According to Acclaimed Music, he is the fourth most celebrated artist in popular music history.[405]
+
+In the BBC's 2002 poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, he was ranked 29.[406] In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him 39th on their list of the 100 Greatest Rock Artists of All Time.[407] Bowie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.[141] He was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2013.[408][409] In 2016, Rolling Stone proclaimed Bowie "the greatest rock star ever".[410]
+
+In 2008, the spider Heteropoda davidbowie was named in Bowie's honour.[411] On 5 January 2015, a main-belt asteroid was named 342843 Davidbowie.[412] On 13 January 2016, Belgian amateur astronomers at MIRA Public Observatory created a "Bowie asterism" of seven stars which had been in the vicinity of Mars at the time of Bowie's death; the "constellation" forms the lightning bolt on Bowie's face from the cover of his Aladdin Sane album.[413]
+
+On 25 March 2018, a statue of Bowie was unveiled in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, the town where he debuted Ziggy Stardust.[414] The statue features a likeness of Bowie in 2002 accompanied with various characters and looks from over his career, with Ziggy at the front.[415]
+
+Sources
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+David (Hebrew: דָּוִד)[a] is described in the Hebrew Bible as the third king of the United Monarchy of Israel and Judah,[b] becoming king after Ish-bosheth. In the Books of Samuel, David is a young shepherd who gains fame first as a musician and later by killing the enemy champion Goliath. He becomes a favorite of King Saul and a close friend of Saul's son Jonathan. Worried that David is trying to take his throne, Saul turns on David. After Saul and Jonathan are killed in battle, David is anointed as King. David conquers Jerusalem, taking the Ark of the Covenant into the city, and establishing the kingdom founded by Saul. As king, David commits adultery with Bathsheba, leading him to arrange the death of her husband Uriah the Hittite. David's son Absalom schemes to overthrow David.  David flees Jerusalem during Absalom's rebellion, but after Absalom's death he returns to the city to rule Israel. Because David shed much blood,[2] God denies David the opportunity to build the temple. Before his peaceful death, he chooses his son Solomon as successor. He is honored in the prophetic literature as an ideal king and the forefather of a future Messiah, and many psalms are ascribed to him.[3]
+
+Historians of the Ancient Near East agree that David probably existed around 1000 BCE, but that there is little that can be said about him as a historical figure. It was initially thought that there was no evidence outside of the Bible concerning David, but the Tel Dan Stele, an inscribed stone erected by a king of Damascus in the late 9th/early 8th centuries BCE to commemorate his victory over two enemy kings, contains the phrase in Hebrew: ביתדוד‎, bytdwd, which most scholars translate as "House of David".
+
+David is richly represented in post-biblical Jewish written and oral tradition, and is discussed in the New Testament. Early Christians interpreted the life of Jesus in light of the references to the Messiah and to David; Jesus is described as being descended from David in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. David is discussed in the Quran as a major prophet and figures in Islamic oral and written tradition as well. The biblical character of David has inspired many interpretations in art and literature over centuries.
+
+The First Book of Samuel and the First Book of Chronicles both identify David as the son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, the youngest of eight sons.[4] He also had at least two sisters, Zeruiah, whose sons all went on to serve in David's army, and Abigail, whose son Amasa went on to serve in Absalom's army, Absalom being one of David's younger sons.[5] While the Bible does not name his mother, the Talmud identifies her as Nitzevet, a daughter of a man named Adael, and the Book of Ruth claims him as the great-grandson of Ruth, the Moabite, by Boaz.[6]
+
+David is described as cementing his relations with various political and national groups through marriage.[7] In 1 Samuel 17:25, it states that King Saul had said that he would make whoever killed Goliath a very wealthy man, give his daughter to him and declare his father's family exempt from taxes in Israel. Saul offered David his oldest daughter, Merab, a marriage which David respectfully declined.[8] Saul then gave Merab in marriage to Adriel the Meholathite.[9]  Having been told that his younger daughter Michal was in love with David, Saul gave her in marriage to David upon David's payment in Philistine foreskins[10] (ancient Jewish historian Josephus lists the dowry as 600 Philistine heads).[11] Saul became jealous of David and tried to have him killed. David escaped. Then Saul sent Michal to Galim to marry Palti, son of Laish.[12] David then took wives in Hebron, according to 2 Samuel 3; they were Ahinoam the Yizre'elite; Abigail, the wife of Nabal the Carmelite; Maacah, the daughter of Talmay, king of Geshur; Haggith; Abital; and Eglah. Later, David wanted Michal back and Abner, Ish-bosheth's army commander, delivered her to David, causing her husband (Palti) great grief.[13]
+
+The Book of Chronicles lists his sons with his various wives and concubines. In Hebron, David had six sons: Amnon, by Ahinoam; Daniel, by Abigail; Absalom, by Maachah; Adonijah, by Haggith; Shephatiah, by Abital; and Ithream, by Eglah.[14] By Bathsheba, his sons were Shammua, Shobab, Nathan, and Solomon. David's sons born in Jerusalem of his other wives included Ibhar, Elishua, Eliphelet, Nogah, Nepheg, Japhia, Elishama and Eliada.[15] Jerimoth, who is not mentioned in any of the genealogies, is mentioned as another of his sons in 2 Chronicles 11:18. His daughter Tamar, by Maachah, is raped by her half-brother Amnon. David fails to bring Amnon to justice for his violation of Tamar, because he is his firstborn and he loves him, and so, Absalom (her full brother) murders Amnon to avenge Tamar.[16]
+
+
+
+God is angered when Saul, Israel's king, unlawfully offers a sacrifice[17] and later disobeys a divine command both to kill all of the Amalekites and to destroy their confiscated property.[18] Consequently, God sends the prophet Samuel to anoint a shepherd, David, the youngest son of Jesse of Bethlehem, to be king instead.[19]
+
+After God sends an evil spirit to torment Saul, his servants recommend that he send for a man skilled in playing the lyre. A servant proposes David, whom the servant describes as "skillful in playing, a man of valor, a warrior, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence; and the Lord is with him." David enters Saul's service as one of the royal armour-bearers and plays the lyre to soothe the king.[20]
+
+War comes between Israel and the Philistines, and the giant Goliath challenges the Israelites to send out a champion to face him in single combat.[21] David, sent by his father to bring provisions to his brothers serving in Saul's army, declares that he can defeat Goliath.[22] Refusing the king's offer of the royal armour,[23] he kills Goliath with his sling.[24] Saul inquires the name of the young hero's father.[25]
+
+Saul sets David over his army. All Israel loves David, but his popularity causes Saul to fear him ("What else can he wish but the kingdom?").[26] Saul plots his death, but Saul's son Jonathan, one of those who loves David, warns him of his father's schemes and David flees. He goes first to Nob, where he is fed by the priest Ahimelech and given Goliath's sword, and then to Gath, the Philistine city of Goliath, intending to seek refuge with King Achish there. Achish's servants or officials question his loyalty, and David sees that he is in danger there.[27] He goes next to the cave of Adullam, where his family join him.[28] From there he goes to seek refuge with the king of Moab, but the prophet Gad advises him to leave and he goes to the Forest of Hereth,[29] and then to Keilah, where he is involved in a further battle with the Philistines. Saul plans to besiege Keilah so that he can capture David, so David leaves the city in order to protect its inhabitants.[30] From there he takes refuge in the mountainous Wilderness of Ziph.[31]
+
+Jonathan meets with David again and confirms his loyalty to David as the future king.  After the people of Ziph notify Saul that David is taking refuge in their territory, Saul seeks confirmation and plans to capture David in the Wilderness of Maon, but his attention is diverted by a renewed Philistine invasion and David is able to secure some respite at Ein Gedi.[32] Returning from battle with the Philistines, Saul heads to Ein Gedi in pursuit of David and enters the cave where, as it happens, David and his supporters are hiding, "to attend to his needs". David realises he has an opportunity to kill Saul, but this is not his intention: he secretly cuts off a corner of Saul's robe, and when Saul has left the cave he comes out to pay homage to Saul as the king and to demonstrate, using the piece of robe, that he holds no malice towards Saul. The two are thus reconciled and Saul recognises David as his successor.[33]
+
+A similar passage occurs in 1 Samuel 26, when David is able to infiltrate Saul's camp on the hill of Hachilah and remove his spear and a jug of water from his side while he and his guards lie asleep. In this account, David is advised by Abishai that this is his opportunity to kill Saul, but David declines, saying he will not "stretch out [his] hand against the Lord's anointed".[34] Saul confesses that he has been wrong to pursue David and blesses him.[35]
+
+In 1 Samuel 27:1–4, Saul ceases to pursue David because David took refuge a second[36] time with Achish, the Philistine king of Gath. Achish permits David to reside in Ziklag, close to the border between Gath and Judea, from where he leads raids against the Geshurites, the Girzites and the Amalekites, but leads Achish to believe he is attacking the Israelites in Judah, the Jerahmeelites and the Kenites. Achish believes that David had become a loyal vassal, but he never wins the trust of the princes or lords of Gath, and at their request Achish instructs David to remain behind to guard the camp when the Philistines march against Saul.[37] David returns to Ziklag.[38] Jonathan and Saul are killed in battle,[39] and David is anointed king over Judah.[40] In the north, Saul's son Ish-Bosheth is anointed king of Israel, and war ensues until Ish-Bosheth is murdered.[41]
+
+With the death of Saul's son, the elders of Israel come to Hebron and David is anointed king over all of Israel.[42] He conquers Jerusalem, previously a Jebusite stronghold, and makes it his capital.[43] He brings the Ark of the Covenant to the city,[44] intending to build a temple for God, but the prophet Nathan forbids it, prophesying that the temple would be built by one of David's sons.[45] Nathan also prophesies that God has made a covenant with the house of David stating, "your throne shall be established forever".[46] David wins additional victories over the Philistines, Moabites, Edomites, Amalekites, Ammonites and king Hadadezer of Aram-Zobah, after which they become tributaries.[47]
+
+During a siege of the Ammonite capital of Rabbah, David remains in Jerusalem. He spies a woman, Bathsheba, bathing and summons her; she becomes pregnant.[48][49][50] The text in the Bible does not explicitly state whether Bathsheba consented to sex.[51][52][53][54]  David calls her husband, Uriah the Hittite, back from the battle to rest, hoping that he will go home to his wife and the child will be presumed to be his. Uriah does not visit his wife, however, so David conspires to have him killed in the heat of battle. David then marries the widowed Bathsheba.[55] In response, Nathan prophesies the punishment that will fall upon him, stating "the sword shall never depart from your house."[56] When David acknowledges that he has sinned,[57] Nathan advises him that his sin is forgiven and he will not die,[58] but the child will.[59]
+
+In fulfillment of Nathan's words, David's son Absalom, fueled by vengeance and lust for power, rebels.[60] Absalom's forces are routed at the battle of the Wood of Ephraim, and he is caught by his long hair in the branches of a tree where, contrary to David's order, he is killed by Joab, the commander of David's army.[61] David laments the death of his favourite son: "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!"[62] until Joab persuades him to recover from "the extravagance of his grief"[63] and to fulfill his duty to his people.[64] David returns to Gilgal and is escorted across the River Jordan and back to Jerusalem by the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.[65]
+
+When David is old and bedridden, Adonijah, his eldest surviving son and natural heir, declares himself king.[66] Bathsheba and Nathan go to David and obtain his agreement to crown Bathsheba's son Solomon as king, according to David's earlier promise, and the revolt of Adonijah is put down.[67] David dies at the age of 70 after reigning for 40 years,[68] and on his deathbed counsels Solomon to walk in the ways of God and to take revenge on his enemies.[69]
+
+The Book of Samuel calls David a skillful harp (lyre) player[71] and "the sweet psalmist of Israel."[72] Yet, while almost half of the Psalms are headed "A Psalm of David" (also translated as "to David" or "for David") and tradition identifies several with specific events in David's life (e.g., Psalms 3, 7, 18, 34, 51, 52, 54, 56, 57, 59, 60, 63 and 142),[73] the headings are late additions and no psalm can be attributed to David with certainty.[74]
+
+Psalm 34 is attributed to David on the occasion of his escape from Abimelech (or King Achish) by pretending to be insane.[75] According to the parallel narrative in 1 Samuel 21, instead of killing the man who had exacted so many casualties from him, Abimelech allows David to depart, exclaiming, "Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house?"[76]
+
+The Tel Dan Stele, an inscribed stone erected by a king of Damascus in the late 9th/early 8th centuries BCE to commemorate his victory over two enemy kings, contains the phrase Hebrew: ביתדוד‎, bytdwd, which most scholars translate as "House of David".[77] Other scholars, such as Anson Rainey have challenged this reading,[78] but it is likely that this is a reference to a dynasty of the Kingdom of Judah which traced its ancestry to a founder named David.[77] The Mesha Stele from Moab, dating from approximately the same period, may also contain the name David in two places, although this is less certain than the mention in the Tel Dan inscription.[79]
+
+Besides the two steles, bible scholar and egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen suggests that David's name also appears in a relief of Pharaoh Shoshenq (usually identified with Shishak in the Bible, 1 Kings 14:25–27).[80] The relief claims that Shoshenq raided places in Palestine in 925 BCE, and Kitchen interprets one place as "Heights of David", which was in Southern Judah and the Negev  where the Bible says David took refuge from Saul. The relief is damaged and interpretation is uncertain.[80]
+
+Apart from these, all that is known of David comes from the biblical literature. Some scholars have concluded that this was likely compiled from contemporary records of the 11th and 10th centuries BCE, but that there is no clear historical basis for determining the exact date of compilation.[81] Other scholars, such as A. Graeme Auld, Professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of Edinburgh, believe that the Books of Samuel were substantially composed during the time of King Josiah at the end of the 7th century BCE, extended during the Babylonian exile (6th century BCE), and substantially complete by about 550 BCE. Auld contends that further editing was done even after then—the silver quarter-shekel which Saul's servant offers to Samuel in 1 Samuel 9 "almost certainly fixes the date of the story in the Persian or Hellenistic period" because a quarter-shekel was known to exist in Hasmonean times.[82] The authors and editors of Samuel drew on many earlier sources, including, for their history of David, the "history of David's rise" (1 Samuel 16:14–2 Samuel 5:10), and the "succession narrative" (2 Samuel 9–20 and 1 Kings 1–2).[83] The Book of Chronicles, which tells the story from a different point of view, was probably composed in the period 350–300 BCE, and uses Samuel as its source.[84]
+
+The authors and editors of Samuel and Chronicles did not aim to record history, but to promote David's reign as inevitable and desirable, and for this reason there is little about David that is concrete and undisputed.[85] The archaeological evidence indicates that in the 10th century BCE, the time of David, Judah was sparsely inhabited and Jerusalem was no more than a small village; over the following century it slowly evolved from a highland chiefdom to a kingdom, but always overshadowed by the older and more powerful kingdom of Israel to the north.[86] The biblical evidence likewise indicates that David's Judah was something less than a full-fledged monarchy: it often calls him negid, for example, meaning "prince" or "chief", rather than melek, meaning "king"; the biblical David sets up none of the complex bureaucracy that a kingdom needs (even his army is made up of volunteers), and his followers are largely related to him and from his small home-area around Hebron.[87]
+
+Beyond this, the full range of possible interpretations is available. John Bright, in his History of Israel (1981), takes Samuel at face value. Donald B. Redford, however, sees all reconstructions from biblical sources for the United Monarchy period as examples of "academic wishful thinking".[88] Thomas L. Thompson rejects the historicity of the biblical narrative: "The history of Palestine and of its peoples is very different from the Bible's narratives, whatever political claims to the contrary may be. An independent history of Judea during the Iron I and Iron II periods has little room for historicizing readings of the stories of I-II Samuel and I Kings."[89] Amihai Mazar however, concludes that based on recent archeological findings, like those in City of David, Khirbet Qeiyafa, Tel Dan, Tel Rehov, Khirbat en-Nahas and others "the deconstruction of United Monarchy and the devaluation of Judah as a state in 9th century is unacceptable interpretation of available historic data". According to Mazar, based on archeological evidences, the United Monarchy can be described as a "state in development".[90]
+
+Some studies of David have been written: Baruch Halpern has pictured David as a lifelong vassal of Achish, the Philistine king of Gath;[91] Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman have identified as the oldest and most reliable section of Samuel those chapters which describe David as the charismatic leader of a band of outlaws who captures Jerusalem and makes it his capital.[92] Steven McKenzie, Associate Professor of the Hebrew Bible at Rhodes College and author of King David: A Biography, argues that David came from a wealthy family, was "ambitious and ruthless" and a tyrant who murdered his opponents, including his own sons.[74]
+
+Critical Bible scholarship holds that the biblical account of David's rise to power is a political apology—an answer to contemporary charges against him, of his involvement in murders and regicide.[93]
+
+Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman reject the idea that David ruled over a united monarchy, suggesting instead that he ruled only as a chieftain over the southern kingdom of Judah, much smaller than the northern kingdom of Israel at that time.[94] They posit that Israel and Judah were still polytheistic or henotheistic in the time of David and Solomon, and that much later seventh-century redactors sought to portray a past golden age of a united, monotheistic monarchy in order to serve contemporary needs.[95] They note a lack of archeological evidence for David's military campaigns and a relative underdevelopment of Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, compared to a more developed and urbanized Samaria, capital of Israel.[96][97][98]
+
+Jacob L. Wright, Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Emory University, has written that the most popular legends about David, including his killing of Goliath, his affair with Bathsheba, and his ruling of a United Kingdom of Israel rather than just Judah, are the creation of those who lived generations after him, in particular those living in the late Persian or Hellenistic periods.[99]
+
+David is an important figure in Rabbinic Judaism, with many legends around him. According to one tradition, David was raised as the son of his father Jesse and spent his early years herding his father's sheep in the wilderness while his brothers were in school.[100]
+
+David's adultery with Bathsheba is interpreted as an opportunity to demonstrate the power of repentance, and the Talmud states that it was not adultery at all, quoting a Jewish practice of divorce on the eve of battle. Furthermore, according to Talmudic sources, the death of Uriah was not to be considered murder, on the basis that Uriah had committed a capital offense by refusing to obey a direct command from the King.[101] However, in tractate Sanhedrin, David expressed remorse over his transgressions and sought forgiveness.  God ultimately forgave David and Bathsheba but would not remove their sins from Scripture.[102]
+
+In Jewish legend, David's sin with Bathsheba is the punishment for David's excessive self-consciousness who had besought God to lead him into temptation so that he might give proof of his constancy as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (who successfully passed the test) whose names later were united with God's, while David eventually failed through the temptation of a woman.[100]
+
+According to midrashim, Adam gave up 70 years of his life for the life of David.[103] Also, according to the Talmud Yerushalmi, David was born and died on the Jewish holiday of Shavuot (Feast of Weeks). His piety was said to be so great that his prayers could bring down things from Heaven.[citation needed]
+
+The concept of the Messiah is important in Christianity. Originally an earthly king ruling by divine appointment ("the anointed one", as the title Messiah had it), the "son of David" became in the last two pre-Christian centuries the apocalyptic and heavenly one who would deliver Israel and usher in a new kingdom. This was the background to the concept of Messiahship in early Christianity, which interpreted the career of Jesus "by means of the titles and functions assigned to David in the mysticism of the Zion cult, in which he served as priest-king and in which he was the mediator between God and man".[106] The early Church believed that "the life of David [foreshadowed] the life of Christ; Bethlehem is the birthplace of both; the shepherd life of David points out Christ, the Good Shepherd; the five stones chosen to slay Goliath are typical of the five wounds; the betrayal by his trusted counsellor, Achitophel, and the passage over the Cedron remind us of Christ's Sacred Passion. Many of the Davidic Psalms, as we learn from the New Testament, are clearly typical of the future Messiah."[107] In the Middle Ages, "Charlemagne thought of himself, and was viewed by his court scholars, as a 'new David'. [This was] not in itself a new idea, but [one whose] content and significance were greatly enlarged by him".[108] The linking of David to earthly kingship was reflected in European cathedral windows of the Late Middle Ages, through the device of the Tree of Jesse, its branches demonstrating how divine kingship descended from Jesse, through his son David, to Jesus.[citation needed]
+
+Western Rite churches (Lutheran, Roman Catholic) celebrate his feast day on 29 December, Eastern-rite on 19 December.[109] The Eastern Orthodox Church and Eastern Catholic Churches celebrate the feast day of the "Holy Righteous Prophet and King David" on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers (two Sundays before the Great Feast of the Nativity of the Lord), when he is commemorated together with other ancestors of Jesus. He is also commemorated on the Sunday after the Nativity, together with Joseph and James, the Brother of the Lord.[citation needed]
+
+In European Christian culture of the Middle Ages, David was made a member of the Nine Worthies, a group of heroes encapsulating all the ideal qualities of chivalry. His life was thus proposed as a valuable subject for study by those aspiring to chivalric status. This aspect of David in the Nine Worthies was popularised firstly through literature, and was thereafter adopted as a frequent subject for painters and sculptors.
+
+David was considered as a model ruler and a symbol of divinely-ordained monarchy throughout medieval Western Europe and Eastern Christendom. David was perceived as the biblical predecessor to Christian Roman and Byzantine emperors and the name "New David" was used as an honorific reference to these rulers.[111] The Georgian Bagratids and the Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopia claimed a direct biological descent from him.[112] Likewise, kings of the Frankish Carolingian dynasty frequently connected themselves to David; Charlemagne himself occasionally used the name of David as his pseudonym.[111]
+
+David is an important figure in Islam as one of the major prophets sent by God to guide the Israelites. David is mentioned several times in the Quran with the Arabic name داود, Dāwūd, often with his son Solomon. In the Qur'an: David killed Goliath (2:251), a giant soldier in the Philistine army. When David killed Goliath, God granted him kingship and wisdom and enforced it (38:20). David was made God's "vicegerent on earth" (38:26) and God further gave David sound judgment (21:78; 37:21–24, 26) as well as the Psalms, regarded as books of divine wisdom (4:163; 17:55). The birds and mountains united with David in uttering praise to God (21:79; 34:10; 38:18), while God made iron soft for David (34:10), God also instructed David in the art of fashioning chain-mail out of iron (21:80); an indication of the first use of wrought iron, this knowledge gave David a major advantage over his bronze and cast iron-armed opponents, not to mention the cultural and economic impact. Together with Solomon, David gave judgment in a case of damage to the fields (21:78) and David judged the matter between two disputants in his prayer chamber (38:21–23). Since there is no mention in the Qur'an of the wrong David did to Uriah nor any reference to Bathsheba, Muslims reject this narrative.[113]
+
+Muslim tradition and the hadith stress David's zeal in daily prayer as well as in fasting.[114] Qur'an commentators, historians and compilers of the numerous Stories of the Prophets elaborate upon David's concise Qur'anic narratives and specifically mention David's gift in singing his Psalms as well as his musical and vocal talents. His voice is described as having had a captivating power, weaving its influence not only over man but over all beasts and nature, who would unite with him to praise God.[115]
+
+Literary works about David include:
+
+David has been depicted several times in films; these are some of the best-known:
+
+For a considerable period, starting in the 15th century and continuing until the 19th, French playing card manufacturers assigned to each of the court cards names taken from history or mythology.  In this context, the King of Spades was often known as "David".[129][130]
+
+Rembrandt, c. 1650: Saul and David.
+
+Mural of King David from an 18th-century sukkah (Jewish Museum of Franconia).
+
+Miniature from the Paris Psalter: David in the robes of a Byzantine emperor.
+
+Matteo Rosselli The triumphant David.
+
+King David playing the harp, ceiling fresco from Monheim Town Hall, home of a wealthy Jewish merchant.
+
+King David, stained glass windows from the Romanesque Augsburg Cathedral, late 11th century.
+
+Study of King David, by Julia Margaret Cameron. Depicts Sir Henry Taylor, 1866.
+
+The Ark is brought to Jerusalem (1896 Bible card illustration by the Providence Lithograph Company)
+
+Arnold Zadikow, 1930: The Young David displayed in the entrance of Berlin's Jewish Museum from 1933 until its loss during the Second World War.
+
+David on an Israeli stamp
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SixteenthDynasty
+AbydosDynasty
+SeventeenthDynasty
+
+Nineteenth Dynasty of EgyptRamesses I Seti I Ramesses II Merneptah Amenmesses Seti II Siptah Twosret♀
+
+Twenty-first Dynasty of EgyptSmendes Amenemnisu Psusennes I Amenemope Osorkon the Elder Siamun Psusennes II
+
+Twenty-third Dynasty of EgyptHarsiese A Takelot II Pedubast I Shoshenq VI Osorkon III Takelot III Rudamun Menkheperre Ini
+Twenty-fourth Dynasty of EgyptTefnakht Bakenranef
+
+(Sargonid dynasty)Tiglath-Pileser† Shalmaneser† Marduk-apla-iddina II Sargon† Sennacherib† Marduk-zakir-shumi II Marduk-apla-iddina II Bel-ibni Ashur-nadin-shumi† Nergal-ushezib Mushezib-Marduk Esarhaddon† Ashurbanipal Ashur-etil-ilani Sinsharishkun Sin-shumu-lishir Ashur-uballit II
+
+Seleucid Empire: Seleucus I Antiochus I Antiochus II Seleucus II Seleucus III Antiochus III Seleucus IV Antiochus IV Antiochus V Demetrius I Alexander III Demetrius II Antiochus VI Dionysus Diodotus Tryphon Antiochus VII Sidetes

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+David (Hebrew: דָּוִד)[a] is described in the Hebrew Bible as the third king of the United Monarchy of Israel and Judah,[b] becoming king after Ish-bosheth. In the Books of Samuel, David is a young shepherd who gains fame first as a musician and later by killing the enemy champion Goliath. He becomes a favorite of King Saul and a close friend of Saul's son Jonathan. Worried that David is trying to take his throne, Saul turns on David. After Saul and Jonathan are killed in battle, David is anointed as King. David conquers Jerusalem, taking the Ark of the Covenant into the city, and establishing the kingdom founded by Saul. As king, David commits adultery with Bathsheba, leading him to arrange the death of her husband Uriah the Hittite. David's son Absalom schemes to overthrow David.  David flees Jerusalem during Absalom's rebellion, but after Absalom's death he returns to the city to rule Israel. Because David shed much blood,[2] God denies David the opportunity to build the temple. Before his peaceful death, he chooses his son Solomon as successor. He is honored in the prophetic literature as an ideal king and the forefather of a future Messiah, and many psalms are ascribed to him.[3]
+
+Historians of the Ancient Near East agree that David probably existed around 1000 BCE, but that there is little that can be said about him as a historical figure. It was initially thought that there was no evidence outside of the Bible concerning David, but the Tel Dan Stele, an inscribed stone erected by a king of Damascus in the late 9th/early 8th centuries BCE to commemorate his victory over two enemy kings, contains the phrase in Hebrew: ביתדוד‎, bytdwd, which most scholars translate as "House of David".
+
+David is richly represented in post-biblical Jewish written and oral tradition, and is discussed in the New Testament. Early Christians interpreted the life of Jesus in light of the references to the Messiah and to David; Jesus is described as being descended from David in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. David is discussed in the Quran as a major prophet and figures in Islamic oral and written tradition as well. The biblical character of David has inspired many interpretations in art and literature over centuries.
+
+The First Book of Samuel and the First Book of Chronicles both identify David as the son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, the youngest of eight sons.[4] He also had at least two sisters, Zeruiah, whose sons all went on to serve in David's army, and Abigail, whose son Amasa went on to serve in Absalom's army, Absalom being one of David's younger sons.[5] While the Bible does not name his mother, the Talmud identifies her as Nitzevet, a daughter of a man named Adael, and the Book of Ruth claims him as the great-grandson of Ruth, the Moabite, by Boaz.[6]
+
+David is described as cementing his relations with various political and national groups through marriage.[7] In 1 Samuel 17:25, it states that King Saul had said that he would make whoever killed Goliath a very wealthy man, give his daughter to him and declare his father's family exempt from taxes in Israel. Saul offered David his oldest daughter, Merab, a marriage which David respectfully declined.[8] Saul then gave Merab in marriage to Adriel the Meholathite.[9]  Having been told that his younger daughter Michal was in love with David, Saul gave her in marriage to David upon David's payment in Philistine foreskins[10] (ancient Jewish historian Josephus lists the dowry as 600 Philistine heads).[11] Saul became jealous of David and tried to have him killed. David escaped. Then Saul sent Michal to Galim to marry Palti, son of Laish.[12] David then took wives in Hebron, according to 2 Samuel 3; they were Ahinoam the Yizre'elite; Abigail, the wife of Nabal the Carmelite; Maacah, the daughter of Talmay, king of Geshur; Haggith; Abital; and Eglah. Later, David wanted Michal back and Abner, Ish-bosheth's army commander, delivered her to David, causing her husband (Palti) great grief.[13]
+
+The Book of Chronicles lists his sons with his various wives and concubines. In Hebron, David had six sons: Amnon, by Ahinoam; Daniel, by Abigail; Absalom, by Maachah; Adonijah, by Haggith; Shephatiah, by Abital; and Ithream, by Eglah.[14] By Bathsheba, his sons were Shammua, Shobab, Nathan, and Solomon. David's sons born in Jerusalem of his other wives included Ibhar, Elishua, Eliphelet, Nogah, Nepheg, Japhia, Elishama and Eliada.[15] Jerimoth, who is not mentioned in any of the genealogies, is mentioned as another of his sons in 2 Chronicles 11:18. His daughter Tamar, by Maachah, is raped by her half-brother Amnon. David fails to bring Amnon to justice for his violation of Tamar, because he is his firstborn and he loves him, and so, Absalom (her full brother) murders Amnon to avenge Tamar.[16]
+
+
+
+God is angered when Saul, Israel's king, unlawfully offers a sacrifice[17] and later disobeys a divine command both to kill all of the Amalekites and to destroy their confiscated property.[18] Consequently, God sends the prophet Samuel to anoint a shepherd, David, the youngest son of Jesse of Bethlehem, to be king instead.[19]
+
+After God sends an evil spirit to torment Saul, his servants recommend that he send for a man skilled in playing the lyre. A servant proposes David, whom the servant describes as "skillful in playing, a man of valor, a warrior, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence; and the Lord is with him." David enters Saul's service as one of the royal armour-bearers and plays the lyre to soothe the king.[20]
+
+War comes between Israel and the Philistines, and the giant Goliath challenges the Israelites to send out a champion to face him in single combat.[21] David, sent by his father to bring provisions to his brothers serving in Saul's army, declares that he can defeat Goliath.[22] Refusing the king's offer of the royal armour,[23] he kills Goliath with his sling.[24] Saul inquires the name of the young hero's father.[25]
+
+Saul sets David over his army. All Israel loves David, but his popularity causes Saul to fear him ("What else can he wish but the kingdom?").[26] Saul plots his death, but Saul's son Jonathan, one of those who loves David, warns him of his father's schemes and David flees. He goes first to Nob, where he is fed by the priest Ahimelech and given Goliath's sword, and then to Gath, the Philistine city of Goliath, intending to seek refuge with King Achish there. Achish's servants or officials question his loyalty, and David sees that he is in danger there.[27] He goes next to the cave of Adullam, where his family join him.[28] From there he goes to seek refuge with the king of Moab, but the prophet Gad advises him to leave and he goes to the Forest of Hereth,[29] and then to Keilah, where he is involved in a further battle with the Philistines. Saul plans to besiege Keilah so that he can capture David, so David leaves the city in order to protect its inhabitants.[30] From there he takes refuge in the mountainous Wilderness of Ziph.[31]
+
+Jonathan meets with David again and confirms his loyalty to David as the future king.  After the people of Ziph notify Saul that David is taking refuge in their territory, Saul seeks confirmation and plans to capture David in the Wilderness of Maon, but his attention is diverted by a renewed Philistine invasion and David is able to secure some respite at Ein Gedi.[32] Returning from battle with the Philistines, Saul heads to Ein Gedi in pursuit of David and enters the cave where, as it happens, David and his supporters are hiding, "to attend to his needs". David realises he has an opportunity to kill Saul, but this is not his intention: he secretly cuts off a corner of Saul's robe, and when Saul has left the cave he comes out to pay homage to Saul as the king and to demonstrate, using the piece of robe, that he holds no malice towards Saul. The two are thus reconciled and Saul recognises David as his successor.[33]
+
+A similar passage occurs in 1 Samuel 26, when David is able to infiltrate Saul's camp on the hill of Hachilah and remove his spear and a jug of water from his side while he and his guards lie asleep. In this account, David is advised by Abishai that this is his opportunity to kill Saul, but David declines, saying he will not "stretch out [his] hand against the Lord's anointed".[34] Saul confesses that he has been wrong to pursue David and blesses him.[35]
+
+In 1 Samuel 27:1–4, Saul ceases to pursue David because David took refuge a second[36] time with Achish, the Philistine king of Gath. Achish permits David to reside in Ziklag, close to the border between Gath and Judea, from where he leads raids against the Geshurites, the Girzites and the Amalekites, but leads Achish to believe he is attacking the Israelites in Judah, the Jerahmeelites and the Kenites. Achish believes that David had become a loyal vassal, but he never wins the trust of the princes or lords of Gath, and at their request Achish instructs David to remain behind to guard the camp when the Philistines march against Saul.[37] David returns to Ziklag.[38] Jonathan and Saul are killed in battle,[39] and David is anointed king over Judah.[40] In the north, Saul's son Ish-Bosheth is anointed king of Israel, and war ensues until Ish-Bosheth is murdered.[41]
+
+With the death of Saul's son, the elders of Israel come to Hebron and David is anointed king over all of Israel.[42] He conquers Jerusalem, previously a Jebusite stronghold, and makes it his capital.[43] He brings the Ark of the Covenant to the city,[44] intending to build a temple for God, but the prophet Nathan forbids it, prophesying that the temple would be built by one of David's sons.[45] Nathan also prophesies that God has made a covenant with the house of David stating, "your throne shall be established forever".[46] David wins additional victories over the Philistines, Moabites, Edomites, Amalekites, Ammonites and king Hadadezer of Aram-Zobah, after which they become tributaries.[47]
+
+During a siege of the Ammonite capital of Rabbah, David remains in Jerusalem. He spies a woman, Bathsheba, bathing and summons her; she becomes pregnant.[48][49][50] The text in the Bible does not explicitly state whether Bathsheba consented to sex.[51][52][53][54]  David calls her husband, Uriah the Hittite, back from the battle to rest, hoping that he will go home to his wife and the child will be presumed to be his. Uriah does not visit his wife, however, so David conspires to have him killed in the heat of battle. David then marries the widowed Bathsheba.[55] In response, Nathan prophesies the punishment that will fall upon him, stating "the sword shall never depart from your house."[56] When David acknowledges that he has sinned,[57] Nathan advises him that his sin is forgiven and he will not die,[58] but the child will.[59]
+
+In fulfillment of Nathan's words, David's son Absalom, fueled by vengeance and lust for power, rebels.[60] Absalom's forces are routed at the battle of the Wood of Ephraim, and he is caught by his long hair in the branches of a tree where, contrary to David's order, he is killed by Joab, the commander of David's army.[61] David laments the death of his favourite son: "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!"[62] until Joab persuades him to recover from "the extravagance of his grief"[63] and to fulfill his duty to his people.[64] David returns to Gilgal and is escorted across the River Jordan and back to Jerusalem by the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.[65]
+
+When David is old and bedridden, Adonijah, his eldest surviving son and natural heir, declares himself king.[66] Bathsheba and Nathan go to David and obtain his agreement to crown Bathsheba's son Solomon as king, according to David's earlier promise, and the revolt of Adonijah is put down.[67] David dies at the age of 70 after reigning for 40 years,[68] and on his deathbed counsels Solomon to walk in the ways of God and to take revenge on his enemies.[69]
+
+The Book of Samuel calls David a skillful harp (lyre) player[71] and "the sweet psalmist of Israel."[72] Yet, while almost half of the Psalms are headed "A Psalm of David" (also translated as "to David" or "for David") and tradition identifies several with specific events in David's life (e.g., Psalms 3, 7, 18, 34, 51, 52, 54, 56, 57, 59, 60, 63 and 142),[73] the headings are late additions and no psalm can be attributed to David with certainty.[74]
+
+Psalm 34 is attributed to David on the occasion of his escape from Abimelech (or King Achish) by pretending to be insane.[75] According to the parallel narrative in 1 Samuel 21, instead of killing the man who had exacted so many casualties from him, Abimelech allows David to depart, exclaiming, "Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house?"[76]
+
+The Tel Dan Stele, an inscribed stone erected by a king of Damascus in the late 9th/early 8th centuries BCE to commemorate his victory over two enemy kings, contains the phrase Hebrew: ביתדוד‎, bytdwd, which most scholars translate as "House of David".[77] Other scholars, such as Anson Rainey have challenged this reading,[78] but it is likely that this is a reference to a dynasty of the Kingdom of Judah which traced its ancestry to a founder named David.[77] The Mesha Stele from Moab, dating from approximately the same period, may also contain the name David in two places, although this is less certain than the mention in the Tel Dan inscription.[79]
+
+Besides the two steles, bible scholar and egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen suggests that David's name also appears in a relief of Pharaoh Shoshenq (usually identified with Shishak in the Bible, 1 Kings 14:25–27).[80] The relief claims that Shoshenq raided places in Palestine in 925 BCE, and Kitchen interprets one place as "Heights of David", which was in Southern Judah and the Negev  where the Bible says David took refuge from Saul. The relief is damaged and interpretation is uncertain.[80]
+
+Apart from these, all that is known of David comes from the biblical literature. Some scholars have concluded that this was likely compiled from contemporary records of the 11th and 10th centuries BCE, but that there is no clear historical basis for determining the exact date of compilation.[81] Other scholars, such as A. Graeme Auld, Professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of Edinburgh, believe that the Books of Samuel were substantially composed during the time of King Josiah at the end of the 7th century BCE, extended during the Babylonian exile (6th century BCE), and substantially complete by about 550 BCE. Auld contends that further editing was done even after then—the silver quarter-shekel which Saul's servant offers to Samuel in 1 Samuel 9 "almost certainly fixes the date of the story in the Persian or Hellenistic period" because a quarter-shekel was known to exist in Hasmonean times.[82] The authors and editors of Samuel drew on many earlier sources, including, for their history of David, the "history of David's rise" (1 Samuel 16:14–2 Samuel 5:10), and the "succession narrative" (2 Samuel 9–20 and 1 Kings 1–2).[83] The Book of Chronicles, which tells the story from a different point of view, was probably composed in the period 350–300 BCE, and uses Samuel as its source.[84]
+
+The authors and editors of Samuel and Chronicles did not aim to record history, but to promote David's reign as inevitable and desirable, and for this reason there is little about David that is concrete and undisputed.[85] The archaeological evidence indicates that in the 10th century BCE, the time of David, Judah was sparsely inhabited and Jerusalem was no more than a small village; over the following century it slowly evolved from a highland chiefdom to a kingdom, but always overshadowed by the older and more powerful kingdom of Israel to the north.[86] The biblical evidence likewise indicates that David's Judah was something less than a full-fledged monarchy: it often calls him negid, for example, meaning "prince" or "chief", rather than melek, meaning "king"; the biblical David sets up none of the complex bureaucracy that a kingdom needs (even his army is made up of volunteers), and his followers are largely related to him and from his small home-area around Hebron.[87]
+
+Beyond this, the full range of possible interpretations is available. John Bright, in his History of Israel (1981), takes Samuel at face value. Donald B. Redford, however, sees all reconstructions from biblical sources for the United Monarchy period as examples of "academic wishful thinking".[88] Thomas L. Thompson rejects the historicity of the biblical narrative: "The history of Palestine and of its peoples is very different from the Bible's narratives, whatever political claims to the contrary may be. An independent history of Judea during the Iron I and Iron II periods has little room for historicizing readings of the stories of I-II Samuel and I Kings."[89] Amihai Mazar however, concludes that based on recent archeological findings, like those in City of David, Khirbet Qeiyafa, Tel Dan, Tel Rehov, Khirbat en-Nahas and others "the deconstruction of United Monarchy and the devaluation of Judah as a state in 9th century is unacceptable interpretation of available historic data". According to Mazar, based on archeological evidences, the United Monarchy can be described as a "state in development".[90]
+
+Some studies of David have been written: Baruch Halpern has pictured David as a lifelong vassal of Achish, the Philistine king of Gath;[91] Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman have identified as the oldest and most reliable section of Samuel those chapters which describe David as the charismatic leader of a band of outlaws who captures Jerusalem and makes it his capital.[92] Steven McKenzie, Associate Professor of the Hebrew Bible at Rhodes College and author of King David: A Biography, argues that David came from a wealthy family, was "ambitious and ruthless" and a tyrant who murdered his opponents, including his own sons.[74]
+
+Critical Bible scholarship holds that the biblical account of David's rise to power is a political apology—an answer to contemporary charges against him, of his involvement in murders and regicide.[93]
+
+Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman reject the idea that David ruled over a united monarchy, suggesting instead that he ruled only as a chieftain over the southern kingdom of Judah, much smaller than the northern kingdom of Israel at that time.[94] They posit that Israel and Judah were still polytheistic or henotheistic in the time of David and Solomon, and that much later seventh-century redactors sought to portray a past golden age of a united, monotheistic monarchy in order to serve contemporary needs.[95] They note a lack of archeological evidence for David's military campaigns and a relative underdevelopment of Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, compared to a more developed and urbanized Samaria, capital of Israel.[96][97][98]
+
+Jacob L. Wright, Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Emory University, has written that the most popular legends about David, including his killing of Goliath, his affair with Bathsheba, and his ruling of a United Kingdom of Israel rather than just Judah, are the creation of those who lived generations after him, in particular those living in the late Persian or Hellenistic periods.[99]
+
+David is an important figure in Rabbinic Judaism, with many legends around him. According to one tradition, David was raised as the son of his father Jesse and spent his early years herding his father's sheep in the wilderness while his brothers were in school.[100]
+
+David's adultery with Bathsheba is interpreted as an opportunity to demonstrate the power of repentance, and the Talmud states that it was not adultery at all, quoting a Jewish practice of divorce on the eve of battle. Furthermore, according to Talmudic sources, the death of Uriah was not to be considered murder, on the basis that Uriah had committed a capital offense by refusing to obey a direct command from the King.[101] However, in tractate Sanhedrin, David expressed remorse over his transgressions and sought forgiveness.  God ultimately forgave David and Bathsheba but would not remove their sins from Scripture.[102]
+
+In Jewish legend, David's sin with Bathsheba is the punishment for David's excessive self-consciousness who had besought God to lead him into temptation so that he might give proof of his constancy as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (who successfully passed the test) whose names later were united with God's, while David eventually failed through the temptation of a woman.[100]
+
+According to midrashim, Adam gave up 70 years of his life for the life of David.[103] Also, according to the Talmud Yerushalmi, David was born and died on the Jewish holiday of Shavuot (Feast of Weeks). His piety was said to be so great that his prayers could bring down things from Heaven.[citation needed]
+
+The concept of the Messiah is important in Christianity. Originally an earthly king ruling by divine appointment ("the anointed one", as the title Messiah had it), the "son of David" became in the last two pre-Christian centuries the apocalyptic and heavenly one who would deliver Israel and usher in a new kingdom. This was the background to the concept of Messiahship in early Christianity, which interpreted the career of Jesus "by means of the titles and functions assigned to David in the mysticism of the Zion cult, in which he served as priest-king and in which he was the mediator between God and man".[106] The early Church believed that "the life of David [foreshadowed] the life of Christ; Bethlehem is the birthplace of both; the shepherd life of David points out Christ, the Good Shepherd; the five stones chosen to slay Goliath are typical of the five wounds; the betrayal by his trusted counsellor, Achitophel, and the passage over the Cedron remind us of Christ's Sacred Passion. Many of the Davidic Psalms, as we learn from the New Testament, are clearly typical of the future Messiah."[107] In the Middle Ages, "Charlemagne thought of himself, and was viewed by his court scholars, as a 'new David'. [This was] not in itself a new idea, but [one whose] content and significance were greatly enlarged by him".[108] The linking of David to earthly kingship was reflected in European cathedral windows of the Late Middle Ages, through the device of the Tree of Jesse, its branches demonstrating how divine kingship descended from Jesse, through his son David, to Jesus.[citation needed]
+
+Western Rite churches (Lutheran, Roman Catholic) celebrate his feast day on 29 December, Eastern-rite on 19 December.[109] The Eastern Orthodox Church and Eastern Catholic Churches celebrate the feast day of the "Holy Righteous Prophet and King David" on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers (two Sundays before the Great Feast of the Nativity of the Lord), when he is commemorated together with other ancestors of Jesus. He is also commemorated on the Sunday after the Nativity, together with Joseph and James, the Brother of the Lord.[citation needed]
+
+In European Christian culture of the Middle Ages, David was made a member of the Nine Worthies, a group of heroes encapsulating all the ideal qualities of chivalry. His life was thus proposed as a valuable subject for study by those aspiring to chivalric status. This aspect of David in the Nine Worthies was popularised firstly through literature, and was thereafter adopted as a frequent subject for painters and sculptors.
+
+David was considered as a model ruler and a symbol of divinely-ordained monarchy throughout medieval Western Europe and Eastern Christendom. David was perceived as the biblical predecessor to Christian Roman and Byzantine emperors and the name "New David" was used as an honorific reference to these rulers.[111] The Georgian Bagratids and the Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopia claimed a direct biological descent from him.[112] Likewise, kings of the Frankish Carolingian dynasty frequently connected themselves to David; Charlemagne himself occasionally used the name of David as his pseudonym.[111]
+
+David is an important figure in Islam as one of the major prophets sent by God to guide the Israelites. David is mentioned several times in the Quran with the Arabic name داود, Dāwūd, often with his son Solomon. In the Qur'an: David killed Goliath (2:251), a giant soldier in the Philistine army. When David killed Goliath, God granted him kingship and wisdom and enforced it (38:20). David was made God's "vicegerent on earth" (38:26) and God further gave David sound judgment (21:78; 37:21–24, 26) as well as the Psalms, regarded as books of divine wisdom (4:163; 17:55). The birds and mountains united with David in uttering praise to God (21:79; 34:10; 38:18), while God made iron soft for David (34:10), God also instructed David in the art of fashioning chain-mail out of iron (21:80); an indication of the first use of wrought iron, this knowledge gave David a major advantage over his bronze and cast iron-armed opponents, not to mention the cultural and economic impact. Together with Solomon, David gave judgment in a case of damage to the fields (21:78) and David judged the matter between two disputants in his prayer chamber (38:21–23). Since there is no mention in the Qur'an of the wrong David did to Uriah nor any reference to Bathsheba, Muslims reject this narrative.[113]
+
+Muslim tradition and the hadith stress David's zeal in daily prayer as well as in fasting.[114] Qur'an commentators, historians and compilers of the numerous Stories of the Prophets elaborate upon David's concise Qur'anic narratives and specifically mention David's gift in singing his Psalms as well as his musical and vocal talents. His voice is described as having had a captivating power, weaving its influence not only over man but over all beasts and nature, who would unite with him to praise God.[115]
+
+Literary works about David include:
+
+David has been depicted several times in films; these are some of the best-known:
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+For a considerable period, starting in the 15th century and continuing until the 19th, French playing card manufacturers assigned to each of the court cards names taken from history or mythology.  In this context, the King of Spades was often known as "David".[129][130]
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+Rembrandt, c. 1650: Saul and David.
+
+Mural of King David from an 18th-century sukkah (Jewish Museum of Franconia).
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+Miniature from the Paris Psalter: David in the robes of a Byzantine emperor.
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+Matteo Rosselli The triumphant David.
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+King David playing the harp, ceiling fresco from Monheim Town Hall, home of a wealthy Jewish merchant.
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+King David, stained glass windows from the Romanesque Augsburg Cathedral, late 11th century.
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+Study of King David, by Julia Margaret Cameron. Depicts Sir Henry Taylor, 1866.
+
+The Ark is brought to Jerusalem (1896 Bible card illustration by the Providence Lithograph Company)
+
+Arnold Zadikow, 1930: The Young David displayed in the entrance of Berlin's Jewish Museum from 1933 until its loss during the Second World War.
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+David on an Israeli stamp
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+
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+SixteenthDynasty
+AbydosDynasty
+SeventeenthDynasty
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+Nineteenth Dynasty of EgyptRamesses I Seti I Ramesses II Merneptah Amenmesses Seti II Siptah Twosret♀
+
+Twenty-first Dynasty of EgyptSmendes Amenemnisu Psusennes I Amenemope Osorkon the Elder Siamun Psusennes II
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+Twenty-third Dynasty of EgyptHarsiese A Takelot II Pedubast I Shoshenq VI Osorkon III Takelot III Rudamun Menkheperre Ini
+Twenty-fourth Dynasty of EgyptTefnakht Bakenranef
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+(Sargonid dynasty)Tiglath-Pileser† Shalmaneser† Marduk-apla-iddina II Sargon† Sennacherib† Marduk-zakir-shumi II Marduk-apla-iddina II Bel-ibni Ashur-nadin-shumi† Nergal-ushezib Mushezib-Marduk Esarhaddon† Ashurbanipal Ashur-etil-ilani Sinsharishkun Sin-shumu-lishir Ashur-uballit II
+
+Seleucid Empire: Seleucus I Antiochus I Antiochus II Seleucus II Seleucus III Antiochus III Seleucus IV Antiochus IV Antiochus V Demetrius I Alexander III Demetrius II Antiochus VI Dionysus Diodotus Tryphon Antiochus VII Sidetes

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+David (Hebrew: דָּוִד)[a] is described in the Hebrew Bible as the third king of the United Monarchy of Israel and Judah,[b] becoming king after Ish-bosheth. In the Books of Samuel, David is a young shepherd who gains fame first as a musician and later by killing the enemy champion Goliath. He becomes a favorite of King Saul and a close friend of Saul's son Jonathan. Worried that David is trying to take his throne, Saul turns on David. After Saul and Jonathan are killed in battle, David is anointed as King. David conquers Jerusalem, taking the Ark of the Covenant into the city, and establishing the kingdom founded by Saul. As king, David commits adultery with Bathsheba, leading him to arrange the death of her husband Uriah the Hittite. David's son Absalom schemes to overthrow David.  David flees Jerusalem during Absalom's rebellion, but after Absalom's death he returns to the city to rule Israel. Because David shed much blood,[2] God denies David the opportunity to build the temple. Before his peaceful death, he chooses his son Solomon as successor. He is honored in the prophetic literature as an ideal king and the forefather of a future Messiah, and many psalms are ascribed to him.[3]
+
+Historians of the Ancient Near East agree that David probably existed around 1000 BCE, but that there is little that can be said about him as a historical figure. It was initially thought that there was no evidence outside of the Bible concerning David, but the Tel Dan Stele, an inscribed stone erected by a king of Damascus in the late 9th/early 8th centuries BCE to commemorate his victory over two enemy kings, contains the phrase in Hebrew: ביתדוד‎, bytdwd, which most scholars translate as "House of David".
+
+David is richly represented in post-biblical Jewish written and oral tradition, and is discussed in the New Testament. Early Christians interpreted the life of Jesus in light of the references to the Messiah and to David; Jesus is described as being descended from David in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. David is discussed in the Quran as a major prophet and figures in Islamic oral and written tradition as well. The biblical character of David has inspired many interpretations in art and literature over centuries.
+
+The First Book of Samuel and the First Book of Chronicles both identify David as the son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, the youngest of eight sons.[4] He also had at least two sisters, Zeruiah, whose sons all went on to serve in David's army, and Abigail, whose son Amasa went on to serve in Absalom's army, Absalom being one of David's younger sons.[5] While the Bible does not name his mother, the Talmud identifies her as Nitzevet, a daughter of a man named Adael, and the Book of Ruth claims him as the great-grandson of Ruth, the Moabite, by Boaz.[6]
+
+David is described as cementing his relations with various political and national groups through marriage.[7] In 1 Samuel 17:25, it states that King Saul had said that he would make whoever killed Goliath a very wealthy man, give his daughter to him and declare his father's family exempt from taxes in Israel. Saul offered David his oldest daughter, Merab, a marriage which David respectfully declined.[8] Saul then gave Merab in marriage to Adriel the Meholathite.[9]  Having been told that his younger daughter Michal was in love with David, Saul gave her in marriage to David upon David's payment in Philistine foreskins[10] (ancient Jewish historian Josephus lists the dowry as 600 Philistine heads).[11] Saul became jealous of David and tried to have him killed. David escaped. Then Saul sent Michal to Galim to marry Palti, son of Laish.[12] David then took wives in Hebron, according to 2 Samuel 3; they were Ahinoam the Yizre'elite; Abigail, the wife of Nabal the Carmelite; Maacah, the daughter of Talmay, king of Geshur; Haggith; Abital; and Eglah. Later, David wanted Michal back and Abner, Ish-bosheth's army commander, delivered her to David, causing her husband (Palti) great grief.[13]
+
+The Book of Chronicles lists his sons with his various wives and concubines. In Hebron, David had six sons: Amnon, by Ahinoam; Daniel, by Abigail; Absalom, by Maachah; Adonijah, by Haggith; Shephatiah, by Abital; and Ithream, by Eglah.[14] By Bathsheba, his sons were Shammua, Shobab, Nathan, and Solomon. David's sons born in Jerusalem of his other wives included Ibhar, Elishua, Eliphelet, Nogah, Nepheg, Japhia, Elishama and Eliada.[15] Jerimoth, who is not mentioned in any of the genealogies, is mentioned as another of his sons in 2 Chronicles 11:18. His daughter Tamar, by Maachah, is raped by her half-brother Amnon. David fails to bring Amnon to justice for his violation of Tamar, because he is his firstborn and he loves him, and so, Absalom (her full brother) murders Amnon to avenge Tamar.[16]
+
+
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+God is angered when Saul, Israel's king, unlawfully offers a sacrifice[17] and later disobeys a divine command both to kill all of the Amalekites and to destroy their confiscated property.[18] Consequently, God sends the prophet Samuel to anoint a shepherd, David, the youngest son of Jesse of Bethlehem, to be king instead.[19]
+
+After God sends an evil spirit to torment Saul, his servants recommend that he send for a man skilled in playing the lyre. A servant proposes David, whom the servant describes as "skillful in playing, a man of valor, a warrior, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence; and the Lord is with him." David enters Saul's service as one of the royal armour-bearers and plays the lyre to soothe the king.[20]
+
+War comes between Israel and the Philistines, and the giant Goliath challenges the Israelites to send out a champion to face him in single combat.[21] David, sent by his father to bring provisions to his brothers serving in Saul's army, declares that he can defeat Goliath.[22] Refusing the king's offer of the royal armour,[23] he kills Goliath with his sling.[24] Saul inquires the name of the young hero's father.[25]
+
+Saul sets David over his army. All Israel loves David, but his popularity causes Saul to fear him ("What else can he wish but the kingdom?").[26] Saul plots his death, but Saul's son Jonathan, one of those who loves David, warns him of his father's schemes and David flees. He goes first to Nob, where he is fed by the priest Ahimelech and given Goliath's sword, and then to Gath, the Philistine city of Goliath, intending to seek refuge with King Achish there. Achish's servants or officials question his loyalty, and David sees that he is in danger there.[27] He goes next to the cave of Adullam, where his family join him.[28] From there he goes to seek refuge with the king of Moab, but the prophet Gad advises him to leave and he goes to the Forest of Hereth,[29] and then to Keilah, where he is involved in a further battle with the Philistines. Saul plans to besiege Keilah so that he can capture David, so David leaves the city in order to protect its inhabitants.[30] From there he takes refuge in the mountainous Wilderness of Ziph.[31]
+
+Jonathan meets with David again and confirms his loyalty to David as the future king.  After the people of Ziph notify Saul that David is taking refuge in their territory, Saul seeks confirmation and plans to capture David in the Wilderness of Maon, but his attention is diverted by a renewed Philistine invasion and David is able to secure some respite at Ein Gedi.[32] Returning from battle with the Philistines, Saul heads to Ein Gedi in pursuit of David and enters the cave where, as it happens, David and his supporters are hiding, "to attend to his needs". David realises he has an opportunity to kill Saul, but this is not his intention: he secretly cuts off a corner of Saul's robe, and when Saul has left the cave he comes out to pay homage to Saul as the king and to demonstrate, using the piece of robe, that he holds no malice towards Saul. The two are thus reconciled and Saul recognises David as his successor.[33]
+
+A similar passage occurs in 1 Samuel 26, when David is able to infiltrate Saul's camp on the hill of Hachilah and remove his spear and a jug of water from his side while he and his guards lie asleep. In this account, David is advised by Abishai that this is his opportunity to kill Saul, but David declines, saying he will not "stretch out [his] hand against the Lord's anointed".[34] Saul confesses that he has been wrong to pursue David and blesses him.[35]
+
+In 1 Samuel 27:1–4, Saul ceases to pursue David because David took refuge a second[36] time with Achish, the Philistine king of Gath. Achish permits David to reside in Ziklag, close to the border between Gath and Judea, from where he leads raids against the Geshurites, the Girzites and the Amalekites, but leads Achish to believe he is attacking the Israelites in Judah, the Jerahmeelites and the Kenites. Achish believes that David had become a loyal vassal, but he never wins the trust of the princes or lords of Gath, and at their request Achish instructs David to remain behind to guard the camp when the Philistines march against Saul.[37] David returns to Ziklag.[38] Jonathan and Saul are killed in battle,[39] and David is anointed king over Judah.[40] In the north, Saul's son Ish-Bosheth is anointed king of Israel, and war ensues until Ish-Bosheth is murdered.[41]
+
+With the death of Saul's son, the elders of Israel come to Hebron and David is anointed king over all of Israel.[42] He conquers Jerusalem, previously a Jebusite stronghold, and makes it his capital.[43] He brings the Ark of the Covenant to the city,[44] intending to build a temple for God, but the prophet Nathan forbids it, prophesying that the temple would be built by one of David's sons.[45] Nathan also prophesies that God has made a covenant with the house of David stating, "your throne shall be established forever".[46] David wins additional victories over the Philistines, Moabites, Edomites, Amalekites, Ammonites and king Hadadezer of Aram-Zobah, after which they become tributaries.[47]
+
+During a siege of the Ammonite capital of Rabbah, David remains in Jerusalem. He spies a woman, Bathsheba, bathing and summons her; she becomes pregnant.[48][49][50] The text in the Bible does not explicitly state whether Bathsheba consented to sex.[51][52][53][54]  David calls her husband, Uriah the Hittite, back from the battle to rest, hoping that he will go home to his wife and the child will be presumed to be his. Uriah does not visit his wife, however, so David conspires to have him killed in the heat of battle. David then marries the widowed Bathsheba.[55] In response, Nathan prophesies the punishment that will fall upon him, stating "the sword shall never depart from your house."[56] When David acknowledges that he has sinned,[57] Nathan advises him that his sin is forgiven and he will not die,[58] but the child will.[59]
+
+In fulfillment of Nathan's words, David's son Absalom, fueled by vengeance and lust for power, rebels.[60] Absalom's forces are routed at the battle of the Wood of Ephraim, and he is caught by his long hair in the branches of a tree where, contrary to David's order, he is killed by Joab, the commander of David's army.[61] David laments the death of his favourite son: "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!"[62] until Joab persuades him to recover from "the extravagance of his grief"[63] and to fulfill his duty to his people.[64] David returns to Gilgal and is escorted across the River Jordan and back to Jerusalem by the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.[65]
+
+When David is old and bedridden, Adonijah, his eldest surviving son and natural heir, declares himself king.[66] Bathsheba and Nathan go to David and obtain his agreement to crown Bathsheba's son Solomon as king, according to David's earlier promise, and the revolt of Adonijah is put down.[67] David dies at the age of 70 after reigning for 40 years,[68] and on his deathbed counsels Solomon to walk in the ways of God and to take revenge on his enemies.[69]
+
+The Book of Samuel calls David a skillful harp (lyre) player[71] and "the sweet psalmist of Israel."[72] Yet, while almost half of the Psalms are headed "A Psalm of David" (also translated as "to David" or "for David") and tradition identifies several with specific events in David's life (e.g., Psalms 3, 7, 18, 34, 51, 52, 54, 56, 57, 59, 60, 63 and 142),[73] the headings are late additions and no psalm can be attributed to David with certainty.[74]
+
+Psalm 34 is attributed to David on the occasion of his escape from Abimelech (or King Achish) by pretending to be insane.[75] According to the parallel narrative in 1 Samuel 21, instead of killing the man who had exacted so many casualties from him, Abimelech allows David to depart, exclaiming, "Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house?"[76]
+
+The Tel Dan Stele, an inscribed stone erected by a king of Damascus in the late 9th/early 8th centuries BCE to commemorate his victory over two enemy kings, contains the phrase Hebrew: ביתדוד‎, bytdwd, which most scholars translate as "House of David".[77] Other scholars, such as Anson Rainey have challenged this reading,[78] but it is likely that this is a reference to a dynasty of the Kingdom of Judah which traced its ancestry to a founder named David.[77] The Mesha Stele from Moab, dating from approximately the same period, may also contain the name David in two places, although this is less certain than the mention in the Tel Dan inscription.[79]
+
+Besides the two steles, bible scholar and egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen suggests that David's name also appears in a relief of Pharaoh Shoshenq (usually identified with Shishak in the Bible, 1 Kings 14:25–27).[80] The relief claims that Shoshenq raided places in Palestine in 925 BCE, and Kitchen interprets one place as "Heights of David", which was in Southern Judah and the Negev  where the Bible says David took refuge from Saul. The relief is damaged and interpretation is uncertain.[80]
+
+Apart from these, all that is known of David comes from the biblical literature. Some scholars have concluded that this was likely compiled from contemporary records of the 11th and 10th centuries BCE, but that there is no clear historical basis for determining the exact date of compilation.[81] Other scholars, such as A. Graeme Auld, Professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of Edinburgh, believe that the Books of Samuel were substantially composed during the time of King Josiah at the end of the 7th century BCE, extended during the Babylonian exile (6th century BCE), and substantially complete by about 550 BCE. Auld contends that further editing was done even after then—the silver quarter-shekel which Saul's servant offers to Samuel in 1 Samuel 9 "almost certainly fixes the date of the story in the Persian or Hellenistic period" because a quarter-shekel was known to exist in Hasmonean times.[82] The authors and editors of Samuel drew on many earlier sources, including, for their history of David, the "history of David's rise" (1 Samuel 16:14–2 Samuel 5:10), and the "succession narrative" (2 Samuel 9–20 and 1 Kings 1–2).[83] The Book of Chronicles, which tells the story from a different point of view, was probably composed in the period 350–300 BCE, and uses Samuel as its source.[84]
+
+The authors and editors of Samuel and Chronicles did not aim to record history, but to promote David's reign as inevitable and desirable, and for this reason there is little about David that is concrete and undisputed.[85] The archaeological evidence indicates that in the 10th century BCE, the time of David, Judah was sparsely inhabited and Jerusalem was no more than a small village; over the following century it slowly evolved from a highland chiefdom to a kingdom, but always overshadowed by the older and more powerful kingdom of Israel to the north.[86] The biblical evidence likewise indicates that David's Judah was something less than a full-fledged monarchy: it often calls him negid, for example, meaning "prince" or "chief", rather than melek, meaning "king"; the biblical David sets up none of the complex bureaucracy that a kingdom needs (even his army is made up of volunteers), and his followers are largely related to him and from his small home-area around Hebron.[87]
+
+Beyond this, the full range of possible interpretations is available. John Bright, in his History of Israel (1981), takes Samuel at face value. Donald B. Redford, however, sees all reconstructions from biblical sources for the United Monarchy period as examples of "academic wishful thinking".[88] Thomas L. Thompson rejects the historicity of the biblical narrative: "The history of Palestine and of its peoples is very different from the Bible's narratives, whatever political claims to the contrary may be. An independent history of Judea during the Iron I and Iron II periods has little room for historicizing readings of the stories of I-II Samuel and I Kings."[89] Amihai Mazar however, concludes that based on recent archeological findings, like those in City of David, Khirbet Qeiyafa, Tel Dan, Tel Rehov, Khirbat en-Nahas and others "the deconstruction of United Monarchy and the devaluation of Judah as a state in 9th century is unacceptable interpretation of available historic data". According to Mazar, based on archeological evidences, the United Monarchy can be described as a "state in development".[90]
+
+Some studies of David have been written: Baruch Halpern has pictured David as a lifelong vassal of Achish, the Philistine king of Gath;[91] Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman have identified as the oldest and most reliable section of Samuel those chapters which describe David as the charismatic leader of a band of outlaws who captures Jerusalem and makes it his capital.[92] Steven McKenzie, Associate Professor of the Hebrew Bible at Rhodes College and author of King David: A Biography, argues that David came from a wealthy family, was "ambitious and ruthless" and a tyrant who murdered his opponents, including his own sons.[74]
+
+Critical Bible scholarship holds that the biblical account of David's rise to power is a political apology—an answer to contemporary charges against him, of his involvement in murders and regicide.[93]
+
+Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman reject the idea that David ruled over a united monarchy, suggesting instead that he ruled only as a chieftain over the southern kingdom of Judah, much smaller than the northern kingdom of Israel at that time.[94] They posit that Israel and Judah were still polytheistic or henotheistic in the time of David and Solomon, and that much later seventh-century redactors sought to portray a past golden age of a united, monotheistic monarchy in order to serve contemporary needs.[95] They note a lack of archeological evidence for David's military campaigns and a relative underdevelopment of Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, compared to a more developed and urbanized Samaria, capital of Israel.[96][97][98]
+
+Jacob L. Wright, Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Emory University, has written that the most popular legends about David, including his killing of Goliath, his affair with Bathsheba, and his ruling of a United Kingdom of Israel rather than just Judah, are the creation of those who lived generations after him, in particular those living in the late Persian or Hellenistic periods.[99]
+
+David is an important figure in Rabbinic Judaism, with many legends around him. According to one tradition, David was raised as the son of his father Jesse and spent his early years herding his father's sheep in the wilderness while his brothers were in school.[100]
+
+David's adultery with Bathsheba is interpreted as an opportunity to demonstrate the power of repentance, and the Talmud states that it was not adultery at all, quoting a Jewish practice of divorce on the eve of battle. Furthermore, according to Talmudic sources, the death of Uriah was not to be considered murder, on the basis that Uriah had committed a capital offense by refusing to obey a direct command from the King.[101] However, in tractate Sanhedrin, David expressed remorse over his transgressions and sought forgiveness.  God ultimately forgave David and Bathsheba but would not remove their sins from Scripture.[102]
+
+In Jewish legend, David's sin with Bathsheba is the punishment for David's excessive self-consciousness who had besought God to lead him into temptation so that he might give proof of his constancy as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (who successfully passed the test) whose names later were united with God's, while David eventually failed through the temptation of a woman.[100]
+
+According to midrashim, Adam gave up 70 years of his life for the life of David.[103] Also, according to the Talmud Yerushalmi, David was born and died on the Jewish holiday of Shavuot (Feast of Weeks). His piety was said to be so great that his prayers could bring down things from Heaven.[citation needed]
+
+The concept of the Messiah is important in Christianity. Originally an earthly king ruling by divine appointment ("the anointed one", as the title Messiah had it), the "son of David" became in the last two pre-Christian centuries the apocalyptic and heavenly one who would deliver Israel and usher in a new kingdom. This was the background to the concept of Messiahship in early Christianity, which interpreted the career of Jesus "by means of the titles and functions assigned to David in the mysticism of the Zion cult, in which he served as priest-king and in which he was the mediator between God and man".[106] The early Church believed that "the life of David [foreshadowed] the life of Christ; Bethlehem is the birthplace of both; the shepherd life of David points out Christ, the Good Shepherd; the five stones chosen to slay Goliath are typical of the five wounds; the betrayal by his trusted counsellor, Achitophel, and the passage over the Cedron remind us of Christ's Sacred Passion. Many of the Davidic Psalms, as we learn from the New Testament, are clearly typical of the future Messiah."[107] In the Middle Ages, "Charlemagne thought of himself, and was viewed by his court scholars, as a 'new David'. [This was] not in itself a new idea, but [one whose] content and significance were greatly enlarged by him".[108] The linking of David to earthly kingship was reflected in European cathedral windows of the Late Middle Ages, through the device of the Tree of Jesse, its branches demonstrating how divine kingship descended from Jesse, through his son David, to Jesus.[citation needed]
+
+Western Rite churches (Lutheran, Roman Catholic) celebrate his feast day on 29 December, Eastern-rite on 19 December.[109] The Eastern Orthodox Church and Eastern Catholic Churches celebrate the feast day of the "Holy Righteous Prophet and King David" on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers (two Sundays before the Great Feast of the Nativity of the Lord), when he is commemorated together with other ancestors of Jesus. He is also commemorated on the Sunday after the Nativity, together with Joseph and James, the Brother of the Lord.[citation needed]
+
+In European Christian culture of the Middle Ages, David was made a member of the Nine Worthies, a group of heroes encapsulating all the ideal qualities of chivalry. His life was thus proposed as a valuable subject for study by those aspiring to chivalric status. This aspect of David in the Nine Worthies was popularised firstly through literature, and was thereafter adopted as a frequent subject for painters and sculptors.
+
+David was considered as a model ruler and a symbol of divinely-ordained monarchy throughout medieval Western Europe and Eastern Christendom. David was perceived as the biblical predecessor to Christian Roman and Byzantine emperors and the name "New David" was used as an honorific reference to these rulers.[111] The Georgian Bagratids and the Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopia claimed a direct biological descent from him.[112] Likewise, kings of the Frankish Carolingian dynasty frequently connected themselves to David; Charlemagne himself occasionally used the name of David as his pseudonym.[111]
+
+David is an important figure in Islam as one of the major prophets sent by God to guide the Israelites. David is mentioned several times in the Quran with the Arabic name داود, Dāwūd, often with his son Solomon. In the Qur'an: David killed Goliath (2:251), a giant soldier in the Philistine army. When David killed Goliath, God granted him kingship and wisdom and enforced it (38:20). David was made God's "vicegerent on earth" (38:26) and God further gave David sound judgment (21:78; 37:21–24, 26) as well as the Psalms, regarded as books of divine wisdom (4:163; 17:55). The birds and mountains united with David in uttering praise to God (21:79; 34:10; 38:18), while God made iron soft for David (34:10), God also instructed David in the art of fashioning chain-mail out of iron (21:80); an indication of the first use of wrought iron, this knowledge gave David a major advantage over his bronze and cast iron-armed opponents, not to mention the cultural and economic impact. Together with Solomon, David gave judgment in a case of damage to the fields (21:78) and David judged the matter between two disputants in his prayer chamber (38:21–23). Since there is no mention in the Qur'an of the wrong David did to Uriah nor any reference to Bathsheba, Muslims reject this narrative.[113]
+
+Muslim tradition and the hadith stress David's zeal in daily prayer as well as in fasting.[114] Qur'an commentators, historians and compilers of the numerous Stories of the Prophets elaborate upon David's concise Qur'anic narratives and specifically mention David's gift in singing his Psalms as well as his musical and vocal talents. His voice is described as having had a captivating power, weaving its influence not only over man but over all beasts and nature, who would unite with him to praise God.[115]
+
+Literary works about David include:
+
+David has been depicted several times in films; these are some of the best-known:
+
+For a considerable period, starting in the 15th century and continuing until the 19th, French playing card manufacturers assigned to each of the court cards names taken from history or mythology.  In this context, the King of Spades was often known as "David".[129][130]
+
+Rembrandt, c. 1650: Saul and David.
+
+Mural of King David from an 18th-century sukkah (Jewish Museum of Franconia).
+
+Miniature from the Paris Psalter: David in the robes of a Byzantine emperor.
+
+Matteo Rosselli The triumphant David.
+
+King David playing the harp, ceiling fresco from Monheim Town Hall, home of a wealthy Jewish merchant.
+
+King David, stained glass windows from the Romanesque Augsburg Cathedral, late 11th century.
+
+Study of King David, by Julia Margaret Cameron. Depicts Sir Henry Taylor, 1866.
+
+The Ark is brought to Jerusalem (1896 Bible card illustration by the Providence Lithograph Company)
+
+Arnold Zadikow, 1930: The Young David displayed in the entrance of Berlin's Jewish Museum from 1933 until its loss during the Second World War.
+
+David on an Israeli stamp
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SixteenthDynasty
+AbydosDynasty
+SeventeenthDynasty
+
+Nineteenth Dynasty of EgyptRamesses I Seti I Ramesses II Merneptah Amenmesses Seti II Siptah Twosret♀
+
+Twenty-first Dynasty of EgyptSmendes Amenemnisu Psusennes I Amenemope Osorkon the Elder Siamun Psusennes II
+
+Twenty-third Dynasty of EgyptHarsiese A Takelot II Pedubast I Shoshenq VI Osorkon III Takelot III Rudamun Menkheperre Ini
+Twenty-fourth Dynasty of EgyptTefnakht Bakenranef
+
+(Sargonid dynasty)Tiglath-Pileser† Shalmaneser† Marduk-apla-iddina II Sargon† Sennacherib† Marduk-zakir-shumi II Marduk-apla-iddina II Bel-ibni Ashur-nadin-shumi† Nergal-ushezib Mushezib-Marduk Esarhaddon† Ashurbanipal Ashur-etil-ilani Sinsharishkun Sin-shumu-lishir Ashur-uballit II
+
+Seleucid Empire: Seleucus I Antiochus I Antiochus II Seleucus II Seleucus III Antiochus III Seleucus IV Antiochus IV Antiochus V Demetrius I Alexander III Demetrius II Antiochus VI Dionysus Diodotus Tryphon Antiochus VII Sidetes

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+David (Hebrew: דָּוִד)[a] is described in the Hebrew Bible as the third king of the United Monarchy of Israel and Judah,[b] becoming king after Ish-bosheth. In the Books of Samuel, David is a young shepherd who gains fame first as a musician and later by killing the enemy champion Goliath. He becomes a favorite of King Saul and a close friend of Saul's son Jonathan. Worried that David is trying to take his throne, Saul turns on David. After Saul and Jonathan are killed in battle, David is anointed as King. David conquers Jerusalem, taking the Ark of the Covenant into the city, and establishing the kingdom founded by Saul. As king, David commits adultery with Bathsheba, leading him to arrange the death of her husband Uriah the Hittite. David's son Absalom schemes to overthrow David.  David flees Jerusalem during Absalom's rebellion, but after Absalom's death he returns to the city to rule Israel. Because David shed much blood,[2] God denies David the opportunity to build the temple. Before his peaceful death, he chooses his son Solomon as successor. He is honored in the prophetic literature as an ideal king and the forefather of a future Messiah, and many psalms are ascribed to him.[3]
+
+Historians of the Ancient Near East agree that David probably existed around 1000 BCE, but that there is little that can be said about him as a historical figure. It was initially thought that there was no evidence outside of the Bible concerning David, but the Tel Dan Stele, an inscribed stone erected by a king of Damascus in the late 9th/early 8th centuries BCE to commemorate his victory over two enemy kings, contains the phrase in Hebrew: ביתדוד‎, bytdwd, which most scholars translate as "House of David".
+
+David is richly represented in post-biblical Jewish written and oral tradition, and is discussed in the New Testament. Early Christians interpreted the life of Jesus in light of the references to the Messiah and to David; Jesus is described as being descended from David in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. David is discussed in the Quran as a major prophet and figures in Islamic oral and written tradition as well. The biblical character of David has inspired many interpretations in art and literature over centuries.
+
+The First Book of Samuel and the First Book of Chronicles both identify David as the son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, the youngest of eight sons.[4] He also had at least two sisters, Zeruiah, whose sons all went on to serve in David's army, and Abigail, whose son Amasa went on to serve in Absalom's army, Absalom being one of David's younger sons.[5] While the Bible does not name his mother, the Talmud identifies her as Nitzevet, a daughter of a man named Adael, and the Book of Ruth claims him as the great-grandson of Ruth, the Moabite, by Boaz.[6]
+
+David is described as cementing his relations with various political and national groups through marriage.[7] In 1 Samuel 17:25, it states that King Saul had said that he would make whoever killed Goliath a very wealthy man, give his daughter to him and declare his father's family exempt from taxes in Israel. Saul offered David his oldest daughter, Merab, a marriage which David respectfully declined.[8] Saul then gave Merab in marriage to Adriel the Meholathite.[9]  Having been told that his younger daughter Michal was in love with David, Saul gave her in marriage to David upon David's payment in Philistine foreskins[10] (ancient Jewish historian Josephus lists the dowry as 600 Philistine heads).[11] Saul became jealous of David and tried to have him killed. David escaped. Then Saul sent Michal to Galim to marry Palti, son of Laish.[12] David then took wives in Hebron, according to 2 Samuel 3; they were Ahinoam the Yizre'elite; Abigail, the wife of Nabal the Carmelite; Maacah, the daughter of Talmay, king of Geshur; Haggith; Abital; and Eglah. Later, David wanted Michal back and Abner, Ish-bosheth's army commander, delivered her to David, causing her husband (Palti) great grief.[13]
+
+The Book of Chronicles lists his sons with his various wives and concubines. In Hebron, David had six sons: Amnon, by Ahinoam; Daniel, by Abigail; Absalom, by Maachah; Adonijah, by Haggith; Shephatiah, by Abital; and Ithream, by Eglah.[14] By Bathsheba, his sons were Shammua, Shobab, Nathan, and Solomon. David's sons born in Jerusalem of his other wives included Ibhar, Elishua, Eliphelet, Nogah, Nepheg, Japhia, Elishama and Eliada.[15] Jerimoth, who is not mentioned in any of the genealogies, is mentioned as another of his sons in 2 Chronicles 11:18. His daughter Tamar, by Maachah, is raped by her half-brother Amnon. David fails to bring Amnon to justice for his violation of Tamar, because he is his firstborn and he loves him, and so, Absalom (her full brother) murders Amnon to avenge Tamar.[16]
+
+
+
+God is angered when Saul, Israel's king, unlawfully offers a sacrifice[17] and later disobeys a divine command both to kill all of the Amalekites and to destroy their confiscated property.[18] Consequently, God sends the prophet Samuel to anoint a shepherd, David, the youngest son of Jesse of Bethlehem, to be king instead.[19]
+
+After God sends an evil spirit to torment Saul, his servants recommend that he send for a man skilled in playing the lyre. A servant proposes David, whom the servant describes as "skillful in playing, a man of valor, a warrior, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence; and the Lord is with him." David enters Saul's service as one of the royal armour-bearers and plays the lyre to soothe the king.[20]
+
+War comes between Israel and the Philistines, and the giant Goliath challenges the Israelites to send out a champion to face him in single combat.[21] David, sent by his father to bring provisions to his brothers serving in Saul's army, declares that he can defeat Goliath.[22] Refusing the king's offer of the royal armour,[23] he kills Goliath with his sling.[24] Saul inquires the name of the young hero's father.[25]
+
+Saul sets David over his army. All Israel loves David, but his popularity causes Saul to fear him ("What else can he wish but the kingdom?").[26] Saul plots his death, but Saul's son Jonathan, one of those who loves David, warns him of his father's schemes and David flees. He goes first to Nob, where he is fed by the priest Ahimelech and given Goliath's sword, and then to Gath, the Philistine city of Goliath, intending to seek refuge with King Achish there. Achish's servants or officials question his loyalty, and David sees that he is in danger there.[27] He goes next to the cave of Adullam, where his family join him.[28] From there he goes to seek refuge with the king of Moab, but the prophet Gad advises him to leave and he goes to the Forest of Hereth,[29] and then to Keilah, where he is involved in a further battle with the Philistines. Saul plans to besiege Keilah so that he can capture David, so David leaves the city in order to protect its inhabitants.[30] From there he takes refuge in the mountainous Wilderness of Ziph.[31]
+
+Jonathan meets with David again and confirms his loyalty to David as the future king.  After the people of Ziph notify Saul that David is taking refuge in their territory, Saul seeks confirmation and plans to capture David in the Wilderness of Maon, but his attention is diverted by a renewed Philistine invasion and David is able to secure some respite at Ein Gedi.[32] Returning from battle with the Philistines, Saul heads to Ein Gedi in pursuit of David and enters the cave where, as it happens, David and his supporters are hiding, "to attend to his needs". David realises he has an opportunity to kill Saul, but this is not his intention: he secretly cuts off a corner of Saul's robe, and when Saul has left the cave he comes out to pay homage to Saul as the king and to demonstrate, using the piece of robe, that he holds no malice towards Saul. The two are thus reconciled and Saul recognises David as his successor.[33]
+
+A similar passage occurs in 1 Samuel 26, when David is able to infiltrate Saul's camp on the hill of Hachilah and remove his spear and a jug of water from his side while he and his guards lie asleep. In this account, David is advised by Abishai that this is his opportunity to kill Saul, but David declines, saying he will not "stretch out [his] hand against the Lord's anointed".[34] Saul confesses that he has been wrong to pursue David and blesses him.[35]
+
+In 1 Samuel 27:1–4, Saul ceases to pursue David because David took refuge a second[36] time with Achish, the Philistine king of Gath. Achish permits David to reside in Ziklag, close to the border between Gath and Judea, from where he leads raids against the Geshurites, the Girzites and the Amalekites, but leads Achish to believe he is attacking the Israelites in Judah, the Jerahmeelites and the Kenites. Achish believes that David had become a loyal vassal, but he never wins the trust of the princes or lords of Gath, and at their request Achish instructs David to remain behind to guard the camp when the Philistines march against Saul.[37] David returns to Ziklag.[38] Jonathan and Saul are killed in battle,[39] and David is anointed king over Judah.[40] In the north, Saul's son Ish-Bosheth is anointed king of Israel, and war ensues until Ish-Bosheth is murdered.[41]
+
+With the death of Saul's son, the elders of Israel come to Hebron and David is anointed king over all of Israel.[42] He conquers Jerusalem, previously a Jebusite stronghold, and makes it his capital.[43] He brings the Ark of the Covenant to the city,[44] intending to build a temple for God, but the prophet Nathan forbids it, prophesying that the temple would be built by one of David's sons.[45] Nathan also prophesies that God has made a covenant with the house of David stating, "your throne shall be established forever".[46] David wins additional victories over the Philistines, Moabites, Edomites, Amalekites, Ammonites and king Hadadezer of Aram-Zobah, after which they become tributaries.[47]
+
+During a siege of the Ammonite capital of Rabbah, David remains in Jerusalem. He spies a woman, Bathsheba, bathing and summons her; she becomes pregnant.[48][49][50] The text in the Bible does not explicitly state whether Bathsheba consented to sex.[51][52][53][54]  David calls her husband, Uriah the Hittite, back from the battle to rest, hoping that he will go home to his wife and the child will be presumed to be his. Uriah does not visit his wife, however, so David conspires to have him killed in the heat of battle. David then marries the widowed Bathsheba.[55] In response, Nathan prophesies the punishment that will fall upon him, stating "the sword shall never depart from your house."[56] When David acknowledges that he has sinned,[57] Nathan advises him that his sin is forgiven and he will not die,[58] but the child will.[59]
+
+In fulfillment of Nathan's words, David's son Absalom, fueled by vengeance and lust for power, rebels.[60] Absalom's forces are routed at the battle of the Wood of Ephraim, and he is caught by his long hair in the branches of a tree where, contrary to David's order, he is killed by Joab, the commander of David's army.[61] David laments the death of his favourite son: "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!"[62] until Joab persuades him to recover from "the extravagance of his grief"[63] and to fulfill his duty to his people.[64] David returns to Gilgal and is escorted across the River Jordan and back to Jerusalem by the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.[65]
+
+When David is old and bedridden, Adonijah, his eldest surviving son and natural heir, declares himself king.[66] Bathsheba and Nathan go to David and obtain his agreement to crown Bathsheba's son Solomon as king, according to David's earlier promise, and the revolt of Adonijah is put down.[67] David dies at the age of 70 after reigning for 40 years,[68] and on his deathbed counsels Solomon to walk in the ways of God and to take revenge on his enemies.[69]
+
+The Book of Samuel calls David a skillful harp (lyre) player[71] and "the sweet psalmist of Israel."[72] Yet, while almost half of the Psalms are headed "A Psalm of David" (also translated as "to David" or "for David") and tradition identifies several with specific events in David's life (e.g., Psalms 3, 7, 18, 34, 51, 52, 54, 56, 57, 59, 60, 63 and 142),[73] the headings are late additions and no psalm can be attributed to David with certainty.[74]
+
+Psalm 34 is attributed to David on the occasion of his escape from Abimelech (or King Achish) by pretending to be insane.[75] According to the parallel narrative in 1 Samuel 21, instead of killing the man who had exacted so many casualties from him, Abimelech allows David to depart, exclaiming, "Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house?"[76]
+
+The Tel Dan Stele, an inscribed stone erected by a king of Damascus in the late 9th/early 8th centuries BCE to commemorate his victory over two enemy kings, contains the phrase Hebrew: ביתדוד‎, bytdwd, which most scholars translate as "House of David".[77] Other scholars, such as Anson Rainey have challenged this reading,[78] but it is likely that this is a reference to a dynasty of the Kingdom of Judah which traced its ancestry to a founder named David.[77] The Mesha Stele from Moab, dating from approximately the same period, may also contain the name David in two places, although this is less certain than the mention in the Tel Dan inscription.[79]
+
+Besides the two steles, bible scholar and egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen suggests that David's name also appears in a relief of Pharaoh Shoshenq (usually identified with Shishak in the Bible, 1 Kings 14:25–27).[80] The relief claims that Shoshenq raided places in Palestine in 925 BCE, and Kitchen interprets one place as "Heights of David", which was in Southern Judah and the Negev  where the Bible says David took refuge from Saul. The relief is damaged and interpretation is uncertain.[80]
+
+Apart from these, all that is known of David comes from the biblical literature. Some scholars have concluded that this was likely compiled from contemporary records of the 11th and 10th centuries BCE, but that there is no clear historical basis for determining the exact date of compilation.[81] Other scholars, such as A. Graeme Auld, Professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of Edinburgh, believe that the Books of Samuel were substantially composed during the time of King Josiah at the end of the 7th century BCE, extended during the Babylonian exile (6th century BCE), and substantially complete by about 550 BCE. Auld contends that further editing was done even after then—the silver quarter-shekel which Saul's servant offers to Samuel in 1 Samuel 9 "almost certainly fixes the date of the story in the Persian or Hellenistic period" because a quarter-shekel was known to exist in Hasmonean times.[82] The authors and editors of Samuel drew on many earlier sources, including, for their history of David, the "history of David's rise" (1 Samuel 16:14–2 Samuel 5:10), and the "succession narrative" (2 Samuel 9–20 and 1 Kings 1–2).[83] The Book of Chronicles, which tells the story from a different point of view, was probably composed in the period 350–300 BCE, and uses Samuel as its source.[84]
+
+The authors and editors of Samuel and Chronicles did not aim to record history, but to promote David's reign as inevitable and desirable, and for this reason there is little about David that is concrete and undisputed.[85] The archaeological evidence indicates that in the 10th century BCE, the time of David, Judah was sparsely inhabited and Jerusalem was no more than a small village; over the following century it slowly evolved from a highland chiefdom to a kingdom, but always overshadowed by the older and more powerful kingdom of Israel to the north.[86] The biblical evidence likewise indicates that David's Judah was something less than a full-fledged monarchy: it often calls him negid, for example, meaning "prince" or "chief", rather than melek, meaning "king"; the biblical David sets up none of the complex bureaucracy that a kingdom needs (even his army is made up of volunteers), and his followers are largely related to him and from his small home-area around Hebron.[87]
+
+Beyond this, the full range of possible interpretations is available. John Bright, in his History of Israel (1981), takes Samuel at face value. Donald B. Redford, however, sees all reconstructions from biblical sources for the United Monarchy period as examples of "academic wishful thinking".[88] Thomas L. Thompson rejects the historicity of the biblical narrative: "The history of Palestine and of its peoples is very different from the Bible's narratives, whatever political claims to the contrary may be. An independent history of Judea during the Iron I and Iron II periods has little room for historicizing readings of the stories of I-II Samuel and I Kings."[89] Amihai Mazar however, concludes that based on recent archeological findings, like those in City of David, Khirbet Qeiyafa, Tel Dan, Tel Rehov, Khirbat en-Nahas and others "the deconstruction of United Monarchy and the devaluation of Judah as a state in 9th century is unacceptable interpretation of available historic data". According to Mazar, based on archeological evidences, the United Monarchy can be described as a "state in development".[90]
+
+Some studies of David have been written: Baruch Halpern has pictured David as a lifelong vassal of Achish, the Philistine king of Gath;[91] Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman have identified as the oldest and most reliable section of Samuel those chapters which describe David as the charismatic leader of a band of outlaws who captures Jerusalem and makes it his capital.[92] Steven McKenzie, Associate Professor of the Hebrew Bible at Rhodes College and author of King David: A Biography, argues that David came from a wealthy family, was "ambitious and ruthless" and a tyrant who murdered his opponents, including his own sons.[74]
+
+Critical Bible scholarship holds that the biblical account of David's rise to power is a political apology—an answer to contemporary charges against him, of his involvement in murders and regicide.[93]
+
+Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman reject the idea that David ruled over a united monarchy, suggesting instead that he ruled only as a chieftain over the southern kingdom of Judah, much smaller than the northern kingdom of Israel at that time.[94] They posit that Israel and Judah were still polytheistic or henotheistic in the time of David and Solomon, and that much later seventh-century redactors sought to portray a past golden age of a united, monotheistic monarchy in order to serve contemporary needs.[95] They note a lack of archeological evidence for David's military campaigns and a relative underdevelopment of Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, compared to a more developed and urbanized Samaria, capital of Israel.[96][97][98]
+
+Jacob L. Wright, Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Emory University, has written that the most popular legends about David, including his killing of Goliath, his affair with Bathsheba, and his ruling of a United Kingdom of Israel rather than just Judah, are the creation of those who lived generations after him, in particular those living in the late Persian or Hellenistic periods.[99]
+
+David is an important figure in Rabbinic Judaism, with many legends around him. According to one tradition, David was raised as the son of his father Jesse and spent his early years herding his father's sheep in the wilderness while his brothers were in school.[100]
+
+David's adultery with Bathsheba is interpreted as an opportunity to demonstrate the power of repentance, and the Talmud states that it was not adultery at all, quoting a Jewish practice of divorce on the eve of battle. Furthermore, according to Talmudic sources, the death of Uriah was not to be considered murder, on the basis that Uriah had committed a capital offense by refusing to obey a direct command from the King.[101] However, in tractate Sanhedrin, David expressed remorse over his transgressions and sought forgiveness.  God ultimately forgave David and Bathsheba but would not remove their sins from Scripture.[102]
+
+In Jewish legend, David's sin with Bathsheba is the punishment for David's excessive self-consciousness who had besought God to lead him into temptation so that he might give proof of his constancy as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (who successfully passed the test) whose names later were united with God's, while David eventually failed through the temptation of a woman.[100]
+
+According to midrashim, Adam gave up 70 years of his life for the life of David.[103] Also, according to the Talmud Yerushalmi, David was born and died on the Jewish holiday of Shavuot (Feast of Weeks). His piety was said to be so great that his prayers could bring down things from Heaven.[citation needed]
+
+The concept of the Messiah is important in Christianity. Originally an earthly king ruling by divine appointment ("the anointed one", as the title Messiah had it), the "son of David" became in the last two pre-Christian centuries the apocalyptic and heavenly one who would deliver Israel and usher in a new kingdom. This was the background to the concept of Messiahship in early Christianity, which interpreted the career of Jesus "by means of the titles and functions assigned to David in the mysticism of the Zion cult, in which he served as priest-king and in which he was the mediator between God and man".[106] The early Church believed that "the life of David [foreshadowed] the life of Christ; Bethlehem is the birthplace of both; the shepherd life of David points out Christ, the Good Shepherd; the five stones chosen to slay Goliath are typical of the five wounds; the betrayal by his trusted counsellor, Achitophel, and the passage over the Cedron remind us of Christ's Sacred Passion. Many of the Davidic Psalms, as we learn from the New Testament, are clearly typical of the future Messiah."[107] In the Middle Ages, "Charlemagne thought of himself, and was viewed by his court scholars, as a 'new David'. [This was] not in itself a new idea, but [one whose] content and significance were greatly enlarged by him".[108] The linking of David to earthly kingship was reflected in European cathedral windows of the Late Middle Ages, through the device of the Tree of Jesse, its branches demonstrating how divine kingship descended from Jesse, through his son David, to Jesus.[citation needed]
+
+Western Rite churches (Lutheran, Roman Catholic) celebrate his feast day on 29 December, Eastern-rite on 19 December.[109] The Eastern Orthodox Church and Eastern Catholic Churches celebrate the feast day of the "Holy Righteous Prophet and King David" on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers (two Sundays before the Great Feast of the Nativity of the Lord), when he is commemorated together with other ancestors of Jesus. He is also commemorated on the Sunday after the Nativity, together with Joseph and James, the Brother of the Lord.[citation needed]
+
+In European Christian culture of the Middle Ages, David was made a member of the Nine Worthies, a group of heroes encapsulating all the ideal qualities of chivalry. His life was thus proposed as a valuable subject for study by those aspiring to chivalric status. This aspect of David in the Nine Worthies was popularised firstly through literature, and was thereafter adopted as a frequent subject for painters and sculptors.
+
+David was considered as a model ruler and a symbol of divinely-ordained monarchy throughout medieval Western Europe and Eastern Christendom. David was perceived as the biblical predecessor to Christian Roman and Byzantine emperors and the name "New David" was used as an honorific reference to these rulers.[111] The Georgian Bagratids and the Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopia claimed a direct biological descent from him.[112] Likewise, kings of the Frankish Carolingian dynasty frequently connected themselves to David; Charlemagne himself occasionally used the name of David as his pseudonym.[111]
+
+David is an important figure in Islam as one of the major prophets sent by God to guide the Israelites. David is mentioned several times in the Quran with the Arabic name داود, Dāwūd, often with his son Solomon. In the Qur'an: David killed Goliath (2:251), a giant soldier in the Philistine army. When David killed Goliath, God granted him kingship and wisdom and enforced it (38:20). David was made God's "vicegerent on earth" (38:26) and God further gave David sound judgment (21:78; 37:21–24, 26) as well as the Psalms, regarded as books of divine wisdom (4:163; 17:55). The birds and mountains united with David in uttering praise to God (21:79; 34:10; 38:18), while God made iron soft for David (34:10), God also instructed David in the art of fashioning chain-mail out of iron (21:80); an indication of the first use of wrought iron, this knowledge gave David a major advantage over his bronze and cast iron-armed opponents, not to mention the cultural and economic impact. Together with Solomon, David gave judgment in a case of damage to the fields (21:78) and David judged the matter between two disputants in his prayer chamber (38:21–23). Since there is no mention in the Qur'an of the wrong David did to Uriah nor any reference to Bathsheba, Muslims reject this narrative.[113]
+
+Muslim tradition and the hadith stress David's zeal in daily prayer as well as in fasting.[114] Qur'an commentators, historians and compilers of the numerous Stories of the Prophets elaborate upon David's concise Qur'anic narratives and specifically mention David's gift in singing his Psalms as well as his musical and vocal talents. His voice is described as having had a captivating power, weaving its influence not only over man but over all beasts and nature, who would unite with him to praise God.[115]
+
+Literary works about David include:
+
+David has been depicted several times in films; these are some of the best-known:
+
+For a considerable period, starting in the 15th century and continuing until the 19th, French playing card manufacturers assigned to each of the court cards names taken from history or mythology.  In this context, the King of Spades was often known as "David".[129][130]
+
+Rembrandt, c. 1650: Saul and David.
+
+Mural of King David from an 18th-century sukkah (Jewish Museum of Franconia).
+
+Miniature from the Paris Psalter: David in the robes of a Byzantine emperor.
+
+Matteo Rosselli The triumphant David.
+
+King David playing the harp, ceiling fresco from Monheim Town Hall, home of a wealthy Jewish merchant.
+
+King David, stained glass windows from the Romanesque Augsburg Cathedral, late 11th century.
+
+Study of King David, by Julia Margaret Cameron. Depicts Sir Henry Taylor, 1866.
+
+The Ark is brought to Jerusalem (1896 Bible card illustration by the Providence Lithograph Company)
+
+Arnold Zadikow, 1930: The Young David displayed in the entrance of Berlin's Jewish Museum from 1933 until its loss during the Second World War.
+
+David on an Israeli stamp
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SixteenthDynasty
+AbydosDynasty
+SeventeenthDynasty
+
+Nineteenth Dynasty of EgyptRamesses I Seti I Ramesses II Merneptah Amenmesses Seti II Siptah Twosret♀
+
+Twenty-first Dynasty of EgyptSmendes Amenemnisu Psusennes I Amenemope Osorkon the Elder Siamun Psusennes II
+
+Twenty-third Dynasty of EgyptHarsiese A Takelot II Pedubast I Shoshenq VI Osorkon III Takelot III Rudamun Menkheperre Ini
+Twenty-fourth Dynasty of EgyptTefnakht Bakenranef
+
+(Sargonid dynasty)Tiglath-Pileser† Shalmaneser† Marduk-apla-iddina II Sargon† Sennacherib† Marduk-zakir-shumi II Marduk-apla-iddina II Bel-ibni Ashur-nadin-shumi† Nergal-ushezib Mushezib-Marduk Esarhaddon† Ashurbanipal Ashur-etil-ilani Sinsharishkun Sin-shumu-lishir Ashur-uballit II
+
+Seleucid Empire: Seleucus I Antiochus I Antiochus II Seleucus II Seleucus III Antiochus III Seleucus IV Antiochus IV Antiochus V Demetrius I Alexander III Demetrius II Antiochus VI Dionysus Diodotus Tryphon Antiochus VII Sidetes

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+DC Comics, Inc. is an American comic book publisher. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment,[3][4] a subsidiary of the Warner Bros. Global Brands and Experiences division of Warner Bros., a subsidiary of AT&T's WarnerMedia. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies. The majority of its publications take place within the fictional DC Universe and feature numerous culturally iconic heroic characters, most notably Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and The Flash. The universe also features well-known supervillains who oppose the superheroes such as the Joker and Lex Luthor. The company has published non-DC Universe-related material, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Fables and many titles under their alternative imprint Vertigo.
+
+The initials "DC" came from the company's popular series Detective Comics, which featured Batman's debut and subsequently became part of the company's name.[5] Originally in Manhattan at 432 Fourth Avenue, the DC Comics offices have been located at 480 and later 575 Lexington Avenue; 909 Third Avenue; 75 Rockefeller Plaza; 666 Fifth Avenue; and 1325 Avenue of the Americas. DC had its headquarters at 1700 Broadway, Midtown Manhattan, New York City, however DC Entertainment relocated its headquarters from New York to Burbank, California in April 2015.[6]
+
+Penguin Random House Publisher Services distributes DC Comics' books to the bookstore market,[7] while Diamond Comic Distributors supplied the comics shop direct market[6][8] until June 2020, where Lunar Distribution and UCS Comic Distributors, who already distributed to the direct market due to Diamond's distribution interruption as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, replaced Diamond to distribute to that market.[2] DC Comics and its longtime major competitor Marvel Comics (acquired in 2009 by The Walt Disney Company, WarnerMedia's main competitor) together shared approximately 70% of the American comic book market in 2017,[9] though this number may give a distorted view since graphic novels are excluded. With the sales of all books included, DC is the second biggest publisher, after Viz Media, and Marvel is third.[10]
+
+Entrepreneur Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson founded National Allied Publications in Autumn 1934 intended as an American comic book publishing company.[1][13][14] The first publishing of the company debuted with the tabloid-sized New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine #1 (the first of a comic series later called More Fun Comics) with a cover date of February 1935. An anthology title essential for containing original stories not reprinted from newspaper strips unlike many comic book series before.[12][15] While superhero comics are what DC Comics is known for throughout modern times, the genres in the anthology titles consisted of funnies, Western comics and adventure-related stories starting out. The character Doctor Occult, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in December 1935 within the issue No. 6 of New Fun Comics, is considered as the earliest recurring superhero created by DC that is still used.[16][17] The company created a second recurring title called New Comics No. 1 released in December 1935 which would be the start of the long-running Adventure Comics series featuring many anthology titles as well.[18]
+
+Wheeler-Nicholson's next and final title, Detective Comics, advertised with a cover illustration dated December 1936, eventually premiered three months late with a March 1937 cover date. The themed anthology that revolved originally on fictional detective stories became in modern times the longest-running ongoing comic series. A notable debut in the first issue was Slam Bradley created in contribution by Malcom-Wheeler-Nicholson, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.[17] In 1937, in debt to printing-plant owner and magazine distributor Harry Donenfeld — who also published pulp magazines and operated as a principal in the magazine distributorship Independent News — Wheeler-Nicholson had to take Donenfeld on as a partner to publish Detective Comics No. 1. Detective Comics, Inc. (which would help inspire the abbreviation DC) was formed, with Wheeler-Nicholson and Jack S. Liebowitz, Donenfeld's accountant, listed as owners. Major Wheeler-Nicholson remained for a year, but cash-flow problems continued, and he was forced out. Shortly afterwards, Detective Comics, Inc. purchased the remains of National Allied, also known as Nicholson Publishing, at a bankruptcy auction.[19]
+
+Meanwhile Max Gaines, formed the sister company All-American Publications around 1938.[20] Detective Comics, Inc. soon launched a new anthology title, entitled Action Comics. Issue #1, cover dated in June 1938, first featured characters such as Superman by Siegel and Shuster, Zatara by Fred Guardineer and Tex Thompson by Ken Finch and Bernard Baily. It is considered to be the first comic book to feature the new character archetype—soon known as "superheroes" and was a sales hit bringing to life a new age of comic books with the credit going to the first appearance of Superman both being featured on the cover and within the issue. It is now one of the most expensive and valuable comic book issues of all time.[21] The issue's first featured tale which starred Superman was the first to feature an origin story of superheroes with the reveal of an unnamed planet later known as Krypton that he is said to be from. The issue also contained the first essential supporting character and one of the earliest essential female character in comics with Lois Lane as Superman's first depicted romantic interest.[22] The Green Hornet inspired character known as the Crimson Avenger by Jim Chamber was featured in Detective Comics No. 20 (October 1938). The character makes a distinction of being the first masked vigilante published by DC.[23][24] An unnamed "office boy" retconned as Jimmy Olsen's first appearance was revealed in Action Comics #6's (November 1938) Superman story by Siegel and Shuster.[25][26]
+
+Starting in 1939, Siegel and Shuster's Superman would be the first comic derived character to appear outside of comic magazines and later appear in newspaper strips starring himself which first introduced Superman's biological parents, Jor-El and Lara.[27] All-American Publications' first comic series called All-American Comics was first published in April 1939.[22] The series of Detective Comics would make successful history as first featuring Batman by Bob Kane and Bill Finger in issue #27 (March 1939) with the request of more superhero titles. Batman was depicted as a masked vigilante depicted as wearing a suit known as the Batsuit along with riding a car that would later be referred to as the Batmobile. Also within the Batman story was the supporting character, James Gordon, Police commissioner of what later would be Gotham City Police Department.[28] Despite being a parody, All-American Publications introduced the earliest female character who would later be a female superhero called Red Tornado (though disguised as a male) in Ma Hunkel who first appeared in the "Scribbly" stories in All-American Comics No. 3 (June 1939).[29] Another important Batman debut was the introduction of the fictional mansion known as Wayne Manor first seen in Detective Comics No. 28 (June 1939).[28] The series Adventure Comics would eventually follow in the Action Comics and Detective Comics series footsteps with featuring a new recurring superhero. The superhero called Sandman was first written in issue No. 40 (cover date: July 1939).[30] Action Comics No. 13 (June 1939) introduced the first recurring Superman enemy referred to as the Ultra-Humanite first introduced by Siegel and Shuster, commonly cited as one of the earliest supervillain in comic books.[31] The character Superman had another breakthrough with progress when the character had his own comic book starring him which was unheard of at the time.[32] The first issue introduced in June 1939 helped directly introduce Superman's adoptive parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent by Siegel and Shuster.[25] Detective Comics #29 (July 1939) introduced the Batman's utility belt by Gardner Fox.[33][28] Outside of DC's publishing, a character later integrated as DC was introduced by Fox Feature Syndicate named the Blue Beetle released in August 1939.[34][35] Fictional cities would be a common theme of DC. The first revealed city was Superman's home city, Metropolis, that was originally named in Action Comics No. 16 in September 1939.[36][37] Detective Comics No. 31 in September 1939 by Gardner Fox, Bob Kane and Sheldon Moldoff introduced a romantic interest of Batman called Julie Madison, the weapon known as the Batarang that Batman commonly uses along with the fictional aircraft called the Batplane.[28] Batman's origin would first be used in Detective Comics No. 33 (Nov. 1939) first depicting the death of Thomas Wayne and Martha Wayne by a mugger. The origin story would remain crucial for the fictional character since the inception.[12][38]
+The Daily Planet (a common setting of Superman) was first named in a newspaper strip of Superman around November 1939.[39] The superhero Doll Man was the first superhero by Quality that DC now owns.[40] Fawcett Comics was formed around 1939 and would end up as DC's original competitor company in the next decade.[41]
+
+National Allied Publications soon merged with Detective Comics, Inc., forming National Comics Publications on September 30, 1946.[42] National Comics Publications absorbed an affiliated concern, Max Gaines' and Liebowitz' All-American Publications. In the same year Gaines let Liebowitz buy him out, and kept only Picture Stories from the Bible as the foundation of his own new company, EC Comics. At that point, "Liebowitz promptly orchestrated the merger of All-American and Detective Comics into National Comics... Next he took charge of organizing National Comics, [the self-distributorship] Independent News, and their affiliated firms into a single corporate entity, National Periodical Publications".[43] National Periodical Publications became publicly traded on the stock market in 1961.[44][45]
+
+Despite the official names "National Comics" and "National Periodical Publications", the company began branding itself as "Superman-DC" as early as 1940, and the company became known colloquially as DC Comics for years before the official adoption of that name in 1977.[46]
+
+The company began to move aggressively against what it saw as copyright-violating imitations from other companies, such as Fox Comics' Wonder Man, which (according to court testimony) Fox started as a copy of Superman. This extended to DC suing Fawcett Comics over Captain Marvel, at the time comics' top-selling character (see National Comics Publications, Inc. v. Fawcett Publications, Inc.). Faced with declining sales and the prospect of bankruptcy if it lost, Fawcett capitulated in 1953 and ceased publishing comics. Years later, Fawcett sold the rights for Captain Marvel to DC—which in 1972 revived Captain Marvel in the new title Shazam! featuring artwork by his creator, C. C. Beck. In the meantime, the abandoned trademark had been seized by Marvel Comics in 1967, with the creation of their Captain Marvel, forbidding the DC comic itself to be called that. While Captain Marvel did not recapture his old popularity, he later appeared in a Saturday morning live action TV adaptation and gained a prominent place in the mainstream continuity DC calls the DC Universe.
+
+When the popularity of superheroes faded in the late 1940s, the company focused on such genres as science fiction, Westerns, humor, and romance. DC also published crime and horror titles, but relatively tame ones, and thus avoided the mid-1950s backlash against such comics. A handful of the most popular superhero-titles, including Action Comics and Detective Comics, the medium's two longest-running titles, continued publication.
+
+In the mid-1950s, editorial director Irwin Donenfeld and publisher Liebowitz directed editor Julius Schwartz (whose roots lay in the science-fiction book market) to produce a one-shot Flash story in the try-out title Showcase. Instead of reviving the old character, Schwartz had writers Robert Kanigher and John Broome, penciler Carmine Infantino, and inker Joe Kubert create an entirely new super-speedster, updating and modernizing the Flash's civilian identity, costume, and origin with a science-fiction bent. The Flash's reimagining in Showcase No. 4 (October 1956) proved sufficiently popular that it soon led to a similar revamping of the Green Lantern character, the introduction of the modern all-star team Justice League of America (JLA), and many more superheroes, heralding what historians and fans call the Silver Age of Comic Books.
+
+National did not reimagine its continuing characters (primarily Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman), but radically overhauled them. The Superman family of titles, under editor Mort Weisinger, introduced such enduring characters as Supergirl, Bizarro, and Brainiac. The Batman titles, under editor Jack Schiff, introduced the successful Batwoman, Bat-Girl, Ace the Bat-Hound, and Bat-Mite in an attempt to modernize the strip with non-science-fiction elements. Schwartz, together with artist Infantino, then revitalized Batman in what the company promoted as the "New Look", re-emphasizing Batman as a detective. Meanwhile, editor Kanigher successfully introduced a whole family of Wonder Woman characters having fantastic adventures in a mythological context.
+
+Since the 1940s, when Superman, Batman, and many of the company's other heroes began appearing in stories together, DC's characters inhabited a shared continuity that, decades later, was dubbed the "DC Universe" by fans. With the story "Flash of Two Worlds", in Flash No. 123 (September 1961), editor Schwartz (with writer Gardner Fox and artists Infantino and Joe Giella) introduced a concept that allowed slotting the 1930s and 1940s Golden Age heroes into this continuity via the explanation that they lived on an other-dimensional "Earth 2", as opposed to the modern heroes' "Earth 1"—in the process creating the foundation for what was later called the DC Multiverse.
+
+DC's introduction of the reimagined superheroes did not go unnoticed by other comics companies. In 1961, with DC's JLA as the specific spur,[n 1] Marvel Comics writer-editor Stan Lee and a robust creator Jack Kirby ushered in the sub-Silver Age "Marvel Age" of comics with the debut issue of The Fantastic Four.[47] Reportedly, DC ignored the initial success of Marvel with this editorial change until its consistently strengthening sales, albeit also benefiting Independent News' business as their distributor as well, made that impossible. That commercial situation especially applied with Marvel's superior sell-through percentage numbers which were typically 70% to DC's roughly 50%, which meant DC's publications were barely making a profit in comparison after returns from the distributors were calculated while Marvel was making an excellent profit by comparison.[48]
+
+However, the senior DC staff were reportedly at a loss at this time to understand how this small publishing house was achieving this increasingly threatening commercial strength. For instance, when Marvel's product was examined in a meeting, Marvel's emphasis on more sophisticated character-based narrative and artist-driven visual storytelling was apparently ignored for self-deluding guesses at the brand's popularity which included superficial reasons like the presence of the color red or word balloons on the cover, or that the perceived crudeness of the interior art was somehow more appealing to readers. When Lee learned about DC's subsequent experimental attempts to imitate these perceived details, he amused himself by arranging direct defiance of those assumptions in Marvel's publications as sales strengthened further to frustrate the competition.[49]
+
+However, this ignorance of Marvel's true appeal did not extend to some of the writing talent during this period, from which there were some attempts to emulate Marvel's narrative approach. For instance, there was the Doom Patrol series by Arnold Drake, a writer who previously warned the management of the new rival's strength;[50] a superhero team of outsiders who resented their freakish powers,[51] which Drake later speculated was plagiarized by Stan Lee to create The X-Men.[52] There was also the young Jim Shooter who purposely emulated Marvel's writing when he wrote for DC after much study of both companies' styles, such as for the Legion of Super-Heroes feature.[53]
+
+A 1966 Batman TV show on the ABC network sparked a temporary spike in comic book sales, and a brief fad for superheroes in Saturday morning animation (Filmation created most of DC's initial cartoons) and other media. DC significantly lightened the tone of many DC comics—particularly Batman and Detective Comics—to better complement the "camp" tone of the TV series. This tone coincided with the famous "Go-Go Checks" checkerboard cover-dress which featured a black-and-white checkerboard strip (all DC books cover dated February 1966 until August 1967) at the top of each comic, a misguided attempt by then-managing editor Irwin Donenfeld to make DC's output "stand out on the newsracks".[54] In particular, DC artist, Carmine Infantino, complained that the visual cover distinctiveness made DC's titles easier for readers to see and then avoid in favor of Marvel's titles.[55]
+
+In 1967, Batman artist Infantino (who had designed popular Silver Age characters Batgirl and the Phantom Stranger) rose from art director to become DC's editorial director. With the growing popularity of upstart rival Marvel Comics threatening to topple DC from its longtime number-one position in the comics industry, he attempted to infuse the company with more focus towards marketing new and existing titles and characters with more adult sensibilities towards an emerging older age group of superhero comic book fans that grew out of Marvel's efforts to market their superhero line to college-aged adults. He also recruited major talents such as ex-Marvel artist and Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko and promising newcomers Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil and replaced some existing DC editors with artist-editors, including Joe Kubert and Dick Giordano, to give DC's output a more artistic critical eye.
+
+In 1967, National Periodical Publications was purchased by Kinney National Company,[56] which purchased Warner Bros.-Seven Arts in 1969. Kinney National spun off its non-entertainment assets in 1972 (as National Kinney Corporation) and changed its name to Warner Communications Inc.
+
+In 1970, Jack Kirby moved from Marvel Comics to DC, at the end of the Silver Age of Comics, in which Kirby's contributions to Marvel played a large, integral role. Given carte blanche to write and illustrate his own stories, he created a handful of thematically linked series he called collectively The Fourth World. In the existing series Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen and in his own, newly launched series New Gods, Mister Miracle, and The Forever People, Kirby introduced such enduring characters and concepts as archvillain Darkseid and the other-dimensional realm Apokolips. Furthermore, Kirby intended their stories to be reprinted in collected editions, in a publishing format that was later called the trade paperback, which became a standard industry practice decades later. While sales were respectable, they did not meet DC management's initially high expectations, and also suffered from a lack of comprehension and internal support from Infantino. By 1973 the "Fourth World" was all cancelled, although Kirby's conceptions soon became integral to the broadening of the DC Universe, especially after the major toy company, Kenner Products, judged them ideal for their action figure adaptation of the DC Universe, the Super Powers Collection.,[57] Obligated by his contract, Kirby created other unrelated series for DC, including Kamandi, The Demon, and OMAC, before ultimately returning to Marvel Comics.
+
+Following the science-fiction innovations of the Silver Age, the comics of the 1970s and 1980s became known as the Bronze Age, as fantasy gave way to more naturalistic and sometimes darker themes. Illegal drug use, banned by the Comics Code Authority, explicitly appeared in comics for the first time in Marvel Comics' story "Green Goblin Reborn!" in The Amazing Spider-Man No. 96 (May 1971), and after the Code's updating in response, DC offered a drug-fueled storyline in writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Neal Adams' Green Lantern, beginning with the story "Snowbirds Don't Fly" in the retitled Green Lantern / Green Arrow No. 85 (September 1971), which depicted Speedy, the teen sidekick of superhero archer Green Arrow, as having become a heroin addict.
+
+Jenette Kahn, a former children's magazine publisher, replaced Infantino as editorial director in January 1976. DC had attempted to compete with the now-surging Marvel by dramatically increasing its output and attempting to win the market by flooding it. This included launching series featuring such new characters as Firestorm and Shade, the Changing Man, as well as an increasing array of non-superhero titles, in an attempt to recapture the pre-Wertham days of post-War comicdom. In June 1978, five months before the release of the first Superman movie, Kahn expanded the line further, increasing the number of titles and story pages, and raising the price from 35 cents to 50 cents. Most series received eight-page back-up features while some had full-length twenty-five-page stories. This was a move the company called the "DC Explosion".[58] The move was not successful, however, and corporate parent Warner dramatically cut back on these largely unsuccessful titles, firing many staffers in what industry watchers dubbed "the DC Implosion".[59] In September 1978, the line was dramatically reduced and standard-size books returned to 17-story pages but for a still increased 40 cents.[60] By 1980, the books returned to 50 cents with a 25-page story count but the story pages replaced house ads in the books.
+
+Seeking new ways to boost market share, the new team of publisher Kahn, vice president Paul Levitz, and managing editor Giordano addressed the issue of talent instability. To that end—and following the example of Atlas/Seaboard Comics[61] and such independent companies as Eclipse Comics—DC began to offer royalties in place of the industry-standard work-for-hire agreement in which creators worked for a flat fee and signed away all rights, giving talent a financial incentive tied to the success of their work. As it happened, the implementation of these incentives proved opportune considering Marvel Comics' Editor-in-Chief, Jim Shooter, was alienating much of his company's creative staff with his authoritarian manner and major talents there went to DC like Roy Thomas, Gene Colan, Marv Wolfman, and George Perez.[62]
+
+In addition, emulating the era's new television form, the miniseries while addressing the matter of an excessive number of ongoing titles fizzling out within a few issues of their start, DC created the industry concept of the comic book limited series. This publishing format allowed for the deliberate creation of finite storylines within a more flexible publishing format that could showcase creations without forcing the talent into unsustainable open-ended commitments. The first such title was World of Krypton in 1979, and its positive results lead to subsequent similar titles and later more ambitious productions like Camelot 3000 for the direct market in 1982.[63]
+
+These changes in policy shaped the future of the medium as a whole, and in the short term allowed DC to entice creators away from rival Marvel, and encourage stability on individual titles. In November 1980 DC launched the ongoing series The New Teen Titans, by writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Pérez, two popular talents with a history of success. Their superhero-team comic, superficially similar to Marvel's ensemble series X-Men, but rooted in DC history, earned significant sales[64] in part due to the stability of the creative team, who both continued with the title for six full years. In addition, Wolfman and Pérez took advantage of the limited-series option to create a spin-off title, Tales of the New Teen Titans, to present origin stories of their original characters without having to break the narrative flow of the main series or oblige them to double their work load with another ongoing title.
+
+This successful revitalization of the Silver Age Teen Titans led DC's editors[65] to seek the same for the wider DC Universe. The result, the Wolfman/Pérez 12-issue limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths, gave the company an opportunity to realign and jettison some of the characters' complicated backstory and continuity discrepancies. A companion publication, two volumes entitled The History of the DC Universe, set out the revised history of the major DC characters. Crisis featured many key deaths that shaped the DC Universe for the following decades, and it separated the timeline of DC publications into pre- and post-"Crisis".
+
+Meanwhile, a parallel update had started in the non-superhero and horror titles. Since early 1984, the work of British writer Alan Moore had revitalized the horror series The Saga of the Swamp Thing, and soon numerous British writers, including Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison, began freelancing for the company. The resulting influx of sophisticated horror-fantasy material led to DC in 1993 establishing the Vertigo mature-readers imprint, which did not subscribe to the Comics Code Authority.[66]
+
+Two DC limited series, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller and Watchmen by Moore and artist Dave Gibbons, drew attention in the mainstream press for their dark psychological complexity and promotion of the antihero.[67] These titles helped pave the way for comics to be more widely accepted in literary-criticism circles and to make inroads into the book industry, with collected editions of these series as commercially successful trade paperbacks.[citation needed]
+
+The mid-1980s also saw the end of many long-running DC war comics, including series that had been in print since the 1960s. These titles, all with over 100 issues, included Sgt. Rock, G.I. Combat, The Unknown Soldier, and Weird War Tales.
+
+In March 1989, Warner Communications merged with Time Inc., making DC Comics a subsidiary of Time Warner. In June, the first Tim Burton directed Batman movie was released, and DC began publishing its hardcover series of DC Archive Editions, collections of many of their early, key comics series, featuring rare and expensive stories unseen by many modern fans. Restoration for many of the Archive Editions was handled by Rick Keene with colour restoration by DC's long-time resident colourist, Bob LeRose. These collections attempted to retroactively credit many of the writers and artists who had worked without much recognition for DC during the early period of comics when individual credits were few and far between.
+
+The comics industry experienced a brief boom in the early 1990s, thanks to a combination of speculative purchasing (mass purchase of the books as collectible items, with intent to resell at a higher value as the rising value of older issues, was thought to imply that all comics would rise dramatically in price) and several storylines which gained attention from the mainstream media. DC's extended storylines in which Superman was killed, Batman was crippled and superhero Green Lantern turned into the supervillain Parallax resulted in dramatically increased sales, but the increases were as temporary as the hero's replacements. Sales dropped off as the industry went into a major slump, while manufactured "collectables" numbering in the millions replaced quality with quantity until fans and speculators alike deserted the medium in droves.
+
+DC's Piranha Press and other imprints (including the mature readers line Vertigo, and Helix, a short-lived science fiction imprint) were introduced to facilitate compartmentalized diversification and allow for specialized marketing of individual product lines. They increased the use of non-traditional contractual arrangements, including the dramatic rise of creator-owned projects, leading to a significant increase in critically lauded work (much of it for Vertigo) and the licensing of material from other companies. DC also increased publication of book-store friendly formats, including trade paperback collections of individual serial comics, as well as original graphic novels.
+
+One of the other imprints was Impact Comics from 1991 to 1992 in which the Archie Comics superheroes were licensed and revamped.[68][69] The stories in the line were part of its own shared universe.[70]
+
+DC entered into a publishing agreement with Milestone Media that gave DC a line of comics featuring a culturally and racially diverse range of superhero characters. Although the Milestone line ceased publication after a few years, it yielded the popular animated series Static Shock. DC established Paradox Press to publish material such as the large-format Big Book of... series of multi-artist interpretations on individual themes, and such crime fiction as the graphic novel Road to Perdition. In 1998, DC purchased WildStorm Comics, Jim Lee's imprint under the Image Comics banner, continuing it for many years as a wholly separate imprint – and fictional universe – with its own style and audience. As part of this purchase, DC also began to publish titles under the fledgling WildStorm sub-imprint America's Best Comics (ABC), a series of titles created by Alan Moore, including The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Tom Strong, and Promethea. Moore strongly contested this situation, and DC eventually stopped publishing ABC.
+
+In March 2003 DC acquired publishing and merchandising rights to the long-running fantasy series Elfquest, previously self-published by creators Wendy and Richard Pini under their WaRP Graphics publication banner. This series then followed another non-DC title, Tower Comics' series T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, in collection into DC Archive Editions. In 2004 DC temporarily acquired the North American publishing rights to graphic novels from European publishers 2000 AD and Humanoids. It also rebranded its younger-audience titles with the mascot Johnny DC and established the CMX imprint to reprint translated manga. In 2006, CMX took over from Dark Horse Comics publication of the webcomic Megatokyo in print form. DC also took advantage of the demise of Kitchen Sink Press and acquired the rights to much of the work of Will Eisner, such as his The Spirit series and his graphic novels.
+
+In 2004, DC began laying the groundwork for a full continuity-reshuffling sequel to Crisis on Infinite Earths, promising substantial changes to the DC Universe (and side-stepping the 1994 Zero Hour event which similarly tried to ret-con the history of the DCU). In 2005, the critically lauded Batman Begins film was released; also, the company published several limited series establishing increasingly escalated conflicts among DC's heroes, with events climaxing in the Infinite Crisis limited series. Immediately after this event, DC's ongoing series jumped forward a full year in their in-story continuity, as DC launched a weekly series, 52, to gradually fill in the missing time. Concurrently, DC lost the copyright to "Superboy" (while retaining the trademark) when the heirs of Jerry Siegel used a provision of the 1976 revision to the copyright law to regain ownership.
+
+In 2005, DC launched its "All-Star" line (evoking the title of the 1940s publication), designed to feature some of the company's best-known characters in stories that eschewed the long and convoluted continuity of the DC Universe. The line began with All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder and All-Star Superman, with All-Star Wonder Woman and All-Star Batgirl announced in 2006 but neither being released nor scheduled as of the end of 2009.[71]
+
+DC licensed characters from the Archie Comics imprint Red Circle Comics by 2007.[72] They appeared in the Red Circle line, based in the DC Universe, with a series of one-shots followed by a miniseries that lead into two ongoing titles, each lasting 10 issues.[70][73]
+
+In 2011, DC rebooted all of its running titles following the Flashpoint storyline. The reboot called The New 52 gave new origin stories and costume designs to many of DC's characters.
+
+DC licensed pulp characters including Doc Savage and the Spirit which it then used, along with some DC heroes, as part of the First Wave comics line launched in 2010 and lasting through fall 2011.[74][75][76]
+
+In May 2011, DC announced it would begin releasing digital versions of their comics on the same day as paper versions.[77]
+
+On June 1, 2011, DC announced that it would end all ongoing series set in the DC Universe in August and relaunch its comic line with 52 issue #1s, starting with Justice League on August 31 (written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Jim Lee), with the rest to follow later on in September.[78][79]
+
+On June 4, 2013, DC unveiled two new digital comic innovations to enhance interactivity: DC2 and DC2 Multiverse. DC2 layers dynamic artwork onto digital comic panels, adding a new level of dimension to digital storytelling, while DC2 Multiverse allows readers to determine a specific story outcome by selecting individual characters, storylines and plot developments while reading the comic, meaning one digital comic has multiple outcomes. DC2 will first appear in the upcoming digital-first title, Batman '66, based on the 1960s television series and DC2 Multiverse will first appear in Batman: Arkham Origins, a digital-first title based on the video game of the same name.[80]
+
+In 2014, DC announced an eight-issue miniseries titled Convergence which began in April 2015.[81][82][83][84]
+
+In 2016, DC announced a line-wide relaunch titled DC Rebirth.[85] The new line would launch with an 80-page one-shot titled DC Universe: Rebirth, written by Geoff Johns, with art from Gary Frank, Ethan Van Sciver, and more. After that, many new series would launch with a twice-monthly release schedule and new creative teams for nearly every title. The relaunch was meant to bring back the legacy and heart many felt had been missing from DC characters since the launch of the New 52. Rebirth brought huge success, both financially and critically.[86][87][88]
+
+DC Entertainment, Inc. is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. that manages its comic book units and intellectual property (characters) in other units as they work with other Warner Bros units.
+
+In September 2009, Warner Bros. announced that DC Comics would become a subsidiary of DC Entertainment, Inc., with Diane Nelson, President of Warner Premiere, becoming president of the newly formed holding company and DC Comics President and Publisher Paul Levitz moving to the position of Contributing Editor and Overall Consultant there.[89] Warner Bros. and DC Comics have been owned by the same company since 1969.
+
+On February 18, 2010, DC Entertainment named Jim Lee and Dan DiDio as Co-Publishers of DC Comics, Geoff Johns as Chief Creative Officer, John Rood as EVP (Executive Vice President) of Sales, Marketing and Business Development, and Patrick Caldon as EVP of Finance and Administration.[90]
+
+In October 2013, DC Entertainment announced that the DC Comics offices were going to move from New York City to Warner Bros. Burbank, California, headquarters in 2015. The other units, animation, movie, TV and portfolio planning, had preceded DC Comics by moving there in 2010.[91]
+
+DC Entertainment announced its first franchise, the DC Super Hero Girls universe, in April 2015 with multi-platform content, toys and apparel to start appearing in 2016.[92]
+
+Warner Bros. Pictures reorganized in May 2016 to have genre responsible film executives, thus DC Entertainment franchise films under Warner Bros. were placed under a newly created division, DC Films, created under Warner Bros. executive vice president Jon Berg and DC chief content officer Geoff Johns. This was done in the same vein as Marvel Studios in unifying DC-related filmmaking under a single vision and clarifying the greenlighting process. Johns also kept his existing role at DC Comics.[93] Johns was promoted to DC president & CCO with the addition of his DC Films while still reporting to DCE President Nelson.[94] In August 2016, Amit Desai was promoted from senior vice president, marketing & global franchise management to exec vice president, business and marketing strategy, direct-to-consumer and global franchise management.[95]
+
+DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Digital Networks announced in April 2017 DC Universe digital service to be launched in 2018 with two original series.[96][97]
+
+With frustration over DC Films not matching Marvel Studios' results and Berg wanting to step back to being a producer in January 2018, it was announced that Warner Bros. executive Walter Hamada was appointed president of DC film production.[98] After a leave of absence starting in March 2018, Diane Nelson resigned as president of DC Entertainment. The company's executive management were to report to WB Chief Digital Officer Thomas Gewecke until a new president is selected.[99] In June 2018, Johns was also moved out of his position as chief creative officer and DC Entertainment president for a writing and producing deal with the DC and WB companies. Jim Lee added DC Entertainment chief creative officer title to his DC co-publisher post.[100] In September 2018, DC became part of the newly-created Warner Bros. Global Brands and Experiences division overseen by President Pam Lifford.[101][102]
+
+DC's first logo appeared on the April 1940 issues of its titles. The letters "DC" stood for Detective Comics, the name of Batman's flagship title. The small logo, with no background, read simply, "A DC Publication".[citation needed]
+
+The November 1941 DC titles introduced an updated logo. This version was almost twice the size of the previous one and was the first version with a white background. The name "Superman" was added to "A DC Publication", effectively acknowledging both Superman and Batman. This logo was the first to occupy the top-left corner of the cover, where the logo has usually resided since. The company now referred to itself in its advertising as "Superman-DC".[citation needed]
+
+In November 1949, the logo was modified to incorporate the company's formal name, National Comics Publications. This logo also served as the round body of Johnny DC, DC's mascot in the 1960s.[citation needed]
+
+In October 1970, DC briefly retired the circular logo in favour of a simple "DC" in a rectangle with the name of the title, or the star of the book; the logo on many issues of Action Comics, for example, read "DC Superman". An image of the lead character either appeared above or below the rectangle. For books that did not have a single star, such as anthologies like House of Mystery or team series such as Justice League of America, the title and "DC" appeared in a stylized logo, such as a bat for "House of Mystery". This use of characters as logos helped to establish the likenesses as trademarks, and was similar to Marvel's contemporaneous use of characters as part of its cover branding.[citation needed]
+
+DC's "100 Page Super-Spectacular" titles and later 100-page and "Giant" issues published from 1972 to 1974 featured a logo exclusive to these editions: the letters "DC" in a simple sans-serif typeface within a circle. A variant had the letters in a square.[citation needed]
+
+The July 1972 DC titles featured a new circular logo. The letters "DC" were rendered in a block-like typeface that remained through later logo revisions until 2005. The title of the book usually appeared inside the circle, either above or below the letters.[citation needed]
+
+In December 1973, this logo was modified with the addition of the words "The Line of DC Super-Stars" and the star motif that continued in later logos. This logo was placed in the top center of the cover from August 1975 to October 1976.[citation needed]
+
+When Jenette Kahn became DC's publisher in late 1976, she commissioned graphic designer Milton Glaser to design a new logo. Popularly referred to as the "DC bullet", this logo premiered on the February 1977 titles. Although it varied in size and colour and was at times cropped by the edges of the cover, or briefly rotated 4 degrees, it remained essentially unchanged for nearly three decades. Despite logo changes since 2005, the old "DC bullet" continues to be used only on the DC Archive Editions series.[citation needed]
+
+In July 1987, DC released variant editions of Justice League No. 3 and The Fury of Firestorm No. 61 with a new DC logo. It featured a picture of Superman in a circle surrounded by the words "SUPERMAN COMICS". The company released these variants to newsstands in certain markets as a marketing test.[103]
+
+On May 8, 2005, a new logo (dubbed the "DC spin") was unveiled, debuting on DC titles in June 2005 with DC Special: The Return of Donna Troy No. 1 and the rest of the titles the following week. In addition to comics, it was designed for DC properties in other media, which was used for movies since Batman Begins, with Superman Returns showing the logo's normal variant, and the TV series Smallville, the animated series Justice League Unlimited and others, as well as for collectibles and other merchandise. The logo was designed by Josh Beatman of Brainchild Studios[104] and DC executive Richard Bruning.[105]
+
+In March 2012, DC unveiled a new logo consisting of the letter "D" flipping back to reveal the letter "C" and "DC ENTERTAINMENT".[106] The Dark Knight Rises was the first film to use the new logo, while the TV series Arrow was the first series to feature the new logo.
+
+DC Entertainment announced a new identity and logo for another iconic DC Comics universe brand on May 17, 2016. The new logo was first used on May 25, 2016, in conjunction with the release of DC Universe: Rebirth Special #1 by Geoff Johns.[107]
+
+DC Universe is a video on demand service operated by DC Entertainment. It was announced in April 2017,[109] with the title and service formally announced in May 2018. DC Universe is expected to offer more than video content through the inclusion of an immersive experience with fan interaction that encompasses comics in addition to television.[97][110][111][112]
+
+DC Comics are available in digital form through several sources.
+
+Free services: In 2015, Hoopla Digital became the first library-based digital system to distribute DC Comics.[167]
+
+Paid services: Google Play, ComiXology[168]
+
+Irwin said he never played golf with Goodman, so the story is untrue. I heard this story more than a couple of times while sitting in the lunchroom at DC's 909 Third Avenue and 75 Rockefeller Plaza office as Sol Harrison and [production chief] Jack Adler were schmoozing with some of us ... who worked for DC during our college summers ... [T]he way I heard the story from Sol was that Goodman was playing with one of the heads of Independent News, not DC Comics (though DC owned Independent News) ... As the distributor of DC Comics, this man certainly knew all the sales figures and was in the best position to tell this tidbit to Goodman. ... Of course, Goodman would want to be playing golf with this fellow and be in his good graces ... Sol worked closely with Independent News' top management over the decades and would have gotten this story straight from the horse's mouth.
+
+Goodman, a publishing trend-follower aware of the JLA's strong sales, confirmably directed his comics editor, Stan Lee, to create a comic-book series about a team of superheroes. According to Lee in Origins of Marvel Comics (Simon and Schuster/Fireside Books, 1974), p. 16:
+"Martin mentioned that he had noticed one of the titles published by National Comics seemed to be selling better than most. It was a book called The  [sic] Justice League of America and it was composed of a team of superheroes. ... ' If the Justice League is selling ', spoke he, 'why don't we put out a comic book that features a team of superheroes?'"

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+DC Comics, Inc. is an American comic book publisher. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment,[3][4] a subsidiary of the Warner Bros. Global Brands and Experiences division of Warner Bros., a subsidiary of AT&T's WarnerMedia. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies. The majority of its publications take place within the fictional DC Universe and feature numerous culturally iconic heroic characters, most notably Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and The Flash. The universe also features well-known supervillains who oppose the superheroes such as the Joker and Lex Luthor. The company has published non-DC Universe-related material, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Fables and many titles under their alternative imprint Vertigo.
+
+The initials "DC" came from the company's popular series Detective Comics, which featured Batman's debut and subsequently became part of the company's name.[5] Originally in Manhattan at 432 Fourth Avenue, the DC Comics offices have been located at 480 and later 575 Lexington Avenue; 909 Third Avenue; 75 Rockefeller Plaza; 666 Fifth Avenue; and 1325 Avenue of the Americas. DC had its headquarters at 1700 Broadway, Midtown Manhattan, New York City, however DC Entertainment relocated its headquarters from New York to Burbank, California in April 2015.[6]
+
+Penguin Random House Publisher Services distributes DC Comics' books to the bookstore market,[7] while Diamond Comic Distributors supplied the comics shop direct market[6][8] until June 2020, where Lunar Distribution and UCS Comic Distributors, who already distributed to the direct market due to Diamond's distribution interruption as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, replaced Diamond to distribute to that market.[2] DC Comics and its longtime major competitor Marvel Comics (acquired in 2009 by The Walt Disney Company, WarnerMedia's main competitor) together shared approximately 70% of the American comic book market in 2017,[9] though this number may give a distorted view since graphic novels are excluded. With the sales of all books included, DC is the second biggest publisher, after Viz Media, and Marvel is third.[10]
+
+Entrepreneur Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson founded National Allied Publications in Autumn 1934 intended as an American comic book publishing company.[1][13][14] The first publishing of the company debuted with the tabloid-sized New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine #1 (the first of a comic series later called More Fun Comics) with a cover date of February 1935. An anthology title essential for containing original stories not reprinted from newspaper strips unlike many comic book series before.[12][15] While superhero comics are what DC Comics is known for throughout modern times, the genres in the anthology titles consisted of funnies, Western comics and adventure-related stories starting out. The character Doctor Occult, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in December 1935 within the issue No. 6 of New Fun Comics, is considered as the earliest recurring superhero created by DC that is still used.[16][17] The company created a second recurring title called New Comics No. 1 released in December 1935 which would be the start of the long-running Adventure Comics series featuring many anthology titles as well.[18]
+
+Wheeler-Nicholson's next and final title, Detective Comics, advertised with a cover illustration dated December 1936, eventually premiered three months late with a March 1937 cover date. The themed anthology that revolved originally on fictional detective stories became in modern times the longest-running ongoing comic series. A notable debut in the first issue was Slam Bradley created in contribution by Malcom-Wheeler-Nicholson, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.[17] In 1937, in debt to printing-plant owner and magazine distributor Harry Donenfeld — who also published pulp magazines and operated as a principal in the magazine distributorship Independent News — Wheeler-Nicholson had to take Donenfeld on as a partner to publish Detective Comics No. 1. Detective Comics, Inc. (which would help inspire the abbreviation DC) was formed, with Wheeler-Nicholson and Jack S. Liebowitz, Donenfeld's accountant, listed as owners. Major Wheeler-Nicholson remained for a year, but cash-flow problems continued, and he was forced out. Shortly afterwards, Detective Comics, Inc. purchased the remains of National Allied, also known as Nicholson Publishing, at a bankruptcy auction.[19]
+
+Meanwhile Max Gaines, formed the sister company All-American Publications around 1938.[20] Detective Comics, Inc. soon launched a new anthology title, entitled Action Comics. Issue #1, cover dated in June 1938, first featured characters such as Superman by Siegel and Shuster, Zatara by Fred Guardineer and Tex Thompson by Ken Finch and Bernard Baily. It is considered to be the first comic book to feature the new character archetype—soon known as "superheroes" and was a sales hit bringing to life a new age of comic books with the credit going to the first appearance of Superman both being featured on the cover and within the issue. It is now one of the most expensive and valuable comic book issues of all time.[21] The issue's first featured tale which starred Superman was the first to feature an origin story of superheroes with the reveal of an unnamed planet later known as Krypton that he is said to be from. The issue also contained the first essential supporting character and one of the earliest essential female character in comics with Lois Lane as Superman's first depicted romantic interest.[22] The Green Hornet inspired character known as the Crimson Avenger by Jim Chamber was featured in Detective Comics No. 20 (October 1938). The character makes a distinction of being the first masked vigilante published by DC.[23][24] An unnamed "office boy" retconned as Jimmy Olsen's first appearance was revealed in Action Comics #6's (November 1938) Superman story by Siegel and Shuster.[25][26]
+
+Starting in 1939, Siegel and Shuster's Superman would be the first comic derived character to appear outside of comic magazines and later appear in newspaper strips starring himself which first introduced Superman's biological parents, Jor-El and Lara.[27] All-American Publications' first comic series called All-American Comics was first published in April 1939.[22] The series of Detective Comics would make successful history as first featuring Batman by Bob Kane and Bill Finger in issue #27 (March 1939) with the request of more superhero titles. Batman was depicted as a masked vigilante depicted as wearing a suit known as the Batsuit along with riding a car that would later be referred to as the Batmobile. Also within the Batman story was the supporting character, James Gordon, Police commissioner of what later would be Gotham City Police Department.[28] Despite being a parody, All-American Publications introduced the earliest female character who would later be a female superhero called Red Tornado (though disguised as a male) in Ma Hunkel who first appeared in the "Scribbly" stories in All-American Comics No. 3 (June 1939).[29] Another important Batman debut was the introduction of the fictional mansion known as Wayne Manor first seen in Detective Comics No. 28 (June 1939).[28] The series Adventure Comics would eventually follow in the Action Comics and Detective Comics series footsteps with featuring a new recurring superhero. The superhero called Sandman was first written in issue No. 40 (cover date: July 1939).[30] Action Comics No. 13 (June 1939) introduced the first recurring Superman enemy referred to as the Ultra-Humanite first introduced by Siegel and Shuster, commonly cited as one of the earliest supervillain in comic books.[31] The character Superman had another breakthrough with progress when the character had his own comic book starring him which was unheard of at the time.[32] The first issue introduced in June 1939 helped directly introduce Superman's adoptive parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent by Siegel and Shuster.[25] Detective Comics #29 (July 1939) introduced the Batman's utility belt by Gardner Fox.[33][28] Outside of DC's publishing, a character later integrated as DC was introduced by Fox Feature Syndicate named the Blue Beetle released in August 1939.[34][35] Fictional cities would be a common theme of DC. The first revealed city was Superman's home city, Metropolis, that was originally named in Action Comics No. 16 in September 1939.[36][37] Detective Comics No. 31 in September 1939 by Gardner Fox, Bob Kane and Sheldon Moldoff introduced a romantic interest of Batman called Julie Madison, the weapon known as the Batarang that Batman commonly uses along with the fictional aircraft called the Batplane.[28] Batman's origin would first be used in Detective Comics No. 33 (Nov. 1939) first depicting the death of Thomas Wayne and Martha Wayne by a mugger. The origin story would remain crucial for the fictional character since the inception.[12][38]
+The Daily Planet (a common setting of Superman) was first named in a newspaper strip of Superman around November 1939.[39] The superhero Doll Man was the first superhero by Quality that DC now owns.[40] Fawcett Comics was formed around 1939 and would end up as DC's original competitor company in the next decade.[41]
+
+National Allied Publications soon merged with Detective Comics, Inc., forming National Comics Publications on September 30, 1946.[42] National Comics Publications absorbed an affiliated concern, Max Gaines' and Liebowitz' All-American Publications. In the same year Gaines let Liebowitz buy him out, and kept only Picture Stories from the Bible as the foundation of his own new company, EC Comics. At that point, "Liebowitz promptly orchestrated the merger of All-American and Detective Comics into National Comics... Next he took charge of organizing National Comics, [the self-distributorship] Independent News, and their affiliated firms into a single corporate entity, National Periodical Publications".[43] National Periodical Publications became publicly traded on the stock market in 1961.[44][45]
+
+Despite the official names "National Comics" and "National Periodical Publications", the company began branding itself as "Superman-DC" as early as 1940, and the company became known colloquially as DC Comics for years before the official adoption of that name in 1977.[46]
+
+The company began to move aggressively against what it saw as copyright-violating imitations from other companies, such as Fox Comics' Wonder Man, which (according to court testimony) Fox started as a copy of Superman. This extended to DC suing Fawcett Comics over Captain Marvel, at the time comics' top-selling character (see National Comics Publications, Inc. v. Fawcett Publications, Inc.). Faced with declining sales and the prospect of bankruptcy if it lost, Fawcett capitulated in 1953 and ceased publishing comics. Years later, Fawcett sold the rights for Captain Marvel to DC—which in 1972 revived Captain Marvel in the new title Shazam! featuring artwork by his creator, C. C. Beck. In the meantime, the abandoned trademark had been seized by Marvel Comics in 1967, with the creation of their Captain Marvel, forbidding the DC comic itself to be called that. While Captain Marvel did not recapture his old popularity, he later appeared in a Saturday morning live action TV adaptation and gained a prominent place in the mainstream continuity DC calls the DC Universe.
+
+When the popularity of superheroes faded in the late 1940s, the company focused on such genres as science fiction, Westerns, humor, and romance. DC also published crime and horror titles, but relatively tame ones, and thus avoided the mid-1950s backlash against such comics. A handful of the most popular superhero-titles, including Action Comics and Detective Comics, the medium's two longest-running titles, continued publication.
+
+In the mid-1950s, editorial director Irwin Donenfeld and publisher Liebowitz directed editor Julius Schwartz (whose roots lay in the science-fiction book market) to produce a one-shot Flash story in the try-out title Showcase. Instead of reviving the old character, Schwartz had writers Robert Kanigher and John Broome, penciler Carmine Infantino, and inker Joe Kubert create an entirely new super-speedster, updating and modernizing the Flash's civilian identity, costume, and origin with a science-fiction bent. The Flash's reimagining in Showcase No. 4 (October 1956) proved sufficiently popular that it soon led to a similar revamping of the Green Lantern character, the introduction of the modern all-star team Justice League of America (JLA), and many more superheroes, heralding what historians and fans call the Silver Age of Comic Books.
+
+National did not reimagine its continuing characters (primarily Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman), but radically overhauled them. The Superman family of titles, under editor Mort Weisinger, introduced such enduring characters as Supergirl, Bizarro, and Brainiac. The Batman titles, under editor Jack Schiff, introduced the successful Batwoman, Bat-Girl, Ace the Bat-Hound, and Bat-Mite in an attempt to modernize the strip with non-science-fiction elements. Schwartz, together with artist Infantino, then revitalized Batman in what the company promoted as the "New Look", re-emphasizing Batman as a detective. Meanwhile, editor Kanigher successfully introduced a whole family of Wonder Woman characters having fantastic adventures in a mythological context.
+
+Since the 1940s, when Superman, Batman, and many of the company's other heroes began appearing in stories together, DC's characters inhabited a shared continuity that, decades later, was dubbed the "DC Universe" by fans. With the story "Flash of Two Worlds", in Flash No. 123 (September 1961), editor Schwartz (with writer Gardner Fox and artists Infantino and Joe Giella) introduced a concept that allowed slotting the 1930s and 1940s Golden Age heroes into this continuity via the explanation that they lived on an other-dimensional "Earth 2", as opposed to the modern heroes' "Earth 1"—in the process creating the foundation for what was later called the DC Multiverse.
+
+DC's introduction of the reimagined superheroes did not go unnoticed by other comics companies. In 1961, with DC's JLA as the specific spur,[n 1] Marvel Comics writer-editor Stan Lee and a robust creator Jack Kirby ushered in the sub-Silver Age "Marvel Age" of comics with the debut issue of The Fantastic Four.[47] Reportedly, DC ignored the initial success of Marvel with this editorial change until its consistently strengthening sales, albeit also benefiting Independent News' business as their distributor as well, made that impossible. That commercial situation especially applied with Marvel's superior sell-through percentage numbers which were typically 70% to DC's roughly 50%, which meant DC's publications were barely making a profit in comparison after returns from the distributors were calculated while Marvel was making an excellent profit by comparison.[48]
+
+However, the senior DC staff were reportedly at a loss at this time to understand how this small publishing house was achieving this increasingly threatening commercial strength. For instance, when Marvel's product was examined in a meeting, Marvel's emphasis on more sophisticated character-based narrative and artist-driven visual storytelling was apparently ignored for self-deluding guesses at the brand's popularity which included superficial reasons like the presence of the color red or word balloons on the cover, or that the perceived crudeness of the interior art was somehow more appealing to readers. When Lee learned about DC's subsequent experimental attempts to imitate these perceived details, he amused himself by arranging direct defiance of those assumptions in Marvel's publications as sales strengthened further to frustrate the competition.[49]
+
+However, this ignorance of Marvel's true appeal did not extend to some of the writing talent during this period, from which there were some attempts to emulate Marvel's narrative approach. For instance, there was the Doom Patrol series by Arnold Drake, a writer who previously warned the management of the new rival's strength;[50] a superhero team of outsiders who resented their freakish powers,[51] which Drake later speculated was plagiarized by Stan Lee to create The X-Men.[52] There was also the young Jim Shooter who purposely emulated Marvel's writing when he wrote for DC after much study of both companies' styles, such as for the Legion of Super-Heroes feature.[53]
+
+A 1966 Batman TV show on the ABC network sparked a temporary spike in comic book sales, and a brief fad for superheroes in Saturday morning animation (Filmation created most of DC's initial cartoons) and other media. DC significantly lightened the tone of many DC comics—particularly Batman and Detective Comics—to better complement the "camp" tone of the TV series. This tone coincided with the famous "Go-Go Checks" checkerboard cover-dress which featured a black-and-white checkerboard strip (all DC books cover dated February 1966 until August 1967) at the top of each comic, a misguided attempt by then-managing editor Irwin Donenfeld to make DC's output "stand out on the newsracks".[54] In particular, DC artist, Carmine Infantino, complained that the visual cover distinctiveness made DC's titles easier for readers to see and then avoid in favor of Marvel's titles.[55]
+
+In 1967, Batman artist Infantino (who had designed popular Silver Age characters Batgirl and the Phantom Stranger) rose from art director to become DC's editorial director. With the growing popularity of upstart rival Marvel Comics threatening to topple DC from its longtime number-one position in the comics industry, he attempted to infuse the company with more focus towards marketing new and existing titles and characters with more adult sensibilities towards an emerging older age group of superhero comic book fans that grew out of Marvel's efforts to market their superhero line to college-aged adults. He also recruited major talents such as ex-Marvel artist and Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko and promising newcomers Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil and replaced some existing DC editors with artist-editors, including Joe Kubert and Dick Giordano, to give DC's output a more artistic critical eye.
+
+In 1967, National Periodical Publications was purchased by Kinney National Company,[56] which purchased Warner Bros.-Seven Arts in 1969. Kinney National spun off its non-entertainment assets in 1972 (as National Kinney Corporation) and changed its name to Warner Communications Inc.
+
+In 1970, Jack Kirby moved from Marvel Comics to DC, at the end of the Silver Age of Comics, in which Kirby's contributions to Marvel played a large, integral role. Given carte blanche to write and illustrate his own stories, he created a handful of thematically linked series he called collectively The Fourth World. In the existing series Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen and in his own, newly launched series New Gods, Mister Miracle, and The Forever People, Kirby introduced such enduring characters and concepts as archvillain Darkseid and the other-dimensional realm Apokolips. Furthermore, Kirby intended their stories to be reprinted in collected editions, in a publishing format that was later called the trade paperback, which became a standard industry practice decades later. While sales were respectable, they did not meet DC management's initially high expectations, and also suffered from a lack of comprehension and internal support from Infantino. By 1973 the "Fourth World" was all cancelled, although Kirby's conceptions soon became integral to the broadening of the DC Universe, especially after the major toy company, Kenner Products, judged them ideal for their action figure adaptation of the DC Universe, the Super Powers Collection.,[57] Obligated by his contract, Kirby created other unrelated series for DC, including Kamandi, The Demon, and OMAC, before ultimately returning to Marvel Comics.
+
+Following the science-fiction innovations of the Silver Age, the comics of the 1970s and 1980s became known as the Bronze Age, as fantasy gave way to more naturalistic and sometimes darker themes. Illegal drug use, banned by the Comics Code Authority, explicitly appeared in comics for the first time in Marvel Comics' story "Green Goblin Reborn!" in The Amazing Spider-Man No. 96 (May 1971), and after the Code's updating in response, DC offered a drug-fueled storyline in writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Neal Adams' Green Lantern, beginning with the story "Snowbirds Don't Fly" in the retitled Green Lantern / Green Arrow No. 85 (September 1971), which depicted Speedy, the teen sidekick of superhero archer Green Arrow, as having become a heroin addict.
+
+Jenette Kahn, a former children's magazine publisher, replaced Infantino as editorial director in January 1976. DC had attempted to compete with the now-surging Marvel by dramatically increasing its output and attempting to win the market by flooding it. This included launching series featuring such new characters as Firestorm and Shade, the Changing Man, as well as an increasing array of non-superhero titles, in an attempt to recapture the pre-Wertham days of post-War comicdom. In June 1978, five months before the release of the first Superman movie, Kahn expanded the line further, increasing the number of titles and story pages, and raising the price from 35 cents to 50 cents. Most series received eight-page back-up features while some had full-length twenty-five-page stories. This was a move the company called the "DC Explosion".[58] The move was not successful, however, and corporate parent Warner dramatically cut back on these largely unsuccessful titles, firing many staffers in what industry watchers dubbed "the DC Implosion".[59] In September 1978, the line was dramatically reduced and standard-size books returned to 17-story pages but for a still increased 40 cents.[60] By 1980, the books returned to 50 cents with a 25-page story count but the story pages replaced house ads in the books.
+
+Seeking new ways to boost market share, the new team of publisher Kahn, vice president Paul Levitz, and managing editor Giordano addressed the issue of talent instability. To that end—and following the example of Atlas/Seaboard Comics[61] and such independent companies as Eclipse Comics—DC began to offer royalties in place of the industry-standard work-for-hire agreement in which creators worked for a flat fee and signed away all rights, giving talent a financial incentive tied to the success of their work. As it happened, the implementation of these incentives proved opportune considering Marvel Comics' Editor-in-Chief, Jim Shooter, was alienating much of his company's creative staff with his authoritarian manner and major talents there went to DC like Roy Thomas, Gene Colan, Marv Wolfman, and George Perez.[62]
+
+In addition, emulating the era's new television form, the miniseries while addressing the matter of an excessive number of ongoing titles fizzling out within a few issues of their start, DC created the industry concept of the comic book limited series. This publishing format allowed for the deliberate creation of finite storylines within a more flexible publishing format that could showcase creations without forcing the talent into unsustainable open-ended commitments. The first such title was World of Krypton in 1979, and its positive results lead to subsequent similar titles and later more ambitious productions like Camelot 3000 for the direct market in 1982.[63]
+
+These changes in policy shaped the future of the medium as a whole, and in the short term allowed DC to entice creators away from rival Marvel, and encourage stability on individual titles. In November 1980 DC launched the ongoing series The New Teen Titans, by writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Pérez, two popular talents with a history of success. Their superhero-team comic, superficially similar to Marvel's ensemble series X-Men, but rooted in DC history, earned significant sales[64] in part due to the stability of the creative team, who both continued with the title for six full years. In addition, Wolfman and Pérez took advantage of the limited-series option to create a spin-off title, Tales of the New Teen Titans, to present origin stories of their original characters without having to break the narrative flow of the main series or oblige them to double their work load with another ongoing title.
+
+This successful revitalization of the Silver Age Teen Titans led DC's editors[65] to seek the same for the wider DC Universe. The result, the Wolfman/Pérez 12-issue limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths, gave the company an opportunity to realign and jettison some of the characters' complicated backstory and continuity discrepancies. A companion publication, two volumes entitled The History of the DC Universe, set out the revised history of the major DC characters. Crisis featured many key deaths that shaped the DC Universe for the following decades, and it separated the timeline of DC publications into pre- and post-"Crisis".
+
+Meanwhile, a parallel update had started in the non-superhero and horror titles. Since early 1984, the work of British writer Alan Moore had revitalized the horror series The Saga of the Swamp Thing, and soon numerous British writers, including Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison, began freelancing for the company. The resulting influx of sophisticated horror-fantasy material led to DC in 1993 establishing the Vertigo mature-readers imprint, which did not subscribe to the Comics Code Authority.[66]
+
+Two DC limited series, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller and Watchmen by Moore and artist Dave Gibbons, drew attention in the mainstream press for their dark psychological complexity and promotion of the antihero.[67] These titles helped pave the way for comics to be more widely accepted in literary-criticism circles and to make inroads into the book industry, with collected editions of these series as commercially successful trade paperbacks.[citation needed]
+
+The mid-1980s also saw the end of many long-running DC war comics, including series that had been in print since the 1960s. These titles, all with over 100 issues, included Sgt. Rock, G.I. Combat, The Unknown Soldier, and Weird War Tales.
+
+In March 1989, Warner Communications merged with Time Inc., making DC Comics a subsidiary of Time Warner. In June, the first Tim Burton directed Batman movie was released, and DC began publishing its hardcover series of DC Archive Editions, collections of many of their early, key comics series, featuring rare and expensive stories unseen by many modern fans. Restoration for many of the Archive Editions was handled by Rick Keene with colour restoration by DC's long-time resident colourist, Bob LeRose. These collections attempted to retroactively credit many of the writers and artists who had worked without much recognition for DC during the early period of comics when individual credits were few and far between.
+
+The comics industry experienced a brief boom in the early 1990s, thanks to a combination of speculative purchasing (mass purchase of the books as collectible items, with intent to resell at a higher value as the rising value of older issues, was thought to imply that all comics would rise dramatically in price) and several storylines which gained attention from the mainstream media. DC's extended storylines in which Superman was killed, Batman was crippled and superhero Green Lantern turned into the supervillain Parallax resulted in dramatically increased sales, but the increases were as temporary as the hero's replacements. Sales dropped off as the industry went into a major slump, while manufactured "collectables" numbering in the millions replaced quality with quantity until fans and speculators alike deserted the medium in droves.
+
+DC's Piranha Press and other imprints (including the mature readers line Vertigo, and Helix, a short-lived science fiction imprint) were introduced to facilitate compartmentalized diversification and allow for specialized marketing of individual product lines. They increased the use of non-traditional contractual arrangements, including the dramatic rise of creator-owned projects, leading to a significant increase in critically lauded work (much of it for Vertigo) and the licensing of material from other companies. DC also increased publication of book-store friendly formats, including trade paperback collections of individual serial comics, as well as original graphic novels.
+
+One of the other imprints was Impact Comics from 1991 to 1992 in which the Archie Comics superheroes were licensed and revamped.[68][69] The stories in the line were part of its own shared universe.[70]
+
+DC entered into a publishing agreement with Milestone Media that gave DC a line of comics featuring a culturally and racially diverse range of superhero characters. Although the Milestone line ceased publication after a few years, it yielded the popular animated series Static Shock. DC established Paradox Press to publish material such as the large-format Big Book of... series of multi-artist interpretations on individual themes, and such crime fiction as the graphic novel Road to Perdition. In 1998, DC purchased WildStorm Comics, Jim Lee's imprint under the Image Comics banner, continuing it for many years as a wholly separate imprint – and fictional universe – with its own style and audience. As part of this purchase, DC also began to publish titles under the fledgling WildStorm sub-imprint America's Best Comics (ABC), a series of titles created by Alan Moore, including The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Tom Strong, and Promethea. Moore strongly contested this situation, and DC eventually stopped publishing ABC.
+
+In March 2003 DC acquired publishing and merchandising rights to the long-running fantasy series Elfquest, previously self-published by creators Wendy and Richard Pini under their WaRP Graphics publication banner. This series then followed another non-DC title, Tower Comics' series T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, in collection into DC Archive Editions. In 2004 DC temporarily acquired the North American publishing rights to graphic novels from European publishers 2000 AD and Humanoids. It also rebranded its younger-audience titles with the mascot Johnny DC and established the CMX imprint to reprint translated manga. In 2006, CMX took over from Dark Horse Comics publication of the webcomic Megatokyo in print form. DC also took advantage of the demise of Kitchen Sink Press and acquired the rights to much of the work of Will Eisner, such as his The Spirit series and his graphic novels.
+
+In 2004, DC began laying the groundwork for a full continuity-reshuffling sequel to Crisis on Infinite Earths, promising substantial changes to the DC Universe (and side-stepping the 1994 Zero Hour event which similarly tried to ret-con the history of the DCU). In 2005, the critically lauded Batman Begins film was released; also, the company published several limited series establishing increasingly escalated conflicts among DC's heroes, with events climaxing in the Infinite Crisis limited series. Immediately after this event, DC's ongoing series jumped forward a full year in their in-story continuity, as DC launched a weekly series, 52, to gradually fill in the missing time. Concurrently, DC lost the copyright to "Superboy" (while retaining the trademark) when the heirs of Jerry Siegel used a provision of the 1976 revision to the copyright law to regain ownership.
+
+In 2005, DC launched its "All-Star" line (evoking the title of the 1940s publication), designed to feature some of the company's best-known characters in stories that eschewed the long and convoluted continuity of the DC Universe. The line began with All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder and All-Star Superman, with All-Star Wonder Woman and All-Star Batgirl announced in 2006 but neither being released nor scheduled as of the end of 2009.[71]
+
+DC licensed characters from the Archie Comics imprint Red Circle Comics by 2007.[72] They appeared in the Red Circle line, based in the DC Universe, with a series of one-shots followed by a miniseries that lead into two ongoing titles, each lasting 10 issues.[70][73]
+
+In 2011, DC rebooted all of its running titles following the Flashpoint storyline. The reboot called The New 52 gave new origin stories and costume designs to many of DC's characters.
+
+DC licensed pulp characters including Doc Savage and the Spirit which it then used, along with some DC heroes, as part of the First Wave comics line launched in 2010 and lasting through fall 2011.[74][75][76]
+
+In May 2011, DC announced it would begin releasing digital versions of their comics on the same day as paper versions.[77]
+
+On June 1, 2011, DC announced that it would end all ongoing series set in the DC Universe in August and relaunch its comic line with 52 issue #1s, starting with Justice League on August 31 (written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Jim Lee), with the rest to follow later on in September.[78][79]
+
+On June 4, 2013, DC unveiled two new digital comic innovations to enhance interactivity: DC2 and DC2 Multiverse. DC2 layers dynamic artwork onto digital comic panels, adding a new level of dimension to digital storytelling, while DC2 Multiverse allows readers to determine a specific story outcome by selecting individual characters, storylines and plot developments while reading the comic, meaning one digital comic has multiple outcomes. DC2 will first appear in the upcoming digital-first title, Batman '66, based on the 1960s television series and DC2 Multiverse will first appear in Batman: Arkham Origins, a digital-first title based on the video game of the same name.[80]
+
+In 2014, DC announced an eight-issue miniseries titled Convergence which began in April 2015.[81][82][83][84]
+
+In 2016, DC announced a line-wide relaunch titled DC Rebirth.[85] The new line would launch with an 80-page one-shot titled DC Universe: Rebirth, written by Geoff Johns, with art from Gary Frank, Ethan Van Sciver, and more. After that, many new series would launch with a twice-monthly release schedule and new creative teams for nearly every title. The relaunch was meant to bring back the legacy and heart many felt had been missing from DC characters since the launch of the New 52. Rebirth brought huge success, both financially and critically.[86][87][88]
+
+DC Entertainment, Inc. is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. that manages its comic book units and intellectual property (characters) in other units as they work with other Warner Bros units.
+
+In September 2009, Warner Bros. announced that DC Comics would become a subsidiary of DC Entertainment, Inc., with Diane Nelson, President of Warner Premiere, becoming president of the newly formed holding company and DC Comics President and Publisher Paul Levitz moving to the position of Contributing Editor and Overall Consultant there.[89] Warner Bros. and DC Comics have been owned by the same company since 1969.
+
+On February 18, 2010, DC Entertainment named Jim Lee and Dan DiDio as Co-Publishers of DC Comics, Geoff Johns as Chief Creative Officer, John Rood as EVP (Executive Vice President) of Sales, Marketing and Business Development, and Patrick Caldon as EVP of Finance and Administration.[90]
+
+In October 2013, DC Entertainment announced that the DC Comics offices were going to move from New York City to Warner Bros. Burbank, California, headquarters in 2015. The other units, animation, movie, TV and portfolio planning, had preceded DC Comics by moving there in 2010.[91]
+
+DC Entertainment announced its first franchise, the DC Super Hero Girls universe, in April 2015 with multi-platform content, toys and apparel to start appearing in 2016.[92]
+
+Warner Bros. Pictures reorganized in May 2016 to have genre responsible film executives, thus DC Entertainment franchise films under Warner Bros. were placed under a newly created division, DC Films, created under Warner Bros. executive vice president Jon Berg and DC chief content officer Geoff Johns. This was done in the same vein as Marvel Studios in unifying DC-related filmmaking under a single vision and clarifying the greenlighting process. Johns also kept his existing role at DC Comics.[93] Johns was promoted to DC president & CCO with the addition of his DC Films while still reporting to DCE President Nelson.[94] In August 2016, Amit Desai was promoted from senior vice president, marketing & global franchise management to exec vice president, business and marketing strategy, direct-to-consumer and global franchise management.[95]
+
+DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Digital Networks announced in April 2017 DC Universe digital service to be launched in 2018 with two original series.[96][97]
+
+With frustration over DC Films not matching Marvel Studios' results and Berg wanting to step back to being a producer in January 2018, it was announced that Warner Bros. executive Walter Hamada was appointed president of DC film production.[98] After a leave of absence starting in March 2018, Diane Nelson resigned as president of DC Entertainment. The company's executive management were to report to WB Chief Digital Officer Thomas Gewecke until a new president is selected.[99] In June 2018, Johns was also moved out of his position as chief creative officer and DC Entertainment president for a writing and producing deal with the DC and WB companies. Jim Lee added DC Entertainment chief creative officer title to his DC co-publisher post.[100] In September 2018, DC became part of the newly-created Warner Bros. Global Brands and Experiences division overseen by President Pam Lifford.[101][102]
+
+DC's first logo appeared on the April 1940 issues of its titles. The letters "DC" stood for Detective Comics, the name of Batman's flagship title. The small logo, with no background, read simply, "A DC Publication".[citation needed]
+
+The November 1941 DC titles introduced an updated logo. This version was almost twice the size of the previous one and was the first version with a white background. The name "Superman" was added to "A DC Publication", effectively acknowledging both Superman and Batman. This logo was the first to occupy the top-left corner of the cover, where the logo has usually resided since. The company now referred to itself in its advertising as "Superman-DC".[citation needed]
+
+In November 1949, the logo was modified to incorporate the company's formal name, National Comics Publications. This logo also served as the round body of Johnny DC, DC's mascot in the 1960s.[citation needed]
+
+In October 1970, DC briefly retired the circular logo in favour of a simple "DC" in a rectangle with the name of the title, or the star of the book; the logo on many issues of Action Comics, for example, read "DC Superman". An image of the lead character either appeared above or below the rectangle. For books that did not have a single star, such as anthologies like House of Mystery or team series such as Justice League of America, the title and "DC" appeared in a stylized logo, such as a bat for "House of Mystery". This use of characters as logos helped to establish the likenesses as trademarks, and was similar to Marvel's contemporaneous use of characters as part of its cover branding.[citation needed]
+
+DC's "100 Page Super-Spectacular" titles and later 100-page and "Giant" issues published from 1972 to 1974 featured a logo exclusive to these editions: the letters "DC" in a simple sans-serif typeface within a circle. A variant had the letters in a square.[citation needed]
+
+The July 1972 DC titles featured a new circular logo. The letters "DC" were rendered in a block-like typeface that remained through later logo revisions until 2005. The title of the book usually appeared inside the circle, either above or below the letters.[citation needed]
+
+In December 1973, this logo was modified with the addition of the words "The Line of DC Super-Stars" and the star motif that continued in later logos. This logo was placed in the top center of the cover from August 1975 to October 1976.[citation needed]
+
+When Jenette Kahn became DC's publisher in late 1976, she commissioned graphic designer Milton Glaser to design a new logo. Popularly referred to as the "DC bullet", this logo premiered on the February 1977 titles. Although it varied in size and colour and was at times cropped by the edges of the cover, or briefly rotated 4 degrees, it remained essentially unchanged for nearly three decades. Despite logo changes since 2005, the old "DC bullet" continues to be used only on the DC Archive Editions series.[citation needed]
+
+In July 1987, DC released variant editions of Justice League No. 3 and The Fury of Firestorm No. 61 with a new DC logo. It featured a picture of Superman in a circle surrounded by the words "SUPERMAN COMICS". The company released these variants to newsstands in certain markets as a marketing test.[103]
+
+On May 8, 2005, a new logo (dubbed the "DC spin") was unveiled, debuting on DC titles in June 2005 with DC Special: The Return of Donna Troy No. 1 and the rest of the titles the following week. In addition to comics, it was designed for DC properties in other media, which was used for movies since Batman Begins, with Superman Returns showing the logo's normal variant, and the TV series Smallville, the animated series Justice League Unlimited and others, as well as for collectibles and other merchandise. The logo was designed by Josh Beatman of Brainchild Studios[104] and DC executive Richard Bruning.[105]
+
+In March 2012, DC unveiled a new logo consisting of the letter "D" flipping back to reveal the letter "C" and "DC ENTERTAINMENT".[106] The Dark Knight Rises was the first film to use the new logo, while the TV series Arrow was the first series to feature the new logo.
+
+DC Entertainment announced a new identity and logo for another iconic DC Comics universe brand on May 17, 2016. The new logo was first used on May 25, 2016, in conjunction with the release of DC Universe: Rebirth Special #1 by Geoff Johns.[107]
+
+DC Universe is a video on demand service operated by DC Entertainment. It was announced in April 2017,[109] with the title and service formally announced in May 2018. DC Universe is expected to offer more than video content through the inclusion of an immersive experience with fan interaction that encompasses comics in addition to television.[97][110][111][112]
+
+DC Comics are available in digital form through several sources.
+
+Free services: In 2015, Hoopla Digital became the first library-based digital system to distribute DC Comics.[167]
+
+Paid services: Google Play, ComiXology[168]
+
+Irwin said he never played golf with Goodman, so the story is untrue. I heard this story more than a couple of times while sitting in the lunchroom at DC's 909 Third Avenue and 75 Rockefeller Plaza office as Sol Harrison and [production chief] Jack Adler were schmoozing with some of us ... who worked for DC during our college summers ... [T]he way I heard the story from Sol was that Goodman was playing with one of the heads of Independent News, not DC Comics (though DC owned Independent News) ... As the distributor of DC Comics, this man certainly knew all the sales figures and was in the best position to tell this tidbit to Goodman. ... Of course, Goodman would want to be playing golf with this fellow and be in his good graces ... Sol worked closely with Independent News' top management over the decades and would have gotten this story straight from the horse's mouth.
+
+Goodman, a publishing trend-follower aware of the JLA's strong sales, confirmably directed his comics editor, Stan Lee, to create a comic-book series about a team of superheroes. According to Lee in Origins of Marvel Comics (Simon and Schuster/Fireside Books, 1974), p. 16:
+"Martin mentioned that he had noticed one of the titles published by National Comics seemed to be selling better than most. It was a book called The  [sic] Justice League of America and it was composed of a team of superheroes. ... ' If the Justice League is selling ', spoke he, 'why don't we put out a comic book that features a team of superheroes?'"

en/146.html.txt

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+
+
+East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; German: Deutsche Demokratische Republik [ˈdɔʏtʃə demoˈkʁaːtɪʃə ʁepuˈbliːk], DDR), was a state that existed from 1949 to 1990, the period when the eastern portion of Germany was part of the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. Commonly described as a communist state in English usage, it described itself as a socialist "workers' and peasants' state".[7] It consisted of territory that was administered and occupied by Soviet forces following the end of World War II—the Soviet occupation zone of the Potsdam Agreement, bounded on the east by the Oder–Neisse line. The Soviet zone surrounded West Berlin but did not include it and West Berlin remained outside the jurisdiction of the GDR.
+
+The GDR was established in the Soviet zone while the Federal Republic of Germany, commonly referred to as West Germany, was established in the three western zones. A satellite state of the Soviet Union,[8] Soviet occupation authorities began transferring administrative responsibility to German communist leaders in 1948 and the GDR began to function as a state on 7 October 1949. However, Soviet forces remained in the country throughout the Cold War. Until 1989, the GDR was governed by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), although other parties nominally participated in its alliance organisation, the National Front of the German Democratic Republic.[9] The SED made the teaching of Marxism–Leninism and the Russian language compulsory in schools.[10]
+
+The economy was centrally planned and increasingly state-owned.[11] Prices of housing, basic goods and services were heavily subsidised and set by central government planners rather than rising and falling through supply and demand. Although the GDR had to pay substantial war reparations to the Soviets, it became the most successful economy in the Eastern Bloc. Emigration to the West was a significant problem as many of the emigrants were well-educated young people and weakened the state economically. The government fortified its western borders and built the Berlin Wall in 1961. Many people attempting to flee[12][13] were killed by border guards or booby traps such as landmines.[14] Many others spent large amounts of time imprisoned for attempting to escape.[15][16]
+
+In 1989, numerous social, economic and political forces in the GDR and abroad led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the establishment of a government committed to liberalisation. The following year, free and fair elections were held[17] and international negotiations led to the signing of the Final Settlement treaty on the status and borders of Germany. The GDR dissolved itself and Germany was reunified on 3 October 1990, becoming a fully sovereign state in the reunified Federal Republic of Germany. Several of the GDR's leaders, notably its last communist leader Egon Krenz, were prosecuted after reunification for crimes committed during the Cold War.
+
+Geographically, the GDR bordered the Baltic Sea to the north, Poland to the east, Czechoslovakia to the southeast and West Germany to the southwest and west. Internally, the GDR also bordered the Soviet sector of Allied-occupied Berlin, known as East Berlin, which was also administered as the state's de facto capital. It also bordered the three sectors occupied by the United States, United Kingdom and France known collectively as West Berlin. The three sectors occupied by the Western nations were sealed off from the GDR by the Berlin Wall from its construction in 1961 until it was brought down in 1989.
+
+The official name was Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic), usually abbreviated to DDR (GDR). Both terms were used in East Germany, with increasing usage of the abbreviated form, especially since East Germany considered West Germans and West Berliners to be foreigners following the promulgation of its second constitution in 1968. West Germans, the western media and statesmen initially avoided the official name and its abbreviation, instead using terms like Ostzone (Eastern Zone),[18] Sowjetische Besatzungszone (Soviet Occupation Zone; often abbreviated to SBZ) and sogenannte DDR[19] or "so-called GDR".[20]
+
+The centre of political power in East Berlin was referred to as Pankow (the seat of command of the Soviet forces in East Germany was referred to as Karlshorst).[18] Over time, however, the abbreviation DDR was also increasingly used colloquially by West Germans and West German media.[note 1]
+
+When used by West Germans, Westdeutschland (West Germany) was a term almost always in reference to the geographic region of Western Germany and not to the area within the boundaries of the Federal Republic of Germany. However, this use was not always consistent and West Berliners frequently used the term Westdeutschland to denote the Federal Republic.[21] Before World War II, Ostdeutschland (eastern Germany) was used to describe all the territories east of the Elbe (East Elbia), as reflected in the works of sociologist Max Weber and political theorist Carl Schmitt.[22][23][24][25][26]
+
+Explaining the internal impact of the GDR regime from the perspective of German history in the long term, historian Gerhard A. Ritter (2002) has argued that the East German state was defined by two dominant forces – Soviet communism on the one hand, and German traditions filtered through the interwar experiences of German communists on the other. It always was constrained by the powerful example of the increasingly prosperous West, to which East Germans compared their nation. The changes wrought by the communists were most apparent in ending capitalism and transforming industry and agriculture, in the militarization of society, and in the political thrust of the educational system and the media. On the other hand, there was relatively little change made in the historically independent domains of the sciences, the engineering professions, the Protestant churches, and in many bourgeois lifestyles[citation needed]. Social policy, says Ritter, became a critical legitimization tool in the last decades and mixed socialist and traditional elements about equally.[27]
+
+At the Yalta Conference during World War II, the Allies (the US, the UK, and the Soviet Union) agreed on dividing a defeated Nazi Germany into occupation zones,[28] and on dividing Berlin, the German capital, among the Allied powers as well. Initially this meant the construction of three zones of occupation, i.e., American, British, and Soviet. Later, a French zone was carved out of the US and British zones.
+
+The ruling communist party, known as the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), was formed in April 1946 from the merger between the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).[29] The two former parties were notorious rivals when they were active before the Nazis consolidated all power and criminalised them, and official East German and Soviet histories portrayed this merger as a voluntary pooling of efforts by the socialist parties and symbolic of the new friendship of German socialists after defeating their common enemy; however, there is much evidence that the merger was more troubled than commonly portrayed, and that the Soviet occupation authorities applied great pressure on the SPD's eastern branch to merge with the KPD, and the communists, who held a majority, had virtually total control over policy.[30] The SED was the ruling party for the entire duration of the East German state. It had close ties with the Soviets, which maintained military forces in East Germany until its dissolution in 1991 (the Russian Federation continued to maintain forces in what had been East Germany until 1994), with the stated purpose of countering NATO bases in West Germany.
+
+As West Germany was reorganized and gained independence from its occupiers, the GDR was established in East Germany in 1949. The creation of the two states solidified the 1945 division of Germany.[31] On 10 March 1952, (in what would become known as the "Stalin Note") Stalin put forth a proposal to reunify Germany with a policy of neutrality, with no conditions on economic policies and with guarantees for "the rights of man and basic freedoms, including freedom of speech, press, religious persuasion, political conviction, and assembly" and free activity of democratic parties and organizations.[32] This was turned down; reunification was not a priority for the leadership of West Germany, and the NATO powers declined the proposal, asserting that Germany should be able to join NATO and that such a negotiation with the Soviet Union would be seen as a capitulation. There have been several debates about whether a real chance for reunification had been missed in 1952.
+
+In 1949, the Soviets turned control of East Germany over to the SED, headed by Wilhelm Pieck (1876–1960), who became president of the GDR and held the office until his death, while most executive authority was assumed by SED General Secretary Walter Ulbricht. Socialist leader Otto Grotewohl (1894–1964) became prime minister until his death.[33]
+
+The government of East Germany denounced West German failures in accomplishing denazification and renounced ties to the Nazi past, imprisoning many former Nazis and preventing them from holding government positions. The SED set a primary goal of ridding East Germany of all traces of Nazism.[citation needed]
+
+In the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, the Allies established their joint military occupation and administration of Germany via the Allied Control Council (ACC), a four-power (US, UK, USSR, France) military government effective until the restoration of German sovereignty. In eastern Germany, the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ – Sowjetische Besatzungszone) comprised the five states (Länder) of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia[citation needed]. Disagreements over the policies to be followed in the occupied zones quickly led to a breakdown in cooperation between the four powers, and the Soviets administered their zone without regard to the policies implemented in the other zones. The Soviets withdrew from the ACC in 1948; subsequently as the other three zones were increasingly unified and granted self-government, the Soviet administration instituted a separate socialist government in its zone[citation needed].
+
+Yet, seven years after the Allies' Potsdam Agreement to a unified Germany, the USSR via the Stalin Note (10 March 1952) proposed German reunification and superpower disengagement from Central Europe, which the three Western Allies (the United States, France, the United Kingdom) rejected. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, a Communist proponent of reunification, died in early March 1953. Similarly, Lavrenty Beria, the First Deputy Prime Minister of the USSR, pursued German reunification, but he was removed from power that same year before he could act on the matter. His successor, Nikita Khrushchev, rejected reunification as equivalent to returning East Germany for annexation to the West; hence reunification went unconsidered until 1989.[citation needed]
+
+East Germany considered East Berlin to be its capital, and the Soviet Union and the rest of the Eastern Bloc diplomatically recognized East Berlin as the capital. However, the Western Allies disputed this recognition, considering the entire city of Berlin to be occupied territory governed by the Allied Control Council. According to Margarete Feinstein, East Berlin's status as the capital was largely unrecognized by the West and most Third World countries.[34] In practice, the ACC's authority was rendered moot by the Cold War, and East Berlin's status as occupied territory largely became a legal fiction, and the Soviet sector became fully integrated into the GDR.[citation needed]
+
+The deepening Cold War conflict between the Western Powers and the Soviet Union over the unresolved status of West Berlin led to the Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 – 12 May 1949). The Soviet army initiated the blockade by halting all Allied rail, road, and water traffic to and from West Berlin. The Allies countered the Soviets with the Berlin Airlift (1948–49) of food, fuel, and supplies to West Berlin.[35]
+
+On 21 April 1946, the Communist Party of Germany (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands – KPD) and the part of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands – SPD) in the Soviet zone merged to form the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED – Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands), which then won the elections of 1946. The SED's government nationalised infrastructure and industrial plants.
+
+In 1948, the German Economic Commission (Deutsche Wirtschaftskomission—DWK) under its chairman Heinrich Rau assumed administrative authority in the Soviet occupation zone, thus becoming the predecessor of an East German government.[36][37]
+
+On 7 October 1949, the SED established the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic – GDR), based on a socialist political constitution establishing its control of the Anti-Fascist National Front of the German Democratic Republic (NF, Nationale Front der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik), an omnibus alliance of every party and mass organisation in East Germany. The NF was established to stand for election to the Volkskammer (People's Chamber), the East German parliament. The first and only president of the German Democratic Republic was Wilhelm Pieck. However, after 1950, political power in East Germany was held by the First Secretary of the SED, Walter Ulbricht.[38]
+
+On 16 June 1953, workers constructing the new Stalinallee boulevard in East Berlin, according to The Sixteen Principles of Urban Design, rioted against a 10% production quota increase. Initially a labour protest, it soon included the general populace, and on 17 June similar protests occurred throughout the GDR, with more than a million people striking in some 700 cities and towns. Fearing anti-communist counter-revolution on 18 June 1953, the government of the GDR enlisted the Soviet Occupation Forces to aid the police in ending the riot; some fifty people were killed and 10,000 were jailed.[clarification needed][39][40] (See Uprising of 1953 in East Germany.)
+
+The German war reparations owed to the Soviets impoverished the Soviet Zone of Occupation and severely weakened the East German economy. In the 1945–46 period, the Soviets confiscated and transported to the USSR approximately 33% of the industrial plant and by the early 1950s had extracted some US$10 billion in reparations in agricultural and industrial products.[41] The poverty of East Germany induced by reparations provoked the Republikflucht ("desertion from the republic") to West Germany, further weakening the GDR's economy. Western economic opportunities induced a brain drain. In response, the GDR closed the Inner German Border, and on the night of 12 August 1961, East German soldiers began erecting the Berlin Wall.[42]
+
+In 1971, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev had Ulbricht removed; Erich Honecker replaced him. While the Ulbricht government had experimented with liberal reforms, the Honecker government reversed them. The new government introduced a new East German Constitution which defined the German Democratic Republic as a "republic of workers and peasants".[43]
+
+Initially, East Germany claimed an exclusive mandate for all of Germany, a claim supported by most of the Communist bloc. It claimed that West Germany was an illegally-constituted NATO puppet state. However, from the 1960s onward, East Germany began recognizing itself as a separate country from West Germany, and shared the legacy of the united German state of 1871–1945. This was formalized in 1974, when the reunification clause was removed from the revised East German constitution. West Germany, in contrast, maintained that it was the only legitimate government of Germany. From 1949 to the early 1970s, West Germany maintained that East Germany was an illegally constituted state. It argued that the GDR was a Soviet puppet state, and frequently referred to it as the "Soviet occupation zone". This position was shared by West Germany's allies as well until 1973. East Germany was recognized primarily by Communist countries and the Arab bloc, along with some "scattered sympathizers".[44] According to the Hallstein Doctrine (1955), West Germany also did not establish (formal) diplomatic ties with any country – except the Soviets – that recognized East German sovereignty.
+
+In the early 1970s, the Ostpolitik ("Eastern Policy") of "Change Through Rapprochement" of the pragmatic government of FRG Chancellor Willy Brandt, established normal diplomatic relations with the East Bloc states. This policy saw the Treaty of Moscow (August 1970), the Treaty of Warsaw (December 1970), the Four Power Agreement on Berlin (September 1971), the Transit Agreement (May 1972), and the Basic Treaty (December 1972), which relinquished any claims to an exclusive mandate over Germany as a whole and established normal relations between the two Germanys. Both countries were admitted into the United Nations on 18 September 1973. This also increased the number of countries recognizing East Germany to 55, including the US, UK and France, though these three still refused to recognize East Berlin as the capital, and insisted on a specific provision in the UN resolution accepting the two Germanys into the UN to that effect.[44]  Following the Ostpolitik the West German view was that East Germany was a de facto government within a single German nation and a de jure state organisation of parts of Germany outside the Federal Republic. The Federal Republic continued to maintain that it could not within its own structures recognize the GDR de jure as a sovereign state under international law; but it fully acknowledged that, within the structures of international law, the GDR was an independent sovereign state. By distinction, West Germany then viewed itself as being within its own boundaries, not only the de facto and de jure government, but also the sole de jure legitimate representative of a dormant "Germany as whole".[45]  The two Germanys relinquished any claim to represent the other internationally; which they acknowledged as necessarily implying a mutual recognition of each other as both capable of representing their own populations de jure in participating in international bodies and agreements, such as the United Nations and the Helsinki Final Act.
+
+This assessment of the Basic Treaty was confirmed in a decision of the Federal Constitutional Court in 1973;[46]
+
+the German Democratic Republic is in the international-law sense a State and as such a subject of international law. This finding is independent of recognition in international law of the German Democratic Republic by the Federal Republic of Germany. Such recognition has not only never been formally pronounced by the Federal Republic of Germany but on the contrary repeatedly explicitly rejected. If the conduct of the Federal Republic of Germany towards the German Democratic Republic is assessed in the light of its détente policy, in particular the conclusion of the Treaty as de facto recognition, then it can only be understood as de facto recognition of a special kind. The special feature of this Treaty is that while it is a bilateral Treaty between two States, to which the rules of international law apply and which like any other international treaty possesses validity, it is between two States that are parts of a still existing, albeit incapable of action as not being reorganized, comprehensive State of the Whole of Germany with a single body politic.[47]
+
+Travel between the GDR and Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary became visa-free from 1972.[48]
+
+From the beginning, the newly formed GDR tried to establish its own separate identity.[49] Because of the imperial and military legacy of Prussia, the SED repudiated continuity between Prussia and the GDR. The SED destroyed a number of symbolic relics of the former Prussian aristocracy: the Junker manor houses were torn down, the Berliner Stadtschloß was razed, and the equestrian statue of Frederick the Great was removed from East Berlin. Instead the SED focused on the progressive heritage of German history, including Thomas Müntzer's role in the German Peasants' War and the role played by the heroes of the class struggle during Prussia's industrialization.
+
+Especially after the Ninth Party Congress in 1976, East Germany upheld historical reformers such as Karl Freiherr vom Stein, Karl August von Hardenberg, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and Gerhard von Scharnhorst as examples and role models.[50]
+
+In May 1989, following widespread public anger over the faking of results of local government elections, many citizens applied for exit visas or left the country contrary to GDR laws. The impetus for this exodus of East Germans was the removal of the electrified fence along Hungary's border with Austria on 2 May. Although formally the Hungarian frontier was still closed, many East Germans took the opportunity to enter the country via Czechoslovakia, and then make the illegal crossing from Hungary into Austria and West Germany beyond.[51] By July, 25,000 East Germans had crossed into Hungary,[52] most of whom did not attempt the risky crossing into Austria but remained instead in Hungary or claimed asylum in West German embassies in Prague or Budapest.
+
+The opening of a border gate between Austria and Hungary at the Pan-European Picnic on August 19, 1989 then set in motion a chain reaction, at the end of which there was no longer a GDR and the Eastern Bloc had disintegrated. It was the largest escape movement from East Germany since the Berlin Wall was built in 1961. The idea of opening the border at a ceremony came from Otto von Habsburg and was brought up by him to Miklós Németh, the then Hungarian Prime Minister, who promoted the idea.[53] The patrons of the picnic, Habsburg and the Hungarian Minister of State Imre Pozsgay, who were not present at the event, saw the planned event as an opportunity to test Mikhail Gorbachev`s reaction to an opening of the border on the Iron Curtain. In particular, it was examined whether Moscow would give the Soviet troops stationed in Hungary the command to intervene. Extensive advertising for the planned picnic was made by posters and flyers among the GDR holidaymakers in Hungary. The Austrian branch of the Paneuropean Union, which was then headed by Karl von Habsburg, distributed thousands of brochures inviting them to a picnic near the border at Sopron.[54][55] The local Sopron organizers knew nothing of possible GDR refugees, but thought of a local party with Austrian and Hungarian participation.[56]  But with the mass exodus at the Pan-European Picnic, the subsequent hesitant behavior of the Socialist Unity Party of East Germany and the non-intervention of the Soviet Union broke the dams. Thus the bracket of the Eastern Bloc was broken. The reaction to this from Erich Honecker in the "Daily Mirror" of August 19, 1989 was too late and showed the current loss of power: “Habsburg distributed leaflets far into Poland, on which the East German holidaymakers were invited to a picnic. When they came to the picnic, they were given gifts, food and Deutsche Mark, and then they were persuaded to come to the West.” Now tens of thousands of the media-informed East Germans made their way to Hungary, which was no longer ready to keep its borders completely closed or to oblige its border troops to use force of arms. The leadership of the GDR in East Berlin did not dare to completely lock the borders of their own country.[54][55][57][58]
+
+The next major turning point in the exodus came on 10 September, when the Hungarian Foreign Minister Gyula Horn announced that his country would no longer restrict movement from Hungary into Austria. Within two days 22,000 East Germans crossed into Austria, with tens of thousands following in the coming weeks.[51]
+
+Many others demonstrated against the ruling party, especially in the city of Leipzig. The Leipzig demonstrations became a weekly occurrence, showing a turnout of 10,000 people at the first demonstration on 2 October and peaking at an estimated 300,000 by the end of the month.[59] The protests were surpassed in East Berlin, where half a million demonstrators turned out against the regime on 4 November.[59] Kurt Masur, the conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, led local negotiations with the government and held town meetings in the concert hall.[60] The demonstrations eventually led Erich Honecker to resign in October, and he was replaced by a slightly more moderate communist, Egon Krenz.[61]
+
+The massive demonstration in East Berlin on 4 November coincided with Czechoslovakia formally opening its border into West Germany.[62] With the West more accessible than ever before, 30,000 East Germans made the crossing via Czechoslovakia in the first two days alone. To try to stem the outward flow of the population, the SED proposed a concessionary law loosening restrictions on travel. When this was rejected in the Volkskammer on 5 November, the Cabinet and the Politburo of the GDR resigned.[62] It left only one avenue open for Krenz and the SED, that of completely abolishing travel restrictions between East and West.
+
+On 9 November 1989, a few sections of the Berlin Wall were opened, resulting in thousands of East Germans crossing freely into West Berlin and West Germany for the first time in nearly 30 years. Krenz resigned a month later, and the SED opened negotiations with the leaders of the incipient Democratic movement, Neues Forum, to schedule free elections and begin the process of democratization. As part of this, the SED eliminated the clause in the East German constitution guaranteeing the Communists leadership of the state. This was approved in the Volkskammer on 1 December 1989 by a vote of 420 to 0.[63]
+
+East Germany held its last elections in March 1990. The winner was a coalition headed by the East German branch of West Germany's Christian Democratic Union, which advocated speedy reunification. Negotiations (2+4 Talks) were held involving the two German states and the former Allies which led to agreement on the conditions for German unification. By a two-thirds vote in the Volkskammer on 23 August 1990, the German Democratic Republic declared its accession to the Federal Republic of Germany. The five original East German states that had been abolished in the 1952 redistricting were restored.[61] On 3 October 1990, the five states officially joined the Federal Republic of Germany, while East and West Berlin united as a third city-state (in the same manner as Bremen and Hamburg). On 1 July a currency union preceded the political union: the "Ostmark" was abolished, and the Western German "Deutsche Mark" became common currency.
+
+Although the Volkskammer's declaration of accession to the Federal Republic had initiated the process of reunification; the act of reunification itself (with its many specific terms, conditions and qualifications; some of which involved amendments to the West German Basic Law) was achieved constitutionally by the subsequent Unification Treaty of 31 August 1990; that is through a binding agreement between the former Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic now recognising each other as separate sovereign states in international law.[64] This treaty was then voted into effect prior to the agreed date for Unification by both the Volkskammer and the Bundestag by the constitutionally required two-thirds majorities; effecting on the one hand, the extinction of the GDR, and on the other, the agreed amendments to the Basic Law of the Federal Republic.
+
+The great economic and socio-political inequalities between the former Germanies required government subsidy for the full integration of the German Democratic Republic into the Federal Republic of Germany. Because of the resulting deindustrialization in the former East Germany, the causes of the failure of this integration continue to be debated. Some western commentators claim that the depressed eastern economy is a natural aftereffect of a demonstrably inefficient command economy. But many East German critics contend that the shock-therapy style of privatization, the artificially high rate of exchange offered for the Ostmark, and the speed with which the entire process was implemented did not leave room for East German enterprises to adapt.[65]
+
+There were four periods in East German political history.[66] These included: 1949–61, which saw the building of socialism; 1961–1970 after the Berlin Wall closed off escape was a period of stability and consolidation; 1971–85 was termed the Honecker Era, and saw closer ties with West Germany; and 1985–89 saw the decline and extinction of East Germany.
+
+The ruling political party in East Germany was the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (Socialist Unity Party of Germany, SED). It was created in 1946 through the Soviet-directed merger of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in the Soviet controlled zone. However, the SED quickly transformed into a full-fledged Communist party as the more independent-minded Social Democrats were pushed out.[50]
+
+The Potsdam Agreement committed the Soviets to supporting a democratic form of government in Germany, though the Soviets' understanding of democracy was radically different from that of the West. As in other Soviet-bloc countries, non-communist political parties were allowed. Nevertheless, every political party in the GDR was forced to join the National Front of Democratic Germany, a broad coalition of parties and mass political organisations, including:
+
+The member parties were almost completely subservient to the SED, and had to accept its "leading role" as a condition of their existence. However, the parties did have representation in the Volkskammer and received some posts in the government.
+
+The Volkskammer also included representatives from the mass organisations like the Free German Youth (Freie Deutsche Jugend or FDJ), or the Free German Trade Union Federation. There was also a Democratic Women's Federation of Germany, with seats in the Volkskammer.
+
+Important non-parliamentary mass organisations in East German society included the German Gymnastics and Sports Association (Deutscher Turn- und Sportbund or DTSB), and People's Solidarity (Volkssolidarität), an organisation for the elderly. Another society of note was the Society for German-Soviet Friendship.
+
+After the fall of Communism, the SED was renamed the "Party of Democratic Socialism" (PDS) which continued for a decade after reunification before merging with the West German WASG to form the Left Party (Die Linke). The Left Party continues to be a political force in many parts of Germany, albeit drastically less powerful than the SED.[68]
+
+The East German population declined by three million people throughout its forty-one year history, from 19 million in 1948 to 16 million in 1990; of the 1948 population, some 4 million were deported from the lands east of the Oder-Neisse line, which made the home of millions of Germans part of Poland and the Soviet Union.[69] This was a stark contrast from Poland, which increased during that time; from 24 million in 1950 (a little more than East Germany) to 38 million (more than twice of East Germany's population). This was primarily a result of emigration—about one quarter of East Germans left the country before the Berlin Wall was completed in 1961,[70] and after that time, East Germany had very low birth rates,[71] except for a recovery in the 1980s when the birth rate in East Germany was considerably higher than in West Germany.[72]
+
+[73]
+
+(1988 populations)
+
+Until 1952, East Germany comprised the capital, East Berlin (though legally it was not fully part of the GDR's territory), and the five German states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (in 1947 renamed Mecklenburg), Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Saxony, their post-war territorial demarcations approximating the pre-war German demarcations of the Middle German Länder (states) and Provinzen (provinces of Prussia). The western parts of two provinces, Pomerania and Lower Silesia, the remainder of which were annexed by Poland, remained in the GDR and were attached to Mecklenburg and Saxony, respectively.
+
+The East German Administrative Reform of 1952 established 14 Bezirke (districts) and de facto disestablished the five Länder. The new Bezirke, named after their district centres, were as follows: (i) Rostock, (ii) Neubrandenburg, and (iii) Schwerin created from the Land (state) of Mecklenburg; (iv) Potsdam, (v) Frankfurt (Oder), and (vii) Cottbus from Brandenburg; (vi) Magdeburg and (viii) Halle from Saxony-Anhalt; (ix) Leipzig, (xi) Dresden, and (xii) Karl-Marx-Stadt (Chemnitz until 1953 and again from 1990) from Saxony; and (x) Erfurt, (xiii) Gera, and (xiv) Suhl from Thuringia.
+
+East Berlin was made the country's 15th Bezirk in 1961 but retained special legal status until 1968, when the residents approved the new (draft) constitution. Despite the city as a whole being legally under the control of the Allied Control Council, and diplomatic objections of the Allied governments, the GDR administered the Bezirk of Berlin as part of its territory.
+
+The government of East Germany had control over a large number of military and paramilitary organisations through various ministries. Chief among these was the Ministry of National Defence. Because of East Germany's proximity to the West during the Cold War (1945–92), its military forces were among the most advanced of the Warsaw Pact. Defining what was a military force and what was not is a matter of some dispute.
+
+The Nationale Volksarmee (NVA) was the largest military organisation in East Germany. It was formed in 1956 from the Kasernierte Volkspolizei (Barracked People's Police), the military units of the regular police (Volkspolizei), when East Germany joined the Warsaw Pact. From its creation, it was controlled by the Ministry of National Defence (East Germany). It was an all volunteer force until an eighteen-month conscription period was introduced in 1962.[citation needed]
+It was regarded by NATO officers as the best military in the Warsaw Pact.[78]
+The NVA consisted of the following branches:
+
+The border troops of the Eastern sector were originally organised as a police force, the Deutsche Grenzpolizei, similar to the Bundesgrenzschutz in West Germany. It was controlled by the Ministry of the Interior. Following the remilitarisation of East Germany in 1956, the Deutsche Grenzpolizei was transformed into a military force in 1961, modeled after the Soviet Border Troops, and transferred to the Ministry of National Defense, as part of the National People's Army. In 1973, it was separated from the NVA, but it remained under the same ministry. At its peak, it numbered approximately 47,000 men.
+
+After the NVA was separated from the Volkspolizei in 1956, the Ministry of the Interior maintained its own public order barracked reserve, known as the Volkspolizei-Bereitschaften (VPB). These units were, like the Kasernierte Volkspolizei, equipped as motorised infantry, and they numbered between 12,000 and 15,000 men.
+
+The Ministry of State Security (Stasi) included the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment, which was mainly involved with facilities security and plain clothes events security. They were the only part of the feared Stasi that was visible to the public, and so were very unpopular within the population. The Stasi numbered around 90,000 men, the Guards Regiment around 11,000-12,000 men.
+
+The Kampfgruppen der Arbeiterklasse (combat groups of the working class) numbered around 400,000 for much of their existence, and were organised around factories. The KdA was the political-military instrument of the SED; it was essentially a "party Army". All KdA directives and decisions were made by the ZK's Politbüro. They received their training from the Volkspolizei and the Ministry of the Interior. Membership was voluntary, but SED members were required to join as part of their membership obligation.
+
+Every man was required to serve eighteen months of compulsory military service; for the medically unqualified and conscientious objector, there were the Baueinheiten (construction units), established in 1964, two years after the introduction of conscription, in response to political pressure by the national Lutheran Protestant Church upon the GDR's government. In the 1970s, East German leaders acknowledged that former construction soldiers were at a disadvantage when they rejoined the civilian sphere.
+
+The East German state promoted an "anti-imperialist" line that was reflected in all its media and all the schools.[79]  This line followed Lenin's theory of imperialism as the highest and last stage of capitalism, and Dimitrov's theory of fascism as the dictatorship of the most reactionary elements of financial capitalism. Popular reaction to these measures was mixed, and Western media penetrated the country both through cross-border television and radio broadcasts from West Germany and from the U.S. propaganda network Radio Free Europe. Dissidents, particularly professionals, sometimes fled to West Germany, which was relatively easy before the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961.[80][81]
+
+After receiving wider international diplomatic recognition in 1972–73, the GDR began active cooperation with Third World socialist governments and national liberation movements. While the USSR was in control of the overall strategy and Cuban armed forces were involved in the actual combat (mostly in the People's Republic of Angola and socialist Ethiopia), the GDR provided experts for military hardware maintenance and personnel training, and oversaw creation of secret security agencies based on its own Stasi model.
+
+Already in the 1960s contacts were established with Angola's MPLA, Mozambique's FRELIMO and the PAIGC in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde. In the 1970s official cooperation was established with other self-proclaimed socialist governments and people's republics: People's Republic of the Congo, People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, Somali Democratic Republic, Libya, and the People's Republic of Benin.
+
+The first military agreement was signed in 1973 with the People's Republic of the Congo. In 1979 friendship treaties were signed with Angola, Mozambique and Ethiopia.
+
+It was estimated that altogether, 2000–4000 DDR military and security experts were dispatched to Africa. In addition, representatives from African and Arab countries and liberation movements underwent military training in the GDR.[82]
+
+East Germany pursued an anti-Zionist policy; Jeffrey Herf argues that East Germany was waging an undeclared war on Israel.[83] According to Herf, "the Middle East was one of the crucial battlefields of the global Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West; it was also a region in which East Germany played a salient role in the Soviet bloc's antagonism toward Israel."[84] While East Germany saw itself as an "anti-fascist state", it regarded Israel as a "fascist state"[85] and East Germany strongly supported the Palestine Liberation Organization in its armed struggle against Israel. In 1974, the GDR government recognized the PLO as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people".[86] The PLO declared the Palestinian state on 15 November 1988 during the First Intifada and the GDR recognized the state prior to reunification.[87] After becoming a member of the UN, East Germany "made excellent use of the UN to wage political warfare against Israel [and was] an enthusiastic, high-profile, and vigorous member" of the anti-Israeli majority of the General Assembly.[83]
+
+The East German economy began poorly because of the devastation caused by the Second World War; the loss of so many young soldiers, the disruption of business and transportation, the allied bombing campaigns that decimated cities, and reparations owed to the USSR. The Red Army dismantled and transported to Russia the infrastructure and industrial plants of the Soviet Zone of Occupation. By the early 1950s, the reparations were paid in agricultural and industrial products; and Lower Silesia, with its coal mines and Szczecin, an important natural port, were given to Poland by the decision of Stalin and in accordance with Potsdam Agreement.[41]
+
+The socialist centrally planned economy of the German Democratic Republic was like that of the USSR. In 1950, the GDR joined the COMECON trade bloc. In 1985, collective (state) enterprises earned 96.7% of the net national income. To ensure stable prices for goods and services, the state paid 80% of basic supply costs. The estimated 1984 per capita income was $9,800 ($22,600 in 2015 dollars). In 1976, the average annual growth of the GDP was approximately five percent. This made East German economy the richest in all of the Soviet Bloc until reunification in 1990.[88]
+
+Notable East German exports were photographic cameras, under the Praktica brand; automobiles under the Trabant, Wartburg, and the IFA brands; hunting rifles, sextants, typewriters and wristwatches.
+
+Until the 1960s, East Germans endured shortages of basic foodstuffs such as sugar and coffee. East Germans with friends or relatives in the West (or with any access to a hard currency) and the necessary Staatsbank foreign currency account could afford Western products and export-quality East German products via Intershop. Consumer goods also were available, by post, from the Danish Jauerfood, and Genex companies.
+
+The government used money and prices as political devices, providing highly subsidised prices for a wide range of basic goods and services, in what was known as "the second pay packet".[89]  At the production level, artificial prices made for a system of semi-barter and resource hoarding. For the consumer, it led to the substitution of GDR money with time, barter, and hard currencies. The socialist economy became steadily more dependent on financial infusions from hard-currency loans from West Germany. East Germans, meanwhile, came to see their soft currency as worthless relative to the Deutsche Mark (DM).[90] 
+Economic issues would also persist in the east of Germany after the reunification of the west and the east, James Hawes in his book 'the shortest history of Germany'. Quotes from the federal office of political education (23 June 2009) 'In 1991 alone, 153 billion Deutschmarks had to be transferred to eastern Germany to secure incomes, support businesses and improve infrastructure... by 1999 the total had amounted to 1.634 trillion Marks net... The sums were so large that public debt in Germany more than doubled.'[91]
+
+Many western commentators have maintained that loyalty to the SED was a primary criterion for getting a good job, and that professionalism was secondary to political criteria in personnel recruitment and development.[93]
+
+Beginning in 1963 with a series of secret international agreements, East Germany recruited workers from Poland, Hungary, Cuba, Albania, Mozambique, Angola and North Vietnam. They numbered more than 100,000 by 1989. Many, such as future politician Zeca Schall (who emigrated from Angola in 1988 as a contract worker) stayed in Germany after the Wende.[94]
+
+Religion became contested ground in the GDR, with the governing Communists promoting state atheism, although some people remained loyal to Christian communities.[95] In 1957 the State authorities established a State Secretariat for Church Affairs to handle the government's contact with churches and with religious groups;[citation needed] the SED remained officially atheist.[96]
+
+In 1950, 85% of the GDR citizens were Protestants, while 10% were Catholics. In 1961, the renowned philosophical theologian Paul Tillich claimed that the Protestant population in East Germany had the most admirable Church in Protestantism, because the Communists there had not been able to win a spiritual victory over them.[97] By 1989, membership in the Christian churches dropped significantly. Protestants constituted 25% of the population, Catholics 5%. The share of people who considered themselves non-religious rose from 5% in 1950 to 70% in 1989.
+
+When it first came to power, the Communist party asserted the compatibility of Christianity and Marxism and sought Christian participation in the building of socialism. At first the promotion of Marxist-Leninist atheism received little official attention. In the mid-1950s, as the Cold War heated up, atheism became a topic of major interest for the state, in both domestic and foreign contexts. University chairs and departments devoted to the study of scientific atheism were founded and much literature (scholarly and popular) on the subject was produced.[by whom?] This activity subsided in the late 1960s amid perceptions that it had started to become counterproductive. Official and scholarly attention to atheism renewed beginning in 1973, though this time with more emphasis on scholarship and on the training of cadres than on propaganda. Throughout, the attention paid to atheism in East Germany was never intended to jeopardise the cooperation that was desired from those East Germans who were religious.[98]
+
+East Germany, historically, was majority Protestant (primarily Lutheran) from the early stages of the Protestant Reformation onwards. In 1948, freed from the influence of the Nazi-oriented German Christians, Lutheran, Reformed and United churches from most parts of Germany came together as the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) at the Conference of Eisenach (Kirchenversammlung von Eisenach).
+
+In 1969 the regional Protestant churches in East Germany and East Berlin[note 2] broke away from the EKD and formed the Federation of Protestant Churches in the German Democratic Republic (German: Bund der Evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR, BEK), in 1970 also joined by the Moravian Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine. In June 1991, following the German reunification, the BEK churches again merged with the EKD ones.
+
+Between 1956 and 1971 the leadership of the East German Lutheran churches gradually changed its relations with the state from hostility to cooperation.[99] From the founding of the GDR in 1949, the Socialist Unity Party sought to weaken the influence of the church on the rising generation. The church adopted an attitude of confrontation and distance toward the state. Around 1956 this began to develop into a more neutral stance accommodating conditional loyalty. The government was no longer regarded as illegitimate; instead, the church leaders started viewing the authorities as installed by God and, therefore, deserving of obedience by Christians. But on matters where the state demanded something which the churches felt was not in accordance with the will of God, the churches reserved their right to say no. There were both structural and intentional causes behind this development. Structural causes included the hardening of Cold War tensions in Europe in the mid-1950s, which made it clear that the East German state was not temporary. The loss of church members also made it clear to the leaders of the church that they had to come into some kind of dialogue with the state. The intentions behind the change of attitude varied from a traditional liberal Lutheran acceptance of secular power to a positive attitude toward socialist ideas.[100]
+
+Manfred Stolpe became a lawyer for the Brandenburg Protestant Church in 1959 before taking up a position at church headquarters in Berlin. In 1969 he helped found the Bund der Evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR (BEK), where he negotiated with the government while at the same time working within the institutions of this Protestant body. He won the regional elections for the Brandenburg state assembly at the head of the SPD list in 1990. Stolpe remained in the Brandenburg government until he joined the federal government in 2002.
+
+Apart from the Protestant state churches (German: Landeskirchen) united in the EKD/BEK and the Catholic Church there was a number of smaller Protestant bodies, including Protestant Free Churches (German: Evangelische Freikirchen) united in the Federation of the Free Protestant Churches in the German Democratic Republic and the Federation of the Free Protestant Churches in Germany, as well as the Free Lutheran Church, the Old Lutheran Church and Federation of the Reformed Churches in the German Democratic Republic. The Moravian Church also had its presence as the Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine. There were also other Protestants such as Methodists, Adventists, Mennonites and Quakers.
+
+The smaller Catholic Church in eastern Germany had a fully functioning episcopal hierarchy that was in full accord with the Vatican. During the early postwar years, tensions were high. The Catholic Church as a whole (and particularly the bishops) resisted both the East German state and Marxist ideology. The state allowed the bishops to lodge protests, which they did on issues such as abortion.[100]
+
+After 1945 the Church did fairly well in integrating Catholic exiles from lands to the east (which mostly became part of Poland) and in adjusting its institutional structures to meet the needs of a church within an officially atheist society. This meant an increasingly hierarchical church structure, whereas in the area of religious education, press, and youth organisations, a system of temporary staff was developed, one that took into account the special situation of Caritas, a Catholic charity organisation. By 1950, therefore, there existed a Catholic subsociety that was well adjusted to prevailing specific conditions and capable of maintaining Catholic identity.[101][page needed]
+
+With a generational change in the episcopacy taking place in the early 1980s, the state hoped for better relations with the new bishops, but the new bishops instead began holding unauthorised mass meetings, promoting international ties in discussions with theologians abroad, and hosting ecumenical conferences. The new bishops became less politically oriented and more involved in pastoral care and attention to spiritual concerns. The government responded by limiting international contacts for bishops.[102][need quotation to verify]
+
+List of apostolic administrators:
+
+East Germany's culture was strongly influenced by communist thought and was marked by an attempt to define itself in opposition to the west, particularly West Germany and the United States. Critics of the East German state[who?] have claimed that the state's commitment to Communism was a hollow and cynical tool, Machiavellian in nature, but this assertion has been challenged by studies[which?] that have found that the East German leadership was genuinely committed to the advance of scientific knowledge, economic development, and social progress. However, Pence and Betts argue, the majority of East Germans over time increasingly regarded the state's ideals to be hollow, though there was also a substantial number of East Germans who regarded their culture as having a healthier, more authentic mentality than that of West Germany.[103]
+
+GDR culture and politics were limited by the harsh censorship.[104]
+
+The Puhdys and Karat were some of the most popular mainstream bands in East Germany. Like most mainstream acts, they appeared in popular youth magazines such as Neues Leben and Magazin. Other popular rock bands were Wir, City, Silly and Pankow. Most of these artists recorded on the state-owned AMIGA label.[citation needed]
+
+Schlager, which was very popular in the west, also gained a foothold early on in East Germany, and numerous musicians, such as Gerd Christian, Uwe Jensen, and Hartmut Schulze-Gerlach gained national fame. From 1962 to 1976, an international schlager festival was held in Rostock, garnering participants from between 18 and 22 countries each year.[105] The city of Dresden held a similar international festival for schlager musicians from 1971 until shortly before reunification.[106] There was a national schlager contest hosted yearly in Magdeburg from 1966 to 1971 as well.[107]
+
+Bands and singers from other Communist countries were popular, e.g. Czerwone Gitary from Poland known as the Rote Gitarren.[108][109] Czech Karel Gott, the Golden Voice from Prague, was beloved in both German states.[110] Hungarian band Omega performed in both German states, and Yugoslavian band Korni Grupa toured East Germany in the 1970s.[111][112]
+
+West German television and radio could be received in many parts of the East. The Western influence led to the formation of more "underground" groups with a decisively western-oriented sound. A few of these bands – the so-called Die anderen Bands ("the other bands") – were Die Skeptiker, Die Art [de] and Feeling B. Additionally, hip hop culture reached the ears of the East German youth. With videos such as Beat Street and Wild Style, young East Germans were able to develop a hip hop culture of their own.[113] East Germans accepted hip hop as more than just a music form. The entire street culture surrounding rap entered the region and became an outlet for oppressed youth.[114]
+
+The government of the GDR was invested in both promoting the tradition of German classical music, and in supporting composers to write new works in that tradition. Notable East German composers include Hanns Eisler, Paul Dessau, Ernst Hermann Meyer, Rudolf Wagner-Régeny, and Kurt Schwaen.
+
+The birthplace of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), Eisenach, was rendered as a museum about him, featuring more than three hundred instruments, which, in 1980, received some 70,000 visitors. In Leipzig, the Bach archive contains his compositions and correspondence and recordings of his music.[115]
+
+Governmental support of classical music maintained some fifty symphony orchestras, such as Gewandhausorchester and Thomanerchor in Leipzig; Sächsische Staatskapelle in Dresden; and Berliner Sinfonie Orchester and Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin.[citation needed] Kurt Masur was their prominent conductor.[116]
+
+East German theatre was originally dominated by Bertolt Brecht, who brought back many artists out of exile and reopened the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm with his Berliner Ensemble.[117] Alternatively, other influences tried to establish a "Working Class Theatre", played for the working class by the working class.[citation needed]
+
+After Brecht's death, conflicts began to arise between his family (around Helene Weigel) and other artists about Brecht's legacy, including Slatan Dudow, Erwin Geschonneck, Erwin Strittmatter, Peter Hacks, Benno Besson, Peter Palitzsch and Ekkehard Schall.[118]
+
+In the 1950s the Swiss director Benno Besson with the Deutsches Theater successfully toured Europe and Asia including Japan with The Dragon by Evgeny Schwarz. In the 1960s, he became the Intendant of the Volksbühne often working with Heiner Müller.[citation needed]
+
+In the 1970s, a parallel theatre scene sprung up, creating theatre "outside of Berlin" in which artists played at provincial theatres. For example, Peter Sodann founded the Neues Theater in Halle/Saale and Frank Castorf at the theater Anklam.[citation needed]
+
+Theatre and cabaret had high status in the GDR, which allowed it to be very proactive. This often brought it into confrontation with the state. Benno Besson once said, "In contrast to artists in the west, they took us seriously, we had a bearing."[119][120]
+
+The Friedrichstadt-Palast in Berlin is the last major building erected by the GDR, making it an exceptional architectural testimony to how Germany overcame of its former division. Here, Berlin's great revue tradition lives on, today bringing viewers state-of-the-art shows.[121]
+
+Important theatres include the Berliner Ensemble,[122] the Deutsches Theater,[123] the Maxim Gorki Theater,[124] and the Volksbühne.[125]
+
+The prolific cinema of East Germany was headed by the DEFA,[126] Deutsche Film AG, which was subdivided in different local groups, for example Gruppe Berlin, Gruppe Babelsberg or Gruppe Johannisthal, where the local teams shot and produced films. The East German industry became known worldwide for its productions, especially children's movies (Das kalte Herz, film versions of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales and modern productions such as Das Schulgespenst).[citation needed]
+
+Frank Beyer's Jakob der Lügner (Jacob the Liar), about the Holocaust, and Fünf Patronenhülsen (Five Cartridges), about resistance against fascism, became internationally famous.[127]
+
+Films about daily life, such as Die Legende von Paul und Paula, by Heiner Carow, and Solo Sunny, directed by Konrad Wolf and Wolfgang Kohlhaase, were very popular.[citation needed]
+
+The film industry was remarkable for its production of Ostern, or Western-like movies. Amerindians in these films often took the role of displaced people who fight for their rights, in contrast to the North American westerns of the time, where they were often either not mentioned at all or are portrayed as the villains. Yugoslavs were often cast as Native Americans because of the small number of Native Americans in Europe. Gojko Mitić was well known in these roles, often playing the righteous, kindhearted and charming chief (Die Söhne der großen Bärin directed by Josef Mach). He became an honorary Sioux chief when he visited the United States in the 1990s, and the television crew accompanying him showed the tribe one of his movies. American actor and singer Dean Reed, an expatriate who lived in East Germany, also starred in several films. These films were part of the phenomenon of Europe producing alternative films about the colonization of the Americas.[citation needed]
+
+Cinemas in the GDR also showed foreign films. Czechoslovak and Polish productions were more common, but certain western movies were shown, though the numbers of these were limited because it cost foreign exchange to buy the licences. Further, films representing or glorifying what the state viewed as capitalist ideology were not bought. Comedies enjoyed great popularity, such as the Danish Olsen Gang or movies with the French comedian Louis de Funès.[citation needed]
+
+Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, several films depicting life in the GDR have been critically acclaimed.[citation needed] Some of the most notable were Good Bye Lenin! by Wolfgang Becker,[128] Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (won the Academy Award for best Film in a Foreign Language) in 2006,[129]  and Alles auf Zucker! (Go for Zucker) by Dani Levi. Each film is heavily infused with cultural nuances unique to life in the GDR.[130]
+
+East Germany was very successful in the sports of cycling, weight-lifting, swimming, gymnastics, track and field, boxing, ice skating, and winter sports. The success is largely attributed to doping under the direction of Manfred Höppner, a sports doctor, described as the architect of East Germany's state-sponsored drug program.[131]
+
+Anabolic steroids were the most detected doping substances in IOC-accredited laboratories for many years.[132][133] The development and implementation of a state-supported sports doping program helped East Germany, with its small population, to become a world leader in sport during the 1970s and 1980s, winning a large number of Olympic and world gold medals and records.[134][135] Another factor for success was the furtherance system for young people in GDR. Sport teachers at school were encouraged to look for certain talents in children ages 6 to 10 years old. For older pupils it was possible to attend grammar schools with a focus on sports (for example sailing, football and swimming). This policy was also used for talented pupils with regard to music or mathematics.[citation needed]
+
+Sports clubs were highly subsidized, especially sports in which it was possible to get international fame. For example, the major leagues for ice hockey and basketball just included 2 teams each. Football was the most popular sport. Club football teams such as Dynamo Dresden, 1. FC Magdeburg, FC Carl Zeiss Jena, 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig and BFC Dynamo had successes in European competition. Many East German players such as Matthias Sammer and Ulf Kirsten became integral parts of the reunified national football team.
+
+The East and the West also competed via sport; GDR athletes dominated several Olympic sports. Of special interest was the only football match between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, a first-round match during the 1974 FIFA World Cup, which the East won 1–0; but West Germany, the host, went on to win the World Cup.[136]
+
+Television and radio in East Germany were state-run industries; the Rundfunk der DDR was the official radio broadcasting organisation from 1952 until unification. The organization was based in the Funkhaus Nalepastraße in East Berlin. Deutscher Fernsehfunk (DFF), from 1972 to 1990 known as Fernsehen der DDR or DDR-FS, was the state television broadcaster from 1952. Reception of Western broadcasts was widespread.[137]
+
+The sexual culture of both German districts was different. East Germany had a cultural acceptance of birth control and premarital sex, in contrast to the West.[138] As a result of this East Germans had sex earlier and more often.[139] Scholars such as Kristen Ghodsee have attributed the higher women orgasm rate (80%) and higher sex satisfaction rate among women in East Germany to economics. Ghodsee writes that in East Germany women did not have to marry men for money which she attributes as the cause of this.[140] Historian Dagmar Herzog, who has researched sexuality in Germany, recalls "the women of the former GDR told me with gentle pity how much better they'd had it in the East."[141] The differences between the two sides were discussed in the documentary Do Communists Have Better Sex?.[138]
+
+By the mid-1980s, East Germany possessed a well-developed communications system. There were approximately 3.6 million telephones in usage (21.8 for every 100 inhabitants), and 16,476 Telex stations. Both of these networks were run by the Deutsche Post der DDR (East German Post Office). East Germany was assigned telephone country code +37; in 1991, several months after reunification, East German telephone exchanges were incorporated into country code +49.
+
+An unusual feature of the telephone network was that, in most cases, direct distance dialing for long-distance calls was not possible. Although area codes were assigned to all major towns and cities, they were only used for switching international calls. Instead, each location had its own list of dialing codes with shorter codes for local calls and longer codes for long-distance calls. After unification, the existing network was largely replaced, and area codes and dialing became standardised.
+
+In 1976 East Germany inaugurated the operation of a ground-based radio station at Fürstenwalde for the purpose of relaying and receiving communications from Soviet satellites and to serve as a participant in the international telecommunications organization established by the Soviet government, Intersputnik.
+
+Margot Honecker, former Minister for Education of East Germany, said:
+
+In this state, each person had a place. All children could attend school free of charge, they received vocational training or studied, and were guaranteed a job after training. Work was more than just a means to earn money. Men and women received equal pay for equal work and performance. Equality for women was not just on paper. Care for children and the elderly was the law. Medical care was free, cultural and leisure activities affordable. Social security was a matter of course. We knew no beggars or homelessness. There was a sense of solidarity. People felt responsible not only for themselves, but worked in various democratic bodies on the basis of common interests.[142]
+
+In contrast, German historian Jürgen Kocka in 2010 summarized the consensus of most recent scholarship:
+
+Conceptualizing the GDR as a dictatorship has become widely accepted, while the meaning of the concept dictatorship varies. Massive evidence has been collected that proves the repressive, undemocratic, illiberal, nonpluralistic character of the GDR regime and its ruling party.[143]
+
+Many East Germans initially regarded the dissolution of the GDR positively.[144] But this reaction soon turned sour.[145] West Germans often acted as if they had "won" and East Germans had "lost" in unification, leading many East Germans (Ossis) to resent West Germans (Wessis).[146] In 2004, Ascher Barnstone wrote, "East Germans resent the wealth possessed by West Germans; West Germans see the East Germans as lazy opportunists who want something for nothing. East Germans find 'Wessis' arrogant and pushy, West Germans think the 'Ossis' are lazy good-for-nothings."[147]
+
+Unification and subsequent federal policies led to serious economic hardships for many East Germans that had not existed before the Wende. Unemployment and homelessness, which had been minimal during the communist era, grew and quickly became widespread; this, as well as the closures of countless factories and other workplaces in the east, fostered a growing sense that East Germans were being ignored or neglected by the federal government.
+
+In addition, many east German women found the west more appealing, and left the region never to return, leaving behind an underclass of poorly educated and jobless men.[148]
+
+These and other effects of unification led many East Germans to begin to think of themselves more strongly as "East" Germans rather than as simply "Germans". In many former GDR citizens this produced a longing for some aspects of the former East Germany, such as full employment and other perceived benefits of the GDR state, termed "Ostalgie" (a blend of Ost "east" and Nostalgie "nostalgia") and depicted in the Wolfgang Becker film Goodbye Lenin!.[149]
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+DC Comics, Inc. is an American comic book publisher. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment,[3][4] a subsidiary of the Warner Bros. Global Brands and Experiences division of Warner Bros., a subsidiary of AT&T's WarnerMedia. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies. The majority of its publications take place within the fictional DC Universe and feature numerous culturally iconic heroic characters, most notably Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and The Flash. The universe also features well-known supervillains who oppose the superheroes such as the Joker and Lex Luthor. The company has published non-DC Universe-related material, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Fables and many titles under their alternative imprint Vertigo.
+
+The initials "DC" came from the company's popular series Detective Comics, which featured Batman's debut and subsequently became part of the company's name.[5] Originally in Manhattan at 432 Fourth Avenue, the DC Comics offices have been located at 480 and later 575 Lexington Avenue; 909 Third Avenue; 75 Rockefeller Plaza; 666 Fifth Avenue; and 1325 Avenue of the Americas. DC had its headquarters at 1700 Broadway, Midtown Manhattan, New York City, however DC Entertainment relocated its headquarters from New York to Burbank, California in April 2015.[6]
+
+Penguin Random House Publisher Services distributes DC Comics' books to the bookstore market,[7] while Diamond Comic Distributors supplied the comics shop direct market[6][8] until June 2020, where Lunar Distribution and UCS Comic Distributors, who already distributed to the direct market due to Diamond's distribution interruption as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, replaced Diamond to distribute to that market.[2] DC Comics and its longtime major competitor Marvel Comics (acquired in 2009 by The Walt Disney Company, WarnerMedia's main competitor) together shared approximately 70% of the American comic book market in 2017,[9] though this number may give a distorted view since graphic novels are excluded. With the sales of all books included, DC is the second biggest publisher, after Viz Media, and Marvel is third.[10]
+
+Entrepreneur Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson founded National Allied Publications in Autumn 1934 intended as an American comic book publishing company.[1][13][14] The first publishing of the company debuted with the tabloid-sized New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine #1 (the first of a comic series later called More Fun Comics) with a cover date of February 1935. An anthology title essential for containing original stories not reprinted from newspaper strips unlike many comic book series before.[12][15] While superhero comics are what DC Comics is known for throughout modern times, the genres in the anthology titles consisted of funnies, Western comics and adventure-related stories starting out. The character Doctor Occult, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in December 1935 within the issue No. 6 of New Fun Comics, is considered as the earliest recurring superhero created by DC that is still used.[16][17] The company created a second recurring title called New Comics No. 1 released in December 1935 which would be the start of the long-running Adventure Comics series featuring many anthology titles as well.[18]
+
+Wheeler-Nicholson's next and final title, Detective Comics, advertised with a cover illustration dated December 1936, eventually premiered three months late with a March 1937 cover date. The themed anthology that revolved originally on fictional detective stories became in modern times the longest-running ongoing comic series. A notable debut in the first issue was Slam Bradley created in contribution by Malcom-Wheeler-Nicholson, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.[17] In 1937, in debt to printing-plant owner and magazine distributor Harry Donenfeld — who also published pulp magazines and operated as a principal in the magazine distributorship Independent News — Wheeler-Nicholson had to take Donenfeld on as a partner to publish Detective Comics No. 1. Detective Comics, Inc. (which would help inspire the abbreviation DC) was formed, with Wheeler-Nicholson and Jack S. Liebowitz, Donenfeld's accountant, listed as owners. Major Wheeler-Nicholson remained for a year, but cash-flow problems continued, and he was forced out. Shortly afterwards, Detective Comics, Inc. purchased the remains of National Allied, also known as Nicholson Publishing, at a bankruptcy auction.[19]
+
+Meanwhile Max Gaines, formed the sister company All-American Publications around 1938.[20] Detective Comics, Inc. soon launched a new anthology title, entitled Action Comics. Issue #1, cover dated in June 1938, first featured characters such as Superman by Siegel and Shuster, Zatara by Fred Guardineer and Tex Thompson by Ken Finch and Bernard Baily. It is considered to be the first comic book to feature the new character archetype—soon known as "superheroes" and was a sales hit bringing to life a new age of comic books with the credit going to the first appearance of Superman both being featured on the cover and within the issue. It is now one of the most expensive and valuable comic book issues of all time.[21] The issue's first featured tale which starred Superman was the first to feature an origin story of superheroes with the reveal of an unnamed planet later known as Krypton that he is said to be from. The issue also contained the first essential supporting character and one of the earliest essential female character in comics with Lois Lane as Superman's first depicted romantic interest.[22] The Green Hornet inspired character known as the Crimson Avenger by Jim Chamber was featured in Detective Comics No. 20 (October 1938). The character makes a distinction of being the first masked vigilante published by DC.[23][24] An unnamed "office boy" retconned as Jimmy Olsen's first appearance was revealed in Action Comics #6's (November 1938) Superman story by Siegel and Shuster.[25][26]
+
+Starting in 1939, Siegel and Shuster's Superman would be the first comic derived character to appear outside of comic magazines and later appear in newspaper strips starring himself which first introduced Superman's biological parents, Jor-El and Lara.[27] All-American Publications' first comic series called All-American Comics was first published in April 1939.[22] The series of Detective Comics would make successful history as first featuring Batman by Bob Kane and Bill Finger in issue #27 (March 1939) with the request of more superhero titles. Batman was depicted as a masked vigilante depicted as wearing a suit known as the Batsuit along with riding a car that would later be referred to as the Batmobile. Also within the Batman story was the supporting character, James Gordon, Police commissioner of what later would be Gotham City Police Department.[28] Despite being a parody, All-American Publications introduced the earliest female character who would later be a female superhero called Red Tornado (though disguised as a male) in Ma Hunkel who first appeared in the "Scribbly" stories in All-American Comics No. 3 (June 1939).[29] Another important Batman debut was the introduction of the fictional mansion known as Wayne Manor first seen in Detective Comics No. 28 (June 1939).[28] The series Adventure Comics would eventually follow in the Action Comics and Detective Comics series footsteps with featuring a new recurring superhero. The superhero called Sandman was first written in issue No. 40 (cover date: July 1939).[30] Action Comics No. 13 (June 1939) introduced the first recurring Superman enemy referred to as the Ultra-Humanite first introduced by Siegel and Shuster, commonly cited as one of the earliest supervillain in comic books.[31] The character Superman had another breakthrough with progress when the character had his own comic book starring him which was unheard of at the time.[32] The first issue introduced in June 1939 helped directly introduce Superman's adoptive parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent by Siegel and Shuster.[25] Detective Comics #29 (July 1939) introduced the Batman's utility belt by Gardner Fox.[33][28] Outside of DC's publishing, a character later integrated as DC was introduced by Fox Feature Syndicate named the Blue Beetle released in August 1939.[34][35] Fictional cities would be a common theme of DC. The first revealed city was Superman's home city, Metropolis, that was originally named in Action Comics No. 16 in September 1939.[36][37] Detective Comics No. 31 in September 1939 by Gardner Fox, Bob Kane and Sheldon Moldoff introduced a romantic interest of Batman called Julie Madison, the weapon known as the Batarang that Batman commonly uses along with the fictional aircraft called the Batplane.[28] Batman's origin would first be used in Detective Comics No. 33 (Nov. 1939) first depicting the death of Thomas Wayne and Martha Wayne by a mugger. The origin story would remain crucial for the fictional character since the inception.[12][38]
+The Daily Planet (a common setting of Superman) was first named in a newspaper strip of Superman around November 1939.[39] The superhero Doll Man was the first superhero by Quality that DC now owns.[40] Fawcett Comics was formed around 1939 and would end up as DC's original competitor company in the next decade.[41]
+
+National Allied Publications soon merged with Detective Comics, Inc., forming National Comics Publications on September 30, 1946.[42] National Comics Publications absorbed an affiliated concern, Max Gaines' and Liebowitz' All-American Publications. In the same year Gaines let Liebowitz buy him out, and kept only Picture Stories from the Bible as the foundation of his own new company, EC Comics. At that point, "Liebowitz promptly orchestrated the merger of All-American and Detective Comics into National Comics... Next he took charge of organizing National Comics, [the self-distributorship] Independent News, and their affiliated firms into a single corporate entity, National Periodical Publications".[43] National Periodical Publications became publicly traded on the stock market in 1961.[44][45]
+
+Despite the official names "National Comics" and "National Periodical Publications", the company began branding itself as "Superman-DC" as early as 1940, and the company became known colloquially as DC Comics for years before the official adoption of that name in 1977.[46]
+
+The company began to move aggressively against what it saw as copyright-violating imitations from other companies, such as Fox Comics' Wonder Man, which (according to court testimony) Fox started as a copy of Superman. This extended to DC suing Fawcett Comics over Captain Marvel, at the time comics' top-selling character (see National Comics Publications, Inc. v. Fawcett Publications, Inc.). Faced with declining sales and the prospect of bankruptcy if it lost, Fawcett capitulated in 1953 and ceased publishing comics. Years later, Fawcett sold the rights for Captain Marvel to DC—which in 1972 revived Captain Marvel in the new title Shazam! featuring artwork by his creator, C. C. Beck. In the meantime, the abandoned trademark had been seized by Marvel Comics in 1967, with the creation of their Captain Marvel, forbidding the DC comic itself to be called that. While Captain Marvel did not recapture his old popularity, he later appeared in a Saturday morning live action TV adaptation and gained a prominent place in the mainstream continuity DC calls the DC Universe.
+
+When the popularity of superheroes faded in the late 1940s, the company focused on such genres as science fiction, Westerns, humor, and romance. DC also published crime and horror titles, but relatively tame ones, and thus avoided the mid-1950s backlash against such comics. A handful of the most popular superhero-titles, including Action Comics and Detective Comics, the medium's two longest-running titles, continued publication.
+
+In the mid-1950s, editorial director Irwin Donenfeld and publisher Liebowitz directed editor Julius Schwartz (whose roots lay in the science-fiction book market) to produce a one-shot Flash story in the try-out title Showcase. Instead of reviving the old character, Schwartz had writers Robert Kanigher and John Broome, penciler Carmine Infantino, and inker Joe Kubert create an entirely new super-speedster, updating and modernizing the Flash's civilian identity, costume, and origin with a science-fiction bent. The Flash's reimagining in Showcase No. 4 (October 1956) proved sufficiently popular that it soon led to a similar revamping of the Green Lantern character, the introduction of the modern all-star team Justice League of America (JLA), and many more superheroes, heralding what historians and fans call the Silver Age of Comic Books.
+
+National did not reimagine its continuing characters (primarily Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman), but radically overhauled them. The Superman family of titles, under editor Mort Weisinger, introduced such enduring characters as Supergirl, Bizarro, and Brainiac. The Batman titles, under editor Jack Schiff, introduced the successful Batwoman, Bat-Girl, Ace the Bat-Hound, and Bat-Mite in an attempt to modernize the strip with non-science-fiction elements. Schwartz, together with artist Infantino, then revitalized Batman in what the company promoted as the "New Look", re-emphasizing Batman as a detective. Meanwhile, editor Kanigher successfully introduced a whole family of Wonder Woman characters having fantastic adventures in a mythological context.
+
+Since the 1940s, when Superman, Batman, and many of the company's other heroes began appearing in stories together, DC's characters inhabited a shared continuity that, decades later, was dubbed the "DC Universe" by fans. With the story "Flash of Two Worlds", in Flash No. 123 (September 1961), editor Schwartz (with writer Gardner Fox and artists Infantino and Joe Giella) introduced a concept that allowed slotting the 1930s and 1940s Golden Age heroes into this continuity via the explanation that they lived on an other-dimensional "Earth 2", as opposed to the modern heroes' "Earth 1"—in the process creating the foundation for what was later called the DC Multiverse.
+
+DC's introduction of the reimagined superheroes did not go unnoticed by other comics companies. In 1961, with DC's JLA as the specific spur,[n 1] Marvel Comics writer-editor Stan Lee and a robust creator Jack Kirby ushered in the sub-Silver Age "Marvel Age" of comics with the debut issue of The Fantastic Four.[47] Reportedly, DC ignored the initial success of Marvel with this editorial change until its consistently strengthening sales, albeit also benefiting Independent News' business as their distributor as well, made that impossible. That commercial situation especially applied with Marvel's superior sell-through percentage numbers which were typically 70% to DC's roughly 50%, which meant DC's publications were barely making a profit in comparison after returns from the distributors were calculated while Marvel was making an excellent profit by comparison.[48]
+
+However, the senior DC staff were reportedly at a loss at this time to understand how this small publishing house was achieving this increasingly threatening commercial strength. For instance, when Marvel's product was examined in a meeting, Marvel's emphasis on more sophisticated character-based narrative and artist-driven visual storytelling was apparently ignored for self-deluding guesses at the brand's popularity which included superficial reasons like the presence of the color red or word balloons on the cover, or that the perceived crudeness of the interior art was somehow more appealing to readers. When Lee learned about DC's subsequent experimental attempts to imitate these perceived details, he amused himself by arranging direct defiance of those assumptions in Marvel's publications as sales strengthened further to frustrate the competition.[49]
+
+However, this ignorance of Marvel's true appeal did not extend to some of the writing talent during this period, from which there were some attempts to emulate Marvel's narrative approach. For instance, there was the Doom Patrol series by Arnold Drake, a writer who previously warned the management of the new rival's strength;[50] a superhero team of outsiders who resented their freakish powers,[51] which Drake later speculated was plagiarized by Stan Lee to create The X-Men.[52] There was also the young Jim Shooter who purposely emulated Marvel's writing when he wrote for DC after much study of both companies' styles, such as for the Legion of Super-Heroes feature.[53]
+
+A 1966 Batman TV show on the ABC network sparked a temporary spike in comic book sales, and a brief fad for superheroes in Saturday morning animation (Filmation created most of DC's initial cartoons) and other media. DC significantly lightened the tone of many DC comics—particularly Batman and Detective Comics—to better complement the "camp" tone of the TV series. This tone coincided with the famous "Go-Go Checks" checkerboard cover-dress which featured a black-and-white checkerboard strip (all DC books cover dated February 1966 until August 1967) at the top of each comic, a misguided attempt by then-managing editor Irwin Donenfeld to make DC's output "stand out on the newsracks".[54] In particular, DC artist, Carmine Infantino, complained that the visual cover distinctiveness made DC's titles easier for readers to see and then avoid in favor of Marvel's titles.[55]
+
+In 1967, Batman artist Infantino (who had designed popular Silver Age characters Batgirl and the Phantom Stranger) rose from art director to become DC's editorial director. With the growing popularity of upstart rival Marvel Comics threatening to topple DC from its longtime number-one position in the comics industry, he attempted to infuse the company with more focus towards marketing new and existing titles and characters with more adult sensibilities towards an emerging older age group of superhero comic book fans that grew out of Marvel's efforts to market their superhero line to college-aged adults. He also recruited major talents such as ex-Marvel artist and Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko and promising newcomers Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil and replaced some existing DC editors with artist-editors, including Joe Kubert and Dick Giordano, to give DC's output a more artistic critical eye.
+
+In 1967, National Periodical Publications was purchased by Kinney National Company,[56] which purchased Warner Bros.-Seven Arts in 1969. Kinney National spun off its non-entertainment assets in 1972 (as National Kinney Corporation) and changed its name to Warner Communications Inc.
+
+In 1970, Jack Kirby moved from Marvel Comics to DC, at the end of the Silver Age of Comics, in which Kirby's contributions to Marvel played a large, integral role. Given carte blanche to write and illustrate his own stories, he created a handful of thematically linked series he called collectively The Fourth World. In the existing series Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen and in his own, newly launched series New Gods, Mister Miracle, and The Forever People, Kirby introduced such enduring characters and concepts as archvillain Darkseid and the other-dimensional realm Apokolips. Furthermore, Kirby intended their stories to be reprinted in collected editions, in a publishing format that was later called the trade paperback, which became a standard industry practice decades later. While sales were respectable, they did not meet DC management's initially high expectations, and also suffered from a lack of comprehension and internal support from Infantino. By 1973 the "Fourth World" was all cancelled, although Kirby's conceptions soon became integral to the broadening of the DC Universe, especially after the major toy company, Kenner Products, judged them ideal for their action figure adaptation of the DC Universe, the Super Powers Collection.,[57] Obligated by his contract, Kirby created other unrelated series for DC, including Kamandi, The Demon, and OMAC, before ultimately returning to Marvel Comics.
+
+Following the science-fiction innovations of the Silver Age, the comics of the 1970s and 1980s became known as the Bronze Age, as fantasy gave way to more naturalistic and sometimes darker themes. Illegal drug use, banned by the Comics Code Authority, explicitly appeared in comics for the first time in Marvel Comics' story "Green Goblin Reborn!" in The Amazing Spider-Man No. 96 (May 1971), and after the Code's updating in response, DC offered a drug-fueled storyline in writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Neal Adams' Green Lantern, beginning with the story "Snowbirds Don't Fly" in the retitled Green Lantern / Green Arrow No. 85 (September 1971), which depicted Speedy, the teen sidekick of superhero archer Green Arrow, as having become a heroin addict.
+
+Jenette Kahn, a former children's magazine publisher, replaced Infantino as editorial director in January 1976. DC had attempted to compete with the now-surging Marvel by dramatically increasing its output and attempting to win the market by flooding it. This included launching series featuring such new characters as Firestorm and Shade, the Changing Man, as well as an increasing array of non-superhero titles, in an attempt to recapture the pre-Wertham days of post-War comicdom. In June 1978, five months before the release of the first Superman movie, Kahn expanded the line further, increasing the number of titles and story pages, and raising the price from 35 cents to 50 cents. Most series received eight-page back-up features while some had full-length twenty-five-page stories. This was a move the company called the "DC Explosion".[58] The move was not successful, however, and corporate parent Warner dramatically cut back on these largely unsuccessful titles, firing many staffers in what industry watchers dubbed "the DC Implosion".[59] In September 1978, the line was dramatically reduced and standard-size books returned to 17-story pages but for a still increased 40 cents.[60] By 1980, the books returned to 50 cents with a 25-page story count but the story pages replaced house ads in the books.
+
+Seeking new ways to boost market share, the new team of publisher Kahn, vice president Paul Levitz, and managing editor Giordano addressed the issue of talent instability. To that end—and following the example of Atlas/Seaboard Comics[61] and such independent companies as Eclipse Comics—DC began to offer royalties in place of the industry-standard work-for-hire agreement in which creators worked for a flat fee and signed away all rights, giving talent a financial incentive tied to the success of their work. As it happened, the implementation of these incentives proved opportune considering Marvel Comics' Editor-in-Chief, Jim Shooter, was alienating much of his company's creative staff with his authoritarian manner and major talents there went to DC like Roy Thomas, Gene Colan, Marv Wolfman, and George Perez.[62]
+
+In addition, emulating the era's new television form, the miniseries while addressing the matter of an excessive number of ongoing titles fizzling out within a few issues of their start, DC created the industry concept of the comic book limited series. This publishing format allowed for the deliberate creation of finite storylines within a more flexible publishing format that could showcase creations without forcing the talent into unsustainable open-ended commitments. The first such title was World of Krypton in 1979, and its positive results lead to subsequent similar titles and later more ambitious productions like Camelot 3000 for the direct market in 1982.[63]
+
+These changes in policy shaped the future of the medium as a whole, and in the short term allowed DC to entice creators away from rival Marvel, and encourage stability on individual titles. In November 1980 DC launched the ongoing series The New Teen Titans, by writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Pérez, two popular talents with a history of success. Their superhero-team comic, superficially similar to Marvel's ensemble series X-Men, but rooted in DC history, earned significant sales[64] in part due to the stability of the creative team, who both continued with the title for six full years. In addition, Wolfman and Pérez took advantage of the limited-series option to create a spin-off title, Tales of the New Teen Titans, to present origin stories of their original characters without having to break the narrative flow of the main series or oblige them to double their work load with another ongoing title.
+
+This successful revitalization of the Silver Age Teen Titans led DC's editors[65] to seek the same for the wider DC Universe. The result, the Wolfman/Pérez 12-issue limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths, gave the company an opportunity to realign and jettison some of the characters' complicated backstory and continuity discrepancies. A companion publication, two volumes entitled The History of the DC Universe, set out the revised history of the major DC characters. Crisis featured many key deaths that shaped the DC Universe for the following decades, and it separated the timeline of DC publications into pre- and post-"Crisis".
+
+Meanwhile, a parallel update had started in the non-superhero and horror titles. Since early 1984, the work of British writer Alan Moore had revitalized the horror series The Saga of the Swamp Thing, and soon numerous British writers, including Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison, began freelancing for the company. The resulting influx of sophisticated horror-fantasy material led to DC in 1993 establishing the Vertigo mature-readers imprint, which did not subscribe to the Comics Code Authority.[66]
+
+Two DC limited series, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller and Watchmen by Moore and artist Dave Gibbons, drew attention in the mainstream press for their dark psychological complexity and promotion of the antihero.[67] These titles helped pave the way for comics to be more widely accepted in literary-criticism circles and to make inroads into the book industry, with collected editions of these series as commercially successful trade paperbacks.[citation needed]
+
+The mid-1980s also saw the end of many long-running DC war comics, including series that had been in print since the 1960s. These titles, all with over 100 issues, included Sgt. Rock, G.I. Combat, The Unknown Soldier, and Weird War Tales.
+
+In March 1989, Warner Communications merged with Time Inc., making DC Comics a subsidiary of Time Warner. In June, the first Tim Burton directed Batman movie was released, and DC began publishing its hardcover series of DC Archive Editions, collections of many of their early, key comics series, featuring rare and expensive stories unseen by many modern fans. Restoration for many of the Archive Editions was handled by Rick Keene with colour restoration by DC's long-time resident colourist, Bob LeRose. These collections attempted to retroactively credit many of the writers and artists who had worked without much recognition for DC during the early period of comics when individual credits were few and far between.
+
+The comics industry experienced a brief boom in the early 1990s, thanks to a combination of speculative purchasing (mass purchase of the books as collectible items, with intent to resell at a higher value as the rising value of older issues, was thought to imply that all comics would rise dramatically in price) and several storylines which gained attention from the mainstream media. DC's extended storylines in which Superman was killed, Batman was crippled and superhero Green Lantern turned into the supervillain Parallax resulted in dramatically increased sales, but the increases were as temporary as the hero's replacements. Sales dropped off as the industry went into a major slump, while manufactured "collectables" numbering in the millions replaced quality with quantity until fans and speculators alike deserted the medium in droves.
+
+DC's Piranha Press and other imprints (including the mature readers line Vertigo, and Helix, a short-lived science fiction imprint) were introduced to facilitate compartmentalized diversification and allow for specialized marketing of individual product lines. They increased the use of non-traditional contractual arrangements, including the dramatic rise of creator-owned projects, leading to a significant increase in critically lauded work (much of it for Vertigo) and the licensing of material from other companies. DC also increased publication of book-store friendly formats, including trade paperback collections of individual serial comics, as well as original graphic novels.
+
+One of the other imprints was Impact Comics from 1991 to 1992 in which the Archie Comics superheroes were licensed and revamped.[68][69] The stories in the line were part of its own shared universe.[70]
+
+DC entered into a publishing agreement with Milestone Media that gave DC a line of comics featuring a culturally and racially diverse range of superhero characters. Although the Milestone line ceased publication after a few years, it yielded the popular animated series Static Shock. DC established Paradox Press to publish material such as the large-format Big Book of... series of multi-artist interpretations on individual themes, and such crime fiction as the graphic novel Road to Perdition. In 1998, DC purchased WildStorm Comics, Jim Lee's imprint under the Image Comics banner, continuing it for many years as a wholly separate imprint – and fictional universe – with its own style and audience. As part of this purchase, DC also began to publish titles under the fledgling WildStorm sub-imprint America's Best Comics (ABC), a series of titles created by Alan Moore, including The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Tom Strong, and Promethea. Moore strongly contested this situation, and DC eventually stopped publishing ABC.
+
+In March 2003 DC acquired publishing and merchandising rights to the long-running fantasy series Elfquest, previously self-published by creators Wendy and Richard Pini under their WaRP Graphics publication banner. This series then followed another non-DC title, Tower Comics' series T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, in collection into DC Archive Editions. In 2004 DC temporarily acquired the North American publishing rights to graphic novels from European publishers 2000 AD and Humanoids. It also rebranded its younger-audience titles with the mascot Johnny DC and established the CMX imprint to reprint translated manga. In 2006, CMX took over from Dark Horse Comics publication of the webcomic Megatokyo in print form. DC also took advantage of the demise of Kitchen Sink Press and acquired the rights to much of the work of Will Eisner, such as his The Spirit series and his graphic novels.
+
+In 2004, DC began laying the groundwork for a full continuity-reshuffling sequel to Crisis on Infinite Earths, promising substantial changes to the DC Universe (and side-stepping the 1994 Zero Hour event which similarly tried to ret-con the history of the DCU). In 2005, the critically lauded Batman Begins film was released; also, the company published several limited series establishing increasingly escalated conflicts among DC's heroes, with events climaxing in the Infinite Crisis limited series. Immediately after this event, DC's ongoing series jumped forward a full year in their in-story continuity, as DC launched a weekly series, 52, to gradually fill in the missing time. Concurrently, DC lost the copyright to "Superboy" (while retaining the trademark) when the heirs of Jerry Siegel used a provision of the 1976 revision to the copyright law to regain ownership.
+
+In 2005, DC launched its "All-Star" line (evoking the title of the 1940s publication), designed to feature some of the company's best-known characters in stories that eschewed the long and convoluted continuity of the DC Universe. The line began with All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder and All-Star Superman, with All-Star Wonder Woman and All-Star Batgirl announced in 2006 but neither being released nor scheduled as of the end of 2009.[71]
+
+DC licensed characters from the Archie Comics imprint Red Circle Comics by 2007.[72] They appeared in the Red Circle line, based in the DC Universe, with a series of one-shots followed by a miniseries that lead into two ongoing titles, each lasting 10 issues.[70][73]
+
+In 2011, DC rebooted all of its running titles following the Flashpoint storyline. The reboot called The New 52 gave new origin stories and costume designs to many of DC's characters.
+
+DC licensed pulp characters including Doc Savage and the Spirit which it then used, along with some DC heroes, as part of the First Wave comics line launched in 2010 and lasting through fall 2011.[74][75][76]
+
+In May 2011, DC announced it would begin releasing digital versions of their comics on the same day as paper versions.[77]
+
+On June 1, 2011, DC announced that it would end all ongoing series set in the DC Universe in August and relaunch its comic line with 52 issue #1s, starting with Justice League on August 31 (written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Jim Lee), with the rest to follow later on in September.[78][79]
+
+On June 4, 2013, DC unveiled two new digital comic innovations to enhance interactivity: DC2 and DC2 Multiverse. DC2 layers dynamic artwork onto digital comic panels, adding a new level of dimension to digital storytelling, while DC2 Multiverse allows readers to determine a specific story outcome by selecting individual characters, storylines and plot developments while reading the comic, meaning one digital comic has multiple outcomes. DC2 will first appear in the upcoming digital-first title, Batman '66, based on the 1960s television series and DC2 Multiverse will first appear in Batman: Arkham Origins, a digital-first title based on the video game of the same name.[80]
+
+In 2014, DC announced an eight-issue miniseries titled Convergence which began in April 2015.[81][82][83][84]
+
+In 2016, DC announced a line-wide relaunch titled DC Rebirth.[85] The new line would launch with an 80-page one-shot titled DC Universe: Rebirth, written by Geoff Johns, with art from Gary Frank, Ethan Van Sciver, and more. After that, many new series would launch with a twice-monthly release schedule and new creative teams for nearly every title. The relaunch was meant to bring back the legacy and heart many felt had been missing from DC characters since the launch of the New 52. Rebirth brought huge success, both financially and critically.[86][87][88]
+
+DC Entertainment, Inc. is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. that manages its comic book units and intellectual property (characters) in other units as they work with other Warner Bros units.
+
+In September 2009, Warner Bros. announced that DC Comics would become a subsidiary of DC Entertainment, Inc., with Diane Nelson, President of Warner Premiere, becoming president of the newly formed holding company and DC Comics President and Publisher Paul Levitz moving to the position of Contributing Editor and Overall Consultant there.[89] Warner Bros. and DC Comics have been owned by the same company since 1969.
+
+On February 18, 2010, DC Entertainment named Jim Lee and Dan DiDio as Co-Publishers of DC Comics, Geoff Johns as Chief Creative Officer, John Rood as EVP (Executive Vice President) of Sales, Marketing and Business Development, and Patrick Caldon as EVP of Finance and Administration.[90]
+
+In October 2013, DC Entertainment announced that the DC Comics offices were going to move from New York City to Warner Bros. Burbank, California, headquarters in 2015. The other units, animation, movie, TV and portfolio planning, had preceded DC Comics by moving there in 2010.[91]
+
+DC Entertainment announced its first franchise, the DC Super Hero Girls universe, in April 2015 with multi-platform content, toys and apparel to start appearing in 2016.[92]
+
+Warner Bros. Pictures reorganized in May 2016 to have genre responsible film executives, thus DC Entertainment franchise films under Warner Bros. were placed under a newly created division, DC Films, created under Warner Bros. executive vice president Jon Berg and DC chief content officer Geoff Johns. This was done in the same vein as Marvel Studios in unifying DC-related filmmaking under a single vision and clarifying the greenlighting process. Johns also kept his existing role at DC Comics.[93] Johns was promoted to DC president & CCO with the addition of his DC Films while still reporting to DCE President Nelson.[94] In August 2016, Amit Desai was promoted from senior vice president, marketing & global franchise management to exec vice president, business and marketing strategy, direct-to-consumer and global franchise management.[95]
+
+DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Digital Networks announced in April 2017 DC Universe digital service to be launched in 2018 with two original series.[96][97]
+
+With frustration over DC Films not matching Marvel Studios' results and Berg wanting to step back to being a producer in January 2018, it was announced that Warner Bros. executive Walter Hamada was appointed president of DC film production.[98] After a leave of absence starting in March 2018, Diane Nelson resigned as president of DC Entertainment. The company's executive management were to report to WB Chief Digital Officer Thomas Gewecke until a new president is selected.[99] In June 2018, Johns was also moved out of his position as chief creative officer and DC Entertainment president for a writing and producing deal with the DC and WB companies. Jim Lee added DC Entertainment chief creative officer title to his DC co-publisher post.[100] In September 2018, DC became part of the newly-created Warner Bros. Global Brands and Experiences division overseen by President Pam Lifford.[101][102]
+
+DC's first logo appeared on the April 1940 issues of its titles. The letters "DC" stood for Detective Comics, the name of Batman's flagship title. The small logo, with no background, read simply, "A DC Publication".[citation needed]
+
+The November 1941 DC titles introduced an updated logo. This version was almost twice the size of the previous one and was the first version with a white background. The name "Superman" was added to "A DC Publication", effectively acknowledging both Superman and Batman. This logo was the first to occupy the top-left corner of the cover, where the logo has usually resided since. The company now referred to itself in its advertising as "Superman-DC".[citation needed]
+
+In November 1949, the logo was modified to incorporate the company's formal name, National Comics Publications. This logo also served as the round body of Johnny DC, DC's mascot in the 1960s.[citation needed]
+
+In October 1970, DC briefly retired the circular logo in favour of a simple "DC" in a rectangle with the name of the title, or the star of the book; the logo on many issues of Action Comics, for example, read "DC Superman". An image of the lead character either appeared above or below the rectangle. For books that did not have a single star, such as anthologies like House of Mystery or team series such as Justice League of America, the title and "DC" appeared in a stylized logo, such as a bat for "House of Mystery". This use of characters as logos helped to establish the likenesses as trademarks, and was similar to Marvel's contemporaneous use of characters as part of its cover branding.[citation needed]
+
+DC's "100 Page Super-Spectacular" titles and later 100-page and "Giant" issues published from 1972 to 1974 featured a logo exclusive to these editions: the letters "DC" in a simple sans-serif typeface within a circle. A variant had the letters in a square.[citation needed]
+
+The July 1972 DC titles featured a new circular logo. The letters "DC" were rendered in a block-like typeface that remained through later logo revisions until 2005. The title of the book usually appeared inside the circle, either above or below the letters.[citation needed]
+
+In December 1973, this logo was modified with the addition of the words "The Line of DC Super-Stars" and the star motif that continued in later logos. This logo was placed in the top center of the cover from August 1975 to October 1976.[citation needed]
+
+When Jenette Kahn became DC's publisher in late 1976, she commissioned graphic designer Milton Glaser to design a new logo. Popularly referred to as the "DC bullet", this logo premiered on the February 1977 titles. Although it varied in size and colour and was at times cropped by the edges of the cover, or briefly rotated 4 degrees, it remained essentially unchanged for nearly three decades. Despite logo changes since 2005, the old "DC bullet" continues to be used only on the DC Archive Editions series.[citation needed]
+
+In July 1987, DC released variant editions of Justice League No. 3 and The Fury of Firestorm No. 61 with a new DC logo. It featured a picture of Superman in a circle surrounded by the words "SUPERMAN COMICS". The company released these variants to newsstands in certain markets as a marketing test.[103]
+
+On May 8, 2005, a new logo (dubbed the "DC spin") was unveiled, debuting on DC titles in June 2005 with DC Special: The Return of Donna Troy No. 1 and the rest of the titles the following week. In addition to comics, it was designed for DC properties in other media, which was used for movies since Batman Begins, with Superman Returns showing the logo's normal variant, and the TV series Smallville, the animated series Justice League Unlimited and others, as well as for collectibles and other merchandise. The logo was designed by Josh Beatman of Brainchild Studios[104] and DC executive Richard Bruning.[105]
+
+In March 2012, DC unveiled a new logo consisting of the letter "D" flipping back to reveal the letter "C" and "DC ENTERTAINMENT".[106] The Dark Knight Rises was the first film to use the new logo, while the TV series Arrow was the first series to feature the new logo.
+
+DC Entertainment announced a new identity and logo for another iconic DC Comics universe brand on May 17, 2016. The new logo was first used on May 25, 2016, in conjunction with the release of DC Universe: Rebirth Special #1 by Geoff Johns.[107]
+
+DC Universe is a video on demand service operated by DC Entertainment. It was announced in April 2017,[109] with the title and service formally announced in May 2018. DC Universe is expected to offer more than video content through the inclusion of an immersive experience with fan interaction that encompasses comics in addition to television.[97][110][111][112]
+
+DC Comics are available in digital form through several sources.
+
+Free services: In 2015, Hoopla Digital became the first library-based digital system to distribute DC Comics.[167]
+
+Paid services: Google Play, ComiXology[168]
+
+Irwin said he never played golf with Goodman, so the story is untrue. I heard this story more than a couple of times while sitting in the lunchroom at DC's 909 Third Avenue and 75 Rockefeller Plaza office as Sol Harrison and [production chief] Jack Adler were schmoozing with some of us ... who worked for DC during our college summers ... [T]he way I heard the story from Sol was that Goodman was playing with one of the heads of Independent News, not DC Comics (though DC owned Independent News) ... As the distributor of DC Comics, this man certainly knew all the sales figures and was in the best position to tell this tidbit to Goodman. ... Of course, Goodman would want to be playing golf with this fellow and be in his good graces ... Sol worked closely with Independent News' top management over the decades and would have gotten this story straight from the horse's mouth.
+
+Goodman, a publishing trend-follower aware of the JLA's strong sales, confirmably directed his comics editor, Stan Lee, to create a comic-book series about a team of superheroes. According to Lee in Origins of Marvel Comics (Simon and Schuster/Fireside Books, 1974), p. 16:
+"Martin mentioned that he had noticed one of the titles published by National Comics seemed to be selling better than most. It was a book called The  [sic] Justice League of America and it was composed of a team of superheroes. ... ' If the Justice League is selling ', spoke he, 'why don't we put out a comic book that features a team of superheroes?'"

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+
+
+The Ten Commandments (Hebrew: עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדִּבְּרוֹת, Aseret ha'Dibrot), also known in Christianity as the Decalogue, are a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship. These are fundamental to both Judaism and Christianity. The text of the Ten Commandments appears twice in the Hebrew Bible: at  Exodus 20:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-17.
+
+Modern scholarship has found likely influences in Hittite and Mesopotamian laws and treaties. Scholars disagree about when the Ten Commandments were recorded and by whom.
+
+Though the numberings differ, the Ten Commandments are:
+
+Different people follow different traditions for interpreting and numbering them.
+
+In biblical Hebrew, the Ten Commandments, called עשרת הדברים (transliterated aseret ha-d'varim), are mentioned at  Exodus 34:28.[4] and Deuteronomy 10:4.[5] In Mishnaic Hebrew, they are called עשרת הדברות (transliterated aseret ha-dibrot). In both sources, the terms are translatable as "the ten words", "the ten sayings", or "the ten matters".[6]
+
+In the Septuagint (or LXX), the  "ten words" was translated as "Decalogue", which is derived from Greek δεκάλογος, dekalogos, the latter meaning and referring[7] to the Greek translation (in accusative) δέκα λόγους, deka logous. This term is also sometimes used in English, in addition to Ten Commandments. The Tyndale and Coverdale English biblical translations used "ten verses". The Geneva Bible used "tenne commandements", which was followed by the Bishops' Bible and the Authorized Version (the "King James" version) as "ten commandments". Most major English versions use the word "commandments".[4]
+
+The stone tablets, as opposed to the commandments inscribed on them, are called לוחות הברית, Lukhot HaBrit, meaning "the tablets of the covenant".
+
+The biblical narrative of the revelation at Sinai begins in Exodus 19 after the arrival of the children of Israel at Mount Sinai (also called Horeb). On the morning of the third day of their encampment, "there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud", and the people assembled at the base of the mount. After "the LORD[8] came down upon mount Sinai", Moses went up briefly and returned with stone tablets and prepared the people, and then in Exodus 20 "God spoke" to all the people the words of the covenant, that is, the "ten commandments"[9] as it is written.  Modern biblical scholarship differs as to whether Exodus 19-20 describes the people of Israel as having directly heard all or some of the decalogue, or whether the laws are only passed to them through Moses.[10]
+
+The people were afraid to hear more and moved "afar off", and Moses responded with "Fear not." Nevertheless, he drew near the "thick darkness" where "the presence of the Lord" was[11] to hear the additional statutes and "judgments",[12] all which he "wrote"[13] in the "book of the covenant"[14] which he read to the people the next morning, and they agreed to be obedient and do all that the LORD had said. Moses escorted a select group consisting of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and "seventy of the elders of Israel" to a location on the mount where they worshipped "afar off"[15] and they "saw the God of Israel" above a "paved work" like clear sapphire stone.[16]
+
+And the LORD said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tablets of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou mayest teach them. 13 And Moses rose up, and his minister Joshua: and Moses went up into the mount of God.
+
+The mount was covered by the cloud for six days, and on the seventh day Moses went into the midst of the cloud and was "in the mount forty days and forty nights."[17] And Moses said, "the LORD delivered unto me two tablets of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words, which the LORD spake with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly."[18] Before the full forty days expired, the children of Israel collectively decided that something had happened to Moses, and compelled Aaron to fashion a golden calf, and he "built an altar before it"[19] and the people "worshipped" the calf.[20]
+
+After the full forty days, Moses and Joshua came down from the mountain with the tablets of stone: "And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tablets out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount."[21] After the events in chapters 32 and 33, the LORD told Moses, "Hew thee two tablets of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tablets the words that were in the first tablets, which thou brakest."[22] "And he wrote on the tablets, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which the LORD spake unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly: and the LORD gave them unto me."[23]
+
+According to Jewish tradition, Exodus 20:1–17 constitutes God's first recitation and inscription of the ten commandments on the two tablets,[24] which Moses broke in anger with his rebellious nation, and were later rewritten on replacement stones and placed in the ark of the covenant;[25] and Deuteronomy 5:4–25 consists of God's re-telling of the Ten Commandments to the younger generation who were to enter the Promised Land. The passages in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 contain more than ten imperative statements, totalling 14 or 15 in all.
+
+Different religious traditions divide the seventeen verses of Exodus 20:1–17 and their parallels in Deuteronomy 5:4–21 into ten "commandments" or "sayings" in different ways, shown in the table below. Some suggest that the number ten is a choice to aid memorization rather than a matter of theology.[26][27]
+
+Traditions:
+
+The Ten Commandments concern matters of fundamental importance in Judaism and Christianity: the greatest obligation (to worship only God), the greatest injury to a person (murder), the greatest injury to family bonds (adultery), the greatest injury to commerce and law (bearing false witness), the greatest inter-generational obligation (honour to parents), the greatest obligation to community (truthfulness), the greatest injury to movable property (theft).[54]
+
+The Ten Commandments are written with room for varying interpretation, reflecting their role as a summary of fundamental principles.[27][54][55][56] They are not as explicit[54] or detailed as rules[57] or many other biblical laws and commandments, because they provide guiding principles that apply universally, across changing circumstances. They do not specify punishments for their violation. Their precise import must be worked out in each separate situation.[57]
+
+The Bible indicates the special status of the Ten Commandments among all other Torah laws in several ways:
+
+The Ten Commandments form the basis of Jewish law,[59] stating God's universal and timeless standard of right and wrong – unlike the rest of the 613 commandments in the Torah, which include, for example, various duties and ceremonies such as the kashrut dietary laws, and now unobservable rituals to be performed by priests in the Holy Temple.[60] Jewish tradition considers the Ten Commandments the theological basis for the rest of the commandments. Philo, in his four-book work The Special Laws, treated the Ten Commandments as headings under which he discussed other related commandments.[61] Similarly, in The Decalogue he stated that "under [the "commandment… against adulterers"] many other commands are conveyed by implication, such as that against seducers, that against practisers of unnatural crimes, that against all who live in debauchery, that against all men who indulge in illicit and incontinent connections."[62] Others, such as Rabbi Saadia Gaon, have also made groupings of the commandments according to their links with the Ten Commandments.[63]
+
+According to Conservative Rabbi Louis Ginzberg, Ten Commandments are virtually entwined, in that the breaking of one leads to the breaking of another. Echoing an earlier rabbinic comment found in the commentary of Rashi to the Songs of Songs (4:5) Ginzberg explained—there is also a great bond of union between the first five commandments and the last five. The first commandment: "I am the Lord, thy God," corresponds to the sixth: "Thou shalt not kill," for the murderer slays the image of God. The second: "Thou shalt have no strange gods before me," corresponds to the seventh: "Thou shalt not commit adultery," for conjugal faithlessness is as grave a sin as idolatry, which is faithlessness to God. The third commandment: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain," corresponds to the eighth: "Thou shalt not steal," for stealing result in false oath in God's name. The fourth: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy," corresponds to the ninth: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor," for he who bears false witness against his neighbor commits as grave a sin as if he had borne false witness against God, saying that He had not created the world in six days and rested on the seventh day (the holy Sabbath). The fifth commandment: "Honor thy father and thy mother," corresponds to the tenth: "Covet not thy neighbor's wife," for one who indulges this lust produces children who will not honor their true father, but will consider a stranger their father.[64]
+
+The traditional Rabbinical Jewish belief is that the observance of these commandments and the other mitzvot are required solely of the Jewish people and that the laws incumbent on humanity in general are outlined in the seven Noahide laws, several of which overlap with the Ten Commandments. In the era of the Sanhedrin transgressing any one of six of the Ten Commandments theoretically carried the death penalty, the exceptions being the First Commandment, honouring your father and mother, saying God's name in vain, and coveting, though this was rarely enforced due to a large number of stringent evidentiary requirements imposed by the oral law.[65]
+
+The arrangement of the commandments on the two tablets is interpreted in different ways in the classical Jewish tradition. Rabbi Hanina ben Gamaliel says that each tablet contained five commandments, "but the Sages say ten on one tablet and ten on the other", that is, that the tablets were duplicates.[66] This can be compared to diplomatic treaties of the ancient Near East, in which a copy was made for each party.[67]
+
+According to the Talmud, the compendium of traditional Rabbinic Jewish law, tradition, and interpretation, one interpretation of the biblical verse "the tablets were written on both their sides",[68] is that the carving went through the full thickness of the tablets, yet was miraculously legible from both sides.[69]
+
+The Mishna records that during the period of the Second Temple, the Ten Commandments were recited daily,[70] before the reading of the Shema Yisrael (as preserved, for example, in the Nash Papyrus, a Hebrew manuscript fragment from 150–100 BCE found in Egypt, containing a version of the ten commandments and the beginning of the Shema); but that this practice was abolished in the synagogues so as not to give ammunition to heretics who claimed that they were the only important part of Jewish law,[71][72] or to dispel a claim by early Christians that only the Ten Commandments were handed down at Mount Sinai rather than the whole Torah.[70]
+
+In later centuries rabbis continued to omit the Ten Commandments from daily liturgy in order to prevent confusion among Jews that they are only bound by the Ten Commandments, and not also by many other biblical and Talmudic laws, such as the requirement to observe holy days other than the sabbath.[70]
+
+Today, the Ten Commandments are heard in the synagogue three times a year: as they come up during the readings of Exodus and Deuteronomy, and during the festival of Shavuot.[70] The Exodus version is read in parashat Yitro around late January–February, and on the festival of Shavuot, and the Deuteronomy version in parashat Va'etchanan in August–September. In some traditions, worshipers rise for the reading of the Ten Commandments to highlight their special significance[70] though many rabbis, including Maimonides, have opposed this custom since one may come to think that the Ten Commandments are more important than the rest of the Mitzvot.[73]
+
+In printed Chumashim, as well as in those in manuscript form, the Ten Commandments carry two sets of cantillation marks. The ta'am 'elyon (upper accentuation), which makes each Commandment into a separate verse, is used for public Torah reading, while the ta'am tachton (lower accentuation), which divides the text into verses of more even length, is used for private reading or study. The verse numbering in Jewish Bibles follows the ta'am tachton. In Jewish Bibles the references to the Ten Commandments are therefore Exodus 20:2–14 and Deuteronomy 5:6–18.
+
+The Samaritan Pentateuch varies in the Ten Commandments passages, both in that the Samaritan Deuteronomical version of the passage is much closer to that in Exodus, and in that Samaritans count as nine commandments what others count as ten. The Samaritan tenth commandment is on the sanctity of Mount Gerizim.
+
+The text of the Samaritan tenth commandment follows:[74]
+
+And it shall come to pass when the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land of the Canaanites whither thou goest to take possession of it, thou shalt erect unto thee large stones, and thou shalt cover them with lime, and thou shalt write upon the stones all the words of this Law, and it shall come to pass when ye cross the Jordan, ye shall erect these stones which I command thee upon Mount Gerizim, and thou shalt build there an altar unto the Lord thy God, an altar of stones, and thou shalt not lift upon them iron, of perfect stones shalt thou build thine altar, and thou shalt bring upon it burnt offerings to the Lord thy God, and thou shalt sacrifice peace offerings, and thou shalt eat there and rejoice before the Lord thy God. That mountain is on the other side of the Jordan at the end of the road towards the going down of the sun in the land of the Canaanites who dwell in the Arabah facing Gilgal close by Elon Moreh facing Shechem.
+
+Most traditions of Christianity hold that the Ten Commandments have divine authority and continue to be valid, though they have different interpretations and uses of them.[75] The Apostolic Constitutions, which implore believers to "always remember the ten commands of God," reveal the importance of the Decalogue in the early Church.[76] Through most of Christian history the decalogue was considered a summary of God's law and standard of behaviour, central to Christian life, piety, and worship.[77]
+
+During his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus explicitly referenced the prohibitions against murder and adultery. In Matthew 19:16-19 Jesus repeated five of the Ten Commandments, followed by that commandment called "the second" (Matthew 22:34-40) after the first and great commandment.
+
+And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
+He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
+
+In his Epistle to the Romans, Paul the Apostle also mentioned five of the Ten Commandments and associated them with the neighbourly love commandment.
+
+Romans 13:8 Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.
+9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
+10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
+
+In Catholicism, Jesus freed Christians from the rest of Jewish religious law, but not from their obligation to keep the Ten Commandments.[78] It has been said that they are to the moral order what the creation story is to the natural order.[78]
+
+According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church—the official exposition of the Catholic Church's Christian beliefs—the Commandments are considered essential for spiritual good health and growth,[79] and serve as the basis for social justice.[80] Church teaching of the Commandments is largely based on the Old and New Testaments and the writings of the early Church Fathers.[81] In the New Testament, Jesus acknowledged their validity and instructed his disciples to go further, demanding a righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees.[82] Summarized by Jesus into two "great commandments" that teach the love of God and love of neighbour,[83] they instruct individuals on their relationships with both.
+
+The Eastern Orthodox Church holds its moral truths to be chiefly contained in the Ten Commandments.[84] A confession begins with the Confessor reciting the Ten Commandments and asking the penitent which of them he has broken.[85]
+
+After rejecting the Roman Catholic moral theology, giving more importance to biblical law and the gospel, early Protestant theologians continued to take the Ten Commandments as the starting point of Christian moral life.[86] Different versions of Christianity have varied in how they have translated the bare principles into the specifics that make up a full Christian ethic.[86]
+
+The Lutheran division of the commandments follows the one established by St. Augustine, following the then current synagogue scribal division. The first three commandments govern the relationship between God and humans, the fourth through eighth govern public relationships between people, and the last two govern private thoughts. See Luther's Small Catechism[87] and Large Catechism.[53]
+
+The Articles of the Church of England, Revised and altered by the Assembly of Divines, at Westminster, in the year 1643 state that "no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the commandments which are called moral. By the moral law, we understand all the Ten Commandments taken in their full extent."[88] The Westminster Confession, held by Presbyterian Churches, holds that the moral law contained in the Ten Commandments "does forever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof".[89]
+
+The moral law contained in the Ten Commandments, according to the founder of the Methodist movement John Wesley, was instituted from the beginning of the world and is written on the hearts of all people.[90] 
+As with the Reformed view,[91] Wesley held that the moral law, which is contained in the Ten Commandments, stands today:[92]
+
+Every part of this law must remain in force upon all mankind in all ages, as not depending either on time or place, nor on any other circumstances liable to change; but on the nature of God and the nature of man, and their unchangeable relation to each other" (Wesley's Sermons, Vol. I, Sermon 25).[92]
+
+In keeping with Wesleyan covenant theology, "while the ceremonial law was abolished in Christ and the whole Mosaic dispensation itself was concluded upon the appearance of Christ, the moral law remains a vital component of the covenant of grace, having Christ as its perfecting end."[90] As such, in Methodism, an "important aspect of the pursuit of sanctification is the careful following" of the Ten Commandments.[91]
+
+The Ten Commandments are a summary of the requirements of a works covenant (called the "Old Covenant"), given on Mount Sinai to the nascent nation of Israel.[citation needed] The Old Covenant came to an end at the cross and is therefore not in effect.[citation needed] They do reflect the eternal character of God, and serve as a paragon of morality.[93]
+
+According to the doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jesus completed rather than rejected the Mosaic law.[94] The Ten Commandments are considered eternal gospel principles necessary for exaltation.[95] They appear in the Book of Mosiah 12:34–36,[96] 13:15–16,[97] 13:21–24[98] and Doctrine and Covenants.[95] According to the Book of Mosiah, a prophet named Abinadi taught the Ten Commandments in the court of King Noah and was martyred for his righteousness.[99] Abinadi knew the Ten Commandments from the brass plates.[100]
+
+In an October 2011 address, the Church president and prophet Thomas S. Monson taught "The Ten Commandments are just that—commandments. They are not suggestions."[101] In that same talk he used small quotations listing the numbering and selection of the commandments. This and other sources[102] don't include the prologue, making it most consistent with the Septuagint numbering.
+
+The receiving of the Ten Commandments by Prophet Musa (Moses) is dealt with in much detail in Islamic tradition[103] with the meeting of Moses with God on Mount Sinai described in Surah A'raf (7:142-145). The Revealing of the Tablets on which were the Commandments of God is described in the following verse:
+
+And We wrote for him (Moses) on the Tablets the lesson to be drawn from all things and the explanation of all things (and said): Hold unto these with firmness, and enjoin your people to take the better therein. I shall show you the home of Al-Fasiqun (the rebellious, disobedient to Allah).[104]
+
+The Tablets are further alluded to in verses 7:150, when Moses threw the Tablets down in anger at seeing the Israelites' worshipping of the golden calf, and in 7:154 when he picked up the Tablets having recovered from his anger:
+
+And when the anger of Musa (Moses) was appeased, he took up the Tablets, and in their inscription was guidance and mercy for those who fear their Lord.[105]
+
+Quranic reference to the ten commandments can be found in chapter 2 verses 83 and 84 "And [recall] when We took the covenant from the Children of Israel, [enjoining upon them], "Do not worship except Allah (1) ; and to parents do good (2) and to relatives (3), orphans (4), and the needy (5). And speak to people good words (6) and establish prayer (7) and give Zakat (8)." Then you turned away, except a few of you, and you were refusing." "And [recall] when We took your covenant, [saying], "Do not shed each other's blood (9) or evict one another from your homes (10)." Then you acknowledged [this] while you were witnessing"[citation needed]
+
+Three verses of Surah An'am (6:151-153) are widely taken to be a reinstatement (or revised version) of the Ten Commandments[106][107][108] either as revealed to Moses originally or as they are to be taken by Muslims now:[109]
+
+151. Say: "Come, I will recite what your Lord has prohibited you from: 1Join not anything in worship with Him; 2And be good (and dutiful) to your parents; 3And kill not your children because of poverty - We provide sustenance for you and for them; 4And come not near to Al-Fawahish (shameful sins, illegal sexual intercourse, adultery etc.) whether committed openly or secretly, 5And kill not anyone whom Allah has forbidden, except for a just cause (according to the Law). This He has commanded you that you may understand.
+
+152. "6And come not near to the orphan's property, except to improve it, until he (or she) attains the age of full strength; 7And give full measure and full weight with justice. We burden not any person, but that which he can bear. 8And whenever you give your word (i.e. judge between men or give evidence, etc.), say the truth even if a near relative is concerned, 9And fulfill the Covenant of Allah. This He commands you, that you may remember.
+
+153. "10And verily, this (the Commandments mentioned in the above Verses) is my Straight Path, so follow it, and follow not (other) paths, for they will separate you away from His Path. This He has ordained for you that you may become Al-Muttaqun (the pious)."[110]
+
+Evidence for these verses having some relation to Moses and the Ten Commandments is from the verse which immediately follows them:
+
+Then, We gave Musa (Moses) the Book, to complete (Our Favour) upon those who would do right, and explaining all things in detail and a guidance and a mercy that they might believe in the meeting with their Lord.[111]
+
+According to a narration in Mustadrak Hakim, Ibn Abbas, a prominent narrator of Israiliyat traditions said, "In Surah Al-An`am, there are clear Ayat, and they are the Mother of the Book (the Qur'an)." He then recited the above verses.[112]
+
+Also in Mustadrak Hakim is the narration of Ubada ibn as-Samit:
+
+The Messenger of Allah said, "Who among you will give me his pledge to do three things?"
+
+He then recited the (above) Ayah (6:151-153).
+
+He then said, "Whoever fulfills (this pledge), then his reward will be with Allah, but whoever fell into shortcomings and Allah punishes him for it in this life, then that will be his recompense. Whoever Allah delays (his reckoning) until the Hereafter, then his matter is with Allah. If He wills, He will punish him, and if He wills, He will forgive him."[112]
+
+Ibn Kathir mentions a narration of Abdullah ibn Mas'ud in his Tafsir:
+
+"Whoever wishes to read the will and testament of the Messenger of Allah on which he placed his seal, let him read these Ayat (6:151-153)."[113]
+
+The Abrahamic religions observe the Sabbath in various ways. In Judaism it is observed on Saturday (reckoned from dusk to dusk). In Christianity, it is sometimes observed on Saturday, sometimes on Sunday, and sometimes not at all (non-Sabbatarianism). Observing the Sabbath on Sunday, the day of resurrection, gradually became the dominant Christian practice from the Jewish-Roman wars onward.[citation needed] The Church's general repudiation of Jewish practices during this period is apparent in the Council of Laodicea (4th century AD) where Canons 37–38 state: "It is not lawful to receive portions sent from the feasts of Jews or heretics, nor to feast together with them" and "It is not lawful to receive unleavened bread from the Jews, nor to be partakers of their impiety".[114] Canon 29 of the Laodicean council specifically refers to the sabbath: "Christians must not judaize by resting on the [Jewish] Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honouring the Lord's Day; and, if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema from Christ."[114]
+
+Multiple translations exist of the fifth/sixth commandment; the Hebrew words לא תרצח (lo tirtzach) are variously translated as "thou shalt not kill" or "thou shalt not murder".[115]
+
+The imperative is against unlawful killing resulting in bloodguilt.[116] The Hebrew Bible contains numerous prohibitions against unlawful killing, but does not prohibit killing in the context of warfare (1Kings 2:5-6), capital punishment (Leviticus 20:9-16) or a home invasion during the night (Exodus 22:2–3), which are considered justified. The New Testament is in agreement that murder is a grave moral evil,[117] and references the Old Testament view of bloodguilt.[118]
+
+German Old Testament scholar Albrecht Alt: Das Verbot des Diebstahls im Dekalog (1953), suggested that the commandment translated as "thou shalt not steal" was originally intended against stealing people—against abductions and slavery, in agreement with the Talmudic interpretation of the statement as "thou shalt not kidnap" (Sanhedrin 86a).
+
+In Judaism there is a prohibition against worshipping an idol or a representation of God, but there is no restriction on art or simple depictions. Islam has a stronger prohibition, banning representations of God, and in some cases of Muhammad, humans and, in some interpretations, any living creature.
+
+In the non-canonical Gospel of Barnabas, it is claimed that Jesus stated that idolatry is the greatest sin as it divests a man fully of faith, and hence of God.[119] The words attributed to Jesus prohibit not only worshipping statues of wood or stone; but also statues of flesh. "...all which a man loves, for which he leaves everything else but that, is his god, thus the glutton and drunkard has for his idol his own flesh, the fornicator has for his idol the harlot and the greedy has for his idol silver and gold, and so the same for every other sinner."[120]  Idolatory was thus the basic sin, which manifested in various acts or thoughts, which displace the primacy of God.  However, the Gospel of Barnabas does not form part of the Christian bible.  It is known only from 16th- and 17th-century manuscripts, and frequently reflects Islamic rather than Christian understandings[121], so it cannot be taken as authoritative on Christian views.
+
+In Christianity's earliest centuries, some Christians had informally adorned their homes and places of worship with images of Christ and the saints, which others thought inappropriate. No church council had ruled on whether such practices constituted idolatry. The controversy reached crisis level in the 8th century, during the period of iconoclasm: the smashing of icons,[citation needed] and again in the Middle Ages, becoming a critical point of contention in the Protestant Reformation.
+
+In 726 Emperor Leo III ordered all images removed from all churches; in 730 a council forbade veneration of images, citing the Second Commandment; in 787 the Seventh Ecumenical Council reversed the preceding rulings, condemning iconoclasm and sanctioning the veneration of images; in 815 Leo V called yet another council, which reinstated iconoclasm; in 843 Empress Theodora again reinstated veneration of icons.[citation needed] This mostly settled the matter until the Reformation, when John Calvin declared that the ruling of the Seventh Ecumenical Council "emanated from Satan".[citation needed] Protestant iconoclasts at this time destroyed statues, pictures, stained glass, and artistic masterpieces.[citation needed]
+
+The Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates Theodora's restoration of the icons every year on the First Sunday of Great Lent.[citation needed] Eastern Orthodox tradition teaches that while images of God, the Father, remain prohibited, depictions of Jesus as the incarnation of God as a visible human are permissible. To emphasize the theological importance of the incarnation, the Orthodox Church encourages the use of icons in church and private devotions, but prefers a two-dimensional depiction[122] as a reminder of this theological aspect. Icons depict the spiritual dimension of their subject rather than attempting a naturalistic portrayal.[citation needed] In modern use (usually as a result of Roman Catholic influence), more naturalistic images and images of the Father, however, also appear occasionally in Orthodox churches, but statues, i.e. three-dimensional depictions, continue to be banned.[122]
+
+Originally this commandment forbade male Israelites from having sexual intercourse with the wife of another Israelite; the prohibition did not extend to their own slaves. Sexual intercourse between an Israelite man, married or not, and a woman who was neither married nor betrothed was not considered adultery.[123] This concept of adultery stems from the economic aspect of Israelite marriage whereby the husband has an exclusive right to his wife, whereas the wife, as the husband's possession, did not have an exclusive right to her husband.[124]
+
+Louis Ginzberg argued that the tenth commandment (Covet not thy neighbor's wife) is directed against a sin which may lead to a trespassing of all Ten Commandments.[125]
+
+Critical scholarship is divided over its interpretation of the ten commandment texts.
+
+Julius Wellhausen's documentary hypothesis suggests that Exodus 20-23 and 34 "might be regarded as the document which formed the starting point of the religious history of Israel."[126] Deuteronomy 5 then reflects King Josiah's attempt to link the document produced by his court to the older Mosaic tradition.
+
+In a 2002 analysis of the history of this position, Bernard M. Levinson argued that this reconstruction assumes a Christian perspective, and dates back to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's polemic against Judaism, which asserted that religions evolve from the more ritualistic to the more ethical. Goethe thus argued that the Ten Commandments revealed to Moses at Mount Sinai would have emphasized rituals, and that the "ethical" Decalogue Christians recite in their own churches was composed at a later date, when Israelite prophets had begun to prophesy the coming of the messiah. Levinson points out that there is no evidence, internal to the Hebrew Bible or in external sources, to support this conjecture. He concludes that its vogue among later critical historians represents the persistence of the idea that the supersession of Judaism by Christianity is part of a longer history of progress from the ritualistic to the ethical.[127]
+
+By the 1930s, historians who accepted the basic premises of multiple authorship had come to reject the idea of an orderly evolution of Israelite religion. Critics instead began to suppose that law and ritual could be of equal importance, while taking different form, at different times. This means that there is no longer any a priori reason to believe that Exodus 20:2–17 and Exodus 34:10–28 were composed during different stages of Israelite history. For example, critical historian John Bright also dates the Jahwist texts to the tenth century BCE, but believes that they express a theology that "had already been normalized in the period of the Judges" (i.e., of the tribal alliance).[128] He concurs about the importance of the decalogue as "a central feature in the covenant that brought together Israel into being as a people"[129] but views the parallels between Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, along with other evidence, as reason to believe that it is relatively close to its original form and Mosaic in origin.[130]
+
+According to John Bright, however, there is an important distinction between the Decalogue and the "book of the covenant" (Exodus 21-23 and 34:10–24). The Decalogue, he argues, was modelled on the suzerainty treaties of the Hittites (and other Mesopotamian Empires), that is, represents the relationship between God and Israel as a relationship between king and vassal, and enacts that bond.[131]
+
+"The prologue of the Hittite treaty reminds his vassals of his benevolent acts.. (compare with Exodus 20:2 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery"). The Hittite treaty also stipulated the obligations imposed by the ruler on his vassals, which included a prohibition of relations with peoples outside the empire, or enmity between those within."[132] (Exodus 20:3: "You shall have no other gods before Me"). Viewed as a treaty rather than a law code, its purpose is not so much to regulate human affairs as to define the scope of the king's power.[133]
+
+Julius Morgenstern argued that Exodus 34 is distinct from the Jahwist document, identifying it with king Asa's reforms in 899 BCE.[134] Bright, however, believes that like the Decalogue this text has its origins in the time of the tribal alliance. The book of the covenant, he notes, bears a greater similarity to Mesopotamian law codes (e.g. the Code of Hammurabi which was inscribed on a stone stele). He argues that the function of this "book" is to move from the realm of treaty to the realm of law: "The Book of the Covenant (Ex., chs. 21 to 23; cf. ch. 34), which is no official state law, but a description of normative Israelite judicial procedure in the days of the Judges, is the best example of this process."[135] According to Bright, then, this body of law too predates the monarchy.[136]
+
+Archaeologists Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman argue that "the astonishing composition came together … in the seventh century BCE".[137] Critical scholar Yehezkel Kaufmann (1960) dates the oral form of the covenant to the time of Josiah.[138] An even later date (after 586 BCE) is suggested by David H. Aaron.[139]
+
+Some proponents of the Documentary hypothesis have argued that the biblical text in Exodus 34:28[140] identifies a different list as the ten commandments, that of Exodus 34:11–27.[141] Since this passage does not prohibit murder, adultery, theft, etc., but instead deals with the proper worship of Yahweh, some scholars call it the "Ritual Decalogue", and disambiguate the ten commandments of traditional understanding as the "Ethical Decalogue".[142][143][144][145]
+
+According to these scholars the Bible includes multiple versions of events. On the basis of many points of analysis including linguistic it is shown as a patchwork of sources sometimes with bridging comments by the editor (Redactor) but otherwise left intact from the original, frequently side by side.[146]
+
+Richard Elliott Friedman argues that the Ten Commandments at Exodus 20:1–17 "does not appear to belong to any of the major sources. It is likely to be an independent document, which was inserted here by the Redactor."[147] In his view, the Covenant Code follows that version of the Ten Commandments in the northern Israel E narrative. In the J narrative in Exodus 34 the editor of the combined story known as the Redactor (or RJE), adds in an explanation that these are a replacement for the earlier tablets which were shattered. "In the combined JE text, it would be awkward to picture God just commanding Moses to make some tablets, as if there were no history to this matter, so RJE adds the explanation that these are a replacement for the earlier tablets that were shattered."[148]
+
+He writes that Exodus 34:14–26 is the J text of the Ten Commandments: "The first two commandments and the sabbath commandment have parallels in the other versions of the Ten Commandments. (Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5). … The other seven commandments here are completely different."[149] He suggests that differences in the J and E versions of the Ten Commandments story are a result of power struggles in the priesthood. The writer has Moses smash the tablets "because this raised doubts about the Judah's central religious shrine".[150]
+
+According to Kaufmann, the Decalogue and the book of the covenant represent two ways of manifesting God's presence in Israel: the Ten Commandments taking the archaic and material form of stone tablets kept in the ark of the covenant, while the book of the covenant took oral form to be recited to the people.[138]
+
+European Protestants replaced some visual art in their churches with plaques of the Ten Commandments after the Reformation. In England, such "Decalogue boards" also represented the English monarch's emphasis on rule of royal law within the churches. The United States Constitution forbids establishment of religion by law; however images of Moses holding the tablets of the Decalogue, along other religious figures including Solomon, Confucius, and Mohamed holding the Qur'an, are sculpted on the north and south friezes of the pediment of the Supreme Court building in Washington.[151] Images of the Ten Commandments have long been contested symbols for the relationship of religion to national law.[152]
+
+In the 1950s and 1960s the Fraternal Order of Eagles placed possibly thousands of Ten Commandments displays in courthouses and school rooms, including many stone monuments on courthouse property.[153] Because displaying the commandments can reflect a sectarian position if they are numbered (see above), the Eagles developed an ecumenical version that omitted the numbers, as on the monument at the Texas capitol (shown here). Hundreds of monuments were also  placed by director Cecil B. DeMille as a publicity stunt to promote his 1956 film The Ten Commandments.[154] Placing the plaques and monuments to the Ten Commandments in and around government buildings was another expression of mid-twentieth century U.S. civil religion, along with adding the phrase "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance.[152]
+
+By the beginning of the twenty-first century in the U.S., however, Decalogue monuments and plaques in government spaces had become a legal battleground between religious as well as political liberals and conservatives. Organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Americans United for Separation of Church and State launched lawsuits challenging the posting of the ten commandments in public buildings. The ACLU has been supported by a number of religious groups (such as the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),[155] and the American Jewish Congress[156]), both because they do not want government to be issuing religious doctrine and because they feel strongly that the commandments are inherently religious. Many commentators see this issue as part of a wider culture war between liberal and conservative elements in American society. In response to the perceived attacks on traditional society, other legal organizations, such as the Liberty Counsel, have risen to advocate the conservative interpretation. Many Christian conservatives have taken the banning of officially sanctioned prayer from public schools by the U.S. Supreme Court as a threat to the expression of religion in public life. In response, they have successfully lobbied many state and local governments to display the ten commandments in public buildings.
+
+Those who oppose the posting of the ten commandments on public property argue that it violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. In contrast, groups like the Fraternal Order of Eagles who support the public display of the ten commandments claim that the commandments are not necessarily religious but represent the moral and legal foundation of society, and are appropriate to be displayed as a historical source of present-day legal codes. Also, some argue like Judge Roy Moore that prohibiting the public practice of religion is a violation of the first amendment's guarantee of freedom of religion.[152]
+
+U.S. courts have often ruled against displays of the Ten Commandments on government property. They conclude that the ten commandments are derived from Judeo-Christian religions, to the exclusion of others: the statement "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" excludes non-monotheistic religions like Hinduism, for example. Whether the Constitution prohibits the posting of the commandments or not, there are additional political and civil rights issues regarding the posting of what is construed as religious doctrine. Excluding religions that have not accepted the ten commandments creates the appearance of impropriety. The courts have been more accepting, however, of displays that place the Ten Commandments in a broader historical context of the development of law.
+
+One result of these legal cases has been that proponents of displaying the Ten Commandments have sometimes surrounded them with other historical texts to portray them as historical, rather than religious. Another result has been that other religious organizations have tried to put monuments to their laws on public lands. For example, an organization called Summum has won court cases against municipalities in Utah for refusing to allow the group to erect a monument of Summum aphorisms next to the ten commandments. The cases were won on the grounds that Summum's right to freedom of speech was denied and the governments had engaged in discrimination. Instead of allowing Summum to erect its monument, the local governments chose to remove their ten commandments.
+
+Two famous films with this name were directed by Cecil B. DeMille: a silent movie which was released in 1923 and starred Theodore Roberts as Moses and a colour VistaVision version which was released in 1956, and starred Charlton Heston as Moses.
+
+Both Dekalog, a 1989 Polish film series directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski, and The Ten, a 2007 American film, use the ten commandments as a structure for 10 smaller stories.[157]
+
+The receipt of the Ten Commandments by Moses was satirized in Mel Brooks's movie History of the World Part I (1981), which shows Moses (played by Brooks, in a similar costume to Charlton Heston's Moses in the 1956 film), receiving three tablets containing fifteen commandments, but before he can present them to his people, he stumbles and drops one of the tablets, shattering it. He then presents the remaining tablets, proclaiming Ten Commandments.[158]
+
+In The Prince of Egypt, a 1998 animated film that depicted the early life of Moses (voiced by Val Kilmer), the final shot depicts him with the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai, accompanied by a reprise of "Deliver Us".
+
+The story of Moses and the Ten Commandments is discussed in the Danish stageplay Biblen (2008).
+
+In the Seven Deadly Sins manga-franchise, there is an elite force of 10 demons called Ten Commandments, whose each has a special curse from a Demon King (commandment). The effects of each Commandment loosely bases on to the real Ten Commandments from the Abrahamic Religions.
+

en/1463.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,67 @@
+
+
+The metre (Commonwealth spelling) or meter (American spelling) (from the French unit mètre, from the Greek noun μέτρον, "measure") is the base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI). The SI unit symbol is m.
+The metre is defined as the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299 792 458 of a second.
+The metre was originally defined in 1793 as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole along a great circle, so the Earth's circumference is approximately 40000 km. In 1799, the metre was redefined in terms of a prototype metre bar (the actual bar used was changed in 1889). In 1960, the metre was redefined in terms of a certain number of wavelengths of a certain emission line of krypton-86. The current definition was adopted in 1983 and slightly updated in 2019.
+
+Metre is the standard spelling of the metric unit for length in nearly all English-speaking nations except the United States[2][3][4][5] and the Philippines,[6] which use meter. Other Germanic languages, such as German, Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages[7]  likewise spell the word meter.
+
+Measuring devices (such as ammeter, speedometer) are spelled "-meter" in all variants of English.[8] The suffix "-meter" has the same Greek origin as the unit of length.[9][10]
+
+The etymological roots of metre can be traced to the Greek verb μετρέω (metreo) (to measure, count or compare) and noun μέτρον (metron) (a measure), which were used for physical measurement, for poetic metre and by extension for moderation or avoiding extremism (as in "be measured in your response"). This range of uses is also found in Latin (metior, mensura), French (mètre, mesure), English and other languages.  The motto ΜΕΤΡΩ ΧΡΩ (metro chro) in the seal of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), which was a saying of the Greek statesman and philosopher Pittacus of Mytilene and may be translated as "Use measure!", thus calls for both measurement and moderation. The use of the word metre (for the French unit mètre) in English began at least as early as 1797.[11]
+
+In 1671 Jean Picard measured the length of a "seconds pendulum" (a pendulum with a period of two seconds) at the Paris observatory. He found the value of 440.5 lines of the Toise of Châtelet which had been recently renewed. He proposed a universal toise (French: Toise universelle) which was twice the length of the seconds pendulum.[12][13] However, it was soon discovered that the length of a seconds pendulum varies from place to place: French astronomer Jean Richer had measured the 0.3% difference in length between Cayenne (in French Guiana) and Paris.[14][15][16]
+
+Jean Richer and Giovanni Domenico Cassini measured the parallax of Mars between Paris and Cayenne in French Guiana when Mars was at its closest to Earth in 1672. They arrived at a figure for the solar parallax of 9.5 arcseconds, equivalent to an Earth–Sun distance of about 22000 Earth radii. They were also the first astronomers to have access to an accurate and reliable value for the radius of Earth, which had been measured by their colleague Jean Picard in 1669 as 3269 thousand toises. Picard's geodetic observations had been confined to the determination of the magnitude of the Earth considered as a sphere, but the discovery made by Jean Richer turned the attention of mathematicians to its deviation from a spherical form. In addition to its significance for cartography, the determination of the Figure of the Earth became a problem of the highest importance in astronomy, inasmuch as the diameter of the Earth was the unit to which all celestial distances had to be referred.[17] [18][19][20]
+
+As a result of the French Revolution, the French Academy of Sciences charged a commission with determining a single scale for all measures. On 7 October 1790 that commission advised the adoption of a decimal system, and on 19 March 1791 advised the adoption of the term mètre ("measure"), a basic unit of length, which they defined as equal to one ten-millionth of the distance between the North Pole and the Equator along the meridian through Paris.[21][22][23][24][25] In 1793, the French National Convention adopted the proposal.[11]
+
+The French Academy of Sciences commissioned an expedition led by Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre and Pierre Méchain, lasting from 1792 to 1799, which attempted to accurately measure the distance between a belfry in Dunkerque and Montjuïc castle in Barcelona at the longitude of Paris Panthéon.[26] The expedition was fictionalised in Denis Guedj, Le Mètre du Monde.[27] Ken Alder wrote factually about the expedition in The Measure of All Things: the seven year odyssey and hidden error that transformed the world.[28] This portion of  the Paris meridian, was to serve as the basis for the length of the half meridian connecting the North Pole with the Equator. From 1801 to 1812 France adopted this definition of the metre as its official unit of length based on results from this expedition combined with those of the Geodesic Mission to Peru.[29][30] The latter was related by Larrie D. Ferreiro in Measure of the Earth: The Enlightenment Expedition that Reshaped Our World.[31]
+
+A more accurate determination of the Figure of the Earth would soon result from the measurement of the Struve Geodetic Arc (1816–1855) and would have given another value for the definition of this standard of length. This did not invalidate the metre but highlighted that progresses in science would allow better measurement of Earth's size and shape.[20] After the July Revolution of 1830 the metre became the definitive French standard from 1840. At that time it had already been adopted by Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler for the U.S Survey of the Coast.[29][32][33]
+
+"The unit of length to which all distances measured in the Coast Survey are referred is the French metre, an authentic copy of which is preserved in the archives of the Coast Survey Office. It is the property of the American Philosophical Society, to whom it was presented by Mr. Hassler, who had received it from Tralles, a member of the French Committee charged with  the construction of the standard metre by comparison with the toise, which had served as unit of length in the measurement of the meridional arcs in France and Peru. It possesses all the authenticity of any original metre extant, bearing not only the stamp of the Committee but also the original mark by which it was distiguished from the other bars during the operation of standarding. It is always designated as the Committee metre" (French : Mètre des Archives).[34]
+
+In 1830 President Andrew Jackson mandated Ferdinand Rudolf Hassler  to work out new standards for all U.S. states. According to the decision of the Congress of the United States, the British Parlementary Standard from 1758 was introduced as the unit of length.[35] Another geodesist with metrology skills was to play a pivotal role in the process of internationalization of weights and measures, Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero who would become the first president of both the International Geodetic Association and the International Committee for Weights and Measures.[36]
+
+In 1867 at the second general conference of the International Association of Geodesy held in Berlin, the question of an international standard unit of length was discussed in order to combine the measurements made in different countries to determine the size and shape of the Earth.[37][38][39] The conference recommended the adoption of the metre in replacement of the toise and the creation of an international metre commission, according to the proposal of Johann Jacob Baeyer, Adolphe Hirsch and Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero who had devised two geodetic standards calibrated on the metre for the map of Spain.[33][37][39][40] Measurement traceability between the toise and the metre was ensured by comparison of the Spanish standard with the standard devised by Borda and Lavoisier for the survey of the meridian arc connecting Dunkirk with Barcelona.[36][40][41]
+
+A member of the Preparatory Committee since 1870 and Spanish representative at the Paris Conference in 1875, Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero intervened with the French Academy of Sciences to rally France to the project to create an International Bureau of Weights and Measures equipped with the scientific means necessary to redefine the units of the metric system according to the progress of sciences.[42]
+
+In the 1870s and in light of modern precision, a series of international conferences was held to devise new metric standards. The Metre Convention (Convention du Mètre) of 1875 mandated the establishment of a permanent International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM: Bureau International des Poids et Mesures) to be located in Sèvres, France. This new organisation was to construct and preserve a prototype metre bar, distribute national metric prototypes, and maintain comparisons between them and non-metric measurement standards. The organisation distributed such bars in 1889 at the first General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM: Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures), establishing the International Prototype Metre as the distance between two lines on a standard bar composed of an alloy of 90% platinum and 10% iridium, measured at the melting point of ice.[43]
+
+The comparison of the new prototypes of the metre with each other and with the Committee metre (French: Mètre des Archives) involved the development of special measuring equipment and the definition of a reproducible temperature scale. The BIPM's thermometry work led to the discovery of special alloys of iron-nickel, in particular invar, for which its director, the Swiss physicist Charles-Edouard Guillaume, was granted the Nobel Prize for physics in 1920.[44]
+
+As Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero stated, the progress of metrology combined with those of gravimetry through improvement of Kater's pendulum led to a new era of geodesy. If precision metrology had needed the help of geodesy, the latter could not continue to prosper without the help of metrology. Indeed, how to express all the measurements of terrestrial arcs as a function of a single unit, and all the determinations of the force of gravity with the pendulum, if metrology had not created a common unit, adopted and respected by all civilized nations, and if in addition one had not compared, with great precision, to the same unit all the standards for measuring geodesic bases, and all the pendulum rods that had hitherto been used or would be used in the future? Only when this series of metrological comparisons would be finished with a probable error of a thousandth of a millimetre would geodesy be able to link the works of the different nations with one another, and then proclaim the result of the last measurement of the Globe. As the figure of the Earth could be inferred from variations of the seconds pendulum length with latitude, the United States Coast Survey instructed Charles Sanders Peirce in the spring of 1875 to proceed to Europe for the purpose of making pendulum experiments to chief initial stations for operations of this sort, in order to bring the determinations of the forces of gravity in America into communication with those of other parts of the world; and also for the purpose of making a careful study of the methods of pursuing these researches in the different countries of Europe. In 1886 the association of geodesy changed name for the International Geodetic Association, which Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero presided up to his death in 1891. During this period the International Geodetic Association (German: Internationale Erdmessung) gained worldwide importance with the joining of United States, Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Japan.[36][45][46][47][48][49]
+
+Efforts to supplement the various national surveying systems, which begun in the 19th century with the foundation of the Mitteleuropäische Gradmessung, resulted in a series of global ellipsoids of the Earth (e.g., Helmert 1906, Hayford 1910/1924) which would later lead to develop the World Geodetic System. Nowadays the practical realisation of the metre is possible everywhere thanks to the atomic clocks embedded in GPS satellites.[50][51]
+
+In 1873, James Clerk Maxwell suggested that light emitted by an element be used as the standard both for the meter and for the second. These two quantities could then be used to define the unit of mass.[52]
+
+In 1893, the standard metre was first measured with an interferometer by Albert A. Michelson, the inventor of the device and an advocate of using some particular wavelength of light as a standard of length. By 1925, interferometry was in regular use at the BIPM. However, the International Prototype Metre remained the standard until 1960, when the eleventh CGPM defined the metre in the new International System of Units (SI) as equal to 1650763.73 wavelengths of the orange-red emission line in the electromagnetic spectrum of the krypton-86 atom in a vacuum.[53]
+
+To further reduce uncertainty, the 17th CGPM in 1983 replaced the definition of the metre with its current definition, thus fixing the length of the metre in terms of the second and the speed of light:[54]
+
+This definition fixed the speed of light in vacuum at exactly 299792458 metres per second (≈300000 km/s).[54] An intended by-product of the 17th CGPM's definition was that it enabled scientists to compare lasers accurately using frequency, resulting in wavelengths with one-fifth the uncertainty involved in the direct comparison of wavelengths, because interferometer errors were eliminated. To further facilitate reproducibility from lab to lab, the 17th CGPM also made the iodine-stabilised helium–neon laser "a recommended radiation" for realising the metre.[55] For the purpose of delineating the metre, the BIPM currently considers the HeNe laser wavelength, λHeNe, to be 632.99121258 nm with an estimated relative standard uncertainty (U) of 2.1×10−11.[55][56][57] This uncertainty is currently one limiting factor in laboratory realisations of the metre, and it is several orders of magnitude poorer than that of the second, based upon the caesium fountain atomic clock (U = 5×10−16).[58] Consequently, a  realisation of the metre is usually delineated (not defined) today in labs as 1579800.762042(33) wavelengths of helium-neon laser light in a vacuum, the error stated being only that of frequency determination.[55] This bracket notation expressing the error is explained in the article on measurement uncertainty.
+
+Practical realisation of the metre is subject to uncertainties in characterising the medium, to various uncertainties of interferometry, and to uncertainties in measuring the frequency of the source.[59] A commonly used medium is air, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has set up an online calculator to convert wavelengths in vacuum to wavelengths in air.[60] As described by NIST, in air, the uncertainties in characterising the medium are dominated by errors in measuring temperature and pressure. Errors in the theoretical formulas used are secondary.[61] By implementing a refractive index correction such as this, an approximate realisation of the metre can be implemented in air, for example, using the formulation of the metre as 1579800.762042(33) wavelengths of helium–neon laser light in vacuum, and converting the wavelengths in a vacuum to wavelengths in air. Air is only one possible medium to use in a realisation of the metre, and any partial vacuum can be used, or some inert atmosphere like helium gas, provided the appropriate corrections for refractive index are implemented.[62]
+
+The metre is defined as the path length travelled by light in a given time and practical laboratory length measurements in metres are determined by counting the number of wavelengths of laser light of one of the standard types that fit into the length,[65] and converting the selected unit of wavelength to metres. Three major factors limit the accuracy attainable with laser interferometers for a length measurement:[59][66]
+
+Of these, the last is peculiar to the interferometer itself. The conversion of a length in wavelengths to a length in metres is based upon the relation
+
+which converts the unit of wavelength λ to metres using c, the speed of light in vacuum in m/s. Here n is the refractive index of the medium in which the measurement is made, and f is the measured frequency of the source. Although conversion from wavelengths to metres introduces an additional error in the overall length due to measurement error in determining the refractive index and the frequency, the measurement of frequency is one of the most accurate measurements available.[66]
+
+SI prefixes are often employed to denote decimal multiples and submultiples of the metre, as shown in the table below. As indicated in the table, some are commonly used, while others are not. Long distances are usually expressed in km, astronomical units (149.6 Gm), light-years (10 Pm), or parsecs (31 Pm), rather than in Mm, Gm, Tm, Pm, Em, Zm or Ym; "30 cm", "30 m", and "300 m" are more common than "3 dm", "3 dam", and "3 hm", respectively.
+
+The terms micron and (occasionally) millimicron are often used instead of micrometre (μm) and nanometre (nm), but this practice is officially discouraged.[76]
+
+
+
+Within this table, "inch" and "yard" mean "international inch" and "international yard"[77] respectively, though approximate conversions in the left column hold for both international and survey units.
+
+One metre is exactly equivalent to 5 000/127 inches and to 1 250/1 143 yards.
+
+A simple mnemonic aid exists to assist with conversion, as three "3"s:
+
+The ancient Egyptian cubit was about 0.5 m (surviving rods are 523–529 mm).[78] Scottish and English definitions of the ell (two cubits) were 941 mm (0.941 m) and 1143 mm (1.143 m) respectively.[79][80] The ancient Parisian toise (fathom) was slightly shorter than 2 m and was standardised at exactly 2 m in the mesures usuelles system, such that 1 m was exactly ​1⁄2 toise.[81] The Russian verst was 1.0668 km.[82] The Swedish mil was 10.688 km, but was changed to 10 km when Sweden converted to metric units.[83]

en/1464.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,308 @@
+
+
+In mechanics, acceleration is the rate of change of the velocity of an object with respect to time.
+Accelerations are vector quantities (in that they have magnitude and direction)[1][2]. The orientation of an object's acceleration is given by the orientation of the net force acting on that object.  The magnitude of an object's acceleration, as described by Newton's Second Law,[3] is the combined effect of two causes:
+
+The SI unit for acceleration is metre per second squared (m⋅s−2, 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+m
+
+s
+
+2
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle {\tfrac {\operatorname {m} }{\operatorname {s} ^{2}}}}
+
+).
+
+For example, when a vehicle starts from a standstill (zero velocity, in an inertial frame of reference) and travels in a straight line at increasing speeds, it is accelerating in the direction of travel.  If the vehicle turns, an acceleration occurs toward the new direction and changes its motion vector.  The acceleration of the vehicle in its current direction of motion is called a linear (or tangential during circular motions) acceleration, the reaction to which the passengers onboard experience as a force pushing them back into their seats.  When changing direction, the effecting acceleration is called radial (or orthogonal during circular motions) acceleration, the reaction to which the passengers experience as a centrifugal force.  If the speed of the vehicle decreases, this is an acceleration in the opposite direction and mathematically a negative, sometimes called deceleration, and passengers experience the reaction to deceleration as an inertial force pushing them forward.  Such negative accelerations are often achieved by retrorocket burning in spacecrafts.[4]  Both acceleration and deceleration are treated the same, they are both changes in velocity.  Each of these accelerations (tangential, radial, deceleration) is felt by passengers until their relative (differential) velocity are neutralized in reference to the vehicle.
+
+An object's average acceleration over a period of time is its change in velocity 
+
+
+
+(
+Δ
+
+v
+
+)
+
+
+{\displaystyle (\Delta \mathbf {v} )}
+
+ divided by the duration of the period 
+
+
+
+(
+Δ
+t
+)
+
+
+{\displaystyle (\Delta t)}
+
+. Mathematically,
+
+Instantaneous acceleration, meanwhile, is the limit of the average acceleration over an infinitesimal interval of time. In the terms of calculus, instantaneous acceleration is the derivative of the velocity vector with respect to time:
+
+(Here and elsewhere, if motion is in a straight line, vector quantities can be substituted by scalars in the equations.)
+
+It can be seen that the integral of the acceleration function a(t) is the velocity function v(t); that is, the area under the curve of an acceleration vs. time (a vs. t) graph corresponds to velocity.
+
+As acceleration is defined as the derivative of velocity, v, with respect to time t and velocity is defined as the derivative of position, x, with respect to time, acceleration can be thought of as the second derivative of x with respect to t:
+
+Acceleration has the dimensions of velocity (L/T) divided by time, i.e. L T−2. The SI unit of acceleration is the metre per second squared (m s−2); or "metre per second per second", as the velocity in metres per second changes by the acceleration value, every second.
+
+An object moving in a circular motion—such as a satellite orbiting the Earth—is accelerating due to the change of direction of motion, although its speed may be constant. In this case it is said to be undergoing centripetal (directed towards the center) acceleration.
+
+Proper acceleration, the acceleration of a body relative to a free-fall condition, is measured by an instrument called an accelerometer.
+
+In classical mechanics, for a body with constant mass, the (vector) acceleration of the body's center of mass is proportional to the net force vector (i.e. sum of all forces) acting on it (Newton's second law):
+
+where F is the net force acting on the body, m is  the mass of the body, and a is the center-of-mass acceleration. As speeds approach the speed of light, relativistic effects become increasingly large.
+
+The velocity of a particle moving on a curved path as a function of time can be written as:
+
+with v(t) equal to the speed of travel along the path, and
+
+a unit vector tangent to the path pointing in the direction of motion at the chosen moment in time. Taking into account both the changing speed v(t) and the changing direction of ut, the acceleration of a particle moving on a curved path can be written using the chain rule of differentiation[5] for the product of two functions of time as:
+
+where un is the  unit (inward) normal vector to the particle's trajectory (also called the principal normal), and r is its instantaneous radius of curvature based upon the osculating circle at time t. These components are called the tangential acceleration and the normal or radial acceleration (or centripetal acceleration in circular motion, see also circular motion and centripetal force).
+
+Geometrical analysis of three-dimensional space curves, which explains tangent, (principal) normal and binormal, is described by the Frenet–Serret formulas.[6][7]
+
+Uniform or constant acceleration is a type of motion in which the velocity of an object changes by an equal amount in every equal time period.
+
+A frequently cited example of uniform acceleration is that of an object in free fall in a uniform gravitational field. The acceleration of a falling body in the absence of resistances to motion is dependent only on the gravitational field strength g (also called acceleration due to gravity). By Newton's Second Law the force 
+
+
+
+
+
+F
+
+g
+
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle \mathbf {F_{g}} }
+
+ acting on a body is given by:
+
+Because of the simple analytic properties of the case of constant acceleration, there are simple formulas relating the displacement, initial and time-dependent velocities, and acceleration to the time elapsed:[8]
+
+where
+
+In particular, the motion can be resolved into two orthogonal parts, one of constant velocity and the other according to the above equations.  As Galileo showed, the net result is parabolic motion, which describes, e. g., the trajectory of a projectile in a vacuum near the surface of Earth.[9]
+
+In uniform circular motion, that is moving with constant speed along a circular path, a particle experiences an acceleration resulting from the change of the direction of the velocity vector, while its magnitude remains constant. The derivative of the location of a point on a curve with respect to time, i.e. its velocity, turns out to be always exactly tangential to the curve, respectively orthogonal to the radius in this point. Since in uniform motion the velocity in the tangential direction does not change, the acceleration must be in radial direction, pointing to the center of the circle. This acceleration constantly changes the direction of the velocity to be tangent in the neighboring point, thereby rotating the velocity vector along the circle.
+
+• For a given speed 
+
+
+
+v
+
+
+{\displaystyle v}
+
+, the magnitude of this geometrically caused acceleration (centripetal acceleration) is inversely proportional to the radius 
+
+
+
+r
+
+
+{\displaystyle r}
+
+ of the circle, and increases as the square of this speed:
+
+• Note that, for a given angular velocity 
+
+
+
+ω
+
+
+{\displaystyle \omega }
+
+, the centripetal acceleration is directly proportional to radius 
+
+
+
+r
+
+
+{\displaystyle r}
+
+. This is due to the dependence of velocity 
+
+
+
+v
+
+
+{\displaystyle v}
+
+ on the radius 
+
+
+
+r
+
+
+{\displaystyle r}
+
+.
+
+Expressing centripetal acceleration vector in polar components, where 
+
+
+
+
+r
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle \mathbf {r} }
+
+ is a vector from the centre of the circle to the particle with magnitude equal to this distance, and considering the orientation of the acceleration towards the center, yields
+
+As usual in rotations, the speed 
+
+
+
+v
+
+
+{\displaystyle v}
+
+ of a particle may be expressed as an angular speed with respect to a point at the distance 
+
+
+
+r
+
+
+{\displaystyle r}
+
+ as
+
+Thus 
+
+
+
+
+
+a
+
+c
+
+
+
+=
+−
+
+ω
+
+2
+
+
+
+r
+
+
+.
+
+
+{\displaystyle \mathbf {a_{c}} =-\omega ^{2}\mathbf {r} \;.}
+
+This acceleration and the mass of the particle determine the necessary centripetal force, directed toward the centre of the circle, as the net force acting on this particle to keep it in this uniform circular motion. The so-called 'centrifugal force', appearing to act outward on the body, is a so-called pseudo force experienced in the frame of reference of the body in circular motion, due to the body's linear momentum, a vector tangent to the circle of motion.
+
+In a nonuniform circular motion, i.e., the speed along the curved path is changing, the acceleration has a non-zero component tangential to the curve, and is not confined to the principal normal, which directs to the center of the osculating circle, that determines the radius 
+
+
+
+r
+
+
+{\displaystyle r}
+
+ for the centripetal acceleration. The tangential component is given by the angular acceleration 
+
+
+
+α
+
+
+{\displaystyle \alpha }
+
+, i.e., the rate of change 
+
+
+
+α
+=
+
+
+
+ω
+˙
+
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle \alpha ={\dot {\omega }}}
+
+ of the angular speed 
+
+
+
+ω
+
+
+{\displaystyle \omega }
+
+ times the radius 
+
+
+
+r
+
+
+{\displaystyle r}
+
+. That is,
+
+The sign of the tangential component of the acceleration is determined by the sign of the angular acceleration (
+
+
+
+α
+
+
+{\displaystyle \alpha }
+
+), and the tangent is of course always directed at right angles to the radius vector.
+
+The special theory of relativity describes the behavior of objects traveling relative to other objects at speeds approaching that of light in a vacuum. Newtonian mechanics is exactly revealed to be an approximation to reality, valid to great accuracy at lower speeds. As the relevant speeds increase toward the speed of light, acceleration no longer follows classical equations.
+
+As speeds approach that of light, the acceleration produced by a given force decreases, becoming infinitesimally small as light speed is approached; an object with mass can approach this speed asymptotically, but never reach it.
+
+Unless the state of motion of an object is known, it is impossible to distinguish whether an observed force is due to gravity or to acceleration—gravity and inertial acceleration have identical effects. Albert Einstein called this the equivalence principle, and said that only observers who feel no force at all—including the force of gravity—are justified in concluding that they are not accelerating.[10]

en/1465.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+
+
+December is the twelfth and final month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars. It is also the last of seven months to have a length of 31 days.
+
+December got its name from the Latin word decem (meaning ten) because it was originally the tenth month of the year in the calendar of Romulus c. 750 BC which began in March. The winter days following December were not included as part of any month. Later, the months of January and February were created out of the monthless period and added to the beginning of the calendar, but December retained its name.[1]
+
+In Ancient Rome, as one of the four Agonalia, this day in honor of Sol Indiges was held on December 11, as was Septimontium. Dies natalis (birthday) was held at the temple of Tellus on December 13, Consualia was held on December 15, Saturnalia was held December 17–23, Opiconsivia was held on December 19, Divalia was held on December 21, Larentalia was held on December 23, and the dies natalis of Sol Invictus was held on December 25. These dates do not correspond to the modern Gregorian calendar.
+
+The Anglo-Saxons referred to December–January as Ġēolamonaþ (modern English: "Yule month"). The French Republican Calendar contained December within the months of Frimaire and Nivôse.
+
+December contains the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, the day with the fewest daylight hours, and the summer solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, the day with the most daylight hours (excluding polar regions in both cases). December in the Northern Hemisphere is the seasonal equivalent to June in the Southern Hemisphere and vice versa. In the Northern hemisphere, the beginning of the astronomical winter is traditionally 21 December or the date of the solstice.
+
+Meteor showers occurring in December are the Andromedids (September 25 – December 6, peaking around November 9), the  Canis-Minorids (December 4 – December 15, peaking around December 10–11), the Coma Berenicids (December 12 to December 23, peaking around December 16), the Delta Cancrids (December 14 to February 14, the main shower from January 1 to January 24, peaking on January 17), the Geminids (December 13–14), the Monocerotids (December 7 to December 20, peaking on December 9. This shower can also start in November), the Phoenicids (November 29 to December 9, with a peak occurring around 5/6 December), the Quadrantids (typically a January shower but can also start in December), the Sigma Hydrids (December 4–15), and the Ursids (December 17-to December 25/26, peaking around December 22).
+
+This list does not necessarily imply either official status or general observance.
+
+(All Baha'i, Islamic, and Jewish observances begin at the sundown prior to the date listed, and end at sundown of the date in question unless otherwise noted.)
+
+Tuesday immediately following fourth Thursday of November: December 1
+
+First Friday: December 4
+
+First Sunday: December 6
+
+Second Monday: December 14
+
+December 15, unless the date falls on a Sunday, then December 16: December 15
+
+Winter Solstice: December 21
+
+December 22, unless that date is a Sunday, in which case it's moved to the 23rd: December 22
+
+December 26, unless that day is a Sunday, in which case the 27th: December 26

en/1466.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+A decade is a period of 10 years. The word is derived (via French and Latin) from the Ancient Greek: δεκάς, romanized: dekas, which means a group of ten. Decades may describe any ten-year period, such as those of a person's life, or refer to specific groupings of calendar years.
+
+Any period of ten years is a "decade".[1] For example, the statement that "during his last decade, Mozart explored chromatic harmony to a degree rare at the time" merely refers to the last ten years of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's life without regard to which calendar years are encompassed. Also, 'the first decade' of a person's life begins on the day of their birth and ends at the end of their 10th year of life when they have their 10th birthday; the second decade of life starts with their 11th year of life (during which one is usually referred to as being 10) and ends at the end of their 20th year of life on their 20th birthday; the third decade, referred to as being in one's twenties (20s), starts with the 21st year of life (during which one is referred to as being 20) and ends at the end of the 30th year of life on their 30th birthday; subsequent decades of life are described in a similar way by reference to the tens digit of their age.
+
+There are two methods of demarcating Gregorian calendar decades:
+
+The most widely used method for denominating decades is to group years based on their shared tens digit, from a year ending in a 0 to a year ending in a 9 – for example, the period from 1960 to 1969, the nineteen-sixties or 1960s, is one such grouping.[2] Sometimes, only the tens part is mentioned (60s or sixties), although this may leave it ambiguous as to which century is meant.
+Particularly in the 20th century, 0-to-9 decades came to be referred to with associated nicknames, such as the "Swinging Sixties" (1960s), the "Warring Forties" (1940s) and the "Roaring Twenties" (1920s). This practice is occasionally also applied to decades of earlier centuries; for example, referencing the 1890s as the "Gay Nineties" or "Naughty Nineties".
+
+A rarer approach groups years from the beginning of the AD calendar era to produce successive decades from a year ending in a 1 to a year ending in a 0, with the years 1–10 described as "the 1st decade", years 11–20 "the 2nd decade", and so on; later decades are more usually described as 'the Nth decade of the Mth century' (using the strict interpretation of 'century')[a]. For example, "the second decad of the 12th. Cent." [sic];[3] “The last decade of that century”;[4] "1st decade of the 16th century";[5] "third decade of the 16th century";[6] "the first decade of the 18th century".[7] This decade grouping may also be identified explicitly; for example, "1961-1970";[8] "2001-2010";[9] “2021-2030”.[10]
+
+A YouGov poll was conducted on December 2, 2019, asking 13,582 US adults "When do you think the next decade will begin and end?" Results showed that 64% answered that the next decade would begin on January 1, 2020, and will end on December 31, 2029 (0-to-9 method); 17% answered that the next decade will begin on January 1, 2021, and will end on December 31, 2030 (1-to-0 method); 19% replied that they did not know.[11]

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@@ -0,0 +1,162 @@
+
+
+Death is the permanent cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism.[1] Phenomena which commonly bring about death include aging, physiological or organ failure, predation, poisoning, malnutrition, disease, suicide, homicide, asphyxia, drowning, severe burns, drug intoxication, starvation, dehydration, electrocution, intense heat or cold, radiation toxicity, warfare attacks such as bombings, as well as explosions and accidents or major trauma resulting in fatal injury.[2] The remains of a living organism begin to decompose shortly after death.[3] It is an inevitable process eventually occurring in all living organisms.
+
+As of the early 21st century, over 150,000 humans die each day.[4][5]
+
+Death, particularly of humans, has commonly been considered a sad or unpleasant occasion, due to the affection for the deceased and the termination of social and familial bonds. Other concerns include fear of death, necrophobia, anxiety, sorrow, grief, emotional pain, depression, sympathy, compassion, solitude, or saudade.
+
+Many cultures and religions have the idea of an afterlife, and also hold the idea of judgement and reward for good deeds or punishment for sin.
+
+Senescence refers to a scenario when a living being is able to survive all calamities, but eventually dies due to causes relating to old age. Animal and plant cells normally reproduce and function during the whole period of natural existence, but the aging process derives from deterioration of cellular activity and ruination of regular functioning. Aptitude of cells for gradual deterioration and mortality means that cells are naturally sentenced to stable and long-term loss of living capacities, even despite continuing metabolic reactions and viability. In the United Kingdom, for example, nine out of ten of all the deaths that occur on a daily basis relates to senescence, while around the world it accounts for two-thirds of 150,000 deaths that take place daily (Hayflick & Moody, 2003).
+
+Almost all animals who survive external hazards to their biological functioning eventually die from biological aging, known in life sciences as "senescence". Some organisms experience negligible senescence, even exhibiting biological immortality.  These include the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii,[6] the hydra, and the planarian. Unnatural causes of death include suicide and predation. From all causes, roughly 150,000 people die around the world each day.[4] Of these, two thirds die directly or indirectly due to senescence, but in industrialized countries – such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany – the rate approaches 90% (i.e., nearly nine out of ten of all deaths are related to senescence).[4]
+
+Physiological death is now seen as a process, more than an event: conditions once considered indicative of death are now reversible.[7] Where in the process a dividing line is drawn between life and death depends on factors beyond the presence or absence of vital signs. In general, clinical death is neither necessary nor sufficient for a determination of legal death. A patient with working heart and lungs determined to be brain dead can be pronounced legally dead without clinical death occurring. As scientific knowledge and medicine advance, formulating a precise medical definition of death becomes more difficult.[8]
+
+Signs of death or strong indications that a warm-blooded animal is no longer alive are:
+
+The stages that follow after death are:
+
+The concept of death is a key to human understanding of the phenomenon.[9] There are many scientific approaches and various interpretations of the concept. Additionally, the advent of life-sustaining therapy and the numerous criteria for defining death from both a medical and legal standpoint, have made it difficult to create a single unifying definition.
+
+One of the challenges in defining death is in distinguishing it from life. As a point in time, death would seem to refer to the moment at which life ends. Determining when death has occurred is difficult, as cessation of life functions is often not simultaneous across organ systems.[10] Such determination therefore requires drawing precise conceptual boundaries between life and death. This is difficult, due to there being little consensus on how to define life.
+
+It is possible to define life in terms of consciousness. When consciousness ceases, a living organism can be said to have died. One of the flaws in this approach is that there are many organisms which are alive but probably not conscious (for example, single-celled organisms). Another problem is in defining consciousness, which has many different definitions given by modern scientists, psychologists and philosophers.  Additionally, many religious traditions, including Abrahamic and Dharmic traditions, hold that death does not (or may not) entail the end of consciousness.  In certain cultures, death is more of a process than a single event. It implies a slow shift from one spiritual state to another.[11]
+
+Other definitions for death focus on the character of cessation of something.[12][clarification needed] More specifically, death occurs when a living entity experiences irreversible cessation of all functioning.[13] As it pertains to human life, death is an irreversible process where someone loses their existence as a person.[13]
+
+Historically, attempts to define the exact moment of a human's death have been subjective, or imprecise. Death was once defined as the cessation of heartbeat (cardiac arrest) and of breathing, but the development of CPR and prompt defibrillation have rendered that definition inadequate because breathing and heartbeat can sometimes be restarted. This type of death where circulatory and respiratory arrest happens is known as the circulatory definition of death (DCDD). Proponents of the DCDD believe that this definition is reasonable because a person with permanent loss of circulatory and respiratory function should be considered dead.[14] Critics of this definition state that while cessation of these functions may be permanent, it does not mean the situation is not irreversible, because if CPR was applied, the person could be revived.[14] Thus, the arguments for and against the DCDD boil down to a matter of defining the actual words "permanent" and "irreversible," which further complicates the challenge of defining death. Furthermore, events which were causally linked to death in the past no longer kill in all circumstances; without a functioning heart or lungs, life can sometimes be sustained with a combination of life support devices, organ transplants and artificial pacemakers.
+
+Today, where a definition of the moment of death is required, doctors and coroners usually turn to "brain death" or "biological death" to define a person as being dead; people are considered dead when the electrical activity in their brain ceases. It is presumed that an end of electrical activity indicates the end of consciousness. Suspension of consciousness must be permanent, and not transient, as occurs during certain sleep stages, and especially a coma. In the case of sleep, EEGs can easily tell the difference.
+
+The category of "brain death" is seen as problematic by some scholars. For instance, Dr. Franklin Miller, senior faculty member at the Department of Bioethics, National Institutes of Health, notes: "By the late 1990s... the equation of brain death with death of the human being was increasingly challenged by scholars, based on evidence regarding the array of biological functioning displayed by patients correctly diagnosed as having this condition who were maintained on mechanical ventilation for substantial periods of time. These patients maintained the ability to sustain circulation and respiration, control temperature, excrete wastes, heal wounds, fight infections and, most dramatically, to gestate fetuses (in the case of pregnant "brain-dead" women)."[15]
+
+While "brain death" is viewed as problematic by some scholars, there are certainly proponents of it that believe this definition of death is the most reasonable for distinguishing life from death. The reasoning behind the support for this definition is that brain death has a set of criteria that is reliable and reproducible.[16] Also, the brain is crucial in determining our identity or who we are as human beings. The distinction should be made that "brain death" cannot be equated with one who is in a vegetative state or coma, in that the former situation describes a state that is beyond recovery.[16]
+
+Those people maintaining that only the neo-cortex of the brain is necessary for consciousness sometimes argue that only electrical activity should be considered when defining death. Eventually it is possible that the criterion for death will be the permanent and irreversible loss of cognitive function, as evidenced by the death of the cerebral cortex. All hope of recovering human thought and personality is then gone given current and foreseeable medical technology. At present, in most places the more conservative definition of death – irreversible cessation of electrical activity in the whole brain, as opposed to just in the neo-cortex – has been adopted (for example the Uniform Determination Of Death Act in the United States). In 2005, the Terri Schiavo case brought the question of brain death and artificial sustenance to the front of American politics.
+
+Even by whole-brain criteria, the determination of brain death can be complicated. EEGs can detect spurious electrical impulses, while certain drugs, hypoglycemia, hypoxia, or hypothermia can suppress or even stop brain activity on a temporary basis. Because of this, hospitals have protocols for determining brain death involving EEGs at widely separated intervals under defined conditions.
+
+In the past, adoption of this whole-brain definition was a conclusion of the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research in 1980.[17] They concluded that this approach to defining death sufficed in reaching a uniform definition nationwide. A multitude of reasons were presented to support this definition including: uniformity of standards in law for establishing death; consumption of a family's fiscal resources for artificial life support; and legal establishment for equating brain death with death in order to proceed with organ donation.[18]
+
+Aside from the issue of support of or dispute against brain death, there is another inherent problem in this categorical definition: the variability of its application in medical practice. In 1995, the American Academy of Neurology (AAN), established a set of criteria that became the medical standard for diagnosing neurologic death. At that time, three clinical features had to be satisfied in order to determine “irreversible cessation” of the total brain including: coma with clear etiology, cessation of breathing, and lack of brainstem reflexes.[19] This set of criteria was then updated again most recently in 2010, but substantial discrepancies still remain across hospitals and medical specialties.[19]
+
+The problem of defining death is especially imperative as it pertains to the dead donor rule, which could be understood as one of the following interpretations of the rule: there must be an official declaration of death in a person before starting organ procurement or that organ procurement cannot result in death of the donor.[14] A great deal of controversy has surrounded the definition of death and the dead donor rule. Advocates of the rule believe the rule is legitimate in protecting organ donors while also countering against any moral or legal objection to organ procurement. Critics, on the other hand, believe that the rule does not uphold the best interests of the donors and that the rule does not effectively promote organ donation.[14]
+
+The death of a person has legal consequences that may vary between different jurisdictions.
+A death certificate is issued in most jurisdictions, either by a doctor, or by an administrative office upon presentation of a doctor's declaration of death.
+
+There are many anecdotal references to people being declared dead by physicians and then "coming back to life", sometimes days later in their own coffin, or when embalming procedures are about to begin. From the mid-18th century onwards, there was an upsurge in the public's fear of being mistakenly buried alive,[20] and much debate about the uncertainty of the signs of death. Various suggestions were made to test for signs of life before burial, ranging from pouring vinegar and pepper into the corpse's mouth to applying red hot pokers to the feet or into the rectum.[21] Writing in 1895, the physician J.C. Ouseley claimed that as many as 2,700 people were buried prematurely each year in England and Wales, although others estimated the figure to be closer to 800.[22]
+
+In cases of electric shock, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for an hour or longer can allow stunned nerves to recover, allowing an apparently dead person to survive. People found unconscious under icy water may survive if their faces are kept continuously cold until they arrive at an emergency room.[23] This "diving response", in which metabolic activity and oxygen requirements are minimal, is something humans share with cetaceans called the mammalian diving reflex.[23]
+
+As medical technologies advance, ideas about when death occurs may have to be re-evaluated in light of the ability to restore a person to vitality after longer periods of apparent death (as happened when CPR and defibrillation showed that cessation of heartbeat is inadequate as a decisive indicator of death). The lack of electrical brain activity may not be enough to consider someone scientifically dead. Therefore, the concept of information-theoretic death[24] has been suggested as a better means of defining when true death occurs, though the concept has few practical applications outside the field of cryonics.
+
+There have been some scientific attempts to bring dead organisms back to life, but with limited success.[25] In science fiction scenarios where such technology is readily available, real death is distinguished from reversible death.
+
+The leading cause of human death in developing countries is infectious disease. The leading causes in developed countries are atherosclerosis (heart disease and stroke), cancer, and other diseases related to obesity and aging. By an extremely wide margin, the largest unifying cause of death in the developed world is biological aging,[4] leading to various complications known as aging-associated diseases. These conditions cause loss of homeostasis, leading to cardiac arrest, causing loss of oxygen and nutrient supply, causing irreversible deterioration of the brain and other tissues. Of the roughly 150,000 people who die each day across the globe, about two thirds die of age-related causes.[4] In industrialized nations, the proportion is much higher, approaching 90%.[4] With improved medical capability, dying has become a condition to be managed. Home deaths, once commonplace, are now rare in the developed world.
+
+In developing nations, inferior sanitary conditions and lack of access to modern medical technology makes death from infectious diseases more common than in developed countries. One such disease is tuberculosis, a bacterial disease which killed 1.8M people in 2015.[27] Malaria causes about 400–900M cases of fever and 1–3M deaths annually.[28] AIDS death toll in Africa may reach 90–100M by 2025.[29][30]
+
+According to Jean Ziegler (United Nations Special Reporter on the Right to Food, 2000 – Mar 2008), mortality due to malnutrition accounted for 58% of the total mortality rate in 2006. Ziegler says worldwide approximately 62M people died from all causes and of those deaths more than 36M died of hunger or diseases due to deficiencies in micronutrients.[31]
+
+Tobacco smoking killed 100 million people worldwide in the 20th century and could kill 1 billion people around the world in the 21st century, a World Health Organization report warned.[26]
+
+Many leading developed world causes of death can be postponed by diet and physical activity, but the accelerating incidence of disease with age still imposes limits on human longevity. The evolutionary cause of aging is, at best, only just beginning to be understood. It has been suggested that direct intervention in the aging process may now be the most effective intervention against major causes of death.[32]
+
+Selye proposed a unified non-specific approach to many causes of death. He demonstrated that stress decreases adaptability of an organism and proposed to describe the adaptability as a special resource, adaptation energy. The animal dies when this resource is exhausted.[33] Selye assumed that  the adaptability is a finite supply, presented at birth. Later on, Goldstone proposed the concept of a production or income of adaptation energy which may be stored (up to a limit), as a capital reserve of adaptation.[34] In recent works,  adaptation energy is considered as an internal coordinate on the "dominant path" in the model of adaptation. It is demonstrated that oscillations of well-being appear when the reserve of adaptability is almost exhausted.[35]
+
+In 2012, suicide overtook car crashes for leading causes of human injury deaths in the U.S., followed by poisoning, falls and murder.[36] Causes of death are different in different parts of the world. In high-income and middle income countries nearly half up to more than two thirds of all people live beyond the age of 70 and predominantly die of chronic diseases. In low-income countries, where less than one in five of all people reach the age of 70, and more than a third of all deaths are among children under 15, people predominantly die of infectious diseases.[37]
+
+An autopsy, also known as a postmortem examination or an obduction, is a medical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a human corpse to determine the cause and manner of a person's death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present. It is usually performed by a specialized medical doctor called a pathologist.
+
+Autopsies are either performed for legal or medical purposes. A forensic autopsy is carried out when the cause of death may be a criminal matter, while a clinical or academic autopsy is performed to find the medical cause of death and is used in cases of unknown or uncertain death, or for research purposes. Autopsies can be further classified into cases where external examination suffices, and those where the body is dissected and an internal examination is conducted. Permission from next of kin may be required for internal autopsy in some cases. Once an internal autopsy is complete the body is generally reconstituted by sewing it back together. Autopsy is important in a medical environment and may shed light on mistakes and help improve practices.
+
+A necropsy, which is not always a medical procedure, was a term previously used to describe an unregulated postmortem examination . In modern times, this term is more commonly associated with the corpses of animals.
+
+Cryonics (from Greek κρύος 'kryos-' meaning 'icy cold') is the low-temperature preservation of animals and humans who cannot be sustained by contemporary medicine, with the hope that healing and resuscitation may be possible in the future.[38][39]
+
+Cryopreservation of people or large animals is not reversible with current technology. The stated rationale for cryonics is that people who are considered dead by current legal or medical definitions may not necessarily be dead according to the more stringent information-theoretic definition of death.[24][40]
+
+Some scientific literature is claimed to support the feasibility of cryonics.[41] Medical science and cryobiologists generally regards cryonics with skepticism.[42]
+
+Life extension refers to an increase in maximum or average lifespan, especially in humans, by slowing down or reversing the processes of aging. Average lifespan is determined by vulnerability to accidents and age or lifestyle-related afflictions such as cancer, or cardiovascular disease. Extension of average lifespan can be achieved by good diet, exercise and avoidance of hazards such as smoking. Maximum lifespan is also determined by the rate of aging for a species inherent in its genes. Currently, the only widely recognized method of extending maximum lifespan is calorie restriction. Theoretically, extension of maximum lifespan can be achieved by reducing the rate of aging damage, by periodic replacement of damaged tissues, or by molecular repair or rejuvenation of deteriorated cells and tissues.
+
+A United States poll found that religious people and irreligious people, as well as men and women and people of different economic classes have similar rates of support for life extension, while Africans and Hispanics have higher rates of support than white people.[43] 38 percent of the polled said they would desire to have their aging process cured.
+
+Researchers of life extension are a subclass of biogerontologists known as "biomedical gerontologists". They try to understand the nature of aging and they develop treatments to reverse aging processes or to at least slow them down, for the improvement of health and the maintenance of youthful vigor at every stage of life. Those who take advantage of life extension findings and seek to apply them upon themselves are called "life extensionists" or "longevists". The primary life extension strategy currently is to apply available anti-aging methods in the hope of living long enough to benefit from a complete cure to aging once it is developed.
+
+"One of medicine's new frontiers: treating the dead", recognizes that cells that have been without oxygen for more than five minutes die,[44] not from lack of oxygen, but rather when their oxygen supply is resumed. Therefore, practitioners of this approach, e.g., at the Resuscitation Science institute at the University of Pennsylvania, "aim to reduce oxygen uptake, slow metabolism and adjust the blood chemistry for gradual and safe reperfusion."[45]
+
+Before about 1930, most people in Western countries died in their own homes, surrounded by family, and comforted by clergy, neighbors, and doctors making house calls.[48] By the mid-20th century, half of all Americans died in a hospital.[49] By the start of the 21st century, only about 20–25% of people in developed countries died outside of a medical institution.[49][50][51] The shift away from dying at home towards dying in a professional medical environment has been termed the "Invisible Death".[49] This shift occurred gradually over the years, until most deaths now occur outside the home.[52]
+
+Many people are afraid of dying.  Talking about it, thinking about it, or planning for their own deaths causes them discomfort.  This fear may cause them to put off financial planning, preparing a will and testament, or requesting help from a hospice organization.
+
+Different people have different responses to the idea of their own deaths.
+
+Philosopher Galen Strawson writes that the death that many people wish for is an instant, painless, unexperienced annihilation.[53]  In this unlikely scenario, the person dies without realizing it and without being able to fear it.  One moment the person is walking, eating, or sleeping, and the next moment, the person is dead.  Strawson reasons that this type of death would not take anything away from the person, as he believes that a person cannot have a legitimate claim to ownership in the future.[53][54]
+
+In society, the nature of death and humanity's awareness of its own mortality has for millennia been a concern of the world's religious traditions and of philosophical inquiry. This includes belief in resurrection or an afterlife (associated with Abrahamic religions), reincarnation or rebirth (associated with Dharmic religions), or that consciousness permanently ceases to exist, known as eternal oblivion (associated with Secular humanism).[55]
+
+Commemoration ceremonies after death may include various mourning, funeral practices and ceremonies of honouring the deceased. The physical remains of a person, commonly known as a corpse or body, are usually interred whole or cremated, though among the world's cultures there are a variety of other methods of mortuary disposal. In the English language, blessings directed towards a dead person include rest in peace, or its initialism RIP.
+
+Death is the center of many traditions and organizations; customs relating to death are a feature of every culture around the world. Much of this revolves around the care of the dead, as well as the afterlife and the disposal of bodies upon the onset of death. The disposal of human corpses does, in general, begin with the last offices before significant time has passed, and ritualistic ceremonies often occur, most commonly interment or cremation. This is not a unified practice; in Tibet, for instance, the body is given a sky burial and left on a mountain top. Proper preparation for death and techniques and ceremonies for producing the ability to transfer one's spiritual attainments into another body (reincarnation) are subjects of detailed study in Tibet.[56] Mummification or embalming is also prevalent in some cultures, to retard the rate of decay.
+
+Legal aspects of death are also part of many cultures, particularly the settlement of the deceased estate and the issues of inheritance and in some countries, inheritance taxation.
+
+Capital punishment is also a culturally divisive aspect of death. In most jurisdictions where capital punishment is carried out today, the death penalty is reserved for premeditated murder, espionage, treason, or as part of military justice. In some countries, sexual crimes, such as adultery and sodomy, carry the death penalty, as do religious crimes such as apostasy, the formal renunciation of one's religion. In many retentionist countries, drug trafficking is also a capital offense. In China, human trafficking and serious cases of corruption are also punished by the death penalty. In militaries around the world courts-martial have imposed death sentences for offenses such as cowardice, desertion, insubordination, and mutiny.[57]
+
+Death in warfare and in suicide attack also have cultural links, and the ideas of dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, mutiny punishable by death, grieving relatives of dead soldiers and death notification are embedded in many cultures. Recently in the western world, with the increase in terrorism following the September 11 attacks, but also further back in time with suicide bombings, kamikaze missions in World War II and suicide missions in a host of other conflicts in history, death for a cause by way of suicide attack, and martyrdom have had significant cultural impacts.
+
+Suicide is also present in some subcultures, in recent times for example in the emo subculture. The qualitative research has shown emo respondents reported "attitudes including high acceptance for suicidal behavior and self-injury", and concluded: "The identification with the emo youth subculture is considered to be a factor strengthening vulnerability towards risky behaviors."[58]
+
+Suicide in general, and particularly euthanasia, are also points of cultural debate. Both acts are understood very differently in different cultures. In Japan, for example, ending a life with honor by seppuku was considered a desirable death, whereas according to traditional Christian and Islamic cultures, suicide is viewed as a sin. Death is personified in many cultures, with such symbolic representations as the Grim Reaper, Azrael, the Hindu god Yama and Father Time.
+
+In Brazil, a human death is counted officially when it is registered by existing family members at a cartório, a government-authorized registry. Before being able to file for an official death, the deceased must have been registered for an official birth at the cartório. Though a Public Registry Law guarantees all Brazilian citizens the right to register deaths, regardless of their financial means, of their family members (often children), the Brazilian government has not taken away the burden, the hidden costs and fees, of filing for a death. For many impoverished families, the indirect costs and burden of filing for a death lead to a more appealing, unofficial, local, cultural burial, which in turn raises the debate about inaccurate mortality rates.[59]
+
+Talking about death and witnessing it is a difficult issue with most cultures. Western societies may like to treat the dead with the utmost material respect, with an official embalmer and associated rites. Eastern societies (like India) may be more open to accepting it as a fait accompli, with a funeral procession of the dead body ending in an open-air burning-to-ashes of the same.
+
+Much interest and debate surround the question of what happens to one's consciousness as one's body dies. The belief in the permanent loss of consciousness after death is often called eternal oblivion. Belief that the stream of consciousness is preserved after physical death is described by the term afterlife. Neither are likely to ever be confirmed without the ponderer having to actually die.
+
+After death, the remains of an organism become part of the biogeochemical cycle, during which animals may be consumed by a predator or a scavenger. Organic material may then be further decomposed by detritivores, organisms which recycle detritus, returning it to the environment for reuse in the food chain, where these chemicals may eventually end up being consumed and assimilated into the cells of a living organism. Examples of detritivores include earthworms, woodlice and dung beetles.
+
+Microorganisms also play a vital role, raising the temperature of the decomposing matter as they break it down into yet simpler molecules. Not all materials need to be fully decomposed. Coal, a fossil fuel formed over vast tracts of time in swamp ecosystems, is one example.
+
+Contemporary evolutionary theory sees death as an important part of the process of natural selection. It is considered that organisms less adapted to their environment are more likely to die having produced fewer offspring, thereby reducing their contribution to the gene pool. Their genes are thus eventually bred out of a population, leading at worst to extinction and, more positively, making the process possible, referred to as speciation. Frequency of reproduction plays an equally important role in determining species survival: an organism that dies young but leaves numerous offspring displays, according to Darwinian criteria, much greater fitness than a long-lived organism leaving only one.
+
+Extinction is the cessation of existence of a species or group of taxa, reducing biodiversity. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of that species (although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point). Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where species presumed extinct abruptly "reappear" (typically in the fossil record) after a period of apparent absence. New species arise through the process of speciation, an aspect of evolution. New varieties of organisms arise and thrive when they are able to find and exploit an ecological niche – and species become extinct when they are no longer able to survive in changing conditions or against superior competition.
+
+Inquiry into the evolution of aging aims to explain why so many living things and the vast majority of animals weaken and die with age (exceptions include Hydra and the already cited jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii, which research shows to be biologically immortal). The evolutionary origin of senescence remains one of the fundamental puzzles of biology. Gerontology specializes in the science of human aging processes.
+
+Organisms showing only asexual reproduction (e.g. bacteria, some protists, like the euglenoids and many amoebozoans) and unicellular organisms with sexual reproduction (colonial or not, like the volvocine algae Pandorina and Chlamydomonas) are "immortal" at some extent, dying only due to external hazards, like being eaten or meeting with a fatal accident. In multicellular organisms (and also in multinucleate ciliates),[61] with a Weismannist development, that is, with a division of labor between mortal somatic (body) cells and "immortal" germ (reproductive) cells, death becomes an essential part of life, at least for the somatic line.[62]
+
+The Volvox algae are among the simplest organisms to exhibit that division of labor between two completely different cell types, and as a consequence include death of somatic line as a regular, genetically regulated part of its life history.[62][63]
+
+Death is an important subject of religious doctrine.
+
+In the Hindu texts, death is described as the individual eternal spiritual soul (conscious self) exiting the current temporary material body. The soul exits this body when the body can no longer sustain the conscious self (life), which may be due to mental or physical reasons, or more accurately, the inability to act on one's material desires. During conception, the soul enters a compatible new body based on one's remaining karma and the state of one's mind (last thought) at the time of death.[64][65][66][67]
+
+Usually this transition makes one forget all memories of one's previous life.[68] Because nothing really dies and the temporary material body is always changing, both in this life and the next, death simply means forgetfulness of one’s previous experiences (previous material identity).[69]
+
+Material existence is described as being full of miseries arising from birth, disease, old age, death, mind, weather, etc.[70][71] To conquer the cycle of death and rebirth and become eligible for one of the different types of liberation, one has to first conquer material desires and become self-realized.[72][73][74] The human form of life is most suitable for this spiritual journey,[75][76] especially with the help of sadhu (self-realized saintly persons), sastra (revealed spiritual scriptures), and guru (self-realized spiritual masters), given all three are in agreement.[77][78][79][80]
+
+"As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change."
+
+"For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain."
+
+In Buddhist doctrine and practice, death plays an important role. Awareness of death was what motivated Prince Siddhartha to strive to find the "deathless" and finally to attain enlightenment. In Buddhist doctrine, death functions as a reminder of the value of having been born as a human being. Being reborn as a human being is considered the only state in which one can attain enlightenment. Therefore, death helps remind oneself that one should not take life for granted. The belief in rebirth among Buddhists does not necessarily remove death anxiety, since all existence in the cycle of rebirth is considered filled with suffering, and being reborn many times does not necessarily mean that one progresses.[81]
+
+Death is part of several key Buddhist tenets, such as the Four Noble Truths and dependent origination.[81]
+
+Death is seen in Judaism as tragic and intimidating.  Persons who come into contact with corpses are ritually impure.  There are a variety of beliefs about the afterlife within Judaism, but none of them contradict the preference of life over death.  This is partially because death puts a cessation to the possibility of fulfilling any commandments.[82]
+
+The word death comes from Old English dēaþ, which in turn comes from Proto-Germanic *dauþuz (reconstructed by etymological analysis). This comes from the Proto-Indo-European stem *dheu- meaning the "process, act, condition of dying".[83]
+
+The concept and symptoms of death, and varying degrees of delicacy used in discussion in public forums, have generated numerous scientific, legal, and socially acceptable terms or euphemisms for death.  When a person has died, it is also said they have passed away, passed on, expired, or are gone, among numerous other socially accepted, religiously specific, slang, and irreverent terms.
+
+As a formal reference to a dead person, it has become common practice to use the participle form of "decease", as in the deceased; another noun form is decedent.
+
+Bereft of life, the dead person is then a corpse, cadaver, a body, a set of remains, and when all flesh has rotted away, a skeleton. The terms carrion and carcass can also be used, though these more often connote the remains of non-human animals.  The ashes left after a cremation are sometimes referred to by the neologism cremains, a portmanteau of "cremation" and "remains".
+
+Bibliography

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+
+
+The metre (Commonwealth spelling) or meter (American spelling) (from the French unit mètre, from the Greek noun μέτρον, "measure") is the base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI). The SI unit symbol is m.
+The metre is defined as the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299 792 458 of a second.
+The metre was originally defined in 1793 as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole along a great circle, so the Earth's circumference is approximately 40000 km. In 1799, the metre was redefined in terms of a prototype metre bar (the actual bar used was changed in 1889). In 1960, the metre was redefined in terms of a certain number of wavelengths of a certain emission line of krypton-86. The current definition was adopted in 1983 and slightly updated in 2019.
+
+Metre is the standard spelling of the metric unit for length in nearly all English-speaking nations except the United States[2][3][4][5] and the Philippines,[6] which use meter. Other Germanic languages, such as German, Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages[7]  likewise spell the word meter.
+
+Measuring devices (such as ammeter, speedometer) are spelled "-meter" in all variants of English.[8] The suffix "-meter" has the same Greek origin as the unit of length.[9][10]
+
+The etymological roots of metre can be traced to the Greek verb μετρέω (metreo) (to measure, count or compare) and noun μέτρον (metron) (a measure), which were used for physical measurement, for poetic metre and by extension for moderation or avoiding extremism (as in "be measured in your response"). This range of uses is also found in Latin (metior, mensura), French (mètre, mesure), English and other languages.  The motto ΜΕΤΡΩ ΧΡΩ (metro chro) in the seal of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), which was a saying of the Greek statesman and philosopher Pittacus of Mytilene and may be translated as "Use measure!", thus calls for both measurement and moderation. The use of the word metre (for the French unit mètre) in English began at least as early as 1797.[11]
+
+In 1671 Jean Picard measured the length of a "seconds pendulum" (a pendulum with a period of two seconds) at the Paris observatory. He found the value of 440.5 lines of the Toise of Châtelet which had been recently renewed. He proposed a universal toise (French: Toise universelle) which was twice the length of the seconds pendulum.[12][13] However, it was soon discovered that the length of a seconds pendulum varies from place to place: French astronomer Jean Richer had measured the 0.3% difference in length between Cayenne (in French Guiana) and Paris.[14][15][16]
+
+Jean Richer and Giovanni Domenico Cassini measured the parallax of Mars between Paris and Cayenne in French Guiana when Mars was at its closest to Earth in 1672. They arrived at a figure for the solar parallax of 9.5 arcseconds, equivalent to an Earth–Sun distance of about 22000 Earth radii. They were also the first astronomers to have access to an accurate and reliable value for the radius of Earth, which had been measured by their colleague Jean Picard in 1669 as 3269 thousand toises. Picard's geodetic observations had been confined to the determination of the magnitude of the Earth considered as a sphere, but the discovery made by Jean Richer turned the attention of mathematicians to its deviation from a spherical form. In addition to its significance for cartography, the determination of the Figure of the Earth became a problem of the highest importance in astronomy, inasmuch as the diameter of the Earth was the unit to which all celestial distances had to be referred.[17] [18][19][20]
+
+As a result of the French Revolution, the French Academy of Sciences charged a commission with determining a single scale for all measures. On 7 October 1790 that commission advised the adoption of a decimal system, and on 19 March 1791 advised the adoption of the term mètre ("measure"), a basic unit of length, which they defined as equal to one ten-millionth of the distance between the North Pole and the Equator along the meridian through Paris.[21][22][23][24][25] In 1793, the French National Convention adopted the proposal.[11]
+
+The French Academy of Sciences commissioned an expedition led by Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre and Pierre Méchain, lasting from 1792 to 1799, which attempted to accurately measure the distance between a belfry in Dunkerque and Montjuïc castle in Barcelona at the longitude of Paris Panthéon.[26] The expedition was fictionalised in Denis Guedj, Le Mètre du Monde.[27] Ken Alder wrote factually about the expedition in The Measure of All Things: the seven year odyssey and hidden error that transformed the world.[28] This portion of  the Paris meridian, was to serve as the basis for the length of the half meridian connecting the North Pole with the Equator. From 1801 to 1812 France adopted this definition of the metre as its official unit of length based on results from this expedition combined with those of the Geodesic Mission to Peru.[29][30] The latter was related by Larrie D. Ferreiro in Measure of the Earth: The Enlightenment Expedition that Reshaped Our World.[31]
+
+A more accurate determination of the Figure of the Earth would soon result from the measurement of the Struve Geodetic Arc (1816–1855) and would have given another value for the definition of this standard of length. This did not invalidate the metre but highlighted that progresses in science would allow better measurement of Earth's size and shape.[20] After the July Revolution of 1830 the metre became the definitive French standard from 1840. At that time it had already been adopted by Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler for the U.S Survey of the Coast.[29][32][33]
+
+"The unit of length to which all distances measured in the Coast Survey are referred is the French metre, an authentic copy of which is preserved in the archives of the Coast Survey Office. It is the property of the American Philosophical Society, to whom it was presented by Mr. Hassler, who had received it from Tralles, a member of the French Committee charged with  the construction of the standard metre by comparison with the toise, which had served as unit of length in the measurement of the meridional arcs in France and Peru. It possesses all the authenticity of any original metre extant, bearing not only the stamp of the Committee but also the original mark by which it was distiguished from the other bars during the operation of standarding. It is always designated as the Committee metre" (French : Mètre des Archives).[34]
+
+In 1830 President Andrew Jackson mandated Ferdinand Rudolf Hassler  to work out new standards for all U.S. states. According to the decision of the Congress of the United States, the British Parlementary Standard from 1758 was introduced as the unit of length.[35] Another geodesist with metrology skills was to play a pivotal role in the process of internationalization of weights and measures, Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero who would become the first president of both the International Geodetic Association and the International Committee for Weights and Measures.[36]
+
+In 1867 at the second general conference of the International Association of Geodesy held in Berlin, the question of an international standard unit of length was discussed in order to combine the measurements made in different countries to determine the size and shape of the Earth.[37][38][39] The conference recommended the adoption of the metre in replacement of the toise and the creation of an international metre commission, according to the proposal of Johann Jacob Baeyer, Adolphe Hirsch and Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero who had devised two geodetic standards calibrated on the metre for the map of Spain.[33][37][39][40] Measurement traceability between the toise and the metre was ensured by comparison of the Spanish standard with the standard devised by Borda and Lavoisier for the survey of the meridian arc connecting Dunkirk with Barcelona.[36][40][41]
+
+A member of the Preparatory Committee since 1870 and Spanish representative at the Paris Conference in 1875, Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero intervened with the French Academy of Sciences to rally France to the project to create an International Bureau of Weights and Measures equipped with the scientific means necessary to redefine the units of the metric system according to the progress of sciences.[42]
+
+In the 1870s and in light of modern precision, a series of international conferences was held to devise new metric standards. The Metre Convention (Convention du Mètre) of 1875 mandated the establishment of a permanent International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM: Bureau International des Poids et Mesures) to be located in Sèvres, France. This new organisation was to construct and preserve a prototype metre bar, distribute national metric prototypes, and maintain comparisons between them and non-metric measurement standards. The organisation distributed such bars in 1889 at the first General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM: Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures), establishing the International Prototype Metre as the distance between two lines on a standard bar composed of an alloy of 90% platinum and 10% iridium, measured at the melting point of ice.[43]
+
+The comparison of the new prototypes of the metre with each other and with the Committee metre (French: Mètre des Archives) involved the development of special measuring equipment and the definition of a reproducible temperature scale. The BIPM's thermometry work led to the discovery of special alloys of iron-nickel, in particular invar, for which its director, the Swiss physicist Charles-Edouard Guillaume, was granted the Nobel Prize for physics in 1920.[44]
+
+As Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero stated, the progress of metrology combined with those of gravimetry through improvement of Kater's pendulum led to a new era of geodesy. If precision metrology had needed the help of geodesy, the latter could not continue to prosper without the help of metrology. Indeed, how to express all the measurements of terrestrial arcs as a function of a single unit, and all the determinations of the force of gravity with the pendulum, if metrology had not created a common unit, adopted and respected by all civilized nations, and if in addition one had not compared, with great precision, to the same unit all the standards for measuring geodesic bases, and all the pendulum rods that had hitherto been used or would be used in the future? Only when this series of metrological comparisons would be finished with a probable error of a thousandth of a millimetre would geodesy be able to link the works of the different nations with one another, and then proclaim the result of the last measurement of the Globe. As the figure of the Earth could be inferred from variations of the seconds pendulum length with latitude, the United States Coast Survey instructed Charles Sanders Peirce in the spring of 1875 to proceed to Europe for the purpose of making pendulum experiments to chief initial stations for operations of this sort, in order to bring the determinations of the forces of gravity in America into communication with those of other parts of the world; and also for the purpose of making a careful study of the methods of pursuing these researches in the different countries of Europe. In 1886 the association of geodesy changed name for the International Geodetic Association, which Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero presided up to his death in 1891. During this period the International Geodetic Association (German: Internationale Erdmessung) gained worldwide importance with the joining of United States, Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Japan.[36][45][46][47][48][49]
+
+Efforts to supplement the various national surveying systems, which begun in the 19th century with the foundation of the Mitteleuropäische Gradmessung, resulted in a series of global ellipsoids of the Earth (e.g., Helmert 1906, Hayford 1910/1924) which would later lead to develop the World Geodetic System. Nowadays the practical realisation of the metre is possible everywhere thanks to the atomic clocks embedded in GPS satellites.[50][51]
+
+In 1873, James Clerk Maxwell suggested that light emitted by an element be used as the standard both for the meter and for the second. These two quantities could then be used to define the unit of mass.[52]
+
+In 1893, the standard metre was first measured with an interferometer by Albert A. Michelson, the inventor of the device and an advocate of using some particular wavelength of light as a standard of length. By 1925, interferometry was in regular use at the BIPM. However, the International Prototype Metre remained the standard until 1960, when the eleventh CGPM defined the metre in the new International System of Units (SI) as equal to 1650763.73 wavelengths of the orange-red emission line in the electromagnetic spectrum of the krypton-86 atom in a vacuum.[53]
+
+To further reduce uncertainty, the 17th CGPM in 1983 replaced the definition of the metre with its current definition, thus fixing the length of the metre in terms of the second and the speed of light:[54]
+
+This definition fixed the speed of light in vacuum at exactly 299792458 metres per second (≈300000 km/s).[54] An intended by-product of the 17th CGPM's definition was that it enabled scientists to compare lasers accurately using frequency, resulting in wavelengths with one-fifth the uncertainty involved in the direct comparison of wavelengths, because interferometer errors were eliminated. To further facilitate reproducibility from lab to lab, the 17th CGPM also made the iodine-stabilised helium–neon laser "a recommended radiation" for realising the metre.[55] For the purpose of delineating the metre, the BIPM currently considers the HeNe laser wavelength, λHeNe, to be 632.99121258 nm with an estimated relative standard uncertainty (U) of 2.1×10−11.[55][56][57] This uncertainty is currently one limiting factor in laboratory realisations of the metre, and it is several orders of magnitude poorer than that of the second, based upon the caesium fountain atomic clock (U = 5×10−16).[58] Consequently, a  realisation of the metre is usually delineated (not defined) today in labs as 1579800.762042(33) wavelengths of helium-neon laser light in a vacuum, the error stated being only that of frequency determination.[55] This bracket notation expressing the error is explained in the article on measurement uncertainty.
+
+Practical realisation of the metre is subject to uncertainties in characterising the medium, to various uncertainties of interferometry, and to uncertainties in measuring the frequency of the source.[59] A commonly used medium is air, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has set up an online calculator to convert wavelengths in vacuum to wavelengths in air.[60] As described by NIST, in air, the uncertainties in characterising the medium are dominated by errors in measuring temperature and pressure. Errors in the theoretical formulas used are secondary.[61] By implementing a refractive index correction such as this, an approximate realisation of the metre can be implemented in air, for example, using the formulation of the metre as 1579800.762042(33) wavelengths of helium–neon laser light in vacuum, and converting the wavelengths in a vacuum to wavelengths in air. Air is only one possible medium to use in a realisation of the metre, and any partial vacuum can be used, or some inert atmosphere like helium gas, provided the appropriate corrections for refractive index are implemented.[62]
+
+The metre is defined as the path length travelled by light in a given time and practical laboratory length measurements in metres are determined by counting the number of wavelengths of laser light of one of the standard types that fit into the length,[65] and converting the selected unit of wavelength to metres. Three major factors limit the accuracy attainable with laser interferometers for a length measurement:[59][66]
+
+Of these, the last is peculiar to the interferometer itself. The conversion of a length in wavelengths to a length in metres is based upon the relation
+
+which converts the unit of wavelength λ to metres using c, the speed of light in vacuum in m/s. Here n is the refractive index of the medium in which the measurement is made, and f is the measured frequency of the source. Although conversion from wavelengths to metres introduces an additional error in the overall length due to measurement error in determining the refractive index and the frequency, the measurement of frequency is one of the most accurate measurements available.[66]
+
+SI prefixes are often employed to denote decimal multiples and submultiples of the metre, as shown in the table below. As indicated in the table, some are commonly used, while others are not. Long distances are usually expressed in km, astronomical units (149.6 Gm), light-years (10 Pm), or parsecs (31 Pm), rather than in Mm, Gm, Tm, Pm, Em, Zm or Ym; "30 cm", "30 m", and "300 m" are more common than "3 dm", "3 dam", and "3 hm", respectively.
+
+The terms micron and (occasionally) millimicron are often used instead of micrometre (μm) and nanometre (nm), but this practice is officially discouraged.[76]
+
+
+
+Within this table, "inch" and "yard" mean "international inch" and "international yard"[77] respectively, though approximate conversions in the left column hold for both international and survey units.
+
+One metre is exactly equivalent to 5 000/127 inches and to 1 250/1 143 yards.
+
+A simple mnemonic aid exists to assist with conversion, as three "3"s:
+
+The ancient Egyptian cubit was about 0.5 m (surviving rods are 523–529 mm).[78] Scottish and English definitions of the ell (two cubits) were 941 mm (0.941 m) and 1143 mm (1.143 m) respectively.[79][80] The ancient Parisian toise (fathom) was slightly shorter than 2 m and was standardised at exactly 2 m in the mesures usuelles system, such that 1 m was exactly ​1⁄2 toise.[81] The Russian verst was 1.0668 km.[82] The Swedish mil was 10.688 km, but was changed to 10 km when Sweden converted to metric units.[83]

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@@ -0,0 +1,102 @@
+
+
+The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a historic document that was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly at its third session on 10 December 1948 as Resolution 217 at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, France. Of the then 58 members of the United Nations, 48 voted in favour, none against, eight abstained, and two did not vote.[1]
+
+The Declaration consists of 30 articles affirming an individual's rights which, although not legally binding in themselves, have been elaborated in subsequent international treaties, economic transfers, regional human rights instruments, national constitutions, and other laws. The Declaration was the first step in the process of formulating the International Bill of Human Rights, which was completed in 1966, and came into force in 1976, after a sufficient number of countries had ratified them.
+
+Some legal scholars have argued that because countries have constantly invoked the Declaration for more than 50 years, it has become binding as a part of customary international law.[2][3] However, in the United States, the Supreme Court in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain (2004), concluded that the Declaration "does not of its own force impose obligations as a matter of international law."[4] Courts of other countries have also concluded that the Declaration is not in and of itself part of domestic law.[5]
+
+The underlying structure of the Universal Declaration was introduced in its second draft, which was prepared by René Cassin. Cassin worked from a first draft, which was prepared by John Peters Humphrey. The structure was influenced by the Code Napoléon, including a preamble and introductory general principles.[6] Cassin compared the Declaration to the portico of a Greek temple, with a foundation, steps, four columns, and a pediment.
+
+The Declaration consists of a preamble and thirty articles:
+
+These articles are concerned with the duty of the individual to society and the prohibition of the use of rights in contravention of the purposes of the United Nations Organisation.[8]
+
+During World War II, the Allies adopted the Four Freedoms—freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from fear, and freedom from want—as their basic war aims.[9][10] The United Nations Charter "reaffirmed faith in fundamental human rights, and dignity and worth of the human person" and committed all member states to promote "universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion".[11]
+
+When the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany became fully apparent after World War II, the consensus within the world community was that the United Nations Charter did not sufficiently define the rights to which it referred.[12][13] A universal declaration that specified the rights of individuals was necessary to give effect to the Charter's provisions on human rights.[14]
+
+In June 1946, the UN Economic and Social Council established the Commission on Human Rights, comprising 18 members from various nationalities and political backgrounds. The Commission, a standing body of the United Nations, was constituted to undertake the work of preparing what was initially conceived as an International Bill of Rights.[15]
+
+The Commission established a special Universal Declaration of Human Rights Drafting Committee, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, to write the articles of the Declaration. The Committee met in two sessions over the course of two years.
+
+Canadian John Peters Humphrey, Director of the Division of Human Rights within the United Nations Secretariat, was called upon by the United Nations Secretary-General to work on the project and became the Declaration's principal drafter.[16] At the time, Humphrey was newly appointed as Director of the Division of Human Rights within the United Nations Secretariat.[17]
+
+Other well-known members of the drafting committee included René Cassin of France, Charles Malik of Lebanon, and P. C. Chang of the Republic of China.[18] Humphrey provided the initial draft that became the working text of the Commission.
+
+Hansa Mehta of India suggested adding "all human beings are created equal" instead of "all men are created equal" in the declaration.
+
+According to Allan Carlson, the Declaration's pro-family phrases were the result of the Christian Democratic movement's influence on Cassin and Malik.[19]
+
+Once the Committee finished its work in May 1948, the draft was further discussed by the Commission on Human Rights, the Economic and Social Council, the Third Committee of the General Assembly before being put to vote in December 1948. During these discussions many amendments and propositions were made by UN Member States.[20]
+
+British representatives were extremely frustrated that the proposal had moral but no legal obligation.[21] (It was not until 1976 that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights came into force, giving a legal status to most of the Declaration.)
+
+The Universal Declaration was adopted by the General Assembly as Resolution 217 on 10 December 1948 in Palais de Chaillot, Paris, as the third United Nations General Assembly was held there.[22] Of the then 58 members[23] of the United Nations, 48 voted in favour, none against, eight abstained[24][25] and Honduras and Yemen failed to vote or abstain.[26]
+
+The meeting record[27] provides firsthand insight into the debate. South Africa's position can be seen as an attempt to protect its system of apartheid, which clearly violated several articles in the Declaration.[24] The Saudi Arabian delegation's abstention was prompted primarily by two of the Declaration's articles: Article 18, which states that everyone has the right "to change his religion or belief"; and Article 16, on equal marriage rights.[24] The six communist countries abstentions centred around the view that the Declaration did not go far enough in condemning fascism and Nazism.[28] Eleanor Roosevelt attributed the abstention of Soviet bloc countries to Article 13, which provided the right of citizens to leave their countries.[29]
+
+The 48 countries that voted in favour of the Declaration are:[30]
+
+Eight countries abstained:[30]
+
+Two countries did not vote:
+
+Other countries only gained sovereignty and joined the United Nations later,[32] which explains the relatively small number of states entitled to the historical vote.
+
+The Declaration of Human Rights Day is commemorated every year on December 10, the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration, and is known as Human Rights Day or International Human Rights Day. The commemoration is observed by individuals, community and religious groups, human rights organizations, parliaments, governments, and the United Nations. Decadal commemorations are often accompanied by campaigns to promote awareness of the Declaration and human rights. 2008 marked the 60th anniversary of the Declaration, and was accompanied by year-long activities around the theme "Dignity and justice for all of us".[33]
+
+In 1948, the UN Resolution A/RES/217(III)[A] adopted the Declaration on a bilingual document in English and French, and official translations in Chinese, Russian and Spanish.[34] In 2009, the Guinness Book of Records described the Declaration as the world's "Most Translated Document" (370 different languages and dialects).[35][36] The Unicode Consortium stores 431[37] of the 503[38] official translations available at the OHCHR (as of June 2017[update]).
+
+In its preamble, governments commit themselves and their people to progressive measures that secure the universal and effective recognition and observance of the human rights set out in the Declaration. Eleanor Roosevelt supported the adoption of the Declaration as a declaration rather than as a treaty because she believed that it would have the same kind of influence on global society as the United States Declaration of Independence had within the United States.[39] Even though it is not legally binding, the Declaration has been adopted in or has influenced most national constitutions since 1948. It has also served as the foundation for a growing number of national laws, international laws, and treaties, as well as for a growing number of regional, sub national, and national institutions protecting and promoting human rights.
+
+For the first time in international law, the term "the rule of law" was used in the preamble of the Declaration. The third paragraph of the preamble of the Declaration reads as follows: "Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law."[40]
+
+While not a treaty itself, the Declaration was explicitly adopted for the purpose of defining the meaning of the words "fundamental freedoms" and "human rights" appearing in the United Nations Charter, which is binding on all member states. For this reason, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a fundamental constitutive document of the United Nations. In addition, many international lawyers[41][42][43][44][45] believe that the Declaration forms part of customary international law[46] and is a powerful tool in applying diplomatic and moral pressure to governments that violate any of its articles. The 1968 United Nations International Conference on Human Rights advised that the Declaration "constitutes an obligation for the members of the international community" to all persons. The Declaration has served as the foundation for two binding UN human rights covenants: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The principles of the Declaration are elaborated in international treaties such as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and many more. The Declaration continues to be widely cited by governments, academics, advocates, and constitutional courts, and by individuals who appeal to its principles for the protection of their recognised human rights.
+
+The Universal Declaration has received praise from a number of notable people. The Lebanese philosopher and diplomat Charles Malik called it "an international document of the first order of importance",[47] while Eleanor Roosevelt—first chairwoman of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) that drafted the Declaration—stated that it "may well become the international Magna Carta of all men everywhere."[48] In a speech on 5 October 1995, Pope John Paul II called the Declaration "one of the highest expressions of the human conscience of our time" but the Vatican never adopted the Declaration.[49] In a statement on 10 December 2003 on behalf of the European Union, Marcello Spatafora said that the Declaration "placed human rights at the centre of the framework of principles and obligations shaping relations within the international community."[50]
+
+Turkey, a secular state with an overwhelmingly Muslim population, signed the Declaration in 1948.[51] However, the same year, Saudi Arabia abstained from the ratification vote on the Declaration, claiming that it violated Sharia law.[52] Pakistan—which had signed the declaration—disagreed and critiqued the Saudi position.[53] Pakistani minister Muhammad Zafarullah Khan strongly argued in favour of including freedom of religion.[54] In 1982, the Iranian representative to the United Nations, Said Rajaie-Khorassani, said that the Declaration was "a secular understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition", which could not be implemented by Muslims without conflict with Sharia.[55] On 30 June 2000, members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (now the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) officially resolved to support the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam,[56] an alternative document that says people have "freedom and right to a dignified life in accordance with the Islamic Shari'ah", without any discrimination on grounds of "race, colour, language, sex, religious belief, political affiliation, social status or other considerations".
+
+Some Muslim diplomats would go on later to help draft other UN human rights treaties. For example, Iraqi diplomat Bedia Afnan's insistence on wording that recognized gender equality resulted in Article 3 within the ICCPR and ICESCR. Pakistani diplomat Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah also spoke in favour of recognizing women's rights.[54]
+
+A number of scholars in different fields have expressed concerns with the Declaration's alleged Western bias. These include Irene Oh, Abdulaziz Sachedina, Riffat Hassan, and Faisal Kutty. Hassan has argued:
+
+What needs to be pointed out to those who uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to be the highest, or sole, model, of a charter of equality and liberty for all human beings, is that given the Western origin and orientation of this Declaration, the "universality" of the assumptions on which it is based is – at the very least – problematic and subject to questioning. Furthermore, the alleged incompatibility between the concept of human rights and religion in general, or particular religions such as Islam, needs to be examined in an unbiased way.[57]
+
+Irene Oh argues that one solution is to approach the issue from the perspective of comparative (descriptive) ethics.[58]
+
+Kutty writes: "A strong argument can be made that the current formulation of international human rights constitutes a cultural structure in which western society finds itself easily at home ... It is important to acknowledge and appreciate that other societies may have equally valid alternative conceptions of human rights."[59]
+
+Groups such as Amnesty International[60] and War Resisters International[61] have advocated for "The Right to Refuse to Kill" to be added to the Universal Declaration. War Resisters International has stated that the right to conscientious objection to military service is primarily derived from—but not yet explicit in—Article 18 of the UDHR: the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.[61]
+
+Steps have been taken within the United Nations to make this right more explicit, but—to date (2017)—[update]those steps have been limited to less significant United Nations documents. Sean MacBride—Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Nobel Peace Prize laureate—has said: "To the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights one more might, with relevance, be added. It is 'The Right to Refuse to Kill'."[62]
+
+The American Anthropological Association criticized the UDHR while it was in its drafting process. The AAA warned that the document would be defining universal rights from a Western paradigm which would be unfair to countries outside of that scope. They further argued that the West's history of colonialism and evangelism made them a problematic moral representative for the rest of the world. They proposed three notes for consideration with underlying themes of cultural relativism:
+
+During the lead up to the World Conference on Human Rights held in 1993, ministers from Asian states adopted the Bangkok Declaration, reaffirming their governments' commitment to the principles of the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They stated their view of the interdependence and indivisibility of human rights and stressed the need for universality, objectivity, and non-selectivity of human rights. However, at the same time, they emphasised the principles of sovereignty and non-interference, calling for greater emphasis on economic, social, and cultural rights—in particular, the right to economic development by establishing international collaboration directives between the signatories. The Bangkok Declaration is considered to be a landmark expression of the Asian values perspective,[64] which offers an extended critique of human rights universalism.[65]
+
+The declaration does not take an explicit stance on the death penalty. Article 5 states that: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
+
+The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) is nonpartisan, nonsectarian, and independent of any government, and its core mandate is to promote respect for all the rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.[66][67]
+
+In 1988, director Stephen R. Johnson and 41 international animators, musicians, and producers created a 20-minute video for Amnesty International to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration. The video's subject was the Declaration's 30 articles.[68]
+
+Amnesty International celebrated Human Rights Day and the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration all over the world by organizing the "Fire Up!" event.[69]
+
+The Quaker United Nations Office and the American Friends Service Committee work on many human rights issues, including improving education on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They have developed a curriculum to help introduce High School students to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.[70][71]
+
+In 1997, the council of the American Library Association (ALA) endorsed Article 19 from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.[72] Along with Article 19, Article 18 and 20 are also fundamentally tied to the ALA Universal Right to Free Expression and the Library Bill of Rights.[73] Censorship, the invasion of privacy, and interference of opinions are human rights violations according to the ALA.
+
+In response to violations of human rights, the ALA asserts the following principles:
+
+The American Library Association opposes any use of governmental prerogative that leads to intimidation of individuals that prevents them from exercising their rights to hold opinions without interference, and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas. We urge libraries and librarians everywhere to resist such abuse of governmental power, and to support those against whom such governmental power has been employed.
+
+The American Library Association condemns any governmental effort to involve libraries and librarians in restrictions on the right of any individual to hold opinions without interference, and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas. Such restrictions, whether enforced by statutes or regulations, contractual stipulations, or voluntary agreements, pervert the function of the library and violate the professional responsibilities of librarians.
+
+The American Library Association rejects censorship in any form. Any action that denies the inalienable human rights of individuals only damages the will to resist oppression, strengthens the hand of the oppressor, and undermines the cause of justice.
+
+The American Library Association will not abrogate these principles. We believe that censorship corrupts the cause of justice, and contributes to the demise of freedom.[74]
+
+Youth for Human Rights International (YHRI) is a non-profit organization founded in 2001 by Mary Shuttleworth, an educator born and raised in apartheid South Africa, where she witnessed firsthand the effects of discrimination and the lack of basic human rights. The purpose of YHRI is to teach youth about human rights, specifically the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and inspire them to become advocates for tolerance and peace. YHRI has now grown into a global movement, including hundreds of groups, clubs and chapters around the world.[75]
+

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+Coordinates: 51°N 9°E / 51°N 9°E / 51; 9
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+– in Europe (light green & dark grey)– in the European Union (light green)
+
+Germany (German: Deutschland, German pronunciation: [ˈdɔʏtʃlant]), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, listen),[e] is a country in Central and Western Europe. Covering an area of 357,022 square kilometres (137,847 sq mi), it lies between the Baltic and North seas to the north, and the Alps to the south. It borders Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, and France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands to the west.
+
+Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity. A region named Germania was documented before AD 100. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. Following the Napoleonic Wars and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the German Confederation was formed in 1815. In 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic. The Nazi seizure of power in 1933 led to the establishment of a dictatorship, World War II, and the Holocaust. After the end of World War II in Europe and a period of Allied occupation, two new German states were founded: West Germany and East Germany. The Federal Republic of Germany was a founding member of the European Economic Community and the European Union. The country was reunified on 3 October 1990.
+
+Today, Germany is a federal parliamentary republic led by a chancellor. With 83 million inhabitants of its 16 constituent states, it is the second-most populous country in Europe after Russia, as well as the most populous member state of the European Union. Its capital and largest city is Berlin, and its financial centre is Frankfurt; the largest urban area is the Ruhr.
+
+Germany is a great power with a strong economy; it has the largest economy in Europe, the world's fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP, and the fifth-largest by PPP. As a global leader in several industrial and technological sectors, it is both the world's third-largest exporter and importer of goods. A highly developed country with a very high standard of living, it offers social security and a universal health care system, environmental protections, and a tuition-free university education. Germany is also a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G7, the G20, and the OECD. Known for its long and rich cultural history, Germany has many World Heritage sites and is among the top tourism destinations in the world.
+
+The English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine.[10] The German term Deutschland, originally diutisciu land ("the German lands") is derived from deutsch, descended from Old High German diutisc "of the people" (from diot or diota "people"), originally used to distinguish the language of the common people from Latin and its Romance descendants. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz "of the people" (see also the Latinised form Theodiscus), derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- "people", from which the word Teutons also originates.[11]
+
+Ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago.[12] The first non-modern human fossil (the Neanderthal) was discovered in the Neander Valley.[13] Similarly dated evidence of modern humans has been found in the Swabian Jura, including 42,000-year-old flutes which are the oldest musical instruments ever found,[14] the 40,000-year-old Lion Man,[15] and the 35,000-year-old Venus of Hohle Fels.[16] The Nebra sky disk, created during the European Bronze Age, is attributed to a German site.[17]
+
+The Germanic tribes are thought to date from the Nordic Bronze Age or the Pre-Roman Iron Age.[18] From southern Scandinavia and north Germany, they expanded south, east, and west, coming into contact with the Celtic, Iranian, Baltic, and Slavic tribes.[19]
+
+Under Augustus, Rome began to invade Germania. In 9 AD, three Roman legions were defeated by Arminius.[20] By 100 AD, when Tacitus wrote Germania, Germanic tribes had settled along the Rhine and the Danube (the Limes Germanicus), occupying most of modern Germany. However, Baden Württemberg, southern Bavaria, southern Hesse and the western Rhineland had been incorporated into Roman provinces.[21][22][23] Around 260, Germanic peoples broke into Roman-controlled lands.[24] After the invasion of the Huns in 375, and with the decline of Rome from 395, Germanic tribes moved farther southwest: the Franks established the Frankish Kingdom and pushed east to subjugate Saxony and Bavaria, and areas of what is today eastern Germany were inhabited by Western Slavic tribes.[21]
+
+Charlemagne founded the Carolingian Empire in 800; it was divided in 843[25] and the Holy Roman Empire emerged from the eastern portion. The territory initially known as East Francia stretched from the Rhine in the west to the Elbe River in the east and from the North Sea to the Alps.[25] The Ottonian rulers (919–1024) consolidated several major duchies.[26] In 996 Gregory V became the first German Pope, appointed by his cousin Otto III, whom he shortly after crowned Holy Roman Emperor. The Holy Roman Empire absorbed northern Italy and Burgundy under the Salian emperors (1024–1125), although the emperors lost power through the Investiture controversy.[27]
+
+Under the Hohenstaufen emperors (1138–1254), German princes encouraged German settlement to the south and east (Ostsiedlung). Members of the Hanseatic League, mostly north German towns, prospered in the expansion of trade.[28] Population declined starting with the Great Famine in 1315, followed by the Black Death of 1348–50.[29] The Golden Bull issued in 1356 provided the constitutional structure of the Empire and codified the election of the emperor by seven prince-electors.[30]
+
+Johannes Gutenberg introduced moveable-type printing to Europe, laying the basis for the democratization of knowledge.[31] In 1517, Martin Luther incited the Protestant Reformation; the 1555 Peace of Augsburg tolerated the "Evangelical" faith (Lutheranism), but also decreed that the faith of the prince was to be the faith of his subjects (cuius regio, eius religio).[32] From the Cologne War through the Thirty Years' Wars (1618–1648), religious conflict devastated German lands and significantly reduced the population.[33][34]
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+The Peace of Westphalia ended religious warfare among the Imperial Estates;[33] their mostly German-speaking rulers were able to choose Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, or the Reformed faith as their official religion.[35] The legal system initiated by a series of Imperial Reforms (approximately 1495–1555) provided for considerable local autonomy and a stronger Imperial Diet.[36] The House of Habsburg held the imperial crown from 1438 until the death of Charles VI in 1740. Following the War of Austrian Succession and the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Charles VI's daughter Maria Theresa ruled as Empress Consort when her husband, Francis I, became Emperor.[37][38]
+
+From 1740, dualism between the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy and the Kingdom of Prussia dominated German history. In 1772, 1793, and 1795, Prussia and Austria, along with the Russian Empire, agreed to the Partitions of Poland.[39][40] During the period of the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic era and the subsequent final meeting of the Imperial Diet, most of the Free Imperial Cities were annexed by dynastic territories; the ecclesiastical territories were secularised and annexed. In 1806 the Imperium was dissolved; France, Russia, Prussia and the Habsburgs (Austria) competed for hegemony in the German states during the Napoleonic Wars.[41]
+
+Following the fall of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna founded the German Confederation, a loose league of 39 sovereign states. The appointment of the Emperor of Austria as the permanent president reflected the Congress's rejection of Prussia's rising influence. Disagreement within restoration politics partly led to the rise of liberal movements, followed by new measures of repression by Austrian statesman Klemens von Metternich.[42][43] The Zollverein, a tariff union, furthered economic unity.[44] In light of revolutionary movements in Europe, intellectuals and commoners started the revolutions of 1848 in the German states. King Frederick William IV of Prussia was offered the title of Emperor, but with a loss of power; he rejected the crown and the proposed constitution, a temporary setback for the movement.[45]
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+King William I appointed Otto von Bismarck as the Minister President of Prussia in 1862. Bismarck successfully concluded the war with Denmark in 1864; the subsequent decisive Prussian victory in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 enabled him to create the North German Confederation which excluded Austria. After the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War, the German princes proclaimed the founding of the German Empire in 1871. Prussia was the dominant constituent state of the new empire; the King of Prussia ruled as its Kaiser, and Berlin became its capital.[46][47]
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+In the Gründerzeit period following the unification of Germany, Bismarck's foreign policy as Chancellor of Germany secured Germany's position as a great nation by forging alliances and avoiding war.[47] However, under Wilhelm II, Germany took an imperialistic course, leading to friction with neighbouring countries.[48] A dual alliance was created with the multinational realm of Austria-Hungary; the Triple Alliance of 1882 included Italy. Britain, France and Russia also concluded alliances to protect against Habsburg interference with Russian interests in the Balkans or German interference against France.[49] At the Berlin Conference in 1884, Germany claimed several colonies including German East Africa, German South West Africa, Togoland, and Kamerun.[50] Later, Germany further expanded its colonial empire to include holdings in the Pacific and China.[51] The colonial government in South West Africa (present-day Namibia), from 1904 to 1907, carried out the annihilation of the local Herero and Namaqua peoples as punishment for an uprising;[52][53] this was the 20th century's first genocide.[53]
+
+The assassination of Austria's crown prince on 28 June 1914 provided the pretext for Austria-Hungary to attack Serbia and trigger World War I. After four years of warfare, in which approximately two million German soldiers were killed,[54] a general armistice ended the fighting. In the German Revolution (November 1918), Emperor Wilhelm II and the ruling princes abdicated their positions and Germany was declared a federal republic. Germany's new leadership signed the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, accepting defeat by the Allies. Germans perceived the treaty as humiliating, which was seen by historians as influential in the rise of Adolf Hitler.[55] Germany lost around 13% of its European territory and ceded all of its colonial possessions in Africa and the South Sea.[56]
+
+On 11 August 1919, President Friedrich Ebert signed the democratic Weimar Constitution.[57] In the subsequent struggle for power, communists seized power in Bavaria, but conservative elements elsewhere attempted to overthrow the Republic in the Kapp Putsch. Street fighting in the major industrial centres, the occupation of the Ruhr by Belgian and French troops, and a period of hyperinflation followed. A debt restructuring plan and the creation of a new currency in 1924 ushered in the Golden Twenties, an era of artistic innovation and liberal cultural life.[58][59][60]
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+The worldwide Great Depression hit Germany in 1929. Chancellor Heinrich Brüning's government pursued a policy of fiscal austerity and deflation which caused unemployment of nearly 30% by 1932.[61] The Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler won a special election in 1932 and Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933.[62] After the Reichstag fire, a decree abrogated basic civil rights and the first Nazi concentration camp opened.[63][64] The Enabling Act gave Hitler unrestricted legislative power, overriding the constitution;[65] his government established a centralised totalitarian state, withdrew from the League of Nations, and dramatically increased the country's rearmament.[66] A government-sponsored programme for economic renewal focused on public works, the most famous of which was the autobahn.[67]
+
+In 1935, the regime withdrew from the Treaty of Versailles and introduced the Nuremberg Laws which targeted Jews and other minorities.[68] Germany also reacquired control of the Saarland in 1935,[69] remilitarised the Rhineland in 1936, annexed Austria in 1938, annexed the Sudetenland in 1938 with the Munich Agreement, and in violation of the agreement occupied Czechoslovakia in March 1939.[70] Kristallnacht saw the burning of synagogues, the destruction of Jewish businesses, and mass arrests of Jewish people.[71]
+
+In August 1939, Hitler's government negotiated the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact that divided Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence.[72] On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland, beginning World War II in Europe;[73] Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September.[74] In the spring of 1940, Germany conquered Denmark and Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France, forcing the French government to sign an armistice. The British repelled German air attacks in the Battle of Britain in the same year. In 1941, German troops invaded Yugoslavia, Greece and the Soviet Union. By 1942, Germany and her allies controlled most of continental Europe and North Africa, but following the Soviet victory at the Battle of Stalingrad, the allies' reconquest of North Africa and invasion of Italy in 1943, German forces suffered repeated military defeats. In 1944, the Soviets pushed into Eastern Europe; the Western allies landed in France and entered Germany despite a final German counteroffensive. Following Hitler's suicide during the Battle of Berlin, Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945, ending World War II in Europe.[73][75] Following the end of the war, surviving Nazi officials were tried for war crimes at the Nuremberg trials.[76][77]
+
+In what later became known as the Holocaust, the German government persecuted minorities, including interning them in concentration and death camps across Europe. In total 17 million people were systematically murdered, including 6 million Jews, at least 130,000 Romani, 275,000 persons with disabilities, thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses, thousands of homosexuals, and hundreds of thousands of political and religious opponents.[78] Nazi policies in German-occupied countries resulted in the deaths of 2.7 million Poles,[79] 1.3 million Ukrainians, 1 million Belarusians[80] and 3.5 million Soviet prisoners of war.[80][76] German military casualties have been estimated at 5.3 million,[81] and around 900,000 German civilians died.[82] Around 12 million ethnic Germans were expelled from across Eastern Europe, and Germany lost roughly one-quarter of its pre-war territory.[83]
+
+After Nazi Germany surrendered, the Allies partitioned Berlin and Germany's remaining territory into four occupation zones. The western sectors, controlled by France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, were merged on 23 May 1949 to form the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (BRD)); on 7 October 1949, the Soviet Zone became the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR)). They were informally known as West Germany and East Germany.[85] East Germany selected East Berlin as its capital, while West Germany chose Bonn as a provisional capital, to emphasise its stance that the two-state solution was temporary.[86]
+
+West Germany was established as a federal parliamentary republic with a "social market economy". Starting in 1948 West Germany became a major recipient of reconstruction aid under the Marshall Plan.[87] Konrad Adenauer was elected the first Federal Chancellor of Germany in 1949. The country enjoyed prolonged economic growth (Wirtschaftswunder) beginning in the early 1950s.[88] West Germany joined NATO in 1955 and was a founding member of the European Economic Community.[89]
+
+East Germany was an Eastern Bloc state under political and military control by the USSR via occupation forces and the Warsaw Pact. Although East Germany claimed to be a democracy, political power was exercised solely by leading members (Politbüro) of the communist-controlled Socialist Unity Party of Germany, supported by the Stasi, an immense secret service.[90] While East German propaganda was based on the benefits of the GDR's social programmes and the alleged threat of a West German invasion, many of its citizens looked to the West for freedom and prosperity.[91] The Berlin Wall, built in 1961, prevented East German citizens from escaping to West Germany, becoming a symbol of the Cold War.[92]
+
+Tensions between East and West Germany were reduced in the late 1960s by Chancellor Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik.[93] In 1989, Hungary decided to dismantle the Iron Curtain and open its border with Austria, causing the emigration of thousands of East Germans to West Germany via Hungary and Austria. This had devastating effects on the GDR, where regular mass demonstrations received increasing support. In an effort to help retain East Germany as a state, the East German authorities eased border restrictions, but this actually led to an acceleration of the Wende reform process culminating in the Two Plus Four Treaty under which Germany regained full sovereignty. This permitted German reunification on 3 October 1990, with the accession of the five re-established states of the former GDR.[94] The fall of the Wall in 1989 became a symbol of the Fall of Communism, the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, German Reunification and Die Wende.[95]
+
+United Germany was considered the enlarged continuation of West Germany so it retained its memberships in international organisations.[96] Based on the Berlin/Bonn Act (1994), Berlin again became the capital of Germany, while Bonn obtained the unique status of a Bundesstadt (federal city) retaining some federal ministries.[97] The relocation of the government was completed in 1999, and modernisation of the east German economy was scheduled to last until 2019.[98][99]
+
+Since reunification, Germany has taken a more active role in the European Union, signing the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 and the Lisbon Treaty in 2007,[100] and co-founding the Eurozone.[101] Germany sent a peacekeeping force to secure stability in the Balkans and sent German troops to Afghanistan as part of a NATO effort to provide security in that country after the ousting of the Taliban.[102][103]
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+In the 2005 elections, Angela Merkel became the first female chancellor. In 2009 the German government approved a €50 billion stimulus plan.[104] Among the major German political projects of the early 21st century are the advancement of European integration, the energy transition (Energiewende) for a sustainable energy supply, the "Debt Brake" for balanced budgets, measures to increase the fertility rate (pronatalism), and high-tech strategies for the transition of the German economy, summarised as Industry 4.0.[105] Germany was affected by the European migrant crisis in 2015: the country took in over a million migrants and developed a quota system which redistributed migrants around its federal states.[106]
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+Germany is in Western and Central Europe, bordering Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria to the southeast, and Switzerland to the south-southwest. France, Luxembourg and Belgium are situated to the west, with the Netherlands to the northwest. Germany is also bordered by the North Sea and, at the north-northeast, by the Baltic Sea. German territory covers 357,022 km2 (137,847 sq mi), consisting of 348,672 km2 (134,623 sq mi) of land and 8,350 km2 (3,224 sq mi) of water. It is the seventh largest country by area in Europe and the 62nd largest in the world.[4]
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+Elevation ranges from the mountains of the Alps (highest point: the Zugspitze at 2,963 metres or 9,721 feet) in the south to the shores of the North Sea (Nordsee) in the northwest and the Baltic Sea (Ostsee) in the northeast. The forested uplands of central Germany and the lowlands of northern Germany (lowest point: Wilstermarsch at 3.54 metres or 11.6 feet below sea level) are traversed by such major rivers as the Rhine, Danube and Elbe. Significant natural resources include iron ore, coal, potash, timber, lignite, uranium, copper, natural gas, salt, and nickel.[4]
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+Most of Germany has a temperate climate, ranging from oceanic in the north to continental in the east and southeast. Winters range from cold in the southern Alps to mild and are generally overcast with limited precipitation, while summers can vary from hot and dry to cool and rainy. The northern regions have prevailing westerly winds that bring in moist air from the North Sea, moderating the temperature and increasing precipitation. Conversely, the southeast regions have more extreme temperatures.[107]
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+From February 2019–2020, average monthly temperatures in Germany ranged from a low of 3.3 °C (37.9 °F) in January 2020 to a high of 19.8 °C (67.6 °F) in June 2019.[108] Average monthly precipitation ranged from 30 litres per square metre in February and April 2019 to 125 litres per square metre in February 2020.[109] Average monthly hours of sunshine ranged from 45 in November 2019 to 300 in June 2019.[110]
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+The territory of Germany can be divided into two ecoregions: European-Mediterranean montane mixed forests and Northeast-Atlantic shelf marine.[111] As of 2016[update] 51% of Germany's land area is devoted to agriculture, while 30% is forested and 14% is covered by settlements or infrastructure.[112]
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+Plants and animals include those generally common to Central Europe. According to the National Forest Inventory, beeches, oaks, and other deciduous trees constitute just over 40% of the forests; roughly 60% are conifers, particularly spruce and pine.[113] There are many species of ferns, flowers, fungi, and mosses. Wild animals include roe deer, wild boar, mouflon (a subspecies of wild sheep), fox, badger, hare, and small numbers of the Eurasian beaver.[114] The blue cornflower was once a German national symbol.[115]
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+The 16 national parks in Germany include the Jasmund National Park, the Vorpommern Lagoon Area National Park, the Müritz National Park, the Wadden Sea National Parks, the Harz National Park, the Hainich National Park, the Black Forest National Park, the Saxon Switzerland National Park, the Bavarian Forest National Park and the Berchtesgaden National Park.[116] In addition, there are 17 Biosphere Reserves[117] and 105 nature parks.[118] More than 400 zoos and animal parks operate in Germany.[119] The Berlin Zoo, which opened in 1844, is the oldest in Germany, and claims the most comprehensive collection of species in the world.[120]
+
+Germany is a federal, parliamentary, representative democratic republic. Federal legislative power is vested in the parliament consisting of the Bundestag (Federal Diet) and Bundesrat (Federal Council), which together form the legislative body. The Bundestag is elected through direct elections: half by majority vote and half by proportional representation. The members of the Bundesrat represent and are appointed by the governments of the sixteen federated states.[4] The German political system operates under a framework laid out in the 1949 constitution known as the Grundgesetz (Basic Law). Amendments generally require a two-thirds majority of both the Bundestag and the Bundesrat; the fundamental principles of the constitution, as expressed in the articles guaranteeing human dignity, the separation of powers, the federal structure, and the rule of law, are valid in perpetuity.[121]
+
+The president, currently Frank-Walter Steinmeier, is the head of state and invested primarily with representative responsibilities and powers. He is elected by the Bundesversammlung (federal convention), an institution consisting of the members of the Bundestag and an equal number of state delegates.[4] The second-highest official in the German order of precedence is the Bundestagspräsident (president of the Bundestag), who is elected by the Bundestag and responsible for overseeing the daily sessions of the body.[122] The third-highest official and the head of government is the chancellor, who is appointed by the Bundespräsident after being elected by the party or coalition with the most seats in the Bundestag.[4] The chancellor, currently Angela Merkel, is the head of government and exercises executive power through their Cabinet.[4]
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+Since 1949, the party system has been dominated by the Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democratic Party of Germany. So far every chancellor has been a member of one of these parties. However, the smaller liberal Free Democratic Party and the Alliance '90/The Greens have also achieved some success. Since 2007, the left-wing populist party The Left has been a staple in the German Bundestag, though they have never been part of the federal government. In the 2017 German federal election, the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany gained enough votes to attain representation in the parliament for the first time.[123][124]
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+Germany comprises sixteen federal states which are collectively referred to as Bundesländer.[125] Each state has its own state constitution,[126] and is largely autonomous in regard to its internal organisation. As of 2017[update] Germany is divided into 401 districts (Kreise) at a municipal level; these consist of 294 rural districts and 107 urban districts.[127]
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+Germany has a civil law system based on Roman law with some references to Germanic law.[131] The Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) is the German Supreme Court responsible for constitutional matters, with power of judicial review.[132] Germany's supreme court system is specialised: for civil and criminal cases, the highest court of appeal is the inquisitorial Federal Court of Justice, and for other affairs the courts are the Federal Labour Court, the Federal Social Court, the Federal Finance Court and the Federal Administrative Court.[133]
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+Criminal and private laws are codified on the national level in the Strafgesetzbuch and the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch respectively. The German penal system seeks the rehabilitation of the criminal and the protection of the public.[134] Except for petty crimes, which are tried before a single professional judge, and serious political crimes, all charges are tried before mixed tribunals on which lay judges (Schöffen) sit side by side with professional judges.[135][136]
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+Germany has a low murder rate with 1.18 murders per 100,000 as of 2016[update].[137] In 2018, the overall crime rate fell to its lowest since 1992.[138]
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+Germany has a network of 227 diplomatic missions abroad[140] and maintains relations with more than 190 countries.[141]  Germany is a member of NATO, the OECD, the G8, the G20, the World Bank and the IMF. It has played an influential role in the European Union since its inception and has maintained a strong alliance with France and all neighbouring countries since 1990. Germany promotes the creation of a more unified European political, economic and security apparatus.[142][143][144] The governments of Germany and the United States are close political allies.[145] Cultural ties and economic interests have crafted a bond between the two countries resulting in Atlanticism.[146]
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+The development policy of Germany is an independent area of foreign policy. It is formulated by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and carried out by the implementing organisations. The German government sees development policy as a joint responsibility of the international community.[147] It was the world's second biggest aid donor in 2019 after the United States.[148]
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+Germany's military, the Bundeswehr, is organised into the Heer (Army and special forces KSK), Marine (Navy), Luftwaffe (Air Force), Zentraler Sanitätsdienst der Bundeswehr (Joint Medical Service) and Streitkräftebasis (Joint Support Service) branches. In absolute terms, German military expenditure is the 8th highest in the world.[149] In 2018, military spending was at $49.5 billion, about 1.2% of the country's GDP, well below the NATO target of 2%.[150]
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+As of January 2020[update], the Bundeswehr has a strength of 184,001 active soldiers and 80,947 civilians.[151] Reservists are available to the armed forces and participate in defence exercises and deployments abroad.[152] Until 2011, military service was compulsory for men at age 18, but this has been officially suspended and replaced with a voluntary service.[153][154] Since 2001 women may serve in all functions of service without restriction.[155] According to SIPRI, Germany was the fourth largest exporter of major arms in the world from 2014 to 2018.[156]
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+In peacetime, the Bundeswehr is commanded by the Minister of Defence. In state of defence, the Chancellor would become commander-in-chief of the Bundeswehr.[157] The role of the Bundeswehr is described in the Constitution of Germany as defensive only. But after a ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court in 1994 the term "defence" has been defined to not only include protection of the borders of Germany, but also crisis reaction and conflict prevention, or more broadly as guarding the security of Germany anywhere in the world. As of 2017[update], the German military has about 3,600 troops stationed in foreign countries as part of international peacekeeping forces, including about 1,200 supporting operations against Daesh, 980 in the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, and 800 in Kosovo.[158]
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+Germany has a social market economy with a highly skilled labour force, a low level of corruption, and a high level of innovation.[4][160][161] It is the world's third largest exporter of goods,[4] and has the largest national economy in Europe which is also the world's fourth largest by nominal GDP[162] and the fifth by PPP.[163] Its GDP per capita measured in purchasing power standards amounts to 121% of the EU27 average (100%).[164] The service sector contributes approximately 69% of the total GDP, industry 31%, and agriculture 1% as of 2017[update].[4] The unemployment rate published by Eurostat amounts to 3.2% as of January 2020[update], which is the fourth-lowest in the EU.[165]
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+Germany is part of the European single market which represents more than 450 million consumers.[166] In 2017, the country accounted for 28% of the Eurozone economy according to the International Monetary Fund.[167] Germany introduced the common European currency, the Euro, in 2002.[168] Its monetary policy is set by the European Central Bank, which is headquartered in Frankfurt.[169][159]
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+Being home to the modern car, the automotive industry in Germany is regarded as one of the most competitive and innovative in the world,[170] and is the fourth largest by production.[171] The top 10 exports of Germany are vehicles, machinery, chemical goods, electronic products, electrical equipments, pharmaceuticals, transport equipments, basic metals, food products, and rubber and plastics.[172] Germany is one of the largest exporters globally.[173]
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+Of the world's 500 largest stock-market-listed companies measured by revenue in 2019, the Fortune Global 500, 29 are headquartered in Germany.[174] 30 major Germany-based companies are included in the DAX, the German stock market index which is operated by Frankfurt Stock Exchange.[175] Well-known international brands include Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Volkswagen, Audi, Siemens, Allianz, Adidas, Porsche, Bosch and Deutsche Telekom.[176] Berlin is a hub for startup companies and has become the leading location for venture capital funded firms in the European Union.[177] Germany is recognised for its large portion of specialised small and medium enterprises, known as the Mittelstand model.[178] These companies represent 48% global market leaders in their segments, labelled Hidden Champions.[179]
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+Research and development efforts form an integral part of the German economy.[180] In 2018 Germany ranked fourth globally in terms of number of science and engineering research papers published.[181] Research institutions in Germany include the Max Planck Society, the Helmholtz Association, and the Fraunhofer Society and the Leibniz Association.[182] Germany is the largest contributor to the European Space Agency.[183]
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+With its central position in Europe, Germany is a transport hub for the continent.[184] Its road network is among the densest in Europe.[185] The motorway (Autobahn) is widely known for having no federally mandated speed limit for some classes of vehicles.[186] The InterCityExpress or ICE train network serves major German cities as well as destinations in neighbouring countries with speeds up to 300 km/h (190 mph).[187] The largest German airports are Frankfurt Airport and Munich Airport.[188] The Port of Hamburg is one of the top twenty largest container ports in the world.[189]
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+In 2015[update], Germany was the world's seventh-largest consumer of energy.[190] The government and the nuclear power industry agreed to phase out all nuclear power plants by 2021.[191] It meets the country's power demands using 40% renewable sources.[192] Germany is committed to the Paris Agreement and several other treaties promoting biodiversity, low emission standards, and water management.[193][194][195] The country's household recycling rate is among the highest in the world—at around 65%.[196] Nevertheless, the country's total greenhouse gas emissions were the highest in the EU in 2017[update].[197] The German energy transition (Energiewende) is the recognised move to a sustainable economy by means of energy efficiency and renewable energy.[198]
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+Germany is the ninth most visited country in the world as of 2017[update], with 37.4 million visits.[199] Berlin has become the third most visited city destination in Europe.[200] Domestic and international travel and tourism combined directly contribute over €105.3 billion to German GDP. Including indirect and induced impacts, the industry supports 4.2 million jobs.[201]
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+Germany's most visited and popular landmarks include Cologne Cathedral, the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, the Dresden Frauenkirche, Neuschwanstein Castle, Heidelberg Castle, the Wartburg, and Sanssouci Palace.[202] The Europa-Park near Freiburg is Europe's second most popular theme park resort.[203]
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+With a population of 80.2 million according to the 2011 census,[204] rising to 83.1 million as of 2019[update],[5] Germany is the most populous country in the European Union, the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the 19th most populous country in the world. Its population density stands at 227 inhabitants per square kilometre (588 per square mile). The overall life expectancy in Germany at birth is 80.19 years (77.93 years for males and 82.58 years for females).[4] The fertility rate of 1.41 children born per woman (2011 estimates) is below the replacement rate of 2.1 and is one of the lowest fertility rates in the world.[4] Since the 1970s, Germany's death rate has exceeded its birth rate. However, Germany is witnessing increased birth rates and migration rates since the beginning of the 2010s, particularly a rise in the number of well-educated migrants. Germany has the third oldest population in the world, with the average age of 47.4 years.[4]
+
+Four sizeable groups of people are referred to as "national minorities" because their ancestors have lived in their respective regions for centuries:[205] There is a Danish minority in the northernmost state of Schleswig-Holstein;[205] the Sorbs, a Slavic population, are in the Lusatia region of Saxony and Brandenburg.; the Roma and Sinti live throughout the country; and the Frisians are concentrated in Schleswig-Holstein's western coast and in the north-western part of Lower Saxony.[205]
+
+After the United States, Germany is the second most popular immigration destination in the world. The majority of migrants live in western Germany, in particular in urban areas. Of the country's residents, 18.6 million people (22.5%) were of immigrant or partially immigrant descent in 2016 (including persons descending or partially descending from ethnic German repatriates).[206] In 2015, the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs listed Germany as host to the second-highest number of international migrants worldwide, about 5% or 12 million of all 244 million migrants.[207] As of 2018[update], Germany ranks fifth amongst EU countries in terms of the percentage of migrants in the country's population, at 12.9%.[208]
+
+Germany has a number of large cities. There are 11 officially recognised metropolitan regions. The country's largest city is Berlin, while its largest urban area is the Ruhr.[209]
+
+The 2011 German Census showed Christianity as the largest religion in Germany, with 66.8% identified themselves as Christian, with 3.8% of those not being church members.[210] 31.7% declared themselves as Protestants, including members of the Evangelical Church in Germany (which encompasses Lutheran, Reformed and administrative or confessional unions of both traditions) and the free churches (German: Evangelische Freikirchen); 31.2% declared themselves as Roman Catholics, and Orthodox believers constituted 1.3%. According to data from 2016, the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church claimed 28.5% and 27.5%, respectively, of the population.[211][212] Islam is the second largest religion in the country.[213] In the 2011 census, 1.9% of the census population (1.52 million people) gave their religion as Islam, but this figure is deemed unreliable because a disproportionate number of adherents of this religion (and other religions, such as Judaism) are likely to have made use of their right not to answer the question.[214] Most of the Muslims are Sunnis and Alevites from Turkey, but there are a small number of Shi'ites, Ahmadiyyas and other denominations. Other religions comprise less than one percent of Germany's population.[213]
+
+A study in 2018 estimated that 38% of the population are not members of any religious organization or denomination,[215] though up to a third may still consider themselves religious. Irreligion in Germany is strongest in the former East Germany, which used to be predominantly Protestant before state atheism, and in major metropolitan areas.[216][217]
+
+German is the official and predominant spoken language in Germany.[218] It is one of 24 official and working languages of the European Union, and one of the three procedural languages of the European Commission.[219] German is the most widely spoken first language in the European Union, with around 100 million native speakers.[220]
+
+Recognised native minority languages in Germany are Danish, Low German, Low Rhenish, Sorbian, Romany, North Frisian and Saterland Frisian; they are officially protected by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. The most used immigrant languages are Turkish, Arabic, Kurdish, Polish, the Balkan languages and Russian. Germans are typically multilingual: 67% of German citizens claim to be able to communicate in at least one foreign language and 27% in at least two.[218]
+
+Responsibility for educational supervision in Germany is primarily organised within the individual federal states. Optional kindergarten education is provided for all children between three and six years old, after which school attendance is compulsory for at least nine years. Primary education usually lasts for four to six years.[221] Secondary schooling is divided into tracks based on whether students pursue academic or vocational education.[222] A system of apprenticeship called Duale Ausbildung leads to a skilled qualification which is almost comparable to an academic degree. It allows students in vocational training to learn in a company as well as in a state-run trade school.[221] This model is well regarded and reproduced all around the world.[223]
+
+Most of the German universities are public institutions, and students traditionally study without fee payment.[224] The general requirement for university is the Abitur. According to an OECD report in 2014, Germany is the world's third leading destination for international study.[225] The established universities in Germany include some of the oldest in the world, with Heidelberg University (established in 1386) being the oldest.[226] The Humboldt University of Berlin, founded in 1810 by the liberal educational reformer Wilhelm von Humboldt, became the academic model for many Western universities.[227][228] In the contemporary era Germany has developed eleven Universities of Excellence.
+
+Germany's system of hospitals, called Krankenhäuser, dates from medieval times, and today, Germany has the world's oldest universal health care system, dating from Bismarck's social legislation of the 1880s.[230] Since the 1880s, reforms and provisions have ensured a balanced health care system. The population is covered by a health insurance plan provided by statute, with criteria allowing some groups to opt for a private health insurance contract. According to the World Health Organization, Germany's health care system was 77% government-funded and 23% privately funded as of 2013[update].[231] In 2014, Germany spent 11.3% of its GDP on health care.[232]
+
+Germany ranked 20th in the world in 2013 in life expectancy with 77 years for men and 82 years for women, and it had a very low infant mortality rate (4 per 1,000 live births). In 2019[update], the principal cause of death was cardiovascular disease, at 37%.[233] Obesity in Germany has been increasingly cited as a major health issue. A 2014 study showed that 52 percent of the adult German population was overweight or obese.[234]
+
+Culture in German states has been shaped by major intellectual and popular currents in Europe, both religious and secular. Historically, Germany has been called Das Land der Dichter und Denker ("the land of poets and thinkers"),[235] because of the major role its writers and philosophers have played in the development of Western thought.[236] A global opinion poll for the BBC revealed that Germany is recognised for having the most positive influence in the world in 2013 and 2014.[237][238]
+
+Germany is well known for such folk festival traditions as Oktoberfest and Christmas customs, which include Advent wreaths, Christmas pageants, Christmas trees, Stollen cakes, and other practices.[239][240] As of 2016[update] UNESCO inscribed 41 properties in Germany on the World Heritage List.[241] There are a number of public holidays in Germany determined by each state; 3 October has been a national day of Germany since 1990, celebrated as the Tag der Deutschen Einheit (German Unity Day).[242]
+
+German classical music includes works by some of the world's most well-known composers. Dieterich Buxtehude, Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Friedrich Händel were influential composers of the Baroque period. Ludwig van Beethoven was a crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras. Carl Maria von Weber, Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms were significant Romantic composers. Richard Wagner was known for his operas. Richard Strauss was a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. Karlheinz Stockhausen and Wolfgang Rihm are important composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries.[243]
+
+As of 2013, Germany was the second largest music market in Europe, and fourth largest in the world.[244] German popular music of the 20th and 21st centuries includes the movements of Neue Deutsche Welle, pop, Ostrock, heavy metal/rock, punk, pop rock, indie and schlager pop. German electronic music gained global influence, with Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream pioneering in this genre.[245] DJs and artists of the techno and house music scenes of Germany have become well known (e.g. Paul van Dyk, Paul Kalkbrenner, and Scooter).[246]
+
+German painters have influenced western art. Albrecht Dürer, Hans Holbein the Younger, Matthias Grünewald and Lucas Cranach the Elder were important German artists of the Renaissance, Peter Paul Rubens and Johann Baptist Zimmermann of the Baroque, Caspar David Friedrich and Carl Spitzweg of Romanticism, Max Liebermann of Impressionism and Max Ernst of Surrealism. Several German art groups formed in the 20th century; Die Brücke (The Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) influenced the development of expressionism in Munich and Berlin. The New Objectivity arose in response to expressionism during the Weimar Republic. After World War II, broad trends in German art include neo-expressionism and the New Leipzig School.[247]
+
+Architectural contributions from Germany include the Carolingian and Ottonian styles, which were precursors of Romanesque. Brick Gothic is a distinctive medieval style that evolved in Germany. Also in Renaissance and Baroque art, regional and typically German elements evolved (e.g. Weser Renaissance).[247] Vernacular architecture in Germany is often identified by its timber framing (Fachwerk) traditions and varies across regions, and among carpentry styles.[248] When industrialisation spread across Europe, Classicism and a distinctive style of historism developed in Germany, sometimes referred to as Gründerzeit style. Expressionist architecture developed in the 1910s in Germany and influenced Art Deco and other modern styles. Germany was particularly important in the early modernist movement: it is the home of Werkbund initiated by Hermann Muthesius (New Objectivity), and of the Bauhaus movement founded by Walter Gropius.[247] Ludwig Mies van der Rohe became one of the world's most renowned architects in the second half of the 20th century; he conceived of the glass façade skyscraper.[249] Renowned contemporary architects and offices include Pritzker Prize winners Gottfried Böhm and Frei Otto.[250]
+
+German designers became early leaders of modern product design.[251] The Berlin Fashion Week and the fashion trade fair Bread & Butter are held twice a year.[252]
+
+German literature can be traced back to the Middle Ages and the works of writers such as Walther von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von Eschenbach. Well-known German authors include Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Theodor Fontane. The collections of folk tales published by the Brothers Grimm popularised German folklore on an international level.[253] The Grimms also gathered and codified regional variants of the German language, grounding their work in historical principles; their Deutsches Wörterbuch, or German Dictionary, sometimes called the Grimm dictionary, was begun in 1838 and the first volumes published in 1854.[254]
+
+Influential authors of the 20th century include Gerhart Hauptmann, Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass.[255] The German book market is the third largest in the world, after the United States and China.[256] The Frankfurt Book Fair is the most important in the world for international deals and trading, with a tradition spanning over 500 years.[257] The Leipzig Book Fair also retains a major position in Europe.[258]
+
+German philosophy is historically significant: Gottfried Leibniz's contributions to rationalism; the enlightenment philosophy by Immanuel Kant; the establishment of classical German idealism by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling; Arthur Schopenhauer's composition of metaphysical pessimism; the formulation of communist theory by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels; Friedrich Nietzsche's development of perspectivism; Gottlob Frege's contributions to the dawn of analytic philosophy; Martin Heidegger's works on Being; Oswald Spengler's historical philosophy; the development of the Frankfurt School has been particularly influential.[259]
+
+The largest internationally operating media companies in Germany are the Bertelsmann enterprise, Axel Springer SE and ProSiebenSat.1 Media. Germany's television market is the largest in Europe, with some 38 million TV households.[260] Around 90% of German households have cable or satellite TV, with a variety of free-to-view public and commercial channels.[261] There are more than 300 public and private radio stations in Germany; Germany's national radio network is the Deutschlandradio and the public Deutsche Welle is the main German radio and television broadcaster in foreign languages.[261]  Germany's print market of newspapers and magazines is the largest in Europe.[261] The papers with the highest circulation are Bild, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Die Welt.[261] The largest magazines include ADAC Motorwelt and Der Spiegel.[261] Germany has a large video gaming market, with over 34 million players nationwide.[262]
+
+German cinema has made major technical and artistic contributions to film. The first works of the Skladanowsky Brothers were shown to an audience in 1895. The renowned Babelsberg Studio in Potsdam was established in 1912, thus being the first large-scale film studio in the world. Early German cinema was particularly influential with German expressionists such as Robert Wiene and Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau. Director Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) is referred to as the first major science-fiction film. After 1945, many of the films of the immediate post-war period can be characterised as Trümmerfilm (rubble film). East German film was dominated by state-owned film studio DEFA, while the dominant genre in West Germany was the Heimatfilm ("homeland film").[263] During the 1970s and 1980s, New German Cinema directors such as Volker Schlöndorff, Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder brought West German auteur cinema to critical acclaim.
+
+The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film ("Oscar") went to the German production Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum) in 1979, to Nirgendwo in Afrika (Nowhere in Africa) in 2002, and to Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) in 2007. Various Germans won an Oscar for their performances in other films. The annual European Film Awards ceremony is held every other year in Berlin, home of the European Film Academy. The Berlin International Film Festival, known as "Berlinale", awarding the "Golden Bear" and held annually since 1951, is one of the world's leading film festivals. The "Lolas" are annually awarded in Berlin, at the German Film Awards.[264]
+
+German cuisine varies from region to region and often neighbouring regions share some culinary similarities (e.g. the southern regions of Bavaria and Swabia share some traditions with Switzerland and Austria). International varieties such as pizza, sushi, Chinese food, Greek food, Indian cuisine and doner kebab are also popular.
+
+Bread is a significant part of German cuisine and German bakeries produce about 600 main types of bread and 1,200 types of pastries and rolls (Brötchen).[265] German cheeses account for about 22% of all cheese produced in Europe.[266] In 2012 over 99% of all meat produced in Germany was either pork, chicken or beef. Germans produce their ubiquitous sausages in almost 1,500 varieties, including Bratwursts and Weisswursts.[267] Although wine is becoming more popular in many parts of Germany, especially close to German wine regions,[268] the national alcoholic drink is beer. German beer consumption per person stands at 110 litres (24 imp gal; 29 US gal) in 2013 and remains among the highest in the world.[269] German beer purity regulations date back to the 16th century.[270]
+
+The 2018 Michelin Guide awarded eleven restaurants in Germany three stars, giving the country a cumulative total of 300 stars.[271]
+
+Football is the most popular sport in Germany. With more than 7 million official members, the German Football Association (Deutscher Fußball-Bund) is the largest single-sport organisation worldwide,[272] and the German top league, the Bundesliga, attracts the second highest average attendance of all professional sports leagues in the world.[273] The German men's national football team won the FIFA World Cup in 1954, 1974, 1990, and 2014,[274] the UEFA European Championship in 1972, 1980 and 1996,[275] and the FIFA Confederations Cup in 2017.[276]
+
+Germany is one of the leading motor sports countries in the world. Constructors like BMW and Mercedes are prominent manufacturers in motor sport. Porsche has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans race 19 times, and Audi 13 times (as of 2017[update]). The driver Michael Schumacher has set many motor sport records during his career, having won seven Formula One World Drivers' Championships.[277] Sebastian Vettel is also among the top five most successful Formula One drivers of all time.[278]
+
+Historically, German athletes have been successful contenders in the Olympic Games, ranking third in an all-time Olympic Games medal count (when combining East and West German medals). Germany was the last country to host both the summer and winter games in the same year, in 1936: the Berlin Summer Games and the Winter Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.[279] Munich hosted the Summer Games of 1972.[280]

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+
+
+The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a historic document that was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly at its third session on 10 December 1948 as Resolution 217 at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, France. Of the then 58 members of the United Nations, 48 voted in favour, none against, eight abstained, and two did not vote.[1]
+
+The Declaration consists of 30 articles affirming an individual's rights which, although not legally binding in themselves, have been elaborated in subsequent international treaties, economic transfers, regional human rights instruments, national constitutions, and other laws. The Declaration was the first step in the process of formulating the International Bill of Human Rights, which was completed in 1966, and came into force in 1976, after a sufficient number of countries had ratified them.
+
+Some legal scholars have argued that because countries have constantly invoked the Declaration for more than 50 years, it has become binding as a part of customary international law.[2][3] However, in the United States, the Supreme Court in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain (2004), concluded that the Declaration "does not of its own force impose obligations as a matter of international law."[4] Courts of other countries have also concluded that the Declaration is not in and of itself part of domestic law.[5]
+
+The underlying structure of the Universal Declaration was introduced in its second draft, which was prepared by René Cassin. Cassin worked from a first draft, which was prepared by John Peters Humphrey. The structure was influenced by the Code Napoléon, including a preamble and introductory general principles.[6] Cassin compared the Declaration to the portico of a Greek temple, with a foundation, steps, four columns, and a pediment.
+
+The Declaration consists of a preamble and thirty articles:
+
+These articles are concerned with the duty of the individual to society and the prohibition of the use of rights in contravention of the purposes of the United Nations Organisation.[8]
+
+During World War II, the Allies adopted the Four Freedoms—freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from fear, and freedom from want—as their basic war aims.[9][10] The United Nations Charter "reaffirmed faith in fundamental human rights, and dignity and worth of the human person" and committed all member states to promote "universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion".[11]
+
+When the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany became fully apparent after World War II, the consensus within the world community was that the United Nations Charter did not sufficiently define the rights to which it referred.[12][13] A universal declaration that specified the rights of individuals was necessary to give effect to the Charter's provisions on human rights.[14]
+
+In June 1946, the UN Economic and Social Council established the Commission on Human Rights, comprising 18 members from various nationalities and political backgrounds. The Commission, a standing body of the United Nations, was constituted to undertake the work of preparing what was initially conceived as an International Bill of Rights.[15]
+
+The Commission established a special Universal Declaration of Human Rights Drafting Committee, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, to write the articles of the Declaration. The Committee met in two sessions over the course of two years.
+
+Canadian John Peters Humphrey, Director of the Division of Human Rights within the United Nations Secretariat, was called upon by the United Nations Secretary-General to work on the project and became the Declaration's principal drafter.[16] At the time, Humphrey was newly appointed as Director of the Division of Human Rights within the United Nations Secretariat.[17]
+
+Other well-known members of the drafting committee included René Cassin of France, Charles Malik of Lebanon, and P. C. Chang of the Republic of China.[18] Humphrey provided the initial draft that became the working text of the Commission.
+
+Hansa Mehta of India suggested adding "all human beings are created equal" instead of "all men are created equal" in the declaration.
+
+According to Allan Carlson, the Declaration's pro-family phrases were the result of the Christian Democratic movement's influence on Cassin and Malik.[19]
+
+Once the Committee finished its work in May 1948, the draft was further discussed by the Commission on Human Rights, the Economic and Social Council, the Third Committee of the General Assembly before being put to vote in December 1948. During these discussions many amendments and propositions were made by UN Member States.[20]
+
+British representatives were extremely frustrated that the proposal had moral but no legal obligation.[21] (It was not until 1976 that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights came into force, giving a legal status to most of the Declaration.)
+
+The Universal Declaration was adopted by the General Assembly as Resolution 217 on 10 December 1948 in Palais de Chaillot, Paris, as the third United Nations General Assembly was held there.[22] Of the then 58 members[23] of the United Nations, 48 voted in favour, none against, eight abstained[24][25] and Honduras and Yemen failed to vote or abstain.[26]
+
+The meeting record[27] provides firsthand insight into the debate. South Africa's position can be seen as an attempt to protect its system of apartheid, which clearly violated several articles in the Declaration.[24] The Saudi Arabian delegation's abstention was prompted primarily by two of the Declaration's articles: Article 18, which states that everyone has the right "to change his religion or belief"; and Article 16, on equal marriage rights.[24] The six communist countries abstentions centred around the view that the Declaration did not go far enough in condemning fascism and Nazism.[28] Eleanor Roosevelt attributed the abstention of Soviet bloc countries to Article 13, which provided the right of citizens to leave their countries.[29]
+
+The 48 countries that voted in favour of the Declaration are:[30]
+
+Eight countries abstained:[30]
+
+Two countries did not vote:
+
+Other countries only gained sovereignty and joined the United Nations later,[32] which explains the relatively small number of states entitled to the historical vote.
+
+The Declaration of Human Rights Day is commemorated every year on December 10, the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration, and is known as Human Rights Day or International Human Rights Day. The commemoration is observed by individuals, community and religious groups, human rights organizations, parliaments, governments, and the United Nations. Decadal commemorations are often accompanied by campaigns to promote awareness of the Declaration and human rights. 2008 marked the 60th anniversary of the Declaration, and was accompanied by year-long activities around the theme "Dignity and justice for all of us".[33]
+
+In 1948, the UN Resolution A/RES/217(III)[A] adopted the Declaration on a bilingual document in English and French, and official translations in Chinese, Russian and Spanish.[34] In 2009, the Guinness Book of Records described the Declaration as the world's "Most Translated Document" (370 different languages and dialects).[35][36] The Unicode Consortium stores 431[37] of the 503[38] official translations available at the OHCHR (as of June 2017[update]).
+
+In its preamble, governments commit themselves and their people to progressive measures that secure the universal and effective recognition and observance of the human rights set out in the Declaration. Eleanor Roosevelt supported the adoption of the Declaration as a declaration rather than as a treaty because she believed that it would have the same kind of influence on global society as the United States Declaration of Independence had within the United States.[39] Even though it is not legally binding, the Declaration has been adopted in or has influenced most national constitutions since 1948. It has also served as the foundation for a growing number of national laws, international laws, and treaties, as well as for a growing number of regional, sub national, and national institutions protecting and promoting human rights.
+
+For the first time in international law, the term "the rule of law" was used in the preamble of the Declaration. The third paragraph of the preamble of the Declaration reads as follows: "Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law."[40]
+
+While not a treaty itself, the Declaration was explicitly adopted for the purpose of defining the meaning of the words "fundamental freedoms" and "human rights" appearing in the United Nations Charter, which is binding on all member states. For this reason, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a fundamental constitutive document of the United Nations. In addition, many international lawyers[41][42][43][44][45] believe that the Declaration forms part of customary international law[46] and is a powerful tool in applying diplomatic and moral pressure to governments that violate any of its articles. The 1968 United Nations International Conference on Human Rights advised that the Declaration "constitutes an obligation for the members of the international community" to all persons. The Declaration has served as the foundation for two binding UN human rights covenants: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The principles of the Declaration are elaborated in international treaties such as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and many more. The Declaration continues to be widely cited by governments, academics, advocates, and constitutional courts, and by individuals who appeal to its principles for the protection of their recognised human rights.
+
+The Universal Declaration has received praise from a number of notable people. The Lebanese philosopher and diplomat Charles Malik called it "an international document of the first order of importance",[47] while Eleanor Roosevelt—first chairwoman of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) that drafted the Declaration—stated that it "may well become the international Magna Carta of all men everywhere."[48] In a speech on 5 October 1995, Pope John Paul II called the Declaration "one of the highest expressions of the human conscience of our time" but the Vatican never adopted the Declaration.[49] In a statement on 10 December 2003 on behalf of the European Union, Marcello Spatafora said that the Declaration "placed human rights at the centre of the framework of principles and obligations shaping relations within the international community."[50]
+
+Turkey, a secular state with an overwhelmingly Muslim population, signed the Declaration in 1948.[51] However, the same year, Saudi Arabia abstained from the ratification vote on the Declaration, claiming that it violated Sharia law.[52] Pakistan—which had signed the declaration—disagreed and critiqued the Saudi position.[53] Pakistani minister Muhammad Zafarullah Khan strongly argued in favour of including freedom of religion.[54] In 1982, the Iranian representative to the United Nations, Said Rajaie-Khorassani, said that the Declaration was "a secular understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition", which could not be implemented by Muslims without conflict with Sharia.[55] On 30 June 2000, members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (now the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) officially resolved to support the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam,[56] an alternative document that says people have "freedom and right to a dignified life in accordance with the Islamic Shari'ah", without any discrimination on grounds of "race, colour, language, sex, religious belief, political affiliation, social status or other considerations".
+
+Some Muslim diplomats would go on later to help draft other UN human rights treaties. For example, Iraqi diplomat Bedia Afnan's insistence on wording that recognized gender equality resulted in Article 3 within the ICCPR and ICESCR. Pakistani diplomat Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah also spoke in favour of recognizing women's rights.[54]
+
+A number of scholars in different fields have expressed concerns with the Declaration's alleged Western bias. These include Irene Oh, Abdulaziz Sachedina, Riffat Hassan, and Faisal Kutty. Hassan has argued:
+
+What needs to be pointed out to those who uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to be the highest, or sole, model, of a charter of equality and liberty for all human beings, is that given the Western origin and orientation of this Declaration, the "universality" of the assumptions on which it is based is – at the very least – problematic and subject to questioning. Furthermore, the alleged incompatibility between the concept of human rights and religion in general, or particular religions such as Islam, needs to be examined in an unbiased way.[57]
+
+Irene Oh argues that one solution is to approach the issue from the perspective of comparative (descriptive) ethics.[58]
+
+Kutty writes: "A strong argument can be made that the current formulation of international human rights constitutes a cultural structure in which western society finds itself easily at home ... It is important to acknowledge and appreciate that other societies may have equally valid alternative conceptions of human rights."[59]
+
+Groups such as Amnesty International[60] and War Resisters International[61] have advocated for "The Right to Refuse to Kill" to be added to the Universal Declaration. War Resisters International has stated that the right to conscientious objection to military service is primarily derived from—but not yet explicit in—Article 18 of the UDHR: the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.[61]
+
+Steps have been taken within the United Nations to make this right more explicit, but—to date (2017)—[update]those steps have been limited to less significant United Nations documents. Sean MacBride—Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Nobel Peace Prize laureate—has said: "To the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights one more might, with relevance, be added. It is 'The Right to Refuse to Kill'."[62]
+
+The American Anthropological Association criticized the UDHR while it was in its drafting process. The AAA warned that the document would be defining universal rights from a Western paradigm which would be unfair to countries outside of that scope. They further argued that the West's history of colonialism and evangelism made them a problematic moral representative for the rest of the world. They proposed three notes for consideration with underlying themes of cultural relativism:
+
+During the lead up to the World Conference on Human Rights held in 1993, ministers from Asian states adopted the Bangkok Declaration, reaffirming their governments' commitment to the principles of the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They stated their view of the interdependence and indivisibility of human rights and stressed the need for universality, objectivity, and non-selectivity of human rights. However, at the same time, they emphasised the principles of sovereignty and non-interference, calling for greater emphasis on economic, social, and cultural rights—in particular, the right to economic development by establishing international collaboration directives between the signatories. The Bangkok Declaration is considered to be a landmark expression of the Asian values perspective,[64] which offers an extended critique of human rights universalism.[65]
+
+The declaration does not take an explicit stance on the death penalty. Article 5 states that: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
+
+The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) is nonpartisan, nonsectarian, and independent of any government, and its core mandate is to promote respect for all the rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.[66][67]
+
+In 1988, director Stephen R. Johnson and 41 international animators, musicians, and producers created a 20-minute video for Amnesty International to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration. The video's subject was the Declaration's 30 articles.[68]
+
+Amnesty International celebrated Human Rights Day and the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration all over the world by organizing the "Fire Up!" event.[69]
+
+The Quaker United Nations Office and the American Friends Service Committee work on many human rights issues, including improving education on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They have developed a curriculum to help introduce High School students to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.[70][71]
+
+In 1997, the council of the American Library Association (ALA) endorsed Article 19 from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.[72] Along with Article 19, Article 18 and 20 are also fundamentally tied to the ALA Universal Right to Free Expression and the Library Bill of Rights.[73] Censorship, the invasion of privacy, and interference of opinions are human rights violations according to the ALA.
+
+In response to violations of human rights, the ALA asserts the following principles:
+
+The American Library Association opposes any use of governmental prerogative that leads to intimidation of individuals that prevents them from exercising their rights to hold opinions without interference, and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas. We urge libraries and librarians everywhere to resist such abuse of governmental power, and to support those against whom such governmental power has been employed.
+
+The American Library Association condemns any governmental effort to involve libraries and librarians in restrictions on the right of any individual to hold opinions without interference, and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas. Such restrictions, whether enforced by statutes or regulations, contractual stipulations, or voluntary agreements, pervert the function of the library and violate the professional responsibilities of librarians.
+
+The American Library Association rejects censorship in any form. Any action that denies the inalienable human rights of individuals only damages the will to resist oppression, strengthens the hand of the oppressor, and undermines the cause of justice.
+
+The American Library Association will not abrogate these principles. We believe that censorship corrupts the cause of justice, and contributes to the demise of freedom.[74]
+
+Youth for Human Rights International (YHRI) is a non-profit organization founded in 2001 by Mary Shuttleworth, an educator born and raised in apartheid South Africa, where she witnessed firsthand the effects of discrimination and the lack of basic human rights. The purpose of YHRI is to teach youth about human rights, specifically the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and inspire them to become advocates for tolerance and peace. YHRI has now grown into a global movement, including hundreds of groups, clubs and chapters around the world.[75]
+

en/1471.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,102 @@
+
+
+The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a historic document that was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly at its third session on 10 December 1948 as Resolution 217 at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, France. Of the then 58 members of the United Nations, 48 voted in favour, none against, eight abstained, and two did not vote.[1]
+
+The Declaration consists of 30 articles affirming an individual's rights which, although not legally binding in themselves, have been elaborated in subsequent international treaties, economic transfers, regional human rights instruments, national constitutions, and other laws. The Declaration was the first step in the process of formulating the International Bill of Human Rights, which was completed in 1966, and came into force in 1976, after a sufficient number of countries had ratified them.
+
+Some legal scholars have argued that because countries have constantly invoked the Declaration for more than 50 years, it has become binding as a part of customary international law.[2][3] However, in the United States, the Supreme Court in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain (2004), concluded that the Declaration "does not of its own force impose obligations as a matter of international law."[4] Courts of other countries have also concluded that the Declaration is not in and of itself part of domestic law.[5]
+
+The underlying structure of the Universal Declaration was introduced in its second draft, which was prepared by René Cassin. Cassin worked from a first draft, which was prepared by John Peters Humphrey. The structure was influenced by the Code Napoléon, including a preamble and introductory general principles.[6] Cassin compared the Declaration to the portico of a Greek temple, with a foundation, steps, four columns, and a pediment.
+
+The Declaration consists of a preamble and thirty articles:
+
+These articles are concerned with the duty of the individual to society and the prohibition of the use of rights in contravention of the purposes of the United Nations Organisation.[8]
+
+During World War II, the Allies adopted the Four Freedoms—freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from fear, and freedom from want—as their basic war aims.[9][10] The United Nations Charter "reaffirmed faith in fundamental human rights, and dignity and worth of the human person" and committed all member states to promote "universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion".[11]
+
+When the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany became fully apparent after World War II, the consensus within the world community was that the United Nations Charter did not sufficiently define the rights to which it referred.[12][13] A universal declaration that specified the rights of individuals was necessary to give effect to the Charter's provisions on human rights.[14]
+
+In June 1946, the UN Economic and Social Council established the Commission on Human Rights, comprising 18 members from various nationalities and political backgrounds. The Commission, a standing body of the United Nations, was constituted to undertake the work of preparing what was initially conceived as an International Bill of Rights.[15]
+
+The Commission established a special Universal Declaration of Human Rights Drafting Committee, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, to write the articles of the Declaration. The Committee met in two sessions over the course of two years.
+
+Canadian John Peters Humphrey, Director of the Division of Human Rights within the United Nations Secretariat, was called upon by the United Nations Secretary-General to work on the project and became the Declaration's principal drafter.[16] At the time, Humphrey was newly appointed as Director of the Division of Human Rights within the United Nations Secretariat.[17]
+
+Other well-known members of the drafting committee included René Cassin of France, Charles Malik of Lebanon, and P. C. Chang of the Republic of China.[18] Humphrey provided the initial draft that became the working text of the Commission.
+
+Hansa Mehta of India suggested adding "all human beings are created equal" instead of "all men are created equal" in the declaration.
+
+According to Allan Carlson, the Declaration's pro-family phrases were the result of the Christian Democratic movement's influence on Cassin and Malik.[19]
+
+Once the Committee finished its work in May 1948, the draft was further discussed by the Commission on Human Rights, the Economic and Social Council, the Third Committee of the General Assembly before being put to vote in December 1948. During these discussions many amendments and propositions were made by UN Member States.[20]
+
+British representatives were extremely frustrated that the proposal had moral but no legal obligation.[21] (It was not until 1976 that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights came into force, giving a legal status to most of the Declaration.)
+
+The Universal Declaration was adopted by the General Assembly as Resolution 217 on 10 December 1948 in Palais de Chaillot, Paris, as the third United Nations General Assembly was held there.[22] Of the then 58 members[23] of the United Nations, 48 voted in favour, none against, eight abstained[24][25] and Honduras and Yemen failed to vote or abstain.[26]
+
+The meeting record[27] provides firsthand insight into the debate. South Africa's position can be seen as an attempt to protect its system of apartheid, which clearly violated several articles in the Declaration.[24] The Saudi Arabian delegation's abstention was prompted primarily by two of the Declaration's articles: Article 18, which states that everyone has the right "to change his religion or belief"; and Article 16, on equal marriage rights.[24] The six communist countries abstentions centred around the view that the Declaration did not go far enough in condemning fascism and Nazism.[28] Eleanor Roosevelt attributed the abstention of Soviet bloc countries to Article 13, which provided the right of citizens to leave their countries.[29]
+
+The 48 countries that voted in favour of the Declaration are:[30]
+
+Eight countries abstained:[30]
+
+Two countries did not vote:
+
+Other countries only gained sovereignty and joined the United Nations later,[32] which explains the relatively small number of states entitled to the historical vote.
+
+The Declaration of Human Rights Day is commemorated every year on December 10, the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration, and is known as Human Rights Day or International Human Rights Day. The commemoration is observed by individuals, community and religious groups, human rights organizations, parliaments, governments, and the United Nations. Decadal commemorations are often accompanied by campaigns to promote awareness of the Declaration and human rights. 2008 marked the 60th anniversary of the Declaration, and was accompanied by year-long activities around the theme "Dignity and justice for all of us".[33]
+
+In 1948, the UN Resolution A/RES/217(III)[A] adopted the Declaration on a bilingual document in English and French, and official translations in Chinese, Russian and Spanish.[34] In 2009, the Guinness Book of Records described the Declaration as the world's "Most Translated Document" (370 different languages and dialects).[35][36] The Unicode Consortium stores 431[37] of the 503[38] official translations available at the OHCHR (as of June 2017[update]).
+
+In its preamble, governments commit themselves and their people to progressive measures that secure the universal and effective recognition and observance of the human rights set out in the Declaration. Eleanor Roosevelt supported the adoption of the Declaration as a declaration rather than as a treaty because she believed that it would have the same kind of influence on global society as the United States Declaration of Independence had within the United States.[39] Even though it is not legally binding, the Declaration has been adopted in or has influenced most national constitutions since 1948. It has also served as the foundation for a growing number of national laws, international laws, and treaties, as well as for a growing number of regional, sub national, and national institutions protecting and promoting human rights.
+
+For the first time in international law, the term "the rule of law" was used in the preamble of the Declaration. The third paragraph of the preamble of the Declaration reads as follows: "Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law."[40]
+
+While not a treaty itself, the Declaration was explicitly adopted for the purpose of defining the meaning of the words "fundamental freedoms" and "human rights" appearing in the United Nations Charter, which is binding on all member states. For this reason, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a fundamental constitutive document of the United Nations. In addition, many international lawyers[41][42][43][44][45] believe that the Declaration forms part of customary international law[46] and is a powerful tool in applying diplomatic and moral pressure to governments that violate any of its articles. The 1968 United Nations International Conference on Human Rights advised that the Declaration "constitutes an obligation for the members of the international community" to all persons. The Declaration has served as the foundation for two binding UN human rights covenants: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The principles of the Declaration are elaborated in international treaties such as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and many more. The Declaration continues to be widely cited by governments, academics, advocates, and constitutional courts, and by individuals who appeal to its principles for the protection of their recognised human rights.
+
+The Universal Declaration has received praise from a number of notable people. The Lebanese philosopher and diplomat Charles Malik called it "an international document of the first order of importance",[47] while Eleanor Roosevelt—first chairwoman of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) that drafted the Declaration—stated that it "may well become the international Magna Carta of all men everywhere."[48] In a speech on 5 October 1995, Pope John Paul II called the Declaration "one of the highest expressions of the human conscience of our time" but the Vatican never adopted the Declaration.[49] In a statement on 10 December 2003 on behalf of the European Union, Marcello Spatafora said that the Declaration "placed human rights at the centre of the framework of principles and obligations shaping relations within the international community."[50]
+
+Turkey, a secular state with an overwhelmingly Muslim population, signed the Declaration in 1948.[51] However, the same year, Saudi Arabia abstained from the ratification vote on the Declaration, claiming that it violated Sharia law.[52] Pakistan—which had signed the declaration—disagreed and critiqued the Saudi position.[53] Pakistani minister Muhammad Zafarullah Khan strongly argued in favour of including freedom of religion.[54] In 1982, the Iranian representative to the United Nations, Said Rajaie-Khorassani, said that the Declaration was "a secular understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition", which could not be implemented by Muslims without conflict with Sharia.[55] On 30 June 2000, members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (now the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) officially resolved to support the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam,[56] an alternative document that says people have "freedom and right to a dignified life in accordance with the Islamic Shari'ah", without any discrimination on grounds of "race, colour, language, sex, religious belief, political affiliation, social status or other considerations".
+
+Some Muslim diplomats would go on later to help draft other UN human rights treaties. For example, Iraqi diplomat Bedia Afnan's insistence on wording that recognized gender equality resulted in Article 3 within the ICCPR and ICESCR. Pakistani diplomat Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah also spoke in favour of recognizing women's rights.[54]
+
+A number of scholars in different fields have expressed concerns with the Declaration's alleged Western bias. These include Irene Oh, Abdulaziz Sachedina, Riffat Hassan, and Faisal Kutty. Hassan has argued:
+
+What needs to be pointed out to those who uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to be the highest, or sole, model, of a charter of equality and liberty for all human beings, is that given the Western origin and orientation of this Declaration, the "universality" of the assumptions on which it is based is – at the very least – problematic and subject to questioning. Furthermore, the alleged incompatibility between the concept of human rights and religion in general, or particular religions such as Islam, needs to be examined in an unbiased way.[57]
+
+Irene Oh argues that one solution is to approach the issue from the perspective of comparative (descriptive) ethics.[58]
+
+Kutty writes: "A strong argument can be made that the current formulation of international human rights constitutes a cultural structure in which western society finds itself easily at home ... It is important to acknowledge and appreciate that other societies may have equally valid alternative conceptions of human rights."[59]
+
+Groups such as Amnesty International[60] and War Resisters International[61] have advocated for "The Right to Refuse to Kill" to be added to the Universal Declaration. War Resisters International has stated that the right to conscientious objection to military service is primarily derived from—but not yet explicit in—Article 18 of the UDHR: the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.[61]
+
+Steps have been taken within the United Nations to make this right more explicit, but—to date (2017)—[update]those steps have been limited to less significant United Nations documents. Sean MacBride—Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Nobel Peace Prize laureate—has said: "To the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights one more might, with relevance, be added. It is 'The Right to Refuse to Kill'."[62]
+
+The American Anthropological Association criticized the UDHR while it was in its drafting process. The AAA warned that the document would be defining universal rights from a Western paradigm which would be unfair to countries outside of that scope. They further argued that the West's history of colonialism and evangelism made them a problematic moral representative for the rest of the world. They proposed three notes for consideration with underlying themes of cultural relativism:
+
+During the lead up to the World Conference on Human Rights held in 1993, ministers from Asian states adopted the Bangkok Declaration, reaffirming their governments' commitment to the principles of the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They stated their view of the interdependence and indivisibility of human rights and stressed the need for universality, objectivity, and non-selectivity of human rights. However, at the same time, they emphasised the principles of sovereignty and non-interference, calling for greater emphasis on economic, social, and cultural rights—in particular, the right to economic development by establishing international collaboration directives between the signatories. The Bangkok Declaration is considered to be a landmark expression of the Asian values perspective,[64] which offers an extended critique of human rights universalism.[65]
+
+The declaration does not take an explicit stance on the death penalty. Article 5 states that: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
+
+The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) is nonpartisan, nonsectarian, and independent of any government, and its core mandate is to promote respect for all the rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.[66][67]
+
+In 1988, director Stephen R. Johnson and 41 international animators, musicians, and producers created a 20-minute video for Amnesty International to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration. The video's subject was the Declaration's 30 articles.[68]
+
+Amnesty International celebrated Human Rights Day and the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration all over the world by organizing the "Fire Up!" event.[69]
+
+The Quaker United Nations Office and the American Friends Service Committee work on many human rights issues, including improving education on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They have developed a curriculum to help introduce High School students to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.[70][71]
+
+In 1997, the council of the American Library Association (ALA) endorsed Article 19 from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.[72] Along with Article 19, Article 18 and 20 are also fundamentally tied to the ALA Universal Right to Free Expression and the Library Bill of Rights.[73] Censorship, the invasion of privacy, and interference of opinions are human rights violations according to the ALA.
+
+In response to violations of human rights, the ALA asserts the following principles:
+
+The American Library Association opposes any use of governmental prerogative that leads to intimidation of individuals that prevents them from exercising their rights to hold opinions without interference, and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas. We urge libraries and librarians everywhere to resist such abuse of governmental power, and to support those against whom such governmental power has been employed.
+
+The American Library Association condemns any governmental effort to involve libraries and librarians in restrictions on the right of any individual to hold opinions without interference, and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas. Such restrictions, whether enforced by statutes or regulations, contractual stipulations, or voluntary agreements, pervert the function of the library and violate the professional responsibilities of librarians.
+
+The American Library Association rejects censorship in any form. Any action that denies the inalienable human rights of individuals only damages the will to resist oppression, strengthens the hand of the oppressor, and undermines the cause of justice.
+
+The American Library Association will not abrogate these principles. We believe that censorship corrupts the cause of justice, and contributes to the demise of freedom.[74]
+
+Youth for Human Rights International (YHRI) is a non-profit organization founded in 2001 by Mary Shuttleworth, an educator born and raised in apartheid South Africa, where she witnessed firsthand the effects of discrimination and the lack of basic human rights. The purpose of YHRI is to teach youth about human rights, specifically the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and inspire them to become advocates for tolerance and peace. YHRI has now grown into a global movement, including hundreds of groups, clubs and chapters around the world.[75]
+

en/1472.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,102 @@
+
+
+The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a historic document that was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly at its third session on 10 December 1948 as Resolution 217 at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, France. Of the then 58 members of the United Nations, 48 voted in favour, none against, eight abstained, and two did not vote.[1]
+
+The Declaration consists of 30 articles affirming an individual's rights which, although not legally binding in themselves, have been elaborated in subsequent international treaties, economic transfers, regional human rights instruments, national constitutions, and other laws. The Declaration was the first step in the process of formulating the International Bill of Human Rights, which was completed in 1966, and came into force in 1976, after a sufficient number of countries had ratified them.
+
+Some legal scholars have argued that because countries have constantly invoked the Declaration for more than 50 years, it has become binding as a part of customary international law.[2][3] However, in the United States, the Supreme Court in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain (2004), concluded that the Declaration "does not of its own force impose obligations as a matter of international law."[4] Courts of other countries have also concluded that the Declaration is not in and of itself part of domestic law.[5]
+
+The underlying structure of the Universal Declaration was introduced in its second draft, which was prepared by René Cassin. Cassin worked from a first draft, which was prepared by John Peters Humphrey. The structure was influenced by the Code Napoléon, including a preamble and introductory general principles.[6] Cassin compared the Declaration to the portico of a Greek temple, with a foundation, steps, four columns, and a pediment.
+
+The Declaration consists of a preamble and thirty articles:
+
+These articles are concerned with the duty of the individual to society and the prohibition of the use of rights in contravention of the purposes of the United Nations Organisation.[8]
+
+During World War II, the Allies adopted the Four Freedoms—freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from fear, and freedom from want—as their basic war aims.[9][10] The United Nations Charter "reaffirmed faith in fundamental human rights, and dignity and worth of the human person" and committed all member states to promote "universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion".[11]
+
+When the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany became fully apparent after World War II, the consensus within the world community was that the United Nations Charter did not sufficiently define the rights to which it referred.[12][13] A universal declaration that specified the rights of individuals was necessary to give effect to the Charter's provisions on human rights.[14]
+
+In June 1946, the UN Economic and Social Council established the Commission on Human Rights, comprising 18 members from various nationalities and political backgrounds. The Commission, a standing body of the United Nations, was constituted to undertake the work of preparing what was initially conceived as an International Bill of Rights.[15]
+
+The Commission established a special Universal Declaration of Human Rights Drafting Committee, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, to write the articles of the Declaration. The Committee met in two sessions over the course of two years.
+
+Canadian John Peters Humphrey, Director of the Division of Human Rights within the United Nations Secretariat, was called upon by the United Nations Secretary-General to work on the project and became the Declaration's principal drafter.[16] At the time, Humphrey was newly appointed as Director of the Division of Human Rights within the United Nations Secretariat.[17]
+
+Other well-known members of the drafting committee included René Cassin of France, Charles Malik of Lebanon, and P. C. Chang of the Republic of China.[18] Humphrey provided the initial draft that became the working text of the Commission.
+
+Hansa Mehta of India suggested adding "all human beings are created equal" instead of "all men are created equal" in the declaration.
+
+According to Allan Carlson, the Declaration's pro-family phrases were the result of the Christian Democratic movement's influence on Cassin and Malik.[19]
+
+Once the Committee finished its work in May 1948, the draft was further discussed by the Commission on Human Rights, the Economic and Social Council, the Third Committee of the General Assembly before being put to vote in December 1948. During these discussions many amendments and propositions were made by UN Member States.[20]
+
+British representatives were extremely frustrated that the proposal had moral but no legal obligation.[21] (It was not until 1976 that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights came into force, giving a legal status to most of the Declaration.)
+
+The Universal Declaration was adopted by the General Assembly as Resolution 217 on 10 December 1948 in Palais de Chaillot, Paris, as the third United Nations General Assembly was held there.[22] Of the then 58 members[23] of the United Nations, 48 voted in favour, none against, eight abstained[24][25] and Honduras and Yemen failed to vote or abstain.[26]
+
+The meeting record[27] provides firsthand insight into the debate. South Africa's position can be seen as an attempt to protect its system of apartheid, which clearly violated several articles in the Declaration.[24] The Saudi Arabian delegation's abstention was prompted primarily by two of the Declaration's articles: Article 18, which states that everyone has the right "to change his religion or belief"; and Article 16, on equal marriage rights.[24] The six communist countries abstentions centred around the view that the Declaration did not go far enough in condemning fascism and Nazism.[28] Eleanor Roosevelt attributed the abstention of Soviet bloc countries to Article 13, which provided the right of citizens to leave their countries.[29]
+
+The 48 countries that voted in favour of the Declaration are:[30]
+
+Eight countries abstained:[30]
+
+Two countries did not vote:
+
+Other countries only gained sovereignty and joined the United Nations later,[32] which explains the relatively small number of states entitled to the historical vote.
+
+The Declaration of Human Rights Day is commemorated every year on December 10, the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration, and is known as Human Rights Day or International Human Rights Day. The commemoration is observed by individuals, community and religious groups, human rights organizations, parliaments, governments, and the United Nations. Decadal commemorations are often accompanied by campaigns to promote awareness of the Declaration and human rights. 2008 marked the 60th anniversary of the Declaration, and was accompanied by year-long activities around the theme "Dignity and justice for all of us".[33]
+
+In 1948, the UN Resolution A/RES/217(III)[A] adopted the Declaration on a bilingual document in English and French, and official translations in Chinese, Russian and Spanish.[34] In 2009, the Guinness Book of Records described the Declaration as the world's "Most Translated Document" (370 different languages and dialects).[35][36] The Unicode Consortium stores 431[37] of the 503[38] official translations available at the OHCHR (as of June 2017[update]).
+
+In its preamble, governments commit themselves and their people to progressive measures that secure the universal and effective recognition and observance of the human rights set out in the Declaration. Eleanor Roosevelt supported the adoption of the Declaration as a declaration rather than as a treaty because she believed that it would have the same kind of influence on global society as the United States Declaration of Independence had within the United States.[39] Even though it is not legally binding, the Declaration has been adopted in or has influenced most national constitutions since 1948. It has also served as the foundation for a growing number of national laws, international laws, and treaties, as well as for a growing number of regional, sub national, and national institutions protecting and promoting human rights.
+
+For the first time in international law, the term "the rule of law" was used in the preamble of the Declaration. The third paragraph of the preamble of the Declaration reads as follows: "Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law."[40]
+
+While not a treaty itself, the Declaration was explicitly adopted for the purpose of defining the meaning of the words "fundamental freedoms" and "human rights" appearing in the United Nations Charter, which is binding on all member states. For this reason, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a fundamental constitutive document of the United Nations. In addition, many international lawyers[41][42][43][44][45] believe that the Declaration forms part of customary international law[46] and is a powerful tool in applying diplomatic and moral pressure to governments that violate any of its articles. The 1968 United Nations International Conference on Human Rights advised that the Declaration "constitutes an obligation for the members of the international community" to all persons. The Declaration has served as the foundation for two binding UN human rights covenants: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The principles of the Declaration are elaborated in international treaties such as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and many more. The Declaration continues to be widely cited by governments, academics, advocates, and constitutional courts, and by individuals who appeal to its principles for the protection of their recognised human rights.
+
+The Universal Declaration has received praise from a number of notable people. The Lebanese philosopher and diplomat Charles Malik called it "an international document of the first order of importance",[47] while Eleanor Roosevelt—first chairwoman of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) that drafted the Declaration—stated that it "may well become the international Magna Carta of all men everywhere."[48] In a speech on 5 October 1995, Pope John Paul II called the Declaration "one of the highest expressions of the human conscience of our time" but the Vatican never adopted the Declaration.[49] In a statement on 10 December 2003 on behalf of the European Union, Marcello Spatafora said that the Declaration "placed human rights at the centre of the framework of principles and obligations shaping relations within the international community."[50]
+
+Turkey, a secular state with an overwhelmingly Muslim population, signed the Declaration in 1948.[51] However, the same year, Saudi Arabia abstained from the ratification vote on the Declaration, claiming that it violated Sharia law.[52] Pakistan—which had signed the declaration—disagreed and critiqued the Saudi position.[53] Pakistani minister Muhammad Zafarullah Khan strongly argued in favour of including freedom of religion.[54] In 1982, the Iranian representative to the United Nations, Said Rajaie-Khorassani, said that the Declaration was "a secular understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition", which could not be implemented by Muslims without conflict with Sharia.[55] On 30 June 2000, members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (now the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) officially resolved to support the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam,[56] an alternative document that says people have "freedom and right to a dignified life in accordance with the Islamic Shari'ah", without any discrimination on grounds of "race, colour, language, sex, religious belief, political affiliation, social status or other considerations".
+
+Some Muslim diplomats would go on later to help draft other UN human rights treaties. For example, Iraqi diplomat Bedia Afnan's insistence on wording that recognized gender equality resulted in Article 3 within the ICCPR and ICESCR. Pakistani diplomat Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah also spoke in favour of recognizing women's rights.[54]
+
+A number of scholars in different fields have expressed concerns with the Declaration's alleged Western bias. These include Irene Oh, Abdulaziz Sachedina, Riffat Hassan, and Faisal Kutty. Hassan has argued:
+
+What needs to be pointed out to those who uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to be the highest, or sole, model, of a charter of equality and liberty for all human beings, is that given the Western origin and orientation of this Declaration, the "universality" of the assumptions on which it is based is – at the very least – problematic and subject to questioning. Furthermore, the alleged incompatibility between the concept of human rights and religion in general, or particular religions such as Islam, needs to be examined in an unbiased way.[57]
+
+Irene Oh argues that one solution is to approach the issue from the perspective of comparative (descriptive) ethics.[58]
+
+Kutty writes: "A strong argument can be made that the current formulation of international human rights constitutes a cultural structure in which western society finds itself easily at home ... It is important to acknowledge and appreciate that other societies may have equally valid alternative conceptions of human rights."[59]
+
+Groups such as Amnesty International[60] and War Resisters International[61] have advocated for "The Right to Refuse to Kill" to be added to the Universal Declaration. War Resisters International has stated that the right to conscientious objection to military service is primarily derived from—but not yet explicit in—Article 18 of the UDHR: the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.[61]
+
+Steps have been taken within the United Nations to make this right more explicit, but—to date (2017)—[update]those steps have been limited to less significant United Nations documents. Sean MacBride—Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Nobel Peace Prize laureate—has said: "To the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights one more might, with relevance, be added. It is 'The Right to Refuse to Kill'."[62]
+
+The American Anthropological Association criticized the UDHR while it was in its drafting process. The AAA warned that the document would be defining universal rights from a Western paradigm which would be unfair to countries outside of that scope. They further argued that the West's history of colonialism and evangelism made them a problematic moral representative for the rest of the world. They proposed three notes for consideration with underlying themes of cultural relativism:
+
+During the lead up to the World Conference on Human Rights held in 1993, ministers from Asian states adopted the Bangkok Declaration, reaffirming their governments' commitment to the principles of the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They stated their view of the interdependence and indivisibility of human rights and stressed the need for universality, objectivity, and non-selectivity of human rights. However, at the same time, they emphasised the principles of sovereignty and non-interference, calling for greater emphasis on economic, social, and cultural rights—in particular, the right to economic development by establishing international collaboration directives between the signatories. The Bangkok Declaration is considered to be a landmark expression of the Asian values perspective,[64] which offers an extended critique of human rights universalism.[65]
+
+The declaration does not take an explicit stance on the death penalty. Article 5 states that: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
+
+The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) is nonpartisan, nonsectarian, and independent of any government, and its core mandate is to promote respect for all the rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.[66][67]
+
+In 1988, director Stephen R. Johnson and 41 international animators, musicians, and producers created a 20-minute video for Amnesty International to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration. The video's subject was the Declaration's 30 articles.[68]
+
+Amnesty International celebrated Human Rights Day and the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration all over the world by organizing the "Fire Up!" event.[69]
+
+The Quaker United Nations Office and the American Friends Service Committee work on many human rights issues, including improving education on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They have developed a curriculum to help introduce High School students to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.[70][71]
+
+In 1997, the council of the American Library Association (ALA) endorsed Article 19 from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.[72] Along with Article 19, Article 18 and 20 are also fundamentally tied to the ALA Universal Right to Free Expression and the Library Bill of Rights.[73] Censorship, the invasion of privacy, and interference of opinions are human rights violations according to the ALA.
+
+In response to violations of human rights, the ALA asserts the following principles:
+
+The American Library Association opposes any use of governmental prerogative that leads to intimidation of individuals that prevents them from exercising their rights to hold opinions without interference, and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas. We urge libraries and librarians everywhere to resist such abuse of governmental power, and to support those against whom such governmental power has been employed.
+
+The American Library Association condemns any governmental effort to involve libraries and librarians in restrictions on the right of any individual to hold opinions without interference, and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas. Such restrictions, whether enforced by statutes or regulations, contractual stipulations, or voluntary agreements, pervert the function of the library and violate the professional responsibilities of librarians.
+
+The American Library Association rejects censorship in any form. Any action that denies the inalienable human rights of individuals only damages the will to resist oppression, strengthens the hand of the oppressor, and undermines the cause of justice.
+
+The American Library Association will not abrogate these principles. We believe that censorship corrupts the cause of justice, and contributes to the demise of freedom.[74]
+
+Youth for Human Rights International (YHRI) is a non-profit organization founded in 2001 by Mary Shuttleworth, an educator born and raised in apartheid South Africa, where she witnessed firsthand the effects of discrimination and the lack of basic human rights. The purpose of YHRI is to teach youth about human rights, specifically the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and inspire them to become advocates for tolerance and peace. YHRI has now grown into a global movement, including hundreds of groups, clubs and chapters around the world.[75]
+

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+Latin (lingua latīna, IPA: [ˈlɪŋɡʷa laˈtiːna]) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken in the area around Rome, known as Latium.[4] Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language in Italy, and subsequently throughout the western Roman Empire. Latin has contributed many words to the English language. In particular, Latin (and Ancient Greek) roots are used in English descriptions of theology, the sciences, medicine, and law. It is the official language in the Holy See (Vatican City).
+
+By the late Roman Republic (75 BC), Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin. Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence[5] and author Petronius. Late Latin is the written language from the 3rd century; its colloquial form Vulgar Latin developed in the 6th to 9th centuries into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Sardinian, Venetian, Neapolitan, Sicilian, Piedmontese, Lombard, French, Franco-Provençal, Occitan, Corsican, Ladin, Friulan, Romansh, Catalan/Valencian, Aragonese, Spanish, Asturian, Galician, and Portuguese. Medieval Latin was used as a literary language from the 9th century to the Renaissance which used Renaissance Latin. Later, Early Modern Latin and New Latin evolved. Latin was the language of international communication, scholarship and science  until well into the 18th century, when vernaculars (including the Romance languages) supplanted it. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the official language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church.
+
+Latin is a highly inflected language, with three distinct genders, six or seven noun cases, five declensions, four verb conjugations, six tenses, three persons, three moods, two voices, two or three aspects and two numbers. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets and ultimately from the Phoenician alphabet.
+
+A number of historical phases of the language have been recognized, each distinguished by subtle differences in vocabulary, usage, spelling, morphology, and syntax. There are no hard and fast rules of classification; different scholars emphasize different features. As a result, the list has variants, as well as alternative names.
+
+In addition to the historical phases, Ecclesiastical Latin refers to the styles used by the writers of the Roman Catholic Church from Late Antiquity onward, as well as by Protestant scholars.
+
+After the Western Roman Empire fell in 476, and Germanic kingdoms took its place, the Germanic people adopted Latin as a language more suitable for legal and other, more formal uses.[citation needed]
+
+The earliest known form of Latin is Old Latin, which was spoken from the Roman Kingdom to the later part of the Roman Republic period. It is attested both in inscriptions and in some of the earliest extant Latin literary works, such as the comedies of Plautus and Terence. The Latin alphabet was devised from the Etruscan alphabet. The writing later changed from what was initially either a right-to-left or a boustrophedon[6][7] script to what ultimately became a strictly left-to-right script.[8]
+
+During the late republic and into the first years of the empire, a new Classical Latin arose, a conscious creation of the orators, poets, historians and other literate men, who wrote the great works of classical literature, which were taught in grammar and rhetoric schools. Today's instructional grammars trace their roots to such schools, which served as a sort of informal language academy dedicated to maintaining and perpetuating educated speech.[9][10]
+
+Philological analysis of Archaic Latin works, such as those of Plautus, which contain snippets of everyday speech, indicates that a spoken language, Vulgar Latin (termed sermo vulgi, "the speech of the masses", by Cicero), existed concurrently with literate Classical Latin. The informal language was rarely written, so philologists have been left with only individual words and phrases cited by classical authors and those found as graffiti.[11]
+As it was free to develop on its own, there is no reason to suppose that the speech was uniform either diachronically or geographically. On the contrary, romanised European populations developed their own dialects of the language, which eventually led to the differentiation of Romance languages.[12] The decline of the Roman Empire meant a deterioration in educational standards that brought about Late Latin, a postclassical stage of the language seen in Christian writings of the time. It was more in line with everyday speech, not only because of a decline in education but also because of a desire to spread the word to the masses.[citation needed]
+
+Despite dialectal variation, which is found in any widespread language, the languages of Spain, France, Portugal, and Italy retained a remarkable unity in phonological forms and developments, bolstered by the stabilising influence of their common Christian (Roman Catholic) culture. It was not until the Moorish conquest of Spain in 711 cut off communications between the major Romance regions that the languages began to diverge seriously.[13] The Vulgar Latin dialect that would later become Romanian diverged somewhat more from the other varieties, as it was largely cut off from the unifying influences in the western part of the Empire.
+
+One key marker of whether a given Romance feature was found in Vulgar Latin is to compare it with its parallel in Classical Latin. If it was not preferred in Classical Latin, then it most likely came from the undocumented contemporaneous Vulgar Latin. For example, the Romance for "horse" (Italian cavallo, French cheval, Spanish caballo, Portuguese cavalo and Romanian cal) came from Latin caballus. However, Classical Latin used equus. Therefore, caballus was most likely the spoken form.[14]
+
+Vulgar Latin began to diverge into distinct languages by the 9th century at the latest, when the earliest extant Romance writings begin to appear. They were, throughout the period, confined to everyday speech, as Medieval Latin was used for writing.[15][16]
+
+Medieval Latin is the written Latin in use during that portion of the postclassical period when no corresponding Latin vernacular existed. The spoken language had developed into the various incipient Romance languages; however, in the educated and official world Latin continued without its natural spoken base. Moreover, this Latin spread into lands that had never spoken Latin, such as the Germanic and Slavic nations. It became useful for international communication between the member states of the Holy Roman Empire and its allies.
+
+Without the institutions of the Roman empire that had supported its uniformity, medieval Latin lost its linguistic cohesion: for example, in classical Latin sum and eram are used as auxiliary verbs in the perfect and pluperfect passive, which are compound tenses. Medieval Latin might use fui and fueram instead.[17] Furthermore, the meanings of many words have been changed and new vocabularies have been introduced from the vernacular. Identifiable individual styles of classically incorrect Latin prevail.[17]
+
+The Renaissance briefly reinforced the position of Latin as a spoken language by its adoption by the Renaissance Humanists. Often led by members of the clergy, they were shocked by the accelerated dismantling of the vestiges of the classical world and the rapid loss of its literature. They strove to preserve what they could and restore Latin to what it had been and introduced the practice of producing revised editions of the literary works that remained by comparing surviving manuscripts. By no later than the 15th century they had replaced Medieval Latin with versions supported by the scholars of the rising universities, who attempted, by scholarship, to discover what the classical language had been.[19][15]
+
+During the Early Modern Age, Latin still was the most important language of culture in Europe. Therefore, until the end of the 17th century the majority of books and almost all diplomatic documents were written in Latin. Afterwards, most diplomatic documents were written in French (a Romance language) and later native or other languages.
+
+Despite having no native speakers, Latin is still used for a variety of purposes in the contemporary world.
+
+The largest organisation that retains Latin in official and quasi-official contexts is the Catholic Church. Latin remains the language of the Roman Rite; the Tridentine Mass is celebrated in Latin. Although the Mass of Paul VI is usually celebrated in the local vernacular language, it can be and often is said in Latin, in part or in whole, especially at multilingual gatherings. It is the official language of the Holy See, the primary language of its public journal, the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, and the working language of the Roman Rota. Vatican City is also home to the world's only automatic teller machine that gives instructions in Latin.[20] In the pontifical universities postgraduate courses of Canon law are taught in Latin, and papers are written in the same language.
+
+In the Anglican Church, after the publication of the Book of Common Prayer of 1559, a Latin edition was published in 1560 for use in universities such as Oxford and the leading "public schools" (English private academies), where the liturgy was still permitted to be conducted in Latin.[21] There have been several Latin translations since, including a Latin edition of the 1979 USA Anglican Book of Common Prayer.[22]
+
+In the Western world, many organizations, governments and schools use Latin for their mottos due to its association with formality, tradition, and the roots of Western culture.
+
+Canada's motto A mari usque ad mare ("from sea to sea") and most provincial mottos are also in Latin. The Canadian Victoria Cross is modelled after the British Victoria Cross which has the inscription "For Valour". Because Canada is officially bilingual, the Canadian medal has replaced the English inscription with the Latin Pro Valore.
+
+Spain's motto PLVS VLTRA, meaning "further beyond", is also Latin in origin.[23] It is taken from the personal motto of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain (as Charles I), and is a reversal of the original phrase Non terrae plus ultra ("No land further beyond"). This was said to have been inscribed as a warning on the Pillars of Hercules at the Strait of Gibraltar, which marked the edge of the known world. Charles adopted the motto following the discovery of the New World by Columbus, and it also has metaphorical suggestions of taking risks and striving for excellence.
+
+Several states of the United States have Latin mottos: such as Connecticut's motto Qui transtulit sustinet ("He who transplanted sustains"); Kansas's Ad astra per aspera ("To the stars through hardships"); Colorado's Nil sine numine ("Nothing without providence"); Michigan's Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam, circumspice ("If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you"); Missouri's Salus populi suprema lex esto ("The health of the people should be the highest law"); North Carolina's Esse quam videri ("To be rather than to seem"); Virginia's Sic semper tyrannis ("Thus always to tyrants"); and West Virginia's Montani semper liberi ("Mountaineers are always free").
+
+Many military organizations today have Latin mottos, such as Semper paratus ("always ready"), the motto of the United States Coast Guard; Semper fidelis ("always faithful"), the motto of the United States Marine Corps; and Per ardua ad astra ("Through adversity/struggle to the stars"), the motto of the Royal Air Force (RAF).
+
+Some colleges and universities have adopted Latin mottos, for example Harvard University's motto is Veritas ("truth"). Veritas was the goddess of truth, a daughter of Saturn, and the mother of Virtue.
+
+Switzerland has adopted the country's Latin short name Helvetia on coins and stamps, since there is no room to use all of the nation's four official languages. For a similar reason, it adopted the international vehicle and internet code CH, which stands for Confœderatio Helvetica, the country's full Latin name.
+
+Some films of ancient settings, such as Sebastiane and The Passion of the Christ, have been made with dialogue in Latin for the sake of realism. Occasionally, Latin dialogue is used because of its association with religion or philosophy, in such film/television series as The Exorcist and Lost ("Jughead"). Subtitles are usually shown for the benefit of those who do not understand Latin. There are also songs written with Latin lyrics. The libretto for the opera-oratorio Oedipus rex by Igor Stravinsky is in Latin.
+
+The continued instruction of Latin is often seen as a highly valuable component of a liberal arts education. Latin is taught at many high schools, especially in Europe and the Americas. It is most common in British public schools and grammar schools, the Italian liceo classico and liceo scientifico, the German Humanistisches Gymnasium and the Dutch gymnasium.
+
+Occasionally, some media outlets, targeting enthusiasts, broadcast in Latin. Notable examples include Radio Bremen in Germany, YLE radio in Finland (the Nuntii Latini broadcast from 1989 until it was shut down in June 2019),[24] and Vatican Radio & Television, all of which broadcast news segments and other material in Latin.[25][26][27]
+
+There are many websites and forums maintained in Latin by enthusiasts. The Latin Wikipedia has more than 100,000 articles.
+
+Italian, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, Catalan, Romansh, and other Romance languages are direct descendants of Latin. There are also many Latin derivatives in English as well as a few in German, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish. Latin is still spoken in Vatican City, a city-state situated in Rome that is the seat of the Catholic Church.
+
+Some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL). Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same: volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance and relevant information. The reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. About 270,000 inscriptions are known.
+
+The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part, in substantial works or in fragments to be analyzed in philology. They are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. Their works were published in manuscript form before the invention of printing and are now published in carefully annotated printed editions, such as the Loeb Classical Library, published by Harvard University Press, or the Oxford Classical Texts, published by Oxford University Press.
+
+Latin translations of modern literature such as The Hobbit, Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, Paddington Bear, Winnie the Pooh, The Adventures of Tintin, Asterix, Harry Potter,  Le Petit Prince, Max and Moritz, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, "fabulae mirabiles", are intended to garner popular interest in the language. Additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissner's Latin Phrasebook.
+
+The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. In the Middle Ages, borrowing from Latin occurred from ecclesiastical usage established by Saint Augustine of Canterbury in the 6th century or indirectly after the Norman Conquest, through the Anglo-Norman language. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed "inkhorn terms", as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, but some useful ones survived, such as 'imbibe' and 'extrapolate'. Many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and Dutch vocabularies.[28][29][30] Those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included.
+
+The influence of Roman governance and Roman technology on the less-developed nations under Roman dominion led to the adoption of Latin phraseology in some specialized areas, such as science, technology, medicine, and law. For example, the Linnaean system of plant and animal classification was heavily influenced by Historia Naturalis, an encyclopedia of people, places, plants, animals, and things published by Pliny the Elder. Roman medicine, recorded in the works of such physicians as Galen, established that today's medical terminology would be primarily derived from Latin and Greek words, the Greek being filtered through the Latin. Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole. Latin law principles have survived partly in a long list of Latin legal terms.
+
+A few international auxiliary languages have been heavily influenced by Latin. Interlingua is sometimes considered a simplified, modern version of the language.[dubious  – discuss] Latino sine Flexione, popular in the early 20th century, is Latin with its inflections stripped away, among other grammatical changes.
+
+The Logudorese dialect of the Sardinian language is the closest contemporary language to Latin.[31]
+
+Throughout European history, an education in the classics was considered crucial for those who wished to join literate circles. Instruction in Latin is an essential aspect. In today's world, a large number of Latin students in the US learn from Wheelock's Latin: The Classic Introductory Latin Course, Based on Ancient Authors. This book, first published in 1956,[32] was written by Frederic M. Wheelock, who received a PhD from Harvard University. Wheelock's Latin has become the standard text for many American introductory Latin courses.
+
+The Living Latin movement attempts to teach Latin in the same way that living languages are taught, as a means of both spoken and written communication. It is available at the Vatican and at some institutions in the US, such as the University of Kentucky and Iowa State University. The British Cambridge University Press is a major supplier of Latin textbooks for all levels, such as the Cambridge Latin Course series. It has also published a subseries of children's texts in Latin by Bell & Forte, which recounts the adventures of a mouse called Minimus.
+
+In the United Kingdom, the Classical Association encourages the study of antiquity through various means, such as publications and grants. The University of Cambridge,[33] the Open University,[34] a number of prestigious independent schools, for example Eton, Harrow, Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, Merchant Taylor’s School, Via Facilis and Rugby,[35] a London-based charity, run Latin courses. In the United States and in Canada, the American Classical League supports every effort to further the study of classics. Its subsidiaries include the National Junior Classical League (with more than 50,000 members), which encourages high school students to pursue the study of Latin, and the National Senior Classical League, which encourages students to continue their study of the classics into college. The league also sponsors the National Latin Exam. Classicist Mary Beard wrote in The Times Literary Supplement in 2006 that the reason for learning Latin is because of what was written in it.[36]
+
+Latin was or is the official language of European states:
+
+The ancient pronunciation of Latin has been reconstructed; among the data used for reconstruction are explicit statements about pronunciation by ancient authors, misspellings, puns, ancient etymologies, the spelling of Latin loanwords in other languages, and the historical development of Romance languages.[42]
+
+The consonant phonemes of Classical Latin are as follows:[43]
+
+/z/ was not native to Classical Latin. It appeared in Greek loanwords starting around the first century BC, when it was probably pronounced [z] initially and doubled [zz] between vowels, in contrast to Classical Greek [dz] or [zd]. In Classical Latin poetry, the letter ⟨z⟩ between vowels always counts as two consonants for metrical purposes.[44][45]
+
+In Old and Classical Latin, the Latin alphabet had no distinction between uppercase and lowercase, and the letters ⟨J U W⟩ did not exist. In place of ⟨J U⟩, ⟨I V⟩ were used, respectively; ⟨I V⟩ represented both vowels and consonants. Most of the letterforms were similar to modern uppercase, as can be seen in the inscription from the Colosseum shown at the top of the article.
+
+The spelling systems used in Latin dictionaries and modern editions of Latin texts, however, normally use ⟨j u⟩ in place of Classical-era ⟨i v⟩. Some systems use ⟨j v⟩ for the consonant sounds /j w/ except in the combinations ⟨gu su qu⟩ for which ⟨v⟩ is never used.
+
+Some notes concerning the mapping of Latin phonemes to English graphemes are given below:
+
+In Classical Latin, as in modern Italian, double consonant letters were pronounced as long consonant sounds distinct from short versions of the same consonants. Thus the nn in Classical Latin annus, year, (and in Italian anno) is pronounced as a doubled /nn/ as in English unnamed. (In English, distinctive consonant length or doubling occurs only at the boundary between two words or morphemes, as in that example.)
+
+In Classical Latin, ⟨U⟩ did not exist as a letter distinct from V; the written form ⟨V⟩ was used to represent both a vowel and a consonant. ⟨Y⟩ was adopted to represent upsilon in loanwords from Greek, but it was pronounced like ⟨u⟩ and ⟨i⟩ by some speakers. It was also used in native Latin words by confusion with Greek words of similar meaning, such as sylva and ὕλη.
+
+Classical Latin distinguished between long and short vowels. Then, long vowels, except for ⟨I⟩, were frequently marked using the apex, which was sometimes similar to an acute accent ⟨Á É Ó V́ Ý⟩. Long /iː/ was written using a taller version of ⟨I⟩, called i longa "long I": ⟨ꟾ⟩. In modern texts, long vowels are often indicated by a macron ⟨ā ē ī ō ū⟩, and short vowels are usually unmarked except when it is necessary to distinguish between words, when they are marked with a breve ⟨ă ĕ ĭ ŏ ŭ⟩. The acute accent, when it is used in modern Latin texts, indicates stress, as in Spanish, rather than length.
+
+Long vowels in Classical Latin are, technically, pronounced as entirely different from short vowels. The difference is described in the table below:
+
+A vowel letter followed by ⟨m⟩ at the end of a word, or a vowel letter followed by ⟨n⟩ before ⟨s⟩ or ⟨f⟩, represented a long nasal vowel, as in monstrum /mõːstrũːm/.
+
+Classical Latin had several diphthongs. The two most common were ⟨ae au⟩. ⟨oe⟩ was fairly rare, and ⟨ui eu ei⟩ were very rare, at least in native Latin words.[48] There has also been debate over whether ⟨ui⟩ is truly a diphthong in Classical Latin, due to its rarity, absence in works of Roman grammarians, and the roots of Classical Latin words (i.e. hui ce to huic, quoi to cui, etc.) not matching or being similar to the pronunciation of classical words if ⟨ui⟩ were to be considered a diphthong.[49]
+
+The sequences sometimes did not represent diphthongs. ⟨ae⟩ and ⟨oe⟩ also represented a sequence of two vowels in different syllables in aēnus [aˈeː.nʊs] "of bronze" and coēpit [kɔˈeː.pɪt] "began", and ⟨au ui eu ei ou⟩ represented sequences of two vowels or of a vowel and one of the semivowels /j w/, in cavē [ˈka.weː] "beware!", cuius [ˈkʊj.jʊs] "whose", monuī [ˈmɔn.ʊ.iː] "I warned", solvī [ˈsɔɫ.wiː] "I released", dēlēvī [deːˈleː.wiː] "I destroyed", eius [ˈɛj.jʊs] "his", and novus [ˈnɔ.wʊs] "new".
+
+Old Latin had more diphthongs, but most of them changed into long vowels in Classical Latin. The Old Latin diphthong ⟨ai⟩ and the sequence ⟨āī⟩ became Classical ⟨ae⟩. Old Latin ⟨oi⟩ and ⟨ou⟩ changed to Classical ⟨ū⟩, except in a few words whose ⟨oi⟩ became Classical ⟨oe⟩. These two developments sometimes occurred in different words from the same root: for instance, Classical poena "punishment" and pūnīre "to punish".[48] Early Old Latin ⟨ei⟩ usually changed to Classical ⟨ī⟩.[50]
+
+In Vulgar Latin and the Romance languages, ⟨ae oe⟩ merged with ⟨e ē⟩. During the Classical Latin period this form of speaking was deliberately avoided by well-educated speakers.[48]
+
+Latin was written in the Latin alphabet, derived from the Etruscan alphabet, which was in turn drawn from the Greek alphabet and ultimately the Phoenician alphabet.[51] This alphabet has continued to be used over the centuries as the script for the Romance, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Finnic, and many Slavic languages (Polish, Slovak, Slovene, Croatian, Bosnian and Czech); and it has been adopted by many languages around the world, including Vietnamese, the Austronesian languages, many Turkic languages, and most languages in sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, and Oceania, making it by far the world's single most widely used writing system.
+
+The number of letters in the Latin alphabet has varied. When it was first derived from the Etruscan alphabet, it contained only 21 letters.[52] Later, G was added to represent /ɡ/, which had previously been spelled C, and Z ceased to be included in the alphabet, as the language then had no voiced alveolar fricative.[53] The letters Y and Z were later added to represent Greek letters, upsilon and zeta respectively, in Greek loanwords.[53]
+
+W was created in the 11th century from VV. It represented /w/ in Germanic languages, not Latin, which still uses V for the purpose. J was distinguished from the original I only during the late Middle Ages, as was the letter U from V.[53] Although some Latin dictionaries use J, it is rarely used for Latin text, as it was not used in classical times, but many other languages use it.
+
+Classical Latin did not contain sentence punctuation, letter case,[54] or interword spacing, but apices were sometimes used to distinguish length in vowels and the interpunct was used at times to separate words. The first line of Catullus 3, originally written as
+
+or with interpunct as
+
+would be rendered in a modern edition as
+
+or with macrons
+
+or with apices
+
+The Roman cursive script is commonly found on the many wax tablets excavated at sites such as forts, an especially extensive set having been discovered at Vindolanda on Hadrian's Wall in Britain. Most notable is the fact that while most of the Vindolanda tablets show spaces between words, spaces were avoided in monumental inscriptions from that era.
+
+Occasionally, Latin has been written in other scripts:
+
+Latin is a synthetic, fusional language in the terminology of linguistic typology. In more traditional terminology, it is an inflected language, but typologists are apt to say "inflecting". Words include an objective semantic element and markers specifying the grammatical use of the word. The fusion of root meaning and markers produces very compact sentence elements: amō, "I love," is produced from a semantic element, ama-, "love," to which -ō, a first person singular marker, is suffixed.
+
+The grammatical function can be changed by changing the markers: the word is "inflected" to express different grammatical functions, but the semantic element usually does not change. (Inflection uses affixing and infixing. Affixing is prefixing and suffixing. Latin inflections are never prefixed.)
+
+For example, amābit, "he (or she or it) will love", is formed from the same stem, amā-, to which a future tense marker, -bi-, is suffixed, and a third person singular marker, -t, is suffixed. There is an inherent ambiguity: -t may denote more than one grammatical category: masculine, feminine, or neuter gender. A major task in understanding Latin phrases and clauses is to clarify such ambiguities by an analysis of context. All natural languages contain ambiguities of one sort or another.
+
+The inflections express gender, number, and case in adjectives, nouns, and pronouns, a process called declension. Markers are also attached to fixed stems of verbs, to denote person, number, tense, voice, mood, and aspect, a process called conjugation. Some words are uninflected and undergo neither process, such as adverbs, prepositions, and interjections.
+
+A regular Latin noun belongs to one of five main declensions, a group of nouns with similar inflected forms. The declensions are identified by the genitive singular form of the noun. The first declension, with a predominant ending letter of a, is signified by the genitive singular ending of -ae. The second declension, with a predominant ending letter of o, is signified by the genitive singular ending of -i. The third declension, with a predominant ending letter of i, is signified by the genitive singular ending of -is. The fourth declension, with a predominant ending letter of u, is signified by the genitive singular ending of -ūs. The fifth declension, with a predominant ending letter of e, is signified by the genitive singular ending of -ei.
+
+There are seven Latin noun cases, which also apply to adjectives and pronouns and mark a noun's syntactic role in the sentence by means of inflections. Thus, word order is not as important in Latin as it is in English, which is less inflected. The general structure and word order of a Latin sentence can therefore vary. The cases are as follows:
+
+Latin lacks both definite and indefinite articles so puer currit can mean either "the boy is running" or "a boy is running".
+
+There are two types of regular Latin adjectives: first- and second- declension and third-declension. They are so-called because their forms are similar or identical to first- and second-declension and third-declension nouns, respectively. Latin adjectives also have comparative (more --, -er) and superlative (most --, est) forms. There are also a number of Latin participles.
+
+Latin numbers are sometimes declined as adjectives. See Numbers below.
+
+First and second-declension adjectives are declined like first-declension nouns for the feminine forms and like second-declension nouns for the masculine and neuter forms. For example, for mortuus, mortua, mortuum (dead), mortua is declined like a regular first-declension noun (such as puella (girl)), mortuus is declined like a regular second-declension masculine noun (such as dominus (lord, master)), and mortuum is declined like a regular second-declension neuter noun (such as auxilium (help)).
+
+Third-declension adjectives are mostly declined like normal third-declension nouns, with a few exceptions. In the plural nominative neuter, for example, the ending is -ia (omnia (all, everything)), and for third-declension nouns, the plural nominative neuter ending is -a or -ia (capita (heads), animalia (animals)) They can have one, two or three forms for the masculine, feminine, and neuter nominative singular.
+
+Latin participles, like English participles, are formed from a verb. There are a few main types of participles: Present Active Participles, Perfect Passive Participles, Future Active Participles, and Future Passive Participles.
+
+Latin sometimes uses prepositions, depending on the type of prepositional phrase being used. Most prepositions are followed by a noun in either the accusative or ablative case: "apud puerum" (with the boy), with "puerum" being the accusative form of "puer", boy, and "sine puero" (without the boy, "puero" being the ablative form of "puer". A few adpositions, however, govern a noun in the genitive (such as "gratia" and "tenus").
+
+A regular verb in Latin belongs to one of four main conjugations. A conjugation is "a class of verbs with similar inflected forms."[55] The conjugations are identified by the last letter of the verb's present stem. The present stem can be found by omitting the -re (-rī in deponent verbs) ending from the present infinitive form. The infinitive of the first conjugation ends in -ā-re or -ā-ri (active and passive respectively): amāre, "to love," hortārī, "to exhort"; of the second conjugation by -ē-re or -ē-rī: monēre, "to warn", verērī, "to fear;" of the third conjugation by -ere, -ī: dūcere, "to lead," ūtī, "to use"; of the fourth by -ī-re, -ī-rī: audīre, "to hear," experīrī, "to attempt".[56]
+
+Irregular verbs may not follow the types or may be marked in a different way. The "endings" presented above are not the suffixed infinitive markers. The first letter in each case is the last of the stem so the conjugations are also called a-conjugation, e-conjugation and i-conjugation. The fused infinitive ending is -re or -rī. Third-conjugation stems end in a consonant: the consonant conjugation. Further, there is a subset of the third conjugation, the i-stems, which behave somewhat like the fourth conjugation, as they are both i-stems, one short and the other long.[56] The stem categories descend from Indo-European and can therefore be compared to similar conjugations in other Indo-European languages.
+
+There are six general "tenses" in Latin (present, imperfect, future, perfect, pluperfect and future perfect), three moods (indicative, imperative and subjunctive, in addition to the infinitive, participle, gerund, gerundive and supine), three persons (first, second and third), two numbers (singular and plural), two voices (active and passive) and two aspects (perfective and imperfective). Verbs are described by four principal parts:
+
+There are six "tenses" in the Latin language. These are divided into two tense systems: the present system, which is made up of the present, imperfect and future tenses, and the perfect system, which is made up of the perfect, pluperfect and future perfect tenses. Each tense has a set of endings corresponding to the person, number, and voice of the subject. Subject (nominative) pronouns are generally omitted for the first (I, we) and second (you) persons except for emphasis.
+
+The table below displays the common inflected endings for the indicative mood in the active voice in all six tenses. For the future tense, the first listed endings are for the first and second conjugations, and the second listed endings are for the third and fourth conjugations:
+
+Some Latin verbs are deponent, causing their forms to be in the passive voice but retain an active meaning: hortor, hortārī, hortātus sum (to urge).
+
+As Latin is an Italic language, most of its vocabulary is likewise Italic, ultimately from the ancestral Proto-Indo-European language. However, because of close cultural interaction, the Romans not only adapted the Etruscan alphabet to form the Latin alphabet but also borrowed some Etruscan words into their language, including persona "mask" and histrio "actor".[57] Latin also included vocabulary borrowed from Oscan, another Italic language.
+
+After the Fall of Tarentum (272 BC), the Romans began Hellenising, or adopting features of Greek culture, including the borrowing of Greek words, such as camera (vaulted roof), sumbolum (symbol), and balineum (bath).[57] This Hellenisation led to the addition of "Y" and "Z" to the alphabet to represent Greek sounds.[58] Subsequently the Romans transplanted Greek art, medicine, science and philosophy to Italy, paying almost any price to entice Greek skilled and educated persons to Rome and sending their youth to be educated in Greece. Thus, many Latin scientific and philosophical words were Greek loanwords or had their meanings expanded by association with Greek words, as ars (craft) and τέχνη (art).[59]
+
+Because of the Roman Empire's expansion and subsequent trade with outlying European tribes, the Romans borrowed some northern and central European words, such as beber (beaver), of Germanic origin, and bracae (breeches), of Celtic origin.[59] The specific dialects of Latin across Latin-speaking regions of the former Roman Empire after its fall were influenced by languages specific to the regions. The dialects of Latin evolved into different Romance languages.
+
+During and after the adoption of Christianity into Roman society, Christian vocabulary became a part of the language, either from Greek or Hebrew borrowings or as Latin neologisms.[60] Continuing into the Middle Ages, Latin incorporated many more words from surrounding languages, including Old English and other Germanic languages.
+
+Over the ages, Latin-speaking populations produced new adjectives, nouns, and verbs by affixing or compounding meaningful segments.[61] For example, the compound adjective, omnipotens, "all-powerful," was produced from the adjectives omnis, "all", and potens, "powerful", by dropping the final s of omnis and concatenating. Often, the concatenation changed the part of speech, and nouns were produced from verb segments or verbs from nouns and adjectives.[62]
+
+The phrases are mentioned with accents to show where stress is placed.[63] In Latin, words are normally stressed either on the second-to-last (penultimate) syllable, called in Latin paenultima or syllaba paenultima,[64] or on the third-to-last syllable, called in Latin antepaenultima or syllaba antepaenultima.[64] In the following notation, accented short vowels have an acute diacritic, accented long vowels have a circumflex diacritic (representing long falling pitch), and unaccented long vowels are marked simply with a macron. This reflects the tone of the voice with which, ideally, the stress is phonetically realized; but this may not always be clearly articulated on every word in a sentence.[65] Regardless of length, a vowel at the end of a word may be significantly shortened or even altogether deleted if the next word begins with a vowel also (a process called elision), unless a very short pause is inserted. As an exception, the following words: est (English "is"), es ("[you (sg.)] are") lose their own vowel e instead.
+
+sálvē to one person / salvête to more than one person – hello
+
+ávē to one person / avête to more than one person – greetings
+
+válē to one person / valête to more than one person – goodbye
+
+cûrā ut váleās – take care
+
+exoptâtus to male / exoptâta to female, optâtus to male / optâta to female, grâtus to male / grâta to female, accéptus to male / accépta to female – welcome
+
+quômodo válēs?, ut válēs? – how are you?
+
+béne – good
+
+béne váleō – I'm fine
+
+mále – bad
+
+mále váleō – I'm not good
+
+quaêsō (roughly: ['kwaeso:]/['kwe:so:]) – please
+
+amâbō tē – please
+
+íta, íta est, íta vêrō, sîc, sîc est, étiam – yes
+
+nôn, mínimē – no
+
+grâtiās tíbi, grâtiās tíbi ágō – thank you, I give thanks to you
+
+mágnās grâtiās, mágnās grâtiās ágō – many thanks
+
+máximās grâtiās, máximās grâtiās ágō, ingéntēs grâtiās ágō – thank you very much
+
+áccipe sīs to one person / accípite sîtis to more than one person, libénter – you're welcome
+
+quā aetâte es? – how old are you?
+
+25 (vīgíntī quînque) ánnōs nâtus sum by male / 25 ánnōs nâta sum by female – I am 25 years old
+
+úbi lātrîna est? – where is the toilet?
+
+scîs (tū) ... – do you speak (literally: "do you know") ...
+
+ámō tē / tē ámō – I love you
+
+In ancient times, numbers in Latin were written only with letters. Today, the numbers can be written with the Arabic numbers as well as with Roman numerals. The numbers 1, 2 and 3 and every whole hundred from 200 to 900 are declined as nouns and adjectives, with some differences.
+
+The numbers from 4 to 100 do not change their endings. As in modern descendants such as Spanish, the gender for naming a number in isolation is masculine, so that "1, 2, 3" is counted as ūnus, duo, trēs.
+
+Commentarii de Bello Gallico, also called De Bello Gallico (The Gallic War), written by Gaius Julius Caesar, begins with the following passage:
+
+Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur. Hi omnes lingua, institutis, legibus inter se differunt. Gallos ab Aquitanis Garumna flumen, a Belgis Matrona et Sequana dividit. Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae, propterea quod a cultu atque humanitate provinciae longissime absunt, minimeque ad eos mercatores saepe commeant atque ea quae ad effeminandos animos pertinent important, proximique sunt Germanis, qui trans Rhenum incolunt, quibuscum continenter bellum gerunt. Qua de causa Helvetii quoque reliquos Gallos virtute praecedunt, quod fere cotidianis proeliis cum Germanis contendunt, cum aut suis finibus eos prohibent aut ipsi in eorum finibus bellum gerunt. Eorum una pars, quam Gallos obtinere dictum est, initium capit a flumine Rhodano, continetur Garumna flumine, Oceano, finibus Belgarum; attingit etiam ab Sequanis et Helvetiis flumen Rhenum; vergit ad septentriones. Belgae ab extremis Galliae finibus oriuntur; pertinent ad inferiorem partem fluminis Rheni; spectant in septentrionem et orientem solem. Aquitania a Garumna flumine ad Pyrenaeos montes et eam partem Oceani quae est ad Hispaniam pertinet; spectat inter occasum solis et septentriones.
+
+The same text may be marked for all long vowels (before any possible elisions at word boundary) with apices over vowel letters, including customarily before "nf" and "ns" where a long vowel is automatically produced:
+
+Gallia est omnis dívísa in partés trés, quárum únam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquítání, tertiam quí ipsórum linguá Celtae, nostrá Gallí appellantur. Hí omnés linguá, ínstitútís, légibus inter sé differunt. Gallós ab Aquítánís Garumna flúmen, á Belgís Mátrona et Séquana dívidit. Hórum omnium fortissimí sunt Belgae, proptereá quod á cultú atque húmánitáte próvinciae longissimé absunt, miniméque ad eós mercátórés saepe commeant atque ea quae ad efféminandós animós pertinent important, proximíque sunt Germánís, quí tráns Rhénum incolunt, quibuscum continenter bellum gerunt. Quá dé causá Helvétií quoque reliquós Gallós virtúte praecédunt, quod feré cotídiánís proeliís cum Germánís contendunt, cum aut suís fínibus eós prohibent aut ipsí in eórum fínibus bellum gerunt. Eórum úna pars, quam Gallós obtinére dictum est, initium capit á flúmine Rhodanó, continétur Garumná flúmine, Óceanó, fínibus Belgárum; attingit etiam ab Séquanís et Helvétiís flúmen Rhénum; vergit ad septentriónés. Belgae ab extrémís Galliae fínibus oriuntur; pertinent ad ínferiórem partem flúminis Rhéní; spectant in septentriónem et orientem sólem. Aquítánia á Garumná flúmine ad Pýrénaeós montés et eam partem Óceaní quae est ad Hispániam pertinet; spectat inter occásum sólis et septentriónés.
+
+until 75 BCOld Latin
+
+75 BC – 200 ADClassical Latin
+
+200–900Late Latin
+
+900–1300Medieval Latin
+
+1300–1500Renaissance Latin
+
+1500–1900New Latin
+
+1900–presentContemporary Latin

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+
+
+Charles Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin (French: [ʃaʁl pjɛʁ də fʁedi], [baʁɔ̃ də kubɛʁtɛ̃]; born Pierre de Frédy; 1 January 1863 – 2 September 1937, also known as Pierre de Coubertin and Baron de Coubertin) was a French educator and historian, founder of the International Olympic Committee, and its second president. He is known as the father of the modern Olympic Games.
+
+Born into a French aristocratic family, he became an academic and studied a broad range of topics, most notably education and history. He graduated with a degree in law and public affairs from the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po).[1] It was at Sciences Po that he came up with the idea of the Summer Olympic Games.[2]
+
+The Pierre de Coubertin medal (also known as the Coubertin medal or the True Spirit of Sportsmanship medal) is an award given by the International Olympic Committee to athletes who demonstrate the spirit of sportsmanship in the Olympic Games.
+
+Pierre de Frédy was born in Paris on 1 January 1863, into an aristocratic family.[3] He was the fourth child of Baron Charles Louis de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin and Marie–Marcelle Gigault de Crisenoy.[4] Family tradition held that the Frédy name had first arrived in France in the early 15th century, and the first recorded title of nobility granted to the family was given by Louis XI to an ancestor, also named Pierre de Frédy, in 1477. But other branches of his family tree delved even further into French history, and the annals of both sides of his family included nobles of various stations, military leaders and associates of kings and princes of France.[5]
+
+His father Charles was a staunch royalist and accomplished artist whose paintings were displayed and given prizes at the Parisian salon, at least in those years when he was not absent in protest of the rise to power of Louis Napoleon. His paintings often centred on themes related to the Roman Catholic Church, classicism, and nobility, which reflected those things he thought most important.[6] In a later semi-fictional autobiographical piece called Le Roman d'un rallié, Coubertin describes his relationship with both his mother and his father as having been somewhat strained during his childhood and adolescence. His memoirs elaborated further, describing as a pivotal moment his disappointment upon meeting Henri, Count of Chambord, whom the elder Coubertin believed to be the rightful king.[7]
+
+Coubertin grew up in a time of profound change in France: France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, the Paris Commune, and the establishment of the French Third Republic, and later the Dreyfus affair.[8] But while these events were the setting of his childhood, his school experiences were just as formative. In October 1874, his parents enrolled him in a new Jesuit school called Externat de la rue de Vienne, which was still under construction for his first five years there. While many of the school's attendees were day students, Coubertin boarded at the school under the supervision of a Jesuit priest, which his parents hoped would instill him with a strong moral and religious education.[9] There, he was among the top three students in his class, and was an officer of the school's elite academy made up of its best and brightest. This suggests that despite his rebelliousness at home, Coubertin adapted well to the strict rigors of a Jesuit education.[10]
+
+As an aristocrat, Coubertin had a number of career paths from which to choose, including potentially prominent roles in the military or politics. But he chose instead to pursue a career as an intellectual, studying and later writing on a broad range of topics, including education, history, literature and sociology.[3]
+
+The subject which he seems to have been most deeply interested in was education, and his study focused in particular on physical education and the role of sport in schooling. In 1883, he visited England for the first time, and studied the program of physical education instituted under Thomas Arnold at the Rugby School. Coubertin credited these methods with leading to the expansion of British power during the 19th century and advocated their use in French institutions. The inclusion of physical education in the curriculum of French schools would become an ongoing pursuit and passion of Coubertin's.[3]
+
+Coubertin is thought to have exaggerated the importance of sport to Thomas Arnold, whom he viewed as "one of the founders of athletic chivalry". The character-reforming influence of sport with which Coubertin was so impressed is more likely to have originated in the novel Tom Brown's School Days rather than exclusively in the ideas of Arnold himself. Nonetheless, Coubertin was an enthusiast in need of a cause and he found it in England and in Thomas Arnold.[11] "Thomas Arnold, the leader and classic model of English educators," wrote Coubertin, "gave the precise formula for the role of athletics in education. The cause was quickly won. Playing fields sprang up all over England".[12]
+
+Intrigued by what he had read about English public schools, in 1883, at the age of twenty, Frédy went to Rugby and to other English schools to see for himself. He described the results in a book, L'Education en Angleterre, which was published in Paris in 1888. This hero of his book is Thomas Arnold, and on his second visit in 1886, Coubertin reflected on Arnold's influence in the chapel at Rugby School.[13]
+
+What Coubertin saw on the playing fields of Rugby and the other English schools he visited was how "organised sport can create moral and social strength".[14] Not only did organised games help to set the mind and body in equilibrium, it also prevented the time being wasted in other ways. First developed by the ancient Greeks, it was an approach to education that he felt the rest of the world had forgotten and to whose revival he was to dedicate the rest of his life.
+
+As a historian and a thinker on education, Coubertin romanticised ancient Greece. Thus, when he began to develop his theory of physical education, he naturally looked to the example set by the Athenian idea of the gymnasium, a training facility that simultaneously encouraged physical and intellectual development. He saw in these gymnasia what he called a triple unity between old and young, between disciplines, and between different types of people, meaning between those whose work was theoretical and those whose work was practical. Coubertin advocated for these concepts, this triple unity, to be incorporated into schools.[15]
+
+But while Coubertin was certainly a romantic, and while his idealised vision of ancient Greece would lead him later to the idea of reviving the Olympic Games, his advocacy for physical education was based on practical concerns as well. He believed that men who received physical education would be better prepared to fight in wars, and better able to win conflicts like the Franco-Prussian War, in which France had been humiliated. He also saw sport as democratic, in that sports competition crossed class lines, although it did so without causing a mingling of classes, which he did not support.[15]
+
+Unfortunately for Coubertin, his efforts to incorporate more physical education into French schools failed. The failure of this endeavour, however, was closely followed by the development of a new idea, the revival of the ancient Olympic Games, the creation of a festival of international athleticism.[15]
+
+He was the referee of the first ever French championship rugby union final on 20 March 1892, between Racing Club de France and Stade Français.[16]
+
+Coubertin is the instigator of the modern Olympic movement, a man whose vision and political skill led to the revival of the Olympic Games which had been practised in antiquity.[3] Coubertin idealized the Olympic Games as the ultimate ancient athletic competition.[15]
+
+Thomas Arnold, the Head Master of Rugby School, was an important influence on Coubertin's thoughts about education, but his meetings with William Penny Brookes also influenced his thinking about athletic competition to some extent. A trained physician, Brookes believed that the best way to prevent illness was through physical exercise. In 1850, he had initiated a local athletic competition that he referred to as "Meetings of the Olympian Class"[17] at the Gaskell recreation ground at Much Wenlock, Shropshire.[18] Along with the Liverpool Athletic Club, who began holding their own Olympic Festival in the 1860s, Brookes created a National Olympian Association which aimed to encourage such local competition in cities across Britain. These efforts were largely ignored by the British sporting establishment. Brookes also maintained communication with the government and sporting advocates in Greece, seeking a revival of the Olympic Games internationally under the auspices of the Greek government.[19] There, the philanthropist cousins Evangelos and Konstantinos Zappas had used their wealth to fund Olympics within Greece, and paid for the restoration of the Panathinaiko Stadium that was later used during the 1896 Summer Olympics.[20] The efforts of Brookes to encourage the internationalization of these games came to naught.[19] However, Dr. Brookes did organize a national Olympic Games in London, at Crystal Palace, in 1866 and this was the first Olympics to resemble an Olympic Games to be held outside of Greece.[21] But while others had created Olympic contests within their countries, and broached the idea of international competition, it was Coubertin whose work would lead to the establishment of the International Olympic Committee and the organisation of the first modern Olympic Games.[20]
+
+In 1888, Coubertin founded the Comité pour la Propagation des Exercises Physiques more well known as the Comité Jules Simon. Coubertin's earliest reference to the modern notion of Olympic Games criticizes the idea.[22] The idea for reviving the Olympic Games as an international competition came to Coubertin in 1889, apparently independently of Brookes, and he spent the following five years organizing an international meeting of athletes and sports enthusiasts that might make it happen.[15] Dr Brookes had organised a national Olympic Games that was held at Crystal Palace in London in 1866.[21] In response to a newspaper appeal, Brookes wrote to Coubertin in 1890, and the two began an exchange of letters on education and sport. Although he was too old to attend the 1894 Congress, Brookes would continue to support Coubertin's efforts, most importantly by using his connections with the Greek government to seek its support in the endeavour. While Brookes' contribution to the revival of the Olympic Games was recognised in Britain at the time, Coubertin in his later writings largely neglected to mention the role the Englishman played in their development.[23] He did mention the roles of Evangelis Zappas and his cousin Konstantinos Zappas, but drew a distinction between their founding of athletic Olympics and his own role in the creation of an international contest.[20] However, Coubertin together with A. Mercatis, a close friend of Konstantinos, encouraged the Greek government to utilise part of Konstantinos' legacy to fund the 1896 Athens Olympic Games separately and in addition to the legacy of Evangelis Zappas that Konstantinos had been executor of.[24][25][26] Moreover, George Averoff was invited by the Greek government to fund the second refurbishment of the Panathinaiko Stadium that had already been fully funded by Evangelis Zappas forty years earlier.[27]
+
+Coubertin's advocacy for the Games centred on a number of ideals about sport. He believed that the early ancient Olympics encouraged competition among amateur rather than professional athletes, and saw value in that. The ancient practice of a sacred truce in association with the Games might have modern implications, giving the Olympics a role in promoting peace. This role was reinforced in Coubertin's mind by the tendency of athletic competition to promote understanding across cultures, thereby lessening the dangers of war. In addition, he saw the Games as important in advocating his philosophical ideal for athletic competition: that the competition itself, the struggle to overcome one's opponent, was more important than winning.[28] Coubertin expressed this ideal thus:
+
+L'important dans la vie ce n'est point le triomphe, mais le combat, l'essentiel ce n'est pas d'avoir vaincu mais de s'être bien battu.
+
+The important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle, the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.
+
+As Coubertin prepared for his Congress, he continued to develop a philosophy of the Olympic Games. While he certainly intended the Games to be a forum for competition between amateur athletes, his conception of amateurism was complex. By 1894, the year the Congress was held, he publicly criticised the type of amateur competition embodied in English rowing contests, arguing that its specific exclusion of working-class athletes was wrong. While he believed that athletes should not be paid to be such, he did think that compensation was in order for the time when athletes were competing and would otherwise have been earning money. Following the establishment of a definition for an amateur athlete at the 1894 Congress, he would continue to argue that this definition should be amended as necessary, and as late as 1909 would argue that the Olympic movement should develop its definition of amateurism gradually.[29]
+
+Along with the development of an Olympic philosophy, Coubertin invested time in the creation and development of a national association to coordinate athletics in France, the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques (USFSA). In 1889, French athletics associations had grouped together for the first time and Coubertin founded a monthly magazine La Revue Athletique, the first French periodical devoted exclusively to athletics[30] and modelled on The Athlete, an English journal established around 1862.[31] Formed by seven sporting societies with approximately 800 members, by 1892 the association had expanded to 62 societies with 7,000 members.[32]
+
+That November, at the annual meeting of the USFSA, Coubertin first publicly suggested the idea of reviving the Olympics. His speech met general applause, but little commitment to the Olympic ideal he was advocating for, perhaps because sporting associations and their members tended to focus on their own area of expertise and had little identity as sportspeople in a general sense. This disappointing result was prelude to a number of challenges he would face in organising his international conference. In order to develop support for the conference, he began to play down its role in reviving Olympic Games and instead promoted it as a conference on amateurism in sport which, he thought, was slowly being eroded by betting and sponsorships. This led to later suggestions that participants were convinced to attend under false pretenses. Little interest was expressed by those he spoke to during trips to the United States in 1893 and London in 1894, and an attempt to involve the Germans angered French gymnasts who did not want the Germans invited at all. Despite these challenges, the USFSA continued its planning for the games, adopting in its first program for the meeting eight articles to address, only one of which had to do with the Olympics. A later program would give the Olympics a much more prominent role in the meeting.[33]
+
+The congress was held on 23 June 1894 at the Sorbonne in Paris. Once there, participants divided the congress into two commissions, one on amateurism and the other on reviving the Olympics. A Greek participant, Demetrius Vikelas, was appointed to head the commission on the Olympics, and would later become the first President of the International Olympic Committee. Along with Coubertin, C. Herbert of Britain's Amateur Athletic Association and W.M. Sloane of the United States helped lead the efforts of the commission. In its report, the commission proposed that Olympic Games be held every four years and that the program for the Games be one of modern rather than ancient sports. They also set the date and location for the first modern Olympic Games, the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, and the second, the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris. Coubertin had originally opposed the choice of Greece, as he had concerns about the ability of a weakened Greek state to host the competition, but was convinced by Vikelas to support the idea. The commission's proposals were accepted unanimously by the congress, and the modern Olympic movement was officially born. The proposals of the other commission, on amateurism, were more contentious, but this commission also set important precedents for the Olympic Games, specifically the use of heats to narrow participants and the banning of prize money in most contests.[34]
+
+Following the Congress, the institutions created there began to be formalized into the International Olympic Committee (IOC), with Demetrius Vikelas as its first President. The work of the IOC increasingly focused on the planning the 1896 Athens Games, and de Coubertin played a background role as Greek authorities took the lead in logistical organisation of the Games in Greece itself, offering technical advice such as a sketch of a design of a velodrome to be used in cycling competitions. He also took the lead in planning the program of events, although to his disappointment neither polo, football, or boxing were included in 1896.[35] The Greek organizing committee had been informed that four foreign football teams were to participate however not one foreign football team showed up and despite Greek preparations for a football tournament it was cancelled during the Games.[36]
+
+The Greek authorities were frustrated that he could not provide an exact estimate of the number of attendees more than a year in advance. In France, Coubertin's efforts to elicit interest in the Games among athletes and the press met difficulty, largely because the participation of German athletes angered French nationalists who begrudged Germany their victory in the Franco-Prussian War. Germany also threatened not to participate after rumours spread that Coubertin had sworn to keep Germany out, but following a letter to the Kaiser denying the accusation, the German National Olympic Committee decided to attend. Coubertin himself was frustrated by the Greeks, who increasingly ignored him in their planning and who wanted to continue to hold the Games in Athens every four years, against de Coubertin's wishes. The conflict was resolved after he suggested to the King of Greece that he hold pan-Hellenic games in between Olympiads, an idea which the King accepted, although Coubertin would receive some angry correspondence even after the compromise was reached and the King did not mention him at all during the banquet held in honour of foreign athletes during the 1896 Games.[37]
+
+Coubertin took over the IOC presidency when Demetrius Vikelas stepped down after the Olympics in his own country. Despite the initial success, the Olympic Movement faced hard times, as the 1900 (in De Coubertin's own Paris) and 1904 Games were both swallowed by World's Fairs in the same cities, and received little attention. The Paris Games were not organised by Coubertin or the IOC nor were they called Olympics at that time. The St. Louis Games was hardly internationalized.[38]
+
+The 1906 Summer Olympics revived the momentum, and the Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world's foremost sports competition.[39] Coubertin created the modern pentathlon for the 1912 Olympics, and subsequently stepped down from his IOC presidency after the 1924 Olympics in Paris, which proved much more successful than the first attempt in that city in 1900. He was succeeded as president, in 1925, by Belgian Henri de Baillet-Latour.
+
+Years later Coubertin came out of retirement to lend his prestige to assisting Berlin to land the 1936 games. In exchange, Germany nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. The 1935 winner, however, was the anti-Nazi Carl von Ossietzky.[40]
+
+Coubertin won the gold medal for literature at the 1912 Summer Olympics for his poem Ode to Sport.[41] Coubertin entered his poem 'Ode to Sport' under the pseudonym of Georges Hohrod and M. Eschbach which were the names of villages close to his wife's place of birth.[42]
+
+Following Fransisco Amoros ideas, De Coubertin developed a new type of utilitarian sport: "les débrouillards". (the "resourceful men") from 1900.
+
+The first débrouillards season was  organized in 1905/1906, and the programme was wide: running, jumping, throwing, climbing, swimming, sword fight, boxing, shooting, walking, horse riding, rowing, cycling. (source: FFEPGV archives)
+
+In 1911, Pierre de Coubertin founded the inter-religious Scouting organisation aka Éclaireurs Français (EF) in France, which later merged to form the Éclaireuses et Éclaireurs de France.[citation needed]
+
+In 1895 Pierre de Coubertin had married Marie Rothan, the daughter of family friends. Their son Jacques (1896–1952) became ill after being in the sun too long when he was a little child. Their daughter Renée (1902–1968) suffered emotional disturbances and never married. Marie and Pierre tried to console themselves with two nephews, but they were killed at the front in World War I. Coubertin died of a heart attack in Geneva, Switzerland on 2 September 1937. Marie died in 1963.[43][44][45]
+
+Pierre was the last person to possess his family name. In the words of his biographer John MacAloon, "The last of his lineage, Pierre de Coubertin was the only member of it whose fame would outlive him."[46]
+
+A number of scholars have criticized Coubertin's legacy. David C. Young believes that Coubertin's assertion that ancient Olympic athletes were amateurs was incorrect.[47] The issue is the subject of scholarly debate. Young and others argue that the athletes of the ancient Games were professional, while opponents led by Pleket argue that the earliest Olympic athletes were in fact amateur, and that the Games only became professionalized after about 480 BC. Coubertin agreed with this latter view, and saw this professionalization as undercutting the morality of the competition.[48]
+
+Further, Young asserts that the effort to limit international competition to amateur athletes, which Coubertin was a part of, was in fact part of efforts to give the upper classes greater control over athletic competition, removing such control from the working classes. Coubertin may have played a role in such a movement, but his defenders argue that he did so unconscious of any class repercussions.[28]
+
+However, it is clear that his romanticized vision of the Olympic Games was fundamentally different from that described in the historical record. For example, Coubertin's idea that participation is more important than winning ("L'important c'est de participer") is at odds with the ideals of the Greeks.[citation needed]
+
+Coubertin's assertion that the Games were the impetus for peace was also an exaggeration; the peace which he spoke of only existed to allow athletes to travel safely to Olympia, and neither prevented the outbreak of wars nor ended ongoing ones.[28]
+
+Scholars have critiqued the idea that athletic competition might lead to greater understanding between cultures and, therefore, to peace. Christopher Hill claims that modern participants in the Olympic movement may defend this particular belief, "in a spirit similar to that in which the Church of England remains attached to the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, which a Priest in that Church must sign." In other words, that they may not wholly believe it but hold to it for historical reasons.[29]
+
+Questions have also been raised about the veracity of Coubertin's account of his role in the planning of the 1896 Athens Games. Reportedly, Coubertin played little role in planning, despite entreaties by Vikelas. Young suggests that the story about Coubertin's having sketched the velodrome were untrue, and that he had in fact given an interview in which he suggested he did not want Germans to participate. Coubertin later denied this.[49]
+
+The Olympic motto Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger) was proposed by Coubertin in 1894 and has been official since 1924. The motto was coined by Henri Didon OP, a friend of Coubertin, for a Paris youth gathering of 1891.[50][51]
+
+The Pierre de Coubertin medal (also known as the Coubertin medal or the True Spirit of Sportsmanship medal) is an award given by the International Olympic Committee to those athletes that demonstrate the spirit of sportsmanship in the Olympic Games. This medal is considered by many athletes and spectators to be the highest award that an Olympic athlete can receive, even greater than a gold medal. The International Olympic Committee considers it as its highest honour.[52]
+
+A minor planet, 2190 Coubertin, was discovered in 1976 by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh and is named in his honour.[53]
+
+The street where the Olympic Stadium in Montreal is located (which hosted the 1976 Summer Olympic Games) was named after Pierre de Coubertin, giving the stadium the address 4549 Pierre de Coubertin Avenue. It is the only Olympic Stadium in the world that lies on a street named after Coubertin. There are also two schools in Montreal named after Pierre de Coubertin.[54][55]
+
+He was portrayed by Louis Jourdan in the 1984 NBC miniseries, The First Olympics: Athens 1896.[56]
+
+In 2007, he was inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame for his services to the sport of rugby union.[57]
+
+This is a listing of Pierre de Coubertin's books. In addition to these, he wrote numerous articles for journals and magazines:[58][59]

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+Other reasons this message may be displayed:

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+Other reasons this message may be displayed:

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+
+
+A degree (in full, a degree of arc, arc degree, or arcdegree), usually denoted by ° (the degree symbol), is a measurement of a plane angle, defined so that a full rotation is 360 degrees.
+
+It is not an SI unit, as the SI unit of angular measure is the radian, but it is mentioned in the SI brochure as an accepted unit.[4] Because a full rotation equals 2π radians, one degree is equivalent to π/180 radians.
+
+The original motivation for choosing the degree as a unit of rotations and angles is unknown. One theory states that it is related to the fact that 360 is approximately the number of days in a year.[6] Ancient astronomers noticed that the sun, which follows through the ecliptic path over the course of the year, seems to advance in its path by approximately one degree each day. Some ancient calendars, such as the Persian calendar, used 360 days for a year.[citation needed] The use of a calendar with 360 days may be related to the use of sexagesimal numbers.
+
+Another theory is that the Babylonians subdivided the circle using the angle of an equilateral triangle as the basic unit and further subdivided the latter into 60 parts following their sexagesimal numeric system.[7][8] The earliest trigonometry, used by the Babylonian astronomers and their Greek successors, was based on chords of a circle. A chord of length equal to the radius made a natural base quantity. One sixtieth of this, using their standard sexagesimal divisions, was a degree.
+
+Aristarchus of Samos and Hipparchus seem to have been among the first Greek scientists to exploit Babylonian astronomical knowledge and techniques systematically.[9][10] Timocharis, Aristarchus, Aristillus, Archimedes, and Hipparchus were the first Greeks known to divide the circle in 360 degrees of 60 arc minutes.[11] Eratosthenes used a simpler sexagesimal system dividing a circle into 60 parts.
+
+The division of the circle into 360 parts also occurred in ancient India, as evidenced in the Rigveda:[12]
+
+Twelve spokes, one wheel, navels three.
+
+Who can comprehend this?
+On it are placed together
+three hundred and sixty like pegs.
+They shake not in the least.
+
+Another motivation for choosing the number 360 may have been that it is readily divisible: 360 has 24 divisors,[note 1] making it one of only 7 numbers such that no number less than twice as much has more divisors (sequence A072938 in the OEIS).[13][14] Furthermore, it is divisible by every number from 1 to 10 except 7.[note 2] This property has many useful applications, such as dividing the world into 24 time zones, each of which is nominally 15° of longitude, to correlate with the established 24-hour day convention.
+
+Finally, it may be the case that more than one of these factors has come into play.  According to that theory, the number is approximately 365 because of the apparent movement of the sun against the celestial sphere and that it was rounded to 360 for some of the mathematical reasons cited above.
+
+For many practical purposes, a degree is a small enough angle that whole degrees provide sufficient precision. When this is not the case, as in astronomy or for geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude), degree measurements may be written using decimal degrees, with the degree symbol behind the decimals; for example, 40.1875°.
+
+Alternatively, the traditional sexagesimal unit subdivisions can be used. One degree is divided into 60 minutes (of arc), and one minute into 60 seconds (of arc). Use of degrees-minutes-seconds is also called DMS notation. These subdivisions, also called the arcminute and arcsecond, are respectively represented by a single and double prime. For example, 40.1875° = 40° 11′ 15″, or, using quotation mark characters, 40° 11' 15". Additional precision can be provided using decimals for the arcseconds component.
+
+Maritime charts are marked in degrees and decimal minutes to facilitate measurement; 1 minute of latitude is 1 nautical mile.  The example above would be given as 40° 11.25′ (commonly written as 11′25 or 11′.25).[15]
+
+The older system of thirds, fourths, etc., which continues the sexagesimal unit subdivision, was used by al-Kashi[citation needed] and other ancient astronomers, but is rarely used today. These subdivisions were denoted by writing the Roman numeral for the number of sixtieths in superscript: 1I for a "prime" (minute of arc), 1II for a second, 1III for a third, 1IV for a fourth, etc.[16] Hence the modern symbols for the minute and second of arc, and the word "second" also refer to this system.[17]
+
+In most mathematical work beyond practical geometry, angles are typically measured in radians rather than degrees. This is for a variety of reasons; for example, the trigonometric functions have simpler and more "natural" properties when their arguments are expressed in radians. These considerations outweigh the convenient divisibility of the number 360. One complete turn (360°) is equal to 2π radians, so 180° is equal to π radians, or equivalently, the degree is a mathematical constant: 1° = ​π⁄180.
+
+The turn (or revolution, full circle, full rotation, cycle) is used in technology and science. One turn is equal to 360°.
+
+With the invention of the metric system, based on powers of ten, there was an attempt to replace degrees by decimal "degrees"[note 3] called grad or gon, where the number in a right angle is equal to 100 gon with 400 gon in a full circle (1° = ​10⁄9 gon). Although that idea was abandoned by Napoleon, grades continued to be used in several fields and many scientific calculators support them.  Decigrades (​1⁄4,000) were used with French artillery sights in World War I.
+
+An angular mil, which is most used in military applications, has at least three specific variants, ranging from ​1⁄6,400 to ​1⁄6,000. It is approximately equal to one milliradian (c. ​1⁄6,283). A mil measuring ​1⁄6,000 of a revolution originated in the imperial Russian army, where an equilateral chord was divided into tenths to give a circle of 600 units. This may be seen on a lining plane (an early device for aiming indirect fire artillery) dating from about 1900 in the St. Petersburg Museum of Artillery.

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+
+
+The kelvin is the base unit of temperature in the International System of Units (SI), having the unit symbol K. It is named after the Belfast-born, Glasgow University engineer and physicist William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (1824–1907).
+
+The kelvin is now defined by fixing the numerical value of the Boltzmann constant k to 1.380 649×10−23 J⋅K−1. This unit is equal to kg⋅m2⋅s−2⋅K−1, where the kilogram, metre and second are defined in terms of the Planck constant, the speed of light, and the duration of the caesium-133 ground-state hyperfine transition respectively.[1] Thus, this definition depends only on universal constants, and not on any physical artifacts as practiced previously, such as the International Prototype of the Kilogram, whose mass diverged over time from the original value.
+
+One kelvin is equal to a change in the thermodynamic temperature T that results in a change of thermal energy kT by 1.380 649×10−23 J.[2]
+
+The Kelvin scale fulfills Thomson's requirements as an absolute thermodynamic temperature scale. It uses absolute zero as its null point.
+
+Unlike the degree Fahrenheit and degree Celsius, the kelvin is not referred to or written as a degree. The kelvin is the primary unit of temperature measurement in the physical sciences, but is often used in conjunction with the degree Celsius, which has the same magnitude.
+
+In 1848, William Thomson, who was later created Lord Kelvin, wrote in his paper, On an Absolute Thermometric Scale, of the need for a scale whereby "infinite cold" (absolute zero) was the scale's null point, and which used the degree Celsius for its unit increment. Kelvin calculated that absolute zero was equivalent to −273 °C on the air thermometers of the time.[3] This absolute scale is known today as the Kelvin thermodynamic temperature scale. Kelvin's value of "−273" was the negative reciprocal of 0.00366—the accepted expansion coefficient of gas per degree Celsius relative to the ice point, giving a remarkable consistency to the currently accepted value.
+
+In 1954, Resolution 3 of the 10th General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) gave the Kelvin scale its modern definition by designating the triple point of water as its second defining point and assigned its temperature to exactly 273.16 kelvins.[4]
+
+In 1967/1968, Resolution 3 of the 13th CGPM renamed the unit increment of thermodynamic temperature "kelvin", symbol K, replacing "degree Kelvin", symbol °K.[5] Furthermore, feeling it useful to more explicitly define the magnitude of the unit increment, the 13th CGPM also held in Resolution 4 that "The kelvin, unit of thermodynamic temperature, is equal to the fraction 1/273.16 of the thermodynamic temperature of the triple point of water."[6]
+
+In 2005, the Comité International des Poids et Mesures (CIPM), a committee of the CGPM, affirmed that for the purposes of delineating the temperature of the triple point of water, the definition of the Kelvin thermodynamic temperature scale would refer to water having an isotopic composition specified as Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water.[7]
+
+On 16 November 2018, a new definition was adopted, in terms of a fixed value of the Boltzmann constant. With this change the triple point of water became an empirically determined value of approximately 273.16 kelvins. For legal metrology purposes, the new definition officially came into force on 20 May 2019, the 144th anniversary of the Metre Convention.[8]
+
+According to the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, when spelled out or spoken, the unit is pluralised using the same grammatical rules as for other SI units such as the volt or ohm (e.g. "the triple point of water is not exactly 273.16 kelvins"[9]). When reference is made to the "Kelvin scale", the word "kelvin"—which is normally a noun—functions adjectivally to modify the noun "scale" and is capitalized. As with most other SI unit symbols (angle symbols, e.g. 45° 3′ 4″, are the exception) there is a space between the numeric value and the kelvin symbol (e.g. "99.987 K").[10][11] (The style guide for CERN, however, specifically says to always use "kelvin", even when plural.)[12]
+
+Before the 13th CGPM in 1967–1968, the unit kelvin was called a "degree", the same as with the other temperature scales at the time. It was distinguished from the other scales with either the adjective suffix "Kelvin" ("degree Kelvin") or with "absolute" ("degree absolute") and its symbol was °K. The latter term (degree absolute), which was the unit's official name from 1948 until 1954, was ambiguous since it could also be interpreted as referring to the Rankine scale. Before the 13th CGPM, the plural form was "degrees absolute". The 13th CGPM changed the unit name to simply "kelvin" (symbol: K).[13] The omission of "degree" indicates that it is not relative to an arbitrary reference point like the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales (although the Rankine scale continued to use "degree Rankine"), but rather an absolute unit of measure which can be manipulated algebraically (e.g. multiplied by two to indicate twice the amount of "mean energy" available among elementary degrees of freedom of the system).
+
+In 2005 the CIPM embarked on a programme to redefine the kelvin (along with the other SI units) using a more experimentally rigorous methodology. In particular, the committee proposed redefining the kelvin such that Boltzmann constant takes the exact value 1.3806505×10−23 J/K.[14] The committee had hoped that the programme would be completed in time for its adoption by the CGPM at its 2011 meeting, but at the 2011 meeting the decision was postponed to the 2014 meeting when it would be considered as part of a larger programme.[15]
+
+The redefinition was further postponed in 2014, pending more accurate measurements of Boltzmann's constant in terms of the current definition,[16]
+but was finally adopted at the 26th CGPM in late 2018, with a value of k = 1.380649×10−23 J/K.[14][17]
+
+From a scientific point of view, the main advantage is that this will allow measurements at very low and very high temperatures to be made more accurately, as the techniques used depend on the Boltzmann constant.  It also has the philosophical advantage of being independent of any particular substance.  The challenge was to avoid degrading the accuracy of measurements close to the triple point.  From a practical point of view, the redefinition will pass unnoticed; water will still freeze at 273.15 K (0 °C),[18] and the triple point of water will continue to be a commonly used laboratory reference temperature.
+
+The difference is that, before the redefinition, the triple point of water was exact and the Boltzmann constant had a measured value of 1.38064903(51)×10−23 J/K, with a relative standard uncertainty of 3.7×10−7.[17]  Afterward, the Boltzmann constant is exact and the uncertainty is transferred to the triple point of water, which is now 273.1600(1) K.
+
+The kelvin is often used as a measure of the colour temperature of light sources. Colour temperature is based upon the principle that a black body radiator emits light with a frequency distribution characteristic of its temperature. Black bodies at temperatures below about 4000 K appear reddish, whereas those above about 7500 K appear bluish. Colour temperature is important in the fields of image projection and photography, where a colour temperature of approximately 5600 K is required to match "daylight" film emulsions. In astronomy, the stellar classification of stars and their place on the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram are based, in part, upon their surface temperature, known as effective temperature. The photosphere of the Sun, for instance, has an effective temperature of 5778 K.
+
+Digital cameras and photographic software often use colour temperature in K in edit and setup menus. The simple guide is that higher colour temperature produces an image with enhanced white and blue hues. The reduction in colour temperature produces an image more dominated by reddish, "warmer" colours.
+
+In electronics, the kelvin is used as an indicator of how noisy a circuit is in relation to an ultimate noise floor, i.e. the noise temperature. The so-called Johnson–Nyquist noise of discrete resistors and capacitors is a type of thermal noise derived from the Boltzmann constant and can be used to determine the noise temperature of a circuit using the Friis formulas for noise.
+
+The symbol is encoded in Unicode at code point U+212A K KELVIN SIGN. However, this is a compatibility character provided for compatibility with legacy encodings. The Unicode standard recommends using U+004B K LATIN CAPITAL LETTER K instead; that is, a normal capital K. "Three letterlike symbols have been given canonical equivalence to regular letters: U+2126 Ω OHM SIGN, U+212A K KELVIN SIGN, and U+212B Å ANGSTROM SIGN. In all three instances, the regular letter should be used."[19]

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+
+
+Coordinates: 51°N 9°E / 51°N 9°E / 51; 9
+
+– in Europe (light green & dark grey)– in the European Union (light green)
+
+Germany (German: Deutschland, German pronunciation: [ˈdɔʏtʃlant]), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, listen),[e] is a country in Central and Western Europe. Covering an area of 357,022 square kilometres (137,847 sq mi), it lies between the Baltic and North seas to the north, and the Alps to the south. It borders Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, and France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands to the west.
+
+Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity. A region named Germania was documented before AD 100. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. Following the Napoleonic Wars and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the German Confederation was formed in 1815. In 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic. The Nazi seizure of power in 1933 led to the establishment of a dictatorship, World War II, and the Holocaust. After the end of World War II in Europe and a period of Allied occupation, two new German states were founded: West Germany and East Germany. The Federal Republic of Germany was a founding member of the European Economic Community and the European Union. The country was reunified on 3 October 1990.
+
+Today, Germany is a federal parliamentary republic led by a chancellor. With 83 million inhabitants of its 16 constituent states, it is the second-most populous country in Europe after Russia, as well as the most populous member state of the European Union. Its capital and largest city is Berlin, and its financial centre is Frankfurt; the largest urban area is the Ruhr.
+
+Germany is a great power with a strong economy; it has the largest economy in Europe, the world's fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP, and the fifth-largest by PPP. As a global leader in several industrial and technological sectors, it is both the world's third-largest exporter and importer of goods. A highly developed country with a very high standard of living, it offers social security and a universal health care system, environmental protections, and a tuition-free university education. Germany is also a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G7, the G20, and the OECD. Known for its long and rich cultural history, Germany has many World Heritage sites and is among the top tourism destinations in the world.
+
+The English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine.[10] The German term Deutschland, originally diutisciu land ("the German lands") is derived from deutsch, descended from Old High German diutisc "of the people" (from diot or diota "people"), originally used to distinguish the language of the common people from Latin and its Romance descendants. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz "of the people" (see also the Latinised form Theodiscus), derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- "people", from which the word Teutons also originates.[11]
+
+Ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago.[12] The first non-modern human fossil (the Neanderthal) was discovered in the Neander Valley.[13] Similarly dated evidence of modern humans has been found in the Swabian Jura, including 42,000-year-old flutes which are the oldest musical instruments ever found,[14] the 40,000-year-old Lion Man,[15] and the 35,000-year-old Venus of Hohle Fels.[16] The Nebra sky disk, created during the European Bronze Age, is attributed to a German site.[17]
+
+The Germanic tribes are thought to date from the Nordic Bronze Age or the Pre-Roman Iron Age.[18] From southern Scandinavia and north Germany, they expanded south, east, and west, coming into contact with the Celtic, Iranian, Baltic, and Slavic tribes.[19]
+
+Under Augustus, Rome began to invade Germania. In 9 AD, three Roman legions were defeated by Arminius.[20] By 100 AD, when Tacitus wrote Germania, Germanic tribes had settled along the Rhine and the Danube (the Limes Germanicus), occupying most of modern Germany. However, Baden Württemberg, southern Bavaria, southern Hesse and the western Rhineland had been incorporated into Roman provinces.[21][22][23] Around 260, Germanic peoples broke into Roman-controlled lands.[24] After the invasion of the Huns in 375, and with the decline of Rome from 395, Germanic tribes moved farther southwest: the Franks established the Frankish Kingdom and pushed east to subjugate Saxony and Bavaria, and areas of what is today eastern Germany were inhabited by Western Slavic tribes.[21]
+
+Charlemagne founded the Carolingian Empire in 800; it was divided in 843[25] and the Holy Roman Empire emerged from the eastern portion. The territory initially known as East Francia stretched from the Rhine in the west to the Elbe River in the east and from the North Sea to the Alps.[25] The Ottonian rulers (919–1024) consolidated several major duchies.[26] In 996 Gregory V became the first German Pope, appointed by his cousin Otto III, whom he shortly after crowned Holy Roman Emperor. The Holy Roman Empire absorbed northern Italy and Burgundy under the Salian emperors (1024–1125), although the emperors lost power through the Investiture controversy.[27]
+
+Under the Hohenstaufen emperors (1138–1254), German princes encouraged German settlement to the south and east (Ostsiedlung). Members of the Hanseatic League, mostly north German towns, prospered in the expansion of trade.[28] Population declined starting with the Great Famine in 1315, followed by the Black Death of 1348–50.[29] The Golden Bull issued in 1356 provided the constitutional structure of the Empire and codified the election of the emperor by seven prince-electors.[30]
+
+Johannes Gutenberg introduced moveable-type printing to Europe, laying the basis for the democratization of knowledge.[31] In 1517, Martin Luther incited the Protestant Reformation; the 1555 Peace of Augsburg tolerated the "Evangelical" faith (Lutheranism), but also decreed that the faith of the prince was to be the faith of his subjects (cuius regio, eius religio).[32] From the Cologne War through the Thirty Years' Wars (1618–1648), religious conflict devastated German lands and significantly reduced the population.[33][34]
+
+The Peace of Westphalia ended religious warfare among the Imperial Estates;[33] their mostly German-speaking rulers were able to choose Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, or the Reformed faith as their official religion.[35] The legal system initiated by a series of Imperial Reforms (approximately 1495–1555) provided for considerable local autonomy and a stronger Imperial Diet.[36] The House of Habsburg held the imperial crown from 1438 until the death of Charles VI in 1740. Following the War of Austrian Succession and the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Charles VI's daughter Maria Theresa ruled as Empress Consort when her husband, Francis I, became Emperor.[37][38]
+
+From 1740, dualism between the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy and the Kingdom of Prussia dominated German history. In 1772, 1793, and 1795, Prussia and Austria, along with the Russian Empire, agreed to the Partitions of Poland.[39][40] During the period of the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic era and the subsequent final meeting of the Imperial Diet, most of the Free Imperial Cities were annexed by dynastic territories; the ecclesiastical territories were secularised and annexed. In 1806 the Imperium was dissolved; France, Russia, Prussia and the Habsburgs (Austria) competed for hegemony in the German states during the Napoleonic Wars.[41]
+
+Following the fall of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna founded the German Confederation, a loose league of 39 sovereign states. The appointment of the Emperor of Austria as the permanent president reflected the Congress's rejection of Prussia's rising influence. Disagreement within restoration politics partly led to the rise of liberal movements, followed by new measures of repression by Austrian statesman Klemens von Metternich.[42][43] The Zollverein, a tariff union, furthered economic unity.[44] In light of revolutionary movements in Europe, intellectuals and commoners started the revolutions of 1848 in the German states. King Frederick William IV of Prussia was offered the title of Emperor, but with a loss of power; he rejected the crown and the proposed constitution, a temporary setback for the movement.[45]
+
+King William I appointed Otto von Bismarck as the Minister President of Prussia in 1862. Bismarck successfully concluded the war with Denmark in 1864; the subsequent decisive Prussian victory in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 enabled him to create the North German Confederation which excluded Austria. After the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War, the German princes proclaimed the founding of the German Empire in 1871. Prussia was the dominant constituent state of the new empire; the King of Prussia ruled as its Kaiser, and Berlin became its capital.[46][47]
+
+In the Gründerzeit period following the unification of Germany, Bismarck's foreign policy as Chancellor of Germany secured Germany's position as a great nation by forging alliances and avoiding war.[47] However, under Wilhelm II, Germany took an imperialistic course, leading to friction with neighbouring countries.[48] A dual alliance was created with the multinational realm of Austria-Hungary; the Triple Alliance of 1882 included Italy. Britain, France and Russia also concluded alliances to protect against Habsburg interference with Russian interests in the Balkans or German interference against France.[49] At the Berlin Conference in 1884, Germany claimed several colonies including German East Africa, German South West Africa, Togoland, and Kamerun.[50] Later, Germany further expanded its colonial empire to include holdings in the Pacific and China.[51] The colonial government in South West Africa (present-day Namibia), from 1904 to 1907, carried out the annihilation of the local Herero and Namaqua peoples as punishment for an uprising;[52][53] this was the 20th century's first genocide.[53]
+
+The assassination of Austria's crown prince on 28 June 1914 provided the pretext for Austria-Hungary to attack Serbia and trigger World War I. After four years of warfare, in which approximately two million German soldiers were killed,[54] a general armistice ended the fighting. In the German Revolution (November 1918), Emperor Wilhelm II and the ruling princes abdicated their positions and Germany was declared a federal republic. Germany's new leadership signed the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, accepting defeat by the Allies. Germans perceived the treaty as humiliating, which was seen by historians as influential in the rise of Adolf Hitler.[55] Germany lost around 13% of its European territory and ceded all of its colonial possessions in Africa and the South Sea.[56]
+
+On 11 August 1919, President Friedrich Ebert signed the democratic Weimar Constitution.[57] In the subsequent struggle for power, communists seized power in Bavaria, but conservative elements elsewhere attempted to overthrow the Republic in the Kapp Putsch. Street fighting in the major industrial centres, the occupation of the Ruhr by Belgian and French troops, and a period of hyperinflation followed. A debt restructuring plan and the creation of a new currency in 1924 ushered in the Golden Twenties, an era of artistic innovation and liberal cultural life.[58][59][60]
+
+The worldwide Great Depression hit Germany in 1929. Chancellor Heinrich Brüning's government pursued a policy of fiscal austerity and deflation which caused unemployment of nearly 30% by 1932.[61] The Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler won a special election in 1932 and Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933.[62] After the Reichstag fire, a decree abrogated basic civil rights and the first Nazi concentration camp opened.[63][64] The Enabling Act gave Hitler unrestricted legislative power, overriding the constitution;[65] his government established a centralised totalitarian state, withdrew from the League of Nations, and dramatically increased the country's rearmament.[66] A government-sponsored programme for economic renewal focused on public works, the most famous of which was the autobahn.[67]
+
+In 1935, the regime withdrew from the Treaty of Versailles and introduced the Nuremberg Laws which targeted Jews and other minorities.[68] Germany also reacquired control of the Saarland in 1935,[69] remilitarised the Rhineland in 1936, annexed Austria in 1938, annexed the Sudetenland in 1938 with the Munich Agreement, and in violation of the agreement occupied Czechoslovakia in March 1939.[70] Kristallnacht saw the burning of synagogues, the destruction of Jewish businesses, and mass arrests of Jewish people.[71]
+
+In August 1939, Hitler's government negotiated the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact that divided Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence.[72] On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland, beginning World War II in Europe;[73] Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September.[74] In the spring of 1940, Germany conquered Denmark and Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France, forcing the French government to sign an armistice. The British repelled German air attacks in the Battle of Britain in the same year. In 1941, German troops invaded Yugoslavia, Greece and the Soviet Union. By 1942, Germany and her allies controlled most of continental Europe and North Africa, but following the Soviet victory at the Battle of Stalingrad, the allies' reconquest of North Africa and invasion of Italy in 1943, German forces suffered repeated military defeats. In 1944, the Soviets pushed into Eastern Europe; the Western allies landed in France and entered Germany despite a final German counteroffensive. Following Hitler's suicide during the Battle of Berlin, Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945, ending World War II in Europe.[73][75] Following the end of the war, surviving Nazi officials were tried for war crimes at the Nuremberg trials.[76][77]
+
+In what later became known as the Holocaust, the German government persecuted minorities, including interning them in concentration and death camps across Europe. In total 17 million people were systematically murdered, including 6 million Jews, at least 130,000 Romani, 275,000 persons with disabilities, thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses, thousands of homosexuals, and hundreds of thousands of political and religious opponents.[78] Nazi policies in German-occupied countries resulted in the deaths of 2.7 million Poles,[79] 1.3 million Ukrainians, 1 million Belarusians[80] and 3.5 million Soviet prisoners of war.[80][76] German military casualties have been estimated at 5.3 million,[81] and around 900,000 German civilians died.[82] Around 12 million ethnic Germans were expelled from across Eastern Europe, and Germany lost roughly one-quarter of its pre-war territory.[83]
+
+After Nazi Germany surrendered, the Allies partitioned Berlin and Germany's remaining territory into four occupation zones. The western sectors, controlled by France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, were merged on 23 May 1949 to form the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (BRD)); on 7 October 1949, the Soviet Zone became the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR)). They were informally known as West Germany and East Germany.[85] East Germany selected East Berlin as its capital, while West Germany chose Bonn as a provisional capital, to emphasise its stance that the two-state solution was temporary.[86]
+
+West Germany was established as a federal parliamentary republic with a "social market economy". Starting in 1948 West Germany became a major recipient of reconstruction aid under the Marshall Plan.[87] Konrad Adenauer was elected the first Federal Chancellor of Germany in 1949. The country enjoyed prolonged economic growth (Wirtschaftswunder) beginning in the early 1950s.[88] West Germany joined NATO in 1955 and was a founding member of the European Economic Community.[89]
+
+East Germany was an Eastern Bloc state under political and military control by the USSR via occupation forces and the Warsaw Pact. Although East Germany claimed to be a democracy, political power was exercised solely by leading members (Politbüro) of the communist-controlled Socialist Unity Party of Germany, supported by the Stasi, an immense secret service.[90] While East German propaganda was based on the benefits of the GDR's social programmes and the alleged threat of a West German invasion, many of its citizens looked to the West for freedom and prosperity.[91] The Berlin Wall, built in 1961, prevented East German citizens from escaping to West Germany, becoming a symbol of the Cold War.[92]
+
+Tensions between East and West Germany were reduced in the late 1960s by Chancellor Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik.[93] In 1989, Hungary decided to dismantle the Iron Curtain and open its border with Austria, causing the emigration of thousands of East Germans to West Germany via Hungary and Austria. This had devastating effects on the GDR, where regular mass demonstrations received increasing support. In an effort to help retain East Germany as a state, the East German authorities eased border restrictions, but this actually led to an acceleration of the Wende reform process culminating in the Two Plus Four Treaty under which Germany regained full sovereignty. This permitted German reunification on 3 October 1990, with the accession of the five re-established states of the former GDR.[94] The fall of the Wall in 1989 became a symbol of the Fall of Communism, the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, German Reunification and Die Wende.[95]
+
+United Germany was considered the enlarged continuation of West Germany so it retained its memberships in international organisations.[96] Based on the Berlin/Bonn Act (1994), Berlin again became the capital of Germany, while Bonn obtained the unique status of a Bundesstadt (federal city) retaining some federal ministries.[97] The relocation of the government was completed in 1999, and modernisation of the east German economy was scheduled to last until 2019.[98][99]
+
+Since reunification, Germany has taken a more active role in the European Union, signing the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 and the Lisbon Treaty in 2007,[100] and co-founding the Eurozone.[101] Germany sent a peacekeeping force to secure stability in the Balkans and sent German troops to Afghanistan as part of a NATO effort to provide security in that country after the ousting of the Taliban.[102][103]
+
+In the 2005 elections, Angela Merkel became the first female chancellor. In 2009 the German government approved a €50 billion stimulus plan.[104] Among the major German political projects of the early 21st century are the advancement of European integration, the energy transition (Energiewende) for a sustainable energy supply, the "Debt Brake" for balanced budgets, measures to increase the fertility rate (pronatalism), and high-tech strategies for the transition of the German economy, summarised as Industry 4.0.[105] Germany was affected by the European migrant crisis in 2015: the country took in over a million migrants and developed a quota system which redistributed migrants around its federal states.[106]
+
+Germany is in Western and Central Europe, bordering Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria to the southeast, and Switzerland to the south-southwest. France, Luxembourg and Belgium are situated to the west, with the Netherlands to the northwest. Germany is also bordered by the North Sea and, at the north-northeast, by the Baltic Sea. German territory covers 357,022 km2 (137,847 sq mi), consisting of 348,672 km2 (134,623 sq mi) of land and 8,350 km2 (3,224 sq mi) of water. It is the seventh largest country by area in Europe and the 62nd largest in the world.[4]
+
+Elevation ranges from the mountains of the Alps (highest point: the Zugspitze at 2,963 metres or 9,721 feet) in the south to the shores of the North Sea (Nordsee) in the northwest and the Baltic Sea (Ostsee) in the northeast. The forested uplands of central Germany and the lowlands of northern Germany (lowest point: Wilstermarsch at 3.54 metres or 11.6 feet below sea level) are traversed by such major rivers as the Rhine, Danube and Elbe. Significant natural resources include iron ore, coal, potash, timber, lignite, uranium, copper, natural gas, salt, and nickel.[4]
+
+Most of Germany has a temperate climate, ranging from oceanic in the north to continental in the east and southeast. Winters range from cold in the southern Alps to mild and are generally overcast with limited precipitation, while summers can vary from hot and dry to cool and rainy. The northern regions have prevailing westerly winds that bring in moist air from the North Sea, moderating the temperature and increasing precipitation. Conversely, the southeast regions have more extreme temperatures.[107]
+
+From February 2019–2020, average monthly temperatures in Germany ranged from a low of 3.3 °C (37.9 °F) in January 2020 to a high of 19.8 °C (67.6 °F) in June 2019.[108] Average monthly precipitation ranged from 30 litres per square metre in February and April 2019 to 125 litres per square metre in February 2020.[109] Average monthly hours of sunshine ranged from 45 in November 2019 to 300 in June 2019.[110]
+
+The territory of Germany can be divided into two ecoregions: European-Mediterranean montane mixed forests and Northeast-Atlantic shelf marine.[111] As of 2016[update] 51% of Germany's land area is devoted to agriculture, while 30% is forested and 14% is covered by settlements or infrastructure.[112]
+
+Plants and animals include those generally common to Central Europe. According to the National Forest Inventory, beeches, oaks, and other deciduous trees constitute just over 40% of the forests; roughly 60% are conifers, particularly spruce and pine.[113] There are many species of ferns, flowers, fungi, and mosses. Wild animals include roe deer, wild boar, mouflon (a subspecies of wild sheep), fox, badger, hare, and small numbers of the Eurasian beaver.[114] The blue cornflower was once a German national symbol.[115]
+
+The 16 national parks in Germany include the Jasmund National Park, the Vorpommern Lagoon Area National Park, the Müritz National Park, the Wadden Sea National Parks, the Harz National Park, the Hainich National Park, the Black Forest National Park, the Saxon Switzerland National Park, the Bavarian Forest National Park and the Berchtesgaden National Park.[116] In addition, there are 17 Biosphere Reserves[117] and 105 nature parks.[118] More than 400 zoos and animal parks operate in Germany.[119] The Berlin Zoo, which opened in 1844, is the oldest in Germany, and claims the most comprehensive collection of species in the world.[120]
+
+Germany is a federal, parliamentary, representative democratic republic. Federal legislative power is vested in the parliament consisting of the Bundestag (Federal Diet) and Bundesrat (Federal Council), which together form the legislative body. The Bundestag is elected through direct elections: half by majority vote and half by proportional representation. The members of the Bundesrat represent and are appointed by the governments of the sixteen federated states.[4] The German political system operates under a framework laid out in the 1949 constitution known as the Grundgesetz (Basic Law). Amendments generally require a two-thirds majority of both the Bundestag and the Bundesrat; the fundamental principles of the constitution, as expressed in the articles guaranteeing human dignity, the separation of powers, the federal structure, and the rule of law, are valid in perpetuity.[121]
+
+The president, currently Frank-Walter Steinmeier, is the head of state and invested primarily with representative responsibilities and powers. He is elected by the Bundesversammlung (federal convention), an institution consisting of the members of the Bundestag and an equal number of state delegates.[4] The second-highest official in the German order of precedence is the Bundestagspräsident (president of the Bundestag), who is elected by the Bundestag and responsible for overseeing the daily sessions of the body.[122] The third-highest official and the head of government is the chancellor, who is appointed by the Bundespräsident after being elected by the party or coalition with the most seats in the Bundestag.[4] The chancellor, currently Angela Merkel, is the head of government and exercises executive power through their Cabinet.[4]
+
+Since 1949, the party system has been dominated by the Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democratic Party of Germany. So far every chancellor has been a member of one of these parties. However, the smaller liberal Free Democratic Party and the Alliance '90/The Greens have also achieved some success. Since 2007, the left-wing populist party The Left has been a staple in the German Bundestag, though they have never been part of the federal government. In the 2017 German federal election, the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany gained enough votes to attain representation in the parliament for the first time.[123][124]
+
+Germany comprises sixteen federal states which are collectively referred to as Bundesländer.[125] Each state has its own state constitution,[126] and is largely autonomous in regard to its internal organisation. As of 2017[update] Germany is divided into 401 districts (Kreise) at a municipal level; these consist of 294 rural districts and 107 urban districts.[127]
+
+Germany has a civil law system based on Roman law with some references to Germanic law.[131] The Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) is the German Supreme Court responsible for constitutional matters, with power of judicial review.[132] Germany's supreme court system is specialised: for civil and criminal cases, the highest court of appeal is the inquisitorial Federal Court of Justice, and for other affairs the courts are the Federal Labour Court, the Federal Social Court, the Federal Finance Court and the Federal Administrative Court.[133]
+
+Criminal and private laws are codified on the national level in the Strafgesetzbuch and the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch respectively. The German penal system seeks the rehabilitation of the criminal and the protection of the public.[134] Except for petty crimes, which are tried before a single professional judge, and serious political crimes, all charges are tried before mixed tribunals on which lay judges (Schöffen) sit side by side with professional judges.[135][136]
+
+Germany has a low murder rate with 1.18 murders per 100,000 as of 2016[update].[137] In 2018, the overall crime rate fell to its lowest since 1992.[138]
+
+Germany has a network of 227 diplomatic missions abroad[140] and maintains relations with more than 190 countries.[141]  Germany is a member of NATO, the OECD, the G8, the G20, the World Bank and the IMF. It has played an influential role in the European Union since its inception and has maintained a strong alliance with France and all neighbouring countries since 1990. Germany promotes the creation of a more unified European political, economic and security apparatus.[142][143][144] The governments of Germany and the United States are close political allies.[145] Cultural ties and economic interests have crafted a bond between the two countries resulting in Atlanticism.[146]
+
+The development policy of Germany is an independent area of foreign policy. It is formulated by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and carried out by the implementing organisations. The German government sees development policy as a joint responsibility of the international community.[147] It was the world's second biggest aid donor in 2019 after the United States.[148]
+
+Germany's military, the Bundeswehr, is organised into the Heer (Army and special forces KSK), Marine (Navy), Luftwaffe (Air Force), Zentraler Sanitätsdienst der Bundeswehr (Joint Medical Service) and Streitkräftebasis (Joint Support Service) branches. In absolute terms, German military expenditure is the 8th highest in the world.[149] In 2018, military spending was at $49.5 billion, about 1.2% of the country's GDP, well below the NATO target of 2%.[150]
+
+As of January 2020[update], the Bundeswehr has a strength of 184,001 active soldiers and 80,947 civilians.[151] Reservists are available to the armed forces and participate in defence exercises and deployments abroad.[152] Until 2011, military service was compulsory for men at age 18, but this has been officially suspended and replaced with a voluntary service.[153][154] Since 2001 women may serve in all functions of service without restriction.[155] According to SIPRI, Germany was the fourth largest exporter of major arms in the world from 2014 to 2018.[156]
+
+In peacetime, the Bundeswehr is commanded by the Minister of Defence. In state of defence, the Chancellor would become commander-in-chief of the Bundeswehr.[157] The role of the Bundeswehr is described in the Constitution of Germany as defensive only. But after a ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court in 1994 the term "defence" has been defined to not only include protection of the borders of Germany, but also crisis reaction and conflict prevention, or more broadly as guarding the security of Germany anywhere in the world. As of 2017[update], the German military has about 3,600 troops stationed in foreign countries as part of international peacekeeping forces, including about 1,200 supporting operations against Daesh, 980 in the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, and 800 in Kosovo.[158]
+
+Germany has a social market economy with a highly skilled labour force, a low level of corruption, and a high level of innovation.[4][160][161] It is the world's third largest exporter of goods,[4] and has the largest national economy in Europe which is also the world's fourth largest by nominal GDP[162] and the fifth by PPP.[163] Its GDP per capita measured in purchasing power standards amounts to 121% of the EU27 average (100%).[164] The service sector contributes approximately 69% of the total GDP, industry 31%, and agriculture 1% as of 2017[update].[4] The unemployment rate published by Eurostat amounts to 3.2% as of January 2020[update], which is the fourth-lowest in the EU.[165]
+
+Germany is part of the European single market which represents more than 450 million consumers.[166] In 2017, the country accounted for 28% of the Eurozone economy according to the International Monetary Fund.[167] Germany introduced the common European currency, the Euro, in 2002.[168] Its monetary policy is set by the European Central Bank, which is headquartered in Frankfurt.[169][159]
+
+Being home to the modern car, the automotive industry in Germany is regarded as one of the most competitive and innovative in the world,[170] and is the fourth largest by production.[171] The top 10 exports of Germany are vehicles, machinery, chemical goods, electronic products, electrical equipments, pharmaceuticals, transport equipments, basic metals, food products, and rubber and plastics.[172] Germany is one of the largest exporters globally.[173]
+
+Of the world's 500 largest stock-market-listed companies measured by revenue in 2019, the Fortune Global 500, 29 are headquartered in Germany.[174] 30 major Germany-based companies are included in the DAX, the German stock market index which is operated by Frankfurt Stock Exchange.[175] Well-known international brands include Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Volkswagen, Audi, Siemens, Allianz, Adidas, Porsche, Bosch and Deutsche Telekom.[176] Berlin is a hub for startup companies and has become the leading location for venture capital funded firms in the European Union.[177] Germany is recognised for its large portion of specialised small and medium enterprises, known as the Mittelstand model.[178] These companies represent 48% global market leaders in their segments, labelled Hidden Champions.[179]
+
+Research and development efforts form an integral part of the German economy.[180] In 2018 Germany ranked fourth globally in terms of number of science and engineering research papers published.[181] Research institutions in Germany include the Max Planck Society, the Helmholtz Association, and the Fraunhofer Society and the Leibniz Association.[182] Germany is the largest contributor to the European Space Agency.[183]
+
+With its central position in Europe, Germany is a transport hub for the continent.[184] Its road network is among the densest in Europe.[185] The motorway (Autobahn) is widely known for having no federally mandated speed limit for some classes of vehicles.[186] The InterCityExpress or ICE train network serves major German cities as well as destinations in neighbouring countries with speeds up to 300 km/h (190 mph).[187] The largest German airports are Frankfurt Airport and Munich Airport.[188] The Port of Hamburg is one of the top twenty largest container ports in the world.[189]
+
+In 2015[update], Germany was the world's seventh-largest consumer of energy.[190] The government and the nuclear power industry agreed to phase out all nuclear power plants by 2021.[191] It meets the country's power demands using 40% renewable sources.[192] Germany is committed to the Paris Agreement and several other treaties promoting biodiversity, low emission standards, and water management.[193][194][195] The country's household recycling rate is among the highest in the world—at around 65%.[196] Nevertheless, the country's total greenhouse gas emissions were the highest in the EU in 2017[update].[197] The German energy transition (Energiewende) is the recognised move to a sustainable economy by means of energy efficiency and renewable energy.[198]
+
+Germany is the ninth most visited country in the world as of 2017[update], with 37.4 million visits.[199] Berlin has become the third most visited city destination in Europe.[200] Domestic and international travel and tourism combined directly contribute over €105.3 billion to German GDP. Including indirect and induced impacts, the industry supports 4.2 million jobs.[201]
+
+Germany's most visited and popular landmarks include Cologne Cathedral, the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, the Dresden Frauenkirche, Neuschwanstein Castle, Heidelberg Castle, the Wartburg, and Sanssouci Palace.[202] The Europa-Park near Freiburg is Europe's second most popular theme park resort.[203]
+
+With a population of 80.2 million according to the 2011 census,[204] rising to 83.1 million as of 2019[update],[5] Germany is the most populous country in the European Union, the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the 19th most populous country in the world. Its population density stands at 227 inhabitants per square kilometre (588 per square mile). The overall life expectancy in Germany at birth is 80.19 years (77.93 years for males and 82.58 years for females).[4] The fertility rate of 1.41 children born per woman (2011 estimates) is below the replacement rate of 2.1 and is one of the lowest fertility rates in the world.[4] Since the 1970s, Germany's death rate has exceeded its birth rate. However, Germany is witnessing increased birth rates and migration rates since the beginning of the 2010s, particularly a rise in the number of well-educated migrants. Germany has the third oldest population in the world, with the average age of 47.4 years.[4]
+
+Four sizeable groups of people are referred to as "national minorities" because their ancestors have lived in their respective regions for centuries:[205] There is a Danish minority in the northernmost state of Schleswig-Holstein;[205] the Sorbs, a Slavic population, are in the Lusatia region of Saxony and Brandenburg.; the Roma and Sinti live throughout the country; and the Frisians are concentrated in Schleswig-Holstein's western coast and in the north-western part of Lower Saxony.[205]
+
+After the United States, Germany is the second most popular immigration destination in the world. The majority of migrants live in western Germany, in particular in urban areas. Of the country's residents, 18.6 million people (22.5%) were of immigrant or partially immigrant descent in 2016 (including persons descending or partially descending from ethnic German repatriates).[206] In 2015, the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs listed Germany as host to the second-highest number of international migrants worldwide, about 5% or 12 million of all 244 million migrants.[207] As of 2018[update], Germany ranks fifth amongst EU countries in terms of the percentage of migrants in the country's population, at 12.9%.[208]
+
+Germany has a number of large cities. There are 11 officially recognised metropolitan regions. The country's largest city is Berlin, while its largest urban area is the Ruhr.[209]
+
+The 2011 German Census showed Christianity as the largest religion in Germany, with 66.8% identified themselves as Christian, with 3.8% of those not being church members.[210] 31.7% declared themselves as Protestants, including members of the Evangelical Church in Germany (which encompasses Lutheran, Reformed and administrative or confessional unions of both traditions) and the free churches (German: Evangelische Freikirchen); 31.2% declared themselves as Roman Catholics, and Orthodox believers constituted 1.3%. According to data from 2016, the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church claimed 28.5% and 27.5%, respectively, of the population.[211][212] Islam is the second largest religion in the country.[213] In the 2011 census, 1.9% of the census population (1.52 million people) gave their religion as Islam, but this figure is deemed unreliable because a disproportionate number of adherents of this religion (and other religions, such as Judaism) are likely to have made use of their right not to answer the question.[214] Most of the Muslims are Sunnis and Alevites from Turkey, but there are a small number of Shi'ites, Ahmadiyyas and other denominations. Other religions comprise less than one percent of Germany's population.[213]
+
+A study in 2018 estimated that 38% of the population are not members of any religious organization or denomination,[215] though up to a third may still consider themselves religious. Irreligion in Germany is strongest in the former East Germany, which used to be predominantly Protestant before state atheism, and in major metropolitan areas.[216][217]
+
+German is the official and predominant spoken language in Germany.[218] It is one of 24 official and working languages of the European Union, and one of the three procedural languages of the European Commission.[219] German is the most widely spoken first language in the European Union, with around 100 million native speakers.[220]
+
+Recognised native minority languages in Germany are Danish, Low German, Low Rhenish, Sorbian, Romany, North Frisian and Saterland Frisian; they are officially protected by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. The most used immigrant languages are Turkish, Arabic, Kurdish, Polish, the Balkan languages and Russian. Germans are typically multilingual: 67% of German citizens claim to be able to communicate in at least one foreign language and 27% in at least two.[218]
+
+Responsibility for educational supervision in Germany is primarily organised within the individual federal states. Optional kindergarten education is provided for all children between three and six years old, after which school attendance is compulsory for at least nine years. Primary education usually lasts for four to six years.[221] Secondary schooling is divided into tracks based on whether students pursue academic or vocational education.[222] A system of apprenticeship called Duale Ausbildung leads to a skilled qualification which is almost comparable to an academic degree. It allows students in vocational training to learn in a company as well as in a state-run trade school.[221] This model is well regarded and reproduced all around the world.[223]
+
+Most of the German universities are public institutions, and students traditionally study without fee payment.[224] The general requirement for university is the Abitur. According to an OECD report in 2014, Germany is the world's third leading destination for international study.[225] The established universities in Germany include some of the oldest in the world, with Heidelberg University (established in 1386) being the oldest.[226] The Humboldt University of Berlin, founded in 1810 by the liberal educational reformer Wilhelm von Humboldt, became the academic model for many Western universities.[227][228] In the contemporary era Germany has developed eleven Universities of Excellence.
+
+Germany's system of hospitals, called Krankenhäuser, dates from medieval times, and today, Germany has the world's oldest universal health care system, dating from Bismarck's social legislation of the 1880s.[230] Since the 1880s, reforms and provisions have ensured a balanced health care system. The population is covered by a health insurance plan provided by statute, with criteria allowing some groups to opt for a private health insurance contract. According to the World Health Organization, Germany's health care system was 77% government-funded and 23% privately funded as of 2013[update].[231] In 2014, Germany spent 11.3% of its GDP on health care.[232]
+
+Germany ranked 20th in the world in 2013 in life expectancy with 77 years for men and 82 years for women, and it had a very low infant mortality rate (4 per 1,000 live births). In 2019[update], the principal cause of death was cardiovascular disease, at 37%.[233] Obesity in Germany has been increasingly cited as a major health issue. A 2014 study showed that 52 percent of the adult German population was overweight or obese.[234]
+
+Culture in German states has been shaped by major intellectual and popular currents in Europe, both religious and secular. Historically, Germany has been called Das Land der Dichter und Denker ("the land of poets and thinkers"),[235] because of the major role its writers and philosophers have played in the development of Western thought.[236] A global opinion poll for the BBC revealed that Germany is recognised for having the most positive influence in the world in 2013 and 2014.[237][238]
+
+Germany is well known for such folk festival traditions as Oktoberfest and Christmas customs, which include Advent wreaths, Christmas pageants, Christmas trees, Stollen cakes, and other practices.[239][240] As of 2016[update] UNESCO inscribed 41 properties in Germany on the World Heritage List.[241] There are a number of public holidays in Germany determined by each state; 3 October has been a national day of Germany since 1990, celebrated as the Tag der Deutschen Einheit (German Unity Day).[242]
+
+German classical music includes works by some of the world's most well-known composers. Dieterich Buxtehude, Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Friedrich Händel were influential composers of the Baroque period. Ludwig van Beethoven was a crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras. Carl Maria von Weber, Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms were significant Romantic composers. Richard Wagner was known for his operas. Richard Strauss was a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. Karlheinz Stockhausen and Wolfgang Rihm are important composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries.[243]
+
+As of 2013, Germany was the second largest music market in Europe, and fourth largest in the world.[244] German popular music of the 20th and 21st centuries includes the movements of Neue Deutsche Welle, pop, Ostrock, heavy metal/rock, punk, pop rock, indie and schlager pop. German electronic music gained global influence, with Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream pioneering in this genre.[245] DJs and artists of the techno and house music scenes of Germany have become well known (e.g. Paul van Dyk, Paul Kalkbrenner, and Scooter).[246]
+
+German painters have influenced western art. Albrecht Dürer, Hans Holbein the Younger, Matthias Grünewald and Lucas Cranach the Elder were important German artists of the Renaissance, Peter Paul Rubens and Johann Baptist Zimmermann of the Baroque, Caspar David Friedrich and Carl Spitzweg of Romanticism, Max Liebermann of Impressionism and Max Ernst of Surrealism. Several German art groups formed in the 20th century; Die Brücke (The Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) influenced the development of expressionism in Munich and Berlin. The New Objectivity arose in response to expressionism during the Weimar Republic. After World War II, broad trends in German art include neo-expressionism and the New Leipzig School.[247]
+
+Architectural contributions from Germany include the Carolingian and Ottonian styles, which were precursors of Romanesque. Brick Gothic is a distinctive medieval style that evolved in Germany. Also in Renaissance and Baroque art, regional and typically German elements evolved (e.g. Weser Renaissance).[247] Vernacular architecture in Germany is often identified by its timber framing (Fachwerk) traditions and varies across regions, and among carpentry styles.[248] When industrialisation spread across Europe, Classicism and a distinctive style of historism developed in Germany, sometimes referred to as Gründerzeit style. Expressionist architecture developed in the 1910s in Germany and influenced Art Deco and other modern styles. Germany was particularly important in the early modernist movement: it is the home of Werkbund initiated by Hermann Muthesius (New Objectivity), and of the Bauhaus movement founded by Walter Gropius.[247] Ludwig Mies van der Rohe became one of the world's most renowned architects in the second half of the 20th century; he conceived of the glass façade skyscraper.[249] Renowned contemporary architects and offices include Pritzker Prize winners Gottfried Böhm and Frei Otto.[250]
+
+German designers became early leaders of modern product design.[251] The Berlin Fashion Week and the fashion trade fair Bread & Butter are held twice a year.[252]
+
+German literature can be traced back to the Middle Ages and the works of writers such as Walther von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von Eschenbach. Well-known German authors include Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Theodor Fontane. The collections of folk tales published by the Brothers Grimm popularised German folklore on an international level.[253] The Grimms also gathered and codified regional variants of the German language, grounding their work in historical principles; their Deutsches Wörterbuch, or German Dictionary, sometimes called the Grimm dictionary, was begun in 1838 and the first volumes published in 1854.[254]
+
+Influential authors of the 20th century include Gerhart Hauptmann, Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass.[255] The German book market is the third largest in the world, after the United States and China.[256] The Frankfurt Book Fair is the most important in the world for international deals and trading, with a tradition spanning over 500 years.[257] The Leipzig Book Fair also retains a major position in Europe.[258]
+
+German philosophy is historically significant: Gottfried Leibniz's contributions to rationalism; the enlightenment philosophy by Immanuel Kant; the establishment of classical German idealism by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling; Arthur Schopenhauer's composition of metaphysical pessimism; the formulation of communist theory by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels; Friedrich Nietzsche's development of perspectivism; Gottlob Frege's contributions to the dawn of analytic philosophy; Martin Heidegger's works on Being; Oswald Spengler's historical philosophy; the development of the Frankfurt School has been particularly influential.[259]
+
+The largest internationally operating media companies in Germany are the Bertelsmann enterprise, Axel Springer SE and ProSiebenSat.1 Media. Germany's television market is the largest in Europe, with some 38 million TV households.[260] Around 90% of German households have cable or satellite TV, with a variety of free-to-view public and commercial channels.[261] There are more than 300 public and private radio stations in Germany; Germany's national radio network is the Deutschlandradio and the public Deutsche Welle is the main German radio and television broadcaster in foreign languages.[261]  Germany's print market of newspapers and magazines is the largest in Europe.[261] The papers with the highest circulation are Bild, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Die Welt.[261] The largest magazines include ADAC Motorwelt and Der Spiegel.[261] Germany has a large video gaming market, with over 34 million players nationwide.[262]
+
+German cinema has made major technical and artistic contributions to film. The first works of the Skladanowsky Brothers were shown to an audience in 1895. The renowned Babelsberg Studio in Potsdam was established in 1912, thus being the first large-scale film studio in the world. Early German cinema was particularly influential with German expressionists such as Robert Wiene and Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau. Director Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) is referred to as the first major science-fiction film. After 1945, many of the films of the immediate post-war period can be characterised as Trümmerfilm (rubble film). East German film was dominated by state-owned film studio DEFA, while the dominant genre in West Germany was the Heimatfilm ("homeland film").[263] During the 1970s and 1980s, New German Cinema directors such as Volker Schlöndorff, Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder brought West German auteur cinema to critical acclaim.
+
+The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film ("Oscar") went to the German production Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum) in 1979, to Nirgendwo in Afrika (Nowhere in Africa) in 2002, and to Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) in 2007. Various Germans won an Oscar for their performances in other films. The annual European Film Awards ceremony is held every other year in Berlin, home of the European Film Academy. The Berlin International Film Festival, known as "Berlinale", awarding the "Golden Bear" and held annually since 1951, is one of the world's leading film festivals. The "Lolas" are annually awarded in Berlin, at the German Film Awards.[264]
+
+German cuisine varies from region to region and often neighbouring regions share some culinary similarities (e.g. the southern regions of Bavaria and Swabia share some traditions with Switzerland and Austria). International varieties such as pizza, sushi, Chinese food, Greek food, Indian cuisine and doner kebab are also popular.
+
+Bread is a significant part of German cuisine and German bakeries produce about 600 main types of bread and 1,200 types of pastries and rolls (Brötchen).[265] German cheeses account for about 22% of all cheese produced in Europe.[266] In 2012 over 99% of all meat produced in Germany was either pork, chicken or beef. Germans produce their ubiquitous sausages in almost 1,500 varieties, including Bratwursts and Weisswursts.[267] Although wine is becoming more popular in many parts of Germany, especially close to German wine regions,[268] the national alcoholic drink is beer. German beer consumption per person stands at 110 litres (24 imp gal; 29 US gal) in 2013 and remains among the highest in the world.[269] German beer purity regulations date back to the 16th century.[270]
+
+The 2018 Michelin Guide awarded eleven restaurants in Germany three stars, giving the country a cumulative total of 300 stars.[271]
+
+Football is the most popular sport in Germany. With more than 7 million official members, the German Football Association (Deutscher Fußball-Bund) is the largest single-sport organisation worldwide,[272] and the German top league, the Bundesliga, attracts the second highest average attendance of all professional sports leagues in the world.[273] The German men's national football team won the FIFA World Cup in 1954, 1974, 1990, and 2014,[274] the UEFA European Championship in 1972, 1980 and 1996,[275] and the FIFA Confederations Cup in 2017.[276]
+
+Germany is one of the leading motor sports countries in the world. Constructors like BMW and Mercedes are prominent manufacturers in motor sport. Porsche has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans race 19 times, and Audi 13 times (as of 2017[update]). The driver Michael Schumacher has set many motor sport records during his career, having won seven Formula One World Drivers' Championships.[277] Sebastian Vettel is also among the top five most successful Formula One drivers of all time.[278]
+
+Historically, German athletes have been successful contenders in the Olympic Games, ranking third in an all-time Olympic Games medal count (when combining East and West German medals). Germany was the last country to host both the summer and winter games in the same year, in 1936: the Berlin Summer Games and the Winter Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.[279] Munich hosted the Summer Games of 1972.[280]

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+
+
+Dice (singular die or dice[1]) are small, throwable objects with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions. They are used for generating random numbers, commonly as part of tabletop games, including dice games, board games, role-playing games, and games of chance.
+
+A traditional die is a cube with each of its six faces marked with a different number of dots (pips) from one to six. When thrown or rolled, the die comes to rest showing a random integer from one to six on its upper surface, with each value being equally likely. Dice may also have polyhedral or irregular shapes and may have faces marked with numerals or symbols instead of pips. Loaded dice are designed to favor some results over others for cheating or entertainment.
+
+Dice have been used since before recorded history, and it is uncertain where they originated. It is theorized that dice developed from the practice of fortune-telling with the talus of hoofed animals, colloquially known as knucklebones.[2] The Egyptian game of senet was played with flat two-sided throwsticks which indicated the number of squares a player could move, and thus functioned as a form of dice. Senet was played before 3000 BC and up to the 2nd century AD.[3] Perhaps the oldest known dice were excavated as part of a backgammon-like game set at the Burnt City, an archeological site in south-eastern Iran, estimated to be from between 2800–2500 BC.[4] Bone dice from Skara Brae have been dated to 3100-2400 BCE.[5] Excavations from graves at Mohenjo-daro, an Indus Valley civilization settlement, unearthed terracotta dice dating to 2500-1900 BCE.[6]
+
+Games involving dice are mentioned in the ancient Indian Rigveda, Atharvaveda, and Buddhist games list.[7] There are several biblical references to "casting lots" (Hebrew: יפילו גורל yappîlū ḡōrāl), as in Psalm 22, indicating that dicing (or a related activity) was commonplace when the psalm was composed. Knucklebones was a game of skill played in ancient Greece; a derivative form had the four sides of bones receive different values like modern dice.[8]
+
+Although gambling was illegal, many Romans were passionate gamblers who enjoyed dicing, which was known as aleam ludere ("to play at dice"). There were two sizes of Roman dice. Tali were large dice inscribed with one, three, four, and six on four sides. Tesserae were smaller dice with sides numbered from one to six.[10] Twenty-sided dice date back to the 2nd century AD[11] and from Ptolemaic Egypt as early as the 2nd century BC.[12]
+
+Dominoes and playing cards originated in China as developments from dice.[citation needed] The transition from dice to playing cards occurred in China around the Tang dynasty, and coincides with the technological transition from rolls of manuscripts to block printed books.[13] In Japan, dice were used to play a popular game called sugoroku. There are two types of sugoroku. Ban-sugoroku is similar to backgammon and dates to the Heian period, while e-sugoroku is a racing game.[14]
+
+Dice are thrown onto a surface either from the hand or from a container designed for this (such as a cup or tray). The face of the die that is uppermost when it comes to rest provides the value of the throw.
+
+The result of a die roll is determined by the way it is thrown, according to the laws of classical mechanics. A die roll is made random by uncertainty in minor factors such as tiny movements in the thrower's hand; they are thus a crude form of hardware random number generator.
+
+One typical contemporary dice game is craps, where two dice are thrown simultaneously and wagers are made on the total value of the two dice. Dice are frequently used to introduce randomness into board games, where they are often used to decide the distance through which a piece will move along the board (as in backgammon and Monopoly).
+
+Common dice are small cubes, most often 1.6 cm (0.63 in) across,[15] whose faces are numbered from one to six, usually by patterns of round dots called pips. (While the use of Arabic numerals is occasionally seen, such dice are less common.)
+
+Opposite sides of a modern die traditionally add up to seven, requiring the 1, 2, and 3 faces to share a vertex.[16] The faces of a die may be placed clockwise or counterclockwise about this vertex. If the 1, 2, and 3 faces run counterclockwise, the die is called "right-handed". If those faces run clockwise, the die is called "left-handed". Western dice are normally right-handed, and Chinese dice are normally left-handed.[17]
+
+The pips on standard six-sided dice are arranged in specific patterns as shown. Asian style dice bear similar patterns to Western ones, but the pips are closer to the center of the face; in addition, the pips are differently sized on Asian style dice, and the pips are colored red on the 1 and 4 sides. Red fours may be of Indian origin.[17][18]
+
+Non-precision dice are manufactured via the plastic injection molding process. The pips or numbers on the die are a part of the mold.  Different pigments can be added to the dice to make them opaque or transparent, or multiple pigments may be added to make the dice speckled or marbled.[19]
+
+The coloring for numbering is achieved by submerging the die entirely in paint, which is allowed to dry. The die is then polished via a tumble finishing process similar to rock polishing. The abrasive agent scrapes off all of the paint except for the indents of the numbering. A finer abrasive is then used to polish the die. This process also creates the smoother, rounded edges on the dice.[20]
+
+Precision casino dice may have a polished or sand finish, making them transparent or translucent respectively. Casino dice have their pips drilled, then filled flush with a paint of the same density as the material used for the dice, such that the center of gravity of the dice is as close to the geometric center as possible. This mitigates concerns that the pips will cause a small bias.[21] All such dice are stamped with a serial number to prevent potential cheaters from substituting a die. Precision backgammon dice are made the same way; they tend to be slightly smaller and have rounded corners and edges, to allow better movement inside the dice cup and stop forceful rolls from damaging the playing surface.
+
+The word die comes from Old French dé; from Latin datum "something which is given or played".[22]
+
+While the terms ace, deuce, trey, cater, cinque and sice are generally obsolete, with the names of the numbers preferred, they are still used by some professional gamblers to designate different sides of the dice. Ace is from the Latin as, meaning "a unit";[23] the others are 2 to 6 in Old French.[24]
+The term "snake eyes" is the outcome of rolling the dice and getting only one pip on each die. The Online Etymology Dictionary traces use of the term as far back as 1919.[25]
+The term "boxcars", also known as "midnight", is the outcome of rolling the dice and getting a six on each die. The pair of six pips resembles a pair of boxcars on a freight train.
+
+Using Unicode characters, the faces ⚀ ⚁ ⚂ ⚃ ⚄ ⚅, can be shown in text using the range U+2680 to U+2685 or using decimal ⚀ to ⚅.[26]
+
+A loaded, weighted, cheat, or crooked die is one that has been tampered with so that it will land with a specific side facing upwards more or less often than a fair die would. There are several methods for creating loaded dice, including rounded faces, off-square faces, and weights. Casinos and gambling halls frequently use transparent cellulose acetate dice as tampering is easier to detect than with opaque dice.[27]
+
+Various shapes like two-sided or four-sided dice are documented in archaeological findings e.g. from Ancient Egypt or the Middle East. While the cubical six-sided die became the most common type in many parts of the world, other shapes were always known, like 20-sided dice in Ptolemaic and Roman times.
+
+The modern tradition of using sets of polyhedral dice started around the end of the 1960s when non-cubical dice became popular among players of wargames,[28] and since have been employed extensively in role-playing games and trading card games. Dice using both the numerals 6 and 9, which are reciprocally symmetric through rotation, typically distinguish them with a dot or underline.
+
+Dice are often sold in sets, matching in color, of six different shapes. Five of the dice are shaped like the Platonic solids, whose faces are regular polygons. Aside from the cube, the other four Platonic solids have 4, 8, 12, and 20 faces, allowing for those number ranges to be generated. The only other common non-cubical die is the 10-sided die, a pentagonal trapezohedron die, whose faces are ten kites, each with two different edge lengths, three different angles, and two different kinds of vertices. Such sets frequently include a second 10-sided die either of contrasting color or numbered by tens, allowing the pair of 10-sided dice to be combined to generate numbers between 1 and 100.
+
+Using these dice in various ways, games can closely approximate a variety of probability distributions. For instance, 10-sided dice can be rolled in pairs to produce a uniform distribution of random percentages, and summing the values of multiple dice will produce approximations to normal distributions.[29]
+
+Unlike other common dice, a four-sided (tetrahedral) die does not have a side that faces upward when it is at rest on a surface, so it must be read in a different way. On some four-sided dice, each face features multiple numbers, with same number printed near each vertex on all sides. In this case, the number around the vertex pointing up is used. Alternatively, the numbers on a tetrahedral die can be placed at the middles of the edges, in which case the numbers around the base are used.
+
+Normally, the faces on a die will be placed so opposite faces will add up to one more than the number of faces. (This is not possible with 4-sided dice and dice with an odd-number of faces.) Some dice, such as those with 10 sides, are usually numbered sequentially beginning with 0, in which case the opposite faces will add to one less than the number of faces.
+
+Some twenty-sided dice sport a different arrangement used for the purpose of keeping track of a numerical value that counts down, such as health points. These spindown dice are arranged so the faces are consecutively numbered, allowing the user to simply turn to the next lower number to keep track of a declining value. They are commonly used with collectible card games.[30]
+
+"Uniform fair dice" are dice where all faces have equal probability of outcome due to the symmetry of the die as it is face-transitive. Theoretically, these include:
+
+Two other types of polyhedrons are technically not face-transitive, but are still fair dice due to symmetry:
+
+Long dice and teetotums can in principle be made with any number of faces, including odd numbers.[31] Long dice are based on the infinite set of prisms. All the rectangular faces are mutually face-transitive, so they are equally probable. The two ends of the prism may be rounded or capped with a pyramid, designed so that the die cannot rest on those faces. 4-sided long dice are easier to roll than tetrahedra, and are used in the traditional board games dayakattai and daldøs.
+
+The faces of most dice are labelled using sequences of whole numbers, usually starting at one, expressed with either pips or digits. However, there are some applications that require results other than numbers. Examples include letters for Boggle, directions for Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Fudge dice, playing card symbols for poker dice, and instructions for sexual acts using sex dice.
+
+Dice may have numbers that do not form a counting sequence starting at one. One variation on the standard die is known as the "average" die.[34][35] These are six-sided dice with sides numbered 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, which have the same arithmetic mean as a standard die (3.5 for a single die, 7 for a pair of dice), but have a narrower range of possible values (2 through 5 for one, 4 through 10 for a pair). They are used in some table-top wargames, where a narrower range of numbers is required.[35] Other numbered variations include Sicherman dice and nontransitive dice.
+
+A die can be constructed in the shape of a sphere, with the addition of an internal cavity in the shape of the dual polyhedron of the desired die shape and an internal weight. The weight will settle in one of the points of the internal cavity, causing it to settle with one of the numbers uppermost. For instance, a sphere with an octahedral cavity and a small internal weight will settle with one of the 6 points of the cavity held downwards by the weight.
+
+Polyhedral dice are commonly used in role-playing games. The fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is largely credited with popularizing dice in such games. Some games use only one type, like Exalted which uses only ten-sided dice. Others use numerous types for different game purposes, such as D&D, which makes use of all common polyhedral dice. Dice are usually used to determine the outcome of events. Games typically determine results either as a total on one or more dice above or below a fixed number, or a certain number of rolls above a certain number on one or more dice. Due to circumstances or character skill, the initial roll may have a number added to or subtracted from the final result, or have the player roll extra or fewer dice. To keep track of rolls easily, dice notation is frequently used.
+
+Many board games use dice to randomize how far pieces move or to settle conflicts. Typically, this has meant that rolling higher numbers is better. Some games, such as Axis & Allies, have inverted this system by making the lower values more potent. In the modern age, a few games and game designers have approached dice in a different way by making each side of the die similarly valuable. In Castles of Burgundy, players spend their dice to take actions based on the die's value. In this game, a six is not better than a one, or vice versa. In Quarriors (and its descendant, Dicemasters), different sides of the dice can offer completely different abilities. Several sides often give resources while others grant the player useful actions.[36]
+
+Dice can be used for divination and using dice for such a purpose is called cleromancy. A pair of common dice is usual, though other forms of polyhedra can be used. Tibetan Buddhists sometimes use this method of divination. It is highly likely that the Pythagoreans used the Platonic solids as dice. They referred to such dice as "the dice of the gods" and they sought to understand the universe through an understanding of geometry in polyhedra.[37]
+
+Astrological dice are a specialized set of three 12-sided dice for divination; the first die represents planets, the Sun, the Moon, and the nodes of the Moon, the second die represents the 12 zodiac signs, and the third represents the 12 houses. A specialized icosahedron die provides the answers of the Magic 8-Ball, conventionally used to provide answers to yes-or-no questions.
+
+Dice can be used to generate random numbers for use in passwords and cryptography applications. The Electronic Frontier Foundation describes a method by which dice can be used to generate passphrases.[38] Diceware is a method recommended for generating secure but memorable passphrases, by repeatedly rolling five dice and picking the corresponding word from a pre-generated list.[39]
+
+In many gaming contexts, especially tabletop role-playing games, shorthand notations representing different dice rolls are used. A "d" or "D" is used to indicate a die with a specific number of sides; for example, d4 denotes a four-sided die. If several dice of the same type are to be rolled, this is indicated by a leading number specifying the number of dice. Hence, 6d8 means the player should roll six eight-sided dice and add the results. Modifiers to a die roll can also be indicated as desired. For example, 3d6+4 instructs the player to roll three six-sided dice, calculate the total, and add four to it.
+
+This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Dice". Encyclopædia Britannica. 8 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 176–177.

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+Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix (/ˈdɛləkrwɑː, ˌdɛləˈkrwɑː/ DEL-ə-krwah, DEL-ə-KRWAH,[1] French: [øʒɛn dəlakʁwa]; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.[2]
+
+In contrast to the Neoclassical perfectionism of his chief rival Ingres, Delacroix took for his inspiration the art of Rubens and painters of the Venetian Renaissance, with an attendant emphasis on colour and movement rather than clarity of outline and carefully modelled form. Dramatic and romantic content characterized the central themes of his maturity, and led him not to the classical models of Greek and Roman art, but to travel in North Africa, in search of the exotic.[3] Friend and spiritual heir to Théodore Géricault, Delacroix was also inspired by Lord Byron, with whom he shared a strong identification with the "forces of the sublime", of nature in often violent action.[4]
+
+However, Delacroix was given to neither sentimentality nor bombast, and his Romanticism was that of an individualist. In the words of Baudelaire, "Delacroix was passionately in love with passion, but coldly determined to express passion as clearly as possible."[5] Together with Ingres, Delacroix is considered one of the last old Masters of painting, and one of the few who was ever photographed.
+
+As a painter and muralist, Delacroix's use of expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of colour profoundly shaped the work of the Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the Symbolist movement. A fine lithographer, Delacroix illustrated various works of William Shakespeare, the Scottish author Walter Scott and the German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
+
+Eugène Delacroix was born on 26 April 1798 at Charenton-Saint-Maurice in Île-de-France, near Paris. His mother was named Victoire Oeben, the daughter of the cabinet-maker Jean-François Oeben.
+He had three much older siblings.
+Charles-Henri Delacroix (1779–1845) rose to the rank of General in the Napoleonic army.
+Henriette (1780–1827) married the diplomat Raymond de Verninac Saint-Maur (1762–1822).
+Henri was born six years later. He was killed at the Battle of Friedland on 14 June 1807.[6]
+
+There are medical reasons to believe that Eugène's legitimate father, Charles-François Delacroix, was not able to procreate at the time of Eugène's conception.
+Talleyrand, who was a friend of the family and successor of Charles Delacroix as Minister of Foreign Affairs, and whom the adult Eugène resembled in appearance and character, considered himself as his real father.[7] After assuming his office as foreign minister Talleyrand, dispatched Delacroix to The Hague in the capacity of French ambassador to Batavia. Delacroix who at the time suffered from erectile dysfunction returned to Paris in early September 1797, only to find his wife pregnant. Talleyrand went on to assist Eugène in the form of numerous anonymous commissions.[8] Throughout his career as a painter, he was protected by Talleyrand, who served successively the Restoration and king Louis-Philippe, and ultimately as ambassador of France in Great Britain, and later by Talleyrand's grandson, Charles Auguste Louis Joseph, duc de Morny, half-brother of Napoleon III and speaker of the French House of Commons. His legitimate father, Charles Delacroix, died in 1805, and his mother in 1814, leaving 16-year-old Eugène an orphan.
+
+His early education was at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, and at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen[9] where he steeped himself in the classics and won awards for drawing. In 1815 he began his training with Pierre-Narcisse Guérin in the neoclassical style of Jacques-Louis David. An early church commission, The Virgin of the Harvest (1819), displays a Raphael-esque influence, but another such commission, The Virgin of the Sacred Heart (1821), evidences a freer interpretation.[10] It precedes the influence of the more colourful and rich style of the Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens, and fellow French artist Théodore Géricault, whose works marked an introduction to Romanticism in art.
+
+The impact of Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa was profound, and stimulated Delacroix to produce his first major painting, The Barque of Dante, which was accepted by the Paris Salon in 1822. The work caused a sensation, and was largely derided by the public and officialdom, yet was purchased by the State for the Luxembourg Galleries; the pattern of widespread opposition to his work, countered by a vigorous, enlightened support, would continue throughout his life.[11] Two years later he again achieved popular success for his The Massacre at Chios.
+
+Delacroix's painting of the massacre at Chios shows sick, dying Greek civilians about to be slaughtered by the Turks. One of several paintings he made of this contemporary event, expressed the official policy for the Greek cause in their war of independence against the Turks, war sustained by English, Russian and French governments. Delacroix was quickly recognized by the authorities as a leading painter in the new Romantic style, and the picture was bought by the state. His depiction of suffering was controversial, however, as there was no glorious event taking place, no patriots raising their swords in valour as in David's Oath of the Horatii, only a disaster. Many critics deplored the painting's despairing tone; the artist Antoine-Jean Gros called it "a massacre of art".[11] The pathos in the depiction of an infant clutching its dead mother's breast had an especially powerful effect, although this detail was condemned as unfit for art by Delacroix's critics. A viewing of the paintings of John Constable and the watercolour sketches and art of Richard Parkes Bonnington prompted Delacroix to make extensive, freely painted changes to the sky and distant landscape.[12]
+
+Delacroix produced a second painting in support of the Greeks in their war for independence, this time referring to the capture of Missolonghi by Turkish forces in 1825.[13] With a restraint of palette appropriate to the allegory, Greece Expiring on the Ruins of Missolonghi displays a woman in Greek costume with her breast bared, arms half-raised in an imploring gesture before the horrible scene: the suicide of the Greeks, who chose to kill themselves and destroy their city rather than surrender to the Turks. A hand is seen at the bottom, the body having been crushed by rubble. The painting serves as a monument to the people of Missolonghi and to the idea of freedom against tyrannical rule. This event interested Delacroix not only for his sympathies with the Greeks, but also because the poet Byron, whom Delacroix greatly admired, had died there.[2]
+
+A trip to England in 1825 included visits to Thomas Lawrence and Richard Parkes Bonington, and the colour and handling of English painting provided impetus for his only full-length portrait, the elegant Portrait of Louis-Auguste Schwiter (1826–30). At roughly the same time, Delacroix was creating romantic works of numerous themes, many of which would continue to interest him for over thirty years. By 1825, he was producing lithographs illustrating Shakespeare, and soon thereafter lithographs and paintings from Goethe's Faust. Paintings such as The Combat of the Giaour and Hassan (1826), and Woman with Parrot (1827), introduced subjects of violence and sensuality which would prove to be recurrent.[14]
+
+These various romantic strands came together in The Death of Sardanapalus (1827–28). Delacroix's painting of the death of the Assyrian king Sardanapalus shows an emotionally stirring scene alive with beautiful colours, exotic costumes and tragic events. The Death of Sardanapalus depicts the besieged king watching impassively as guards carry out his orders to kill his servants, concubines and animals. The literary source is a play by Byron, although the play does not specifically mention any massacre of concubines.[15]
+
+Sardanapalus' attitude of calm detachment is a familiar pose in Romantic imagery in this period in Europe. The painting, which was not exhibited again for many years afterward, has been regarded by some critics[who?] as a gruesome fantasy involving death and lust. Especially shocking is the struggle of a nude woman whose throat is about to be cut, a scene placed prominently in the foreground for maximum impact. However, the sensuous beauty and exotic colours of the composition make the picture appear pleasing and shocking at the same time.[original research?]
+
+A variety of Romantic interests were again synthesized in The Murder of the Bishop of Liège (1829). It also borrowed from a literary source, this time Scott, and depicts a scene from the Middle Ages, that of the murder of Louis de Bourbon, Bishop of Liège amidst an orgy sponsored by his captor, William de la Marck. Set in an immense vaulted interior which Delacroix based on sketches of the Palais de Justice in Rouen and Westminster Hall, the drama plays out in chiaroscuro, organized around a brilliantly lit stretch of tablecloth. In 1855, a critic described the painting's vibrant handling as "Less finished than a painting, more finished than a sketch, The Murder of the Bishop of Liège was left by the painter at that supreme moment when one more stroke of the brush would have ruined everything".[16]
+
+Delacroix's most influential work came in 1830 with the painting Liberty Leading the People, which for choice of subject and technique highlights the differences between the romantic approach and the neoclassical style. Less obviously, it also differs from the Romanticism of Géricault, as exemplified by The Raft of the Medusa.
+
+Delacroix felt his composition more vividly as a whole, thought of his figures and crowds as types, and dominated them by the symbolic figure of Republican Liberty which is one of his finest plastic inventions...[17]
+
+Probably Delacroix's best-known painting, Liberty Leading the People is an unforgettable image of Parisians, having taken up arms, marching forward under the banner of the tricolour representing liberty, equality, and fraternity. Although Delacroix was inspired by contemporary events to invoke this romantic image of the spirit of liberty, he seems to be trying to convey the will and character of the people,[17] rather than glorifying the actual event, the 1830 revolution against Charles X, which did little other than bring a different king, Louis-Philippe, to power. The warriors lying dead in the foreground offer poignant counterpoint to the symbolic female figure, who is illuminated triumphantly against a background of smoke.[18]
+
+Although the French government bought the painting, by 1832 officials deemed its glorification of liberty too inflammatory and removed it from public view.[19] Nonetheless, Delacroix still received many government commissions for murals and ceiling paintings.[20]
+
+Following the Revolution of 1848 that saw the end of the reign of King Louis Philippe, Delacroix' painting, Liberty Leading the People, was finally put on display by the newly elected President, Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III). It is exhibited in the Louvre museum in Paris; although from December 2012 until 2014 it was on exhibit at Louvre-Lens in Lens, Pas-de-Calais.[21]
+
+The boy holding a pistol aloft on the right is sometimes thought to be an inspiration for the Gavroche character in Victor Hugo's 1862 novel, Les Misérables.[22]
+
+In 1832, Delacroix traveled to Spain and North Africa in company with the diplomat Charles-Edgar de Mornay, as part of a diplomatic mission to Morocco shortly after the French conquered Algeria. He went not primarily to study art, but to escape from the civilization of Paris, in hopes of seeing a more primitive culture.[17] He eventually produced over 100 paintings and drawings of scenes from or based on the life of the people of North Africa, and added a new and personal chapter to the interest in Orientalism.[23] Delacroix was entranced by the people and the costumes, and the trip would inform the subject matter of a great many of his future paintings. He believed that the North Africans, in their attire and their attitudes, provided a visual equivalent to the people of Classical Rome and Greece:
+
+The Greeks and Romans are here at my door, in the Arabs who wrap themselves in a white blanket and look like Cato or Brutus...[17]
+
+He managed to sketch some women secretly in Algiers, as in the painting Women of Algiers in their Apartment (1834), but generally he encountered difficulty in finding Muslim women to pose for him because of Muslim rules requiring that women be covered.[citation needed] Less problematic was the painting of Jewish women in North Africa, as subjects for the Jewish Wedding in Morocco (1837–1841).
+
+While in Tangier, Delacroix made many sketches of the people and the city, subjects to which he would return until the end of his life.[25] Animals—the embodiment of romantic passion—were incorporated into paintings such as Arab Horses Fighting in a Stable (1860), The Lion Hunt (of which there exist many versions, painted between 1856 and 1861), and Arab Saddling his Horse (1855).
+
+Delacroix drew inspiration from many sources over his career, such as the literary works of William Shakespeare and Lord Byron, or the artistry of Michelangelo. But from beginning to end of his life, he was in part characterized by a constant need for music, saying in 1855, "nothing can be compared with the emotion caused by music; that it expresses incomparable shades of feeling." He had said, while working at Saint Sulpice, that the music put him in a state of "exaltation" which inspired his painting. It was often in music, in the most melancholy renditions of Chopin, or the "pastoral" works of Beethoven that Delacroix was often able to draw the most emotion and inspiration. At one point during his life, Delacroix befriended and made portraits of the composer Chopin; in his journal, Delacroix praised him frequently.[26]
+
+In 1838 Delacroix exhibited Medea about to Kill Her Children, which created a sensation at the Salon. His first large-scale treatment of a scene from Greek mythology, the painting depicts Medea clutching her children, dagger drawn to slay them in vengeance for her abandonment by Jason. The three nude figures form an animated pyramid, bathed in a raking light which penetrates the grotto in which Medea has hidden. Though the painting was quickly purchased by the State, Delacroix was disappointed when it was sent to the Lille Musée des Beaux-Arts; he had intended for it to hang at the Luxembourg, where it would have joined The Barque of Dante and Scenes from the Massacres of Chios.[27]
+
+From 1833 Delacroix received numerous commissions to decorate public buildings in Paris. In that year he began work for the Salon du Roi in the Chambre des Députés, Palais Bourbon, which was not completed until 1837, and began a lifelong friendship with the female artist Marie-Élisabeth Blavot-Boulanger. For the next ten years he painted in both the Library at the Palais Bourbon and the Library at the Palais du Luxembourg. In 1843 he decorated the Church of St. Denis du Saint Sacrement with a large Pietà, and from 1848 to 1850 he painted the ceiling in the Galerie d'Apollon of the Louvre. From 1857 to 1861 he worked on frescoes for the Chapelle des Anges at the Church of St. Sulpice in Paris. They included "The Battle of Jacob with the Angel", "Saint Michael Slaying the Dragon", and "The Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple".[28] These commissions offered him the opportunity to compose on a large scale in an architectural setting, much as had those masters he admired, Paolo Veronese, Tintoretto, and Rubens.
+
+The work was fatiguing, and during these years he suffered from an increasingly fragile constitution. In addition to his home in Paris, from 1844 he also lived at a small cottage in Champrosay, where he found respite in the countryside. From 1834 until his death, he was faithfully cared for by his housekeeper, Jeanne-Marie le Guillou, who zealously guarded his privacy, and whose devotion prolonged his life and his ability to continue working in his later years.[29]
+
+In 1862 Delacroix participated in the creation of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. His friend, the writer Théophile Gautier, became chairman, with the painter Aimé Millet acting as deputy chairman. In addition to Delacroix, the committee was composed of the painters Carrier-Belleuse and Puvis de Chavannes. Among the exhibitors were Léon Bonnat, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Charles-François Daubigny, Gustave Doré, and Édouard Manet.[citation needed] Just after his death in 1863, the society organized a retrospective exhibition of 248 paintings and lithographs by Delacroix—and ceased to mount any further exhibitions.[citation needed]
+
+The winter of 1862–63 was extremely rough for Delacroix; he was suffering from a bad throat infection which seemed to get worse over the course of the season. On a trip to Champrosay, he met a friend on the train and became exhausted after having a conversation. On 1 June he returned to Paris to see his doctor. Two weeks later, on 16 June, he was getting better and returned to his house in the country. But by 15 July he was sick enough to see his doctor who said he could do nothing more for him. By then, the only food he could eat was fruit. Delacroix realized the seriousness of his condition and wrote his will, leaving a gift for each of his friends. For his trusted housekeeper, Jenny Le Guillou, he left enough money for her to live on while ordering everything in his studio to be sold. He also inserted a clause forbidding any representation of his features, "whether by a death-mask or by drawing or by photography. I forbid it, expressly."[30] On 13 August, Delacroix died, with Jenny by his side.[31] He was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery.
+
+His house, formerly situated along the canal of the Marne, is now near the exit of the motorway leading from Paris to central Germany.
+
+Mademoiselle Rose, 1817–1824, Louvre
+
+Orphan Girl at the Cemetery, 1823, Louvre
+
+Louis of Orléans Unveiling his Mistress, c.1825–26, Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection
+
+Charles Étienne Raymond Victor de Verninac, the painter's nephew, c.1825–26. private collection
+
+The Combat of the Giaour and Hassan, 1826, Art Institute of Chicago
+
+Woman with a Parrot, 1827, Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon
+
+Woman With White Socks, 1825–1830, Louvre
+
+A Young Tiger Playing with its Mother, 1830, Louvre
+
+The Duke of Morny's Apartment, 1831–1833, Louvre
+
+Portrait of Dr. François-Marie Desmaisons, 1832–33, Detroit Institute of Arts
+
+Fantasia Arabe, 1833. Frankfurt Städel Museum
+
+The Women of Algiers, 1834, Louvre
+
+The Battle of Taillebourg (draft), 1834–35, Louvre
+
+The Natchez, 1835, Metropolitan Museum of Art
+
+Frédéric Chopin, 1838, Louvre
+
+George Sand, 1838, Ordrupgaard-Museum
+
+Modern hypothetical reconstruction of the painting showing George Sand sews while Chopin plays piano.
+
+Columbus and His Son at La Rábida, 1838, National Gallery of Art
+
+Jewish Wedding in Morocco, c.1839, Louvre
+
+Hamlet with Horatio, (the gravedigger scene), 1839, Louvre
+
+Christ on the Sea of Galilee, 1841, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
+
+Collision of Moorish Horsemen, 1844, Walters Art Museum
+
+Last Words of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, 1844, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon
+
+Saint George Fighting the Dragon, 1847, Louvre Museum
+
+Desdemona Cursed by her Father (Desdemona maudite par son père), c.1850–1854, Brooklyn Museum
+
+]], 1852, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
+
+Perseus and Andromeda, circa 1853, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
+
+1855, Moroccan Saddles His Horse, Hermitage Museum
+
+Rider Attacked by a Jaguar, 1855. National Gallery in Prague
+
+The Bride of Abydos, 1857, Louvre
+
+The Death of Desdemona, 1858
+
+Horses Leaving the Sea, 1860, The Phillips Collection
+
+Arab Horses Fighting in a Stable, 1860
+
+Shipwreck on the Coast, 1862, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
+
+Ovid among the Scythians, oil on cavas, 1862, version in Metropolitan Museum of Art
+
+Winter: Juno and Aeolus, 1856, private collection (sketch for the painting in the São Paulo Museum of Art)
+
+Murals for Salon du Roi, Palais Bourbon, Paris, 1833–1837
+
+Charioteers, National Gallery of Art
+
+At the sale of his work in 1864, 9140 works were attributed to Delacroix, including 853 paintings, 1525 pastels and water colours, 6629 drawings, 109 lithographs, and over 60 sketch books.[32] The number and quality of the drawings, whether done for constructive purposes or to capture a spontaneous movement, underscored his explanation, "Colour always occupies me, but drawing preoccupies me."
+Delacroix produced several fine self-portraits, and a number of memorable portraits which seem to have been done purely for pleasure, among which were the portrait of fellow artist Baron Schwiter, an inspired small oil of the violinist Niccolò Paganini, and Portrait of Frédéric Chopin and George Sand, a double portrait of his friends, the composer Frédéric Chopin and writer George Sand; the painting was cut after his death, but the individual portraits survive.
+
+On occasion Delacroix painted pure landscapes (The Sea at Dieppe, 1852) and still lifes (Still Life with Lobsters, 1826–27), both of which feature the virtuoso execution of his figure-based works.[33] He is also well known for his Journal, in which he gave eloquent expression to his thoughts on art and contemporary life.[34]
+
+A generation of impressionists was inspired by Delacroix's work. Renoir and Manet made copies of his paintings, and Degas purchased the portrait of Baron Schwiter for his private collection. His painting at the church of St. Sulpice has been called the "finest mural painting of his time".[35]
+
+Contemporary Chinese artist Yue Minjun has created his own interpretation of Delacroix's painting Massacre of Chios, which retains the same name. Yue Minjun's painting was itself sold at Sotheby's for nearly $4.1 million in 2007.[36]
+
+His pencil drawing Moorish Conversation on a Terrace was discovered as part of the Munich Art Hoard.[37]
+

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+
+Delaware (/ˈdɛləwɛər/ (listen))[9] is one of the 50 states of the United States, in the Mid-Atlantic region.[a] It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, north by Pennsylvania, and east by New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean. The state takes its name from Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, an English nobleman and Virginia's first colonial governor.[10]
+
+Delaware occupies the northeastern portion of the Delmarva Peninsula and some islands and territory within the Delaware River. It is the second smallest and sixth least populous state, but also the sixth most densely populated. Delaware's largest city is Wilmington, while the state capital is Dover, the second-largest city in the state. The state is divided into three counties, having the lowest number of any state. From north to south, they are New Castle County, Kent County, and Sussex County. While the southern two counties have historically been predominantly agricultural, New Castle County is more urbanized.
+
+Before its coastline was explored by Europeans in the 16th century, Delaware was inhabited by several groups of Native Americans, including the Lenape in the north and Nanticoke in the south. It was initially colonized by Dutch traders at Zwaanendael, near the present town of Lewes, in 1631.[11] Delaware was one of the 13 colonies participating in the American Revolution. On December 7, 1787, Delaware became the first state to ratify the Constitution of the United States, and has since been known as "The First State".[12]
+
+The state was named after the Delaware River, which in turn derived its name from Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr (1577–1618) who was the ruling governor of the Colony of Virginia at the time Europeans first explored the river. The Delaware people, a name used by Europeans for Lenape people indigenous to the Delaware Valley, also derive their name from the same source.
+
+The surname de La Warr comes from Sussex and is of Anglo-Norman origin.[13] It came probably from a Norman lieu-dit La Guerre. This toponymic could derive from Latin ager, from the Breton gwern or from the Late Latin varectum (fallow). The toponyms Gara, Gare, Gaire (the sound [ä] often mutated in [æ]) also appear in old texts cited by Lucien Musset, where the word ga(i)ra means gore. It could also be linked with a patronymic from the Old Norse verr.
+
+Delaware is 96 miles (154 km) long and ranges from 9 miles (14 km) to 35 miles (56 km) across, totaling 1,954 square miles (5,060 km2), making it the second-smallest state in the United States after Rhode Island. Delaware is bounded to the north by Pennsylvania; to the east by the Delaware River, Delaware Bay, New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean; and to the west and south by Maryland. Small portions of Delaware are also situated on the eastern side of the Delaware River sharing land boundaries with New Jersey. The state of Delaware, together with the Eastern Shore counties of Maryland and two counties of Virginia, form the Delmarva Peninsula, which stretches down the Mid-Atlantic Coast.
+
+The definition of the northern boundary of the state is unusual. Most of the boundary between Delaware and Pennsylvania was originally defined by an arc extending 12 miles (19.3 km) from the cupola of the courthouse in the city of New Castle.[citation needed] This boundary is often referred to as the Twelve-Mile Circle.[b] Although the Twelve-Mile Circle is often claimed to be the only territorial boundary in the United States that is a true arc, the Mexican boundary with Texas includes several arcs,[14] and many cities in the South (such as Plains, Georgia)[15] also have circular boundaries.
+
+This border extends all the way east to the low-tide mark on the New Jersey shore, then continues south along the shoreline until it again reaches the 12-mile (19 km) arc in the south; then the boundary continues in a more conventional way in the middle of the main channel (thalweg) of the Delaware River. To the west, a portion of the arc extends past the easternmost edge of Maryland. The remaining western border runs slightly east of due south from its intersection with the arc. The Wedge of land between the northwest part of the arc and the Maryland border was claimed by both Delaware and Pennsylvania until 1921, when Delaware's claim was confirmed.
+
+Delaware is on a level plain, with the lowest mean elevation of any state in the nation.[16] Its highest elevation, located at Ebright Azimuth, near Concord High School, is less than 450 feet (140 m) above sea level.[16] The northernmost part of the state is part of the Piedmont Plateau with hills and rolling surfaces. The Atlantic Seaboard fall line approximately follows the Robert Kirkwood Highway between Newark and Wilmington; south of this road is the Atlantic Coastal Plain with flat, sandy, and, in some parts, swampy ground.[17] A ridge about 75 to 80 feet (23 to 24 m) high extends along the western boundary of the state and separates the watersheds that feed Delaware River and Bay to the east and the Chesapeake Bay to the west.
+
+Since almost all of Delaware is a part of the Atlantic coastal plain, the effects of the ocean moderate its climate. The state lies in the humid subtropical climate zone. Despite its small size (roughly 100 miles (160 km) from its northernmost to southernmost points), there is significant variation in mean temperature and amount of snowfall between Sussex County and New Castle County. Moderated by the Atlantic Ocean and Delaware Bay, the southern portion of the state has a milder climate and a longer growing season than the northern portion of the state. Delaware's all-time record high of 110 °F (43 °C) was recorded at Millsboro on July 21, 1930. The all-time record low of −17 °F (−27 °C) was also recorded at Millsboro, on January 17, 1893. The hardiness zones are 7a and 7b.
+
+The transitional climate of Delaware supports a wide variety of vegetation. In the northern third of the state are found Northeastern coastal forests and mixed oak forests typical of the northeastern United States.[18] In the southern two-thirds of the state are found Middle Atlantic coastal forests.[18] Trap Pond State Park, along with areas in other parts of Sussex County, for example, support the northernmost stands of bald cypress trees in North America.
+
+Delaware provides government subsidy support for the clean-up of property "lightly contaminated" by hazardous waste, the proceeds for which come from a tax on wholesale petroleum sales.[19]
+
+Before Delaware was settled by European colonists, the area was home to the Eastern Algonquian tribes known as the Unami Lenape, or Delaware, who lived mostly along the coast, and the Nanticoke who occupied much of the southern Delmarva Peninsula. John Smith also shows two Iroquoian tribes, the Kuskarawock & Tockwogh, living north of the Nanticoke—they may have held small portions of land in the western part of the state before migrating across the Chesapeake Bay.[20] The Kuskarawocks were most likely the Tuscarora.
+
+The Unami Lenape in the Delaware Valley were closely related to Munsee Lenape tribes along the Hudson River. They had a settled hunting and agricultural society, and they rapidly became middlemen in an increasingly frantic fur trade with their ancient enemy, the Minqua or Susquehannock. With the loss of their lands on the Delaware River and the destruction of the Minqua by the Iroquois of the Five Nations in the 1670s, the remnants of the Lenape who wished to remain identified as such left the region and moved over the Alleghany Mountains by the mid-18th century. Generally, those who did not relocate out of the state of Delaware were baptized, became Christian and were grouped together with other persons of color in official records and in the minds of their non-Native American neighbors.[citation needed]
+
+The Dutch were the first Europeans to settle in present-day Delaware in the middle region by establishing a trading post at Zwaanendael, near the site of Lewes in 1631. Within a year all the settlers were killed in a dispute with area Native American tribes. In 1638 New Sweden, a Swedish trading post and colony, was established at Fort Christina (now in Wilmington) by Peter Minuit at the head of a group of Swedes, Finns and Dutch. The colony of New Sweden lasted 17 years. In 1651 the Dutch, reinvigorated by the leadership of Peter Stuyvesant, established a fort at present-day New Castle, and in 1655 they conquered the New Sweden colony, annexing it into the Dutch New Netherland.[21][22] Only nine years later, in 1664, the Dutch were conquered by a fleet of English ships by Sir Robert Carr under the direction of James, the Duke of York. Fighting off a prior claim by Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, Proprietor of Maryland, the Duke passed his somewhat dubious ownership on to William Penn in 1682. Penn strongly desired access to the sea for his Pennsylvania province and leased what then came to be known as the "Lower Counties on the Delaware"[21] from the Duke.
+
+Penn established representative government and briefly combined his two possessions under one General Assembly in 1682. However, by 1704 the Province of Pennsylvania had grown so large that their representatives wanted to make decisions without the assent of the Lower Counties, and the two groups of representatives began meeting on their own, one at Philadelphia, and the other at New Castle. Penn and his heirs remained proprietors of both and always appointed the same person Governor for their Province of Pennsylvania and their territory of the Lower Counties. The fact that Delaware and Pennsylvania shared the same governor was not unique. From 1703 to 1738 New York and New Jersey shared a governor.[23] Massachusetts and New Hampshire also shared a governor for some time.[24]
+
+Dependent in early years on indentured labor, Delaware imported more slaves as the number of English immigrants decreased with better economic conditions in England. The colony became a slave society and cultivated tobacco as a cash crop, although English immigrants continued to arrive.
+
+Like the other middle colonies, the Lower Counties on the Delaware initially showed little enthusiasm for a break with Britain. The citizenry had a good relationship with the Proprietary government, and generally were allowed more independence of action in their Colonial Assembly than in other colonies. Merchants at the port of Wilmington had trading ties with the British.
+
+So it was that New Castle lawyer Thomas McKean denounced the Stamp Act in the strongest terms, and Kent County native John Dickinson became the "Penman of the Revolution". Anticipating the Declaration of Independence, Patriot leaders Thomas McKean and Caesar Rodney convinced the Colonial Assembly to declare itself separated from British and Pennsylvania rule on June 15, 1776. The person best representing Delaware's majority, George Read, could not bring himself to vote for a Declaration of Independence. Only the dramatic overnight ride of Caesar Rodney gave the delegation the votes needed to cast Delaware's vote for independence.
+
+Initially led by John Haslet, Delaware provided one of the premier regiments in the Continental Army, known as the "Delaware Blues" and nicknamed the "Blue Hen's Chicks". In August 1777 General Sir William Howe led a British army through Delaware on his way to a victory at the Battle of Brandywine and capture of the city of Philadelphia. The only real engagement on Delaware soil was the Battle of Cooch's Bridge, fought on September 3, 1777, at Cooch's Bridge in New Castle County, although there was a minor Loyalist rebellion in 1778.
+
+Following the Battle of Brandywine, Wilmington was occupied by the British, and State President John McKinly was taken prisoner. The British remained in control of the Delaware River for much of the rest of the war, disrupting commerce and providing encouragement to an active Loyalist portion of the population, particularly in Sussex County. Because the British promised slaves of rebels freedom for fighting with them, escaped slaves flocked north to join their lines.[25]
+
+Following the American Revolution, statesmen from Delaware were among the leading proponents of a strong central United States with equal representation for each state.
+
+Many colonial settlers came to Delaware from Maryland and Virginia, where the population had been increasing rapidly. The economies of these colonies were chiefly based on labor-intensive tobacco and increasingly dependent on African slaves because of a decline in working class immigrants from England. Most of the English colonists had arrived as indentured servants (contracted for a fixed period to pay for their passage), and in the early years the line between servant and slave was fluid.
+
+Most of the free African-American families in Delaware before the Revolution had migrated from Maryland to find more affordable land. They were descendants chiefly of relationships or marriages between white servant women and enslaved, servant or free African or African-American men.[26] Under slavery law, children took the social status of their mothers, so children born to white women were free, regardless of their paternity, just as children born to enslaved women were born into slavery. As the flow of indentured laborers to the colony decreased with improving economic conditions in England, more slaves were imported for labor and the caste lines hardened.
+
+By the end of the colonial period, the number of enslaved people in Delaware began to decline. Shifts in the agriculture economy from tobacco to mixed farming resulted in less need for slaves' labor. In addition local Methodists and Quakers encouraged slaveholders to free their slaves following the American Revolution, and many did so in a surge of individual manumissions for idealistic reasons. By 1810 three-quarters of all blacks in Delaware were free. When John Dickinson freed his slaves in 1777, he was Delaware's largest slave owner with 37 slaves. By 1860, the largest slaveholder owned 16 slaves.[27]
+
+Although attempts to abolish slavery failed by narrow margins in the legislature, in practical terms the state had mostly ended the practice. By the 1860 census on the verge of the Civil War, 91.7% of the black population were free;[28] 1,798 were slaves, as compared to 19,829 "free colored persons".[29]
+
+An independent black denomination was chartered in 1813 by freed slave Peter Spencer as the "Union Church of Africans". This followed the 1793 establishment in Philadelphia of the African Methodist Episcopal Church by Richard Allen, which had ties to the Methodist Episcopal Church until 1816. Spencer built a church in Wilmington for the new denomination.[30] This was renamed as the African Union First Colored Methodist Protestant Church and Connection, more commonly known as the A.U.M.P. Church. In 1814, Spencer called for the first annual gathering, known as the Big August Quarterly, which continues to draw members of this denomination and their descendants together in a religious and cultural festival.
+
+Delaware voted against secession on January 3, 1861, and so remained in the Union. While most Delaware citizens who fought in the war served in the regiments of the state, some served in companies on the Confederate side in Maryland and Virginia Regiments. Delaware is notable for being the only slave state from which no Confederate regiments or militia groups were assembled. Delaware essentially freed the few slaves who were still in bondage shortly after the Civil War[further explanation needed] but rejected the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution; the 13th Amendment was rejected on February 8, 1865, the 14th Amendment was rejected on February 8, 1867, and the 15th Amendment was rejected on March 18, 1869. Delaware officially ratified the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments on February 12, 1901.
+
+The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of Delaware was 973,764 on July 1, 2019, a 8.4% increase since the 2010 United States Census.[32]
+
+According to the 2010 United States Census, Delaware had a population of 897,934. The racial composition of the state was:
+
+Ethnically, Hispanics and Latinos of any race made up 8.2% of the population.[33]
+
+Delaware is the sixth most densely populated state, with a population density of 442.6 people per square mile, 356.4 per square mile more than the national average, and ranking 45th in population. Delaware is one of five states that do not have a single city with a population over 100,000 as of the 2010 census, the other four being West Virginia, Vermont, Maine and Wyoming.[37] The center of population of Delaware is in New Castle County, in the town of Townsend.[38]
+
+As of 2011[update], 49.7% of Delaware's population younger than one year of age belonged to minority groups (i.e., did not have two parents of non-Hispanic white ancestry).[39] In 2000 approximately 19% of the population were African-American and 5% of the population is Hispanic (mostly of Puerto Rican or Mexican ancestry).[40]
+
+Note: Births in table do not add up because Hispanics are counted both by their ethnicity and by their race, giving a higher overall number.
+
+As of 2000 91% of Delaware residents age 5 and older speak only English at home; 5% speak Spanish. French is the third most spoken language at 0.7%, followed by Chinese at 0.5% and German at 0.5%.
+
+Legislation had been proposed in both the House and the Senate in Delaware to designate English as the official language.[47][48] Neither bill was passed in the legislature.
+
+
+
+As of 2014[update], Delaware is mostly Christian. Although Protestants account for almost half of the population,[49] the Catholic Church is the largest single denomination in the state. The Association of Religion Data Archives[50] reported in 2010 that the three largest denominational groups in Delaware by number of adherents are the Catholic Church at 182,532 adherents, the United Methodist Church with 53,656 members reported, and non-denominational Evangelical Protestant with 22,973 adherents reported. The religious body with the largest number of congregations is the United Methodist Church (with 158 congregations) followed by non-denominational Evangelical Protestant (with 106 congregations), then the Catholic Church (with 45 congregations).
+
+The Roman Catholic Diocese of Wilmington and the Episcopal Diocese of Delaware oversee the parishes within their denominations. The A.U.M.P. Church, the oldest African-American denomination in the nation, was founded in Wilmington. It still has a substantial presence in the state. Reflecting new immigrant populations, an Islamic mosque has been built in the Ogletown area, and a Hindu temple in Hockessin.
+
+Delaware is home to an Amish community that resides west of Dover in Kent County, consisting of nine church districts and about 1,650 people. The Amish first settled in Kent County in 1915. In recent years, increasing development has led to the decline in the number of Amish living in the community.[51][52][53]
+
+A 2012 survey of religious attitudes in the United States found that 34% of Delaware residents considered themselves "moderately religious", 33% "very religious", and 33% as "non-religious".[54]
+
+A 2012 Gallup poll found that Delaware's proportion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender adults stood at 3.4 percent of the population. This constitutes a total LGBT adult population estimate of 23,698 people. The number of same-sex couple households in 2010 stood at 2,646. This grew by 41.65% from a decade earlier.[55][not specific enough to verify][56] On July 1, 2013, same-sex marriage was legalized, and all civil unions would be converted into marriages.[57][not specific enough to verify]
+
+According to a 2013 study by Phoenix Marketing International, Delaware had the ninth-largest number of millionaires per capita in the United States, with a ratio of 6.2 percent.[59]
+
+Delaware's agricultural output consists of poultry, nursery stock, soybeans, dairy products and corn.
+
+As of October 2019[update], the state's unemployment rate was 3.7%.[60]
+
+The state's largest employers are:[dubious  – discuss]
+
+Since the mid-2000s, Delaware has seen the departure of the state's automotive manufacturing industry (General Motors Wilmington Assembly and Chrysler Newark Assembly), the corporate buyout of a major bank holding company (MBNA), the departure of the state's steel industry (Evraz Claymont Steel), the bankruptcy of a fiber mill (National Vulcanized Fibre),[61] and the diminishing presence of AstraZeneca in Wilmington.[62][63]
+
+In late 2015, DuPont announced that 1,700 employees, nearly a third of its footprint in Delaware, would be laid off in early 2016.[64] The merger of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. and Dow Chemical Company into DowDuPont took place on September 1, 2017.[65][66][67][68]
+
+More than half of all U.S. publicly traded companies, and 63% of the Fortune 500, are incorporated in Delaware.[69] The state's attractiveness as a corporate haven is largely because of its business-friendly corporation law. Franchise taxes on Delaware corporations supply about a fifth of the state's revenue.[70] Although "USA (Delaware)" ranked as the world's most opaque jurisdiction on the Tax Justice Network's 2009 Financial Secrecy Index,[71] the same group's 2011 Index ranks the U.S. fifth and does not specify Delaware.[72] In Delaware, there are more than a million registered corporations,[73] meaning there are more corporations than people.
+
+Title 4, chapter 7 of the Delaware Code stipulates that alcoholic liquor only be sold in specifically licensed establishments, and only between 9:00 a.m. and 1:00 a.m.[74] Until 2003, Delaware was among the several states enforcing blue laws and banned the sale of liquor on Sunday.[75]
+
+The transportation system in Delaware is under the governance and supervision of the Delaware Department of Transportation, also known as "DelDOT".[77][78] Funding for DelDOT projects is drawn, in part, from the Delaware Transportation Trust Fund, established in 1987 to help stabilize transportation funding; the availability of the Trust led to a gradual separation of DelDOT operations from other Delaware state operations.[79] DelDOT manages programs such as a Delaware Adopt-a-Highway program, major road route snow removal, traffic control infrastructure (signs and signals), toll road management, Delaware Division of Motor Vehicles, the Delaware Transit Corporation (branded as "DART First State", the state government public transportation organization), among others. In 2009, DelDOT maintained 13,507 lane-miles, totaling 89 percent of the state's public roadway system, the rest being under the supervision of individual municipalities. This far exceeds the national average (20 percent) for state department of transportation maintenance responsibility.[80]
+
+One major branch of the U.S. Interstate Highway System, Interstate 95 (I-95), crosses Delaware southwest-to-northeast across New Castle County. In addition to I-95, there are six U.S. highways that serve Delaware: U.S. 9, U.S. 13, U.S. 40, U.S. 113, U.S. 202, and U.S. 301. There are also several state highways that cross the state of Delaware; a few of them include DE 1, DE 9, and DE 404. U.S. 13 and DE 1 are primary north–south highways connecting Wilmington and Pennsylvania with Maryland, with DE 1 serving as the main route between Wilmington and the Delaware beaches. DE 9 is a north–south highway connecting Dover and Wilmington via a scenic route along the Delaware Bay. U.S. 40 is a primary east–west route, connecting Maryland with New Jersey. DE 404 is another primary east–west highway connecting the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in Maryland with the Delaware beaches. The state also operates three toll highways, the Delaware Turnpike, which is I-95, between Maryland and New Castle; the Korean War Veterans Memorial Highway, which is DE 1, between Wilmington and Dover; and the U.S. 301 toll road between the Maryland border and DE 1 in New Castle County.
+
+A bicycle route, Delaware Bicycle Route 1, spans the north–south length of the state from the Maryland border in Fenwick Island to the Pennsylvania border north of Montchanin. It is the first of several signed bike routes planned in Delaware.[81]
+
+Delaware has about 1,450 bridges, 95 percent of which are under the supervision of DelDOT. About 30 percent of all Delaware bridges were built before 1950, and about 60 percent of the number are included in the National Bridge Inventory. Some bridges not under DelDOT supervision includes the four bridges on the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, which are under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Delaware Memorial Bridge, which is under the bi-state Delaware River and Bay Authority.[citation needed]
+
+It has been noted that the tar and chip composition of secondary roads in Sussex County makes them more prone to deterioration than are the asphalt roadways in almost the rest of the state.[82] Among these roads, Sussex (county road) 236 is among the most problematic.[82]
+
+Three ferries operate in the state of Delaware:
+
+Amtrak has two stations in Delaware along the Northeast Corridor; the relatively quiet Newark Rail Station in Newark, and the busier Wilmington Rail Station in Wilmington. The Northeast Corridor is also served by SEPTA's Wilmington/Newark Line of Regional Rail, which serves Claymont, Wilmington, Churchmans Crossing, and Newark.
+
+Two Class I railroads, Norfolk Southern and CSX, provide freight rail service in northern New Castle County. Norfolk Southern provides freight service along the Northeast Corridor and to industrial areas in Edgemoor, New Castle, and Delaware City. CSX's Philadelphia Subdivision passes through northern New Castle County parallel to the Amtrak Northeast Corridor. Multiple short-line railroads provide freight service in Delaware. The Delmarva Central Railroad operates the most trackage of the short-line railroads, running from an interchange with Norfolk Southern in Porter south through Dover, Harrington, and Seaford to Delmar, with another line running from Harrington to Frankford and branches from Ellendale to Milton and from Georgetown to Gravel Hill. The Delmarva Central Railroad connects with the Maryland and Delaware Railroad, which serves local customers in Sussex County.[83] CSX connects with the freight/heritage operation, the Wilmington and Western Railroad, based in Wilmington and the East Penn Railroad, which operates a line from Wilmington to Coatesville, Pennsylvania.
+
+The last north-south passenger trains through the main part of Delaware was the Pennsylvania Railroad's local Wilmington-Delmar train in 1965.[84][85] This was a successor to the Del-Mar-Va Express and Cavalier, which had run from Philadelphia through the state's interior, to the end of the Delmarva Peninsula until the mid-1950s.[86][87]
+
+The DART First State public transportation system was named "Most Outstanding Public Transportation System" in 2003 by the American Public Transportation Association. Coverage of the system is broad within northern New Castle County with close association to major highways in Kent and Sussex counties. The system includes bus, subsidized passenger rail operated by Philadelphia transit agency SEPTA, and subsidized taxi and paratransit modes. The paratransit system, consisting of a statewide door-to-door bus service for the elderly and disabled, has been described by a Delaware state report as "the most generous paratransit system in the United States".[79] As of 2012[update], fees for the paratransit service have not changed since 1988.[79]
+
+As of 2016[update], there is no scheduled air service from any Delaware airport, as has been the case in various years since 1991. Various airlines had served Wilmington Airport, the latest departure being Frontier Airlines in April 2015.[88]
+
+Delaware is centrally situated in the Northeast megalopolis region of cities along I-95. Therefore, Delaware commercial airline passengers most frequently use Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI) and Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) for domestic and international transit. Residents of Sussex County will also use Wicomico Regional Airport (SBY), as it is located less than 10 miles (16 km) from the Delaware border. Atlantic City International Airport (ACY), Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) are also within a 100-mile (160 km) radius of New Castle County.
+
+Other general aviation airports in Delaware include Summit Airport near Middletown, Delaware Airpark near Cheswold, and Delaware Coastal Airport near Georgetown.
+
+Dover Air Force Base, one of the largest in the country, is home to the 436th Airlift Wing and the 512th Airlift Wing. In addition to its other responsibilities in the Air Mobility Command, it serves as the entry point and mortuary for U.S. military personnel (and some civilians) who die overseas.
+
+Delaware's fourth and current constitution, adopted in 1897, provides for executive, judicial and legislative branches.[89]
+
+The Delaware General Assembly consists of a House of Representatives with 41 members and a Senate with 21 members. It sits in Dover, the state capital. Representatives are elected to two-year terms, while senators are elected to four-year terms. The Senate confirms judicial and other nominees appointed by the governor.
+
+Delaware's U.S. Senators are Tom Carper (Democrat) and Chris Coons (Democrat). Delaware's single U.S. Representative is Lisa Blunt Rochester (Democrat).
+
+The Delaware Constitution establishes a number of courts:
+
+Minor non-constitutional courts include the Justice of the Peace Courts and Aldermen's Courts.
+
+Significantly, Delaware has one of the few remaining Courts of Chancery in the nation, which has jurisdiction over equity cases, the vast majority of which are corporate disputes, many relating to mergers and acquisitions. The Court of Chancery and the Delaware Supreme Court have developed a worldwide reputation for rendering concise opinions concerning corporate law which generally (but not always) grant broad discretion to corporate boards of directors and officers. In addition, the Delaware General Corporation Law, which forms the basis of the Courts' opinions, is widely regarded as giving great flexibility to corporations to manage their affairs. For these reasons, Delaware is considered to have the most business-friendly legal system in the United States; therefore a great number of companies are incorporated in Delaware, including 60% of the companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange.[90]
+
+Delaware was the last U.S. state to use judicial corporal punishment, in 1952.[91]
+
+The executive branch is headed by the Governor of Delaware. The present governor is John Carney (Democrat), who took office January 17, 2017. The lieutenant governor is Bethany Hall-Long. The governor presents a "State of the State" speech to a joint session of the Delaware legislature annually.[92]
+
+Delaware is subdivided into three counties; from north to south they are New Castle, Kent and Sussex. This is the fewest among all states. Each county elects its own legislative body (known in New Castle and Sussex counties as County Council, and in Kent County as Levy Court), which deal primarily in zoning and development issues. Most functions which are handled on a county-by-county basis in other states—such as court and law enforcement—have been centralized in Delaware, leading to a significant concentration of power in the Delaware state government. The counties were historically divided into hundreds, which were used as tax reporting and voting districts until the 1960s, but now serve no administrative role, their only current official legal use being in real estate title descriptions.[93]
+
+The Democratic Party holds a plurality of registrations in Delaware. Until the 2000 presidential election, the state tended to be a Presidential bellwether, sending its three electoral votes to the winning candidate since 1952. This trend ended in 2000 when Delaware's electoral votes went to Al Gore by 20-percentage points. In 2004, John Kerry won Delaware by eight-percentage points. In 2008, Democrat Barack Obama defeated Republican John McCain in Delaware by 25-percentage points. Obama's running mate was Joe Biden, who had represented Delaware in the United States Senate since 1973. Obama carried Delaware by 19-percentage points in 2012. In 2016, Delaware's electoral votes went to Hillary Clinton by 11-percentage points.
+
+Delaware's swing to the Democrats is in part due to a strong Democratic trend in New Castle County, home to 55 percent of Delaware's population (the two smaller counties have only 359,000 people between them to New Castle's 535,000). New Castle has not voted Republican in a presidential election since 1988. In 1992, 2000, 2004, and 2016, the Republican presidential candidate carried both Kent and Sussex but lost by double digits each time in New Castle, which was a large enough margin to swing the state to the Democrats. New Castle also elects a substantial majority of the legislature; 27 of the 41 state house districts and 14 of the 21 state senate districts are based in New Castle.
+
+The Democrats have held the governorship since 1993, having won the last seven gubernatorial elections in a row. Democrats presently hold all the nine statewide elected offices, while the Republicans last won two statewide offices in 2014, State Auditor and State Treasurer.
+
+Each of the 50 states of the United States has passed some form of freedom of information legislation, which provides a mechanism for the general public to request information of the government. [94] In 2011 Delaware passed legislation placing a 15 business day time limit on addressing freedom-of-information requests, to either produce information or an explanation of why such information would take longer than this time to produce.[95]
+
+Tax is collected by the Delaware Division of Revenue.[96]
+
+Delaware has six different income tax brackets, ranging from 2.2% to 5.95%. The state does not assess sales tax on consumers. The state does, however, impose a tax on the gross receipts of most businesses. Business and occupational license tax rates range from 0.096% to 1.92%, depending on the category of business activity.
+
+Delaware does not assess a state-level tax on real or personal property. Real estate is subject to county property taxes, school district property taxes, vocational school district taxes, and, if located within an incorporated area, municipal property taxes.
+
+Gambling provides significant revenue to the state. For instance, the casino at Delaware Park Racetrack provided more than $100 million to the state in 2010.[97]
+
+In June 2018, Delaware became the first U.S. state to legalize sports betting following the Supreme Court ruling to repeal The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA).[98]
+
+Wilmington is the state's largest city and its economic hub. It is located within commuting distance of both Philadelphia and Baltimore.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The table below lists the ten largest municipalities in the state based on the 2018 United States Census Estimate.[100]
+
+In the early 1920s, Pierre S. du Pont served as president of the state board of education. At the time, state law prohibited money raised from white taxpayers from being used to support the state's schools for black children. Appalled by the condition of the black schools, du Pont donated four million dollars to construct eighty-six new school buildings.[101]
+
+Delaware was the origin of Belton v. Gebhart, (1952) one of the four cases which were combined into Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court of the United States decision that led to the end of officially segregated public schools. Significantly, Belton was the only case in which the state court found for the plaintiffs, thereby ruling that segregation is unconstitutional.
+
+Unlike many states, Delaware's educational system is centralized in a state Superintendent of Education, with local school boards retaining control over taxation and some curriculum decisions. This centralized system, combined with the small size of the state, likely contributed to Delaware becoming the first state, after completion of a three-year, $30 million program ending in 1999, to wire every classroom in all K-12 schools to the Internet.[102]
+
+As of 2011[update], the Delaware Department of Education had authorized the founding of 25 charter schools in the state, one of them being all-girls.[103]
+
+All teachers in the State's public school districts are unionized.[104] As of January 2012[update], none of the State's charter schools are members of a teachers union.[104] One of the State's teachers' unions is Delaware State Education Association (DSEA), whose President as of January 2012[update] is Frederika Jenner.[104]
+
+Delaware's sister state in Japan is Miyagi Prefecture.[105]
+
+No standalone television stations are based solely in Delaware. The northern part of the state is served by network stations in Philadelphia and the southern part by network stations in Salisbury, Maryland. Philadelphia's ABC affiliate, WPVI-TV, maintains a news bureau in downtown Wilmington. Salisbury's CBS affiliate, WBOC-TV, maintains bureaus in Dover and Milton. Three Philadelphia-market stations – PBS member WHYY-TV, Ion affiliate WPPX, and MeTV affiliate WDPN-TV – all have Wilmington as their city of license, but maintain transmitters at the market antenna farm in Roxborough and do not produce any Delaware-centric programming.
+
+Delaware is home to First State National Historical Park, a National Park Service unit that is composed of historic sites across the state including the New Castle Court House, Green, and Sheriff's House, Dover Green, Beaver Valley, Fort Christina, Old Swedes' Church, John Dickinson Plantation, and the Ryves Holt House.[106] Delaware has several museums, wildlife refuges, parks, houses, lighthouses, and other historic places.
+
+Rehoboth Beach, together with the towns of Lewes, Dewey Beach, Bethany Beach, South Bethany, and Fenwick Island, comprise Delaware's beach resorts. Rehoboth Beach often bills itself as "The Nation's Summer Capital" because it is a frequent summer vacation destination for Washington, D.C. residents as well as visitors from Maryland, Virginia, and in lesser numbers, Pennsylvania. Vacationers are drawn for many reasons, including the town's charm, artistic appeal, nightlife, and tax free shopping. According to SeaGrant Delaware, the Delaware Beaches generate $6.9 billion annually and over $711 million in tax revenue.[107]
+
+Delaware is home to several festivals, fairs, and events. Some of the more notable festivals are the Riverfest held in Seaford, the World Championship Punkin Chunkin formerly held at various locations throughout the state since 1986, the Rehoboth Beach Chocolate Festival, the Bethany Beach Jazz Funeral to mark the end of summer, the Apple Scrapple Festival held in Bridgeville, the Clifford Brown Jazz Festival in Wilmington, the Rehoboth Beach Jazz Festival, the Sea Witch Halloween Festival and Parade in Rehoboth Beach, the Rehoboth Beach Independent Film Festival, the Nanticoke Indian Pow Wow in Oak Orchard, Firefly Music Festival, and the Return Day Parade held after every election in Georgetown.
+
+In 2015, tourism in Delaware generated $3.1 billion, which makes up five percent of the state's GDP. Delaware saw 8.5 million visitors in 2015, with the tourism industry employing 41,730 people, making it the 4th largest private employer in the state. Major origin markets for Delaware tourists include Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York City, Washington, D.C., and Harrisburg, with 97% of tourists arriving to the state by car and 75% of tourists coming from 200 miles (320 km) or less.[108]
+
+As Delaware has no franchises in the major American professional sports leagues, many Delawareans follow either Philadelphia or Baltimore teams. In the WNBA, the Washington Mystics enjoy a major following due to the presence of Wilmington native and University of Delaware product Elena Delle Donne. The University of Delaware's football team has a large following throughout the state with the Delaware State University and Wesley College teams also enjoying a smaller degree of support.
+
+Delaware is home to Dover International Speedway and Dover Downs. DIS, also known as the Monster Mile, hosts two NASCAR race weekends each year, one in the late spring and one in the late summer. Dover Downs is a popular harness racing facility. It is the only co-located horse- and car-racing facility in the nation, with the Dover Downs track inside the DIS track.
+
+Delaware is represented in rugby by 2015 expansion club, the Delaware Black Foxes.
+
+Delaware has been home to professional wrestling outfit Combat Zone Wrestling (CZW). CZW has been affiliated with the annual Tournament of Death and ECWA with its annual Super 8 Tournament.
+
+Delaware's official state sport is bicycling.[109]
+
+Delaware is also the name of a Native American group (called in their own language Lenni Lenape) which was influential in the colonial period of the United States and is today headquartered in Cheswold, Kent County, Delaware. A band of the Nanticoke tribe of American Indians today resides in Sussex County and is headquartered in Millsboro, Sussex County, Delaware.
+
+History
+
+General
+
+Coordinates: 39°00′N 75°30′W / 39°N 75.5°W / 39; -75.5

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+Delhi (English: /ˈdɛli/; Hindi: [ˈdɪlːi] Dillī; Punjabi: [ˈdɪlːi] Dillī; Urdu: [ˈdeːɦli] Dēhlī), officially known as the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT), is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India.[14][15]
+It is bordered by the state of Haryana on three sides and by Uttar Pradesh to the east. The NCT covers an area of 1,484 square kilometres (573 sq mi). According to the 2011 census, Delhi's city proper population was over 11 million,[5] the second-highest in India after Mumbai,[16] while the whole NCT's population was about 16.8 million.[6] Delhi's urban area is now considered to extend beyond the NCT boundaries, and include the neighbouring satellite cities of Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Gurgaon and Noida in an area called the National Capital Region (NCR) and had an estimated 2016 population of over 26 million people, making it the world's second-largest urban area according to the United Nations.[7] 
+Recent estimates of the metro economy of its urban area have ranked Delhi either the most or second-most productive metro area of India.[10] Delhi is the second-wealthiest city in India after Mumbai and is home to 18 billionaires and 23,000 millionaires.[17] Delhi ranks fifth among the Indian states and union territories in human development index.[12] Delhi has the second-highest GDP per capita in India.[9] Delhi is of great historical significance as an important commercial, transport, and cultural hub, as well as the political centre of India.[18]
+
+Delhi has been continuously inhabited since the 6th century BCE.[19] Through most of its history, Delhi has served as a capital of various kingdoms and empires, most notably the Pandavas, the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire. The city has been captured, ransacked and rebuilt several times, particularly during the medieval period, and modern Delhi is a cluster of a number of cities spread across the metropolitan region. For many centuries Delhi has been a dominant trading and commercial centre in northern India, and after 1990s it has emerged as an important node in the international corporate and financial network.[20]
+
+A union territory, the political administration of the NCT of Delhi today more closely resembles that of a state of India, with its own legislature, high court and an executive council of ministers headed by a Chief Minister. New Delhi is jointly administered by the federal government of India and the local government of Delhi, and serves as the capital of the nation as well as the NCT of Delhi. Delhi hosted the inaugural 1951 Asian Games, 1982 Asian Games, 1983 NAM Summit, 2010 Men's Hockey World Cup, 2010 Commonwealth Games, 2012 BRICS Summit and was one of the major host cities of the 2011 Cricket World Cup.
+
+Delhi is also the centre of the National Capital Region (NCR), which is a unique 'interstate regional planning' area created by the National Capital Region Planning Board Act of 1985.[21][22]
+
+There are a number of myths and legends associated with the origin of the name Delhi. One of them is derived from Dhillu or Dilu, a king who built a city at this location in 50 BCE and named it after himself.[23][24][25] Another legend holds that the name of the city is based on the Hindi/Prakrit word dhili (loose) and that it was used by the Tomaras to refer to the city because the iron pillar of Delhi had a weak foundation and had to be moved.[25] According to Panjab Notes and Queries, the name of the city at the time of King Prithviraj was  dilpat, and that dilpat and dilli are probably derived from the old Hindi word dil meaning eminence. The former director of the Archaeological Survey of India, Alexander Cunningham, mentioned that dilli later became dihli/dehli.[26] Some suggest the coins in circulation in the region under the Tomaras were called dehliwal.[27] According to the Bhavishya Purana, King Prithiviraja of Indraprastha built a new fort in the modern-day Purana Qila area for the convenience of all four castes in his kingdom. He ordered the construction of a gateway to the fort and later named the fort dehali.[28] Some historians believe that Dhilli or Dhillika is the original name for the city while others believe the name could be a corruption of the Hindustani words dehleez or dehali—both terms meaning "threshold" or "gateway"—and symbolic of the city as a gateway to the Gangetic Plain.[29][30][31]
+
+The people of Delhi are referred to as Delhiites or Dilliwalas.[32] The city is referenced in various idioms of the Northern Indo-Aryan languages. Examples include:
+
+The area around Delhi was probably inhabited before the second millennium BCE and there is evidence of continuous inhabitation since at least the 6th century BCE.[19] The city is believed to be the site of Indraprastha, the legendary capital of the Pandavas in the Indian epic Mahabharata.[23] According to the Mahabharata, this land was initially a huge mass of forests called 'Khandavaprastha' which was burnt down to build the city of Indraprastha. The earliest architectural relics date back to the Maurya period (c. 300 BCE); in 1966, an inscription of the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka (273–235 BCE) was discovered near Srinivaspuri. Remains of several major cities can be found in Delhi. The first of these were in the southern part of present-day Delhi. King Anang Pal of the Tomara dynasty founded the city of Lal Kot in 736 CE. Prithviraj Chauhan conquered Lal Kot in 1178 and renamed it Qila Rai Pithora.
+
+The ancient Yogmaya Temple, claimed to be one of the five temples from the era of Mahabharata in Indraprastha.[36]
+
+The iron pillar of Delhi is said to have been fashioned at the time of Chandragupta Vikramaditya (375–413 CE) of the Gupta Empire.[37]
+
+Agrasen ki Baoli is believed to be originally built by the legendary king Agrasen.[38]
+
+The bastion of Lal Kot fort in Delhi's Mehrauli attributed to the Tomara ruler, Anangpal in c. 736 CE.[39]
+
+Sculpture of ancient temple in Qutb Minar complex
+
+The king Prithviraj Chauhan was defeated in 1192 by Muhammad Ghori in the second battle of Tarain, a Muslim invader from Afghanistan, who made a concerted effort to conquer northern India.[23] By 1200, native Hindu resistance had begun to crumble, and the Muslim invaders were victorious. The newfound dominance of foreign Turkic Muslim dynasties in north India would last for the next five centuries. The slave general of Ghori, Qutb-ud-din Aibak, was given the responsibility of governing the conquered territories of India until Ghori returned to his capital, Ghor. When Ghori died without an heir in 1206 CE, his territories fractured, with various generals claiming sovereignty over different areas. Qutb-ud-din assumed control of Ghori's Indian possessions, and laid the foundation of the Delhi Sultanate and the Mamluk dynasty. He began construction of the Qutb Minar and Quwwat-al-Islam (Might of Islam) mosque, the earliest extant mosque in India. It was his successor, Iltutmish (1211–1236), who consolidated the Turkic conquest of northern India.[23][40] Razia Sultan, daughter of Iltutmish, succeeded him as the Sultan of Delhi. She was the first and only woman to rule over Delhi.
+
+For the next three hundred years, Delhi was ruled by a succession of Turkic and an Afghan, Lodi dynasty. They built several forts and townships that are part of the seven cities of Delhi.[42] Delhi was a major centre of Sufism during this period.[43] The Mamluk Sultanate (Delhi) was overthrown in 1290 by Jalal ud din Firuz Khalji (1290–1320). Under the second Khalji ruler, Ala-ud-din Khalji, the Delhi sultanate extended its control south of the Narmada River in the Deccan. The Delhi sultanate reached its greatest extent during the reign of Muhammad bin Tughluq (1325–1351). In an attempt to bring the whole of the Deccan under control, he moved his capital to Daulatabad, Maharashtra in central India. However, by moving away from Delhi he lost control of the north and was forced to return to Delhi to restore order. The southern provinces then broke away. In the years following the reign of Firoz Shah Tughlaq (1351–1388), the Delhi Sultanate rapidly began to lose its hold over its northern provinces. Delhi was captured and sacked by Timur in 1398,[44] who massacred 100,000 captives.[45] Delhi's decline continued under the Sayyid dynasty (1414–1451), until the sultanate was reduced to Delhi and its hinterland. Under the Afghan Lodi dynasty (1451–1526), the Delhi sultanate recovered control of the Punjab and the Gangetic plain to once again achieve domination over Northern India. However, the recovery was short-lived and the sultanate was destroyed in 1526 by Babur, founder of the Mughal dynasty.
+
+Babur was a descendant of Genghis Khan and Timur, from the Fergana Valley in modern-day Uzbekistan. In 1526, he invaded India, defeated the last Lodhi sultan in the First Battle of Panipat and founded the Mughal Empire that ruled from Delhi and Agra.[23] The Mughal dynasty ruled Delhi for more than three centuries, with a sixteen-year hiatus during the reigns of Sher Shah Suri and Hemu from 1540 to 1556.[46] In 1553, the Hindu king Hemu acceded to the throne of Delhi by defeating forces of Mughal Emperor Humayun at Agra and Delhi. However, the Mughals re-established their rule after Akbar's army defeated Hemu during the Second Battle of Panipat in 1556.[47][48][49] Shah Jahan built the seventh city of Delhi that bears his name Shahjahanabad, which served as the capital of the Mughal Empire from 1638 and is today known as the Old City or Old Delhi.[50]
+
+After the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, the Mughal Empire's influence declined rapidly as the Hindu Maratha Empire from Deccan Plateau rose to prominence.[51] In 1737, Maratha forces led by Baji Rao I sacked Delhi following their victory against the Mughals in the First Battle of Delhi. In 1739, the Mughal Empire lost the huge Battle of Karnal in less than three hours against the numerically outnumbered but militarily superior Persian army led by Nader Shah of Persia. After his invasion, he completely sacked and looted Delhi, carrying away immense wealth including the Peacock Throne, the Daria-i-Noor, and Koh-i-Noor. The Mughals, severely further weakened, could never overcome this crushing defeat and humiliation which also left the way open for more invaders to come, including eventually the British.[52][53][54] Nader eventually agreed to leave the city and India after forcing the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah I to beg him for mercy and granting him the keys of the city and the royal treasury.[55] A treaty signed in 1752 made Marathas the protectors of the Mughal throne in Delhi.[56]
+
+In 1757, the Afghan ruler, Ahmad Shah Durrani, sacked Delhi. He returned to Afghanistan leaving a Mughal ruler named Alamgir II in nominal control. The Marathas again occupied Delhi in 1758, and were in control until their defeat in 1761 at the Third Battle of Panipat when the city was captured again by Ahmad Shah Durrani.[57] However, in 1771, the Marathas established a protectorate over Delhi when the Maratha ruler, Mahadji Shinde, recaptured Delhi and the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II was installed as a client of the Maratha Confederacy in 1772.[58] In 1783, Sikhs under Baghel Singh captured Delhi and Red Fort but due to the treaty signed, Sikhs withdrew from Red Fort and agreed to restore Shah Alam II as the emperor.
+
+In 1803, during the Second Anglo-Maratha War, the forces of British East India Company defeated the Maratha forces in the Battle of Delhi.[59]
+
+During the Indian Rebellion of 1857, Delhi fell to the forces of East India Company after a bloody fight known as the Siege of Delhi. The city came under the direct control of the British Government in 1858. It was made a district province of the Punjab.[23] In 1911, it was announced that the capital of British-held territories in India was to be transferred from Calcutta to Delhi.[60] The name "New Delhi" was given in 1927, and the new capital was inaugurated on 13 February 1931. New Delhi, also known as Lutyens' Delhi,[61] was officially declared as the capital of the Union of India after the country gained independence on 15 August 1947.[62]
+During the partition of India, thousands of Hindu and Sikh refugees, mainly from West Punjab fled to Delhi, while many Muslim residents of the city migrated to Pakistan. Migration to Delhi from the rest of India continues (as of 2013[update]), contributing more to the rise of Delhi's population than the birth rate, which is declining.[63]
+
+The States Reorganisation Act, 1956 created the Union Territory of Delhi from its predecessor, the Chief Commissioner's Province of Delhi.[1][2]
+The Constitution (Sixty-ninth Amendment) Act, 1991 declared the Union Territory of Delhi to be formally known as the National Capital Territory of Delhi.[3] The Act gave Delhi its own legislative assembly along Civil lines, though with limited powers.[3]
+
+In 2001, the Parliament of India building in New Delhi was attacked by armed militants, killing six security personnel.[64] India suspected Pakistan-based militant groups were behind the attack, which caused a major diplomatic crisis between the two countries.[65] There were further terrorist attacks in Delhi in 2005 and 2008, resulting in a total of 103 deaths.[66]
+
+Delhi is located in Northern India, at 28°37′N 77°14′E / 28.61°N 77.23°E / 28.61; 77.23. The city is bordered on its northern, western, and southern sides by the state of Haryana and to the east by that of Uttar Pradesh (UP). Two prominent features of the geography of Delhi are the Yamuna flood plains and the Delhi ridge. The Yamuna river was the historical boundary between Punjab and UP, and its flood plains provide fertile alluvial soil suitable for agriculture but are prone to recurrent floods. The Yamuna, a sacred river in Hinduism, is the only major river flowing through Delhi. The Hindon River separates Ghaziabad from the eastern part of Delhi. The Delhi ridge originates from the Aravalli Range in the south and encircles the west, north-east and north-west parts of the city. It reaches a height of 318 m (1,043 ft) and is a dominant feature of the region.[71]
+
+The National Capital Territory of Delhi covers an area of 1,484 km2 (573 sq mi), of which 783 km2 (302 sq mi) is designated rural, and 700 km2 (270 sq mi) urban therefore making it the largest city in terms of area in the country. It has a length of 51.9 km (32 mi) and a width of 48.48 km (30 mi).[citation needed]
+
+Delhi is included in India's seismic zone-IV, indicating its vulnerability to major earthquakes.[72]
+
+Delhi features a dry-winter humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cwa) bordering a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen BSh). The warm season lasts from 21 March to 15 June with an average daily high temperature above 39 °C (102 °F). The hottest day of the year is 22 May, with an average high of 40 °C (104 °F) and low of 28 °C (82 °F).[73] The cold season lasts from 26 November to 9 February with an average daily high temperature below 20 °C (68 °F). The coldest day of the year is 4 January, with an average low of 2 °C (36 °F) and high of 14 °C (57 °F).[73] In early March, the wind direction changes from north-westerly to south-westerly. From April to October the weather is hot. The monsoon arrives at the end of June, along with an increase in humidity.[74] The brief, mild winter starts in late November, peaks in January and heavy fog often occurs.[75]
+
+Temperatures in Delhi usually range from 2 to 47 °C (35.6 to 116.6 °F), with the lowest and highest temperatures ever recorded being −2.2 and 48.4 °C (28.0 and 119.1 °F), respectively.[76] The annual mean temperature is 25 °C (77 °F); monthly mean temperatures range from 13 to 32 °C (55 to 90 °F). The highest temperature recorded in July was 45 °C (113 °F) in 1931.[77][78] The average annual rainfall is approximately 886 mm (34.9 in), most of which falls during the monsoon in July and August.[23] The average date of the advent of monsoon winds in Delhi is 29 June.[79]
+
+According to the World Health Organization (WHO) Delhi was the most polluted[89] city in the world in 2014. In 2016 WHO downgraded Delhi to eleventh-worst in the urban air quality database.[90] According to one estimate, air pollution causes the death of about 10,500 people in Delhi every year.[91][92][93] Air quality index of Delhi is generally Moderate (101–200) level between January to September, and then it drastically deteriorates to Very Poor (301–400), Severe (401–500) or Hazardous (500+) levels in three months between October to December, due to various factors including stubble burning, fire crackers burning during Diwali and cold weather.[94][95][96] During 2013–14, peak levels of fine particulate matter (PM) in Delhi increased by about 44%, primarily due to high vehicular and industrial emissions, construction work and crop burning in adjoining states.[91][97][98][99] It has the highest level of the airborne particulate matter, PM2.5 considered most harmful to health, with 153 micrograms.[100] Rising air pollution level has significantly increased lung-related ailments (especially asthma and lung cancer) among Delhi's children and women.[101][102] The dense smog and haze in Delhi during winter season results in major air and rail traffic disruptions every year.[103] According to Indian meteorologists, the average maximum temperature in Delhi during winters has declined notably since 1998 due to rising air pollution.[104]
+
+India's Ministry of Earth Sciences published a research paper in October 2018 attributing almost 41% of PM2.5 air pollution in Delhi to vehicular emissions, 21.5% to dust/fire and 18% to industries.[105] The director of Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) alleged that the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) is lobbying "against the report" because it is "inconvenient" to the automobile industry.[106] Environmentalists have also criticised the Delhi government for not doing enough to curb air pollution and to inform people about air quality issues.[92] In 2014, an environmental panel appealed to India's Supreme Court to impose a 30% cess on diesel cars, but till date no action has been taken to penalise the automobile industry.[107]
+
+Most of Delhi's residents are unaware of alarming levels of air pollution in the city and the health risks associated with it;[98][99] however, as of 2015[update], awareness, particularly among the foreign diplomatic community and high-income Indians, was noticeably increasing.[108] Since the mid-1990s, Delhi has undertaken some measures to curb air pollution—Delhi has the third-highest quantity of trees among Indian cities[109] and the Delhi Transport Corporation operates the world's largest fleet of environmentally friendly compressed natural gas (CNG) buses.[110] In 1996, the CSE started a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court of India that ordered the conversion of Delhi's fleet of buses and taxis to run on CNG and banned the use of leaded petrol in 1998. In 2003, Delhi won the United States Department of Energy's first 'Clean Cities International Partner of the Year' award for its "bold efforts to curb air pollution and support alternative fuel initiatives".[110] The Delhi Metro has also been credited for significantly reducing air pollutants in the city.[111]
+
+However, according to several authors, most of these gains have been lost, especially due to stubble burning, a rise in the market share of diesel cars and a considerable decline in bus ridership.[112][113] According to CSE and System of Air Quality Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), burning of agricultural waste in nearby Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh regions results in severe intensification of smog over Delhi.[114][115]
+
+The Circles of Sustainability assessment of Delhi gives a marginally more favourable impression of the ecological sustainability of the city only because it is based on a more comprehensive series of measures than only air pollution. Part of the reason that the city remains assessed at basic sustainability is because of the low resource-use and carbon emissions of its poorer neighbourhoods.[116] In December 2019, IIT Bombay, in partnership with the McKelvey School of Engineering of Washington University in St. Louis, launched the Aerosol and Air Quality Research Facility to study air pollution in Delhi, among other Indian cities.[117] On 3 January 2020, Delhi got its first smog tower to tackle air pollution.[118][119]
+
+Currently, the National Capital Territory of Delhi is made up of one division, 11 districts, 33 subdivisions, 59 census towns, and 300 villages.[120] Local civic administration has, since the trifurcation of the former Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) in January 2012,[121] been in the hands of five bodies:
+
+It was in July 2012, shortly after the MCD trifurcation, that the Government of Delhi increased the number of districts in the capital territory from nine to eleven.[122]
+
+In terms of good governance and best administrative practices, Delhi was ranked fifth out of 21 Indian cities in 2014. It scored 3.6 out of 10 compared to the national average of 3.3.[123]
+
+Delhi is home to the Supreme Court of India and the regional Delhi High Court. A Small Causes Court deals with civil cases, while a Magistrates' Court and the Sessions Court handle criminal cases in the city. For policing purposes Delhi is divided into eleven police districts which are further subdivided into 95 local police station zones.[124]
+
+As a first-level administrative division, the National Capital Territory of Delhi has its own Legislative Assembly, Lieutenant Governor, council of ministers and Chief Minister. Members of the legislative assembly are directly elected from territorial constituencies in the NCT. The legislative assembly was abolished in 1956, after which direct federal control was implemented until it was re-established in 1993. The Municipal corporation handles civic administration for the city as part of the Panchayati Raj Act. The Government of India and the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi jointly administer New Delhi, where both bodies are located. The Parliament of India, the Rashtrapati Bhavan (Presidential Palace), Cabinet Secretariat and the Supreme Court of India are located in the municipal district of New Delhi. There are 70 assembly constituencies and seven Lok Sabha (Indian parliament's lower house) constituencies in Delhi.[125][126]
+The Indian National Congress (Congress) formed all the governments in Delhi until the 1990s, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Madan Lal Khurana, came to power.[127] In 1998, the Congress returned to power under the leadership of Sheila Dikshit, who was subsequently re-elected for 3 consecutive terms. But in 2013, the Congress was ousted from power by the newly formed Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) led by Arvind Kejriwal forming the government with outside support from the Congress.[128] However, that government was short-lived, collapsing only after 49 days.[129] Delhi was then under President's rule until February 2015.[130] On 10 February 2015, the Aam Aadmi Party returned to power after a landslide victory, winning 67 out of the 70 seats in the Delhi Legislative Assembly.[131]
+
+Since 2011 Delhi has had three municipal corporations:[132]
+
+In 2017 the BJP emerged the victors in elections to all three corporations.[133]
+
+Delhi is the largest commercial centre in northern India. As of 2016[update] recent estimates of the economy of the Delhi urban area have ranged from $167 to $370 billion (PPP metro GDP) ranking it either the most or second-most productive metro area of India.[10] The nominal GSDP of the NCT of Delhi for 2016–17 was estimated at ₹6,224 billion (US$87 billion), 13% higher than in 2015–16.[134]
+
+As per the Economic survey of Delhi (2005–2006), the tertiary sector contributes 70.95% of Delhi's gross SDP followed by secondary and primary sectors with 25.20% and 3.85% contributions, respectively.[135] Delhi's workforce constitutes 32.82% of the population, and increased by 52.52% between 1991 and 2001.[136] Delhi's unemployment rate decreased from 12.57% in 1999–2000 to 4.63% in 2003.[136] In December 2004, 636,000 people were registered with various employment exchange programmes in Delhi.[136]
+
+In 2001 the total workforce in national and state governments and the quasi-government sector was 620,000, and the private sector employed 219,000.[136] Key service industries are information technology, telecommunications, hotels, banking, media and tourism.[137] Construction, power, health and community services and real estate are also important to the city's economy. Delhi has one of India's largest and fastest growing retail industries.[138] Manufacturing also grew considerably as consumer goods companies established manufacturing units and headquarters in the city. Delhi's large consumer market and the availability of skilled labour has also attracted foreign investment. In 2001, the manufacturing sector employed 1,440,000 workers and the city had 129,000 industrial units.[139]
+
+Delhi's municipal water supply is managed by the Delhi Jal Board (DJB). As of June 2005[update], it supplied 650 million gallons per day (MGD), whereas the estimated consumption requirement is 963 MGD.[140] The shortfall is met by private and public tube wells and hand pumps. At 240 MGD, the Bhakra storage is DJB's largest water source, followed by the Yamuna and Ganges rivers. Delhi's groundwater level is falling and its population density is increasing, so residents often encounter acute water shortage.[140] Research on Delhi suggests that up to half of the city's water use is unofficial groundwater.[141]In Delhi, daily domestic solid waste production is 8000 tonnes which is dumped at three landfill locations by MCD.[142] The daily domestic waste water production is 470 MGD and industrial waste water is 70 MGD.[143] A large portion of the sewage flows untreated into the Yamuna river.[143]
+
+The city's electricity consumption is about 1,265 kWh per capita but the actual demand is higher.[144] In Delhi power distribution is managed by Tata Power Distribution and BSES Yamuna & Rajdhani since 2002. The Delhi Fire Service runs 43 fire stations that attend about 15,000 fire and rescue calls per year.[145] The state-owned Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) and private enterprises such as Vodafone, Airtel, Idea Cellular, Reliance Infocomm, Aircel, Reliance Jio and Tata Docomo provide telephone and cell phone services to the city. Cellular coverage is available in GSM, CDMA, 3G and 4G.
+
+Indira Gandhi International Airport, situated to the south-west of Delhi, is the main gateway for the city's domestic and international civilian air traffic. In 2015–16, the airport handled more than 48 million passengers,[148] making it the busiest airport in India and South Asia. Terminal 3, which cost ₹96.8 billion (US$1.4 billion) to construct between 2007 and 2010, handles an additional 37 million passengers annually.[149] In 2010, IGIA was conferred the 4th best airport award in the world in the 15–25 million category, by Airports Council International. The airport was rated as the Best airport in the world in the 25–40 million passengers category in 2015, by Airports Council International. Delhi Airport was awarded The Best Airport in Central Asia and Best Airport Staff in Central Asia at the Skytrax World Airport Awards 2015.[150][151]
+
+The Delhi Flying Club, established in 1928 with two de Havilland Moth aircraft named Delhi and Roshanara, was based at Safdarjung Airport which started operations in 1929, when it was the Delhi's only airport and the second in India.[152] The airport functioned until 2001; however, in January 2002 the government closed the airport for flying activities because of security concerns following the New York attacks in September 2001. Since then, the club only carries out aircraft maintenance courses and is used for helicopter rides to Indira Gandhi International Airport for VIP including the president and the prime minister.[152][153]
+
+Hindon Domestic Airport in Ghaziabad was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the second airport for the Delhi-NCR Region on 8 March 2019.[154]
+
+A second international airport open for commercial flights has been suggested either by expansion of Meerut Airport or construction of a new airport in Greater Noida.[155]
+The Taj International Airport project in Jewar has been approved by the Uttar Pradesh government.[156]
+
+Delhi has the highest road density of 2103 km/100 km2 in India.[157] It is connected to other parts of India by five National Highways: NH 1, NH 2, NH 8, NH 10 and NH 24. The city's road network is maintained by MCD, NDMC, Delhi Cantonment Board, Public Works Department (PWD) and Delhi Development Authority.[158]
+
+Buses are the most popular means of road transport catering to about 60% of Delhi's total demand.[159] Delhi has one of India's largest bus transport systems. In 1998, the Supreme Court of India ruled that all public transport vehicles in Delhi must be fuelled by compressed natural gas (CNG) to tackle increasing vehicular pollution.[160] The state-owned Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) is a major bus service provider which operates the world's largest fleet of CNG-fuelled buses.[161][162] In addition, cluster scheme buses are operated by Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System (DIMTS) with the participation of private concessionaires and DTC.[163][164] In December 2017, the DTC and cluster buses carried over 4.19 million passengers per day.[165] Kashmiri Gate ISBT, Anand Vihar ISBT and Sarai Kale Khan ISBT are the main bus terminals for outstation buses plying to neighbouring states. Delhi's rapid rate of economic development and population growth has resulted in an increasing demand for transport, creating excessive pressure on the city's transport infrastructure. To meet the transport demand, the State and Union government constructed a mass rapid transit system, including the Delhi Metro.[166] Delhi Bus Rapid Transit System runs between Ambedkar Nagar and Delhi Gate.
+
+Personal vehicles especially cars also form a major chunk of vehicles plying on Delhi roads. As of 2007[update], private vehicles account for 30% of the total demand for transport.[166] Delhi has the highest number of registered cars compared to any other metropolitan city in India.[167] Taxis, auto rickshaws, and cycle rickshaws also ply on Delhi roads in large numbers. As of 2008[update], the number of vehicles in the metropolitan region, Delhi NCR, was 11.2 million (11.2 million).[168] In 2008, there were 85 cars in Delhi for every 1,000 of its residents.[169] In 2017, the number of vehicles in Delhi city alone crossed the ten million mark with the transport department of Delhi Government putting the total number of registered vehicles at 10,567,712 until 25 May of the year.[170]
+
+Important Roads in Delhi
+
+Some roads and expressways serve as important pillars of Delhi's road infrastructure:
+
+National Highways Passing Through Delhi
+
+Delhi is connected by road to various parts of the country through several National Highways:
+It is connected to other parts of India by five National Highways:
+
+Delhi is a major junction in the Indian railway network and is the headquarters of the Northern Railway. The main railway stations are New Delhi, Old Delhi, Hazrat Nizamuddin, Anand Vihar, Delhi Sarai Rohilla and Delhi Cantt.[166] The Delhi Metro, a mass rapid transit system built and operated by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), serves many parts of Delhi and the neighbouring cities Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Gurgaon and Noida.[173] As of August 2018[update], the metro consists of eight operational lines with a total length of 296 km (184 mi) and 214 stations, and several other lines are under construction.[174] The Phase-I was built at a cost of US$2.3 billion and the Phase-II was expected to cost an additional ₹216 billion (US$3.0 billion).[175] Phase-II has a total length of 128 km and was completed by 2010.[176] Delhi Metro completed 10 years of operation on 25 December 2012. It carries millions of passengers every day.[177] In addition to the Delhi Metro, a suburban railway, the Delhi Suburban Railway exists.[178]
+
+The Delhi Metro is a rapid transit system serving Delhi, Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Gurgaon and Noida in the National Capital Region of India. Delhi Metro is the world's tenth-largest metro system in terms of length. Delhi Metro was India's second modern public transportation system, which has revolutionised travel by providing a fast, reliable, safe, and comfortable means of transport. The network consists of eleven lines with a total length of 311 kilometres (193 miles) with 214 stations, which are a mix of underground, at-grade and elevated stations. All stations have escalators, lifts, and tactile tiles to guide the visually impaired from station entrances to trains. There are 18 designated parking sites at Metro stations to further encourage the use of the system. In March 2010, DMRC partnered with Google India (through Google Transit) to provide train schedule and route information to mobile devices with Google Maps.
+It has a combination of elevated, at-grade, and underground lines, and uses both broad gauge and standard gauge rolling stock. Four types of rolling stock are used: Mitsubishi–ROTEM Broad gauge, Bombardier MOVIA, Mitsubishi–ROTEM Standard gauge, and CAF Beasain Standard gauge. The Phase-I of Delhi Metro was built at a cost of US$2.3 billion and the Phase-II was expected to cost an additional ₹216 billion (US$3.0 billion).[175] Phase-II has a total length of 128 km and was completed by 2010.[176] Delhi Metro completed 10 years of operation on 25 December 2012. It carries millions of passengers every day.[177]
+
+Delhi Metro is being built and operated by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Limited (DMRC), a state-owned company with equal equity participation from Government of India and Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi. However, the organisation is under the administrative control of Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India. Besides construction and operation of Delhi Metro, DMRC is also involved in the planning and implementation of metro rail, monorail, and high-speed rail projects in India and providing consultancy services to other metro projects in the country as well as abroad. The Delhi Metro project was spearheaded by Padma Vibhushan E. Sreedharan, the managing director of DMRC and popularly known as the "Metro Man" of India. He famously resigned from DMRC taking moral responsibility for a metro bridge collapse, which took five lives. Sreedharan was awarded the prestigious Legion of Honour by the French Government for his contribution to Delhi Metro.[179]
+
+The 08 RRTS Corridors have been proposed by National Capital Region Planning Board (NCRPB) to facilitate the people travelling from nearby cities in NCR to Delhi.[180] The three main corridors in the first phase are as follows:[181]
+
+Remaining five corridors are also approved by National Capital Region Planning Board but are planned in the second phase.[181]
+
+According to the 2011 census of India, the population of NCT of Delhi is 16,753,235.[182] The corresponding population density was 11,297 persons per km2 with a sex ratio of 866 women per 1000 men, and a literacy rate of 86.34%. In 2004, the birth rate, death rate and infant mortality rate per 1000 population were 20.03, 5.59 and 13.08, respectively.[183] In 2001, the population of Delhi increased by 285,000 as a result of migration and by 215,000 as a result of natural population growth,[183] which made Delhi one of the fastest growing cities in the world. Dwarka Sub City, Asia's largest planned residential area, is located within the National Capital Territory of Delhi.[184] Urban expansion has resulted in Delhi's urban area now being considered as extending beyond the NCT boundaries to incorporate the towns and cities of neighbouring states including Faridabad and Gurgaon of Haryana, and Ghaziabad and Noida of Uttar Pradesh, the total population of which is estimated by the United Nations at over 26 million. According to the UN this makes Delhi urban area the world's second-largest, after Tokyo,[7] although Demographia declares the Jakarta urban area to be the second-largest.[185] The 2011 census provided two figures for urban area population: 16,314,838 within the NCT boundary,[186] and 21,753,486 for the Extended Urban Area.[187] The 2021 regional plan released by the Government of India renamed the Extended Urban Area from Delhi Metropolitan Area (DMA) as defined by the 2001 plan[188] to Central National Capital Region (CNCR).[188][189]
+
+Major social groups of Delhi include Brahmins, Jats, Punjabis, Purvanchalis, Vaishyas, Gujjars, Sikhs, Muslims, Uttarakhandis, Bengalis, etc.[190][191][192][193][182]
+
+Swaminarayan Akshardham in Delhi is the largest Hindu temple complex in the National Capital Territory. Hinduism is the predominant faith in Delhi.[194]
+
+Lal Mandir is a historic Jain temple in Old Delhi.
+
+Gurudwara Bangla Sahib is one of the most prominent Sikh Gurdwara in Delhi, and known for its association with the eighth Sikh Guru, Guru Har Krishan.
+
+Islamic Jama Masjid.
+
+Cathedral Church of the Redemption, belonging to the Church of North India.
+
+Religion in NCT of Delhi (2011)[195]
+
+Hinduism is Delhi's predominant religious faith, with 81.68% of Delhi's population, followed by Islam (12.86%), Sikhism (3.40%), Jainism (0.99%), Christianity (0.87%), and Buddhism (0.11%).[196] Other minority religions include Zoroastrianism, Baha'ism and Judaism.[197]
+
+Languages in Delhi (2011)[198]
+
+According to the 50th report of the commissioner for linguistic minorities in India, which was submitted in 2014, Hindi is Delhi's most spoken language, with 80.94% speakers, followed by Punjabi (7.14%), Urdu (6.31%) and Bengali (1.50%). 4.11% of the Delhites speak other languages.[199] Hindi is also the official language of Delhi while Urdu and Punjabi have been declared as additional official languages.[199]
+
+According to the Directorate of Education, GNCTD the following languages are taught in schools in Delhi under the three-language formula:[200]
+
+Around 49% of the population of Delhi lives in slums and unauthorised colonies without any civic amenities.[201] The majority of the slums have inadequate provisions to the basic facilities and according to a DUSIB report, almost 22% of the people do open defecation.[202]
+
+Delhi's culture has been influenced by its lengthy history and historic association as the capital of India, Although a strong Punjabi Influence can be seen in language, Dress and Cuisine brought by the large number of refugees who came following the partition in 1947 the recent migration from other parts of India has made it a melting pot. This is exemplified by many significant monuments in the city. Delhi is also identified as the location of Indraprastha, the ancient capital of the Pandavas. The Archaeological Survey of India recognises 1,200 heritage buildings[203] and 175 monuments as national heritage sites.[204]
+
+In the Old City, the Mughals and the Turkic rulers constructed several architecturally significant buildings, such as the Jama Masjid—India's largest mosque[205] built in 1656[206] and the Red Fort. Three World Heritage Sites—the Red Fort, Qutub Minar and Humayun's Tomb—are located in Delhi.[207] Other monuments include the India Gate, the Jantar Mantar—an 18th-century astronomical observatory—and the Purana Qila—a 16th-century fortress. The Laxminarayan Temple, Akshardham temple, Gurudwara Bangla Sahib, the Bahá'í Lotus Temple and the ISKCON temple are examples of modern architecture. Raj Ghat and associated memorials houses memorials of Mahatma Gandhi and other notable personalities. New Delhi houses several government buildings and official residences reminiscent of British colonial architecture, including the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the Secretariat, Rajpath, the Parliament of India and Vijay Chowk. Safdarjung's Tomb is an example of the Mughal gardens style. Some regal havelis (palatial residences) are in the Old City.[208]
+
+Lotus Temple is a Bahá'í House of Worship completed in 1986. Notable for its flowerlike shape, it serves as the Mother Temple of the Indian subcontinent and has become a prominent attraction in the city. The Lotus Temple has won numerous architectural awards and been featured in hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles. Like all other Bahá'í Houses of Worship, is open to all regardless of religion, or any other distinction, as emphasised in Bahá'í texts. The Bahá'í laws emphasise that the spirit of the House of Worship be that it is a gathering place where people of all religions may worship God without denominational restrictions.[209] The Bahá'í laws also stipulate that only the holy scriptures of the Bahá'í Faith and other religions can be read or chanted inside in any language; while readings and prayers can be set to music by choirs, no musical instruments can be played inside. Furthermore, no sermons can be delivered, and there can be no ritualistic ceremonies practised.[209]
+
+The National Museum and National Gallery of Modern Art are some of the largest museums in the country. Other museums in Delhi include the National Museum of Natural History, National Rail Museum and National Philatelic Museum.
+
+Chandni Chowk, a 17th-century market, is one of the most popular shopping areas in Delhi for jewellery and Zari saris.[210] Delhi's arts and crafts include, Zardozi[211]—an embroidery done with gold thread—[212] and Meenakari[213]—the art of enamelling.
+
+Delhi's association and geographic proximity to the capital, New Delhi, has amplified the importance of national events and holidays like Republic Day, Independence Day (15 August) and Gandhi Jayanti. On Independence Day, the Prime Minister addresses the nation from the Red Fort. Most Delhiites celebrate the day by flying kites, which are considered a symbol of freedom.[214] The Republic Day Parade is a large cultural and military parade showcasing India's cultural diversity and military strength.[215][216] Over the centuries, Delhi has become known for its composite culture, and a festival that symbolises this is the Phool Walon Ki Sair, which takes place in September. Flowers and pankhe—fans embroidered with flowers—are offered to the shrine of the 13th-century Sufi saint Khwaja Bakhtiyar Kaki and the Yogmaya Temple, both situated in Mehrauli.[217]
+
+Religious festivals include Diwali (the festival of lights), Mahavir Jayanti, Guru Nanak's Birthday, Raksha Bandhan, Durga Puja, Holi, Lohri, Chauth, Krishna Janmastami, Maha Shivratri, Eid ul-Fitr, Moharram and Buddha Jayanti.[216] The Qutub Festival is a cultural event during which performances of musicians and dancers from all over India are showcased at night, with the Qutub Minar as a backdrop.[218] Other events such as Kite Flying Festival, International Mango Festival and Vasant Panchami (the Spring Festival) are held every year in Delhi. The Auto Expo, Asia's largest auto show,[219] is held in Delhi biennially. The New Delhi World Book Fair, held biennially at the Pragati Maidan, is the second-largest exhibition of books in the world.[220] Delhi is often regarded as the "Book Capital" of India because of high readership.[221] India International Trade Fair (IITF), organised by ITPO is the biggest cultural and shopping fair of Delhi which takes place in November each year and is visited by more than 1.5 million people.[222]
+
+As India's national capital and centuries old Mughal capital, Delhi influenced the food habits of its residents and is where Mughlai cuisine originated. Along with Indian cuisine, a variety of international cuisines are popular among the residents.[224] The dearth of food habits among the city's residents created a unique style of cooking which became popular throughout the world, with dishes such as Kebab, biryani, tandoori. The city's classic dishes include butter chicken, dal makhani, shahi paneer, aloo chaat, chaat, dahi bhalla, kachori, gol gappe, samosa, chole bhature, chole kulche, gulab jamun, jalebi and lassi.[224][225]:40–50, 189–196
+
+The fast living habits of Delhi's people has motivated the growth of street food outlets.[225]:41 A trend of dining at local dhabas is popular among the residents. High-profile restaurants have gained popularity in recent years, among the popular restaurants are the Karim Hotel, the Punjab Grill and Bukhara.[226] The Gali Paranthe Wali (the street of fried bread) is a street in Chandni Chowk particularly for food eateries since the 1870s. Almost the entire street is occupied by fast food stalls or street vendors. It has nearly become a tradition that almost every prime minister of India has visited the street to eat paratha at least once. Other Indian cuisines are also available in this area even though the street specialises in north Indian food.[225]:40–50[227]
+
+According to Euromonitor International, Delhi ranked as 28th-most visited city in the world and first in India by foreign visitors in 2015.[228] There are numerous tourist attractions in Delhi, both historic and modern. The three UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Delhi, Qutb Complex, Red Fort and Humayun's Tomb are among the finest examples of Indo-Islamic architecture.[229] Another prominent landmark of Delhi is India Gate, a 1931 built war memorial to soldiers of British Indian Army who died during First World War.[230] Delhi has several famous places of worship of various religions. One of the largest Hindu temple complexes in the world,[231] Akshardham is a major tourist attraction in the city. Other famous religious sites include Lal Mandir, Laxminarayan Temple, Gurudwara Bangla Sahib, Lotus Temple, Jama Masjid and ISKCON Temple.
+
+Delhi is also a hub for shopping of all kinds. Connaught Place, Chandni Chowk, Sarojini Nagar, Khan Market and Dilli Haat are some of the major retail markets in Delhi.[232] Major shopping malls include Select Citywalk, Pacific Mall, DLF Promenade, DLF Emporio, Metro Walk and Ansal Plaza.[233]
+
+Private schools in Delhi—which use either English or Hindi as the language of instruction—are affiliated to one of three administering bodies, the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), the Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE)[234] or the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS). In 2004–05, approximately 1,529,000 students were enrolled in primary schools, 822,000 in middle schools and 669,000 in secondary schools across Delhi.[235] Female students represented 49% of the total enrolment. The same year, the Delhi government spent between 1.58% and 1.95% of its gross state domestic product on education.[235]
+
+Schools and higher educational institutions in Delhi are administered either by the Directorate of Education, the NCT government or private organisations. In 2006, Delhi had 165 colleges, five medical colleges and eight engineering colleges,[235] seven major universities and nine deemed universities.[235]
+
+The premier management colleges of Delhi such as Faculty of Management Studies (Delhi) and Indian Institute of Foreign Trade rank the best in India. All India Institute of Medical Sciences Delhi is a premier medical school for treatment and research. National Law University, Delhi is a prominent law school and is affiliated to the Bar Council of India. The Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi situated in Hauz Khas is a premier engineering college of India and ranks as one of the top institutes in South Asia.[citation needed]
+
+Delhi Technological University (formerly Delhi College of Engineering), Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University and National Law University, Delhi are the only state universities.[236] University of Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia Millia Islamia are the central universities, and Indira Gandhi National Open University is for distance education.[237]
+As of 2008[update], about 16% of all Delhi residents possessed at least a college graduate degree.[238]
+
+As the capital of India, Delhi is the focus of political reportage, including regular television broadcasts of Parliament sessions. Many national media agencies, including the state-owned Press Trust of India, Media Trust of India and Doordarshan, is based in the city. Television programming includes two free terrestrial television channels offered by Doordarshan, and several Hindi, English, and regional-language cable channels offered by multi system operators. Satellite television has yet to gain a large quantity of subscribers in the city.[239]
+
+Print journalism remains a popular news medium in Delhi. The city's Hindi newspapers include Navbharat Times, Hindustan Dainik, Punjab Kesari, Pavitra Bharat, Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhaskar, Dainik Prayukti, Amar Ujala and Dainik Desbandhu. Amongst the English language newspapers, The Hindustan Times, with a daily circulation of over a million copies, is the single largest daily.[240] Other major English newspapers include The Times of India, The Hindu, Indian Express, Business Standard, The Pioneer, The Statesman, and The Asian Age. Regional language newspapers include the Malayalam daily Malayala Manorama and the Tamil dailies Dinamalar and Dinakaran.
+
+Radio is a less popular mass medium in Delhi, although FM radio has gained popularity[241] since the inauguration of several new stations in 2006.[242]
+A number of state-owned and private radio stations broadcast from Delhi.[243][244]
+
+Delhi has hosted many major international sporting events, including the inaugural 1951 Asian Games, 1982 Asian Games, 1989 Asian Athletic Championships, 2010 Hockey World Cup, 2010 Commonwealth Games and 2011 Cricket World Cup.
+
+Delhi hosted the first Asian Games in 1951 from 4 to 11 March. A total of 489 athletes representing 11 Asian National Olympic Committees participated in 57 events from eight sports and discipline. The Games was the successor of the Far Eastern Games and the revival of the Western Asiatic Games. On 13 February 1949, the Asian Games Federation was formally established in Delhi, with Delhi unanimously announced as the first host city of the Asian Games. National Stadium was the venue for all events.[245] Over 40,000 spectators watched the opening ceremony of the Games in National Stadium.[246]
+
+Delhi hosted the ninth Asian Games for the second time in 1982 from 19 November to 4 December. This was the second time the city has hosted the Asian Games and was also the first Asian Games to be held under the aegis of the Olympic Council of Asia. A total of 3,411 athletes from 33 National Olympic Committees participated in these games, competing in 196 events in 21 sports and 23 disciplines.  The Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, which was built purposely for the event, hosted its opening ceremony.[247]
+
+Delhi hosted the nineteenth Commonwealth Games in 2010, which ran from 3 to 14 October and was the largest sporting event held in India.[248][249] The opening ceremony of the 2010 Commonwealth Games was held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, the main stadium of the event, in New Delhi at 7:00 pm Indian Standard Time on 3 October 2010.[250] The ceremony featured over 8,000 performers and lasted for two and a half hours.[251] It is estimated that ₹3.5 billion (US$49 million) were spent to produce the ceremony.[252] Events took place at 12 competition venues. 20 training venues were used in the Games, including seven venues within Delhi University.[253] The rugby stadium in Delhi University North Campus hosted rugby games for Commonwealth Games.[253]
+
+Cricket and football are the most popular sports in Delhi.[254] There are several cricket grounds, or maidans, located across the city. The Arun Jaitley Stadium (known commonly as the Kotla) is one of the oldest cricket grounds in India and is a venue for international cricket matches. It is the home ground of the Delhi cricket team, which represents the city in the Ranji Trophy, the premier Indian domestic first-class cricket championship.[255] The Delhi cricket team has produced several world-class international cricketers such as Virender Sehwag, Virat Kohli,[256] Gautam Gambhir, Madan Lal, Chetan Chauhan, Shikhar Dhawan, Ishant Sharma, Manoj Prabhakar and Bishan Singh Bedi to name a few. The Railways and Services cricket teams in the Ranji Trophy also play their home matches in Delhi, in the Karnail Singh Stadium and the Harbax Singh Stadium, respectively. The city is also home to the Indian Premier League team Delhi Capitals, who play their home matches at the Kotla.
+
+Ambedkar Stadium, a football stadium in Delhi which holds 21,000 people, was the venue for the Indian football team's World Cup qualifier against UAE on 28 July 2012.[257] Delhi hosted the Nehru Cup in 2007[258] and 2009, in both of which India defeated Syria 1–0.[259] In the Elite Football League of India, Delhi's first professional American football franchise, the Delhi Defenders played its first season in Pune.[260] Buddh International Circuit in Greater Noida, a suburb of Delhi, formerly hosted the Formula 1 Indian Grand Prix.[261] The Indira Gandhi Arena is also in Delhi.
+
+Delhi is a member of the Asian Network of Major Cities 21.
+
+Current Regional and Professional Sports Teams from Delhi
+
+Vijay Hazare Trophy
+Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy
+
+Former Regional and Professional Sports Teams from Delhi
+
+Government
+
+General information
+

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+Democracy (Greek: δημοκρατία, dēmokratiā, from dēmos 'people' and kratos 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to choose their governing legislation. Who people are and how authority is shared among them are core issues for democratic theory, development and constitution. Some cornerstones of these issues are  freedom of assembly and speech, inclusiveness and equality, membership, consent, voting, right to life and minority rights.
+
+Generally, there are two types of democracy: direct and representative. In a direct democracy, the people directly deliberate and decide on legislature. In a representative democracy, the people elect representatives to deliberate and decide on legislature, such as in parliamentary or presidential democracy.[1] Liquid democracy combines elements of these two basic types. However, the noun "democracy" has, over time, been modified by more than 3,500 adjectives which suggests that it may have types that can elude and elide this duality.[2]
+
+The most common day-to-day decision making approach of democracies has been the majority rule,[3][4] though other decision making approaches like supermajority and consensus have been equally integral to democracies. They serve the crucial purpose of inclusiveness and broader legitimacy on sensitive issues, counterbalancing majoritarianism, and therefore mostly take precedence on a constitutional level.
+
+In the common variant of liberal democracy, the powers of the majority are exercised within the framework of a representative democracy, but the constitution limits the majority and protects the minority, usually through the enjoyment by all of certain individual rights, e.g. freedom of speech, or freedom of association.[5][6] Besides these general types of democracy, there have been a wealth of further types (see below). Republics, though often associated with democracy because of the shared principle of rule by consent of the governed, are not necessarily democracies, as republicanism does not specify how the people are to rule.[7]
+
+Democracy is a system of processing conflicts in which outcomes depend on what participants do, but no single force controls what occurs and its outcomes. The uncertainty of outcomes is inherent in democracy. Democracy makes all forces struggle repeatedly to realize their interests and devolves power from groups of people to sets of rules.[8] Western democracy, as distinct from that which existed in pre-modern societies, is generally considered to have originated in city-states such as Classical Athens and the Roman Republic, where various schemes and degrees of enfranchisement of the free male population were observed before the form disappeared in the West at the beginning of late antiquity. The English word dates back to the 16th century, from the older Middle French and Middle Latin equivalents.
+
+According to American political scientist Larry Diamond, democracy consists of four key elements: a political system for choosing and replacing the government through free and fair elections; the active participation of the people, as citizens, in politics and civic life; protection of the human rights of all citizens; a rule of law, in which the laws and procedures apply equally to all citizens.[9] Todd Landman, nevertheless, draws our attention to the fact that democracy and human rights are two different concepts and that "there must be greater specificity in the conceptualisation and operationalisation of democracy and human rights".[10]
+
+The term appeared in the 5th century BC to denote the political systems then existing in Greek city-states, notably Athens, to mean "rule of the people", in contrast to aristocracy (ἀριστοκρατία, aristokratía), meaning "rule of an elite". While theoretically, these definitions are in opposition, in practice the distinction has been blurred historically.[11] The political system of Classical Athens, for example, granted democratic citizenship to free men and excluded slaves and women from political participation. In virtually all democratic governments throughout ancient and modern history, democratic citizenship consisted of an elite class, until full enfranchisement was won for all adult citizens in most modern democracies through the suffrage movements of the 19th and 20th centuries.
+
+Democracy contrasts with forms of government where power is either held by an individual, as in an absolute monarchy, or where power is held by a small number of individuals, as in an oligarchy. Nevertheless, these oppositions, inherited from Greek philosophy,[12] are now ambiguous because contemporary governments have mixed democratic, oligarchic and monarchic elements. Karl Popper defined democracy in contrast to dictatorship or tyranny, thus focusing on opportunities for the people to control their leaders and to oust them without the need for a revolution.[13]
+
+No consensus exists on how to define democracy, but legal equality, political freedom and rule of law have been identified as important characteristics.[15][16] These principles are reflected in all eligible citizens being equal before the law and having equal access to legislative processes.[citation needed] For example, in a representative democracy, every vote has equal weight, no unreasonable restrictions can apply to anyone seeking to become a representative,[according to whom?] and the freedom of its eligible citizens is secured by legitimised rights and liberties which are typically protected by a constitution.[17][18] Other uses of "democracy" include that of direct democracy.
+
+One theory holds that democracy requires three fundamental principles: upward control (sovereignty residing at the lowest levels of authority), political equality, and social norms by which individuals and institutions only consider acceptable acts that reflect the first two principles of upward control and political equality.[19]
+
+The term "democracy" is sometimes used as shorthand for liberal democracy, which is a variant of representative democracy that may include elements such as political pluralism; equality before the law; the right to petition elected officials for redress of grievances; due process; civil liberties; human rights; and elements of civil society outside the government.[citation needed] Roger Scruton argues that democracy alone cannot provide personal and political freedom unless the institutions of civil society are also present.[20]
+
+In some countries, notably in the United Kingdom which originated the Westminster system, the dominant principle is that of parliamentary sovereignty, while maintaining judicial independence.[21][22] In the United States, separation of powers is often cited as a central attribute. In India, parliamentary sovereignty is subject to the Constitution of India which includes judicial review.[23] Though the term "democracy" is typically used in the context of a political state, the principles also are applicable to private organisations.
+
+There are many decision making methods used in democracies, but majority rule is the dominant form. Without compensation, like legal protections of individual or group rights, political minorities can be oppressed by the "tyranny of the majority". Majority rule is a competitive approach, opposed to consensus democracy, creating the need that elections, and generally deliberation, are substantively and procedurally "fair," i.e., just and equitable. In some countries, freedom of political expression, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and internet democracy are considered important to ensure that voters are well informed, enabling them to vote according to their own interests.[24][25]
+
+It has also been suggested that a basic feature of democracy is the capacity of all voters to participate freely and fully in the life of their society.[26] With its emphasis on notions of social contract and the collective will of all the voters, democracy can also be characterised as a form of political collectivism because it is defined as a form of government in which all eligible citizens have an equal say in lawmaking.[27]
+
+While representative democracy is sometimes equated with the republican form of government, the term "republic" classically has encompassed both democracies and aristocracies.[28][29] Many democracies are constitutional monarchies, such as the United Kingdom.
+
+Historically, democracies and republics have been rare.[31] Republican theorists linked democracy to small size: as political units grew in size, the likelihood increased that the government would turn despotic.[31][32] At the same time, small political units were vulnerable to conquest.[31] Montesquieu wrote, "If a republic be small, it is destroyed by a foreign force; if it be large, it is ruined by an internal imperfection."[33] According to Johns Hopkins University political scientist Daniel Deudney, the creation of the United States, with its large size and its system of checks and balances, was a solution to the dual problems of size.[31]
+
+Retrospectively different polity, outside of declared democracies, have been described as proto-democratic (see History of democracy).
+
+The term "democracy" first appeared in ancient Greek political and philosophical thought in the city-state of Athens during classical antiquity.[34][35] The word comes from demos, "common people" and kratos, "strength".[36] Led by Cleisthenes, Athenians established what is generally held as the first democracy in 508–507 BC. Cleisthenes is referred to as "the father of Athenian democracy."[37]
+
+Athenian democracy took the form of a direct democracy, and it had two distinguishing features: the random selection of ordinary citizens to fill the few existing government administrative and judicial offices,[38] and a legislative assembly consisting of all Athenian citizens.[39] All eligible citizens were allowed to speak and vote in the assembly, which set the laws of the city state. However, Athenian citizenship excluded women, slaves, foreigners (μέτοικοι / métoikoi), and men under 20 years of age.[40][41][contradictory]
+Owning land was not a requirement for citizenship, but it did allow one to purchase land.[42] The exclusion of large parts of the population from the citizen body is closely related to the ancient understanding of citizenship. In most of antiquity the benefit of citizenship was tied to the obligation to fight war campaigns.[43]
+
+Athenian democracy was not only direct in the sense that decisions were made by the assembled people, but also the most direct in the sense that the people through the assembly, boule and courts of law controlled the entire political process and a large proportion of citizens were involved constantly in the public business.[44] Even though the rights of the individual were not secured by the Athenian constitution in the modern sense (the ancient Greeks had no word for "rights"[45]), the Athenians enjoyed their liberties not in opposition to the government but by living in a city that was not subject to another power and by not being subjects themselves to the rule of another person.[46]
+
+Range voting appeared in Sparta as early as 700 BC. The Apella was an assembly of the people, held once a month, in which every male citizen of at least 30 years of age could participate. In the Apella, Spartans elected leaders and cast votes by range voting and shouting. Aristotle called this "childish", as compared with the stone voting ballots used by the Athenians. Sparta adopted it because of its simplicity, and to prevent any bias voting, buying, or cheating that was predominant in the early democratic elections.[47][48] Vaishali, capital city of the Vajjian Confederacy of (Vrijji mahajanapada), India was also considered one of the first examples of a republic around the 6th century BCE.[49][50][51]
+
+Even though the Roman Republic contributed significantly to many aspects of democracy, only a minority of Romans were citizens with votes in elections for representatives. The votes of the powerful were given more weight through a system of gerrymandering, so most high officials, including members of the Senate, came from a few wealthy and noble families.[52] In addition, the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom was the first case in the Western world of a polity being formed with the explicit purpose of being a republic, although it didn't have much of a democracy. The Roman model of governance inspired many political thinkers over the centuries,[53] and today's modern representative democracies imitate more the Roman than the Greek models because it was a state in which supreme power was held by the people and their elected representatives, and which had an elected or nominated leader.[54] Other cultures, such as the Iroquois Nation in the Americas between around 1450 and 1600 AD also developed a form of democratic society before they came in contact with the Europeans. This indicates that forms of democracy may have been invented in other societies around the world.
+
+While most regions in Europe during the Middle Ages were ruled by clergy or feudal lords, there existed various systems involving elections or assemblies (although often only involving a small part of the population). These included:
+
+The Kouroukan Fouga divided the Mali Empire into ruling clans (lineages) that were represented at a great assembly called the Gbara. However, the charter made Mali more similar to a constitutional monarchy than a democratic republic.
+
+The Parliament of England had its roots in the restrictions on the power of kings written into Magna Carta (1215), which explicitly protected certain rights of the King's subjects and implicitly supported what became the English writ of habeas corpus, safeguarding individual freedom against unlawful imprisonment with right to appeal.[58][59] The first representative national assembly in England was Simon de Montfort's Parliament in 1265.[60][61] The emergence of petitioning is some of the earliest evidence of parliament being used as a forum to address the general grievances of ordinary people. However, the power to call parliament remained at the pleasure of the monarch.[62]
+
+Studies have linked the emergence of parliamentary institutions in Europe during the medieval period to urban agglomeration and the creation of new classes, such as artisans,[63] as well as the presence of nobility and religious elites.[64] Scholars have also linked the emergence of representative government to Europe's relative political fragmentation.[65] New York University political scientist David Stasavage links the fragmentation of Europe, and its subsequent democratization, to the manner in which the Roman Empire collapsed: Roman territory was conquered by small fragmented groups of Germanic tribes, thus leading to the creation of small political units where rulers were relatively weak and needed the consent of the governed to ward off foreign threats.[66]
+
+In 17th century England, there was renewed interest in Magna Carta.[68] The Parliament of England passed the Petition of Right in 1628 which established certain liberties for subjects. The English Civil War (1642–1651) was fought between the King and an oligarchic but elected Parliament,[69][70] during which the idea of a political party took form with groups debating rights to political representation during the Putney Debates of 1647.[71] Subsequently, the Protectorate (1653–59) and the English Restoration (1660) restored more autocratic rule, although Parliament passed the Habeas Corpus Act in 1679 which strengthened the convention that forbade detention lacking sufficient cause or evidence. After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the Bill of Rights was enacted in 1689 which codified certain rights and liberties and is still in effect. The Bill set out the requirement for regular elections, rules for freedom of speech in Parliament and limited the power of the monarch, ensuring that, unlike much of Europe at the time, royal absolutism would not prevail.[72][73] Economic historians Douglass North and Barry Weingast have characterized the institutions implemented in the Glorious Revolution as a resounding success in terms of restraining the government and ensuring protection for property rights.[74]
+
+In the Cossack republics of Ukraine in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Cossack Hetmanate and Zaporizhian Sich, the holder of the highest post of Hetman was elected by the representatives from the country's districts.
+
+In North America, representative government began in Jamestown, Virginia, with the election of the House of Burgesses (forerunner of the Virginia General Assembly) in 1619. English Puritans who migrated from 1620 established colonies in New England whose local governance was democratic and which contributed to the democratic development of the United States;[75] although these local assemblies had some small amounts of devolved power, the ultimate authority was held by the Crown and the English Parliament. The Puritans (Pilgrim Fathers), Baptists, and Quakers who founded these colonies applied the democratic organisation of their congregations also to the administration of their communities in worldly matters.[76][77][78]
+
+The first Parliament of Great Britain was established in 1707, after the merger of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland under the Acts of Union. Although the monarch increasingly became a figurehead,[79]
+only a small minority actually had a voice; Parliament was elected by only a few percent of the population (less than 3% as late as 1780).[80] During the Age of Liberty in Sweden (1718–1772), civil rights were expanded and power shifted from the monarch to parliament. The taxed peasantry was represented in parliament, although with little influence, but commoners without taxed property had no suffrage.
+
+The creation of the short-lived Corsican Republic in 1755 marked the first nation in modern history to adopt a democratic constitution (all men and women above age of 25 could vote[81]). This Corsican Constitution was the first based on Enlightenment principles and included female suffrage, something that was not granted in most other democracies until the 20th century.
+
+In the American colonial period before 1776, and for some time after, often only adult white male property owners could vote; enslaved Africans, most free black people and most women were not extended the franchise. This changed state by state, beginning with the republican State of New Connecticut, soon after called Vermont, which, on declaring independence of Great Britain in 1777, adopted a constitution modelled on Pennsylvania's with citizenship and democratic suffrage for males with or without property, and went on to abolish slavery.[82] On the American frontier, democracy became a way of life, with more widespread social, economic and political equality.[83] Although not described as a democracy by the founding fathers,[84] they shared a determination to root the American experiment in the principles of natural freedom and equality.[85]
+
+The American Revolution led to the adoption of the United States Constitution in 1787, the oldest surviving, still active, governmental codified constitution. The Constitution provided for an elected government and protected civil rights and liberties for some, but did not end slavery nor extend voting rights in the United States, instead leaving the issue of suffrage to the individual states.[86] Generally, suffrage was limited to white male property owners and taxpayers,[87] of whom between 60% and 90% were eligible to vote by the end of the 1780s.[88] The Bill of Rights in 1791 set limits on government power to protect personal freedoms but had little impact on judgements by the courts for the first 130 years after ratification.[89]
+
+The Polish-Lithuanian Constitution of 3 May 1791 (Polish: Konstytucja Trzeciego Maja) is called "the first constitution of its kind in Europe" by historian Norman Davies. Short lived due to Russian, German, Austrian aggression, It was instituted by the Government Act (Polish: Ustawa rządowa) adopted on that date by the Sejm (parliament) of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.[91][92] (Polish: Ustawa Rządowa, "Governance Act"), was a constitution adopted by the Great Sejm ("Four-Year Sejm", meeting in 1788–92) for the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a dual monarchy comprising the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Constitution was designed to correct the Commonwealth's political flaws and had been preceded by a period of agitation for—and gradual introduction of—reforms, beginning with the Convocation Sejm of 1764 and the consequent election that year of Stanisław August Poniatowski as the Commonwealth's last king.
+
+The Constitution sought to implement a more effective constitutional monarchy, introduced political equality between townspeople and nobility, and placed the peasants under the protection of the government, mitigating the worst abuses of serfdom. It banned pernicious parliamentary institutions such as the liberum veto, which had put the Sejm at the mercy of any single deputy, who could veto and thus undo all the legislation that had been adopted by that Sejm. The Commonwealth's neighbours reacted with hostility to the adoption of the Constitution. King Frederick William II broke Prussia's alliance with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and joined with Catherine the Great's Imperial Russia and the Targowica Confederation of anti-reform Polish magnates to defeat the Commonwealth in the Polish–Russian War of 1792.
+
+The 1791 Constitution was in force for less than 19 months.[93][94] It was declared null and void by the Grodno Sejm that met in 1793,[91][94] though the Sejm's legal power to do so was questionable.[94] The Second and Third Partitions of Poland (1793, 1795) ultimately ended Poland's sovereign existence until the close of World War I in 1918. Over those 123 years, the 1791 Constitution helped keep alive Polish aspirations for the eventual restoration of the country's sovereignty. In the words of two of its principal authors, Ignacy Potocki and Hugo Kołłątaj, the 1791 Constitution was "the last will and testament of the expiring Homeland."[a]
+
+The Constitution of 3 May 1791 combined a monarchic republic with a clear division of executive, legislative, and judiciary powers. It is generally considered Europe's first, and the world's second, modern written national constitution, after the United States Constitution that had come into force in 1789.[94][b]
+
+In 1789, Revolutionary France adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and, although short-lived, the National Convention was elected by all men in 1792.[97] However, in the early 19th century, little of democracy—as theory, practice, or even as word—remained in the North Atlantic world.[98]
+
+During this period, slavery remained a social and economic institution in places around the world. This was particularly the case in the United States, and especially in the last fifteen slave states that kept slavery legal in the American South until the Civil War. A variety of organisations were established advocating the movement of black people from the United States to locations where they would enjoy greater freedom and equality.
+
+The United Kingdom's Slave Trade Act 1807 banned the trade across the British Empire, which was enforced internationally by the Royal Navy under treaties Britain negotiated with other nations.[99] As the voting franchise in the U.K. was increased, it also was made more uniform in a series of reforms beginning with the Reform Act 1832, although the United Kingdom did not manage to become a complete democracy well into the 20th century. In 1833, the United Kingdom passed the Slavery Abolition Act which took effect across the British Empire, although slavery was legally allowed to continue in areas controlled by the East India Company, Ceylon, and St. Helena for an additional ten years.[100]
+
+Universal male suffrage was established in France in March 1848 in the wake of the French Revolution of 1848.[101] In 1848, several revolutions broke out in Europe as rulers were confronted with popular demands for liberal constitutions and more democratic government.[102]
+
+In the 1860 United States Census, the slave population in the United States had grown to four million,[103] and in Reconstruction after the Civil War (late 1860s), the newly freed slaves became citizens with a nominal right to vote for men. Full enfranchisement of citizens was not secured until after the Civil Rights Movement gained passage by the United States Congress of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.[104][105]
+
+In 1876 the Ottoman Empire transitioned from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional one, and held two elections the next year to elect members to her newly formed parliament.[106] Provisional Electoral Regulations were issued on 29 October 1876, stating that the elected members of the Provincial Administrative Councils would elect members to the first Parliament. On 24 December a new constitution was promulgated, which provided for a bicameral Parliament with a Senate appointed by the Sultan and a popularly elected Chamber of Deputies. Only men above the age of 30 who were competent in Turkish and had full civil rights were allowed to stand for election. Reasons for disqualification included holding dual citizenship, being employed by a foreign government, being bankrupt, employed as a servant, or having "notoriety for ill deeds". Full universal suffrage was achieved in 1934.
+
+20th-century transitions to liberal democracy have come in successive "waves of democracy", variously resulting from wars, revolutions, decolonisation, and religious and economic circumstances.[107] Global waves of "democratic regression" reversing democratization, have also occurred in the 1920s and 30s, in the 1960s and 1970s, and in the 2010s.[108][109]
+
+World War I and the dissolution of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires resulted in the creation of new nation-states from Europe, most of them at least nominally democratic.
+
+In the 1920s democracy flourished and women's suffrage advanced, but the Great Depression brought disenchantment and most of the countries of Europe, Latin America, and Asia turned to strong-man rule or dictatorships. Fascism and dictatorships flourished in Nazi Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal, as well as non-democratic governments in the Baltics, the Balkans, Brazil, Cuba, China, and Japan, among others.[110]
+
+World War II brought a definitive reversal of this trend in western Europe. The democratisation of the American, British, and French sectors of occupied Germany (disputed[111]), Austria, Italy, and the occupied Japan served as a model for the later theory of government change. However, most of Eastern Europe, including the Soviet sector of Germany fell into the non-democratic Soviet bloc.
+
+The war was followed by decolonisation, and again most of the new independent states had nominally democratic constitutions. India emerged as the world's largest democracy and continues to be so.[112] Countries that were once part of the British Empire often adopted the British Westminster system.[113][114]
+
+By 1960, the vast majority of country-states were nominally democracies, although most of the world's populations lived in nations that experienced sham elections, and other forms of subterfuge (particularly in "Communist" nations and the former colonies.)
+
+A subsequent wave of democratisation brought substantial gains toward true liberal democracy for many nations. Spain, Portugal (1974), and several of the military dictatorships in South America returned to civilian rule in the late 1970s and early 1980s (Argentina in 1983, Bolivia, Uruguay in 1984, Brazil in 1985, and Chile in the early 1990s). This was followed by nations in East and South Asia by the mid-to-late 1980s.
+
+Economic malaise in the 1980s, along with resentment of Soviet oppression, contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the associated end of the Cold War, and the democratisation and liberalisation of the former Eastern bloc countries. The most successful of the new democracies were those geographically and culturally closest to western Europe, and they are now members or candidate members of the European Union. In 1986, after the toppling of the most prominent Asian dictatorship, the only democratic state of its kind at the time emerged in the Philippines with the rise of Corazon Aquino, who would later be known as the Mother of Asian Democracy.
+
+The liberal trend spread to some nations in Africa in the 1990s, most prominently in South Africa. Some recent examples of attempts of liberalisation include the Indonesian Revolution of 1998, the Bulldozer Revolution in Yugoslavia, the Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan, and the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia.
+
+According to Freedom House, in 2007 there were 123 electoral democracies (up from 40 in 1972).[115] According to World Forum on Democracy, electoral democracies now represent 120 of the 192 existing countries and constitute 58.2 percent of the world's population. At the same time liberal democracies i.e. countries Freedom House regards as free and respectful of basic human rights and the rule of law are 85 in number and represent 38 percent of the global population.[116]
+
+Most electoral democracies continue to exclude those younger than 18 from voting.[117] The voting age has been lowered to 16 for national elections in a number of countries, including Brazil, Austria, Cuba, and Nicaragua. In California, a 2004 proposal to permit a quarter vote at 14 and a half vote at 16 was ultimately defeated. In 2008, the German parliament proposed but shelved a bill that would grant the vote to each citizen at birth, to be used by a parent until the child claims it for themselves.
+
+In 2007 the United Nations declared 15 September the International Day of Democracy.[118]
+
+According to Freedom House, starting in 2005, there have been eleven consecutive years in which declines in political rights and civil liberties throughout the world have outnumbered improvements,[119] as populist and nationalist political forces have gained ground everywhere from Poland (under the Law and Justice Party) to the Philippines (under Rodrigo Duterte).[119][108]
+
+In a Freedom House report released in 2018, Democracy Scores for most countries declined for the 12th consecutive year.[120] The Christian Science Monitor reported that nationalist and populist political ideologies were gaining ground, at the expense of rule of law, in countries like Poland, Turkey and Hungary. For example, in Poland, the President appointed 27 new Supreme Court judges over objections from the European Union. In  Turkey, thousands of judges were removed from their positions following a failed coup attempt during a government crackdown .[121]
+
+Aristotle contrasted rule by the many (democracy/timocracy), with rule by the few (oligarchy/aristocracy), and with rule by a single person (tyranny or today autocracy/absolute monarchy). He also thought that there was a good and a bad variant of each system (he considered democracy to be the degenerate counterpart to timocracy).[122][123]
+
+A common view among early and renaissance Republican theorists was that democracy could only survive in small political communities.[124] Heeding the lessons of the Roman Republic's shift to monarchism as it grew larger or smaller, these Republican theorists held that the expansion of territory and population inevitably led to tyranny.[124] Democracy was therefore highly fragile and rare historically, as it could only survive in small political units, which due to their size were vulnerable to conquest by larger political units.[124] Montesquieu famously said, "if a republic is small, it is destroyed by an outside force; if it is large, it is destroyed by an internal vice."[124] Rousseau asserted, "It is, therefore the natural property of small states to be governed as a republic, of middling ones to be subject to a monarch, and of large empires to be swayed by a despotic prince."[124]
+
+Among modern political theorists, there are three contending conceptions of democracy: aggregative democracy, deliberative democracy, and radical democracy.[125]
+
+The theory of aggregative democracy claims that the aim of the democratic processes is to solicit citizens' preferences and aggregate them together to determine what social policies society should adopt. Therefore, proponents of this view hold that democratic participation should primarily focus on voting, where the policy with the most votes gets implemented.
+
+Different variants of aggregative democracy exist. Under minimalism, democracy is a system of government in which citizens have given teams of political leaders the right to rule in periodic elections. According to this minimalist conception, citizens cannot and should not "rule" because, for example, on most issues, most of the time, they have no clear views or their views are not well-founded. Joseph Schumpeter articulated this view most famously in his book Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy.[126] Contemporary proponents of minimalism include William H. Riker, Adam Przeworski, Richard Posner.
+
+According to the theory of direct democracy, on the other hand, citizens should vote directly, not through their representatives, on legislative proposals. Proponents of direct democracy offer varied reasons to support this view. Political activity can be valuable in itself, it socialises and educates citizens, and popular participation can check powerful elites. Most importantly, citizens do not rule themselves unless they directly decide laws and policies.
+
+Governments will tend to produce laws and policies that are close to the views of the median voter—with half to their left and the other half to their right. This is not a desirable outcome as it represents the action of self-interested and somewhat unaccountable political elites competing for votes. Anthony Downs suggests that ideological political parties are necessary to act as a mediating broker between individual and governments. Downs laid out this view in his 1957 book An Economic Theory of Democracy.[127]
+
+Robert A. Dahl argues that the fundamental democratic principle is that, when it comes to binding collective decisions, each person in a political community is entitled to have his/her interests be given equal consideration (not necessarily that all people are equally satisfied by the collective decision). He uses the term polyarchy to refer to societies in which there exists a certain set of institutions and procedures which are perceived as leading to such democracy. First and foremost among these institutions is the regular occurrence of free and open elections which are used to select representatives who then manage all or most of the public policy of the society. However, these polyarchic procedures may not create a full democracy if, for example, poverty prevents political participation.[128] Similarly, Ronald Dworkin argues that "democracy is a substantive, not a merely procedural, ideal."[129]
+
+Deliberative democracy is based on the notion that democracy is government by deliberation. Unlike aggregative democracy, deliberative democracy holds that, for a democratic decision to be legitimate, it must be preceded by authentic deliberation, not merely the aggregation of preferences that occurs in voting. Authentic deliberation is deliberation among decision-makers that is free from distortions of unequal political power, such as power a decision-maker obtained through economic wealth or the support of interest groups.[130][131][132] If the decision-makers cannot reach consensus after authentically deliberating on a proposal, then they vote on the proposal using a form of majority rule.
+
+Radical democracy is based on the idea that there are hierarchical and oppressive power relations that exist in society. Democracy's role is to make visible and challenge those relations by allowing for difference, dissent and antagonisms in decision-making processes.
+
+Several freedom indices are published by several organisations according to their own various definitions of the term and relying on different types of data:[135]
+
+Dieter Fuchs and Edeltraud Roller suggest that, in order to truly measure the quality of democracy, objective measurements need to be complemented by "subjective measurements based on the perspective of citizens".[143] Similarly, Quinton Mayne and Brigitte Geißel also defend that the quality of democracy does not depend exclusively on the performance of institutions, but also on the citizens' own dispositions and commitment.[144]
+
+Because democracy is an overarching concept that includes the functioning of diverse institutions which are not easy to measure, strong limitations exist in quantifying and econometrically measuring the potential effects of democracy or its relationship with other phenomena—whether inequality, poverty, education etc.[145] Given the constraints in acquiring reliable data with within-country variation on aspects of democracy, academics have largely studied cross-country variations. Yet variations between democratic institutions are very large across countries which constrains meaningful comparisons using statistical approaches. Since democracy is typically measured aggregately as a macro variable using a single observation for each country and each year, studying democracy faces a range of econometric constraints and is limited to basic correlations. Cross-country comparison of a composite, comprehensive and qualitative concept like democracy may thus not always be, for many purposes, methodologically rigorous or useful.[145]
+
+Democracy has taken a number of forms, both in theory and practice. Some varieties of democracy provide better representation and more freedom for their citizens than others.[146][147] However, if any democracy is not structured to prohibit the government from excluding the people from the legislative process, or any branch of government from altering the separation of powers in its favour, then a branch of the system can accumulate too much power and destroy the democracy.[148][149][150]
+
+The following kinds of democracy are not exclusive of one another: many specify details of aspects that are independent of one another and can co-exist in a single system.
+
+Several variants of democracy exist, but there are two basic forms, both of which concern how the whole body of all eligible citizens executes its will. One form of democracy is direct democracy, in which all eligible citizens have active participation in the political decision making, for example voting on policy initiatives directly.[151] In most modern democracies, the whole body of eligible citizens remain the sovereign power but political power is exercised indirectly through elected representatives; this is called a representative democracy.
+
+Direct democracy is a political system where the citizens participate in the decision-making personally, contrary to relying on intermediaries or representatives. The use of a lot system, a characteristic of Athenian democracy, is unique to direct democracies. In this system, important governmental and administrative tasks are performed by citizens picked from a lottery.[152] A direct democracy gives the voting population the power to:
+
+Within modern-day representative governments, certain electoral tools like referendums, citizens' initiatives and recall elections are referred to as forms of direct democracy.[153] However, some advocates of direct democracy argue for local assemblies of face-to-face discussion. Direct democracy as a government system currently exists in the Swiss cantons of Appenzell Innerrhoden and Glarus,[154] the Rebel Zapatista Autonomous Municipalities,[155] communities affiliated with the CIPO-RFM,[156] the Bolivian city councils of FEJUVE,[157] and Kurdish cantons of Rojava.[158]
+
+Representative democracy involves the election of government officials by the people being represented. If the head of state is also democratically elected then it is called a democratic republic.[159] The most common mechanisms involve election of the candidate with a majority or a plurality of the votes. Most western countries have representative systems.[154]
+
+Representatives may be elected or become diplomatic representatives by a particular district (or constituency), or represent the entire electorate through proportional systems, with some using a combination of the two. Some representative democracies also incorporate elements of direct democracy, such as referendums. A characteristic of representative democracy is that while the representatives are elected by the people to act in the people's interest, they retain the freedom to exercise their own judgement as how best to do so. Such reasons have driven criticism upon representative democracy,[160][161] pointing out the contradictions of representation mechanisms with democracy[162][163]
+
+Parliamentary democracy is a representative democracy where government is appointed by, or can be dismissed by, representatives as opposed to a "presidential rule" wherein the president is both head of state and the head of government and is elected by the voters. Under a parliamentary democracy, government is exercised by delegation to an executive ministry and subject to ongoing review, checks and balances by the legislative parliament elected by the people.[164][165][166][167]
+
+Parliamentary systems have the right to dismiss a Prime Minister at any point in time that they feel he or she is not doing their job to the expectations of the legislature. This is done through a Vote of No Confidence where the legislature decides whether or not to remove the Prime Minister from office by a majority support for his or her dismissal.[168] In some countries, the Prime Minister can also call an election whenever he or she so chooses, and typically the Prime Minister will hold an election when he or she knows that they are in good favour with the public as to get re-elected. In other parliamentary democracies, extra elections are virtually never held, a minority government being preferred until the next ordinary elections. An important feature of the parliamentary democracy is the concept of the "loyal opposition". The essence of the concept is that the second largest political party (or coalition) opposes the governing party (or coalition), while still remaining loyal to the state and its democratic principles.
+
+Presidential Democracy is a system where the public elects the president through free and fair elections. The president serves as both the head of state and head of government controlling most of the executive powers. The president serves for a specific term and cannot exceed that amount of time. Elections typically have a fixed date and aren't easily changed. The president has direct control over the cabinet, specifically appointing the cabinet members.[168]
+
+The president cannot be easily removed from office by the legislature, but he or she cannot remove members of the legislative branch any more easily. This provides some measure of separation of powers. In consequence, however, the president and the legislature may end up in the control of separate parties, allowing one to block the other and thereby interfere with the orderly operation of the state. This may be the reason why presidential democracy is not very common outside the Americas, Africa, and Central and Southeast Asia.[168]
+
+A semi-presidential system is a system of democracy in which the government includes both a prime minister and a president. The particular powers held by the prime minister and president vary by country.[168]
+
+Some modern democracies that are predominantly representative in nature also heavily rely upon forms of political action that are directly democratic. These democracies, which combine elements of representative democracy and direct democracy, are termed hybrid democracies,[169] semi-direct democracies or participatory democracies. Examples include Switzerland and some U.S. states, where frequent use is made of referendums and initiatives.
+
+The Swiss confederation is a semi-direct democracy.[154] At the federal level, citizens can propose changes to the constitution (federal popular initiative) or ask for a referendum to be held on any law voted by the parliament.[154] Between January 1995 and June 2005, Swiss citizens voted 31 times, to answer 103 questions (during the same period, French citizens participated in only two referendums).[154] Although in the past 120 years less than 250 initiatives have been put to referendum. The populace has been conservative, approving only about 10% of the initiatives put before them; in addition, they have often opted for a version of the initiative rewritten by government.[citation needed]
+
+In the United States, no mechanisms of direct democracy exists at the federal level, but over half of the states and many localities provide for citizen-sponsored ballot initiatives (also called "ballot measures", "ballot questions" or "propositions"), and the vast majority of states allow for referendums. Examples include the extensive use of referendums in the US state of California, which is a state that has more than 20 million voters.[170]
+
+In New England, Town meetings are often used, especially in rural areas, to manage local government. This creates a hybrid form of government, with a local direct democracy and a representative state government. For example, most Vermont towns hold annual town meetings in March in which town officers are elected, budgets for the town and schools are voted on, and citizens have the opportunity to speak and be heard on political matters.[171]
+
+Many countries such as the United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Scandinavian countries, Thailand, Japan and Bhutan turned powerful monarchs into constitutional monarchs with limited or, often gradually, merely symbolic roles. For example, in the predecessor states to the United Kingdom, constitutional monarchy began to emerge and has continued uninterrupted since the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and passage of the Bill of Rights 1689.[21][72]
+
+In other countries, the monarchy was abolished along with the aristocratic system (as in France, China, Russia, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Greece and Egypt). An elected president, with or without significant powers, became the head of state in these countries.
+
+Elite upper houses of legislatures, which often had lifetime or hereditary tenure, were common in many nations. Over time, these either had their powers limited (as with the British House of Lords) or else became elective and remained powerful (as with the Australian Senate).
+
+The term republic has many different meanings, but today often refers to a representative democracy with an elected head of state, such as a president, serving for a limited term, in contrast to states with a hereditary monarch as a head of state, even if these states also are representative democracies with an elected or appointed head of government such as a prime minister.[172]
+
+The Founding Fathers of the United States rarely praised and often criticised democracy, which in their time tended to specifically mean direct democracy, often without the protection of a constitution enshrining basic rights; James Madison argued, especially in The Federalist No. 10, that what distinguished a direct democracy from a republic was that the former became weaker as it got larger and suffered more violently from the effects of faction, whereas a republic could get stronger as it got larger and combats faction by its very structure.
+
+What was critical to American values, John Adams insisted,[173] was that the government be "bound by fixed laws, which the people have a voice in making, and a right to defend." As Benjamin Franklin was exiting after writing the U.S. constitution, a woman asked him "Well, Doctor, what have we got—a republic or a monarchy?". He replied "A republic—if you can keep it."[174]
+
+A liberal democracy is a representative democracy in which the ability of the elected representatives to exercise decision-making power is subject to the rule of law, and moderated by a constitution or laws that emphasise the protection of the rights and freedoms of individuals, and which places constraints on the leaders and on the extent to which the will of the majority can be exercised against the rights of minorities (see civil liberties).
+
+In a liberal democracy, it is possible for some large-scale decisions to emerge from the many individual decisions that citizens are free to make. In other words, citizens can "vote with their feet" or "vote with their dollars", resulting in significant informal government-by-the-masses that exercises many "powers" associated with formal government elsewhere.
+
+Socialist thought has several different views on democracy. Social democracy, democratic socialism, and the dictatorship of the proletariat (usually exercised through Soviet democracy) are some examples. Many democratic socialists and social democrats believe in a form of participatory, industrial, economic and/or workplace democracy combined with a representative democracy.
+
+Within Marxist orthodoxy there is a hostility to what is commonly called "liberal democracy", which is simply referred to as parliamentary democracy because of its often centralised nature. Because of orthodox Marxists' desire to eliminate the political elitism they see in capitalism, Marxists, Leninists and Trotskyists believe in direct democracy implemented through a system of communes (which are sometimes called soviets). This system ultimately manifests itself as council democracy and begins with workplace democracy.
+
+Democracy cannot consist solely of elections that are nearly always fictitious and managed by rich landowners and professional politicians.
+
+Anarchists are split in this domain, depending on whether they believe that a majority-rule is tyrannic or not.  To many anarchists, the only form of democracy considered acceptable is direct democracy. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon argued that the only acceptable form of direct democracy is one in which it is recognised that majority decisions are not binding on the minority, even when unanimous.[176] However, anarcho-communist Murray Bookchin criticised individualist anarchists for opposing democracy,[177] and says "majority rule" is consistent with anarchism.[178]
+
+Some anarcho-communists oppose the majoritarian nature of direct democracy, feeling that it can impede individual liberty and opt-in favour of a non-majoritarian form of consensus democracy, similar to Proudhon's position on direct democracy.[179] Henry David Thoreau, who did not self-identify as an anarchist but argued for "a better government"[180] and is cited as an inspiration by some anarchists, argued that people should not be in the position of ruling others or being ruled when there is no consent.
+
+Sometimes called "democracy without elections", sortition chooses decision makers via a random process. The intention is that those chosen will be representative of the opinions and interests of the people at large, and be more fair and impartial than an elected official. The technique was in widespread use in Athenian Democracy and Renaissance Florence[181] and is still used in modern jury selection.
+
+A consociational democracy allows for simultaneous majority votes in two or more ethno-religious constituencies, and policies are enacted only if they gain majority support from both or all of them.
+
+A consensus democracy, in contrast, would not be dichotomous. Instead, decisions would be based on a multi-option approach, and policies would be enacted if they gained sufficient support, either in a purely verbal agreement or via a consensus vote—a multi-option preference vote. If the threshold of support were at a sufficiently high level, minorities would be as it were protected automatically. Furthermore, any voting would be ethno-colour blind.
+
+Qualified majority voting is designed by the Treaty of Rome to be the principal method of reaching decisions in the European Council of Ministers. This system allocates votes to member states in part according to their population, but heavily weighted in favour of the smaller states. This might be seen as a form of representative democracy, but representatives to the Council might be appointed rather than directly elected.
+
+Inclusive democracy is a political theory and political project that aims for direct democracy in all fields of social life: political democracy in the form of face-to-face assemblies which are confederated, economic democracy in a stateless, moneyless and marketless economy, democracy in the social realm, i.e. self-management in places of work and education, and ecological democracy which aims to reintegrate society and nature. The theoretical project of inclusive democracy emerged from the work of political philosopher Takis Fotopoulos in "Towards An Inclusive Democracy" and was further developed in the journal Democracy & Nature and its successor The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy.
+
+The basic unit of decision making in an inclusive democracy is the demotic assembly, i.e. the assembly of demos, the citizen body in a given geographical area which may encompass a town and the surrounding villages, or even neighbourhoods of large cities. An inclusive democracy today can only take the form of a confederal democracy that is based on a network of administrative councils whose members or delegates are elected from popular face-to-face democratic assemblies in the various demoi. Thus, their role is purely administrative and practical, not one of policy-making like that of representatives in representative democracy.
+
+The citizen body is advised by experts but it is the citizen body which functions as the ultimate decision-taker. Authority can be delegated to a segment of the citizen body to carry out specific duties, for example, to serve as members of popular courts, or of regional and confederal councils. Such delegation is made, in principle, by lot, on a rotation basis, and is always recallable by the citizen body. Delegates to regional and confederal bodies should have specific mandates.
+
+A Parpolity or Participatory Polity is a theoretical form of democracy that is ruled by a Nested Council structure. The guiding philosophy is that people should have decision making power in proportion to how much they are affected by the decision. Local councils of 25–50 people are completely autonomous on issues that affect only them, and these councils send delegates to higher level councils who are again autonomous regarding issues that affect only the population affected by that council.
+
+A council court of randomly chosen citizens serves as a check on the tyranny of the majority, and rules on which body gets to vote on which issue. Delegates may vote differently from how their sending council might wish but are mandated to communicate the wishes of their sending council. Delegates are recallable at any time. Referendums are possible at any time via votes of most lower-level councils, however, not everything is a referendum as this is most likely a waste of time. A parpolity is meant to work in tandem with a participatory economy.
+
+Cosmopolitan democracy, also known as Global democracy or World Federalism, is a political system in which democracy is implemented on a global scale, either directly or through representatives. An important justification for this kind of system is that the decisions made in national or regional democracies often affect people outside the constituency who, by definition, cannot vote. By contrast, in a cosmopolitan democracy, the people who are affected by decisions also have a say in them.[182]
+
+According to its supporters, any attempt to solve global problems is undemocratic without some form of cosmopolitan democracy. The general principle of cosmopolitan democracy is to expand some or all of the values and norms of democracy, including the rule of law; the non-violent resolution of conflicts; and equality among citizens, beyond the limits of the state. To be fully implemented, this would require reforming existing international organisations, e.g. the United Nations, as well as the creation of new institutions such as a World Parliament, which ideally would enhance public control over, and accountability in, international politics.
+
+Cosmopolitan Democracy has been promoted, among others, by physicist Albert Einstein,[183] writer Kurt Vonnegut, columnist George Monbiot, and professors David Held and Daniele Archibugi.[184] The creation of the International Criminal Court in 2003 was seen as a major step forward by many supporters of this type of cosmopolitan democracy.
+
+Creative Democracy is advocated by American philosopher John Dewey. The main idea about Creative Democracy is that democracy encourages individual capacity building and the interaction among the society. Dewey argues that democracy is a way of life in his work of "Creative Democracy: The Task Before Us"[185] and an experience built on faith in human nature, faith in human beings, and faith in working with others. Democracy, in Dewey's view, is a moral ideal requiring actual effort and work by people; it is not an institutional concept that exists outside of ourselves. "The task of democracy", Dewey concludes, "is forever that of creation of a freer and more humane experience in which all share and to which all contribute".
+
+Guided democracy is a form of democracy which incorporates regular popular elections, but which often carefully "guides" the choices offered to the electorate in a manner which may reduce the ability of the electorate to truly determine the type of government exercised over them.  Such democracies typically have only one central authority which is often not subject to meaningful public review by any other governmental authority.  Russian-style democracy has often been referred to as a "Guided democracy."[186]  Russian politicians have referred to their government as having only one center of power/ authority, as opposed to most other forms of democracy which usually attempt to incorporate two or more naturally competing sources of authority within the same government.[187]
+
+Aside from the public sphere, similar democratic principles and mechanisms of voting and representation have been used to govern other kinds of groups. Many non-governmental organisations decide policy and leadership by voting. Most trade unions and cooperatives are governed by democratic elections. Corporations are controlled by shareholders on the principle of one share, one vote—sometimes supplemented by workplace democracy. Amitai Etzioni has postulated a system that fuses elements of democracy with sharia law, termed islamocracy.[188][citation needed]
+
+Several justifications for democracy have been postulated.
+
+Social contract theory argues that the legitimacy of government is based on consent of the governed, i.e. an election, and that political decisions must reflect the general will.
+
+Condorcet's jury theorem is logical proof that if each decision-maker has a better than chance probability of making the right decision, then having the largest number of decision-makers, i.e. a democracy, will result in the best decisions. This has also been argued by theories of the wisdom of the crowd.
+
+Democratic peace theory claims, and has successfully proven empirically, that liberal democracies do not go to war against each other.
+
+In Why Nations Fail, Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson argue that democracies are more economically successful because undemocratic political systems tend to limit markets and favor monopolies at the expense of the creative destruction which is necessary for sustained economic growth.
+
+Arrow's impossibility theorem suggests that democracy is logically incoherent. This is based on a certain set of criteria for democratic decision-making being inherently conflicting.
+
+Some economists have criticized the efficiency of democracy, citing the premise of the irrational voter, or a voter who makes decisions without all of the facts or necessary information in order to make a truly informed decision. Another argument is that democracy slows down processes because of the amount of input and participation needed in order to go forward with a decision. A common example often quoted to substantiate this point is the high economic development achieved by China (a non-democratic country) as compared to India (a democratic country). According to economists, the lack of democratic participation in countries like China allows for unfettered economic growth.[189]
+
+On the other hand, Socrates believed that democracy without educated masses (educated in the more broader sense of being knowledgeable and responsible) would only lead to populism being the criteria to become an elected leader and not competence. This would ultimately lead to a demise of the nation. This was quoted by Plato in book 10 of The Republic, in Socrates' conversation with Adimantus.[190] Socrates was of the opinion that the right to vote must not be an indiscriminate right (for example by birth or citizenship), but must be given only to people who thought sufficiently of their choice.
+
+The 20th-century Italian thinkers Vilfredo Pareto and Gaetano Mosca (independently) argued that democracy was illusory, and served only to mask the reality of elite rule. Indeed, they argued that elite oligarchy is the unbendable law of human nature, due largely to the apathy and division of the masses (as opposed to the drive, initiative and unity of the elites), and that democratic institutions would do no more than shift the exercise of power from oppression to manipulation.[191] As Louis Brandeis once professed, "We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."[clarification needed].[192] British writer Ivo Mosley, grandson of blackshirt Oswald Mosley describes in In the Name of the People: Pseudo-Democracy and the Spoiling of Our World, how and why current forms of electoral governance are destined to fall short of their promise.[193]
+A study led by Princeton professor Martin Gilens of 1,779 U.S. government decisions concluded that
+"elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence." [194]
+
+Plato's The Republic presents a critical view of democracy through the narration of Socrates: "Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequaled alike."[195] In his work, Plato lists 5 forms of government from best to worst. Assuming that the Republic was intended to be a serious critique of the political thought in Athens, Plato argues that only Kallipolis, an aristocracy led by the unwilling philosopher-kings (the wisest men), is a just form of government.[196]
+
+James Madison critiqued direct democracy (which he referred to simply as "democracy") in Federalist No. 10, arguing that representative democracy—which he described using the term "republic"—is a preferable form of government, saying: "... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." Madison offered that republics were superior to democracies because republics safeguarded against tyranny of the majority, stating in Federalist No. 10: "the same advantage which a republic has over a democracy, in controlling the effects of faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic".
+
+More recently, democracy is criticised for not offering enough political stability. As governments are frequently elected on and off there tends to be frequent changes in the policies of democratic countries both domestically and internationally. Even if a political party maintains power, vociferous, headline-grabbing protests and harsh criticism from the popular media are often enough to force sudden, unexpected political change. Frequent policy changes with regard to business and immigration are likely to deter investment and so hinder economic growth. For this reason, many people have put forward the idea that democracy is undesirable for a developing country in which economic growth and the reduction of poverty are top priorities.[197]
+
+This opportunist alliance not only has the handicap of having to cater to too many ideologically opposing factions, but it is usually short-lived since any perceived or actual imbalance in the treatment of coalition partners, or changes to leadership in the coalition partners themselves, can very easily result in the coalition partner withdrawing its support from the government.
+
+Biased media has been accused of causing political instability, resulting in the obstruction of democracy, rather than its promotion.[198]
+
+In representative democracies, it may not benefit incumbents to conduct fair elections. A study showed that incumbents who rig elections stay in office 2.5 times as long as those who permit fair elections.[199] Democracies in countries with high per capita income have been found to be less prone to violence, but in countries with low incomes the tendency is the reverse.[199] Election misconduct is more likely in countries with low per capita incomes, small populations, rich in natural resources, and a lack of institutional checks and balances. Sub-Saharan countries, as well as Afghanistan, all tend to fall into that category.[199]
+
+Governments that have frequent elections tend to have significantly more stable economic policies than those governments who have infrequent elections. However, this trend does not apply to governments where fraudulent elections are common.[199]
+
+Democracy in modern times has almost always faced opposition from the previously existing government, and many times it has faced opposition from social elites. The implementation of a democratic government within a non-democratic state is typically brought about by democratic revolution.
+
+Several philosophers and researchers have outlined historical and social factors seen as supporting the evolution of democracy.
+
+Other commentators have mentioned the influence of economic development.[200] In a related theory, Ronald Inglehart suggests that improved living-standards in modern developed countries can convince people that they can take their basic survival for granted, leading to increased emphasis on self-expression values, which correlates closely with democracy.[201][202]
+
+Douglas M. Gibler and Andrew Owsiak in their study argued about the importance of peace and stable borders for the development of democracy. It has often been assumed that democracy causes peace, but this study shows that, historically, peace has almost always predated the establishment of democracy.[203]
+
+Carroll Quigley concludes that the characteristics of weapons are the main predictor of democracy:[204][205] Democracy—this scenario—tends to emerge only when the best weapons available are easy for individuals to obtain and use.[206] By the 1800s, guns were the best personal weapons available, and in the United States of America (already nominally democratic), almost everyone could afford to buy a gun, and could learn how to use it fairly easily. Governments couldn't do any better: it became the age of mass armies of citizen soldiers with guns.[206] Similarly, Periclean Greece was an age of the citizen soldier and democracy.[207]
+
+Other theories stressed the relevance of education and of human capital—and within them of cognitive ability to increasing tolerance, rationality, political literacy and participation. Two effects of education and cognitive ability are distinguished:[208][need quotation to verify][209][210]
+
+Evidence consistent with conventional theories of why democracy emerges and is sustained has been hard to come by. Statistical analyses have challenged modernisation theory by demonstrating that there is no reliable evidence for the claim that democracy is more likely to emerge when countries become wealthier, more educated, or less unequal.[211] Neither is there convincing evidence that increased reliance on oil revenues prevents democratisation, despite a vast theoretical literature on "the Resource Curse" that asserts that oil revenues sever the link between citizen taxation and government accountability, seen as the key to representative democracy.[212] The lack of evidence for these conventional theories of democratisation have led researchers to search for the "deep" determinants of contemporary political institutions, be they geographical or demographic.[213][214] More inclusive institutions lead to democracy because as people gain more power, they are able to demand more from the elites, who in turn have to concede more things to keep their position.[citation needed] This virtuous circle may end up in democracy.
+
+An example of this is the disease environment. Places with different mortality rates had different populations and productivity levels around the world. For example, in Africa, the tsetse fly—which afflicts humans and livestock—reduced the ability of Africans to plow the land. This made Africa less settled. As a consequence, political power was less concentrated.[215] This also affected the colonial institutions European countries established in Africa.[216] Whether colonial settlers could live or not in a place made them develop different institutions which led to different economic and social paths. This also affected the distribution of power and the collective actions people could take. As a result, some African countries ended up having democracies and others autocracies.
+
+An example of geographical determinants for democracy is having access to coastal areas and rivers. This natural endowment has a positive relation with economic development thanks to the benefits of trade.[217] Trade brought economic development, which in turn, broadened power. Rulers wanting to increase revenues had to protect property-rights to create incentives for people to invest. As more people had more power, more concessions had to be made by the ruler and in many[quantify] places this process lead to democracy. These determinants defined the structure of the society moving the balance of political power.[218]
+
+In the 21st century, democracy has become such a popular method of reaching decisions that its application beyond politics to other areas such as entertainment, food and fashion, consumerism, urban planning, education, art, literature, science and theology has been criticised as "the reigning dogma of our time".[219] The argument suggests that applying a populist or market-driven approach to art and literature (for example), means that innovative creative work goes unpublished or unproduced. In education, the argument is that essential but more difficult studies are not undertaken. Science, as a truth-based discipline, is particularly corrupted by the idea that the correct conclusion can be arrived at by popular vote. However, more recently, theorists[which?] have also advanced the concept epistemic democracy to assert that democracy actually does a good job tracking the truth.
+
+Robert Michels asserts that although democracy can never be fully realised, democracy may be developed automatically in the act of striving for democracy:
+
+The peasant in the fable, when on his death-bed, tells his sons that a treasure is buried in the field. After the old man's death the sons dig everywhere in order to discover the treasure. They do not find it. But their indefatigable labor improves the soil and secures for them a comparative well-being. The treasure in the fable may well symbolise democracy.[220]
+
+Dr. Harald Wydra, in his book Communism and The Emergence of Democracy (2007), maintains that the development of democracy should not be viewed as a purely procedural or as a static concept but rather as an ongoing "process of meaning formation".[221] Drawing on Claude Lefort's idea of the empty place of power, that "power emanates from the people [...] but is the power of nobody", he remarks that democracy is reverence to a symbolic mythical authority—as in reality, there is no such thing as the people or demos. Democratic political figures are not supreme rulers but rather temporary guardians of an empty place. Any claim to substance such as the collective good, the public interest or the will of the nation is subject to the competitive struggle and times of for[clarification needed] gaining the authority of office and government. The essence of the democratic system is an empty place, void of real people, which can only be temporarily filled and never be appropriated. The seat of power is there but remains open to constant change. As such, people's definitions of "democracy" or of "democratic" progress throughout history as a continual and potentially never-ending process of social construction.[222]

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+Democracy (Greek: δημοκρατία, dēmokratiā, from dēmos 'people' and kratos 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to choose their governing legislation. Who people are and how authority is shared among them are core issues for democratic theory, development and constitution. Some cornerstones of these issues are  freedom of assembly and speech, inclusiveness and equality, membership, consent, voting, right to life and minority rights.
+
+Generally, there are two types of democracy: direct and representative. In a direct democracy, the people directly deliberate and decide on legislature. In a representative democracy, the people elect representatives to deliberate and decide on legislature, such as in parliamentary or presidential democracy.[1] Liquid democracy combines elements of these two basic types. However, the noun "democracy" has, over time, been modified by more than 3,500 adjectives which suggests that it may have types that can elude and elide this duality.[2]
+
+The most common day-to-day decision making approach of democracies has been the majority rule,[3][4] though other decision making approaches like supermajority and consensus have been equally integral to democracies. They serve the crucial purpose of inclusiveness and broader legitimacy on sensitive issues, counterbalancing majoritarianism, and therefore mostly take precedence on a constitutional level.
+
+In the common variant of liberal democracy, the powers of the majority are exercised within the framework of a representative democracy, but the constitution limits the majority and protects the minority, usually through the enjoyment by all of certain individual rights, e.g. freedom of speech, or freedom of association.[5][6] Besides these general types of democracy, there have been a wealth of further types (see below). Republics, though often associated with democracy because of the shared principle of rule by consent of the governed, are not necessarily democracies, as republicanism does not specify how the people are to rule.[7]
+
+Democracy is a system of processing conflicts in which outcomes depend on what participants do, but no single force controls what occurs and its outcomes. The uncertainty of outcomes is inherent in democracy. Democracy makes all forces struggle repeatedly to realize their interests and devolves power from groups of people to sets of rules.[8] Western democracy, as distinct from that which existed in pre-modern societies, is generally considered to have originated in city-states such as Classical Athens and the Roman Republic, where various schemes and degrees of enfranchisement of the free male population were observed before the form disappeared in the West at the beginning of late antiquity. The English word dates back to the 16th century, from the older Middle French and Middle Latin equivalents.
+
+According to American political scientist Larry Diamond, democracy consists of four key elements: a political system for choosing and replacing the government through free and fair elections; the active participation of the people, as citizens, in politics and civic life; protection of the human rights of all citizens; a rule of law, in which the laws and procedures apply equally to all citizens.[9] Todd Landman, nevertheless, draws our attention to the fact that democracy and human rights are two different concepts and that "there must be greater specificity in the conceptualisation and operationalisation of democracy and human rights".[10]
+
+The term appeared in the 5th century BC to denote the political systems then existing in Greek city-states, notably Athens, to mean "rule of the people", in contrast to aristocracy (ἀριστοκρατία, aristokratía), meaning "rule of an elite". While theoretically, these definitions are in opposition, in practice the distinction has been blurred historically.[11] The political system of Classical Athens, for example, granted democratic citizenship to free men and excluded slaves and women from political participation. In virtually all democratic governments throughout ancient and modern history, democratic citizenship consisted of an elite class, until full enfranchisement was won for all adult citizens in most modern democracies through the suffrage movements of the 19th and 20th centuries.
+
+Democracy contrasts with forms of government where power is either held by an individual, as in an absolute monarchy, or where power is held by a small number of individuals, as in an oligarchy. Nevertheless, these oppositions, inherited from Greek philosophy,[12] are now ambiguous because contemporary governments have mixed democratic, oligarchic and monarchic elements. Karl Popper defined democracy in contrast to dictatorship or tyranny, thus focusing on opportunities for the people to control their leaders and to oust them without the need for a revolution.[13]
+
+No consensus exists on how to define democracy, but legal equality, political freedom and rule of law have been identified as important characteristics.[15][16] These principles are reflected in all eligible citizens being equal before the law and having equal access to legislative processes.[citation needed] For example, in a representative democracy, every vote has equal weight, no unreasonable restrictions can apply to anyone seeking to become a representative,[according to whom?] and the freedom of its eligible citizens is secured by legitimised rights and liberties which are typically protected by a constitution.[17][18] Other uses of "democracy" include that of direct democracy.
+
+One theory holds that democracy requires three fundamental principles: upward control (sovereignty residing at the lowest levels of authority), political equality, and social norms by which individuals and institutions only consider acceptable acts that reflect the first two principles of upward control and political equality.[19]
+
+The term "democracy" is sometimes used as shorthand for liberal democracy, which is a variant of representative democracy that may include elements such as political pluralism; equality before the law; the right to petition elected officials for redress of grievances; due process; civil liberties; human rights; and elements of civil society outside the government.[citation needed] Roger Scruton argues that democracy alone cannot provide personal and political freedom unless the institutions of civil society are also present.[20]
+
+In some countries, notably in the United Kingdom which originated the Westminster system, the dominant principle is that of parliamentary sovereignty, while maintaining judicial independence.[21][22] In the United States, separation of powers is often cited as a central attribute. In India, parliamentary sovereignty is subject to the Constitution of India which includes judicial review.[23] Though the term "democracy" is typically used in the context of a political state, the principles also are applicable to private organisations.
+
+There are many decision making methods used in democracies, but majority rule is the dominant form. Without compensation, like legal protections of individual or group rights, political minorities can be oppressed by the "tyranny of the majority". Majority rule is a competitive approach, opposed to consensus democracy, creating the need that elections, and generally deliberation, are substantively and procedurally "fair," i.e., just and equitable. In some countries, freedom of political expression, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and internet democracy are considered important to ensure that voters are well informed, enabling them to vote according to their own interests.[24][25]
+
+It has also been suggested that a basic feature of democracy is the capacity of all voters to participate freely and fully in the life of their society.[26] With its emphasis on notions of social contract and the collective will of all the voters, democracy can also be characterised as a form of political collectivism because it is defined as a form of government in which all eligible citizens have an equal say in lawmaking.[27]
+
+While representative democracy is sometimes equated with the republican form of government, the term "republic" classically has encompassed both democracies and aristocracies.[28][29] Many democracies are constitutional monarchies, such as the United Kingdom.
+
+Historically, democracies and republics have been rare.[31] Republican theorists linked democracy to small size: as political units grew in size, the likelihood increased that the government would turn despotic.[31][32] At the same time, small political units were vulnerable to conquest.[31] Montesquieu wrote, "If a republic be small, it is destroyed by a foreign force; if it be large, it is ruined by an internal imperfection."[33] According to Johns Hopkins University political scientist Daniel Deudney, the creation of the United States, with its large size and its system of checks and balances, was a solution to the dual problems of size.[31]
+
+Retrospectively different polity, outside of declared democracies, have been described as proto-democratic (see History of democracy).
+
+The term "democracy" first appeared in ancient Greek political and philosophical thought in the city-state of Athens during classical antiquity.[34][35] The word comes from demos, "common people" and kratos, "strength".[36] Led by Cleisthenes, Athenians established what is generally held as the first democracy in 508–507 BC. Cleisthenes is referred to as "the father of Athenian democracy."[37]
+
+Athenian democracy took the form of a direct democracy, and it had two distinguishing features: the random selection of ordinary citizens to fill the few existing government administrative and judicial offices,[38] and a legislative assembly consisting of all Athenian citizens.[39] All eligible citizens were allowed to speak and vote in the assembly, which set the laws of the city state. However, Athenian citizenship excluded women, slaves, foreigners (μέτοικοι / métoikoi), and men under 20 years of age.[40][41][contradictory]
+Owning land was not a requirement for citizenship, but it did allow one to purchase land.[42] The exclusion of large parts of the population from the citizen body is closely related to the ancient understanding of citizenship. In most of antiquity the benefit of citizenship was tied to the obligation to fight war campaigns.[43]
+
+Athenian democracy was not only direct in the sense that decisions were made by the assembled people, but also the most direct in the sense that the people through the assembly, boule and courts of law controlled the entire political process and a large proportion of citizens were involved constantly in the public business.[44] Even though the rights of the individual were not secured by the Athenian constitution in the modern sense (the ancient Greeks had no word for "rights"[45]), the Athenians enjoyed their liberties not in opposition to the government but by living in a city that was not subject to another power and by not being subjects themselves to the rule of another person.[46]
+
+Range voting appeared in Sparta as early as 700 BC. The Apella was an assembly of the people, held once a month, in which every male citizen of at least 30 years of age could participate. In the Apella, Spartans elected leaders and cast votes by range voting and shouting. Aristotle called this "childish", as compared with the stone voting ballots used by the Athenians. Sparta adopted it because of its simplicity, and to prevent any bias voting, buying, or cheating that was predominant in the early democratic elections.[47][48] Vaishali, capital city of the Vajjian Confederacy of (Vrijji mahajanapada), India was also considered one of the first examples of a republic around the 6th century BCE.[49][50][51]
+
+Even though the Roman Republic contributed significantly to many aspects of democracy, only a minority of Romans were citizens with votes in elections for representatives. The votes of the powerful were given more weight through a system of gerrymandering, so most high officials, including members of the Senate, came from a few wealthy and noble families.[52] In addition, the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom was the first case in the Western world of a polity being formed with the explicit purpose of being a republic, although it didn't have much of a democracy. The Roman model of governance inspired many political thinkers over the centuries,[53] and today's modern representative democracies imitate more the Roman than the Greek models because it was a state in which supreme power was held by the people and their elected representatives, and which had an elected or nominated leader.[54] Other cultures, such as the Iroquois Nation in the Americas between around 1450 and 1600 AD also developed a form of democratic society before they came in contact with the Europeans. This indicates that forms of democracy may have been invented in other societies around the world.
+
+While most regions in Europe during the Middle Ages were ruled by clergy or feudal lords, there existed various systems involving elections or assemblies (although often only involving a small part of the population). These included:
+
+The Kouroukan Fouga divided the Mali Empire into ruling clans (lineages) that were represented at a great assembly called the Gbara. However, the charter made Mali more similar to a constitutional monarchy than a democratic republic.
+
+The Parliament of England had its roots in the restrictions on the power of kings written into Magna Carta (1215), which explicitly protected certain rights of the King's subjects and implicitly supported what became the English writ of habeas corpus, safeguarding individual freedom against unlawful imprisonment with right to appeal.[58][59] The first representative national assembly in England was Simon de Montfort's Parliament in 1265.[60][61] The emergence of petitioning is some of the earliest evidence of parliament being used as a forum to address the general grievances of ordinary people. However, the power to call parliament remained at the pleasure of the monarch.[62]
+
+Studies have linked the emergence of parliamentary institutions in Europe during the medieval period to urban agglomeration and the creation of new classes, such as artisans,[63] as well as the presence of nobility and religious elites.[64] Scholars have also linked the emergence of representative government to Europe's relative political fragmentation.[65] New York University political scientist David Stasavage links the fragmentation of Europe, and its subsequent democratization, to the manner in which the Roman Empire collapsed: Roman territory was conquered by small fragmented groups of Germanic tribes, thus leading to the creation of small political units where rulers were relatively weak and needed the consent of the governed to ward off foreign threats.[66]
+
+In 17th century England, there was renewed interest in Magna Carta.[68] The Parliament of England passed the Petition of Right in 1628 which established certain liberties for subjects. The English Civil War (1642–1651) was fought between the King and an oligarchic but elected Parliament,[69][70] during which the idea of a political party took form with groups debating rights to political representation during the Putney Debates of 1647.[71] Subsequently, the Protectorate (1653–59) and the English Restoration (1660) restored more autocratic rule, although Parliament passed the Habeas Corpus Act in 1679 which strengthened the convention that forbade detention lacking sufficient cause or evidence. After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the Bill of Rights was enacted in 1689 which codified certain rights and liberties and is still in effect. The Bill set out the requirement for regular elections, rules for freedom of speech in Parliament and limited the power of the monarch, ensuring that, unlike much of Europe at the time, royal absolutism would not prevail.[72][73] Economic historians Douglass North and Barry Weingast have characterized the institutions implemented in the Glorious Revolution as a resounding success in terms of restraining the government and ensuring protection for property rights.[74]
+
+In the Cossack republics of Ukraine in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Cossack Hetmanate and Zaporizhian Sich, the holder of the highest post of Hetman was elected by the representatives from the country's districts.
+
+In North America, representative government began in Jamestown, Virginia, with the election of the House of Burgesses (forerunner of the Virginia General Assembly) in 1619. English Puritans who migrated from 1620 established colonies in New England whose local governance was democratic and which contributed to the democratic development of the United States;[75] although these local assemblies had some small amounts of devolved power, the ultimate authority was held by the Crown and the English Parliament. The Puritans (Pilgrim Fathers), Baptists, and Quakers who founded these colonies applied the democratic organisation of their congregations also to the administration of their communities in worldly matters.[76][77][78]
+
+The first Parliament of Great Britain was established in 1707, after the merger of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland under the Acts of Union. Although the monarch increasingly became a figurehead,[79]
+only a small minority actually had a voice; Parliament was elected by only a few percent of the population (less than 3% as late as 1780).[80] During the Age of Liberty in Sweden (1718–1772), civil rights were expanded and power shifted from the monarch to parliament. The taxed peasantry was represented in parliament, although with little influence, but commoners without taxed property had no suffrage.
+
+The creation of the short-lived Corsican Republic in 1755 marked the first nation in modern history to adopt a democratic constitution (all men and women above age of 25 could vote[81]). This Corsican Constitution was the first based on Enlightenment principles and included female suffrage, something that was not granted in most other democracies until the 20th century.
+
+In the American colonial period before 1776, and for some time after, often only adult white male property owners could vote; enslaved Africans, most free black people and most women were not extended the franchise. This changed state by state, beginning with the republican State of New Connecticut, soon after called Vermont, which, on declaring independence of Great Britain in 1777, adopted a constitution modelled on Pennsylvania's with citizenship and democratic suffrage for males with or without property, and went on to abolish slavery.[82] On the American frontier, democracy became a way of life, with more widespread social, economic and political equality.[83] Although not described as a democracy by the founding fathers,[84] they shared a determination to root the American experiment in the principles of natural freedom and equality.[85]
+
+The American Revolution led to the adoption of the United States Constitution in 1787, the oldest surviving, still active, governmental codified constitution. The Constitution provided for an elected government and protected civil rights and liberties for some, but did not end slavery nor extend voting rights in the United States, instead leaving the issue of suffrage to the individual states.[86] Generally, suffrage was limited to white male property owners and taxpayers,[87] of whom between 60% and 90% were eligible to vote by the end of the 1780s.[88] The Bill of Rights in 1791 set limits on government power to protect personal freedoms but had little impact on judgements by the courts for the first 130 years after ratification.[89]
+
+The Polish-Lithuanian Constitution of 3 May 1791 (Polish: Konstytucja Trzeciego Maja) is called "the first constitution of its kind in Europe" by historian Norman Davies. Short lived due to Russian, German, Austrian aggression, It was instituted by the Government Act (Polish: Ustawa rządowa) adopted on that date by the Sejm (parliament) of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.[91][92] (Polish: Ustawa Rządowa, "Governance Act"), was a constitution adopted by the Great Sejm ("Four-Year Sejm", meeting in 1788–92) for the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a dual monarchy comprising the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Constitution was designed to correct the Commonwealth's political flaws and had been preceded by a period of agitation for—and gradual introduction of—reforms, beginning with the Convocation Sejm of 1764 and the consequent election that year of Stanisław August Poniatowski as the Commonwealth's last king.
+
+The Constitution sought to implement a more effective constitutional monarchy, introduced political equality between townspeople and nobility, and placed the peasants under the protection of the government, mitigating the worst abuses of serfdom. It banned pernicious parliamentary institutions such as the liberum veto, which had put the Sejm at the mercy of any single deputy, who could veto and thus undo all the legislation that had been adopted by that Sejm. The Commonwealth's neighbours reacted with hostility to the adoption of the Constitution. King Frederick William II broke Prussia's alliance with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and joined with Catherine the Great's Imperial Russia and the Targowica Confederation of anti-reform Polish magnates to defeat the Commonwealth in the Polish–Russian War of 1792.
+
+The 1791 Constitution was in force for less than 19 months.[93][94] It was declared null and void by the Grodno Sejm that met in 1793,[91][94] though the Sejm's legal power to do so was questionable.[94] The Second and Third Partitions of Poland (1793, 1795) ultimately ended Poland's sovereign existence until the close of World War I in 1918. Over those 123 years, the 1791 Constitution helped keep alive Polish aspirations for the eventual restoration of the country's sovereignty. In the words of two of its principal authors, Ignacy Potocki and Hugo Kołłątaj, the 1791 Constitution was "the last will and testament of the expiring Homeland."[a]
+
+The Constitution of 3 May 1791 combined a monarchic republic with a clear division of executive, legislative, and judiciary powers. It is generally considered Europe's first, and the world's second, modern written national constitution, after the United States Constitution that had come into force in 1789.[94][b]
+
+In 1789, Revolutionary France adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and, although short-lived, the National Convention was elected by all men in 1792.[97] However, in the early 19th century, little of democracy—as theory, practice, or even as word—remained in the North Atlantic world.[98]
+
+During this period, slavery remained a social and economic institution in places around the world. This was particularly the case in the United States, and especially in the last fifteen slave states that kept slavery legal in the American South until the Civil War. A variety of organisations were established advocating the movement of black people from the United States to locations where they would enjoy greater freedom and equality.
+
+The United Kingdom's Slave Trade Act 1807 banned the trade across the British Empire, which was enforced internationally by the Royal Navy under treaties Britain negotiated with other nations.[99] As the voting franchise in the U.K. was increased, it also was made more uniform in a series of reforms beginning with the Reform Act 1832, although the United Kingdom did not manage to become a complete democracy well into the 20th century. In 1833, the United Kingdom passed the Slavery Abolition Act which took effect across the British Empire, although slavery was legally allowed to continue in areas controlled by the East India Company, Ceylon, and St. Helena for an additional ten years.[100]
+
+Universal male suffrage was established in France in March 1848 in the wake of the French Revolution of 1848.[101] In 1848, several revolutions broke out in Europe as rulers were confronted with popular demands for liberal constitutions and more democratic government.[102]
+
+In the 1860 United States Census, the slave population in the United States had grown to four million,[103] and in Reconstruction after the Civil War (late 1860s), the newly freed slaves became citizens with a nominal right to vote for men. Full enfranchisement of citizens was not secured until after the Civil Rights Movement gained passage by the United States Congress of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.[104][105]
+
+In 1876 the Ottoman Empire transitioned from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional one, and held two elections the next year to elect members to her newly formed parliament.[106] Provisional Electoral Regulations were issued on 29 October 1876, stating that the elected members of the Provincial Administrative Councils would elect members to the first Parliament. On 24 December a new constitution was promulgated, which provided for a bicameral Parliament with a Senate appointed by the Sultan and a popularly elected Chamber of Deputies. Only men above the age of 30 who were competent in Turkish and had full civil rights were allowed to stand for election. Reasons for disqualification included holding dual citizenship, being employed by a foreign government, being bankrupt, employed as a servant, or having "notoriety for ill deeds". Full universal suffrage was achieved in 1934.
+
+20th-century transitions to liberal democracy have come in successive "waves of democracy", variously resulting from wars, revolutions, decolonisation, and religious and economic circumstances.[107] Global waves of "democratic regression" reversing democratization, have also occurred in the 1920s and 30s, in the 1960s and 1970s, and in the 2010s.[108][109]
+
+World War I and the dissolution of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires resulted in the creation of new nation-states from Europe, most of them at least nominally democratic.
+
+In the 1920s democracy flourished and women's suffrage advanced, but the Great Depression brought disenchantment and most of the countries of Europe, Latin America, and Asia turned to strong-man rule or dictatorships. Fascism and dictatorships flourished in Nazi Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal, as well as non-democratic governments in the Baltics, the Balkans, Brazil, Cuba, China, and Japan, among others.[110]
+
+World War II brought a definitive reversal of this trend in western Europe. The democratisation of the American, British, and French sectors of occupied Germany (disputed[111]), Austria, Italy, and the occupied Japan served as a model for the later theory of government change. However, most of Eastern Europe, including the Soviet sector of Germany fell into the non-democratic Soviet bloc.
+
+The war was followed by decolonisation, and again most of the new independent states had nominally democratic constitutions. India emerged as the world's largest democracy and continues to be so.[112] Countries that were once part of the British Empire often adopted the British Westminster system.[113][114]
+
+By 1960, the vast majority of country-states were nominally democracies, although most of the world's populations lived in nations that experienced sham elections, and other forms of subterfuge (particularly in "Communist" nations and the former colonies.)
+
+A subsequent wave of democratisation brought substantial gains toward true liberal democracy for many nations. Spain, Portugal (1974), and several of the military dictatorships in South America returned to civilian rule in the late 1970s and early 1980s (Argentina in 1983, Bolivia, Uruguay in 1984, Brazil in 1985, and Chile in the early 1990s). This was followed by nations in East and South Asia by the mid-to-late 1980s.
+
+Economic malaise in the 1980s, along with resentment of Soviet oppression, contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the associated end of the Cold War, and the democratisation and liberalisation of the former Eastern bloc countries. The most successful of the new democracies were those geographically and culturally closest to western Europe, and they are now members or candidate members of the European Union. In 1986, after the toppling of the most prominent Asian dictatorship, the only democratic state of its kind at the time emerged in the Philippines with the rise of Corazon Aquino, who would later be known as the Mother of Asian Democracy.
+
+The liberal trend spread to some nations in Africa in the 1990s, most prominently in South Africa. Some recent examples of attempts of liberalisation include the Indonesian Revolution of 1998, the Bulldozer Revolution in Yugoslavia, the Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan, and the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia.
+
+According to Freedom House, in 2007 there were 123 electoral democracies (up from 40 in 1972).[115] According to World Forum on Democracy, electoral democracies now represent 120 of the 192 existing countries and constitute 58.2 percent of the world's population. At the same time liberal democracies i.e. countries Freedom House regards as free and respectful of basic human rights and the rule of law are 85 in number and represent 38 percent of the global population.[116]
+
+Most electoral democracies continue to exclude those younger than 18 from voting.[117] The voting age has been lowered to 16 for national elections in a number of countries, including Brazil, Austria, Cuba, and Nicaragua. In California, a 2004 proposal to permit a quarter vote at 14 and a half vote at 16 was ultimately defeated. In 2008, the German parliament proposed but shelved a bill that would grant the vote to each citizen at birth, to be used by a parent until the child claims it for themselves.
+
+In 2007 the United Nations declared 15 September the International Day of Democracy.[118]
+
+According to Freedom House, starting in 2005, there have been eleven consecutive years in which declines in political rights and civil liberties throughout the world have outnumbered improvements,[119] as populist and nationalist political forces have gained ground everywhere from Poland (under the Law and Justice Party) to the Philippines (under Rodrigo Duterte).[119][108]
+
+In a Freedom House report released in 2018, Democracy Scores for most countries declined for the 12th consecutive year.[120] The Christian Science Monitor reported that nationalist and populist political ideologies were gaining ground, at the expense of rule of law, in countries like Poland, Turkey and Hungary. For example, in Poland, the President appointed 27 new Supreme Court judges over objections from the European Union. In  Turkey, thousands of judges were removed from their positions following a failed coup attempt during a government crackdown .[121]
+
+Aristotle contrasted rule by the many (democracy/timocracy), with rule by the few (oligarchy/aristocracy), and with rule by a single person (tyranny or today autocracy/absolute monarchy). He also thought that there was a good and a bad variant of each system (he considered democracy to be the degenerate counterpart to timocracy).[122][123]
+
+A common view among early and renaissance Republican theorists was that democracy could only survive in small political communities.[124] Heeding the lessons of the Roman Republic's shift to monarchism as it grew larger or smaller, these Republican theorists held that the expansion of territory and population inevitably led to tyranny.[124] Democracy was therefore highly fragile and rare historically, as it could only survive in small political units, which due to their size were vulnerable to conquest by larger political units.[124] Montesquieu famously said, "if a republic is small, it is destroyed by an outside force; if it is large, it is destroyed by an internal vice."[124] Rousseau asserted, "It is, therefore the natural property of small states to be governed as a republic, of middling ones to be subject to a monarch, and of large empires to be swayed by a despotic prince."[124]
+
+Among modern political theorists, there are three contending conceptions of democracy: aggregative democracy, deliberative democracy, and radical democracy.[125]
+
+The theory of aggregative democracy claims that the aim of the democratic processes is to solicit citizens' preferences and aggregate them together to determine what social policies society should adopt. Therefore, proponents of this view hold that democratic participation should primarily focus on voting, where the policy with the most votes gets implemented.
+
+Different variants of aggregative democracy exist. Under minimalism, democracy is a system of government in which citizens have given teams of political leaders the right to rule in periodic elections. According to this minimalist conception, citizens cannot and should not "rule" because, for example, on most issues, most of the time, they have no clear views or their views are not well-founded. Joseph Schumpeter articulated this view most famously in his book Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy.[126] Contemporary proponents of minimalism include William H. Riker, Adam Przeworski, Richard Posner.
+
+According to the theory of direct democracy, on the other hand, citizens should vote directly, not through their representatives, on legislative proposals. Proponents of direct democracy offer varied reasons to support this view. Political activity can be valuable in itself, it socialises and educates citizens, and popular participation can check powerful elites. Most importantly, citizens do not rule themselves unless they directly decide laws and policies.
+
+Governments will tend to produce laws and policies that are close to the views of the median voter—with half to their left and the other half to their right. This is not a desirable outcome as it represents the action of self-interested and somewhat unaccountable political elites competing for votes. Anthony Downs suggests that ideological political parties are necessary to act as a mediating broker between individual and governments. Downs laid out this view in his 1957 book An Economic Theory of Democracy.[127]
+
+Robert A. Dahl argues that the fundamental democratic principle is that, when it comes to binding collective decisions, each person in a political community is entitled to have his/her interests be given equal consideration (not necessarily that all people are equally satisfied by the collective decision). He uses the term polyarchy to refer to societies in which there exists a certain set of institutions and procedures which are perceived as leading to such democracy. First and foremost among these institutions is the regular occurrence of free and open elections which are used to select representatives who then manage all or most of the public policy of the society. However, these polyarchic procedures may not create a full democracy if, for example, poverty prevents political participation.[128] Similarly, Ronald Dworkin argues that "democracy is a substantive, not a merely procedural, ideal."[129]
+
+Deliberative democracy is based on the notion that democracy is government by deliberation. Unlike aggregative democracy, deliberative democracy holds that, for a democratic decision to be legitimate, it must be preceded by authentic deliberation, not merely the aggregation of preferences that occurs in voting. Authentic deliberation is deliberation among decision-makers that is free from distortions of unequal political power, such as power a decision-maker obtained through economic wealth or the support of interest groups.[130][131][132] If the decision-makers cannot reach consensus after authentically deliberating on a proposal, then they vote on the proposal using a form of majority rule.
+
+Radical democracy is based on the idea that there are hierarchical and oppressive power relations that exist in society. Democracy's role is to make visible and challenge those relations by allowing for difference, dissent and antagonisms in decision-making processes.
+
+Several freedom indices are published by several organisations according to their own various definitions of the term and relying on different types of data:[135]
+
+Dieter Fuchs and Edeltraud Roller suggest that, in order to truly measure the quality of democracy, objective measurements need to be complemented by "subjective measurements based on the perspective of citizens".[143] Similarly, Quinton Mayne and Brigitte Geißel also defend that the quality of democracy does not depend exclusively on the performance of institutions, but also on the citizens' own dispositions and commitment.[144]
+
+Because democracy is an overarching concept that includes the functioning of diverse institutions which are not easy to measure, strong limitations exist in quantifying and econometrically measuring the potential effects of democracy or its relationship with other phenomena—whether inequality, poverty, education etc.[145] Given the constraints in acquiring reliable data with within-country variation on aspects of democracy, academics have largely studied cross-country variations. Yet variations between democratic institutions are very large across countries which constrains meaningful comparisons using statistical approaches. Since democracy is typically measured aggregately as a macro variable using a single observation for each country and each year, studying democracy faces a range of econometric constraints and is limited to basic correlations. Cross-country comparison of a composite, comprehensive and qualitative concept like democracy may thus not always be, for many purposes, methodologically rigorous or useful.[145]
+
+Democracy has taken a number of forms, both in theory and practice. Some varieties of democracy provide better representation and more freedom for their citizens than others.[146][147] However, if any democracy is not structured to prohibit the government from excluding the people from the legislative process, or any branch of government from altering the separation of powers in its favour, then a branch of the system can accumulate too much power and destroy the democracy.[148][149][150]
+
+The following kinds of democracy are not exclusive of one another: many specify details of aspects that are independent of one another and can co-exist in a single system.
+
+Several variants of democracy exist, but there are two basic forms, both of which concern how the whole body of all eligible citizens executes its will. One form of democracy is direct democracy, in which all eligible citizens have active participation in the political decision making, for example voting on policy initiatives directly.[151] In most modern democracies, the whole body of eligible citizens remain the sovereign power but political power is exercised indirectly through elected representatives; this is called a representative democracy.
+
+Direct democracy is a political system where the citizens participate in the decision-making personally, contrary to relying on intermediaries or representatives. The use of a lot system, a characteristic of Athenian democracy, is unique to direct democracies. In this system, important governmental and administrative tasks are performed by citizens picked from a lottery.[152] A direct democracy gives the voting population the power to:
+
+Within modern-day representative governments, certain electoral tools like referendums, citizens' initiatives and recall elections are referred to as forms of direct democracy.[153] However, some advocates of direct democracy argue for local assemblies of face-to-face discussion. Direct democracy as a government system currently exists in the Swiss cantons of Appenzell Innerrhoden and Glarus,[154] the Rebel Zapatista Autonomous Municipalities,[155] communities affiliated with the CIPO-RFM,[156] the Bolivian city councils of FEJUVE,[157] and Kurdish cantons of Rojava.[158]
+
+Representative democracy involves the election of government officials by the people being represented. If the head of state is also democratically elected then it is called a democratic republic.[159] The most common mechanisms involve election of the candidate with a majority or a plurality of the votes. Most western countries have representative systems.[154]
+
+Representatives may be elected or become diplomatic representatives by a particular district (or constituency), or represent the entire electorate through proportional systems, with some using a combination of the two. Some representative democracies also incorporate elements of direct democracy, such as referendums. A characteristic of representative democracy is that while the representatives are elected by the people to act in the people's interest, they retain the freedom to exercise their own judgement as how best to do so. Such reasons have driven criticism upon representative democracy,[160][161] pointing out the contradictions of representation mechanisms with democracy[162][163]
+
+Parliamentary democracy is a representative democracy where government is appointed by, or can be dismissed by, representatives as opposed to a "presidential rule" wherein the president is both head of state and the head of government and is elected by the voters. Under a parliamentary democracy, government is exercised by delegation to an executive ministry and subject to ongoing review, checks and balances by the legislative parliament elected by the people.[164][165][166][167]
+
+Parliamentary systems have the right to dismiss a Prime Minister at any point in time that they feel he or she is not doing their job to the expectations of the legislature. This is done through a Vote of No Confidence where the legislature decides whether or not to remove the Prime Minister from office by a majority support for his or her dismissal.[168] In some countries, the Prime Minister can also call an election whenever he or she so chooses, and typically the Prime Minister will hold an election when he or she knows that they are in good favour with the public as to get re-elected. In other parliamentary democracies, extra elections are virtually never held, a minority government being preferred until the next ordinary elections. An important feature of the parliamentary democracy is the concept of the "loyal opposition". The essence of the concept is that the second largest political party (or coalition) opposes the governing party (or coalition), while still remaining loyal to the state and its democratic principles.
+
+Presidential Democracy is a system where the public elects the president through free and fair elections. The president serves as both the head of state and head of government controlling most of the executive powers. The president serves for a specific term and cannot exceed that amount of time. Elections typically have a fixed date and aren't easily changed. The president has direct control over the cabinet, specifically appointing the cabinet members.[168]
+
+The president cannot be easily removed from office by the legislature, but he or she cannot remove members of the legislative branch any more easily. This provides some measure of separation of powers. In consequence, however, the president and the legislature may end up in the control of separate parties, allowing one to block the other and thereby interfere with the orderly operation of the state. This may be the reason why presidential democracy is not very common outside the Americas, Africa, and Central and Southeast Asia.[168]
+
+A semi-presidential system is a system of democracy in which the government includes both a prime minister and a president. The particular powers held by the prime minister and president vary by country.[168]
+
+Some modern democracies that are predominantly representative in nature also heavily rely upon forms of political action that are directly democratic. These democracies, which combine elements of representative democracy and direct democracy, are termed hybrid democracies,[169] semi-direct democracies or participatory democracies. Examples include Switzerland and some U.S. states, where frequent use is made of referendums and initiatives.
+
+The Swiss confederation is a semi-direct democracy.[154] At the federal level, citizens can propose changes to the constitution (federal popular initiative) or ask for a referendum to be held on any law voted by the parliament.[154] Between January 1995 and June 2005, Swiss citizens voted 31 times, to answer 103 questions (during the same period, French citizens participated in only two referendums).[154] Although in the past 120 years less than 250 initiatives have been put to referendum. The populace has been conservative, approving only about 10% of the initiatives put before them; in addition, they have often opted for a version of the initiative rewritten by government.[citation needed]
+
+In the United States, no mechanisms of direct democracy exists at the federal level, but over half of the states and many localities provide for citizen-sponsored ballot initiatives (also called "ballot measures", "ballot questions" or "propositions"), and the vast majority of states allow for referendums. Examples include the extensive use of referendums in the US state of California, which is a state that has more than 20 million voters.[170]
+
+In New England, Town meetings are often used, especially in rural areas, to manage local government. This creates a hybrid form of government, with a local direct democracy and a representative state government. For example, most Vermont towns hold annual town meetings in March in which town officers are elected, budgets for the town and schools are voted on, and citizens have the opportunity to speak and be heard on political matters.[171]
+
+Many countries such as the United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Scandinavian countries, Thailand, Japan and Bhutan turned powerful monarchs into constitutional monarchs with limited or, often gradually, merely symbolic roles. For example, in the predecessor states to the United Kingdom, constitutional monarchy began to emerge and has continued uninterrupted since the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and passage of the Bill of Rights 1689.[21][72]
+
+In other countries, the monarchy was abolished along with the aristocratic system (as in France, China, Russia, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Greece and Egypt). An elected president, with or without significant powers, became the head of state in these countries.
+
+Elite upper houses of legislatures, which often had lifetime or hereditary tenure, were common in many nations. Over time, these either had their powers limited (as with the British House of Lords) or else became elective and remained powerful (as with the Australian Senate).
+
+The term republic has many different meanings, but today often refers to a representative democracy with an elected head of state, such as a president, serving for a limited term, in contrast to states with a hereditary monarch as a head of state, even if these states also are representative democracies with an elected or appointed head of government such as a prime minister.[172]
+
+The Founding Fathers of the United States rarely praised and often criticised democracy, which in their time tended to specifically mean direct democracy, often without the protection of a constitution enshrining basic rights; James Madison argued, especially in The Federalist No. 10, that what distinguished a direct democracy from a republic was that the former became weaker as it got larger and suffered more violently from the effects of faction, whereas a republic could get stronger as it got larger and combats faction by its very structure.
+
+What was critical to American values, John Adams insisted,[173] was that the government be "bound by fixed laws, which the people have a voice in making, and a right to defend." As Benjamin Franklin was exiting after writing the U.S. constitution, a woman asked him "Well, Doctor, what have we got—a republic or a monarchy?". He replied "A republic—if you can keep it."[174]
+
+A liberal democracy is a representative democracy in which the ability of the elected representatives to exercise decision-making power is subject to the rule of law, and moderated by a constitution or laws that emphasise the protection of the rights and freedoms of individuals, and which places constraints on the leaders and on the extent to which the will of the majority can be exercised against the rights of minorities (see civil liberties).
+
+In a liberal democracy, it is possible for some large-scale decisions to emerge from the many individual decisions that citizens are free to make. In other words, citizens can "vote with their feet" or "vote with their dollars", resulting in significant informal government-by-the-masses that exercises many "powers" associated with formal government elsewhere.
+
+Socialist thought has several different views on democracy. Social democracy, democratic socialism, and the dictatorship of the proletariat (usually exercised through Soviet democracy) are some examples. Many democratic socialists and social democrats believe in a form of participatory, industrial, economic and/or workplace democracy combined with a representative democracy.
+
+Within Marxist orthodoxy there is a hostility to what is commonly called "liberal democracy", which is simply referred to as parliamentary democracy because of its often centralised nature. Because of orthodox Marxists' desire to eliminate the political elitism they see in capitalism, Marxists, Leninists and Trotskyists believe in direct democracy implemented through a system of communes (which are sometimes called soviets). This system ultimately manifests itself as council democracy and begins with workplace democracy.
+
+Democracy cannot consist solely of elections that are nearly always fictitious and managed by rich landowners and professional politicians.
+
+Anarchists are split in this domain, depending on whether they believe that a majority-rule is tyrannic or not.  To many anarchists, the only form of democracy considered acceptable is direct democracy. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon argued that the only acceptable form of direct democracy is one in which it is recognised that majority decisions are not binding on the minority, even when unanimous.[176] However, anarcho-communist Murray Bookchin criticised individualist anarchists for opposing democracy,[177] and says "majority rule" is consistent with anarchism.[178]
+
+Some anarcho-communists oppose the majoritarian nature of direct democracy, feeling that it can impede individual liberty and opt-in favour of a non-majoritarian form of consensus democracy, similar to Proudhon's position on direct democracy.[179] Henry David Thoreau, who did not self-identify as an anarchist but argued for "a better government"[180] and is cited as an inspiration by some anarchists, argued that people should not be in the position of ruling others or being ruled when there is no consent.
+
+Sometimes called "democracy without elections", sortition chooses decision makers via a random process. The intention is that those chosen will be representative of the opinions and interests of the people at large, and be more fair and impartial than an elected official. The technique was in widespread use in Athenian Democracy and Renaissance Florence[181] and is still used in modern jury selection.
+
+A consociational democracy allows for simultaneous majority votes in two or more ethno-religious constituencies, and policies are enacted only if they gain majority support from both or all of them.
+
+A consensus democracy, in contrast, would not be dichotomous. Instead, decisions would be based on a multi-option approach, and policies would be enacted if they gained sufficient support, either in a purely verbal agreement or via a consensus vote—a multi-option preference vote. If the threshold of support were at a sufficiently high level, minorities would be as it were protected automatically. Furthermore, any voting would be ethno-colour blind.
+
+Qualified majority voting is designed by the Treaty of Rome to be the principal method of reaching decisions in the European Council of Ministers. This system allocates votes to member states in part according to their population, but heavily weighted in favour of the smaller states. This might be seen as a form of representative democracy, but representatives to the Council might be appointed rather than directly elected.
+
+Inclusive democracy is a political theory and political project that aims for direct democracy in all fields of social life: political democracy in the form of face-to-face assemblies which are confederated, economic democracy in a stateless, moneyless and marketless economy, democracy in the social realm, i.e. self-management in places of work and education, and ecological democracy which aims to reintegrate society and nature. The theoretical project of inclusive democracy emerged from the work of political philosopher Takis Fotopoulos in "Towards An Inclusive Democracy" and was further developed in the journal Democracy & Nature and its successor The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy.
+
+The basic unit of decision making in an inclusive democracy is the demotic assembly, i.e. the assembly of demos, the citizen body in a given geographical area which may encompass a town and the surrounding villages, or even neighbourhoods of large cities. An inclusive democracy today can only take the form of a confederal democracy that is based on a network of administrative councils whose members or delegates are elected from popular face-to-face democratic assemblies in the various demoi. Thus, their role is purely administrative and practical, not one of policy-making like that of representatives in representative democracy.
+
+The citizen body is advised by experts but it is the citizen body which functions as the ultimate decision-taker. Authority can be delegated to a segment of the citizen body to carry out specific duties, for example, to serve as members of popular courts, or of regional and confederal councils. Such delegation is made, in principle, by lot, on a rotation basis, and is always recallable by the citizen body. Delegates to regional and confederal bodies should have specific mandates.
+
+A Parpolity or Participatory Polity is a theoretical form of democracy that is ruled by a Nested Council structure. The guiding philosophy is that people should have decision making power in proportion to how much they are affected by the decision. Local councils of 25–50 people are completely autonomous on issues that affect only them, and these councils send delegates to higher level councils who are again autonomous regarding issues that affect only the population affected by that council.
+
+A council court of randomly chosen citizens serves as a check on the tyranny of the majority, and rules on which body gets to vote on which issue. Delegates may vote differently from how their sending council might wish but are mandated to communicate the wishes of their sending council. Delegates are recallable at any time. Referendums are possible at any time via votes of most lower-level councils, however, not everything is a referendum as this is most likely a waste of time. A parpolity is meant to work in tandem with a participatory economy.
+
+Cosmopolitan democracy, also known as Global democracy or World Federalism, is a political system in which democracy is implemented on a global scale, either directly or through representatives. An important justification for this kind of system is that the decisions made in national or regional democracies often affect people outside the constituency who, by definition, cannot vote. By contrast, in a cosmopolitan democracy, the people who are affected by decisions also have a say in them.[182]
+
+According to its supporters, any attempt to solve global problems is undemocratic without some form of cosmopolitan democracy. The general principle of cosmopolitan democracy is to expand some or all of the values and norms of democracy, including the rule of law; the non-violent resolution of conflicts; and equality among citizens, beyond the limits of the state. To be fully implemented, this would require reforming existing international organisations, e.g. the United Nations, as well as the creation of new institutions such as a World Parliament, which ideally would enhance public control over, and accountability in, international politics.
+
+Cosmopolitan Democracy has been promoted, among others, by physicist Albert Einstein,[183] writer Kurt Vonnegut, columnist George Monbiot, and professors David Held and Daniele Archibugi.[184] The creation of the International Criminal Court in 2003 was seen as a major step forward by many supporters of this type of cosmopolitan democracy.
+
+Creative Democracy is advocated by American philosopher John Dewey. The main idea about Creative Democracy is that democracy encourages individual capacity building and the interaction among the society. Dewey argues that democracy is a way of life in his work of "Creative Democracy: The Task Before Us"[185] and an experience built on faith in human nature, faith in human beings, and faith in working with others. Democracy, in Dewey's view, is a moral ideal requiring actual effort and work by people; it is not an institutional concept that exists outside of ourselves. "The task of democracy", Dewey concludes, "is forever that of creation of a freer and more humane experience in which all share and to which all contribute".
+
+Guided democracy is a form of democracy which incorporates regular popular elections, but which often carefully "guides" the choices offered to the electorate in a manner which may reduce the ability of the electorate to truly determine the type of government exercised over them.  Such democracies typically have only one central authority which is often not subject to meaningful public review by any other governmental authority.  Russian-style democracy has often been referred to as a "Guided democracy."[186]  Russian politicians have referred to their government as having only one center of power/ authority, as opposed to most other forms of democracy which usually attempt to incorporate two or more naturally competing sources of authority within the same government.[187]
+
+Aside from the public sphere, similar democratic principles and mechanisms of voting and representation have been used to govern other kinds of groups. Many non-governmental organisations decide policy and leadership by voting. Most trade unions and cooperatives are governed by democratic elections. Corporations are controlled by shareholders on the principle of one share, one vote—sometimes supplemented by workplace democracy. Amitai Etzioni has postulated a system that fuses elements of democracy with sharia law, termed islamocracy.[188][citation needed]
+
+Several justifications for democracy have been postulated.
+
+Social contract theory argues that the legitimacy of government is based on consent of the governed, i.e. an election, and that political decisions must reflect the general will.
+
+Condorcet's jury theorem is logical proof that if each decision-maker has a better than chance probability of making the right decision, then having the largest number of decision-makers, i.e. a democracy, will result in the best decisions. This has also been argued by theories of the wisdom of the crowd.
+
+Democratic peace theory claims, and has successfully proven empirically, that liberal democracies do not go to war against each other.
+
+In Why Nations Fail, Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson argue that democracies are more economically successful because undemocratic political systems tend to limit markets and favor monopolies at the expense of the creative destruction which is necessary for sustained economic growth.
+
+Arrow's impossibility theorem suggests that democracy is logically incoherent. This is based on a certain set of criteria for democratic decision-making being inherently conflicting.
+
+Some economists have criticized the efficiency of democracy, citing the premise of the irrational voter, or a voter who makes decisions without all of the facts or necessary information in order to make a truly informed decision. Another argument is that democracy slows down processes because of the amount of input and participation needed in order to go forward with a decision. A common example often quoted to substantiate this point is the high economic development achieved by China (a non-democratic country) as compared to India (a democratic country). According to economists, the lack of democratic participation in countries like China allows for unfettered economic growth.[189]
+
+On the other hand, Socrates believed that democracy without educated masses (educated in the more broader sense of being knowledgeable and responsible) would only lead to populism being the criteria to become an elected leader and not competence. This would ultimately lead to a demise of the nation. This was quoted by Plato in book 10 of The Republic, in Socrates' conversation with Adimantus.[190] Socrates was of the opinion that the right to vote must not be an indiscriminate right (for example by birth or citizenship), but must be given only to people who thought sufficiently of their choice.
+
+The 20th-century Italian thinkers Vilfredo Pareto and Gaetano Mosca (independently) argued that democracy was illusory, and served only to mask the reality of elite rule. Indeed, they argued that elite oligarchy is the unbendable law of human nature, due largely to the apathy and division of the masses (as opposed to the drive, initiative and unity of the elites), and that democratic institutions would do no more than shift the exercise of power from oppression to manipulation.[191] As Louis Brandeis once professed, "We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."[clarification needed].[192] British writer Ivo Mosley, grandson of blackshirt Oswald Mosley describes in In the Name of the People: Pseudo-Democracy and the Spoiling of Our World, how and why current forms of electoral governance are destined to fall short of their promise.[193]
+A study led by Princeton professor Martin Gilens of 1,779 U.S. government decisions concluded that
+"elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence." [194]
+
+Plato's The Republic presents a critical view of democracy through the narration of Socrates: "Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequaled alike."[195] In his work, Plato lists 5 forms of government from best to worst. Assuming that the Republic was intended to be a serious critique of the political thought in Athens, Plato argues that only Kallipolis, an aristocracy led by the unwilling philosopher-kings (the wisest men), is a just form of government.[196]
+
+James Madison critiqued direct democracy (which he referred to simply as "democracy") in Federalist No. 10, arguing that representative democracy—which he described using the term "republic"—is a preferable form of government, saying: "... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." Madison offered that republics were superior to democracies because republics safeguarded against tyranny of the majority, stating in Federalist No. 10: "the same advantage which a republic has over a democracy, in controlling the effects of faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic".
+
+More recently, democracy is criticised for not offering enough political stability. As governments are frequently elected on and off there tends to be frequent changes in the policies of democratic countries both domestically and internationally. Even if a political party maintains power, vociferous, headline-grabbing protests and harsh criticism from the popular media are often enough to force sudden, unexpected political change. Frequent policy changes with regard to business and immigration are likely to deter investment and so hinder economic growth. For this reason, many people have put forward the idea that democracy is undesirable for a developing country in which economic growth and the reduction of poverty are top priorities.[197]
+
+This opportunist alliance not only has the handicap of having to cater to too many ideologically opposing factions, but it is usually short-lived since any perceived or actual imbalance in the treatment of coalition partners, or changes to leadership in the coalition partners themselves, can very easily result in the coalition partner withdrawing its support from the government.
+
+Biased media has been accused of causing political instability, resulting in the obstruction of democracy, rather than its promotion.[198]
+
+In representative democracies, it may not benefit incumbents to conduct fair elections. A study showed that incumbents who rig elections stay in office 2.5 times as long as those who permit fair elections.[199] Democracies in countries with high per capita income have been found to be less prone to violence, but in countries with low incomes the tendency is the reverse.[199] Election misconduct is more likely in countries with low per capita incomes, small populations, rich in natural resources, and a lack of institutional checks and balances. Sub-Saharan countries, as well as Afghanistan, all tend to fall into that category.[199]
+
+Governments that have frequent elections tend to have significantly more stable economic policies than those governments who have infrequent elections. However, this trend does not apply to governments where fraudulent elections are common.[199]
+
+Democracy in modern times has almost always faced opposition from the previously existing government, and many times it has faced opposition from social elites. The implementation of a democratic government within a non-democratic state is typically brought about by democratic revolution.
+
+Several philosophers and researchers have outlined historical and social factors seen as supporting the evolution of democracy.
+
+Other commentators have mentioned the influence of economic development.[200] In a related theory, Ronald Inglehart suggests that improved living-standards in modern developed countries can convince people that they can take their basic survival for granted, leading to increased emphasis on self-expression values, which correlates closely with democracy.[201][202]
+
+Douglas M. Gibler and Andrew Owsiak in their study argued about the importance of peace and stable borders for the development of democracy. It has often been assumed that democracy causes peace, but this study shows that, historically, peace has almost always predated the establishment of democracy.[203]
+
+Carroll Quigley concludes that the characteristics of weapons are the main predictor of democracy:[204][205] Democracy—this scenario—tends to emerge only when the best weapons available are easy for individuals to obtain and use.[206] By the 1800s, guns were the best personal weapons available, and in the United States of America (already nominally democratic), almost everyone could afford to buy a gun, and could learn how to use it fairly easily. Governments couldn't do any better: it became the age of mass armies of citizen soldiers with guns.[206] Similarly, Periclean Greece was an age of the citizen soldier and democracy.[207]
+
+Other theories stressed the relevance of education and of human capital—and within them of cognitive ability to increasing tolerance, rationality, political literacy and participation. Two effects of education and cognitive ability are distinguished:[208][need quotation to verify][209][210]
+
+Evidence consistent with conventional theories of why democracy emerges and is sustained has been hard to come by. Statistical analyses have challenged modernisation theory by demonstrating that there is no reliable evidence for the claim that democracy is more likely to emerge when countries become wealthier, more educated, or less unequal.[211] Neither is there convincing evidence that increased reliance on oil revenues prevents democratisation, despite a vast theoretical literature on "the Resource Curse" that asserts that oil revenues sever the link between citizen taxation and government accountability, seen as the key to representative democracy.[212] The lack of evidence for these conventional theories of democratisation have led researchers to search for the "deep" determinants of contemporary political institutions, be they geographical or demographic.[213][214] More inclusive institutions lead to democracy because as people gain more power, they are able to demand more from the elites, who in turn have to concede more things to keep their position.[citation needed] This virtuous circle may end up in democracy.
+
+An example of this is the disease environment. Places with different mortality rates had different populations and productivity levels around the world. For example, in Africa, the tsetse fly—which afflicts humans and livestock—reduced the ability of Africans to plow the land. This made Africa less settled. As a consequence, political power was less concentrated.[215] This also affected the colonial institutions European countries established in Africa.[216] Whether colonial settlers could live or not in a place made them develop different institutions which led to different economic and social paths. This also affected the distribution of power and the collective actions people could take. As a result, some African countries ended up having democracies and others autocracies.
+
+An example of geographical determinants for democracy is having access to coastal areas and rivers. This natural endowment has a positive relation with economic development thanks to the benefits of trade.[217] Trade brought economic development, which in turn, broadened power. Rulers wanting to increase revenues had to protect property-rights to create incentives for people to invest. As more people had more power, more concessions had to be made by the ruler and in many[quantify] places this process lead to democracy. These determinants defined the structure of the society moving the balance of political power.[218]
+
+In the 21st century, democracy has become such a popular method of reaching decisions that its application beyond politics to other areas such as entertainment, food and fashion, consumerism, urban planning, education, art, literature, science and theology has been criticised as "the reigning dogma of our time".[219] The argument suggests that applying a populist or market-driven approach to art and literature (for example), means that innovative creative work goes unpublished or unproduced. In education, the argument is that essential but more difficult studies are not undertaken. Science, as a truth-based discipline, is particularly corrupted by the idea that the correct conclusion can be arrived at by popular vote. However, more recently, theorists[which?] have also advanced the concept epistemic democracy to assert that democracy actually does a good job tracking the truth.
+
+Robert Michels asserts that although democracy can never be fully realised, democracy may be developed automatically in the act of striving for democracy:
+
+The peasant in the fable, when on his death-bed, tells his sons that a treasure is buried in the field. After the old man's death the sons dig everywhere in order to discover the treasure. They do not find it. But their indefatigable labor improves the soil and secures for them a comparative well-being. The treasure in the fable may well symbolise democracy.[220]
+
+Dr. Harald Wydra, in his book Communism and The Emergence of Democracy (2007), maintains that the development of democracy should not be viewed as a purely procedural or as a static concept but rather as an ongoing "process of meaning formation".[221] Drawing on Claude Lefort's idea of the empty place of power, that "power emanates from the people [...] but is the power of nobody", he remarks that democracy is reverence to a symbolic mythical authority—as in reality, there is no such thing as the people or demos. Democratic political figures are not supreme rulers but rather temporary guardians of an empty place. Any claim to substance such as the collective good, the public interest or the will of the nation is subject to the competitive struggle and times of for[clarification needed] gaining the authority of office and government. The essence of the democratic system is an empty place, void of real people, which can only be temporarily filled and never be appropriated. The seat of power is there but remains open to constant change. As such, people's definitions of "democracy" or of "democratic" progress throughout history as a continual and potentially never-ending process of social construction.[222]

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+Saint Denis may refer to:
+
+Other Communes in France:
+
+In Belgium
+
+In Italy:
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+In Canada:
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+In United States:

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+
+
+Food is any substance[1] consumed to provide nutritional support for an organism. Food is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ingested by an organism and assimilated by the organism's cells to provide energy, maintain life, or stimulate growth.
+
+Historically, humans secured food through two methods: hunting and gathering and agriculture, which gave modern humans a mainly omnivorous diet. Worldwide, humanity has created numerous cuisines and culinary arts, including a wide array of ingredients, herbs, spices, techniques, and dishes.
+
+Today, the majority of the food energy required by the ever-increasing population of the world is supplied by the food industry. Food safety and food security are monitored by agencies like the International Association for Food Protection, World Resources Institute, World Food Programme, Food and Agriculture Organization, and International Food Information Council. They address issues such as sustainability, biological diversity, climate change, nutritional economics, population growth, water supply, and access to food.
+
+The right to food is a human right derived from the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), recognizing the "right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food", as well as the "fundamental right to be free from hunger".
+
+Most food has its origin in plants. Some food is obtained directly from plants; but even animals that are used as food sources are raised by feeding them food derived from plants. Cereal grain is a staple food that provides more food energy worldwide than any other type of crop.[2] Corn (maize), wheat, and rice – in all of their varieties – account for 87% of all grain production worldwide.[3][4][5] Most of the grain that is produced worldwide is fed to livestock.
+
+Some foods not from animal or plant sources include various edible fungi, especially mushrooms. Fungi and ambient bacteria are used in the preparation of fermented and pickled foods like leavened bread, alcoholic drinks, cheese, pickles, kombucha, and yogurt. Another example is blue-green algae such as Spirulina.[6] Inorganic substances such as salt, baking soda and cream of tartar are used to preserve or chemically alter an ingredient.
+
+Many plants and plant parts are eaten as food and around 2,000 plant species are cultivated for food. Many of these plant species have several distinct cultivars.[7]
+
+Seeds of plants are a good source of food for animals, including humans, because they contain the nutrients necessary for the plant's initial growth, including many healthful fats, such as omega fats. In fact, the majority of food consumed by human beings are seed-based foods. Edible seeds include cereals (corn, wheat, rice, et cetera), legumes (beans, peas, lentils, et cetera), and nuts. Oilseeds are often pressed to produce rich oils - sunflower, flaxseed, rapeseed (including canola oil), sesame, et cetera.[8]
+
+Seeds are typically high in unsaturated fats and, in moderation, are considered a health food. However, not all seeds are edible. Large seeds, such as those from a lemon, pose a choking hazard, while seeds from cherries and apples  contain cyanide which could be poisonous only if consumed in large volumes.[9]
+
+Fruits are the ripened ovaries of plants, including the seeds within. Many plants and animals have coevolved such that the fruits of the former are an attractive food source to the latter, because animals that eat the fruits may excrete the seeds some distance away. Fruits, therefore, make up a significant part of the diets of most cultures. Some botanical fruits, such as tomatoes, pumpkins, and eggplants, are eaten as vegetables.[10] (For more information, see list of fruits.)
+
+Vegetables are a second type of plant matter that is commonly eaten as food. These include root vegetables (potatoes and carrots), bulbs (onion family), leaf vegetables (spinach and lettuce), stem vegetables (bamboo shoots and asparagus), and inflorescence vegetables (globe artichokes and broccoli and other vegetables such as cabbage or cauliflower).[11]
+
+Animals are used as food either directly or indirectly by the products they produce. Meat is an example of a direct product taken from an animal, which comes from muscle systems or from organs (offal).
+
+Food products produced by animals include milk produced by mammary glands, which in many cultures is drunk or processed into dairy products (cheese, butter, etc.). In addition, birds and other animals lay eggs, which are often eaten, and bees produce honey, a reduced nectar from flowers, which is a popular sweetener in many cultures. Some cultures consume blood, sometimes in the form of blood sausage, as a thickener for sauces, or in a cured, salted form for times of food scarcity, and others use blood in stews such as jugged hare.[12]
+
+Some cultures and people do not consume meat or animal food products for cultural, dietary, health, ethical, or ideological reasons. Vegetarians choose to forgo food from animal sources to varying degrees. Vegans do not consume any foods that are or contain ingredients from an animal source.
+
+Adulteration is a legal term meaning that a food product fails to meet the legal standards. One form of adulteration is an addition of another substance to a food item in order to increase the quantity of the food item in raw form or prepared form, which may result in the loss of actual quality of food item. These substances may be either available food items or non-food items. Among meat and meat products some of the items used to adulterate are water or ice, carcasses, or carcasses of animals other than the animal meant to be consumed.[13]
+
+Camping food includes ingredients used to prepare food suitable for backcountry camping and backpacking. The foods differ substantially from the ingredients found in a typical home kitchen. The primary differences relate to campers' and backpackers' special needs for foods that have appropriate cooking time, perishability, weight, and nutritional content.
+
+To address these needs, camping food is often made up of either freeze-dried, precooked or dehydrated ingredients. Many campers use a combination of these foods.
+
+Freeze-drying requires the use of heavy machinery and is not something that most campers are able to do on their own. Freeze-dried ingredients are often considered superior to dehydrated ingredients however because they rehydrate at camp faster and retain more flavor than their dehydrated counterparts. Freeze-dried ingredients take so little time to rehydrate that they can often be eaten without cooking them first and have a texture similar to a crunchy chip.
+
+Dehydration can reduce the weight of the food by sixty to ninety percent by removing water through evaporation. Some foods dehydrate well, such as onions, peppers, and tomatoes.[14][15] Dehydration often produces a more compact, albeit slightly heavier, end result than freeze-drying.
+
+Surplus precooked military Meals, Meals, Ready-to-Eat (MREs) are sometimes used by campers. These meals contain pre-cooked foods in retort pouches. A retort pouch is a plastic and metal foil laminate pouch that is used as an alternative to traditional industrial canning methods.
+
+Diet food (or "dietetic food") refers to any food or beverage whose recipe is altered to reduce fat, carbohydrates, abhor/adhore sugar in order to make it part of a weight loss program or diet. Such foods are usually intended to assist in weight loss or a change in body type, although bodybuilding supplements are designed to aid in gaining weight or muscle.
+
+The process of making a diet version of a food usually requires finding an acceptable low-food-energy substitute for some high-food-energy ingredient.[16] This can be as simple as replacing some or all of the food's sugar with a sugar substitute as is common with diet soft drinks such as Coca-Cola (for example Diet Coke). In some snacks, the food may be baked instead of fried thus reducing the food energy. In other cases, low-fat ingredients may be used as replacements.
+
+In whole grain foods, the higher fiber content effectively displaces some of the starch components of the flour. Since certain fibers have no food energy, this results in a modest energy reduction. Another technique relies on the intentional addition of other reduced-food-energy ingredients, such as resistant starch or dietary fiber, to replace part of the flour and achieve a more significant energy reduction.
+
+Finger food is food meant to be eaten directly using the hands, in contrast to food eaten with a knife and fork, spoon, chopsticks, or other utensils.[17]  In some cultures, food is almost always eaten with the hands; for example, Ethiopian cuisine is eaten by rolling various dishes up in injera bread.[18]  Foods considered street foods are frequently, though not exclusively, finger foods.
+
+In the western world, finger foods are often either appetizers (hors d'œuvres) or entree/main course items. Examples of these are miniature meat pies, sausage rolls, sausages on sticks, cheese and olives on sticks, chicken drumsticks or wings, spring rolls, miniature quiches, samosas, sandwiches, Merenda or other such based foods, such as pitas or items in buns, bhajjis, potato wedges, vol au vents, several other such small items and risotto balls (arancini). Other well-known foods that are generally eaten with the hands include hamburgers, pizza, Chips, hot dogs, fruit and bread.
+
+In East Asia, foods like pancakes or flatbreads (bing 饼) and street foods such as chuan (串, also pronounced chuan) are often eaten with the hands.
+
+Fresh food is food which has not been preserved and has not spoiled yet. For vegetables and fruits, this means that they have been recently harvested and treated properly postharvest; for meat, it has recently been slaughtered and butchered; for fish, it has been recently caught or harvested and kept cold.
+
+Dairy products are fresh and will spoil quickly. Thus, fresh cheese is cheese which has not been dried or salted for aging. Soured cream may be considered "fresh" (crème fraîche).
+
+Fresh food has not been dried, smoked, salted, frozen, canned, pickled, or otherwise preserved.[19]
+
+Freezing food preserves it from the time it is prepared to the time it is eaten. Since early times, farmers, fishermen, and trappers have preserved grains and produce in unheated buildings during the winter season.[20] Freezing food slows down decomposition by turning residual moisture into ice, inhibiting the growth of most bacterial species. In the food commodity industry, there are two processes: mechanical and cryogenic (or flash freezing). The kinetics of the freezing is important to preserve food quality and texture. Quicker freezing generates smaller ice crystals and maintains cellular structure. Cryogenic freezing is the quickest freezing technology available utilizing the extremely low temperature of liquid nitrogen  −196 °C (−320 °F).[21]
+
+Preserving food in domestic kitchens during modern times is achieved using household freezers. Accepted advice to householders was to freeze food on the day of purchase. An initiative by a supermarket group in 2012 (backed by the UK's Waste & Resources Action Programme) promotes the freezing of food "as soon as possible up to the product's 'use by' date". The Food Standards Agency was reported as supporting the change, providing the food had been stored correctly up to that time.[22]
+
+A functional food is a food given an additional function (often one related to health-promotion or disease prevention) by adding new ingredients or more of existing ingredients.[23] The term may also apply to traits purposely bred into existing edible plants, such as purple or gold potatoes having enriched anthocyanin or carotenoid contents, respectively.[24] Functional foods may be "designed to have physiological benefits and/or reduce the risk of chronic disease beyond basic nutritional functions, and may be similar in appearance to conventional food and consumed as part of a regular diet".[25]
+
+The term was first used in Japan in the 1980s where there is a government approval process for functional foods called Foods for Specified Health Use (FOSHU).[26]
+
+Health food is food marketed to provide human health effects beyond a normal healthy diet required for human nutrition. Foods marketed as health foods may be part of one or more categories, such as natural foods, organic foods, whole foods,  vegetarian foods or dietary supplements. These products may be sold in health food stores or in the health food or organic sections of grocery stores.
+
+A healthy diet is a diet that helps to maintain or improve overall health. A healthy diet provides the body with essential nutrition: fluid, macronutrients, micronutrients, and adequate calories.[27][28]
+
+For people who are healthy, a healthy diet is not complicated and contains mostly fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and includes little to no processed food and sweetened beverages.  The requirements for a healthy diet can be met from a variety of plant-based and animal-based foods, although a non-animal source of vitamin B12 is needed for those following a vegan diet.[29]  Various nutrition guides are published by medical and governmental institutions to educate individuals on what they should be eating to be healthy. Nutrition facts labels are also mandatory in some countries to allow consumers to choose between foods based on the components relevant to health.[30]
+
+A healthy lifestyle includes getting exercise every day along with eating a healthy diet. A healthy lifestyle may lower disease risks, such as obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and cancer.[27][31]
+
+There are specialized healthy diets, called medical nutrition therapy, for people with various diseases or conditions.  There are also prescientific ideas about such specialized diets, as in dietary therapy in traditional Chinese medicine.
+
+The World Health Organization (WHO) makes the following 5 recommendations with respect to both populations and individuals:[32]
+
+Live food is living food for carnivorous or omnivorous animals kept in captivity; in other words, small animals such as insects or mice fed to larger carnivorous or omnivorous species kept either in a zoo or as a pet.
+
+Live food is commonly used as feed for a variety of species of exotic pets and zoo animals, ranging from alligators to various snakes, frogs and lizards, but also including other, non-reptile, non-amphibian carnivores and omnivores (for instance, skunks, which are omnivorous mammals, can technically be fed a limited amount of live food, though this is not a common practice). Common live food ranges from crickets (used as an inexpensive form of feed for carnivorous and omnivorous reptiles such as bearded dragons and commonly available in pet stores for this reason), waxworms, mealworms and to a lesser extent cockroaches and locusts, to small birds and mammals such as mice or chickens.
+
+Medical foods are foods that are specially formulated and intended for the dietary management of a disease that has distinctive nutritional needs that cannot be met by normal diet alone. In the United States they were defined in the Food and Drug Administration's 1988 Orphan Drug Act Amendments[35] and are subject to the general food and safety labeling requirements of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. In Europe the European Food Safety Authority established definitions for "foods for special medical purposes" (FSMPs) in 2015.[36]
+
+Medical foods, called "food for special medical purposes" in Europe,[37] are distinct from the broader category of foods for special dietary use, from traditional foods that bear a health claim, and from dietary supplements. In order to be considered a medical food the product must, at a minimum:[38][39]
+
+Medical foods can be classified into the following categories:
+
+Natural foods and "all-natural foods" are widely used terms in food labeling and marketing with a variety of definitions, most of which are vague. The term is often assumed to imply foods that are not processed and whose ingredients are all natural products (in the chemist's sense of that term), thus conveying an appeal to nature. But the lack of standards in most jurisdictions means that the term assures nothing. In some countries, the term "natural" is defined and enforced. In others, such as the United States, it is not enforced.
+
+“Natural foods” are often assumed to be foods that are not processed, or do not contain any food additives, or do not contain particular additives such as hormones, antibiotics, sweeteners, food colors, or flavorings that were not originally in the food.[40]  In fact, many people (63%) when surveyed showed a preference for products labeled "natural" compared to the unmarked counterparts, based on the common belief (86% of polled consumers) that the term "natural" indicated that the food does not contain any artificial ingredients.[41] The terms are variously used and misused on labels and in advertisements.[42]
+
+The international Food and Agriculture Organization’s Codex Alimentarius does not recognize the term “natural” but does have a standard for organic foods.[43]
+
+A negative-calorie food is food that supposedly requires more food energy to be digested than the food provides. Its thermic effect or specific dynamic action – the caloric "cost" of digesting the food – would be greater than its food energy content. Despite its recurring popularity in dieting guides, there is no scientific evidence supporting the idea that any food is calorically negative. While some chilled beverages are calorically negative, the effect is minimal[44] and drinking large amounts of water can be dangerous.
+
+Organic food is food produced by methods that comply with the standards of organic farming. Standards vary worldwide, but organic farming in general features practices that strive to cycle resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity. Organizations regulating organic products may restrict the use of certain pesticides and fertilizers in farming. In general, organic foods are also usually not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents or synthetic food additives.[45]
+
+Currently, the European Union, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, and many other countries require producers to obtain special certification in order to market food as organic within their borders. In the context of these regulations, organic food is produced in a way that complies with organic standards set by regional organizations, national governments, and international organizations. Although the produce of kitchen gardens may be organic, selling food with an organic label is regulated by governmental food safety authorities, such as the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) or European Commission (EC).[46]
+
+Fertilizing and the use of pesticides in conventional farming has caused, and is causing, enormous damage worldwide to local ecosystems, biodiversity, groundwater and drinking water supplies, and sometimes farmer health and fertility. These environmental, economic and health issues are intended to be minimized or avoided in organic farming. From a consumers perspective, there is not sufficient evidence in scientific and medical literature to support claims that organic food is safer or healthier to eat than conventionally grown food. While there may be some differences in the nutrient and antinutrient contents of organically- and conventionally-produced food, the variable nature of food production and handling makes it difficult to generalize results.[47][48][49][50][51] Claims that organic food tastes better are generally not supported by tests.[48][52]
+
+Peasant foods are dishes specific to a particular culture, made from accessible and inexpensive ingredients, and usually prepared and seasoned to make them more palatable. They often form a significant part of the diets of people who live in poverty, or have a lower income compared to the average for their society or country.
+
+Peasant foods have been described as being the diet of peasants, that is, tenant or poorer farmers and their farm workers,[53] and by extension, of other cash-poor people. They may use ingredients, such as offal and less-tender cuts of meat, which are not as marketable as a cash crop. Characteristic recipes often consist of hearty one-dish meals, in which chunks of meat and various vegetables are eaten in a savory broth, with bread or other staple food. Sausages are also amenable to varied readily available ingredients, and they themselves tend to contain offal and grains.
+
+Peasant foods often involve skilled preparation by knowledgeable cooks using inventiveness and skills passed down from earlier generations. Such dishes are often prized as ethnic foods by other cultures and by descendants of the native culture who still desire these traditional dishes.[citation needed]
+
+Prison food is the term for meals served to prisoners while incarcerated in correctional institutions. While some prisons prepare their own food, many use staff from on-site catering companies. Many prisons today support the requirements of specific religions, as well as vegetarianism.[54] It is said that prison food of many developed countries is adequate to maintain health and dieting.[55][unreliable source?]
+
+"Seasonal" here refers to the times of the year when the harvest or the flavor of a given type of food is at its peak. This is usually the time when the item is harvested, with some exceptions; an example being sweet potatoes which are best eaten quite a while after harvest. It also appeals to people who prefer a low carbon diet that reduces the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from food consumption (Food miles).
+
+Shelf-stable food (sometimes ambient food) is food of a type that can be safely stored at room temperature in a sealed container. This includes foods that would normally be stored refrigerated but which have been processed so that they can be safely stored at room or ambient temperature for a usefully long shelf life.
+
+Various food preservation and packaging techniques are used to extend a food's shelf life.  Decreasing the amount of available water in a product, increasing its acidity, or irradiating[56] or otherwise sterilizing the food and then sealing it in an air-tight container are all ways of depriving bacteria of suitable conditions in which to thrive. All of these approaches can all extend a food's shelf life without unacceptably changing its taste or texture.
+
+For some foods, alternative ingredients can be used. Common oils and fats become rancid relatively quickly if not refrigerated; replacing them with hydrogenated oils delays the onset of rancidity, increasing shelf life. This is a common approach in industrial food production, but recent concerns about health hazards associated with trans fats have led to their strict control in several jurisdictions.[57] Even where trans fats are not prohibited, in many places there are new labeling laws (or rules), which require information to be printed on packages, or to be published elsewhere, about the amount of trans fat contained in certain products.
+
+Space food is a type of food product created and processed for consumption by astronauts in outer space. The food has specific requirements of providing balanced nutrition for individuals working in space while being easy and safe to store, prepare and consume in the machinery-filled weightless environments of crewed spacecraft.
+
+In recent years, space food has been used by various nations engaging in space programs as a way to share and show off their cultural identity and facilitate intercultural communication. Although astronauts consume a wide variety of foods and beverages in space, the initial idea from The Man in Space Committee of the Space Science Board in 1963 was to supply astronauts with a formula diet that would supply all the needed vitamins and nutrients.[58]
+
+Traditional foods are foods and dishes that are passed through generations[59] or which have been consumed many generations.[60] Traditional foods and dishes are traditional in nature, and may have a historic precedent in a national dish, regional cuisine[59] or local cuisine. Traditional foods and beverages may be produced as homemade, by restaurants and small manufacturers, and by large food processing plant facilities.[61]
+
+Some traditional foods have geographical indications and traditional specialities in the European Union designations per European Union schemes of geographical indications and traditional specialties: Protected designation of origin (PDO), Protected geographical indication (PGI) and Traditional specialities guaranteed (TSG). These standards serve to promote and protect names of quality agricultural products and foodstuffs.[62]
+
+This article also includes information about traditional beverages.
+
+Whole foods are plant foods that are unprocessed and unrefined, or processed and refined as little as possible, before being consumed.[63] Examples of whole foods include whole grains, tubers, legumes, fruits, vegetables.[64]
+
+There is some confusion over the usage of the term surrounding the inclusion of certain foods, in particular animal foods. The modern usage of the term whole foods diet is now widely synonymous with "whole foods plant-based diet" with animal products, oil and salt no longer constituting whole foods.[65]
+
+The earliest use of the term in the post-industrial age appears to be in 1946 in The Farmer, a quarterly magazine published and edited from his farm by F. Newman Turner, a writer and pioneering organic farmer. The magazine sponsored the establishment of the Producer-Consumer Whole Food Society Ltd, with Newman Turner as president and Derek Randal as vice-president.[66] Whole food was defined as "mature produce of field, orchard, or garden without subtraction, addition, or alteration grown from seed without chemical dressing, in fertile soil manured solely with animal and vegetable wastes, and composts therefrom, and ground, raw rock and without chemical manures, sprays, or insecticides," having intent to connect suppliers and the growing public demand for such food.[66] Such diets are rich in whole and unrefined foods, like whole grains, dark green and yellow/orange-fleshed vegetables and fruits, legumes, nuts and seeds.[63]
+
+Most food has always been obtained through agriculture. With increasing concern over both the methods and products of modern industrial agriculture, there has been a growing trend toward sustainable agricultural practices. This approach, partly fueled by consumer demand, encourages biodiversity, local self-reliance and organic farming methods.[67] Major influences on food production include international organizations (e.g. the World Trade Organization and Common Agricultural Policy), national government policy (or law), and war.[68]
+
+Several organisations have begun calling for a new kind of agriculture in which agroecosystems provide food but also support vital ecosystem services so that soil fertility and biodiversity are maintained rather than compromised. According to the International Water Management Institute and UNEP, well-managed agroecosystems not only provide food, fiber and animal products, they also provide services such as flood mitigation, groundwater recharge, erosion control and habitats for plants, birds, fish and other animals.[69]
+
+Animals, specifically humans, have five different types of tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. As animals have evolved, the tastes that provide the most energy (sugar and fats) are the most pleasant to eat while others, such as bitter, are not enjoyable.[70] Water, while important for survival, has no taste.[71] Fats, on the other hand, especially saturated fats, are thicker and rich and are thus considered more enjoyable to eat.
+
+Generally regarded as the most pleasant taste, sweetness is almost always caused by a type of simple sugar such as glucose or fructose, or disaccharides such as sucrose, a molecule combining glucose and fructose.[72] Complex carbohydrates are long chains and thus do not have the sweet taste. Artificial sweeteners such as sucralose are used to mimic the sugar molecule, creating the sensation of sweet, without the calories. Other types of sugar include raw sugar, which is known for its amber color, as it is unprocessed. As sugar is vital for energy and survival, the taste of sugar is pleasant.
+
+The stevia plant contains a compound known as steviol which, when extracted, has 300 times the sweetness of sugar while having minimal impact on blood sugar.[73]
+
+Sourness is caused by the taste of acids, such as vinegar in alcoholic beverages. Sour foods include citrus, specifically lemons, limes, and to a lesser degree oranges. Sour is evolutionarily significant as it is a sign for a food that may have gone rancid due to bacteria.[74] Many foods, however, are slightly acidic, and help stimulate the taste buds and enhance flavor.
+
+Saltiness is the taste of alkali metal ions such as sodium and potassium. It is found in almost every food in low to moderate proportions to enhance flavor, although to eat pure salt is regarded as highly unpleasant. There are many different types of salt, with each having a different degree of saltiness, including sea salt, fleur de sel, kosher salt, mined salt, and grey salt. Other than enhancing flavor, its significance is that the body needs and maintains a delicate electrolyte balance, which is the kidney's function. Salt may be iodized, meaning iodine has been added to it, a necessary nutrient that promotes thyroid function. Some canned foods, notably soups or packaged broths, tend to be high in salt as a means of preserving the food longer. Historically salt has long been used as a meat preservative as salt promotes water excretion. Similarly, dried foods also promote food safety.[75]
+
+Bitterness is a sensation often considered unpleasant characterized by having a sharp, pungent taste. Unsweetened dark chocolate, caffeine, lemon rind, and some types of fruit are known to be bitter.
+
+Umami, the Japanese word for delicious, is the least known in Western popular culture but has a long tradition in Asian cuisine. Umami is the taste of glutamates, especially monosodium glutamate (MSG).[72] It is characterized as savory, meaty, and rich in flavor.[76] Salmon and mushrooms are foods high in umami.[77]
+
+Many scholars claim that the rhetorical function of food is to represent the culture of a country, and that it can be used as a form of communication. According to Goode, Curtis and Theophano, food "is the last aspect of an ethnic culture to be lost".[78]
+
+Many cultures have a recognizable cuisine, a specific set of cooking traditions using various spices or a combination of flavors unique to that culture, which evolves over time. Other differences include preferences (hot or cold, spicy, etc.) and practices, the study of which is known as gastronomy. Many cultures have diversified their foods by means of preparation, cooking methods, and manufacturing. This also includes a complex food trade which helps the cultures to economically survive by way of food, not just by consumption.
+
+Some popular types of ethnic foods include Italian, French, Japanese, Chinese, American, Cajun, Thai, African, Indian and Nepalese. Various cultures throughout the world study the dietary analysis of food habits. While evolutionarily speaking, as opposed to culturally, humans are omnivores, religion and social constructs such as morality, activism, or environmentalism will often affect which foods they will consume. Food is eaten and typically enjoyed through the sense of taste, the perception of flavor from eating and drinking. Certain tastes are more enjoyable than others, for evolutionary purposes.
+
+Aesthetically pleasing and eye-appealing food presentations can encourage people to consume foods. A common saying is that people "eat with their eyes". Food presented in a clean and appetizing way will encourage a good flavor, even if unsatisfactory.[79][80]
+
+Texture plays a crucial role in the enjoyment of eating foods. Contrasts in textures, such as something crunchy in an otherwise smooth dish, may increase the appeal of eating it. Common examples include adding granola to yogurt, adding croutons to a salad or soup, and toasting bread to enhance its crunchiness for a smooth topping, such as jam or butter.[81]
+
+Another universal phenomenon regarding food is the appeal of contrast in taste and presentation. For example, such opposite flavors as sweetness and saltiness tend to go well together, as in kettle corn and nuts.
+
+While many foods can be eaten raw, many also undergo some form of preparation for reasons of safety, palatability, texture, or flavor. At the simplest level this may involve washing, cutting, trimming, or adding other foods or ingredients, such as spices. It may also involve mixing, heating or cooling, pressure cooking, fermentation, or combination with other food. In a home, most food preparation takes place in a kitchen. Some preparation is done to enhance the taste or aesthetic appeal; other preparation may help to preserve the food; others may be involved in cultural identity. A meal is made up of food which is prepared to be eaten at a specific time and place.[82]
+
+The preparation of animal-based food usually involves slaughter, evisceration, hanging, portioning, and rendering. In developed countries, this is usually done outside the home in slaughterhouses, which are used to process animals en masse for meat production. Many countries regulate their slaughterhouses by law. For example, the United States has established the Humane Slaughter Act of 1958, which requires that an animal be stunned before killing. This act, like those in many countries, exempts slaughter in accordance with religious law, such as kosher, shechita, and dhabīḥah halal. Strict interpretations of kashrut require the animal to be fully aware when its carotid artery is cut.[83]
+
+On the local level, a butcher may commonly break down larger animal meat into smaller manageable cuts, and pre-wrap them for commercial sale or wrap them to order in butcher paper. In addition, fish and seafood may be fabricated into smaller cuts by a fishmonger. However, fish butchery may be done onboard a fishing vessel and quick-frozen for the preservation of quality.[84]
+
+The term "cooking" encompasses a vast range of methods, tools, and combinations of ingredients to improve the flavor or digestibility of food. Cooking technique, known as culinary art, generally requires the selection, measurement, and combining of ingredients in an ordered procedure in an effort to achieve the desired result. Constraints on success include the variability of ingredients, ambient conditions, tools, and the skill of the individual cook.[85] The diversity of cooking worldwide is a reflection of the myriad nutritional, aesthetic, agricultural, economic, cultural, and religious considerations that affect it.[86]
+
+Cooking requires applying heat to a food which usually, though not always, chemically changes the molecules, thus changing its flavor, texture, appearance, and nutritional properties.[87] Cooking certain proteins, such as egg whites, meats, and fish, denatures the protein, causing it to firm. There is archaeological evidence of roasted foodstuffs at Homo erectus campsites dating from 420,000 years ago.[88] Boiling as a means of cooking requires a container, and has been practiced at least since the 10th millennium BC with the introduction of pottery.[89]
+
+There are many different types of equipment used for cooking.
+
+Ovens are mostly hollow devices that get very hot (up to 500 °F (260 °C)) and are used for baking or roasting and offer a dry-heat cooking method. Different cuisines will use different types of ovens. For example, Indian culture uses a tandoor oven, which is a cylindrical clay oven which operates at a single high temperature.[90] Western kitchens use variable temperature convection ovens, conventional ovens, toaster ovens, or non-radiant heat ovens like the microwave oven. Classic Italian cuisine includes the use of a brick oven containing burning wood. Ovens may be wood-fired, coal-fired, gas, electric, or oil-fired.[91]
+
+Various types of cook-tops are used as well. They carry the same variations of fuel types as the ovens mentioned above. Cook-tops are used to heat vessels placed on top of the heat source, such as a sauté pan, sauce pot, frying pan, or pressure cooker. These pieces of equipment can use either a moist or dry cooking method and include methods such as steaming, simmering, boiling, and poaching for moist methods, while the dry methods include sautéing, pan frying, and deep-frying.[92]
+
+In addition, many cultures use grills for cooking. A grill operates with a radiant heat source from below, usually covered with a metal grid and sometimes a cover. An open-pit barbecue in the American south is one example along with the American style outdoor grill fueled by wood, liquid propane, or charcoal along with soaked wood chips for smoking.[93] A Mexican style of barbecue is called barbacoa, which involves the cooking of meats such as whole sheep over an open fire. In Argentina, an asado (Spanish for "grilled") is prepared on a grill held over an open pit or fire made upon the ground, on which a whole animal or smaller cuts are grilled.[94]
+
+Certain cultures highlight animal and vegetable foods in a raw state. Salads consisting of raw vegetables or fruits are common in many cuisines. Sashimi in Japanese cuisine consists of raw sliced fish or other meat, and sushi often incorporates raw fish or seafood. Steak tartare and salmon tartare are dishes made from diced or ground raw beef or salmon, mixed with various ingredients and served with baguettes, brioche, or frites.[95] In Italy, carpaccio is a dish of very thinly sliced raw beef, drizzled with a vinaigrette made with olive oil.[96] The health food movement known as raw foodism promotes a mostly vegan diet of raw fruits, vegetables, and grains prepared in various ways, including juicing, food dehydration, sprouting, and other methods of preparation that do not heat the food above 118 °F (47.8 °C).[97] An example of a raw meat dish is ceviche, a Latin American dish made with raw meat that is "cooked" from the highly acidic citric juice from lemons and limes along with other aromatics such as garlic.
+
+Restaurants employ chefs to prepare the food, and waiters to serve customers at the table.[98] The term restaurant comes from an old term for a restorative meat broth; this broth (or bouillon) was served in elegant outlets in Paris from the mid 18th century.[99][100] These refined "restaurants" were a marked change from the usual basic eateries such as inns and taverns,[100] and some had developed from early Parisian cafés, such as Café Procope, by first serving bouillon, then adding other cooked food to their menus.[101]
+
+Commercial eateries existed during the Roman period, with evidence of 150 "thermopolia", a form of fast food restaurant, found in Pompeii,[102] and urban sales of prepared foods may have existed in China during the Song dynasty.[103]
+
+In 2005, the population of the United States spent $496 billion on out-of-home dining. Expenditures by type of out-of-home dining were as follows: 40% in full-service restaurants, 37.2% in limited service restaurants (fast food), 6.6% in schools or colleges, 5.4% in bars and vending machines, 4.7% in hotels and motels, 4.0% in recreational places, and 2.2% in others, which includes military bases.[104][better source needed][relevant?  – discuss]
+
+Packaged foods are manufactured outside the home for purchase. This can be as simple as a butcher preparing meat, or as complex as a modern international food industry. Early food processing techniques were limited by available food preservation, packaging, and transportation. This mainly involved salting, curing, curdling, drying, pickling, fermenting, and smoking.[105] Food manufacturing arose during the industrial revolution in the 19th century.[106] This development took advantage of new mass markets and emerging technology, such as milling, preservation, packaging and labeling, and transportation. It brought the advantages of pre-prepared time-saving food to the bulk of ordinary people who did not employ domestic servants.[107]
+
+At the start of the 21st century, a two-tier structure has arisen, with a few international food processing giants controlling a wide range of well-known food brands. There also exists a wide array of small local or national food processing companies.[108] Advanced technologies have also come to change food manufacture. Computer-based control systems, sophisticated processing and packaging methods, and logistics and distribution advances can enhance product quality, improve food safety, and reduce costs.[107]
+
+The World Bank reported that the European Union was the top food importer in 2005, followed at a distance by the US and Japan. Britain's need for food was especially well-illustrated in World War II.  Despite the implementation of food rationing, Britain remained dependent on food imports and the result was a long term engagement in the Battle of the Atlantic.
+
+Food is traded and marketed on a global basis. The variety and availability of food is no longer restricted by the diversity of locally grown food or the limitations of the local growing season.[109] Between 1961 and 1999, there was a 400% increase in worldwide food exports.[110] Some countries are now economically dependent on food exports, which in some cases account for over 80% of all exports.[111]
+
+In 1994, over 100 countries became signatories to the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in a dramatic increase in trade liberalization. This included an agreement to reduce subsidies paid to farmers, underpinned by the WTO enforcement of agricultural subsidy, tariffs, import quotas, and settlement of trade disputes that cannot be bilaterally resolved.[112] Where trade barriers are raised on the disputed grounds of public health and safety, the WTO refer the dispute to the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which was founded in 1962 by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization. Trade liberalization has greatly affected world food trade.[113]
+
+Food marketing brings together the producer and the consumer. The marketing of even a single food product can be a complicated process involving many producers and companies. For example, fifty-six companies are involved in making one can of chicken noodle soup. These businesses include not only chicken and vegetable processors but also the companies that transport the ingredients and those who print labels and manufacture cans.[114] The food marketing system is the largest direct and indirect non-government employer in the United States.
+
+In the pre-modern era, the sale of surplus food took place once a week when farmers took their wares on market day into the local village marketplace. Here food was sold to grocers for sale in their local shops for purchase by local consumers.[86][107] With the onset of industrialization and the development of the food processing industry, a wider range of food could be sold and distributed in distant locations. Typically early grocery shops would be counter-based shops, in which purchasers told the shop-keeper what they wanted, so that the shop-keeper could get it for them.[86][115]
+
+In the 20th century, supermarkets were born. Supermarkets brought with them a self service approach to shopping using shopping carts, and were able to offer quality food at lower cost through economies of scale and reduced staffing costs. In the latter part of the 20th century, this has been further revolutionized by the development of vast warehouse-sized, out-of-town supermarkets, selling a wide range of food from around the world.[116]
+
+Unlike food processors, food retailing is a two-tier market in which a small number of very large companies control a large proportion of supermarkets. The supermarket giants wield great purchasing power over farmers and processors, and strong influence over consumers. Nevertheless, less than 10% of consumer spending on food goes to farmers, with larger percentages going to advertising, transportation, and intermediate corporations.[117]
+
+It is rare for price spikes to hit all major foods in most countries at once, but food prices suffered all-time peaks in 2008 and 2011, posting a 15% and 12% deflated increase year-over-year, representing prices higher than any data collected.[119] One reason for the increase in food prices may be the increase in oil prices at the same time.[120][121]
+
+In December 2007, 37 countries faced food crises, and 20 had imposed some sort of food-price controls. In China, the price of pork jumped 58% in 2007. In the 1980s and 1990s, farm subsidies and support programs allowed major grain exporting countries to hold large surpluses, which could be tapped during food shortages to keep prices down. However, new trade policies had made agricultural production much more responsive to market demands, putting global food reserves at their lowest since 1983.[122]
+
+Rising food prices in those years have been linked with social unrest around the world, including rioting in Bangladesh and Mexico,[123] and the Arab Spring.[124]
+Food prices worldwide increased in 2008.[125][126]
+One cause of rising food prices is wealthier Asian consumers are westernizing their diets, and farmers and nations of the third world are struggling to keep up the pace. The past five years have seen rapid growth in the contribution of Asian nations to the global fluid and powdered milk manufacturing industry, which in 2008 accounted for more than 30% of production, while China alone accounts for more than 10% of both production and consumption in the global fruit and vegetable processing and preserving industry.[127]
+
+In 2013 Overseas Development Institute researchers showed that rice has more than doubled in price since 2000, rising by 120% in real terms. This was as a result of shifts in trade policy and restocking by major producers. More fundamental drivers of increased prices are the higher costs of fertilizer, diesel, and labor. Parts of Asia see rural wages rise with potential large benefits for the 1.3 billion (2008 estimate) of Asia's poor in reducing the poverty they face. However, this negatively impacts more vulnerable groups who don't share in the economic boom, especially in Asian and African coastal cities. The researchers said the threat means social-protection policies are needed to guard against price shocks. The research proposed that in the longer run, the rises present opportunities to export for Western African farmers with high potential for rice production to replace imports with domestic production.[128]
+
+Most recently, global food prices have been more stable and relatively low, after a sizable increase in late 2017, they are back under 75% of the nominal value seen during the all-time high in the 2011 food crisis.
+
+Institutions such as hedge funds, pension funds and investment banks like Barclays Capital, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley[123] have been instrumental in pushing up prices in the last five years, with investment in food commodities rising from $65bn to $126bn (£41bn to £79bn) between 2007 and 2012, contributing to 30-year highs. This has caused price fluctuations which are not strongly related to the actual supply of food, according to the United Nations.[123] Financial institutions now make up 61% of all investment in wheat futures. According to Olivier De Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on food, there was a rush by institutions to enter the food market following George W. Bush's Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000.[123] De Schutter told the Independent in March 2012: "What we are seeing now is that these financial markets have developed massively with the arrival of these new financial investors, who are purely interested in the short-term monetary gain and are not really interested in the physical thing – they never actually buy the ton of wheat or maize; they only buy a promise to buy or to sell. The result of this financialization of the commodities market is that the prices of the products respond increasingly to a purely speculative logic. This explains why in very short periods of time we see prices spiking or bubbles exploding because prices are less and less determined by the real match between supply and demand."[123] In 2011, 450 economists from around the world called on the G20 to regulate the commodities market more.[123]
+
+Some experts have said that speculation has merely aggravated other factors, such as climate change, competition with bio-fuels and overall rising demand.[123] However, some such as Jayati Ghosh, professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, have pointed out that prices have increased irrespective of supply and demand issues: Ghosh points to world wheat prices, which doubled in the period from June to December 2010, despite there being no fall in global supply.[123]
+
+Food deprivation leads to malnutrition and ultimately starvation. This is often connected with famine, which involves the absence of food in entire communities. This can have a devastating and widespread effect on human health and mortality. Rationing is sometimes used to distribute food in times of shortage, most notably during times of war.[68]
+
+Starvation is a significant international problem. Approximately 815 million people are undernourished, and over 16,000 children die per day from hunger-related causes.[129] Food deprivation is regarded as a deficit need in Maslow's hierarchy of needs and is measured using famine scales.[130]
+
+Food aid can benefit people suffering from a shortage of food. It can be used to improve peoples' lives in the short term, so that a society can increase its standard of living to the point that food aid is no longer required.[131] Conversely, badly managed food aid can create problems by disrupting local markets, depressing crop prices, and discouraging food production. Sometimes a cycle of food aid dependence can develop.[132] Its provision, or threatened withdrawal, is sometimes used as a political tool to influence the policies of the destination country, a strategy known as food politics. Sometimes, food aid provisions will require certain types of food be purchased from certain sellers, and food aid can be misused to enhance the markets of donor countries.[133] International efforts to distribute food to the neediest countries are often coordinated by the World Food Programme.[134]
+
+Foodborne illness, commonly called "food poisoning", is caused by bacteria, toxins, viruses, parasites, and prions. Roughly 7 million people die of food poisoning each year, with about 10 times as many suffering from a non-fatal version.[135] The two most common factors leading to cases of bacterial foodborne illness are cross-contamination of ready-to-eat food from other uncooked foods and improper temperature control. Less commonly, acute adverse reactions can also occur if chemical contamination of food occurs, for example from improper storage, or use of non-food grade soaps and disinfectants. Food can also be adulterated by a very wide range of articles (known as "foreign bodies") during farming, manufacture, cooking, packaging, distribution, or sale. These foreign bodies can include pests or their droppings, hairs, cigarette butts, wood chips, and all manner of other contaminants. It is possible for certain types of food to become contaminated if stored or presented in an unsafe container, such as a ceramic pot with lead-based glaze.[135]
+
+Food poisoning has been recognized as a disease since as early as Hippocrates.[136] The sale of rancid, contaminated, or adulterated food was commonplace until the introduction of hygiene, refrigeration, and vermin controls in the 19th century. Discovery of techniques for killing bacteria using heat, and other microbiological studies by scientists such as Louis Pasteur, contributed to the modern sanitation standards that are ubiquitous in developed nations today. This was further underpinned by the work of Justus von Liebig, which led to the development of modern food storage and food preservation methods.[137] In more recent years, a greater understanding of the causes of food-borne illnesses has led to the development of more systematic approaches such as the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP), which can identify and eliminate many risks.[138]
+
+Recommended measures for ensuring food safety include maintaining a clean preparation area with foods of different types kept separate, ensuring an adequate cooking temperature, and refrigerating foods promptly after cooking.[139]
+
+Foods that spoil easily, such as meats, dairy, and seafood, must be prepared a certain way to avoid contaminating the people for whom they are prepared. As such, the rule of thumb is that cold foods (such as dairy products) should be kept cold and hot foods (such as soup) should be kept hot until storage. Cold meats, such as chicken, that are to be cooked should not be placed at room temperature for thawing, at the risk of dangerous bacterial growth, such as Salmonella or E. coli.[140]
+
+Some people have allergies or sensitivities to foods that are not problematic to most people. This occurs when a person's immune system mistakes a certain food protein for a harmful foreign agent and attacks it. About 2% of adults and 8% of children have a food allergy.[141] The amount of the food substance required to provoke a reaction in a particularly susceptible individual can be quite small. In some instances, traces of food in the air, too minute to be perceived through smell, have been known to provoke lethal reactions in extremely sensitive individuals. Common food allergens are gluten, corn, shellfish (mollusks), peanuts, and soy.[141] Allergens frequently produce symptoms such as diarrhea, rashes, bloating, vomiting, and regurgitation. The digestive complaints usually develop within half an hour of ingesting the allergen.[141]
+
+Rarely, food allergies can lead to a medical emergency, such as anaphylactic shock, hypotension (low blood pressure), and loss of consciousness. An allergen associated with this type of reaction is peanut, although latex products can induce similar reactions.[141] Initial treatment is with epinephrine (adrenaline), often carried by known patients in the form of an Epi-pen or Twinject.[142][143]
+
+Human diet was estimated to cause perhaps around 35% of cancers in a human epidemiological analysis by Richard Doll and Richard Peto in 1981.[144]  These cancer may be caused by carcinogens that are present in food naturally or as contaminants. Food contaminated with fungal growth may contain mycotoxins such as aflatoxins which may be found in contaminated corn and peanuts.  Other carcinogens identified in food include heterocyclic amines generated in meat when cooked at high temperature, polyaromatic hydrocarbons in charred meat and smoked fish, and nitrosamines generated from nitrites used as food preservatives in cured meat such as bacon.[145]
+
+Anticarcinogens that may help prevent cancer can also be found in many food especially fruit and vegetables. Antioxidants are important groups of compounds that may help remove potentially harmful chemicals. It is however often difficult to identify the specific components in diet that serve to increase or decrease cancer risk since many food, such as beef steak and broccoli, contain low concentrations of both carcinogens and anticarcinogens.[145]
+There are many international certifications in the cooking field, such as Monde Selection, A.A. Certification, iTQi. They use high-quality evaluation methods to make the food become safer.
+
+Many cultures hold some food preferences and some food taboos. Dietary choices can also define cultures and play a role in religion. For example, only kosher foods are permitted by Judaism, halal foods by Islam, and in Hinduism beef is restricted.[149] In addition, the dietary choices of different countries or regions have different characteristics. This is highly related to a culture's cuisine.
+
+Dietary habits play a significant role in the health and mortality of all humans. Imbalances between the consumed fuels and expended energy results in either starvation or excessive reserves of adipose tissue, known as body fat.[150] Poor intake of various vitamins and minerals can lead to diseases that can have far-reaching effects on health. For instance, 30% of the world's population either has, or is at risk for developing, iodine deficiency.[151] It is estimated that at least 3 million children are blind due to vitamin A deficiency.[152] Vitamin C deficiency results in scurvy.[153] Calcium, Vitamin D, and phosphorus are inter-related; the consumption of each may affect the absorption of the others. Kwashiorkor and marasmus are childhood disorders caused by lack of dietary protein.[154]
+
+Many individuals limit what foods they eat for reasons of morality or other habits. For instance, vegetarians choose to forgo food from animal sources to varying degrees. Others choose a healthier diet, avoiding sugars or animal fats and increasing consumption of dietary fiber and antioxidants.[155] Obesity, a serious problem in the western world, leads to higher chances of developing heart disease, diabetes, cancer and many other diseases.[156] More recently, dietary habits have been influenced by the concerns that some people have about possible impacts on health or the environment from genetically modified food.[157] Further concerns about the impact of industrial farming (grains) on animal welfare, human health, and the environment are also having an effect on contemporary human dietary habits. This has led to the emergence of a movement with a preference for organic and local food.[158]
+
+Between the extremes of optimal health and death from starvation or malnutrition, there is an array of disease states that can be caused or alleviated by changes in diet. Deficiencies, excesses, and imbalances in diet can produce negative impacts on health, which may lead to various health problems such as scurvy, obesity, or osteoporosis, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases as well as psychological and behavioral problems. The science of nutrition attempts to understand how and why specific dietary aspects influence health.
+
+Nutrients in food are grouped into several categories. Macronutrients are fat, protein, and carbohydrates. Micronutrients are the minerals and vitamins. Additionally, food contains water and dietary fiber.
+
+As previously discussed, the body is designed by natural selection to enjoy sweet and fattening foods for evolutionary diets, ideal for hunters and gatherers. Thus, sweet and fattening foods in nature are typically rare and are very pleasurable to eat. In modern times, with advanced technology, enjoyable foods are easily available to consumers. Unfortunately, this promotes obesity in adults and children alike.
+
+Some countries list a legal definition of food, often referring them with the word foodstuff. These countries list food as any item that is to be processed, partially processed, or unprocessed for consumption. The listing of items included as food includes any substance intended to be, or reasonably expected to be, ingested by humans. In addition to these foodstuffs, drink, chewing gum, water, or other items processed into said food items are part of the legal definition of food. Items not included in the legal definition of food include animal feed, live animals (unless being prepared for sale in a market), plants prior to harvesting, medicinal products, cosmetics, tobacco and tobacco products, narcotic or psychotropic substances, and residues and contaminants.[159]

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+Population density (in agriculture: standing stock and standing crop) is a measurement of population per unit area, or exceptionally unit volume; it is a quantity of type number density. It is frequently applied to living organisms, most of the time to humans. It is a key geographical term.[1] In simple terms, population density refers to the number of people living in an area per square kilometre.
+
+Population density  is population divided by total land area or water volume, as appropriate.[1]
+
+Low densities may cause an extinction vortex and lead to further reduced fertility. This is called the Allee effect after the scientist who identified it. Examples of the causes of reduced fertility in low population densities are:[2]
+
+Population density is the number of people per unit of area, usually quoted per square kilometre or square mile, and which may include or exclude for example areas of water or glaciers. Commonly this may be calculated for a county, city, country, another territory or the entire world.
+
+The world's population is around 7,500,000,000[3] and Earth's total area (including land and water) is 510,000,000 km2 (197,000,000 sq. mi.).[4] Therefore, the worldwide human population density is around 7,500,000,000 ÷ 510,000,000 = 14.7 per km2 (38 per sq. mi.). If only the Earth's land area of 150,000,000 km2 (58,000,000 sq. mi.) is taken into account, then human population density is 50 per km2 (129 per sq. mi.). This includes all continental and island land area, including Antarctica. If Antarctica is also excluded, then population density rises to over 55 people per km2 (over 142 per sq. mi.).[1] However, over half[citation needed] of the Earth's land mass consists of areas inhospitable to human habitation, such as deserts and high mountains, and population tends to cluster around seaports and fresh-water sources. Thus, additional criteria are needed to make simple population density values useful.
+
+Several of the most densely populated territories in the world are city-states, microstates and urban dependencies.[5][6] These territories have a relatively small area and a high urbanization level, with an economically specialized city population drawing also on rural resources outside the area, illustrating the difference between high population density and overpopulation.
+
+Deserts have very limited potential for growing crops as there is not enough rain to support them. Thus their population density is generally low. However some cities in the Middle East, such as Dubai, have been increasing in population and infrastructure growth at a fast pace.[7]
+
+Cities with high population densities are, by some, considered to be overpopulated, though this will depend on factors like quality of housing and infrastructure and access to resources.[8] Very densely populated cities are mostly in Asia (particularly Southeast Asia); Africa's Lagos, Kinshasa and Cairo; South America's Bogotá, Lima and São Paulo; and Mexico City and Saint Petersburg also fall into this category.[9]
+
+City population and especially area are, however, heavily dependent on the definition of "urban area" used: densities are almost invariably higher for the centre only than when suburban settlements and intervening rural areas are included, as in the agglomeration or metropolitan area (the latter sometimes including neighboring cities).
+
+In comparison, based on a world population of 7 billion, the world's inhabitants, as a loose crowd taking up almost 1 m2 (10 sq. ft) per person (cf. Jacobs Method), would occupy a space a little larger than Delaware's land area.[citation needed]
+
+Although arithmetic density is the most common way of measuring population density, several other methods have been developed to provide a more accurate measure of population density over a specific area.

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+
+
+A tooth (plural teeth) is a hard, calcified structure found in the jaws (or mouths) of many vertebrates and used to break down food. Some animals, particularly carnivores, also use teeth for hunting or for defensive purposes. The roots of teeth are covered by gums. Teeth are not made of bone, but rather of multiple tissues of varying density and hardness that originate from the embryonic germ layer, the ectoderm.
+
+The general structure of teeth is similar across the vertebrates, although there is considerable variation in their form and position. The teeth of mammals have deep roots, and this pattern is also found in some fish, and in crocodilians. In most teleost fish, however, the teeth are attached to the outer surface of the bone, while in lizards they are attached to the inner surface of the jaw by one side. In cartilaginous fish, such as sharks, the teeth are attached by tough ligaments to the hoops of cartilage that form the jaw.[1]
+
+Some animals develop only one set of teeth (monophyodonts) while others develop many sets (polyphyodonts). Sharks, for example, grow a new set of teeth every two weeks to replace worn teeth. Rodent incisors grow and wear away continually through gnawing, which helps maintain relatively constant length. The industry of the beaver is due in part to this qualification. Many rodents such as voles and guinea pigs, but not mice, as well as leporidae like rabbits, have continuously growing molars in addition to incisors.[2][3]
+
+Teeth are not always attached to the jaw, as they are in mammals. In many reptiles and fish, teeth are attached to the palate or to the floor of the mouth, forming additional rows inside those on the jaws proper. Some teleosts even have teeth in the pharynx. While not true teeth in the usual sense, the dermal denticles of sharks are almost identical in structure and are likely to have the same evolutionary origin. Indeed, teeth appear to have first evolved in sharks, and are not found in the more primitive jawless fish – while lampreys do have tooth-like structures on the tongue, these are in fact, composed of keratin, not of dentine or enamel, and bear no relationship to true teeth.[1] Though "modern" teeth-like structures with dentine and enamel have been found in late conodonts, they are now supposed to have evolved independently of later vertebrates' teeth.[4][5]
+
+Living amphibians typically have small teeth, or none at all, since they commonly feed only on soft foods. In reptiles, teeth are generally simple and conical in shape, although there is some variation between species, most notably the venom-injecting fangs of snakes. The pattern of incisors, canines, premolars and molars is found only in mammals, and to varying extents, in their evolutionary ancestors. The numbers of these types of teeth vary greatly between species; zoologists use a standardised dental formula to describe the precise pattern in any given group.[1]
+
+The genes governing tooth development in mammals are homologous to those involved in the development of fish scales.[6] Study of a tooth plate of a fossil of the extinct fish Romundina stellina showed that the teeth and scales were made of the same tissues, also found in mammal teeth, lending support to the theory that teeth evolved as a modification of scales.[7]
+
+Teeth are among the most distinctive (and long-lasting) features of mammal species. Paleontologists use teeth to identify fossil species and determine their relationships. The shape of the animal's teeth are related to its diet. For example, plant matter is hard to digest, so herbivores have many molars for chewing and grinding. Carnivores, on the other hand, have canine teeth to kill prey and to tear meat.
+
+Mammals, in general, are diphyodont, meaning that they develop two sets of teeth. In humans, the first set (the "baby," "milk," "primary" or "deciduous" set) normally starts to appear at about six months of age, although some babies are born with one or more visible teeth, known as neonatal teeth.  Normal tooth eruption at about six months is known as teething and can be painful.  Kangaroos, elephants, and manatees are unusual among mammals because they are polyphyodonts.
+
+In Aardvarks, teeth lack enamel and have many pulp tubules, hence the name of the order Tubulidentata.
+
+In dogs, the teeth are less likely than humans to form dental cavities because of the very high pH of dog saliva, which prevents enamel from demineralizing.[8] Sometimes called cuspids, these teeth are shaped like points (cusps) and are used for tearing and grasping food[9]
+
+Like human teeth, whale teeth have polyp-like protrusions located on the root surface of the tooth. These polyps are made of cementum in both species, but in human teeth, the protrusions are located on the outside of the root, while in whales the nodule is located on the inside of the pulp chamber. While the roots of human teeth are made of cementum on the outer surface, whales have cementum on the entire surface of the tooth with a very small layer of enamel at the tip. This small enamel layer is only seen in older whales where the cementum has been worn away to show the underlying enamel.[10]
+
+The toothed whale is a suborder of the cetaceans characterized by having teeth.  The teeth differ considerably among the species. They may be numerous, with some dolphins bearing over 100 teeth in their jaws.  On the other hand, the narwhals have a giant unicorn-like tusk, which is a tooth containing millions of sensory pathways and used for sensing during feeding, navigation, and mating. It is the most neurologically complex tooth known.  Beaked whales are almost toothless, with only bizarre teeth found in males.  These teeth may be used for feeding but also for demonstrating aggression and showmanship.
+
+In humans (and most other primates) there are usually 20 primary (also "baby" or "milk") teeth, and later up to 32 permanent teeth. Four of these 32 may be third molars or wisdom teeth, although these are not present in all adults, and may be removed surgically later in life.[11]
+
+Among primary teeth, 10 of them are usually found in the maxilla (i.e. upper jaw) and the other 10 in the mandible (i.e. lower jaw). Among permanent teeth, 16 are found in the maxilla and the other 16 in the mandible. Most of the teeth have uniquely distinguishing features.
+
+An adult horse has between 36 and 44 teeth. The enamel and dentin layers of horse teeth are intertwined.[12] All horses have 12 premolars, 12 molars, and 12 incisors.[13]  Generally, all male equines also have four canine teeth (called tushes) between the molars and incisors.  However, few female horses (less than 28%) have canines, and those that do usually have only one or two, which many times are only partially erupted.[14]  A few horses have one to four wolf teeth, which are vestigial premolars, with most of those having only one or two. They are equally common in male and female horses and much more likely to be on the upper jaw.  If present these can cause problems as they can interfere with the horse's bit contact. Therefore, wolf teeth are commonly removed.[13]
+
+Horse teeth can be used to estimate the animal's age.  Between birth and five years, age can be closely estimated by observing the eruption pattern on milk teeth and then permanent teeth.  By age five, all permanent teeth have usually erupted. The horse is then said to have a "full" mouth.  After the age of five, age can only be conjectured by studying the wear patterns on the incisors, shape, the angle at which the incisors meet, and other factors. The wear of teeth may also be affected by diet, natural abnormalities, and cribbing.  Two horses of the same age may have different wear patterns.
+
+A horse's incisors, premolars, and molars, once fully developed, continue to erupt as the grinding surface is worn down through chewing. A young adult horse will have teeth which are 4.5-5 inches long, with the majority of the crown remaining below the gumline in the dental socket. The rest of the tooth will slowly emerge from the jaw, erupting about 1/8" each year, as the horse ages. When the animal reaches old age, the crowns of the teeth are very short and the teeth are often lost altogether. Very old horses, if lacking molars, may need to have their fodder ground up and soaked in water to create a soft mush for them to eat in order to obtain adequate nutrition.
+
+Elephants' tusks are specialized incisors for digging food up and fighting. Some elephant teeth are similar to those in manatees, and it is notable that elephants are believed to have undergone an aquatic phase in their evolution.
+
+At birth, elephants have a total of 28 molar plate-like grinding teeth not including the tusks.  These are organized into four sets of seven successively larger teeth which the elephant will slowly wear through during its lifetime of chewing rough plant material.  Only four teeth are used for chewing at a given time, and as each tooth wears out, another tooth moves forward to take its place in a process similar to a conveyor belt.  The last and largest of these teeth usually becomes exposed when the animal is around 40 years of age, and will often last for an additional 20 years. When the last of these teeth has fallen out, regardless of the elephant's age, the animal will no longer be able to chew food and will die of starvation.[15][16]
+
+Rabbits and other lagomorphs usually shed their deciduous teeth before (or very shortly after) their birth, and are usually born with their permanent teeth.[17]  The teeth of rabbits complement their diet, which consists of a wide range of vegetation. Since many of the foods are abrasive enough to cause attrition, rabbit teeth grow continuously throughout life.[18]  Rabbits have a total of 6 incisors, three upper premolars, three upper molars, two lower premolars, and two lower molars on each side. There are no canines. Three to four millimeters of the tooth is worn away by incisors every week, whereas the posterior teeth require a month to wear away the same amount.[19]
+
+The incisors and cheek teeth of rabbits are called aradicular hypsodont teeth. This is sometimes referred to as an elodent dentition. These teeth grow or erupt continuously.  The growth or eruption is held in balance by dental abrasion from chewing a diet high in fiber.
+
+Rodents have upper and lower hypselodont incisors that can continuously grow enamel throughout its life without having properly formed roots.[20] These teeth are also known as aradicular teeth, and unlike humans whose ameloblasts die after tooth development, rodents continually produce enamel, they must wear down their teeth by gnawing on various materials.[21] Enamel and dentin are produced by the enamel organ, and growth is dependent on the presence of stem cells, cellular amplification, and cellular maturation structures in the odontogenic region.[22] Rodent incisors are used for cutting wood, biting through the skin of fruit, or for defense. This allows for the rate of wear and tooth growth to be at equilibrium.[20] The microstructure of rodent incisor enamel has shown to be useful in studying the phylogeny and systematics of rodents because of its independent evolution from the other dental traits. The enamel on rodent incisors are composed of two layers: the inner portio interna (PI) with Hunter-Schreger bands (HSB) and an outer portio externa (PE) with radial enamel (RE).[23] It usually involves the differential regulation of the epithelial stem cell niche in the tooth of two rodent species, such as guinea pigs.[24][25]
+
+The teeth have enamel on the outside and exposed dentin on the inside, so they self-sharpen during gnawing. On the other hand, continually growing molars are found in some rodent species, such as the sibling vole and the guinea pig.[24][25][24][25] There is variation in the dentition of the rodents, but generally, rodents lack canines and premolars, and have a space between their incisors and molars, called the diastema region.
+
+Manatees are polyphyodont with mandibular molars developing separately from the jaw and are encased in a bony shell separated by soft tissue.
+
+Walrus tusks are canine teeth that grow continuously throughout life.[26]
+
+Fish, such as sharks, may go through many teeth in their lifetime. The replacement of multiple teeth is known as polyphyodontia.
+
+A class of prehistoric shark are called cladodonts for their strange forked teeth.
+
+All amphibians have pedicellate teeth which are modified to be flexible due to connective tissue and uncalcified dentine that separates the crown from the base of the tooth.[27]
+
+Most amphibians exhibit teeth that have a slight attachment to the jaw or acrodont teeth. Acrodont teeth exhibit limited connection to the dentary and have little enervation.[28] This is ideal for organisms who mostly use their teeth for grasping, but not for crushing and allows for rapid regeneration of teeth at a low energy cost. Teeth are usually lost in the course of feeding if the prey is struggling.  Additionally, amphibians that undergo a metamorphosis develop bicuspid shaped teeth.[29]
+
+The teeth of reptiles are replaced constantly during their life.  Juvenile crocodilians replace teeth with larger ones at a rate as high as one new tooth per socket every month.  Once adult, tooth replacement rates can slow to two years and even longer.  Overall, crocodilians may use 3,000 teeth from birth to death. New teeth are created within old teeth.[citation needed]
+
+A skull of Ichthyornis discovered in 2014 suggests that the beak of birds may have evolved from teeth to allow chicks to escape their shells earlier, and thus avoid predators and also to penetrate protective covers such as hard earth to access underlying food.[30][31]
+
+True teeth are unique to vertebrates,[32] although many invertebrates have analogous structures often referred to as teeth. The organisms with the simplest genome bearing such tooth-like structures are perhaps the parasitic worms of the family Ancylostomatidae.[33] For example, the hookworm Necator americanus has two dorsal and two ventral cutting plates or teeth around the anterior margin of the buccal capsule. It also has a pair of subdorsal and a pair of subventral teeth located close to the rear.[34]
+
+Historically the European medicinal leech, another invertebrate parasite, has been used in medicine to remove blood from patients.[35] They have three jaws (tripartite) that look like little saws, and on them are about 100 sharp teeth used to incise the host. The incision leaves a mark that is an inverted Y inside of a circle. After piercing the skin and injecting anticoagulants (hirudin) and anaesthetics, they suck out blood, consuming up to ten times their body weight in a single meal.[36]
+
+In some species of Bryozoa, the first part of the stomach forms a muscular gizzard lined with chitinous teeth that crush armoured prey such as diatoms. Wave-like peristaltic contractions then move the food through the stomach for digestion.[37]
+
+Molluscs have a structure called a radula which bears a ribbon of chitinous teeth. However, these teeth are histologically and developmentally different from vertebrate teeth and are unlikely to be homologous. For example, vertebrate teeth develop from a neural crest mesenchyme-derived dental papilla, and the neural crest is specific to vertebrates, as are tissues such as enamel.[32]
+
+The radula is used by molluscs for feeding and is sometimes compared rather inaccurately to a tongue. It is a minutely toothed, chitinous ribbon, typically used for scraping or cutting food before the food enters the oesophagus. The radula is unique to molluscs, and is found in every class of mollusc apart from bivalves.
+
+Within the gastropods, the radula is used in feeding by both herbivorous and carnivorous snails and slugs. The arrangement of teeth (also known as denticles) on the radula ribbon varies considerably from one group to another as shown in the diagram on the left.
+
+Predatory marine snails such as the Naticidae use the radula plus an acidic secretion to bore through the shell of other molluscs. Other predatory marine snails, such as the Conidae, use a specialized radula tooth as a poisoned harpoon. Predatory pulmonate land slugs, such as the ghost slug, use elongated razor-sharp teeth on the radula to seize and devour earthworms. Predatory cephalopods, such as squid, use the radula for cutting prey.
+
+In most of the more ancient lineages of gastropods, the radula is used to graze by scraping diatoms and other microscopic algae off rock surfaces and other substrates. Limpets scrape algae from rocks using radula equipped with exceptionally hard rasping teeth.[38] These teeth have the strongest known tensile strength of any biological material, outperforming spider silk.[38] The mineral protein of the limpet teeth can withstand a tensile stress of 4.9 GPa, compared to 4 GPa of spider silk and 0.5 GPa of human teeth.[39]
+
+Because teeth are very resistant, often preserved when bones are not,[40] and reflect the diet of the host organism, they are very valuable to archaeologists and palaeontologists.[41] Early fish such as the thelodonts had scales composed of dentine and an enamel-like compound, suggesting that the origin of teeth was from scales which were retained in the mouth. Fish as early as the late Cambrian had dentine in their exoskeleton, which may have functioned in defense or for sensing their environment.[42] Dentine can be as hard as the rest of teeth and is composed of collagen fibres, reinforced with hydroxyapatite.[42]
+
+Though teeth are very resistant, they also can be brittle and highly susceptible to cracking.[43] However, cracking of the tooth can be used as a diagnostic tool for predicting bite force. Additionally, enamel fractures can also give valuable insight into the diet and behaviour of archaeological and fossil samples.
+
+Decalcification removes the enamel from teeth and leaves only the organic interior intact, which comprises dentine and cementine.[44] Enamel is quickly decalcified in acids,[45] perhaps by dissolution by plant acids or via diagenetic solutions, or in the stomachs of vertebrate predators.[44] Enamel can be lost by abrasion or spalling,[44] and is lost before dentine or bone are destroyed by the fossilisation process.[45]  In such a case, the 'skeleton' of the teeth would consist of the dentine, with a hollow pulp cavity.[44]
+The organic part of dentine, conversely, is destroyed by alkalis.[45]

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+
+
+Toothpaste is a paste or gel dentifrice used with a toothbrush to clean and maintain the aesthetics and health of teeth. Toothpaste is used to promote oral hygiene: it is an abrasive that aids in removing dental plaque and food from the teeth, assists in suppressing halitosis, and delivers active ingredients (most commonly fluoride) to help prevent tooth decay (dental caries) and gum disease (gingivitis).[1] Salt and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) are among materials that can be substituted for commercial toothpaste. Large amounts of swallowed toothpaste can be toxic.[2]
+
+A 2016 systematic review indicates that using toothpaste when brushing the teeth has no impact on the level of plaque removal.[3]
+
+In addition to 20%–42% water, toothpastes are derived from a variety of components, the three main ones being abrasives, fluoride, and detergents.
+
+Abrasives constitute at least 50% of a  typical toothpaste. These insoluble particles are designed to help remove plaque from the teeth. The removal of plaque and calculus prevents the accumulation of tartar and is widely claimed to help minimize cavities and periodontal disease, although the clinical significance of this benefit is debated.[4] Representative abrasives include particles of aluminum hydroxide (Al(OH)3), calcium carbonate (CaCO3), various calcium hydrogen phosphates, various silicas and zeolites, and hydroxyapatite (Ca5(PO4)3OH).
+
+Abrasives, like the dental polishing agents used in dentists' offices, also cause a small amount of enamel erosion which is termed "polishing" action. Some brands contain powdered white mica, which acts as a mild abrasive, and also adds a cosmetically pleasing glittery shimmer to the paste. The polishing of teeth removes stains from tooth surfaces, but has not been shown to improve dental health over and above the effects of the removal of plaque and calculus.[5]
+
+The abrasive effect of toothpaste is indicated by its RDA value. Too high RDA values are deleterious. Some dentists recommend toothpaste with an RDA value no higher than 50 for daily use.
+
+Fluoride in various forms is the most popular active ingredient in toothpaste to prevent cavities. Fluoride is present in small amounts in plants, animals, and some natural water sources. The additional fluoride in toothpaste has beneficial effects on the formation of dental enamel and bones. Sodium fluoride (NaF) is the most common source of fluoride, but stannous fluoride (SnF2), olaflur (an organic salt of fluoride), and sodium monofluorophosphate (Na2PO3F) are also used. Stannous fluoride has been shown to be more effective than sodium fluoride in reducing the incidence of dental caries[6] and controlling gingivitis, but causes somewhat more surface stains.[7]
+
+Much of the toothpaste sold in the United States has 1,000 to 1,100 parts per million fluoride. In European countries, such as the UK or Greece, the fluoride content is often higher; a NaF content of 0.312% w/w (1,450 ppm fluoride) is common. All of these concentrations are likely to prevent tooth decay, according to a 2019 Cochrane review.[8] Concentrations below 1,000 ppm are not likely to be preventive, and the preventive effect increases with concentration.  Clinical trials support the use of high fluoride dentifrices,[9] as it was found to reduce the amount of plaque accumulated, decrease the number of mutans streptococci and lactobacilli and possibly promote calcium fluoride deposits to a higher degree than after the use of traditional fluoride containing dentifrices.[10] However, these effects must be balanced with the increased risk of harm at higher concentrations.[9]
+
+Many, although not all, toothpastes contain sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) or related surfactants (detergents). SLS is found in many other personal care products as well, such as shampoo, and is mainly a foaming agent, which enables uniform distribution of toothpaste, improving its cleansing power.[5]
+
+Triclosan, an antibacterial agent, is a common toothpaste ingredient in the United Kingdom. Triclosan or zinc chloride prevent gingivitis and, according to the American Dental Association, helps reduce tartar and bad breath.[1][11] A 2006 review of clinical research concluded there was evidence for the effectiveness of 0.30% triclosan in reducing plaque and gingivitis.[12]  Another Cochrane review in 2013 has found that triclosan achieved a 22% reduction in plaque, and in gingivitis, a 48% reduction in bleeding gums. However, there was insufficient evidence to show a difference in fighting periodontitis and there was no evidence either of any harmful effects associated with the use of triclosan toothpastes for more than 3 years. The evidence relating to plaque and gingivitis was considered to be of moderate quality while for periodontitis was low quality.[13]
+
+Toothpaste comes in a variety of colors and flavors, intended to encourage use of the product. The three most common flavorants are peppermint, spearmint, and wintergreen. Toothpaste flavored with peppermint-anise oil is popular in the Mediterranean region. These flavors are provided by the respective oils, e.g. peppermint oil.[5] More exotic flavors include Anethole anise, apricot, bubblegum, cinnamon, fennel, lavender, neem, ginger, vanilla, lemon, orange, and pine. Alternatively, unflavored toothpastes exist.
+
+Hydroxyapatite nanocrystals and a variety of calcium phosphates are included in formulations for remineralization,[14] i.e. the reformation of enamel.
+
+Agents are added to suppress the tendency of toothpaste to dry into a powder. Included are various sugar alcohols, such as glycerol, sorbitol, or xylitol, or related derivatives, such as 1,2-propylene glycol and polyethyleneglycol.[15] Strontium chloride or potassium nitrate is included in some toothpastes to reduce sensitivity. Two systemic meta-analysis reviews reported that arginine, and  calcium sodium phosphosilicate - CSPS containing toothpastes are also effective in alleviating dentinal hypersensitivity respectively.[16][17] Another randomized clinical trial found superior effects when both formulas were combined together.[18]
+
+Sodium polyphosphate is added to minimize the formation of tartar.[citation needed] Other example to components in toothpastes is the Biotene, which has proved its efficiency in relieving the symptoms of dry mouth in people who suffer from xerostomia according to the results of two randomized clinical trials.[19][20]
+
+Chlorohexidine mouthwash has been popular for its positive effect on controlling plaque and gingivitis,[21] however, a systemic review studied the effects of chlorohexidine toothpastes and found insufficient evidence to support its use, tooth surface discoloration was observed as a side effect upon using it, which is considered a negative side effect that can affect patients' compliance.[22]
+
+Sodium hydroxide, also known as lye or caustic soda, is listed as an inactive ingredient in some toothpaste, for example Colgate Total.
+
+Some studies have demonstrated that toothpastes with xylitol as an ingredient are more effective at preventing dental caries in permanent teeth of children than toothpastes containing fluoride alone. Furthermore, xylitol has not been found to cause any harmful effects. Further investigation into the efficacy of toothpastes containing this product is however required as the currently available studies are of low quality and therefore the results of such studies must be applied carefully.[23]
+
+Fluoride-containing toothpaste can be acutely toxic if swallowed in large amounts,[24][25] but instances are exceedingly rare and result from prolonged and excessive use of toothpaste (i.e. several tubes per week).[26] Approximately 15 mg/kg body weight is the acute lethal dose, even though as small amount as 5 mg/kg may be fatal to some children.[27]
+
+The risk of using fluoride is low enough that the use of full-strength toothpaste (1350–1500 ppm fluoride) is advised for all ages. However, smaller volumes are used for young children, for example, a smear of toothpaste until three years old.[25] A major concern of dental fluorosis is for children under 12 months ingesting excessive fluoride through toothpaste. Nausea and vomiting are also problems which might arise with topical fluoride ingestion.[27]
+
+The inclusion of sweet-tasting but toxic diethylene glycol in Chinese-made toothpaste led to a recall in 2007 involving multiple toothpaste brands in several nations.[28] The world outcry made Chinese officials ban the practice of using diethylene glycol in toothpaste.[29]
+
+Reports have suggested triclosan, an active ingredient in many kinds of toothpastes, can combine with chlorine in tap water to form chloroform,[30] which the United States Environmental Protection Agency classifies as a probable human carcinogen. An animal study revealed the chemical might modify hormone regulation, and many other lab researches proved bacteria might be able to develop resistance to triclosan in a way which can help them to resist antibiotics also.[31]
+
+PEG is a common ingredient in some of the formulas of toothpastes; it is a hydrophilic polymer that acts as a dispersant in toothpastes. Also, it is used in many cosmetic and pharmaceutical formulas, for example: ointments, osmotic laxatives, some of the non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, other medications and household products.[32]  However, 37 cases of PEG hypersensitivity (delayed and immediate) to PEG-containing substances have been reported since 1977,[33] suggesting that they have unrecognized allergenic potential.[33]
+
+With the exception of toothpaste intended to be used on pets such as dogs and cats, and toothpaste used by astronauts, most toothpaste is not intended to be swallowed, and doing so may cause nausea or diarrhea. Tartar fighting toothpastes have been debated.[34] Case reports of plasma cell gingivitis have been reported with the use of herbal toothpaste containing cinnamon.[35] Sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) has been proposed to increase the frequency of mouth ulcers in some people, as it can dry out the protective layer of oral tissues, causing the underlying tissues to become damaged.[36] In studies conducted by the university of Oslo on recurrent aphthous ulcers, it was found that SLS has a denaturing effect on the oral mucin layer, with high affinity for proteins, thereby increasing epithelial permeability.[37] In a double-blind cross-over study, a significantly higher frequency of aphthous ulcers was demonstrated when patients brushed with an SLS-containing versus a detergent-free toothpaste. Also patients with Oral Lichen Planus who avoided SLS-containing toothpaste benefited.[38][39]
+
+After using toothpaste, orange juice and other juices have an unpleasant taste. Sodium lauryl sulfate alters taste perception. It can break down phospholipids that inhibit taste receptors for sweetness, giving food a bitter taste. In contrast, apples are known to taste more pleasant after using toothpaste.[40] Distinguishing between the hypotheses that the bitter taste of orange juice results from stannous fluoride or from sodium lauryl sulfate is still an unresolved issue and it is thought that the menthol added for flavor may also take part in the alteration of taste perception when binding to lingual cold receptors.[citation needed]
+
+Many toothpastes make whitening claims. Some of these toothpastes contain peroxide, the same ingredient found in tooth bleaching gels. The abrasive in these toothpastes, not the peroxide, removes the stains.[41] Whitening toothpaste cannot alter the natural color of teeth or reverse discoloration by penetrating surface stains or decay. To remove surface stains, whitening toothpaste may include abrasives to gently polish the teeth or additives such as sodium tripolyphosphate to break down or dissolve stains. When used twice a day, whitening toothpaste typically takes two to four weeks to make teeth appear whiter. Whitening toothpaste is generally safe for daily use, but excessive use might damage tooth enamel. Teeth whitening gels represent an alternative.[42] A recent systematic review in 2017 concluded that nearly all dentifrices that are specifically formulated for tooth whitening were shown to have a beneficial effect in reducing extrinsic stains, irrespective of whether or not a chemical discoloration agent was added.[43] However, the whitening process can permanently reduce the strength of the teeth, as the process scrapes away a protective outer layer of enamel.[44]
+
+Companies such as Tom's of Maine, among others, manufacture natural and herbal toothpastes and market them to consumers who wish to avoid the artificial ingredients commonly found in regular toothpastes. Many herbal toothpastes do not contain fluoride or sodium lauryl sulfate. The ingredients found in natural toothpastes vary widely but often include baking soda, aloe, eucalyptus oil, myrrh, plant extract (strawberry extract), and essential oils. A systemic review in 2014 found insufficient evidence to determine whether the aloe vera herbal dentifrice can reduce plaque or improve gingival health, as the randomized studies were found to be flawed with high risk of bias.[45]
+
+According to a study by the Delhi Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Research, many of the herbal toothpastes being sold in India were adulterated with nicotine.[46]
+
+Charcoal has also been incorporated in toothpaste formulas; however, there is no evidence to determine its safety and effectiveness.[47]
+
+Striped toothpaste was invented by Leonard Marraffino in 1955. The patent (US patent 2,789,731, issued 1957) was subsequently sold to Unilever, who marketed the novelty under the Stripe brand-name in the early 1960s. This was followed by the introduction of the Signal brand in Europe in 1965 (UK patent 813,514). Although Stripe was initially very successful, it never again achieved the 8% market share that it cornered during its second year.
+
+Marraffino's design, which remains in use for single-color stripes, is simple. The main material, usually white, sits at the crimp end of the toothpaste tube and makes up most of its bulk. A thin pipe, through which that carrier material will flow, descends from the nozzle to it. The stripe-material (this was red in Stripe) fills the gap between the carrier material and the top of the tube. The two materials are not in separate compartments, however, they are sufficiently viscous that they will not mix. When pressure is applied to the toothpaste tube, the main material squeezes down the thin pipe to the nozzle. Simultaneously, the pressure applied to the main material causes pressure to be forwarded to the stripe material, which thereby issues out through small holes (in the side of the pipe) onto the main carrier material as it is passing those holes.
+
+In 1990, Colgate-Palmolive was granted a patent (USPTO 4,969,767) for two differently colored stripes. In this scheme, the inner pipe has a cone-shaped plastic guard around it, and about halfway up its length. Between the guard and the nozzle-end of the tube is a space for the material for one color, which issues out of holes in the pipe. On the other side of the guard is space for second stripe-material, which has its own set of holes.
+
+Striped toothpaste should not be confused with layered toothpaste. Layered toothpaste requires a multi-chamber design (e.g. USPTO 5,020,694), in which two or three layers extrude out of the nozzle. This scheme, like that of pump dispensers (USPTO 4,461,403), is more complicated (and thus, more expensive to manufacture) than either the Marraffino design or the Colgate design.
+
+Since 5000 BC, the Egyptians made a tooth powder, which consisted of powdered ashes of ox hooves, myrrh, powdered and burnt eggshells, and pumice. The Greeks, and then the Romans, improved the recipes by adding abrasives such as crushed bones and oyster shells.[48] In the 9th century, Iraqi musician and fashion designer Ziryab invented a type of toothpaste, which he popularized throughout Islamic Spain. The exact ingredients of this toothpaste are unknown, but it was reported to have been both "functional and pleasant to taste".[49] It is not known whether these early toothpastes were used alone, were to be rubbed onto the teeth with rags, or were to be used with early toothbrushes, such as neem-tree twigs and miswak. During Japan's Edo period, inventor Hiraga Gennai's Hika rakuyo (1769), contained advertisements for Sosekiko, a "toothpaste in a box."[50] Toothpastes or powders came into general use in the 19th century.
+
+Tooth powders for use with toothbrushes came into general use in the 19th century in Britain. Most were homemade, with chalk, pulverized brick, or salt as ingredients. An 1866 Home Encyclopedia recommended pulverized charcoal, and cautioned that many patented tooth powders that were commercially marketed did more harm than good.
+
+Arm & Hammer marketed a baking soda-based toothpowder in the United States until approximately 2000, and Colgate currently markets toothpowder in India and other countries.
+
+An 18th-century American and British toothpaste recipe called for burned bread. Another formula around this time called for dragon's blood (a resin), cinnamon, and burned alum.[51]
+
+By 1900, a paste made of hydrogen peroxide and baking soda was recommended for use with toothbrushes. Pre-mixed toothpastes were first marketed in the 19th century, but did not surpass the popularity of tooth-powder until World War I.
+
+Together with Willoughby D. Miller, Newell Sill Jenkins developed a toothpaste and named it Kolynos, the first toothpaste containing disinfectants.[52] The name's origin is from Greek Kolyo nosos (κωλύω νόσος), meaning "disease prevention". Numerous attempts to produce the toothpaste by pharmacists in Europe have been uneconomic. After returning to the US, he continued experimenting with Harry Ward Foote (1875-1942), professor of chemistry at Sheffield Chemical Laboratory of Yale University.[53] After 17 years of development of Kolynos and clinical trials, Jenkins retired and transferred the production and distribution to his son Leonard A. Jenkins, who brought the first toothpaste tubes on the market on April 13, 1908. Within a few years the company expanded in North America, Latin America, Europe and the Far East. A branch operation opened in London in 1909. In 1937, Kolynos was produced in 22 countries and sold in 88 countries. Kolynos has been sold mainly in South America and in Hungary. Colgate-Palmolive took over the production of American Home Products in 1995 at a cost of one billion US dollars.[54]
+
+Fluoride was first added to toothpastes in the 1890s. Tanagra, containing calcium fluoride as the active ingredient, was sold by Karl F. Toellner Company, of Bremen, Germany, based upon the early work of chemist Albert Deninger.[55] An analogous invention by Roy Cross, of Kansas City, Missouri, was initially criticized by the American Dental Association (ADA) in 1937. Fluoride toothpastes developed in the 1950s received the ADA's approval. To develop the first ADA-approved fluoride toothpaste, Procter & Gamble started a research program in the early 1940s. In 1950, Procter & Gamble developed a joint research project team headed by Joseph C. Muhler at Indiana University to study new toothpaste with fluoride. In 1955, Procter & Gamble's Crest launched its first clinically proven fluoride-containing toothpaste. On August 1, 1960, the ADA reported that "Crest has been shown to be an effective anticavity (decay preventative) dentifrice that can be of significant value when used in a conscientiously applied program of oral hygiene and regular professional care."
+
+In 1980, the Japanese company, Sangi Co., Ltd., launched APADENT, the world's first remineralizing toothpaste to use a nano-form of hydroxyapatite, the main component of tooth enamel, rather than fluoride, to remineralize areas of mineral loss below the surface of tooth enamel (incipient caries lesions). After many years of laboratory experiments and field trials,[56] its hydroxyapatite ingredient was approved as an active anti-caries agent by the Japanese Ministry of Health in 1993, and given the name Medical Hydroxyapatite to distinguish it from other forms of hydroxyapatite used in toothpaste, such as dental abrasives.
+
+In 2006, BioRepair appeared in Europe with the first European toothpaste containing synthetic hydroxylapatite as an alternative to fluoride for the remineralization and reparation of tooth enamel. The "biomimetic hydroxylapatite" is intended to protect the teeth by creating a new layer of synthetic enamel around the tooth instead of hardening the existing layer with fluoride that chemically changes it into fluorapatite.[57]
+
+In 1880, Doctor Washington Sheffield of New London, CT manufactured toothpaste into a collapsible tube, Dr. Sheffield's Creme Dentifrice. He had the idea after his son traveled to Paris and saw painters using paint from tubes. In York in 1896, Colgate & Company Dental Cream was packaged in collapsible tubes imitating Sheffield. The original collapsible toothpaste tubes were made of lead.[58][59]
+
+Modern toothpaste gel
+
+Promotional poster for the Kolynos toothpaste from the 1940s
+
+Colgate Dental Cream (Toothpaste) With Gardol, c. 1950s

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+
+
+A tooth (plural teeth) is a hard, calcified structure found in the jaws (or mouths) of many vertebrates and used to break down food. Some animals, particularly carnivores, also use teeth for hunting or for defensive purposes. The roots of teeth are covered by gums. Teeth are not made of bone, but rather of multiple tissues of varying density and hardness that originate from the embryonic germ layer, the ectoderm.
+
+The general structure of teeth is similar across the vertebrates, although there is considerable variation in their form and position. The teeth of mammals have deep roots, and this pattern is also found in some fish, and in crocodilians. In most teleost fish, however, the teeth are attached to the outer surface of the bone, while in lizards they are attached to the inner surface of the jaw by one side. In cartilaginous fish, such as sharks, the teeth are attached by tough ligaments to the hoops of cartilage that form the jaw.[1]
+
+Some animals develop only one set of teeth (monophyodonts) while others develop many sets (polyphyodonts). Sharks, for example, grow a new set of teeth every two weeks to replace worn teeth. Rodent incisors grow and wear away continually through gnawing, which helps maintain relatively constant length. The industry of the beaver is due in part to this qualification. Many rodents such as voles and guinea pigs, but not mice, as well as leporidae like rabbits, have continuously growing molars in addition to incisors.[2][3]
+
+Teeth are not always attached to the jaw, as they are in mammals. In many reptiles and fish, teeth are attached to the palate or to the floor of the mouth, forming additional rows inside those on the jaws proper. Some teleosts even have teeth in the pharynx. While not true teeth in the usual sense, the dermal denticles of sharks are almost identical in structure and are likely to have the same evolutionary origin. Indeed, teeth appear to have first evolved in sharks, and are not found in the more primitive jawless fish – while lampreys do have tooth-like structures on the tongue, these are in fact, composed of keratin, not of dentine or enamel, and bear no relationship to true teeth.[1] Though "modern" teeth-like structures with dentine and enamel have been found in late conodonts, they are now supposed to have evolved independently of later vertebrates' teeth.[4][5]
+
+Living amphibians typically have small teeth, or none at all, since they commonly feed only on soft foods. In reptiles, teeth are generally simple and conical in shape, although there is some variation between species, most notably the venom-injecting fangs of snakes. The pattern of incisors, canines, premolars and molars is found only in mammals, and to varying extents, in their evolutionary ancestors. The numbers of these types of teeth vary greatly between species; zoologists use a standardised dental formula to describe the precise pattern in any given group.[1]
+
+The genes governing tooth development in mammals are homologous to those involved in the development of fish scales.[6] Study of a tooth plate of a fossil of the extinct fish Romundina stellina showed that the teeth and scales were made of the same tissues, also found in mammal teeth, lending support to the theory that teeth evolved as a modification of scales.[7]
+
+Teeth are among the most distinctive (and long-lasting) features of mammal species. Paleontologists use teeth to identify fossil species and determine their relationships. The shape of the animal's teeth are related to its diet. For example, plant matter is hard to digest, so herbivores have many molars for chewing and grinding. Carnivores, on the other hand, have canine teeth to kill prey and to tear meat.
+
+Mammals, in general, are diphyodont, meaning that they develop two sets of teeth. In humans, the first set (the "baby," "milk," "primary" or "deciduous" set) normally starts to appear at about six months of age, although some babies are born with one or more visible teeth, known as neonatal teeth.  Normal tooth eruption at about six months is known as teething and can be painful.  Kangaroos, elephants, and manatees are unusual among mammals because they are polyphyodonts.
+
+In Aardvarks, teeth lack enamel and have many pulp tubules, hence the name of the order Tubulidentata.
+
+In dogs, the teeth are less likely than humans to form dental cavities because of the very high pH of dog saliva, which prevents enamel from demineralizing.[8] Sometimes called cuspids, these teeth are shaped like points (cusps) and are used for tearing and grasping food[9]
+
+Like human teeth, whale teeth have polyp-like protrusions located on the root surface of the tooth. These polyps are made of cementum in both species, but in human teeth, the protrusions are located on the outside of the root, while in whales the nodule is located on the inside of the pulp chamber. While the roots of human teeth are made of cementum on the outer surface, whales have cementum on the entire surface of the tooth with a very small layer of enamel at the tip. This small enamel layer is only seen in older whales where the cementum has been worn away to show the underlying enamel.[10]
+
+The toothed whale is a suborder of the cetaceans characterized by having teeth.  The teeth differ considerably among the species. They may be numerous, with some dolphins bearing over 100 teeth in their jaws.  On the other hand, the narwhals have a giant unicorn-like tusk, which is a tooth containing millions of sensory pathways and used for sensing during feeding, navigation, and mating. It is the most neurologically complex tooth known.  Beaked whales are almost toothless, with only bizarre teeth found in males.  These teeth may be used for feeding but also for demonstrating aggression and showmanship.
+
+In humans (and most other primates) there are usually 20 primary (also "baby" or "milk") teeth, and later up to 32 permanent teeth. Four of these 32 may be third molars or wisdom teeth, although these are not present in all adults, and may be removed surgically later in life.[11]
+
+Among primary teeth, 10 of them are usually found in the maxilla (i.e. upper jaw) and the other 10 in the mandible (i.e. lower jaw). Among permanent teeth, 16 are found in the maxilla and the other 16 in the mandible. Most of the teeth have uniquely distinguishing features.
+
+An adult horse has between 36 and 44 teeth. The enamel and dentin layers of horse teeth are intertwined.[12] All horses have 12 premolars, 12 molars, and 12 incisors.[13]  Generally, all male equines also have four canine teeth (called tushes) between the molars and incisors.  However, few female horses (less than 28%) have canines, and those that do usually have only one or two, which many times are only partially erupted.[14]  A few horses have one to four wolf teeth, which are vestigial premolars, with most of those having only one or two. They are equally common in male and female horses and much more likely to be on the upper jaw.  If present these can cause problems as they can interfere with the horse's bit contact. Therefore, wolf teeth are commonly removed.[13]
+
+Horse teeth can be used to estimate the animal's age.  Between birth and five years, age can be closely estimated by observing the eruption pattern on milk teeth and then permanent teeth.  By age five, all permanent teeth have usually erupted. The horse is then said to have a "full" mouth.  After the age of five, age can only be conjectured by studying the wear patterns on the incisors, shape, the angle at which the incisors meet, and other factors. The wear of teeth may also be affected by diet, natural abnormalities, and cribbing.  Two horses of the same age may have different wear patterns.
+
+A horse's incisors, premolars, and molars, once fully developed, continue to erupt as the grinding surface is worn down through chewing. A young adult horse will have teeth which are 4.5-5 inches long, with the majority of the crown remaining below the gumline in the dental socket. The rest of the tooth will slowly emerge from the jaw, erupting about 1/8" each year, as the horse ages. When the animal reaches old age, the crowns of the teeth are very short and the teeth are often lost altogether. Very old horses, if lacking molars, may need to have their fodder ground up and soaked in water to create a soft mush for them to eat in order to obtain adequate nutrition.
+
+Elephants' tusks are specialized incisors for digging food up and fighting. Some elephant teeth are similar to those in manatees, and it is notable that elephants are believed to have undergone an aquatic phase in their evolution.
+
+At birth, elephants have a total of 28 molar plate-like grinding teeth not including the tusks.  These are organized into four sets of seven successively larger teeth which the elephant will slowly wear through during its lifetime of chewing rough plant material.  Only four teeth are used for chewing at a given time, and as each tooth wears out, another tooth moves forward to take its place in a process similar to a conveyor belt.  The last and largest of these teeth usually becomes exposed when the animal is around 40 years of age, and will often last for an additional 20 years. When the last of these teeth has fallen out, regardless of the elephant's age, the animal will no longer be able to chew food and will die of starvation.[15][16]
+
+Rabbits and other lagomorphs usually shed their deciduous teeth before (or very shortly after) their birth, and are usually born with their permanent teeth.[17]  The teeth of rabbits complement their diet, which consists of a wide range of vegetation. Since many of the foods are abrasive enough to cause attrition, rabbit teeth grow continuously throughout life.[18]  Rabbits have a total of 6 incisors, three upper premolars, three upper molars, two lower premolars, and two lower molars on each side. There are no canines. Three to four millimeters of the tooth is worn away by incisors every week, whereas the posterior teeth require a month to wear away the same amount.[19]
+
+The incisors and cheek teeth of rabbits are called aradicular hypsodont teeth. This is sometimes referred to as an elodent dentition. These teeth grow or erupt continuously.  The growth or eruption is held in balance by dental abrasion from chewing a diet high in fiber.
+
+Rodents have upper and lower hypselodont incisors that can continuously grow enamel throughout its life without having properly formed roots.[20] These teeth are also known as aradicular teeth, and unlike humans whose ameloblasts die after tooth development, rodents continually produce enamel, they must wear down their teeth by gnawing on various materials.[21] Enamel and dentin are produced by the enamel organ, and growth is dependent on the presence of stem cells, cellular amplification, and cellular maturation structures in the odontogenic region.[22] Rodent incisors are used for cutting wood, biting through the skin of fruit, or for defense. This allows for the rate of wear and tooth growth to be at equilibrium.[20] The microstructure of rodent incisor enamel has shown to be useful in studying the phylogeny and systematics of rodents because of its independent evolution from the other dental traits. The enamel on rodent incisors are composed of two layers: the inner portio interna (PI) with Hunter-Schreger bands (HSB) and an outer portio externa (PE) with radial enamel (RE).[23] It usually involves the differential regulation of the epithelial stem cell niche in the tooth of two rodent species, such as guinea pigs.[24][25]
+
+The teeth have enamel on the outside and exposed dentin on the inside, so they self-sharpen during gnawing. On the other hand, continually growing molars are found in some rodent species, such as the sibling vole and the guinea pig.[24][25][24][25] There is variation in the dentition of the rodents, but generally, rodents lack canines and premolars, and have a space between their incisors and molars, called the diastema region.
+
+Manatees are polyphyodont with mandibular molars developing separately from the jaw and are encased in a bony shell separated by soft tissue.
+
+Walrus tusks are canine teeth that grow continuously throughout life.[26]
+
+Fish, such as sharks, may go through many teeth in their lifetime. The replacement of multiple teeth is known as polyphyodontia.
+
+A class of prehistoric shark are called cladodonts for their strange forked teeth.
+
+All amphibians have pedicellate teeth which are modified to be flexible due to connective tissue and uncalcified dentine that separates the crown from the base of the tooth.[27]
+
+Most amphibians exhibit teeth that have a slight attachment to the jaw or acrodont teeth. Acrodont teeth exhibit limited connection to the dentary and have little enervation.[28] This is ideal for organisms who mostly use their teeth for grasping, but not for crushing and allows for rapid regeneration of teeth at a low energy cost. Teeth are usually lost in the course of feeding if the prey is struggling.  Additionally, amphibians that undergo a metamorphosis develop bicuspid shaped teeth.[29]
+
+The teeth of reptiles are replaced constantly during their life.  Juvenile crocodilians replace teeth with larger ones at a rate as high as one new tooth per socket every month.  Once adult, tooth replacement rates can slow to two years and even longer.  Overall, crocodilians may use 3,000 teeth from birth to death. New teeth are created within old teeth.[citation needed]
+
+A skull of Ichthyornis discovered in 2014 suggests that the beak of birds may have evolved from teeth to allow chicks to escape their shells earlier, and thus avoid predators and also to penetrate protective covers such as hard earth to access underlying food.[30][31]
+
+True teeth are unique to vertebrates,[32] although many invertebrates have analogous structures often referred to as teeth. The organisms with the simplest genome bearing such tooth-like structures are perhaps the parasitic worms of the family Ancylostomatidae.[33] For example, the hookworm Necator americanus has two dorsal and two ventral cutting plates or teeth around the anterior margin of the buccal capsule. It also has a pair of subdorsal and a pair of subventral teeth located close to the rear.[34]
+
+Historically the European medicinal leech, another invertebrate parasite, has been used in medicine to remove blood from patients.[35] They have three jaws (tripartite) that look like little saws, and on them are about 100 sharp teeth used to incise the host. The incision leaves a mark that is an inverted Y inside of a circle. After piercing the skin and injecting anticoagulants (hirudin) and anaesthetics, they suck out blood, consuming up to ten times their body weight in a single meal.[36]
+
+In some species of Bryozoa, the first part of the stomach forms a muscular gizzard lined with chitinous teeth that crush armoured prey such as diatoms. Wave-like peristaltic contractions then move the food through the stomach for digestion.[37]
+
+Molluscs have a structure called a radula which bears a ribbon of chitinous teeth. However, these teeth are histologically and developmentally different from vertebrate teeth and are unlikely to be homologous. For example, vertebrate teeth develop from a neural crest mesenchyme-derived dental papilla, and the neural crest is specific to vertebrates, as are tissues such as enamel.[32]
+
+The radula is used by molluscs for feeding and is sometimes compared rather inaccurately to a tongue. It is a minutely toothed, chitinous ribbon, typically used for scraping or cutting food before the food enters the oesophagus. The radula is unique to molluscs, and is found in every class of mollusc apart from bivalves.
+
+Within the gastropods, the radula is used in feeding by both herbivorous and carnivorous snails and slugs. The arrangement of teeth (also known as denticles) on the radula ribbon varies considerably from one group to another as shown in the diagram on the left.
+
+Predatory marine snails such as the Naticidae use the radula plus an acidic secretion to bore through the shell of other molluscs. Other predatory marine snails, such as the Conidae, use a specialized radula tooth as a poisoned harpoon. Predatory pulmonate land slugs, such as the ghost slug, use elongated razor-sharp teeth on the radula to seize and devour earthworms. Predatory cephalopods, such as squid, use the radula for cutting prey.
+
+In most of the more ancient lineages of gastropods, the radula is used to graze by scraping diatoms and other microscopic algae off rock surfaces and other substrates. Limpets scrape algae from rocks using radula equipped with exceptionally hard rasping teeth.[38] These teeth have the strongest known tensile strength of any biological material, outperforming spider silk.[38] The mineral protein of the limpet teeth can withstand a tensile stress of 4.9 GPa, compared to 4 GPa of spider silk and 0.5 GPa of human teeth.[39]
+
+Because teeth are very resistant, often preserved when bones are not,[40] and reflect the diet of the host organism, they are very valuable to archaeologists and palaeontologists.[41] Early fish such as the thelodonts had scales composed of dentine and an enamel-like compound, suggesting that the origin of teeth was from scales which were retained in the mouth. Fish as early as the late Cambrian had dentine in their exoskeleton, which may have functioned in defense or for sensing their environment.[42] Dentine can be as hard as the rest of teeth and is composed of collagen fibres, reinforced with hydroxyapatite.[42]
+
+Though teeth are very resistant, they also can be brittle and highly susceptible to cracking.[43] However, cracking of the tooth can be used as a diagnostic tool for predicting bite force. Additionally, enamel fractures can also give valuable insight into the diet and behaviour of archaeological and fossil samples.
+
+Decalcification removes the enamel from teeth and leaves only the organic interior intact, which comprises dentine and cementine.[44] Enamel is quickly decalcified in acids,[45] perhaps by dissolution by plant acids or via diagenetic solutions, or in the stomachs of vertebrate predators.[44] Enamel can be lost by abrasion or spalling,[44] and is lost before dentine or bone are destroyed by the fossilisation process.[45]  In such a case, the 'skeleton' of the teeth would consist of the dentine, with a hollow pulp cavity.[44]
+The organic part of dentine, conversely, is destroyed by alkalis.[45]

en/1492.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,86 @@
+
+
+A tooth (plural teeth) is a hard, calcified structure found in the jaws (or mouths) of many vertebrates and used to break down food. Some animals, particularly carnivores, also use teeth for hunting or for defensive purposes. The roots of teeth are covered by gums. Teeth are not made of bone, but rather of multiple tissues of varying density and hardness that originate from the embryonic germ layer, the ectoderm.
+
+The general structure of teeth is similar across the vertebrates, although there is considerable variation in their form and position. The teeth of mammals have deep roots, and this pattern is also found in some fish, and in crocodilians. In most teleost fish, however, the teeth are attached to the outer surface of the bone, while in lizards they are attached to the inner surface of the jaw by one side. In cartilaginous fish, such as sharks, the teeth are attached by tough ligaments to the hoops of cartilage that form the jaw.[1]
+
+Some animals develop only one set of teeth (monophyodonts) while others develop many sets (polyphyodonts). Sharks, for example, grow a new set of teeth every two weeks to replace worn teeth. Rodent incisors grow and wear away continually through gnawing, which helps maintain relatively constant length. The industry of the beaver is due in part to this qualification. Many rodents such as voles and guinea pigs, but not mice, as well as leporidae like rabbits, have continuously growing molars in addition to incisors.[2][3]
+
+Teeth are not always attached to the jaw, as they are in mammals. In many reptiles and fish, teeth are attached to the palate or to the floor of the mouth, forming additional rows inside those on the jaws proper. Some teleosts even have teeth in the pharynx. While not true teeth in the usual sense, the dermal denticles of sharks are almost identical in structure and are likely to have the same evolutionary origin. Indeed, teeth appear to have first evolved in sharks, and are not found in the more primitive jawless fish – while lampreys do have tooth-like structures on the tongue, these are in fact, composed of keratin, not of dentine or enamel, and bear no relationship to true teeth.[1] Though "modern" teeth-like structures with dentine and enamel have been found in late conodonts, they are now supposed to have evolved independently of later vertebrates' teeth.[4][5]
+
+Living amphibians typically have small teeth, or none at all, since they commonly feed only on soft foods. In reptiles, teeth are generally simple and conical in shape, although there is some variation between species, most notably the venom-injecting fangs of snakes. The pattern of incisors, canines, premolars and molars is found only in mammals, and to varying extents, in their evolutionary ancestors. The numbers of these types of teeth vary greatly between species; zoologists use a standardised dental formula to describe the precise pattern in any given group.[1]
+
+The genes governing tooth development in mammals are homologous to those involved in the development of fish scales.[6] Study of a tooth plate of a fossil of the extinct fish Romundina stellina showed that the teeth and scales were made of the same tissues, also found in mammal teeth, lending support to the theory that teeth evolved as a modification of scales.[7]
+
+Teeth are among the most distinctive (and long-lasting) features of mammal species. Paleontologists use teeth to identify fossil species and determine their relationships. The shape of the animal's teeth are related to its diet. For example, plant matter is hard to digest, so herbivores have many molars for chewing and grinding. Carnivores, on the other hand, have canine teeth to kill prey and to tear meat.
+
+Mammals, in general, are diphyodont, meaning that they develop two sets of teeth. In humans, the first set (the "baby," "milk," "primary" or "deciduous" set) normally starts to appear at about six months of age, although some babies are born with one or more visible teeth, known as neonatal teeth.  Normal tooth eruption at about six months is known as teething and can be painful.  Kangaroos, elephants, and manatees are unusual among mammals because they are polyphyodonts.
+
+In Aardvarks, teeth lack enamel and have many pulp tubules, hence the name of the order Tubulidentata.
+
+In dogs, the teeth are less likely than humans to form dental cavities because of the very high pH of dog saliva, which prevents enamel from demineralizing.[8] Sometimes called cuspids, these teeth are shaped like points (cusps) and are used for tearing and grasping food[9]
+
+Like human teeth, whale teeth have polyp-like protrusions located on the root surface of the tooth. These polyps are made of cementum in both species, but in human teeth, the protrusions are located on the outside of the root, while in whales the nodule is located on the inside of the pulp chamber. While the roots of human teeth are made of cementum on the outer surface, whales have cementum on the entire surface of the tooth with a very small layer of enamel at the tip. This small enamel layer is only seen in older whales where the cementum has been worn away to show the underlying enamel.[10]
+
+The toothed whale is a suborder of the cetaceans characterized by having teeth.  The teeth differ considerably among the species. They may be numerous, with some dolphins bearing over 100 teeth in their jaws.  On the other hand, the narwhals have a giant unicorn-like tusk, which is a tooth containing millions of sensory pathways and used for sensing during feeding, navigation, and mating. It is the most neurologically complex tooth known.  Beaked whales are almost toothless, with only bizarre teeth found in males.  These teeth may be used for feeding but also for demonstrating aggression and showmanship.
+
+In humans (and most other primates) there are usually 20 primary (also "baby" or "milk") teeth, and later up to 32 permanent teeth. Four of these 32 may be third molars or wisdom teeth, although these are not present in all adults, and may be removed surgically later in life.[11]
+
+Among primary teeth, 10 of them are usually found in the maxilla (i.e. upper jaw) and the other 10 in the mandible (i.e. lower jaw). Among permanent teeth, 16 are found in the maxilla and the other 16 in the mandible. Most of the teeth have uniquely distinguishing features.
+
+An adult horse has between 36 and 44 teeth. The enamel and dentin layers of horse teeth are intertwined.[12] All horses have 12 premolars, 12 molars, and 12 incisors.[13]  Generally, all male equines also have four canine teeth (called tushes) between the molars and incisors.  However, few female horses (less than 28%) have canines, and those that do usually have only one or two, which many times are only partially erupted.[14]  A few horses have one to four wolf teeth, which are vestigial premolars, with most of those having only one or two. They are equally common in male and female horses and much more likely to be on the upper jaw.  If present these can cause problems as they can interfere with the horse's bit contact. Therefore, wolf teeth are commonly removed.[13]
+
+Horse teeth can be used to estimate the animal's age.  Between birth and five years, age can be closely estimated by observing the eruption pattern on milk teeth and then permanent teeth.  By age five, all permanent teeth have usually erupted. The horse is then said to have a "full" mouth.  After the age of five, age can only be conjectured by studying the wear patterns on the incisors, shape, the angle at which the incisors meet, and other factors. The wear of teeth may also be affected by diet, natural abnormalities, and cribbing.  Two horses of the same age may have different wear patterns.
+
+A horse's incisors, premolars, and molars, once fully developed, continue to erupt as the grinding surface is worn down through chewing. A young adult horse will have teeth which are 4.5-5 inches long, with the majority of the crown remaining below the gumline in the dental socket. The rest of the tooth will slowly emerge from the jaw, erupting about 1/8" each year, as the horse ages. When the animal reaches old age, the crowns of the teeth are very short and the teeth are often lost altogether. Very old horses, if lacking molars, may need to have their fodder ground up and soaked in water to create a soft mush for them to eat in order to obtain adequate nutrition.
+
+Elephants' tusks are specialized incisors for digging food up and fighting. Some elephant teeth are similar to those in manatees, and it is notable that elephants are believed to have undergone an aquatic phase in their evolution.
+
+At birth, elephants have a total of 28 molar plate-like grinding teeth not including the tusks.  These are organized into four sets of seven successively larger teeth which the elephant will slowly wear through during its lifetime of chewing rough plant material.  Only four teeth are used for chewing at a given time, and as each tooth wears out, another tooth moves forward to take its place in a process similar to a conveyor belt.  The last and largest of these teeth usually becomes exposed when the animal is around 40 years of age, and will often last for an additional 20 years. When the last of these teeth has fallen out, regardless of the elephant's age, the animal will no longer be able to chew food and will die of starvation.[15][16]
+
+Rabbits and other lagomorphs usually shed their deciduous teeth before (or very shortly after) their birth, and are usually born with their permanent teeth.[17]  The teeth of rabbits complement their diet, which consists of a wide range of vegetation. Since many of the foods are abrasive enough to cause attrition, rabbit teeth grow continuously throughout life.[18]  Rabbits have a total of 6 incisors, three upper premolars, three upper molars, two lower premolars, and two lower molars on each side. There are no canines. Three to four millimeters of the tooth is worn away by incisors every week, whereas the posterior teeth require a month to wear away the same amount.[19]
+
+The incisors and cheek teeth of rabbits are called aradicular hypsodont teeth. This is sometimes referred to as an elodent dentition. These teeth grow or erupt continuously.  The growth or eruption is held in balance by dental abrasion from chewing a diet high in fiber.
+
+Rodents have upper and lower hypselodont incisors that can continuously grow enamel throughout its life without having properly formed roots.[20] These teeth are also known as aradicular teeth, and unlike humans whose ameloblasts die after tooth development, rodents continually produce enamel, they must wear down their teeth by gnawing on various materials.[21] Enamel and dentin are produced by the enamel organ, and growth is dependent on the presence of stem cells, cellular amplification, and cellular maturation structures in the odontogenic region.[22] Rodent incisors are used for cutting wood, biting through the skin of fruit, or for defense. This allows for the rate of wear and tooth growth to be at equilibrium.[20] The microstructure of rodent incisor enamel has shown to be useful in studying the phylogeny and systematics of rodents because of its independent evolution from the other dental traits. The enamel on rodent incisors are composed of two layers: the inner portio interna (PI) with Hunter-Schreger bands (HSB) and an outer portio externa (PE) with radial enamel (RE).[23] It usually involves the differential regulation of the epithelial stem cell niche in the tooth of two rodent species, such as guinea pigs.[24][25]
+
+The teeth have enamel on the outside and exposed dentin on the inside, so they self-sharpen during gnawing. On the other hand, continually growing molars are found in some rodent species, such as the sibling vole and the guinea pig.[24][25][24][25] There is variation in the dentition of the rodents, but generally, rodents lack canines and premolars, and have a space between their incisors and molars, called the diastema region.
+
+Manatees are polyphyodont with mandibular molars developing separately from the jaw and are encased in a bony shell separated by soft tissue.
+
+Walrus tusks are canine teeth that grow continuously throughout life.[26]
+
+Fish, such as sharks, may go through many teeth in their lifetime. The replacement of multiple teeth is known as polyphyodontia.
+
+A class of prehistoric shark are called cladodonts for their strange forked teeth.
+
+All amphibians have pedicellate teeth which are modified to be flexible due to connective tissue and uncalcified dentine that separates the crown from the base of the tooth.[27]
+
+Most amphibians exhibit teeth that have a slight attachment to the jaw or acrodont teeth. Acrodont teeth exhibit limited connection to the dentary and have little enervation.[28] This is ideal for organisms who mostly use their teeth for grasping, but not for crushing and allows for rapid regeneration of teeth at a low energy cost. Teeth are usually lost in the course of feeding if the prey is struggling.  Additionally, amphibians that undergo a metamorphosis develop bicuspid shaped teeth.[29]
+
+The teeth of reptiles are replaced constantly during their life.  Juvenile crocodilians replace teeth with larger ones at a rate as high as one new tooth per socket every month.  Once adult, tooth replacement rates can slow to two years and even longer.  Overall, crocodilians may use 3,000 teeth from birth to death. New teeth are created within old teeth.[citation needed]
+
+A skull of Ichthyornis discovered in 2014 suggests that the beak of birds may have evolved from teeth to allow chicks to escape their shells earlier, and thus avoid predators and also to penetrate protective covers such as hard earth to access underlying food.[30][31]
+
+True teeth are unique to vertebrates,[32] although many invertebrates have analogous structures often referred to as teeth. The organisms with the simplest genome bearing such tooth-like structures are perhaps the parasitic worms of the family Ancylostomatidae.[33] For example, the hookworm Necator americanus has two dorsal and two ventral cutting plates or teeth around the anterior margin of the buccal capsule. It also has a pair of subdorsal and a pair of subventral teeth located close to the rear.[34]
+
+Historically the European medicinal leech, another invertebrate parasite, has been used in medicine to remove blood from patients.[35] They have three jaws (tripartite) that look like little saws, and on them are about 100 sharp teeth used to incise the host. The incision leaves a mark that is an inverted Y inside of a circle. After piercing the skin and injecting anticoagulants (hirudin) and anaesthetics, they suck out blood, consuming up to ten times their body weight in a single meal.[36]
+
+In some species of Bryozoa, the first part of the stomach forms a muscular gizzard lined with chitinous teeth that crush armoured prey such as diatoms. Wave-like peristaltic contractions then move the food through the stomach for digestion.[37]
+
+Molluscs have a structure called a radula which bears a ribbon of chitinous teeth. However, these teeth are histologically and developmentally different from vertebrate teeth and are unlikely to be homologous. For example, vertebrate teeth develop from a neural crest mesenchyme-derived dental papilla, and the neural crest is specific to vertebrates, as are tissues such as enamel.[32]
+
+The radula is used by molluscs for feeding and is sometimes compared rather inaccurately to a tongue. It is a minutely toothed, chitinous ribbon, typically used for scraping or cutting food before the food enters the oesophagus. The radula is unique to molluscs, and is found in every class of mollusc apart from bivalves.
+
+Within the gastropods, the radula is used in feeding by both herbivorous and carnivorous snails and slugs. The arrangement of teeth (also known as denticles) on the radula ribbon varies considerably from one group to another as shown in the diagram on the left.
+
+Predatory marine snails such as the Naticidae use the radula plus an acidic secretion to bore through the shell of other molluscs. Other predatory marine snails, such as the Conidae, use a specialized radula tooth as a poisoned harpoon. Predatory pulmonate land slugs, such as the ghost slug, use elongated razor-sharp teeth on the radula to seize and devour earthworms. Predatory cephalopods, such as squid, use the radula for cutting prey.
+
+In most of the more ancient lineages of gastropods, the radula is used to graze by scraping diatoms and other microscopic algae off rock surfaces and other substrates. Limpets scrape algae from rocks using radula equipped with exceptionally hard rasping teeth.[38] These teeth have the strongest known tensile strength of any biological material, outperforming spider silk.[38] The mineral protein of the limpet teeth can withstand a tensile stress of 4.9 GPa, compared to 4 GPa of spider silk and 0.5 GPa of human teeth.[39]
+
+Because teeth are very resistant, often preserved when bones are not,[40] and reflect the diet of the host organism, they are very valuable to archaeologists and palaeontologists.[41] Early fish such as the thelodonts had scales composed of dentine and an enamel-like compound, suggesting that the origin of teeth was from scales which were retained in the mouth. Fish as early as the late Cambrian had dentine in their exoskeleton, which may have functioned in defense or for sensing their environment.[42] Dentine can be as hard as the rest of teeth and is composed of collagen fibres, reinforced with hydroxyapatite.[42]
+
+Though teeth are very resistant, they also can be brittle and highly susceptible to cracking.[43] However, cracking of the tooth can be used as a diagnostic tool for predicting bite force. Additionally, enamel fractures can also give valuable insight into the diet and behaviour of archaeological and fossil samples.
+
+Decalcification removes the enamel from teeth and leaves only the organic interior intact, which comprises dentine and cementine.[44] Enamel is quickly decalcified in acids,[45] perhaps by dissolution by plant acids or via diagenetic solutions, or in the stomachs of vertebrate predators.[44] Enamel can be lost by abrasion or spalling,[44] and is lost before dentine or bone are destroyed by the fossilisation process.[45]  In such a case, the 'skeleton' of the teeth would consist of the dentine, with a hollow pulp cavity.[44]
+The organic part of dentine, conversely, is destroyed by alkalis.[45]

en/1493.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+
+
+Depression may refer to: