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+Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the Nicotiana genus and the Solanaceae (nightshade) family, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of the tobacco plant. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the chief commercial crop is N. tabacum. The more potent variant N. rustica is also used around the world.
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+Tobacco contains the highly addictive stimulant alkaloid nicotine as well as harmala alkaloids.[3] Dried tobacco leaves are mainly used for smoking in cigarettes and cigars, as well as pipes and shishas. They can also be consumed as snuff, chewing tobacco, dipping tobacco and snus.
+
+Tobacco use is a cause or risk factor for many diseases; especially those affecting the heart, liver, and lungs, as well as many cancers. In 2008, the World Health Organization named tobacco use as the world's single greatest preventable cause of death.[4]
+
+The English word tobacco originates from the Spanish and Portuguese word tabaco. The precise origin of this word is disputed, but it is generally thought to have derived at least in part, from Taíno, the Arawakan language of the Caribbean. In Taíno, it was said to mean either a roll of tobacco leaves (according to Bartolomé de las Casas, 1552) or to tabago, a kind of L-shaped pipe used for sniffing tobacco smoke (according to Oviedo; with the leaves themselves being referred to as cohiba)[clarify].[5][6]
+
+However, perhaps coincidentally, similar words in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian were used from 1410 for certain medicinal herbs. These probably derived from the Arabic طُبّاق ṭubbāq (also طُباق ṭubāq), a word reportedly dating to the 9th century, referring to various herbs.[7][8]
+
+Tobacco has long been used in the Americas, with some cultivation sites in Mexico dating back to 1400–1000 BC.[9] Many Native American tribes traditionally grow and use tobacco. Historically, people from the Northeast Woodlands cultures have carried tobacco in pouches as a readily accepted trade item. It was smoked both socially and ceremonially, such as to seal a peace treaty or trade agreement.[10][11] In some Native cultures, tobacco is seen as a gift from the Creator, with the ceremonial tobacco smoke carrying one's thoughts and prayers to the Creator.[12]
+
+Following the arrival of the Europeans to the Americas, tobacco became increasingly popular as a trade item. Hernández de Boncalo, Spanish chronicler of the Indies, was the first European to bring tobacco seeds to the Old World in 1559 following orders of King Philip II of Spain. These seeds were planted in the outskirts of Toledo, more specifically in an area known as "Los Cigarrales" named after the continuous plagues of cicadas (cigarras in Spanish). Before the development of the lighter Virginia and white burley strains of tobacco, the smoke was too harsh to be inhaled. Small quantities were smoked at a time, using a pipe like the midwakh or kiseru, or newly invented waterpipes such as the bong or the hookah (see thuốc lào for a modern continuance of this practice). Tobacco became so popular that the English colony of Jamestown used it as currency and began exporting it as a cash crop; tobacco is often credited as being the export that saved Virginia from ruin.[13]
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+The alleged benefits of tobacco also contributed to its success. The astronomer Thomas Harriot, who accompanied Sir Richard Grenville on his 1585 expedition to Roanoke Island, mistakenly explained that the plant "openeth all the pores and passages of the body" so that the natives’ "bodies are notably preserved in health, and know not many grievous diseases, wherewithal we in England are often times afflicted." [14]
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+Production of tobacco for smoking, chewing, and snuffing became a major industry in Europe and its colonies by 1700.[15][16]
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+Tobacco has been a major cash crop in Cuba and in other parts of the Caribbean since the 18th century. Cuban cigars are world-famous.[17]
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+In the late 19th century, cigarettes became popular. James Bonsack invented a machine to automate cigarette production. This increase in production allowed tremendous growth in the tobacco industry until the health revelations of the late 20th century.[18][19]
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+Following the scientific revelations of the mid-20th century, tobacco was condemned as a health hazard, and eventually became recognized as a cause of cancer, as well as other respiratory and circulatory diseases. In the United States, this led to the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, which settled the many lawsuits by the U.S. states in exchange for a combination of yearly payments to the states and voluntary restrictions on advertising and marketing of tobacco products.
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+In the 1970s, Brown & Williamson cross-bred a strain of tobacco to produce Y1, a strain containing an unusually high nicotine content, nearly doubling from 3.2-3.5% to 6.5%. In the 1990s, this prompted the Food and Drug Administration to allege that tobacco companies were intentionally manipulating the nicotine content of cigarettes.
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+In 2003, in response to growth of tobacco use in developing countries, the World Health Organization[20] successfully rallied 168 countries to sign the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The convention is designed to push for effective legislation and enforcement in all countries to reduce the harmful effects of tobacco.
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+The desire of many addicted smokers to quit has led to the development of tobacco cessation products.
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+Many species of tobacco are in the genus of herbs Nicotiana. It is part of the nightshade family (Solanaceae) indigenous to North and South America, Australia, south west Africa, and the South Pacific.[21]
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+Most nightshades contain varying amounts of nicotine, a powerful neurotoxin to insects. However, tobaccos tend to contain a much higher concentration of nicotine than the others. Unlike many other Solanaceae species, they do not contain tropane alkaloids, which are often poisonous to humans and other animals.
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+Despite containing enough nicotine and other compounds such as germacrene and anabasine and other piperidine alkaloids (varying between species) to deter most herbivores,[22] a number of such animals have evolved the ability to feed on Nicotiana species without being harmed. Nonetheless, tobacco is unpalatable to many species due to its other attributes. For example, although the cabbage looper is a generalist pest, tobacco's gummosis and trichomes can harm early larvae survival.[23] As a result, some tobacco plants (chiefly N. glauca) have become established as invasive weeds in some places.
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+The types of tobacco include:
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+Tobacco is cultivated similarly to other agricultural products. Seeds were at first quickly scattered onto the soil. However, young plants came under increasing attack from flea beetles (Epitrix cucumeris or E. pubescens), which caused destruction of half the tobacco crops in United States in 1876. By 1890, successful experiments were conducted that placed the plant in a frame covered by thin cotton fabric. Today, tobacco seeds are sown in cold frames or hotbeds, as their germination is activated by light.[24] In the United States, tobacco is often fertilized with the mineral apatite, which partially starves the plant of nitrogen, to produce a more desired flavor.
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+After the plants are about 8 inches (20 cm)  tall, they are transplanted into the fields. Farmers used to have to wait for rainy weather to plant. A hole is created in the tilled earth with a tobacco peg, either a curved wooden tool or deer antler. After making two holes to the right and left, the planter would move forward two feet, select plants from his/her bag, and repeat. Various mechanical tobacco planters like Bemis, New Idea Setter, and New Holland Transplanter were invented in the late 19th and 20th centuries to automate the process: making the hole, watering it, guiding the plant in — all in one motion.[25]
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+Tobacco is cultivated annually, and can be harvested in several ways. In the oldest method, still used today, the entire plant is harvested at once by cutting off the stalk at the ground with a tobacco knife; it is then speared onto sticks, four to six plants a stick, and hung in a curing barn. In the 19th century, bright tobacco began to be harvested by pulling individual leaves off the stalk as they ripened. The leaves ripen from the ground upwards, so a field of tobacco harvested in this manner entails the serial harvest of a number of "primings", beginning with the volado leaves near the ground, working to the seco leaves in the middle of the plant, and finishing with the potent ligero leaves at the top. Before harvesting, the crop must be topped when the pink flowers develop. Topping always refers to the removal of the tobacco flower before the leaves are systematically harvested. As the industrial revolution took hold, the harvesting wagons which were used to transport leaves were equipped with man-powered stringers, an apparatus that used twine to attach leaves to a pole. In modern times, large fields are harvested mechanically, although topping the flower and in some cases the plucking of immature leaves is still done by hand.
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+In the U.S., North Carolina and Kentucky are the leaders in tobacco production, followed by Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina and Pennsylvania.[26]
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+Curing and subsequent aging allow for the slow oxidation and degradation of carotenoids in tobacco leaf. This produces certain compounds in the tobacco leaves and gives a sweet hay, tea, rose oil, or fruity aromatic flavor that contributes to the "smoothness" of the smoke. Starch is converted to sugar, which glycates protein, and is oxidized into advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs), a caramelization process that also adds flavor. Inhalation of these AGEs in tobacco smoke contributes to atherosclerosis and cancer.[27] Levels of AGEs are dependent on the curing method used.
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+Tobacco can be cured through several methods, including:
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+Some tobaccos go through a second stage of curing, known as fermenting or sweating.[30] Cavendish undergoes fermentation pressed in a casing solution containing sugar and/or flavoring.[31]
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+Production of tobacco leaf increased by 40% between 1971, when 4.2 million tons of leaf were produced, and 1997, when 5.9 million tons of leaf were produced.[33] According to the Food and Agriculture organization of the UN, tobacco leaf production was expected to hit 7.1 million tons by 2010. This number is a bit lower than the record-high production of 1992, when 7.5 million tons of leaf were produced.[34] The production growth was almost entirely due to increased productivity by developing nations, where production increased by 128%.[35] During that same time, production in developed countries actually decreased.[34] China's increase in tobacco production was the single biggest factor in the increase in world production. China's share of the world market increased from 17% in 1971 to 47% in 1997.[33] This growth can be partially explained by the existence of a high import tariff on foreign tobacco entering China. While this tariff has been reduced from 64% in 1999 to 10% in 2004,[36] it still has led to local, Chinese cigarettes being preferred over foreign cigarettes because of their lower cost.
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+Every year, about 6.7 million tons of tobacco are produced throughout the world. The top producers of tobacco are China (39.6%), India (8.3%), Brazil (7.0%) and the United States (4.6%).[38]
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+Around the peak of global tobacco production, 20 million rural Chinese households were producing tobacco on 2.1 million hectares of land.[39] While it is the major crop for millions of Chinese farmers, growing tobacco is not as profitable as cotton or sugarcane, because the Chinese government sets the market price. While this price is guaranteed, it is lower than the natural market price, because of the lack of market risk. To further control tobacco in their borders, China founded a State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) in 1982. The STMA controls tobacco production, marketing, imports, and exports, and contributes 12% to the nation's national income.[40] As noted above, despite the income generated for the state by profits from state-owned tobacco companies and the taxes paid by companies and retailers, China's government has acted to reduce tobacco use.[41]
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+India's Tobacco Board is headquartered in Guntur in the state of Andhra Pradesh.[42] India has 96,865 registered tobacco farmers[43] and many more who are not registered. In 2010, 3,120 tobacco product manufacturing facilities were operating in all of India.[44] Around 0.25% of India's cultivated land is used for tobacco production.[45]
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+Since 1947, the Indian government has supported growth in the tobacco industry. India has seven tobacco research centers, located in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar, Mysore, and West Bengal houses the core research institute.
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+In Brazil, around 135,000 family farmers cite tobacco production as their main economic activity.[39] Tobacco has never exceeded 0.7% of the country's total cultivated area.[46] In the southern regions of Brazil, Virginia, and Amarelinho, flue-cured tobacco, as well as burley and Galpão Comum air-cured tobacco, are produced. These types of tobacco are used for cigarettes. In the northeast, darker, air- and sun-cured tobacco is grown. These types of tobacco are used for cigars, twists, and dark cigarettes.[46]
+Brazil's government has made attempts to reduce the production of tobacco but has not had a successful systematic antitobacco farming initiative. Brazil's government, however, provides small loans for family farms, including those that grow tobacco, through the Programa Nacional de Fortalecimento da Agricultura Familiar.[47]
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+The International Labour Office reported that the most child-laborers work in agriculture, which is one of the most hazardous types of work.[48][failed verification – see discussion] The tobacco industry houses some of these working children. Use of children is widespread on farms in Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Malawi, and Zimbabwe.[49] While some of these children work with their families on small, family-owned farms, others work on large plantations.
+In late 2009, reports were released by the London-based human-rights group Plan International, claiming that child labor was common on Malawi (producer of 1.8% of the world's tobacco[33]) tobacco farms. The organization interviewed 44 teens, who worked full-time on farms during the 2007-8 growing season. The child-laborers complained of low pay and long hours, as well as physical and sexual abuse by their supervisors.[50] They also reported suffering from Green tobacco sickness, a form of nicotine poisoning. When wet leaves are handled, nicotine from the leaves gets absorbed in the skin and causes nausea, vomiting, and dizziness. Children were exposed to levels of nicotine equivalent to smoking 50 cigarettes, just through direct contact with tobacco leaves. This level of nicotine in children can permanently alter brain structure and function.[48][failed verification – see discussion]
+
+Major tobacco companies have encouraged global tobacco production. Philip Morris, British American Tobacco, and Japan Tobacco each own or lease tobacco-manufacturing facilities in at least 50 countries and buy crude tobacco leaf from at least 12 more countries.[51] This encouragement, along with government subsidies, has led to a glut in the tobacco market. This surplus has resulted in lower prices, which are devastating to small-scale tobacco farmers. According to the World Bank, between 1985 and 2000, the inflation-adjusted price of tobacco dropped 37%.[52] Tobacco is the most widely smuggled legal product.[53]
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+Tobacco production requires the use of large amounts of pesticides. Tobacco companies recommend up to 16 separate applications of pesticides just in the period between planting the seeds in greenhouses and transplanting the young plants to the field.[54] Pesticide use has been worsened by the desire to produce larger crops in less time because of the decreasing market value of tobacco. Pesticides often harm tobacco farmers because they are unaware of the health effects and the proper safety protocol for working with pesticides. These pesticides, as well as fertilizers, end up in the soil, waterways, and the food chain.[55] Coupled with child labor, pesticides pose an even greater threat. Early exposure to pesticides may increase a child's lifelong cancer risk, as well as harm his or her nervous and immune systems.[56]
+
+As with all crops, tobacco crops extract nutrients (such as phosphorus, nitrogen, and potassium) from soil, decreasing its fertility.[57]
+
+Furthermore, the wood used to cure tobacco in some places leads to deforestation. While some big tobacco producers such as China and the United States have access to petroleum, coal, and natural gas, which can be used as alternatives to wood, most developing countries still rely on wood in the curing process.[57] Brazil alone uses the wood of 60 million trees per year for curing, packaging, and rolling cigarettes.[54]
+
+In 2017 WHO released a study on the environmental effects of tobacco.[58]
+
+Several tobacco plants have been used as model organisms in genetics. Tobacco BY-2 cells, derived from N. tabacum cultivar 'Bright Yellow-2', are among the most important research tools in plant cytology.[59] Tobacco has played a pioneering role in callus culture research and the elucidation of the mechanism by which kinetin works, laying the groundwork for modern agricultural biotechnology. The first genetically modified plant was produced in 1982, using Agrobacterium tumefaciens to create an antibiotic-resistant tobacco plant.[60] This research laid the groundwork for all genetically modified crops.[61]
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+Because of its importance as a research tool, transgenic tobacco was the first GM crop to be tested in field trials, in the United States and France in 1986; China became the first country in the world to approve commercial planting of a GM crop in 1993, which was tobacco.[62]
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+Many varieties of transgenic tobacco have been intensively tested in field trials. Agronomic traits such as resistance to pathogens (viruses, particularly to the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV); fungi; bacteria and nematodes); weed management via herbicide tolerance; resistance against insect pests; resistance to drought and cold; and production of useful products such as pharmaceuticals; and use of GM plants for bioremediation, have all been tested in over 400 field trials using tobacco.[63]
+
+Currently, only the US is producing GM tobacco.[62][63] The Chinese virus-resistant tobacco was withdrawn from the market in China in 1997.[64]:3 From 2002 to 2010, cigarettes made with GM tobacco with reduced nicotine content were available in the US under the market name Quest.[63][65]
+
+Tobacco is consumed in many forms and through a number of different methods. Some examples are:
+
+Smoking in public was, for a long time, reserved for men, and when done by women was sometimes associated with promiscuity; in Japan, during the Edo period, prostitutes and their clients often approached one another under the guise of offering a smoke. The same was true in 19th-century Europe.[69]
+
+Following the American Civil War, the use of tobacco, primarily in cigars, became associated with masculinity and power. Today, tobacco use is often stigmatized; this has spawned quitting associations and antismoking campaigns.[70][71] Bhutan is the only country in the world where tobacco sales are illegal.[72] Due to its propensity for causing detumescence and erectile dysfunction, some studies have described tobacco as an anaphrodisiacal substance.[73]
+
+Research on tobacco use is limited mainly to smoking, which has been studied more extensively than any other form of consumption. An estimated 1.1 billion people, and up to one-third of the adult population, use tobacco in some form.[74] Smoking is more prevalent among men[75] (however, the gender gap declines with age),[76][77] the poor, and in transitional or developing countries.[78]  A study published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report found that in 2019 approximately one in four youths (23.0%) in the U.S. had used a tobacco product during the past 30 days. This represented approximately three in 10 high school students (31.2%) and approximately one in eight middle school students (12.5%).[79]
+
+Rates of smoking continue to rise in developing countries, but have leveled off or declined in developed countries.[80] Smoking rates in the United States have dropped by half from 1965 to 2006, falling from 42% to 20.8% in adults.[81] In the developing world, tobacco consumption is rising by 3.4% per year.[82]
+
+Tobacco smoking endangers health due to the inhalation of poisonous chemicals in tobacco smoke, such as carbon monoxide, cyanide, and carcinogens, which have been proven to cause heart and lung diseases and cancer.
+Thousands of different substances in cigarette smoke, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (such as benzopyrene), formaldehyde, cadmium, nickel, arsenic, tobacco-specific nitrosamines, and phenols contribute to the harmful effects of smoking.[83]
+
+According to the World Health Organization (WHO), tobacco is the single greatest cause of preventable death globally.[84] The WHO estimates that tobacco caused 5.4 million deaths in 2004[85] and 100 million deaths over the course of the 20th century.[86] Similarly, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describe tobacco use as "the single most important preventable risk to human health in developed countries and an important cause of premature death worldwide."[87] Due to these health consequences, it is estimated that a 10 hectare field of tobacco used for cigarettes causes 30 deaths per year – 10 from lung cancer and 20 from cigarette-induced diseases like cardiac arrest, gangrene, bladder cancer, mouth cancer, etc.[88]
+
+The harms caused by inhalation of tobacco smoke include diseases of the heart and lungs, with smoking being a major risk factor for heart attacks, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (emphysema), and cancer (particularly cancers of the lungs, larynx, mouth, and pancreas). Cancer is caused by inhaling carcinogenic substances in tobacco smoke.
+
+Inhaling secondhand tobacco smoke (which has been exhaled by a smoker) can cause lung cancer in nonsmoking adults. In the United States, about 3,000 adults die each year due to lung cancer from secondhand smoke exposure. Heart disease caused by secondhand smoke kills around 46,000 nonsmokers every year.[89]
+
+The addictive alkaloid nicotine is a stimulant, and popularly known as the most characteristic constituent of tobacco. In drug effect preference questionnaires, a rough indicator of addictive potential, nicotine scores almost as highly as opioids.[90] Users typically develop tolerance and dependence.[91][92] Nicotine is known to produce conditioned place preference, a sign of psychological enforcement value.[93] In one medical study, tobacco's overall harm to user and self was determined at 3 percent below cocaine, and 13 percent above amphetamines, ranking 6th most harmful of the 20 drugs assessed.[94]
+
+Polonium-210 is a radioactive trace contaminant of tobacco, providing additional explanation for the link between smoking and bronchial cancer.[95] A 1968 study found 0.33-0.36 picocurie polonium-210 (about 0.000,000,000,077 microgram) per gram cigarette tobacco,[96] a tiny fraction of the lethal dose of 1 microgram.[97]
+
+Tobacco has a significant economic impact. The global tobacco market in 2010 was estimated at US$760 billion, excluding China.[98] Statistica estimates that in the U.S. alone, the tobacco industry has a market of US$121 billion,[99] despite the fact the CDC reports that US smoking rates are declining steadily.[100] In the US, the decline in the number of smokers, the end of the Tobacco Transition Payment Program in 2014, and competition from growers in other countries, made tobacco farming economics more challenging.[101]
+
+Of the 1.22 billion smokers worldwide, 1 billion of them live in developing or transitional economies, and much of the disease burden and premature mortality attributable to tobacco use disproportionately affect the poor.[78] While smoking prevalence has declined in many developed countries, it remains high in others, and is increasing among women and in developing countries. Between one-fifth and two-thirds of men in most populations smoke. Women's smoking rates vary more widely but rarely equal male rates.[102]
+
+In Indonesia, the lowest income group spends 15% of its total expenditures on tobacco. In Egypt, more than 10% of low-income household expenditure is on tobacco. The poorest 20% of households in Mexico spend 11% of their income on tobacco.[103]
+
+The tobacco industry advertises its products through a variety of media, including sponsorship, particularly of sporting events. Because of the health risks of these products, this is now one of the most highly regulated forms of marketing. Some or all forms of tobacco advertising are banned in many countries.
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+Albert Einstein (/ˈaɪnstaɪn/ EYEN-styne;[4] German: [ˈalbɛʁt ˈʔaɪnʃtaɪn] (listen); 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist[5] who developed the theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics (alongside quantum mechanics).[3][6]:274 His work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science.[7][8] He is best known to the general public for his mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2, which has been dubbed "the world's most famous equation".[9] He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect",[10] a pivotal step in the development of quantum theory.
+
+The son of a salesman who later operated an electrochemical factory, Einstein was born in the German Empire but moved to Switzerland in 1895 and renounced his German citizenship in 1896.[5] Specializing in physics and mathematics, he received his academic teaching diploma from the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School (German: eidgenössische polytechnische Schule, later ETH) in Zürich in 1900. The following year, he acquired Swiss citizenship, which he kept for his entire life. After initially struggling to find work, from 1902 to 1909 he was employed as a patent examiner at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern.
+
+Near the beginning of his career, Einstein thought that Newtonian mechanics was no longer enough to reconcile the laws of classical mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. This led him to develop his special theory of relativity during his time at the Swiss Patent Office. In 1905, called his annus mirabilis (miracle year), he published four groundbreaking papers, which attracted the attention of the academic world; the first outlined the theory of the photoelectric effect, the second paper explained Brownian motion, the third paper introduced special relativity, and the fourth mass-energy equivalence. That year, at the age of 26, he was awarded a PhD by the University of Zurich.
+
+Although initially treated with skepticism from many in the scientific community, Einstein's works gradually came to be recognised as significant advancements. He was invited to teach theoretical physics at the University of Bern in 1908 and the following year moved to the University of Zurich, then in 1911 to Charles University in Prague before returning to the Federal Polytechnic School in Zürich in 1912. In 1914, he was elected to the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin, where he remained for 19 years. Soon after publishing his work on special relativity, Einstein began working to extend the theory to gravitational fields; he then published a paper on general relativity in 1916, introducing his theory of gravitation. He continued to deal with problems of statistical mechanics and quantum theory, which led to his explanations of particle theory and the motion of molecules. He also investigated the thermal properties of light and the quantum theory of radiation, the basis of laser, which laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. In 1917, he applied the general theory of relativity to model the structure of the universe.[11][12]
+
+In 1933, while Einstein was visiting the United States, Adolf Hitler came to power. Because of his Jewish background, Einstein did not return to Germany.[13] He settled in the United States and became an American citizen in 1940.[14] On the eve of World War II, he endorsed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt alerting FDR to the potential development of "extremely powerful bombs of a new type" and recommending that the US begin similar research. This eventually led to the Manhattan Project. Einstein supported the Allies, but he generally denounced the idea of using nuclear fission as a weapon. He signed the Russell–Einstein Manifesto with British philosopher Bertrand Russell, which highlighted the danger of nuclear weapons. He was affiliated with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, until his death in 1955.
+
+He published more than 300 scientific papers and more than 150 non-scientific works.[11][15] His intellectual achievements and originality have made the word "Einstein" synonymous with "genius".[16] Eugene Wigner compared him to his contemporaries, writing that "Einstein's understanding was deeper even than Jancsi von Neumann's. His mind was both more penetrating and more original".[17]
+
+Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg in the German Empire, on 14 March 1879.[5] His parents were Hermann Einstein, a salesman and engineer, and Pauline Koch. In 1880, the family moved to Munich, where Einstein's father and his uncle Jakob founded Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie, a company that manufactured electrical equipment based on direct current.[5]
+
+The Einsteins were non-observant Ashkenazi Jews, and Albert attended a Catholic elementary school in Munich, from the age of 5, for three years. At the age of 8, he was transferred to the Luitpold Gymnasium (now known as the Albert Einstein Gymnasium), where he received advanced primary and secondary school education until he left the German Empire seven years later.[18]
+
+In 1894, Hermann and Jakob's company lost a bid to supply the city of Munich with electrical lighting because they lacked the capital to convert their equipment from the direct current (DC) standard to the more efficient alternating current (AC) standard.[19] The loss forced the sale of the Munich factory. In search of business, the Einstein family moved to Italy, first to Milan and a few months later to Pavia. When the family moved to Pavia, Einstein, then 15, stayed in Munich to finish his studies at the Luitpold Gymnasium. His father intended for him to pursue electrical engineering, but Einstein clashed with authorities and resented the school's regimen and teaching method. He later wrote that the spirit of learning and creative thought was lost in strict rote learning. At the end of December 1894, he traveled to Italy to join his family in Pavia, convincing the school to let him go by using a doctor's note.[20] During his time in Italy he wrote a short essay with the title "On the Investigation of the State of the Ether in a Magnetic Field".[21][22]
+
+Einstein always excelled at math and physics from a young age, reaching a mathematical level years ahead of his peers. The twelve-year-old Einstein taught himself algebra and Euclidean geometry over a single summer. Einstein also independently discovered his own original proof of the Pythagorean theorem at age 12.[23] A family tutor Max Talmud says that after he had given the 12-year-old Einstein a geometry textbook, after a short time "[Einstein] had worked through the whole book. He thereupon devoted himself to higher mathematics... Soon the flight of his mathematical genius was so high I could not follow."[24] His passion for geometry and algebra led the twelve-year-old to become convinced that nature could be understood as a "mathematical structure".[24] Einstein started teaching himself calculus at 12, and as a 14-year-old he says he had "mastered integral and differential calculus".[25]
+
+At age 13, when he had become more seriously interested in philosophy (and music),[26] Einstein was introduced to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, and Kant became his favorite philosopher, his tutor stating: "At the time he was still a child, only thirteen years old, yet Kant's works, incomprehensible to ordinary mortals, seemed to be clear to him."[24]
+
+In 1895, at the age of 16, Einstein took the entrance examinations for the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zürich (later the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, ETH). He failed to reach the required standard in the general part of the examination,[27] but obtained exceptional grades in physics and mathematics.[28] On the advice of the principal of the polytechnic school, he attended the Argovian cantonal school (gymnasium) in Aarau, Switzerland, in 1895 and 1896 to complete his secondary schooling. While lodging with the family of professor Jost Winteler, he fell in love with Winteler's daughter, Marie. Albert's sister Maja later married Winteler's son Paul.[29] In January 1896, with his father's approval, Einstein renounced his citizenship in the German Kingdom of Württemberg to avoid military service.[30] In September 1896, he passed the Swiss Matura with mostly good grades, including a top grade of 6 in physics and mathematical subjects, on a scale of 1–6.[31] At 17, he enrolled in the four-year mathematics and physics teaching diploma program at the Zürich polytechnic school. Marie Winteler, who was a year older, moved to Olsberg, Switzerland, for a teaching post.[29]
+
+Einstein's future wife, a 20-year-old Serbian woman Mileva Marić, also enrolled at the polytechnic school that year. She was the only woman among the six students in the mathematics and physics section of the teaching diploma course. Over the next few years, Einstein's and Marić's friendship developed into romance, and they read books together on extra-curricular physics in which Einstein was taking an increasing interest. In 1900, Einstein passed the exams in Maths and Physics and was awarded the Federal teaching diploma.[32] There have been claims that Marić collaborated with Einstein on his 1905 papers,[33][34] known as the Annus Mirabilis papers, but historians of physics who have studied the issue find no evidence that she made any substantive contributions.[35][36][37][38]
+
+Early correspondence between Einstein and Marić was discovered and published in 1987 which revealed that the couple had a daughter named "Lieserl", born in early 1902 in Novi Sad where Marić was staying with her parents. Marić returned to Switzerland without the child, whose real name and fate are unknown. The contents of Einstein's letter in September 1903 suggest that the girl was either given up for adoption or died of scarlet fever in infancy.[39][40]
+
+Einstein and Marić married in January 1903. In May 1904, their son Hans Albert Einstein was born in Bern, Switzerland. Their son Eduard was born in Zürich in July 1910. The couple moved to Berlin in April 1914, but Marić returned to Zürich with their sons after learning that Einstein's chief romantic attraction was his first and second cousin Elsa.[41] They divorced on 14 February 1919, having lived apart for five years.[42] Eduard had a breakdown at about age 20 and was diagnosed with schizophrenia.[43] His mother cared for him and he was also committed to asylums for several periods, finally being committed permanently after her death.[44]
+
+In letters revealed in 2015, Einstein wrote to his early love Marie Winteler about his marriage and his strong feelings for her. He wrote in 1910, while his wife was pregnant with their second child: "I think of you in heartfelt love every spare minute and am so unhappy as only a man can be." He spoke about a "misguided love" and a "missed life" regarding his love for Marie.[45]
+
+Einstein married Elsa Löwenthal in 1919,[46][47] after having a relationship with her since 1912.[48] She was a first cousin maternally and a second cousin paternally.[48] They emigrated to the United States in 1933. Elsa was diagnosed with heart and kidney problems in 1935 and died in December 1936.[49]
+
+Among Einstein's well-known friends were Michele Besso, Paul Ehrenfest, Marcel Grossmann, János Plesch, Daniel Q. Posin, Maurice Solovine, and Stephen Wise.[50]
+
+After graduating in 1900, Einstein spent almost two frustrating years searching for a teaching post. He acquired Swiss citizenship in February 1901,[51] but for medical reasons was not conscripted. With the help of Marcel Grossmann's father, he secured a job in Bern at the Federal Office for Intellectual Property, the patent office,[52][53] as an assistant examiner – level III.[54][55]
+
+Einstein evaluated patent applications for a variety of devices including a gravel sorter and an electromechanical typewriter.[55] In 1903, his position at the Swiss Patent Office became permanent, although he was passed over for promotion until he "fully mastered machine technology".[56]:370
+
+Much of his work at the patent office related to questions about transmission of electric signals and electrical–mechanical synchronization of time, two technical problems that show up conspicuously in the thought experiments that eventually led Einstein to his radical conclusions about the nature of light and the fundamental connection between space and time.[56]:377
+
+With a few friends he had met in Bern, Einstein started a small discussion group in 1902, self-mockingly named "The Olympia Academy", which met regularly to discuss science and philosophy. Their readings included the works of Henri Poincaré, Ernst Mach, and David Hume, which influenced his scientific and philosophical outlook.[57]
+
+In 1900, Einstein's paper "Folgerungen aus den Capillaritätserscheinungen" ("Conclusions from the Capillarity Phenomena") was published in the journal Annalen der Physik.[58][59] On 30 April 1905, Einstein completed his thesis,[60] with Alfred Kleiner, Professor of Experimental Physics, serving as pro-forma advisor. As a result, Einstein was awarded a PhD by the University of Zürich, with his dissertation A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions.[60][61]
+
+Also in 1905, which has been called Einstein's annus mirabilis (amazing year), he published four groundbreaking papers, on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, and the equivalence of mass and energy, which were to bring him to the notice of the academic world, at the age of 26.
+
+By 1908, he was recognized as a leading scientist and was appointed lecturer at the University of Bern. The following year, after giving a lecture on electrodynamics and the relativity principle at the University of Zürich, Alfred Kleiner recommended him to the faculty for a newly created professorship in theoretical physics. Einstein was appointed associate professor in 1909.[62]
+
+Einstein became a full professor at the German Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague in April 1911, accepting Austrian citizenship in the Austro-Hungarian Empire to do so.[64][65] During his Prague stay, he wrote 11 scientific works, five of them on radiation mathematics and on the quantum theory of solids. In July 1912, he returned to his alma mater in Zürich. From 1912 until 1914, he was a professor of theoretical physics at the ETH Zurich, where he taught analytical mechanics and thermodynamics. He also studied continuum mechanics, the molecular theory of heat, and the problem of gravitation, on which he worked with mathematician and friend Marcel Grossmann.[66]
+
+On 3 July 1913, he was voted for membership in the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. Max Planck and Walther Nernst visited him the next week in Zurich to persuade him to join the academy, additionally offering him the post of director at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics, which was soon to be established.[67] Membership in the academy included paid salary and professorship without teaching duties at the Humboldt University of Berlin. He was officially elected to the academy on 24 July, and he accepted to move to the German Empire the next year. His decision to move to Berlin was also influenced by the prospect of living near his cousin Elsa, with whom he had developed a romantic affair. He joined the academy and thus the Berlin University on 1 April 1914.[68] As World War I broke out that year, the plan for Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics was aborted. The institute was established on 1 October 1917, with Einstein as its director.[69] In 1916, Einstein was elected president of the German Physical Society (1916–1918).[70]
+
+Based on calculations Einstein made in 1911, about his new theory of general relativity, light from another star should be bent by the Sun's gravity. In 1919, that prediction was confirmed by Sir Arthur Eddington during the solar eclipse of 29 May 1919. Those observations were published in the international media, making Einstein world-famous. On 7 November 1919, the leading British newspaper The Times printed a banner headline that read: "Revolution in Science – New Theory of the Universe – Newtonian Ideas Overthrown".[71]
+
+In 1920, he became a Foreign Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.[72] In 1922, he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect".[10] While the general theory of relativity was still considered somewhat controversial, the citation also does not treat even the cited photoelectric work as an explanation but merely as a discovery of the law, as the idea of photons was considered outlandish and did not receive universal acceptance until the 1924 derivation of the Planck spectrum by S. N. Bose. Einstein was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1921.[3] He also received the Copley Medal from the Royal Society in 1925.[3]
+
+Einstein visited New York City for the first time on 2 April 1921, where he received an official welcome by Mayor John Francis Hylan, followed by three weeks of lectures and receptions. He went on to deliver several lectures at Columbia University and Princeton University, and in Washington, he accompanied representatives of the National Academy of Science on a visit to the White House. On his return to Europe he was the guest of the British statesman and philosopher Viscount Haldane in London, where he met several renowned scientific, intellectual and political figures, and delivered a lecture at King's College London.[73] [74]
+
+He also published an essay, "My First Impression of the U.S.A.", in July 1921, in which he tried briefly to describe some characteristics of Americans, much as had Alexis de Tocqueville, who published his own impressions in Democracy in America (1835).[75] For some of his observations, Einstein was clearly surprised: "What strikes a visitor is the joyous, positive attitude to life ... The American is friendly, self-confident, optimistic, and without envy."[76]:20
+
+In 1922, his travels took him to Asia and later to Palestine, as part of a six-month excursion and speaking tour, as he visited Singapore, Ceylon and Japan, where he gave a series of lectures to thousands of Japanese. After his first public lecture, he met the emperor and empress at the Imperial Palace, where thousands came to watch. In a letter to his sons, he described his impression of the Japanese as being modest, intelligent, considerate, and having a true feel for art.[77] In his own travel diaries from his 1922–23 visit to Asia, he expresses some views on the Chinese, Japanese and Indian people, which have been described as xenophobic and racist judgments when they were rediscovered in 2018.[78]
+
+Because of Einstein's travels to the Far East, he was unable to personally accept the Nobel Prize for Physics at the Stockholm award ceremony in December 1922. In his place, the banquet speech was made by a German diplomat, who praised Einstein not only as a scientist but also as an international peacemaker and activist.[79]
+
+On his return voyage, he visited Palestine for 12 days, his only visit to that region. He was greeted as if he were a head of state, rather than a physicist, which included a cannon salute upon arriving at the home of the British high commissioner, Sir Herbert Samuel. During one reception, the building was stormed by people who wanted to see and hear him. In Einstein's talk to the audience, he expressed happiness that the Jewish people were beginning to be recognized as a force in the world.[80]
+
+Einstein visited Spain for two weeks in 1923, where he briefly met Santiago Ramón y Cajal and also received a diploma from King Alfonso XIII naming him a member of the Spanish Academy of Sciences.[81]
+
+From 1922 to 1932, Einstein was a member of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations in Geneva (with a few months of interruption in 1923–1924),[82] a body created to promote international exchange between scientists, researchers, teachers, artists and intellectuals.[83] Originally slated to serve as the Swiss delegate, Secretary-General Eric Drummond was persuaded by Catholic activists Oskar Halecki and Giuseppe Motta to instead have him become the German delegate, thus allowing Gonzague de Reynold to take the Swiss spot, from which he promoted traditionalist Catholic values.[84] Einstein's former physics professor Hendrik Lorentz and the French chemist Marie Curie were also members of the committee.
+
+In December 1930, Einstein visited America for the second time, originally intended as a two-month working visit as a research fellow at the California Institute of Technology. After the national attention he received during his first trip to the US, he and his arrangers aimed to protect his privacy. Although swamped with telegrams and invitations to receive awards or speak publicly, he declined them all.[85]
+
+After arriving in New York City, Einstein was taken to various places and events, including Chinatown, a lunch with the editors of The New York Times, and a performance of Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera, where he was cheered by the audience on his arrival. During the days following, he was given the keys to the city by Mayor Jimmy Walker and met the president of Columbia University, who described Einstein as "the ruling monarch of the mind".[86] Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor at New York's Riverside Church, gave Einstein a tour of the church and showed him a full-size statue that the church made of Einstein, standing at the entrance.[86] Also during his stay in New York, he joined a crowd of 15,000 people at Madison Square Garden during a Hanukkah celebration.[86]
+
+Einstein next traveled to California, where he met Caltech president and Nobel laureate, Robert A. Millikan. His friendship with Millikan was "awkward", as Millikan "had a penchant for patriotic militarism", where Einstein was a pronounced pacifist.[87] During an address to Caltech's students, Einstein noted that science was often inclined to do more harm than good.[88]
+
+This aversion to war also led Einstein to befriend author Upton Sinclair and film star Charlie Chaplin, both noted for their pacifism. Carl Laemmle, head of Universal Studios, gave Einstein a tour of his studio and introduced him to Chaplin. They had an instant rapport, with Chaplin inviting Einstein and his wife, Elsa, to his home for dinner. Chaplin said Einstein's outward persona, calm and gentle, seemed to conceal a "highly emotional temperament", from which came his "extraordinary intellectual energy".[89]:320
+
+Chaplin's film, City Lights, was to premiere a few days later in Hollywood, and Chaplin invited Einstein and Elsa to join him as his special guests. Walter Isaacson, Einstein's biographer, described this as "one of the most memorable scenes in the new era of celebrity".[88] Chaplin visited Einstein at his home on a later trip to Berlin and recalled his "modest little flat" and the piano at which he had begun writing his theory. Chaplin speculated that it was "possibly used as kindling wood by the Nazis".[89]:322
+
+In February 1933, while on a visit to the United States, Einstein knew he could not return to Germany with the rise to power of the Nazis under Germany's new chancellor, Adolf Hitler.[90][91]
+
+While at American universities in early 1933, he undertook his third two-month visiting professorship at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He and his wife Elsa returned to Europe in March, and during the trip, they learned that the German Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, which was passed on 23 March and transformed Hitler's government into a de facto legal dictatorship and that they would not be able to proceed to Berlin. Later on they heard that their cottage was raided by the Nazis and his personal sailboat confiscated. Upon landing in Antwerp, Belgium on 28 March, he immediately went to the German consulate and surrendered his passport, formally renouncing his German citizenship.[92] The Nazis later sold his boat and converted his cottage into a Hitler Youth camp.[93]
+
+In April 1933, Einstein discovered that the new German government had passed laws barring Jews from holding any official positions, including teaching at universities.[92] Historian Gerald Holton describes how, with "virtually no audible protest being raised by their colleagues", thousands of Jewish scientists were suddenly forced to give up their university positions and their names were removed from the rolls of institutions where they were employed.[76]
+
+A month later, Einstein's works were among those targeted by the German Student Union in the Nazi book burnings, with Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels proclaiming, "Jewish intellectualism is dead."[92] One German magazine included him in a list of enemies of the German regime with the phrase, "not yet hanged", offering a $5,000 bounty on his head.[92][94] In a subsequent letter to physicist and friend Max Born, who had already emigrated from Germany to England, Einstein wrote, "... I must confess that the degree of their brutality and cowardice came as something of a surprise."[92] After moving to the US, he described the book burnings as a "spontaneous emotional outburst" by those who "shun popular enlightenment", and "more than anything else in the world, fear the influence of men of intellectual independence".[95]
+
+Einstein was now without a permanent home, unsure where he would live and work, and equally worried about the fate of countless other scientists still in Germany. He rented a house in De Haan, Belgium, where he lived for a few months. In late July 1933, he went to England for about six weeks at the personal invitation of British naval officer Commander Oliver Locker-Lampson, who had become friends with Einstein in the preceding years. Locker-Lampson invited him to stay near his Cromer home in a wooden cabin on Roughton Heath in the Parish of Roughton, Norfolk. To protect Einstein, Locker-Lampson had two bodyguards watch over him at his secluded cabin, with a photo of them carrying shotguns and guarding Einstein, published in the Daily Herald on 24 July 1933.[96][97]
+
+Locker-Lampson took Einstein to meet Winston Churchill at his home, and later, Austen Chamberlain and former Prime Minister Lloyd George.[98] Einstein asked them to help bring Jewish scientists out of Germany. British historian Martin Gilbert notes that Churchill responded immediately, and sent his friend, physicist Frederick Lindemann, to Germany to seek out Jewish scientists and place them in British universities.[99] Churchill later observed that as a result of Germany having driven the Jews out, they had lowered their "technical standards" and put the Allies' technology ahead of theirs.[99]
+
+Einstein later contacted leaders of other nations, including Turkey's Prime Minister, İsmet İnönü, to whom he wrote in September 1933 requesting placement of unemployed German-Jewish scientists. As a result of Einstein's letter, Jewish invitees to Turkey eventually totaled over "1,000 saved individuals".[100]
+
+Locker-Lampson also submitted a bill to parliament to extend British citizenship to Einstein, during which period Einstein made a number of public appearances describing the crisis brewing in Europe.[101] In one of his speeches he denounced Germany's treatment of Jews, while at the same time he introduced a bill promoting Jewish citizenship in Palestine, as they were being denied citizenship elsewhere.[102] In his speech he described Einstein as a "citizen of the world" who should be offered a temporary shelter in the UK.[note 3][103] Both bills failed, however, and Einstein then accepted an earlier offer from the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, New Jersey, US, to become a resident scholar.[101]
+
+In October 1933, Einstein returned to the US and took up a position at the Institute for Advanced Study,[101][104] noted for having become a refuge for scientists fleeing Nazi Germany.[105] At the time, most American universities, including Harvard, Princeton and Yale, had minimal or no Jewish faculty or students, as a result of their Jewish quotas, which lasted until the late 1940s.[105]
+
+Einstein was still undecided on his future. He had offers from several European universities, including Christ Church, Oxford where he stayed for three short periods between May 1931 and June 1933 and was offered a 5-year studentship,[106][107] but in 1935, he arrived at the decision to remain permanently in the United States and apply for citizenship.[101][108]
+
+Einstein's affiliation with the Institute for Advanced Study would last until his death in 1955.[109] He was one of the four first selected (two of the others being John von Neumann and Kurt Gödel) at the new Institute, where he soon developed a close friendship with Gödel. The two would take long walks together discussing their work. Bruria Kaufman, his assistant, later became a physicist. During this period, Einstein tried to develop a unified field theory and to refute the accepted interpretation of quantum physics, both unsuccessfully.
+
+In 1939, a group of Hungarian scientists that included émigré physicist Leó Szilárd attempted to alert Washington to ongoing Nazi atomic bomb research. The group's warnings were discounted. Einstein and Szilárd, along with other refugees such as Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner, "regarded it as their responsibility to alert Americans to the possibility that German scientists might win the race to build an atomic bomb, and to warn that Hitler would be more than willing to resort to such a weapon."[110][111] To make certain the US was aware of the danger, in July 1939, a few months before the beginning of World War II in Europe, Szilárd and Wigner visited Einstein to explain the possibility of atomic bombs, which Einstein, a pacifist, said he had never considered.[112] He was asked to lend his support by writing a letter, with Szilárd, to President Roosevelt, recommending the US pay attention and engage in its own nuclear weapons research.
+
+The letter is believed to be "arguably the key stimulus for the U.S. adoption of serious investigations into nuclear weapons on the eve of the U.S. entry into World War II".[113] In addition to the letter, Einstein used his connections with the Belgian Royal Family[114] and the Belgian queen mother to get access with a personal envoy to the White House's Oval Office. Some say that as a result of Einstein's letter and his meetings with Roosevelt, the US entered the "race" to develop the bomb, drawing on its "immense material, financial, and scientific resources" to initiate the Manhattan Project.
+
+For Einstein, "war was a disease ... [and] he called for resistance to war." By signing the letter to Roosevelt, some argue he went against his pacifist principles.[115] In 1954, a year before his death, Einstein said to his old friend, Linus Pauling, "I made one great mistake in my life—when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification—the danger that the Germans would make them ..."[116]
+
+Einstein became an American citizen in 1940. Not long after settling into his career at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, he expressed his appreciation of the meritocracy in American culture when compared to Europe. He recognized the "right of individuals to say and think what they pleased", without social barriers, and as a result, individuals were encouraged, he said, to be more creative, a trait he valued from his own early education.[117]
+
+Einstein joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Princeton, where he campaigned for the civil rights of African Americans. He considered racism America's "worst disease",[94] seeing it as "handed down from one generation to the next".[118] As part of his involvement, he corresponded with civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois and was prepared to testify on his behalf during his trial in 1951.[119]:565 When Einstein offered to be a character witness for Du Bois, the judge decided to drop the case.[120]
+
+In 1946 Einstein visited Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, a historically black college, where he was awarded an honorary degree. Lincoln was the first university in the United States to grant college degrees to African Americans; alumni include Langston Hughes and Thurgood Marshall. Einstein gave a speech about racism in America, adding, "I do not intend to be quiet about it."[121] A resident of Princeton recalls that Einstein had once paid the college tuition for a black student.[120]
+
+Einstein was a figurehead leader in helping establish the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which opened in 1925 and was among its first Board of Governors. Earlier, in 1921, he was asked by the biochemist and president of the World Zionist Organization, Chaim Weizmann, to help raise funds for the planned university.[122] He also submitted various suggestions as to its initial programs.
+
+Among those, he advised first creating an Institute of Agriculture in order to settle the undeveloped land. That should be followed, he suggested, by a Chemical Institute and an Institute of Microbiology, to fight the various ongoing epidemics such as malaria, which he called an "evil" that was undermining a third of the country's development.[123]:161 Establishing an Oriental Studies Institute, to include language courses given in both Hebrew and Arabic, for scientific exploration of the country and its historical monuments, was also important.[123]:158
+
+Chaim Weizmann later became Israel's first president. Upon his death while in office in November 1952 and at the urging of Ezriel Carlebach, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion offered Einstein the position of President of Israel, a mostly ceremonial post.[124][125] The offer was presented by Israel's ambassador in Washington, Abba Eban, who explained that the offer "embodies the deepest respect which the Jewish people can repose in any of its sons".[126] Einstein declined, and wrote in his response that he was "deeply moved", and "at once saddened and ashamed" that he could not accept it.[126]
+
+Einstein developed an appreciation for music at an early age. In his late journals he wrote: "If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music... I get most joy in life out of music."[127][128]
+
+His mother played the piano reasonably well and wanted her son to learn the violin, not only to instill in him a love of music but also to help him assimilate into German culture. According to conductor Leon Botstein, Einstein began playing when he was 5. However, he did not enjoy it at that age.[129]
+
+When he turned 13, he discovered the violin sonatas of Mozart, whereupon he became enamored of Mozart's compositions and studied music more willingly. Einstein taught himself to play without "ever practicing systematically". He said that "love is a better teacher than a sense of duty."[129] At age 17, he was heard by a school examiner in Aarau while playing Beethoven's violin sonatas. The examiner stated afterward that his playing was "remarkable and revealing of 'great insight'". What struck the examiner, writes Botstein, was that Einstein "displayed a deep love of the music, a quality that was and remains in short supply. Music possessed an unusual meaning for this student."[129]
+
+Music took on a pivotal and permanent role in Einstein's life from that period on. Although the idea of becoming a professional musician himself was not on his mind at any time, among those with whom Einstein played chamber music were a few professionals, and he performed for private audiences and friends. Chamber music had also become a regular part of his social life while living in Bern, Zürich, and Berlin, where he played with Max Planck and his son, among others. He is sometimes erroneously credited as the editor of the 1937 edition of the Köchel catalog of Mozart's work; that edition was prepared by Alfred Einstein, who may have been a distant relation.[130][131]
+
+In 1931, while engaged in research at the California Institute of Technology, he visited the Zoellner family conservatory in Los Angeles, where he played some of Beethoven and Mozart's works with members of the Zoellner Quartet.[132][133] Near the end of his life, when the young Juilliard Quartet visited him in Princeton, he played his violin with them, and the quartet was "impressed by Einstein's level of coordination and intonation".[129]
+
+In 1918, Einstein was one of the founding members of the German Democratic Party, a liberal party.[134]:83 However, later in his life, Einstein's political view was in favor of socialism and critical of capitalism, which he detailed in his essays such as "Why Socialism?".[135][136] Einstein offered and was called on to give judgments and opinions on matters often unrelated to theoretical physics or mathematics.[101] He strongly advocated the idea of a democratic global government that would check the power of nation-states in the framework of a world federation.[137] The FBI created a secret dossier on Einstein in 1932, and by the time of his death his FBI file was 1,427 pages long.[138]
+
+Einstein was deeply impressed by Mahatma Gandhi. He exchanged written letters with Gandhi, and called him "a role model for the generations to come" in a letter writing about him.[139]
+
+Einstein spoke of his spiritual outlook in a wide array of original writings and interviews.[140] Einstein stated that he had sympathy for the impersonal pantheistic God of Baruch Spinoza's philosophy.[141] He did not believe in a personal God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings, a view which he described as naïve.[142] He clarified, however, that "I am not an atheist",[143] preferring to call himself an agnostic,[144] or a "deeply religious nonbeliever".[142] When asked if he believed in an afterlife, Einstein replied, "No. And one life is enough for me."[145]
+
+Einstein was primarily affiliated with non-religious humanist and Ethical Culture groups in both the UK and US. He served on the advisory board of the First Humanist Society of New York,[146] and was an honorary associate of the Rationalist Association, which publishes New Humanist in Britain. For the seventy-fifth anniversary of the New York Society for Ethical Culture, he stated that the idea of Ethical Culture embodied his personal conception of what is most valuable and enduring in religious idealism. He observed, "Without 'ethical culture' there is no salvation for humanity."[147]
+
+In a one-and-a-half-page hand-written German-language letter to philosopher Eric Gutkind, dated Princeton, 3 January 1954, fifteen months before his death, Einstein wrote: "The word God is for me nothing but the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of venerable but still rather primitive legends. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can (for me) change anything about this. [...] For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition. [...] I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them [the Jewish people]."[148][149]
+
+On 17 April 1955, Einstein experienced internal bleeding caused by the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm, which had previously been reinforced surgically by Rudolph Nissen in 1948.[150] He took the draft of a speech he was preparing for a television appearance commemorating the State of Israel's seventh anniversary with him to the hospital, but he did not live long enough to complete it.[151]
+
+Einstein refused surgery, saying, "I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share; it is time to go. I will do it elegantly."[152] He died in Princeton Hospital early the next morning at the age of 76, having continued to work until near the end.[153]
+
+During the autopsy, the pathologist of Princeton Hospital, Thomas Stoltz Harvey, removed Einstein's brain for preservation without the permission of his family, in the hope that the neuroscience of the future would be able to discover what made Einstein so intelligent.[154] Einstein's remains were cremated and his ashes were scattered at an undisclosed location.[155][156]
+
+In a memorial lecture delivered on 13 December 1965, at UNESCO headquarters, nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer summarized his impression of Einstein as a person: "He was almost wholly without sophistication and wholly without worldliness ... There was always with him a wonderful purity at once childlike and profoundly stubborn."[157]
+
+Throughout his life, Einstein published hundreds of books and articles.[5][15] He published more than 300 scientific papers and 150 non-scientific ones.[11][15] On 5 December 2014, universities and archives announced the release of Einstein's papers, comprising more than 30,000 unique documents.[158][159] Einstein's intellectual achievements and originality have made the word "Einstein" synonymous with "genius".[16] In addition to the work he did by himself he also collaborated with other scientists on additional projects including the Bose–Einstein statistics, the Einstein refrigerator and others.[160][161]
+
+The Annus Mirabilis papers are four articles pertaining to the photoelectric effect (which gave rise to quantum theory), Brownian motion, the special theory of relativity, and E = mc2 that Einstein published in the Annalen der Physik scientific journal in 1905. These four works contributed substantially to the foundation of modern physics and changed views on space, time, and matter. The four papers are:
+
+Einstein's first paper[166] submitted in 1900 to Annalen der Physik was on capillary attraction. It was published in 1901 with the title "Folgerungen aus den Capillaritätserscheinungen", which translates as "Conclusions from the capillarity phenomena". Two papers he published in 1902–1903 (thermodynamics) attempted to interpret atomic phenomena from a statistical point of view. These papers were the foundation for the 1905 paper on Brownian motion, which showed that Brownian movement can be construed as firm evidence that molecules exist. His research in 1903 and 1904 was mainly concerned with the effect of finite atomic size on diffusion phenomena.[166]
+
+Einstein returned to the problem of thermodynamic fluctuations, giving a treatment of the density variations in a fluid at its critical point. Ordinarily the density fluctuations are controlled by the second derivative of the free energy with respect to the density. At the critical point, this derivative is zero, leading to large fluctuations. The effect of density fluctuations is that light of all wavelengths is scattered, making the fluid look milky white. Einstein relates this to Rayleigh scattering, which is what happens when the fluctuation size is much smaller than the wavelength, and which explains why the sky is blue.[167] Einstein quantitatively derived critical opalescence from a treatment of density fluctuations, and demonstrated how both the effect and Rayleigh scattering originate from the atomistic constitution of matter.
+
+Einstein's "Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper"[168] ("On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies") was received on 30 June 1905 and published 26 September of that same year. It reconciled conflicts between Maxwell's equations (the laws of electricity and magnetism) and the laws of Newtonian mechanics by introducing changes to the laws of mechanics.[169] Observationally, the effects of these changes are most apparent at high speeds (where objects are moving at speeds close to the speed of light). The theory developed in this paper later became known as Einstein's special theory of relativity.
+
+This paper predicted that, when measured in the frame of a relatively moving observer, a clock carried by a moving body would appear to slow down, and the body itself would contract in its direction of motion. This paper also argued that the idea of a luminiferous aether—one of the leading theoretical entities in physics at the time—was superfluous.[note 4]
+
+In his paper on mass–energy equivalence, Einstein produced E = mc2 as a consequence of his special relativity equations.[170] Einstein's 1905 work on relativity remained controversial for many years, but was accepted by leading physicists, starting with Max Planck.[171][172]
+
+Einstein originally framed special relativity in terms of kinematics (the study of moving bodies). In 1908, Hermann Minkowski reinterpreted special relativity in geometric terms as a theory of spacetime. Einstein adopted Minkowski's formalism in his 1915 general theory of relativity.[173]
+
+General relativity (GR) is a theory of gravitation that was developed by Einstein between 1907 and 1915. According to general relativity, the observed gravitational attraction between masses results from the warping of space and time by those masses. General relativity has developed into an essential tool in modern astrophysics. It provides the foundation for the current understanding of black holes, regions of space where gravitational attraction is so strong that not even light can escape.
+
+As Einstein later said, the reason for the development of general relativity was that the preference of inertial motions within special relativity was unsatisfactory, while a theory which from the outset prefers no state of motion (even accelerated ones) should appear more satisfactory.[174] Consequently, in 1907 he published an article on acceleration under special relativity. In that article titled "On the Relativity Principle and the Conclusions Drawn from It", he argued that free fall is really inertial motion, and that for a free-falling observer the rules of special relativity must apply. This argument is called the equivalence principle. In the same article, Einstein also predicted the phenomena of gravitational time dilation, gravitational redshift and deflection of light.[175][176]
+
+In 1911, Einstein published another article "On the Influence of Gravitation on the Propagation of Light" expanding on the 1907 article, in which he estimated the amount of deflection of light by massive bodies. Thus, the theoretical prediction of general relativity could for the first time be tested experimentally.[177]
+
+In 1916, Einstein predicted gravitational waves,[178][179] ripples in the curvature of spacetime which propagate as waves, traveling outward from the source, transporting energy as gravitational radiation. The existence of gravitational waves is possible under general relativity due to its Lorentz invariance which brings the concept of a finite speed of propagation of the physical interactions of gravity with it. By contrast, gravitational waves cannot exist in the Newtonian theory of gravitation, which postulates that the physical interactions of gravity propagate at infinite speed.
+
+The first, indirect, detection of gravitational waves came in the 1970s through observation of a pair of closely orbiting neutron stars, PSR B1913+16.[180] The explanation of the decay in their orbital period was that they were emitting gravitational waves.[180][181] Einstein's prediction was confirmed on 11 February 2016, when researchers at LIGO published the first observation of gravitational waves,[182] detected on Earth on 14 September 2015, nearly one hundred years after the prediction.[180][183][184][185][186]
+
+While developing general relativity, Einstein became confused about the gauge invariance in the theory. He formulated an argument that led him to conclude that a general relativistic field theory is impossible. He gave up looking for fully generally covariant tensor equations and searched for equations that would be invariant under general linear transformations only.
+
+In June 1913, the Entwurf ('draft') theory was the result of these investigations. As its name suggests, it was a sketch of a theory, less elegant and more difficult than general relativity, with the equations of motion supplemented by additional gauge fixing conditions. After more than two years of intensive work, Einstein realized that the hole argument was mistaken[187] and abandoned the theory in November 1915.
+
+In 1917, Einstein applied the general theory of relativity to the structure of the universe as a whole.[188] He discovered that the general field equations predicted a universe that was dynamic, either contracting or expanding. As observational evidence for a dynamic universe was not known at the time, Einstein introduced a new term, the cosmological constant, to the field equations, in order to allow the theory to predict a static universe. The modified field equations predicted a static universe of closed curvature, in accordance with Einstein's understanding of Mach's principle in these years. This model became known as the Einstein World or Einstein's static universe.[189][190]
+
+Following the discovery of the recession of the nebulae by Edwin Hubble in 1929, Einstein abandoned his static model of the universe, and proposed two dynamic models of the cosmos, The Friedmann-Einstein universe of 1931[191][192] and the Einstein–de Sitter universe of 1932.[193][194] In each of these models, Einstein discarded the cosmological constant, claiming that it was "in any case theoretically unsatisfactory".[191][192][195]
+
+In many Einstein biographies, it is claimed that Einstein referred to the cosmological constant in later years as his "biggest blunder". The astrophysicist Mario Livio has recently cast doubt on this claim, suggesting that it may be exaggerated.[196]
+
+In late 2013, a team led by the Irish physicist Cormac O'Raifeartaigh discovered evidence that, shortly after learning of Hubble's observations of the recession of the nebulae, Einstein considered a steady-state model of the universe.[197][198] In a hitherto overlooked manuscript, apparently written in early 1931, Einstein explored a model of the expanding universe in which the density of matter remains constant due to a continuous creation of matter, a process he associated with the cosmological constant.[199][200] As he stated in the paper, "In what follows, I would like to draw attention to a solution to equation (1) that can account for Hubbel's [sic] facts, and in which the density is constant over time" ... "If one considers a physically bounded volume, particles of matter will be continually leaving it. For the density to remain constant, new particles of matter must be continually formed in the volume from space."
+
+It thus appears that Einstein considered a steady-state model of the expanding universe many years before Hoyle, Bondi and Gold.[201][202] However, Einstein's steady-state model contained a fundamental flaw and he quickly abandoned the idea.[199][200][203]
+
+General relativity includes a dynamical spacetime, so it is difficult to see how to identify the conserved energy and momentum. Noether's theorem allows these quantities to be determined from a Lagrangian with translation invariance, but general covariance makes translation invariance into something of a gauge symmetry. The energy and momentum derived within general relativity by Noether's prescriptions do not make a real tensor for this reason.
+
+Einstein argued that this is true for a fundamental reason: the gravitational field could be made to vanish by a choice of coordinates. He maintained that the non-covariant energy momentum pseudotensor was, in fact, the best description of the energy momentum distribution in a gravitational field. This approach has been echoed by Lev Landau and Evgeny Lifshitz, and others, and has become standard.
+
+The use of non-covariant objects like pseudotensors was heavily criticized in 1917 by Erwin Schrödinger and others.
+
+In 1935, Einstein collaborated with Nathan Rosen to produce a model of a wormhole, often called Einstein–Rosen bridges.[204][205] His motivation was to model elementary particles with charge as a solution of gravitational field equations, in line with the program outlined in the paper "Do Gravitational Fields play an Important Role in the Constitution of the Elementary Particles?". These solutions cut and pasted Schwarzschild black holes to make a bridge between two patches.[206]
+
+If one end of a wormhole was positively charged, the other end would be negatively charged. These properties led Einstein to believe that pairs of particles and antiparticles could be described in this way.
+
+In order to incorporate spinning point particles into general relativity, the affine connection needed to be generalized to include an antisymmetric part, called the torsion. This modification was made by Einstein and Cartan in the 1920s.
+
+The theory of general relativity has a fundamental law—the Einstein field equations, which describe how space curves. The geodesic equation, which describes how particles move, may be derived from the Einstein field equations.
+
+Since the equations of general relativity are non-linear, a lump of energy made out of pure gravitational fields, like a black hole, would move on a trajectory which is determined by the Einstein field equations themselves, not by a new law. So Einstein proposed that the path of a singular solution, like a black hole, would be determined to be a geodesic from general relativity itself.
+
+This was established by Einstein, Infeld, and Hoffmann for pointlike objects without angular momentum, and by Roy Kerr for spinning objects.
+
+In a 1905 paper,[207] Einstein postulated that light itself consists of localized particles (quanta). Einstein's light quanta were nearly universally rejected by all physicists, including Max Planck and Niels Bohr. This idea only became universally accepted in 1919, with Robert Millikan's detailed experiments on the photoelectric effect, and with the measurement of Compton scattering.
+
+Einstein concluded that each wave of frequency f is associated with a collection of photons with energy hf each, where h is Planck's constant. He does not say much more, because he is not sure how the particles are related to the wave. But he does suggest that this idea would explain certain experimental results, notably the photoelectric effect.[207]
+
+In 1907, Einstein proposed a model of matter where each atom in a lattice structure is an independent harmonic oscillator. In the Einstein model, each atom oscillates independently—a series of equally spaced quantized states for each oscillator. Einstein was aware that getting the frequency of the actual oscillations would be difficult, but he nevertheless proposed this theory because it was a particularly clear demonstration that quantum mechanics could solve the specific heat problem in classical mechanics. Peter Debye refined this model.[208]
+
+Throughout the 1910s, quantum mechanics expanded in scope to cover many different systems. After Ernest Rutherford discovered the nucleus and proposed that electrons orbit like planets, Niels Bohr was able to show that the same quantum mechanical postulates introduced by Planck and developed by Einstein would explain the discrete motion of electrons in atoms, and the periodic table of the elements.
+
+Einstein contributed to these developments by linking them with the 1898 arguments Wilhelm Wien had made. Wien had shown that the hypothesis of adiabatic invariance of a thermal equilibrium state allows all the blackbody curves at different temperature to be derived from one another by a simple shifting process. Einstein noted in 1911 that the same adiabatic principle shows that the quantity which is quantized in any mechanical motion must be an adiabatic invariant. Arnold Sommerfeld identified this adiabatic invariant as the action variable of classical mechanics.
+
+In 1924, Einstein received a description of a statistical model from Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose, based on a counting method that assumed that light could be understood as a gas of indistinguishable particles. Einstein noted that Bose's statistics applied to some atoms as well as to the proposed light particles, and submitted his translation of Bose's paper to the Zeitschrift für Physik. Einstein also published his own articles describing the model and its implications, among them the Bose–Einstein condensate phenomenon that some particulates should appear at very low temperatures.[209] It was not until 1995 that the first such condensate was produced experimentally by Eric Allin Cornell and Carl Wieman using ultra-cooling equipment built at the NIST–JILA laboratory at the University of Colorado at Boulder.[210] Bose–Einstein statistics are now used to describe the behaviors of any assembly of bosons. Einstein's sketches for this project may be seen in the Einstein Archive in the library of the Leiden University.[160]
+
+Although the patent office promoted Einstein to Technical Examiner Second Class in 1906, he had not given up on academia. In 1908, he became a Privatdozent at the University of Bern.[211] In "Über die Entwicklung unserer Anschauungen über das Wesen und die Konstitution der Strahlung" ("The Development of our Views on the Composition and Essence of Radiation"), on the quantization of light, and in an earlier 1909 paper, Einstein showed that Max Planck's energy quanta must have well-defined momenta and act in some respects as independent, point-like particles. This paper introduced the photon concept (although the name photon was introduced later by Gilbert N. Lewis in 1926) and inspired the notion of wave–particle duality in quantum mechanics. Einstein saw this wave–particle duality in radiation as concrete evidence for his conviction that physics needed a new, unified foundation.
+
+In a series of works completed from 1911 to 1913, Planck reformulated his 1900 quantum theory and introduced the idea of zero-point energy in his "second quantum theory". Soon, this idea attracted the attention of Einstein and his assistant Otto Stern. Assuming the energy of rotating diatomic molecules contains zero-point energy, they then compared the theoretical specific heat of hydrogen gas with the experimental data. The numbers matched nicely. However, after publishing the findings, they promptly withdrew their support, because they no longer had confidence in the correctness of the idea of zero-point energy.[212]
+
+In 1917, at the height of his work on relativity, Einstein published an article in Physikalische Zeitschrift that proposed the possibility of stimulated emission, the physical process that makes possible the maser and the laser.[213]
+This article showed that the statistics of absorption and emission of light would only be consistent with Planck's distribution law if the emission of light into a mode with n photons would be enhanced statistically compared to the emission of light into an empty mode. This paper was enormously influential in the later development of quantum mechanics, because it was the first paper to show that the statistics of atomic transitions had simple laws.
+
+Einstein discovered Louis de Broglie's work and supported his ideas, which were received skeptically at first. In another major paper from this era, Einstein gave a wave equation for de Broglie waves, which Einstein suggested was the Hamilton–Jacobi equation of mechanics. This paper would inspire Schrödinger's work of 1926.
+
+Einstein played a major role in developing quantum theory, beginning with his 1905 paper on the photoelectric effect. However, he became displeased with modern quantum mechanics as it had evolved after 1925, despite its acceptance by other physicists. He was skeptical that the randomness of quantum mechanics was fundamental rather than the result of determinism, stating that God "is not playing at dice".[214] Until the end of his life, he continued to maintain that quantum mechanics was incomplete.[215]
+
+The Bohr–Einstein debates were a series of public disputes about quantum mechanics between Einstein and Niels Bohr, who were two of its founders. Their debates are remembered because of their importance to the philosophy of science.[216][217][218] Their debates would influence later interpretations of quantum mechanics.
+
+In 1935, Einstein returned to quantum mechanics, in particular to the question of its completeness, in the "EPR paper".[218] In a thought experiment, he considered two particles which had interacted such that their properties were strongly correlated. No matter how far the two particles were separated, a precise position measurement on one particle would result in equally precise knowledge of the position of the other particle; likewise a precise momentum measurement of one particle would result in equally precise knowledge of the momentum of the other particle, without needing to disturb the other particle in any way.[219]
+
+Given Einstein's concept of local realism, there were two possibilities: (1) either the other particle had these properties already determined, or (2) the process of measuring the first particle instantaneously affected the reality of the position and momentum of the second particle. Einstein rejected this second possibility (popularly called "spooky action at a distance").[219]
+
+Einstein's belief in local realism led him to assert that, while the correctness of quantum mechanics was not in question, it must be incomplete. But as a physical principle, local realism was shown to be incorrect when the Aspect experiment of 1982 confirmed Bell's theorem, which J. S. Bell had delineated in 1964. The results of these and subsequent experiments demonstrate that quantum physics cannot be represented by any version of the picture of physics in which "particles are regarded as unconnected independent classical-like entities, each one being unable to communicate with the other after they have separated."[220]
+
+Although Einstein was wrong about local realism, his clear prediction of the unusual properties of its opposite, entangled quantum states, has resulted in the EPR paper becoming among the top ten papers published in Physical Review. It is considered a centerpiece of the development of quantum information theory.[221]
+
+Following his research on general relativity, Einstein entered into a series of attempts to generalize his geometric theory of gravitation to include electromagnetism as another aspect of a single entity. In 1950, he described his "unified field theory" in a Scientific American article titled "On the Generalized Theory of Gravitation".[222] Although he continued to be lauded for his work, Einstein became increasingly isolated in his research, and his efforts were ultimately unsuccessful.
+In his pursuit of a unification of the fundamental forces, Einstein ignored some mainstream developments in physics, most notably the strong and weak nuclear forces, which were not well understood until many years after his death. Mainstream physics, in turn, largely ignored Einstein's approaches to unification. Einstein's dream of unifying other laws of physics with gravity motivates modern quests for a theory of everything and in particular string theory, where geometrical fields emerge in a unified quantum-mechanical setting.
+
+Einstein conducted other investigations that were unsuccessful and abandoned. These pertain to force, superconductivity, and other research.
+
+In addition to longtime collaborators Leopold Infeld, Nathan Rosen, Peter Bergmann and others, Einstein also had some one-shot collaborations with various scientists.
+
+Einstein and De Haas demonstrated that magnetization is due to the motion of electrons, nowadays known to be the spin. In order to show this, they reversed the magnetization in an iron bar suspended on a torsion pendulum. They confirmed that this leads the bar to rotate, because the electron's angular momentum changes as the magnetization changes. This experiment needed to be sensitive because the angular momentum associated with electrons is small, but it definitively established that electron motion of some kind is responsible for magnetization.
+
+Einstein suggested to Erwin Schrödinger that he might be able to reproduce the statistics of a Bose–Einstein gas by considering a box. Then to each possible quantum motion of a particle in a box associate an independent harmonic oscillator. Quantizing these oscillators, each level will have an integer occupation number, which will be the number of particles in it.[citation needed]
+
+This formulation is a form of second quantization, but it predates modern quantum mechanics. Erwin Schrödinger applied this to derive the thermodynamic properties of a semiclassical ideal gas. Schrödinger urged Einstein to add his name as co-author, although Einstein declined the invitation.[223]
+
+In 1926, Einstein and his former student Leó Szilárd co-invented (and in 1930, patented) the Einstein refrigerator. This absorption refrigerator was then revolutionary for having no moving parts and using only heat as an input.[224] On 11 November 1930, U.S. Patent 1,781,541 was awarded to Einstein and Leó Szilárd for the refrigerator. Their invention was not immediately put into commercial production, and the most promising of their patents were acquired by the Swedish company Electrolux.[225]
+
+While traveling, Einstein wrote daily to his wife Elsa and adopted stepdaughters Margot and Ilse. The letters were included in the papers bequeathed to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Margot Einstein permitted the personal letters to be made available to the public, but requested that it not be done until twenty years after her death (she died in 1986[226]). Einstein had expressed his interest in the plumbing profession and was made an honorary member of the Plumbers and Steamfitters Union.[227][228] Barbara Wolff, of the Hebrew University's Albert Einstein Archives, told the BBC that there are about 3,500 pages of private correspondence written between 1912 and 1955.[229]
+
+Corbis, successor to The Roger Richman Agency, licenses the use of his name and associated imagery, as agent for the university.[230]
+
+The Einstein rights were litigated in 2015 in a federal district court in California. Although the court initially held that the Einstein rights had expired,[231] that ruling was immediately appealed, and the decision was later vacated in its entirety. The court's initial decision no longer has any legal impact or effect of any kind. The underlying claims between the parties in that lawsuit were ultimately settled. The Einstein rights are enforceable, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is the exclusive representative of those rights.[232]
+
+In the period before World War II, The New Yorker published a vignette in their "The Talk of the Town" feature saying that Einstein was so well known in America that he would be stopped on the street by people wanting him to explain "that theory". He finally figured out a way to handle the incessant inquiries. He told his inquirers "Pardon me, sorry! Always I am mistaken for Professor Einstein."[233]
+
+Einstein has been the subject of or inspiration for many novels, films, plays, and works of music.[234] He is a favorite model for depictions of absent-minded professors; his expressive face and distinctive hairstyle have been widely copied and exaggerated. Time magazine's Frederic Golden wrote that Einstein was "a cartoonist's dream come true".[235]
+
+Many popular quotations are often misattributed to him.[236][237]
+
+Einstein received numerous awards and honors, and in 1922, he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect". None of the nominations in 1921 met the criteria set by Alfred Nobel, so the 1921 prize was carried forward and awarded to Einstein in 1922.[10]
+
+Footnotes
+
+Citations
+

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+Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera;[a] with their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more manoeuvrable than birds, flying with their very long spread-out digits covered with a thin membrane or patagium. The smallest bat, and arguably the smallest extant mammal, is Kitti's hog-nosed bat, which is 29–34 millimetres (1 1⁄8–1 3⁄8 inches) in length, 150 mm (6 in) across the wings and 2–2.6 g (1⁄16–3⁄32 oz) in mass. The largest bats are the flying foxes and the giant golden-crowned flying fox, Acerodon jubatus, which can weigh 1.6 kg (3 1⁄2 lb) and have a wingspan of 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in).
+
+The second largest order of mammals after rodents, bats comprise about 20% of all classified mammal species worldwide, with over 1,400 species. These were traditionally divided into two suborders: the largely fruit-eating megabats, and the echolocating microbats. But more recent evidence has supported dividing the order into Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera, with megabats as members of the former along with several species of microbats. Many bats are insectivores, and most of the rest are frugivores (fruit-eaters). A few species feed on animals other than insects; for example, the vampire bats feed on blood. Most bats are nocturnal, and many roost in caves or other refuges; it is uncertain whether bats have these behaviours to escape predators. Bats are present throughout the world, with the exception of extremely cold regions. They are important in their ecosystems for pollinating flowers and dispersing seeds; many tropical plants depend entirely on bats for these services.
+
+Bats provide humans with some benefits, at the cost of some threats. Bat dung has been mined as guano from caves and used as fertiliser. Bats consume insect pests, reducing the need for pesticides. They are sometimes numerous enough to serve as tourist attractions, and are used as food across Asia and the Pacific Rim. They are natural reservoirs of many pathogens, such as rabies; and since they are highly mobile, social, and long-lived, they can readily spread disease. In many cultures, bats are popularly associated with darkness, malevolence, witchcraft, vampires, and death.
+
+An older English name for bats is flittermouse, which matches their name in other Germanic languages (for example German Fledermaus and Swedish fladdermus), related to the fluttering of wings. Middle English had bakke, most likely cognate with Old Swedish natbakka ("night-bat"), which may have undergone a shift from -k- to -t- (to Modern English bat) influenced by Latin blatta, "moth, nocturnal insect". The word "bat" was probably first used in the early 1570s.[2][3] The name "Chiroptera" derives from Ancient Greek: χείρ – cheir, "hand"[4] and πτερόν – pteron, "wing".[1][5]
+
+The delicate skeletons of bats do not fossilise well, and it is estimated that only 12% of bat genera that lived have been found in the fossil record.[6] Most of the oldest known bat fossils were already very similar to modern microbats, such as Archaeopteropus (32 million years ago).[7] The extinct bats Palaeochiropteryx tupaiodon (48 million years ago) and Hassianycteris kumari (55 million years ago) are the first fossil mammals whose colouration has been discovered: both were reddish-brown.[8][9]
+
+Bats were formerly grouped in the superorder Archonta, along with the treeshrews (Scandentia), colugos (Dermoptera), and primates.[10] Modern genetic evidence now places bats in the superorder Laurasiatheria, with its sister taxon as Fereuungulata, which includes carnivorans, pangolins, odd-toed ungulates, even-toed ungulates, and cetaceans.[11][12][13][14][15] One study places Chiroptera as a sister taxon to odd-toed ungulates (Perissodactyla).[16]
+
+Euarchontoglires (primates, treeshrews, rodents, rabbits)
+
+Eulipotyphla (hedgehogs, shrews, moles, solenodons)
+
+Chiroptera (bats)
+
+Pholidota (pangolins)
+
+Carnivora (cats, hyenas, dogs, bears, seals)
+
+Perissodactyla (horses, tapirs, rhinos)
+
+Cetartiodactyla (camels, ruminants, whales)
+
+The phylogenetic relationships of the different groups of bats have been the subject of much debate. The traditional subdivision into Megachiroptera and Microchiroptera reflected the view that these groups of bats had evolved independently of each other for a long time, from a common ancestor already capable of flight. This hypothesis recognised differences between microbats and megabats and acknowledged that flight has evolved only once in mammals. Most molecular biological evidence supports the view that bats form a natural or monophyletic group.[7]
+
+Pteropodidae (megabats)
+
+Megadermatidae (false vampire bats)
+
+Craseonycteridae (Kitti's hog-nosed bat)
+
+Rhinopomatidae (mouse-tailed bats)
+
+Hipposideridae (Old World leaf-nosed bats)
+
+Rhinolophidae (horseshoe bats)
+
+Miniopteridae (long winged bat)
+
+Noctilionidae (fisherman bats)
+
+Mormoopidae (Pteronotus)
+
+Mystacinidae (New Zealand short-tailed bats)
+
+Thyropteridae (disc-winged bats)
+
+Furipteridae
+
+Mormoopidae (Mormoops)
+
+Phyllostomidae (New World leaf-nosed bats)
+
+Molossidae (free-tailed bats)
+
+Emballonuridae (sac-winged bats)
+
+Myzopodidae (sucker-footed bats)
+
+Emballonuridae (Taphozous)
+
+Natalidae (funnel-eared bats)
+
+Vespertilionidae (vesper bats)
+
+Genetic evidence indicates that megabats originated during the early Eocene, and belong within the four major lines of microbats.[15] Two new suborders have been proposed; Yinpterochiroptera includes the Pteropodidae, or megabat family, as well as the families Rhinolophidae, Hipposideridae, Craseonycteridae, Megadermatidae, and Rhinopomatidae.[18] Yangochiroptera includes the other families of bats (all of which use laryngeal echolocation), a conclusion supported by a 2005 DNA study.[18] A 2013 phylogenomic study supported the two new proposed suborders.[15]
+
+Yangochiroptera (as above)
+
+Pteropodidae (megabats)
+
+Megadermatidae (false vampire bats)
+
+horseshoe bats and allies
+
+In the 1980s, a hypothesis based on morphological evidence stated the Megachiroptera evolved flight separately from the Microchiroptera. The flying primate hypothesis proposed that, when adaptations to flight are removed, the Megachiroptera are allied to primates by anatomical features not shared with Microchiroptera. For example, the brains of megabats have advanced characteristics. Although recent genetic studies strongly support the monophyly of bats,[7] debate continues about the meaning of the genetic and morphological evidence.[19]
+
+The 2003 discovery of an early fossil bat from the 52-million-year-old Green River Formation, Onychonycteris finneyi, indicates that flight evolved before echolocative abilities.[20][21] Onychonycteris had claws on all five of its fingers, whereas modern bats have at most two claws on two digits of each hand. It also had longer hind legs and shorter forearms, similar to climbing mammals that hang under branches, such as sloths and gibbons. This palm-sized bat had short, broad wings, suggesting that it could not fly as fast or as far as later bat species. Instead of flapping its wings continuously while flying, Onychonycteris probably alternated between flaps and glides in the air.[7] This suggests that this bat did not fly as much as modern bats, but flew from tree to tree and spent most of its time climbing or hanging on branches.[22] The distinctive features of the Onychonycteris fossil also support the hypothesis that mammalian flight most likely evolved in arboreal locomotors, rather than terrestrial runners. This model of flight development, commonly known as the "trees-down" theory, holds that bats first flew by taking advantage of height and gravity to drop down on to prey, rather than running fast enough for a ground-level take off.[23][24]
+
+The molecular phylogeny was controversial, as it pointed to microbats not having a unique common ancestry, which implied that some seemingly unlikely transformations occurred. The first is that laryngeal echolocation evolved twice in bats, once in Yangochiroptera and once in the rhinolophoids.[25] The second is that laryngeal echolocation had a single origin in Chiroptera, was subsequently lost in the family Pteropodidae (all megabats), and later evolved as a system of tongue-clicking in the genus Rousettus.[26] Analyses of the sequence of the vocalization gene FoxP2 were inconclusive on whether laryngeal echolocation was lost in the pteropodids or gained in the echolocating lineages.[27] Echolocation probably first derived in bats from communicative calls. The Eocene bats Icaronycteris (52 million years ago) and Palaeochiropteryx had cranial adaptations suggesting an ability to detect ultrasound. This may have been used at first mainly to forage on the ground for insects and map out their surroundings in their gliding phase, or for communicative purposes. After the adaptation of flight was established, it may have been refined to target flying prey by echolocation.[22] Bats may have evolved echolocation through a shared common ancestor, in which case it was then lost in the Old World megabats, only to be regained in the horseshoe bats; or, echolocation evolved independently in both the Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera lineages.[28] Analyses of the hearing gene Prestin seem to favour the idea that echolocation developed independently at least twice, rather than being lost secondarily in the pteropodids,[29] but ontogenic analysis of the cochlea supports that laryngeal echolocation evolved only once.[30]
+
+Bats are placental mammals. After rodents, they are the largest order, making up about 20% of mammal species.[31] In 1758, Carl Linnaeus classified the seven bat species he knew of in the genus Vespertilio in the order Primates. Around twenty years later, the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach gave them their own order, Chiroptera.[32] Since then, the number of described species has risen to over 1,400,[33] traditionally classified as two suborders: Megachiroptera (megabats), and Microchiroptera (microbats/echolocating bats).[34] Not all megabats are larger than microbats.[35] Several characteristics distinguish the two groups. Microbats use echolocation for navigation and finding prey, but megabats apart from those in the genus Rousettus do not, relying instead on their eyesight.[36] Accordingly, megabats have a well-developed visual cortex and good visual acuity.[34] Megabats have a claw on the second finger of the forelimb.[37][38] The external ears of microbats do not close to form a ring; the edges are separated from each other at the base of the ear.[38] Megabats eat fruit, nectar, or pollen, while most microbats eat insects; others feed on fruit, nectar, pollen, fish, frogs, small mammals, or blood.[34]
+
+Below is a table chart following the bat classification of families recognized by various authors of the ninth volume of Handbook of the Mammals of the World published in 2019:[39]
+
+The head and teeth shape of bats can vary by species. In general, megabats have longer snouts, larger eye sockets and smaller ears, giving them a more dog-like appearance, which is the source of their nickname of "flying foxes".[40] Among microbats, longer snouts are associated with nectar-feeding.[41] while vampire bats have reduced snouts to accommodate large incisors and canines.[42]
+
+Small insect-eating bats can have as many as 38 teeth, while vampire bats have only 20. Bats that feed on hard-shelled insects have fewer but larger teeth with longer canines and more robust lower jaws than species that prey on softer bodied insects. In nectar-feeding bats, the canines are long while the cheek-teeth are reduced. In fruit-eating bats, the cusps of the cheek teeth are adapted for crushing.[41] These feeding behaviors are true for both megabats and microbats. The upper incisors of vampire bats lack enamel, which keeps them razor-sharp.[42] The bite force of small bats is generated through mechanical advantage, allowing them to bite through the hardened armour of insects or the skin of fruit.[43]
+
+Bats are the only mammals capable of sustained flight, as opposed to gliding, as in the flying squirrel.[44] The fastest bat, the Mexican free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis), can achieve a ground speed of 160 km/h (100 mph).[45]
+
+The finger bones of bats are much more flexible than those of other mammals, owing to their flattened cross-section and to low levels of calcium near their tips. The elongation of bat digits, a key feature required for wing development, is due to the upregulation of bone morphogenetic proteins (Bmps). During embryonic development, the gene controlling Bmp signalling, Bmp2, is subjected to increased expression in bat forelimbs—resulting in the extension of the manual digits. This crucial genetic alteration helps create the specialised limbs required for powered flight. The relative proportion of extant bat forelimb digits compared with those of Eocene fossil bats have no significant differences, suggesting that bat wing morphology has been conserved for over 50 million years.[46] During flight, the bones undergo bending and shearing stress; the bending stresses felt are smaller than in terrestrial mammals, but the shearing stress is larger. The wing bones of bats have a slightly lower breaking stress point than those of birds.[47]
+
+As in other mammals, and unlike in birds, the radius is the main component of the forearm. Bats have five elongated digits, which all radiate around the wrist. The thumb points forward and supports the leading edge of the wing, and the other digits support the tension held in the wing membrane. The second and third digits go along the wing tip, allowing the wing to be pulled forward against aerodynamic drag, without having to be thick as in pterosaur wings. The fourth and fifth digits go from the wrist to the trailing edge, and repel the bending force caused by air pushing up against the stiff membrane.[48] Due to their flexible joints, bats are more manoeuvrable and more dexterous than gliding mammals.[49]
+
+The wings of bats are much thinner and consist of more bones than the wings of birds, allowing bats to manoeuvre more accurately than the latter, and fly with more lift and less drag.[50] By folding the wings in toward their bodies on the upstroke, they save 35 percent energy during flight.[51] The membranes are delicate, tearing easily,[52] but can regrow, and small tears heal quickly.[52][53] The surface of the wings is equipped with touch-sensitive receptors on small bumps called Merkel cells, also found on human fingertips. These sensitive areas are different in bats, as each bump has a tiny hair in the centre, making it even more sensitive and allowing the bat to detect and adapt to changing airflow; the primary use is to judge the most efficient speed to fly at, and possibly also to avoid stalls.[54] Insectivorous bats may also use tactile hairs to help perform complex manoeuvres to capture prey in flight.[49]
+
+The patagium is the wing membrane; it is stretched between the arm and finger bones, and down the side of the body to the hind limbs and tail. This skin membrane consists of connective tissue, elastic fibres, nerves, muscles, and blood vessels. The muscles keep the membrane taut during flight.[55] The extent to which the tail of a bat is attached to a patagium can vary by species, with some having completely free tails or even no tails.[41] The skin on the body of the bat, which has one layer of epidermis and dermis, as well as hair follicles, sweat glands and a fatty subcutaneous layer, is very different from the skin of the wing membrane. The patagium is an extremely thin double layer of epidermis; these layers are separated by a connective tissue centre, rich with collagen and elastic fibres. The membrane has no hair follicles or sweat glands, except between the fingers.[54][56] For bat embryos, apoptosis (cell death) affects only the hindlimbs, while the forelimbs retain webbing between the digits that forms into the wing membranes.[57] Unlike birds, whose stiff wings deliver bending and torsional stress to the shoulders, bats have a flexible wing membrane that can only resist tension. To achieve flight, a bat exerts force inwards at the points where the membrane meets the skeleton, so that an opposing force balances it on the wing edges perpendicular to the wing surface. This adaptation does not permit bats to reduce their wingspans, unlike birds, which can partly fold their wings in flight, radically reducing the wing span and area for the upstroke and for gliding. Hence bats cannot travel over long distances as birds can.[48]
+
+Nectar- and pollen-eating bats can hover, in a similar way to hummingbirds. The sharp leading edges of the wings can create vortices, which provide lift. The vortex may be stabilised by the animal changing its wing curvatures.[58]
+
+When not flying, bats hang upside down from their feet, a posture known as roosting.[59] The femurs are attached at the hips in a way that allows them to bend outward and upward in flight. The ankle joint can flex to allow the trailing edge of the wings to bend downwards. This does not permit many movements other than hanging or clambering up trees.[48] Most megabats roost with the head tucked towards the belly, whereas most microbats roost with the neck curled towards the back. This difference is reflected in the structure of the cervical or neck vertebrae in the two groups, which are clearly distinct.[59] Tendons allow bats to lock their feet closed when hanging from a roost. Muscular power is needed to let go, but not to grasp a perch or when holding on.[60]
+
+When on the ground, most bats can only crawl awkwardly. A few species such as the New Zealand lesser short-tailed bat and the common vampire bat are agile on the ground. Both species make lateral gaits (the limbs move one after the other) when moving slowly but vampire bats move with a bounding gait (all limbs move in unison) at greater speeds, the folded up wings being used to propel them forward. Vampire bat likely evolved these gaits to follow their hosts while short-tailed bats developed in the absence of terrestrial mammal competitors. Enhanced terrestrial locomotion does not appear to have reduced their ability to fly.[61]
+
+Bats have an efficient circulatory system. They seem to make use of particularly strong venomotion, a rhythmic contraction of venous wall muscles. In most mammals, the walls of the veins provide mainly passive resistance, maintaining their shape as deoxygenated blood flows through them, but in bats they appear to actively support blood flow back to the heart with this pumping action.[62][63] Since their bodies are relatively small and lightweight, bats are not at risk of blood flow rushing to their heads when roosting.[64]
+
+Bats possess a highly adapted respiratory system to cope with the demands of powered flight, an energetically taxing activity that requires a large continuous throughput of oxygen. In bats, the relative alveolar surface area and pulmonary capillary blood volume are larger than in most other small quadrupedal mammals.[65] During flight the respiratory cycle has a one-to-one relationship with the wing-beat cycle.[66] Because of the restraints of the mammalian lungs, bats cannot maintain high-altitude flight.[48]
+
+It takes a lot of energy and an efficient circulatory system to work the flight muscles of bats. Energy supply to the muscles engaged in flight require about double the amount compared to the muscles that do not use flight as a means of mammalian locomotion. In parallel to energy consumption, blood oxygen levels of flying animals are twice as much as those of their terrestrially locomoting mammals. As the blood supply controls the amount of oxygen supplied throughout the body, the circulatory system must respond accordingly. Therefore, compared to a terrestrial mammal of the same relative size, the bat's heart can be up to three times larger, and pump more blood.[68] Cardiac output is directly derived from heart rate and stroke volume of the blood;[69] an active microbat can reach a heart rate of 1000 beats per minute.[70]
+
+With its extremely thin membranous tissue, a bat's wing can significantly contribute to the organism's total gas exchange efficiency.[56] Because of the high energy demand of flight, the bat's body meets those demands by exchanging gas through the patagium of the wing. When the bat has its wings spread it allows for an increase in surface area to volume ratio. The surface area of the wings is about 85% of the total body surface area, suggesting the possibility of a useful degree of gas exchange.[56] The subcutaneous vessels in the membrane lie very close to the surface and allow for the diffusion of oxygen and carbon dioxide.[71]
+
+The digestive system of bats has varying adaptations depending on the species of bat and its diet. As in other flying animals, food is processed quickly and effectively to keep up with the energy demand. Insectivorous bats may have certain digestive enzymes to better process insects, such as chitinase to break down chitin, which is a large component of insects.[72] Vampire bats, probably due to their diet of blood, are the only vertebrates that do not have the enzyme maltase, which breaks down malt sugar, in their intestinal tract. Nectivorous and frugivorous bats have more maltase and sucrase enzymes than insectivorous, to cope with the higher sugar contents of their diet.[73]
+
+The adaptations of the kidneys of bats vary with their diets. Carnivorous and vampire bats consume large amounts of protein and can output concentrated urine; their kidneys have a thin cortex and long renal papillae. Frugivorous bats lack that ability and have kidneys adapted for electrolyte-retention due to their low-electrolyte diet; their kidneys accordingly have a thick cortex and very short conical papillae.[73] Bats have higher metabolic rates associated with flying, which lead to an increased respiratory water loss. Their large wings are composed of the highly vascularized membranes, increasing the surface area, and leading to cutaneous evaporative water loss.[67] Water helps maintain their ionic balance in their blood, thermoregulation system, and removal of wastes and toxins from the body via urine. They are also susceptible to blood urea poisoning if they do not receive enough fluid.[74]
+
+The structure of the uterine system in female bats can vary by species, with some having two uterine horns while others have a single mainline chamber.[75]
+
+Microbats and a few megabats emit ultrasonic sounds to produce echoes. Sound intensity of these echos are dependent on subglottic pressure. The bats’ cricothyroid muscle controls the orientation pulse frequency, which is an important function. This muscle is located inside the larynx and it is the only tensor muscle capable of aiding phonation.[76] By comparing the outgoing pulse with the returning echoes, the brain and auditory nervous system can produce detailed images of the bat's surroundings. This allows bats to detect, localise, and classify their prey in darkness. Bat calls are some of the loudest airborne animal sounds, and can range in intensity from 60 to 140 decibels.[77][78] Microbats use their larynx to create ultrasound, and emit it through the mouth and sometimes the nose. The latter is most pronounced in the horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus spp.). Microbat calls range in frequency from 14,000 to well over 100,000 Hz, extending well beyond the range of human hearing (between 20 and 20,000 Hz).[79] Various groups of bats have evolved fleshy extensions around and above the nostrils, known as nose-leaves, which play a role in sound transmission.[80]
+
+In low-duty cycle echolocation, bats can separate their calls and returning echoes by time. They have to time their short calls to finish before echoes return. Bats contract their middle ear muscles when emitting a call, so they can avoid deafening themselves. The time interval between the call and echo allows them to relax these muscles, so they can hear the returning echo.[81] The delay of the returning echoes allows the bat to estimate the range to their prey.[79]
+
+In high-duty cycle echolocation, bats emit a continuous call and separate pulse and echo in frequency. The ears of these bats are sharply tuned to a specific frequency range. They emit calls outside this range to avoid deafening themselves. They then receive echoes back at the finely tuned frequency range by taking advantage of the Doppler shift of their motion in flight. The Doppler shift of the returning echoes yields information relating to the motion and location of the bat's prey. These bats must deal with changes in the Doppler shift due to changes in their flight speed. They have adapted to change their pulse emission frequency in relation to their flight speed so echoes still return in the optimal hearing range.[82]
+
+In addition to echolocating prey, bat ears are sensitive to the fluttering of moth wings, the sounds produced by tymbalate insects, and the movement of ground-dwelling prey, such as centipedes and earwigs. The complex geometry of ridges on the inner surface of bat ears helps to sharply focus echolocation signals, and to passively listen for any other sound produced by the prey. These ridges can be regarded as the acoustic equivalent of a Fresnel lens, and exist in a large variety of unrelated animals, such as the aye-aye, lesser galago, bat-eared fox, mouse lemur, and others.[83][84][85] Bats can estimate the elevation of their target using the interference patterns from the echoes reflecting from the tragus, a flap of skin in the external ear.[79]
+
+By repeated scanning, bats can mentally construct an accurate image of the environment in which they are moving and of their prey.[88] Some species of moth have exploited this, such as the tiger moths, which produces aposematic ultrasound signals to warn bats that they are chemically protected and therefore distasteful.[86][87] Moth species including the tiger moth can produce signals to jam bat echolocation. Many moth species have a hearing organ called a tympanum, which responds to an incoming bat signal by causing the moth's flight muscles to twitch erratically, sending the moth into random evasive manoeuvres.[89][90][91]
+
+The eyes of most microbat species are small and poorly developed, leading to poor visual acuity, but no species is blind.[92] Most microbats have mesopic vision, meaning that they can only detect light in low levels, whereas other mammals have photopic vision, which allows colour vision. Microbats may use their vision for orientation and while travelling between their roosting grounds and feeding grounds, as echolocation is only effective over short distances. Some species can detect ultraviolet (UV). As the bodies of some microbats have distinct coloration, they may be able to discriminate colours.[44][93][94][95]
+
+Megabat species often have eyesight as good as, if not better than, human vision. Their eyesight is adapted to both night and daylight vision, including some colour vision.[95]
+
+Microbats make use of magnetoreception, in that they have a high sensitivity to the Earth's magnetic field, as birds do. Microbats use a polarity-based compass, meaning that they differentiate north from south, unlike birds, which use the strength of the magnetic field to differentiate latitudes, which may be used in long-distance travel. The mechanism is unknown but may involve magnetite particles.[96][97]
+
+Most bats are homeothermic (having a stable body temperature), the exception being the vesper bats (Vespertilionidae), the horseshoe bats (Rhinolophidae), the free-tailed bats (Molossidae), and the bent-winged bats (Miniopteridae), which extensively use heterothermy (where body temperature can vary).[98] Compared to other mammals, bats have a high thermal conductivity. The wings are filled with blood vessels, and lose body heat when extended. At rest, they may wrap their wings around themselves to trap a layer of warm air. Smaller bats generally have a higher metabolic rate than larger bats, and so need to consume more food in order to maintain homeothermy.[99]
+
+Bats may avoid flying during the day to prevent overheating in the sun, since their dark wing-membranes absorb solar radiation. Bats may not be able to dissipate heat if the ambient temperature is too high;[100] they use saliva to cool themselves in extreme conditions.[48] Among megabats, the flying fox Pteropus hypomelanus uses saliva and wing-fanning to cool itself while roosting during the hottest part of the day.[101] Among microbats, the Yuma myotis (Myotis yumanensis), the Mexican free-tailed bat, and the pallid bat (Antrozous pallidus) cope with temperatures up to 45 °C (113 °F) by panting, salivating, and licking their fur to promote evaporative cooling; this is sufficient to dissipate twice their metabolic heat production.[102]
+
+Bats also possess a system of sphincter valves on the arterial side of the vascular network that runs along the edge of their wings. When fully open, these allow oxygenated blood to flow through the capillary network across the wing membrane; when contracted, they shunt flow directly to the veins, bypassing the wing capillaries. This allows bats to control how much heat is exchanged through the flight membrane, allowing them to release heat during flight. Many other mammals use the capillary network in oversized ears for the same purpose.[103]
+
+Torpor, a state of decreased activity where the body temperature and metabolism decreases, is especially useful for microbats, as they use a large amount of energy while active, depend upon an unreliable food source, and have a limited ability to store fat. They generally drop their body temperature in this state to 6–30 °C (43–86 °F), and may reduce their energy expenditure by 50 to 99%. Around 97% of all microbats use torpor.[104] Tropical bats may use it to avoid predation, by reducing the amount of time spent on foraging and thus reducing the chance of being caught by a predator.[105] Megabats were generally believed to be homeothermic, but three species of small megabats, with a mass of about 50 grams (1 3⁄4 ounces), have been known to use torpor: the common blossom bat (Syconycteris australis), the long-tongued nectar bat (Macroglossus minimus), and the eastern tube-nosed bat (Nyctimene robinsoni). Torpid states last longer in the summer for megabats than in the winter.[106]
+
+During hibernation, bats enter a torpid state and decrease their body temperature for 99.6% of their hibernation period; even during periods of arousal, when they return their body temperature to normal, they sometimes enter a shallow torpid state, known as "heterothermic arousal".[107] Some bats become dormant during higher temperatures to keep cool in the summer months.[108]
+
+Heterothermic bats during long migrations may fly at night and go into a torpid state roosting in the daytime. Unlike migratory birds, which fly during the day and feed during the night, nocturnal bats have a conflict between travelling and eating. The energy saved reduces their need to feed, and also decreases the duration of migration, which may prevent them from spending too much time in unfamiliar places, and decrease predation. In some species, pregnant individuals may not use torpor.[109][110]
+
+The smallest bat is Kitti's hog-nosed bat (Craseonycteris thonglongyai), which is 29–34 mm (1 1⁄8–1 3⁄8 in) long with a 150-millimetre (6 in) wingspan and weighs 2–2.6 g (1⁄16–3⁄32 oz).[111][112] It is also arguably the smallest extant species of mammal, next to the Etruscan shrew.[113] The largest bats are a few species of Pteropus megabats and the giant golden-crowned flying fox, (Acerodon jubatus), which can weigh 1.6 kg (3 1⁄2 lb) with a wingspan of 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in).[114] Larger bats tend to use lower frequencies and smaller bats higher for echolocation; high-frequency echolocation is better at detecting smaller prey. Small prey may be absent in the diets of large bats as they are unable to detect them.[115] The adaptations of a particular bat species can directly influence what kinds of prey are available to it.[116]
+
+Flight has enabled bats to become one of the most widely distributed groups of mammals.[117] Apart from the high Arctic, the Antarctic and a few isolated oceanic islands, bats exist in almost every habitat on Earth.[118] Tropical areas tend to have more species than temperate ones.[119] Different species select different habitats during different seasons, ranging from seasides to mountains and deserts, but they require suitable roosts. Bat roosts can be found in hollows, crevices, foliage, and even human-made structures, and include "tents" the bats construct with leaves.[120] Megabats generally roost in trees.[121] Most microbats are nocturnal[122] and megabats are typically diurnal or crepuscular.[123][124]
+
+In temperate areas, some microbats migrate hundreds of kilometres to winter hibernation dens;[125] others pass into torpor in cold weather, rousing and feeding when warm weather allows insects to be active.[126] Others retreat to caves for winter and hibernate for as much as six months.[126] Microbats rarely fly in rain; it interferes with their echolocation, and they are unable to hunt.[127]
+
+Different bat species have different diets, including insects, nectar, pollen, fruit and even vertebrates.[128] Megabats are mostly fruit, nectar and pollen eaters.[123] Due to their small size, high-metabolism and rapid burning of energy through flight, bats must consume large amounts of food for their size. Insectivorous bats may eat over 120 percent of their body weight, while frugivorous bats may eat over twice their weight.[129] They can travel significant distances each night, exceptionally as much as 38.5 km (24 mi) in the spotted bat (Euderma maculatum), in search of food.[130] Bats use a variety of hunting strategies.[115] Bats get most of their water from the food they eat; many species also drink from water sources like lakes and streams, flying over the surface and dipping their tongues into the water.[131]
+
+The Chiroptera as a whole are in the process of losing the ability to synthesise vitamin C.[132] In a test of 34 bat species from six major families, including major insect- and fruit-eating bat families, all were found to have lost the ability to synthesise it, and this loss may derive from a common bat ancestor, as a single mutation.[133][b] At least two species of bat, the frugivorous bat (Rousettus leschenaultii) and the insectivorous bat (Hipposideros armiger), have retained their ability to produce vitamin C.[134]
+
+Most microbats, especially in temperate areas, prey on insects.[128] The diet of an insectivorous bat may span many species,[135] including flies, mosquitos, beetles, moths, grasshoppers, crickets, termites, bees, wasps, mayflies and caddisflies.[41][136] Large numbers of Mexican free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) fly hundreds of metres above the ground in central Texas to feed on migrating moths.[137] Species that hunt insects in flight, like the little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus), may catch an insect in mid-air with the mouth, and eat it in the air or use their tail membranes or wings to scoop up the insect and carry it to the mouth.[138][139] The bat may also take the insect back to its roost and eat it there.[140] Slower moving bat species such as the brown long-eared bat (Plecotus auritus) and many horseshoe bat species, may take or glean insects from vegetation or hunt them from perches.[41] Insectivorous bats living at high latitudes have to consume prey with higher energetic value than tropical bats.[141]
+
+Fruit eating, or frugivory, is found in both major suborders. Bats prefer ripe fruit, pulling it off the trees with their teeth. They fly back to their roosts to eat the fruit, sucking out the juice and spitting the seeds and pulp out onto the ground. This helps disperse the seeds of these fruit trees, which may take root and grow where the bats have left them, and many species of plants depend on bats for seed dispersal.[142][143] The Jamaican fruit bat (Artibeus jamaicensis) has been recorded carrying fruits weighing 3–14 g (1⁄8–1⁄2 oz) or even as much as 50 g (1 3⁄4 oz).[144]
+
+Nectar-eating bats have acquired specialised adaptations. These bats possess long muzzles and long, extensible tongues covered in fine bristles that aid them in feeding on particular flowers and plants.[143][145] The tube-lipped nectar bat (Anoura fistulata) has the longest tongue of any mammal relative to its body size. This is beneficial to them in terms of pollination and feeding. Their long, narrow tongues can reach deep into the long cup shape of some flowers. When the tongue retracts, it coils up inside the rib cage.[145] Because of these features, nectar-feeding bats cannot easily turn to other food sources in times of scarcity, making them more prone to extinction than other types of bat.[146][147] Nectar feeding also aids a variety of plants, since these bats serve as pollinators, as pollen gets attached to their fur while they are feeding. Around 500 species of flowering plant rely on bat pollination and thus tend to open their flowers at night.[143] Many rainforest plants depend on bat pollination.[148]
+
+Some bats prey on other vertebrates, such as fish, frogs, lizards, birds and mammals.[41][150] The fringe-lipped bat (Trachops cirrhosus,) for example, is skilled at catching frogs. These bats locate large groups of frogs by tracking their mating calls, then plucking them from the surface of the water with their sharp canine teeth.[151] The greater noctule bat can catch birds in flight.[149] Some species, like the greater bulldog bat (Noctilio leporinus) hunt fish. They use echolocation to detect small ripples on the water's surface, swoop down and use specially enlarged claws on their hind feet to grab the fish, then take their prey to a feeding roost and consume it.[152] At least two species of bat are known to feed on other bats: the spectral bat (Vampyrum spectrum), and the ghost bat (Macroderma gigas).[153]
+
+A few species, specifically the common, white-winged, and hairy-legged vampire bats, only feed on animal blood (hematophagy). The common vampire bat typically feeds on large mammals such as cattle; the hairy-legged and white-winged vampires feed on birds.[154] Vampire bats target sleeping prey and can detect deep breathing.[155] Heat sensors in the nose help them to detect blood vessels near the surface of the skin.[156] They pierce the animal's skin with their teeth, biting away a small flap,[157] and lap up the blood with their tongues, which have lateral grooves adapted to this purpose.[158] The blood is kept from clotting by an anticoagulant in the saliva.[157]
+
+Bats are subject to predation from birds of prey, such as owls, hawks, and falcons, and at roosts from terrestrial predators able to climb, such as cats.[159] Twenty species of tropical New World snakes are known to capture bats, often waiting at the entrances of refuges, such as caves, for bats to fly past.[160] J. Rydell and J. R. Speakman argue that bats evolved nocturnality during the early and middle Eocene period to avoid predators.[159] The evidence is thought by some zoologists to be equivocal so far.[161]
+
+Among ectoparasites, bats carry fleas and mites, as well as specific parasites such as bat bugs and bat flies (Nycteribiidae and Streblidae).[162][163] Bats are among the few non-aquatic mammalian orders that do not host lice, possibly due to competition from more specialised parasites that occupy the same niche.[163]
+
+White nose syndrome is a condition associated with the deaths of millions of bats in the Eastern United States and Canada.[164] The disease is named after a white fungus, Pseudogymnoascus destructans, found growing on the muzzles, ears, and wings of afflicted bats. The fungus is mostly spread from bat to bat, and causes the disease.[165] The fungus was first discovered in central New York State in 2006 and spread quickly to the entire Eastern US north of Florida; mortality rates of 90–100% have been observed in most affected caves.[166] New England and the mid-Atlantic states have, since 2006, witnessed entire species completely extirpated and others with numbers that have gone from the hundreds of thousands, even millions, to a few hundred or less.[167] Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, and New Brunswick have witnessed identical die offs, with the Canadian government making preparations to protect all remaining bat populations in its territory.[168] Scientific evidence suggests that longer winters where the fungus has a longer period to infect bats result in greater mortality.[169][170][171] In 2014, the infection crossed the Mississippi River,[172] and in 2017, it was found on bats in Texas.[173]
+
+Bats are natural reservoirs for a large number of zoonotic pathogens,[174] including rabies, endemic in many bat populations,[175][176][177] histoplasmosis both directly and in guano,[178] Nipah and Hendra viruses,[179][180] and possibly the ebola virus,[181][182] whose natural reservoir is yet unknown.[183][184] Their high mobility, broad distribution, long life spans, substantial sympatry (range overlap) of species, and social behaviour make bats favourable hosts and vectors of disease.[185] Reviews have found different answers as to whether bats have more zoonotic viruses than other mammal groups. One 2015 review found that bats, rodents, and primates all harbored significantly more zoonotic viruses (which can be transmitted to humans) than other mammal groups, though the differences among the aforementioned three groups were not significant (bats have no more zoonotic viruses than rodents and primates).[186] Another 2020 review of mammals and birds found that the identify of the taxonomic groups did not have any impact on the probability of harboring zoonotic viruses. Instead, more diverse groups had greater viral diversity.[187]
+
+They seem to be highly resistant to many of the pathogens they carry, suggesting a degree of adaptation to their immune systems.[185]>[188][189] Their interactions with livestock and pets, including predation by vampire bats, accidental encounters, and the scavenging of bat carcasses, compound the risk of zoonotic transmission.[176] Bats are implicated in the emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in China, since they serve as natural hosts for coronaviruses, several from a single cave in Yunnan, one of which developed into the SARS virus.[178][190][191] However, they do neither cause nor spread COVID-19.[192]
+
+Some bats lead solitary lives, while others live in colonies of more than a million.[193] Living in large colonies lessens the risk to an individual of predation.[41] Temperate bat species may swarm at hibernation sites as autumn approaches. This may serve to introduce young to hibernation sites, signal reproduction in adults and allow adults to breed with those from other groups.[194]
+
+Several species have a fission-fusion social structure, where large numbers of bats congregate in one roosting area, along with breaking up and mixing of subgroups. Within these societies, bats are able to maintain long-term relationships.[195] Some of these relationships consist of matrilineally related females and their dependent offspring.[196] Food sharing and mutual grooming may occur in certain species, such as the common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus), and these strengthen social bonds.[197][198]
+
+Bats are among the most vocal of mammals and produce calls to attract mates, find roost partners and defend resources. These calls are typically low-frequency and can travel long distances.[41][200] Mexican free-tailed bats are one of the few species to "sing" like birds. Males sing to attract females. Songs have three phrases: chirps, trills and buzzes, the former having "A" and "B" syllables. Bat songs are highly stereotypical but with variation in syllable number, phrase order, and phrase repetitions between individuals.[199] Among greater spear-nosed bats (Phyllostomus hastatus), females produce loud, broadband calls among their roost mates to form group cohesion. Calls differ between roosting groups and may arise from vocal learning.[201]
+
+In a study on captive Egyptian fruit bats, 70% of the directed calls could be identified by the researchers as to which individual bat made it, and 60% could be categorised into four contexts: squabbling over food, jostling over position in their sleeping cluster, protesting over mating attempts and arguing when perched in close proximity to each other. The animals made slightly different sounds when communicating with different individual bats, especially those of the opposite sex.[202] In the highly sexually dimorphic hammer-headed bat (Hypsignathus monstrosus), males produce deep, resonating, monotonous calls to attract females. Bats in flight make vocal signals for traffic control. Greater bulldog bats honk when on a collision course with each other.[200]
+
+Bats also communicate by other means. Male little yellow-shouldered bats (Sturnira lilium) have shoulder glands that produce a spicy odour during the breeding season. Like many other species, they have hair specialised for retaining and dispersing secretions. Such hair forms a conspicuous collar around the necks of the some Old World megabat males. Male greater sac-winged bats (Saccopteryx bilineata) have sacs in their wings in which they mix body secretions like saliva and urine to create a perfume that they sprinkle on roost sites, a behaviour known as "salting". Salting may be accompanied by singing.[200]
+
+Most bat species are polygynous, where males mate with multiple females. Male pipistrelle, noctule and vampire bats may claim and defend resources that attract females, such as roost sites, and mate with those females. Males unable to claim a site are forced to live on the periphery where they have less reproductive success.[203][41] Promiscuity, where both sexes mate with multiple partners, exists in species like the Mexican free-tailed bat and the little brown bat.[204][205] There appears to be bias towards certain males among females in these bats.[41] In a few species, such as the yellow-winged bat and spectral bat, adult males and females form monogamous pairs.[41][206] Lek mating, where males aggregate and compete for female choice through display, is rare in bats[207] but occurs in the hammerheaded bat.[208]
+
+For temperate living bats, mating takes place in late summer and early autumn.[209] Tropical bats may mate during the dry season.[210] After copulation, the male may leave behind a mating plug to block the sperm of other males and thus ensure his paternity.[211] In hibernating species, males are known to mate with females in torpor.[41] Female bats use a variety of strategies to control the timing of pregnancy and the birth of young, to make delivery coincide with maximum food ability and other ecological factors. Females of some species have delayed fertilisation, in which sperm is stored in the reproductive tract for several months after mating. Mating occurs in the autumn but fertilisation does not occur until the following spring. Other species exhibit delayed implantation, in which the egg is fertilised after mating, but remains free in the reproductive tract until external conditions become favourable for giving birth and caring for the offspring.[212] In another strategy, fertilisation and implantation both occur, but development of the foetus is delayed until good conditions prevail. During the delayed development the mother keeps the fertilised egg alive with nutrients. This process can go on for a long period, because of the advanced gas exchange system.[213]
+
+For temperate living bats, births typically take place in May or June in the northern hemisphere; births in the southern hemisphere occur in November and December. Tropical species give birth at the beginning of the rainy season.[214] In most bat species, females carry and give birth to a single pup per litter.[215] At birth, a bat pup can be up to 40 percent of the mother's weight,[41] and the pelvic girdle of the female can expand during birth as the two halves are connected by a flexible ligament.[216] Females typically give birth in a head-up or horizontal position, using gravity to make birthing easier. The young emerges rear-first, possibly to prevent the wings from getting tangled, and the female cradles it in her wing and tail membranes. In many species, females give birth and raise their young in maternity colonies and may assist each other in birthing.[217][218][216]
+
+Most of the care for a young bat comes from the mother. In monogamous species, the father plays a role. Allo-suckling, where a female suckles another mother's young, occurs in several species. This may serve to increase colony size in species where females return to their natal colony to breed.[41] A young bat's ability to fly coincides with the development of an adult body and forelimb length. For the little brown bat, this occurs about eighteen days after birth. Weaning of young for most species takes place in under eighty days. The common vampire bat nurses its offspring beyond that and young vampire bats achieve independence later in life than other species. This is probably due to the species' blood-based diet, which is difficult to obtain on a nightly basis.[219]
+
+The maximum lifespan of bats is three-and-a-half times longer than other mammals of similar size. Six species have been recorded to live over 30 years in the wild: the brown long-eared bat (Plecotus auritus), the little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus), Brandt's bat (Myotis brandti), the lesser mouse-eared bat (Myotis blythii) the greater horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum), and the Indian flying fox (Pteropus giganteus).[220] One hypothesis consistent with the rate-of-living theory links this to the fact that they slow down their metabolic rate while hibernating; bats that hibernate, on average, have a longer lifespan than bats that do not.[221][222] Another hypothesis is that flying has reduced their mortality rate, which would also be true for birds and gliding mammals. Bat species that give birth to multiple pups generally have a shorter lifespan than species that give birth to only a single pup. Cave-roosting species may have a longer lifespan than non-roosting species because of the decreased predation in caves. A male Brandt's bat was recaptured in the wild after 41 years, making it the oldest known bat.[222][223]
+
+Groups such as the Bat Conservation International[224] aim to increase awareness of bats' ecological roles and the environmental threats they face. In the United Kingdom, all bats are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Acts, and disturbing a bat or its roost can be punished with a heavy fine.[225]
+In Sarawak, Malaysia, "all bats"[226] are protected under the Wildlife Protection Ordinance 1998,[226] but species such as the hairless bat (Cheiromeles torquatus) are still eaten by the local communities.[227] Humans have caused the extinction of several species of bat in modern history, the most recent being the Christmas Island pipistrelle (Pipistrellus murrayi), which was declared extinct in 2009.[228]
+
+Many people put up bat houses to attract bats.[229] The 1991 University of Florida bat house is the largest occupied artificial roost in the world, with around 400,000 residents.[230] In Britain, thickwalled and partly underground World War II pillboxes have been converted to make roosts for bats,[231][232] and purpose-built bat houses are occasionally built to mitigate damage to habitat from road or other developments.[233][234] Cave gates are sometimes installed to limit human entry into caves with sensitive or endangered bat species. The gates are designed not to limit the airflow, and thus to maintain the cave's micro-ecosystem.[235] Of the 47 species of bats found in the United States, 35 are known to use human structures, including buildings and bridges. Fourteen species use bat houses.[236]
+
+Bats are eaten in countries across Africa, Asia and the Pacific Rim. In some cases, such as in Guam, flying foxes have become endangered through being hunted for food.[237] There is evidence that wind turbines create sufficient barotrauma (pressure damage) to kill bats.[238] Bats have typical mammalian lungs, which are thought to be more sensitive to sudden air pressure changes than the lungs of birds, making them more liable to fatal rupture.[239][240][241][242][243] Bats may be attracted to turbines, perhaps seeking roosts, increasing the death rate.[239] Acoustic deterrents may help to reduce bat mortality at wind farms.[244]
+
+Since bats are mammals, yet can fly, they are considered to be liminal beings in various traditions.[245] In many cultures, including in Europe, bats are associated with darkness, death, witchcraft, and malevolence.[246] Among Native Americans such as the Creek, Cherokee and Apache, the bat is a trickster spirit. In Tanzania, a winged batlike creature known as Popobawa is believed to be a shapeshifting evil spirit that assaults and sodomises its victims.[247] In Aztec mythology, bats symbolised the land of the dead, destruction, and decay.[248][249][250] An East Nigerian tale tells that the bat developed its nocturnal habits after causing the death of his partner, the bush-rat, and now hides by day to avoid arrest.[251]
+
+More positive depictions of bats exist in some cultures. In China, bats have been associated with happiness, joy and good fortune. Five bats are used to symbolise the "Five Blessings": longevity, wealth, health, love of virtue and peaceful death.[252] The bat is sacred in Tonga and is often considered the physical manifestation of a separable soul.[253] In the Zapotec civilisation of Mesoamerica, the bat god presided over corn and fertility.[254]
+
+The Weird Sisters in Shakespeare's Macbeth used the fur of a bat in their brew.[255] In Western culture, the bat is often a symbol of the night and its foreboding nature. The bat is a primary animal associated with fictional characters of the night, both villainous vampires, such as Count Dracula and before him Varney the Vampire,[256] and heroes, such as Batman.[257] Kenneth Oppel's Silverwing novels narrate the adventures of a young bat,[258] based on the silver-haired bat of North America.[259]
+
+The bat is sometimes used as a heraldic symbol in Spain and France, appearing in the coats of arms of the towns of Valencia, Palma de Mallorca, Fraga, Albacete, and Montchauvet.[260][261][262] Three US states have an official state bat. Texas and Oklahoma are represented by the Mexican free-tailed bat, while Virginia is represented by the Virginia big-eared bat (Corynorhinus townsendii virginianus).[263]
+
+Insectivorous bats in particular are especially helpful to farmers, as they control populations of agricultural pests and reduce the need to use pesticides. It has been estimated that bats save the agricultural industry of the United States anywhere from $3.7 billion to $53 billion per year in pesticides and damage to crops. This also prevents the overuse of pesticides, which can pollute the surrounding environment, and may lead to resistance in future generations of insects.[264]
+
+Bat dung, a type of guano, is rich in nitrates and is mined from caves for use as fertiliser.[265] During the US Civil War, saltpetre was collected from caves to make gunpowder; it used to be thought that this was bat guano, but most of the nitrate comes from nitrifying bacteria.[266]
+
+The Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas, is the summer home to North America's largest urban bat colony, an estimated 1,500,000 Mexican free-tailed bats. About 100,000 tourists a year visit the bridge at twilight to watch the bats leave the roost.[267]

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+Christopher Columbus[a] (/kəˈlʌmbəs/;[3] Ligurian: Cristoffa Corombo; Italian: Cristoforo Colombo; Spanish: Cristóbal Colón; before 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italian explorer and navigator who completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean, opening the way for European exploration and colonization of the Americas.[4] His expeditions, sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, were the first European contact with the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.
+
+Columbus's early life is somewhat obscure, but scholars generally agree that he was born in the Republic of Genoa and spoke a dialect of Ligurian as his first language. He went to sea at a young age and travelled widely, as far north as the British Isles (and possibly Iceland) and as far south as what is now Ghana. He married Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Moniz Perestrelo and was based in Lisbon for several years, but later took a Castilian mistress; he had one son with each woman. Though largely self-educated, Columbus was widely read in geography, astronomy, and history. He formulated a plan to seek a western sea passage to the East Indies, hoping to profit from the lucrative spice trade. Following persistent lobbying, Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand II agreed to sponsor a journey west, in the name of the Crown of Castile. Columbus left Castile in August 1492 with three ships, and after a stopover in the Canary Islands made landfall in the Americas on 12 October (later celebrated as Columbus Day). His landing place was an island in the Bahamas, known by its native inhabitants as Guanahani; its exact location is uncertain. Columbus subsequently visited the islands now known as Cuba and Hispaniola, establishing a colony in what is now Haiti: the first European settlement in the Americas since the Norse colonies nearly 500 years earlier. He arrived back in Castile in early 1493, bringing a number of captive natives with him. Word of his voyages soon spread throughout Europe.
+
+Columbus made three further voyages to the New World, exploring the Lesser Antilles in 1493, Trinidad and the northern coast of South America in 1498, and the eastern coast of Central America in 1502. Many of the names he gave to geographical features—particularly islands—are still in use. He continued to seek a passage to the East Indies, and the extent to which he was aware that the Americas were a wholly separate landmass is uncertain. He never clearly renounced his belief that he had reached the Far East and gave the name indios ("Indians") to the indigenous peoples he encountered. Columbus's strained relationship with the Spanish crown and its appointed colonial administrators in America led to his arrest and removal from Hispaniola in 1500, and later to protracted litigation over the benefits that he and his heirs claimed were owed to them by the crown. Columbus's expeditions inaugurated a period of exploration, conquest, and colonization that lasted for centuries, helping create the modern Western world. The transfers between the Old World and New World that followed his first voyage are known as the Columbian exchange, and the period of human habitation in the Americas prior to his arrival is referred to as the Pre-Columbian era.
+
+The debate over Columbus's legacy continues. He was widely venerated in the centuries after his death, but public perception has fractured in recent decades as scholars give greater attention to the harm committed under his governance, particularly the near extermination of the indigenous Taino population from mistreatment and European diseases. There is good evidence that Columbus's regime brutally subjugated and enslaved the Taino to aid the Spanish quest for gold. Some other allegations, such as tyrannical rule over the Spanish colonists, are murkier: a contemporaneous, persistent smear campaign called the "black legend" makes the extent of Columbus's blame uncertain. Many landmarks and institutions in the Western Hemisphere bear his name, including the country of Colombia and the name Columbia, which is used as a personification for the United States, and appears in many place names there.
+
+The name Christopher Columbus is the Anglicisation of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. His name in Ligurian is  Cristoffa Corombo, in Italian Cristoforo Colombo, and in Spanish Cristóbal Colón.[5] He was born before 31 October 1451 in the territory of the Republic of Genoa (now part of modern Italy), though the exact location remains disputed.[6][b] His father was Domenico Colombo,[5] a wool weaver who worked both in Genoa and Savona and who also owned a cheese stand at which young Christopher worked as a helper. His mother was Susanna Fontanarossa.[5] He had three brothers, Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino, and Giacomo.  He also had a sister named Bianchinetta.[7] His brother Bartolomeo worked in a cartography workshop in Lisbon for at least part of his adulthood.[8]
+
+Columbus never wrote in his native language, which is presumed to have been a Genoese variety of Ligurian: his name in the 16th-century Genoese language would have been Cristoffa[9] Corombo[10] (Ligurian pronunciation: [kriˈʃtɔffa kuˈɹuŋbu]).[11][12] In one of his writings, he says he went to sea at the age of 10. In 1470, the Columbus family moved to Savona, where Domenico took over a tavern. In the same year, Christopher was on a Genoese ship hired in the service of René of Anjou to support his attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Naples. Some modern authors have argued that he was not from Genoa but, instead, from the Aragon region of Spain[13] or from Portugal.[14] These competing hypotheses have generally been discounted by mainstream scholars.[15][16]
+
+In 1473, Columbus began his apprenticeship as business agent for the important Centurione, Di Negro and Spinola families of Genoa. Later, he allegedly made a trip to Chios, an Aegean island then ruled by Genoa.[17] In May 1476, he took part in an armed convoy sent by Genoa to carry valuable cargo to northern Europe. He probably docked in Bristol, England,[18] and Galway, Ireland. A few writers speculate that in 1477, he was in Iceland.[5][19] It is known that in the autumn of 1477, he sailed on a Portuguese ship from Galway to Lisbon, where he found his brother Bartolomeo, and they continued trading for the Centurione family. Columbus based himself in Lisbon from 1477 to 1485. He married Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, daughter of the Porto Santo governor and Portuguese nobleman of Lombard origin Bartolomeu Perestrello.[20]
+
+In 1479 or 1480, his son Diego Columbus was born. Between 1482 and 1485, Columbus traded along the coasts of West Africa, reaching the Portuguese trading post of Elmina at the Guinea coast (in present-day Ghana).[21] Some records report that Filipa died sometime around 1485, while Columbus was away in Castile.  He returned to Portugal to settle her estate and take his son Diego with him.[22] He had left Portugal for Castile in 1485, where he found a mistress in 1487, a 20-year-old orphan named Beatriz Enríquez de Arana.[23] It is likely that Beatriz met Columbus when he was in Córdoba, a gathering site of many Genoese merchants and where the court of the Catholic Monarchs was located at intervals. Beatriz, unmarried at the time, gave birth to Columbus's natural son Fernando Columbus in July 1488, named for the monarch of Aragon. Columbus recognized the boy as his offspring. Columbus entrusted his older, legitimate son Diego to take care of Beatriz and pay the pension set aside for her following his death, but Diego was negligent in his duties.[24]
+
+Ambitious, Columbus eventually learned Latin, Portuguese, and Castilian. He read widely about astronomy, geography, and history, including the works of Claudius Ptolemy, Pierre Cardinal d'Ailly's Imago Mundi, the travels of Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville, Pliny's Natural History, and Pope Pius II's Historia Rerum Ubique Gestarum. According to historian Edmund Morgan,
+
+Columbus was not a scholarly man. Yet he studied these books, made hundreds of marginal notations in them and came out with ideas about the world that were characteristically simple and strong and sometimes wrong, ...[25]
+
+Throughout his life, Columbus also showed a keen interest in the Bible and in Biblical prophecies, often quoting biblical texts in his letters and logs. For example, part of the argument that he submitted to the Spanish Catholic Monarchs when he sought their support for his proposed expedition to reach the Indies by sailing west was based on his reading of the Second Book of Esdras (Ezra): see 2 Esdras 6:42, which he took to mean that the Earth is made of six parts of land to one of water. Towards the end of his life, he produced a Book of Prophecies in which his career as an explorer is interpreted in the light of Christian eschatology and of apocalypticism.[8]
+
+Carol Delaney has argued that Columbus was a millennialist and that these beliefs motivated his quest for Asia in a variety of ways.[26]  Columbus wrote often about seeking gold in the diaries of his voyages and writes about acquiring the precious metal “in such quantity that the sovereigns… will undertake and prepare to go conquer the Holy Sepulcher”.[26] In an account of his fourth voyage, Columbus wrote that “Jerusalem and Mount Sion must be rebuilt by Christian hands”.[27] It has also been written that “conversion of all people to the Christian faith” is a central theme in Columbus's writings which is a central tenet of some Millenarian beliefs.[26] In a more specific identification of his motivations, Hamandi writes that the “deliverance of Jerusalem from Muslim hands” could be accomplished by “using the resources of newly discovered lands”.[28]
+
+Under the Mongol Empire's hegemony over Asia (the Pax Mongolica, or Mongol peace), Europeans had long enjoyed a safe land passage, the Silk Road, to the Indies (then construed roughly as all of south and east Asia) and China, which were sources of valuable goods such as spices and silk. With the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the land route to Asia became much more difficult and dangerous. Portuguese navigators tried to find a sea way to Asia.
+
+In 1470, the Florentine astronomer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli suggested to King Afonso V of Portugal that sailing west across the Atlantic would be a quicker way to reach the Spice Islands, Cathay, and Cipangu than the route around Africa, but Afonso rejected his proposal.[29] In 1474, Toscanelli sent Columbus a map with the notion of a westward route to Asia.[30][31] In the 1480s, the Columbus brothers proposed a plan to reach the Indies by sailing west across the "Ocean Sea" (the Atlantic). However, this was complicated by the opening of the southeast passage to Asia around Africa by Bartolomeu Dias in 1488, when he reached the Cape of Good Hope (modern-day South Africa).[32]
+
+Washington Irving's 1828 biography of Columbus popularized the idea that Columbus had difficulty obtaining support for his plan because many Catholic theologians insisted that the Earth was flat.[33] In fact, nearly all educated Westerners had understood, at least since the time of Aristotle, that the Earth is spherical.[34][32] The sphericity of the Earth is also accounted for in the work of Ptolemy, on which medieval astronomy was largely based. Christian writers whose works clearly reflect the conviction that the Earth is spherical include Saint Bede the Venerable in his Reckoning of Time, written around AD 723. In Columbus's time, the techniques of celestial navigation, which use the position of the sun and the stars in the sky, together with the understanding that the Earth is a sphere, had long been in use by astronomers and were beginning to be implemented by mariners.[35]
+
+As far back as the 3rd century BC, Eratosthenes had correctly computed the circumference of the Earth by using simple geometry and studying the shadows cast by objects at two remote locations.[36][37] In the 1st century BC, Posidonius confirmed Eratosthenes's results by comparing stellar observations at two separate locations. These measurements were widely known among scholars, but confusion about the old-fashioned units of distance in which they were expressed led to some debate about the size of the Earth.[citation needed]
+
+From Pierre d'Ailly's Imago Mundi Columbus learned of Alfraganus's estimate that a degree of latitude (or a degree of longitude along the equator) spanned 56​2⁄3 Arabic miles (equivalent to 66.2 nautical miles or 122.6 kilometres), but he did not realize that this was expressed in the Arabic mile rather than the shorter Roman mile with which he was familiar.[39] He therefore would have estimated the circumference of the Earth to be about 30,200 kilometres (16,300 nmi) at the equator and 26,200 kilometres (14,100 nmi) at 30 degrees north (around where he was sailing), whereas the correct value is 40,075 kilometres (21,639 nmi) at the equator and 34,735 kilometres (18,755 nmi) at 30 degrees north.[citation needed]
+
+Furthermore, most scholars accepted Ptolemy's estimate that Eurasia spanned 180° longitude, rather than the actual 130° (to the Chinese mainland) or 150° (to Japan at the latitude of Spain). Columbus, for his part, believed an even higher estimate, leaving a smaller percentage for water.  Some people have suggested he followed the estimate of Marinus of Tyre, which put the longitudinal span of the Eurasian landmass at 225°.[citation needed]  Other people have suggested he followed Esdras's statement that "six parts [of the globe] are habitable and the seventh is covered with water."[30] He also believed that Japan (which he called "Cipangu", following Marco Polo) was much larger, farther to the east from China ("Cathay"), and closer to the equator than it is, and that there were inhabited islands even farther to the east than Japan, including the mythical Antillia, which he thought might lie not much farther to the west than the Azores. In this, he was influenced by the ideas of Toscanelli.[30]
+
+Columbus therefore would have estimated the distance from the Canary Islands west to Japan to be about 9,800 kilometres (5,300 nmi) or 3,700 kilometres (2,000 nmi), depending on which estimate he used for Eurasia's longitudinal span. The true figure is now known to be vastly larger: about 20,000 kilometres (11,000 nmi).[40][c] No ship in the 15th century could have carried enough food and fresh water for such a long voyage, and the dangers involved in navigating through the uncharted ocean would have been formidable. Most European navigators reasonably concluded that a westward voyage from Europe to Asia was unfeasible. The Catholic Monarchs, however, having completed an expensive war in the Iberian Peninsula, were eager to obtain a competitive edge over other European countries in the quest for trade with the Indies. Columbus's project, though far-fetched, held the promise of such an advantage.[citation needed]
+
+Though Columbus was wrong about the number of degrees of longitude that separated Europe from the Far East and about the distance that each degree represented, he did possess valuable knowledge about the trade winds, which would prove to be the key to his successful navigation of the Atlantic Ocean. During his first voyage in 1492, the brisk trade winds from the east, commonly called "easterlies", propelled Columbus's fleet for five weeks, from the Canary Islands to The Bahamas. The precise first land sighting and landing point was San Salvador Island.[32] To return to Spain against this prevailing wind would have required several months of an arduous sailing technique, called beating, during which food and drinkable water would probably have been exhausted.
+
+Instead, Columbus returned home by following the curving trade winds northeastward to the middle latitudes of the North Atlantic, where he was able to catch the "westerlies" that blow eastward to the coast of Western Europe. There, in turn, the winds curve southward towards the Iberian Peninsula.[41][42]
+
+It is unclear whether Columbus learned about the winds from his own sailing experience or if he had heard about them from others. The corresponding technique for efficient travel in the Atlantic appears to have been exploited first by the Portuguese, who referred to it as the Volta do mar ("turn of the sea"). Columbus's knowledge of the Atlantic wind patterns was, however, imperfect at the time of his first voyage. By sailing directly due west from the Canary Islands during hurricane season, skirting the so-called horse latitudes of the mid-Atlantic, Columbus risked either being becalmed or running into a tropical cyclone, both of which, by chance, he avoided.[30]
+
+In 1485, Columbus presented his plans to King John II of Portugal. He proposed that the king equip three sturdy ships and grant Columbus one year's time to sail out into the Atlantic, search for a western route to the Orient, and return. Columbus also requested he be made "Great Admiral of the Ocean", appointed governor of any and all lands he discovered, and given one-tenth of all revenue from those lands. The king submitted Columbus's proposal to his experts, who rejected it. It was their considered opinion that Columbus's estimation of a travel distance of 2,400 miles (3,860 km) was, in fact, far too low.[30]
+
+In 1488, Columbus again appealed to the court of Portugal, resulting in John II again inviting him for an audience. That meeting also proved unsuccessful, in part because not long afterwards Bartolomeu Dias returned to Portugal with news of his successful rounding of the southern tip of Africa (near the Cape of Good Hope). With an eastern sea route to Asia apparently at hand, King John was no longer interested in Columbus's far-fetched project.
+
+Columbus traveled from Portugal to both Genoa and Venice, but he received encouragement from neither. He had also dispatched his brother Bartholomew to the court of Henry VII of England to inquire whether the English crown might sponsor his expedition, but also without success.
+
+Columbus had sought an audience from the monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, who had united several kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula by marrying and were ruling together. On 1 May 1486, permission having been granted, Columbus presented his plans to Queen Isabella, who, in turn, referred it to a committee. After the passing of much time, the savants of Spain, like their counterparts in Portugal, replied that Columbus had grossly underestimated the distance to Asia. They pronounced the idea impractical and advised their Royal Highnesses to pass on the proposed venture.
+
+However, to keep Columbus from taking his ideas elsewhere, and perhaps to keep their options open, the Catholic Monarchs gave him an annual allowance of 12,000 maravedis and, in 1489, furnished him with a letter ordering all cities and towns under their domain to provide him food and lodging at no cost.[44]
+
+After continually lobbying at the Spanish court and two years of negotiations, he finally had success in January 1492. Ferdinand and Isabella had just conquered Granada, the last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula, and they received Columbus in Córdoba, in the Alcázar castle. Isabella turned him down on the advice of her confessor. Columbus was leaving town by mule in despair when Ferdinand intervened. Isabella then sent a royal guard to fetch him, and Ferdinand later claimed credit for being "the principal cause why those islands were discovered".[45]
+
+In the April 1492 "Capitulations of Santa Fe", King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella promised Columbus that if he succeeded he would be given the rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and appointed Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands he could claim for Spain. He had the right to nominate three persons, from whom the sovereigns would choose one, for any office in the new lands. He would be entitled to 10 percent of all the revenues from the new lands in perpetuity. Additionally, he would also have the option of buying one-eighth interest in any commercial venture with the new lands and receive one-eighth of the profits.[30]
+
+Columbus was later arrested in 1500 and dismissed from his posts. He and his sons, Diego and Fernando, then conducted a lengthy series of court cases against the Castilian crown, known as the pleitos colombinos, alleging that the Crown had illegally reneged on its contractual obligations to Columbus and his heirs. The Columbus family had some success in their first litigation, as a judgment of 1511 confirmed Diego's position as Viceroy, but reduced his powers. Diego resumed litigation in 1512, which lasted until 1536, and further disputes continued until 1790.[46]
+
+Between 1492 and 1503, Columbus completed four round-trip voyages between Spain and the Americas, each voyage being sponsored by the Crown of Castile. On his first voyage, he independently discovered the Americas and magnetic declination.[d][47][48] These voyages marked the beginning of the European exploration and colonization of the American continents, and are thus of enormous significance in Western history.[8]
+
+Columbus always insisted, in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, that the lands that he visited during those voyages were part of the Asian continent, as previously described by Marco Polo and other European travelers.[8] Columbus's refusal to accept that the lands he had visited and claimed for Spain were not part of Asia might explain, in part, why the American continent was named after the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci and not after Columbus.[49]
+
+On the evening of 3 August 1492, Columbus departed from Palos de la Frontera with three ships. The largest was a carrack (Spanish: nao), the Santa María ex-Gallega ("Galician")[further explanation needed]. The other two were smaller caravels. The name of one is lost: it is known today only by the nickname Pinta, which in Castilian of the time meant "painted one".[50] The Santa Clara was nicknamed affectionately the Niña ("the little one"), a pun on the name of her owner, Juan Niño of Moguer.[51] The monarchs forced the citizens of Palos to contribute to the expedition. The Santa María was owned by Juan de la Cosa and captained by Columbus. The Pinta and the Niña were piloted by the Pinzón brothers (Martín Alonso and Vicente Yáñez).[32]
+
+Columbus first sailed to the Canary Islands, which belonged to Castile. He restocked provisions and made repairs in Gran Canaria, then departed from San Sebastián de La Gomera on 6 September, for what turned out to be a five-week voyage across the ocean. At about 2:00 in the morning of 12 October, a lookout on the Pinta, Rodrigo de Triana (also known as Juan Rodríguez Bermeo), spotted land, and immediately alerted the rest of the crew with a shout. Thereupon, the captain of the Pinta, Martín Alonso Pinzón, verified the sight of land and alerted Columbus by firing a lombard.[52] Columbus later maintained that he himself had already seen a light on the land a few hours earlier, thereby claiming for himself the lifetime pension promised by Ferdinand and Isabella to the first person to sight land.[32][53]
+
+Columbus called the island (in what is now the Bahamas) San Salvador (meaning "Holy Savior"); the natives called it Guanahani. Exactly which island in the Bahamas this corresponds to is unresolved. Based on primary accounts and the geographic positions of the islands given Columbus's course, the prime candidates are San Salvador Island (so named in 1925 on the theory that it was Columbus's San Salvador),[54] Samana Cay, and Plana Cays.[32]
+
+The indigenous people he encountered, the Lucayan, Taíno, and Arawak, were peaceful and friendly. He called the inhabitants of the lands that he visited indios (Spanish for "Indians").[55][56][57] Noting their gold ear ornaments, Columbus took some of the Arawaks prisoner and insisted that they guide him to the source of the gold.[58] From the entry in his journal of 12 October 1492, in which he wrote of them: "Many of the men I have seen have scars on their bodies, and when I made signs to them to find out how this happened, they indicated that people from other nearby islands come to San Salvador to capture them; they defend themselves the best they can. I believe that people from the mainland come here to take them as slaves. They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them. I think they can very easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion. If it pleases our Lord, I will take six of them to Your Highnesses when I depart, in order that they may learn our language."[59] Columbus noted that their primitive weapons and military tactics made them susceptible to easy conquest, writing, "these people are very simple in war-like matters … I could conquer the whole of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased."[60]
+
+Columbus also explored the northeast coast of Cuba, where he landed on 28 October. On 22 November, Martín Alonso Pinzón took the Pinta on an unauthorized expedition in search of an island called "Babeque" or "Baneque", which the natives had told him was rich in gold. Columbus, for his part, continued to the northern coast of Hispaniola, where he landed on 5 December.[61] There, the Santa María ran aground on Christmas Day 1492 and had to be abandoned. The wreck was used as a target for cannon fire to impress the native peoples.[32] Columbus was received by the native cacique Guacanagari, who gave him permission to leave some of his men behind. Columbus left 39 men, including Luis de Torres, the converso interpreter, who spoke Hebrew and Arabic,[citation needed] and founded the settlement of La Navidad at the site of present-day Bord de Mer de Limonade, Haiti.[62] Columbus took more natives prisoner and continued his exploration.[58] He kept sailing along the northern coast of Hispaniola with a single ship, until he encountered Pinzón and the Pinta on 6 January.
+
+On 13 January 1493, Columbus made his last stop of this voyage in the New World, in the Bay of Rincón at the eastern end of the Samaná Peninsula in northeast Hispaniola.[63] There he encountered the warlike Cigüayos, the only natives who offered violent resistance during his first voyage to the Americas.[64] The Cigüayos refused to trade the amount of bows and arrows that Columbus desired; in the ensuing clash one Ciguayo was stabbed in the buttocks and another wounded with an arrow in his chest.[65] Because of this and because of the Cigüayos' use of arrows, he called the inlet where he met them the Bay of Arrows (or Gulf of Arrows).[66] Columbus captured about 10 to 25 natives and took them back with him (only seven or eight of the natives arrived in Spain alive).[67]
+
+Columbus headed for Spain on the Niña, but a storm separated him from the Pinta, and forced the Niña to stop at the island of Santa Maria in the Azores. Half of his crew went ashore to say prayers in a chapel to give thanks for having survived the storm. But while praying, they were imprisoned by the governor of the island, ostensibly on suspicion of being pirates.  After a two-day standoff, the prisoners were released, and Columbus again set sail for Spain.[68]
+
+Another storm forced him into the port at Lisbon.[32] He anchored next to the King's harbor patrol ship on 4 March 1493 in Portugal. There, he was interviewed by Bartolomeu Dias, who had rounded the Cape of Good Hope a few years earlier, in 1488–1489. Dias's success had complicated Columbus's attempts to secure funding from the Portuguese court because the sure route to the Indies that Dias pioneered made a risky, conjectural western route unnecessary.[32] Not finding King John II of Portugal in Lisbon, Columbus wrote a letter to him and waited for John's reply. John asked Columbus to go to Vale do Paraíso north of Lisbon to meet him. Relations between Portugal and Castile were poor at the time. Columbus went to meet with John at Vale do Paraíso. Hearing of Columbus's voyage, John told him that he believed the voyage to be in violation of the 1479 Treaty of Alcáçovas.
+
+After spending more than a week in Portugal, and paying his respects to Eleanor of Viseu, Columbus again set sail for Spain. Ferdinand Magellan was a young boy and a ward of Eleanor's court; it is likely he saw Columbus during this visit.[32] After departing, and after reportedly being saved from assassins by King John, Columbus crossed the bar of Saltes and entered the harbor of Palos de la Frontera on 15 March 1493. Word of his finding new lands rapidly spread throughout Europe.
+
+Columbus left the port of Cádiz on 24 September 1493, with a fleet of 17 ships carrying 1,200 men and the supplies to establish permanent colonies in the New World. The passengers included priests, farmers, and soldiers, who would be the new colonists. This reflected the new policy of creating not just "colonies of exploitation", but also "colonies of settlement" from which to launch missions dedicated to converting the natives to Christianity.[69] Modern studies suggest that "crew members may have included free black Africans who arrived in the New World about a decade before the slave trade began".[70]
+
+As in the first voyage, the fleet stopped at the Canary Islands, from which it departed on 13 October, following a more southerly course than on the previous expedition. On 3 November, Columbus sighted a rugged island that he named Dominica (Latin for Sunday); later that day, he landed at Marie-Galante, which he named Santa María la Galante. After sailing past Les Saintes (Los Santos, "The Saints"), he arrived at the island of Guadeloupe, which he named Santa María de Guadalupe de Extremadura, after the image of the Virgin Mary venerated at the Spanish monastery of Villuercas, in Guadalupe, Cáceres, Spain. He explored that island from 4 to 10 November.
+
+Michele da Cuneo, Columbus's childhood friend from Savona, sailed with Columbus during the second voyage and wrote: "In my opinion, since Genoa was Genoa, there was never born a man so well equipped and expert in the art of navigation as the said lord Admiral."[71] Columbus named the small island of "Saona ... to honor Michele da Cuneo, his friend from Savona."[72]
+
+The same childhood friend reported in a letter that Columbus had provided one of the captured indigenous women to him. He wrote, "While I was in the boat, I captured a very beautiful Carib woman, whom the said Lord Admiral gave to me. When I had taken her to my cabin she was naked—as was their custom. I was filled with a desire to take my pleasure with her and attempted to satisfy my desire. She was unwilling, and so treated me with her nails that I wished I had never begun. But—to cut a long story short—I then took a piece of rope and whipped her soundly, and she let forth such incredible screams that you would not have believed your ears. Eventually we came to such terms, I assure you, that you would have thought that she had been brought up in a school for whores."[73]
+
+Pedro de las Casas, father of the priest Bartolomé de las Casas, also accompanied Columbus on this voyage.[74]
+
+The exact course of Columbus's voyage through the Lesser Antilles is debated, but it seems likely that he turned north, sighting and naming several islands, including:
+
+Columbus also sighted the chain of the Virgin Islands, which he named Islas de Santa Úrsula y las Once Mil Vírgenes, "Islands of Saint Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins" (shortened, both on maps of the time and in common parlance, to Islas Vírgenes). He also named the islands of Virgin Gorda ("Fat Virgin"), Tortola, and Peter Island (San Pedro).
+
+One of the first skirmishes between Native Americans and Europeans since the time of the Vikings occurred on 14 November, when at Saint Croix, Columbus's men rescued two native boys from several cannibalistic Island Caribs.[76] Columbus's men pursued the Carib canoe, which met them with arrows. Several Europeans were wounded, but they killed all of the Caribs, and learned that the two boys had recently been castrated by their captors. Columbus continued to the Virgin Islands, and landed in Puerto Rico, which he named San Juan Bautista[77] in honor of Saint John the Baptist (a name that was later given to the capital city of San Juan).
+
+On 22 November, Columbus returned to Hispaniola, where he intended to visit the fort of La Navidad, built during his first voyage and located on the northern coast of Haiti. Columbus found the fort in ruins, destroyed by the native Taino people.[78] Among the ruins were the corpses of 11 of the 39 Spaniards who had stayed behind as the first colonists in the New World.
+
+Columbus then sailed more than 100 kilometres (62 miles) eastwards along the northern coast of Hispaniola, establishing a new settlement, which he called La Isabela, in the present-day Dominican Republic.[79] However, La Isabela proved to be poorly located and the settlement was short-lived.
+
+According to the abstract of Columbus's journal made by Bartolomé de Las Casas, the objective of the third voyage was to verify the existence of a continent that King John II of Portugal suggested was located to the southwest of the Cape Verde Islands. King John reportedly knew of the existence of such a mainland because "canoes had been found which set out from the coast of Guinea [West Africa] and sailed to the west with merchandise."[80][81]
+
+On 30 May 1498, Columbus left with six ships from Sanlúcar, Spain, for his third trip to the New World. Three of the ships headed directly for Hispaniola with much-needed supplies, while Columbus took the other three in an exploration of what might lie to the south of the Caribbean islands he had already visited, including a hoped-for passage to continental Asia.[82]
+
+Columbus led his fleet to the Portuguese island of Porto Santo, his wife's native land. He then sailed to Madeira and spent some time there with the Portuguese captain João Gonçalves da Camara, before sailing to the Canary Islands and Cape Verde. As he crossed the Atlantic, Columbus discovered that the angle between North as indicated by a magnetic compass and North as measured by the position of the pole star changed with his position (a phenomenon now known as "compass variation"). He would later use his previous measurements of the compass variation to adjust his reckoning.[21]
+
+After being becalmed for several days in the doldrums of the mid-Atlantic, Columbus's fleet regained its wind and, dangerously low on water, turned north in the direction of Dominica, which Columbus had visited in his previous voyage. The ships arrived at King John's hypothesized continent, which is South America, when they sighted the land of Trinidad on 31 July approaching from the southeast.[83] The fleet sailed along the southern coast and entered Dragon's Mouth, anchoring near Soldado Rock where they made contact with a group of native Amerindians in canoes.[84] Columbus then landed on Trinidad at Icacos Point (which he named Punta de Arenal) on 2 August.[85] After resupplying with food and water, from 4 to 12 August Columbus explored the Gulf of Paria, which separates Trinidad from what is now Venezuela, near the delta of the Orinoco River. He then touched the mainland of South America at the Paria Peninsula.[citation needed]
+
+Exploring the new continent, Columbus correctly interpreted the enormous quantity of fresh water that the Orinoco delivered into the Atlantic Ocean as evidence that he had reached a large landmass rather than another island. He also speculated that the new continent might be the location of the biblical Garden of Eden. He then sailed to the islands of Chacachacare and Margarita. He sighted Tobago (which he named "Bella Forma") and Grenada (which he named "Concepción").[86]
+
+In poor health, Columbus returned to Hispaniola on 19 August, only to find that many of the Spanish settlers of the new colony were in rebellion against his rule, claiming that Columbus had misled them about the supposedly bountiful riches of the New World. A number of returning settlers and sailors lobbied against Columbus at the Spanish court, accusing him and his brothers of gross mismanagement. Columbus had some of his crew hanged for disobedience. He had an economic interest in the enslavement of the Hispaniola natives and for that reason was not eager to baptize them, which attracted criticism from some churchmen.[87] An entry in his journal from September 1498 reads: "From here one might send, in the name of the Holy Trinity, as many slaves as could be sold ..."[88]
+
+Columbus was eventually forced to make peace with the rebellious colonists on humiliating terms.[89] In 1500, the Crown had him removed as governor, arrested, and transported in chains to Spain (see "Accusations of tyranny" section below). He was eventually freed and allowed to return to the New World, but not as governor.[citation needed]
+
+Before leaving for his fourth voyage, Columbus wrote a letter to the Governors of the Bank of Saint George, Genoa, dated at Seville, 2 April 1502.[90] He wrote "Although my body is here my heart is always near you."[91]
+
+Columbus made a fourth voyage nominally in search of the Strait of Malacca to the Indian Ocean. Accompanied by his brother Bartolomeo and his 13-year-old son Fernando, he left Cádiz on 11 May 1502, with his flagship Santa María and the vessels Gallega, Vizcaína, and Santiago de Palos. He sailed to Arzila on the Moroccan coast to rescue Portuguese soldiers whom he had heard were under siege by the Moors.
+
+On 15 June, they landed at Carbet on the island of Martinique (Martinica). A hurricane was brewing, so he continued on, hoping to find shelter on Hispaniola. He arrived at Santo Domingo on 29 June, but was denied port, and the new governor refused to listen to his storm prediction. Instead, while Columbus's ships sheltered at the mouth of the Rio Jaina, the first Spanish treasure fleet sailed into the hurricane. Columbus's ships survived with only minor damage, while 29 of the 30 ships in the governor's fleet were lost to a storm on 1 July. In addition to the ships, 500 lives (including that of the governor, Francisco de Bobadilla) and an immense cargo of gold were surrendered to the sea.[citation needed]
+
+After a brief stop at Jamaica, Columbus sailed to Central America, arriving at Guanaja (Isla de Pinos) in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras on 30 July. Here Bartolomeo found native merchants and a large canoe, which was described as being "long as a galley" and filled with cargo. On 14 August, he landed on the continental mainland at Puerto Castilla, near Trujillo, Honduras. He spent two months exploring the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, before arriving in Almirante Bay in Panama on 16 October.[citation needed]
+
+On 5 December 1502, Columbus and his crew found themselves in a storm unlike any they had ever experienced. In his journal Columbus writes,
+
+For nine days I was as one lost, without hope of life. Eyes never beheld the sea so angry, so high, so covered with foam. The wind not only prevented our progress, but offered no opportunity to run behind any headland for shelter; hence we were forced to keep out in this bloody ocean, seething like a pot on a hot fire. Never did the sky look more terrible; for one whole day and night it blazed like a furnace, and the lightning broke with such violence that each time I wondered if it had carried off my spars and sails; the flashes came with such fury and frightfulness that we all thought that the ship would be blasted. All this time the water never ceased to fall from the sky; I do not say it rained, for it was like another deluge. The men were so worn out that they longed for death to end their dreadful suffering.[92]
+
+In Panama, Columbus learned from the Ngobe of gold and a strait to another ocean, but was told by local leader Quibían not to go past a certain point down the river. After much exploration, in January 1503, he established a garrison at the mouth of the Belén River. On 6 April, one of the ships became stranded in the river. At the same time, the garrison was attacked by Quibían and the other ships were damaged. Shipworms also damaged the ships in tropical waters.[93]
+
+Columbus left for Hispaniola on 16 April heading north. On 10 May he sighted the Cayman Islands, naming them "Las Tortugas" after the numerous sea turtles there. His ships next sustained more damage in a storm off the coast of Cuba. Unable to travel farther, on 25 June 1503 they were beached in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica.[citation needed]
+
+For one year Columbus and his men remained stranded on Jamaica. A Spaniard, Diego Méndez, and some natives paddled a canoe to get help from Hispaniola. The governor, Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres, detested Columbus and obstructed all efforts to rescue him and his men. In the meantime Columbus, in a desperate effort to induce the natives to continue provisioning him and his hungry men, won their favor by predicting a lunar eclipse for 29 February 1504, using Abraham Zacuto's astronomical charts.[94][95][96] Help finally arrived, no thanks to the governor, on 29 June 1504, and Columbus and his men arrived in Sanlúcar, Spain, on 7 November.
+
+Following his first voyage, Columbus was appointed Viceroy and Governor of the Indies under the terms of the Capitulations of Santa Fe. In practice, this primarily entailed the administration of the colonies in the island of Hispaniola, whose capital was established in Santo Domingo. By the end of his third voyage, Columbus was physically and mentally exhausted, his body wracked by arthritis and his eyes by ophthalmia. In October 1499, he sent two ships to Spain, asking the Court of Spain to appoint a royal commissioner to help him govern.[97]
+
+By this time, accusations of tyranny and incompetence on the part of Columbus had also reached the Court. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand responded by removing Columbus from power and replacing him with Francisco de Bobadilla, a member of the Order of Calatrava. Bobadilla, who ruled as governor from 1500 until his death in a storm in 1502, had also been tasked by the Court with investigating the accusations of brutality made against Columbus.
+
+Arriving in Santo Domingo while Columbus was away during the explorations of his third voyage, Bobadilla was immediately met with complaints about all three Columbus brothers: Christopher, Bartolomeo, and Diego. Bobadilla reported to Spain that Columbus regularly used torture and mutilation to govern Hispaniola. The 48-page report, found in 2006 in the national archive in the Spanish city of Simancas, contains testimonies from 23 people, including both enemies and supporters of Columbus, about the treatment of colonial subjects by Columbus and his brothers during his seven-year rule.[98]
+
+According to the report, Columbus once punished a man found guilty of stealing corn by having his ears and nose cut off and then selling him into slavery. Testimony recorded in the report stated that Columbus congratulated his brother Bartolomeo on "defending the family" when the latter ordered a woman paraded naked through the streets and then had her tongue cut out for suggesting that Columbus was of lowly birth.[98] The document also describes how Columbus put down native unrest and revolt: he first ordered a brutal crackdown in which many natives were killed, and then paraded their dismembered bodies through the streets in an attempt to discourage further rebellion.[99]
+
+The neutrality and accuracy of this report and the accusations of Bobadilla towards Columbus and his brothers have been disputed by historians, given the anti-Italian sentiment of the Spaniards and Bobadilla's desire to take over Columbus' position.[100][101][102]
+
+"Columbus's government was characterised by a form of tyranny," Consuelo Varela, a Spanish historian who has seen the document, told journalists. "Even those who loved him had to admit the atrocities that had taken place."[98]
+
+Because of their gross misgovernance, Columbus and his brothers were arrested and imprisoned upon their return to Spain from the third voyage. They lingered in jail for six weeks before King Ferdinand ordered their release. Not long after, the king and queen summoned the Columbus brothers to the Alhambra palace in Granada. There, the royal couple heard the brothers' pleas; restored their freedom and wealth; and, after much persuasion, agreed to fund Columbus's fourth voyage. But the door was firmly shut on Columbus's role as governor. Henceforth Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres was to be the new governor of the West Indies.[103]
+
+Columbus had always claimed the conversion of non-believers as one reason for his explorations, but he grew increasingly religious in his later years. Probably with the assistance of his son Diego and his friend the Carthusian monk Gaspar Gorricio, Columbus produced two books during his later years: a Book of Privileges (1502), detailing and documenting the rewards from the Spanish Crown to which he believed he and his heirs were entitled, and a Book of Prophecies (1505), in which he considered his achievements as an explorer but a fulfillment of Bible prophecy in the context of Christian eschatology.[8][105]
+
+In his later years, Columbus demanded that the Spanish Crown give him 10 percent of all profits made in the new lands, as stipulated in the Capitulations of Santa Fe. Because he had been relieved of his duties as governor, the crown did not feel bound by that contract and his demands were rejected. After his death, his heirs sued the Crown for a part of the profits from trade with America, as well as other rewards. This led to a protracted series of legal disputes known as the pleitos colombinos ("Columbian lawsuits").
+
+During a violent storm on his first return voyage, Columbus, then 41, suffered an attack of what was believed at the time to be gout. In subsequent years, he was plagued with what was thought to be influenza and other fevers, bleeding from the eyes, temporary blindness and prolonged attacks of gout. The attacks increased in duration and severity, sometimes leaving Columbus bedridden for months at a time, and culminated in his death 14 years later.
+
+Based on Columbus's lifestyle and the described symptoms, modern doctors suspect that he suffered from reactive arthritis, rather than gout.[107][108] Reactive arthritis is a joint inflammation caused by intestinal bacterial infections or after acquiring certain sexually transmitted diseases (primarily chlamydia or gonorrhea). "It seems likely that [Columbus] acquired reactive arthritis from food poisoning on one of his ocean voyages because of poor sanitation and improper food preparation," writes Dr. Frank C. Arnett, a rheumatologist and professor of internal medicine, pathology and laboratory medicine the University of Texas Medical School at Houston.[107]
+
+On 20 May 1506, aged probably 54, Columbus died in Valladolid, Spain. His remains were first interred at Valladolid, then at the monastery of La Cartuja in Seville (southern Spain) by the will of his son Diego Colón, who had been governor of Hispaniola. In 1542, the remains were transferred to Colonial Santo Domingo, in the present-day Dominican Republic. In 1795, when France took over the entire island of Hispaniola, Columbus's remains were moved to Havana, Cuba. After Cuba became independent following the Spanish–American War in 1898, the remains were moved back to Spain, to the Cathedral of Seville,[109] where they were placed on an elaborate catafalque.
+
+However, a lead box bearing an inscription identifying "Don Christopher Columbus" and containing bone fragments and a bullet was discovered at Santo Domingo in 1877. These bones were considered legitimate by physician and future United States Assistant Secretary of State John Eugene Osborne, who suggested in 1913 that the remains be placed on a battleship and travel through the Panama Canal as a part of its opening ceremony. Ultimately, it was decided not to do so.[111]
+
+To lay to rest claims that the wrong relics had been moved to Havana and that Columbus's remains had been left buried in the Cathedral of Santo Domingo, DNA samples of the corpse resting in Seville were taken in June 2003 (History Today August 2003) as well as other DNA samples from the remains of his brother Diego and younger son Fernando Colón. Initial observations suggested that the bones did not appear to belong to somebody with the physique or age at death associated with Columbus.[112] DNA extraction proved difficult; only short fragments of mitochondrial DNA could be isolated. The mitochondrial DNA fragments matched corresponding DNA from Columbus's brother, giving support that both individuals had shared the same mother.[113]
+
+Such evidence, together with anthropologic and historic analyses, led the researchers to conclude that the remains found in Seville belonged to Christopher Columbus.[114] The authorities in Santo Domingo have never allowed the remains there to be exhumed, so it is unknown if any of those remains could be from Columbus's body as well.[113][114] The Dominican remains are located in "The Columbus Lighthouse" (Faro a Colón), in Santo Domingo.
+
+The anniversary of Columbus's 1492 landing in the Americas is usually observed on 12 October in Spain and throughout the Americas, except Canada. In Spain it is called the Fiesta Nacional de España y Día de la Hispanidad commemorating the role of Spain in world history, while a number of countries in Latin America celebrate it as Día de la Raza commemorating their common heritage. In the United States it is called Columbus Day and is observed annually on the second Monday in October.
+It was promoted by Italian-Americans to place themselves as part of the history of the US among discrimination against Italians and Catholics.[115]
+There are efforts in the US to rename Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples' Day.
+
+Historically, the English had downplayed Columbus and emphasized the role of the Venetian John Cabot as a pioneer explorer, but for the emerging United States, Cabot made for a poor national hero.[116]
+American navitists preferred Leif Erikson.[115]
+Veneration of Columbus in America dates back to colonial times. The name Columbia for "America" first appeared in a 1738 weekly publication of the debates of the British Parliament.[117] The use of Columbus as a founding figure of New World nations and the use of the word "Columbia", or simply the name "Columbus", spread rapidly after the American Revolution. This was out of a desire to develop a national history and founding myth with less ties to Britain.[118] Columbus's name was given to the federal capital of the United States (District of Columbia), the capital cities of two U.S. states (Ohio and South Carolina), and the Columbia River. Outside the United States the name was used in 1819 for the Gran Colombia, a precursor of the modern Republic of Colombia. Numerous cities, towns, counties, streets, and plazas (called Plaza Colón or Plaza de Colón throughout Latin America and Spain) have been named after him. A candidate for sainthood in the Catholic Church in 1866, celebration of Columbus's legacy perhaps reached a zenith in 1892 with the 400th anniversary of his first arrival in the Americas. Monuments to Columbus like the Columbian Exposition in Chicago and Columbus Circle in New York City were erected throughout the United States and Latin America extolling him.
+The Knights of Columbus is a fraternal organization for Catholic men founded in 1882.
+While its initial membership was mainly Irish, they took Columbus as a symbol of Catholicism in America.[115]
+
+The World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893, commemorated the 400th anniversary of the landing of Christopher Columbus in the Americas.[119] Over 27 million people attended the exposition during its six-month duration.
+
+The United States Postal Service participated in the celebration issuing the first US commemorative postage stamps, a series of 16 postage issues called the Columbian Issue depicting Columbus, Queen Isabella and others in the various stages of his several voyages. The issues range in value from the 1-cent to the 5-dollar denominations. Under Benjamin Harrison and his Postmaster General John Wanamaker the Columbian commemorative stamps were made available and were first issued at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, in 1893. Wanamaker originally introduced the idea of issuing the nation's first commemorative stamp to Harrison, the Congress and the U.S. Post Office. To demonstrate his confidence in the new Columbian commemorative issues Wanamaker purchased $10,000 worth of stamps with his own money. The Columbian Exposition lasted several months, and over $40 million in commemorative postage stamps had been sold.[120] The 400th anniversary Columbian issues were very popular in the United States. A total of two billion stamps were issued for all the Columbian denominations, and 72 percent of these were the two-cent stamps, "Landing of Columbus", which paid the first-class rate for domestic mail at the time.[121]
+
+In 1992, a second Columbian issue was released that was identical to the first to commemorate the 500th anniversary, except for the date in the upper right hand corner of each stamp. These issues were made from the original dies of which the first engraved issues of 1893 were produced. The United States issued the series jointly for the first time with three other countries, Italy in lire, Portugal in escudos and Spain in pesetas.[122]
+
+In 1909, descendants of Columbus undertook to dismantle the Columbus family chapel in Spain and move it to Boalsburg near State College, Pennsylvania, where it may now be visited by the public.[123] At the museum associated with the chapel, there are a number of Columbus relics worthy of note, including the armchair that the "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" used at his chart table.
+
+Columbus's voyages are considered some of the most important events in world history, kickstarting modern globalism and resulting in major demographic, commercial, economic, social, and political changes.[125][126] These explorations resulted in the permanent contact between the two hemispheres. There was a massive exchange of animals, plants, fungi, diseases, technologies, mineral wealth and ideas.[127][128][129][130] Exposed to old world diseases, the indigenous populations of the New world collapsed and were largely replaced by Europeans and Africans who brought with them new methods of farming, business, governance, and religious worship.[131][132]
+
+Though Christopher Columbus came to be considered the discoverer of America in US and European popular culture, his historical legacy is more nuanced. America had been discovered and populated by its indigenous population. Columbus was not even the first European to reach its shores, having been preceded by Erik the Red in 10th-century Greenland and Leif Erikson in 11th-century Vinland at L'Anse aux Meadows.[133][134]  However, Columbus's efforts brought the Americas to the attention of Europe at a time ripe for Europe to act upon. Thus, Columbus was able to initiate the enduring association between the Earth's two major landmasses and their inhabitants. "Columbus's claim to fame isn't that he got there first," explains historian Martin Dugard, "it's that he stayed."[135]
+
+Historians have traditionally argued that Columbus remained convinced until his death that his journeys had been along the east coast of Asia as he originally intended,[136][118] but writer Kirkpatrick Sale argues that a document in the Book of Privileges indicates Columbus knew he found a new continent.[137] Furthermore, his journals from the third voyage call the "land of Paria" a "hitherto unknown" continent.[138] On the other hand, his other writings continued to claim that he had reached Asia, such as a 1502 letter to Pope Alexander VI where he asserted that Cuba was the east coast of Asia.[139] He also rationalized that the new continent of South America was the "Earthly Paradise" that was located "at the end of the Orient".[138] Thus, it remains unclear what his true beliefs were.
+
+The term "pre-Columbian" is usually used to refer to the peoples and cultures of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus and his European successors.
+
+Columbus is often credited with refuting a prevalent belief in a flat Earth. However, this legacy is a popular misconception. To the contrary, the spherical shape of the Earth had been known to scholars since antiquity, and was common knowledge among sailors. Coincidentally, the oldest surviving globe of the Earth, the Erdapfel, was made in 1492, just before Columbus's return to Europe. As such it contains no sign of the Americas and yet demonstrates the common belief in a spherical Earth.[140]
+
+Since the late 20th century, historians have criticized Columbus for initiating colonization and for abuse of natives.[141][142][143][144] Among reasons for this criticism is the poor treatment of the native Taíno people of Hispaniola, whose population declined rapidly after contact with the Spanish. Modern estimates for the pre-Columbian population of Hispaniola vary from several hundred thousand to more than a million.[145] According to the historian Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, by 1548, 56 years after Columbus landed, and 42 years after he died, fewer than 500 Taíno were living on the island.[146] The indigenous population declined rapidly, due primarily to the first pandemic of European endemic diseases, which struck Hispaniola after 1519. The natives had no acquired immunity to these new diseases and suffered high fatalities. There is also documentation that they were overworked.[147][148][149] Historian Andrés Reséndez of University of California, Davis, pushes back against this narrative, and says the available evidence suggests "slavery has emerged as major killer" of the indigenous populations of the Caribbean between 1492 and 1550 more so than diseases such as smallpox, influenza and malaria.[150] He says that indigenous populations did not experience a rebound like European populations did following the Black Death because unlike the latter, the former were subjected to deadly forced labor in gold and silver mines on a massive scale.[151]
+
+The natives of the island were systematically subjugated via the encomienda system implemented by Columbus.[152] Adapted to the New World from Spain, it resembled the feudal system in Medieval Europe, as it was based on a lord offering "protection" to a class of people who owed labor.[153] In addition, Spanish colonists under his rule began to buy and sell natives as slaves, including children.[154]
+
+When natives on Hispaniola began fighting back against their oppressors in 1495, Columbus's men captured 1,500 Arawak men, women, and children in a single raid. The strongest were transported to Spain to be sold as slaves;[155] 40 percent of the 500 shipped died en route.[58] Historian James W. Loewen asserts that "Columbus not only sent the first slaves across the Atlantic, he probably sent more slaves—about five thousand—than any other individual."[156]
+
+Columbus's forced labor system was described by his son, Ferdinand: "In the Cibao, where the gold mines were, every person of fourteen years of age or upward was to pay a large hawk's bell of gold dust; all others were each to pay twenty-five pounds of cotton. Whenever an Indian delivered his tribute, he was to receive a brass or copper token which he must wear about his neck as proof that he had made his payment; any Indian found without such a token was to be punished." [157] A claim popularized by Hans Koning's 1976 biography of Columbus and Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States that the said punishment was cutting off the hands of those without tokens, letting them bleed to death.[58][158] A letter from Ferdinand and Isabella on the tribute calls for a light punishment. [159] Thousands of natives committed suicide by poison to escape their persecution.[155]
+
+During his brief reign, Columbus executed Spanish colonists for minor crimes, and used dismemberment as another form of punishment.[160]
+
+When Columbus fell ill in 1495, "what little restraint he had maintained over his men disappeared as he went through a lengthy period of recuperation. The troops went wild, stealing, killing, raping, and torturing natives, trying to force them to divulge the whereabouts of the imagined treasure-houses of gold."[161] According to Las Casas, 50,000 natives perished during this period, although Las Casas' account has been criticized by modern historians as lacking objectivity and his population estimates are often dismissed.[162]  Upon his recovery, Columbus organized his troops' efforts, forming a squadron of several hundred heavily armed men and more than twenty attack dogs. Dogs were used to hunt down natives who attempted to flee.[155] Columbus's men tore across the land, killing thousands of sick and unarmed natives. Soldiers would use their captives for sword practice, attempting to decapitate them or cut them in half with a single blow.[163]
+
+The Arawaks attempted to fight back against Columbus's men but lacked their armor, guns, swords, and horses. When taken prisoner, they were hanged or burned to death. Desperation led to mass suicides and infanticide among the natives. Howard Zinn states, although without quoting any sources, in just two years under Columbus's governorship, over 125,000 of the 250,000–300,000 natives in Haiti were dead,[58] many died from lethal forced labor in the mines, in which a third of workers died every six months.[164] Within three decades, the surviving Arawak population numbered only in the hundreds.[164] "Virtually every member of the gentle race ... had been wiped out."[155] Disease, warfare and harsh enslavement contributed to the depopulation.[165][166][167]
+
+Within indigenous circles, Columbus is often viewed as a key agent of genocide.[168] Samuel Eliot Morison, a Harvard historian and author of a multivolume biography on Columbus, writes, "The cruel policy initiated by Columbus and pursued by his successors resulted in complete genocide."[169] Loewen laments that while "Haiti under the Spanish is one of the primary instances of genocide in all human history", only one major history text he reviewed mentions Columbus's role in it.[170]
+
+Some of these accounts may be part of the Black Legend, an intentional defamation of Spain,[171][172][173] while others challenge the genocide narrative.[160][174] Noble David Cook, writing about the Black Legend and the conquest of the Americas wrote, "There were too few Spaniards to have killed the millions who were reported to have died in the first century after Old and New World contact". He instead estimates that the death toll was caused by diseases like smallpox,[175] which according to some estimates had an 80–90% fatality rate in Native American populations.[176] Disease played a significant role in the destruction of the natives. Indirect evidence suggests that some serious illness may have arrived with the 1500 colonists who accompanied Columbus's second expedition in 1493.
+
+By the end of 1494, disease and famine had claimed two-thirds of the Spanish settlers.[148][177] A native Nahuatl account depicted the social breakdown that accompanied the pandemics: "A great many died from this plague, and many others died of hunger. They could not get up to search for food, and everyone else was too sick to care for them, so they starved to death in their beds."[178] When the pandemic finally struck in 1519, it wiped out much of the remaining native population.[179][180] Charles C. Mann wrote "It was as if the suffering these diseases had caused in Eurasia over the past millennia were concentrated into the span of decades."[181]
+
+Some historians have argued that, while brutal, Columbus was simply a product of his time, and being a figure of the 15th century, should not be judged by the morality of the 20th century.[182]
+
+Biographers and historians have a wide range of opinions over Columbus's expertise and experience navigating and captaining ships. European works ranging from the 1890s to 1980s support his experience and skill as among the best in Genoa, while American works over a similar timeframe picture the explorer as an untrained entrepreneur, only having minor crew or passenger experience prior to his noted journeys.[183]
+
+Although an abundance of artwork involving Christopher Columbus exists, no authentic contemporary portrait has been found.[184] James W. Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me, believes the various posthumous portraits have no historical value.[185]
+
+Sometime between 1531 and 1536, Alejo Fernández painted an altarpiece, The Virgin of the Navigators, that includes a depiction of Columbus. The painting was commissioned for a chapel in Seville's Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) and remains there, as the earliest known painting about the voyages of Columbus.[186][187]
+
+At the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, 71 alleged portraits of Columbus were displayed; most did not match contemporary descriptions.[188] These writings describe him as having reddish or blond hair, which turned to white early in his life, light colored eyes,[189] as well as being a lighter-skinned person with too much sun exposure turning his face red. Accounts consistently describe Columbus as a large and physically strong man of some six feet (1.83 metres) or more in height, easily taller than the average European of his day.[190]
+
+The most iconic image of Columbus is a portrait by Sebastiano del Piombo, which has been reproduced in many textbooks. It agrees with descriptions of Columbus in that it shows a large man with auburn hair, but the painting dates from 1519 and cannot, therefore, have been painted from life. Furthermore, the inscription identifying the subject as Columbus was probably added later, and the face shown differs from other images, including that of the "Virgin of the Navigators."[191]

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+Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in its natural form as a crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantities in seawater, where it is the main mineral constituent. The open ocean has about 35 grams (1.2 oz) of solids per liter of sea water, a salinity of 3.5%.
+
+Salt is essential for life in general, and saltiness is one of the basic human tastes. Salt is one of the oldest and most ubiquitous food seasonings, and salting is an important method of food preservation.
+
+Some of the earliest evidence of salt processing dates to around 6,000 BC, when people living in the area of present-day Romania boiled spring water to extract salts; a salt-works in China dates to approximately the same period. Salt was also prized by the ancient Hebrews, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Hittites, Egyptians, and the Indians. Salt became an important article of trade and was transported by boat across the Mediterranean Sea, along specially built salt roads, and across the Sahara on camel caravans. The scarcity and universal need for salt have led nations to go to war over it and use it to raise tax revenues. Salt is used in religious ceremonies and has other cultural and traditional significance.
+
+Salt is processed from salt mines, and by the evaporation of seawater (sea salt) and mineral-rich spring water in shallow pools. Its major industrial products are caustic soda and chlorine; salt is used in many industrial processes including the manufacture of polyvinyl chloride, plastics, paper pulp and many other products. Of the annual global production of around two hundred million tonnes of salt, about 6% is used for human consumption. Other uses include water conditioning processes, de-icing highways, and agricultural use. Edible salt is sold in forms such as sea salt and table salt which usually contains an anti-caking agent and may be iodised to prevent iodine deficiency. As well as its use in cooking and at the table, salt is present in many processed foods.
+
+Sodium is an essential nutrient for human health via its role as an electrolyte and osmotic solute.[1][2][3] Excessive salt consumption may increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases, such as hypertension, in children and adults. Such health effects of salt have long been studied. Accordingly, numerous world health associations and experts in developed countries recommend reducing consumption of popular salty foods.[3][4] The World Health Organization recommends that adults should consume less than 2,000 mg of sodium, equivalent to 5 grams of salt per day.[5]
+
+All through history, the availability of salt has been pivotal to civilization. What is now thought to have been the first city in Europe is Solnitsata, in Bulgaria, which was a salt mine, providing the area now known as the Balkans with salt since 5400 BC.[6] Even the name Solnitsata means "salt works".
+
+While people have used canning and artificial refrigeration to preserve food for the last hundred years or so, salt has been the best-known food preservative, especially for meat, for many thousands of years.[7] A very ancient salt-works operation has been discovered at the Poiana Slatinei archaeological site next to a salt spring in Lunca, Neamț County, Romania. Evidence indicates that Neolithic people of the Precucuteni Culture were boiling the salt-laden spring water through the process of briquetage to extract the salt as far back as 6050 BC.[8] The salt extracted from this operation may have had a direct correlation to the rapid growth of this society's population soon after its initial production began.[9] The harvest of salt from the surface of Xiechi Lake near Yuncheng in Shanxi, China, dates back to at least 6000 BC, making it one of the oldest verifiable saltworks.[10]
+
+There is more salt in animal tissues, such as meat, blood, and milk, than in plant tissues.[11] Nomads who subsist on their flocks and herds do not eat salt with their food, but agriculturalists, feeding mainly on cereals and vegetable matter, need to supplement their diet with salt.[12] With the spread of civilization, salt became one of the world's main trading commodities. It was of high value to the ancient Hebrews, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Hittites and other peoples of antiquity. In the Middle East, salt was used to ceremonially seal an agreement, and the ancient Hebrews made a "covenant of salt" with God and sprinkled salt on their offerings to show their trust in him.[13][better source needed] An ancient practice in time of war was salting the earth: scattering salt around in a defeated city to prevent plant growth. The Bible tells the story of King Abimelech who was ordered by God to do this at Shechem,[14] and various texts claim that the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus Africanus ploughed over and sowed the city of Carthage with salt after it was defeated in the Third Punic War (146 BC).[15]
+
+Salt may have been used for barter in connection with the obsidian trade in Anatolia in the Neolithic Era.[16] Salt was included among funeral offerings found in ancient Egyptian tombs from the third millennium BC, as were salted birds, and salt fish.[17] From about 2800 BC, the Egyptians began exporting salt fish to the Phoenicians in return for Lebanon cedar, glass, and the dye Tyrian purple; the Phoenicians traded Egyptian salted fish and salt from North Africa throughout their Mediterranean trade empire.[18] Herodotus described salt trading routes across Libya back in the 5th century BC. In the early years of the Roman Empire, roads were built for the transportation of salt from the salt imported at Ostia to the capital.[19]
+
+In Africa, salt was used as currency south of the Sahara, and slabs of rock salt were used as coins in Abyssinia.[12] Moorish merchants in the 6th century traded salt for gold, weight for weight.[dubious  – discuss] The Tuareg have traditionally maintained routes across the Sahara especially for the transportation of salt by Azalai (salt caravans). The caravans still cross the desert from southern Niger to Bilma, although much of the trade now takes place by truck. Each camel takes two bales of fodder and two of trade goods northwards and returns laden with salt pillars and dates.[20]  In Gabon, before the arrival of Europeans, the coast people carried on a remunerative trade with those of the interior by the medium of sea salt.  This was gradually displaced by the salt that Europeans brought in sacks, so that the coast natives lost their previous profits; as of the author's writing in 1958, sea salt was still the currency best appreciated in the interior.[21]
+
+Salzburg, Hallstatt, and Hallein lie within 17 km (11 mi) of each other on the river Salzach in central Austria in an area with extensive salt deposits. Salzach literally means "salt river" and Salzburg "salt castle", both taking their names from the German word Salz meaning salt and Hallstatt was the site of the world's first salt mine.[22] The town gave its name to the Hallstatt culture that began mining for salt in the area in about 800 BC. Around 400 BC, the townsfolk, who had previously used pickaxes and shovels, began open pan salt making. During the first millennium BC, Celtic communities grew rich trading salt and salted meat to Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome in exchange for wine and other luxuries.[7]
+
+The word salary comes from the Latin word for salt. The reason for this is unknown; a persistent modern claim that the Roman Legions were sometimes paid in salt is baseless.[23][24][25] The word salad literally means "salted", and comes from the ancient Roman practice of salting leaf vegetables.[26]
+
+Wars have been fought over salt. Venice fought and won a war with Genoa over the product, and it played an important part in the American Revolution. Cities on overland trade routes grew rich by levying duties,[27] and towns like Liverpool flourished on the export of salt extracted from the salt mines of Cheshire.[28] Various governments have at different times imposed salt taxes on their peoples. The voyages of Christopher Columbus are said to have been financed from salt production in southern Spain, and the oppressive salt tax in France was one of the causes of the French Revolution. After being repealed, this tax was reimposed by Napoleon when he became emperor to pay for his foreign wars, and was not finally abolished until 1946.[27] In 1930, Mahatma Gandhi led at least 100,000 people on the "Dandi March" or "Salt Satyagraha", in which protesters made their own salt from the sea thus defying British rule and avoiding paying the salt tax. This civil disobedience inspired millions of common people and elevated the Indian independence movement from an elitist movement to a national struggle.[29]
+
+Salt is mostly sodium chloride, the ionic compound with the formula NaCl, representing equal proportions of sodium and chlorine. Sea salt and freshly mined salt (much of which is sea salt from prehistoric seas) also contain small amounts of trace elements (which in these small amounts are generally good for plant and animal health[citation needed]). Mined salt is often refined in the production of table salt; it is dissolved in water, purified via precipitation of other minerals out of solution, and re-evaporated. During this same refining process it is often also iodized. Salt crystals are translucent and cubic in shape; they normally appear white but impurities may give them a blue or purple tinge. The molar mass of salt is 58.443 g/mol, its melting point is 801 °C (1,474 °F) and its boiling point 1,465 °C (2,669 °F). Its density is 2.17 grams per cubic centimetre and it is readily soluble in water. When dissolved in water it separates into Na+ and Cl− ions, and the solubility is 359 grams per litre.[30] From cold solutions, salt crystallises as the dihydrate NaCl·2H2O. Solutions of sodium chloride have very different properties from those of pure water; the freezing point is −21.12 °C (−6.02 °F) for 23.31 wt% of salt, and the boiling point of saturated salt solution is around 108.7 °C (227.7 °F).[31]
+
+Salt is essential to the health of humans and other animals, and it is one of the five basic taste sensations.[32] Salt is used in many cuisines around the world, and it is often found in salt shakers on diners' eating tables for their personal use on food.  Salt is also an ingredient in many manufactured foodstuffs. Table salt is a refined salt containing about 97 to 99 percent sodium chloride.[33][34][35] Usually, anticaking agents such as sodium aluminosilicate or magnesium carbonate are added to make it free-flowing. Iodized salt, containing potassium iodide, is widely available. Some people put a desiccant, such as a few grains of uncooked rice[36] or a saltine cracker, in their salt shakers to absorb extra moisture and help break up salt clumps that may otherwise form.[37]
+
+Some table salt sold for consumption contains additives which address a variety of health concerns, especially in the developing world. The identities and amounts of additives vary widely from country to country. Iodine is an important micronutrient for humans, and a deficiency of the element can cause lowered production of thyroxine (hypothyroidism) and enlargement of the thyroid gland (endemic goitre) in adults or cretinism in children.[38] Iodized salt has been used to correct these conditions since 1924[39] and consists of table salt mixed with a minute amount of potassium iodide, sodium iodide or sodium iodate. A small amount of dextrose may also be added to stabilize the iodine.[40] Iodine deficiency affects about two billion people around the world and is the leading preventable cause of mental retardation.[41] Iodized table salt has significantly reduced disorders of iodine deficiency in countries where it is used.[42]
+
+The amount of iodine and the specific iodine compound added to salt varies from country to country. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends [21 CFR 101.9 (c)(8)(iv)] 150 micrograms of iodine per day for both men and women. US iodized salt contains 46–77 ppm (parts per million), whereas in the UK the iodine content of iodized salt is recommended to be 10–22 ppm.[43]
+
+Sodium ferrocyanide, also known as yellow prussiate of soda, is sometimes added to salt as an anticaking agent. The additive is considered safe for human consumption.[44][45] Such anticaking agents have been added since at least 1911 when magnesium carbonate was first added to salt to make it flow more freely.[46] The safety of sodium ferrocyanide as a food additive was found to be provisionally acceptable by the Committee on Toxicity in 1988.[44] Other anticaking agents sometimes used include tricalcium phosphate, calcium or magnesium carbonates, fatty acid salts (acid salts), magnesium oxide, silicon dioxide, calcium silicate, sodium aluminosilicate and calcium aluminosilicate. Both the European Union and the United States Food and Drug Administration permitted the use of aluminium in the latter two compounds.[47]
+
+In "doubly fortified salt", both iodide and iron salts are added. The latter alleviates iron deficiency anaemia, which interferes with the mental development of an estimated 40% of infants in the developing world. A typical iron source is ferrous fumarate.[48] Another additive, especially important for pregnant women, is folic acid (vitamin B9), which gives the table salt a yellow color. Folic acid helps prevent neural tube defects and anaemia, which affect young mothers, especially in developing countries.[48]
+
+A lack of fluorine in the diet is the cause of a greatly increased incidence of dental caries.[49] Fluoride salts can be added to table salt with the goal of reducing tooth decay, especially in countries that have not benefited from fluoridated toothpastes and fluoridated water. The practice is more common in some European countries where water fluoridation is not carried out. In France, 35% of the table salt sold contains added sodium fluoride.[48]
+
+Unrefined sea salt contains small amounts of magnesium and calcium halides and sulfates, traces of algal products, salt-resistant bacteria and sediment particles. The calcium and magnesium salts confer a faintly bitter overtone, and they make unrefined sea salt hygroscopic (i.e., it gradually absorbs moisture from air if stored uncovered). Algal products contribute a mildly "fishy" or "sea-air" odour, the latter from organobromine compounds. Sediments, the proportion of which varies with the source, give the salt a dull grey appearance. Since taste and aroma compounds are often detectable by humans in minute concentrations, sea salt may have a more complex flavor than pure sodium chloride when sprinkled on top of food. When salt is added during cooking however, these flavors would likely be overwhelmed by those of the food ingredients.[50] The refined salt industry cites scientific studies saying that raw sea and rock salts do not contain enough iodine salts to prevent iodine deficiency diseases.[51]
+
+Himalayan salt is known for its distinct pink hue. It is used in cooking as a substitute for table salt. Is it also used as cookware, in salt lamps and in spas. It is mined from the Salt Range mountains in Pakistan.
+
+Different natural salts have different mineralities depending on their source, giving each one a unique flavour. Fleur de sel, a natural sea salt from the surface of evaporating brine in salt pans, has a unique flavour varying with the region from which it is produced. In traditional Korean cuisine, so-called "bamboo salt" is prepared by roasting salt[52] in a bamboo container plugged with mud at both ends. This product absorbs minerals from the bamboo and the mud, and has been claimed to increase the anticlastogenic and antimutagenic properties of doenjang (a fermented bean paste).[53]
+
+Kosher or kitchen salt has a larger grain size than table salt and is used in cooking. It can be useful for brining, bread or pretzel making and as a scrubbing agent when combined with oil.[54]
+
+Pickling salt is made of ultra-fine grains to speed dissolving to make brine.
+
+Salt is present in most foods, but in naturally occurring foodstuffs such as meats, vegetables and fruit, it is present in very small quantities. It is often added to processed foods (such as canned foods and especially salted foods, pickled foods, and snack foods or other convenience foods), where it functions as both a preservative and a flavoring. Dairy salt is used in the preparation of butter and cheese products.[55]  As a flavoring, salt enhances the taste of other foods by suppressing the bitterness of those foods making them more palatable and relatively sweeter.[56]
+
+Before the advent of electrically powered refrigeration, salting was one of the main methods of food preservation. Thus, herring contains 67 mg sodium per 100 g, while kipper, its preserved form, contains 990 mg. Similarly, pork typically contains 63 mg while bacon contains 1,480 mg, and potatoes contain 7 mg but potato crisps 800 mg per 100 g.[11] Salt is also used in cooking, such as with salt crusts. The main sources of salt in the Western diet, apart from direct use of sodium chloride, are bread and cereal products, meat products and milk and dairy products.[11]
+
+In many East Asian cultures, salt is not traditionally used as a condiment.[57] In its place, condiments such as soy sauce, fish sauce and oyster sauce tend to have a high sodium content and fill a similar role to table salt in western cultures. They are most often used for cooking rather than as table condiments.[58]
+
+Table salt is made up of just under 40% sodium by weight, so a 6 g serving (1 teaspoon) contains about 2,400 mg of sodium.[59] Sodium serves a vital purpose in the human body: via its role as an electrolyte, it helps nerves and muscles to function correctly, and it is one factor involved in the osmotic regulation of water content in body organs (fluid balance).[60] Most of the sodium in the Western diet comes from salt.[3] The habitual salt intake in many Western countries is about 10 g per day, and it is higher than that in many countries in Eastern Europe and Asia.[61] The high level of sodium in many processed foods has a major impact on the total amount consumed.[62] In the United States, 75% of the sodium eaten comes from processed and restaurant foods, 11% from cooking and table use and the rest from what is found naturally in foodstuffs.[63]
+
+Because consuming too much sodium increases risk of cardiovascular diseases,[3] health organizations generally recommend that people reduce their dietary intake of salt.[3][64][65][66] High sodium intake is associated with a greater risk of stroke, total cardiovascular disease and kidney disease.[2][61] A reduction in sodium intake by 1,000 mg per day may reduce cardiovascular disease by about 30 percent.[1][3] In adults and children with no acute illness, a decrease in the intake of sodium from the typical high levels reduces blood pressure.[65][67] A low sodium diet results in a greater improvement in blood pressure in people with hypertension.[68][69]
+
+The World Health Organization recommends that adults should consume less than 2,000 mg of sodium (which is contained in 5 g of salt) per day.[64] Guidelines by the United States  recommend that people with hypertension, African Americans, and middle-aged and older adults should limit consumption to no more than 1,500 mg of sodium per day and meet the potassium recommendation of 4,700 mg/day with a healthy diet of fruits and vegetables.[3][70]
+
+While reduction of sodium intake to less than 2,300 mg per day is recommended by developed countries,[3] one review recommended that sodium intake be reduced to at least 1,200 mg (contained in 3 g of salt) per day, as a further reduction in salt intake the greater the fall in systolic blood pressure for all age groups and ethinicities.[65] Another review indicated that there is inconsistent/insufficient evidence to conclude that reducing sodium intake to lower than 2,300 mg per day is either beneficial or harmful.[71]
+
+More recent evidence is showing a much more complicated relationship between salt and cardiovascular disease.  According to a systematic review of multiple large studies, "mortality caused by levels of salt  the association between sodium consumption and cardiovascular disease or mortality is U-shaped, with increased risk at both high and low sodium intake" [72]  The findings showed that increased mortality from excessive salt intake was primarily associated with individuals with hypertension.  The levels of increased mortality among those with restricted salt intake appeared to be similar regardless of blood pressure.  This evidence shows that while those with hypertension should primarily focus on reducing sodium to recommended levels, all groups should seek to maintain a healthy level of sodium intake of between 4 and 5 grams a day.[72]
+
+One of the two most prominent dietary risks for disability in the world is eating too much sodium.[73]
+
+Only about 6% of the salt manufactured in the world is used in food. Of the remainder, 12% is used in water conditioning processes, 8% goes for de-icing highways and 6% is used in agriculture. The rest (68%) is used for manufacturing and other industrial processes,[74] and sodium chloride is one of the largest inorganic raw materials used by volume. Its major chemical products are caustic soda and chlorine, which are separated by the electrolysis of a pure brine solution. These are used in the manufacture of PVC, plastics, paper pulp and many other inorganic and organic compounds. Salt is also used as a flux in the production of aluminium. For this purpose, a layer of melted salt floats on top of the molten metal and removes iron and other metal contaminants. It is also used in the manufacture of soaps and glycerine, where it is added to the vat to precipitate out the saponified products. As an emulsifier, salt is used in the manufacture of synthetic rubber, and another use is in the firing of pottery, when salt added to the furnace vaporises before condensing onto the surface of the ceramic material, forming a strong glaze.[75]
+
+When drilling through loose materials such as sand or gravel, salt may be added to the drilling fluid to provide a stable "wall" to prevent the hole collapsing. There are many other processes in which salt is involved. These include its use as a mordant in textile dying, to regenerate resins in water softening, for the tanning of hides, the preservation of meat and fish and the canning of meat and vegetables.[75][76][77]
+
+Food-grade salt accounts for only a small part of salt production in industrialized countries (7% in Europe),[78] although worldwide, food uses account for 17.5% of total production.[79]
+
+In 2018, total world production of salt was 300 million tonnes, the top six producers being China (68 million), the United States (42 million), India (29 million), Germany (13 million), Canada (13 million) and Australia (12 million).[80]
+
+The manufacture of salt is one of the oldest chemical industries.[81] A major source of salt is seawater, which has a salinity of approximately 3.5%. This means that there are about 35 grams (1.2 oz) of dissolved salts, predominantly sodium (Na+) and chloride (Cl−) ions, per kilogram (2.2 lbs) of water.[82] The world's oceans are a virtually inexhaustible source of salt, and this abundance of supply means that reserves have not been calculated.[76] The evaporation of seawater is the production method of choice in marine countries with high evaporation and low precipitation rates. Salt evaporation ponds are filled from the ocean and salt crystals can be harvested as the water dries up. Sometimes these ponds have vivid colours, as some species of algae and other micro-organisms thrive in conditions of high salinity.[83]
+
+Elsewhere, salt is extracted from the vast sedimentary deposits which have been laid down over the millennia from the evaporation of seas and lakes. These are either mined directly, producing rock salt, or are extracted in solution by pumping water into the deposit. In either case, the salt may be purified by mechanical evaporation of brine. Traditionally, this was done in shallow open pans which were heated to increase the rate of evaporation. More recently, the process is performed in pans under vacuum.[77] The raw salt is refined to purify it and improve its storage and handling characteristics. This usually involves recrystallization during which a brine solution is treated with chemicals that precipitate most impurities (largely magnesium and calcium salts). Multiple stages of evaporation are then used to collect pure sodium chloride crystals, which are kiln-dried.[84] Some salt is produced using the Alberger process, which involves vacuum pan evaporation combined with the seeding of the solution with cubic crystals, and produces a grainy-type flake.[85] The Ayoreo, an indigenous group from the Paraguayan Chaco, obtain their salt from the ash produced by burning the timber of the Indian salt tree (Maytenus vitis-idaea) and other trees.[86]
+
+One of the largest salt mining operations in the world is at the Khewra Salt Mine in Pakistan. The mine has nineteen storeys, eleven of which are underground, and 400 km (250 mi) of passages. The salt is dug out by the room and pillar method, where about half the material is left in place to support the upper levels. Extraction of Himalayan salt is expected to last 350 years at the present rate of extraction of around 385,000 tons per annum.[87]
+
+Salt has long held an important place in religion and culture. At the time of Brahmanic sacrifices, in Hittite rituals and during festivals held by Semites and Greeks at the time of the new moon, salt was thrown into a fire where it produced crackling noises.[88] The ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans invoked their gods with offerings of salt and water and some people think this to be the origin of Holy Water in the Christian faith.[89] In Aztec mythology, Huixtocihuatl was a fertility goddess who presided over salt and salt water.[90]
+
+Salt is considered to be a very auspicious substance in Hinduism and is used in particular religious ceremonies like house-warmings and weddings.[91] In Jainism, devotees lay an offering of raw rice with a pinch of salt before a deity to signify their devotion and salt is sprinkled on a person's cremated remains before the ashes are buried.[92] Salt is believed to ward off evil spirits in Mahayana Buddhist tradition, and when returning home from a funeral, a pinch of salt is thrown over the left shoulder as this prevents evil spirits from entering the house.[93] In Shinto, Shio (塩, lit. "salt") is used for ritual purification of locations and people (harae, specifically shubatsu), and small piles of salt are placed in dishes by the entrance of establishments for the two-fold purposes of warding off evil and attracting patrons.[94]
+
+In the Hebrew Bible, there are thirty-five verses which mention salt.[95] One of these mentions Lot's wife, who was turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back at the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:26) as they were destroyed. When the judge Abimelech destroyed the city of Shechem, he is said to have "sown salt on it," probably as a curse on anyone who would re-inhabit it (Judges 9:45). The Book of Job contains the first mention of salt as a condiment. "Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg?" (Job 6:6).[95] In the New Testament, six verses mention salt. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus referred to his followers as the "salt of the earth". The apostle Paul also encouraged Christians to "let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt" (Colossians 4:6).[95] Salt is mandatory in the rite of the Tridentine Mass.[96] Salt is used in the third item (which includes an Exorcism) of the Celtic Consecration (cf. Gallican Rite) that is employed in the consecration of a church. Salt may be added to the water "where it is customary" in the Roman Catholic rite of Holy water.[96]
+
+In Judaism, it is recommended to have either a salty bread or to add salt to the bread if this bread is unsalted when doing Kiddush for Shabbat. It is customary to spread some salt over the bread or to dip the bread in a little salt when passing the bread around the table after the Kiddush.[97] To preserve the covenant between their people and God, Jews dip the Sabbath bread in salt.[89]
+
+In Wicca, salt is symbolic of the element Earth. It is also believed to cleanse an area of harmful or negative energies. A dish of salt and a dish of water are almost always present on an altar, and salt is used in a wide variety of rituals and ceremonies.[98]
+

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+Chocolate is a preparation of roasted and ground cacao seeds that is made in the form of a liquid, paste, or in a block, which may also be used as a flavoring ingredient in other foods. The earliest signs of use are associated with Olmec sites (within what would become Mexico’s post-colonial territory) suggesting consumption of chocolate beverages, dating from 19 centuries BCE.[1][2] The majority of Mesoamerican people made chocolate beverages, including the Maya and Aztecs.[3] The word chocolate is derived from the Spanish word chocolate, deriving in turn from the Classical Nahuatl word xocolātl.[4]
+
+The seeds of the cacao tree have an intense bitter taste and must be fermented to develop the flavor. After fermentation, the beans are dried, cleaned, and roasted. The shell is removed to produce cacao nibs, which are then ground to cocoa mass, unadulterated chocolate in rough form. Once the cocoa mass is liquefied by heating, it is called chocolate liquor. The liquor may also be cooled and processed into its two components: cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Baking chocolate, also called bitter chocolate, contains cocoa solids and cocoa butter in varying proportions, without any added sugar. Powdered baking cocoa, which contains more fiber than cocoa butter, can be processed with alkali to produce dutch cocoa. Much of the chocolate consumed today is in the form of sweet chocolate, a combination of cocoa solids, cocoa butter or added vegetable oils, and sugar. Milk chocolate is sweet chocolate that additionally contains milk powder or condensed milk. White chocolate contains cocoa butter, sugar, and milk, but no cocoa solids.
+
+Chocolate is one of the most popular food types and flavors in the world, and many foodstuffs involving chocolate exist, particularly desserts, including cakes, pudding, mousse, chocolate brownies, and chocolate chip cookies. Many candies are filled with or coated with sweetened chocolate. Chocolate bars, either made of solid chocolate or other ingredients coated in chocolate, are eaten as snacks. Gifts of chocolate molded into different shapes (such as eggs, hearts, coins) are traditional on certain Western holidays, including Christmas, Easter, Valentine's Day, and Hanukkah. Chocolate is also used in cold and hot beverages, such as chocolate milk and hot chocolate, and in some alcoholic drinks, such as creme de cacao.
+
+Although cocoa originated in the Americas, West African countries, particularly Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, are the leading producers of cocoa in the 21st century, accounting for some 60% of the world cocoa supply.
+
+With some two million children involved in the farming of cocoa in West Africa, child slavery and trafficking were major concerns in 2018.[5][6] International attempts to improve conditions for children were failing because of persistent poverty, absence of schools, increasing world cocoa demand, more intensive farming of cocoa, and continued exploitation of child labor.[5]
+
+Chocolate has been prepared as a drink for nearly all of its history. For example, one vessel found at an Olmec archaeological site on the Gulf Coast of Veracruz, Mexico, dates chocolate's preparation by pre-Olmec peoples as early as 1750 BC.[7] On the Pacific coast of Chiapas, Mexico, a Mokaya archaeological site provides evidence of cacao beverages dating even earlier, to 1900 BC.[8][7] The residues and the kind of vessel in which they were found indicate the initial use of cacao was not simply as a beverage, but the white pulp around the cacao beans was likely used as a source of fermentable sugars for an alcoholic drink.[9]
+
+An early Classic-period (460–480 AD) Mayan tomb from the site in Rio Azul had vessels with the Maya glyph for cacao on them with residue of a chocolate drink, suggests the Maya were drinking chocolate around 400 AD.[10] Documents in Maya hieroglyphs stated chocolate was used for ceremonial purposes, in addition to everyday life.[11] The Maya grew cacao trees in their backyards,[12] and used the cacao seeds the trees produced to make a frothy, bitter drink.[13]
+
+By the 15th century, the Aztecs gained control of a large part of Mesoamerica and adopted cacao into their culture. They associated chocolate with Quetzalcoatl, who, according to one legend, was cast away by the other gods for sharing chocolate with humans,[14] and identified its extrication from the pod with the removal of the human heart in sacrifice.[15] In contrast to the Maya, who liked their chocolate warm, the Aztecs drank it cold, seasoning it with a broad variety of additives, including the petals of the Cymbopetalum penduliflorum tree, chile pepper, allspice, vanilla, and honey.
+
+The Aztecs were unable to grow cacao themselves, as their home in the Mexican highlands was unsuitable for it, so chocolate was a luxury imported into the empire.[14] Those who lived in areas ruled by the Aztecs were required to offer cacao seeds in payment of the tax they deemed "tribute".[14] Cocoa beans were often used as currency.[16] For example, the Aztecs used a system in which one turkey cost 100 cacao beans and one fresh avocado was worth three beans.[17]
+
+The Maya and Aztecs associated cacao with human sacrifice, and chocolate drinks specifically with sacrificial human blood.[18][19]
+The Spanish royal chronicler Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés described a chocolate drink he had seen in Nicaragua in 1528, mixed with achiote: "because those people are fond of drinking human blood, to make this beverage seem like blood, they add a little achiote, so that it then turns red. ... and part of that foam is left on the lips and around the mouth, and when it is red for having achiote, it seems a horrific thing, because it seems like blood itself."[19]
+
+Until the 16th century, no European had ever heard of the popular drink from the Central American peoples.[14] Christopher Columbus and his son Ferdinand encountered the cacao bean on Columbus's fourth mission to the Americas on 15 August 1502, when he and his crew seized a large native canoe that proved to contain cacao beans among other goods for trade.[20] Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés may have been the first European to encounter it, as the frothy drink was part of the after-dinner routine of Montezuma.[10][21] José de Acosta, a Spanish Jesuit missionary who lived in Peru and then Mexico in the later 16th century, wrote of its growing influence on the Spaniards:
+
+Loathsome to such as are not acquainted with it, having a scum or froth that is very unpleasant to taste. Yet it is a drink very much esteemed among the Indians, where with they feast noble men who pass through their country. The Spaniards, both men and women, that are accustomed to the country, are very greedy of this Chocolaté. They say they make diverse sorts of it, some hot, some cold, and some temperate, and put therein much of that 'chili'; yea, they make paste thereof, the which they say is good for the stomach and against the catarrh.[22]
+
+While Columbus had taken cacao beans with him back to Spain,[20] chocolate made no impact until Spanish friars introduced it to the Spanish court.[14] After the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs, chocolate was imported to Europe. There, it quickly became a court favorite. It was still served as a beverage, but the Spanish added sugar, as well as honey (the original sweetener used by the Aztecs for chocolate), to counteract the natural bitterness.[23] Vanilla, another indigenous American introduction, was also a popular additive, with pepper and other spices sometimes used to give the illusion of a more potent vanilla flavor. Unfortunately, these spices had the tendency to unsettle the European constitution; the Encyclopédie states, "The pleasant scent and sublime taste it imparts to chocolate have made it highly recommended; but a long experience having shown that it could potentially upset one's stomach", which is why chocolate without vanilla was sometimes referred to as "healthy chocolate".[24] By 1602, chocolate had made its way from Spain to Austria.[25] By 1662, Pope Alexander VII had declared that religious fasts were not broken by consuming chocolate drinks. Within about a hundred years, chocolate established a foothold throughout Europe.[14]
+
+The new craze for chocolate brought with it a thriving slave market, as between the early 1600s and late 1800s, the laborious and slow processing of the cacao bean was manual.[14] Cacao plantations spread, as the English, Dutch, and French colonized and planted. With the depletion of Mesoamerican workers, largely to disease, cacao production was often the work of poor wage laborers and African slaves. Wind-powered and horse-drawn mills were used to speed production, augmenting human labor. Heating the working areas of the table-mill, an innovation that emerged in France in 1732, also assisted in extraction.[26]
+
+New processes that sped the production of chocolate emerged early in the Industrial Revolution. In 1815, Dutch chemist Coenraad van Houten introduced alkaline salts to chocolate, which reduced its bitterness.[14] A few years thereafter, in 1828, he created a press to remove about half the natural fat (cocoa butter or cacao butter) from chocolate liquor, which made chocolate both cheaper to produce and more consistent in quality. This innovation introduced the modern era of chocolate.[20]
+
+Known as "Dutch cocoa", this machine-pressed chocolate was instrumental in the transformation of chocolate to its solid form when, in 1847, English chocolatier Joseph Fry discovered a way to make chocolate moldable when he mixed the ingredients of cocoa powder and sugar with melted cocoa butter.[23] Subsequently, his chocolate factory, Fry's of Bristol, England, began mass-producing chocolate bars, Fry's Chocolate Cream, launched in 1866, and they became very popular.[27] Milk had sometimes been used as an addition to chocolate beverages since the mid-17th century, but in 1875 Swiss chocolatier Daniel Peter invented milk chocolate by mixing a powdered milk developed by Henri Nestlé with the liquor.[14][20] In 1879, the texture and taste of chocolate was further improved when Rudolphe Lindt invented the conching machine.[28]
+
+Besides Nestlé, a number of notable chocolate companies had their start in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Rowntree's of York set up and began producing chocolate in 1862, after buying out the Tuke family business. Cadbury was manufacturing boxed chocolates in England by 1868.[14] Manufacturing their first Easter egg in 1875, Cadbury created the modern chocolate Easter egg after developing a pure cocoa butter that could easily be moulded into smooth shapes.[29] In 1893, Milton S. Hershey purchased chocolate processing equipment at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and soon began the career of Hershey's chocolates with chocolate-coated caramels.
+
+The Baker Chocolate Company, which makes Baker's Chocolate, is the oldest producer of chocolate in the United States. In 1765 Dr. James Baker and John Hannon founded the company  in Boston. Using cocoa beans from the West Indies, the pair built their chocolate business, which is still in operation.[30][31]
+
+White chocolate was first introduced to the U.S. in 1946 by Frederick E. Hebert of Hebert Candies in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, near Boston, after he had tasted "white coat" candies while traveling in Europe.[32][31]
+
+Cacao, pronounced by the Olmecs as kakawa,[1] dates to 1000 BC or earlier.[1] The word "chocolate" entered the English language from Spanish in about 1600.[33] The word entered Spanish from the word xocolātl in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. The origin of the Nahuatl word is uncertain, as it does not appear in any early Nahuatl source, where the word for chocolate drink is cacahuatl, "cacao water". It is possible that the Spaniards coined the word (perhaps in order to avoid caca, a vulgar Spanish word for "faeces") by combining the Yucatec Mayan word chocol, "hot", with the Nahuatl word atl, "water".[34] Another proposed etymology derives it from the word chicolatl, meaning "beaten drink", which may derive from the word for the frothing stick, chicoli.[35] The term "chocolatier", for a chocolate confection maker, is attested from 1888.[36]
+
+Several types of chocolate can be distinguished. Pure, unsweetened chocolate, often called "baking chocolate", contains primarily cocoa solids and cocoa butter in varying proportions. Much of the chocolate consumed today is in the form of sweet chocolate, which combines chocolate with sugar.
+
+Milk chocolate is sweet chocolate that also contains milk powder or condensed milk. In the UK and Ireland, milk chocolate must contain a minimum of 20% total dry cocoa solids; in the rest of the European Union, the minimum is 25%.[37]
+
+White chocolate, although similar in texture to that of milk and dark chocolate, does not contain any cocoa solids that impart a dark color. In 2002, the US Food and Drug Administration established a standard for white chocolate as the "common or usual name of products made from cacao fat (i.e., cocoa butter), milk solids, nutritive carbohydrate sweeteners, and other safe and suitable ingredients, but containing no nonfat cacao solids".[38]
+
+Dark chocolate is produced by adding fat and sugar to the cacao mixture. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration calls this "sweet chocolate", and requires a 15% concentration of chocolate liquor. European rules specify a minimum of 35% cocoa solids.[37] A higher amount of cocoa solids indicates more bitterness. Semisweet chocolate is a dark chocolate with a low sugar content. Bittersweet chocolate is chocolate liquor to which some sugar (typically a third), more cocoa butter and vanilla are added.[39] It has less sugar and more liquor than semisweet chocolate, but the two are interchangeable in baking. It is also known to last for two years if stored properly. As of 2017[update], there is no high-quality evidence that dark chocolate affects blood pressure significantly or provides other health benefits.[40]
+
+Unsweetened chocolate is pure chocolate liquor, also known as bitter or baking chocolate. It is unadulterated chocolate: the pure, ground, roasted chocolate beans impart a strong, deep chocolate flavor. It is typically used in baking or other products to which sugar and other ingredients are added. Raw chocolate, often referred to as raw cacao, is always dark and a minimum of 75% cacao.
+
+Poorly tempered or untempered chocolate may have whitish spots on the dark chocolate part, called chocolate bloom; it is an indication that sugar or fat has separated due to poor storage. It is not toxic and can be safely consumed.[41]
+
+Roughly two-thirds of the entire world's cocoa is produced in West Africa, with 43% sourced from Côte d'Ivoire,[42] where, as of 2007[update], child labor is a common practice to obtain the product.[43][44] According to the World Cocoa Foundation, in 2007 some 50 million people around the world depended on cocoa as a source of livelihood.[45] As of 2007[update] in the UK, most chocolatiers purchase their chocolate from them, to melt, mold and package to their own design.[46] According to the WCF's 2012 report, the Ivory Coast is the largest producer of cocoa in the world.[47] The two main jobs associated with creating chocolate candy are chocolate makers and chocolatiers. Chocolate makers use harvested cacao beans and other ingredients to produce couverture chocolate (covering). Chocolatiers use the finished couverture to make chocolate candies (bars, truffles, etc.).[48]
+
+Production costs can be decreased by reducing cocoa solids content or by substituting cocoa butter with another fat. Cocoa growers object to allowing the resulting food to be called "chocolate", due to the risk of lower demand for their crops.[45]
+
+The sequencing in 2010 of the genome of the cacao tree may allow yields to be improved.[49] Due to concerns about global warming effects on lowland climate in the narrow band of latitudes where cacao is grown (20 degrees north and south of the equator), the commercial company Mars, Incorporated and the University of California, Berkeley are conducting genomic research in 2017–18 to improve the survivability of cacao plants in hot climates.[50]
+
+Chocolate is made from cocoa beans, the dried and fermented seeds of the cacao tree (Theobroma cacao), a small, 4–8 m tall (15–26 ft tall) evergreen tree native to the deep tropical region of the Americas. Recent genetic studies suggest the most common genotype of the plant originated in the Amazon basin and was gradually transported by humans throughout South and Central America. Early forms of another genotype have also been found in what is now Venezuela. The scientific name, Theobroma, means "food of the gods".[51] The fruit, called a cacao pod, is ovoid, 15–30 cm (6–12 in) long and 8–10 cm (3–4 in) wide, ripening yellow to orange, and weighing about 500 g (1.1 lb) when ripe.
+
+Cacao trees are small, understory trees that need rich, well-drained soils. They naturally grow within 20° of either side of the equator because they need about 2000 mm of rainfall a year, and temperatures in the range of 21 to 32 °C (70 to 90 °F). Cacao trees cannot tolerate a temperature lower than 15 °C (59 °F).[52]
+
+The three main varieties of cacao beans used in chocolate are criollo, forastero, and trinitario.
+
+Representing only 5% of all cocoa beans grown as of 2008[update],[53] criollo is the rarest and most expensive cocoa on the market, and is native to Central America, the Caribbean islands and the northern tier of South American states.[54] The genetic purity of cocoas sold today as criollo is disputed, as most populations have been exposed to the genetic influence of other varieties.
+
+Criollos are particularly difficult to grow, as they are vulnerable to a variety of environmental threats and produce low yields of cocoa per tree. The flavor of criollo is described as delicate yet complex, low in classic chocolate flavor, but rich in "secondary" notes of long duration.[55]
+
+The most commonly grown bean is forastero,[53] a large group of wild and cultivated cacaos, most likely native to the Amazon basin. The African cocoa crop is entirely of the forastero variety. They are significantly hardier and of higher yield than criollo. The source of most chocolate marketed,[53] forastero cocoas are typically strong in classic "chocolate" flavor, but have a short duration and are unsupported by secondary flavors, producing "quite bland" chocolate.[53]
+
+Trinitario is a natural hybrid of criollo and forastero. Trinitario originated in Trinidad after an introduction of forastero to the local criollo crop. Nearly all cacao produced over the past five decades is of the forastero or lower-grade trinitario varieties.[56]
+
+Cacao pods are harvested by cutting them from the tree using a machete, or by knocking them off the tree using a stick. The beans with their surrounding pulp are removed from the pods and placed in piles or bins, allowing access to micro-organisms so fermentation of the pectin-containing material can begin. Yeasts produce ethanol, lactic acid bacteria produce lactic acid, and acetic acid bacteria produce acetic acid. The fermentation process, which takes up to seven days, also produces several flavor precursors, eventually resulting in the familiar chocolate taste.[57]
+
+It is important to harvest the pods when they are fully ripe, because if the pod is unripe, the beans will have a low cocoa butter content, or sugars in the white pulp will be insufficient for fermentation, resulting in a weak flavor. After fermentation, the beans must be quickly dried to prevent mold growth. Climate and weather permitting, this is done by spreading the beans out in the sun from five to seven days.[58]
+
+The dried beans are then transported to a chocolate manufacturing facility. The beans are cleaned (removing twigs, stones, and other debris), roasted, and graded. Next, the shell of each bean is removed to extract the nib. Finally, the nibs are ground and liquefied, resulting in pure chocolate in fluid form: chocolate liquor.[59] The liquor can be further processed into two components: cocoa solids and cocoa butter.[60]
+
+Chocolate liquor is blended with the cocoa butter in varying quantities to make different types of chocolate or couvertures. The basic blends of ingredients for the various types of chocolate (in order of highest quantity of cocoa liquor first), are:
+
+Usually, an emulsifying agent, such as soy lecithin, is added, though a few manufacturers prefer to exclude this ingredient for purity reasons and to remain GMO-free, sometimes at the cost of a perfectly smooth texture. Some manufacturers are now using PGPR, an artificial emulsifier derived from castor oil that allows them to reduce the amount of cocoa butter while maintaining the same mouthfeel.
+
+The texture is also heavily influenced by processing, specifically conching (see below). The more expensive chocolate tends to be processed longer and thus have a smoother texture and mouthfeel, regardless of whether emulsifying agents are added.
+
+Different manufacturers develop their own "signature" blends based on the above formulas, but varying proportions of the different constituents are used. The finest, plain dark chocolate couvertures contain at least 70% cocoa (both solids and butter), whereas milk chocolate usually contains up to 50%. High-quality white chocolate couvertures contain only about 35% cocoa butter.
+
+Producers of high-quality, small-batch chocolate argue that mass production produces bad-quality chocolate.[53] Some mass-produced chocolate contains much less cocoa (as low as 7% in many cases), and fats other than cocoa butter. Vegetable oils and artificial vanilla flavor are often used in cheaper chocolate to mask poorly fermented and/or roasted beans.[53]
+
+In 2007, the Chocolate Manufacturers Association in the United States, whose members include Hershey, Nestlé, and Archer Daniels Midland, lobbied the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to change the legal definition of chocolate to let them substitute partially hydrogenated vegetable oils for cocoa butter, in addition to using artificial sweeteners and milk substitutes.[61] Currently, the FDA does not allow a product to be referred to as "chocolate" if the product contains any of these ingredients.[62][63]
+
+In the EU a product can be sold as chocolate if it contains up to 5% vegetable oil, and must be labelled as "family milk chocolate" rather than "milk chocolate" if it contains 20% milk.[64]
+
+According to Canadian Food and Drug Regulations,[65] a "chocolate product" is a food product that is sourced from at least one "cocoa product" and contains at least one of the following: "chocolate, bittersweet chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate, dark chocolate, sweet chocolate, milk chocolate, or white chocolate". A "cocoa product" is defined as a food product that is sourced from cocoa beans and contains "cocoa nibs, cocoa liquor, cocoa mass, unsweetened chocolate, bitter chocolate, chocolate liquor, cocoa, low-fat cocoa, cocoa powder, or low-fat cocoa powder".
+
+The penultimate process is called conching. A conche is a container filled with metal beads, which act as grinders. The refined and blended chocolate mass is kept in a liquid state by frictional heat. Chocolate prior to conching has an uneven and gritty texture. The conching process produces cocoa and sugar particles smaller than the tongue can detect, hence the smooth feel in the mouth. The length of the conching process determines the final smoothness and quality of the chocolate. High-quality chocolate is conched for about 72 hours, and lesser grades about four to six hours. After the process is complete, the chocolate mass is stored in tanks heated to about 45 to 50 °C (113 to 122 °F) until final processing.[66]
+
+The final process is called tempering. Uncontrolled crystallization of cocoa butter typically results in crystals of varying size, some or all large enough to be clearly seen with the naked eye. This causes the surface of the chocolate to appear mottled and matte, and causes the chocolate to crumble rather than snap when broken.[67][68] The uniform sheen and crisp bite of properly processed chocolate are the result of consistently small cocoa butter crystals produced by the tempering process.
+
+The fats in cocoa butter can crystallize in six different forms (polymorphous crystallization).[67][69] The primary purpose of tempering is to assure that only the best form is present. The six different crystal forms have different properties.
+
+As a solid piece of chocolate, the cocoa butter fat particles are in a crystalline rigid structure that gives the chocolate its solid appearance. Once heated, the crystals of the polymorphic cocoa butter are able to break apart from the rigid structure and allow the chocolate to obtain a more fluid consistency as the temperature increases – the melting process. When the heat is removed, the cocoa butter crystals become rigid again and come closer together, allowing the chocolate to solidify.[70]
+
+The temperature in which the crystals obtain enough energy to break apart from their rigid conformation would depend on the milk fat content in the chocolate and the shape of the fat molecules, as well as the form of the cocoa butter fat. Chocolate with a higher fat content will melt at a lower temperature.[71]
+
+Making chocolate considered "good" is about forming as many type V crystals as possible. This provides the best appearance and texture and creates the most stable crystals, so the texture and appearance will not degrade over time. To accomplish this, the temperature is carefully manipulated during the crystallization.
+
+Generally, the chocolate is first heated to 45 °C (113 °F) to melt all six forms of crystals.[67][69] Next, the chocolate is cooled to about 27 °C (81 °F), which will allow crystal types IV and V to form. At this temperature, the chocolate is agitated to create many small crystal "seeds" which will serve as nuclei to create small crystals in the chocolate. The chocolate is then heated to about 31 °C (88 °F) to eliminate any type IV crystals, leaving just type V. After this point, any excessive heating of the chocolate will destroy the temper and this process will have to be repeated. Other methods of chocolate tempering are used as well. The most common variant is introducing already tempered, solid "seed" chocolate. The temper of chocolate can be measured with a chocolate temper meter to ensure accuracy and consistency. A sample cup is filled with the chocolate and placed in the unit which then displays or prints the results.
+
+Two classic ways of manually tempering chocolate are:
+
+Chocolate tempering machines (or temperers) with computer controls can be used for producing consistently tempered chocolate. In particular, continuous tempering machines are used in large volume applications. Various methods and apparatuses for continuous flow tempering have been described by Aasted, Sollich and Buhler, three manufacturers of commercial chocolate equipment, with a focus now on energy efficiency. In general, molten chocolate coming in at 40–50 °C is cooled in heat exchangers to crystallization temperates of about 26–30 °C, passed through a tempering column consisting of spinning plates to induce shear, then warmed slightly to re-melt undesirable crystal formations.[72][73]
+
+Chocolate is very sensitive to temperature and humidity. Ideal storage temperatures are between 15 and 17 °C (59 and 63 °F), with a relative humidity of less than 50%. If refrigerated or frozen without containment, chocolate can absorb enough moisture to cause a whitish discoloration, the result of fat or sugar crystals rising to the surface. Various types of "blooming" effects can occur if chocolate is stored or served improperly.[74]
+
+Chocolate bloom is caused by storage temperature fluctuating or exceeding 24 °C (75 °F), while sugar bloom is caused by temperature below 15 °C (59 °F) or excess humidity. To distinguish between different types of bloom, one can rub the surface of the chocolate lightly, and if the bloom disappears, it is fat bloom. Moving chocolate between temperature extremes, can result in an oily texture. Although visually unappealing, chocolate suffering from bloom is safe for consumption and taste unaffected.[75][76][77] Bloom can be reversed by retempering the chocolate or using it for any use that requires melting the chocolate.[78]
+
+Chocolate is generally stored away from other foods, as it can absorb different aromas. Ideally, chocolates are packed or wrapped, and placed in proper storage with the correct humidity and temperature. Additionally, chocolate is frequently stored in a dark place or protected from light by wrapping paper. The glossy shine, snap, aroma, texture, and taste of the chocolate can show the quality and if it was stored well.[79]
+
+A 100-gram serving of milk chocolate supplies 540 calories. It is 59% carbohydrates (52% as sugar and 3% as dietary fiber), 30% fat and 8% protein (table). Approximately 65% of the fat in milk chocolate is saturated, mainly palmitic acid and stearic acid, while the predominant unsaturated fat is oleic acid (table, see USDA reference for full report).
+
+100-grams of milk chocolate is an excellent source (over 19% of the Daily Value, DV) of riboflavin, vitamin B12 and the dietary minerals, manganese, phosphorus and zinc. Chocolate is a good source (10–19% DV) of calcium, magnesium and iron.
+
+Chocolate may be a factor for heartburn in some people because one of its constituents, theobromine, may affect the esophageal sphincter muscle in a way that permits stomach acids to enter the esophagus.[80] Theobromine poisoning is an overdosage reaction to the bitter alkaloid, which happens more frequently in domestic animals than humans. However, daily intake of 50–100 g cocoa (0.8–1.5 g theobromine) by humans has been associated with sweating, trembling and severe headache.[81] Chocolate contains alkaloids such as theobromine and phenethylamine, which have physiological effects in humans, but the presence of theobromine renders it toxic to some animals, such as dogs and cats.[82]
+
+Chocolate and cocoa contain moderate to high amounts of oxalate,[83][84] which may increase someone's risk for kidney stones.[85] During cultivation and production, chocolate may absorb the heavy metal lead from the environment,[86] but the total amounts typically eaten are less than the tolerable daily limit for lead consumption, according to a World Health Organization report from 2010.[87] However, reports from 2014 indicate that "chocolate might be a significant source" of lead ingestion for children if consumption is high,[88][89] and "one 10 g cube of dark chocolate may contain as much as 20% of the daily lead oral limit."[88]
+
+A few studies have documented allergic reactions from chocolate in children.[80] Other research has shown that dark chocolate can aggravate acne in men who are prone to it.[90] Research has also shown that consuming dark chocolate does not substantially affect blood pressure.[40] Chocolate and cocoa are under preliminary research to determine if consumption affects the risk of certain cardiovascular diseases[91] or cognitive abilities.[92]
+
+A one-tablespoon (5 grams) serving of dry unsweetened cocoa powder has 12.1 mg of caffeine[93] and a 25-g single serving of dark chocolate has 22.4 mg of caffeine.[94] Although a single 7 oz. serving of coffee may contain 80–175 mg,[95] studies have shown psychoactive effects in caffeine doses as low as 9 mg,[96] and a dose as low as 12.5 mg was shown to have effects on cognitive performance.[97]
+
+Excessive consumption of large quantities of any energy-rich food, such as chocolate, without a corresponding increase in activity to expend the associated calories, can cause weight gain and possibly lead to obesity.[80] Raw chocolate is high in cocoa butter, a fat which is removed during chocolate refining and then added back in varying proportions during the manufacturing process. Manufacturers may add other fats, sugars, and milk, all of which increase the caloric content of chocolate.[80]
+
+Cocoa contains certain phytochemicals. Cocoa solids are a source of flavonoids[98] and alkaloids, such as theobromine, phenethylamine, and caffeine.[99]
+
+Some manufacturers provide the percentage of chocolate in a finished chocolate confection as a label quoting percentage of "cocoa" or "cacao". This refers to the combined percentage of both cocoa solids and cocoa butter in the bar, not just the percentage of cocoa solids.[100] The Belgian AMBAO certification mark indicates that no non-cocoa vegetable fats have been used in making the chocolate.[101][102] A long-standing dispute between Britain and Belgium and France over British use of vegetable fats in chocolate ended in 2000 with the adoption of new standards which permitted the use of up to five percent vegetable fats in clearly labelled products.[103] This British style of chocolate has sometimes been pejoratively referred to as "vegelate".[103]
+
+Chocolates that are organic[104] or fair trade certified[105] carry labels accordingly.
+
+In the United States, some large chocolate manufacturers lobbied the federal government to permit confections containing cheaper hydrogenated vegetable oil in place of cocoa butter to be sold as "chocolate". In June 2007, as a response to consumer concern after the proposed change, the FDA reiterated "Cacao fat, as one of the signature characteristics of the product, will remain a principal component of standardized chocolate."[106]
+
+The chocolate industry is a steadily growing, $50 billion-a-year worldwide business centered on the sale and consumption of chocolate. It is prevalent throughout most of the world.[107] Europe accounts for 45% of the world's chocolate revenue[108] and the US$20 billion.[109] Big Chocolate is the grouping of major international chocolate companies in Europe and the U.S. The U.S. companies, such as Mars and Hershey's alone, generate $13 billion a year in chocolate sales and account for two-thirds of U.S. production.[110] Despite the expanding reach of the chocolate industry internationally, cocoa farmers and labourers in the Ivory Coast are unaware of the uses of the beans. The high cost of chocolate in the Ivory Coast also means that it is inaccessible to the majority of the population, who are unaware of what it tastes like.[111]
+
+Chocolate manufacturers produce a range of products from chocolate bars to fudge. Large manufacturers of chocolate products include Cadbury (the world's largest confectionery manufacturer), Ferrero, Guylian, The Hershey Company, Lindt & Sprüngli, Mars, Incorporated, Milka, Neuhaus and Suchard.
+
+Guylian is best known for its chocolate sea shells; Cadbury for its Dairy Milk and Creme Egg. The Hershey Company, the largest chocolate manufacturer in North America, produces the Hershey Bar and Hershey's Kisses.[112] Mars Incorporated, a large privately owned U.S. corporation, produces Mars Bar, Milky Way, M&M's, Twix, and Snickers. Lindt is known for its truffle balls and gold foil-wrapped Easter bunnies.
+
+Food conglomerates Nestlé SA and Kraft Foods both have chocolate brands. Nestlé acquired Rowntree's in 1988 and now markets chocolates under their own brand, including Smarties (a chocolate candy) and Kit Kat (a chocolate bar); Kraft Foods through its 1990 acquisition of Jacobs Suchard, now owns Milka and Suchard. In February 2010, Kraft also acquired British-based Cadbury;[113] Fry's, Trebor Basset and the fair trade brand Green & Black's also belongs to the group.
+
+The widespread use of children in cocoa production is controversial, not only for the concerns about child labor and exploitation, but also because up to 12,000 of the 200,000 children working in Côte d'Ivoire, the world's biggest producer of cocoa,[114] may be victims of trafficking or slavery.[115] Most attention on this subject has focused on West Africa, which collectively supplies 69 percent of the world's cocoa,[116] and Côte d'Ivoire in particular, which supplies 35 percent of the world's cocoa.[116] Thirty percent of children under age 15 in sub-Saharan Africa are child laborers, mostly in agricultural activities including cocoa farming.[117] Major chocolate producers, such as Nestlé, buy cocoa at commodities exchanges where Ivorian cocoa is mixed with other cocoa.[118]
+
+In 2009, Salvation Army International Development (SAID) UK stated that 12,000 children have been trafficked on cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast of Africa, where half of the world's chocolate is made.[119] SAID UK states that it is these child slaves who are likely to be working in "harsh and abusive"[120] conditions for the production of chocolate,[119] and an increasing number of health-food[121] and anti-slavery[122] organisations are highlighting and campaigning against the use of trafficking in the chocolate industry.
+
+As of 2017, approximately 2.1 million children in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire were involved in farming cocoa, carrying heavy loads, clearing forests, and being exposed to pesticides.[6] According to Sona Ebai, the former secretary general of the Alliance of Cocoa Producing Countries: "I think child labor cannot be just the responsibility of industry to solve. I think it's the proverbial all-hands-on-deck: government, civil society, the private sector. And there, you really need leadership."[115] Reported in 2018, a 3-year pilot program – conducted by Nestlé with 26,000 farmers mostly located in Côte d'Ivoire – observed a 51% decrease in the number of children doing hazardous jobs in cocoa farming.[5] The US Department of Labor formed the Child Labor Cocoa Coordinating Group as a public-private partnership with the governments of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire to address child labor practices in the cocoa industry.[123] The International Cocoa Initiative involving major cocoa manufacturers established the Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation System intended to monitor thousands of farms in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire for child labor conditions,[5][6] but the program reached less than 20% of the child laborers.[124] Despite these efforts, goals to reduce child labor in West Africa by 70% before 2020 are frustrated by persistent poverty, absence of schools, expansion of cocoa farmland, and increased demand for cocoa.[5][125]
+
+In April 2018, the Cocoa Barometer report stated: "Not a single company or government is anywhere near reaching the sectorwide objective of the elimination of child labour, and not even near their commitments of a 70% reduction of child labour by 2020".[125]
+
+In the 2000s, some chocolate producers began to engage in fair trade initiatives, to address concerns about the marginalization of cocoa laborers in developing countries. Traditionally, Africa and other developing countries received low prices for their exported commodities such as cocoa, which caused poverty to abound. Fair trade seeks to establish a system of direct trade from developing countries to counteract this unfair system.[126] One solution for fair labor practices is for farmers to become part of an Agricultural cooperative. Cooperatives pay farmers a fair price for their cocoa so farmers have enough money for food, clothes, and school fees.[127] One of the main tenets of fair trade is that farmers receive a fair price, but this does not mean that the larger amount of money paid for fair trade cocoa goes directly to the farmers. The effectiveness of fair trade has been questioned. In a 2014 article, The Economist stated that workers on fair trade farms have a lower standard of living than on similar farms outside the fair trade system.[128]
+
+Chocolate is sold in chocolate bars, which come in dark chocolate, milk chocolate and white chocolate varieties. Some bars that are mostly chocolate have other ingredients blended into the chocolate, such as nuts, raisins or crisped rice. Chocolate is used as an ingredient in a huge variety of bars, which typically contain various confectionary ingredients (e.g., nougat, wafers, caramel, nuts, etc.) which are coated in chocolate.
+
+Chocolate is used as a flavouring product in many desserts, such as chocolate cakes, chocolate brownies, chocolate mousse and chocolate chip cookies. Numerous types of candy and snacks contain chocolate, either as a filling (e.g., M&M's) or as a coating (e.g., chocolate-coated raisins or chocolate-coated peanuts).
+
+Some non-alcoholic beverages contain chocolate, such as chocolate milk, hot chocolate and chocolate milkshakes. Some alcoholic liqueurs are flavoured with chocolate, such as chocolate liqueur and creme de cacao. Chocolate is a popular flavour of ice cream and pudding, and chocolate sauce is a commonly added as a topping on ice cream sundaes. The caffè mocha is an espresso beverage containing chocolate.

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+
+
+Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium Vibrio cholerae.[4][3] Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe.[3] The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days.[2] Vomiting and muscle cramps may also occur.[3] Diarrhea can be so severe that it leads within hours to severe dehydration and electrolyte imbalance.[2] This may result in sunken eyes, cold skin, decreased skin elasticity, and wrinkling of the hands and feet.[5] Dehydration can cause the skin to turn bluish.[8] Symptoms start two hours to five days after exposure.[3]
+
+Cholera is caused by a number of types of Vibrio cholerae, with some types producing more severe disease than others.[2] It is spread mostly by unsafe water and unsafe food that has been contaminated with human feces containing the bacteria.[2] Undercooked seafood is a common source.[9] Humans are the only animal affected.[2] Risk factors for the disease include poor sanitation, not enough clean drinking water, and poverty.[2] There are concerns that rising sea levels will increase rates of disease.[2] Cholera can be diagnosed by a stool test.[2] A rapid dipstick test is available but is not as accurate.[10]
+
+Prevention methods against cholera include improved sanitation and access to clean water.[5] Cholera vaccines that are given by mouth provide reasonable protection for about six months.[2] They have the added benefit of protecting against another type of diarrhea caused by E. coli.[2] The primary treatment is oral rehydration therapy—the replacement of fluids with slightly sweet and salty solutions.[2] Rice-based solutions are preferred.[2] Zinc supplementation is useful in children.[6] In severe cases, intravenous fluids, such as Ringer's lactate, may be required, and antibiotics may be beneficial.[2] Testing to see which antibiotic the cholera is susceptible to can help guide the choice.[3]
+
+Cholera affects an estimated 3–5 million people worldwide and causes 28,800–130,000 deaths a year.[2][7] Although it is classified as a pandemic as of 2010[update], it is rare in the developed world.[2] Children are mostly affected.[2][11] Cholera occurs as both outbreaks and chronically in certain areas.[2] Areas with an ongoing risk of disease include Africa and Southeast Asia.[2] The risk of death among those affected is usually less than 5% but may be as high as 50%.[2] No access to treatment results in a higher death rate.[2] Descriptions of cholera are found as early as the 5th century BC in Sanskrit.[5] The study of cholera in England by John Snow between 1849 and 1854 led to significant advances in the field of epidemiology.[5][12] Seven large outbreaks have occurred over the last 200 years with millions of deaths.[13]
+
+The primary symptoms of cholera are profuse diarrhea and vomiting of clear fluid.[14] These symptoms usually start suddenly, half a day to five days after ingestion of the bacteria.[15] The diarrhea is frequently described as "rice water" in nature and may have a fishy odor.[14] An untreated person with cholera may produce 10 to 20 litres (3 to 5 US gal) of diarrhea a day.[14] Severe cholera, without treatment, kills about half of affected individuals.[14] If the severe diarrhea is not treated, it can result in life-threatening dehydration and electrolyte imbalances.[14] Estimates of the ratio of asymptomatic to symptomatic infections have ranged from 3 to 100.[16] Cholera has been nicknamed the "blue death"[17] because a person's skin may turn bluish-gray from extreme loss of fluids.[18]
+
+Fever is rare and should raise suspicion for secondary infection. Patients can be lethargic and might have sunken eyes, dry mouth, cold clammy skin, or wrinkled hands and feet. Kussmaul breathing, a deep and labored breathing pattern, can occur because of acidosis from stool bicarbonate losses and lactic acidosis associated with poor perfusion. Blood pressure drops due to dehydration, peripheral pulse is rapid and thready, and urine output decreases with time. Muscle cramping and weakness, altered consciousness, seizures, or even coma due to electrolyte imbalances are common, especially in children.[14]
+
+Cholera bacteria have been found in shellfish and plankton.[14]
+
+Transmission is usually through the fecal-oral route of contaminated food or water caused by poor sanitation.[2] Most cholera cases in developed countries are a result of transmission by food, while in the developing world it is more often water.[14] Food transmission can occur when people harvest seafood such as oysters in waters infected with sewage, as Vibrio cholerae accumulates in planktonic crustaceans and the oysters eat the zooplankton.[19]
+
+People infected with cholera often have diarrhea, and disease transmission may occur if this highly liquid stool, colloquially referred to as "rice-water", contaminates water used by others.[20]  A single diarrheal event can cause a one-million fold increase in numbers of V. cholerae in the environment.[21]  The source of the contamination is typically other cholera sufferers when their untreated diarrheal discharge is allowed to get into waterways, groundwater or drinking water supplies. Drinking any contaminated water and eating any foods washed in the water, as well as shellfish living in the affected waterway, can cause a person to contract an infection. Cholera is rarely spread directly from person to person.[medical citation needed]
+
+V. cholerae also exists outside the human body in natural water sources, either by itself or through interacting with phytoplankton, zooplankton, or biotic and abiotic detritus.[22] Drinking such water can also result in the disease, even without prior contamination through fecal matter. Selective pressures exist however in the aquatic environment that may reduce the virulence of V. cholerae.[22] Specifically, animal models indicate that the transcriptional profile of the pathogen changes as it prepares to enter an aquatic environment.[22] This transcriptional change results in a loss of ability of V. cholerae to be cultured on standard media, a phenotype referred to as 'viable but non-culturable' (VBNC) or more conservatively 'active but non-culturable' (ABNC).[22] One study indicates that the culturability of V. cholerae drops 90% within 24 hours of entering the water, and furthermore that this loss in culturability is associated with a loss in virulence.[22][23]
+
+Both toxic and non-toxic strains exist. Non-toxic strains can acquire toxicity through a temperate bacteriophage.[24]
+
+About 100 million bacteria must typically be ingested to cause cholera in a normal healthy adult.[14] This dose, however, is less in those with lowered gastric acidity (for instance those using proton pump inhibitors).[14] Children are also more susceptible, with two- to four-year-olds having the highest rates of infection.[14] Individuals' susceptibility to cholera is also affected by their blood type, with those with type O blood being the most susceptible.[14] Persons with lowered immunity, such as persons with AIDS or malnourished children, are more likely to experience a severe case if they become infected.[25] Any individual, even a healthy adult in middle age, can experience a severe case, and each person's case should be measured by the loss of fluids, preferably in consultation with a professional health care provider.[medical citation needed]
+
+The cystic fibrosis genetic mutation known as delta-F508 in humans has been said to maintain a selective heterozygous advantage: heterozygous carriers of the mutation (who are thus not affected by cystic fibrosis) are more resistant to V. cholerae infections.[26] In this model, the genetic deficiency in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator channel proteins interferes with bacteria binding to the intestinal epithelium, thus reducing the effects of an infection.
+
+When consumed, most bacteria do not survive the acidic conditions of the human stomach.[27] The few surviving bacteria conserve their energy and stored nutrients during the passage through the stomach by shutting down protein production. When the surviving bacteria exit the stomach and reach the small intestine, they must propel themselves through the thick mucus that lines the small intestine to reach the intestinal walls where they can attach and thrive.[27]
+
+Once the cholera bacteria reach the intestinal wall, they no longer need the flagella to move. The bacteria stop producing the protein flagellin to conserve energy and nutrients by changing the mix of proteins that they express in response to the changed chemical surroundings. On reaching the intestinal wall, V. cholerae start producing the toxic proteins that give the infected person a watery diarrhea. This carries the multiplying new generations of V. cholerae bacteria out into the drinking water of the next host if proper sanitation measures are not in place.[medical citation needed]
+
+The cholera toxin (CTX or CT) is an oligomeric complex made up of six protein subunits: a single copy of the A subunit (part A), and five copies of the B subunit (part B), connected by a disulfide bond. The five B subunits form a five-membered ring that binds to GM1 gangliosides on the surface of the intestinal epithelium cells. The A1 portion of the A subunit is an enzyme that ADP-ribosylates G proteins, while the A2 chain fits into the central pore of the B subunit ring. Upon binding, the complex is taken into the cell via receptor-mediated endocytosis. Once inside the cell, the disulfide bond is reduced, and the A1 subunit is freed to bind with a human partner protein called ADP-ribosylation factor 6 (Arf6).[28] Binding exposes its active site, allowing it to permanently ribosylate the Gs alpha subunit of the heterotrimeric G protein. This results in constitutive cAMP production, which in turn leads to the secretion of water, sodium, potassium, and bicarbonate into the lumen of the small intestine and rapid dehydration. The gene encoding the cholera toxin was introduced into V. cholerae by horizontal gene transfer. Virulent strains of V. cholerae carry a variant of a temperate bacteriophage called CTXφ.
+
+Microbiologists have studied the genetic mechanisms by which the V. cholerae bacteria turn off the production of some proteins and turn on the production of other proteins as they respond to the series of chemical environments they encounter, passing through the stomach, through the mucous layer of the small intestine, and on to the intestinal wall.[29] Of particular interest have been the genetic mechanisms by which cholera bacteria turn on the protein production of the toxins that interact with host cell mechanisms to pump chloride ions into the small intestine, creating an ionic pressure which prevents sodium ions from entering the cell. The chloride and sodium ions create a salt-water environment in the small intestines, which through osmosis can pull up to six liters of water per day through the intestinal cells, creating the massive amounts of diarrhea. The host can become rapidly dehydrated unless an appropriate mixture of dilute salt water and sugar is taken to replace the blood's water and salts lost in the diarrhea.[medical citation needed]
+
+By inserting separate, successive sections of V. cholerae DNA into the DNA of other bacteria, such as E. coli that would not naturally produce the protein toxins, researchers have investigated the mechanisms by which V. cholerae responds to the changing chemical environments of the stomach, mucous layers, and intestinal wall. Researchers have discovered a complex cascade of regulatory proteins controls expression of V. cholerae virulence determinants.[medical citation needed] In responding to the chemical environment at the intestinal wall, the V. cholerae bacteria produce the TcpP/TcpH proteins, which, together with the ToxR/ToxS proteins, activate the expression of the ToxT regulatory protein. ToxT then directly activates expression of virulence genes that produce the toxins, causing diarrhea in the infected person and allowing the bacteria to colonize the intestine.[29] Current[when?] research aims at discovering "the signal that makes the cholera bacteria stop swimming and start to colonize (that is, adhere to the cells of) the small intestine."[29]
+
+Amplified fragment length polymorphism fingerprinting of the pandemic isolates of V. cholerae has revealed variation in the genetic structure. Two clusters have been identified: Cluster I and Cluster II. For the most part, Cluster I consists of strains from the 1960s and 1970s, while Cluster II largely contains strains from the 1980s and 1990s, based on the change in the clone structure. This grouping of strains is best seen in the strains from the African continent.[30]
+
+In many areas of the world, antibiotic resistance is increasing within cholera bacteria. In Bangladesh, for example, most cases are resistant to tetracycline, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, and erythromycin.[31] Rapid diagnostic assay methods are available for the identification of multi-drug resistant cases.[32] New generation antimicrobials have been discovered which are effective against cholera bacteria in in vitro studies.[33]
+
+A rapid dipstick test is available to determine the presence of V. cholerae.[31] In those samples that test positive, further testing should be done to determine antibiotic resistance.[31] In epidemic situations, a clinical diagnosis may be made by taking a patient history and doing a brief examination. Treatment is usually started without or before confirmation by laboratory analysis.
+
+Stool and swab samples collected in the acute stage of the disease, before antibiotics have been administered, are the most useful specimens for laboratory diagnosis. If an epidemic of cholera is suspected, the most common causative agent is V. cholerae O1. If V. cholerae serogroup O1 is not isolated, the laboratory should test for V. cholerae O139. However, if neither of these organisms is isolated, it is necessary to send stool specimens to a reference laboratory.
+
+Infection with V. cholerae O139 should be reported and handled in the same manner as that caused by V. cholerae O1. The associated diarrheal illness should be referred to as cholera and must be reported in the United States.[34]
+
+The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends focusing on prevention, preparedness, and response to combat the spread of cholera.[35] They also stress the importance of an effective surveillance system.[35] Governments can play a role in all of these areas.
+
+Although cholera may be life-threatening, prevention of the disease is normally straightforward if proper sanitation practices are followed. In developed countries, due to nearly universal advanced water treatment and sanitation practices present there, cholera is rare. For example, the last major outbreak of cholera in the United States occurred in 1910–1911.[36][37] Cholera is mainly a risk in developing countries.
+
+Effective sanitation practices, if instituted and adhered to in time, are usually sufficient to stop an epidemic. There are several points along the cholera transmission path at which its spread may be halted:[citation needed]
+
+Handwashing with soap or ash after using a toilet and before handling food or eating is also recommended for cholera prevention by WHO Africa.[42]
+
+Dumping of sewage or fecal sludge from a UN camp into a lake in the surroundings of Port-au-Prince is thought to have contributed to the spread of cholera after the Haiti earthquake in 2010, killing thousands.
+
+Example of a urine-diverting dry toilet in a cholera-affected area in Haiti.  This type of toilet stops transmission of disease via the fecal-oral route due to water pollution.
+
+Cholera hospital in Dhaka, showing typical "cholera beds".
+
+Surveillance and prompt reporting allow for containing cholera epidemics rapidly. Cholera exists as a seasonal disease in many endemic countries, occurring annually mostly during rainy seasons. Surveillance systems can provide early alerts to outbreaks, therefore leading to coordinated response and assist in preparation of preparedness plans. Efficient surveillance systems can also improve the risk assessment for potential cholera outbreaks. Understanding the seasonality and location of outbreaks provides guidance for improving cholera control activities for the most vulnerable.[43] For prevention to be effective, it is important that cases be reported to national health authorities.[14]
+
+A number of safe and effective oral vaccines for cholera are available.[44]  The World Health Organization (WHO) has three prequalified oral cholera vaccines (OCVs): Dukoral, Sanchol, and Euvichol. Dukoral, an orally administered, inactivated whole cell vaccine, has an overall efficacy of about 52% during the first year after being given and 62% in the second year, with minimal side effects.[44]  It is available in over 60 countries. However, it is not currently[when?] recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for most people traveling from the United States to endemic countries.[45] The vaccine that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends, Vaxchora, is an oral attenuated live vaccine,  that is effective as a single dose.[46]
+
+One injectable vaccine was found to be effective for two to three years. The protective efficacy was 28% lower in children less than five years old.[47] However, as of 2010[update], it has limited availability.[2] Work is under way to investigate the role of mass vaccination.[48] The WHO recommends immunization of high-risk groups, such as children and people with HIV, in countries where this disease is endemic.[2]  If people are immunized broadly, herd immunity results, with a decrease in the amount of contamination in the environment.[31]
+
+Developed for use in Bangladesh, the "sari filter" is a simple and cost-effective appropriate technology method for reducing the contamination of drinking water. Used sari cloth is preferable but other types of used cloth can be used with some effect, though the effectiveness will vary significantly. Used cloth is more effective than new cloth, as the repeated washing reduces the space between the fibers . Water collected in this way has a greatly reduced pathogen count - though it will not necessarily be perfectly safe, it is an improvement for poor people with limited options.
+[49] In Bangladesh this practice was found to decrease rates of cholera by nearly half.[50] It involves folding a sari four to eight times.[49] Between uses the cloth should be rinsed in clean water and dried in the sun to kill any bacteria on it.[51] A nylon cloth appears to work as well but is not as affordable.[50]
+
+Continued eating speeds the recovery of normal intestinal function. The WHO recommends this generally for cases of diarrhea no matter what the underlying cause.[52] A CDC training manual specifically for cholera states: "Continue to breastfeed your baby if the baby has watery diarrhea, even when traveling to get treatment. Adults and older children should continue to eat frequently."[53]
+
+The most common error in caring for patients with cholera is to underestimate the speed
+and volume of fluids required.[54] In most cases, cholera can be successfully treated with oral rehydration therapy (ORT), which is highly effective, safe, and simple to administer.[31] Rice-based solutions are preferred to glucose-based ones due to greater efficiency.[31] In severe cases with significant dehydration, intravenous rehydration may be necessary. Ringer's lactate is the preferred solution, often with added potassium.[14][52] Large volumes and continued replacement until diarrhea has subsided may be needed.[14] Ten percent of a person's body weight in fluid may need to be given in the first two to four hours.[14] This method was first tried on a mass scale during the Bangladesh Liberation War, and was found to have much success.[55]  Despite widespread beliefs, fruit juices and commercial fizzy drinks like cola, are not ideal for rehydration of people with serious infections of the intestines, and their excessive sugar content may even harm water uptake.[56]
+
+If commercially produced oral rehydration solutions are too expensive or difficult to obtain, solutions can be made. One such recipe calls for 1 liter of boiled water, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 6 teaspoons of sugar, and added mashed banana for potassium and to improve taste.[57]
+
+As there frequently is initially acidosis, the potassium level may be normal, even though large losses have occurred.[14] As the dehydration is corrected, potassium levels may decrease rapidly, and thus need to be replaced.[14]  This may be done by consuming foods high in potassium, like bananas or coconut water.[58]
+
+Antibiotic treatments for one to three days shorten the course of the disease and reduce the severity of the symptoms.[14] Use of antibiotics also reduces fluid requirements.[59] People will recover without them, however, if sufficient hydration is maintained.[31] The WHO only recommends antibiotics in those with severe dehydration.[58]
+
+Doxycycline is typically used first line, although some strains of V. cholerae have shown resistance.[14] Testing for resistance during an outbreak can help determine appropriate future choices.[14] Other antibiotics proven to be effective include cotrimoxazole, erythromycin, tetracycline, chloramphenicol, and furazolidone.[60] Fluoroquinolones, such as ciprofloxacin, also may be used, but resistance has been reported.[61]
+
+Antibiotics improve outcomes in those who are both severely and not severely dehydrated.[62] Azithromycin and tetracycline may work better than doxycycline or ciprofloxacin.[62]
+
+In Bangladesh zinc supplementation reduced the duration and severity of diarrhea in children with cholera when given with antibiotics and rehydration therapy as needed. It reduced the length of disease by eight hours and the amount of diarrhea stool by 10%.[63] Supplementation appears to be also effective in both treating and preventing infectious diarrhea due to other causes among children in the developing world.[63][64]
+
+If people with cholera are treated quickly and properly, the mortality rate is less than 1%; however, with untreated cholera, the mortality rate rises to 50–60%.[14][1]
+
+For certain genetic strains of cholera, such as the one present during the 2010 epidemic in Haiti and the 2004 outbreak in India, death can occur within two hours of becoming ill.[65]
+
+Cholera affects an estimated 3–5 million people worldwide, and causes 58,000–130,000 deaths a year as of 2010[update].[2][66] This occurs mainly in the developing world.[67] In the early 1980s, death rates are believed to have been greater than three million a year.[14] It is difficult to calculate exact numbers of cases, as many go unreported due to concerns that an outbreak may have a negative impact on the tourism of a country.[31] Cholera remains[when?] both epidemic and endemic in many areas of the world.[14] In October 2016, an outbreak of cholera began in war-ravaged Yemen.[68] WHO called it "the worst cholera outbreak in the world".[69]
+
+Although much is known about the mechanisms behind the spread of cholera, this has not led to a full understanding of what makes cholera outbreaks happen in some places and not others. Lack of treatment of human feces and lack of treatment of drinking water greatly facilitate its spread, but bodies of water can serve as a reservoir, and seafood shipped long distances can spread the disease. Cholera was not known in the Americas for most of the 20th century, but it reappeared towards the end of that century.[70]
+
+The word cholera is from Greek: χολέρα kholera from χολή kholē "bile". Cholera likely has its origins in the Indian subcontinent as evidenced by its prevalence in the region for centuries.[14]
+
+The disease appears in the European literature as early as 1642, from the Dutch physician Jakob de Bondt's  description it in his De Medicina Indorum.[71] (The "Indorum" of the title refers to the East Indies. He also gave first European descriptions of other diseases.)
+
+Early outbreaks in the Indian subcontinent are believed to have been the result of poor living conditions as well as the presence of pools of still water, both of which provide ideal conditions for cholera to thrive.[72] The disease first spread by trade routes (land and sea) to Russia in 1817, later to the rest of Europe, and from Europe to North America and the rest of the world,[14] (hence the name "Asiatic cholera"[1]). Seven cholera pandemics have occurred in the past 200 years, with the seventh pandemic originating in Indonesia in 1961.[73]
+
+The first cholera pandemic occurred in the Bengal region of India, near Calcutta starting in 1817 through 1824. The disease dispersed from India to Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Eastern Africa.[74] The movement of British Army and Navy ships and personnel is believed to have contributed to the range of the pandemic, since the ships carried people with the disease to the shores of the Indian Ocean, from Africa to Indonesia, and north to China and Japan.[75] The second pandemic lasted from 1826 to 1837 and particularly affected North America and Europe due to the result of advancements in transportation and global trade, and increased human migration, including soldiers.[76]  The third pandemic erupted in 1846, persisted until 1860, extended to North Africa, and reached South America, for the first time specifically affecting Brazil. The fourth pandemic lasted from 1863 to 1875 spread from India to Naples and Spain. The fifth pandemic was from 1881–1896 and started in India and spread to Europe, Asia, and South America. The sixth pandemic started 1899–1923. These epidemics were less fatal due to a greater understanding of the cholera bacteria. Egypt, the Arabian peninsula, Persia, India, and the Philippines were hit hardest during these epidemics, while other areas, like Germany in 1892 (primarily the city of Hamburg where more than 8.600 people died)[77] and Naples from 1910–1911, also experienced severe outbreaks. The seventh pandemic originated in 1961 in Indonesia and is marked by the emergence of a new strain, nicknamed El Tor, which still persists (as of 2018[update][78]) in developing countries.[79]
+
+Since it became widespread in the 19th century, cholera has killed tens of millions of people.[80] In Russia alone, between 1847 and 1851, more than one million people perished of the disease.[81] It killed 150,000 Americans during the second pandemic.[82] Between 1900 and 1920, perhaps eight million people died of cholera in India.[83] Cholera became the first reportable disease in the United States due to the significant effects it had on health.[14] John Snow, in England, was the first to identify the importance of contaminated water as its cause in 1854.[14] Cholera is now no longer considered a pressing health threat in Europe and North America due to filtering and chlorination of water supplies, but still heavily affects populations in developing countries.
+
+In the past, vessels flew a yellow quarantine flag if any crew members or passengers were suffering from cholera. No one aboard a vessel flying a yellow flag would be allowed ashore for an extended period, typically 30 to 40 days.[84]
+
+Historically many different claimed remedies have existed in folklore. Many of the older remedies were based on the miasma theory. Some believed that abdominal chilling made one more susceptible and flannel and cholera belts were routine in army kits.[85] In the 1854–1855 outbreak in Naples homeopathic camphor was used according to Hahnemann.[86] T. J. Ritter's "Mother's Remedies" book lists tomato syrup as a home remedy from northern America. Elecampane was recommended in the United Kingdom according to William Thomas Fernie.[87] The first effective human vaccine was developed in 1885, and the first effective antibiotic was developed in 1948. (See Timeline of cholera.)
+
+Cholera cases are much less frequent in developed countries where governments have helped to establish water sanitation practices and effective medical treatments.[88] The United States, for example, used to[when?] have a severe cholera problem similar to those in some developing countries. There were three large cholera outbreaks in the 1800s, which can be attributed to Vibrio cholerae's spread through interior waterways like the Erie Canal and routes along the Eastern Seaboard.[89] The island of Manhattan in New York City touched the Atlantic Ocean, where cholera collected just off the coast. At this time, New York City did not have as effective a sanitation system as it does today,[when?] so cholera was able to spread.[90]
+
+Cholera morbus is a historical term that was used to refer to gastroenteritis rather than specifically cholera.[91]
+
+Drawing of Death bringing cholera, in Le Petit Journal (1912).
+
+Emperor Pedro II of Brazil visiting people with cholera in 1855.
+
+Hand bill from the New York City Board of Health, 1832—the outdated public health advice demonstrates the lack of understanding of the disease and its actual causative factors.
+
+The bacterium was isolated in 1854 by Italian anatomist Filippo Pacini,[92] but its exact nature and his results were not widely known.
+
+Spanish physician Jaume Ferran i Clua developed a cholera inoculation in 1885, the first to immunize humans against a bacterial disease.[93]
+
+Russian-Jewish bacteriologist Waldemar Haffkine developed the first cholera vaccine in July 1892.[94]
+
+One of the major contributions to fighting cholera was made by the physician and pioneer medical scientist John Snow (1813–1858), who in 1854 found a link between cholera and contaminated drinking water.[72] Dr. Snow proposed a microbial origin for epidemic cholera in 1849. In his major "state of the art" review of 1855, he proposed a substantially complete and correct model for the cause of the disease. In two pioneering epidemiological field studies, he was able to demonstrate human sewage contamination was the most probable disease vector in two major epidemics in London in 1854.[95] His model was not immediately accepted, but it was seen to be the more plausible, as medical microbiology developed over the next 30 years or so.
+
+Cities in developed nations made massive investment in clean water supply and well-separated sewage treatment infrastructures between the mid-1850s and the 1900s. This eliminated the threat of cholera epidemics from the major developed cities in the world. In 1883, Robert Koch identified V. cholerae with a microscope as the bacillus causing the disease.[96]
+
+Hemendra Nath Chatterjee, a Bengali scientist, who first formulated and demonstrated the effectiveness of oral rehydration salt (ORS) for diarrhea.  In his 1953 paper, published in The Lancet, he states that promethazine can stop vomiting during cholera and then oral rehydration is possible. The formulation of the fluid replacement solution  was 4 g of sodium chloride, 25 g of glucose and 1000 ml of water.[97][98]
+
+Indian medical scientist Sambhu Nath De discovered the cholera toxin, the animal model of cholera, and successfully demonstrate the method of transmission of cholera pathogen Vibrio cholerae.[99]
+
+Robert Allan Phillips, working at the US Naval Medical Research Unit Two in Southeast Asia, evaluated the pathophysiology of the disease using modern laboratory chemistry techniques and developed a protocol for rehydration. His research led the Lasker Foundation to award him its prize in 1967.[100]
+
+More recently, in 2002, Alam, et al., studied stool samples from patients at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease in Dhaka, Bangladesh. From the various experiments they conducted, the researchers found a correlation between the passage of V. cholerae through the human digestive system and an increased infectivity state. Furthermore, the researchers found the bacterium creates a hyperinfected state where genes that control biosynthesis of amino acids, iron uptake systems, and formation of periplasmic nitrate reductase complexes were induced just before defecation. These induced characteristics allow the cholera vibrios to survive in the "rice water" stools, an environment of limited oxygen and iron, of patients with a cholera infection.[101]
+
+In many developing countries, cholera still reaches its victims through contaminated water sources, and countries without proper sanitation techniques have greater incidence of the disease.[102] Governments can play a role in this. In 2008, for example, the Zimbabwean cholera outbreak was due partly to the government's role, according to a report from the James Baker Institute.[19] The Haitian government's inability to provide safe drinking water after the 2010 earthquake led to an increase in cholera cases as well.[103]
+
+Similarly, South Africa's cholera outbreak was exacerbated by the government's policy of privatizing water programs. The wealthy elite of the country were able to afford safe water while others had to use water from cholera-infected rivers.[104]
+
+According to Rita R. Colwell of the James Baker Institute, if cholera does begin to spread, government preparedness is crucial. A government's ability to contain the disease before it extends to other areas can prevent a high death toll and the development of an epidemic or even pandemic. Effective disease surveillance can ensure that cholera outbreaks are recognized as soon as possible and dealt with appropriately. Oftentimes, this will allow public health programs to determine and control the cause of the cases, whether it is unsanitary water or seafood that have accumulated a lot of Vibrio cholerae specimens.[19] Having an effective surveillance program contributes to a government's ability to prevent cholera from spreading. In the year 2000 in the state of Kerala in India, the Kottayam district was determined to be "Cholera-affected"; this pronouncement led to task forces that concentrated on educating citizens with 13,670 information sessions about human health.[105] These task forces promoted the boiling of water to obtain safe water, and provided chlorine and oral rehydration salts.[105] Ultimately, this helped to control the spread of the disease to other areas and minimize deaths. On the other hand, researchers have shown that most of the citizens infected during the 1991 cholera outbreak in Bangladesh lived in rural areas, and were not recognized by the government's surveillance program. This inhibited physicians' abilities to detect cholera cases early.[106]
+
+According to Colwell, the quality and inclusiveness of a country's health care system affects the control of cholera, as it did in the Zimbabwean cholera outbreak.[19] While sanitation practices are important, when governments respond quickly and have readily available vaccines, the country will have a lower cholera death toll. Affordability of vaccines can be a problem; if the governments do not provide vaccinations, only the wealthy may be able to afford them and there will be a greater toll on the country's poor.[107][108] The speed with which government leaders respond to cholera outbreaks is important.[109]
+
+Besides contributing to an effective or declining public health care system and water sanitation treatments, government can have indirect effects on cholera control and the effectiveness of a response to cholera.[110] A country's government can impact its ability to prevent disease and control its spread. A speedy government response backed by a fully functioning health care system and financial resources can prevent cholera's spread. This limits cholera's ability to cause death, or at the very least a decline in education, as children are kept out of school to minimize the risk of infection.[110]
+
+Unlike tuberculosis ("consumption") which in literature and the arts was often romanticized as a disease of denizens of the demimondaine or those with an artistic temperament,[121] cholera is a disease which almost entirely affects the lower-classes living in filth and poverty.  This, and the unpleasant course of the disease – which includes voluminous "rice-water" diarrhea, the hemorrhaging of liquids from the mouth, and violent muscle contractions which continue even after death – has discouraged the disease from being romanticized, or even the actual factual presentation of the disease in popular culture.[122]

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+Heterodox
+
+Unemployment, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), is persons above a specified age (usually above 15)[2] not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the reference period.[3]
+
+Unemployment is measured by the unemployment rate as the number of people who are unemployed as a percentage of the labour force (the total number of people employed added to those unemployed).[4]
+
+Unemployment can have many sources, such as the following:
+
+Unemployment and the status of the economy can be influenced by a country through, for example, fiscal policy. Furthermore, the monetary authority of a country, such as the central bank, can influence the availability and cost for money through its monetary policy.
+
+In addition to theories of unemployment, a few categorisations of unemployment are used for more precisely modelling the effects of unemployment within the economic system. Some of the main types of unemployment include structural unemployment, frictional unemployment, cyclical unemployment, involuntary unemployment and classical unemployment. Structural unemployment focuses on foundational problems in the economy and inefficiencies inherent in labor markets, including a mismatch between the supply and demand of laborers with necessary skill sets. Structural arguments emphasize causes and solutions related to disruptive technologies and globalization. Discussions of frictional unemployment focus on voluntary decisions to work based on individuals' valuation of their own work and how that compares to current wage rates added to the time and effort required to find a job. Causes and solutions for frictional unemployment often address job entry threshold and wage rates.
+
+Globally, 172 million people globally or 5% of the reported workforce of the world were without a job in 2018, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO).[5]
+
+Because of the difficulty to measure the unemployment rate by for example using surveys like in the United States or through registered unemployed citizens like in some countries in Europe countries, statistical figures such as the employment-to-population ratio could be better suited to evaluate the status of the workforce and the economy if they would be based on people who are registered as, for example, taxpayer.[6]
+
+The state of being without any work yet looking for work is called unemployment. Economists distinguish between various overlapping types of and theories of unemployment, including cyclical or Keynesian unemployment, frictional unemployment, structural unemployment and classical unemployment. Some additional types of unemployment that are occasionally mentioned are seasonal unemployment, hardcore unemployment, and hidden unemployment.
+
+Though there have been several definitions of "voluntary" and "involuntary unemployment" in the economics literature, a simple distinction is often applied. Voluntary unemployment is attributed to the individual's decisions, but involuntary unemployment exists because of the socio-economic environment (including the market structure, government intervention, and the level of aggregate demand) in which individuals operate. In these terms, much or most of frictional unemployment is voluntary since it reflects individual search behavior. Voluntary unemployment includes workers who reject low-wage jobs, but involuntary unemployment includes workers fired because of an economic crisis, industrial decline, company bankruptcy, or organizational restructuring.
+
+On the other hand, cyclical unemployment, structural unemployment, and classical unemployment are largely involuntary in nature. However, the existence of structural unemployment may reflect choices made by the unemployed in the past, and classical (natural) unemployment may result from the legislative and economic choices made by labour unions or political parties.
+
+The clearest cases of involuntary unemployment are those with fewer job vacancies than unemployed workers even when wages are allowed to adjust and so even if all vacancies were to be filled, some unemployed workers would still remain. That happens with cyclical unemployment, as macroeconomic forces cause microeconomic unemployment, which can boomerang back and exacerbate those macroeconomic forces.
+
+Classical, or real-wage, unemployment, occurs when real wages for a job are set above the market-clearing level, causing the number of job-seekers to exceed the number of vacancies. On the other hand, most economists argue that as wages fall below a livable wage, many choose to drop out of the labor market and no longer seek employment. That is especially true in countries in which low-income families are supported through public welfare systems. In such cases, wages would have to be high enough to motivate people to choose employment over what they receive through public welfare. Wages below a livable wage are likely to result in lower labor market participation in the above-stated scenario. In addition, consumption of goods and services is the primary driver of increased demand for labor. Higher wages lead to workers having more income available to consume goods and services. Therefore, higher wages increase general consumption and as a result demand for labor increases and unemployment decreases.
+
+Many economists have argued that unemployment increases with increased governmental regulation. For example, minimum wage laws raise the cost of some low-skill laborers above market equilibrium, resulting in increased unemployment as people who wish to work at the going rate cannot (as the new and higher enforced wage is now greater than the value of their labour).[7][8] Laws restricting layoffs may make businesses less likely to hire in the first place, as hiring becomes more risky.[8]
+
+However, that argument overly simplifies the relationship between wage rates and unemployment by ignoring numerous factors that contribute to unemployment.[9][10][11][12][13] Some, such as Murray Rothbard, suggest that even social taboos can prevent wages from falling to the market-clearing level.[14]
+
+In Out of Work: Unemployment and Government in the Twentieth-Century America, economists Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway argue that the empirical record of wages rates, productivity, and unemployment in America validates classical unemployment theory. Their data shows a strong correlation between adjusted real wage and unemployment in the United States from 1900 to 1990. However, they maintain that their data does not take into account exogenous events.[15]
+
+Cyclical, deficient-demand, or Keynesian unemployment occurs when there is not enough aggregate demand in the economy to provide jobs for everyone who wants to work. Demand for most goods and services falls, less production is needed and consequently fewer workers are needed, wages are sticky and do not fall to meet the equilibrium level, and unemployment results.[16] Its name is derived from the frequent ups and downs in the business cycle, but unemployment can also be persistent, such as during the Great Depression.
+
+With cyclical unemployment, the number of unemployed workers exceeds the number of job vacancies and so even if all open jobs were filled, some workers would still remain unemployed. Some associate cyclical unemployment with frictional unemployment because the factors that cause the friction are partially caused by cyclical variables. For example, a surprise decrease in the money supply may suddenly inhibit aggregate demand and thus inhibit labor demand.
+
+Keynesian economists, on the other hand, see the lack of supply of jobs as potentially resolvable by government intervention. One suggested intervention involves deficit spending to boost employment and goods demand. Another intervention involves an expansionary monetary policy to increase  the supply of money, which should reduce interest rates, which, in turn, should lead to an increase in non-governmental spending.[17]
+
+In demand-based theory, it is possible to abolish cyclical unemployment by increasing the aggregate demand for products and workers. However, the economy eventually hits an "inflation barrier" that is imposed by the four other kinds of unemployment to the extent that they exist. Historical experience suggests that low unemployment affects inflation in the short term but not the long term.[18] In the long term, the velocity of money supply measures such as the MZM ("money zero maturity", representing cash and equivalent demand deposits) velocity is far more predictive of inflation than low unemployment.[19][20]
+
+Some demand theory economists see the inflation barrier as corresponding to the natural rate of unemployment. The "natural" rate of unemployment is defined as the rate of unemployment that exists when the labour market is in equilibrium, and there is pressure for neither rising inflation rates nor falling inflation rates. An alternative technical term for that rate is the NAIRU, the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment. Whatever its name, demand theory holds that if the unemployment rate gets "too low," inflation will accelerate in the absence of wage and price controls (incomes policies).
+
+One of the major problems with the NAIRU theory is that no one knows exactly what the NAIRU is, and it clearly changes over time.[18] The margin of error can be quite high relative to the actual unemployment rate, making it hard to use the NAIRU in policy-making.[19]
+
+Another, normative, definition of full employment might be called the ideal unemployment rate. It would exclude all types of unemployment that represent forms of inefficiency. This type of "full employment" unemployment would correspond to only frictional unemployment (excluding that part encouraging the McJobs management strategy) and so would be very low. However, it would be impossible to attain this full-employment target using only demand-side Keynesian stimulus without getting below the NAIRU and causing accelerating inflation (absent incomes policies). Training programs aimed at fighting structural unemployment would help here.
+
+To the extent that hidden unemployment exists, it implies that official unemployment statistics provide a poor guide to what unemployment rate coincides with "full employment."[18]
+
+Structural unemployment occurs when a labour market is unable to provide jobs for everyone who wants one because there is a mismatch between the skills of the unemployed workers and the skills needed for the available jobs. Structural unemployment is hard to separate empirically from frictional unemployment except that it lasts longer. As with frictional unemployment, simple demand-side stimulus will not work to abolish this type of unemployment easily.
+
+Structural unemployment may also be encouraged to rise by persistent cyclical unemployment: if an economy suffers from longlasting low aggregate demand, it means that many of the unemployed become disheartened, and their skills (including job-searching skills) become "rusty" and obsolete. Problems with debt may lead to homelessness and a fall into the vicious circle of poverty.
+
+That means that they may not fit the job vacancies that are created when the economy recovers. The implication is that sustained high demand may lower structural unemployment. This theory of persistence in structural unemployment has been referred to as an example of path dependence or "hysteresis."
+
+Much technological unemployment,[21] caused by the replacement of workers by machines might be counted as structural unemployment. Alternatively, technological unemployment might refer to the way in which steady increases in labour productivity mean that fewer workers are needed to produce the same level of output every year. The fact that aggregate demand can be raised to deal with the problem suggests that the problem is instead one of cyclical unemployment. As indicated by Okun's law, the demand side must grow sufficiently quickly to absorb not only the growing labour force but also the workers who are made redundant by the increased labour productivity.
+
+Seasonal unemployment may be seen as a kind of structural unemployment since it is linked to certain kinds of jobs (construction and migratory farm work). The most-cited official unemployment measures erase this kind of unemployment from the statistics using "seasonal adjustment" techniques. That results in substantial and permanent structural unemployment.
+
+Frictional unemployment is the time period between jobs in which a worker searches for or transitions from one job to another. It is sometimes called search unemployment and can be voluntary, based on the circumstances of the unemployed individual. Frictional unemployment exists because both jobs and workers are heterogeneous, and a mismatch can result between the characteristics of supply and demand. Such a mismatch can be related to skills, payment, work-time, location, seasonal industries, attitude, taste, and a multitude of other factors. New entrants (such as graduating students) and re-entrants (such as former homemakers) can also suffer a spell of frictional unemployment.
+
+Workers and employers accept a certain level of imperfection, risk or compromise, but usually not right away. They will invest some time and effort to find a better match. That is, in fact, beneficial to the economy since it results in a better allocation of resources. However, if the search takes too long and mismatches are too frequent, the economy suffers since some work will not get done. Therefore, governments will seek ways to reduce unnecessary frictional unemployment by multiple means including providing education, advice, training, and assistance such as daycare centers.
+
+The frictions in the labour market are sometimes illustrated graphically with a Beveridge curve, a downward-sloping, convex curve that shows a correlation between the unemployment rate on one axis and the vacancy rate on the other. Changes in the supply of or demand for labour cause movements along the curve. An increase or decrease in labour market frictions will shift the curve outwards or inwards.
+
+Official statistics often underestimate unemployment rates because of hidden, or covered, unemployment. That is the unemployment of potential workers that are not reflected in official unemployment statistics because of how the statistics are collected. In many countries, only those who have no work but are actively looking for work and/or qualifying for social security benefits are counted as unemployed. Those who have given up looking for work and sometimes those who are on government "retraining" programs are not officially counted among the unemployed even though they are not employed.
+
+Hidden unemployment often is caused by the state's deliberate manipulations to make statistics about the country look better especially for international propaganda purposes, as was a common practice in the Soviet Union and its satellite states under the Warsaw Pact. Especially in those countries, it is often referred to as agrarian unemployment since it often occurred in agricultural sectors, mostly in rural areas.[22] It was commonly done in a form of early retirement because of lack of vacant jobs for those who had not reached the retirement age or often a situation in which increasing the number of employees did not increase the production (creating fake vacancies on paper for people with whom they did not know what to do, how to use their potential workforce but not admitting to that inability and paying out the diminutive wages for them to pretend to work and remain silent), thus rendering the overall productivity close to zero. It was a very common problem and one of the main reasons for the economic crisis leading to the common people's strikes that later on led to governments responding with martial law state in places like Poland, and the eventual downfall of USSR and Soviet occupation over the rest of the subjugated states under the Warsaw Pact.
+
+The statistic also does not count the "underemployed", those working fewer hours than they would prefer or in a job that fails to make good use of their capabilities. In addition, those who are of working age but are currently in full-time education are usually not considered unemployed in government statistics. Traditional unemployed native societies who survive by gathering, hunting, herding, and farming in wilderness areas may or may not be counted in unemployment statistics.
+
+Long-term unemployment (LTU) is defined in European Union statistics as unemployment lasting for longer than one year (while unemployment lasting over two years is defined as very long-term unemployment). The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which reports current long-term unemployment rate at 1.9 percent, defines this as unemployment lasting 27 weeks or longer. Long-term unemployment is a component of structural unemployment, which results in long-term unemployment existing in every social group, industry, occupation, and all levels of education.[23]
+
+In 2015 the European Commission published recommendations on how to reduce long-term unemployment.[24] These advised governments to:
+
+In 2017–2019 it implemented the Long-Term Unemployment project to research solutions implemented by EU member states and produce a toolkit[25] to guide government action. Progress was evaluated[26] in 2019.
+
+It is in the very nature of the capitalist mode of production to overwork some workers while keeping the rest as a reserve army of unemployed paupers.
+
+Marxists share the Keynesian viewpoint of the relationship between economic demand and employment, but with the caveat that the market system's propensity to slash wages and reduce labor participation on an enterprise level causes a requisite decrease in aggregate demand in the economy as a whole, causing crises of unemployment and periods of low economic activity before the capital accumulation (investment) phase of economic growth can continue. According to Karl Marx, unemployment is inherent within the unstable capitalist system and periodic crises of mass unemployment are to be expected. He theorized that unemployment was inevitable and even a necessary part of the capitalist system, with recovery and regrowth also part of the process.[28] The function of the proletariat within the capitalist system is to provide a "reserve army of labour" that creates downward pressure on wages. This is accomplished by dividing the proletariat into surplus labour (employees) and under-employment (unemployed).[29] This reserve army of labour fight among themselves for scarce jobs at lower and lower wages. At first glance, unemployment seems inefficient since unemployed workers do not increase profits, but unemployment is profitable within the global capitalist system because unemployment lowers wages which are costs from the perspective of the owners. From this perspective low wages benefit the system by reducing economic rents. Yet, it does not benefit workers; according to Karl Marx, the workers (proletariat) work to benefit the bourgeoisie through their production of capital.[30] Capitalist systems unfairly manipulate the market for labour by perpetuating unemployment which lowers laborers' demands for fair wages. Workers are pitted against one another at the service of increasing profits for owners. As a result of the capitalist mode of production, Marx argued that workers experienced alienation and estrangement through their economic identity.[31] According to Marx, the only way to permanently eliminate unemployment would be to abolish capitalism and the system of forced competition for wages and then shift to a socialist or communist economic system. For contemporary Marxists, the existence of persistent unemployment is proof of the inability of capitalism to ensure full employment.[32]
+
+There are also different ways national statistical agencies measure unemployment. The differences may limit the validity of international comparisons of unemployment data.[33] To some degree, the differences remain despite national statistical agencies increasingly adopting the definition of unemployment of the International Labour Organization.[34] To facilitate international comparisons, some organizations, such as the OECD, Eurostat, and International Labor Comparisons Program, adjust data on unemployment for comparability across countries.
+
+Though many people care about the number of unemployed individuals, economists typically focus on the unemployment rate, which corrects for the normal increase in the number of people employed caused by increases in population and increases in the labour force relative to the population. The unemployment rate is expressed as a percentage and calculated as follows:
+
+As defined by the International Labour Organization, "unemployed workers" are those who are currently not working but are willing and able to work for pay, currently available to work, and have actively searched for work.[35]
+Individuals who are actively seeking job placement must make the effort to be in contact with an employer, have job interviews, contact job placement agencies, send out resumes, submit applications, respond to advertisements, or some other means of active job searching within the prior four weeks. Simply looking at advertisements and not responding will not count as actively seeking job placement. Since not all unemployment may be "open" and counted by government agencies, official statistics on unemployment may not be accurate.[36] In the United States, for example, the unemployment rate does not take into consideration those individuals who are not actively looking for employment, such as those who are still attending college.[37]
+
+According to the OECD, Eurostat, and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics the unemployment rate is the number of unemployed people as a percentage of the labour force.
+
+"An unemployed person is defined by Eurostat, according to the guidelines of the International Labour Organization, as:
+
+The labour force, or workforce, includes both employed (employees and self-employed) and unemployed people but not the economically inactive, such as pre-school children, school children, students and pensioners.[39]
+
+The unemployment rate of an individual country is usually calculated and reported on a monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis by the National Agency of Statistics. Organisations like the OECD report statistics for all of its member states.[40]
+
+Certain countries provide unemployment compensation for a certain period of time for unemployed citizens who are registered as unemployed at the government employment agency. Furthermore, pension receivables or claims could depend on the registration at the government employment agency.[41][42]
+
+In many countries like in Germany, the unemployment rate is based on the number of people who are registered as unemployed.[43] Other countries like the United States use a labour force survey to calculate the unemployment rate.[44][45]
+
+The ILO describes four different methods to calculate the unemployment rate:[46]
+
+The primary measure of unemployment, U3, allows for comparisons between countries. Unemployment differs from country to country and across different time periods. For example, in the 1990s and 2000s, the United States had lower unemployment levels than many countries in the European Union,[47] which had significant internal variation, with countries like the United Kingdom and Denmark outperforming Italy and France. However, large economic events like the Great Depression can lead to similar unemployment rates across the globe.
+
+In 2013, the ILO adopted a resolution to introduce new indicators to measure the unemployment rate.[48]
+
+x 100
+
+labour force) / (extended labour force)] × 100
+
+Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, defines unemployed as those persons between age 15 and 74 who are not working, have looked for work in the last four weeks, and are ready to start work within two weeks; this definition conforms to ILO standards. Both the actual count and the unemployment rate are reported. Statistical data are available by member state for the European Union as a whole (EU28) as well as for the eurozone (EA19). Eurostat also includes a long-term unemployment rate, which is defined as part of the unemployed who have been unemployed for more than one year.[49]
+
+The main source used is the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS). It collects data on all member states each quarter. For monthly calculations, national surveys or national registers from employment offices are used in conjunction with quarterly EU-LFS data. The exact calculation for individual countries, resulting in harmonized monthly data, depends on the availability of the data.[50]
+
+The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures employment and unemployment (of those over 17 years of age) by using two different labor force surveys[52] conducted by the United States Census Bureau (within the United States Department of Commerce) and/or the Bureau of Labor Statistics (within the United States Department of Labor) that gather employment statistics monthly. The Current Population Survey (CPS), or "Household Survey," conducts a survey based on a sample of 60,000 households. The survey measures the unemployment rate based on the ILO definition.[53]
+
+The Current Employment Statistics survey (CES), or "Payroll Survey," conducts a survey based on a sample of 160,000 businesses and government agencies, which represent 400,000 individual employers.[54] Since the survey measures only civilian nonagricultural employment, it does not calculate an unemployment rate, and it differs from the ILO unemployment rate definition. Both sources have different classification criteria and usually produce differing results. Additional data are also available from the government, such as the unemployment insurance weekly claims report available from the Office of Workforce Security, within the U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration.[55] The Bureau of Labor Statistics provides up-to-date numbers via a PDF linked here.[56] The BLS also provides a readable concise current Employment Situation Summary, updated monthly.[57]
+
+The Bureau of Labor Statistics also calculates six alternate measures of unemployment, U1 to U6, which measure different aspects of unemployment:[58]
+
+Note: "Marginally attached workers" are added to the total labour force for unemployment rate calculation for U4, U5, and U6. The BLS revised the CPS in 1994 and among the changes the measure representing the official unemployment rate was renamed U3 instead of U5.[61] In 2013, Representative Hunter proposed that the Bureau of Labor Statistics use the U5 rate instead of the current U3 rate.[62]
+
+Statistics for the US economy as a whole hide variations among groups. For example, in January 2008, the US unemployment rates were 4.4% for adult men, 4.2% for adult women, 4.4% for Caucasians, 6.3% for Hispanics or Latinos (all races), 9.2% for African Americans, 3.2% for Asian Americans, and 18.0% for teenagers.[54] Also, the US unemployment rate would be at least 2% higher if prisoners and jail inmates were counted.[63][64]
+
+The unemployment rate is included in a number of major economic indices including the US Conference Board's Index of Leading Indicators a macroeconomic measure of the state of the economy.
+
+Some critics believe that current methods of measuring unemployment are inaccurate in terms of the impact of unemployment on people as these methods do not take into account the 1.5% of the available working population incarcerated in US prisons (who may or may not be working while they are incarcerated); those who have lost their jobs and have become discouraged over time from actively looking for work; those who are self-employed or wish to become self-employed, such as tradesmen or building contractors or information technology consultants; those who have retired before the official retirement age but would still like to work (involuntary early retirees); those on disability pensions who do not possess full health but still wish to work in occupations that suitable for their medical conditions; or those who work for payment for as little as one hour per week but would like to work full time.[70]
+
+The last people are "involuntary part-time" workers, those who are underemployed, such as a computer programmer who is working in a retail store until he can find a permanent job, involuntary stay-at-home mothers who would prefer to work, and graduate and professional school students who are unable to find worthwhile jobs after they graduated with their bachelor's degrees.
+
+Internationally, some nations' unemployment rates are sometimes muted or appear less severe because of the number of self-employed individuals working in agriculture.[65] Small independent farmers are often considered self-employed and so cannot be unemployed. That can impact non-industrialized economies, such as the United States and Europe in the early 19th century, since overall unemployment was approximately 3% because so many individuals were self-employed, independent farmers; however, non-agricultural unemployment was as high as 80%.[65]
+
+Many economies industrialize and so experience increasing numbers of non-agricultural workers. For example, the United States' non-agricultural labour force increased from 20% in 1800 to 50% in 1850 and  97% in 2000.[65] The shift away from self-employment increases the percentage of the population that is included in unemployment rates. When unemployment rates between countries or time periods are compared, it is best to consider differences in their levels of industrialization and self-employment.
+
+Additionally, the measures of employment and unemployment may be "too high." In some countries, the availability of unemployment benefits can inflate statistics by giving an incentive to register as unemployed. People who do not seek work may choose to declare themselves unemployed to get benefits; people with undeclared paid occupations may try to get unemployment benefits in addition to the money that they earn from their work.[71]
+
+However, in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Japan, and the European Union, unemployment is measured using a sample survey (akin to a Gallup poll).[34] According to the BLS, a number of Eastern European nations have instituted labour force surveys as well. The sample survey has its own problems because the total number of workers in the economy is calculated based on a sample, rather than a census.
+
+It is possible to be neither employed nor unemployed by ILO definitions by being outside of the "labour force."[36] Such people have no job and are not looking for one. Many of them go to school or are retired. Family responsibilities keep others out of the labour force. Still others have a physical or mental disability that prevents them from participating in the labour force. Some people simply elect not to work and prefer to be dependent on others for sustenance.
+
+Typically, employment and the labour force include only work that is done for monetary gain. Hence, a homemaker is neither part of the labour force nor unemployed. Also, full-time students and prisoners are considered to be neither part of the labour force nor unemployed.[70] The number of prisoners can be important. In 1999, economists Lawrence F. Katz and Alan B. Krueger estimated that increased incarceration lowered measured unemployment in the United States by 0.17% between 1985 and the late 1990s.[70]
+
+In particular, as of 2005, roughly 0.7% of the US population is incarcerated (1.5% of the available working population). Additionally, children, the elderly, and some individuals with disabilities are typically not counted as part of the labour force and so are not included in the unemployment statistics. However, some elderly and many disabled individuals are active in the labour market.
+
+In the early stages of an economic boom, unemployment often rises.[16] That is because people join the labour market (give up studying, start a job hunt, etc.) as a result of the improving job market, but until they have actually found a position, they are counted as unemployed. Similarly, during a recession, the increase in the unemployment rate is moderated by people leaving the labour force or being otherwise discounted from the labour force, such as with the self-employed.
+
+For the fourth quarter of 2004, according to OECD (Employment Outlook 2005 ISBN 92-64-01045-9), normalized unemployment for men aged 25 to 54 was 4.6% in the US and 7.4% in France. At the same time and for the same population, the employment rate (number of workers divided by population) was 86.3% in the US and 86.7% in France. That example shows that the unemployment rate was 60% higher in France than in the US, but more people in that demographic were working in France than in the US, which is counterintuitive if it is expected that the unemployment rate reflects the health of the labour market.[72][73]
+
+Those deficiencies make many labour market economists prefer to look at a range of economic statistics such as labour market participation rate, the percentage of people between 15 and 64 who are currently employed or searching for employment, the total number of full-time jobs in an economy, the number of people seeking work as a raw number and not a percentage, and the total number of person-hours worked in a month compared to the total number of person-hours people would like to work. In particular, the National Bureau of Economic Research does not use the unemployment rate but prefers various employment rates to date recessions.[74]
+
+The labor force participation rate is the ratio between the labor force and the overall size of their cohort (national population of the same age range). In the West, during the later half of the 20th century, the labor force participation rate increased significantly because of an increase in the number of women entering the workplace.
+
+In the United States, there have been four significant stages of women's participation in the labour force: increases in the 20th century and decreases in the 21st century. Male labor force participation decreased from 1953 to 2013. Since October 2013, men have been increasingly joining the labour force.
+
+From the late 19th century to the 1920s, very few women worked outside the home. They were young single women who typically withdrew from the labor force at marriage unless family needed two incomes. Such women worked primarily in the textile manufacturing industry or as domestic workers. That profession empowered women and allowed them to earn a living wage. At times, they were a financial help to their families.
+
+Between 1930 and 1950, female labor force participation increased primarily because of the increased demand for office workers, women's participation in the high school movement, and electrification, which reduced the time that was spent on household chores. From the 1950s to the early 1970s, most women were secondary earners working mainly as secretaries, teachers, nurses, and librarians (pink-collar jobs).
+
+From the mid-1970s to the late 1990s, there was a period of revolution of women in the labor force brought on by various factors, many of which arose from the second-wave feminism movement. Women more accurately planned for their future in the work force by investing in more applicable majors in college that prepared them to enter and compete in the labor market. In the United States, the female labor force participation rate rose from approximately 33% in 1948 to a peak of 60.3% in 2000. As of April 2015, the female labor force participation is at 56.6%, the male labor force participation rate is at 69.4%, and the total is 62.8%.[75]
+
+A common theory in modern economics claims that the rise of women participating in the US labor force in the 1950s to the 1990s was caused by the introduction of a new contraceptive technology, birth control pills, as well as the adjustment of age of majority laws. The use of birth control gave women the flexibility of opting to invest and to advance their career while they maintained a relationship. By having control over the timing of their fertility, they were not running a risk of thwarting their career choices. However, only 40% of the population actually used the birth control pill.
+
+That implies that other factors may have contributed to women choosing to invest in advancing their careers. One factor may be that an increasing number of men delayed the age of marriage, which allowed women to marry later in life without them worrying about the quality of older men. Other factors include the changing nature of work, with machines replacing physical labor, thus eliminating many traditional male occupations, and the rise of the service sector in which many jobs are gender neutral.
+
+Another factor that may have contributed to the trend was the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex. Such legislation diminished sexual discrimination and encouraged more women to enter the labor market by receiving fair remuneration to help raising families and children.
+
+At the turn of the 21st century, the labor force participation began to reverse its long period of increase. Reasons for the change include a rising share of older workers, an increase in school enrollment rates among young workers, and a decrease in female labor force participation.[76]
+
+The labor force participation rate can decrease when the rate of growth of the population outweighs that of the employed and the unemployed together. The labor force participation rate is a key component in long-term economic growth, almost as important as productivity.
+
+A historic shift began around the end of the Great Recession as women began leaving the labor force in the United States and other developed countries. The female labor force participation rate in the United States has steadily decreased since 2009, and as of April 2015, the female labor force participation rate has gone back down to 1988 levels of 56.6%.[75]
+
+Participation rates are defined as follows:
+
+The labor force participation rate explains how an increase in the unemployment rate can occur simultaneously with an increase in employment. If a large number of new workers enter the labor force but only a small fraction become employed, then the increase in the number of unemployed workers can outpace the growth in employment.[77]
+
+The unemployment ratio calculates the share of unemployed for the whole population. Particularly, many young people between 15 and 24 are studying full-time and so are neither working nor looking for a job. That means that they are not part of the labor force, which is used as the denominator when the unemployment rate is calculated.[78] The youth unemployment ratios in the European Union range from 5.2 (Austria) to 20.6 percent (Spain). They are considerably lower than the standard youth unemployment rates, ranging from 7.9 (Germany) to 57.9 percent (Greece).[79]
+
+High and the persistent unemployment, in which economic inequality increases, has a negative effect on subsequent long-run economic growth. Unemployment can harm growth because it is a waste of resources; generates redistributive pressures and subsequent distortions; drives people to poverty; constrains liquidity limiting labor mobility; and erodes self-esteem promoting social dislocation, unrest, and conflict.[80] The 2013 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Robert J. Shiller, said that rising inequality in the United States and elsewhere is the most important problem.[81]
+
+Unemployed individuals are unable to earn money to meet financial obligations. Failure to pay mortgage payments or to pay rent may lead to homelessness through foreclosure or eviction.[82] Across the United States the growing ranks of people made homeless in the foreclosure crisis are generating tent cities.[83]
+
+Unemployment increases susceptibility to cardiovascular disease, somatization, anxiety disorders, depression, and suicide. In addition, unemployed people have higher rates of medication use, poor diet, physician visits, tobacco smoking, alcoholic beverage consumption, drug use, and lower rates of exercise.[84] According to a study published in Social Indicator Research, even those who tend to be optimistic find it difficult to look on the bright side of things when unemployed. Using interviews and data from German participants aged 16 to 94, including individuals coping with the stresses of real life and not just a volunteering student population, the researchers determined that even optimists struggled with being unemployed.[85]
+
+In 1979, M. Harvey Brenner found that for every 10% increase in the number of unemployed, there is an increase of 1.2% in total mortality, a 1.7% increase in cardiovascular disease, 1.3% more cirrhosis cases, 1.7% more suicides, 4.0% more arrests, and 0.8% more assaults reported to the police.[86][87]
+
+A study by Christopher Ruhm in 2000 on the effect of recessions on health found that several measures of health actually improve during recessions.[88] As for the impact of an economic downturn on crime, during the Great Depression, the crime rate did not decrease. The unemployed in the US often use welfare programs such as food stamps or accumulating debt because unemployment insurance in the US generally does not replace most of the income that was received on the job, and one cannot receive such aid indefinitely.
+
+Not everyone suffers equally from unemployment. In a prospective study of 9,570 individuals over four years, highly-conscientious people suffered more than twice as much if they became unemployed.[89] The authors suggested that may because of conscientious people making different attributions about why they became unemployed or through experiencing stronger reactions following failure. There is also the possibility of reverse causality from poor health to unemployment.[90]
+
+Some researchers hold that many of the low-income jobs are not really a better option than unemployment with a welfare state, with its unemployment insurance benefits. However, since it is difficult or impossible to get unemployment insurance benefits without having worked in the past, those jobs and unemployment are more complementary than they are substitutes. (They are often held short-term, either by students or by those trying to gain experience; turnover in most low-paying jobs is high.)
+
+Another cost for the unemployed is that the combination of unemployment, lack of financial resources, and social responsibilities may push unemployed workers to take jobs that do not fit their skills or allow them to use their talents. Unemployment can cause underemployment, and fear of job loss can spur psychological anxiety. As well as anxiety, it can cause depression, lack of confidence, and huge amounts of stress, which is increased when the unemployed are faced with health issues, poverty, and lack of relational support.[91]
+
+Another personal cost of unemployment is its impact on relationships. A 2008 study from Covizzi, which examined the relationship between unemployment and divorce, found that the rate of divorce is greater for couples when one partner is unemployed.[92] However, a more recent study has found that some couples often stick together in "unhappy" or "unhealthy" marriages when they are unemployed to buffer financial costs.[93] A 2014 study by Van der Meer found that the stigma that comes from being unemployed affects personal well-being, especially for men, who often feel as though their masculine identities are threatened by unemployment.[94]
+
+Unemployment can also bring personal costs in relation to gender. One study found that women are more likely to experience unemployment than men and that they are less likely to move from temporary positions to permanent positions.[95] Another study on gender and unemployment found that men, however, are more likely to experience greater stress, depression, and adverse effects from unemployment, largely stemming from the perceived threat to their role as breadwinner.[96] The study found that men expect themselves to be viewed as "less manly" after a job loss than they actually are and so they engage in compensating behaviors, such as financial risk-taking and increased assertiveness. Unemployment has been linked to extremely adverse effects on men's mental health.[97] Professor Ian Hickie of the University of Sydney said that evidence showed that men have more restricted social networks than women and that men have are heavily work-based. Therefore, the loss of a job for men means the loss of a whole set of social connections as well. That loss can then lead to men becoming socially isolated very quickly.[98]
+
+Costs of unemployment also vary depending on age. The young and the old are the two largest age groups currently experiencing unemployment.[99] A 2007 study from Jacob and Kleinert found that young people (ages 18 to 24) who have fewer resources and limited work experiences are more likely to be unemployed.[100] Other researchers have found that today's high school seniors place a lower value on work than those in the past, which is likely because they recognize the limited availability of jobs.[101] At the other end of the age spectrum, studies have found that older individuals have more barriers than younger workers to employment, require stronger social networks to acquire work, and are also less likely to move from temporary to permanent positions.[95][99] Additionally, some older people see age discrimination as the reason for them not getting hired.[102]
+
+An economy with high unemployment is not using all of the resources, specifically labour, available to it. Since it is operating below its production possibility frontier, it could have higher output if all of the workforce were usefully employed. However, there is a tradeoff between economic efficiency and unemployment: if all frictionally unemployed accepted the first job that they were offered, they would be likely to be operating at below their skill level, reducing the economy's efficiency.[103]
+
+During a long period of unemployment, workers can lose their skills, causing a loss of human capital. Being unemployed can also reduce the life expectancy of workers by about seven years.[8]
+
+High unemployment can encourage xenophobia and protectionism since workers fear that foreigners are stealing their jobs.[104] Efforts to preserve existing jobs of domestic and native workers include legal barriers against "outsiders" who want jobs, obstacles to immigration, and/or tariffs and similar trade barriers against foreign competitors.
+
+High unemployment can also cause social problems such as crime. If people have less disposable income than before, it is very likely that crime levels within the economy will increase.
+
+A 2015 study published in The Lancet, estimates that unemployment causes 45,000 suicides a year globally.[105]
+
+High levels of unemployment can be causes of civil unrest,[106] in some cases leading to revolution, particularly totalitarianism. The fall of the Weimar Republic in 1933 and Adolf Hitler's rise to power, which culminated in World War II and the deaths of tens of millions and the destruction of much of the physical capital of Europe, is attributed to the poor economic conditions in Germany at the time, notably a high unemployment rate[107] of above 20%; see Great Depression in Central Europe for details.
+
+However the hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic is not directly blamed for the Nazi rise. Hyperinflation occurred primarily in 1921 to 1923, the year of Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch. Although hyperinflation has been blamed for damaging the credibility of democratic institutions, the Nazis did not assume government until 1933, ten years after the hyperinflation but in the midst of high unemployment.
+
+Rising unemployment has traditionally been regarded by the public and the media in any country as a key guarantor of electoral defeat for any government that oversees it. That was very much the consensus in the United Kingdom until 1983, when Thatcher's Conservative government won a landslide in the general election, despite overseeing a rise in unemployment from 1.5 million to 3.2 million since the 1979 election.[108]
+
+The primary benefit of unemployment is that people are available for hire, without being headhunted away from their existing employers. That permits both new and old businesses to take on staff.
+
+Unemployment is argued to be "beneficial" to the people who are not unemployed in the sense that it averts inflation, which itself has damaging effects, by providing (in Marxian terms) a reserve army of labour, which keeps wages in check.[109] However, the direct connection between full local employment and local inflation has been disputed by some because of the recent increase in international trade that supplies low-priced goods even while local employment rates rise to full employment.[110]
+
+Full employment cannot be achieved because workers would shirk if they were not threatened with the possibility of unemployment.[111] The curve for the no-shirking condition (labelled NSC) thus goes to infinity at full employment. The inflation-fighting benefits to the entire economy arising from a presumed optimum level of unemployment have been studied extensively.[112] The Shapiro–Stiglitz model suggests that wages never bid down sufficiently to reach 0% unemployment.[113] That occurs because employers know that when wages decrease, workers will shirk and expend less effort. Employers avoid shirking by preventing wages from decreasing so low that workers give up and become unproductive. The higher wages perpetuate unemployment, but the threat of unemployment reduces shirking.
+
+Before current levels of world trade were developed, unemployment was shown to reduce inflation, following the Phillips curve, or to decelerate inflation, following the NAIRU/natural rate of unemployment theory since it is relatively easy to seek a new job without losing a current job. When more jobs are available for fewer workers (lower unemployment), that may allow workers to find the jobs that better fit their tastes, talents and needs.
+
+As in the Marxian theory of unemployment, special interests may also benefit. Some employers may expect that employees with no fear of losing their jobs will not work as hard or will demand increased wages and benefit. According to that theory, unemployment may promote general labour productivity and profitability by increasing employers' rationale for their monopsony-like power (and profits).[27]
+
+Optimal unemployment has also been defended as an environmental tool to brake the constantly-accelerated growth of the GDP to maintain levels that are sustainable in the context of resource constraints and environmental impacts.[114] However, the tool of denying jobs to willing workers seems a blunt instrument for conserving resources and the environment. It reduces the consumption of the unemployed across the board and only in the short term. Full employment of the unemployed workforce, all focused toward the goal of developing more environmentally-efficient methods for production and consumption, might provide a more significant and lasting cumulative environmental benefit and reduced resource consumption.[115]
+
+Some critics of the "culture of work" such as the anarchist Bob Black see employment as culturallly overemphasized in modern countries. Such critics often propose quitting jobs when possible, working less, reassessing the cost of living to that end, creation of jobs that are "fun" as opposed to "work," and creating cultural norms in which work is seen as unhealthy. These people advocate an "anti-work" ethic for life.[116]
+
+As a result of productivity, the work week declined considerably during the 19th century.[117][118] By the 1920s, the average workweek in the US was 49 hours, but it was reduced to 40 hours (after which overtime premium was applied) as part of the 1933 National Industrial Recovery Act. During the Great Depression, the enormous productivity gains caused by electrification, mass production, and agricultural mechanization were believed to have ended the need for a large number of previously-employed workers.[21][119]
+
+Societies try a number of different measures to get as many people as possible into work, and various societies have experienced close to full employment for extended periods, particularly during the post-World War II economic expansion. The United Kingdom in the 1950s and 1960s averaged 1.6% unemployment,[121] and in Australia, the 1945 White Paper on Full Employment in Australia established a government policy of full employment, which lasted until the 1970s.[122]
+
+However, mainstream economic discussions of full employment since the 1970s suggest that attempts to reduce the level of unemployment below the natural rate of unemployment will fail but result only in less output and more inflation.
+
+Increases in the demand for labour move the economy along the demand curve, increasing wages and employment. The demand for labour in an economy is derived from the demand for goods and services. As such, if the demand for goods and services in the economy increases, the demand for labour will increase, increasing employment and wages.
+
+There are many ways to stimulate demand for goods and services. Increasing wages to the working class (those more likely to spend the increased funds on goods and services, rather than various types of savings or commodity purchases) is one theory that is proposed. Increased wages are believed to be more effective in boosting demand for goods and services than central banking strategies, which put the increased money supply mostly into the hands of wealthy persons and institutions. Monetarists suggest that increasing money supply in general increases short-term demand. As for the long-term demand, the increased demand is negated by inflation. A rise in fiscal expenditures is another strategy for boosting aggregate demand.
+
+Providing aid to the unemployed is a strategy that is used to prevent cutbacks in consumption of goods and services, which can lead to a vicious cycle of further job losses and further decreases in consumption and demand. Many countries aid the unemployed through social welfare programs. Such unemployment benefits include unemployment insurance, unemployment compensation, welfare, and subsidies to aid in retraining. The main goal of such programs is to alleviate short-term hardships and, more importantly, to allow workers more time to search for a job.
+
+A direct demand-side solution to unemployment is government-funded employment of the able-bodied poor. This was notably implemented in Britain from the 17th century until 1948 in the institution of the workhouse, which provided jobs for the unemployed with harsh conditions and poor wages to dissuade their use. A modern alternative is a job guarantee in which the government guarantees work at a living wage.
+
+Temporary measures can include public works programs such as the Works Progress Administration. Government-funded employment is not widely advocated as a solution to unemployment except in times of crisis. That is attributed to the public sector jobs' existence depending directly on the tax receipts from private sector employment.
+
+In the US, the unemployment insurance allowance is based solely on previous income (not time worked, family size, etc.) and usually compensates for one third of previous income. To qualify, people must reside in their respective state for at least a year and work. The system was established by the Social Security Act of 1935. Although 90% of citizens are covered by unemployment insurance, less than 40% apply for and receive benefits.[123] However, the number applying for and receiving benefits increases during recessions. For highly-seasonal industries, the system provides income to workers during the off-season, thus encouraging them to stay attached to the industry.
+
+According to classical economic theory, markets reach equilibrium where supply equals demand; everyone who wants to sell at the market price can do so. Those who do not want to sell at that price do not; in the labour market, this is classical unemployment. Monetary policy and fiscal policy can both be used to increase short-term growth in the economy, increasing the demand for labour and decreasing unemployment.
+
+However, the labor market is not 100% efficient although it may be more efficient than the bureaucracy. Some argue that minimum wages and union activity keep wages from falling, which means that too many people want to sell their labour at the going price but cannot. That assumes perfect competition exists in the labour market, specifically that no single entity is large enough to affect wage levels and that employees are similar in ability.
+
+Advocates of supply-side policies believe those policies can solve the problem by making the labour market more flexible. These include removing the minimum wage and reducing the power of unions. Supply-siders argue that their reforms increase long-term growth by reducing labour costs. The increased supply of goods and services requires more workers, increasing employment. It is argued that supply-side policies, which include cutting taxes on businesses and reducing regulation, create jobs, reduce unemployment, and decrease labor's share of national income. Other supply-side policies include education to make workers more attractive to employers.
+
+There are relatively limited historical records on unemployment because it has not always been acknowledged or measured systematically. Industrialization involves economies of scale, which often prevent individuals from having the capital to create their own jobs to be self-employed. An individual who cannot join an enterprise or create a job is unemployed. As individual farmers, ranchers, spinners, doctors and merchants are organized into large enterprises, those who cannot join or compete become unemployed.
+
+Recognition of unemployment occurred slowly as economies across the world industrialized and bureaucratized. Before then, traditional self-sufficient native societies have no concept of unemployment. The recognition of the concept of "unemployment" is best exemplified through the well documented historical records in England. For example, in 16th-century England no distinction was made between vagrants and the jobless; both were simply categorized as "sturdy beggars", who were to be punished and moved on.[125]
+
+The closing of the monasteries in the 1530s increased poverty, as the Roman Catholic Church had helped the poor. In addition, there was a significant rise in enclosures during the Tudor period. Also, the population was rising. Those unable to find work had a stark choice: starve or break the law. In 1535, a bill was drawn up calling for the creation of a system of public works to deal with the problem of unemployment, which were to be funded by a tax on income and capital. A law that was passed a year later allowed vagabonds to be whipped and hanged.[126]
+
+In 1547, a bill was passed that subjected vagrants to some of the more extreme provisions of the criminal law: two years' servitude and branding with a "V" as the penalty for the first offense and death for the second.[127] During the reign of Henry VIII, as many as 72,000 people are estimated to have been executed.[128] In the 1576 Act, each town was required to provide work for the unemployed.[129]
+
+The Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601, one of the world's first government-sponsored welfare programs, made a clear distinction between those who were unable to work and those able-bodied people who refused employment.[130] Under the Poor Law systems of England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a workhouse was a place For people unable to support themselves could go to live and work.[131]
+
+Poverty was a highly visible problem in the eighteenth century, both in cities and in the countryside. In France and Britain by the end of the century, an estimated 10 percent of the people depended on charity or begging for their food.
+
+By 1776, some 1,912 parish and corporation workhouses had been established in England and Wales and housed almost 100,000 paupers.
+
+A description of the miserable living standards of the mill workers in England in 1844 was given by Fredrick Engels in The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844.[132] In the preface to the 1892 edition, Engels noted that the extreme poverty he had written about in 1844 had largely disappeared. David Ames Wells also noted that living conditions in England had improved near the end of the 19th century and that unemployment was low.
+
+The scarcity and the high price of labor in the US in the 19th century was well documented by contemporary accounts, as in the following:
+
+"The laboring classes are comparatively few in number, but this is counterbalanced by, and indeed, may be one of the causes of the eagerness by which they call in the use of machinery in almost every department of industry. Wherever it can be applied as a substitute for manual labor, it is universally and willingly resorted to.... It is this condition of the labor market, and this eager resort to machinery wherever it can be applied, to which, under the guidance of superior education and intelligence, the remarkable prosperity of the United States is due."[133] Joseph Whitworth, 1854
+
+Scarcity of labor was a factor in the economics of slavery in the United States.
+
+As new territories were opened and federal land sales were conducted, land had to be cleared and new homesteads established. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants annually came to the US and found jobs digging canals and building railroads. Almost all work during most of the 19th century was done by hand or with horses, mules, or oxen since there was very little mechanization. The workweek during most of the 19th century was 60 hours. Unemployment at times was between one and two percent.
+
+The tight labor market was a factor in productivity gains by allowing workers to maintain or to increase their nominal wages during the secular deflation that caused real wages to rise at various times in the 19th century, especially in its final decades.[134]
+
+There were labor shortages during World War I.[21] Ford Motor Co. doubled wages to reduce turnover. After 1925, unemployment gradually began to rise.[135]
+
+The 1930s saw the Great Depression impact unemployment across the globe. One Soviet trading corporation in New York averaged 350 applications a day from Americans seeking jobs in the Soviet Union.[136] In Germany, the unemployment rate reached nearly 25% in 1932.[137]
+
+In some towns and cities in the northeast of England, unemployment reached as high as 70%; the national unemployment level peaked at more than 22% in 1932.[138] Unemployment in Canada reached 27% at the depth of the Depression in 1933.[139] In 1929, the U.S. unemployment rate averaged 3%.[140]
+
+In the US, the Works Progress Administration (1935–43) was the largest make-work program. It hired men (and some women) off the relief roles ("dole") typically for unskilled labor.[141]
+
+In Cleveland, Ohio, the unemployment rate was 60%; in Toledo, Ohio, it was 80%.[142] There were two million homeless people migrating across the United States.[142] Over three million unemployed young men were taken out of the cities and placed into more than 2600 work camps managed by the Civilian Conservation Corps.[143]
+
+Unemployment in the United Kingdom fell later in the 1930s as the Depression eased, and it remained low (in six figures) after World War II.
+
+Fredrick Mills found that in the US, 51% of the decline in work hours was due to the fall in production and 49% was from increased productivity.[144]
+
+By 1972, unemployment in the United Kingdom had crept back up above 1,000,000, and it was even higher by the end of the decade, with inflation also being high. Although the monetarist economic policies of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government saw inflation reduced after 1979, unemployment soared in the early 1980s and in 1982, it exceeded 3,000,000, a level that had not not seen for some 50 years. That represented one in eight of the workforce, with unemployment exceeding 20% in some places that had relied on declining industries such as coal mining.[145]
+
+However, it was a time of high unemployment in all other major industrialised nations as well.[146] By the spring of 1983, unemployment had risen by 6% in the previous 12 months, compared to 10% in Japan, 23% in the US, and 34% in West Germany (seven years before Reunification).[147]
+
+Unemployment in the United Kingdom remained above 3,000,000 until the spring of 1987, when the economy enjoyed a boom.[145] By the end of 1989, unemployment had fallen to 1,600,000. However, inflation had reached 7.8%, and the following year, it reached a nine-year high of 9.5%; leading to increased interest rates.[148]
+
+Another recession occurred from 1990 to 1992. Unemployment began to increase, and by the end of 1992, nearly 3,000,000 in the United Kingdom were unemployed, a number that was soon lowered by a strong economic recovery.[145] With inflation down to 1.6% by 1993, unemployment then began to fall rapidly and stood at 1,800,000 by early 1997.[149]
+
+The official unemployment rate in the 16 European Union (EU) countries that use the euro rose to 10% in December 2009 as a result of another recession.[150] Latvia had the highest unemployment rate in the EU, at 22.3% for November 2009.[151] Europe's young workers have been especially hard hit.[152] In November 2009, the unemployment rate in the EU27 for those aged 15–24 was 18.3%. For those under 25, the unemployment rate in Spain was 43.8%.[153] Unemployment has risen in two thirds of European countries since 2010.[154]
+
+Into the 21st century, unemployment in the United Kingdom remained low and the economy remaining strong, and several other European economies, such as France and Germany, experienced a minor recession and a substantial rise in unemployment.[155]
+
+In 2008, when the recession brought on another increase in the United Kingdom, after 15 years of economic growth and no major rises in unemployment.[156] In early 2009, unemployment passed the 2 million mark, and economists were predicting it would soon reach 3 million.[157] However, the end of the recession was declared in January 2010[158] and unemployment peaked at nearly 2.7 million in 2011,[159] appearing to ease fears of unemployment reaching 3 million.[160] The unemployment rate of Britain's young black people was 47.4% in 2011.[161] 2013/2014 has seen the employment rate increase from 1,935,836 to 2,173,012 as supported by[162] showing the UK is creating more job opportunities and forecasts the rate of increase in 2014/2015 will be another 7.2%.[163]
+
+The 2008–2012 global recession has been called a "mancession" because of the disproportionate number of men who lost their jobs as compared to women. The gender gap became wide in the United States in 2009, when 10.5% of men in the labor force were unemployed, compared with 8% of women.[164][165] Three quarters of the jobs that were lost in the recession in the US were held by men.[166][167]
+
+A 26 April 2005 Asia Times article noted, "In regional giant South Africa, some 300,000 textile workers have lost their jobs in the past two years due to the influx of Chinese goods".[168] The increasing US trade deficit with China cost 2.4 million American jobs between 2001–2008, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).[169] From 2000–2007, the United States lost a total of 3.2 million manufacturing jobs.[170] 12.1% of US military veterans who had served after the September 11 attacks in 2001 were unemployed as of 2011; 29.1% of male veterans aged 18–24 were unemployed.[84] As of September 2016, the total veteran unemployment rate was 4.3 percent. By September 2017, that figure had dropped to 3 percent.[171]
+
+About 25,000,000 people in the world's 30 richest countries lost their jobs between the end of 2007 and the end of 2010, as the economic downturn pushed most countries into recession.[172] In April 2010, the US unemployment rate was 9.9%, but the government's broader U-6 unemployment rate was 17.1%.[173] In April 2012, the unemployment rate was 4.6% in Japan.[174] In a 2012 story, the Financial Post reported, "Nearly 75 million youth are unemployed around the world, an increase of more than 4 million since 2007. In the European Union, where a debt crisis followed the financial crisis, the youth unemployment rate rose to 18% last year from 12.5% in 2007, the ILO report shows."[175] In March 2018, according to US Unemployment Rate Statistics, the unemployment rate was 4.1%, below the 4.5–5.0% norm.[176]
+
+Quotations related to unemployment at Wikiquote
+ The dictionary definition of unemployment at Wiktionary
+
+
+

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+Heterodox
+
+Unemployment, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), is persons above a specified age (usually above 15)[2] not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the reference period.[3]
+
+Unemployment is measured by the unemployment rate as the number of people who are unemployed as a percentage of the labour force (the total number of people employed added to those unemployed).[4]
+
+Unemployment can have many sources, such as the following:
+
+Unemployment and the status of the economy can be influenced by a country through, for example, fiscal policy. Furthermore, the monetary authority of a country, such as the central bank, can influence the availability and cost for money through its monetary policy.
+
+In addition to theories of unemployment, a few categorisations of unemployment are used for more precisely modelling the effects of unemployment within the economic system. Some of the main types of unemployment include structural unemployment, frictional unemployment, cyclical unemployment, involuntary unemployment and classical unemployment. Structural unemployment focuses on foundational problems in the economy and inefficiencies inherent in labor markets, including a mismatch between the supply and demand of laborers with necessary skill sets. Structural arguments emphasize causes and solutions related to disruptive technologies and globalization. Discussions of frictional unemployment focus on voluntary decisions to work based on individuals' valuation of their own work and how that compares to current wage rates added to the time and effort required to find a job. Causes and solutions for frictional unemployment often address job entry threshold and wage rates.
+
+Globally, 172 million people globally or 5% of the reported workforce of the world were without a job in 2018, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO).[5]
+
+Because of the difficulty to measure the unemployment rate by for example using surveys like in the United States or through registered unemployed citizens like in some countries in Europe countries, statistical figures such as the employment-to-population ratio could be better suited to evaluate the status of the workforce and the economy if they would be based on people who are registered as, for example, taxpayer.[6]
+
+The state of being without any work yet looking for work is called unemployment. Economists distinguish between various overlapping types of and theories of unemployment, including cyclical or Keynesian unemployment, frictional unemployment, structural unemployment and classical unemployment. Some additional types of unemployment that are occasionally mentioned are seasonal unemployment, hardcore unemployment, and hidden unemployment.
+
+Though there have been several definitions of "voluntary" and "involuntary unemployment" in the economics literature, a simple distinction is often applied. Voluntary unemployment is attributed to the individual's decisions, but involuntary unemployment exists because of the socio-economic environment (including the market structure, government intervention, and the level of aggregate demand) in which individuals operate. In these terms, much or most of frictional unemployment is voluntary since it reflects individual search behavior. Voluntary unemployment includes workers who reject low-wage jobs, but involuntary unemployment includes workers fired because of an economic crisis, industrial decline, company bankruptcy, or organizational restructuring.
+
+On the other hand, cyclical unemployment, structural unemployment, and classical unemployment are largely involuntary in nature. However, the existence of structural unemployment may reflect choices made by the unemployed in the past, and classical (natural) unemployment may result from the legislative and economic choices made by labour unions or political parties.
+
+The clearest cases of involuntary unemployment are those with fewer job vacancies than unemployed workers even when wages are allowed to adjust and so even if all vacancies were to be filled, some unemployed workers would still remain. That happens with cyclical unemployment, as macroeconomic forces cause microeconomic unemployment, which can boomerang back and exacerbate those macroeconomic forces.
+
+Classical, or real-wage, unemployment, occurs when real wages for a job are set above the market-clearing level, causing the number of job-seekers to exceed the number of vacancies. On the other hand, most economists argue that as wages fall below a livable wage, many choose to drop out of the labor market and no longer seek employment. That is especially true in countries in which low-income families are supported through public welfare systems. In such cases, wages would have to be high enough to motivate people to choose employment over what they receive through public welfare. Wages below a livable wage are likely to result in lower labor market participation in the above-stated scenario. In addition, consumption of goods and services is the primary driver of increased demand for labor. Higher wages lead to workers having more income available to consume goods and services. Therefore, higher wages increase general consumption and as a result demand for labor increases and unemployment decreases.
+
+Many economists have argued that unemployment increases with increased governmental regulation. For example, minimum wage laws raise the cost of some low-skill laborers above market equilibrium, resulting in increased unemployment as people who wish to work at the going rate cannot (as the new and higher enforced wage is now greater than the value of their labour).[7][8] Laws restricting layoffs may make businesses less likely to hire in the first place, as hiring becomes more risky.[8]
+
+However, that argument overly simplifies the relationship between wage rates and unemployment by ignoring numerous factors that contribute to unemployment.[9][10][11][12][13] Some, such as Murray Rothbard, suggest that even social taboos can prevent wages from falling to the market-clearing level.[14]
+
+In Out of Work: Unemployment and Government in the Twentieth-Century America, economists Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway argue that the empirical record of wages rates, productivity, and unemployment in America validates classical unemployment theory. Their data shows a strong correlation between adjusted real wage and unemployment in the United States from 1900 to 1990. However, they maintain that their data does not take into account exogenous events.[15]
+
+Cyclical, deficient-demand, or Keynesian unemployment occurs when there is not enough aggregate demand in the economy to provide jobs for everyone who wants to work. Demand for most goods and services falls, less production is needed and consequently fewer workers are needed, wages are sticky and do not fall to meet the equilibrium level, and unemployment results.[16] Its name is derived from the frequent ups and downs in the business cycle, but unemployment can also be persistent, such as during the Great Depression.
+
+With cyclical unemployment, the number of unemployed workers exceeds the number of job vacancies and so even if all open jobs were filled, some workers would still remain unemployed. Some associate cyclical unemployment with frictional unemployment because the factors that cause the friction are partially caused by cyclical variables. For example, a surprise decrease in the money supply may suddenly inhibit aggregate demand and thus inhibit labor demand.
+
+Keynesian economists, on the other hand, see the lack of supply of jobs as potentially resolvable by government intervention. One suggested intervention involves deficit spending to boost employment and goods demand. Another intervention involves an expansionary monetary policy to increase  the supply of money, which should reduce interest rates, which, in turn, should lead to an increase in non-governmental spending.[17]
+
+In demand-based theory, it is possible to abolish cyclical unemployment by increasing the aggregate demand for products and workers. However, the economy eventually hits an "inflation barrier" that is imposed by the four other kinds of unemployment to the extent that they exist. Historical experience suggests that low unemployment affects inflation in the short term but not the long term.[18] In the long term, the velocity of money supply measures such as the MZM ("money zero maturity", representing cash and equivalent demand deposits) velocity is far more predictive of inflation than low unemployment.[19][20]
+
+Some demand theory economists see the inflation barrier as corresponding to the natural rate of unemployment. The "natural" rate of unemployment is defined as the rate of unemployment that exists when the labour market is in equilibrium, and there is pressure for neither rising inflation rates nor falling inflation rates. An alternative technical term for that rate is the NAIRU, the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment. Whatever its name, demand theory holds that if the unemployment rate gets "too low," inflation will accelerate in the absence of wage and price controls (incomes policies).
+
+One of the major problems with the NAIRU theory is that no one knows exactly what the NAIRU is, and it clearly changes over time.[18] The margin of error can be quite high relative to the actual unemployment rate, making it hard to use the NAIRU in policy-making.[19]
+
+Another, normative, definition of full employment might be called the ideal unemployment rate. It would exclude all types of unemployment that represent forms of inefficiency. This type of "full employment" unemployment would correspond to only frictional unemployment (excluding that part encouraging the McJobs management strategy) and so would be very low. However, it would be impossible to attain this full-employment target using only demand-side Keynesian stimulus without getting below the NAIRU and causing accelerating inflation (absent incomes policies). Training programs aimed at fighting structural unemployment would help here.
+
+To the extent that hidden unemployment exists, it implies that official unemployment statistics provide a poor guide to what unemployment rate coincides with "full employment."[18]
+
+Structural unemployment occurs when a labour market is unable to provide jobs for everyone who wants one because there is a mismatch between the skills of the unemployed workers and the skills needed for the available jobs. Structural unemployment is hard to separate empirically from frictional unemployment except that it lasts longer. As with frictional unemployment, simple demand-side stimulus will not work to abolish this type of unemployment easily.
+
+Structural unemployment may also be encouraged to rise by persistent cyclical unemployment: if an economy suffers from longlasting low aggregate demand, it means that many of the unemployed become disheartened, and their skills (including job-searching skills) become "rusty" and obsolete. Problems with debt may lead to homelessness and a fall into the vicious circle of poverty.
+
+That means that they may not fit the job vacancies that are created when the economy recovers. The implication is that sustained high demand may lower structural unemployment. This theory of persistence in structural unemployment has been referred to as an example of path dependence or "hysteresis."
+
+Much technological unemployment,[21] caused by the replacement of workers by machines might be counted as structural unemployment. Alternatively, technological unemployment might refer to the way in which steady increases in labour productivity mean that fewer workers are needed to produce the same level of output every year. The fact that aggregate demand can be raised to deal with the problem suggests that the problem is instead one of cyclical unemployment. As indicated by Okun's law, the demand side must grow sufficiently quickly to absorb not only the growing labour force but also the workers who are made redundant by the increased labour productivity.
+
+Seasonal unemployment may be seen as a kind of structural unemployment since it is linked to certain kinds of jobs (construction and migratory farm work). The most-cited official unemployment measures erase this kind of unemployment from the statistics using "seasonal adjustment" techniques. That results in substantial and permanent structural unemployment.
+
+Frictional unemployment is the time period between jobs in which a worker searches for or transitions from one job to another. It is sometimes called search unemployment and can be voluntary, based on the circumstances of the unemployed individual. Frictional unemployment exists because both jobs and workers are heterogeneous, and a mismatch can result between the characteristics of supply and demand. Such a mismatch can be related to skills, payment, work-time, location, seasonal industries, attitude, taste, and a multitude of other factors. New entrants (such as graduating students) and re-entrants (such as former homemakers) can also suffer a spell of frictional unemployment.
+
+Workers and employers accept a certain level of imperfection, risk or compromise, but usually not right away. They will invest some time and effort to find a better match. That is, in fact, beneficial to the economy since it results in a better allocation of resources. However, if the search takes too long and mismatches are too frequent, the economy suffers since some work will not get done. Therefore, governments will seek ways to reduce unnecessary frictional unemployment by multiple means including providing education, advice, training, and assistance such as daycare centers.
+
+The frictions in the labour market are sometimes illustrated graphically with a Beveridge curve, a downward-sloping, convex curve that shows a correlation between the unemployment rate on one axis and the vacancy rate on the other. Changes in the supply of or demand for labour cause movements along the curve. An increase or decrease in labour market frictions will shift the curve outwards or inwards.
+
+Official statistics often underestimate unemployment rates because of hidden, or covered, unemployment. That is the unemployment of potential workers that are not reflected in official unemployment statistics because of how the statistics are collected. In many countries, only those who have no work but are actively looking for work and/or qualifying for social security benefits are counted as unemployed. Those who have given up looking for work and sometimes those who are on government "retraining" programs are not officially counted among the unemployed even though they are not employed.
+
+Hidden unemployment often is caused by the state's deliberate manipulations to make statistics about the country look better especially for international propaganda purposes, as was a common practice in the Soviet Union and its satellite states under the Warsaw Pact. Especially in those countries, it is often referred to as agrarian unemployment since it often occurred in agricultural sectors, mostly in rural areas.[22] It was commonly done in a form of early retirement because of lack of vacant jobs for those who had not reached the retirement age or often a situation in which increasing the number of employees did not increase the production (creating fake vacancies on paper for people with whom they did not know what to do, how to use their potential workforce but not admitting to that inability and paying out the diminutive wages for them to pretend to work and remain silent), thus rendering the overall productivity close to zero. It was a very common problem and one of the main reasons for the economic crisis leading to the common people's strikes that later on led to governments responding with martial law state in places like Poland, and the eventual downfall of USSR and Soviet occupation over the rest of the subjugated states under the Warsaw Pact.
+
+The statistic also does not count the "underemployed", those working fewer hours than they would prefer or in a job that fails to make good use of their capabilities. In addition, those who are of working age but are currently in full-time education are usually not considered unemployed in government statistics. Traditional unemployed native societies who survive by gathering, hunting, herding, and farming in wilderness areas may or may not be counted in unemployment statistics.
+
+Long-term unemployment (LTU) is defined in European Union statistics as unemployment lasting for longer than one year (while unemployment lasting over two years is defined as very long-term unemployment). The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which reports current long-term unemployment rate at 1.9 percent, defines this as unemployment lasting 27 weeks or longer. Long-term unemployment is a component of structural unemployment, which results in long-term unemployment existing in every social group, industry, occupation, and all levels of education.[23]
+
+In 2015 the European Commission published recommendations on how to reduce long-term unemployment.[24] These advised governments to:
+
+In 2017–2019 it implemented the Long-Term Unemployment project to research solutions implemented by EU member states and produce a toolkit[25] to guide government action. Progress was evaluated[26] in 2019.
+
+It is in the very nature of the capitalist mode of production to overwork some workers while keeping the rest as a reserve army of unemployed paupers.
+
+Marxists share the Keynesian viewpoint of the relationship between economic demand and employment, but with the caveat that the market system's propensity to slash wages and reduce labor participation on an enterprise level causes a requisite decrease in aggregate demand in the economy as a whole, causing crises of unemployment and periods of low economic activity before the capital accumulation (investment) phase of economic growth can continue. According to Karl Marx, unemployment is inherent within the unstable capitalist system and periodic crises of mass unemployment are to be expected. He theorized that unemployment was inevitable and even a necessary part of the capitalist system, with recovery and regrowth also part of the process.[28] The function of the proletariat within the capitalist system is to provide a "reserve army of labour" that creates downward pressure on wages. This is accomplished by dividing the proletariat into surplus labour (employees) and under-employment (unemployed).[29] This reserve army of labour fight among themselves for scarce jobs at lower and lower wages. At first glance, unemployment seems inefficient since unemployed workers do not increase profits, but unemployment is profitable within the global capitalist system because unemployment lowers wages which are costs from the perspective of the owners. From this perspective low wages benefit the system by reducing economic rents. Yet, it does not benefit workers; according to Karl Marx, the workers (proletariat) work to benefit the bourgeoisie through their production of capital.[30] Capitalist systems unfairly manipulate the market for labour by perpetuating unemployment which lowers laborers' demands for fair wages. Workers are pitted against one another at the service of increasing profits for owners. As a result of the capitalist mode of production, Marx argued that workers experienced alienation and estrangement through their economic identity.[31] According to Marx, the only way to permanently eliminate unemployment would be to abolish capitalism and the system of forced competition for wages and then shift to a socialist or communist economic system. For contemporary Marxists, the existence of persistent unemployment is proof of the inability of capitalism to ensure full employment.[32]
+
+There are also different ways national statistical agencies measure unemployment. The differences may limit the validity of international comparisons of unemployment data.[33] To some degree, the differences remain despite national statistical agencies increasingly adopting the definition of unemployment of the International Labour Organization.[34] To facilitate international comparisons, some organizations, such as the OECD, Eurostat, and International Labor Comparisons Program, adjust data on unemployment for comparability across countries.
+
+Though many people care about the number of unemployed individuals, economists typically focus on the unemployment rate, which corrects for the normal increase in the number of people employed caused by increases in population and increases in the labour force relative to the population. The unemployment rate is expressed as a percentage and calculated as follows:
+
+As defined by the International Labour Organization, "unemployed workers" are those who are currently not working but are willing and able to work for pay, currently available to work, and have actively searched for work.[35]
+Individuals who are actively seeking job placement must make the effort to be in contact with an employer, have job interviews, contact job placement agencies, send out resumes, submit applications, respond to advertisements, or some other means of active job searching within the prior four weeks. Simply looking at advertisements and not responding will not count as actively seeking job placement. Since not all unemployment may be "open" and counted by government agencies, official statistics on unemployment may not be accurate.[36] In the United States, for example, the unemployment rate does not take into consideration those individuals who are not actively looking for employment, such as those who are still attending college.[37]
+
+According to the OECD, Eurostat, and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics the unemployment rate is the number of unemployed people as a percentage of the labour force.
+
+"An unemployed person is defined by Eurostat, according to the guidelines of the International Labour Organization, as:
+
+The labour force, or workforce, includes both employed (employees and self-employed) and unemployed people but not the economically inactive, such as pre-school children, school children, students and pensioners.[39]
+
+The unemployment rate of an individual country is usually calculated and reported on a monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis by the National Agency of Statistics. Organisations like the OECD report statistics for all of its member states.[40]
+
+Certain countries provide unemployment compensation for a certain period of time for unemployed citizens who are registered as unemployed at the government employment agency. Furthermore, pension receivables or claims could depend on the registration at the government employment agency.[41][42]
+
+In many countries like in Germany, the unemployment rate is based on the number of people who are registered as unemployed.[43] Other countries like the United States use a labour force survey to calculate the unemployment rate.[44][45]
+
+The ILO describes four different methods to calculate the unemployment rate:[46]
+
+The primary measure of unemployment, U3, allows for comparisons between countries. Unemployment differs from country to country and across different time periods. For example, in the 1990s and 2000s, the United States had lower unemployment levels than many countries in the European Union,[47] which had significant internal variation, with countries like the United Kingdom and Denmark outperforming Italy and France. However, large economic events like the Great Depression can lead to similar unemployment rates across the globe.
+
+In 2013, the ILO adopted a resolution to introduce new indicators to measure the unemployment rate.[48]
+
+x 100
+
+labour force) / (extended labour force)] × 100
+
+Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, defines unemployed as those persons between age 15 and 74 who are not working, have looked for work in the last four weeks, and are ready to start work within two weeks; this definition conforms to ILO standards. Both the actual count and the unemployment rate are reported. Statistical data are available by member state for the European Union as a whole (EU28) as well as for the eurozone (EA19). Eurostat also includes a long-term unemployment rate, which is defined as part of the unemployed who have been unemployed for more than one year.[49]
+
+The main source used is the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS). It collects data on all member states each quarter. For monthly calculations, national surveys or national registers from employment offices are used in conjunction with quarterly EU-LFS data. The exact calculation for individual countries, resulting in harmonized monthly data, depends on the availability of the data.[50]
+
+The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures employment and unemployment (of those over 17 years of age) by using two different labor force surveys[52] conducted by the United States Census Bureau (within the United States Department of Commerce) and/or the Bureau of Labor Statistics (within the United States Department of Labor) that gather employment statistics monthly. The Current Population Survey (CPS), or "Household Survey," conducts a survey based on a sample of 60,000 households. The survey measures the unemployment rate based on the ILO definition.[53]
+
+The Current Employment Statistics survey (CES), or "Payroll Survey," conducts a survey based on a sample of 160,000 businesses and government agencies, which represent 400,000 individual employers.[54] Since the survey measures only civilian nonagricultural employment, it does not calculate an unemployment rate, and it differs from the ILO unemployment rate definition. Both sources have different classification criteria and usually produce differing results. Additional data are also available from the government, such as the unemployment insurance weekly claims report available from the Office of Workforce Security, within the U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration.[55] The Bureau of Labor Statistics provides up-to-date numbers via a PDF linked here.[56] The BLS also provides a readable concise current Employment Situation Summary, updated monthly.[57]
+
+The Bureau of Labor Statistics also calculates six alternate measures of unemployment, U1 to U6, which measure different aspects of unemployment:[58]
+
+Note: "Marginally attached workers" are added to the total labour force for unemployment rate calculation for U4, U5, and U6. The BLS revised the CPS in 1994 and among the changes the measure representing the official unemployment rate was renamed U3 instead of U5.[61] In 2013, Representative Hunter proposed that the Bureau of Labor Statistics use the U5 rate instead of the current U3 rate.[62]
+
+Statistics for the US economy as a whole hide variations among groups. For example, in January 2008, the US unemployment rates were 4.4% for adult men, 4.2% for adult women, 4.4% for Caucasians, 6.3% for Hispanics or Latinos (all races), 9.2% for African Americans, 3.2% for Asian Americans, and 18.0% for teenagers.[54] Also, the US unemployment rate would be at least 2% higher if prisoners and jail inmates were counted.[63][64]
+
+The unemployment rate is included in a number of major economic indices including the US Conference Board's Index of Leading Indicators a macroeconomic measure of the state of the economy.
+
+Some critics believe that current methods of measuring unemployment are inaccurate in terms of the impact of unemployment on people as these methods do not take into account the 1.5% of the available working population incarcerated in US prisons (who may or may not be working while they are incarcerated); those who have lost their jobs and have become discouraged over time from actively looking for work; those who are self-employed or wish to become self-employed, such as tradesmen or building contractors or information technology consultants; those who have retired before the official retirement age but would still like to work (involuntary early retirees); those on disability pensions who do not possess full health but still wish to work in occupations that suitable for their medical conditions; or those who work for payment for as little as one hour per week but would like to work full time.[70]
+
+The last people are "involuntary part-time" workers, those who are underemployed, such as a computer programmer who is working in a retail store until he can find a permanent job, involuntary stay-at-home mothers who would prefer to work, and graduate and professional school students who are unable to find worthwhile jobs after they graduated with their bachelor's degrees.
+
+Internationally, some nations' unemployment rates are sometimes muted or appear less severe because of the number of self-employed individuals working in agriculture.[65] Small independent farmers are often considered self-employed and so cannot be unemployed. That can impact non-industrialized economies, such as the United States and Europe in the early 19th century, since overall unemployment was approximately 3% because so many individuals were self-employed, independent farmers; however, non-agricultural unemployment was as high as 80%.[65]
+
+Many economies industrialize and so experience increasing numbers of non-agricultural workers. For example, the United States' non-agricultural labour force increased from 20% in 1800 to 50% in 1850 and  97% in 2000.[65] The shift away from self-employment increases the percentage of the population that is included in unemployment rates. When unemployment rates between countries or time periods are compared, it is best to consider differences in their levels of industrialization and self-employment.
+
+Additionally, the measures of employment and unemployment may be "too high." In some countries, the availability of unemployment benefits can inflate statistics by giving an incentive to register as unemployed. People who do not seek work may choose to declare themselves unemployed to get benefits; people with undeclared paid occupations may try to get unemployment benefits in addition to the money that they earn from their work.[71]
+
+However, in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Japan, and the European Union, unemployment is measured using a sample survey (akin to a Gallup poll).[34] According to the BLS, a number of Eastern European nations have instituted labour force surveys as well. The sample survey has its own problems because the total number of workers in the economy is calculated based on a sample, rather than a census.
+
+It is possible to be neither employed nor unemployed by ILO definitions by being outside of the "labour force."[36] Such people have no job and are not looking for one. Many of them go to school or are retired. Family responsibilities keep others out of the labour force. Still others have a physical or mental disability that prevents them from participating in the labour force. Some people simply elect not to work and prefer to be dependent on others for sustenance.
+
+Typically, employment and the labour force include only work that is done for monetary gain. Hence, a homemaker is neither part of the labour force nor unemployed. Also, full-time students and prisoners are considered to be neither part of the labour force nor unemployed.[70] The number of prisoners can be important. In 1999, economists Lawrence F. Katz and Alan B. Krueger estimated that increased incarceration lowered measured unemployment in the United States by 0.17% between 1985 and the late 1990s.[70]
+
+In particular, as of 2005, roughly 0.7% of the US population is incarcerated (1.5% of the available working population). Additionally, children, the elderly, and some individuals with disabilities are typically not counted as part of the labour force and so are not included in the unemployment statistics. However, some elderly and many disabled individuals are active in the labour market.
+
+In the early stages of an economic boom, unemployment often rises.[16] That is because people join the labour market (give up studying, start a job hunt, etc.) as a result of the improving job market, but until they have actually found a position, they are counted as unemployed. Similarly, during a recession, the increase in the unemployment rate is moderated by people leaving the labour force or being otherwise discounted from the labour force, such as with the self-employed.
+
+For the fourth quarter of 2004, according to OECD (Employment Outlook 2005 ISBN 92-64-01045-9), normalized unemployment for men aged 25 to 54 was 4.6% in the US and 7.4% in France. At the same time and for the same population, the employment rate (number of workers divided by population) was 86.3% in the US and 86.7% in France. That example shows that the unemployment rate was 60% higher in France than in the US, but more people in that demographic were working in France than in the US, which is counterintuitive if it is expected that the unemployment rate reflects the health of the labour market.[72][73]
+
+Those deficiencies make many labour market economists prefer to look at a range of economic statistics such as labour market participation rate, the percentage of people between 15 and 64 who are currently employed or searching for employment, the total number of full-time jobs in an economy, the number of people seeking work as a raw number and not a percentage, and the total number of person-hours worked in a month compared to the total number of person-hours people would like to work. In particular, the National Bureau of Economic Research does not use the unemployment rate but prefers various employment rates to date recessions.[74]
+
+The labor force participation rate is the ratio between the labor force and the overall size of their cohort (national population of the same age range). In the West, during the later half of the 20th century, the labor force participation rate increased significantly because of an increase in the number of women entering the workplace.
+
+In the United States, there have been four significant stages of women's participation in the labour force: increases in the 20th century and decreases in the 21st century. Male labor force participation decreased from 1953 to 2013. Since October 2013, men have been increasingly joining the labour force.
+
+From the late 19th century to the 1920s, very few women worked outside the home. They were young single women who typically withdrew from the labor force at marriage unless family needed two incomes. Such women worked primarily in the textile manufacturing industry or as domestic workers. That profession empowered women and allowed them to earn a living wage. At times, they were a financial help to their families.
+
+Between 1930 and 1950, female labor force participation increased primarily because of the increased demand for office workers, women's participation in the high school movement, and electrification, which reduced the time that was spent on household chores. From the 1950s to the early 1970s, most women were secondary earners working mainly as secretaries, teachers, nurses, and librarians (pink-collar jobs).
+
+From the mid-1970s to the late 1990s, there was a period of revolution of women in the labor force brought on by various factors, many of which arose from the second-wave feminism movement. Women more accurately planned for their future in the work force by investing in more applicable majors in college that prepared them to enter and compete in the labor market. In the United States, the female labor force participation rate rose from approximately 33% in 1948 to a peak of 60.3% in 2000. As of April 2015, the female labor force participation is at 56.6%, the male labor force participation rate is at 69.4%, and the total is 62.8%.[75]
+
+A common theory in modern economics claims that the rise of women participating in the US labor force in the 1950s to the 1990s was caused by the introduction of a new contraceptive technology, birth control pills, as well as the adjustment of age of majority laws. The use of birth control gave women the flexibility of opting to invest and to advance their career while they maintained a relationship. By having control over the timing of their fertility, they were not running a risk of thwarting their career choices. However, only 40% of the population actually used the birth control pill.
+
+That implies that other factors may have contributed to women choosing to invest in advancing their careers. One factor may be that an increasing number of men delayed the age of marriage, which allowed women to marry later in life without them worrying about the quality of older men. Other factors include the changing nature of work, with machines replacing physical labor, thus eliminating many traditional male occupations, and the rise of the service sector in which many jobs are gender neutral.
+
+Another factor that may have contributed to the trend was the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex. Such legislation diminished sexual discrimination and encouraged more women to enter the labor market by receiving fair remuneration to help raising families and children.
+
+At the turn of the 21st century, the labor force participation began to reverse its long period of increase. Reasons for the change include a rising share of older workers, an increase in school enrollment rates among young workers, and a decrease in female labor force participation.[76]
+
+The labor force participation rate can decrease when the rate of growth of the population outweighs that of the employed and the unemployed together. The labor force participation rate is a key component in long-term economic growth, almost as important as productivity.
+
+A historic shift began around the end of the Great Recession as women began leaving the labor force in the United States and other developed countries. The female labor force participation rate in the United States has steadily decreased since 2009, and as of April 2015, the female labor force participation rate has gone back down to 1988 levels of 56.6%.[75]
+
+Participation rates are defined as follows:
+
+The labor force participation rate explains how an increase in the unemployment rate can occur simultaneously with an increase in employment. If a large number of new workers enter the labor force but only a small fraction become employed, then the increase in the number of unemployed workers can outpace the growth in employment.[77]
+
+The unemployment ratio calculates the share of unemployed for the whole population. Particularly, many young people between 15 and 24 are studying full-time and so are neither working nor looking for a job. That means that they are not part of the labor force, which is used as the denominator when the unemployment rate is calculated.[78] The youth unemployment ratios in the European Union range from 5.2 (Austria) to 20.6 percent (Spain). They are considerably lower than the standard youth unemployment rates, ranging from 7.9 (Germany) to 57.9 percent (Greece).[79]
+
+High and the persistent unemployment, in which economic inequality increases, has a negative effect on subsequent long-run economic growth. Unemployment can harm growth because it is a waste of resources; generates redistributive pressures and subsequent distortions; drives people to poverty; constrains liquidity limiting labor mobility; and erodes self-esteem promoting social dislocation, unrest, and conflict.[80] The 2013 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Robert J. Shiller, said that rising inequality in the United States and elsewhere is the most important problem.[81]
+
+Unemployed individuals are unable to earn money to meet financial obligations. Failure to pay mortgage payments or to pay rent may lead to homelessness through foreclosure or eviction.[82] Across the United States the growing ranks of people made homeless in the foreclosure crisis are generating tent cities.[83]
+
+Unemployment increases susceptibility to cardiovascular disease, somatization, anxiety disorders, depression, and suicide. In addition, unemployed people have higher rates of medication use, poor diet, physician visits, tobacco smoking, alcoholic beverage consumption, drug use, and lower rates of exercise.[84] According to a study published in Social Indicator Research, even those who tend to be optimistic find it difficult to look on the bright side of things when unemployed. Using interviews and data from German participants aged 16 to 94, including individuals coping with the stresses of real life and not just a volunteering student population, the researchers determined that even optimists struggled with being unemployed.[85]
+
+In 1979, M. Harvey Brenner found that for every 10% increase in the number of unemployed, there is an increase of 1.2% in total mortality, a 1.7% increase in cardiovascular disease, 1.3% more cirrhosis cases, 1.7% more suicides, 4.0% more arrests, and 0.8% more assaults reported to the police.[86][87]
+
+A study by Christopher Ruhm in 2000 on the effect of recessions on health found that several measures of health actually improve during recessions.[88] As for the impact of an economic downturn on crime, during the Great Depression, the crime rate did not decrease. The unemployed in the US often use welfare programs such as food stamps or accumulating debt because unemployment insurance in the US generally does not replace most of the income that was received on the job, and one cannot receive such aid indefinitely.
+
+Not everyone suffers equally from unemployment. In a prospective study of 9,570 individuals over four years, highly-conscientious people suffered more than twice as much if they became unemployed.[89] The authors suggested that may because of conscientious people making different attributions about why they became unemployed or through experiencing stronger reactions following failure. There is also the possibility of reverse causality from poor health to unemployment.[90]
+
+Some researchers hold that many of the low-income jobs are not really a better option than unemployment with a welfare state, with its unemployment insurance benefits. However, since it is difficult or impossible to get unemployment insurance benefits without having worked in the past, those jobs and unemployment are more complementary than they are substitutes. (They are often held short-term, either by students or by those trying to gain experience; turnover in most low-paying jobs is high.)
+
+Another cost for the unemployed is that the combination of unemployment, lack of financial resources, and social responsibilities may push unemployed workers to take jobs that do not fit their skills or allow them to use their talents. Unemployment can cause underemployment, and fear of job loss can spur psychological anxiety. As well as anxiety, it can cause depression, lack of confidence, and huge amounts of stress, which is increased when the unemployed are faced with health issues, poverty, and lack of relational support.[91]
+
+Another personal cost of unemployment is its impact on relationships. A 2008 study from Covizzi, which examined the relationship between unemployment and divorce, found that the rate of divorce is greater for couples when one partner is unemployed.[92] However, a more recent study has found that some couples often stick together in "unhappy" or "unhealthy" marriages when they are unemployed to buffer financial costs.[93] A 2014 study by Van der Meer found that the stigma that comes from being unemployed affects personal well-being, especially for men, who often feel as though their masculine identities are threatened by unemployment.[94]
+
+Unemployment can also bring personal costs in relation to gender. One study found that women are more likely to experience unemployment than men and that they are less likely to move from temporary positions to permanent positions.[95] Another study on gender and unemployment found that men, however, are more likely to experience greater stress, depression, and adverse effects from unemployment, largely stemming from the perceived threat to their role as breadwinner.[96] The study found that men expect themselves to be viewed as "less manly" after a job loss than they actually are and so they engage in compensating behaviors, such as financial risk-taking and increased assertiveness. Unemployment has been linked to extremely adverse effects on men's mental health.[97] Professor Ian Hickie of the University of Sydney said that evidence showed that men have more restricted social networks than women and that men have are heavily work-based. Therefore, the loss of a job for men means the loss of a whole set of social connections as well. That loss can then lead to men becoming socially isolated very quickly.[98]
+
+Costs of unemployment also vary depending on age. The young and the old are the two largest age groups currently experiencing unemployment.[99] A 2007 study from Jacob and Kleinert found that young people (ages 18 to 24) who have fewer resources and limited work experiences are more likely to be unemployed.[100] Other researchers have found that today's high school seniors place a lower value on work than those in the past, which is likely because they recognize the limited availability of jobs.[101] At the other end of the age spectrum, studies have found that older individuals have more barriers than younger workers to employment, require stronger social networks to acquire work, and are also less likely to move from temporary to permanent positions.[95][99] Additionally, some older people see age discrimination as the reason for them not getting hired.[102]
+
+An economy with high unemployment is not using all of the resources, specifically labour, available to it. Since it is operating below its production possibility frontier, it could have higher output if all of the workforce were usefully employed. However, there is a tradeoff between economic efficiency and unemployment: if all frictionally unemployed accepted the first job that they were offered, they would be likely to be operating at below their skill level, reducing the economy's efficiency.[103]
+
+During a long period of unemployment, workers can lose their skills, causing a loss of human capital. Being unemployed can also reduce the life expectancy of workers by about seven years.[8]
+
+High unemployment can encourage xenophobia and protectionism since workers fear that foreigners are stealing their jobs.[104] Efforts to preserve existing jobs of domestic and native workers include legal barriers against "outsiders" who want jobs, obstacles to immigration, and/or tariffs and similar trade barriers against foreign competitors.
+
+High unemployment can also cause social problems such as crime. If people have less disposable income than before, it is very likely that crime levels within the economy will increase.
+
+A 2015 study published in The Lancet, estimates that unemployment causes 45,000 suicides a year globally.[105]
+
+High levels of unemployment can be causes of civil unrest,[106] in some cases leading to revolution, particularly totalitarianism. The fall of the Weimar Republic in 1933 and Adolf Hitler's rise to power, which culminated in World War II and the deaths of tens of millions and the destruction of much of the physical capital of Europe, is attributed to the poor economic conditions in Germany at the time, notably a high unemployment rate[107] of above 20%; see Great Depression in Central Europe for details.
+
+However the hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic is not directly blamed for the Nazi rise. Hyperinflation occurred primarily in 1921 to 1923, the year of Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch. Although hyperinflation has been blamed for damaging the credibility of democratic institutions, the Nazis did not assume government until 1933, ten years after the hyperinflation but in the midst of high unemployment.
+
+Rising unemployment has traditionally been regarded by the public and the media in any country as a key guarantor of electoral defeat for any government that oversees it. That was very much the consensus in the United Kingdom until 1983, when Thatcher's Conservative government won a landslide in the general election, despite overseeing a rise in unemployment from 1.5 million to 3.2 million since the 1979 election.[108]
+
+The primary benefit of unemployment is that people are available for hire, without being headhunted away from their existing employers. That permits both new and old businesses to take on staff.
+
+Unemployment is argued to be "beneficial" to the people who are not unemployed in the sense that it averts inflation, which itself has damaging effects, by providing (in Marxian terms) a reserve army of labour, which keeps wages in check.[109] However, the direct connection between full local employment and local inflation has been disputed by some because of the recent increase in international trade that supplies low-priced goods even while local employment rates rise to full employment.[110]
+
+Full employment cannot be achieved because workers would shirk if they were not threatened with the possibility of unemployment.[111] The curve for the no-shirking condition (labelled NSC) thus goes to infinity at full employment. The inflation-fighting benefits to the entire economy arising from a presumed optimum level of unemployment have been studied extensively.[112] The Shapiro–Stiglitz model suggests that wages never bid down sufficiently to reach 0% unemployment.[113] That occurs because employers know that when wages decrease, workers will shirk and expend less effort. Employers avoid shirking by preventing wages from decreasing so low that workers give up and become unproductive. The higher wages perpetuate unemployment, but the threat of unemployment reduces shirking.
+
+Before current levels of world trade were developed, unemployment was shown to reduce inflation, following the Phillips curve, or to decelerate inflation, following the NAIRU/natural rate of unemployment theory since it is relatively easy to seek a new job without losing a current job. When more jobs are available for fewer workers (lower unemployment), that may allow workers to find the jobs that better fit their tastes, talents and needs.
+
+As in the Marxian theory of unemployment, special interests may also benefit. Some employers may expect that employees with no fear of losing their jobs will not work as hard or will demand increased wages and benefit. According to that theory, unemployment may promote general labour productivity and profitability by increasing employers' rationale for their monopsony-like power (and profits).[27]
+
+Optimal unemployment has also been defended as an environmental tool to brake the constantly-accelerated growth of the GDP to maintain levels that are sustainable in the context of resource constraints and environmental impacts.[114] However, the tool of denying jobs to willing workers seems a blunt instrument for conserving resources and the environment. It reduces the consumption of the unemployed across the board and only in the short term. Full employment of the unemployed workforce, all focused toward the goal of developing more environmentally-efficient methods for production and consumption, might provide a more significant and lasting cumulative environmental benefit and reduced resource consumption.[115]
+
+Some critics of the "culture of work" such as the anarchist Bob Black see employment as culturallly overemphasized in modern countries. Such critics often propose quitting jobs when possible, working less, reassessing the cost of living to that end, creation of jobs that are "fun" as opposed to "work," and creating cultural norms in which work is seen as unhealthy. These people advocate an "anti-work" ethic for life.[116]
+
+As a result of productivity, the work week declined considerably during the 19th century.[117][118] By the 1920s, the average workweek in the US was 49 hours, but it was reduced to 40 hours (after which overtime premium was applied) as part of the 1933 National Industrial Recovery Act. During the Great Depression, the enormous productivity gains caused by electrification, mass production, and agricultural mechanization were believed to have ended the need for a large number of previously-employed workers.[21][119]
+
+Societies try a number of different measures to get as many people as possible into work, and various societies have experienced close to full employment for extended periods, particularly during the post-World War II economic expansion. The United Kingdom in the 1950s and 1960s averaged 1.6% unemployment,[121] and in Australia, the 1945 White Paper on Full Employment in Australia established a government policy of full employment, which lasted until the 1970s.[122]
+
+However, mainstream economic discussions of full employment since the 1970s suggest that attempts to reduce the level of unemployment below the natural rate of unemployment will fail but result only in less output and more inflation.
+
+Increases in the demand for labour move the economy along the demand curve, increasing wages and employment. The demand for labour in an economy is derived from the demand for goods and services. As such, if the demand for goods and services in the economy increases, the demand for labour will increase, increasing employment and wages.
+
+There are many ways to stimulate demand for goods and services. Increasing wages to the working class (those more likely to spend the increased funds on goods and services, rather than various types of savings or commodity purchases) is one theory that is proposed. Increased wages are believed to be more effective in boosting demand for goods and services than central banking strategies, which put the increased money supply mostly into the hands of wealthy persons and institutions. Monetarists suggest that increasing money supply in general increases short-term demand. As for the long-term demand, the increased demand is negated by inflation. A rise in fiscal expenditures is another strategy for boosting aggregate demand.
+
+Providing aid to the unemployed is a strategy that is used to prevent cutbacks in consumption of goods and services, which can lead to a vicious cycle of further job losses and further decreases in consumption and demand. Many countries aid the unemployed through social welfare programs. Such unemployment benefits include unemployment insurance, unemployment compensation, welfare, and subsidies to aid in retraining. The main goal of such programs is to alleviate short-term hardships and, more importantly, to allow workers more time to search for a job.
+
+A direct demand-side solution to unemployment is government-funded employment of the able-bodied poor. This was notably implemented in Britain from the 17th century until 1948 in the institution of the workhouse, which provided jobs for the unemployed with harsh conditions and poor wages to dissuade their use. A modern alternative is a job guarantee in which the government guarantees work at a living wage.
+
+Temporary measures can include public works programs such as the Works Progress Administration. Government-funded employment is not widely advocated as a solution to unemployment except in times of crisis. That is attributed to the public sector jobs' existence depending directly on the tax receipts from private sector employment.
+
+In the US, the unemployment insurance allowance is based solely on previous income (not time worked, family size, etc.) and usually compensates for one third of previous income. To qualify, people must reside in their respective state for at least a year and work. The system was established by the Social Security Act of 1935. Although 90% of citizens are covered by unemployment insurance, less than 40% apply for and receive benefits.[123] However, the number applying for and receiving benefits increases during recessions. For highly-seasonal industries, the system provides income to workers during the off-season, thus encouraging them to stay attached to the industry.
+
+According to classical economic theory, markets reach equilibrium where supply equals demand; everyone who wants to sell at the market price can do so. Those who do not want to sell at that price do not; in the labour market, this is classical unemployment. Monetary policy and fiscal policy can both be used to increase short-term growth in the economy, increasing the demand for labour and decreasing unemployment.
+
+However, the labor market is not 100% efficient although it may be more efficient than the bureaucracy. Some argue that minimum wages and union activity keep wages from falling, which means that too many people want to sell their labour at the going price but cannot. That assumes perfect competition exists in the labour market, specifically that no single entity is large enough to affect wage levels and that employees are similar in ability.
+
+Advocates of supply-side policies believe those policies can solve the problem by making the labour market more flexible. These include removing the minimum wage and reducing the power of unions. Supply-siders argue that their reforms increase long-term growth by reducing labour costs. The increased supply of goods and services requires more workers, increasing employment. It is argued that supply-side policies, which include cutting taxes on businesses and reducing regulation, create jobs, reduce unemployment, and decrease labor's share of national income. Other supply-side policies include education to make workers more attractive to employers.
+
+There are relatively limited historical records on unemployment because it has not always been acknowledged or measured systematically. Industrialization involves economies of scale, which often prevent individuals from having the capital to create their own jobs to be self-employed. An individual who cannot join an enterprise or create a job is unemployed. As individual farmers, ranchers, spinners, doctors and merchants are organized into large enterprises, those who cannot join or compete become unemployed.
+
+Recognition of unemployment occurred slowly as economies across the world industrialized and bureaucratized. Before then, traditional self-sufficient native societies have no concept of unemployment. The recognition of the concept of "unemployment" is best exemplified through the well documented historical records in England. For example, in 16th-century England no distinction was made between vagrants and the jobless; both were simply categorized as "sturdy beggars", who were to be punished and moved on.[125]
+
+The closing of the monasteries in the 1530s increased poverty, as the Roman Catholic Church had helped the poor. In addition, there was a significant rise in enclosures during the Tudor period. Also, the population was rising. Those unable to find work had a stark choice: starve or break the law. In 1535, a bill was drawn up calling for the creation of a system of public works to deal with the problem of unemployment, which were to be funded by a tax on income and capital. A law that was passed a year later allowed vagabonds to be whipped and hanged.[126]
+
+In 1547, a bill was passed that subjected vagrants to some of the more extreme provisions of the criminal law: two years' servitude and branding with a "V" as the penalty for the first offense and death for the second.[127] During the reign of Henry VIII, as many as 72,000 people are estimated to have been executed.[128] In the 1576 Act, each town was required to provide work for the unemployed.[129]
+
+The Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601, one of the world's first government-sponsored welfare programs, made a clear distinction between those who were unable to work and those able-bodied people who refused employment.[130] Under the Poor Law systems of England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a workhouse was a place For people unable to support themselves could go to live and work.[131]
+
+Poverty was a highly visible problem in the eighteenth century, both in cities and in the countryside. In France and Britain by the end of the century, an estimated 10 percent of the people depended on charity or begging for their food.
+
+By 1776, some 1,912 parish and corporation workhouses had been established in England and Wales and housed almost 100,000 paupers.
+
+A description of the miserable living standards of the mill workers in England in 1844 was given by Fredrick Engels in The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844.[132] In the preface to the 1892 edition, Engels noted that the extreme poverty he had written about in 1844 had largely disappeared. David Ames Wells also noted that living conditions in England had improved near the end of the 19th century and that unemployment was low.
+
+The scarcity and the high price of labor in the US in the 19th century was well documented by contemporary accounts, as in the following:
+
+"The laboring classes are comparatively few in number, but this is counterbalanced by, and indeed, may be one of the causes of the eagerness by which they call in the use of machinery in almost every department of industry. Wherever it can be applied as a substitute for manual labor, it is universally and willingly resorted to.... It is this condition of the labor market, and this eager resort to machinery wherever it can be applied, to which, under the guidance of superior education and intelligence, the remarkable prosperity of the United States is due."[133] Joseph Whitworth, 1854
+
+Scarcity of labor was a factor in the economics of slavery in the United States.
+
+As new territories were opened and federal land sales were conducted, land had to be cleared and new homesteads established. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants annually came to the US and found jobs digging canals and building railroads. Almost all work during most of the 19th century was done by hand or with horses, mules, or oxen since there was very little mechanization. The workweek during most of the 19th century was 60 hours. Unemployment at times was between one and two percent.
+
+The tight labor market was a factor in productivity gains by allowing workers to maintain or to increase their nominal wages during the secular deflation that caused real wages to rise at various times in the 19th century, especially in its final decades.[134]
+
+There were labor shortages during World War I.[21] Ford Motor Co. doubled wages to reduce turnover. After 1925, unemployment gradually began to rise.[135]
+
+The 1930s saw the Great Depression impact unemployment across the globe. One Soviet trading corporation in New York averaged 350 applications a day from Americans seeking jobs in the Soviet Union.[136] In Germany, the unemployment rate reached nearly 25% in 1932.[137]
+
+In some towns and cities in the northeast of England, unemployment reached as high as 70%; the national unemployment level peaked at more than 22% in 1932.[138] Unemployment in Canada reached 27% at the depth of the Depression in 1933.[139] In 1929, the U.S. unemployment rate averaged 3%.[140]
+
+In the US, the Works Progress Administration (1935–43) was the largest make-work program. It hired men (and some women) off the relief roles ("dole") typically for unskilled labor.[141]
+
+In Cleveland, Ohio, the unemployment rate was 60%; in Toledo, Ohio, it was 80%.[142] There were two million homeless people migrating across the United States.[142] Over three million unemployed young men were taken out of the cities and placed into more than 2600 work camps managed by the Civilian Conservation Corps.[143]
+
+Unemployment in the United Kingdom fell later in the 1930s as the Depression eased, and it remained low (in six figures) after World War II.
+
+Fredrick Mills found that in the US, 51% of the decline in work hours was due to the fall in production and 49% was from increased productivity.[144]
+
+By 1972, unemployment in the United Kingdom had crept back up above 1,000,000, and it was even higher by the end of the decade, with inflation also being high. Although the monetarist economic policies of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government saw inflation reduced after 1979, unemployment soared in the early 1980s and in 1982, it exceeded 3,000,000, a level that had not not seen for some 50 years. That represented one in eight of the workforce, with unemployment exceeding 20% in some places that had relied on declining industries such as coal mining.[145]
+
+However, it was a time of high unemployment in all other major industrialised nations as well.[146] By the spring of 1983, unemployment had risen by 6% in the previous 12 months, compared to 10% in Japan, 23% in the US, and 34% in West Germany (seven years before Reunification).[147]
+
+Unemployment in the United Kingdom remained above 3,000,000 until the spring of 1987, when the economy enjoyed a boom.[145] By the end of 1989, unemployment had fallen to 1,600,000. However, inflation had reached 7.8%, and the following year, it reached a nine-year high of 9.5%; leading to increased interest rates.[148]
+
+Another recession occurred from 1990 to 1992. Unemployment began to increase, and by the end of 1992, nearly 3,000,000 in the United Kingdom were unemployed, a number that was soon lowered by a strong economic recovery.[145] With inflation down to 1.6% by 1993, unemployment then began to fall rapidly and stood at 1,800,000 by early 1997.[149]
+
+The official unemployment rate in the 16 European Union (EU) countries that use the euro rose to 10% in December 2009 as a result of another recession.[150] Latvia had the highest unemployment rate in the EU, at 22.3% for November 2009.[151] Europe's young workers have been especially hard hit.[152] In November 2009, the unemployment rate in the EU27 for those aged 15–24 was 18.3%. For those under 25, the unemployment rate in Spain was 43.8%.[153] Unemployment has risen in two thirds of European countries since 2010.[154]
+
+Into the 21st century, unemployment in the United Kingdom remained low and the economy remaining strong, and several other European economies, such as France and Germany, experienced a minor recession and a substantial rise in unemployment.[155]
+
+In 2008, when the recession brought on another increase in the United Kingdom, after 15 years of economic growth and no major rises in unemployment.[156] In early 2009, unemployment passed the 2 million mark, and economists were predicting it would soon reach 3 million.[157] However, the end of the recession was declared in January 2010[158] and unemployment peaked at nearly 2.7 million in 2011,[159] appearing to ease fears of unemployment reaching 3 million.[160] The unemployment rate of Britain's young black people was 47.4% in 2011.[161] 2013/2014 has seen the employment rate increase from 1,935,836 to 2,173,012 as supported by[162] showing the UK is creating more job opportunities and forecasts the rate of increase in 2014/2015 will be another 7.2%.[163]
+
+The 2008–2012 global recession has been called a "mancession" because of the disproportionate number of men who lost their jobs as compared to women. The gender gap became wide in the United States in 2009, when 10.5% of men in the labor force were unemployed, compared with 8% of women.[164][165] Three quarters of the jobs that were lost in the recession in the US were held by men.[166][167]
+
+A 26 April 2005 Asia Times article noted, "In regional giant South Africa, some 300,000 textile workers have lost their jobs in the past two years due to the influx of Chinese goods".[168] The increasing US trade deficit with China cost 2.4 million American jobs between 2001–2008, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).[169] From 2000–2007, the United States lost a total of 3.2 million manufacturing jobs.[170] 12.1% of US military veterans who had served after the September 11 attacks in 2001 were unemployed as of 2011; 29.1% of male veterans aged 18–24 were unemployed.[84] As of September 2016, the total veteran unemployment rate was 4.3 percent. By September 2017, that figure had dropped to 3 percent.[171]
+
+About 25,000,000 people in the world's 30 richest countries lost their jobs between the end of 2007 and the end of 2010, as the economic downturn pushed most countries into recession.[172] In April 2010, the US unemployment rate was 9.9%, but the government's broader U-6 unemployment rate was 17.1%.[173] In April 2012, the unemployment rate was 4.6% in Japan.[174] In a 2012 story, the Financial Post reported, "Nearly 75 million youth are unemployed around the world, an increase of more than 4 million since 2007. In the European Union, where a debt crisis followed the financial crisis, the youth unemployment rate rose to 18% last year from 12.5% in 2007, the ILO report shows."[175] In March 2018, according to US Unemployment Rate Statistics, the unemployment rate was 4.1%, below the 4.5–5.0% norm.[176]
+
+Quotations related to unemployment at Wikiquote
+ The dictionary definition of unemployment at Wiktionary
+
+
+

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+Frédéric François Chopin (UK: /ˈʃɒpæ̃/, US: /ʃoʊˈpæn/,[1][2] French: [ʃɔpɛ̃], Polish: [ˈʂɔpɛn]), born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin (1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849), was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leading musician of his era, one whose "poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation."[3]
+
+Chopin was born in Żelazowa Wola in the Duchy of Warsaw and grew up in Warsaw, which in 1815 became part of Congress Poland. A child prodigy, he completed his musical education and composed his earlier works in Warsaw before leaving Poland at the age of 20, less than a month before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising. At 21, he settled in Paris. Thereafter—in the last 18 years of his life—he gave only 30 public performances, preferring the more intimate atmosphere of the salon. He supported himself by selling his compositions and by giving piano lessons, for which he was in high demand. Chopin formed a friendship with Franz Liszt and was admired by many of his other musical contemporaries, including Robert Schumann.
+
+After a failed engagement to Maria Wodzińska from 1836 to 1837, he maintained an often troubled relationship with the French writer Amantine Dupin (known by her pen name, George Sand). A brief and unhappy visit to Majorca with Sand in 1838–39 would prove one of his most productive periods of composition. In his final years, he was supported financially by his admirer Jane Stirling, who also arranged for him to visit Scotland in 1848. For most of his life, Chopin was in poor health. He died in Paris in 1849 at the age of 39, probably of pericarditis aggravated by tuberculosis.
+
+All of Chopin's compositions include the piano. Most are for solo piano, though he also wrote two piano concertos, a few chamber pieces, and some 19 songs set to Polish lyrics. His piano writing was technically demanding and expanded the limits of the instrument, his own performances noted for their nuance and sensitivity. His major piano works also include mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes, polonaises, the instrumental ballade (which Chopin created as an instrumental genre), études, impromptus, scherzos, preludes and sonatas, some published only posthumously. Among the influences on his style of composition were Polish folk music, the classical tradition of J. S. Bach, Mozart, and Schubert, and the atmosphere of the Paris salons of which he was a frequent guest. His innovations in style, harmony, and musical form, and his association of music with nationalism, were influential throughout and after the late Romantic period.
+
+Chopin's music, his status as one of music's earliest celebrities, his indirect association with political insurrection, his high-profile love-life, and his early death have made him a leading symbol of the Romantic era. His works remain popular, and he has been the subject of numerous films and biographies of varying historical fidelity.
+
+Fryderyk Chopin was born in Żelazowa Wola,[4] 46 kilometres (29 miles) west of Warsaw, in what was then the Duchy of Warsaw, a Polish state established by Napoleon. The parish baptismal record gives his birthday as 22 February 1810, and cites his given names in the Latin form Fridericus Franciscus[4] (in Polish, he was Fryderyk Franciszek).[5] However, the composer and his family used the birthdate 1 March,[n 1][4] which is now generally accepted as the correct date.[7]
+
+Fryderyk's father, Nicolas Chopin, was a Frenchman from Lorraine who had emigrated to Poland in 1787 at the age of sixteen.[8] Nicolas tutored children of the Polish aristocracy, and in 1806 married Tekla Justyna Krzyżanowska,[9] a poor relative of the Skarbeks, one of the families for whom he worked.[10] Fryderyk was baptised on Easter Sunday, 23 April 1810, in the same church where his parents had married, in Brochów.[4] His eighteen-year-old godfather, for whom he was named, was Fryderyk Skarbek, a pupil of Nicolas Chopin.[4] Fryderyk was the couple's second child and only son; he had an elder sister, Ludwika (1807–1855), and two younger sisters, Izabela (1811–1881) and Emilia (1812–1827).[11] Nicolas was devoted to his adopted homeland, and insisted on the use of the Polish language in the household.[4]
+
+In October 1810, six months after Fryderyk's birth, the family moved to Warsaw, where his father acquired a post teaching French at the Warsaw Lyceum, then housed in the Saxon Palace. Fryderyk lived with his family in the Palace grounds. The father played the flute and violin;[12] the mother played the piano and gave lessons to boys in the boarding house that the Chopins kept.[13] Chopin was of slight build, and even in early childhood was prone to illnesses.[14]
+
+Fryderyk may have had some piano instruction from his mother, but his first professional music tutor, from 1816 to 1821, was the Czech pianist Wojciech Żywny.[15] His elder sister Ludwika also took lessons from Żywny, and occasionally played duets with her brother.[16] It quickly became apparent that he was a child prodigy. By the age of seven Fryderyk had begun giving public concerts, and in 1817 he composed two polonaises, in G minor and B-flat major.[17] His next work, a polonaise in A-flat major of 1821, dedicated to Żywny, is his earliest surviving musical manuscript.[15]
+
+In 1817 the Saxon Palace was requisitioned by Warsaw's Russian governor for military use, and the Warsaw Lyceum was reestablished in the Kazimierz Palace (today the rectorate of Warsaw University). Fryderyk and his family moved to a building, which still survives, adjacent to the Kazimierz Palace. During this period, Fryderyk was sometimes invited to the Belweder Palace as playmate to the son of the ruler of Russian Poland, Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich of Russia; he played the piano for Constantine Pavlovich and composed a march for him. Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, in his dramatic eclogue, "Nasze Przebiegi" ("Our Discourses", 1818), attested to "little Chopin's" popularity.[18]
+
+From September 1823 to 1826, Chopin attended the Warsaw Lyceum, where he received organ lessons from the Czech musician Wilhelm Würfel during his first year. In the autumn of 1826 he began a three-year course under the Silesian composer Józef Elsner at the Warsaw Conservatory, studying music theory, figured bass, and composition.[19][n 2] Throughout this period he continued to compose and to give recitals in concerts and salons in Warsaw. He was engaged by the inventors of the "aeolomelodicon" (a combination of piano and mechanical organ), and on this instrument, in May 1825 he performed his own improvisation and part of a concerto by Moscheles. The success of this concert led to an invitation to give a recital on a similar instrument (the "aeolopantaleon") before Tsar Alexander I, who was visiting Warsaw; the Tsar presented him with a diamond ring. At a subsequent aeolopantaleon concert on 10 June 1825, Chopin performed his Rondo Op. 1. This was the first of his works to be commercially published and earned him his first mention in the foreign press, when the Leipzig Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung praised his "wealth of musical ideas".[20]
+
+During 1824–28 Chopin spent his vacations away from Warsaw, at a number of locales.[n 3] In 1824 and 1825, at Szafarnia, he was a guest of Dominik Dziewanowski, the father of a schoolmate. Here for the first time, he encountered Polish rural folk music.[22] His letters home from Szafarnia (to which he gave the title "The Szafarnia Courier"), written in a very modern and lively Polish, amused his family with their spoofing of the Warsaw newspapers and demonstrated the youngster's literary gift.[23]
+
+In 1827, soon after the death of Chopin's youngest sister Emilia, the family moved from the Warsaw University building, adjacent to the Kazimierz Palace, to lodgings just across the street from the university, in the south annexe of the Krasiński Palace on Krakowskie Przedmieście,[n 4] where Chopin lived until he left Warsaw in 1830.[n 5] Here his parents continued running their boarding house for male students; the Chopin Family Parlour (Salonik Chopinów) became a museum in the 20th century. In 1829 the artist Ambroży Mieroszewski executed a set of portraits of Chopin family members, including the first known portrait of the composer.[n 6]
+
+Four boarders at his parents' apartments became Chopin's intimates: Tytus Woyciechowski, Jan Nepomucen Białobłocki, Jan Matuszyński and Julian Fontana; the latter two would become part of his Paris milieu. He was friendly with members of Warsaw's young artistic and intellectual world, including Fontana, Józef Bohdan Zaleski and Stefan Witwicki.[26] He was also attracted to the singing student Konstancja Gładkowska. In letters to Woyciechowski, he indicated which of his works, and even which of their passages, were influenced by his fascination with her; his letter of 15 May 1830 revealed that the slow movement (Larghetto) of his Piano Concerto No. 1 (in E minor) was secretly dedicated to her – "It should be like dreaming in beautiful springtime – by moonlight."[27] His final Conservatory report (July 1829) read: "Chopin F., third-year student, exceptional talent, musical genius."[19]
+
+In September 1828 Chopin, while still a student, visited Berlin with a family friend, zoologist Feliks Jarocki, enjoying operas directed by Gaspare Spontini and attending concerts by Carl Friedrich Zelter, Felix Mendelssohn and other celebrities. On an 1829 return trip to Berlin, he was a guest of Prince Antoni Radziwiłł, governor of the Grand Duchy of Posen—himself an accomplished composer and aspiring cellist. For the prince and his pianist daughter Wanda, he composed his Introduction and Polonaise brillante in C major for cello and piano, Op. 3.[28]
+
+Back in Warsaw that year, Chopin heard Niccolò Paganini play the violin, and composed a set of variations, Souvenir de Paganini. It may have been this experience which encouraged him to commence writing his first Études (1829–32), exploring the capacities of his own instrument.[29] On 11 August, three weeks after completing his studies at the Warsaw Conservatory, he made his debut in Vienna. He gave two piano concerts and received many favourable reviews—in addition to some commenting (in Chopin's own words) that he was "too delicate for those accustomed to the piano-bashing of local artists". In one of these concerts, he premiered his Variations on Là ci darem la mano, Op. 2 (variations on a duet from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni) for piano and orchestra.[30] He returned to Warsaw in September 1829,[31] where he premiered his Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21 on 17 March 1830.[19]
+
+Chopin's successes as a composer and performer opened the door to western Europe for him, and on 2 November 1830, he set out, in the words of Zdzisław Jachimecki, "into the wide world, with no very clearly defined aim, forever."[32] With Woyciechowski, he headed for Austria again, intending to go on to Italy. Later that month, in Warsaw, the November 1830 Uprising broke out, and Woyciechowski returned to Poland to enlist. Chopin, now alone in Vienna, was nostalgic for his homeland, and wrote to a friend, "I curse the moment of my departure."[33] When in September 1831 he learned, while travelling from Vienna to Paris, that the uprising had been crushed, he expressed his anguish in the pages of his private journal: "Oh God! ... You are there, and yet you do not take vengeance!"[34] Jachimecki ascribes to these events the composer's maturing "into an inspired national bard who intuited the past, present and future of his native Poland."[32]
+
+When he left Warsaw in late 1830, Chopin had intended to go to Italy, but violent unrest there made that a dangerous destination. His next choice was Paris; difficulties obtaining a visa from Russian authorities resulted in him getting transit permission from the French. In later years he would quote the passport's endorsement Passeport en passant par Paris à Londres ("In transit to London via Paris"), joking that he was in the city "only in passing."[35]
+
+Chopin arrived in Paris in late September 1831; he would never return to Poland,[36] thus becoming one of many expatriates of the Polish Great Emigration. In France, he used the French versions of his given names, and after receiving French citizenship in 1835, he travelled on a French passport.[37] However, Chopin remained close to his fellow Poles in exile as friends and confidants and he never felt fully comfortable speaking French. Chopin's biographer Adam Zamoyski writes that he never considered himself to be French, despite his father's French origins, and always saw himself as a Pole.[38]
+
+In Paris, Chopin encountered artists and other distinguished figures and found many opportunities to exercise his talents and achieve celebrity. During his years in Paris, he was to become acquainted with, among many others, Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt, Ferdinand Hiller, Heinrich Heine, Eugène Delacroix, and Alfred de Vigny.[39] Chopin was also acquainted with the poet Adam Mickiewicz, principal of the Polish Literary Society, some of whose verses he set as songs.[40]
+
+Two Polish friends in Paris were also to play important roles in Chopin's life there. His fellow student at the Warsaw Conservatory, Julian Fontana, had originally tried unsuccessfully to establish himself in England; Fontana was to become, in the words of Michałowski and Samson, Chopin's "general factotum and copyist".[41] Albert Grzymała, who in Paris became a wealthy financier and society figure, often acted as Chopin's adviser and "gradually began to fill the role of elder brother in [his] life."[42]
+
+At the end of 1831, Chopin received the first major endorsement from an outstanding contemporary when Robert Schumann, reviewing the Op. 2 Variations in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (his first published article on music), declared: "Hats off, gentlemen! A genius."[43] On 25 February 1832 Chopin gave a debut Paris concert in the "salons de MM Pleyel“ 9 rue Cadet which drew universal admiration. The critic François-Joseph Fétis wrote in the Revue et gazette musicale: "Here is a young man who ... taking no model, has found, if not a complete renewal of piano music, ... an abundance of original ideas of a kind to be found nowhere else ..."[44] After this concert, Chopin realised that his essentially intimate keyboard technique was not optimal for large concert spaces. Later that year he was introduced to the wealthy Rothschild banking family, whose patronage also opened doors for him to other private salons (social gatherings of the aristocracy and artistic and literary elite).[45] By the end of 1832 Chopin had established himself among the Parisian musical elite and had earned the respect of his peers such as Hiller, Liszt, and Berlioz. He no longer depended financially upon his father, and in the winter of 1832, he began earning a handsome income from publishing his works and teaching piano to affluent students from all over Europe.[46] This freed him from the strains of public concert-giving, which he disliked.[45]
+
+Chopin seldom performed publicly in Paris. In later years he generally gave a single annual concert at the Salle Pleyel, a venue that seated three hundred. He played more frequently at salons but preferred playing at his own Paris apartment for small groups of friends. The musicologist Arthur Hedley has observed that "As a pianist Chopin was unique in acquiring a reputation of the highest order on the basis of a minimum of public appearances—few more than thirty in the course of his lifetime."[47] The list of musicians who took part in some of his concerts indicates the richness of Parisian artistic life during this period. Examples include a concert on 23 March 1833, in which Chopin, Liszt, and Hiller performed (on pianos) a concerto by J.S. Bach for three keyboards; and, on 3 March 1838, a concert in which Chopin, his pupil Adolphe Gutmann, Charles-Valentin Alkan, and Alkan's teacher Joseph Zimmermann performed Alkan's arrangement, for eight hands, of two movements from Beethoven's 7th symphony.[48] Chopin was also involved in the composition of Liszt's Hexameron; he wrote the sixth (and final) variation on Bellini's theme. Chopin's music soon found success with publishers, and in 1833 he contracted with Maurice Schlesinger, who arranged for it to be published not only in France but, through his family connections, also in Germany and England.[49]
+
+In the spring of 1834, Chopin attended the Lower Rhenish Music Festival in Aix-la-Chapelle with Hiller, and it was there that Chopin met Felix Mendelssohn. After the festival, the three visited Düsseldorf, where Mendelssohn had been appointed musical director. They spent what Mendelssohn described as "a very agreeable day", playing and discussing music at his piano, and met Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow, director of the Academy of Art, and some of his eminent pupils such as Lessing, Bendemann, Hildebrandt and Sohn.[50] In 1835 Chopin went to Carlsbad, where he spent time with his parents; it was the last time he would see them. On his way back to Paris, he met old friends from Warsaw, the Wodzińskis. He had made the acquaintance of their daughter Maria in Poland five years earlier when she was eleven. This meeting prompted him to stay for two weeks in Dresden, when he had previously intended to return to Paris via Leipzig.[51] The sixteen-year-old girl's portrait of the composer is considered, along with Delacroix's, as among Chopin's best likenesses.[52] In October he finally reached Leipzig, where he met Schumann, Clara Wieck and Mendelssohn, who organised for him a performance of his own oratorio St. Paul, and who considered him "a perfect musician".[53] In July 1836 Chopin travelled to Marienbad and Dresden to be with the Wodziński family, and in September he proposed to Maria, whose mother Countess Wodzińska approved in principle. Chopin went on to Leipzig, where he presented Schumann with his G minor Ballade.[54] At the end of 1836, he sent Maria an album in which his sister Ludwika had inscribed seven of his songs, and his 1835 Nocturne in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 1.[55] The anodyne thanks he received from Maria proved to be the last letter he was to have from her.[56]
+
+Although it is not known exactly when Chopin first met Franz Liszt after arriving in Paris, on 12 December 1831 he mentioned in a letter to his friend Woyciechowski that "I have met Rossini, Cherubini, Baillot, etc.—also Kalkbrenner. You would not believe how curious I was about Herz, Liszt, Hiller, etc."[57] Liszt was in attendance at Chopin's Parisian debut on 26 February 1832 at the Salle Pleyel, which led him to remark: "The most vigorous applause seemed not to suffice to our enthusiasm in the presence of this talented musician, who revealed a new phase of poetic sentiment combined with such happy innovation in the form of his art."[58]
+
+The two became friends, and for many years lived close to each other in Paris, Chopin at 38 Rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin, and Liszt at the Hôtel de France on the Rue Lafitte, a few blocks away.[59] They performed together on seven occasions between 1833 and 1841. The first, on 2 April 1833, was at a benefit concert organised by Hector Berlioz for his bankrupt Shakespearean actress wife Harriet Smithson, during which they played George Onslow's Sonata in F minor for piano duet.[58] Later joint appearances included a benefit concert for the Benevolent Association of Polish Ladies in Paris.[58] Their last appearance together in public was for a charity concert conducted for the Beethoven Monument in Bonn, held at the Salle Pleyel and the Paris Conservatory on 25 and 26 April 1841.[58]
+
+Although the two displayed great respect and admiration for each other, their friendship was uneasy and had some qualities of a love-hate relationship. Harold C. Schonberg believes that Chopin displayed a "tinge of jealousy and spite" towards Liszt's virtuosity on the piano,[59] and others have also argued that he had become enchanted with Liszt's theatricality, showmanship and success.[60] Liszt was the dedicatee of Chopin's Op. 10 Études, and his performance of them prompted the composer to write to Hiller, "I should like to rob him of the way he plays my studies."[61] However, Chopin expressed annoyance in 1843 when Liszt performed one of his nocturnes with the addition of numerous intricate embellishments, at which Chopin remarked that he should play the music as written or not play it at all, forcing an apology. Most biographers of Chopin state that after this the two had little to do with each other, although in his letters dated as late as 1848 he still referred to him as "my friend Liszt".[59] Some commentators point to events in the two men's romantic lives which led to a rift between them; there are claims that Liszt had displayed jealousy of his mistress Marie d'Agoult's obsession with Chopin, while others believe that Chopin had become concerned about Liszt's growing relationship with George Sand.[58]
+
+In 1836, at a party hosted by Marie d'Agoult, Chopin met the French author George Sand (born [Amantine] Aurore [Lucile] Dupin).[59] Short (under five feet, or 152 cm), dark, big-eyed and a cigar smoker,[62] she initially repelled Chopin, who remarked, "What an unattractive person la Sand is. Is she really a woman?"[63] However, by early 1837 Maria Wodzińska's mother had made it clear to Chopin in correspondence that a marriage with her daughter was unlikely to proceed.[64] It is thought that she was influenced by his poor health and possibly also by rumours about his associations with women such as d'Agoult and Sand.[65] Chopin finally placed the letters from Maria and her mother in a package on which he wrote, in Polish, "My tragedy".[66] Sand, in a letter to Grzymała of June 1838, admitted strong feelings for the composer and debated whether to abandon a current affair in order to begin a relationship with Chopin; she asked Grzymała to assess Chopin's relationship with Maria Wodzińska, without realising that the affair, at least from Maria's side, was over.[67]
+
+In June 1837 Chopin visited London incognito in the company of the piano manufacturer Camille Pleyel where he played at a musical soirée at the house of English piano maker James Broadwood.[68] On his return to Paris, his association with Sand began in earnest and by the end of June 1838 they had become lovers.[69] Sand, who was six years older than the composer, and who had had a series of lovers, wrote at this time: "I must say I was confused and amazed at the effect this little creature had on me ... I have still not recovered from my astonishment, and if I were a proud person I should be feeling humiliated at having been carried away ..."[70] The two spent a miserable winter on Majorca (8 November 1838 to 13 February 1839), where, together with Sand's two children, they had journeyed in the hope of improving the health of Chopin and that of Sand's 15-year-old son Maurice, and also to escape the threats of Sand's former lover Félicien Mallefille.[71] After discovering that the couple were not married, the deeply traditional Catholic people of Majorca became inhospitable,[72] making accommodation difficult to find. This compelled the group to take lodgings in a former Carthusian monastery in Valldemossa, which gave little shelter from the cold winter weather.[69]
+
+On 3 December 1838, Chopin complained about his bad health and the incompetence of the doctors in Majorca: "Three doctors have visited me ... The first said I was dead; the second said I was dying; and the third said I was about to die."[73] He also had problems having his Pleyel piano sent to him, having to rely in the meantime on a piano made in Palma by Juan Bauza.[74][n 7] The Pleyel piano finally arrived from Paris in December, just shortly before Chopin and Sand left the island. Chopin wrote to Pleyel in January 1839: "I am sending you my Preludes [(Op. 28)]. I finished them on your little piano, which arrived in the best possible condition in spite of the sea, the bad weather and the Palma customs."[69] Chopin was also able to undertake work while in Majorca on his Ballade No. 2, Op. 38; two Polonaises, Op. 40; and the Scherzo No. 3, Op. 39.[75]
+
+Although this period had been productive, the bad weather had such a detrimental effect on Chopin's health that Sand determined to leave the island. To avoid further customs duties, Sand sold the piano to a local French couple, the Canuts.[76][n 8] The group travelled first to Barcelona, then to Marseilles, where they stayed for a few months while Chopin convalesced.[78] While in Marseilles Chopin made a rare appearance at the organ during a requiem mass for the tenor Adolphe Nourrit on 24 April 1839, playing a transcription of Franz Schubert's lied Die Gestirne (D. 444).[79][80][n 9] In May 1839 they headed for the summer to Sand's estate at Nohant, where they spent most summers until 1846. In autumn they returned to Paris, where Chopin's apartment at 5 rue Tronchet was close to Sand's rented accommodation at the rue Pigalle. He frequently visited Sand in the evenings, but both retained some independence.[81] In 1842 he and Sand moved to the Square d'Orléans, living in adjacent buildings.[82]
+
+On 26 July 1840 Chopin and Sand were present at the dress rehearsal of Berlioz's Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale, composed to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the July Revolution. Chopin was reportedly unimpressed with the composition.[83]
+
+During the summers at Nohant, particularly in the years 1839–43, Chopin found quiet, productive days during which he composed many works, including his Polonaise in A-flat major, Op. 53. Among the visitors to Nohant were Delacroix and the mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot, whom Chopin had advised on piano technique and composition.[84] Delacroix gives an account of staying at Nohant in a letter of 7 June 1842:
+
+The hosts could not be more pleasant in entertaining me. When we are not all together at dinner, lunch, playing billiards, or walking, each of us stays in his room, reading or lounging around on a couch. Sometimes, through the window which opens on the garden, a gust of music wafts up from Chopin at work. All this mingles with the songs of nightingales and the fragrance of roses.[85]
+
+From 1842 onwards, Chopin showed signs of serious illness. After a solo recital in Paris on 21 February 1842, he wrote to Grzymała: "I have to lie in bed all day long, my mouth and tonsils are aching so much."[86] He was forced by illness to decline a written invitation from Alkan to participate in a repeat performance of the Beethoven Seventh Symphony arrangement at Érard's on 1 March 1843.[87] Late in 1844, Charles Hallé visited Chopin and found him "hardly able to move, bent like a half-opened penknife and evidently in great pain", although his spirits returned when he started to play the piano for his visitor.[88] Chopin's health continued to deteriorate, particularly from this time onwards. Modern research suggests that apart from any other illnesses, he may also have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy.[89]
+
+Chopin's relations with Sand were soured in 1846 by problems involving her daughter Solange and Solange's fiancé, the young fortune-hunting sculptor Auguste Clésinger.[90] The composer frequently took Solange's side in quarrels with her mother; he also faced jealousy from Sand's son Maurice.[91] Chopin was utterly indifferent to Sand's radical political pursuits, while Sand looked on his society friends with disdain.[92] As the composer's illness progressed, Sand had become less of a lover and more of a nurse to Chopin, whom she called her "third child". In letters to third parties, she vented her impatience, referring to him as a "child," a "little angel", a "sufferer" and a "beloved little corpse."[93] In 1847 Sand published her novel Lucrezia Floriani, whose main characters—a rich actress and a prince in weak health—could be interpreted as Sand and Chopin; the story was uncomplimentary to Chopin, who could not have missed the allusions as he helped Sand correct the printer's galleys. In 1847 he did not visit Nohant, and he quietly ended their ten-year relationship following an angry correspondence which, in Sand's words, made "a strange conclusion to nine years of exclusive friendship."[90] The two would never meet again.[94]
+
+Chopin's output as a composer throughout this period declined in quantity year by year. Whereas in 1841 he had written a dozen works, only six were written in 1842 and six shorter pieces in 1843. In 1844 he wrote only the Op. 58 sonata. 1845 saw the completion of three mazurkas (Op. 59). Although these works were more refined than many of his earlier compositions, Zamoyski concludes that "his powers of concentration were failing and his inspiration was beset by anguish, both emotional and intellectual."[95]
+
+Chopin's public popularity as a virtuoso began to wane, as did the number of his pupils, and this, together with the political strife and instability of the time, caused him to struggle financially.[94] In February 1848, with the cellist Auguste Franchomme, he gave his last Paris concert, which included three movements of the Cello Sonata Op. 65.[93][94]
+
+In April, during the Revolution of 1848 in Paris, he left for London, where he performed at several concerts and numerous receptions in great houses.[93] This tour was suggested to him by his Scottish pupil Jane Stirling and her elder sister. Stirling also made all the logistical arrangements and provided much of the necessary funding.[96]
+
+In London, Chopin took lodgings at Dover Street, where the firm of Broadwood provided him with a grand piano. At his first engagement, on 15 May at Stafford House, the audience included Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The Prince, who was himself a talented musician, moved close to the keyboard to view Chopin's technique. Broadwood also arranged concerts for him; among those attending were Thackeray and the singer Jenny Lind. Chopin was also sought after for piano lessons, for which he charged the high fee of one guinea per hour, and for private recitals for which the fee was 20 guineas. At a concert on 7 July, he shared the platform with Viardot, who sang arrangements of some of his mazurkas to Spanish texts.[97] On 28 August, he played at a concert in Manchester's Concert Hall, sharing the stage with Marietta Alboni and Lorenzo Salvi.[98]
+
+In late summer he was invited by Jane Stirling to visit Scotland, where he stayed at Calder House near Edinburgh and at Johnstone Castle in Renfrewshire, both owned by members of Stirling's family.[99] She clearly had a notion of going beyond mere friendship, and Chopin was obliged to make it clear to her that this could not be so. He wrote at this time to Grzymała "My Scottish ladies are kind, but such bores", and responding to a rumour about his involvement, answered that he was "closer to the grave than the nuptial bed."[100] He gave a public concert in Glasgow on 27 September,[101] and another in Edinburgh, at the Hopetoun Rooms on Queen Street (now Erskine House) on 4 October.[102] In late October 1848, while staying at 10 Warriston Crescent in Edinburgh with the Polish physician Adam Łyszczyński, he wrote out his last will and testament—"a kind of disposition to be made of my stuff in the future, if I should drop dead somewhere", he wrote to Grzymała.[93]
+
+Chopin made his last public appearance on a concert platform at London's Guildhall on 16 November 1848, when, in a final patriotic gesture, he played for the benefit of Polish refugees. By this time he was very seriously ill, weighing under 99 pounds (i.e. less than 45 kg), and his doctors were aware that his sickness was at a terminal stage.[103]
+
+At the end of November, Chopin returned to Paris. He passed the winter in unremitting illness, but gave occasional lessons and was visited by friends, including Delacroix and Franchomme. Occasionally he played, or accompanied the singing of Delfina Potocka, for his friends. During the summer of 1849, his friends found him an apartment in Chaillot, out of the centre of the city, for which the rent was secretly subsidised by an admirer, Princess Obreskoff. Here in June 1849, he was visited by Jenny Lind.[104]
+
+With his health further deteriorating, Chopin desired to have a family member with him. In June 1849 his sister Ludwika came to Paris with her husband and daughter, and in September, supported by a loan from Jane Stirling, he took an apartment at Place Vendôme 12.[105] After 15 October, when his condition took a marked turn for the worse, only a handful of his closest friends remained with him, although Viardot remarked sardonically that "all the grand Parisian ladies considered it de rigueur to faint in his room."[103]
+
+Some of his friends provided music at his request; among them, Potocka sang and Franchomme played the cello. Chopin bequeathed his unfinished notes on a piano tuition method, Projet de méthode, to Alkan for completion.[106] On 17 October, after midnight, the physician leaned over him and asked whether he was suffering greatly. "No longer", he replied. He died a few minutes before two o'clock in the morning. He was 39. Those present at the deathbed appear to have included his sister Ludwika, Princess Marcelina Czartoryska, Sand's daughter Solange, and his close friend Thomas Albrecht. Later that morning, Solange's husband Clésinger made Chopin's death mask and a cast of his left hand.[107]
+
+The funeral, held at the Church of the Madeleine in Paris, was delayed almost two weeks, until 30 October.[108] Entrance was restricted to ticket holders[109] as many people were expected to attend.[108] Over 3,000 people arrived without invitations, from as far as London, Berlin and Vienna, and were excluded.[110]
+
+Mozart's Requiem was sung at the funeral;[109] the soloists were the soprano Jeanne-Anaïs Castellan, the mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot, the tenor Alexis Dupont, and the bass Luigi Lablache; Chopin's Preludes No. 4 in E minor and No. 6 in B minor were also played. The organist at the funeral was Louis Lefébure-Wély.[111] The funeral procession to Père Lachaise Cemetery, which included Chopin's sister Ludwika, was led by the aged Prince Adam Czartoryski. The pallbearers included Delacroix, Franchomme, and Camille Pleyel.[112] At the graveside, the Funeral March from Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2 was played, in Reber's instrumentation.[113]
+
+Chopin's tombstone, featuring the muse of music, Euterpe, weeping over a broken lyre, was designed and sculpted by Clésinger. The expenses of the funeral and monument, amounting to 5,000 francs, were covered by Jane Stirling, who also paid for the return of the composer's sister Ludwika to Warsaw.[112] As requested by Chopin, Ludwika took his heart (which had been removed by his doctor Jean Cruveilhier and preserved in alcohol in a vase), back to Poland in 1850.[114][115][n 10] She also took a collection of two hundred letters from Sand to Chopin; after 1851 these were returned to Sand, who destroyed them.[118]
+
+Chopin's disease and the cause of his death have been a matter of discussion. His death certificate gave the cause of death as tuberculosis, and his physician, Cruveilhier, was then the leading French authority on this disease.[119] Other possibilities that have been advanced have included cystic fibrosis,[120] cirrhosis, and alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency.[121] A visual examination of Chopin's preserved heart (the jar was not opened), conducted in 2014 and first published in the American Journal of Medicine in 2017, suggested that the likely cause of his death was a rare case of pericarditis caused by complications of chronic tuberculosis.[122][123][124]
+
+Over 230 works of Chopin survive; some compositions from early childhood have been lost. All his known works involve the piano, and only a few range beyond solo piano music, as either piano concertos, songs or chamber music.[125]
+
+Chopin was educated in the tradition of Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart and Clementi; he used Clementi's piano method with his own students. He was also influenced by Hummel's development of virtuoso, yet Mozartian, piano technique. He cited Bach and Mozart as the two most important composers in shaping his musical outlook.[126] Chopin's early works are in the style of the "brilliant" keyboard pieces of his era as exemplified by the works of Ignaz Moscheles, Friedrich Kalkbrenner, and others. Less direct in the earlier period are the influences of Polish folk music and of Italian opera. Much of what became his typical style of ornamentation (for example, his fioriture) is taken from singing. His melodic lines were increasingly reminiscent of the modes and features of the music of his native country, such as drones.[127]
+
+Chopin took the new salon genre of the nocturne, invented by the Irish composer John Field, to a deeper level of sophistication. He was the first to write ballades[128] and scherzi as individual concert pieces. He essentially established a new genre with his own set of free-standing preludes (Op. 28, published 1839). He exploited the poetic potential of the concept of the concert étude, already being developed in the 1820s and 1830s by Liszt, Clementi, and Moscheles, in his two sets of studies (Op. 10 published in 1833, Op. 25 in 1837).[129]
+
+Chopin also endowed popular dance forms with a greater range of melody and expression. Chopin's mazurkas, while originating in the traditional Polish dance (the mazurek), differed from the traditional variety in that they were written for the concert hall rather than the dance hall; as J. Barrie Jones puts it, "it was Chopin who put the mazurka on the European musical map."[130] The series of seven polonaises published in his lifetime (another nine were published posthumously), beginning with the Op. 26 pair (published 1836), set a new standard for music in the form.[131] His waltzes were also written specifically for the salon recital rather than the ballroom and are frequently at rather faster tempos than their dance-floor equivalents.[132]
+
+Some of Chopin's well-known pieces have acquired descriptive titles, such as the Revolutionary Étude (Op. 10, No. 12), and the Minute Waltz (Op. 64, No. 1). However, except for his Funeral March, the composer never named an instrumental work beyond genre and number, leaving all potential extramusical associations to the listener; the names by which many of his pieces are known were invented by others.[133] There is no evidence to suggest that the Revolutionary Étude was written with the failed Polish uprising against Russia in mind; it merely appeared at that time.[134] The Funeral March, the third movement of his Sonata No. 2 (Op. 35), the one case where he did give a title, was written before the rest of the sonata, but no specific event or death is known to have inspired it.[135]
+
+The last opus number that Chopin himself used was 65, allocated to the Cello Sonata in G minor. He expressed a deathbed wish that all his unpublished manuscripts be destroyed. At the request of the composer's mother and sisters, however, his musical executor Julian Fontana selected 23 unpublished piano pieces and grouped them into eight further opus numbers (Opp. 66–73), published in 1855.[136] In 1857, 17 Polish songs that Chopin wrote at various stages of his life were collected and published as Op. 74, though their order within the opus did not reflect the order of composition.[137]
+
+Works published since 1857 have received alternative catalogue designations instead of opus numbers. The present standard musicological reference for Chopin's works is the Kobylańska Catalogue (usually represented by the initials 'KK'), named for its compiler, the Polish musicologist Krystyna Kobylańska.[138]
+
+Chopin's original publishers included Maurice Schlesinger and Camille Pleyel.[139] His works soon began to appear in popular 19th-century piano anthologies.[140] The first collected edition was by Breitkopf & Härtel (1878–1902).[141] Among modern scholarly editions of Chopin's works are the version under the name of Paderewski published between 1937 and 1966 and the more recent Polish "National Edition", edited by Jan Ekier, both of which contain detailed explanations and discussions regarding choices and sources.[142][143]
+
+Chopin published his music in France, England and the German states due to the copyright laws of the time. As such there are often three different kinds of ‘first editions’. Each edition is different from the other, as Chopin edited them separately and at times he did some revision to the music while editing it. Furthermore, Chopin provided his publishers with varying sources, including autographs, annotated proofsheets, and scribal copies. Only recently have these differences gained greater recognition.[144]
+
+Improvisation stands at the centre of Chopin's creative processes. However, this does not imply impulsive rambling: Nicholas Temperley writes that "improvisation is designed for an audience, and its starting-point is that audience's expectations, which include the current conventions of musical form."[145] The works for piano and orchestra, including the two concertos, are held by Temperley to be "merely vehicles for brilliant piano playing ... formally longwinded and extremely conservative".[146] After the piano concertos (which are both early, dating from 1830), Chopin made no attempts at large-scale multi-movement forms, save for his late sonatas for piano and cello; "instead he achieved near-perfection in pieces of simple general design but subtle and complex cell-structure."[147] Rosen suggests that an important aspect of Chopin's individuality is his flexible handling of the four-bar phrase as a structural unit.[148]
+
+J. Barrie Jones suggests that "amongst the works that Chopin intended for concert use, the four ballades and four scherzos stand supreme", and adds that "the Barcarolle Op. 60 stands apart as an example of Chopin's rich harmonic palette coupled with an Italianate warmth of melody."[149] Temperley opines that these works, which contain "immense variety of mood, thematic material and structural detail", are based on an extended "departure and return" form; "the more the middle section is extended, and the further it departs in key, mood and theme, from the opening idea, the more important and dramatic is the reprise when it at last comes."[150]
+
+Chopin's mazurkas and waltzes are all in straightforward ternary or episodic form, sometimes with a coda.[151] The mazurkas often show more folk features than many of his other works, sometimes including modal scales and harmonies and the use of drone basses. However, some also show unusual sophistication, for example Op. 63 No. 3, which includes a canon at one beat's distance, a great rarity in music.[152]
+
+Chopin's polonaises show a marked advance on those of his Polish predecessors in the form (who included his teachers Żywny and Elsner). As with the traditional polonaise, Chopin's works are in triple time and typically display a martial rhythm in their melodies, accompaniments, and cadences. Unlike most of their precursors, they also require a formidable playing technique.[153]
+
+The 21 nocturnes are more structured, and of greater emotional depth, than those of Field (whom Chopin met in 1833). Many of the Chopin nocturnes have middle sections marked by agitated expression (and often making very difficult demands on the performer) which heightens their dramatic character.[154]
+
+Chopin's études are largely in straightforward ternary form.[155] He used them to teach his own technique of piano playing[45]—for instance playing double thirds (Op. 25, No. 6), playing in octaves (Op. 25, No. 10), and playing repeated notes (Op. 10, No.  7).[156]
+
+The preludes, many of which are very brief (some consisting of simple statements and developments of a single theme or figure), were described by Schumann as "the beginnings of studies".[157] Inspired by J.S. Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, Chopin's preludes move up the circle of fifths (rather than Bach's chromatic scale sequence) to create a prelude in each major and minor tonality.[158] The preludes were perhaps not intended to be played as a group, and may even have been used by him and later pianists as generic preludes to others of his pieces, or even to music by other composers, as Kenneth Hamilton suggests: he has noted a recording by Ferruccio Busoni of 1922, in which the Prelude Op. 28 No. 7 is followed by the Étude Op. 10 No. 5.[159]
+
+The two mature piano sonatas (No. 2, Op. 35, written in 1839 and No. 3, Op. 58, written in 1844) are in four movements. In Op. 35, Chopin was able to combine within a formal large musical structure many elements of his virtuosic piano technique—"a kind of dialogue between the public pianism of the brilliant style and the German sonata principle".[160] The sonata has been considered as showing the influences of both Bach and Beethoven. The Prelude from Bach's Suite No. 6 in D major for cello (BWV 1012) is quoted;[161] and there are references to two sonatas of Beethoven: the Sonata Opus 111 in C minor, and the Sonata Opus 26 in A flat major, which, like Chopin's Op. 35, has a funeral march as its slow movement.[162][163] The last movement of Chopin's Op. 35, a brief (75-bar) perpetuum mobile in which the hands play in unmodified octave unison throughout, was found shocking and unmusical by contemporaries, including Schumann.[164] The Op. 58 sonata is closer to the German tradition, including many passages of complex counterpoint, "worthy of Brahms" according to the music historians Kornel Michałowski and Jim Samson.[160]
+
+Chopin's harmonic innovations may have arisen partly from his keyboard improvisation technique. Temperley says that in his works "novel harmonic effects frequently result from the combination of ordinary appoggiaturas or passing notes with melodic figures of accompaniment", and cadences are delayed by the use of chords outside the home key (neapolitan sixths and diminished sevenths), or by sudden shifts to remote keys. Chord progressions sometimes anticipate the shifting tonality of later composers such as Claude Debussy, as does Chopin's use of modal harmony.[165]
+
+In 1841, Léon Escudier wrote of a recital given by Chopin that year, "One may say that Chopin is the creator of a school of piano and a school of composition. In truth, nothing equals the lightness, the sweetness with which the composer preludes on the piano; moreover nothing may be compared to his works full of originality, distinction and grace."[166] Chopin refused to conform to a standard method of playing and believed that there was no set technique for playing well. His style was based extensively on his use of a very independent finger technique. In his Projet de méthode he wrote: "Everything is a matter of knowing good fingering ... we need no less to use the rest of the hand, the wrist, the forearm and the upper arm."[167] He further stated: "One needs only to study a certain position of the hand in relation to the keys to obtain with ease the most beautiful quality of sound, to know how to play short notes and long notes, and [to attain] unlimited dexterity."[168] The consequences of this approach to technique in Chopin's music include the frequent use of the entire range of the keyboard, passages in double octaves and other chord groupings, swiftly repeated notes, the use of grace notes, and the use of contrasting rhythms (four against three, for example) between the hands.[169]
+
+Jonathan Bellman writes that modern concert performance style—set in the "conservatory" tradition of late 19th- and 20th-century music schools, and suitable for large auditoria or recordings—militates against what is known of Chopin's more intimate performance technique.[170] The composer himself said to a pupil that "concerts are never real music, you have to give up the idea of hearing in them all the most beautiful things of art."[171] Contemporary accounts indicate that in performance, Chopin avoided rigid procedures sometimes incorrectly attributed to him, such as "always crescendo to a high note", but that he was concerned with expressive phrasing, rhythmic consistency and sensitive colouring.[172] Berlioz wrote in 1853 that Chopin "has created a kind of chromatic embroidery ... whose effect is so strange and piquant as to be impossible to describe ... virtually nobody but Chopin himself can play this music and give it this unusual turn".[173] Hiller wrote that "What in the hands of others was elegant embellishment, in his hands became a colourful wreath of flowers."[174]
+
+Chopin's music is frequently played with rubato, "the practice in performance of disregarding strict time, 'robbing' some note-values for expressive effect".[175] There are differing opinions as to how much, and what type, of rubato is appropriate for his works. Charles Rosen comments that "most of the written-out indications of rubato in Chopin are to be found in his mazurkas ... It is probable that Chopin used the older form of rubato so important to Mozart ... [where] the melody note in the right hand is delayed until after the note in the bass ... An allied form of this rubato is the arpeggiation of the chords thereby delaying the melody note; according to Chopin's pupil Karol Mikuli, Chopin was firmly opposed to this practice."[176]
+
+Friederike Müller, a pupil of Chopin, wrote: "[His] playing was always noble and beautiful; his tones sang, whether in full forte or softest piano. He took infinite pains to teach his pupils this legato, cantabile style of playing. His most severe criticism was 'He—or she—does not know how to join two notes together.' He also demanded the strictest adherence to rhythm. He hated all lingering and dragging, misplaced rubatos, as well as exaggerated ritardandos ... and it is precisely in this respect that people make such terrible errors in playing his works."[177]
+
+The "Polish character" of Chopin's work is unquestionable; not because he also wrote polonaises and mazurkas ... which forms ... were often stuffed with alien ideological and literary contents from the outside. ... As an artist he looked for forms that stood apart from the literary-dramatic character of music which was a feature of Romanticism, as a Pole he reflected in his work the very essence of the tragic break in the history of the people and instinctively aspired to give the deepest expression of his nation ... For he understood that he could invest his music with the most enduring and truly Polish qualities only by liberating art from the confines of dramatic and historical contents. This attitude toward the question of "national music" – an inspired solution to his art – was the reason why Chopin's works have come to be understood everywhere outside of Poland ... Therein lies the strange riddle of his eternal vigour.
+
+With his mazurkas and polonaises, Chopin has been credited with introducing to music a new sense of nationalism. Schumann, in his 1836 review of the piano concertos, highlighted the composer's strong feelings for his native Poland, writing that "Now that the Poles are in deep mourning [after the failure of the November Uprising of 1830], their appeal to us artists is even stronger ... If the mighty autocrat in the north [i.e. Nicholas I of Russia] could know that in Chopin's works, in the simple strains of his mazurkas, there lurks a dangerous enemy, he would place a ban on his music. Chopin's works are cannon buried in flowers!"[179] The biography of Chopin published in 1863 under the name of Franz Liszt (but probably written by Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein)[180] states that Chopin "must be ranked first among the first musicians ... individualizing in themselves the poetic sense of an entire nation."[181]
+
+Some modern commentators have argued against exaggerating Chopin's primacy as a "nationalist" or "patriotic" composer. George Golos refers to earlier "nationalist" composers in Central Europe, including Poland's Michał Kleofas Ogiński and Franciszek Lessel, who utilised polonaise and mazurka forms.[182] Barbara Milewski suggests that Chopin's experience of Polish music came more from "urbanised" Warsaw versions than from folk music, and that attempts (by Jachimecki and others) to demonstrate genuine folk music in his works are without basis.[183] Richard Taruskin impugns Schumann's attitude toward Chopin's works as patronising[184] and comments that Chopin "felt his Polish patriotism deeply and sincerely" but consciously modelled his works on the tradition of Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, and Field.[185]
+
+A reconciliation of these views is suggested by William Atwood: "Undoubtedly [Chopin's] use of traditional musical forms like the polonaise and mazurka roused nationalistic sentiments and a sense of cohesiveness amongst those Poles scattered across Europe and the New World ... While some sought solace in [them], others found them a source of strength in their continuing struggle for freedom. Although Chopin's music undoubtedly came to him intuitively rather than through any conscious patriotic design, it served all the same to symbolize the will of the Polish people ..."[186]
+
+Jones comments that "Chopin's unique position as a composer, despite the fact that virtually everything he wrote was for the piano, has rarely been questioned."[155] He also notes that Chopin was fortunate to arrive in Paris in 1831—"the artistic environment, the publishers who were willing to print his music, the wealthy and aristocratic who paid what Chopin asked for their lessons"—and these factors, as well as his musical genius, also fuelled his contemporary and later reputation.[132] While his illness and his love-affairs conform to some of the stereotypes of romanticism, the rarity of his public recitals (as opposed to performances at fashionable Paris soirées) led Arthur Hutchings to suggest that "his lack of Byronic flamboyance [and] his aristocratic reclusiveness make him exceptional" among his romantic contemporaries, such as Liszt and Henri Herz.[147]
+
+Chopin's qualities as a pianist and composer were recognised by many of his fellow musicians. Schumann named a piece for him in his suite Carnaval, and Chopin later dedicated his Ballade No. 2 in F major to Schumann. Elements of Chopin's music can be traced in many of Liszt's later works.[61] Liszt later transcribed for piano six of Chopin's Polish songs. A less fraught friendship was with Alkan, with whom he discussed elements of folk music, and who was deeply affected by Chopin's death.[187]
+
+Two of Chopin's long-standing pupils, Karol Mikuli (1821–1897) and Georges Mathias, were themselves piano teachers and passed on details of his playing to their own students, some of whom (such as Raoul Koczalski) were to make recordings of his music. Other pianists and composers influenced by Chopin's style include Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Édouard Wolff (1816–1880) and Pierre Zimmermann.[188] Debussy dedicated his own 1915 piano Études to the memory of Chopin; he frequently played Chopin's music during his studies at the Paris Conservatoire, and undertook the editing of Chopin's piano music for the publisher Jacques Durand.[189]
+
+Polish composers of the following generation included virtuosi such as Moritz Moszkowski, but, in the opinion of J. Barrie Jones, his "one worthy successor" among his compatriots was Karol Szymanowski (1882–1937).[190] Edvard Grieg, Antonín Dvořák, Isaac Albéniz, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff, among others, are regarded by critics as having been influenced by Chopin's use of national modes and idioms.[191] Alexander Scriabin was devoted to the music of Chopin, and his early published works include nineteen mazurkas, as well as numerous études and preludes; his teacher Nikolai Zverev drilled him in Chopin's works to improve his virtuosity as a performer.[192] In the 20th century, composers who paid homage to (or in some cases parodied) the music of Chopin included George Crumb, Bohuslav Martinů, Darius Milhaud,
+Igor Stravinsky[193] and Heitor Villa-Lobos.[194]
+
+Chopin's music was used in the 1909 ballet Chopiniana, choreographed by Michel Fokine and orchestrated by Alexander Glazunov. Sergei Diaghilev commissioned additional orchestrations—from Stravinsky, Anatoly Lyadov, Sergei Taneyev and Nikolai Tcherepnin—for later productions, which used the title Les Sylphides.[195]
+
+Chopin's music remains very popular and is regularly performed, recorded and broadcast worldwide. The world's oldest monographic music competition, the International Chopin Piano Competition, founded in 1927, is held every five years in Warsaw.[196] The Fryderyk Chopin Institute of Poland lists on its website over eighty societies worldwide devoted to the composer and his music.[197] The Institute site also lists nearly 1,500 performances of Chopin works on YouTube as of January 2014[update].[198]
+
+The British Library notes that "Chopin's works have been recorded by all the great pianists of the recording era." The earliest recording was an 1895 performance by Paul Pabst of the Nocturne in E major Op. 62 No. 2. The British Library site makes available a number of historic recordings, including some by Alfred Cortot, Ignaz Friedman, Vladimir Horowitz, Benno Moiseiwitsch, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Arthur Rubinstein, Xaver Scharwenka and many others.[199] A select discography of recordings of Chopin works by pianists representing the various pedagogic traditions stemming from Chopin is given by Methuen-Campbell in his work tracing the lineage and character of those traditions.[200]
+
+Numerous recordings of Chopin's works are available. On the occasion of the composer's bicentenary, the critics of The New York Times recommended performances by the following contemporary pianists (among many others):[201] Martha Argerich, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Emanuel Ax, Evgeny Kissin, Murray Perahia, Maurizio Pollini and Krystian Zimerman. The Warsaw Chopin Society organises the Grand prix du disque de F. Chopin for notable Chopin recordings, held every five years.[202]
+
+Chopin has figured extensively in Polish literature, both in serious critical studies of his life and music and in fictional treatments. The earliest manifestation was probably an 1830 sonnet on Chopin by Leon Ulrich. French writers on Chopin (apart from Sand) have included Marcel Proust and André Gide; and he has also featured in works of Gottfried Benn and Boris Pasternak.[203] There are numerous biographies of Chopin in English (see bibliography for some of these).
+
+Possibly the first venture into fictional treatments of Chopin's life was a fanciful operatic version of some of its events. Chopin was written by Giacomo Orefice and produced in Milan in 1901. All the music is derived from that of Chopin.[204]
+
+Chopin's life and romantic tribulations have been fictionalised in numerous films.[205] As early as 1919, Chopin's relationships with three women – his youth sweetheart Mariolka, then with Polish singer Sonja Radkowska, and later with George Sand, were portrayed in the German silent film Nocturno der Liebe (1919), with Chopin's music serving as a backdrop.[206][207][208] The 1945 biographical film A Song to Remember earned Cornel Wilde an Academy Award nomination as Best Actor for his portrayal of the composer. Other film treatments have included: La valse de l'adieu (France, 1928) by Henry Roussel, with Pierre Blanchar as Chopin; Impromptu (1991), starring Hugh Grant as Chopin; La note bleue (1991); and Chopin: Desire for Love (2002).[209]
+
+Chopin's life was covered in a 1999 BBC Omnibus documentary by András Schiff and Mischa Scorer,[210] in a 2010 documentary realised by Angelo Bozzolini and Roberto Prosseda for Italian television[211][212] and in a BBC Four documentary Chopin – The Women Behind The Music (2010).[213][214][215]
+
+Notes
+
+Citations
+
+Bibliography
+
+Music scores

en/1098.html.txt

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+
+
+And see text
+
+A chordate (/ˈkɔːrdeɪt/) is an animal of the phylum Chordata. During some period of their life cycle, chordates possess a notochord, a dorsal nerve cord, pharyngeal slits, an endostyle, and a post-anal tail: these five anatomical features define this phylum.  Chordates are also bilaterally symmetric, and have a coelom, metameric segmentation, and circulatory system.
+
+The Chordata and Ambulacraria together form the superphylum Deuterostomia. Chordates are divided into three subphyla: Vertebrata (fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals); Tunicata or Urochordata (sea squirts, salps); and Cephalochordata (which includes lancelets). There are also extinct taxa such as the Vetulicolia. Hemichordata (which includes the acorn worms) has been presented as a fourth chordate subphylum, but now is treated as a separate phylum: hemichordates and Echinodermata form the Ambulacraria, the sister phylum of the Chordates. Of the more than 65,000 living species of chordates, about half are bony fish that are members of the superclass Pisces, class Osteichthyes.
+
+Chordate fossils have been found from as early as the Cambrian explosion, 541 million years ago. Cladistically (phylogenetically), vertebrates – chordates with the notochord replaced by a vertebral column during development – are considered to be a subgroup of the clade Craniata, which consists of chordates with a skull. The Craniata and Tunicata compose the clade Olfactores. (See diagram under Phylogeny.)
+
+Chordates form a phylum of animals that are defined by having at some stage in their lives all of the following anatomical features:[4]
+
+There are soft constraints that separate chordates from certain other biological lineages, but are not part of the formal definition:
+
+The following schema is from the fourth edition of Vertebrate Palaeontology.[8][9] The invertebrate chordate classes are from Fishes of the World.[10] While it is structured so as to reflect evolutionary relationships (similar to a cladogram), it also retains the traditional ranks used in Linnaean taxonomy.
+
+Cephalochordates, one of the three subdivisions of chordates, are small, "vaguely fish-shaped" animals that lack brains, clearly defined heads and specialized sense organs.[15] These burrowing filter-feeders compose the earliest-branching chordate sub-phylum.[16][17]
+
+Most tunicates appear as adults in two major forms, known as "sea squirts" and salps, both of which are soft-bodied filter-feeders that lack the standard features of chordates. Sea squirts are sessile and consist mainly of water pumps and filter-feeding apparatus;[18] salps float in mid-water, feeding on plankton, and have a two-generation cycle in which one generation is solitary and the next forms chain-like colonies.[19] However, all tunicate larvae have the standard chordate features, including long, tadpole-like tails; they also have rudimentary brains, light sensors and tilt sensors.[18] The third main group of tunicates, Appendicularia (also known as Larvacea), retain tadpole-like shapes and active swimming all their lives, and were for a long time regarded as larvae of sea squirts or salps.[20] The etymology of the term Urochordata (Balfour 1881) is from the ancient Greek οὐρά (oura, "tail") + Latin chorda ("cord"), because the notochord is only found in the tail.[21] The term Tunicata (Lamarck 1816) is recognised as having precedence and is now more commonly used.[18]
+
+1. Notochord, 2. Nerve chord, 3. Buccal cirri, 4. Pharynx, 5. Gill slit, 6. Gonad, 7. Gut, 8. V-shaped muscles, 9. Anus, 10. Inhalant syphon, 11. Exhalant syphon, 12. Heart, 13. Stomach, 14. Esophagus, 15. Intestines, 16. Tail, 17. Atrium, 18. Tunic
+
+Craniates all have distinct skulls. They include the hagfish, which have no vertebrae. Michael J. Benton commented that "craniates are characterized by their heads, just as chordates, or possibly all deuterostomes, are by their tails".[22]
+
+Most craniates are vertebrates, in which the notochord is replaced by the vertebral column.[23] These consist of a series of bony or cartilaginous cylindrical vertebrae, generally with neural arches that protect the spinal cord, and with projections that link the vertebrae. However hagfish have incomplete braincases and no vertebrae, and are therefore not regarded as vertebrates,[24]
+but as members of the craniates, the group from which vertebrates are thought to have evolved.[25] However the cladistic exclusion of hagfish from the vertebrates is controversial, as they may be degenerate vertebrates who have lost their vertebral columns.[26]
+
+The position of lampreys is ambiguous. They have complete braincases and rudimentary vertebrae, and therefore may be regarded as vertebrates and true fish.[27] However, molecular phylogenetics, which uses biochemical features to classify organisms, has produced both results that group them with vertebrates and others that group them with hagfish.[28] If lampreys are more closely related to the hagfish than the other vertebrates, this would suggest that they form a clade, which has been named the Cyclostomata.[29]
+
+There is still much ongoing differential (DNA sequence based) comparison research that is trying to separate out the simplest forms of chordates. As some lineages of the 90% of species that lack a backbone or notochord might have lost these structures over time, this complicates the classification of chordates. Some chordate lineages may only be found by DNA analysis, when there is no physical trace of any chordate-like structures.[31]
+
+Attempts to work out the evolutionary relationships of the chordates have produced several hypotheses. The current consensus is that chordates are monophyletic, meaning that the Chordata include all and only the descendants of a single common ancestor, which is itself a chordate, and that craniates' nearest relatives are tunicates.
+
+All of the earliest chordate fossils have been found in the Early Cambrian Chengjiang fauna, and include two species that are regarded as fish, which implies that they are vertebrates. Because the fossil record of early chordates is poor, only molecular phylogenetics offers a reasonable prospect of dating their emergence. However, the use of molecular phylogenetics for dating evolutionary transitions is controversial.
+
+It has also proved difficult to produce a detailed classification within the living chordates. Attempts to produce evolutionary "family trees" shows that many of the traditional classes are paraphyletic.
+
+Hemichordates
+
+Echinoderms
+
+Cephalochordates
+
+Tunicates
+
+Craniates (vertebrates)
+
+While this has been well known since the 19th century, an insistence on only monophyletic taxa has resulted in vertebrate classification being in a state of flux.[32]
+
+The majority of animals more complex than jellyfish and other Cnidarians are split into two groups, the protostomes and deuterostomes, the latter of which contains chordates.[33] It seems very likely the 555 million-year-old Kimberella was a member of the protostomes.[34][35] If so, this means the protostome and deuterostome lineages must have split some time before Kimberella appeared—at least 558 million years ago, and hence well before the start of the Cambrian 541 million years ago.[33] The Ediacaran fossil Ernietta, from about 549 to 543 million years ago, may represent a deuterostome animal.[36]
+
+Fossils of one major deuterostome group, the echinoderms (whose modern members include starfish, sea urchins and crinoids), are quite common from the start of the Cambrian, 542 million years ago.[37] The Mid Cambrian fossil Rhabdotubus johanssoni has been interpreted as a pterobranch hemichordate.[38] Opinions differ about whether the Chengjiang fauna fossil Yunnanozoon, from the earlier Cambrian, was a hemichordate or chordate.[39][40] Another fossil, Haikouella lanceolata, also from the Chengjiang fauna, is interpreted as a chordate and possibly a craniate, as it shows signs of a heart, arteries, gill filaments, a tail, a neural chord with a brain at the front end, and possibly eyes—although it also had short tentacles round its mouth.[40] Haikouichthys and Myllokunmingia, also from the Chengjiang fauna, are regarded as fish.[30][41] Pikaia, discovered much earlier (1911) but from the Mid Cambrian Burgess Shale (505 Ma), is also regarded as a primitive chordate.[42] On the other hand, fossils of early chordates are very rare, since invertebrate chordates have no bones or teeth, and only one has been reported for the rest of the Cambrian.[43]
+
+The evolutionary relationships between the chordate groups and between chordates as a whole and their closest deuterostome relatives have been debated since 1890. Studies based on anatomical, embryological, and paleontological data have produced different "family trees". Some closely linked chordates and hemichordates, but that idea is now rejected.[5] Combining such analyses with data from a small set of ribosome RNA genes eliminated some older ideas, but opened up the possibility that tunicates (urochordates) are "basal deuterostomes", surviving members of the group from which echinoderms, hemichordates and chordates evolved.[44] Some researchers believe that, within the chordates, craniates are most closely related to cephalochordates, but there are also reasons for regarding tunicates (urochordates) as craniates' closest relatives.[5][45]
+
+Since early chordates have left a poor fossil record, attempts have been made to calculate the key dates in their evolution by molecular phylogenetics techniques—by analyzing biochemical differences, mainly in RNA. One such study suggested that deuterostomes arose before 900 million years ago and the earliest chordates around 896 million years ago.[45] However, molecular estimates of dates often disagree with each other and with the fossil record,[45] and their assumption that the molecular clock runs at a known constant rate has been challenged.[46][47]
+
+Traditionally, Cephalochordata and Craniata were grouped into the proposed clade "Euchordata", which would have been the sister group to Tunicata/Urochordata. More recently, Cephalochordata has been thought of as a sister group to the "Olfactores", which includes the craniates and tunicates. The matter is not yet settled.
+
+Phylogenetic tree of the Chordate phylum. Lines show probable evolutionary relationships, including extinct taxa, which are denoted with a dagger, †. Some are invertebrates. The positions (relationships) of the Lancelet, Tunicate, and Craniata clades are as reported[48][49][50][51]
+
+Amphioxus
+
+Haikouella†
+
+Appendicularia (formerly Larvacea)
+
+Thaliacea
+
+Ascidiacea
+
+Myxini (hagfish)
+
+Hyperoartia/Petromyzontida (lampreys)
+
+Conodonta†
+
+Pteraspidomorphi† (including Arandaspida†, Astraspida† and Heterostraci†)
+
+Cephalaspidomorphi† (including Galeaspida†, Osteostraci† and Pituriaspida†)
+
+Placodermi (including Antiarchi†, Petalichthyida†, Ptyctodontida† and Arthrodira†)
+
+Acanthodii† (paraphyletic)
+
+Chondrichthyes (cartilaginous fishes)
+
+Actinopterygii (ray-finned fishes)
+
+Actinistia (coelacanths)
+
+Dipnoi (lungfishes)
+
+Amphibia
+
+Mammalia
+
+Lepidosauromorpha (lizards, snakes, tuatara, and their extinct relatives)
+
+Archosauromorpha (crocodiles, birds, and their extinct relatives)
+
+Hemichordates ("half chordates") have some features similar to those of chordates: branchial openings that open into the pharynx and look rather like gill slits; stomochords, similar in composition to notochords, but running in a circle round the "collar", which is ahead of the mouth; and a dorsal nerve cord—but also a smaller ventral nerve cord.
+
+There are two living groups of hemichordates. The solitary enteropneusts, commonly known as "acorn worms", have long proboscises and worm-like bodies with up to 200 branchial slits, are up to 2.5 metres (8.2 ft) long, and burrow though seafloor sediments. Pterobranchs are colonial animals, often less than 1 millimetre (0.039 in) long individually, whose dwellings are interconnected. Each filter feeds by means of a pair of branched tentacles, and has a short, shield-shaped proboscis. The extinct graptolites, colonial animals whose fossils look like tiny hacksaw blades, lived in tubes similar to those of pterobranchs.[52]
+
+Echinoderms differ from chordates and their other relatives in three conspicuous ways: they possess bilateral symmetry only as larvae - in adulthood they have radial symmetry, meaning that their body pattern is shaped like a wheel; they have tube feet; and their bodies are supported by skeletons made of calcite, a material not used by chordates. Their hard, calcified shells keep their bodies well protected from the environment, and these skeletons enclose their bodies, but are also covered by thin skins. The feet are powered by another unique feature of echinoderms, a water vascular system of canals that also functions as a "lung" and surrounded by muscles that act as pumps. Crinoids look rather like flowers, and use their feather-like arms to filter food particles out of the water; most live anchored to rocks, but a few can move very slowly. Other echinoderms are mobile and take a variety of body shapes, for example starfish, sea urchins and sea cucumbers.[53]
+
+Although the name Chordata is attributed to William Bateson (1885), it was already in prevalent use by 1880. Ernst Haeckel described a taxon comprising tunicates, cephalochordates, and vertebrates in 1866. Though he used the German vernacular form, it is allowed under the ICZN code because of its subsequent latinization.[2]

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+And see text
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+A chordate (/ˈkɔːrdeɪt/) is an animal of the phylum Chordata. During some period of their life cycle, chordates possess a notochord, a dorsal nerve cord, pharyngeal slits, an endostyle, and a post-anal tail: these five anatomical features define this phylum.  Chordates are also bilaterally symmetric, and have a coelom, metameric segmentation, and circulatory system.
+
+The Chordata and Ambulacraria together form the superphylum Deuterostomia. Chordates are divided into three subphyla: Vertebrata (fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals); Tunicata or Urochordata (sea squirts, salps); and Cephalochordata (which includes lancelets). There are also extinct taxa such as the Vetulicolia. Hemichordata (which includes the acorn worms) has been presented as a fourth chordate subphylum, but now is treated as a separate phylum: hemichordates and Echinodermata form the Ambulacraria, the sister phylum of the Chordates. Of the more than 65,000 living species of chordates, about half are bony fish that are members of the superclass Pisces, class Osteichthyes.
+
+Chordate fossils have been found from as early as the Cambrian explosion, 541 million years ago. Cladistically (phylogenetically), vertebrates – chordates with the notochord replaced by a vertebral column during development – are considered to be a subgroup of the clade Craniata, which consists of chordates with a skull. The Craniata and Tunicata compose the clade Olfactores. (See diagram under Phylogeny.)
+
+Chordates form a phylum of animals that are defined by having at some stage in their lives all of the following anatomical features:[4]
+
+There are soft constraints that separate chordates from certain other biological lineages, but are not part of the formal definition:
+
+The following schema is from the fourth edition of Vertebrate Palaeontology.[8][9] The invertebrate chordate classes are from Fishes of the World.[10] While it is structured so as to reflect evolutionary relationships (similar to a cladogram), it also retains the traditional ranks used in Linnaean taxonomy.
+
+Cephalochordates, one of the three subdivisions of chordates, are small, "vaguely fish-shaped" animals that lack brains, clearly defined heads and specialized sense organs.[15] These burrowing filter-feeders compose the earliest-branching chordate sub-phylum.[16][17]
+
+Most tunicates appear as adults in two major forms, known as "sea squirts" and salps, both of which are soft-bodied filter-feeders that lack the standard features of chordates. Sea squirts are sessile and consist mainly of water pumps and filter-feeding apparatus;[18] salps float in mid-water, feeding on plankton, and have a two-generation cycle in which one generation is solitary and the next forms chain-like colonies.[19] However, all tunicate larvae have the standard chordate features, including long, tadpole-like tails; they also have rudimentary brains, light sensors and tilt sensors.[18] The third main group of tunicates, Appendicularia (also known as Larvacea), retain tadpole-like shapes and active swimming all their lives, and were for a long time regarded as larvae of sea squirts or salps.[20] The etymology of the term Urochordata (Balfour 1881) is from the ancient Greek οὐρά (oura, "tail") + Latin chorda ("cord"), because the notochord is only found in the tail.[21] The term Tunicata (Lamarck 1816) is recognised as having precedence and is now more commonly used.[18]
+
+1. Notochord, 2. Nerve chord, 3. Buccal cirri, 4. Pharynx, 5. Gill slit, 6. Gonad, 7. Gut, 8. V-shaped muscles, 9. Anus, 10. Inhalant syphon, 11. Exhalant syphon, 12. Heart, 13. Stomach, 14. Esophagus, 15. Intestines, 16. Tail, 17. Atrium, 18. Tunic
+
+Craniates all have distinct skulls. They include the hagfish, which have no vertebrae. Michael J. Benton commented that "craniates are characterized by their heads, just as chordates, or possibly all deuterostomes, are by their tails".[22]
+
+Most craniates are vertebrates, in which the notochord is replaced by the vertebral column.[23] These consist of a series of bony or cartilaginous cylindrical vertebrae, generally with neural arches that protect the spinal cord, and with projections that link the vertebrae. However hagfish have incomplete braincases and no vertebrae, and are therefore not regarded as vertebrates,[24]
+but as members of the craniates, the group from which vertebrates are thought to have evolved.[25] However the cladistic exclusion of hagfish from the vertebrates is controversial, as they may be degenerate vertebrates who have lost their vertebral columns.[26]
+
+The position of lampreys is ambiguous. They have complete braincases and rudimentary vertebrae, and therefore may be regarded as vertebrates and true fish.[27] However, molecular phylogenetics, which uses biochemical features to classify organisms, has produced both results that group them with vertebrates and others that group them with hagfish.[28] If lampreys are more closely related to the hagfish than the other vertebrates, this would suggest that they form a clade, which has been named the Cyclostomata.[29]
+
+There is still much ongoing differential (DNA sequence based) comparison research that is trying to separate out the simplest forms of chordates. As some lineages of the 90% of species that lack a backbone or notochord might have lost these structures over time, this complicates the classification of chordates. Some chordate lineages may only be found by DNA analysis, when there is no physical trace of any chordate-like structures.[31]
+
+Attempts to work out the evolutionary relationships of the chordates have produced several hypotheses. The current consensus is that chordates are monophyletic, meaning that the Chordata include all and only the descendants of a single common ancestor, which is itself a chordate, and that craniates' nearest relatives are tunicates.
+
+All of the earliest chordate fossils have been found in the Early Cambrian Chengjiang fauna, and include two species that are regarded as fish, which implies that they are vertebrates. Because the fossil record of early chordates is poor, only molecular phylogenetics offers a reasonable prospect of dating their emergence. However, the use of molecular phylogenetics for dating evolutionary transitions is controversial.
+
+It has also proved difficult to produce a detailed classification within the living chordates. Attempts to produce evolutionary "family trees" shows that many of the traditional classes are paraphyletic.
+
+Hemichordates
+
+Echinoderms
+
+Cephalochordates
+
+Tunicates
+
+Craniates (vertebrates)
+
+While this has been well known since the 19th century, an insistence on only monophyletic taxa has resulted in vertebrate classification being in a state of flux.[32]
+
+The majority of animals more complex than jellyfish and other Cnidarians are split into two groups, the protostomes and deuterostomes, the latter of which contains chordates.[33] It seems very likely the 555 million-year-old Kimberella was a member of the protostomes.[34][35] If so, this means the protostome and deuterostome lineages must have split some time before Kimberella appeared—at least 558 million years ago, and hence well before the start of the Cambrian 541 million years ago.[33] The Ediacaran fossil Ernietta, from about 549 to 543 million years ago, may represent a deuterostome animal.[36]
+
+Fossils of one major deuterostome group, the echinoderms (whose modern members include starfish, sea urchins and crinoids), are quite common from the start of the Cambrian, 542 million years ago.[37] The Mid Cambrian fossil Rhabdotubus johanssoni has been interpreted as a pterobranch hemichordate.[38] Opinions differ about whether the Chengjiang fauna fossil Yunnanozoon, from the earlier Cambrian, was a hemichordate or chordate.[39][40] Another fossil, Haikouella lanceolata, also from the Chengjiang fauna, is interpreted as a chordate and possibly a craniate, as it shows signs of a heart, arteries, gill filaments, a tail, a neural chord with a brain at the front end, and possibly eyes—although it also had short tentacles round its mouth.[40] Haikouichthys and Myllokunmingia, also from the Chengjiang fauna, are regarded as fish.[30][41] Pikaia, discovered much earlier (1911) but from the Mid Cambrian Burgess Shale (505 Ma), is also regarded as a primitive chordate.[42] On the other hand, fossils of early chordates are very rare, since invertebrate chordates have no bones or teeth, and only one has been reported for the rest of the Cambrian.[43]
+
+The evolutionary relationships between the chordate groups and between chordates as a whole and their closest deuterostome relatives have been debated since 1890. Studies based on anatomical, embryological, and paleontological data have produced different "family trees". Some closely linked chordates and hemichordates, but that idea is now rejected.[5] Combining such analyses with data from a small set of ribosome RNA genes eliminated some older ideas, but opened up the possibility that tunicates (urochordates) are "basal deuterostomes", surviving members of the group from which echinoderms, hemichordates and chordates evolved.[44] Some researchers believe that, within the chordates, craniates are most closely related to cephalochordates, but there are also reasons for regarding tunicates (urochordates) as craniates' closest relatives.[5][45]
+
+Since early chordates have left a poor fossil record, attempts have been made to calculate the key dates in their evolution by molecular phylogenetics techniques—by analyzing biochemical differences, mainly in RNA. One such study suggested that deuterostomes arose before 900 million years ago and the earliest chordates around 896 million years ago.[45] However, molecular estimates of dates often disagree with each other and with the fossil record,[45] and their assumption that the molecular clock runs at a known constant rate has been challenged.[46][47]
+
+Traditionally, Cephalochordata and Craniata were grouped into the proposed clade "Euchordata", which would have been the sister group to Tunicata/Urochordata. More recently, Cephalochordata has been thought of as a sister group to the "Olfactores", which includes the craniates and tunicates. The matter is not yet settled.
+
+Phylogenetic tree of the Chordate phylum. Lines show probable evolutionary relationships, including extinct taxa, which are denoted with a dagger, †. Some are invertebrates. The positions (relationships) of the Lancelet, Tunicate, and Craniata clades are as reported[48][49][50][51]
+
+Amphioxus
+
+Haikouella†
+
+Appendicularia (formerly Larvacea)
+
+Thaliacea
+
+Ascidiacea
+
+Myxini (hagfish)
+
+Hyperoartia/Petromyzontida (lampreys)
+
+Conodonta†
+
+Pteraspidomorphi† (including Arandaspida†, Astraspida† and Heterostraci†)
+
+Cephalaspidomorphi† (including Galeaspida†, Osteostraci† and Pituriaspida†)
+
+Placodermi (including Antiarchi†, Petalichthyida†, Ptyctodontida† and Arthrodira†)
+
+Acanthodii† (paraphyletic)
+
+Chondrichthyes (cartilaginous fishes)
+
+Actinopterygii (ray-finned fishes)
+
+Actinistia (coelacanths)
+
+Dipnoi (lungfishes)
+
+Amphibia
+
+Mammalia
+
+Lepidosauromorpha (lizards, snakes, tuatara, and their extinct relatives)
+
+Archosauromorpha (crocodiles, birds, and their extinct relatives)
+
+Hemichordates ("half chordates") have some features similar to those of chordates: branchial openings that open into the pharynx and look rather like gill slits; stomochords, similar in composition to notochords, but running in a circle round the "collar", which is ahead of the mouth; and a dorsal nerve cord—but also a smaller ventral nerve cord.
+
+There are two living groups of hemichordates. The solitary enteropneusts, commonly known as "acorn worms", have long proboscises and worm-like bodies with up to 200 branchial slits, are up to 2.5 metres (8.2 ft) long, and burrow though seafloor sediments. Pterobranchs are colonial animals, often less than 1 millimetre (0.039 in) long individually, whose dwellings are interconnected. Each filter feeds by means of a pair of branched tentacles, and has a short, shield-shaped proboscis. The extinct graptolites, colonial animals whose fossils look like tiny hacksaw blades, lived in tubes similar to those of pterobranchs.[52]
+
+Echinoderms differ from chordates and their other relatives in three conspicuous ways: they possess bilateral symmetry only as larvae - in adulthood they have radial symmetry, meaning that their body pattern is shaped like a wheel; they have tube feet; and their bodies are supported by skeletons made of calcite, a material not used by chordates. Their hard, calcified shells keep their bodies well protected from the environment, and these skeletons enclose their bodies, but are also covered by thin skins. The feet are powered by another unique feature of echinoderms, a water vascular system of canals that also functions as a "lung" and surrounded by muscles that act as pumps. Crinoids look rather like flowers, and use their feather-like arms to filter food particles out of the water; most live anchored to rocks, but a few can move very slowly. Other echinoderms are mobile and take a variety of body shapes, for example starfish, sea urchins and sea cucumbers.[53]
+
+Although the name Chordata is attributed to William Bateson (1885), it was already in prevalent use by 1880. Ernst Haeckel described a taxon comprising tunicates, cephalochordates, and vertebrates in 1866. Though he used the German vernacular form, it is allowed under the ICZN code because of its subsequent latinization.[2]

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+
+
+
+
+Slavery is any system in which principles of property law are applied to people, allowing individuals to own, buy and sell other individuals, as a de jure form of property.[1] An enslaved person is unable to withdraw unilaterally from such an arrangement and works without remuneration. Many scholars now use the term chattel slavery to refer to this specific sense of legalized, de jure slavery.
+
+In a broader sense, however, the word "slavery" may also refer to any situation in which an individual is de facto forced to work against their own will. To describe such circumstances, scholars may use such alternate terms as unfree labour or forced labour.[2]
+
+Under the broader use of the term slavery, but also in certain cases of actual de jure (chattel) slavery, local laws and/or customs may vest the enslaved with limited rights and protections.
+
+Slavery has existed in many cultures, dating back to early human civilizations.[3] It was legal in most societies at some time in the past but is now outlawed in all recognized countries.[4][5] Nevertheless, as of 2019 there were an estimated 40 million people worldwide subject to some form of slavery, 25% of them children.[6] More than half of modern slaves are used for forced labor, mostly in the private sector.[6] The most common form of modern slave trade is commonly referred to as human trafficking. In some areas of the world, slavery continues through practices such as debt bondage, the most common source of modern slaves;[2] serfdom; domestic servants kept in captivity; certain adoptions in which children are forced to work as slaves; child soldiers; and forced marriage.[7]
+
+The word slave is derived from the ethnonym (ethnic name) Slav.[8][9][10] It arrived in English via the Old French sclave. In Medieval Latin the word was sclavus and in Byzantine Greek σκλάβος.[8] Use of the word arose during the Early Medieval Period, when Slavs from Central and Eastern Europe (Saqaliba) were frequently enslaved by Moors from the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa.[11][12][13] An older interpretation connected slave to the Greek verb skyleúo 'to strip a slain enemy'.[14]
+
+There is a dispute among historians about whether terms such as "unfree labourer" or enslaved person, rather than "slave", should be used when describing the victims of slavery. According to those proposing a change in terminology, slave perpetuates the crime of slavery in language; by reducing its victims to a nonhuman noun instead of "carry[ing] them forward as people, not the property that they were". Other historians prefer slave because the term is familiar and shorter, or because it accurately reflects the inhumanity of slavery, with "person" implying a degree of autonomy that slavery does not allow.[15]
+
+Indenture, otherwise known as bonded labour or debt bondage, is a form of unfree labour under which a person pledges himself or herself against a loan.[16] The services required to repay the debt, and their duration, may be undefined.[16] Debt bondage can be passed on from generation to generation, with children required to pay off their progenitors' debt.[16] It is the most widespread form of slavery today.[2] Debt bondage is most prevalent in South Asia.[17]
+
+Chattel slavery, also called traditional slavery, is so named because people are treated as the chattel (personal property) of the owner and are bought and sold as commodities. Typically, under the chattel slave system, children inherited slave status via the mother (partus sequitur ventrem).[18] Although it dominated many different societies throughout human history, this form of slavery has been formally abolished and is very rare today. Even when it can be said to survive, it is not upheld by the legal system of any internationally recognized government.[19]
+
+"Slavery" has also been used to refer to a legal state of dependency to somebody else.[20][21] For example, in Persia, the situations and lives of such slaves could be better than those of common citizens.[22]
+
+Forced labour, or unfree labour, is sometimes used to describe an individual who is forced to work against their own will, under threat of violence or other punishment, but the generic term unfree labour is also used to describe chattel slavery, as well as any other situation in which a person is obliged to work against their own will, and a person's ability to work productively is under the complete control of another person.[2] This may also include institutions not commonly classified as slavery, such as serfdom, conscription and penal labour. While some unfree labourers, such as serfs, have substantive, de jure legal or traditional rights, they also have no ability to terminate the arrangements under which they work and are frequently subject to forms of coercion, violence, and restrictions on their activities and movement outside their place of work.
+
+Human trafficking primarily involves women and children forced into prostitution and is the fastest growing form of forced labour, with Thailand, Cambodia, India, Brazil and Mexico having been identified as leading hotspots of commercial sexual exploitation of children.[2][23][24] Examples of sexual slavery, often in military contexts, include detention in "rape camps" or "comfort stations," "comfort women", forced "marriages" to soldiers and other practices involving the treatment of women or men as chattel and, as such, violations of the peremptory norm prohibiting slavery.[25][26][27][28]
+
+In 2007, Human Rights Watch estimated that 200,000 to 300,000 children served as soldiers in current conflicts.[29] More girls under 16 work as domestic workers than any other category of child labor, often sent to cities by parents living in rural poverty[30] such as in restaveks in Haiti.
+
+Forced marriages or early marriages are often considered types of slavery. Forced marriage continues to be practiced in parts of the world including some parts of Asia and Africa and in immigrant communities in the West.[31][32][33][34] Sacred prostitution is where girls and women are pledged to priests or those of higher castes, such as the practice of Devadasi in South Asia or fetish slaves in West Africa.[2] Marriage by abduction occurs in many places in the world today, with a national average of 69% of marriages in Ethiopia being through abduction.[35]
+
+Economists have attempted to model the circumstances under which slavery (and variants such as serfdom) appear and disappear. One observation is that slavery becomes more desirable for landowners where land is abundant but labour is scarce, such that rent is depressed and paid workers can demand high wages. If the opposite holds true, then it becomes more costly for landowners to have guards for the slaves than to employ paid workers who can only demand low wages because of the amount of competition.[36] Thus, first slavery and then serfdom gradually decreased in Europe as the population grew but were reintroduced in the Americas and in Russia as large areas of new land with few people became available.[37]
+
+Slavery is more common when the labor done is relatively simple and thus easy to supervise, such as large-scale growing of a single crop, like sugar and cotton, in which output was based on economies of scale. This enables such systems of labor, such as the gang system in the United States, to become prominent on large plantations where field hands were monitored and worked with factory-like precision. For example, each work gang was based on an internal division of labour that assigned every member of the gang to a precise task and simultaneously made their own performance dependent on the actions of the others. The hoe hands chopped out the weeds that surrounded the cotton plants as well as excessive sprouts. The plow gangs followed behind, stirring the soil near the rows of cotton plants and tossing it back around the plants. Thus, the gang system worked like an assembly line.[38]
+
+Since the 18th century, critics have argued that slavery tends to retard technological advancement because the focus is on increasing the number of slaves doing simple tasks rather than upgrading the efficiency of labour. For example, it is sometime argued that, because of this narrow focus, theoretical knowledge and learning in Greece – and later in Rome – was not applied to ease physical labour or improve manufacturing.[39]
+
+Scottish economist Adam Smith states that free labour was economically better than slave labour, and that it is nearly impossible to end slavery in a free, democratic, or republican form of government since many of its legislators or political figures were slave owners, and would not punish themselves.  He further states that slaves would be better able to gain their freedom when there was centralized government, or a central authority like a king or the church.[40][41] Similar arguments appear later in the works of Auguste Comte, especially when it comes to Smith's belief in the separation of powers, or what Comte called the "separation of the spiritual and the temporal" during the Middle Ages and the end of slavery, and Smith's criticism of masters, past and present. As Smith states in the Lectures on Jurisprudence, "The great power of the clergy thus concurring with that of the king set the slaves at liberty. But it was absolutely necessary both that the authority of the king and of the clergy should be great. Where ever any one of these was wanting, slavery still continues..."
+
+Worldwide, slavery is a criminal offense, but slave owners can get very high returns for their risk. According to researcher Siddharth Kara, the profits generated worldwide by all forms of slavery in 2007 were $91.2 billion. That is second only to drug trafficking, in terms of global criminal enterprises. Currently, the weighted average global sales price of a slave is calculated to be approximately $340, with a high of $1,895 for the average trafficked sex slave, and a low of $40 to $50 for debt bondage slaves in part of Asia and Africa.[42] The weighted average annual profits generated by a slave in 2007 was $3,175, with a low of an average $950 for bonded labor and $29,210 for a trafficked sex slave.[42] Approximately 40% of slave profits each year are generated by trafficked sex slaves, representing slightly more than 4% of the world's 29 million slaves.[42]
+
+Throughout history, slaves were clothed in a distinctive fashion, particularly with respect to the frequent lack of footwear, as they were rather commonly forced to go barefoot. This was partly because of economic reasons but also served as a distinguishing feature, especially in South Africa and South America. For example, the Cape Town slave code stated that "Slaves must go barefoot and must carry passes."[43] It also puts slaves at a physical disadvantage because of the lack of protection against environmental adversities and also in situations of possible confrontation, thereby making it more difficult to escape or to rebel against their owners.
+
+This was the case in the majority of states that abolished slavery later in history, as most images from the respective historical period suggest that slaves were barefoot.[44]
+To quote Brother Riemer (1779): "[the slaves] are, even in their most beautiful suit, obliged to go barefoot. Slaves were forbidden to wear shoes. This was a prime mark of distinction between the free and the bonded and no exceptions were permitted."[45]
+
+According to the Bible, shoes have been considered badges of freedom since antiquity: "But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put [it] on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on [his] feet" (Luke 15:22). This aspect can be viewed as an informal law in areas where slavery existed as any person sighted barefoot in public would be conclusively regarded as a slave.
+
+In certain societies this rule is valid to this day. As with the Tuareg, where slavery is still unofficially practiced, their slaves are constantly forced to remain barefoot as a recognition mark. Mainly through their bare feet their societal status and rank opposite their owners is displayed to the public in a plainly visible way.[46]
+
+Another widespread practice was branding the slaves either to generally mark them as property or as punishment usually reserved for fugitives.
+
+Some scholars differentiate between ancient forms of slavery and the large-scale, largely race-based slavery which grew to immense proportions starting in the 14th century. The first type of slavery, sometimes called "just title servitude," was suffered by prisoners of war, debtors, and other vulnerable people.[47] The second, race-based type of slavery was argued even by some contemporary writers to be intrinsically immoral.[48][49][50]
+
+Evidence of slavery predates written records and has existed in many cultures.[3]  Slavery is rare among hunter-gatherer populations because it requires economic surpluses and a high population density to be viable. Thus, although it has existed among unusually resource-rich hunter gatherers, such as the American Indian peoples of the salmon-rich rivers of the Pacific Northwest Coast, slavery became widespread only with the invention of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution about 11,000 years ago.[51]
+
+In the earliest known records, slavery is treated as an established institution. The Code of Hammurabi (c. 1760 BC), for example, prescribed death for anyone who helped a slave escape or who sheltered a fugitive.[52] The Bible mentions slavery as an established institution.[3] Slavery was known in almost every ancient civilization and society.[3] Such institutions included debt bondage, punishment for crime, the enslavement of prisoners of war, child abandonment, and the birth of slave children to slaves.[53]
+
+Slavery existed in Pharaonic Egypt, but studying it is complicated by terminology used by the Egyptians to refer to different classes of servitude over the course of history. Interpretation of the textual evidence of classes of slaves in ancient Egypt has been difficult to differentiate by word usage alone.[54][55] There were three apparent types of enslavement in Ancient Egypt: chattel slavery, bonded labor, and forced labor.[56][57][58]
+
+Slavery is known to have existed in ancient China as early as the Shang dynasty.[59] Slavery was largely employed by governments as a means of maintaining a public labor force.[60][61]
+
+Records of slavery in Ancient Greece date as far back as Mycenaean Greece. It is certain that Classical Athens had the largest slave population, with as many as 80,000 in the 6th and 5th centuries BC.[62]  As the Roman Republic expanded outward, entire populations were enslaved, thus creating an ample supply from all over Europe and the Mediterranean. Slaves were used for labour, as well as for amusement (e.g. gladiators and sex slaves). This oppression by an elite minority eventually led to slave revolts (see Roman Servile Wars); the Third Servile War, led by Spartacus, (a Thracian) being the most famous.
+
+By the late Republican era, slavery had become a vital economic pillar in the wealth of Rome, as well as a very significant part of Roman society.[63] It is estimated that 25% or more of the population of Ancient Rome was enslaved, although the actual percentage is debated by scholars and varied from region to region.[64][65] Slaves represented 15–25% of Italy's population,[66] mostly captives in war,[66] especially from Gaul[67] and Epirus. Estimates of the number of slaves in the Roman Empire suggest that the majority of slaves were scattered throughout the provinces outside of Italy.[66] Generally, slaves in Italy were indigenous Italians,[68] with a minority of foreigners (including both slaves and freedmen) born outside of Italy estimated at 5% of the total in the capital at its peak, where their number was largest. Those from outside of Europe were predominantly of Greek descent, while the Jewish ones never fully assimilated into Roman society, remaining an identifiable minority. These slaves (especially the foreigners) had higher death rates and lower birth rates than natives and were sometimes even subjected to mass expulsions.[69] The average recorded age at death for the slaves of the city of Rome was seventeen and a half years (17.2 for males; 17.9 for females).[70][page needed]
+
+Slavery was widespread in Africa, with both internal and external slave trade.[71] In the Senegambia region, between 1300 and 1900, close to one-third of the population was enslaved. In early Islamic states of the western Sahel, including Ghana, Mali, Segou, and Songhai, about a third of the population were enslaved.[72]
+
+The Arab slave trade, across the Sahara desert and across the Indian Ocean, began after Muslim Arab and Swahili traders won control of the Swahili Coast and sea routes during the 9th century (see Sultanate of Zanzibar). These traders captured Bantu peoples (Zanj) from the interior in present-day Kenya, Mozambique and Tanzania and brought them to the coast.[74][75] There, the slaves gradually assimilated in the rural areas, particularly on the Unguja and Pemba islands.[76]
+
+Slavery in Mexico can be traced back to the Aztecs.[77] Other Amerindians, such as the Inca of the Andes, the Tupinambá of Brazil, the Creek of Georgia, and the Comanche of Texas, also owned slaves.[3]
+
+Many Han Chinese were enslaved in the process of the Mongol invasion of China proper.[78] According to Japanese historians Sugiyama Masaaki (杉山正明) and Funada Yoshiyuki (舩田善之), there were also a certain number of Mongolian slaves owned by Han Chinese during the Yuan dynasty. Moreover, there is no evidence that the Han Chinese, who were at the bottom of Yuan society according to some research, suffered particularly cruel abuse.[79][80]
+
+Slavery in Korea existed since before the Three Kingdoms of Korea period, approximately 2,000 years ago.[81] Slavery has been described as "very important in medieval Korea, probably more important than in any other East Asian country, but by the 16th century, population growth was making [it] unnecessary".[82] Slavery went into decline around the 10th century but came back in the late Goryeo period when Korea also experienced a number of slave rebellions.[81]
+
+In the Joseon period of Korea, members of the slave class were known as nobi. The nobi were socially indistinct from freemen (i.e., the middle and common classes) other than the ruling yangban class, and some possessed property rights, legal entities and civil rights. Hence, some scholars argue that it is inappropriate to call them "slaves",[83] while some scholars describe them as serfs.[84][85] The nobi population could fluctuate up to about one-third of the population, but on average the nobi made up about 10% of the total population.[86] In 1801, the vast majority of government nobi were emancipated,[87] and by 1858 the nobi population stood at about 1.5 percent of the total population of Korea.[88]
+
+Slavery largely disappeared from Western Europe in the Middle Ages but persisted longer in Eastern Europe.[89] Large-scale trading in slaves was mainly confined to the South and East of early medieval Europe: the Byzantine Empire and the Muslim world were the destinations, while pagan Central and Eastern Europe (along with the Caucasus and Tartary) were important sources. Viking, Arab, Greek, and Radhanite Jewish merchants were all involved in the slave trade during the Early Middle Ages.[90][91][92] The trade in European slaves reached a peak in the 10th century following the Zanj Rebellion which dampened the use of African slaves in the Arab world.[93][94]
+
+Slavery in early medieval Europe was so common that the Catholic Church repeatedly prohibited it, or at least the export of Christian slaves to non-Christian lands, as for example at the Council of Koblenz (922), the Council of London (1102) (which aimed mainly at the sale of English slaves to Ireland)[95] and the Council of Armagh (1171). Serfdom, on the contrary, was widely accepted. In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas, granting the kings of Spain and Portugal the right to reduce any "Saracens (Muslims), pagans and any other unbelievers" to perpetual slavery, legitimizing the slave trade as a result of war.[96] The approval of slavery under these conditions was reaffirmed and extended in his Romanus Pontifex bull of 1455.
+
+In Britain, slavery continued to be practiced following the fall of Rome, and sections of Hywel the Good's laws dealt with slaves in medieval Wales. The trade particularly picked up after the Viking invasions, with major markets at Chester[97] and Bristol[98] supplied by Danish, Mercian, and Welsh raiding of one another's borderlands. At the time of the Domesday Book, nearly 10% of the English population were slaves.[99] William the Conqueror introduced a law preventing the sale of slaves overseas.[100] According to historian John Gillingham, by 1200 slavery in the British Isles was non-existent.[101] The slave trade was abolished by the Slave Trade Act 1807, although slavery remained legal in possessions outside Europe until the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 and the Indian Slavery Act, 1843.[102]
+
+The Byzantine-Ottoman wars and the Ottoman wars in Europe brought large numbers of slaves into the Islamic world.[103] To staff its bureaucracy, the Ottoman Empire established a janissary system which seized hundreds of thousands of Christian boys through the devşirme system. They were well cared for but were legally slaves owned by the government and were not allowed to marry. They were never bought or sold. The empire gave them significant administrative and military roles. The system began about 1365; there were 135,000 janissaries in 1826, when the system ended.[104]
+
+After the Battle of Lepanto, 12,000 Christian galley slaves were recaptured and freed from the Ottoman fleet.[105] Eastern Europe suffered a series of Tatar invasions, the goal of which was to loot and capture slaves into jasyr.[106] Seventy-five Crimean Tatar raids were recorded into Poland–Lithuania between 1474 and 1569.[107]
+
+Slavery in Poland was forbidden in the 15th century; in Lithuania, slavery was formally abolished in 1588; they were replaced by the second serfdom.
+
+Medieval Spain and Portugal were the scene of almost constant Muslim invasion of the predominantly Christian area. Periodic raiding expeditions were sent from Al-Andalus to ravage the Iberian Christian kingdoms, bringing back booty and slaves. In a raid against Lisbon in 1189, for example, the Almohad caliph Yaqub al-Mansur took 3,000 female and child captives, while his governor of Córdoba, in a subsequent attack upon Silves, Portugal, in 1191, took 3,000 Christian slaves.[108] From the 11th to the 19th century, North African Barbary Pirates engaged in Razzias, raids on European coastal towns, to capture Christian slaves to sell at slave markets in places such as Algeria and Morocco.[109][110]
+The maritime town of Lagos was the first slave market created in Portugal (one of the earliest colonizers of the Americas) for the sale of imported African slaves – the Mercado de Escravos, opened in 1444.[111][112] In 1441, the first slaves were brought to Portugal from northern Mauritania.[112]
+
+By 1552, black African slaves made up 10% of the population of Lisbon.[113][114] In the second half of the 16th century, the Crown gave up the monopoly on slave trade, and the focus of European trade in African slaves shifted from import to Europe to slave transports directly to tropical colonies in the Americas – especially Brazil.[112] In the 15th century one-third of the slaves were resold to the African market in exchange of gold.[115]
+
+In Kievan Rus and Muscovy, slaves were usually classified as kholops. According to David P. Forsythe, "In 1649 up to three-quarters of Muscovy's peasants, or 13 to 14 million people, were serfs whose material lives were barely distinguishable from slaves. Perhaps another 1.5 million were formally enslaved, with Russian slaves serving Russian masters."[117] Slavery remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter the Great converted the household slaves into house serfs. Russian agricultural slaves were formally converted into serfs earlier in 1679.[118]
+
+In Scandinavia, thralldom was abolished in the mid-14th century.[119]
+
+During the Second World War Nazi Germany effectively enslaved about 12 million people, both those considered undesirable and citizens of conquered countries, with the avowed intention of treating these Untermenschen (sub-humans) as a permanent slave-class of inferior beings who could be worked until they died, and who possessed neither the rights nor the legal status of members of the Aryan race.[120]
+
+The Arab slave trade lasted more than a millennium.[121] As recently as the early 1960s, Saudi Arabia's slave population was estimated at 300,000.[122] Along with Yemen, the Saudis abolished slavery in 1962.[123] Historically, slaves in the Arab World came from many different regions, including Sub-Saharan Africa (mainly Zanj),[124] the Caucasus (mainly Circassians),[125] Central Asia (mainly Tartars), and Central and Eastern Europe (mainly Saqaliba).[126]
+
+Some historians assert that as many as 17 million people were sold into slavery on the coast of the Indian Ocean, the Middle East, and North Africa, and approximately 5 million African slaves were bought by Muslim slave traders and taken from Africa across the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Sahara desert between 1500 and 1900.[127] The captives were sold throughout the Middle East. This trade accelerated as superior ships led to more trade and greater demand for labour on plantations in the region. Eventually, tens of thousands of captives were being taken every year.[76][128][129] The Indian Ocean slave trade was multi-directional and changed over time. To meet the demand for menial labor, Bantu slaves bought by Arab slave traders from southeastern Africa were sold in cumulatively large numbers over the centuries to customers in Egypt, Arabia, the Persian Gulf, India, European colonies in the Far East, the Indian Ocean islands, Ethiopia and Somalia.[130]
+
+According to the Encyclopedia of African History, "It is estimated that by the 1890s the largest slave population of the world, about 2 million people, was concentrated in the territories of the Sokoto Caliphate. The use of slave labor was extensive, especially in agriculture."[131][132] The Anti-Slavery Society estimated there were 2 million slaves in Ethiopia in the early 1930s out of an estimated population of 8 to 16 million.[133]
+
+Slave labor in East Africa was drawn from the Zanj, Bantu peoples that lived along the East African coast.[75][134] The Zanj were for centuries shipped as slaves by Arab traders to all the countries bordering the Indian Ocean. The Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs recruited many Zanj slaves as soldiers and, as early as 696, there were slave revolts of the Zanj against their Arab enslavers in Iraq. The Zanj Rebellion, a series of uprisings that took place between 869 and 883 near Basra (also known as Basara), situated in present-day Iraq, is believed to have involved enslaved Zanj that had originally been captured from the African Great Lakes region and areas further south in East Africa.[135] It grew to involve over 500,000 slaves and free men who were imported from across the Muslim empire and claimed over "tens of thousands of lives in lower Iraq".[136]
+The Zanj who were taken as slaves to the Middle East were often used in strenuous agricultural work.[137] As the plantation economy boomed and the Arabs became richer, agriculture and other manual labor work was thought to be demeaning. The resulting labor shortage led to an increased slave market.
+
+In Algiers, the capital of Algeria, captured Christians and Europeans were forced into slavery. In about 1650, there were as many as 35,000 Christian slaves in Algiers.[138] By one estimate, raids by Barbary pirates on coastal villages and ships extending from Italy to Iceland, enslaved an estimated 1 to 1.25 million Europeans between the 16th and 19th centuries.[139][140][141] However, to this estimate is extrapolated by assuming the number of European, slaves captured by Barbary pirates, was constant for 250 years period:
+
+There are no records of how many men, women and children were enslaved, but it is possible to calculate roughly the number of fresh captives that would have been needed to keep populations steady and replace those slaves who died, escaped, were ransomed, or converted to Islam. On this basis it is thought that around 8,500 new slaves were needed annually to replenish numbers – about 850,000 captives over the century from 1580 to 1680.  By extension, for the 250 years between 1530 and 1780, the figure could easily have been as high as 1,250,000.[142]
+
+Davis' numbers have been refuted by other historians, such as David Earle, who cautions that true picture of Europeans slaves is clouded by the fact the corsairs also seized non-Christian whites from eastern Europe.[142] In addition, the number of slaves traded was hyperactive, with exaggerated estimates relying on peak years to calculate averages for entire centuries, or millennia.  Hence, there were wide fluctuations year-to-year, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries, given slave imports, and also given the fact that, prior to the 1840s, there are no consistent records.  Middle East expert, John Wright, cautions that modern estimates are based on back-calculations from human observation.[143] Such observations, across the late 16th and early 17th century observers, account for around 35,000 European Christian slaves held throughout this period on the Barbary Coast, across Tripoli, Tunis, but mostly in Algiers. The majority were sailors (particularly those who were English), taken with their ships, but others were fishermen and coastal villagers.  However, most of these captives were people from lands close to Africa, particularly Spain and Italy.[144] This eventually led to the bombardment of Algiers by an Anglo-Dutch fleet in 1816.[145][146]
+
+Under Omani Arabs, Zanzibar became East Africa's main slave port, with as many as 50,000 enslaved Africans passing through every year during the 19th century.[147][148] Some historians estimate that between 11 and 18 million African slaves crossed the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Sahara Desert from 650 to 1900 AD.[3][149] Eduard Rüppell described the losses of Sudanese slaves being transported on foot to Egypt: "after the Daftardar bey's 1822 campaign in the southern Nuba mountains, nearly 40,000 slaves were captured. However, through bad treatment, disease and desert travel barely 5,000 made it to Egypt.."[150] W.A. Veenhoven wrote: "The German doctor, Gustav Nachtigal, an eye-witness, believed that for every slave who arrived at a market three or four died on the way ... Keltie (The Partition of Africa, London, 1920) believes that for every slave the Arabs brought to the coast at least six died on the way or during the slavers' raid. Livingstone puts the figure as high as ten to one."[151]
+
+Systems of servitude and slavery were common in parts of Africa, as they were in much of the ancient world. In many African societies where slavery was prevalent, the enslaved people were not treated as chattel slaves and were given certain rights in a system similar to indentured servitude elsewhere in the world. The forms of slavery in Africa were closely related to kinship structures. In many African communities, where land could not be owned, enslavement of individuals was used as a means to increase the influence a person had and expand connections.[152] This made slaves a permanent part of a master's lineage and the children of slaves could become closely connected with the larger family ties.[153] Children of slaves born into families could be integrated into the master's kinship group and rise to prominent positions within society, even to the level of chief in some instances.  However, stigma often remained attached and there could be strict separations between slave members of a kinship group and those related to the master.[152] Slavery was practiced in many different forms: debt slavery, enslavement of war captives, military slavery, and criminal slavery were all practiced in various parts of Africa.[154] Slavery for domestic and court purposes was widespread throughout Africa.
+
+When the Atlantic slave trade began, many of the local slave systems began supplying captives for chattel slave markets outside Africa. Although the Atlantic slave trade was not the only slave trade from Africa, it was the largest in volume and intensity. As Elikia M’bokolo wrote in Le Monde diplomatique:
+
+The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports and across the Atlantic. At least ten centuries of slavery for the benefit of the Muslim countries (from the ninth to the nineteenth).... Four million enslaved people exported via the Red Sea, another four million through the Swahili ports of the Indian Ocean, perhaps as many as nine million along the trans-Saharan caravan route, and eleven to twenty million (depending on the author) across the Atlantic Ocean.[155]
+
+The trans-Atlantic slave trade peaked in the late 18th century, when the largest number of slaves were captured on raiding expeditions into the interior of West Africa. These expeditions were typically carried out by African kingdoms, such as the Oyo Empire (Yoruba), the Ashanti Empire,[156] the kingdom of Dahomey,[157] and the Aro Confederacy.[158]  It is estimated that about 15 percent of slaves died during the voyage, with mortality rates considerably higher in Africa itself in the process of capturing and transporting indigenous peoples to the ships.[159][160]
+
+Slavery in America remains a contentious issue and played a major role in the history and evolution of some countries, triggering a revolution, a civil war, and numerous rebellions.
+
+In order to establish itself as an American empire, Spain had to fight against the relatively powerful civilizations of the New World. The Spanish conquest of the indigenous peoples in the Americas included using the Natives as forced labour. The Spanish colonies were the first Europeans to use African slaves in the New World on islands such as Cuba and Hispaniola.[161] Bartolomé de las Casas, a 16th-century Dominican friar and Spanish historian, participated in campaigns in Cuba (at Bayamo and Camagüey) and was present at the massacre of Hatuey; his observation of that massacre led him to fight for a social movement away from the use of natives as slaves. Also, the alarming decline in the native population had spurred the first royal laws protecting the native population. The first African slaves arrived in Hispaniola in 1501.[162] England played a prominent role in the Atlantic slave trade. The "slave triangle" was pioneered by Francis Drake and his associates.
+
+Many Africans who arrived in North America during the 17th and 18th centuries came under contract as indentured servants.[163] The transformation from indentured servitude to slavery was a gradual process in Virginia. The earliest legal documentation of such a shift was in 1640 where a negro, John Punch, was sentenced to lifetime slavery, forcing him to serve his master, Hugh Gwyn, for the remainder of his life, for attempting to run away. This case was significant because it established the disparity between his sentence as a black man and that of the two white indentured servants who escaped with him (one described as Dutch and one as a Scotchman). It is the first documented case of a black man sentenced to lifetime servitude and is considered one of the first legal cases to make a racial distinction between black and white indentured servants.[164][165][166][167][168]
+
+After 1640, planters started to ignore the expiration of indentured contracts and keep their servants as slaves for life. This was demonstrated by the 1655 case Johnson v. Parker, where the court ruled that a black man, Anthony Johnson of Virginia, was granted ownership of another black man, John Casor, as the result of a civil case.[169]  This was the first instance of a judicial determination in the Thirteen Colonies holding that a person who had committed no crime could be held in servitude for life.[170][171][172][173][174][175][176]
+
+In the early 17th century, the majority of the labour in Barbados was provided by European indentured servants, mainly English, Irish and Scottish, with enslaved Africans and enslaved Amerindians providing little of the workforce. The introduction of sugar cane from Dutch Brazil in 1640 completely transformed society and the economy. Barbados eventually had one of the world's largest sugar industries.[177]
+
+As the effects of the new crop increased, so did the shift in the ethnic composition of Barbados and surrounding islands. The workable sugar plantation required a large investment and a great deal of heavy labour. At first, Dutch traders supplied the equipment, financing, and enslaved Africans, in addition to transporting most of the sugar to Europe. In 1644, the population of Barbados was estimated at 30,000, of which about 800 were of African descent, with the remainder mainly of English descent. These English smallholders were eventually bought out, and the island filled up with large sugar plantations worked by enslaved Africans. By 1660, there was near parity with 27,000 blacks and 26,000 whites. By 1666, at least 12,000 white smallholders had been bought out, died, or left the island. Many of the remaining whites were increasingly poor. By 1680, there were 17 slaves for every indentured servant. By 1700, there were 15,000 free whites and 50,000 enslaved Africans.
+
+Because of the increased implementation of slave codes, which created differential treatment between Africans and the white workers and ruling planter class, the island became increasingly unattractive to poor whites. Black or slave codes were implemented in 1661, 1676, 1682, and 1688. In response to these codes, several slave rebellions were attempted or planned during this time, but none succeeded. Nevertheless, poor whites who had or acquired the means to emigrate often did so. Planters expanded their importation of enslaved Africans to cultivate sugar cane.
+
+Slavery in Brazil began long before the first Portuguese settlement was established in 1532, as members of one tribe would enslave captured members of another.[178]
+
+Later, Portuguese colonists were heavily dependent on indigenous labor during the initial phases of settlement to maintain the subsistence economy, and natives were often captured by expeditions called bandeiras. The importation of African slaves began midway through the 16th century, but the enslavement of indigenous peoples continued well into the 17th and 18th centuries.
+
+During the Atlantic slave trade era, Brazil imported more African slaves than any other country. Nearly 5 million slaves were brought from Africa to Brazil during the period from 1501 to 1866.[179] Until the early 1850s, most enslaved Africans who arrived on Brazilian shores were forced to embark at West Central African ports, especially in Luanda (present-day Angola). Today, with the exception of Nigeria, the largest population of people of African descent is in Brazil.[180]
+
+Slave labor was the driving force behind the growth of the sugar economy in Brazil, and sugar was the primary export of the colony from 1600 to 1650. Gold and diamond deposits were discovered in Brazil in 1690, which sparked an increase in the importation of African slaves to power this newly profitable market. Transportation systems were developed for the mining infrastructure, and population boomed from immigrants seeking to take part in gold and diamond mining. Demand for African slaves did not wane after the decline of the mining industry in the second half of the 18th century. Cattle ranching and foodstuff production proliferated after the population growth, both of which relied heavily on slave labor. 1.7 million slaves were imported to Brazil from Africa from 1700 to 1800, and the rise of coffee in the 1830s further enticed expansion of the slave trade.
+
+Brazil was the last country in the Western world to abolish slavery. Forty percent of the total number of slaves brought to the Americas were sent to Brazil. For reference, the United States received 10 percent. Despite being abolished, there are still people working in slavery-like conditions in Brazil in the 21st century.
+
+In 1789 the Spanish Crown led an effort to reform slavery, as the demand for slave labor in Cuba was growing. The Crown issued a decree, Código Negro Español (Spanish Black Codex), that specified food and clothing provisions, put limits on the number of work hours, limited punishments, required religious instruction, and protected marriages, forbidding the sale of young children away from their mothers.[181] The British made other changes to the institution of slavery in Cuba.[181] But planters often flouted the laws and protested against them, considering them a threat to their authority[181] and an intrusion into their personal lives.[181]
+
+The slaveowners did not protest against all the measures of the codex, many of which they argued were already common practices. They objected to efforts to set limits on their ability to apply physical punishment. For instance, the Black Codex limited whippings to 25 and required the whippings "not to cause serious bruises or bleeding".[181] The slave-owners thought that the slaves would interpret these limits as weaknesses, ultimately leading to resistance.[181] Another contested issue was the work hours that were restricted "from sunrise to sunset"; plantation owners responded by explaining that cutting and processing of cane needed 20-hour days during the harvest season.[181]
+
+Those slaves who worked on sugar plantations and in sugar mills were often subject to the harshest of conditions. The field work was rigorous manual labor which the slaves began at an early age. The work days lasted close to 20 hours during harvest and processing, including cultivating and cutting the crops, hauling wagons, and processing sugarcane with dangerous machinery. The slaves were forced to reside in barracoons, where they were crammed in and locked in by a padlock at night, getting about three to four hours of sleep.  The conditions of the barracoons were harsh; they were highly unsanitary and extremely hot. Typically there was no ventilation; the only window was a small barred hole in the wall.[182]
+
+Cuba's slavery system was gendered in a way that some duties were performed only by male slaves, some only by female slaves. Female slaves in Havana from the 16th century onwards performed duties such as operating the town taverns, eating houses, and lodges, as well as being laundresses and domestic laborers and servants. Female slaves also served as the town prostitutes.
+
+Some Cuban women could gain freedom by having children with white men. As in other Latin cultures, there were looser borders with the mulatto or mixed-race population. Sometimes men who took slaves as wives or concubines freed both them and their children. As in New Orleans and Saint-Domingue, mulattos began to be classified as a third group between the European colonists and African slaves. Freedmen, generally of mixed race, came to represent 20% of the total Cuban population and 41% of the non-white Cuban population.[183]
+
+Planters encouraged Afro-Cuban slaves to have children in order to reproduce their work force. The masters wanted to pair strong and large-built black men with healthy black women. They were placed in the barracoons and forced to have sex and create offspring of “breed stock” children, who would sell for around 500 pesos. The planters needed children to be born to replace slaves who died under the harsh regime. Sometimes if the overseers did not like the quality of children, they separate the parents and sent the mother back to working in the fields.[184]
+
+Both women and men were subject to the punishments of violence and humiliating abuse. Slaves who misbehaved or disobeyed their masters were often placed in stocks in the depths of the boiler houses where they were abandoned for days at a time, and oftentimes two to three months. These wooden stocks were made in two types: lying-down or stand-up types. women were punished, even when pregnant. They were subjected to whippings: they had to lie "face down over a scooped-out piece of round [earth] to protect their bellies." [185] Some masters reportedly whipped pregnant women in the belly, often causing miscarriages. The wounds were treated with “compresses of tobacco leaves, urine and salt." [186]
+
+Slavery in Haiti started with the arrival of Christopher Columbus on the island in 1492. The practice was devastating to the native population.[187] Following the indigenous Taíno's near decimation from forced labour, disease and war, the Spanish, under advisement of the Catholic priest Bartolomeu de las Casas, and with the blessing of the Catholic church began engaging in earnest in the kidnapped and forced labour of enslaved Africans. During the French colonial period beginning in 1625, the economy of Haiti (then known as Saint-Domingue) was based on slavery, and the practice there was regarded as the most brutal in the world.
+
+Following the Treaty of Ryswick of 1697, Hispaniola was divided between France and Spain.  France received the western third and subsequently named it Saint-Domingue.  To develop it into sugarcane plantations, the French imported thousands of slaves from Africa. Sugar was a lucrative commodity crop throughout the 18th century. By 1789, approximately 40,000 white colonists lived in Saint-Domingue. The whites were vastly outnumbered by the tens of thousands of African slaves they had imported to work on their plantations, which were primarily devoted to the production of sugarcane. In the north of the island, slaves were able to retain many ties to African cultures, religion and language; these ties were continually being renewed by newly imported Africans. Blacks outnumbered whites by about ten to one.
+
+The French-enacted Code Noir ("Black Code"), prepared by Jean-Baptiste Colbert and ratified by Louis XIV, had established rules on slave treatment and permissible freedoms. Saint-Domingue has been described as one of the most brutally efficient slave colonies; one-third of newly imported Africans died within a few years.[188] Many slaves died from diseases such as smallpox and typhoid fever.[189] They had birth rates around 3 percent, and there is evidence that some women aborted fetuses, or committed infanticide, rather allow their children to live within the bonds of slavery.[190][191]
+
+As in its Louisiana colony, the French colonial government allowed some rights to free people of color: the mixed-race descendants of white male colonists and black female slaves (and later, mixed-race women). Over time, many were released from slavery. They established a separate social class. White French Creole fathers frequently sent their mixed-race sons to France for their education. Some men of color were admitted into the military. More of the free people of color lived in the south of the island, near Port-au-Prince, and many intermarried within their community. They frequently worked as artisans and tradesmen, and began to own some property. Some became slave holders. The free people of color petitioned the colonial government to expand their rights.
+
+Slaves that made it to Haiti from the trans-Atlantic journey and slaves born in Haiti were first documented in Haiti's archives and transferred to France's Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As of 2015[update], these records are in The National Archives of France. According to the 1788 Census, Haiti's population consisted of nearly 40,000 whites, 30,000 free coloureds and 450,000 slaves.[192]
+
+The Haitian Revolution of 1804, the only successful slave revolt in human history, precipitated the end of slavery in all French colonies.
+
+Jamaica was colonized by the Taino tribes prior to the arrival of Columbus in 1494. The Spanish enslaved many of the Taino; some escaped, but most died from European diseases and overwork. The Spaniards also introduced the first African slaves.[193]
+
+The Spanish colonists did not bring women in the first expeditions and took Taíno women for their common-law wives, resulting in mestizo children.[194]  Sexual violence with the Taíno women by the Spanish was also common.[195][196]
+
+Although the African slave population in the 1670s and 1680s never exceeded 10,000, by 1800 it had increased to over 300,000.
+
+In 1519, Hernán Cortés brought the first modern slave to the area.[197] In the mid-16th century, the second viceroy to Mexico, Luis de Velasco, prohibited slavery of the Aztecs.  A labor shortage resulted as the Aztecs were either killed or died from disease.  This led to the African slaves being imported, as they were not susceptible to smallpox.  In exchange, many Africans were afforded the opportunity to buy their freedom, while eventually others were granted their freedom by their masters.[197]
+
+When Ponce de León and the Spaniards arrived on the island of Borikén (Puerto Rico), they enslaved Taíno tribes on the island, forcing them to work in the gold mines and in the construction of forts. Many Taíno died, particularly from smallpox, of which they had no immunity. Other Taínos committed suicide or left the island after the failed Taíno revolt of 1511.[198]  The Spanish colonists, fearing the loss of their labor force, complained  the courts that they needed manpower. As an alternative, Las Casas suggested the importation and use of African slaves. In 1517, the Spanish Crown permitted its subjects to import twelve slaves each, thereby beginning the slave trade on the colonies.[199]
+
+African slaves were legally branded with a hot iron on the forehead, prevented their "theft" or lawsuits that challenged their captivity.[200]  The colonists continued this branding practice for more than 250 years.[201]  They were sent to work in the gold mines, or in the island's ginger and sugar fields.  They were allowed to live with their families in a hut on the master's land, and given a patch of land where they could farm, but otherwise were subjected to harsh treatment; including sexual abuse as the majority of colonists had arrived without women; many of them intermarried with the Africans or Taínos. Their mixed-race descendants formed the first generations of the early Puerto Rican population.[200]
+
+The slaves faced heavy discrimination and had no opportunity for advancement, though they were educated by their masters.  The Spaniards considered the Africans superior to the Taíno, since the latter were unwilling to assimilate. The slaves, in contrast, had little choice but to adapt. Many converted to Christianity and were given their masters' surnames.[200]
+
+By 1570, the colonists found that the gold mines were depleted, relegating the island to a garrison for passing ships. The cultivation of crops such as tobacco, cotton, cocoa, and ginger became the cornerstone of the economy.[202]  With rising demand for sugar on the international market, major planters increased their labor-intensive cultivation and processing of sugar cane. Sugar plantations supplanted mining as Puerto Rico's main industry and kept demand high for African slavery.[202]
+
+After 1784, Spain provided five ways by which slaves could obtain freedom.[201]  Five years later, the Spanish Crown issued the "Royal Decree of Graces of 1789", which set new rules related to the slave trade and added restrictions to the granting of freedman status. The decree granted its subjects the right to purchase slaves and to participate in the flourishing slave trade in the Caribbean. Later that year a new slave code, also known as El Código Negro (The Black Code), was introduced.[203]
+
+Under "El Código Negro", a slave could buy his freedom, in the event that his master was willing to sell, by paying the price sought in installments. Slaves were allowed to earn money during their spare time by working as shoemakers, cleaning clothes, or selling the produce they grew on their own plots of land. For the freedom of their newborn child, not yet baptized, they paid at half the going price for a baptized child.[203] Many of these freedmen started settlements in the areas which became known as Cangrejos (Santurce), Carolina, Canóvanas, Loíza, and Luquillo. Some became slave owners themselves.[200] Despite these paths to freedom, from 1790 onwards, the number of slaves more than doubled in Puerto Rico as a result of the dramatic expansion of the sugar industry in the island.[202]
+
+On March 22, 1873, slavery was legally abolished in Puerto Rico. However, slaves were not emancipated but rather had to buy their own freedom, at whatever price was set by their last masters. They were also required to work for another three years for their former masters, for other colonists interested in their services, or for the state in order to pay some compensation.[204] Between 1527 and 1873, slaves in Puerto Rico had carried out more than twenty revolts.[205][206]
+
+The planters of the Dutch colony relied heavily on African slaves to cultivate, harvest and process the commodity crops of coffee, cocoa, sugar cane and cotton plantations along the rivers. Planters' treatment of the slaves was notoriously bad.[207]  Historian C. R. Boxer wrote that "man's inhumanity to man just about reached its limits in Surinam."[208]
+
+Many slaves escaped the plantations.  With the help of the native South Americans living in the adjoining rain forests, these runaway slaves established a new and unique culture in the interior that was highly successful in its own right. They were known collectively in English as Maroons, in French as Nèg'Marrons (literally meaning "brown negroes", that is "pale-skinned negroes"), and in Dutch as Marrons.  The Maroons gradually developed several independent tribes through a process of ethnogenesis, as they were made up of slaves from different African ethnicities. These tribes include the Saramaka,  Paramaka, Ndyuka or Aukan, Kwinti, Aluku or Boni, and Matawai.
+
+The Maroons often raided plantations to recruit new members from the slaves and capture women, as well as to acquire weapons, food and supplies. They sometimes killed planters and their families in the raids.[209]  The colonists also mounted armed campaigns against the Maroons, who generally escaped through the rain forest, which they knew much better than did the coloniss. To end hostilities, in the 18th century the European colonial authorities signed several peace treaties with different tribes. They granted the Maroons sovereign status and trade rights in their inland territories, giving them autonomy.
+
+In 1861–63, President Abraham Lincoln of the United States and his administration looked abroad for places to relocate freed slaves who wanted to leave the United States. It opened negotiations with the Dutch government regarding African-American emigration to and colonization of the Dutch colony of Suriname in South America. Nothing came of it and after 1864, the proposal was dropped.[210]
+
+The Netherlands abolished slavery in Suriname, in 1863, under a gradual process that required slaves to work on plantations for 10 transition years for minimal pay, which was considered as partial compensation for their masters. After 1873, most freedmen largely abandoned the plantations where they had worked for several generations in favor of the capital city, Paramaribo.
+
+Slavery in the United States was the legal institution of human chattel enslavement, primarily of Africans and African Americans, that existed in the United States of America in the 18th and 19th centuries after it gained independence from the British and before the end of the American Civil War. Slavery had been practiced in British America from early colonial days and was legal in all Thirteen Colonies at the time of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
+
+By the time of the American Revolution, the status of slave had been institutionalized as a racial caste associated with African ancestry.[211]  The United States became polarized over the issue of slavery, represented by the slave and free states divided by the Mason–Dixon line, which separated free Pennsylvania from slave Maryland and Delaware.
+
+Congress, during the Jefferson administration prohibited the importation of slaves, effective 1808, although smuggling (illegal importing) was not unusual.[212] Domestic slave trading, however, continued at a rapid pace, driven by labor demands from the development of cotton plantations in the Deep South. Those states attempted to extend slavery into the new western territories to keep their share of political power in the nation. Such laws proposed to Congress to continue the spread of slavery into newly ratified states include the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
+
+The treatment of slaves in the United States varied widely depending on conditions, times, and places. The power relationships of slavery corrupted many whites who had authority over slaves, with children showing their own cruelty. Masters and overseers resorted to physical punishments to impose their wills. Slaves were punished by whipping, shackling, hanging, beating, burning, mutilation, branding and imprisonment. Punishment was most often meted out in response to disobedience or perceived infractions, but sometimes abuse was carried out to re-assert the dominance of the master or overseer of the slave.[213] Treatment was usually harsher on large plantations, which were often managed by overseers and owned by absentee slaveholders.
+
+William Wells Brown, who escaped to freedom, reported that on one plantation, slave men were required to pick 80 pounds of cotton per day, while women were required to pick 70 pounds per day; if any slave failed in his or her quota, they were subject to whip lashes for each pound they were short. The whipping post stood next to the cotton scales.[215] A New York man who attended a slave auction in the mid-19th century reported that at least three-quarters of the male slaves he saw at sale had scars on their backs from whipping.[216] By contrast, small slave-owning families had closer relationships between the owners and slaves; this sometimes resulted in a more humane environment but was not a given.[213]
+
+More than one million slaves were sold from the Upper South, which had a surplus of labor, and taken to the Deep South in a forced migration, splitting up many families.  New communities of African-American culture were developed in the Deep South, and the total slave population in the South eventually reached 4 million before liberation.[217][218] In the 19th century, proponents of slavery often defended the institution as a "necessary evil". White people of that time feared that emancipation of black slaves would have more harmful social and economic consequences than the continuation of slavery.  The French writer and traveler Alexis de Tocqueville, in Democracy in America (1835), expressed opposition to slavery while observing its effects on American society. He felt that a multiracial society without slavery was untenable, as he believed that prejudice against black people increased as they were granted more rights.  Others, like James Henry Hammond argued that slavery was a "positive good" stating: "Such a class you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement."
+
+The Southern state governments wanted to keep a balance between the number of slave and free states to maintain a political balance of power in Congress. The new territories acquired from Britain, France, and Mexico were the subject of major political compromises. By 1850, the newly rich cotton-growing South was threatening to secede from the Union, and tensions continued to rise.  Many white Southern Christians, including church ministers, attempted to justify their support for slavery as modified by Christian paternalism.[219]  The largest denominations, the Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches, split over the slavery issue into regional organizations of the North and South.
+
+When Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 election on a platform of halting the expansion of slavery, according to the 1860 U.S. census, roughly 400,000 individuals, representing 8% of all U.S. families, owned nearly 4,000,000 slaves.[220] One-third of Southern families owned slaves.[221]  The South was heavily invested in slavery.  As such, upon Lincoln's election, seven states broke away to form the Confederate States of America. The first six states to secede held the greatest number of slaves in the South. Shortly after, over the issue of slavery, the United States erupted into an all out Civil War, with slavery legally ceasing as an institution following the war in December 1865.
+
+In 2018, the Orlando Sentinel reported some private Christian schools in Florida as teaching students a creationist curriculum which includes assertions such as, “most black and white southerners had long lived together in harmony” and that “power-hungry individuals stirred up the people” leading to the Civil Rights Movement.[222]
+
+Slavery has existed all throughout Asia, and forms of slavery still exist today.
+
+Slavery has taken various forms throughout China's history. It was reportedly abolished as a legally recognized institution, including in a 1909 law[223][224] fully enacted in 1910,[225]  although the practice continued until at least 1949.[226]
+
+The Tang dynasty purchased Western slaves from the Radhanite Jews.[227] Tang Chinese soldiers and pirates enslaved Koreans, Turks, Persians, Indonesians, and people from Inner Mongolia, central Asia, and northern India.[228][229][230][231] The greatest source of slaves came from southern tribes, including Thais and aboriginals from the southern provinces of Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Guizhou. Malays, Khmers, Indians, and "black skinned" peoples (who were either Austronesian Negritos of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands, or Africans, or both) were also purchased as slaves in the Tang dynasty.[232]
+
+In the 17th century Qing Dynasty, there was a hereditarily servile people called Booi Aha (Manchu:booi niyalma; Chinese transliteration: 包衣阿哈), which is a Manchu word literally translated as "household person" and sometimes rendered as "nucai." The Manchu was establishing close personal and paternalist relationship between masters and their slaves, as Nurhachi said, "The Master should love the slaves and eat the same food as him".[233]  However,  booi aha "did not correspond exactly to the Chinese category of "bond-servant slave" (Chinese:奴僕); instead, it was a relationship of personal dependency on a master which in theory guaranteed close personal relationships and equal treatment, even though many western scholars would directly translate "booi" as "bond-servant" (some of the "booi" even had their own servant).[234][235]
+
+Chinese Muslim (Tungans) Sufis who were charged with practicing xiejiao (heterodox religion), were punished by exile to Xinjiang and being sold as a slave to other Muslims, such as the Sufi begs.[236] Han Chinese who committed crimes such as those dealing with opium became slaves to the begs, this practice was administered by Qing law.[237] Most Chinese in Altishahr were exile slaves to Turkestani Begs.[238] While free Chinese merchants generally did not engage in relationships with East Turkestani women, some of the Chinese slaves belonging to begs, along with Green Standard soldiers, Bannermen, and Manchus, engaged in affairs with the East Turkestani women that were serious in nature.[239]
+
+Slavery in India was widespread by the 6th century BC, and perhaps even as far back as the Vedic period.[240] Slavery intensified during the Muslim domination of northern India after the 11th-century.[241] Slavery existed in Portuguese India after the 16th century. The Dutch, too, largely dealt in Abyssian slaves, known in India as Habshis or Sheedes.[242] Arakan/Bengal, Malabar, and Coromandel remained the largest sources of forced labour until the 1660s.
+
+Between 1626 and 1662, the Dutch exported on an average 150–400 slaves annually from the Arakan-Bengal coast. During the first 30 years of Batavia's existence, Indian and Arakanese slaves provided the main labour force of the Dutch East India Company, Asian headquarters. An increase in Coromandel slaves occurred during a famine following the revolt of the Nayaka Indian rulers of South India (Tanjavur, Senji, and Madurai) against Bijapur overlordship (1645) and the subsequent devastation of the Tanjavur countryside by the Bijapur army. Reportedly, more than 150,000 people were taken by the invading Deccani Muslim armies to Bijapur and Golconda. In 1646, 2,118 slaves were exported to Batavia, the overwhelming majority from southern Coromandel. Some slaves were also acquired further south at Tondi, Adirampatnam, and Kayalpatnam. Another increase in slaving took place between 1659 and 1661 from Tanjavur as a result of a series of successive Bijapuri raids. At Nagapatnam, Pulicat, and elsewhere, the company purchased 8,000–10,000 slaves, the bulk of whom were sent to Ceylon, while a small portion were exported to Batavia and Malacca. Finally, following a long drought in Madurai and southern Coromandel, in 1673, which intensified the prolonged Madurai-Maratha struggle over Tanjavur and punitive fiscal practices, thousands of people from Tanjavur, mostly children, were sold into slavery and exported by Asian traders from Nagapattinam to Aceh, Johor, and other slave markets.
+
+In September 1687, 665 slaves were exported by the English from Fort St. George, Madras.  And, in 1694–96, when warfare once more ravaged South India, a total of 3,859 slaves were imported from Coromandel by private individuals into Ceylon.[243][244][245][246]
+The volume of the total Dutch Indian Ocean slave trade has been estimated to be about 15–30% of the Atlantic slave trade, slightly smaller than the trans-Saharan slave trade, and one-and-a-half to three times the size of the Swahili and Red Sea coast and the Dutch West India Company slave trades.[247]
+According to Sir Henry Bartle Frere (who sat on the Viceroy's Council), there were an estimated 8 or 9 million slaves in India in 1841. About 15% of the population of Malabar were slaves. Slavery was legally abolished in the possessions of the East India Company by the Indian Slavery Act, 1843.[3]
+
+The hill tribe people in Indochina were "hunted incessantly and carried off as slaves by the Siamese (Thai), the Anamites (Vietnamese), and the Cambodians".[248] A Siamese military campaign in Laos in 1876 was described by a British observer as having been "transformed into slave-hunting raids on a large scale".[249] The census, taken in 1879, showed that 6% of the population in the Malay sultanate of Perak were slaves.[250] Enslaved people made up about two-thirds of the population in part of North Borneo in the 1880s.[250]
+
+After the Portuguese first made contact with Japan in 1543, a large scale slave trade developed in which Portuguese purchased Japanese as slaves in Japan and sold them to various locations overseas, including Portugal, throughout the 16th and 17th centuries.[251][252] Many documents mention the large slave trade along with protests against the enslavement of Japanese. Japanese slaves are believed to be the first of their nation to end up in Europe, and the Portuguese purchased large numbers of Japanese slave girls to bring to Portugal for sexual purposes, as noted by the Church[253] in 1555. Japanese slave women were even sold as concubines to Asian lascar and African crew members, along with their European counterparts serving on Portuguese ships trading in Japan, mentioned by Luis Cerqueira, a Portuguese Jesuit, in a 1598 document.[254] Japanese slaves were brought by the Portuguese to Macau, where they were enslaved to Portuguese or became slaves to other slaves.[255][256]
+
+Some Korean slaves were bought by the Portuguese and brought back to Portugal from Japan, where they had been among the tens of thousands of Korean prisoners of war transported to Japan during the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–98).[257][258] Historians pointed out that at the same time Hideyoshi expressed his indignation and outrage at the Portuguese trade in Japanese slaves, he was engaging in a mass slave trade of Korean prisoners of war in Japan.[259][260]
+Fillippo Sassetti saw some Chinese and Japanese slaves in Lisbon among the large slave community in 1578, although most of the slaves were black.[261][262][263][264][265]
+The Portuguese "highly regarded" Asian slaves from the East much more "than slaves from sub-Saharan Africa".[266] The Portuguese attributed qualities like intelligence and industriousness to Chinese and Japanese slaves.[267][268][269][270]
+
+King Sebastian of Portugal feared rampant slavery was having a negative effect on Catholic proselytization, so he commanded that it be banned in 1571.[271][272]Hideyoshi was so disgusted that his own Japanese people were being sold en masse into slavery on Kyushu, that he wrote a letter to Jesuit Vice-Provincial Gaspar Coelho on July 24, 1587, to demand the Portuguese, Siamese (Thai), and Cambodians stop purchasing and enslaving Japanese and return Japanese slaves who ended up as far as India.[273][274][275] Hideyoshi blamed the Portuguese and Jesuits for this slave trade and banned Christian proselytizing as a result.[276][self-published source][277] In 1595, a law was passed by Portugal banning the selling and buying of Chinese and Japanese slaves.[278]
+
+During the Joseon period, the nobi population could fluctuate up to about one-third of the population, but on average the nobi made up about 10% of the total population.[81] The nobi system declined beginning in the 18th century.[279] Since the outset of the Joseon dynasty and especially beginning in the 17th century, there was harsh criticism among prominent thinkers in Korea about the nobi system. Even within the Joseon government, there were indications of a shift in attitude toward the nobi.[280] King Yeongjo implemented a policy of gradual emancipation in 1775,[82] and he and his successor King Jeongjo made many proposals and developments that lessened the burden on nobi, which led to the emancipation of the vast majority of government nobi in 1801.[280] In addition, population growth,[82] numerous escaped slaves,[81] growing commercialization of agriculture, and the rise of the independent small farmer class contributed to the decline in the number of nobi to about 1.5% of the total population by 1858.[281] The hereditary nobi system was officially abolished around 1886–87,[81][281] and the rest of the nobi system was abolished with the Gabo Reform of 1894.[81][282] However, slavery did not completely disappear in Korea until 1930, during Imperial Japanese rule.
+
+During the Imperial Japanese occupation of Korea around World War II, some Koreans were used in forced labor by the Imperial Japanese, in conditions which have been compared to slavery.[81][283] These included women forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army before and during World War II, known as "comfort women".[81][283]
+
+Slaves (he mōkai) had a recognised social role in traditional  Māori society in New Zealand.[284]
+
+Blackbirding occurred in the  Pacific, especially in the 19th century.
+
+In Constantinople, about one-fifth of the population consisted of slaves.[285] The city was a major centre of the slave trade in the 15th and later centuries.
+Slaves were provided by Tatar raids on Slavic villages[286] but also by conquest and the suppression of rebellions, in the aftermath of which entire populations were sometimes enslaved and sold across the Empire, reducing the risk of future rebellion.  The Ottomans also purchased slaves from traders who brought slaves into the Empire from Europe and Africa. It has been estimated that some 200,000 slaves – mainly Circassians – were imported into the Ottoman Empire between 1800 and 1909.[250] As late as 1908, women slaves were still sold in the Ottoman Empire.[287]
+
+Until the late 18th century, the Crimean Khanate (a Muslim Tatar state) maintained a massive slave trade with the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East.[106] The slaves were captured in southern Russia, Poland-Lithuania, Moldavia, Wallachia, and Circassia by Tatar horsemen[288] and sold in the Crimean port of Kaffa.[289] About 2 million mostly Christian slaves were exported over the 16th and 17th centuries[290] until the Crimean Khanate was destroyed by the Russian Empire in 1783.[291]
+
+A slave market for captured Russian and Persian slaves was centred in the Central Asian khanate of Khiva.[292] In the early 1840s, the population of the Uzbek states of Bukhara and Khiva included about 900,000 slaves.[250] Darrel P. Kaiser wrote, "Kazakh-Kirghiz tribesmen kidnapped 1573 settlers from colonies [German settlements in Russia] in 1774 alone and only half were successfully ransomed. The rest were killed or enslaved."[293]
+
+Even though slavery is now outlawed in every country, the number of slaves today is estimated as between 12 million and 29.8 million.[294][295][296] According to a broad definition of slavery, there were 27 million people in slavery in 1999, spread all over the world.[297] In 2005, the International Labour Organization provided an estimate of 12.3 million forced labourers.[298] Siddharth Kara has also provided an estimate of 28.4 million slaves at the end of 2006 divided into three categories: bonded labour/debt bondage (18.1 million), forced labour (7.6 million), and trafficked slaves (2.7 million).[42] Kara provides a dynamic model to calculate the number of slaves in the world each year, with an estimated 29.2 million at the end of 2009.
+
+According to a 2003 report by Human Rights Watch, an estimated 15 million children in debt bondage in India work in slavery-like conditions to pay off their family's debts.[300][301]
+
+A report by the Walk Free Foundation in 2013,[302] found India had the highest number of slaves, nearly 14 million, followed by China (2.9 million), Pakistan (2.1 million), Nigeria, Ethiopia, Russia, Thailand, Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar and Bangladesh; while the countries with the highest proportions of slaves were Mauritania, Haiti, Pakistan, India and Nepal.[303]
+
+In June 2013, U.S. State Department released a report on slavery.  It placed Russia, China, and Uzbekistan in the worst offenders category.  Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, and Zimbabwe were at the lowest level. The list also included Algeria, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait among a total of 21 countries.[304][305]
+
+The Walk Free Foundation reported in 2018 that slavery in wealthy Western societies is much more prevalent than previously known, in particular the United States and Great Britain, which have 403,000 (one in 800) and 136,000 slaves respectively. Andrew Forrest, founder of the organization, said that "The United States is one of the most advanced countries in the world yet has more than 400,000 modern slaves working under forced labor conditions."[306] An estimated 40.3 million are enslaved globally, with North Korea having the most slaves at 2.6 million (one in 10). The foundation defines contemporary slavery as "situations of exploitation that a person cannot refuse or leave because of threats, violence, coercion, abuse of power, or deception."[307]
+
+During the Second Libyan Civil War, Libyans started capturing Sub-Saharan African migrants trying to get to Europe through Libya and selling them on slave markets or holding them hostage for ransom[308]  Women are often raped, used as sex slaves, or sold to brothels.[309][310][311] Child migrants suffer from abuse and child rape in Libya.[312][313]
+
+In Mauritania, the last country to abolish slavery (in 1981), it is estimated that 20% of its 3 million population, are enslaved as bonded laborers.[314][315][316] Slavery in Mauritania was criminalized in August 2007.[317] However, although slavery, as a practice, was legally banned in 1981, it was not a crime to own a slave until 2007.[318] Although many slaves have escaped or have been freed since 2007, as of 2012[update], only one slave owner had been sentenced to serve time in prison.[319]
+
+While American slaves in 1809 were sold for around $40,000 (in inflation adjusted dollars), a slave nowadays can be bought for just $90, making replacement more economical than providing long-term care.[320] Slavery is a multibillion-dollar industry with estimates of up to $35 billion generated annually.[321]
+
+Victims of human trafficking are typically recruited through deceit or trickery (such as a false job offer, false migration offer, or false marriage offer), sale by family members, recruitment by former slaves, or outright abduction. Victims are forced into a "debt slavery" situation by coercion, deception, fraud, intimidation, isolation, threat, physical force, debt bondage or even force-feeding with drugs to control their victims.[322] "Annually, according to U.S. government-sponsored research completed in 2006, approximately 800,000 people are trafficked across national borders, which does not include millions trafficked within their own countries. Approximately 80% of transnational victims are women and girls, and up to 50% are minors, reports the U.S. State Department in a 2008 study.[323]
+
+While the majority of trafficking victims are women who are forced into prostitution (in which case the practice is called sex trafficking), victims also include men, women and children who are forced into manual labour.[324] Because of the illegal nature of human trafficking, its extent is unknown. A U.S. government report, published in 2005, estimates that about 700,000 people worldwide are trafficked across borders each year. This figure does not include those who are trafficked internally.[324] Another research effort revealed that roughly 1.5 million individuals are trafficked either internally or internationally each year, of which about 500,000 are sex trafficking victims.[42]
+
+Slavery has existed, in one form or another, throughout recorded human history – as have, in various periods, movements to free large or distinct groups of slaves.
+
+Ashoka, who ruled the Maurya Empire in the Indian subcontinent from 269–232 BCE, abolished the slave trade but not slavery.[326] The Qin dynasty, which ruled China from 221 to 206 BC, abolished slavery and discouraged serfdom. However, many of its laws were overturned when the dynasty was overthrown.[327] Slavery was again abolished by Wang Mang in China in 17 CE but was reinstituted after his assassination.[328]
+
+The Spanish colonization of the Americas sparked a discussion about the right to enslave Native Americans. A prominent critic of slavery in the Spanish New World colonies was Bartolomé de las Casas, who opposed the enslavement of Native Americans, and as well as Africans in America.
+
+One of the first protests against slavery came from German and Dutch Quakers in Pennsylvania in 1688.[329] In 1777, Vermont, at the time an independent nation, became the first portion of what would become the United States to abolish slavery.[329]
+
+In the United States, all of the northern states had abolished slavery by 1804, with New Jersey being the last to act.[330] Abolitionist pressure produced a series of small steps towards emancipation. After the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves went into effect on January 1, 1808, the importation of slaves into the United States was prohibited,[331] but not the internal slave trade, nor involvement in the international slave trade externally. Legal slavery persisted; most of those slaves already in the U.S. were legally emancipated only in 1863. Many American abolitionists took an active role in opposing slavery by supporting the Underground Railroad. Violent clashes between anti-slavery and pro-slavery Americans included Bleeding Kansas, a series of political and armed disputes in 1854–1861 as to whether Kansas would join the United States as a slave or free state. By 1860, the total number of slaves reached almost four million, and the American Civil War, beginning in 1861, led to the end of slavery in the United States.[332] In 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves held in the Confederate States; the 13th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution prohibited most forms of slavery throughout the country.
+
+Many of the freed slaves became sharecroppers and indentured servants. In this manner, some became tied to the very parcel of land into which they had been born a slave having little freedom or economic opportunity because of Jim Crow laws which perpetuated discrimination, limited education, promoted persecution without due process and resulted in continued poverty. Fear of reprisals such as unjust incarcerations and lynchings deterred upward mobility further.
+
+France abolished slavery in 1794.[329]
+
+One of the most significant milestones in the campaign to abolish slavery throughout the world occurred in England in 1772, with British Judge Lord Mansfield, whose opinion in Somersett's Case was widely taken to have held that slavery was illegal in England. This judgement also laid down the principle that slavery contracted in other jurisdictions could not be enforced in England.[333]
+
+Sons of Africa was a late 18th-century British group that campaigned to end slavery. Its members were Africans in London, freed slaves who included Ottobah Cugoano, Olaudah Equiano and other leading members of London's black community. It was closely connected to the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, a non-denominational group founded in 1787, whose members included Thomas Clarkson. British Member of Parliament William Wilberforce led the anti-slavery movement in the United Kingdom, although the groundwork was an anti-slavery essay by Clarkson. Wilberforce was urged by his close friend, Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, to make the issue his own and was also given support by reformed Evangelical John Newton. The Slave Trade Act was passed by the British Parliament on March 25, 1807, making the slave trade illegal throughout the British Empire,[334] Wilberforce also campaigned for abolition of slavery in the British Empire, which he lived to see in the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.
+
+After the 1807 act abolishing the slave trade was passed, these campaigners switched to encouraging other countries to follow suit, notably France and the British colonies. Between 1808 and 1860, the British West Africa Squadron seized approximately 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans who were aboard.[335] Action was also taken against African leaders who refused to agree to British treaties to outlaw the trade, for example against "the usurping King of Lagos", deposed in 1851. Anti-slavery treaties were signed with over 50 African rulers.[336]
+
+In 1839, the world's oldest international human rights organization, Anti-Slavery International, was formed in Britain by Joseph Sturge, which campaigned to outlaw slavery in other countries.[337] There were celebrations in 2007 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in the United Kingdom through the work of the British Anti-Slavery Society.
+
+In the 1860s, David Livingstone's reports of atrocities within the Arab slave trade in Africa stirred up the interest of the British public, reviving the flagging abolitionist movement. The Royal Navy throughout the 1870s attempted to suppress "this abominable Eastern trade", at Zanzibar in particular. In 1905, the French abolished indigenous slavery in most of French West Africa.[338]
+
+On December 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which declared freedom from slavery is an internationally recognized human right. Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
+
+No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.[339]
+
+In 2014, for the first time in history, major leaders of many religions, Buddhist, Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim met to sign a shared commitment against modern-day slavery; the declaration they signed calls for the elimination of slavery and human trafficking by 2020.[340] The signatories were: Pope Francis, Mātā Amṛtānandamayī, Bhikkhuni Thich Nu Chân Không (representing Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh), Datuk K Sri Dhammaratana, Chief High Priest of Malaysia, Rabbi Abraham Skorka, Rabbi David Rosen, Abbas Abdalla Abbas Soliman, Undersecretary of State of Al Azhar Alsharif (representing Mohamed Ahmed El-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar), Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi al-Modarresi, Sheikh Naziyah Razzaq Jaafar, Special advisor of Grand Ayatollah (representing Grand Ayatollah Sheikh Basheer Hussain al Najafi), Sheikh Omar Abboud, Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Metropolitan Emmanuel of France (representing Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.)[340]
+
+Groups such as the American Anti-Slavery Group, Anti-Slavery International, Free the Slaves, the Anti-Slavery Society, and the Norwegian Anti-Slavery Society continue to campaign to eliminate slavery.
+
+On May 21, 2001, the National Assembly of France passed the Taubira law, recognizing slavery as a crime against humanity. Apologies on behalf of African nations, for their role in trading their countrymen into slavery, remain an open issue since slavery was practiced in Africa even before the first Europeans arrived and the Atlantic slave trade was performed with a high degree of involvement of several African societies. The black slave market was supplied by well-established slave trade networks controlled by local African societies and individuals.[341]
+
+There is adequate evidence citing case after case of African control of segments of the trade. Several African nations such as the Calabar and other southern parts of Nigeria had economies depended solely on the trade. African peoples such as the Imbangala of Angola and the Nyamwezi of Tanzania would serve as middlemen or roving bands warring with other African nations to capture Africans for Europeans.[342]
+
+Several historians have made important contributions to the global understanding of the African side of the Atlantic slave trade. By arguing that African merchants determined the assemblage of trade goods accepted in exchange for slaves, many historians argue for African agency and ultimately a shared responsibility for the slave trade.[343]
+
+In 1999, President Mathieu Kerekou of Benin issued a national apology for the central role Africans played in the Atlantic slave trade.[344] Luc Gnacadja, minister of environment and housing for Benin, later said: "The slave trade is a shame, and we do repent for it."[345] Researchers estimate that 3 million slaves were exported out of the Slave Coast bordering the Bight of Benin.[345] President Jerry Rawlings of Ghana also apologized for his country's involvement in the slave trade.[344]
+
+The issue of an apology is linked to reparations for slavery and is still being pursued by entities across the world. For example, the Jamaican Reparations Movement approved its declaration and action plan. In 2007, British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a formal apology for Great Britain's involvement in slavery.[346]
+
+On February 25, 2007, the Commonwealth of Virginia resolved to 'profoundly regret' and apologize for its role in the institution of slavery. Unique and the first of its kind in the U.S., the apology was unanimously passed in both Houses as Virginia approached the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown.[347]
+
+On August 24, 2007, Mayor Ken Livingstone of London apologized publicly for Britain's role in colonial slave trade. "You can look across there to see the institutions that still have the benefit of the wealth they created from slavery," he said, pointing towards the financial district. He claimed that London was still tainted by the horrors of slavery. Specifically, London outfitted, financed, and insured many of the ships, which helped fund the building of London's docks.[348] Officials in Liverpool, which was a large slave trading port, apologized in 1999.[349]
+
+On July 30, 2008, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution apologizing for American slavery and subsequent discriminatory laws.[350] In June 2009, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution apologizing to African-Americans for the "fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery".[351] The news was welcomed by President Barack Obama, the nation's first president of African descent.[352] Some of President Obama's ancestors may have been slave owners.[353]
+
+In 2010, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi apologized for Arab involvement in the slave trade, saying: "I regret the behavior of the Arabs… They brought African children to North Africa, they made them slaves, they sold them like animals, and they took them as slaves and traded them in a shameful way."[354]
+
+There have been movements to achieve reparations for those formerly held as slaves or for their descendants. Claims for reparations for being held in slavery are handled as a civil law matter in almost every country. This is often decried as a serious problem, since former slaves' relatives lack of money means they often have limited access to a potentially expensive and futile legal process. Mandatory systems of fines and reparations paid to an as yet undetermined group of claimants from fines, paid by unspecified parties, and collected by authorities have been proposed by advocates to alleviate this "civil court problem." Since in almost all cases there are no living ex-slaves or living ex-slave owners these movements have gained little traction. In nearly all cases the judicial system has ruled that the statute of limitations on these possible claims has long since expired.
+
+The word slavery is often used as a pejorative to describe any activity in which one is coerced into performing. Some argue that military drafts and other forms of coerced government labour constitute "state-operated slavery."[355][356] Some libertarians and anarcho-capitalists view government taxation as a form of slavery.[357]
+
+"Slavery" has been used by some anti-psychiatry proponents to define involuntary psychiatric patients, claiming there are no unbiased physical tests for mental illness and yet the psychiatric patient must follow the orders of the psychiatrist. They assert that instead of chains to control the slave, the psychiatrist uses drugs to control the mind.[358] Drapetomania was a psychiatric diagnosis for a slave who did not want to be a slave.[359][360]
+
+Some proponents of animal rights have applied the term slavery to the condition of some or all human-owned animals, arguing that their status is comparable to that of human slaves.[361]
+
+The labor market, as institutionalized under today's market economic systems, has been criticized by mainstream socialists and by anarcho-syndicalists, who utilise the term wage slavery as a pejorative or dysphemism for wage labour.[362][363][364][365][366][367] Socialists draw parallels between the trade of labour as a commodity and slavery. Cicero is also known to have suggested such parallels.[368]
+
+Film has been the most influential medium in the presentation of the history of slavery to the general public around the world.[369] The American film industry has had a complex relationship with slavery and until recent decades often avoided the topic. Films such as Birth of a Nation (1915)[370] and Gone with the Wind (1939) became controversial because they gave a favourable depiction. In 1940 The Santa Fe Trail gave a liberal but ambiguous interpretation of John Brown's attacks on slavery.[371] Song of the South gave a favorable outlook on slavery in the United States in 1946.
+
+The Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s made defiant slaves into heroes.[372] The question of slavery in American memory necessarily involves its depictions in feature films.[373]
+
+Most Hollywood films used American settings, although Spartacus (1960), dealt with an actual revolt in the Roman Empire known as the Third Servile War. The revolt failed, and all the rebels were executed, but their spirit lived on according to the film.[374] Spartacus stays surprisingly close to the historical record.[375]
+
+The Last Supper (La última cena in Spanish) was a 1976 film directed by Cuban Tomás Gutiérrez Alea about the teaching of Christianity to slaves in Cuba, and emphasizes the role of ritual and revolt. Burn! takes place on the imaginary Portuguese island of Queimada (where the locals speak Spanish) and it merges historical events that took place in Brazil, Cuba, Santo Domingo, Jamaica, and elsewhere.
+
+Historians agree that films have largely shaped historical memories, but they debate issues of accuracy, plausibility, moralism, sensationalism, how facts are stretched in search of broader truths, and suitability for the classroom.[376][377] Berlin argues that critics complain if the treatment emphasizes historical brutality, or if it glosses over the harshness to highlight the emotional impact of slavery.[378]

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+
+
+HM King Albert IIHM Queen Paola
+
+Albert II (French: Albert Félix Humbert Théodore Christian Eugène Marie, pronounced [albɛʁ feliks œ̃bɛʁ teodɔʁ kʁistjɑ̃ øʒɛn maʁi]); Dutch: Albert Felix Humbert Theodoor Christiaan Eugène Marie, pronounced [ˈɑlbərt ˈfeːlɪks ˈɦɵmbərt teːjoːˈdoːr ˈkrɪstijaːn øːˈʒɛːn maːˈriː]; German: Albrecht Felix Humbert Theodor Christian Eugen Maria, pronounced [ˈʔalbʁɛkt ˈfeːlɪks ˈhʊmbɛʁt ˈteːodoːɐ̯ ˈkʁɪsti̯an ˈʔɔʏɡn̩ maˈʁiːaː];[1] born 6 June 1934) reigned as King of the Belgians, from 1993 until his abdication in 2013.
+
+King Albert II is the last living child of King Leopold III and Queen Astrid, born princess of Sweden. He is the younger brother of Grand Duchess Joséphine-Charlotte of Luxembourg and King Baudouin, whom he succeeded upon Baudouin's death in 1993. He married Donna Paola Ruffo di Calabria (now Queen Paola), with whom he had three children. Albert's eldest son, Philippe, is the current King of the Belgians.
+
+On 3 July 2013, King Albert II attended a midday session of the Belgian cabinet. He then announced that, on 21 July, Belgian National Day, he would abdicate the throne for health reasons. He was succeeded by his son Philippe on 21 July 2013. Albert II was the fourth monarch to abdicate in 2013, following Pope Benedict XVI, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, and Emir Hamad bin Khalifa of Qatar.[2] In so doing, he was also the second Belgian monarch to abdicate, following his father Leopold III who abdicated in 1951, albeit under very different circumstances.
+
+Prince Albert was born in Stuyvenberg Castle, Brussels, as the second son and youngest child of King Leopold III and his first wife, Princess Astrid of Sweden. He was second in line to the throne at birth, and was given the title Prince of Liège. Queen Astrid died in a car accident on 29 August 1935, in which King Leopold was lightly injured but survived. The King remarried to Mary Lilian Baels in 1941, an unpopular union that produced three more children: Prince Alexandre, Princess Marie-Christine and Princess Marie-Esméralda.
+
+During World War II, on 10 May 1940, at the time when Belgium was being invaded, Prince Albert, his elder sister Princess Joséphine-Charlotte and his elder brother Prince Baudouin, left the country for France and later Spain. The Prince and the Princess returned to Belgium on 2 August 1940. They continued their studies until 1944, either at Laeken, or at the Castle of Ciergnon in the Ardennes. In June 1944, at the time of the Allied landings, King Leopold, his wife Princess Lilian and the royal children were deported by the Germans to Hirschstein, Germany, and later to Strobl, Austria, where they were liberated by the American Army on 7 May 1945. Owing to the political situation in Belgium, King Leopold and his family moved to the villa "Le Reposoir" in Pregny, Switzerland, when they left Austria in October 1945 and stayed until July 1950. During that time, Prince Albert would continue his education in a secondary school in Geneva. King Leopold III, accompanied by Prince Baudouin and Prince Albert, returned to Belgium on 22 July 1950.[1]
+
+In 1958, Albert went to the Vatican to witness the coronation of Pope John XXIII. At a reception at the Belgian Embassy, he met Italian Donna Paola Ruffo di Calabria. Prince Albert proposed marriage to her, to which she accepted. Two months after their meeting, the prince introduced his future wife to his family, and four months later to the press. The couple married on 2 July 1959 and have three children, two sons and a daughter, twelve grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Their children are:
+
+In 1997, the Belgian weekly magazine 't Scheldt reported that the Belgian sculptor Delphine Boël (born in 1968) was King Albert II's extramarital daughter.[3] It took some years for the Belgian mainstream media to echo this news. According to Baroness Sybille de Selys Longchamps, the mother of Delphine, she and Albert shared an 18-year-long relationship[4] into which Delphine was born.  In June 2013, Boël summoned the then King, the then Duke of Brabant and the Archduchess of Austria-Este to appear in court. She hoped to use DNA tests to prove that she is the King's daughter. As the King enjoyed complete immunity under the law, Boël decided to summon his elder children as well.[5][6] After the King's abdication, she abandoned her first suit to introduce a second one only against the King as he was no longer protected by immunity and the first claim would have been judged according to the situation at the time of the introduction of the claim.[7] In March 2017, the Court ruled that her claim was unfounded, and her lawyers said she would take the claim to appeal.[8] On 25 October 2018, the Court of Appeal decided that Delphine Boël is not a descendant of Jacques Boël, and ordered King Albert to undergo DNA testing. His lawyer announced that he would seek further advice about a possible referral to Belgium's Cour de Cassation / Hof van Cassatie.[9] In 2019, the King's lawyer confirmed he would not provide a DNA sample in the case.[10]
+
+On 29 May 2019, it was reported by CNN that Albert II had submitted a DNA sample after a Belgian court ruled on 16 May that he would be fined 5,000 euros for each day that he failed to do so, although he would continue to challenge the ruling, according to his attorney, Alain Berenboom [fr].[11][12]
+
+The results of these DNA samples were released on 27 January 2020 by Alain Berenboom, confirming Delphine Boël as Albert II's daughter. Albert II confirmed this on 27 January 2020 in a press release.[13]
+
+"The king will treat all his children as equal," Berenboom said, according to VTM News. "King Albert now has four children."[14][15]
+
+Currently Boël is his biological daughter, but not yet his legal daughter. A court has to decide who has the legal paternity over Boël.[16][17]
+
+As the younger brother of the childless King Baudouin, Prince Albert was the heir-presumptive to the throne. Albert's son Philippe was groomed to eventually succeed. On Baudouin's death, Albert was sworn in before parliament, on 9 August 1993, as King of the Belgians.[18]
+
+As King, Albert's duties included representing Belgium at home and abroad on state visits, trade missions, and at high level international meetings as well as taking an interest in Belgian society, culture and enterprise.[19]
+
+In 1984, he set up the Prince Albert Foundation, to promote expertise in foreign trade.[20]
+
+The King had a constitutional role which came into play in 2010–2011 when Belgium's parliament was unable to agree on a government. When the crisis was resolved, Albert swore in the new government.[21]
+
+Albert sparked controversy in his December 2012 Christmas speech by comparing modern "populist movements" with those of the 1930s. This was seen by several political commentators, as well as many Flemish politicians, as aimed implicitly at the large Flemish nationalist party, the N-VA.[22] Bart De Wever, the party's leader, called for the King's role in the formation of Belgian governments to be changed in the wake of this comment since he "could no longer see the monarch as playing the constitutional role of referee."[22]
+
+On 3 July 2013, 79-year-old King Albert II attended a midday session of the Belgian cabinet, where he revealed his intention to abdicate to Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo and to the deputy prime ministers. According to a letter sent by the King to the Prime Minister and dated 3 July 2013, and which was made public, the King had already broached the topic of his intention to abdicate several times with the Prime Minister, who had asked him to reconsider it.[23] At 6 PM (CET) the King announced in a recorded radio and television speech that on 21 July, Belgium's National Day, he would abdicate the throne for health reasons. He was succeeded by his elder son, Philippe.[2]
+
+After his abdication on 21 July 2013 it was decided that he would be styled as His Majesty King Albert II,[24] the same form of address granted to his father, Leopold III, after his abdication.
+
+King Albert II is Doctor Honoris Causa of:
+
+Media related to Albert II of Belgium at Wikimedia Commons

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+
+
+And see text
+
+A chordate (/ˈkɔːrdeɪt/) is an animal of the phylum Chordata. During some period of their life cycle, chordates possess a notochord, a dorsal nerve cord, pharyngeal slits, an endostyle, and a post-anal tail: these five anatomical features define this phylum.  Chordates are also bilaterally symmetric, and have a coelom, metameric segmentation, and circulatory system.
+
+The Chordata and Ambulacraria together form the superphylum Deuterostomia. Chordates are divided into three subphyla: Vertebrata (fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals); Tunicata or Urochordata (sea squirts, salps); and Cephalochordata (which includes lancelets). There are also extinct taxa such as the Vetulicolia. Hemichordata (which includes the acorn worms) has been presented as a fourth chordate subphylum, but now is treated as a separate phylum: hemichordates and Echinodermata form the Ambulacraria, the sister phylum of the Chordates. Of the more than 65,000 living species of chordates, about half are bony fish that are members of the superclass Pisces, class Osteichthyes.
+
+Chordate fossils have been found from as early as the Cambrian explosion, 541 million years ago. Cladistically (phylogenetically), vertebrates – chordates with the notochord replaced by a vertebral column during development – are considered to be a subgroup of the clade Craniata, which consists of chordates with a skull. The Craniata and Tunicata compose the clade Olfactores. (See diagram under Phylogeny.)
+
+Chordates form a phylum of animals that are defined by having at some stage in their lives all of the following anatomical features:[4]
+
+There are soft constraints that separate chordates from certain other biological lineages, but are not part of the formal definition:
+
+The following schema is from the fourth edition of Vertebrate Palaeontology.[8][9] The invertebrate chordate classes are from Fishes of the World.[10] While it is structured so as to reflect evolutionary relationships (similar to a cladogram), it also retains the traditional ranks used in Linnaean taxonomy.
+
+Cephalochordates, one of the three subdivisions of chordates, are small, "vaguely fish-shaped" animals that lack brains, clearly defined heads and specialized sense organs.[15] These burrowing filter-feeders compose the earliest-branching chordate sub-phylum.[16][17]
+
+Most tunicates appear as adults in two major forms, known as "sea squirts" and salps, both of which are soft-bodied filter-feeders that lack the standard features of chordates. Sea squirts are sessile and consist mainly of water pumps and filter-feeding apparatus;[18] salps float in mid-water, feeding on plankton, and have a two-generation cycle in which one generation is solitary and the next forms chain-like colonies.[19] However, all tunicate larvae have the standard chordate features, including long, tadpole-like tails; they also have rudimentary brains, light sensors and tilt sensors.[18] The third main group of tunicates, Appendicularia (also known as Larvacea), retain tadpole-like shapes and active swimming all their lives, and were for a long time regarded as larvae of sea squirts or salps.[20] The etymology of the term Urochordata (Balfour 1881) is from the ancient Greek οὐρά (oura, "tail") + Latin chorda ("cord"), because the notochord is only found in the tail.[21] The term Tunicata (Lamarck 1816) is recognised as having precedence and is now more commonly used.[18]
+
+1. Notochord, 2. Nerve chord, 3. Buccal cirri, 4. Pharynx, 5. Gill slit, 6. Gonad, 7. Gut, 8. V-shaped muscles, 9. Anus, 10. Inhalant syphon, 11. Exhalant syphon, 12. Heart, 13. Stomach, 14. Esophagus, 15. Intestines, 16. Tail, 17. Atrium, 18. Tunic
+
+Craniates all have distinct skulls. They include the hagfish, which have no vertebrae. Michael J. Benton commented that "craniates are characterized by their heads, just as chordates, or possibly all deuterostomes, are by their tails".[22]
+
+Most craniates are vertebrates, in which the notochord is replaced by the vertebral column.[23] These consist of a series of bony or cartilaginous cylindrical vertebrae, generally with neural arches that protect the spinal cord, and with projections that link the vertebrae. However hagfish have incomplete braincases and no vertebrae, and are therefore not regarded as vertebrates,[24]
+but as members of the craniates, the group from which vertebrates are thought to have evolved.[25] However the cladistic exclusion of hagfish from the vertebrates is controversial, as they may be degenerate vertebrates who have lost their vertebral columns.[26]
+
+The position of lampreys is ambiguous. They have complete braincases and rudimentary vertebrae, and therefore may be regarded as vertebrates and true fish.[27] However, molecular phylogenetics, which uses biochemical features to classify organisms, has produced both results that group them with vertebrates and others that group them with hagfish.[28] If lampreys are more closely related to the hagfish than the other vertebrates, this would suggest that they form a clade, which has been named the Cyclostomata.[29]
+
+There is still much ongoing differential (DNA sequence based) comparison research that is trying to separate out the simplest forms of chordates. As some lineages of the 90% of species that lack a backbone or notochord might have lost these structures over time, this complicates the classification of chordates. Some chordate lineages may only be found by DNA analysis, when there is no physical trace of any chordate-like structures.[31]
+
+Attempts to work out the evolutionary relationships of the chordates have produced several hypotheses. The current consensus is that chordates are monophyletic, meaning that the Chordata include all and only the descendants of a single common ancestor, which is itself a chordate, and that craniates' nearest relatives are tunicates.
+
+All of the earliest chordate fossils have been found in the Early Cambrian Chengjiang fauna, and include two species that are regarded as fish, which implies that they are vertebrates. Because the fossil record of early chordates is poor, only molecular phylogenetics offers a reasonable prospect of dating their emergence. However, the use of molecular phylogenetics for dating evolutionary transitions is controversial.
+
+It has also proved difficult to produce a detailed classification within the living chordates. Attempts to produce evolutionary "family trees" shows that many of the traditional classes are paraphyletic.
+
+Hemichordates
+
+Echinoderms
+
+Cephalochordates
+
+Tunicates
+
+Craniates (vertebrates)
+
+While this has been well known since the 19th century, an insistence on only monophyletic taxa has resulted in vertebrate classification being in a state of flux.[32]
+
+The majority of animals more complex than jellyfish and other Cnidarians are split into two groups, the protostomes and deuterostomes, the latter of which contains chordates.[33] It seems very likely the 555 million-year-old Kimberella was a member of the protostomes.[34][35] If so, this means the protostome and deuterostome lineages must have split some time before Kimberella appeared—at least 558 million years ago, and hence well before the start of the Cambrian 541 million years ago.[33] The Ediacaran fossil Ernietta, from about 549 to 543 million years ago, may represent a deuterostome animal.[36]
+
+Fossils of one major deuterostome group, the echinoderms (whose modern members include starfish, sea urchins and crinoids), are quite common from the start of the Cambrian, 542 million years ago.[37] The Mid Cambrian fossil Rhabdotubus johanssoni has been interpreted as a pterobranch hemichordate.[38] Opinions differ about whether the Chengjiang fauna fossil Yunnanozoon, from the earlier Cambrian, was a hemichordate or chordate.[39][40] Another fossil, Haikouella lanceolata, also from the Chengjiang fauna, is interpreted as a chordate and possibly a craniate, as it shows signs of a heart, arteries, gill filaments, a tail, a neural chord with a brain at the front end, and possibly eyes—although it also had short tentacles round its mouth.[40] Haikouichthys and Myllokunmingia, also from the Chengjiang fauna, are regarded as fish.[30][41] Pikaia, discovered much earlier (1911) but from the Mid Cambrian Burgess Shale (505 Ma), is also regarded as a primitive chordate.[42] On the other hand, fossils of early chordates are very rare, since invertebrate chordates have no bones or teeth, and only one has been reported for the rest of the Cambrian.[43]
+
+The evolutionary relationships between the chordate groups and between chordates as a whole and their closest deuterostome relatives have been debated since 1890. Studies based on anatomical, embryological, and paleontological data have produced different "family trees". Some closely linked chordates and hemichordates, but that idea is now rejected.[5] Combining such analyses with data from a small set of ribosome RNA genes eliminated some older ideas, but opened up the possibility that tunicates (urochordates) are "basal deuterostomes", surviving members of the group from which echinoderms, hemichordates and chordates evolved.[44] Some researchers believe that, within the chordates, craniates are most closely related to cephalochordates, but there are also reasons for regarding tunicates (urochordates) as craniates' closest relatives.[5][45]
+
+Since early chordates have left a poor fossil record, attempts have been made to calculate the key dates in their evolution by molecular phylogenetics techniques—by analyzing biochemical differences, mainly in RNA. One such study suggested that deuterostomes arose before 900 million years ago and the earliest chordates around 896 million years ago.[45] However, molecular estimates of dates often disagree with each other and with the fossil record,[45] and their assumption that the molecular clock runs at a known constant rate has been challenged.[46][47]
+
+Traditionally, Cephalochordata and Craniata were grouped into the proposed clade "Euchordata", which would have been the sister group to Tunicata/Urochordata. More recently, Cephalochordata has been thought of as a sister group to the "Olfactores", which includes the craniates and tunicates. The matter is not yet settled.
+
+Phylogenetic tree of the Chordate phylum. Lines show probable evolutionary relationships, including extinct taxa, which are denoted with a dagger, †. Some are invertebrates. The positions (relationships) of the Lancelet, Tunicate, and Craniata clades are as reported[48][49][50][51]
+
+Amphioxus
+
+Haikouella†
+
+Appendicularia (formerly Larvacea)
+
+Thaliacea
+
+Ascidiacea
+
+Myxini (hagfish)
+
+Hyperoartia/Petromyzontida (lampreys)
+
+Conodonta†
+
+Pteraspidomorphi† (including Arandaspida†, Astraspida† and Heterostraci†)
+
+Cephalaspidomorphi† (including Galeaspida†, Osteostraci† and Pituriaspida†)
+
+Placodermi (including Antiarchi†, Petalichthyida†, Ptyctodontida† and Arthrodira†)
+
+Acanthodii† (paraphyletic)
+
+Chondrichthyes (cartilaginous fishes)
+
+Actinopterygii (ray-finned fishes)
+
+Actinistia (coelacanths)
+
+Dipnoi (lungfishes)
+
+Amphibia
+
+Mammalia
+
+Lepidosauromorpha (lizards, snakes, tuatara, and their extinct relatives)
+
+Archosauromorpha (crocodiles, birds, and their extinct relatives)
+
+Hemichordates ("half chordates") have some features similar to those of chordates: branchial openings that open into the pharynx and look rather like gill slits; stomochords, similar in composition to notochords, but running in a circle round the "collar", which is ahead of the mouth; and a dorsal nerve cord—but also a smaller ventral nerve cord.
+
+There are two living groups of hemichordates. The solitary enteropneusts, commonly known as "acorn worms", have long proboscises and worm-like bodies with up to 200 branchial slits, are up to 2.5 metres (8.2 ft) long, and burrow though seafloor sediments. Pterobranchs are colonial animals, often less than 1 millimetre (0.039 in) long individually, whose dwellings are interconnected. Each filter feeds by means of a pair of branched tentacles, and has a short, shield-shaped proboscis. The extinct graptolites, colonial animals whose fossils look like tiny hacksaw blades, lived in tubes similar to those of pterobranchs.[52]
+
+Echinoderms differ from chordates and their other relatives in three conspicuous ways: they possess bilateral symmetry only as larvae - in adulthood they have radial symmetry, meaning that their body pattern is shaped like a wheel; they have tube feet; and their bodies are supported by skeletons made of calcite, a material not used by chordates. Their hard, calcified shells keep their bodies well protected from the environment, and these skeletons enclose their bodies, but are also covered by thin skins. The feet are powered by another unique feature of echinoderms, a water vascular system of canals that also functions as a "lung" and surrounded by muscles that act as pumps. Crinoids look rather like flowers, and use their feather-like arms to filter food particles out of the water; most live anchored to rocks, but a few can move very slowly. Other echinoderms are mobile and take a variety of body shapes, for example starfish, sea urchins and sea cucumbers.[53]
+
+Although the name Chordata is attributed to William Bateson (1885), it was already in prevalent use by 1880. Ernst Haeckel described a taxon comprising tunicates, cephalochordates, and vertebrates in 1866. Though he used the German vernacular form, it is allowed under the ICZN code because of its subsequent latinization.[2]

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+
+
+Brassica oleracea is a plant species that includes many common foods as cultivars, including cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, Savoy cabbage, kohlrabi, and gai lan.
+
+In its uncultivated form, it is called wild cabbage, and is native to coastal southern and western Europe. A hardy plant in its uncultivated form, its high tolerance for salt and lime, and its intolerance of competition from other plants, typically restrict its natural occurrence to limestone sea cliffs, like the chalk cliffs on both sides of the English Channel,[1] and the windswept coast on the western side of the Isle of Wight. Genetic analysis of nine wild population on the French Atlantic coast indicated their common feral origin, deriving from plants escaped from fields and gardens.[2]
+
+Wild B. oleracea is a tall biennial plant that forms a stout rosette of large leaves in the first year. The leaves are fleshier and thicker than other Brassica species—an adaptation that helps it store water and nutrients in its difficult growing environment. In its second year, it uses the stored nutrients to produce a flower spike 1 to 2 metres (3–7 ft) tall with numerous yellow flowers.
+
+Its specific epithet oleracea means "vegetable/herbal" in Latin and is a form of holeraceus (oleraceus).[3][4]
+
+B. oleracea has become established as an important human food crop plant, used because of its large food reserves, which are stored over the winter in its leaves. It is rich in essential nutrients including vitamin C. A diet rich in cruciferous vegetables (e.g., cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower) is linked to a reduced risk of several human cancers.[5][6]
+
+Researchers believe it has been cultivated for several thousand years, but its history as a domesticated plant is not clear before Greek and Roman times, when it was a well-established garden vegetable. Theophrastus mentions three kinds of rhaphanos (ῤάφανος):[7] a curly-leaved, a smooth-leaved, and a wild-type.[8] He reports the antipathy of the cabbage and the grape vine, for the ancients believed cabbages grown near grapes would impart their flavour to the wine.[9] It has been bred into a wide range of cultivars, including cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, collards, and kale, some of which are hardly recognisable as being members of the same genus, let alone species. The historical genus of Crucifera, meaning "cross-bearing" in reference to the four-petaled flowers, may be the only unifying feature beyond taste.
+
+According to the Triangle of U theory, B. oleracea is very closely related to five other species of the genus Brassica.[10]
+
+The cultivars of B. oleracea are grouped by developmental form into seven major cultivar groups, of which the Acephala ("non-heading") group remains most like the natural wild cabbage in appearance:
+
+In places such as the Channel Islands and Canary Islands, where the frost is minimal and plants are thus freed from seasonality, some cultivars, known as Jersey cabbages, can grow up to 3 metres (9.8 ft) tall.[11] These "tree cabbages" yield fresh leaves throughout the year, are perennial, and do not need to be destroyed at harvest as with a normal cabbage. Their woody stalks are sometimes dried and made into walking sticks.[12][13]
+
+With the advent of agriculture and the domestication of wild crop plants, the people of the northern  Mediterranean began cultivating wild cabbage. Through artificial selection for various phenotype traits, the emergence of variations of the plant with drastic differences in looks took only a few thousand years. Preference for leaves, terminal bud, lateral bud, stem, and inflorescence resulted in selection of varieties of wild cabbage into the many forms known today.[14]
+
+[15]
+
+The Lumbee tribe of North Carolina has traditionally used the leaves of B. oleracea in medicine that they believed to have cleansing qualities, as well as a mild laxative, an anti-inflammatory, and treatment for glaucoma and pneumonia.[citation needed]
+
+The TAS2R38 gene encodes a G protein-coupled receptor that functions as a taste receptor, mediated by ligands such as PROP and phenylthiocarbamide that bind to the receptor and initiate signaling that confers various degrees of taste perception. Vegetables in the brassica family, such as collard greens, kale, broccoli, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts, contain glucosinolates and isothiocyanates, which resemble PROP, and therefore much of the perceived "bitterness" of these vegetables is mediated through TAS2R38. Bitter taste receptors in the TS2R family are also found in gut mucosal and pancreatic cells in humans and rodents. These receptors influence release of hormones involved in appetite regulation, such as peptide YY and glucagon-like peptide-1, and therefore may influence caloric intake and the development of obesity. Thus, bitter taste perception may affect dietary behaviors by influencing both taste preferences and metabolic hormonal regulation.[16]
+
+Three variants in the TAS2R38 gene – rs713598, rs1726866, and rs10246939 �� are in high linkage disequilibrium in most populations and result in amino acid coding changes that lead to a range of bitter taste perception phenotypes. The PAV haplotype is dominant; therefore, individuals with at least one copy of the PAV allele perceive molecules in vegetables that resemble PROP as tasting bitter, and consequently may develop an aversion to bitter vegetables. In contrast, individuals with two AVI haplotypes are bitter non-tasters. PAV and AVI haplotypes are the most common, though other haplotypes exist that confer intermediate bitter taste sensitivity (AAI, AAV, AVV, and PVI). This taste aversion may apply to vegetables in general.[16][17]

en/1102.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
+Cauliflower is one of several vegetables in the species Brassica oleracea in the genus Brassica, which is in the Brassicaceae (or Mustard) family. It is an annual plant that reproduces by seed. Typically, only the head is eaten – the edible white flesh sometimes called "curd" (with a similar appearance to cheese curd).[1] The cauliflower head is composed of a white inflorescence meristem. Cauliflower heads resemble those in broccoli, which differs in having flower buds as the edible portion. Brassica oleracea also includes broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, collard greens, and kale, collectively called "cole" crops,[2] though they are of different cultivar groups.
+
+In the 1st century AD, Pliny included what he called cyma among his descriptions of cultivated plants in Natural History: "Ex omnibus brassicae generibus suavissima est cyma,"[3] ("Of all the varieties of cabbage the most pleasant-tasted is cyma").[4] Pliny's descriptions likely refer to the flowering heads of an earlier cultivated variety of Brassica oleracea, but comes close to describing modern cauliflower.[5] In the Middle Ages early forms of cauliflower were associated with the island of Cyprus, with the 12th- and 13th-century Arab botanists Ibn al-'Awwam and Ibn al-Baitar claiming its origin to be Cyprus.[6][7] This association continued into Western Europe, where cauliflowers were sometimes known as Cyprus colewort, and there was extensive trade in western Europe in cauliflower seeds from Cyprus, under the French Lusignan rulers of the island, until well into the 16th century.[8]
+
+François Pierre La Varenne employed chouxfleurs in Le cuisinier françois.[9] They were introduced to France from Genoa in the 16th century, and are featured in Olivier de Serres' Théâtre de l'agriculture (1600), as cauli-fiori "as the Italians call it, which are still rather rare in France; they hold an honorable place in the garden because of their delicacy",[10] but they did not commonly appear on grand tables until the time of Louis XIV.[11] It was introduced to India in 1822 by the British.[12]
+
+The word "cauliflower" derives from the Italian cavolfiore, meaning "cabbage flower".[13] The ultimate origin of the name is from the Latin words caulis (cabbage) and flōs (flower).[14]
+
+Cauliflower is relatively difficult to grow compared to cabbage, with common problems such as an underdeveloped head and poor curd quality.[2]
+
+Because weather is a limiting factor for producing cauliflower, the plant grows best in cool daytime temperatures 21–29 °C (70–85 °F), with plentiful sun, and moist soil conditions high in organic matter and sandy soils.[1] The earliest maturity possible for cauliflower is 7 to 12 weeks from transplanting.[2] In the northern hemisphere, fall season plantings in July may enable harvesting before autumn frost.[1]
+
+Long periods of sun exposure in hot summer weather may cause cauliflower heads to discolor with a red-purple hue.[1]
+
+Transplantable cauliflowers can be produced in containers as flats, hotbeds, or in the field. In soil that is loose, well-drained and fertile, field seedlings are shallow-planted 1 cm (1⁄2 in) and thinned by ample space – about 12 plants per 30 cm (1 ft).[1] Ideal growing temperatures are about 18 °C (65 °F) when seedlings are 25 to 35 days old.[1] Applications of fertilizer to developing seedlings begin when leaves appear, usually with a starter solution weekly.
+
+Transplanting to the field normally begins late spring and may continue until mid-summer. Row spacing is about 38–46 cm (15–18 in). 
+Rapid vegetative growth after transplanting may benefit from such procedures as avoiding spring frosts, using starter solutions high in phosphorus, irrigating weekly, and applying fertilizer.[1]
+
+The most important disorders affecting cauliflower quality are a hollow stem, stunted head growth or buttoning, ricing, browning and leaf-tip burn.[1] Among major pests affecting cauliflower are aphids, root maggots, cutworms, moths, and flea beetles.[2] The plant is susceptible to black rot, black leg, club root, black leaf spot, and downy mildew.[1]
+
+When cauliflower is mature, heads appear as clear white, compact, and 15–20 cm (6–8 in) in diameter, and should be cooled shortly after harvest.[1] Forced air cooling to remove heat from the field during hot weather may be needed for optimal preservation. Short-term storage is possible using cool, high-humidity storage conditions.[1]
+
+Many species of blowflies, including Calliphora vomitoria, are known pollinators of cauliflower. [15]
+
+There are four major groups of cauliflower.[16]
+
+There are hundreds of historic and current commercial varieties used around the world. A comprehensive list of about 80 North American varieties is maintained at North Carolina State University.[18]
+
+White and green cauliflower
+
+Green Romanesco cauliflower
+
+Orange cauliflower
+
+Purple cauliflower
+
+In 2016, global production of cauliflowers (combined for production reports with broccoli) was 25.2 million tonnes, led by China and India which, combined, had 73% of the world total.[21] Secondary producers, having 0.4–1.3 million tonnes annually, were the United States, Spain, Mexico and Italy.[21]
+
+Raw cauliflower is 92% water, 5% carbohydrates, 2% protein, and contains negligible fat (table). A 100 gram reference amount of raw cauliflower provides 25 calories, and has a high content (20% or more of the Daily Value, DV) of vitamin C (58% DV) and moderate levels of several B vitamins and vitamin K (13–15% DV; table). Contents of dietary minerals are low (7% DV or less).
+
+Cauliflower contains several non-nutrient phytochemicals common in the cabbage family that are under preliminary research for their potential properties, including isothiocyanates and glucosinolates.[22] Boiling reduces the levels of cauliflower glucosinolates, while other cooking methods, such as steaming, microwaving, and stir frying, have no significant effect on glucosinolate levels.[23]
+
+Cauliflower heads can be roasted, grilled, boiled, fried, steamed, pickled, or eaten raw. When cooking, the outer leaves and thick stalks are typically removed, leaving only the florets (the edible "curd" or "head"). The leaves are also edible but are often discarded.[24]
+
+Cauliflower is a popular low-calorie, gluten-free alternative to rice and flour. Between 2012 and 2016, cauliflower production in the United States increased 63%, and cauliflower-based product sales increased 71% between 2017 and 2018. Cauliflower rice is made by pulsing cauliflower florets followed by cooking the result in oil.[25][26] Cauliflower pizza crust is made from cauliflower flour and is popular in pizza restaurants.[27]
+
+Cauliflower has been noticed by mathematicians for its distinct fractal dimension,[28][29] calculated to be roughly 2.8.[30][31]
+One of the fractal properties of cauliflower is that every branch, or "module", is similar to the entire cauliflower. Another quality, also present in other plant species, is that the angle between "modules," as they become more distant from the center, is 360 degrees divided by the golden ratio.[32]

en/1103.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
+Cauliflower is one of several vegetables in the species Brassica oleracea in the genus Brassica, which is in the Brassicaceae (or Mustard) family. It is an annual plant that reproduces by seed. Typically, only the head is eaten – the edible white flesh sometimes called "curd" (with a similar appearance to cheese curd).[1] The cauliflower head is composed of a white inflorescence meristem. Cauliflower heads resemble those in broccoli, which differs in having flower buds as the edible portion. Brassica oleracea also includes broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, collard greens, and kale, collectively called "cole" crops,[2] though they are of different cultivar groups.
+
+In the 1st century AD, Pliny included what he called cyma among his descriptions of cultivated plants in Natural History: "Ex omnibus brassicae generibus suavissima est cyma,"[3] ("Of all the varieties of cabbage the most pleasant-tasted is cyma").[4] Pliny's descriptions likely refer to the flowering heads of an earlier cultivated variety of Brassica oleracea, but comes close to describing modern cauliflower.[5] In the Middle Ages early forms of cauliflower were associated with the island of Cyprus, with the 12th- and 13th-century Arab botanists Ibn al-'Awwam and Ibn al-Baitar claiming its origin to be Cyprus.[6][7] This association continued into Western Europe, where cauliflowers were sometimes known as Cyprus colewort, and there was extensive trade in western Europe in cauliflower seeds from Cyprus, under the French Lusignan rulers of the island, until well into the 16th century.[8]
+
+François Pierre La Varenne employed chouxfleurs in Le cuisinier françois.[9] They were introduced to France from Genoa in the 16th century, and are featured in Olivier de Serres' Théâtre de l'agriculture (1600), as cauli-fiori "as the Italians call it, which are still rather rare in France; they hold an honorable place in the garden because of their delicacy",[10] but they did not commonly appear on grand tables until the time of Louis XIV.[11] It was introduced to India in 1822 by the British.[12]
+
+The word "cauliflower" derives from the Italian cavolfiore, meaning "cabbage flower".[13] The ultimate origin of the name is from the Latin words caulis (cabbage) and flōs (flower).[14]
+
+Cauliflower is relatively difficult to grow compared to cabbage, with common problems such as an underdeveloped head and poor curd quality.[2]
+
+Because weather is a limiting factor for producing cauliflower, the plant grows best in cool daytime temperatures 21–29 °C (70–85 °F), with plentiful sun, and moist soil conditions high in organic matter and sandy soils.[1] The earliest maturity possible for cauliflower is 7 to 12 weeks from transplanting.[2] In the northern hemisphere, fall season plantings in July may enable harvesting before autumn frost.[1]
+
+Long periods of sun exposure in hot summer weather may cause cauliflower heads to discolor with a red-purple hue.[1]
+
+Transplantable cauliflowers can be produced in containers as flats, hotbeds, or in the field. In soil that is loose, well-drained and fertile, field seedlings are shallow-planted 1 cm (1⁄2 in) and thinned by ample space – about 12 plants per 30 cm (1 ft).[1] Ideal growing temperatures are about 18 °C (65 °F) when seedlings are 25 to 35 days old.[1] Applications of fertilizer to developing seedlings begin when leaves appear, usually with a starter solution weekly.
+
+Transplanting to the field normally begins late spring and may continue until mid-summer. Row spacing is about 38–46 cm (15–18 in). 
+Rapid vegetative growth after transplanting may benefit from such procedures as avoiding spring frosts, using starter solutions high in phosphorus, irrigating weekly, and applying fertilizer.[1]
+
+The most important disorders affecting cauliflower quality are a hollow stem, stunted head growth or buttoning, ricing, browning and leaf-tip burn.[1] Among major pests affecting cauliflower are aphids, root maggots, cutworms, moths, and flea beetles.[2] The plant is susceptible to black rot, black leg, club root, black leaf spot, and downy mildew.[1]
+
+When cauliflower is mature, heads appear as clear white, compact, and 15–20 cm (6–8 in) in diameter, and should be cooled shortly after harvest.[1] Forced air cooling to remove heat from the field during hot weather may be needed for optimal preservation. Short-term storage is possible using cool, high-humidity storage conditions.[1]
+
+Many species of blowflies, including Calliphora vomitoria, are known pollinators of cauliflower. [15]
+
+There are four major groups of cauliflower.[16]
+
+There are hundreds of historic and current commercial varieties used around the world. A comprehensive list of about 80 North American varieties is maintained at North Carolina State University.[18]
+
+White and green cauliflower
+
+Green Romanesco cauliflower
+
+Orange cauliflower
+
+Purple cauliflower
+
+In 2016, global production of cauliflowers (combined for production reports with broccoli) was 25.2 million tonnes, led by China and India which, combined, had 73% of the world total.[21] Secondary producers, having 0.4–1.3 million tonnes annually, were the United States, Spain, Mexico and Italy.[21]
+
+Raw cauliflower is 92% water, 5% carbohydrates, 2% protein, and contains negligible fat (table). A 100 gram reference amount of raw cauliflower provides 25 calories, and has a high content (20% or more of the Daily Value, DV) of vitamin C (58% DV) and moderate levels of several B vitamins and vitamin K (13–15% DV; table). Contents of dietary minerals are low (7% DV or less).
+
+Cauliflower contains several non-nutrient phytochemicals common in the cabbage family that are under preliminary research for their potential properties, including isothiocyanates and glucosinolates.[22] Boiling reduces the levels of cauliflower glucosinolates, while other cooking methods, such as steaming, microwaving, and stir frying, have no significant effect on glucosinolate levels.[23]
+
+Cauliflower heads can be roasted, grilled, boiled, fried, steamed, pickled, or eaten raw. When cooking, the outer leaves and thick stalks are typically removed, leaving only the florets (the edible "curd" or "head"). The leaves are also edible but are often discarded.[24]
+
+Cauliflower is a popular low-calorie, gluten-free alternative to rice and flour. Between 2012 and 2016, cauliflower production in the United States increased 63%, and cauliflower-based product sales increased 71% between 2017 and 2018. Cauliflower rice is made by pulsing cauliflower florets followed by cooking the result in oil.[25][26] Cauliflower pizza crust is made from cauliflower flour and is popular in pizza restaurants.[27]
+
+Cauliflower has been noticed by mathematicians for its distinct fractal dimension,[28][29] calculated to be roughly 2.8.[30][31]
+One of the fractal properties of cauliflower is that every branch, or "module", is similar to the entire cauliflower. Another quality, also present in other plant species, is that the angle between "modules," as they become more distant from the center, is 360 degrees divided by the golden ratio.[32]

en/1104.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+
+
+Brassica oleracea is a plant species that includes many common foods as cultivars, including cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, Savoy cabbage, kohlrabi, and gai lan.
+
+In its uncultivated form, it is called wild cabbage, and is native to coastal southern and western Europe. A hardy plant in its uncultivated form, its high tolerance for salt and lime, and its intolerance of competition from other plants, typically restrict its natural occurrence to limestone sea cliffs, like the chalk cliffs on both sides of the English Channel,[1] and the windswept coast on the western side of the Isle of Wight. Genetic analysis of nine wild population on the French Atlantic coast indicated their common feral origin, deriving from plants escaped from fields and gardens.[2]
+
+Wild B. oleracea is a tall biennial plant that forms a stout rosette of large leaves in the first year. The leaves are fleshier and thicker than other Brassica species—an adaptation that helps it store water and nutrients in its difficult growing environment. In its second year, it uses the stored nutrients to produce a flower spike 1 to 2 metres (3–7 ft) tall with numerous yellow flowers.
+
+Its specific epithet oleracea means "vegetable/herbal" in Latin and is a form of holeraceus (oleraceus).[3][4]
+
+B. oleracea has become established as an important human food crop plant, used because of its large food reserves, which are stored over the winter in its leaves. It is rich in essential nutrients including vitamin C. A diet rich in cruciferous vegetables (e.g., cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower) is linked to a reduced risk of several human cancers.[5][6]
+
+Researchers believe it has been cultivated for several thousand years, but its history as a domesticated plant is not clear before Greek and Roman times, when it was a well-established garden vegetable. Theophrastus mentions three kinds of rhaphanos (ῤάφανος):[7] a curly-leaved, a smooth-leaved, and a wild-type.[8] He reports the antipathy of the cabbage and the grape vine, for the ancients believed cabbages grown near grapes would impart their flavour to the wine.[9] It has been bred into a wide range of cultivars, including cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, collards, and kale, some of which are hardly recognisable as being members of the same genus, let alone species. The historical genus of Crucifera, meaning "cross-bearing" in reference to the four-petaled flowers, may be the only unifying feature beyond taste.
+
+According to the Triangle of U theory, B. oleracea is very closely related to five other species of the genus Brassica.[10]
+
+The cultivars of B. oleracea are grouped by developmental form into seven major cultivar groups, of which the Acephala ("non-heading") group remains most like the natural wild cabbage in appearance:
+
+In places such as the Channel Islands and Canary Islands, where the frost is minimal and plants are thus freed from seasonality, some cultivars, known as Jersey cabbages, can grow up to 3 metres (9.8 ft) tall.[11] These "tree cabbages" yield fresh leaves throughout the year, are perennial, and do not need to be destroyed at harvest as with a normal cabbage. Their woody stalks are sometimes dried and made into walking sticks.[12][13]
+
+With the advent of agriculture and the domestication of wild crop plants, the people of the northern  Mediterranean began cultivating wild cabbage. Through artificial selection for various phenotype traits, the emergence of variations of the plant with drastic differences in looks took only a few thousand years. Preference for leaves, terminal bud, lateral bud, stem, and inflorescence resulted in selection of varieties of wild cabbage into the many forms known today.[14]
+
+[15]
+
+The Lumbee tribe of North Carolina has traditionally used the leaves of B. oleracea in medicine that they believed to have cleansing qualities, as well as a mild laxative, an anti-inflammatory, and treatment for glaucoma and pneumonia.[citation needed]
+
+The TAS2R38 gene encodes a G protein-coupled receptor that functions as a taste receptor, mediated by ligands such as PROP and phenylthiocarbamide that bind to the receptor and initiate signaling that confers various degrees of taste perception. Vegetables in the brassica family, such as collard greens, kale, broccoli, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts, contain glucosinolates and isothiocyanates, which resemble PROP, and therefore much of the perceived "bitterness" of these vegetables is mediated through TAS2R38. Bitter taste receptors in the TS2R family are also found in gut mucosal and pancreatic cells in humans and rodents. These receptors influence release of hormones involved in appetite regulation, such as peptide YY and glucagon-like peptide-1, and therefore may influence caloric intake and the development of obesity. Thus, bitter taste perception may affect dietary behaviors by influencing both taste preferences and metabolic hormonal regulation.[16]
+
+Three variants in the TAS2R38 gene – rs713598, rs1726866, and rs10246939 �� are in high linkage disequilibrium in most populations and result in amino acid coding changes that lead to a range of bitter taste perception phenotypes. The PAV haplotype is dominant; therefore, individuals with at least one copy of the PAV allele perceive molecules in vegetables that resemble PROP as tasting bitter, and consequently may develop an aversion to bitter vegetables. In contrast, individuals with two AVI haplotypes are bitter non-tasters. PAV and AVI haplotypes are the most common, though other haplotypes exist that confer intermediate bitter taste sensitivity (AAI, AAV, AVV, and PVI). This taste aversion may apply to vegetables in general.[16][17]

en/1105.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+
+
+Brassica oleracea is a plant species that includes many common foods as cultivars, including cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, Savoy cabbage, kohlrabi, and gai lan.
+
+In its uncultivated form, it is called wild cabbage, and is native to coastal southern and western Europe. A hardy plant in its uncultivated form, its high tolerance for salt and lime, and its intolerance of competition from other plants, typically restrict its natural occurrence to limestone sea cliffs, like the chalk cliffs on both sides of the English Channel,[1] and the windswept coast on the western side of the Isle of Wight. Genetic analysis of nine wild population on the French Atlantic coast indicated their common feral origin, deriving from plants escaped from fields and gardens.[2]
+
+Wild B. oleracea is a tall biennial plant that forms a stout rosette of large leaves in the first year. The leaves are fleshier and thicker than other Brassica species—an adaptation that helps it store water and nutrients in its difficult growing environment. In its second year, it uses the stored nutrients to produce a flower spike 1 to 2 metres (3–7 ft) tall with numerous yellow flowers.
+
+Its specific epithet oleracea means "vegetable/herbal" in Latin and is a form of holeraceus (oleraceus).[3][4]
+
+B. oleracea has become established as an important human food crop plant, used because of its large food reserves, which are stored over the winter in its leaves. It is rich in essential nutrients including vitamin C. A diet rich in cruciferous vegetables (e.g., cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower) is linked to a reduced risk of several human cancers.[5][6]
+
+Researchers believe it has been cultivated for several thousand years, but its history as a domesticated plant is not clear before Greek and Roman times, when it was a well-established garden vegetable. Theophrastus mentions three kinds of rhaphanos (ῤάφανος):[7] a curly-leaved, a smooth-leaved, and a wild-type.[8] He reports the antipathy of the cabbage and the grape vine, for the ancients believed cabbages grown near grapes would impart their flavour to the wine.[9] It has been bred into a wide range of cultivars, including cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, collards, and kale, some of which are hardly recognisable as being members of the same genus, let alone species. The historical genus of Crucifera, meaning "cross-bearing" in reference to the four-petaled flowers, may be the only unifying feature beyond taste.
+
+According to the Triangle of U theory, B. oleracea is very closely related to five other species of the genus Brassica.[10]
+
+The cultivars of B. oleracea are grouped by developmental form into seven major cultivar groups, of which the Acephala ("non-heading") group remains most like the natural wild cabbage in appearance:
+
+In places such as the Channel Islands and Canary Islands, where the frost is minimal and plants are thus freed from seasonality, some cultivars, known as Jersey cabbages, can grow up to 3 metres (9.8 ft) tall.[11] These "tree cabbages" yield fresh leaves throughout the year, are perennial, and do not need to be destroyed at harvest as with a normal cabbage. Their woody stalks are sometimes dried and made into walking sticks.[12][13]
+
+With the advent of agriculture and the domestication of wild crop plants, the people of the northern  Mediterranean began cultivating wild cabbage. Through artificial selection for various phenotype traits, the emergence of variations of the plant with drastic differences in looks took only a few thousand years. Preference for leaves, terminal bud, lateral bud, stem, and inflorescence resulted in selection of varieties of wild cabbage into the many forms known today.[14]
+
+[15]
+
+The Lumbee tribe of North Carolina has traditionally used the leaves of B. oleracea in medicine that they believed to have cleansing qualities, as well as a mild laxative, an anti-inflammatory, and treatment for glaucoma and pneumonia.[citation needed]
+
+The TAS2R38 gene encodes a G protein-coupled receptor that functions as a taste receptor, mediated by ligands such as PROP and phenylthiocarbamide that bind to the receptor and initiate signaling that confers various degrees of taste perception. Vegetables in the brassica family, such as collard greens, kale, broccoli, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts, contain glucosinolates and isothiocyanates, which resemble PROP, and therefore much of the perceived "bitterness" of these vegetables is mediated through TAS2R38. Bitter taste receptors in the TS2R family are also found in gut mucosal and pancreatic cells in humans and rodents. These receptors influence release of hormones involved in appetite regulation, such as peptide YY and glucagon-like peptide-1, and therefore may influence caloric intake and the development of obesity. Thus, bitter taste perception may affect dietary behaviors by influencing both taste preferences and metabolic hormonal regulation.[16]
+
+Three variants in the TAS2R38 gene – rs713598, rs1726866, and rs10246939 �� are in high linkage disequilibrium in most populations and result in amino acid coding changes that lead to a range of bitter taste perception phenotypes. The PAV haplotype is dominant; therefore, individuals with at least one copy of the PAV allele perceive molecules in vegetables that resemble PROP as tasting bitter, and consequently may develop an aversion to bitter vegetables. In contrast, individuals with two AVI haplotypes are bitter non-tasters. PAV and AVI haplotypes are the most common, though other haplotypes exist that confer intermediate bitter taste sensitivity (AAI, AAV, AVV, and PVI). This taste aversion may apply to vegetables in general.[16][17]

en/1106.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+
+
+Brassica oleracea is a plant species that includes many common foods as cultivars, including cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, Savoy cabbage, kohlrabi, and gai lan.
+
+In its uncultivated form, it is called wild cabbage, and is native to coastal southern and western Europe. A hardy plant in its uncultivated form, its high tolerance for salt and lime, and its intolerance of competition from other plants, typically restrict its natural occurrence to limestone sea cliffs, like the chalk cliffs on both sides of the English Channel,[1] and the windswept coast on the western side of the Isle of Wight. Genetic analysis of nine wild population on the French Atlantic coast indicated their common feral origin, deriving from plants escaped from fields and gardens.[2]
+
+Wild B. oleracea is a tall biennial plant that forms a stout rosette of large leaves in the first year. The leaves are fleshier and thicker than other Brassica species—an adaptation that helps it store water and nutrients in its difficult growing environment. In its second year, it uses the stored nutrients to produce a flower spike 1 to 2 metres (3–7 ft) tall with numerous yellow flowers.
+
+Its specific epithet oleracea means "vegetable/herbal" in Latin and is a form of holeraceus (oleraceus).[3][4]
+
+B. oleracea has become established as an important human food crop plant, used because of its large food reserves, which are stored over the winter in its leaves. It is rich in essential nutrients including vitamin C. A diet rich in cruciferous vegetables (e.g., cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower) is linked to a reduced risk of several human cancers.[5][6]
+
+Researchers believe it has been cultivated for several thousand years, but its history as a domesticated plant is not clear before Greek and Roman times, when it was a well-established garden vegetable. Theophrastus mentions three kinds of rhaphanos (ῤάφανος):[7] a curly-leaved, a smooth-leaved, and a wild-type.[8] He reports the antipathy of the cabbage and the grape vine, for the ancients believed cabbages grown near grapes would impart their flavour to the wine.[9] It has been bred into a wide range of cultivars, including cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, collards, and kale, some of which are hardly recognisable as being members of the same genus, let alone species. The historical genus of Crucifera, meaning "cross-bearing" in reference to the four-petaled flowers, may be the only unifying feature beyond taste.
+
+According to the Triangle of U theory, B. oleracea is very closely related to five other species of the genus Brassica.[10]
+
+The cultivars of B. oleracea are grouped by developmental form into seven major cultivar groups, of which the Acephala ("non-heading") group remains most like the natural wild cabbage in appearance:
+
+In places such as the Channel Islands and Canary Islands, where the frost is minimal and plants are thus freed from seasonality, some cultivars, known as Jersey cabbages, can grow up to 3 metres (9.8 ft) tall.[11] These "tree cabbages" yield fresh leaves throughout the year, are perennial, and do not need to be destroyed at harvest as with a normal cabbage. Their woody stalks are sometimes dried and made into walking sticks.[12][13]
+
+With the advent of agriculture and the domestication of wild crop plants, the people of the northern  Mediterranean began cultivating wild cabbage. Through artificial selection for various phenotype traits, the emergence of variations of the plant with drastic differences in looks took only a few thousand years. Preference for leaves, terminal bud, lateral bud, stem, and inflorescence resulted in selection of varieties of wild cabbage into the many forms known today.[14]
+
+[15]
+
+The Lumbee tribe of North Carolina has traditionally used the leaves of B. oleracea in medicine that they believed to have cleansing qualities, as well as a mild laxative, an anti-inflammatory, and treatment for glaucoma and pneumonia.[citation needed]
+
+The TAS2R38 gene encodes a G protein-coupled receptor that functions as a taste receptor, mediated by ligands such as PROP and phenylthiocarbamide that bind to the receptor and initiate signaling that confers various degrees of taste perception. Vegetables in the brassica family, such as collard greens, kale, broccoli, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts, contain glucosinolates and isothiocyanates, which resemble PROP, and therefore much of the perceived "bitterness" of these vegetables is mediated through TAS2R38. Bitter taste receptors in the TS2R family are also found in gut mucosal and pancreatic cells in humans and rodents. These receptors influence release of hormones involved in appetite regulation, such as peptide YY and glucagon-like peptide-1, and therefore may influence caloric intake and the development of obesity. Thus, bitter taste perception may affect dietary behaviors by influencing both taste preferences and metabolic hormonal regulation.[16]
+
+Three variants in the TAS2R38 gene – rs713598, rs1726866, and rs10246939 �� are in high linkage disequilibrium in most populations and result in amino acid coding changes that lead to a range of bitter taste perception phenotypes. The PAV haplotype is dominant; therefore, individuals with at least one copy of the PAV allele perceive molecules in vegetables that resemble PROP as tasting bitter, and consequently may develop an aversion to bitter vegetables. In contrast, individuals with two AVI haplotypes are bitter non-tasters. PAV and AVI haplotypes are the most common, though other haplotypes exist that confer intermediate bitter taste sensitivity (AAI, AAV, AVV, and PVI). This taste aversion may apply to vegetables in general.[16][17]

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+Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Its adherents, known as Christians, believe that Jesus is the Christ, whose coming as the messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible, called the Old Testament in Christianity, and chronicled in the New Testament.[1] It is the world's largest religion, with about 2.4 billion followers.[2]
+
+Christianity remains culturally diverse in its Western and Eastern branches, as well as in its doctrines concerning justification and the nature of salvation, ecclesiology, ordination, and Christology. Their creeds generally hold in common Jesus as the Son of God—the logos incarnated—who ministered, suffered, and died on a cross, but rose from the dead for the salvation of mankind; as referred to as the gospel, meaning the "good news", in the Bible. Describing Jesus' life and teachings are the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John with the Jewish Old Testament as the gospel's respected background.
+
+Christianity began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the 1st century in the Roman province of Judea. Jesus' apostles and their followers spread around the Levant, Europe, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Transcaucasia, Egypt, and Ethiopia, despite initial persecution. It soon attracted gentile God-fearers, which led to a departure from Jewish customs, and, after the Fall of Jerusalem, AD 70 which ended the Temple-based Judaism, Christianity slowly separated from Judaism. Emperor Constantine the Great decriminalized Christianity in the Roman Empire by the Edict of Milan (313), later convening the Council of Nicaea (325) where Early Christianity was consolidated into what would become the State church of the Roman Empire (380). The early history of Christianity's united church before major schisms is sometimes referred to as the "Great Church". The Church of the East split after the Council of Ephesus (431) and Oriental Orthodoxy split after the Council of Chalcedon (451) over differences in Christology,[3] while the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church separated in the East–West Schism (1054), especially over the authority of the bishop of Rome. Protestantism split in numerous denominations from the Latin Catholic Church in the Reformation era (16th century) over theological and ecclesiological disputes, most predominantly on the issue of justification and papal primacy. Christianity played a prominent role in the development of Western civilization, particularly in Europe from late antiquity and the Middle Ages.[4][5][6][7][8] Following the Age of Discovery (15th–17th century), Christianity was spread into the Americas, Oceania, sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest of the world via missionary work.[9][10][11]
+
+The four largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church (1.3 billion/50.1%), Protestantism (920 million/36.7%), the Eastern Orthodox Church (230 million) and Oriental Orthodoxy (62 million/Orthodoxy combined at 11.9%),[12][13] amid various efforts toward unity (ecumenism).[14] Despite a decline in adherence in the West, Christianity remains the dominant religion in the region, with about 70% of the population identifying as Christian.[15] Christianity is growing in Africa and Asia, the world's most populous continents.[16] Christians remain persecuted in some regions the world, especially in the Middle-East, North Africa, East Asia, and South Asia.[17][18]
+
+Early Jewish Christians referred to themselves as 'The Way' (της οδου), probably coming from Isaiah 40:3, "prepare the way of the Lord."[19][note 1] According to Acts 11:26, the term "Christian" (Greek: Χριστιανός) was first used in reference to Jesus's disciples in the city of Antioch, meaning "followers of Christ," by the non-Jewish inhabitants of Antioch.[25] The earliest recorded use of the term "Christianity" (Greek: Χριστιανισμός) was by Ignatius of Antioch, in around 100 AD.[26]
+
+While Christians worldwide share basic convictions, there are also differences of interpretations and opinions of the Bible and sacred traditions on which Christianity is based.[27]
+
+Concise doctrinal statements or confessions of religious beliefs are known as creeds. They began as baptismal formulae and were later expanded during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries to become statements of faith.
+
+The Apostles' Creed is the most widely accepted statement of the articles of Christian faith. It is used by a number of Christian denominations for both liturgical and catechetical purposes, most visibly by liturgical churches of Western Christian tradition, including the Latin Church of the Catholic Church, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and Western Rite Orthodoxy. It is also used by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists. This particular creed was developed between the 2nd and 9th centuries. Its central doctrines are those of the Trinity and God the Creator. Each of the doctrines found in this creed can be traced to statements current in the apostolic period. The creed was apparently used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome.[28] Its points include:
+
+The Nicene Creed was formulated, largely in response to Arianism, at the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople in 325 and 381 respectively,[29][30] and ratified as the universal creed of Christendom by the First Council of Ephesus in 431.[31]
+
+The Chalcedonian Definition, or Creed of Chalcedon, developed at the Council of Chalcedon in 451,[32] though rejected by the Oriental Orthodox,[33] taught Christ "to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably": one divine and one human, and that both natures, while perfect in themselves, are nevertheless also perfectly united into one person.[34]
+
+The Athanasian Creed, received in the Western Church as having the same status as the Nicene and Chalcedonian, says: "We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance."[35]
+
+Most Christians (Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Protestant alike) accept the use of creeds, and subscribe to at least one of the creeds mentioned above.[36]
+
+Many Evangelical Protestants reject creeds as definitive statements of faith, even while agreeing with some or all of the substance of the creeds. Most Baptists do not use creeds "in that they have not sought to establish binding authoritative confessions of faith on one another."[37]:111 Also rejecting creeds are groups with roots in the Restoration Movement, such as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada, and the Churches of Christ.[38][39]:14–15[40]:123
+
+The central tenet of Christianity is the belief in Jesus as the Son of God and the Messiah (Christ). Christians believe that Jesus, as the Messiah, was anointed by God as savior of humanity and hold that Jesus' coming was the fulfillment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The Christian concept of messiah differs significantly from the contemporary Jewish concept. The core Christian belief is that through belief in and acceptance of the death and resurrection of Jesus, sinful humans can be reconciled to God, and thereby are offered salvation and the promise of eternal life.[41]
+
+While there have been many theological disputes over the nature of Jesus over the earliest centuries of Christian history, generally, Christians believe that Jesus is God incarnate and "true God and true man" (or both fully divine and fully human). Jesus, having become fully human, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, but did not sin. As fully God, he rose to life again. According to the New Testament, he rose from the dead,[42] ascended to heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father,[43] and will ultimately return[Acts 1:9–11] to fulfill the rest of the Messianic prophecy, including the resurrection of the dead, the Last Judgment, and the final establishment of the Kingdom of God.
+
+According to the canonical gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born from the Virgin Mary. Little of Jesus' childhood is recorded in the canonical gospels, although infancy gospels were popular in antiquity. In comparison, his adulthood, especially the week before his death, is well documented in the gospels contained within the New Testament, because that part of his life is believed to be most important. The biblical accounts of Jesus' ministry include: his baptism, miracles, preaching, teaching, and deeds.
+
+Christians consider the resurrection of Jesus to be the cornerstone of their faith (see 1 Corinthians 15) and the most important event in history.[44] Among Christian beliefs, the death and resurrection of Jesus are two core events on which much of Christian doctrine and theology is based.[45] According to the New Testament, Jesus was crucified, died a physical death, was buried within a tomb, and rose from the dead three days later.[Jn. 19:30–31] [Mk. 16:1] [16:6]
+
+The New Testament mentions several post-resurrection appearances of Jesus on different occasions to his twelve apostles and disciples, including "more than five hundred brethren at once",[1Cor 15:6] before Jesus' ascension to heaven. Jesus' death and resurrection are commemorated by Christians in all worship services, with special emphasis during Holy Week, which includes Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
+
+The death and resurrection of Jesus are usually considered the most important events in Christian theology, partly because they demonstrate that Jesus has power over life and death and therefore has the authority and power to give people eternal life.[46]
+
+Christian churches accept and teach the New Testament account of the resurrection of Jesus with very few exceptions.[47] Some modern scholars use the belief of Jesus' followers in the resurrection as a point of departure for establishing the continuity of the historical Jesus and the proclamation of the early church.[48] Some liberal Christians do not accept a literal bodily resurrection,[49][50] seeing the story as richly symbolic and spiritually nourishing myth. Arguments over death and resurrection claims occur at many religious debates and interfaith dialogues.[51] Paul the Apostle, an early Christian convert and missionary, wrote, "If Christ was not raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your trust in God is useless."[1Cor 15:14][52]
+
+Paul the Apostle, like Jews and Roman pagans of his time, believed that sacrifice can bring about new kinship ties, purity, and eternal life.[53] For Paul, the necessary sacrifice was the death of Jesus: Gentiles who are "Christ's" are, like Israel, descendants of Abraham and "heirs according to the promise".[Gal. 3:29][54] The God who raised Jesus from the dead would also give new life to the "mortal bodies" of Gentile Christians, who had become with Israel, the "children of God", and were therefore no longer "in the flesh".[Rom. 8:9,11,16][53]
+
+Modern Christian churches tend to be much more concerned with how humanity can be saved from a universal condition of sin and death than the question of how both Jews and Gentiles can be in God's family. According to Eastern Orthodox theology, based upon their understanding of the atonement as put forward by Irenaeus' recapitulation theory, Jesus' death is a ransom. This restores the relation with God, who is loving and reaches out to humanity, and offers the possibility of theosis c.q. divinization, becoming the kind of humans God wants humanity to be. According to Catholic doctrine, Jesus' death satisfies the wrath of God, aroused by the offense to God's honor caused by human's sinfulness. The Catholic Church teaches that salvation does not occur without faithfulness on the part of Christians; converts must live in accordance with principles of love and ordinarily must be baptized.[55] In Protestant theology, Jesus' death is regarded as a substitutionary penalty carried by Jesus, for the debt that has to be paid by humankind when it broke God's moral law. Martin Luther taught that baptism was necessary for salvation, but modern Lutherans and other Protestants tend to teach that salvation is a gift that comes to an individual by God's grace, sometimes defined as "unmerited favor", even apart from baptism.[citation needed]
+
+Christians differ in their views on the extent to which individuals' salvation is pre-ordained by God. Reformed theology places distinctive emphasis on grace by teaching that individuals are completely incapable of self-redemption, but that sanctifying grace is irresistible.[56] In contrast Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Arminian Protestants believe that the exercise of free will is necessary to have faith in Jesus.[57]
+
+Trinity refers to the teaching that the one God[59] comprises three distinct, eternally co-existing persons: the Father, the Son (incarnate in Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. Together, these three persons are sometimes called the Godhead,[60][61][62] although there is no single term in use in Scripture to denote the unified Godhead.[63] In the words of the Athanasian Creed, an early statement of Christian belief, "the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God".[64] They are distinct from another: the Father has no source, the Son is begotten of the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father. Though distinct, the three persons cannot be divided from one another in being or in operation. While some Christians also believe that God appeared as the Father in the Old Testament, it is agreed that he appeared as the Son in the New Testament, and will still continue to manifest as the Holy Spirit in the present. But still, God still existed as three persons in each of these times.[65] However, traditionally there is a belief that it was the Son who appeared in the Old Testament because, for example, when the Trinity is depicted in art, the Son typically has the distinctive appearance, a cruciform halo identifying Christ, and in depictions of the Garden of Eden, this looks forward to an Incarnation yet to occur. In some Early Christian sarcophagi the Logos is distinguished with a beard, "which allows him to appear ancient, even pre-existent."[66]
+
+The Trinity is an essential doctrine of mainstream Christianity. From earlier than the times of the Nicene Creed (325) Christianity advocated[67] the triune mystery-nature of God as a normative profession of faith. According to Roger E. Olson and Christopher Hall, through prayer, meditation, study and practice, the Christian community concluded "that God must exist as both a unity and trinity", codifying this in ecumenical council at the end of the 4th century.[68][69]
+
+According to this doctrine, God is not divided in the sense that each person has a third of the whole; rather, each person is considered to be fully God (see Perichoresis). The distinction lies in their relations, the Father being unbegotten; the Son being begotten of the Father; and the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and (in Western Christian theology) from the Son. Regardless of this apparent difference, the three "persons" are each eternal and omnipotent. Other Christian religions including Unitarian Universalism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Mormonism, do not share those views on the Trinity.
+
+The Greek word trias[70][note 2] is first seen in this sense in the works of Theophilus of Antioch; his text reads: "of the Trinity, of God, and of His Word, and of His Wisdom".[74] The term may have been in use before this time; its Latin equivalent,[note 2] trinitas,[72] appears afterwards with an explicit reference to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in Tertullian.[75][76] In the following century, the word was in general use. It is found in many passages of Origen.[77]
+
+Trinitarianism denotes Christians who believe in the concept of the Trinity. Almost all Christian denominations and churches hold Trinitarian beliefs. Although the words "Trinity" and "Triune" do not appear in the Bible, beginning in the 3rd century theologians developed the term and concept to facilitate comprehension of the New Testament teachings of God as being Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Since that time, Christian theologians have been careful to emphasize that Trinity does not imply that there are three gods (the antitrinitarian heresy of Tritheism), nor that each hypostasis of the Trinity is one-third of an infinite God (partialism), nor that the Son and the Holy Spirit are beings created by and subordinate to the Father (Arianism). Rather, the Trinity is defined as one God in three persons.[78]
+
+Nontrinitarianism (or antitrinitarianism) refers to theology that rejects the doctrine of the Trinity. Various nontrinitarian views, such as adoptionism or modalism, existed in early Christianity, leading to the disputes about Christology.[79] Nontrinitarianism reappeared in the Gnosticism of the Cathars between the 11th and 13th centuries, among groups with Unitarian theology in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century,[80] in the 18th-century Enlightenment, and in some groups arising during the Second Great Awakening of the 19th century.
+
+The end of things, whether the end of an individual life, the end of the age, or the end of the world, broadly speaking, is Christian eschatology; the study of the destiny of humans as it is revealed in the Bible. The major issues in Christian eschatology are the Tribulation, death and the afterlife, (mainly for Evangelical groups) the Millennium and the following Rapture, the Second Coming of Jesus, Resurrection of the Dead, Heaven, (for liturgical branches) Purgatory, and Hell, the Last Judgment, the end of the world, and the New Heavens and New Earth.
+
+Christians believe that the second coming of Christ will occur at the end of time, after a period of severe persecution (the Great Tribulation). All who have died will be resurrected bodily from the dead for the Last Judgment. Jesus will fully establish the Kingdom of God in fulfillment of scriptural prophecies.[82][83]
+
+Most Christians believe that human beings experience divine judgment and are rewarded either with eternal life or eternal damnation. This includes the general judgement at the resurrection of the dead as well as the belief (held by Catholics,[84][85] Orthodox[86][87] and most Protestants) in a judgment particular to the individual soul upon physical death.
+
+In the liturgical branches (e.g. Catholicism or Eastern or Oriental Orthodoxy), those who die in a state of grace, i.e., without any mortal sin separating them from God, but are still imperfectly purified from the effects of sin, undergo purification through the intermediate state of purgatory to achieve the holiness necessary for entrance into God's presence.[88] Those who have attained this goal are called saints (Latin sanctus, "holy").[89]
+
+Some Christian groups, such as Seventh-day Adventists, hold to mortalism, the belief that the human soul is not naturally immortal, and is unconscious during the intermediate state between bodily death and resurrection. These Christians also hold to Annihilationism, the belief that subsequent to the final judgement, the wicked will cease to exist rather than suffer everlasting torment. Jehovah's Witnesses hold to a similar view.[90]
+
+Depending on the specific denomination of Christianity, practices may include baptism, the Eucharist (Holy Communion or the Lord's Supper), prayer (including the Lord's Prayer), confession, confirmation, burial rites, marriage rites and the religious education of children. Most denominations have ordained clergy who lead regular communal worship services.[91]
+
+Services of worship typically follow a pattern or form known as liturgy.[note 3] Justin Martyr described 2nd-century Christian liturgy in his First Apology (c. 150) to Emperor Antoninus Pius, and his description remains relevant to the basic structure of Christian liturgical worship:
+
+And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need.[93]
+
+Thus, as Justin described, Christians assemble for communal worship typically on Sunday, the day of the resurrection, though other liturgical practices often occur outside this setting. Scripture readings are drawn from the Old and New Testaments, but especially the gospels.[note 4][94] Instruction is given based on these readings, called a sermon or homily. There are a variety of congregational prayers, including thanksgiving, confession, and intercession, which occur throughout the service and take a variety of forms including recited, responsive, silent, or sung.[91] Psalms, hymns, or worship songs may be sung.[95][96] Services can be varied for special events like significant feast days.[97]
+
+Nearly all forms of worship incorporate the Eucharist, which consists of a meal. It is reenacted in accordance with Jesus' instruction at the Last Supper that his followers do in remembrance of him as when he gave his disciples bread, saying, "This is my body", and gave them wine saying, "This is my blood".[98] In the early church, Christians and those yet to complete initiation would separate for the Eucharistic part of the service.[99] Some denominations continue to practice 'closed communion'. They offer communion to those who are already united in that denomination or sometimes individual church. Catholics restrict participation to their members who are not in a state of mortal sin.[100] Many other churches practice 'open communion' since they view communion as a means to unity, rather than an end, and invite all believing Christians to participate.[101][102]
+
+Justin Martyr[93]
+
+In Christian belief and practice, a sacrament is a rite, instituted by Christ, that confers grace, constituting a sacred mystery. The term is derived from the Latin word sacramentum, which was used to translate the Greek word for mystery. Views concerning both which rites are sacramental, and what it means for an act to be a sacrament, vary among Christian denominations and traditions.[103]
+
+The most conventional functional definition of a sacrament is that it is an outward sign, instituted by Christ, that conveys an inward, spiritual grace through Christ. The two most widely accepted sacraments are Baptism and the Eucharist, however, the majority of Christians also recognize five additional sacraments: Confirmation (Chrismation in the Orthodox tradition), Holy Orders (or ordination), Penance (or Confession), Anointing of the Sick, and Matrimony (see Christian views on marriage).[103]
+
+Taken together, these are the Seven Sacraments as recognized by churches in the High Church tradition—notably Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Independent Catholic, Old Catholic, many Anglicans, and some Lutherans. Most other denominations and traditions typically affirm only Baptism and Eucharist as sacraments, while some Protestant groups, such as the Quakers, reject sacramental theology.[103] Christian denominations, such as Baptists, which believe these rites do not communicate grace, prefer to call Baptism and Holy Communion ordinances rather than sacraments.[citation needed]
+
+In addition to this, the Church of the East has two additional sacraments in place of the traditional sacraments of Matrimony and the Anointing of the Sick. These include Holy Leaven (Melka) and the sign of the cross.[104]
+
+Baptism, specifically infant baptism, in the Lutheran tradition
+
+A penitent confessing his sins in a Ukrainian Catholic church
+
+A Methodist minister celebrating the Eucharist
+
+Confirmation being administered in an Anglican church
+
+Ordination of a priest in the Eastern Orthodox tradition
+
+Crowning during Holy Matrimony in the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church
+
+Service of the Sacrament of Holy Unction served on Great and Holy Wednesday
+
+Catholics, Eastern Christians, Lutherans, Anglicans and other traditional Protestant communities frame worship around the liturgical year.[105] The liturgical cycle divides the year into a series of seasons, each with their theological emphases, and modes of prayer, which can be signified by different ways of decorating churches, colors of paraments and vestments for clergy,[106] scriptural readings, themes for preaching and even different traditions and practices often observed personally or in the home.
+
+Western Christian liturgical calendars are based on the cycle of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church,[106] and Eastern Christians use analogous calendars based on the cycle of their respective rites. Calendars set aside holy days, such as solemnities which commemorate an event in the life of Jesus, Mary, or the saints, and periods of fasting, such as Lent and other pious events such as memoria, or lesser festivals commemorating saints. Christian groups that do not follow a liturgical tradition often retain certain celebrations, such as Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost: these are the celebrations of Christ's birth, resurrection, and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Church, respectively. A few denominations make no use of a liturgical calendar.[107]
+
+Christianity has not generally practiced aniconism, the avoidance or prohibition of devotional images, even if early Jewish Christians and some modern denominations, invoking the Decalogue's prohibition of idolatry, avoided figures in their symbols.
+
+The cross, today one of the most widely recognized symbols, was used by Christians from the earliest times.[108][109] Tertullian, in his book De Corona, tells how it was already a tradition for Christians to trace the sign of the cross on their foreheads.[110] Although the cross was known to the early Christians, the crucifix did not appear in use until the 5th century.[111]
+
+Among the earliest Christian symbols, that of the fish or Ichthys seems to have ranked first in importance, as seen on monumental sources such as tombs from the first decades of the 2nd century.[112] Its popularity seemingly arose from the Greek word ichthys (fish) forming an acronym for the Greek phrase Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter (Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ),[note 5] (Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior), a concise summary of Christian faith.[112]
+
+Other major Christian symbols include the chi-rho monogram, the dove (symbolic of the Holy Spirit), the sacrificial lamb (representing Christ's sacrifice), the vine (symbolizing the connection of the Christian with Christ) and many others. These all derive from passages of the New Testament.[111]
+
+Baptism is the ritual act, with the use of water, by which a person is admitted to membership of the Church. Beliefs on baptism vary among denominations. Differences occur firstly on whether the act has any spiritual significance. Some, such as the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, as well as Lutherans and Anglicans, hold to the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, which affirms that baptism creates or strengthens a person's faith, and is intimately linked to salvation. Others view baptism as a purely symbolic act, an external public declaration of the inward change which has taken place in the person, but not as spiritually efficacious. Secondly, there are differences of opinion on the methodology of the act. These methods are: by immersion; if immersion is total, by submersion; by affusion (pouring); and by aspersion (sprinkling). Those who hold the first view may also adhere to the tradition of infant baptism;[113] the Orthodox Churches all practice infant baptism and always baptize by total immersion repeated three times in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.[114][115] The Catholic Church also practices infant baptism,[116] usually by affusion, and utilizing the Trinitarian formula.[117]
+
+— The Lord’s Prayer, Matthew 6:9-13, EHV[118]
+
+Jesus' teaching on prayer in the Sermon on the Mount displays a distinct lack of interest in the external aspects of prayer. A concern with the techniques of prayer is condemned as "pagan", and instead a simple trust in God's fatherly goodness is encouraged.[Mat. 6:5–15] Elsewhere in the New Testament, this same freedom of access to God is also emphasized.[Phil. 4:6][Jam. 5:13–19] This confident position should be understood in light of Christian belief in the unique relationship between the believer and Christ through the indweling of the Holy Spirit.[119]
+
+In subsequent Christian traditions, certain physical gestures are emphasized, including medieval gestures such as genuflection or making the sign of the cross. Kneeling, bowing, and prostrations (see also poklon) are often practiced in more traditional branches of Christianity. Frequently in Western Christianity, the hands are placed palms together and forward as in the feudal commendation ceremony. At other times the older orans posture may be used, with palms up and elbows in.
+
+Intercessory prayer is prayer offered for the benefit of other people. There are many intercessory prayers recorded in the Bible, including prayers of the Apostle Peter on behalf of sick persons[Acts 9:40] and by prophets of the Old Testament in favor of other people.[1Ki 17:19–22] In the Epistle of James, no distinction is made between the intercessory prayer offered by ordinary believers and the prominent Old Testament prophet Elijah.[Jam 5:16–18] The effectiveness of prayer in Christianity derives from the power of God rather than the status of the one praying.[119]
+
+The ancient church, in both Eastern and Western Christianity, developed a tradition of asking for the intercession of (deceased) saints, and this remains the practice of most Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic, and some Anglican churches. Churches of the Protestant Reformation, however, rejected prayer to the saints, largely on the basis of the sole mediatorship of Christ.[120] The reformer Huldrych Zwingli admitted that he had offered prayers to the saints until his reading of the Bible convinced him that this was idolatrous.[121]
+
+According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God."[122] The Book of Common Prayer in the Anglican tradition is a guide which provides a set order for services, containing set prayers, scripture readings, and hymns or sung Psalms.[123]
+
+Christianity, like other religions, has adherents whose beliefs and biblical interpretations vary. Christianity regards the biblical canon, the Old Testament and the New Testament, as the inspired word of God. The traditional view of inspiration is that God worked through human authors so that what they produced was what God wished to communicate. The Greek word referring to inspiration in 2 Timothy 3:16 is theopneustos, which literally means "God-breathed".[124]
+
+Some believe that divine inspiration makes our present Bibles inerrant. Others claim inerrancy for the Bible in its original manuscripts, although none of those are extant. Still others maintain that only a particular translation is inerrant, such as the King James Version.[125][126][127] Another closely related view is biblical infallibility or limited inerrancy, which affirms that the Bible is free of error as a guide to salvation, but may include errors on matters such as history, geography, or science.
+
+The books of the Bible accepted by the Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant churches vary somewhat, with Jews accepting only the Hebrew Bible as canonical; however, there is substantial overlap. These variations are a reflection of the range of traditions, and of the councils that have convened on the subject. Every version of the Old Testament always includes the books of the Tanakh, the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Catholic and Orthodox canons, in addition to the Tanakh, also include the deuterocanonical books as part of the Old Testament. These books appear in the Septuagint, but are regarded by Protestants to be apocryphal. However, they are considered to be important historical documents which help to inform the understanding of words, grammar, and syntax used in the historical period of their conception. Some versions of the Bible include a separate Apocrypha section between the Old Testament and the New Testament.[128] The New Testament, originally written in Koine Greek, contains 27 books which are agreed upon by all churches.
+
+Modern scholarship has raised many issues with the Bible. While the King James Version is held to by many because of its striking English prose, in fact it was translated from the Erasmus Greek Bible, which in turn "was based on a single 12th Century manuscript that is one of the worst manuscripts we have available to us".[129] Much scholarship in the past several hundred years has gone into comparing different manuscripts in order to reconstruct the original text. Another issue is that several books are considered to be forgeries. The injunction that women "be silent and submissive" in 1 Timothy 2[130] is thought by many to be a forgery by a follower of Paul, a similar phrase in 1 Corinthians 14,[131] which is thought to be by Paul, appears in different places in different manuscripts and is thought to originally be a margin note by a copyist.[129] Other verses in 1 Corinthians, such as 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 where women are instructed to wear a covering over their hair "when they pray or prophesies",[132] contradict this verse.
+
+A final issue with the Bible is the way in which books were selected for inclusion in the New Testament. Other gospels have now been recovered, such as those found near Nag Hammadi in 1945, and while some of these texts are quite different from what Christians have been used to, it should be understood that some of this newly recovered Gospel material is quite possibly contemporaneous with, or even earlier than, the New Testament Gospels. The core of the Gospel of Thomas, in particular, may date from as early as AD 50 (although some major scholars contest this early dating),[133] and if so would provide an insight into the earliest gospel texts that underlie the canonical Gospels, texts that are mentioned in Luke 1:1–2. The Gospel of Thomas contains much that is familiar from the canonical Gospels—verse 113, for example ("The Father's Kingdom is spread out upon the earth, but people do not see it"),[134] is reminiscent of Luke 17:20–21[135][136]—and the Gospel of John, with a terminology and approach that is suggestive of what was later termed Gnosticism, has recently been seen as a possible response to the Gospel of Thomas, a text that is commonly labeled proto-Gnostic. Scholarship, then, is currently exploring the relationship in the early church between mystical speculation and experience on the one hand and the search for church order on the other, by analyzing new-found texts, by subjecting canonical texts to further scrutiny, and by an examination of the passage of New Testament texts to canonical status.
+
+In antiquity, two schools of exegesis developed in Alexandria and Antioch. The Alexandrian interpretation, exemplified by Origen, tended to read Scripture allegorically, while the Antiochene interpretation adhered to the literal sense, holding that other meanings (called theoria) could only be accepted if based on the literal meaning.[137]
+
+Catholic theology distinguishes two senses of scripture: the literal and the spiritual.[138]
+
+The literal sense of understanding scripture is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture. The spiritual sense is further subdivided into:
+
+Regarding exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation, Catholic theology holds:
+
+Protestant Christians believe that the Bible is a self-sufficient revelation, the final authority on all Christian doctrine, and revealed all truth necessary for salvation. This concept is known as sola scriptura.[144] Protestants characteristically believe that ordinary believers may reach an adequate understanding of Scripture because Scripture itself is clear in its meaning (or "perspicuous"). Martin Luther believed that without God's help, Scripture would be "enveloped in darkness".[145] He advocated for "one definite and simple understanding of Scripture".[145] John Calvin wrote, "all who refuse not to follow the Holy Spirit as their guide, find in the Scripture a clear light".[146] Related to this is "efficacy", that Scripture is able to lead people to faith; and "sufficiency", that the Scriptures contain everything that one needs to know in order to obtain salvation and to live a Christian life.[147]
+
+Protestants stress the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture, the historical-grammatical method.[148] The historical-grammatical method or grammatico-historical method is an effort in Biblical hermeneutics to find the intended original meaning in the text.[149] This original intended meaning of the text is drawn out through examination of the passage in light of the grammatical and syntactical aspects, the historical background, the literary genre, as well as theological (canonical) considerations.[150] The historical-grammatical method distinguishes between the one original meaning and the significance of the text. The significance of the text includes the ensuing use of the text or application. The original passage is seen as having only a single meaning or sense. As Milton S. Terry said: "A fundamental principle in grammatico-historical exposition is that the words and sentences can have but one significance in one and the same connection. The moment we neglect this principle we drift out upon a sea of uncertainty and conjecture."[151] Technically speaking, the grammatical-historical method of interpretation is distinct from the determination of the passage's significance in light of that interpretation. Taken together, both define the term (Biblical) hermeneutics.[149]
+
+Some Protestant interpreters make use of typology.[152]
+
+Christianity developed during the 1st century CE as a Jewish Christian sect of Second Temple Judaism.[154][155] An early Jewish Christian community was founded in Jerusalem under the leadership of the Pillars of the Church, namely James the Just, the brother of the Lord, Peter, and John.[156]
+
+Jewish Christianity soon attracted Gentile God-fearers, posing a problem for its Jewish religious outlook, which insisted on close observance of the Jewish commands. Paul the Apostle solved this by insisting that salvation by faith in Christ, and participation in his death and resurrection, sufficed.[157] At first he persecuted the early Christians, but after a conversion experience he preached to the gentiles, and is regarded as having had a formative effect on the emerging Christian identity as separate from Judaism. Eventually, his departure from Jewish customs would result in the establishment of Christianity as an independent religion.[158]
+
+This formative period was followed by the early bishops, whom Christians consider the successors of Christ's apostles. From the year 150, Christian teachers began to produce theological and apologetic works aimed at defending the faith. These authors are known as the Church Fathers, and the study of them is called patristics. Notable early Fathers include Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria and Origen.
+
+According to the New Testament, Christians were from the beginning, subject to persecution by some Jewish and Roman religious authorities. This involved punishments, including death, for Christians such as Stephen[Acts 7:59] and James, son of Zebedee.[Acts 12:2] Further widespread persecution of the Church occurred under nine subsequent Roman emperors, most intensely under Decius and Diocletian.
+
+Christianity spread to Aramaic-speaking peoples along the Mediterranean coast and also to the inland parts of the Roman Empire and beyond that into the Parthian Empire and the later Sasanian Empire, including Mesopotamia, which was dominated at different times and to varying extents by these empires.[159] The presence of Christianity in Africa began in the middle of the 1st century in Egypt and by the end of the 2nd century in the region around Carthage. Mark the Evangelist is claimed to have started the Church of Alexandria in about 43 CE; various later churches claim this as their own legacy, including the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.[160][161][162] Important Africans who influenced the early development of Christianity include Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen of Alexandria, Cyprian, Athanasius, and Augustine of Hippo.
+
+King Tiridates III made Christianity the state religion in Armenia between 301 and 314[81][163][164], thus Armenia became the first officially Christian state. It was not an entirely new religion in Armenia, having penetrated into the country from at least the third century, but it may have been present even earlier.[165]
+
+Constantine I was exposed to Christianity in his youth, and throughout his life his support for the religion grew, culminating in baptism on his deathbed.[166] During his reign, state-sanctioned persecution of Christians was ended with the Edict of Toleration in 311 and the Edict of Milan in 313. At that point, Christianity was still a minority belief, comprising perhaps only five percent of the Roman population.[167] Influenced by his adviser Mardonius, Constantine's nephew Julian unsuccessfully tried to suppress Christianity.[168] On 27 February 380, Theodosius I, Gratian, and Valentinian II established Nicene Christianity as the State church of the Roman Empire.[169] As soon as it became connected to the state, Christianity grew wealthy; the Church solicited donations from the rich and could now own land.[170]
+
+Constantine was also instrumental in the convocation of the First Council of Nicaea in 325, which sought to address Arianism and formulated the Nicene Creed, which is still used by in Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and many other Protestant churches.[171][36] Nicaea was the first of a series of ecumenical councils, which formally defined critical elements of the theology of the Church, notably concerning Christology.[172] The Church of the East did not accept the third and following ecumenical councils and is still separate today by its successors (Assyrian Church of the East).
+
+In terms of prosperity and cultural life, the Byzantine Empire was one of the peaks in Christian history and Christian civilization,[173] and Constantinople remained the leading city of the Christian world in size, wealth, and culture.[174] There was a renewed interest in classical Greek philosophy, as well as an increase in literary output in vernacular Greek.[175] Byzantine art and literature held a preeminent place in Europe, and the cultural impact of Byzantine art on the West during this period was enormous and of long-lasting significance.[176] The later rise of Islam in North Africa reduced the size and numbers of Christian congregations, leaving in large numbers only the Coptic Church in Egypt, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in the Horn of Africa and the Nubian Church in the Sudan (Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia).
+
+With the decline and fall of the Roman Empire in the West, the papacy became a political player, first visible in Pope Leo's diplomatic dealings with Huns and Vandals.[177] The church also entered into a long period of missionary activity and expansion among the various tribes. While Arianists instituted the death penalty for practicing pagans (see the Massacre of Verden, for example), what would later become Catholicism also spread among the Hungarians, the Germanic,[177] the Celtic, the Baltic and some Slavic peoples.
+
+Around 500, St. Benedict set out his Monastic Rule, establishing a system of regulations for the foundation and running of monasteries.[177] Monasticism became a powerful force throughout Europe,[177] and gave rise to many early centers of learning, most famously in Ireland, Scotland, and Gaul, contributing to the Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th century.
+
+In the 7th century, Muslims conquered Syria (including Jerusalem), North Africa, and Spain, converting some of the Christian population to Islam, and placing the rest under a separate legal status. Part of the Muslims' success was due to the exhaustion of the Byzantine Empire in its decades long conflict with Persia.[178] Beginning in the 8th century, with the rise of Carolingian leaders, the Papacy sought greater political support in the Frankish Kingdom.[179]
+
+The Middle Ages brought about major changes within the church. Pope Gregory the Great dramatically reformed the ecclesiastical structure and administration.[180] In the early 8th century, iconoclasm became a divisive issue, when it was sponsored by the Byzantine emperors. The Second Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (787) finally pronounced in favor of icons.[181] In the early 10th century, Western Christian monasticism was further rejuvenated through the leadership of the great Benedictine monastery of Cluny.[182]
+
+In the West, from the 11th century onward, some older cathedral schools became universities (see, for example, University of Oxford, University of Paris and University of Bologna). Previously, higher education had been the domain of Christian cathedral schools or monastic schools (Scholae monasticae), led by monks and nuns. Evidence of such schools dates back to the 6th century CE.[183] These new universities expanded the curriculum to include academic programs for clerics, lawyers, civil servants, and physicians.[184] The university is generally regarded as an institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting.[185]
+
+Accompanying the rise of the "new towns" throughout Europe, mendicant orders were founded, bringing the consecrated religious life out of the monastery and into the new urban setting. The two principal mendicant movements were the Franciscans[186] and the Dominicans,[187] founded by St. Francis and St. Dominic, respectively. Both orders made significant contributions to the development of the great universities of Europe. Another new order was the Cistercians, whose large isolated monasteries spearheaded the settlement of former wilderness areas. In this period, church building and ecclesiastical architecture reached new heights, culminating in the orders of Romanesque and Gothic architecture and the building of the great European cathedrals.[188]
+
+Christian nationalism emerged during this era in which Christians felt the impulse to recover lands in which Christianity had historically flourished.[189] From 1095 under the pontificate of Urban II, the Crusades were launched.[190] These were a series of military campaigns in the Holy Land and elsewhere, initiated in response to pleas from the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I for aid against Turkish expansion. The Crusades ultimately failed to stifle Islamic aggression and even contributed to Christian enmity with the sacking of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.[191]
+
+The Christian Church experienced internal conflict between the 7th and 13th centuries that resulted in a schism between the so-called Latin or Western Christian branch (the Catholic Church),[192] and an Eastern, largely Greek, branch (the Eastern Orthodox Church). The two sides disagreed on a number of administrative, liturgical and doctrinal issues, most notably papal primacy of jurisdiction.[193][194] The Second Council of Lyon (1274) and the Council of Florence (1439) attempted to reunite the churches, but in both cases, the Eastern Orthodox refused to implement the decisions, and the two principal churches remain in schism to the present day. However, the Catholic Church has achieved union with various smaller eastern churches.
+
+In the thirteenth century, a new emphasis on Jesus' suffering, exemplified by the Franciscans' preaching, had the consequence of turning worshippers' attention towards Jews, on whom Christians had placed the blame for Jesus' death. Christianity's limited tolerance of Jews was not new—Augustine of Hippo said that Jews should not be allowed to enjoy the citizenship that Christians took for granted—but the growing antipathy towards Jews was a factor that led to the expulsion of Jews from England in 1290, the first of many such expulsions in Europe.[195][196]
+
+Beginning around 1184, following the crusade against Cathar heresy,[197] various institutions, broadly referred to as the Inquisition, were established with the aim of suppressing heresy and securing religious and doctrinal unity within Christianity through conversion and prosecution.[198]
+
+The 15th-century Renaissance brought about a renewed interest in ancient and classical learning. During the Reformation, Martin Luther posted the Ninety-five Theses 1517 against the sale of indulgences.[199] Printed copies soon spread throughout Europe. In 1521 the Edict of Worms condemned and excommunicated Luther and his followers, resulting in the schism of the Western Christendom into several branches.[200]
+
+Other reformers like Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Calvin, Knox, and Arminius further criticized Catholic teaching and worship. These challenges developed into the movement called Protestantism, which repudiated the primacy of the pope, the role of tradition, the seven sacraments, and other doctrines and practices.[199] The Reformation in England began in 1534, when King Henry VIII had himself declared head of the Church of England. Beginning in 1536, the monasteries throughout England, Wales and Ireland were dissolved.[201]
+
+Thomas Müntzer, Andreas Karlstadt and other theologians perceived both the Catholic Church and the confessions of the Magisterial Reformation as corrupted. Their activity brought about the Radical Reformation, which gave birth to various Anabaptist denominations.
+
+Partly in response to the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church engaged in a substantial process of reform and renewal, known as the Counter-Reformation or Catholic Reform.[205] The Council of Trent clarified and reasserted Catholic doctrine. During the following centuries, competition between Catholicism and Protestantism became deeply entangled with political struggles among European states.[206]
+
+Meanwhile, the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492 brought about a new wave of missionary activity. Partly from missionary zeal, but under the impetus of colonial expansion by the European powers, Christianity spread to the Americas, Oceania, East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
+
+Throughout Europe, the division caused by the Reformation led to outbreaks of religious violence and the establishment of separate state churches in Europe. Lutheranism spread into the northern, central, and eastern parts of present-day Germany, Livonia, and Scandinavia. Anglicanism was established in England in 1534. Calvinism and its varieties, such as Presbyterianism, were introduced in Scotland, the Netherlands, Hungary, Switzerland, and France. Arminianism gained followers in the Netherlands and Frisia. Ultimately, these differences led to the outbreak of conflicts in which religion played a key factor. The Thirty Years' War, the English Civil War, and the French Wars of Religion are prominent examples. These events intensified the Christian debate on persecution and toleration.[207]
+
+In the era known as the Great Divergence, when in the West, the Age of Enlightenment and the scientific revolution brought about great societal changes, Christianity was confronted with various forms of skepticism and with certain modern political ideologies, such as versions of socialism and liberalism.[208] Events ranged from mere anti-clericalism to violent outbursts against Christianity, such as the dechristianization of France during the French Revolution,[209] the Spanish Civil War, and certain Marxist movements, especially the Russian Revolution and the persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union under state atheism.[210][211][212][213]
+
+Especially pressing in Europe was the formation of nation states after the Napoleonic era. In all European countries, different Christian denominations found themselves in competition to greater or lesser extents with each other and with the state. Variables were the relative sizes of the denominations and the religious, political, and ideological orientation of the states. Urs Altermatt of the University of Fribourg, looking specifically at Catholicism in Europe, identifies four models for the European nations. In traditionally Catholic-majority countries such as Belgium, Spain, and Austria, to some extent, religious and national communities are more or less identical. Cultural symbiosis and separation are found in Poland, the Republic of Ireland, and Switzerland, all countries with competing denominations. Competition is found in Germany, the Netherlands, and again Switzerland, all countries with minority Catholic populations, which to a greater or lesser extent identified with the nation. Finally, separation between religion (again, specifically Catholicism) and the state is found to a great degree in France and Italy, countries where the state actively opposed itself to the authority of the Catholic Church.[214]
+
+The combined factors of the formation of nation states and ultramontanism, especially in Germany and the Netherlands, but also in England to a much lesser extent,[215] often forced Catholic churches, organizations, and believers to choose between the national demands of the state and the authority of the Church, specifically the papacy. This conflict came to a head in the First Vatican Council, and in Germany would lead directly to the Kulturkampf, where liberals and Protestants under the leadership of Bismarck managed to severely restrict Catholic expression and organization.
+
+Christian commitment in Europe dropped as modernity and secularism came into their own,[216] particularly in Czechia and Estonia,[217] while religious commitments in America have been generally high in comparison to Europe. The late 20th century has shown the shift of Christian adherence to the Third World and the Southern Hemisphere in general,[218][219] with the West no longer the chief standard bearer of Christianity. Approximately 7 to 10% of Arabs are Christians,[220] most prevalent in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.
+
+With around 2.4 billion adherents,[221][222] split into three main branches of Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox, Christianity is the world's largest religion.[223] The Christian share of the world's population has stood at around 33% for the last hundred years, which means that one in three persons on Earth are Christians. This masks a major shift in the demographics of Christianity; large increases in the developing world have been accompanied by substantial declines in the developed world, mainly in Europe and North America.[224] According to a 2015 Pew Research Center study, within the next four decades, Christians will remain the world's largest religion; and by 2050, the Christian population is expected to exceed 3 billion.[225]:60
+
+As a percentage of Christians, the Catholic Church and Orthodoxy (both Eastern and Oriental) are declining in parts of the world (though Catholicism is growing in Asia, in Africa, vibrant in Eastern Europe, etc.), while Protestants and other Christians are on the rise in the developing world.[226][227][228] The so-called popular Protestantism[note 6] is one of the fastest growing religious categories in the world.[229][230] Nevertheless, Catholicism will also continue to grow to 1.63 billion by 2050, according to Todd Johnson of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity.[231] Africa alone, by 2015, will be home to 230 million African Catholics.[232] And if in 2018, the U.N. projects that Africa's population will reach 4.5 billion by 2100 (not 2 billion as predicted in 2004), Catholicism will indeed grow, as will other religious groups.[233]
+
+Christianity is the predominant religion in Europe, the Americas, and Southern Africa.[15] In Asia, it is the dominant religion in Georgia, Armenia, East Timor, and the Philippines.[234] However, it is declining in many areas including the Northern and Western United States,[235] Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), northern Europe (including Great Britain,[236] Scandinavia and other places), France, Germany, and the Canadian provinces of Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec, and parts of Asia (especially the Middle East, due to the Christian emigration,[237][238][239] South Korea,[240] Taiwan,[241] and Macau[242]).
+
+The Christian population is not decreasing in Brazil, the Southern United States,[243] and the province of Alberta, Canada,[244] but the percentage is decreasing. In countries such as Australia[245] and New Zealand,[246] the Christian population are declining in both numbers and percentage.
+
+Despite the declining numbers, Christianity remains the dominant religion in the Western World, where 70% are Christians.[15] A 2011 Pew Research Center survey found that 76% of Europeans, 73% in Oceania and about 86% in the Americas (90% in Latin America and 77% in North America) identified themselves as Christians.[15][247][248][249] By 2010 about 157 countries and territories in the world had Christian majorities.[223]
+
+However, there are many charismatic movements that have become well established over large parts of the world, especially Africa, Latin America, and Asia.[250][251][252][253][254] Since 1900, primarily due to conversion, Protestantism has spread rapidly in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Latin America.[255] From 1960 to 2000, the global growth of the number of reported Evangelical Protestants grew three times the world's population rate, and twice that of Islam.[256] A study conducted by St. Mary's University estimated about 10.2 million Muslim converts to Christianity in 2015.[257] The results also state that significant numbers of Muslims converts to Christianity in Afghanistan,[258] Albania,[257] Azerbaijan,[259][260] Algeria,[261][262] Belgium,[263] France,[262] Germany,[264] Iran,[265] India,[262] Indonesia,[266] Malaysia,[267] Morocco,[262][268] Russia,[262] the Netherlands,[269] Saudi Arabia,[270] Tunisia,[257] Turkey,[262][271][272][273] Kazakhstan,[274] Kyrgyzstan,[257] Kosovo,[275] the United States,[276] and Central Asia.[277][278] It is also reported that Christianity is popular among people of different backgrounds in India (mostly Hindus),[279][280] and Malaysia,[281] Mongolia,[282] Nigeria,[283] Vietnam,[284] Singapore,[285] Indonesia,[286][287] China,[288] Japan,[289] and South Korea.[290]
+
+In most countries in the developed world, church attendance among people who continue to identify themselves as Christians has been falling over the last few decades.[291] Some sources view this simply as part of a drift away from traditional membership institutions,[292] while others link it to signs of a decline in belief in the importance of religion in general.[293] Europe's Christian population, though in decline, still constitutes the largest geographical component of the religion.[294] According to data from the 2012 European Social Survey, around a third of European Christians say they attend services once a month or more,[295] Conversely about more than two-thirds of Latin American Christians; according to the World Values Survey, about 90% of African Christians (in Ghana, Nigeria, Rwand], South Africa and Zimbabwe) said they attended church regularly.[295]
+
+Christianity, in one form or another, is the sole state religion of the following nations: Argentina (Catholic),[296] Tuvalu (Reformed), Tonga (Methodist), Norway (Lutheran),[297][298][299] Costa Rica (Catholic),[300] the Kingdom of Denmark (Lutheran),[301] England (Anglican),[302] Georgia (Georgian Orthodox),[303] Greece (Greek Orthodox),[304] Iceland (Lutheran),[305] Liechtenstein (Catholic),[306] Malta (Catholic),[307] Monaco (Catholic),[308] and Vatican City (Catholic).[309]
+
+There are numerous other countries, such as Cyprus, which although do not have an established church, still give official recognition and support to a specific Christian denomination.[310]
+
+
+
+
+
+Countries with 50% or more Christians are colored purple; countries with 10% to 50% Christians are colored pink
+
+Nations with Christianity as their state religion are in blue
+
+Distribution of Catholics
+
+Distribution of Protestants
+
+Distribution of Eastern Orthodox
+
+Distribution of Oriental Orthodox
+
+Distribution of other Christians
+
+The four primary divisions of Christianity are the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, and Protestantism.[40]:14[314] A broader distinction that is sometimes drawn is between Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity, which has its origins in the East–West Schism (Great Schism) of the 11th century. Recently, neither Western or Eastern World Christianity has also stood out, for example, African-initiated churches. However, there are other present[315] and historical[316] Christian groups that do not fit neatly into one of these primary categories.
+
+There is a diversity of doctrines and liturgical practices among groups calling themselves Christian. These groups may vary ecclesiologically in their views on a classification of Christian denominations.[317] The Nicene Creed (325), however, is typically accepted as authoritative by most Christians, including the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and major Protestant (including Anglican) denominations.[318]
+
+
+
+The Catholic Church consists of those particular churches, headed by bishops, in communion with the pope, the bishop of Rome, as its highest authority in matters of faith, morality, and Church governance.[319][320] Like Eastern Orthodoxy, the Catholic Church, through apostolic succession, traces its origins to the Christian community founded by Jesus Christ.[321][322] Catholics maintain that the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church" founded by Jesus subsists fully in the Catholic Church, but also acknowledges other Christian churches and communities[323][324] and works towards reconciliation among all Christians.[323] The Catholic faith is detailed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.[325][326]
+
+As the world's oldest and largest continuously functioning international institution,[327] it has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization.[328] The 2,834 sees[329] are grouped into 24 particular autonomous Churches (the largest of which being the Latin Church), each with its own distinct traditions regarding the liturgy and the administering of sacraments.[330] With more than 1.1 billion baptized members, the Catholic Church is the largest Christian church and represents 50.1%[15] all Christians as well as one sixth of the world's population.[331][332][333]
+
+The Eastern Orthodox Church consists of those churches in communion with the patriarchal sees of the East, such as the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.[334] Like the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church also traces its heritage to the foundation of Christianity through apostolic succession and has an episcopal structure, though the autonomy of its component parts is emphasized, and most of them are national churches.
+
+A number of conflicts with Western Christianity over questions of doctrine and authority culminated in the Great Schism. Eastern Orthodoxy is the second largest single denomination in Christianity, with an estimated 230 million adherents, although Protestants collectively outnumber them, substantially.[15][13][335] As one of the oldest surviving religious institutions in the world, the Eastern Orthodox Church has played a prominent role in the history and culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, the Caucasus, and the Near East.[336]
+
+The Oriental Orthodox Churches (also called "Old Oriental" churches) are those eastern churches that recognize the first three ecumenical councils—Nicaea, Constantinople, and Ephesus—but reject the dogmatic definitions of the Council of Chalcedon and instead espouse a Miaphysite christology.
+
+The Oriental Orthodox communion consists of six groups: Syriac Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, Eritrean Orthodox, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (India), and Armenian Apostolic churches.[337] These six churches, while being in communion with each other, are completely independent hierarchically.[338] These churches are generally not in communion with Eastern Orthodox Church, with whom they are in dialogue for erecting a communion.[339] And together have about 62 million members worldwide.[340][341][342]
+
+The Assyrian Church of the East, with an unbroken patriarchate established in the 17th century, is an independent Eastern Christian denomination which claims continuity from the Church of the East—in parallel to the Catholic patriarchate established in the 16th century that evolved into the Chaldean Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic church in full communion with the Pope. It is an Eastern Christian church that follows the traditional christology and ecclesiology of the historical Church of the East. Largely aniconic and not in communion with any other church, it belongs to the eastern branch of Syriac Christianity, and uses the East Syriac Rite in its liturgy.[343]
+
+Its main spoken language is Syriac, a dialect of Eastern Aramaic, and the majority of its adherents are ethnic Assyrians. It is officially headquartered in the city of Erbil in northern Iraqi Kurdistan, and its original area also spreads into south-eastern Turkey and north-western Iran, corresponding to ancient Assyria. Its hierarchy is composed of metropolitan bishops and diocesan bishops, while lower clergy consists of priests and deacons, who serve in dioceses (eparchies) and parishes throughout the Middle East, India, North America, Oceania, and Europe (including the Caucasus and Russia).[344]
+
+The Ancient Church of the East distinguished itself from the Assyrian Church of the East in 1964. It is one of the Assyrian churches that claim continuity with the historical Patriarchate of Seleucia-Ctesiphon—the Church of the East, one of the oldest Christian churches in Mesopotamia.[345]
+
+In 1521, the Edict of Worms condemned Martin Luther and officially banned citizens of the Holy Roman Empire from defending or propagating his ideas.[346] This split within the Roman Catholic church is now called the Reformation. Prominent Reformers included Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, and John Calvin. The 1529 Protestation at Speyer against being excommunicated gave this party the name Protestantism. Luther's primary theological heirs are known as Lutherans. Zwingli and Calvin's heirs are far broader denominationally, and are referred to as the Reformed tradition.[347] Protestants have developed their own culture, with major contributions in education, the humanities and sciences, the political and social order, the economy and the arts, and many other fields.[348]
+
+The Anglican churches descended from the Church of England and organized in the Anglican Communion. Some, but not all Anglicans consider themselves both Protestant and Catholic.[349][350]
+
+Since the Anglican, Lutheran, and the Reformed branches of Protestantism originated for the most part in cooperation with the government, these movements are termed the  "Magisterial Reformation". On the other hand, groups such as the Anabaptists, who often do not consider themselves to be Protestant, originated in the Radical Reformation, which though sometimes protected under Acts of Toleration, do not trace their history back to any state church. They are further distinguished by their rejection of infant baptism; they believe in baptism only of adult believers—credobaptism (Anabaptists include the Amish, Apostolic, Mennonites, Hutterites and Schwarzenau Brethren/German Baptist groups.)[351][352][353]
+
+The term Protestant also refers to any churches which formed later, with either the Magisterial or Radical traditions. In the 18th century, for example, Methodism grew out of Anglican minister John Wesley's evangelical and revival movement.[354] Several Pentecostal and non-denominational churches, which emphasize the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit, in turn grew out of Methodism.[355] Because Methodists, Pentecostals and other evangelicals stress "accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior",[356] which comes from Wesley's emphasis of the New Birth,[357] they often refer to themselves as being born-again.[358][359]
+
+Protestantism is the second largest major group of Christians after Catholicism by number of followers, although the Eastern Orthodox Church is larger than any single Protestant denomination.[332] Estimates vary, mainly over the question of which denominations to classify as Protestant. Yet, the total number of Protestant Christians is  generally estimated between 800 million and 1 billion, corresponding to nearly 40% of world's Christians.[13][226][360][361] The majority of Protestants are members of just a handful of denominational families, i.e. Adventists, Anglicans, Baptists, Reformed (Calvinists),[362] Lutherans, Methodists, and Pentecostals.[226] Nondenominational, evangelical, charismatic, neo-charismatic, independent, and other churches are on the rise, and constitute a significant part of Protestant Christianity.[363]
+
+Some groups of individuals who hold basic Protestant tenets identify themselves simply as "Christians" or "born-again Christians". They typically distance themselves from the confessionalism and creedalism of other Christian communities[364] by calling themselves "non-denominational" or "evangelical". Often founded by individual pastors, they have little affiliation with historic denominations.[365]
+
+The Second Great Awakening, a period of religious revival that occurred in the United States during the early 1800s, saw the development of a number of unrelated churches. They generally saw themselves as restoring the original church of Jesus Christ rather than reforming one of the existing churches.[366] A common belief held by Restorationists was that the other divisions of Christianity had introduced doctrinal defects into Christianity, which was known as the Great Apostasy.[367] In Asia, Iglesia ni Cristo is a known restorationist religion that was established during the early 1900s.
+
+Some of the churches originating during this period are historically connected to early 19th-century camp meetings in the Midwest and upstate New York. One of the largest churches produced from the movement is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[368] American Millennialism and Adventism, which arose from Evangelical Protestantism, influenced the Jehovah's Witnesses movement and, as a reaction specifically to William Miller, the Seventh-day Adventists. Others, including the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Evangelical Christian Church in Canada,[369][370] Churches of Christ, and the Christian churches and churches of Christ, have their roots in the contemporaneous Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement, which was centered in Kentucky and Tennessee. Other groups originating in this time period include the Christadelphians and the previously mentioned Latter Day Saints movement. While the churches originating in the Second Great Awakening have some superficial similarities, their doctrine and practices vary significantly.[citation needed]
+
+Various smaller Independent Catholic communities, such as the Old Catholic Church, include the word Catholic in their title, and arguably have more or less liturgical practices in common with the Catholic Church, but are no longer in full communion with the Holy See.
+
+Spiritual Christians, such as the Doukhobor and Molokan, broke from the Russian Orthodox Church and maintain close association with Mennonites and Quakers due to similar religious practices; all of these groups are furthermore collectively considered to be peace churches due to their belief in pacifism.[371][372]
+
+Messianic Judaism (or the Messianic Movement) is the name of a Christian movement comprising a number of streams, whose members may consider themselves Jewish. The movement originated in the 1960s and 1970s, and it blends elements of religious Jewish practice with evangelical Christianity. Messianic Judaism affirms Christian creeds such as the messiahship and divinity of "Yeshua" (the Hebrew name of Jesus) and the Triune Nature of God, while also adhering to some Jewish dietary laws and customs.[373]
+
+Esoteric Christians regard Christianity as a mystery religion,[374][375] and profess the existence and possession of certain esoteric doctrines or practices,[376][377] hidden from the public but accessible only to a narrow circle of "enlightened", "initiated", or highly educated people.[378][379] Some of the esoteric Christian institutions include the Rosicrucian Fellowship, the Anthroposophical Society, and Martinism.
+
+Western culture, throughout most of its history, has been nearly equivalent to Christian culture, and a large portion of the population of the Western Hemisphere can be described as practicing or nominal Christians. The notion of "Europe" and the "Western World" has been intimately connected with the concept of "Christianity and Christendom". Many even attribute Christianity for being the link that created a unified European identity.[380]
+
+Though Western culture contained several polytheistic religions during its early years under the Greek and Roman empires, as the centralized Roman power waned, the dominance of the Catholic Church was the only consistent force in Western Europe.[381] Until the Age of Enlightenment,[382] Christian culture guided the course of philosophy, literature, art, music and science.[381][383] Christian disciplines of the respective arts have subsequently developed into Christian philosophy, Christian art, Christian music, Christian literature, etc.
+
+Christianity has had a significant impact on education, as the church created the bases of the Western system of education,[384] and was the sponsor of founding universities in the Western world, as the university is generally regarded as an institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting.[185] Historically, Christianity has often been a patron of science and medicine; many Catholic clergy,[385] Jesuits in particular,[386][387] have been active in the sciences throughout history and have made significant contributions to the development of science.[388] Protestantism also has had an important influence on science. According to the Merton Thesis, there was a positive correlation between the rise of English Puritanism and German Pietism on the one hand, and early experimental science on the other.[389] The civilizing influence of Christianity includes social welfare,[390] founding hospitals,[391] economics (as the Protestant work ethic),[392][393][394] architecture,[395] politics,[396] literature,[397] personal hygiene (ablution),[398][399][400] and family life.[401][402]
+
+Eastern Christians (particularly Nestorian Christians) contributed to the Arab Islamic civilization during the reign of the Ummayad and the Abbasid, by translating works of Greek philosophers to Syriac and afterwards, to Arabic.[403][404][405] They also excelled in philosophy, science, theology, and medicine.[406][407][408]
+
+Christians have made a myriad of contributions to human progress in a broad and diverse range of fields,[409] including philosophy,[410][411] science and technology,[412][413][414][415][416][417] fine arts and architecture,[418] politics, literatures, music,[419] and business.[420] According to 100 Years of Nobel Prizes a review of the Nobel Prizes award between 1901 and 2000 reveals that (65.4%) of Nobel Prizes Laureates, have identified Christianity in its various forms as their religious preference.[421]
+
+Postchristianity[422] is the term for the decline of Christianity, particularly in Europe, Canada, Australia, and to a minor degree the Southern Cone, in the 20th and 21st centuries, considered in terms of postmodernism. It refers to the loss of Christianity's monopoly on values and world view in historically Christian societies.
+
+Cultural Christians are secular people with a Christian heritage who may not believe in the religious claims of Christianity, but who retain an affinity for the popular culture, art, music, and so on related to the religion.[423]
+
+Christian groups and denominations have long expressed ideals of being reconciled, and in the 20th century, Christian ecumenism advanced in two ways.[424] One way was greater cooperation between groups, such as the World Evangelical Alliance founded in 1846 in London or the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of Protestants in 1910, the Justice, Peace and Creation Commission of the World Council of Churches founded in 1948 by Protestant and Orthodox churches, and similar national councils like the National Council of Churches in Australia, which includes Catholics.[424]
+
+The other way was an institutional union with united churches, a practice that can be traced back to unions between Lutherans and Calvinists in early 19th-century Germany. Congregationalist, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches united in 1925 to form the United Church of Canada,[425] and in 1977 to form the Uniting Church in Australia. The Church of South India was formed in 1947 by the union of Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, Congregationalist, and Presbyterian churches.[426]
+
+The ecumenical, monastic Taizé Community is notable for being composed of more than one hundred brothers from Protestant and Catholic traditions.[427] The community emphasizes the reconciliation of all denominations and its main church, located in Taizé, Saône-et-Loire, France, is named the "Church of Reconciliation".[427] The community is internationally known, attracting over 100,000 young pilgrims annually.[428]
+
+Steps towards reconciliation on a global level were taken in 1965 by the Catholic and Orthodox churches, mutually revoking the excommunications that marked their Great Schism in 1054;[429] the Anglican Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) working towards full communion between those churches since 1970;[430] and some Lutheran and Catholic churches signing the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in 1999 to address conflicts at the root of the Protestant Reformation. In 2006, the World Methodist Council, representing all Methodist denominations, adopted the declaration.[431]
+
+Criticism of Christianity and Christians goes back to the Apostolic Age, with the New Testament recording friction between the followers of Jesus and the Pharisees and scribes (e.g. Matthew 15:1–20 and Mark 7:1–23).[432] In the 2nd century, Christianity was criticized by the Jews on various grounds, e.g. that the prophecies of the Hebrew Bible could not have been fulfilled by Jesus, given that he did not have a successful life.[433] Additionally, a sacrifice to remove sins in advance, for everyone or as a human being, did not fit to the Jewish sacrifice ritual; furthermore, God is said to judge people on their deeds instead of their beliefs.[434][435] One of the first comprehensive attacks on Christianity came from the Greek philosopher Celsus, who wrote The True Word, a polemic criticizing Christians as being unprofitable members of society.[436][437][438] In response, the church father Origen published his treatise Contra Celsum, or Against Celsus, a seminal work of Christian apologetics, which systematically addressed Celsus's criticisms and helped bring Christianity a level of academic respectability.[439][438]
+
+By the 3rd century, criticism of Christianity had mounted. Wild rumors about Christians were widely circulated, claiming that they were atheists and that, as part of their rituals, they devoured human infants and engaged in incestuous orgies.[440][441] The Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry wrote the fifteen-volume Adversus Christianos as a comprehensive attack on Christianity, in part building on the teachings of Plotinus.[442][443]
+
+By the 12th century, the Mishneh Torah (i.e., Rabbi Moses Maimonides) was criticizing Christianity on the grounds of idol worship, in that Christians attributed divinity to Jesus, who had a physical body.[444] In the 19th century, Nietzsche began to write a series of polemics on the "unnatural" teachings of Christianity (e.g. sexual abstinence), and continued his criticism of Christianity to the end of his life.[445] In the 20th century, the philosopher Bertrand Russell expressed his criticism of Christianity in Why I Am Not a Christian, formulating his rejection of Christianity in the setting of logical arguments.[446]
+
+Criticism of Christianity continues to date, e.g. Jewish and Muslim theologians criticize the doctrine of the Trinity held by most Christians, stating that this doctrine in effect assumes that there are three gods, running against the basic tenet of monotheism.[447] New Testament scholar Robert M. Price has outlined the possibility that some Bible stories are based partly on myth in The Christ Myth Theory and its problems.[448]
+
+Christians are one of the most persecuted religious group in the world, especially in the Middle-East, North Africa and South and East Asia.[449] In 2017, Open Doors estimated approximately 260 million Christians are subjected annually to "high, very high, or extreme persecution"[450] with North Korea considered the most hazardous nation for Christians.[451][452] In 2019, a report[453][454] commissioned by the United Kingdom's Secretary of State of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to investigate global persecution of Christians found persecution has increased, and is highest in the Middle East, North Africa, India, China, North Korea, and Latin America,[clarification needed]  among others,[455] and that it is global and not limited to Islamic states.[454] This investigation found that approximately 80% of persecuted believers worldwide are Christians.[18]
+
+Christian apologetics aims to present a rational basis for Christianity. The word "apologetic" (Greek: ἀπολογητικός apologētikos) comes from the Greek verb ἀπολογέομαι apologeomai, meaning "(I) speak in defense of".[456] Christian apologetics has taken many forms over the centuries, starting with Paul the Apostle. The philosopher Thomas Aquinas presented five arguments for God's existence in the Summa Theologica, while his Summa contra Gentiles was a major apologetic work.[457][458] Another famous apologist, G. K. Chesterton, wrote in the early twentieth century about the benefits of religion and, specifically, Christianity. Famous for his use of paradox, Chesterton explained that while Christianity had the most mysteries, it was the most practical religion.[459][460] He pointed to the advance of Christian civilizations as proof of its practicality.[461] The physicist and priest John Polkinghorne, in his Questions of Truth, discusses the subject of religion and science, a topic that other Christian apologists such as Ravi Zacharias, John Lennox, and William Lane Craig have engaged, with the latter two men opining that the inflationary Big Bang model is evidence for the existence of God.[462]
+
+Hence all the power of magic became dissolved; and every bond of wickedness was destroyed, men's ignorance was taken away, and the old kingdom abolished God Himself appearing in the form of a man, for the renewal of eternal life.
+
+We have also as a Physician the Lord our God Jesus the Christ the only-begotten Son and Word, before time began, but who afterwards became also man, of Mary the virgin. For 'the Word was made flesh.' Being incorporeal, He was in the body; being impassible, He was in a passable body; being immortal, He was in a mortal body; being life, He became subject to corruption, that He might free our souls from death and corruption, and heal them, and might restore them to health, when they were diseased with ungodliness and wicked lusts
+
+The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: ...one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father 'to gather all things in one,' and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Savior, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, 'every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess; to him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all...
+
+For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water

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+Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Its adherents, known as Christians, believe that Jesus is the Christ, whose coming as the messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible, called the Old Testament in Christianity, and chronicled in the New Testament.[1] It is the world's largest religion, with about 2.4 billion followers.[2]
+
+Christianity remains culturally diverse in its Western and Eastern branches, as well as in its doctrines concerning justification and the nature of salvation, ecclesiology, ordination, and Christology. Their creeds generally hold in common Jesus as the Son of God—the logos incarnated—who ministered, suffered, and died on a cross, but rose from the dead for the salvation of mankind; as referred to as the gospel, meaning the "good news", in the Bible. Describing Jesus' life and teachings are the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John with the Jewish Old Testament as the gospel's respected background.
+
+Christianity began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the 1st century in the Roman province of Judea. Jesus' apostles and their followers spread around the Levant, Europe, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Transcaucasia, Egypt, and Ethiopia, despite initial persecution. It soon attracted gentile God-fearers, which led to a departure from Jewish customs, and, after the Fall of Jerusalem, AD 70 which ended the Temple-based Judaism, Christianity slowly separated from Judaism. Emperor Constantine the Great decriminalized Christianity in the Roman Empire by the Edict of Milan (313), later convening the Council of Nicaea (325) where Early Christianity was consolidated into what would become the State church of the Roman Empire (380). The early history of Christianity's united church before major schisms is sometimes referred to as the "Great Church". The Church of the East split after the Council of Ephesus (431) and Oriental Orthodoxy split after the Council of Chalcedon (451) over differences in Christology,[3] while the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church separated in the East–West Schism (1054), especially over the authority of the bishop of Rome. Protestantism split in numerous denominations from the Latin Catholic Church in the Reformation era (16th century) over theological and ecclesiological disputes, most predominantly on the issue of justification and papal primacy. Christianity played a prominent role in the development of Western civilization, particularly in Europe from late antiquity and the Middle Ages.[4][5][6][7][8] Following the Age of Discovery (15th–17th century), Christianity was spread into the Americas, Oceania, sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest of the world via missionary work.[9][10][11]
+
+The four largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church (1.3 billion/50.1%), Protestantism (920 million/36.7%), the Eastern Orthodox Church (230 million) and Oriental Orthodoxy (62 million/Orthodoxy combined at 11.9%),[12][13] amid various efforts toward unity (ecumenism).[14] Despite a decline in adherence in the West, Christianity remains the dominant religion in the region, with about 70% of the population identifying as Christian.[15] Christianity is growing in Africa and Asia, the world's most populous continents.[16] Christians remain persecuted in some regions the world, especially in the Middle-East, North Africa, East Asia, and South Asia.[17][18]
+
+Early Jewish Christians referred to themselves as 'The Way' (της οδου), probably coming from Isaiah 40:3, "prepare the way of the Lord."[19][note 1] According to Acts 11:26, the term "Christian" (Greek: Χριστιανός) was first used in reference to Jesus's disciples in the city of Antioch, meaning "followers of Christ," by the non-Jewish inhabitants of Antioch.[25] The earliest recorded use of the term "Christianity" (Greek: Χριστιανισμός) was by Ignatius of Antioch, in around 100 AD.[26]
+
+While Christians worldwide share basic convictions, there are also differences of interpretations and opinions of the Bible and sacred traditions on which Christianity is based.[27]
+
+Concise doctrinal statements or confessions of religious beliefs are known as creeds. They began as baptismal formulae and were later expanded during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries to become statements of faith.
+
+The Apostles' Creed is the most widely accepted statement of the articles of Christian faith. It is used by a number of Christian denominations for both liturgical and catechetical purposes, most visibly by liturgical churches of Western Christian tradition, including the Latin Church of the Catholic Church, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and Western Rite Orthodoxy. It is also used by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists. This particular creed was developed between the 2nd and 9th centuries. Its central doctrines are those of the Trinity and God the Creator. Each of the doctrines found in this creed can be traced to statements current in the apostolic period. The creed was apparently used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome.[28] Its points include:
+
+The Nicene Creed was formulated, largely in response to Arianism, at the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople in 325 and 381 respectively,[29][30] and ratified as the universal creed of Christendom by the First Council of Ephesus in 431.[31]
+
+The Chalcedonian Definition, or Creed of Chalcedon, developed at the Council of Chalcedon in 451,[32] though rejected by the Oriental Orthodox,[33] taught Christ "to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably": one divine and one human, and that both natures, while perfect in themselves, are nevertheless also perfectly united into one person.[34]
+
+The Athanasian Creed, received in the Western Church as having the same status as the Nicene and Chalcedonian, says: "We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance."[35]
+
+Most Christians (Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Protestant alike) accept the use of creeds, and subscribe to at least one of the creeds mentioned above.[36]
+
+Many Evangelical Protestants reject creeds as definitive statements of faith, even while agreeing with some or all of the substance of the creeds. Most Baptists do not use creeds "in that they have not sought to establish binding authoritative confessions of faith on one another."[37]:111 Also rejecting creeds are groups with roots in the Restoration Movement, such as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada, and the Churches of Christ.[38][39]:14–15[40]:123
+
+The central tenet of Christianity is the belief in Jesus as the Son of God and the Messiah (Christ). Christians believe that Jesus, as the Messiah, was anointed by God as savior of humanity and hold that Jesus' coming was the fulfillment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The Christian concept of messiah differs significantly from the contemporary Jewish concept. The core Christian belief is that through belief in and acceptance of the death and resurrection of Jesus, sinful humans can be reconciled to God, and thereby are offered salvation and the promise of eternal life.[41]
+
+While there have been many theological disputes over the nature of Jesus over the earliest centuries of Christian history, generally, Christians believe that Jesus is God incarnate and "true God and true man" (or both fully divine and fully human). Jesus, having become fully human, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, but did not sin. As fully God, he rose to life again. According to the New Testament, he rose from the dead,[42] ascended to heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father,[43] and will ultimately return[Acts 1:9–11] to fulfill the rest of the Messianic prophecy, including the resurrection of the dead, the Last Judgment, and the final establishment of the Kingdom of God.
+
+According to the canonical gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born from the Virgin Mary. Little of Jesus' childhood is recorded in the canonical gospels, although infancy gospels were popular in antiquity. In comparison, his adulthood, especially the week before his death, is well documented in the gospels contained within the New Testament, because that part of his life is believed to be most important. The biblical accounts of Jesus' ministry include: his baptism, miracles, preaching, teaching, and deeds.
+
+Christians consider the resurrection of Jesus to be the cornerstone of their faith (see 1 Corinthians 15) and the most important event in history.[44] Among Christian beliefs, the death and resurrection of Jesus are two core events on which much of Christian doctrine and theology is based.[45] According to the New Testament, Jesus was crucified, died a physical death, was buried within a tomb, and rose from the dead three days later.[Jn. 19:30–31] [Mk. 16:1] [16:6]
+
+The New Testament mentions several post-resurrection appearances of Jesus on different occasions to his twelve apostles and disciples, including "more than five hundred brethren at once",[1Cor 15:6] before Jesus' ascension to heaven. Jesus' death and resurrection are commemorated by Christians in all worship services, with special emphasis during Holy Week, which includes Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
+
+The death and resurrection of Jesus are usually considered the most important events in Christian theology, partly because they demonstrate that Jesus has power over life and death and therefore has the authority and power to give people eternal life.[46]
+
+Christian churches accept and teach the New Testament account of the resurrection of Jesus with very few exceptions.[47] Some modern scholars use the belief of Jesus' followers in the resurrection as a point of departure for establishing the continuity of the historical Jesus and the proclamation of the early church.[48] Some liberal Christians do not accept a literal bodily resurrection,[49][50] seeing the story as richly symbolic and spiritually nourishing myth. Arguments over death and resurrection claims occur at many religious debates and interfaith dialogues.[51] Paul the Apostle, an early Christian convert and missionary, wrote, "If Christ was not raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your trust in God is useless."[1Cor 15:14][52]
+
+Paul the Apostle, like Jews and Roman pagans of his time, believed that sacrifice can bring about new kinship ties, purity, and eternal life.[53] For Paul, the necessary sacrifice was the death of Jesus: Gentiles who are "Christ's" are, like Israel, descendants of Abraham and "heirs according to the promise".[Gal. 3:29][54] The God who raised Jesus from the dead would also give new life to the "mortal bodies" of Gentile Christians, who had become with Israel, the "children of God", and were therefore no longer "in the flesh".[Rom. 8:9,11,16][53]
+
+Modern Christian churches tend to be much more concerned with how humanity can be saved from a universal condition of sin and death than the question of how both Jews and Gentiles can be in God's family. According to Eastern Orthodox theology, based upon their understanding of the atonement as put forward by Irenaeus' recapitulation theory, Jesus' death is a ransom. This restores the relation with God, who is loving and reaches out to humanity, and offers the possibility of theosis c.q. divinization, becoming the kind of humans God wants humanity to be. According to Catholic doctrine, Jesus' death satisfies the wrath of God, aroused by the offense to God's honor caused by human's sinfulness. The Catholic Church teaches that salvation does not occur without faithfulness on the part of Christians; converts must live in accordance with principles of love and ordinarily must be baptized.[55] In Protestant theology, Jesus' death is regarded as a substitutionary penalty carried by Jesus, for the debt that has to be paid by humankind when it broke God's moral law. Martin Luther taught that baptism was necessary for salvation, but modern Lutherans and other Protestants tend to teach that salvation is a gift that comes to an individual by God's grace, sometimes defined as "unmerited favor", even apart from baptism.[citation needed]
+
+Christians differ in their views on the extent to which individuals' salvation is pre-ordained by God. Reformed theology places distinctive emphasis on grace by teaching that individuals are completely incapable of self-redemption, but that sanctifying grace is irresistible.[56] In contrast Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Arminian Protestants believe that the exercise of free will is necessary to have faith in Jesus.[57]
+
+Trinity refers to the teaching that the one God[59] comprises three distinct, eternally co-existing persons: the Father, the Son (incarnate in Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. Together, these three persons are sometimes called the Godhead,[60][61][62] although there is no single term in use in Scripture to denote the unified Godhead.[63] In the words of the Athanasian Creed, an early statement of Christian belief, "the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God".[64] They are distinct from another: the Father has no source, the Son is begotten of the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father. Though distinct, the three persons cannot be divided from one another in being or in operation. While some Christians also believe that God appeared as the Father in the Old Testament, it is agreed that he appeared as the Son in the New Testament, and will still continue to manifest as the Holy Spirit in the present. But still, God still existed as three persons in each of these times.[65] However, traditionally there is a belief that it was the Son who appeared in the Old Testament because, for example, when the Trinity is depicted in art, the Son typically has the distinctive appearance, a cruciform halo identifying Christ, and in depictions of the Garden of Eden, this looks forward to an Incarnation yet to occur. In some Early Christian sarcophagi the Logos is distinguished with a beard, "which allows him to appear ancient, even pre-existent."[66]
+
+The Trinity is an essential doctrine of mainstream Christianity. From earlier than the times of the Nicene Creed (325) Christianity advocated[67] the triune mystery-nature of God as a normative profession of faith. According to Roger E. Olson and Christopher Hall, through prayer, meditation, study and practice, the Christian community concluded "that God must exist as both a unity and trinity", codifying this in ecumenical council at the end of the 4th century.[68][69]
+
+According to this doctrine, God is not divided in the sense that each person has a third of the whole; rather, each person is considered to be fully God (see Perichoresis). The distinction lies in their relations, the Father being unbegotten; the Son being begotten of the Father; and the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and (in Western Christian theology) from the Son. Regardless of this apparent difference, the three "persons" are each eternal and omnipotent. Other Christian religions including Unitarian Universalism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Mormonism, do not share those views on the Trinity.
+
+The Greek word trias[70][note 2] is first seen in this sense in the works of Theophilus of Antioch; his text reads: "of the Trinity, of God, and of His Word, and of His Wisdom".[74] The term may have been in use before this time; its Latin equivalent,[note 2] trinitas,[72] appears afterwards with an explicit reference to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in Tertullian.[75][76] In the following century, the word was in general use. It is found in many passages of Origen.[77]
+
+Trinitarianism denotes Christians who believe in the concept of the Trinity. Almost all Christian denominations and churches hold Trinitarian beliefs. Although the words "Trinity" and "Triune" do not appear in the Bible, beginning in the 3rd century theologians developed the term and concept to facilitate comprehension of the New Testament teachings of God as being Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Since that time, Christian theologians have been careful to emphasize that Trinity does not imply that there are three gods (the antitrinitarian heresy of Tritheism), nor that each hypostasis of the Trinity is one-third of an infinite God (partialism), nor that the Son and the Holy Spirit are beings created by and subordinate to the Father (Arianism). Rather, the Trinity is defined as one God in three persons.[78]
+
+Nontrinitarianism (or antitrinitarianism) refers to theology that rejects the doctrine of the Trinity. Various nontrinitarian views, such as adoptionism or modalism, existed in early Christianity, leading to the disputes about Christology.[79] Nontrinitarianism reappeared in the Gnosticism of the Cathars between the 11th and 13th centuries, among groups with Unitarian theology in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century,[80] in the 18th-century Enlightenment, and in some groups arising during the Second Great Awakening of the 19th century.
+
+The end of things, whether the end of an individual life, the end of the age, or the end of the world, broadly speaking, is Christian eschatology; the study of the destiny of humans as it is revealed in the Bible. The major issues in Christian eschatology are the Tribulation, death and the afterlife, (mainly for Evangelical groups) the Millennium and the following Rapture, the Second Coming of Jesus, Resurrection of the Dead, Heaven, (for liturgical branches) Purgatory, and Hell, the Last Judgment, the end of the world, and the New Heavens and New Earth.
+
+Christians believe that the second coming of Christ will occur at the end of time, after a period of severe persecution (the Great Tribulation). All who have died will be resurrected bodily from the dead for the Last Judgment. Jesus will fully establish the Kingdom of God in fulfillment of scriptural prophecies.[82][83]
+
+Most Christians believe that human beings experience divine judgment and are rewarded either with eternal life or eternal damnation. This includes the general judgement at the resurrection of the dead as well as the belief (held by Catholics,[84][85] Orthodox[86][87] and most Protestants) in a judgment particular to the individual soul upon physical death.
+
+In the liturgical branches (e.g. Catholicism or Eastern or Oriental Orthodoxy), those who die in a state of grace, i.e., without any mortal sin separating them from God, but are still imperfectly purified from the effects of sin, undergo purification through the intermediate state of purgatory to achieve the holiness necessary for entrance into God's presence.[88] Those who have attained this goal are called saints (Latin sanctus, "holy").[89]
+
+Some Christian groups, such as Seventh-day Adventists, hold to mortalism, the belief that the human soul is not naturally immortal, and is unconscious during the intermediate state between bodily death and resurrection. These Christians also hold to Annihilationism, the belief that subsequent to the final judgement, the wicked will cease to exist rather than suffer everlasting torment. Jehovah's Witnesses hold to a similar view.[90]
+
+Depending on the specific denomination of Christianity, practices may include baptism, the Eucharist (Holy Communion or the Lord's Supper), prayer (including the Lord's Prayer), confession, confirmation, burial rites, marriage rites and the religious education of children. Most denominations have ordained clergy who lead regular communal worship services.[91]
+
+Services of worship typically follow a pattern or form known as liturgy.[note 3] Justin Martyr described 2nd-century Christian liturgy in his First Apology (c. 150) to Emperor Antoninus Pius, and his description remains relevant to the basic structure of Christian liturgical worship:
+
+And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need.[93]
+
+Thus, as Justin described, Christians assemble for communal worship typically on Sunday, the day of the resurrection, though other liturgical practices often occur outside this setting. Scripture readings are drawn from the Old and New Testaments, but especially the gospels.[note 4][94] Instruction is given based on these readings, called a sermon or homily. There are a variety of congregational prayers, including thanksgiving, confession, and intercession, which occur throughout the service and take a variety of forms including recited, responsive, silent, or sung.[91] Psalms, hymns, or worship songs may be sung.[95][96] Services can be varied for special events like significant feast days.[97]
+
+Nearly all forms of worship incorporate the Eucharist, which consists of a meal. It is reenacted in accordance with Jesus' instruction at the Last Supper that his followers do in remembrance of him as when he gave his disciples bread, saying, "This is my body", and gave them wine saying, "This is my blood".[98] In the early church, Christians and those yet to complete initiation would separate for the Eucharistic part of the service.[99] Some denominations continue to practice 'closed communion'. They offer communion to those who are already united in that denomination or sometimes individual church. Catholics restrict participation to their members who are not in a state of mortal sin.[100] Many other churches practice 'open communion' since they view communion as a means to unity, rather than an end, and invite all believing Christians to participate.[101][102]
+
+Justin Martyr[93]
+
+In Christian belief and practice, a sacrament is a rite, instituted by Christ, that confers grace, constituting a sacred mystery. The term is derived from the Latin word sacramentum, which was used to translate the Greek word for mystery. Views concerning both which rites are sacramental, and what it means for an act to be a sacrament, vary among Christian denominations and traditions.[103]
+
+The most conventional functional definition of a sacrament is that it is an outward sign, instituted by Christ, that conveys an inward, spiritual grace through Christ. The two most widely accepted sacraments are Baptism and the Eucharist, however, the majority of Christians also recognize five additional sacraments: Confirmation (Chrismation in the Orthodox tradition), Holy Orders (or ordination), Penance (or Confession), Anointing of the Sick, and Matrimony (see Christian views on marriage).[103]
+
+Taken together, these are the Seven Sacraments as recognized by churches in the High Church tradition—notably Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Independent Catholic, Old Catholic, many Anglicans, and some Lutherans. Most other denominations and traditions typically affirm only Baptism and Eucharist as sacraments, while some Protestant groups, such as the Quakers, reject sacramental theology.[103] Christian denominations, such as Baptists, which believe these rites do not communicate grace, prefer to call Baptism and Holy Communion ordinances rather than sacraments.[citation needed]
+
+In addition to this, the Church of the East has two additional sacraments in place of the traditional sacraments of Matrimony and the Anointing of the Sick. These include Holy Leaven (Melka) and the sign of the cross.[104]
+
+Baptism, specifically infant baptism, in the Lutheran tradition
+
+A penitent confessing his sins in a Ukrainian Catholic church
+
+A Methodist minister celebrating the Eucharist
+
+Confirmation being administered in an Anglican church
+
+Ordination of a priest in the Eastern Orthodox tradition
+
+Crowning during Holy Matrimony in the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church
+
+Service of the Sacrament of Holy Unction served on Great and Holy Wednesday
+
+Catholics, Eastern Christians, Lutherans, Anglicans and other traditional Protestant communities frame worship around the liturgical year.[105] The liturgical cycle divides the year into a series of seasons, each with their theological emphases, and modes of prayer, which can be signified by different ways of decorating churches, colors of paraments and vestments for clergy,[106] scriptural readings, themes for preaching and even different traditions and practices often observed personally or in the home.
+
+Western Christian liturgical calendars are based on the cycle of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church,[106] and Eastern Christians use analogous calendars based on the cycle of their respective rites. Calendars set aside holy days, such as solemnities which commemorate an event in the life of Jesus, Mary, or the saints, and periods of fasting, such as Lent and other pious events such as memoria, or lesser festivals commemorating saints. Christian groups that do not follow a liturgical tradition often retain certain celebrations, such as Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost: these are the celebrations of Christ's birth, resurrection, and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Church, respectively. A few denominations make no use of a liturgical calendar.[107]
+
+Christianity has not generally practiced aniconism, the avoidance or prohibition of devotional images, even if early Jewish Christians and some modern denominations, invoking the Decalogue's prohibition of idolatry, avoided figures in their symbols.
+
+The cross, today one of the most widely recognized symbols, was used by Christians from the earliest times.[108][109] Tertullian, in his book De Corona, tells how it was already a tradition for Christians to trace the sign of the cross on their foreheads.[110] Although the cross was known to the early Christians, the crucifix did not appear in use until the 5th century.[111]
+
+Among the earliest Christian symbols, that of the fish or Ichthys seems to have ranked first in importance, as seen on monumental sources such as tombs from the first decades of the 2nd century.[112] Its popularity seemingly arose from the Greek word ichthys (fish) forming an acronym for the Greek phrase Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter (Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ),[note 5] (Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior), a concise summary of Christian faith.[112]
+
+Other major Christian symbols include the chi-rho monogram, the dove (symbolic of the Holy Spirit), the sacrificial lamb (representing Christ's sacrifice), the vine (symbolizing the connection of the Christian with Christ) and many others. These all derive from passages of the New Testament.[111]
+
+Baptism is the ritual act, with the use of water, by which a person is admitted to membership of the Church. Beliefs on baptism vary among denominations. Differences occur firstly on whether the act has any spiritual significance. Some, such as the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, as well as Lutherans and Anglicans, hold to the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, which affirms that baptism creates or strengthens a person's faith, and is intimately linked to salvation. Others view baptism as a purely symbolic act, an external public declaration of the inward change which has taken place in the person, but not as spiritually efficacious. Secondly, there are differences of opinion on the methodology of the act. These methods are: by immersion; if immersion is total, by submersion; by affusion (pouring); and by aspersion (sprinkling). Those who hold the first view may also adhere to the tradition of infant baptism;[113] the Orthodox Churches all practice infant baptism and always baptize by total immersion repeated three times in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.[114][115] The Catholic Church also practices infant baptism,[116] usually by affusion, and utilizing the Trinitarian formula.[117]
+
+— The Lord’s Prayer, Matthew 6:9-13, EHV[118]
+
+Jesus' teaching on prayer in the Sermon on the Mount displays a distinct lack of interest in the external aspects of prayer. A concern with the techniques of prayer is condemned as "pagan", and instead a simple trust in God's fatherly goodness is encouraged.[Mat. 6:5–15] Elsewhere in the New Testament, this same freedom of access to God is also emphasized.[Phil. 4:6][Jam. 5:13–19] This confident position should be understood in light of Christian belief in the unique relationship between the believer and Christ through the indweling of the Holy Spirit.[119]
+
+In subsequent Christian traditions, certain physical gestures are emphasized, including medieval gestures such as genuflection or making the sign of the cross. Kneeling, bowing, and prostrations (see also poklon) are often practiced in more traditional branches of Christianity. Frequently in Western Christianity, the hands are placed palms together and forward as in the feudal commendation ceremony. At other times the older orans posture may be used, with palms up and elbows in.
+
+Intercessory prayer is prayer offered for the benefit of other people. There are many intercessory prayers recorded in the Bible, including prayers of the Apostle Peter on behalf of sick persons[Acts 9:40] and by prophets of the Old Testament in favor of other people.[1Ki 17:19–22] In the Epistle of James, no distinction is made between the intercessory prayer offered by ordinary believers and the prominent Old Testament prophet Elijah.[Jam 5:16–18] The effectiveness of prayer in Christianity derives from the power of God rather than the status of the one praying.[119]
+
+The ancient church, in both Eastern and Western Christianity, developed a tradition of asking for the intercession of (deceased) saints, and this remains the practice of most Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic, and some Anglican churches. Churches of the Protestant Reformation, however, rejected prayer to the saints, largely on the basis of the sole mediatorship of Christ.[120] The reformer Huldrych Zwingli admitted that he had offered prayers to the saints until his reading of the Bible convinced him that this was idolatrous.[121]
+
+According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God."[122] The Book of Common Prayer in the Anglican tradition is a guide which provides a set order for services, containing set prayers, scripture readings, and hymns or sung Psalms.[123]
+
+Christianity, like other religions, has adherents whose beliefs and biblical interpretations vary. Christianity regards the biblical canon, the Old Testament and the New Testament, as the inspired word of God. The traditional view of inspiration is that God worked through human authors so that what they produced was what God wished to communicate. The Greek word referring to inspiration in 2 Timothy 3:16 is theopneustos, which literally means "God-breathed".[124]
+
+Some believe that divine inspiration makes our present Bibles inerrant. Others claim inerrancy for the Bible in its original manuscripts, although none of those are extant. Still others maintain that only a particular translation is inerrant, such as the King James Version.[125][126][127] Another closely related view is biblical infallibility or limited inerrancy, which affirms that the Bible is free of error as a guide to salvation, but may include errors on matters such as history, geography, or science.
+
+The books of the Bible accepted by the Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant churches vary somewhat, with Jews accepting only the Hebrew Bible as canonical; however, there is substantial overlap. These variations are a reflection of the range of traditions, and of the councils that have convened on the subject. Every version of the Old Testament always includes the books of the Tanakh, the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Catholic and Orthodox canons, in addition to the Tanakh, also include the deuterocanonical books as part of the Old Testament. These books appear in the Septuagint, but are regarded by Protestants to be apocryphal. However, they are considered to be important historical documents which help to inform the understanding of words, grammar, and syntax used in the historical period of their conception. Some versions of the Bible include a separate Apocrypha section between the Old Testament and the New Testament.[128] The New Testament, originally written in Koine Greek, contains 27 books which are agreed upon by all churches.
+
+Modern scholarship has raised many issues with the Bible. While the King James Version is held to by many because of its striking English prose, in fact it was translated from the Erasmus Greek Bible, which in turn "was based on a single 12th Century manuscript that is one of the worst manuscripts we have available to us".[129] Much scholarship in the past several hundred years has gone into comparing different manuscripts in order to reconstruct the original text. Another issue is that several books are considered to be forgeries. The injunction that women "be silent and submissive" in 1 Timothy 2[130] is thought by many to be a forgery by a follower of Paul, a similar phrase in 1 Corinthians 14,[131] which is thought to be by Paul, appears in different places in different manuscripts and is thought to originally be a margin note by a copyist.[129] Other verses in 1 Corinthians, such as 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 where women are instructed to wear a covering over their hair "when they pray or prophesies",[132] contradict this verse.
+
+A final issue with the Bible is the way in which books were selected for inclusion in the New Testament. Other gospels have now been recovered, such as those found near Nag Hammadi in 1945, and while some of these texts are quite different from what Christians have been used to, it should be understood that some of this newly recovered Gospel material is quite possibly contemporaneous with, or even earlier than, the New Testament Gospels. The core of the Gospel of Thomas, in particular, may date from as early as AD 50 (although some major scholars contest this early dating),[133] and if so would provide an insight into the earliest gospel texts that underlie the canonical Gospels, texts that are mentioned in Luke 1:1–2. The Gospel of Thomas contains much that is familiar from the canonical Gospels—verse 113, for example ("The Father's Kingdom is spread out upon the earth, but people do not see it"),[134] is reminiscent of Luke 17:20–21[135][136]—and the Gospel of John, with a terminology and approach that is suggestive of what was later termed Gnosticism, has recently been seen as a possible response to the Gospel of Thomas, a text that is commonly labeled proto-Gnostic. Scholarship, then, is currently exploring the relationship in the early church between mystical speculation and experience on the one hand and the search for church order on the other, by analyzing new-found texts, by subjecting canonical texts to further scrutiny, and by an examination of the passage of New Testament texts to canonical status.
+
+In antiquity, two schools of exegesis developed in Alexandria and Antioch. The Alexandrian interpretation, exemplified by Origen, tended to read Scripture allegorically, while the Antiochene interpretation adhered to the literal sense, holding that other meanings (called theoria) could only be accepted if based on the literal meaning.[137]
+
+Catholic theology distinguishes two senses of scripture: the literal and the spiritual.[138]
+
+The literal sense of understanding scripture is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture. The spiritual sense is further subdivided into:
+
+Regarding exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation, Catholic theology holds:
+
+Protestant Christians believe that the Bible is a self-sufficient revelation, the final authority on all Christian doctrine, and revealed all truth necessary for salvation. This concept is known as sola scriptura.[144] Protestants characteristically believe that ordinary believers may reach an adequate understanding of Scripture because Scripture itself is clear in its meaning (or "perspicuous"). Martin Luther believed that without God's help, Scripture would be "enveloped in darkness".[145] He advocated for "one definite and simple understanding of Scripture".[145] John Calvin wrote, "all who refuse not to follow the Holy Spirit as their guide, find in the Scripture a clear light".[146] Related to this is "efficacy", that Scripture is able to lead people to faith; and "sufficiency", that the Scriptures contain everything that one needs to know in order to obtain salvation and to live a Christian life.[147]
+
+Protestants stress the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture, the historical-grammatical method.[148] The historical-grammatical method or grammatico-historical method is an effort in Biblical hermeneutics to find the intended original meaning in the text.[149] This original intended meaning of the text is drawn out through examination of the passage in light of the grammatical and syntactical aspects, the historical background, the literary genre, as well as theological (canonical) considerations.[150] The historical-grammatical method distinguishes between the one original meaning and the significance of the text. The significance of the text includes the ensuing use of the text or application. The original passage is seen as having only a single meaning or sense. As Milton S. Terry said: "A fundamental principle in grammatico-historical exposition is that the words and sentences can have but one significance in one and the same connection. The moment we neglect this principle we drift out upon a sea of uncertainty and conjecture."[151] Technically speaking, the grammatical-historical method of interpretation is distinct from the determination of the passage's significance in light of that interpretation. Taken together, both define the term (Biblical) hermeneutics.[149]
+
+Some Protestant interpreters make use of typology.[152]
+
+Christianity developed during the 1st century CE as a Jewish Christian sect of Second Temple Judaism.[154][155] An early Jewish Christian community was founded in Jerusalem under the leadership of the Pillars of the Church, namely James the Just, the brother of the Lord, Peter, and John.[156]
+
+Jewish Christianity soon attracted Gentile God-fearers, posing a problem for its Jewish religious outlook, which insisted on close observance of the Jewish commands. Paul the Apostle solved this by insisting that salvation by faith in Christ, and participation in his death and resurrection, sufficed.[157] At first he persecuted the early Christians, but after a conversion experience he preached to the gentiles, and is regarded as having had a formative effect on the emerging Christian identity as separate from Judaism. Eventually, his departure from Jewish customs would result in the establishment of Christianity as an independent religion.[158]
+
+This formative period was followed by the early bishops, whom Christians consider the successors of Christ's apostles. From the year 150, Christian teachers began to produce theological and apologetic works aimed at defending the faith. These authors are known as the Church Fathers, and the study of them is called patristics. Notable early Fathers include Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria and Origen.
+
+According to the New Testament, Christians were from the beginning, subject to persecution by some Jewish and Roman religious authorities. This involved punishments, including death, for Christians such as Stephen[Acts 7:59] and James, son of Zebedee.[Acts 12:2] Further widespread persecution of the Church occurred under nine subsequent Roman emperors, most intensely under Decius and Diocletian.
+
+Christianity spread to Aramaic-speaking peoples along the Mediterranean coast and also to the inland parts of the Roman Empire and beyond that into the Parthian Empire and the later Sasanian Empire, including Mesopotamia, which was dominated at different times and to varying extents by these empires.[159] The presence of Christianity in Africa began in the middle of the 1st century in Egypt and by the end of the 2nd century in the region around Carthage. Mark the Evangelist is claimed to have started the Church of Alexandria in about 43 CE; various later churches claim this as their own legacy, including the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.[160][161][162] Important Africans who influenced the early development of Christianity include Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen of Alexandria, Cyprian, Athanasius, and Augustine of Hippo.
+
+King Tiridates III made Christianity the state religion in Armenia between 301 and 314[81][163][164], thus Armenia became the first officially Christian state. It was not an entirely new religion in Armenia, having penetrated into the country from at least the third century, but it may have been present even earlier.[165]
+
+Constantine I was exposed to Christianity in his youth, and throughout his life his support for the religion grew, culminating in baptism on his deathbed.[166] During his reign, state-sanctioned persecution of Christians was ended with the Edict of Toleration in 311 and the Edict of Milan in 313. At that point, Christianity was still a minority belief, comprising perhaps only five percent of the Roman population.[167] Influenced by his adviser Mardonius, Constantine's nephew Julian unsuccessfully tried to suppress Christianity.[168] On 27 February 380, Theodosius I, Gratian, and Valentinian II established Nicene Christianity as the State church of the Roman Empire.[169] As soon as it became connected to the state, Christianity grew wealthy; the Church solicited donations from the rich and could now own land.[170]
+
+Constantine was also instrumental in the convocation of the First Council of Nicaea in 325, which sought to address Arianism and formulated the Nicene Creed, which is still used by in Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and many other Protestant churches.[171][36] Nicaea was the first of a series of ecumenical councils, which formally defined critical elements of the theology of the Church, notably concerning Christology.[172] The Church of the East did not accept the third and following ecumenical councils and is still separate today by its successors (Assyrian Church of the East).
+
+In terms of prosperity and cultural life, the Byzantine Empire was one of the peaks in Christian history and Christian civilization,[173] and Constantinople remained the leading city of the Christian world in size, wealth, and culture.[174] There was a renewed interest in classical Greek philosophy, as well as an increase in literary output in vernacular Greek.[175] Byzantine art and literature held a preeminent place in Europe, and the cultural impact of Byzantine art on the West during this period was enormous and of long-lasting significance.[176] The later rise of Islam in North Africa reduced the size and numbers of Christian congregations, leaving in large numbers only the Coptic Church in Egypt, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in the Horn of Africa and the Nubian Church in the Sudan (Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia).
+
+With the decline and fall of the Roman Empire in the West, the papacy became a political player, first visible in Pope Leo's diplomatic dealings with Huns and Vandals.[177] The church also entered into a long period of missionary activity and expansion among the various tribes. While Arianists instituted the death penalty for practicing pagans (see the Massacre of Verden, for example), what would later become Catholicism also spread among the Hungarians, the Germanic,[177] the Celtic, the Baltic and some Slavic peoples.
+
+Around 500, St. Benedict set out his Monastic Rule, establishing a system of regulations for the foundation and running of monasteries.[177] Monasticism became a powerful force throughout Europe,[177] and gave rise to many early centers of learning, most famously in Ireland, Scotland, and Gaul, contributing to the Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th century.
+
+In the 7th century, Muslims conquered Syria (including Jerusalem), North Africa, and Spain, converting some of the Christian population to Islam, and placing the rest under a separate legal status. Part of the Muslims' success was due to the exhaustion of the Byzantine Empire in its decades long conflict with Persia.[178] Beginning in the 8th century, with the rise of Carolingian leaders, the Papacy sought greater political support in the Frankish Kingdom.[179]
+
+The Middle Ages brought about major changes within the church. Pope Gregory the Great dramatically reformed the ecclesiastical structure and administration.[180] In the early 8th century, iconoclasm became a divisive issue, when it was sponsored by the Byzantine emperors. The Second Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (787) finally pronounced in favor of icons.[181] In the early 10th century, Western Christian monasticism was further rejuvenated through the leadership of the great Benedictine monastery of Cluny.[182]
+
+In the West, from the 11th century onward, some older cathedral schools became universities (see, for example, University of Oxford, University of Paris and University of Bologna). Previously, higher education had been the domain of Christian cathedral schools or monastic schools (Scholae monasticae), led by monks and nuns. Evidence of such schools dates back to the 6th century CE.[183] These new universities expanded the curriculum to include academic programs for clerics, lawyers, civil servants, and physicians.[184] The university is generally regarded as an institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting.[185]
+
+Accompanying the rise of the "new towns" throughout Europe, mendicant orders were founded, bringing the consecrated religious life out of the monastery and into the new urban setting. The two principal mendicant movements were the Franciscans[186] and the Dominicans,[187] founded by St. Francis and St. Dominic, respectively. Both orders made significant contributions to the development of the great universities of Europe. Another new order was the Cistercians, whose large isolated monasteries spearheaded the settlement of former wilderness areas. In this period, church building and ecclesiastical architecture reached new heights, culminating in the orders of Romanesque and Gothic architecture and the building of the great European cathedrals.[188]
+
+Christian nationalism emerged during this era in which Christians felt the impulse to recover lands in which Christianity had historically flourished.[189] From 1095 under the pontificate of Urban II, the Crusades were launched.[190] These were a series of military campaigns in the Holy Land and elsewhere, initiated in response to pleas from the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I for aid against Turkish expansion. The Crusades ultimately failed to stifle Islamic aggression and even contributed to Christian enmity with the sacking of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.[191]
+
+The Christian Church experienced internal conflict between the 7th and 13th centuries that resulted in a schism between the so-called Latin or Western Christian branch (the Catholic Church),[192] and an Eastern, largely Greek, branch (the Eastern Orthodox Church). The two sides disagreed on a number of administrative, liturgical and doctrinal issues, most notably papal primacy of jurisdiction.[193][194] The Second Council of Lyon (1274) and the Council of Florence (1439) attempted to reunite the churches, but in both cases, the Eastern Orthodox refused to implement the decisions, and the two principal churches remain in schism to the present day. However, the Catholic Church has achieved union with various smaller eastern churches.
+
+In the thirteenth century, a new emphasis on Jesus' suffering, exemplified by the Franciscans' preaching, had the consequence of turning worshippers' attention towards Jews, on whom Christians had placed the blame for Jesus' death. Christianity's limited tolerance of Jews was not new—Augustine of Hippo said that Jews should not be allowed to enjoy the citizenship that Christians took for granted—but the growing antipathy towards Jews was a factor that led to the expulsion of Jews from England in 1290, the first of many such expulsions in Europe.[195][196]
+
+Beginning around 1184, following the crusade against Cathar heresy,[197] various institutions, broadly referred to as the Inquisition, were established with the aim of suppressing heresy and securing religious and doctrinal unity within Christianity through conversion and prosecution.[198]
+
+The 15th-century Renaissance brought about a renewed interest in ancient and classical learning. During the Reformation, Martin Luther posted the Ninety-five Theses 1517 against the sale of indulgences.[199] Printed copies soon spread throughout Europe. In 1521 the Edict of Worms condemned and excommunicated Luther and his followers, resulting in the schism of the Western Christendom into several branches.[200]
+
+Other reformers like Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Calvin, Knox, and Arminius further criticized Catholic teaching and worship. These challenges developed into the movement called Protestantism, which repudiated the primacy of the pope, the role of tradition, the seven sacraments, and other doctrines and practices.[199] The Reformation in England began in 1534, when King Henry VIII had himself declared head of the Church of England. Beginning in 1536, the monasteries throughout England, Wales and Ireland were dissolved.[201]
+
+Thomas Müntzer, Andreas Karlstadt and other theologians perceived both the Catholic Church and the confessions of the Magisterial Reformation as corrupted. Their activity brought about the Radical Reformation, which gave birth to various Anabaptist denominations.
+
+Partly in response to the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church engaged in a substantial process of reform and renewal, known as the Counter-Reformation or Catholic Reform.[205] The Council of Trent clarified and reasserted Catholic doctrine. During the following centuries, competition between Catholicism and Protestantism became deeply entangled with political struggles among European states.[206]
+
+Meanwhile, the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492 brought about a new wave of missionary activity. Partly from missionary zeal, but under the impetus of colonial expansion by the European powers, Christianity spread to the Americas, Oceania, East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
+
+Throughout Europe, the division caused by the Reformation led to outbreaks of religious violence and the establishment of separate state churches in Europe. Lutheranism spread into the northern, central, and eastern parts of present-day Germany, Livonia, and Scandinavia. Anglicanism was established in England in 1534. Calvinism and its varieties, such as Presbyterianism, were introduced in Scotland, the Netherlands, Hungary, Switzerland, and France. Arminianism gained followers in the Netherlands and Frisia. Ultimately, these differences led to the outbreak of conflicts in which religion played a key factor. The Thirty Years' War, the English Civil War, and the French Wars of Religion are prominent examples. These events intensified the Christian debate on persecution and toleration.[207]
+
+In the era known as the Great Divergence, when in the West, the Age of Enlightenment and the scientific revolution brought about great societal changes, Christianity was confronted with various forms of skepticism and with certain modern political ideologies, such as versions of socialism and liberalism.[208] Events ranged from mere anti-clericalism to violent outbursts against Christianity, such as the dechristianization of France during the French Revolution,[209] the Spanish Civil War, and certain Marxist movements, especially the Russian Revolution and the persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union under state atheism.[210][211][212][213]
+
+Especially pressing in Europe was the formation of nation states after the Napoleonic era. In all European countries, different Christian denominations found themselves in competition to greater or lesser extents with each other and with the state. Variables were the relative sizes of the denominations and the religious, political, and ideological orientation of the states. Urs Altermatt of the University of Fribourg, looking specifically at Catholicism in Europe, identifies four models for the European nations. In traditionally Catholic-majority countries such as Belgium, Spain, and Austria, to some extent, religious and national communities are more or less identical. Cultural symbiosis and separation are found in Poland, the Republic of Ireland, and Switzerland, all countries with competing denominations. Competition is found in Germany, the Netherlands, and again Switzerland, all countries with minority Catholic populations, which to a greater or lesser extent identified with the nation. Finally, separation between religion (again, specifically Catholicism) and the state is found to a great degree in France and Italy, countries where the state actively opposed itself to the authority of the Catholic Church.[214]
+
+The combined factors of the formation of nation states and ultramontanism, especially in Germany and the Netherlands, but also in England to a much lesser extent,[215] often forced Catholic churches, organizations, and believers to choose between the national demands of the state and the authority of the Church, specifically the papacy. This conflict came to a head in the First Vatican Council, and in Germany would lead directly to the Kulturkampf, where liberals and Protestants under the leadership of Bismarck managed to severely restrict Catholic expression and organization.
+
+Christian commitment in Europe dropped as modernity and secularism came into their own,[216] particularly in Czechia and Estonia,[217] while religious commitments in America have been generally high in comparison to Europe. The late 20th century has shown the shift of Christian adherence to the Third World and the Southern Hemisphere in general,[218][219] with the West no longer the chief standard bearer of Christianity. Approximately 7 to 10% of Arabs are Christians,[220] most prevalent in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.
+
+With around 2.4 billion adherents,[221][222] split into three main branches of Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox, Christianity is the world's largest religion.[223] The Christian share of the world's population has stood at around 33% for the last hundred years, which means that one in three persons on Earth are Christians. This masks a major shift in the demographics of Christianity; large increases in the developing world have been accompanied by substantial declines in the developed world, mainly in Europe and North America.[224] According to a 2015 Pew Research Center study, within the next four decades, Christians will remain the world's largest religion; and by 2050, the Christian population is expected to exceed 3 billion.[225]:60
+
+As a percentage of Christians, the Catholic Church and Orthodoxy (both Eastern and Oriental) are declining in parts of the world (though Catholicism is growing in Asia, in Africa, vibrant in Eastern Europe, etc.), while Protestants and other Christians are on the rise in the developing world.[226][227][228] The so-called popular Protestantism[note 6] is one of the fastest growing religious categories in the world.[229][230] Nevertheless, Catholicism will also continue to grow to 1.63 billion by 2050, according to Todd Johnson of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity.[231] Africa alone, by 2015, will be home to 230 million African Catholics.[232] And if in 2018, the U.N. projects that Africa's population will reach 4.5 billion by 2100 (not 2 billion as predicted in 2004), Catholicism will indeed grow, as will other religious groups.[233]
+
+Christianity is the predominant religion in Europe, the Americas, and Southern Africa.[15] In Asia, it is the dominant religion in Georgia, Armenia, East Timor, and the Philippines.[234] However, it is declining in many areas including the Northern and Western United States,[235] Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), northern Europe (including Great Britain,[236] Scandinavia and other places), France, Germany, and the Canadian provinces of Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec, and parts of Asia (especially the Middle East, due to the Christian emigration,[237][238][239] South Korea,[240] Taiwan,[241] and Macau[242]).
+
+The Christian population is not decreasing in Brazil, the Southern United States,[243] and the province of Alberta, Canada,[244] but the percentage is decreasing. In countries such as Australia[245] and New Zealand,[246] the Christian population are declining in both numbers and percentage.
+
+Despite the declining numbers, Christianity remains the dominant religion in the Western World, where 70% are Christians.[15] A 2011 Pew Research Center survey found that 76% of Europeans, 73% in Oceania and about 86% in the Americas (90% in Latin America and 77% in North America) identified themselves as Christians.[15][247][248][249] By 2010 about 157 countries and territories in the world had Christian majorities.[223]
+
+However, there are many charismatic movements that have become well established over large parts of the world, especially Africa, Latin America, and Asia.[250][251][252][253][254] Since 1900, primarily due to conversion, Protestantism has spread rapidly in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Latin America.[255] From 1960 to 2000, the global growth of the number of reported Evangelical Protestants grew three times the world's population rate, and twice that of Islam.[256] A study conducted by St. Mary's University estimated about 10.2 million Muslim converts to Christianity in 2015.[257] The results also state that significant numbers of Muslims converts to Christianity in Afghanistan,[258] Albania,[257] Azerbaijan,[259][260] Algeria,[261][262] Belgium,[263] France,[262] Germany,[264] Iran,[265] India,[262] Indonesia,[266] Malaysia,[267] Morocco,[262][268] Russia,[262] the Netherlands,[269] Saudi Arabia,[270] Tunisia,[257] Turkey,[262][271][272][273] Kazakhstan,[274] Kyrgyzstan,[257] Kosovo,[275] the United States,[276] and Central Asia.[277][278] It is also reported that Christianity is popular among people of different backgrounds in India (mostly Hindus),[279][280] and Malaysia,[281] Mongolia,[282] Nigeria,[283] Vietnam,[284] Singapore,[285] Indonesia,[286][287] China,[288] Japan,[289] and South Korea.[290]
+
+In most countries in the developed world, church attendance among people who continue to identify themselves as Christians has been falling over the last few decades.[291] Some sources view this simply as part of a drift away from traditional membership institutions,[292] while others link it to signs of a decline in belief in the importance of religion in general.[293] Europe's Christian population, though in decline, still constitutes the largest geographical component of the religion.[294] According to data from the 2012 European Social Survey, around a third of European Christians say they attend services once a month or more,[295] Conversely about more than two-thirds of Latin American Christians; according to the World Values Survey, about 90% of African Christians (in Ghana, Nigeria, Rwand], South Africa and Zimbabwe) said they attended church regularly.[295]
+
+Christianity, in one form or another, is the sole state religion of the following nations: Argentina (Catholic),[296] Tuvalu (Reformed), Tonga (Methodist), Norway (Lutheran),[297][298][299] Costa Rica (Catholic),[300] the Kingdom of Denmark (Lutheran),[301] England (Anglican),[302] Georgia (Georgian Orthodox),[303] Greece (Greek Orthodox),[304] Iceland (Lutheran),[305] Liechtenstein (Catholic),[306] Malta (Catholic),[307] Monaco (Catholic),[308] and Vatican City (Catholic).[309]
+
+There are numerous other countries, such as Cyprus, which although do not have an established church, still give official recognition and support to a specific Christian denomination.[310]
+
+
+
+
+
+Countries with 50% or more Christians are colored purple; countries with 10% to 50% Christians are colored pink
+
+Nations with Christianity as their state religion are in blue
+
+Distribution of Catholics
+
+Distribution of Protestants
+
+Distribution of Eastern Orthodox
+
+Distribution of Oriental Orthodox
+
+Distribution of other Christians
+
+The four primary divisions of Christianity are the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, and Protestantism.[40]:14[314] A broader distinction that is sometimes drawn is between Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity, which has its origins in the East–West Schism (Great Schism) of the 11th century. Recently, neither Western or Eastern World Christianity has also stood out, for example, African-initiated churches. However, there are other present[315] and historical[316] Christian groups that do not fit neatly into one of these primary categories.
+
+There is a diversity of doctrines and liturgical practices among groups calling themselves Christian. These groups may vary ecclesiologically in their views on a classification of Christian denominations.[317] The Nicene Creed (325), however, is typically accepted as authoritative by most Christians, including the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and major Protestant (including Anglican) denominations.[318]
+
+
+
+The Catholic Church consists of those particular churches, headed by bishops, in communion with the pope, the bishop of Rome, as its highest authority in matters of faith, morality, and Church governance.[319][320] Like Eastern Orthodoxy, the Catholic Church, through apostolic succession, traces its origins to the Christian community founded by Jesus Christ.[321][322] Catholics maintain that the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church" founded by Jesus subsists fully in the Catholic Church, but also acknowledges other Christian churches and communities[323][324] and works towards reconciliation among all Christians.[323] The Catholic faith is detailed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.[325][326]
+
+As the world's oldest and largest continuously functioning international institution,[327] it has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization.[328] The 2,834 sees[329] are grouped into 24 particular autonomous Churches (the largest of which being the Latin Church), each with its own distinct traditions regarding the liturgy and the administering of sacraments.[330] With more than 1.1 billion baptized members, the Catholic Church is the largest Christian church and represents 50.1%[15] all Christians as well as one sixth of the world's population.[331][332][333]
+
+The Eastern Orthodox Church consists of those churches in communion with the patriarchal sees of the East, such as the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.[334] Like the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church also traces its heritage to the foundation of Christianity through apostolic succession and has an episcopal structure, though the autonomy of its component parts is emphasized, and most of them are national churches.
+
+A number of conflicts with Western Christianity over questions of doctrine and authority culminated in the Great Schism. Eastern Orthodoxy is the second largest single denomination in Christianity, with an estimated 230 million adherents, although Protestants collectively outnumber them, substantially.[15][13][335] As one of the oldest surviving religious institutions in the world, the Eastern Orthodox Church has played a prominent role in the history and culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, the Caucasus, and the Near East.[336]
+
+The Oriental Orthodox Churches (also called "Old Oriental" churches) are those eastern churches that recognize the first three ecumenical councils—Nicaea, Constantinople, and Ephesus—but reject the dogmatic definitions of the Council of Chalcedon and instead espouse a Miaphysite christology.
+
+The Oriental Orthodox communion consists of six groups: Syriac Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, Eritrean Orthodox, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (India), and Armenian Apostolic churches.[337] These six churches, while being in communion with each other, are completely independent hierarchically.[338] These churches are generally not in communion with Eastern Orthodox Church, with whom they are in dialogue for erecting a communion.[339] And together have about 62 million members worldwide.[340][341][342]
+
+The Assyrian Church of the East, with an unbroken patriarchate established in the 17th century, is an independent Eastern Christian denomination which claims continuity from the Church of the East—in parallel to the Catholic patriarchate established in the 16th century that evolved into the Chaldean Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic church in full communion with the Pope. It is an Eastern Christian church that follows the traditional christology and ecclesiology of the historical Church of the East. Largely aniconic and not in communion with any other church, it belongs to the eastern branch of Syriac Christianity, and uses the East Syriac Rite in its liturgy.[343]
+
+Its main spoken language is Syriac, a dialect of Eastern Aramaic, and the majority of its adherents are ethnic Assyrians. It is officially headquartered in the city of Erbil in northern Iraqi Kurdistan, and its original area also spreads into south-eastern Turkey and north-western Iran, corresponding to ancient Assyria. Its hierarchy is composed of metropolitan bishops and diocesan bishops, while lower clergy consists of priests and deacons, who serve in dioceses (eparchies) and parishes throughout the Middle East, India, North America, Oceania, and Europe (including the Caucasus and Russia).[344]
+
+The Ancient Church of the East distinguished itself from the Assyrian Church of the East in 1964. It is one of the Assyrian churches that claim continuity with the historical Patriarchate of Seleucia-Ctesiphon—the Church of the East, one of the oldest Christian churches in Mesopotamia.[345]
+
+In 1521, the Edict of Worms condemned Martin Luther and officially banned citizens of the Holy Roman Empire from defending or propagating his ideas.[346] This split within the Roman Catholic church is now called the Reformation. Prominent Reformers included Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, and John Calvin. The 1529 Protestation at Speyer against being excommunicated gave this party the name Protestantism. Luther's primary theological heirs are known as Lutherans. Zwingli and Calvin's heirs are far broader denominationally, and are referred to as the Reformed tradition.[347] Protestants have developed their own culture, with major contributions in education, the humanities and sciences, the political and social order, the economy and the arts, and many other fields.[348]
+
+The Anglican churches descended from the Church of England and organized in the Anglican Communion. Some, but not all Anglicans consider themselves both Protestant and Catholic.[349][350]
+
+Since the Anglican, Lutheran, and the Reformed branches of Protestantism originated for the most part in cooperation with the government, these movements are termed the  "Magisterial Reformation". On the other hand, groups such as the Anabaptists, who often do not consider themselves to be Protestant, originated in the Radical Reformation, which though sometimes protected under Acts of Toleration, do not trace their history back to any state church. They are further distinguished by their rejection of infant baptism; they believe in baptism only of adult believers—credobaptism (Anabaptists include the Amish, Apostolic, Mennonites, Hutterites and Schwarzenau Brethren/German Baptist groups.)[351][352][353]
+
+The term Protestant also refers to any churches which formed later, with either the Magisterial or Radical traditions. In the 18th century, for example, Methodism grew out of Anglican minister John Wesley's evangelical and revival movement.[354] Several Pentecostal and non-denominational churches, which emphasize the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit, in turn grew out of Methodism.[355] Because Methodists, Pentecostals and other evangelicals stress "accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior",[356] which comes from Wesley's emphasis of the New Birth,[357] they often refer to themselves as being born-again.[358][359]
+
+Protestantism is the second largest major group of Christians after Catholicism by number of followers, although the Eastern Orthodox Church is larger than any single Protestant denomination.[332] Estimates vary, mainly over the question of which denominations to classify as Protestant. Yet, the total number of Protestant Christians is  generally estimated between 800 million and 1 billion, corresponding to nearly 40% of world's Christians.[13][226][360][361] The majority of Protestants are members of just a handful of denominational families, i.e. Adventists, Anglicans, Baptists, Reformed (Calvinists),[362] Lutherans, Methodists, and Pentecostals.[226] Nondenominational, evangelical, charismatic, neo-charismatic, independent, and other churches are on the rise, and constitute a significant part of Protestant Christianity.[363]
+
+Some groups of individuals who hold basic Protestant tenets identify themselves simply as "Christians" or "born-again Christians". They typically distance themselves from the confessionalism and creedalism of other Christian communities[364] by calling themselves "non-denominational" or "evangelical". Often founded by individual pastors, they have little affiliation with historic denominations.[365]
+
+The Second Great Awakening, a period of religious revival that occurred in the United States during the early 1800s, saw the development of a number of unrelated churches. They generally saw themselves as restoring the original church of Jesus Christ rather than reforming one of the existing churches.[366] A common belief held by Restorationists was that the other divisions of Christianity had introduced doctrinal defects into Christianity, which was known as the Great Apostasy.[367] In Asia, Iglesia ni Cristo is a known restorationist religion that was established during the early 1900s.
+
+Some of the churches originating during this period are historically connected to early 19th-century camp meetings in the Midwest and upstate New York. One of the largest churches produced from the movement is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[368] American Millennialism and Adventism, which arose from Evangelical Protestantism, influenced the Jehovah's Witnesses movement and, as a reaction specifically to William Miller, the Seventh-day Adventists. Others, including the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Evangelical Christian Church in Canada,[369][370] Churches of Christ, and the Christian churches and churches of Christ, have their roots in the contemporaneous Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement, which was centered in Kentucky and Tennessee. Other groups originating in this time period include the Christadelphians and the previously mentioned Latter Day Saints movement. While the churches originating in the Second Great Awakening have some superficial similarities, their doctrine and practices vary significantly.[citation needed]
+
+Various smaller Independent Catholic communities, such as the Old Catholic Church, include the word Catholic in their title, and arguably have more or less liturgical practices in common with the Catholic Church, but are no longer in full communion with the Holy See.
+
+Spiritual Christians, such as the Doukhobor and Molokan, broke from the Russian Orthodox Church and maintain close association with Mennonites and Quakers due to similar religious practices; all of these groups are furthermore collectively considered to be peace churches due to their belief in pacifism.[371][372]
+
+Messianic Judaism (or the Messianic Movement) is the name of a Christian movement comprising a number of streams, whose members may consider themselves Jewish. The movement originated in the 1960s and 1970s, and it blends elements of religious Jewish practice with evangelical Christianity. Messianic Judaism affirms Christian creeds such as the messiahship and divinity of "Yeshua" (the Hebrew name of Jesus) and the Triune Nature of God, while also adhering to some Jewish dietary laws and customs.[373]
+
+Esoteric Christians regard Christianity as a mystery religion,[374][375] and profess the existence and possession of certain esoteric doctrines or practices,[376][377] hidden from the public but accessible only to a narrow circle of "enlightened", "initiated", or highly educated people.[378][379] Some of the esoteric Christian institutions include the Rosicrucian Fellowship, the Anthroposophical Society, and Martinism.
+
+Western culture, throughout most of its history, has been nearly equivalent to Christian culture, and a large portion of the population of the Western Hemisphere can be described as practicing or nominal Christians. The notion of "Europe" and the "Western World" has been intimately connected with the concept of "Christianity and Christendom". Many even attribute Christianity for being the link that created a unified European identity.[380]
+
+Though Western culture contained several polytheistic religions during its early years under the Greek and Roman empires, as the centralized Roman power waned, the dominance of the Catholic Church was the only consistent force in Western Europe.[381] Until the Age of Enlightenment,[382] Christian culture guided the course of philosophy, literature, art, music and science.[381][383] Christian disciplines of the respective arts have subsequently developed into Christian philosophy, Christian art, Christian music, Christian literature, etc.
+
+Christianity has had a significant impact on education, as the church created the bases of the Western system of education,[384] and was the sponsor of founding universities in the Western world, as the university is generally regarded as an institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting.[185] Historically, Christianity has often been a patron of science and medicine; many Catholic clergy,[385] Jesuits in particular,[386][387] have been active in the sciences throughout history and have made significant contributions to the development of science.[388] Protestantism also has had an important influence on science. According to the Merton Thesis, there was a positive correlation between the rise of English Puritanism and German Pietism on the one hand, and early experimental science on the other.[389] The civilizing influence of Christianity includes social welfare,[390] founding hospitals,[391] economics (as the Protestant work ethic),[392][393][394] architecture,[395] politics,[396] literature,[397] personal hygiene (ablution),[398][399][400] and family life.[401][402]
+
+Eastern Christians (particularly Nestorian Christians) contributed to the Arab Islamic civilization during the reign of the Ummayad and the Abbasid, by translating works of Greek philosophers to Syriac and afterwards, to Arabic.[403][404][405] They also excelled in philosophy, science, theology, and medicine.[406][407][408]
+
+Christians have made a myriad of contributions to human progress in a broad and diverse range of fields,[409] including philosophy,[410][411] science and technology,[412][413][414][415][416][417] fine arts and architecture,[418] politics, literatures, music,[419] and business.[420] According to 100 Years of Nobel Prizes a review of the Nobel Prizes award between 1901 and 2000 reveals that (65.4%) of Nobel Prizes Laureates, have identified Christianity in its various forms as their religious preference.[421]
+
+Postchristianity[422] is the term for the decline of Christianity, particularly in Europe, Canada, Australia, and to a minor degree the Southern Cone, in the 20th and 21st centuries, considered in terms of postmodernism. It refers to the loss of Christianity's monopoly on values and world view in historically Christian societies.
+
+Cultural Christians are secular people with a Christian heritage who may not believe in the religious claims of Christianity, but who retain an affinity for the popular culture, art, music, and so on related to the religion.[423]
+
+Christian groups and denominations have long expressed ideals of being reconciled, and in the 20th century, Christian ecumenism advanced in two ways.[424] One way was greater cooperation between groups, such as the World Evangelical Alliance founded in 1846 in London or the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of Protestants in 1910, the Justice, Peace and Creation Commission of the World Council of Churches founded in 1948 by Protestant and Orthodox churches, and similar national councils like the National Council of Churches in Australia, which includes Catholics.[424]
+
+The other way was an institutional union with united churches, a practice that can be traced back to unions between Lutherans and Calvinists in early 19th-century Germany. Congregationalist, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches united in 1925 to form the United Church of Canada,[425] and in 1977 to form the Uniting Church in Australia. The Church of South India was formed in 1947 by the union of Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, Congregationalist, and Presbyterian churches.[426]
+
+The ecumenical, monastic Taizé Community is notable for being composed of more than one hundred brothers from Protestant and Catholic traditions.[427] The community emphasizes the reconciliation of all denominations and its main church, located in Taizé, Saône-et-Loire, France, is named the "Church of Reconciliation".[427] The community is internationally known, attracting over 100,000 young pilgrims annually.[428]
+
+Steps towards reconciliation on a global level were taken in 1965 by the Catholic and Orthodox churches, mutually revoking the excommunications that marked their Great Schism in 1054;[429] the Anglican Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) working towards full communion between those churches since 1970;[430] and some Lutheran and Catholic churches signing the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in 1999 to address conflicts at the root of the Protestant Reformation. In 2006, the World Methodist Council, representing all Methodist denominations, adopted the declaration.[431]
+
+Criticism of Christianity and Christians goes back to the Apostolic Age, with the New Testament recording friction between the followers of Jesus and the Pharisees and scribes (e.g. Matthew 15:1–20 and Mark 7:1–23).[432] In the 2nd century, Christianity was criticized by the Jews on various grounds, e.g. that the prophecies of the Hebrew Bible could not have been fulfilled by Jesus, given that he did not have a successful life.[433] Additionally, a sacrifice to remove sins in advance, for everyone or as a human being, did not fit to the Jewish sacrifice ritual; furthermore, God is said to judge people on their deeds instead of their beliefs.[434][435] One of the first comprehensive attacks on Christianity came from the Greek philosopher Celsus, who wrote The True Word, a polemic criticizing Christians as being unprofitable members of society.[436][437][438] In response, the church father Origen published his treatise Contra Celsum, or Against Celsus, a seminal work of Christian apologetics, which systematically addressed Celsus's criticisms and helped bring Christianity a level of academic respectability.[439][438]
+
+By the 3rd century, criticism of Christianity had mounted. Wild rumors about Christians were widely circulated, claiming that they were atheists and that, as part of their rituals, they devoured human infants and engaged in incestuous orgies.[440][441] The Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry wrote the fifteen-volume Adversus Christianos as a comprehensive attack on Christianity, in part building on the teachings of Plotinus.[442][443]
+
+By the 12th century, the Mishneh Torah (i.e., Rabbi Moses Maimonides) was criticizing Christianity on the grounds of idol worship, in that Christians attributed divinity to Jesus, who had a physical body.[444] In the 19th century, Nietzsche began to write a series of polemics on the "unnatural" teachings of Christianity (e.g. sexual abstinence), and continued his criticism of Christianity to the end of his life.[445] In the 20th century, the philosopher Bertrand Russell expressed his criticism of Christianity in Why I Am Not a Christian, formulating his rejection of Christianity in the setting of logical arguments.[446]
+
+Criticism of Christianity continues to date, e.g. Jewish and Muslim theologians criticize the doctrine of the Trinity held by most Christians, stating that this doctrine in effect assumes that there are three gods, running against the basic tenet of monotheism.[447] New Testament scholar Robert M. Price has outlined the possibility that some Bible stories are based partly on myth in The Christ Myth Theory and its problems.[448]
+
+Christians are one of the most persecuted religious group in the world, especially in the Middle-East, North Africa and South and East Asia.[449] In 2017, Open Doors estimated approximately 260 million Christians are subjected annually to "high, very high, or extreme persecution"[450] with North Korea considered the most hazardous nation for Christians.[451][452] In 2019, a report[453][454] commissioned by the United Kingdom's Secretary of State of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to investigate global persecution of Christians found persecution has increased, and is highest in the Middle East, North Africa, India, China, North Korea, and Latin America,[clarification needed]  among others,[455] and that it is global and not limited to Islamic states.[454] This investigation found that approximately 80% of persecuted believers worldwide are Christians.[18]
+
+Christian apologetics aims to present a rational basis for Christianity. The word "apologetic" (Greek: ἀπολογητικός apologētikos) comes from the Greek verb ἀπολογέομαι apologeomai, meaning "(I) speak in defense of".[456] Christian apologetics has taken many forms over the centuries, starting with Paul the Apostle. The philosopher Thomas Aquinas presented five arguments for God's existence in the Summa Theologica, while his Summa contra Gentiles was a major apologetic work.[457][458] Another famous apologist, G. K. Chesterton, wrote in the early twentieth century about the benefits of religion and, specifically, Christianity. Famous for his use of paradox, Chesterton explained that while Christianity had the most mysteries, it was the most practical religion.[459][460] He pointed to the advance of Christian civilizations as proof of its practicality.[461] The physicist and priest John Polkinghorne, in his Questions of Truth, discusses the subject of religion and science, a topic that other Christian apologists such as Ravi Zacharias, John Lennox, and William Lane Craig have engaged, with the latter two men opining that the inflationary Big Bang model is evidence for the existence of God.[462]
+
+Hence all the power of magic became dissolved; and every bond of wickedness was destroyed, men's ignorance was taken away, and the old kingdom abolished God Himself appearing in the form of a man, for the renewal of eternal life.
+
+We have also as a Physician the Lord our God Jesus the Christ the only-begotten Son and Word, before time began, but who afterwards became also man, of Mary the virgin. For 'the Word was made flesh.' Being incorporeal, He was in the body; being impassible, He was in a passable body; being immortal, He was in a mortal body; being life, He became subject to corruption, that He might free our souls from death and corruption, and heal them, and might restore them to health, when they were diseased with ungodliness and wicked lusts
+
+The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: ...one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father 'to gather all things in one,' and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Savior, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, 'every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess; to him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all...
+
+For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water

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+Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Its adherents, known as Christians, believe that Jesus is the Christ, whose coming as the messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible, called the Old Testament in Christianity, and chronicled in the New Testament.[1] It is the world's largest religion, with about 2.4 billion followers.[2]
+
+Christianity remains culturally diverse in its Western and Eastern branches, as well as in its doctrines concerning justification and the nature of salvation, ecclesiology, ordination, and Christology. Their creeds generally hold in common Jesus as the Son of God—the logos incarnated—who ministered, suffered, and died on a cross, but rose from the dead for the salvation of mankind; as referred to as the gospel, meaning the "good news", in the Bible. Describing Jesus' life and teachings are the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John with the Jewish Old Testament as the gospel's respected background.
+
+Christianity began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the 1st century in the Roman province of Judea. Jesus' apostles and their followers spread around the Levant, Europe, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Transcaucasia, Egypt, and Ethiopia, despite initial persecution. It soon attracted gentile God-fearers, which led to a departure from Jewish customs, and, after the Fall of Jerusalem, AD 70 which ended the Temple-based Judaism, Christianity slowly separated from Judaism. Emperor Constantine the Great decriminalized Christianity in the Roman Empire by the Edict of Milan (313), later convening the Council of Nicaea (325) where Early Christianity was consolidated into what would become the State church of the Roman Empire (380). The early history of Christianity's united church before major schisms is sometimes referred to as the "Great Church". The Church of the East split after the Council of Ephesus (431) and Oriental Orthodoxy split after the Council of Chalcedon (451) over differences in Christology,[3] while the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church separated in the East–West Schism (1054), especially over the authority of the bishop of Rome. Protestantism split in numerous denominations from the Latin Catholic Church in the Reformation era (16th century) over theological and ecclesiological disputes, most predominantly on the issue of justification and papal primacy. Christianity played a prominent role in the development of Western civilization, particularly in Europe from late antiquity and the Middle Ages.[4][5][6][7][8] Following the Age of Discovery (15th–17th century), Christianity was spread into the Americas, Oceania, sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest of the world via missionary work.[9][10][11]
+
+The four largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church (1.3 billion/50.1%), Protestantism (920 million/36.7%), the Eastern Orthodox Church (230 million) and Oriental Orthodoxy (62 million/Orthodoxy combined at 11.9%),[12][13] amid various efforts toward unity (ecumenism).[14] Despite a decline in adherence in the West, Christianity remains the dominant religion in the region, with about 70% of the population identifying as Christian.[15] Christianity is growing in Africa and Asia, the world's most populous continents.[16] Christians remain persecuted in some regions the world, especially in the Middle-East, North Africa, East Asia, and South Asia.[17][18]
+
+Early Jewish Christians referred to themselves as 'The Way' (της οδου), probably coming from Isaiah 40:3, "prepare the way of the Lord."[19][note 1] According to Acts 11:26, the term "Christian" (Greek: Χριστιανός) was first used in reference to Jesus's disciples in the city of Antioch, meaning "followers of Christ," by the non-Jewish inhabitants of Antioch.[25] The earliest recorded use of the term "Christianity" (Greek: Χριστιανισμός) was by Ignatius of Antioch, in around 100 AD.[26]
+
+While Christians worldwide share basic convictions, there are also differences of interpretations and opinions of the Bible and sacred traditions on which Christianity is based.[27]
+
+Concise doctrinal statements or confessions of religious beliefs are known as creeds. They began as baptismal formulae and were later expanded during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries to become statements of faith.
+
+The Apostles' Creed is the most widely accepted statement of the articles of Christian faith. It is used by a number of Christian denominations for both liturgical and catechetical purposes, most visibly by liturgical churches of Western Christian tradition, including the Latin Church of the Catholic Church, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and Western Rite Orthodoxy. It is also used by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists. This particular creed was developed between the 2nd and 9th centuries. Its central doctrines are those of the Trinity and God the Creator. Each of the doctrines found in this creed can be traced to statements current in the apostolic period. The creed was apparently used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome.[28] Its points include:
+
+The Nicene Creed was formulated, largely in response to Arianism, at the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople in 325 and 381 respectively,[29][30] and ratified as the universal creed of Christendom by the First Council of Ephesus in 431.[31]
+
+The Chalcedonian Definition, or Creed of Chalcedon, developed at the Council of Chalcedon in 451,[32] though rejected by the Oriental Orthodox,[33] taught Christ "to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably": one divine and one human, and that both natures, while perfect in themselves, are nevertheless also perfectly united into one person.[34]
+
+The Athanasian Creed, received in the Western Church as having the same status as the Nicene and Chalcedonian, says: "We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance."[35]
+
+Most Christians (Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Protestant alike) accept the use of creeds, and subscribe to at least one of the creeds mentioned above.[36]
+
+Many Evangelical Protestants reject creeds as definitive statements of faith, even while agreeing with some or all of the substance of the creeds. Most Baptists do not use creeds "in that they have not sought to establish binding authoritative confessions of faith on one another."[37]:111 Also rejecting creeds are groups with roots in the Restoration Movement, such as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada, and the Churches of Christ.[38][39]:14–15[40]:123
+
+The central tenet of Christianity is the belief in Jesus as the Son of God and the Messiah (Christ). Christians believe that Jesus, as the Messiah, was anointed by God as savior of humanity and hold that Jesus' coming was the fulfillment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The Christian concept of messiah differs significantly from the contemporary Jewish concept. The core Christian belief is that through belief in and acceptance of the death and resurrection of Jesus, sinful humans can be reconciled to God, and thereby are offered salvation and the promise of eternal life.[41]
+
+While there have been many theological disputes over the nature of Jesus over the earliest centuries of Christian history, generally, Christians believe that Jesus is God incarnate and "true God and true man" (or both fully divine and fully human). Jesus, having become fully human, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, but did not sin. As fully God, he rose to life again. According to the New Testament, he rose from the dead,[42] ascended to heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father,[43] and will ultimately return[Acts 1:9–11] to fulfill the rest of the Messianic prophecy, including the resurrection of the dead, the Last Judgment, and the final establishment of the Kingdom of God.
+
+According to the canonical gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born from the Virgin Mary. Little of Jesus' childhood is recorded in the canonical gospels, although infancy gospels were popular in antiquity. In comparison, his adulthood, especially the week before his death, is well documented in the gospels contained within the New Testament, because that part of his life is believed to be most important. The biblical accounts of Jesus' ministry include: his baptism, miracles, preaching, teaching, and deeds.
+
+Christians consider the resurrection of Jesus to be the cornerstone of their faith (see 1 Corinthians 15) and the most important event in history.[44] Among Christian beliefs, the death and resurrection of Jesus are two core events on which much of Christian doctrine and theology is based.[45] According to the New Testament, Jesus was crucified, died a physical death, was buried within a tomb, and rose from the dead three days later.[Jn. 19:30–31] [Mk. 16:1] [16:6]
+
+The New Testament mentions several post-resurrection appearances of Jesus on different occasions to his twelve apostles and disciples, including "more than five hundred brethren at once",[1Cor 15:6] before Jesus' ascension to heaven. Jesus' death and resurrection are commemorated by Christians in all worship services, with special emphasis during Holy Week, which includes Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
+
+The death and resurrection of Jesus are usually considered the most important events in Christian theology, partly because they demonstrate that Jesus has power over life and death and therefore has the authority and power to give people eternal life.[46]
+
+Christian churches accept and teach the New Testament account of the resurrection of Jesus with very few exceptions.[47] Some modern scholars use the belief of Jesus' followers in the resurrection as a point of departure for establishing the continuity of the historical Jesus and the proclamation of the early church.[48] Some liberal Christians do not accept a literal bodily resurrection,[49][50] seeing the story as richly symbolic and spiritually nourishing myth. Arguments over death and resurrection claims occur at many religious debates and interfaith dialogues.[51] Paul the Apostle, an early Christian convert and missionary, wrote, "If Christ was not raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your trust in God is useless."[1Cor 15:14][52]
+
+Paul the Apostle, like Jews and Roman pagans of his time, believed that sacrifice can bring about new kinship ties, purity, and eternal life.[53] For Paul, the necessary sacrifice was the death of Jesus: Gentiles who are "Christ's" are, like Israel, descendants of Abraham and "heirs according to the promise".[Gal. 3:29][54] The God who raised Jesus from the dead would also give new life to the "mortal bodies" of Gentile Christians, who had become with Israel, the "children of God", and were therefore no longer "in the flesh".[Rom. 8:9,11,16][53]
+
+Modern Christian churches tend to be much more concerned with how humanity can be saved from a universal condition of sin and death than the question of how both Jews and Gentiles can be in God's family. According to Eastern Orthodox theology, based upon their understanding of the atonement as put forward by Irenaeus' recapitulation theory, Jesus' death is a ransom. This restores the relation with God, who is loving and reaches out to humanity, and offers the possibility of theosis c.q. divinization, becoming the kind of humans God wants humanity to be. According to Catholic doctrine, Jesus' death satisfies the wrath of God, aroused by the offense to God's honor caused by human's sinfulness. The Catholic Church teaches that salvation does not occur without faithfulness on the part of Christians; converts must live in accordance with principles of love and ordinarily must be baptized.[55] In Protestant theology, Jesus' death is regarded as a substitutionary penalty carried by Jesus, for the debt that has to be paid by humankind when it broke God's moral law. Martin Luther taught that baptism was necessary for salvation, but modern Lutherans and other Protestants tend to teach that salvation is a gift that comes to an individual by God's grace, sometimes defined as "unmerited favor", even apart from baptism.[citation needed]
+
+Christians differ in their views on the extent to which individuals' salvation is pre-ordained by God. Reformed theology places distinctive emphasis on grace by teaching that individuals are completely incapable of self-redemption, but that sanctifying grace is irresistible.[56] In contrast Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Arminian Protestants believe that the exercise of free will is necessary to have faith in Jesus.[57]
+
+Trinity refers to the teaching that the one God[59] comprises three distinct, eternally co-existing persons: the Father, the Son (incarnate in Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. Together, these three persons are sometimes called the Godhead,[60][61][62] although there is no single term in use in Scripture to denote the unified Godhead.[63] In the words of the Athanasian Creed, an early statement of Christian belief, "the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God".[64] They are distinct from another: the Father has no source, the Son is begotten of the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father. Though distinct, the three persons cannot be divided from one another in being or in operation. While some Christians also believe that God appeared as the Father in the Old Testament, it is agreed that he appeared as the Son in the New Testament, and will still continue to manifest as the Holy Spirit in the present. But still, God still existed as three persons in each of these times.[65] However, traditionally there is a belief that it was the Son who appeared in the Old Testament because, for example, when the Trinity is depicted in art, the Son typically has the distinctive appearance, a cruciform halo identifying Christ, and in depictions of the Garden of Eden, this looks forward to an Incarnation yet to occur. In some Early Christian sarcophagi the Logos is distinguished with a beard, "which allows him to appear ancient, even pre-existent."[66]
+
+The Trinity is an essential doctrine of mainstream Christianity. From earlier than the times of the Nicene Creed (325) Christianity advocated[67] the triune mystery-nature of God as a normative profession of faith. According to Roger E. Olson and Christopher Hall, through prayer, meditation, study and practice, the Christian community concluded "that God must exist as both a unity and trinity", codifying this in ecumenical council at the end of the 4th century.[68][69]
+
+According to this doctrine, God is not divided in the sense that each person has a third of the whole; rather, each person is considered to be fully God (see Perichoresis). The distinction lies in their relations, the Father being unbegotten; the Son being begotten of the Father; and the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and (in Western Christian theology) from the Son. Regardless of this apparent difference, the three "persons" are each eternal and omnipotent. Other Christian religions including Unitarian Universalism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Mormonism, do not share those views on the Trinity.
+
+The Greek word trias[70][note 2] is first seen in this sense in the works of Theophilus of Antioch; his text reads: "of the Trinity, of God, and of His Word, and of His Wisdom".[74] The term may have been in use before this time; its Latin equivalent,[note 2] trinitas,[72] appears afterwards with an explicit reference to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in Tertullian.[75][76] In the following century, the word was in general use. It is found in many passages of Origen.[77]
+
+Trinitarianism denotes Christians who believe in the concept of the Trinity. Almost all Christian denominations and churches hold Trinitarian beliefs. Although the words "Trinity" and "Triune" do not appear in the Bible, beginning in the 3rd century theologians developed the term and concept to facilitate comprehension of the New Testament teachings of God as being Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Since that time, Christian theologians have been careful to emphasize that Trinity does not imply that there are three gods (the antitrinitarian heresy of Tritheism), nor that each hypostasis of the Trinity is one-third of an infinite God (partialism), nor that the Son and the Holy Spirit are beings created by and subordinate to the Father (Arianism). Rather, the Trinity is defined as one God in three persons.[78]
+
+Nontrinitarianism (or antitrinitarianism) refers to theology that rejects the doctrine of the Trinity. Various nontrinitarian views, such as adoptionism or modalism, existed in early Christianity, leading to the disputes about Christology.[79] Nontrinitarianism reappeared in the Gnosticism of the Cathars between the 11th and 13th centuries, among groups with Unitarian theology in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century,[80] in the 18th-century Enlightenment, and in some groups arising during the Second Great Awakening of the 19th century.
+
+The end of things, whether the end of an individual life, the end of the age, or the end of the world, broadly speaking, is Christian eschatology; the study of the destiny of humans as it is revealed in the Bible. The major issues in Christian eschatology are the Tribulation, death and the afterlife, (mainly for Evangelical groups) the Millennium and the following Rapture, the Second Coming of Jesus, Resurrection of the Dead, Heaven, (for liturgical branches) Purgatory, and Hell, the Last Judgment, the end of the world, and the New Heavens and New Earth.
+
+Christians believe that the second coming of Christ will occur at the end of time, after a period of severe persecution (the Great Tribulation). All who have died will be resurrected bodily from the dead for the Last Judgment. Jesus will fully establish the Kingdom of God in fulfillment of scriptural prophecies.[82][83]
+
+Most Christians believe that human beings experience divine judgment and are rewarded either with eternal life or eternal damnation. This includes the general judgement at the resurrection of the dead as well as the belief (held by Catholics,[84][85] Orthodox[86][87] and most Protestants) in a judgment particular to the individual soul upon physical death.
+
+In the liturgical branches (e.g. Catholicism or Eastern or Oriental Orthodoxy), those who die in a state of grace, i.e., without any mortal sin separating them from God, but are still imperfectly purified from the effects of sin, undergo purification through the intermediate state of purgatory to achieve the holiness necessary for entrance into God's presence.[88] Those who have attained this goal are called saints (Latin sanctus, "holy").[89]
+
+Some Christian groups, such as Seventh-day Adventists, hold to mortalism, the belief that the human soul is not naturally immortal, and is unconscious during the intermediate state between bodily death and resurrection. These Christians also hold to Annihilationism, the belief that subsequent to the final judgement, the wicked will cease to exist rather than suffer everlasting torment. Jehovah's Witnesses hold to a similar view.[90]
+
+Depending on the specific denomination of Christianity, practices may include baptism, the Eucharist (Holy Communion or the Lord's Supper), prayer (including the Lord's Prayer), confession, confirmation, burial rites, marriage rites and the religious education of children. Most denominations have ordained clergy who lead regular communal worship services.[91]
+
+Services of worship typically follow a pattern or form known as liturgy.[note 3] Justin Martyr described 2nd-century Christian liturgy in his First Apology (c. 150) to Emperor Antoninus Pius, and his description remains relevant to the basic structure of Christian liturgical worship:
+
+And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need.[93]
+
+Thus, as Justin described, Christians assemble for communal worship typically on Sunday, the day of the resurrection, though other liturgical practices often occur outside this setting. Scripture readings are drawn from the Old and New Testaments, but especially the gospels.[note 4][94] Instruction is given based on these readings, called a sermon or homily. There are a variety of congregational prayers, including thanksgiving, confession, and intercession, which occur throughout the service and take a variety of forms including recited, responsive, silent, or sung.[91] Psalms, hymns, or worship songs may be sung.[95][96] Services can be varied for special events like significant feast days.[97]
+
+Nearly all forms of worship incorporate the Eucharist, which consists of a meal. It is reenacted in accordance with Jesus' instruction at the Last Supper that his followers do in remembrance of him as when he gave his disciples bread, saying, "This is my body", and gave them wine saying, "This is my blood".[98] In the early church, Christians and those yet to complete initiation would separate for the Eucharistic part of the service.[99] Some denominations continue to practice 'closed communion'. They offer communion to those who are already united in that denomination or sometimes individual church. Catholics restrict participation to their members who are not in a state of mortal sin.[100] Many other churches practice 'open communion' since they view communion as a means to unity, rather than an end, and invite all believing Christians to participate.[101][102]
+
+Justin Martyr[93]
+
+In Christian belief and practice, a sacrament is a rite, instituted by Christ, that confers grace, constituting a sacred mystery. The term is derived from the Latin word sacramentum, which was used to translate the Greek word for mystery. Views concerning both which rites are sacramental, and what it means for an act to be a sacrament, vary among Christian denominations and traditions.[103]
+
+The most conventional functional definition of a sacrament is that it is an outward sign, instituted by Christ, that conveys an inward, spiritual grace through Christ. The two most widely accepted sacraments are Baptism and the Eucharist, however, the majority of Christians also recognize five additional sacraments: Confirmation (Chrismation in the Orthodox tradition), Holy Orders (or ordination), Penance (or Confession), Anointing of the Sick, and Matrimony (see Christian views on marriage).[103]
+
+Taken together, these are the Seven Sacraments as recognized by churches in the High Church tradition—notably Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Independent Catholic, Old Catholic, many Anglicans, and some Lutherans. Most other denominations and traditions typically affirm only Baptism and Eucharist as sacraments, while some Protestant groups, such as the Quakers, reject sacramental theology.[103] Christian denominations, such as Baptists, which believe these rites do not communicate grace, prefer to call Baptism and Holy Communion ordinances rather than sacraments.[citation needed]
+
+In addition to this, the Church of the East has two additional sacraments in place of the traditional sacraments of Matrimony and the Anointing of the Sick. These include Holy Leaven (Melka) and the sign of the cross.[104]
+
+Baptism, specifically infant baptism, in the Lutheran tradition
+
+A penitent confessing his sins in a Ukrainian Catholic church
+
+A Methodist minister celebrating the Eucharist
+
+Confirmation being administered in an Anglican church
+
+Ordination of a priest in the Eastern Orthodox tradition
+
+Crowning during Holy Matrimony in the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church
+
+Service of the Sacrament of Holy Unction served on Great and Holy Wednesday
+
+Catholics, Eastern Christians, Lutherans, Anglicans and other traditional Protestant communities frame worship around the liturgical year.[105] The liturgical cycle divides the year into a series of seasons, each with their theological emphases, and modes of prayer, which can be signified by different ways of decorating churches, colors of paraments and vestments for clergy,[106] scriptural readings, themes for preaching and even different traditions and practices often observed personally or in the home.
+
+Western Christian liturgical calendars are based on the cycle of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church,[106] and Eastern Christians use analogous calendars based on the cycle of their respective rites. Calendars set aside holy days, such as solemnities which commemorate an event in the life of Jesus, Mary, or the saints, and periods of fasting, such as Lent and other pious events such as memoria, or lesser festivals commemorating saints. Christian groups that do not follow a liturgical tradition often retain certain celebrations, such as Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost: these are the celebrations of Christ's birth, resurrection, and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Church, respectively. A few denominations make no use of a liturgical calendar.[107]
+
+Christianity has not generally practiced aniconism, the avoidance or prohibition of devotional images, even if early Jewish Christians and some modern denominations, invoking the Decalogue's prohibition of idolatry, avoided figures in their symbols.
+
+The cross, today one of the most widely recognized symbols, was used by Christians from the earliest times.[108][109] Tertullian, in his book De Corona, tells how it was already a tradition for Christians to trace the sign of the cross on their foreheads.[110] Although the cross was known to the early Christians, the crucifix did not appear in use until the 5th century.[111]
+
+Among the earliest Christian symbols, that of the fish or Ichthys seems to have ranked first in importance, as seen on monumental sources such as tombs from the first decades of the 2nd century.[112] Its popularity seemingly arose from the Greek word ichthys (fish) forming an acronym for the Greek phrase Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter (Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ),[note 5] (Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior), a concise summary of Christian faith.[112]
+
+Other major Christian symbols include the chi-rho monogram, the dove (symbolic of the Holy Spirit), the sacrificial lamb (representing Christ's sacrifice), the vine (symbolizing the connection of the Christian with Christ) and many others. These all derive from passages of the New Testament.[111]
+
+Baptism is the ritual act, with the use of water, by which a person is admitted to membership of the Church. Beliefs on baptism vary among denominations. Differences occur firstly on whether the act has any spiritual significance. Some, such as the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, as well as Lutherans and Anglicans, hold to the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, which affirms that baptism creates or strengthens a person's faith, and is intimately linked to salvation. Others view baptism as a purely symbolic act, an external public declaration of the inward change which has taken place in the person, but not as spiritually efficacious. Secondly, there are differences of opinion on the methodology of the act. These methods are: by immersion; if immersion is total, by submersion; by affusion (pouring); and by aspersion (sprinkling). Those who hold the first view may also adhere to the tradition of infant baptism;[113] the Orthodox Churches all practice infant baptism and always baptize by total immersion repeated three times in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.[114][115] The Catholic Church also practices infant baptism,[116] usually by affusion, and utilizing the Trinitarian formula.[117]
+
+— The Lord’s Prayer, Matthew 6:9-13, EHV[118]
+
+Jesus' teaching on prayer in the Sermon on the Mount displays a distinct lack of interest in the external aspects of prayer. A concern with the techniques of prayer is condemned as "pagan", and instead a simple trust in God's fatherly goodness is encouraged.[Mat. 6:5–15] Elsewhere in the New Testament, this same freedom of access to God is also emphasized.[Phil. 4:6][Jam. 5:13–19] This confident position should be understood in light of Christian belief in the unique relationship between the believer and Christ through the indweling of the Holy Spirit.[119]
+
+In subsequent Christian traditions, certain physical gestures are emphasized, including medieval gestures such as genuflection or making the sign of the cross. Kneeling, bowing, and prostrations (see also poklon) are often practiced in more traditional branches of Christianity. Frequently in Western Christianity, the hands are placed palms together and forward as in the feudal commendation ceremony. At other times the older orans posture may be used, with palms up and elbows in.
+
+Intercessory prayer is prayer offered for the benefit of other people. There are many intercessory prayers recorded in the Bible, including prayers of the Apostle Peter on behalf of sick persons[Acts 9:40] and by prophets of the Old Testament in favor of other people.[1Ki 17:19–22] In the Epistle of James, no distinction is made between the intercessory prayer offered by ordinary believers and the prominent Old Testament prophet Elijah.[Jam 5:16–18] The effectiveness of prayer in Christianity derives from the power of God rather than the status of the one praying.[119]
+
+The ancient church, in both Eastern and Western Christianity, developed a tradition of asking for the intercession of (deceased) saints, and this remains the practice of most Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic, and some Anglican churches. Churches of the Protestant Reformation, however, rejected prayer to the saints, largely on the basis of the sole mediatorship of Christ.[120] The reformer Huldrych Zwingli admitted that he had offered prayers to the saints until his reading of the Bible convinced him that this was idolatrous.[121]
+
+According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God."[122] The Book of Common Prayer in the Anglican tradition is a guide which provides a set order for services, containing set prayers, scripture readings, and hymns or sung Psalms.[123]
+
+Christianity, like other religions, has adherents whose beliefs and biblical interpretations vary. Christianity regards the biblical canon, the Old Testament and the New Testament, as the inspired word of God. The traditional view of inspiration is that God worked through human authors so that what they produced was what God wished to communicate. The Greek word referring to inspiration in 2 Timothy 3:16 is theopneustos, which literally means "God-breathed".[124]
+
+Some believe that divine inspiration makes our present Bibles inerrant. Others claim inerrancy for the Bible in its original manuscripts, although none of those are extant. Still others maintain that only a particular translation is inerrant, such as the King James Version.[125][126][127] Another closely related view is biblical infallibility or limited inerrancy, which affirms that the Bible is free of error as a guide to salvation, but may include errors on matters such as history, geography, or science.
+
+The books of the Bible accepted by the Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant churches vary somewhat, with Jews accepting only the Hebrew Bible as canonical; however, there is substantial overlap. These variations are a reflection of the range of traditions, and of the councils that have convened on the subject. Every version of the Old Testament always includes the books of the Tanakh, the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Catholic and Orthodox canons, in addition to the Tanakh, also include the deuterocanonical books as part of the Old Testament. These books appear in the Septuagint, but are regarded by Protestants to be apocryphal. However, they are considered to be important historical documents which help to inform the understanding of words, grammar, and syntax used in the historical period of their conception. Some versions of the Bible include a separate Apocrypha section between the Old Testament and the New Testament.[128] The New Testament, originally written in Koine Greek, contains 27 books which are agreed upon by all churches.
+
+Modern scholarship has raised many issues with the Bible. While the King James Version is held to by many because of its striking English prose, in fact it was translated from the Erasmus Greek Bible, which in turn "was based on a single 12th Century manuscript that is one of the worst manuscripts we have available to us".[129] Much scholarship in the past several hundred years has gone into comparing different manuscripts in order to reconstruct the original text. Another issue is that several books are considered to be forgeries. The injunction that women "be silent and submissive" in 1 Timothy 2[130] is thought by many to be a forgery by a follower of Paul, a similar phrase in 1 Corinthians 14,[131] which is thought to be by Paul, appears in different places in different manuscripts and is thought to originally be a margin note by a copyist.[129] Other verses in 1 Corinthians, such as 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 where women are instructed to wear a covering over their hair "when they pray or prophesies",[132] contradict this verse.
+
+A final issue with the Bible is the way in which books were selected for inclusion in the New Testament. Other gospels have now been recovered, such as those found near Nag Hammadi in 1945, and while some of these texts are quite different from what Christians have been used to, it should be understood that some of this newly recovered Gospel material is quite possibly contemporaneous with, or even earlier than, the New Testament Gospels. The core of the Gospel of Thomas, in particular, may date from as early as AD 50 (although some major scholars contest this early dating),[133] and if so would provide an insight into the earliest gospel texts that underlie the canonical Gospels, texts that are mentioned in Luke 1:1–2. The Gospel of Thomas contains much that is familiar from the canonical Gospels—verse 113, for example ("The Father's Kingdom is spread out upon the earth, but people do not see it"),[134] is reminiscent of Luke 17:20–21[135][136]—and the Gospel of John, with a terminology and approach that is suggestive of what was later termed Gnosticism, has recently been seen as a possible response to the Gospel of Thomas, a text that is commonly labeled proto-Gnostic. Scholarship, then, is currently exploring the relationship in the early church between mystical speculation and experience on the one hand and the search for church order on the other, by analyzing new-found texts, by subjecting canonical texts to further scrutiny, and by an examination of the passage of New Testament texts to canonical status.
+
+In antiquity, two schools of exegesis developed in Alexandria and Antioch. The Alexandrian interpretation, exemplified by Origen, tended to read Scripture allegorically, while the Antiochene interpretation adhered to the literal sense, holding that other meanings (called theoria) could only be accepted if based on the literal meaning.[137]
+
+Catholic theology distinguishes two senses of scripture: the literal and the spiritual.[138]
+
+The literal sense of understanding scripture is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture. The spiritual sense is further subdivided into:
+
+Regarding exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation, Catholic theology holds:
+
+Protestant Christians believe that the Bible is a self-sufficient revelation, the final authority on all Christian doctrine, and revealed all truth necessary for salvation. This concept is known as sola scriptura.[144] Protestants characteristically believe that ordinary believers may reach an adequate understanding of Scripture because Scripture itself is clear in its meaning (or "perspicuous"). Martin Luther believed that without God's help, Scripture would be "enveloped in darkness".[145] He advocated for "one definite and simple understanding of Scripture".[145] John Calvin wrote, "all who refuse not to follow the Holy Spirit as their guide, find in the Scripture a clear light".[146] Related to this is "efficacy", that Scripture is able to lead people to faith; and "sufficiency", that the Scriptures contain everything that one needs to know in order to obtain salvation and to live a Christian life.[147]
+
+Protestants stress the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture, the historical-grammatical method.[148] The historical-grammatical method or grammatico-historical method is an effort in Biblical hermeneutics to find the intended original meaning in the text.[149] This original intended meaning of the text is drawn out through examination of the passage in light of the grammatical and syntactical aspects, the historical background, the literary genre, as well as theological (canonical) considerations.[150] The historical-grammatical method distinguishes between the one original meaning and the significance of the text. The significance of the text includes the ensuing use of the text or application. The original passage is seen as having only a single meaning or sense. As Milton S. Terry said: "A fundamental principle in grammatico-historical exposition is that the words and sentences can have but one significance in one and the same connection. The moment we neglect this principle we drift out upon a sea of uncertainty and conjecture."[151] Technically speaking, the grammatical-historical method of interpretation is distinct from the determination of the passage's significance in light of that interpretation. Taken together, both define the term (Biblical) hermeneutics.[149]
+
+Some Protestant interpreters make use of typology.[152]
+
+Christianity developed during the 1st century CE as a Jewish Christian sect of Second Temple Judaism.[154][155] An early Jewish Christian community was founded in Jerusalem under the leadership of the Pillars of the Church, namely James the Just, the brother of the Lord, Peter, and John.[156]
+
+Jewish Christianity soon attracted Gentile God-fearers, posing a problem for its Jewish religious outlook, which insisted on close observance of the Jewish commands. Paul the Apostle solved this by insisting that salvation by faith in Christ, and participation in his death and resurrection, sufficed.[157] At first he persecuted the early Christians, but after a conversion experience he preached to the gentiles, and is regarded as having had a formative effect on the emerging Christian identity as separate from Judaism. Eventually, his departure from Jewish customs would result in the establishment of Christianity as an independent religion.[158]
+
+This formative period was followed by the early bishops, whom Christians consider the successors of Christ's apostles. From the year 150, Christian teachers began to produce theological and apologetic works aimed at defending the faith. These authors are known as the Church Fathers, and the study of them is called patristics. Notable early Fathers include Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria and Origen.
+
+According to the New Testament, Christians were from the beginning, subject to persecution by some Jewish and Roman religious authorities. This involved punishments, including death, for Christians such as Stephen[Acts 7:59] and James, son of Zebedee.[Acts 12:2] Further widespread persecution of the Church occurred under nine subsequent Roman emperors, most intensely under Decius and Diocletian.
+
+Christianity spread to Aramaic-speaking peoples along the Mediterranean coast and also to the inland parts of the Roman Empire and beyond that into the Parthian Empire and the later Sasanian Empire, including Mesopotamia, which was dominated at different times and to varying extents by these empires.[159] The presence of Christianity in Africa began in the middle of the 1st century in Egypt and by the end of the 2nd century in the region around Carthage. Mark the Evangelist is claimed to have started the Church of Alexandria in about 43 CE; various later churches claim this as their own legacy, including the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.[160][161][162] Important Africans who influenced the early development of Christianity include Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen of Alexandria, Cyprian, Athanasius, and Augustine of Hippo.
+
+King Tiridates III made Christianity the state religion in Armenia between 301 and 314[81][163][164], thus Armenia became the first officially Christian state. It was not an entirely new religion in Armenia, having penetrated into the country from at least the third century, but it may have been present even earlier.[165]
+
+Constantine I was exposed to Christianity in his youth, and throughout his life his support for the religion grew, culminating in baptism on his deathbed.[166] During his reign, state-sanctioned persecution of Christians was ended with the Edict of Toleration in 311 and the Edict of Milan in 313. At that point, Christianity was still a minority belief, comprising perhaps only five percent of the Roman population.[167] Influenced by his adviser Mardonius, Constantine's nephew Julian unsuccessfully tried to suppress Christianity.[168] On 27 February 380, Theodosius I, Gratian, and Valentinian II established Nicene Christianity as the State church of the Roman Empire.[169] As soon as it became connected to the state, Christianity grew wealthy; the Church solicited donations from the rich and could now own land.[170]
+
+Constantine was also instrumental in the convocation of the First Council of Nicaea in 325, which sought to address Arianism and formulated the Nicene Creed, which is still used by in Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and many other Protestant churches.[171][36] Nicaea was the first of a series of ecumenical councils, which formally defined critical elements of the theology of the Church, notably concerning Christology.[172] The Church of the East did not accept the third and following ecumenical councils and is still separate today by its successors (Assyrian Church of the East).
+
+In terms of prosperity and cultural life, the Byzantine Empire was one of the peaks in Christian history and Christian civilization,[173] and Constantinople remained the leading city of the Christian world in size, wealth, and culture.[174] There was a renewed interest in classical Greek philosophy, as well as an increase in literary output in vernacular Greek.[175] Byzantine art and literature held a preeminent place in Europe, and the cultural impact of Byzantine art on the West during this period was enormous and of long-lasting significance.[176] The later rise of Islam in North Africa reduced the size and numbers of Christian congregations, leaving in large numbers only the Coptic Church in Egypt, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in the Horn of Africa and the Nubian Church in the Sudan (Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia).
+
+With the decline and fall of the Roman Empire in the West, the papacy became a political player, first visible in Pope Leo's diplomatic dealings with Huns and Vandals.[177] The church also entered into a long period of missionary activity and expansion among the various tribes. While Arianists instituted the death penalty for practicing pagans (see the Massacre of Verden, for example), what would later become Catholicism also spread among the Hungarians, the Germanic,[177] the Celtic, the Baltic and some Slavic peoples.
+
+Around 500, St. Benedict set out his Monastic Rule, establishing a system of regulations for the foundation and running of monasteries.[177] Monasticism became a powerful force throughout Europe,[177] and gave rise to many early centers of learning, most famously in Ireland, Scotland, and Gaul, contributing to the Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th century.
+
+In the 7th century, Muslims conquered Syria (including Jerusalem), North Africa, and Spain, converting some of the Christian population to Islam, and placing the rest under a separate legal status. Part of the Muslims' success was due to the exhaustion of the Byzantine Empire in its decades long conflict with Persia.[178] Beginning in the 8th century, with the rise of Carolingian leaders, the Papacy sought greater political support in the Frankish Kingdom.[179]
+
+The Middle Ages brought about major changes within the church. Pope Gregory the Great dramatically reformed the ecclesiastical structure and administration.[180] In the early 8th century, iconoclasm became a divisive issue, when it was sponsored by the Byzantine emperors. The Second Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (787) finally pronounced in favor of icons.[181] In the early 10th century, Western Christian monasticism was further rejuvenated through the leadership of the great Benedictine monastery of Cluny.[182]
+
+In the West, from the 11th century onward, some older cathedral schools became universities (see, for example, University of Oxford, University of Paris and University of Bologna). Previously, higher education had been the domain of Christian cathedral schools or monastic schools (Scholae monasticae), led by monks and nuns. Evidence of such schools dates back to the 6th century CE.[183] These new universities expanded the curriculum to include academic programs for clerics, lawyers, civil servants, and physicians.[184] The university is generally regarded as an institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting.[185]
+
+Accompanying the rise of the "new towns" throughout Europe, mendicant orders were founded, bringing the consecrated religious life out of the monastery and into the new urban setting. The two principal mendicant movements were the Franciscans[186] and the Dominicans,[187] founded by St. Francis and St. Dominic, respectively. Both orders made significant contributions to the development of the great universities of Europe. Another new order was the Cistercians, whose large isolated monasteries spearheaded the settlement of former wilderness areas. In this period, church building and ecclesiastical architecture reached new heights, culminating in the orders of Romanesque and Gothic architecture and the building of the great European cathedrals.[188]
+
+Christian nationalism emerged during this era in which Christians felt the impulse to recover lands in which Christianity had historically flourished.[189] From 1095 under the pontificate of Urban II, the Crusades were launched.[190] These were a series of military campaigns in the Holy Land and elsewhere, initiated in response to pleas from the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I for aid against Turkish expansion. The Crusades ultimately failed to stifle Islamic aggression and even contributed to Christian enmity with the sacking of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.[191]
+
+The Christian Church experienced internal conflict between the 7th and 13th centuries that resulted in a schism between the so-called Latin or Western Christian branch (the Catholic Church),[192] and an Eastern, largely Greek, branch (the Eastern Orthodox Church). The two sides disagreed on a number of administrative, liturgical and doctrinal issues, most notably papal primacy of jurisdiction.[193][194] The Second Council of Lyon (1274) and the Council of Florence (1439) attempted to reunite the churches, but in both cases, the Eastern Orthodox refused to implement the decisions, and the two principal churches remain in schism to the present day. However, the Catholic Church has achieved union with various smaller eastern churches.
+
+In the thirteenth century, a new emphasis on Jesus' suffering, exemplified by the Franciscans' preaching, had the consequence of turning worshippers' attention towards Jews, on whom Christians had placed the blame for Jesus' death. Christianity's limited tolerance of Jews was not new—Augustine of Hippo said that Jews should not be allowed to enjoy the citizenship that Christians took for granted—but the growing antipathy towards Jews was a factor that led to the expulsion of Jews from England in 1290, the first of many such expulsions in Europe.[195][196]
+
+Beginning around 1184, following the crusade against Cathar heresy,[197] various institutions, broadly referred to as the Inquisition, were established with the aim of suppressing heresy and securing religious and doctrinal unity within Christianity through conversion and prosecution.[198]
+
+The 15th-century Renaissance brought about a renewed interest in ancient and classical learning. During the Reformation, Martin Luther posted the Ninety-five Theses 1517 against the sale of indulgences.[199] Printed copies soon spread throughout Europe. In 1521 the Edict of Worms condemned and excommunicated Luther and his followers, resulting in the schism of the Western Christendom into several branches.[200]
+
+Other reformers like Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Calvin, Knox, and Arminius further criticized Catholic teaching and worship. These challenges developed into the movement called Protestantism, which repudiated the primacy of the pope, the role of tradition, the seven sacraments, and other doctrines and practices.[199] The Reformation in England began in 1534, when King Henry VIII had himself declared head of the Church of England. Beginning in 1536, the monasteries throughout England, Wales and Ireland were dissolved.[201]
+
+Thomas Müntzer, Andreas Karlstadt and other theologians perceived both the Catholic Church and the confessions of the Magisterial Reformation as corrupted. Their activity brought about the Radical Reformation, which gave birth to various Anabaptist denominations.
+
+Partly in response to the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church engaged in a substantial process of reform and renewal, known as the Counter-Reformation or Catholic Reform.[205] The Council of Trent clarified and reasserted Catholic doctrine. During the following centuries, competition between Catholicism and Protestantism became deeply entangled with political struggles among European states.[206]
+
+Meanwhile, the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492 brought about a new wave of missionary activity. Partly from missionary zeal, but under the impetus of colonial expansion by the European powers, Christianity spread to the Americas, Oceania, East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
+
+Throughout Europe, the division caused by the Reformation led to outbreaks of religious violence and the establishment of separate state churches in Europe. Lutheranism spread into the northern, central, and eastern parts of present-day Germany, Livonia, and Scandinavia. Anglicanism was established in England in 1534. Calvinism and its varieties, such as Presbyterianism, were introduced in Scotland, the Netherlands, Hungary, Switzerland, and France. Arminianism gained followers in the Netherlands and Frisia. Ultimately, these differences led to the outbreak of conflicts in which religion played a key factor. The Thirty Years' War, the English Civil War, and the French Wars of Religion are prominent examples. These events intensified the Christian debate on persecution and toleration.[207]
+
+In the era known as the Great Divergence, when in the West, the Age of Enlightenment and the scientific revolution brought about great societal changes, Christianity was confronted with various forms of skepticism and with certain modern political ideologies, such as versions of socialism and liberalism.[208] Events ranged from mere anti-clericalism to violent outbursts against Christianity, such as the dechristianization of France during the French Revolution,[209] the Spanish Civil War, and certain Marxist movements, especially the Russian Revolution and the persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union under state atheism.[210][211][212][213]
+
+Especially pressing in Europe was the formation of nation states after the Napoleonic era. In all European countries, different Christian denominations found themselves in competition to greater or lesser extents with each other and with the state. Variables were the relative sizes of the denominations and the religious, political, and ideological orientation of the states. Urs Altermatt of the University of Fribourg, looking specifically at Catholicism in Europe, identifies four models for the European nations. In traditionally Catholic-majority countries such as Belgium, Spain, and Austria, to some extent, religious and national communities are more or less identical. Cultural symbiosis and separation are found in Poland, the Republic of Ireland, and Switzerland, all countries with competing denominations. Competition is found in Germany, the Netherlands, and again Switzerland, all countries with minority Catholic populations, which to a greater or lesser extent identified with the nation. Finally, separation between religion (again, specifically Catholicism) and the state is found to a great degree in France and Italy, countries where the state actively opposed itself to the authority of the Catholic Church.[214]
+
+The combined factors of the formation of nation states and ultramontanism, especially in Germany and the Netherlands, but also in England to a much lesser extent,[215] often forced Catholic churches, organizations, and believers to choose between the national demands of the state and the authority of the Church, specifically the papacy. This conflict came to a head in the First Vatican Council, and in Germany would lead directly to the Kulturkampf, where liberals and Protestants under the leadership of Bismarck managed to severely restrict Catholic expression and organization.
+
+Christian commitment in Europe dropped as modernity and secularism came into their own,[216] particularly in Czechia and Estonia,[217] while religious commitments in America have been generally high in comparison to Europe. The late 20th century has shown the shift of Christian adherence to the Third World and the Southern Hemisphere in general,[218][219] with the West no longer the chief standard bearer of Christianity. Approximately 7 to 10% of Arabs are Christians,[220] most prevalent in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.
+
+With around 2.4 billion adherents,[221][222] split into three main branches of Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox, Christianity is the world's largest religion.[223] The Christian share of the world's population has stood at around 33% for the last hundred years, which means that one in three persons on Earth are Christians. This masks a major shift in the demographics of Christianity; large increases in the developing world have been accompanied by substantial declines in the developed world, mainly in Europe and North America.[224] According to a 2015 Pew Research Center study, within the next four decades, Christians will remain the world's largest religion; and by 2050, the Christian population is expected to exceed 3 billion.[225]:60
+
+As a percentage of Christians, the Catholic Church and Orthodoxy (both Eastern and Oriental) are declining in parts of the world (though Catholicism is growing in Asia, in Africa, vibrant in Eastern Europe, etc.), while Protestants and other Christians are on the rise in the developing world.[226][227][228] The so-called popular Protestantism[note 6] is one of the fastest growing religious categories in the world.[229][230] Nevertheless, Catholicism will also continue to grow to 1.63 billion by 2050, according to Todd Johnson of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity.[231] Africa alone, by 2015, will be home to 230 million African Catholics.[232] And if in 2018, the U.N. projects that Africa's population will reach 4.5 billion by 2100 (not 2 billion as predicted in 2004), Catholicism will indeed grow, as will other religious groups.[233]
+
+Christianity is the predominant religion in Europe, the Americas, and Southern Africa.[15] In Asia, it is the dominant religion in Georgia, Armenia, East Timor, and the Philippines.[234] However, it is declining in many areas including the Northern and Western United States,[235] Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), northern Europe (including Great Britain,[236] Scandinavia and other places), France, Germany, and the Canadian provinces of Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec, and parts of Asia (especially the Middle East, due to the Christian emigration,[237][238][239] South Korea,[240] Taiwan,[241] and Macau[242]).
+
+The Christian population is not decreasing in Brazil, the Southern United States,[243] and the province of Alberta, Canada,[244] but the percentage is decreasing. In countries such as Australia[245] and New Zealand,[246] the Christian population are declining in both numbers and percentage.
+
+Despite the declining numbers, Christianity remains the dominant religion in the Western World, where 70% are Christians.[15] A 2011 Pew Research Center survey found that 76% of Europeans, 73% in Oceania and about 86% in the Americas (90% in Latin America and 77% in North America) identified themselves as Christians.[15][247][248][249] By 2010 about 157 countries and territories in the world had Christian majorities.[223]
+
+However, there are many charismatic movements that have become well established over large parts of the world, especially Africa, Latin America, and Asia.[250][251][252][253][254] Since 1900, primarily due to conversion, Protestantism has spread rapidly in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Latin America.[255] From 1960 to 2000, the global growth of the number of reported Evangelical Protestants grew three times the world's population rate, and twice that of Islam.[256] A study conducted by St. Mary's University estimated about 10.2 million Muslim converts to Christianity in 2015.[257] The results also state that significant numbers of Muslims converts to Christianity in Afghanistan,[258] Albania,[257] Azerbaijan,[259][260] Algeria,[261][262] Belgium,[263] France,[262] Germany,[264] Iran,[265] India,[262] Indonesia,[266] Malaysia,[267] Morocco,[262][268] Russia,[262] the Netherlands,[269] Saudi Arabia,[270] Tunisia,[257] Turkey,[262][271][272][273] Kazakhstan,[274] Kyrgyzstan,[257] Kosovo,[275] the United States,[276] and Central Asia.[277][278] It is also reported that Christianity is popular among people of different backgrounds in India (mostly Hindus),[279][280] and Malaysia,[281] Mongolia,[282] Nigeria,[283] Vietnam,[284] Singapore,[285] Indonesia,[286][287] China,[288] Japan,[289] and South Korea.[290]
+
+In most countries in the developed world, church attendance among people who continue to identify themselves as Christians has been falling over the last few decades.[291] Some sources view this simply as part of a drift away from traditional membership institutions,[292] while others link it to signs of a decline in belief in the importance of religion in general.[293] Europe's Christian population, though in decline, still constitutes the largest geographical component of the religion.[294] According to data from the 2012 European Social Survey, around a third of European Christians say they attend services once a month or more,[295] Conversely about more than two-thirds of Latin American Christians; according to the World Values Survey, about 90% of African Christians (in Ghana, Nigeria, Rwand], South Africa and Zimbabwe) said they attended church regularly.[295]
+
+Christianity, in one form or another, is the sole state religion of the following nations: Argentina (Catholic),[296] Tuvalu (Reformed), Tonga (Methodist), Norway (Lutheran),[297][298][299] Costa Rica (Catholic),[300] the Kingdom of Denmark (Lutheran),[301] England (Anglican),[302] Georgia (Georgian Orthodox),[303] Greece (Greek Orthodox),[304] Iceland (Lutheran),[305] Liechtenstein (Catholic),[306] Malta (Catholic),[307] Monaco (Catholic),[308] and Vatican City (Catholic).[309]
+
+There are numerous other countries, such as Cyprus, which although do not have an established church, still give official recognition and support to a specific Christian denomination.[310]
+
+
+
+
+
+Countries with 50% or more Christians are colored purple; countries with 10% to 50% Christians are colored pink
+
+Nations with Christianity as their state religion are in blue
+
+Distribution of Catholics
+
+Distribution of Protestants
+
+Distribution of Eastern Orthodox
+
+Distribution of Oriental Orthodox
+
+Distribution of other Christians
+
+The four primary divisions of Christianity are the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, and Protestantism.[40]:14[314] A broader distinction that is sometimes drawn is between Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity, which has its origins in the East–West Schism (Great Schism) of the 11th century. Recently, neither Western or Eastern World Christianity has also stood out, for example, African-initiated churches. However, there are other present[315] and historical[316] Christian groups that do not fit neatly into one of these primary categories.
+
+There is a diversity of doctrines and liturgical practices among groups calling themselves Christian. These groups may vary ecclesiologically in their views on a classification of Christian denominations.[317] The Nicene Creed (325), however, is typically accepted as authoritative by most Christians, including the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and major Protestant (including Anglican) denominations.[318]
+
+
+
+The Catholic Church consists of those particular churches, headed by bishops, in communion with the pope, the bishop of Rome, as its highest authority in matters of faith, morality, and Church governance.[319][320] Like Eastern Orthodoxy, the Catholic Church, through apostolic succession, traces its origins to the Christian community founded by Jesus Christ.[321][322] Catholics maintain that the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church" founded by Jesus subsists fully in the Catholic Church, but also acknowledges other Christian churches and communities[323][324] and works towards reconciliation among all Christians.[323] The Catholic faith is detailed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.[325][326]
+
+As the world's oldest and largest continuously functioning international institution,[327] it has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization.[328] The 2,834 sees[329] are grouped into 24 particular autonomous Churches (the largest of which being the Latin Church), each with its own distinct traditions regarding the liturgy and the administering of sacraments.[330] With more than 1.1 billion baptized members, the Catholic Church is the largest Christian church and represents 50.1%[15] all Christians as well as one sixth of the world's population.[331][332][333]
+
+The Eastern Orthodox Church consists of those churches in communion with the patriarchal sees of the East, such as the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.[334] Like the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church also traces its heritage to the foundation of Christianity through apostolic succession and has an episcopal structure, though the autonomy of its component parts is emphasized, and most of them are national churches.
+
+A number of conflicts with Western Christianity over questions of doctrine and authority culminated in the Great Schism. Eastern Orthodoxy is the second largest single denomination in Christianity, with an estimated 230 million adherents, although Protestants collectively outnumber them, substantially.[15][13][335] As one of the oldest surviving religious institutions in the world, the Eastern Orthodox Church has played a prominent role in the history and culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, the Caucasus, and the Near East.[336]
+
+The Oriental Orthodox Churches (also called "Old Oriental" churches) are those eastern churches that recognize the first three ecumenical councils—Nicaea, Constantinople, and Ephesus—but reject the dogmatic definitions of the Council of Chalcedon and instead espouse a Miaphysite christology.
+
+The Oriental Orthodox communion consists of six groups: Syriac Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, Eritrean Orthodox, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (India), and Armenian Apostolic churches.[337] These six churches, while being in communion with each other, are completely independent hierarchically.[338] These churches are generally not in communion with Eastern Orthodox Church, with whom they are in dialogue for erecting a communion.[339] And together have about 62 million members worldwide.[340][341][342]
+
+The Assyrian Church of the East, with an unbroken patriarchate established in the 17th century, is an independent Eastern Christian denomination which claims continuity from the Church of the East—in parallel to the Catholic patriarchate established in the 16th century that evolved into the Chaldean Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic church in full communion with the Pope. It is an Eastern Christian church that follows the traditional christology and ecclesiology of the historical Church of the East. Largely aniconic and not in communion with any other church, it belongs to the eastern branch of Syriac Christianity, and uses the East Syriac Rite in its liturgy.[343]
+
+Its main spoken language is Syriac, a dialect of Eastern Aramaic, and the majority of its adherents are ethnic Assyrians. It is officially headquartered in the city of Erbil in northern Iraqi Kurdistan, and its original area also spreads into south-eastern Turkey and north-western Iran, corresponding to ancient Assyria. Its hierarchy is composed of metropolitan bishops and diocesan bishops, while lower clergy consists of priests and deacons, who serve in dioceses (eparchies) and parishes throughout the Middle East, India, North America, Oceania, and Europe (including the Caucasus and Russia).[344]
+
+The Ancient Church of the East distinguished itself from the Assyrian Church of the East in 1964. It is one of the Assyrian churches that claim continuity with the historical Patriarchate of Seleucia-Ctesiphon—the Church of the East, one of the oldest Christian churches in Mesopotamia.[345]
+
+In 1521, the Edict of Worms condemned Martin Luther and officially banned citizens of the Holy Roman Empire from defending or propagating his ideas.[346] This split within the Roman Catholic church is now called the Reformation. Prominent Reformers included Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, and John Calvin. The 1529 Protestation at Speyer against being excommunicated gave this party the name Protestantism. Luther's primary theological heirs are known as Lutherans. Zwingli and Calvin's heirs are far broader denominationally, and are referred to as the Reformed tradition.[347] Protestants have developed their own culture, with major contributions in education, the humanities and sciences, the political and social order, the economy and the arts, and many other fields.[348]
+
+The Anglican churches descended from the Church of England and organized in the Anglican Communion. Some, but not all Anglicans consider themselves both Protestant and Catholic.[349][350]
+
+Since the Anglican, Lutheran, and the Reformed branches of Protestantism originated for the most part in cooperation with the government, these movements are termed the  "Magisterial Reformation". On the other hand, groups such as the Anabaptists, who often do not consider themselves to be Protestant, originated in the Radical Reformation, which though sometimes protected under Acts of Toleration, do not trace their history back to any state church. They are further distinguished by their rejection of infant baptism; they believe in baptism only of adult believers—credobaptism (Anabaptists include the Amish, Apostolic, Mennonites, Hutterites and Schwarzenau Brethren/German Baptist groups.)[351][352][353]
+
+The term Protestant also refers to any churches which formed later, with either the Magisterial or Radical traditions. In the 18th century, for example, Methodism grew out of Anglican minister John Wesley's evangelical and revival movement.[354] Several Pentecostal and non-denominational churches, which emphasize the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit, in turn grew out of Methodism.[355] Because Methodists, Pentecostals and other evangelicals stress "accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior",[356] which comes from Wesley's emphasis of the New Birth,[357] they often refer to themselves as being born-again.[358][359]
+
+Protestantism is the second largest major group of Christians after Catholicism by number of followers, although the Eastern Orthodox Church is larger than any single Protestant denomination.[332] Estimates vary, mainly over the question of which denominations to classify as Protestant. Yet, the total number of Protestant Christians is  generally estimated between 800 million and 1 billion, corresponding to nearly 40% of world's Christians.[13][226][360][361] The majority of Protestants are members of just a handful of denominational families, i.e. Adventists, Anglicans, Baptists, Reformed (Calvinists),[362] Lutherans, Methodists, and Pentecostals.[226] Nondenominational, evangelical, charismatic, neo-charismatic, independent, and other churches are on the rise, and constitute a significant part of Protestant Christianity.[363]
+
+Some groups of individuals who hold basic Protestant tenets identify themselves simply as "Christians" or "born-again Christians". They typically distance themselves from the confessionalism and creedalism of other Christian communities[364] by calling themselves "non-denominational" or "evangelical". Often founded by individual pastors, they have little affiliation with historic denominations.[365]
+
+The Second Great Awakening, a period of religious revival that occurred in the United States during the early 1800s, saw the development of a number of unrelated churches. They generally saw themselves as restoring the original church of Jesus Christ rather than reforming one of the existing churches.[366] A common belief held by Restorationists was that the other divisions of Christianity had introduced doctrinal defects into Christianity, which was known as the Great Apostasy.[367] In Asia, Iglesia ni Cristo is a known restorationist religion that was established during the early 1900s.
+
+Some of the churches originating during this period are historically connected to early 19th-century camp meetings in the Midwest and upstate New York. One of the largest churches produced from the movement is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[368] American Millennialism and Adventism, which arose from Evangelical Protestantism, influenced the Jehovah's Witnesses movement and, as a reaction specifically to William Miller, the Seventh-day Adventists. Others, including the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Evangelical Christian Church in Canada,[369][370] Churches of Christ, and the Christian churches and churches of Christ, have their roots in the contemporaneous Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement, which was centered in Kentucky and Tennessee. Other groups originating in this time period include the Christadelphians and the previously mentioned Latter Day Saints movement. While the churches originating in the Second Great Awakening have some superficial similarities, their doctrine and practices vary significantly.[citation needed]
+
+Various smaller Independent Catholic communities, such as the Old Catholic Church, include the word Catholic in their title, and arguably have more or less liturgical practices in common with the Catholic Church, but are no longer in full communion with the Holy See.
+
+Spiritual Christians, such as the Doukhobor and Molokan, broke from the Russian Orthodox Church and maintain close association with Mennonites and Quakers due to similar religious practices; all of these groups are furthermore collectively considered to be peace churches due to their belief in pacifism.[371][372]
+
+Messianic Judaism (or the Messianic Movement) is the name of a Christian movement comprising a number of streams, whose members may consider themselves Jewish. The movement originated in the 1960s and 1970s, and it blends elements of religious Jewish practice with evangelical Christianity. Messianic Judaism affirms Christian creeds such as the messiahship and divinity of "Yeshua" (the Hebrew name of Jesus) and the Triune Nature of God, while also adhering to some Jewish dietary laws and customs.[373]
+
+Esoteric Christians regard Christianity as a mystery religion,[374][375] and profess the existence and possession of certain esoteric doctrines or practices,[376][377] hidden from the public but accessible only to a narrow circle of "enlightened", "initiated", or highly educated people.[378][379] Some of the esoteric Christian institutions include the Rosicrucian Fellowship, the Anthroposophical Society, and Martinism.
+
+Western culture, throughout most of its history, has been nearly equivalent to Christian culture, and a large portion of the population of the Western Hemisphere can be described as practicing or nominal Christians. The notion of "Europe" and the "Western World" has been intimately connected with the concept of "Christianity and Christendom". Many even attribute Christianity for being the link that created a unified European identity.[380]
+
+Though Western culture contained several polytheistic religions during its early years under the Greek and Roman empires, as the centralized Roman power waned, the dominance of the Catholic Church was the only consistent force in Western Europe.[381] Until the Age of Enlightenment,[382] Christian culture guided the course of philosophy, literature, art, music and science.[381][383] Christian disciplines of the respective arts have subsequently developed into Christian philosophy, Christian art, Christian music, Christian literature, etc.
+
+Christianity has had a significant impact on education, as the church created the bases of the Western system of education,[384] and was the sponsor of founding universities in the Western world, as the university is generally regarded as an institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting.[185] Historically, Christianity has often been a patron of science and medicine; many Catholic clergy,[385] Jesuits in particular,[386][387] have been active in the sciences throughout history and have made significant contributions to the development of science.[388] Protestantism also has had an important influence on science. According to the Merton Thesis, there was a positive correlation between the rise of English Puritanism and German Pietism on the one hand, and early experimental science on the other.[389] The civilizing influence of Christianity includes social welfare,[390] founding hospitals,[391] economics (as the Protestant work ethic),[392][393][394] architecture,[395] politics,[396] literature,[397] personal hygiene (ablution),[398][399][400] and family life.[401][402]
+
+Eastern Christians (particularly Nestorian Christians) contributed to the Arab Islamic civilization during the reign of the Ummayad and the Abbasid, by translating works of Greek philosophers to Syriac and afterwards, to Arabic.[403][404][405] They also excelled in philosophy, science, theology, and medicine.[406][407][408]
+
+Christians have made a myriad of contributions to human progress in a broad and diverse range of fields,[409] including philosophy,[410][411] science and technology,[412][413][414][415][416][417] fine arts and architecture,[418] politics, literatures, music,[419] and business.[420] According to 100 Years of Nobel Prizes a review of the Nobel Prizes award between 1901 and 2000 reveals that (65.4%) of Nobel Prizes Laureates, have identified Christianity in its various forms as their religious preference.[421]
+
+Postchristianity[422] is the term for the decline of Christianity, particularly in Europe, Canada, Australia, and to a minor degree the Southern Cone, in the 20th and 21st centuries, considered in terms of postmodernism. It refers to the loss of Christianity's monopoly on values and world view in historically Christian societies.
+
+Cultural Christians are secular people with a Christian heritage who may not believe in the religious claims of Christianity, but who retain an affinity for the popular culture, art, music, and so on related to the religion.[423]
+
+Christian groups and denominations have long expressed ideals of being reconciled, and in the 20th century, Christian ecumenism advanced in two ways.[424] One way was greater cooperation between groups, such as the World Evangelical Alliance founded in 1846 in London or the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of Protestants in 1910, the Justice, Peace and Creation Commission of the World Council of Churches founded in 1948 by Protestant and Orthodox churches, and similar national councils like the National Council of Churches in Australia, which includes Catholics.[424]
+
+The other way was an institutional union with united churches, a practice that can be traced back to unions between Lutherans and Calvinists in early 19th-century Germany. Congregationalist, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches united in 1925 to form the United Church of Canada,[425] and in 1977 to form the Uniting Church in Australia. The Church of South India was formed in 1947 by the union of Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, Congregationalist, and Presbyterian churches.[426]
+
+The ecumenical, monastic Taizé Community is notable for being composed of more than one hundred brothers from Protestant and Catholic traditions.[427] The community emphasizes the reconciliation of all denominations and its main church, located in Taizé, Saône-et-Loire, France, is named the "Church of Reconciliation".[427] The community is internationally known, attracting over 100,000 young pilgrims annually.[428]
+
+Steps towards reconciliation on a global level were taken in 1965 by the Catholic and Orthodox churches, mutually revoking the excommunications that marked their Great Schism in 1054;[429] the Anglican Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) working towards full communion between those churches since 1970;[430] and some Lutheran and Catholic churches signing the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in 1999 to address conflicts at the root of the Protestant Reformation. In 2006, the World Methodist Council, representing all Methodist denominations, adopted the declaration.[431]
+
+Criticism of Christianity and Christians goes back to the Apostolic Age, with the New Testament recording friction between the followers of Jesus and the Pharisees and scribes (e.g. Matthew 15:1–20 and Mark 7:1–23).[432] In the 2nd century, Christianity was criticized by the Jews on various grounds, e.g. that the prophecies of the Hebrew Bible could not have been fulfilled by Jesus, given that he did not have a successful life.[433] Additionally, a sacrifice to remove sins in advance, for everyone or as a human being, did not fit to the Jewish sacrifice ritual; furthermore, God is said to judge people on their deeds instead of their beliefs.[434][435] One of the first comprehensive attacks on Christianity came from the Greek philosopher Celsus, who wrote The True Word, a polemic criticizing Christians as being unprofitable members of society.[436][437][438] In response, the church father Origen published his treatise Contra Celsum, or Against Celsus, a seminal work of Christian apologetics, which systematically addressed Celsus's criticisms and helped bring Christianity a level of academic respectability.[439][438]
+
+By the 3rd century, criticism of Christianity had mounted. Wild rumors about Christians were widely circulated, claiming that they were atheists and that, as part of their rituals, they devoured human infants and engaged in incestuous orgies.[440][441] The Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry wrote the fifteen-volume Adversus Christianos as a comprehensive attack on Christianity, in part building on the teachings of Plotinus.[442][443]
+
+By the 12th century, the Mishneh Torah (i.e., Rabbi Moses Maimonides) was criticizing Christianity on the grounds of idol worship, in that Christians attributed divinity to Jesus, who had a physical body.[444] In the 19th century, Nietzsche began to write a series of polemics on the "unnatural" teachings of Christianity (e.g. sexual abstinence), and continued his criticism of Christianity to the end of his life.[445] In the 20th century, the philosopher Bertrand Russell expressed his criticism of Christianity in Why I Am Not a Christian, formulating his rejection of Christianity in the setting of logical arguments.[446]
+
+Criticism of Christianity continues to date, e.g. Jewish and Muslim theologians criticize the doctrine of the Trinity held by most Christians, stating that this doctrine in effect assumes that there are three gods, running against the basic tenet of monotheism.[447] New Testament scholar Robert M. Price has outlined the possibility that some Bible stories are based partly on myth in The Christ Myth Theory and its problems.[448]
+
+Christians are one of the most persecuted religious group in the world, especially in the Middle-East, North Africa and South and East Asia.[449] In 2017, Open Doors estimated approximately 260 million Christians are subjected annually to "high, very high, or extreme persecution"[450] with North Korea considered the most hazardous nation for Christians.[451][452] In 2019, a report[453][454] commissioned by the United Kingdom's Secretary of State of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to investigate global persecution of Christians found persecution has increased, and is highest in the Middle East, North Africa, India, China, North Korea, and Latin America,[clarification needed]  among others,[455] and that it is global and not limited to Islamic states.[454] This investigation found that approximately 80% of persecuted believers worldwide are Christians.[18]
+
+Christian apologetics aims to present a rational basis for Christianity. The word "apologetic" (Greek: ἀπολογητικός apologētikos) comes from the Greek verb ἀπολογέομαι apologeomai, meaning "(I) speak in defense of".[456] Christian apologetics has taken many forms over the centuries, starting with Paul the Apostle. The philosopher Thomas Aquinas presented five arguments for God's existence in the Summa Theologica, while his Summa contra Gentiles was a major apologetic work.[457][458] Another famous apologist, G. K. Chesterton, wrote in the early twentieth century about the benefits of religion and, specifically, Christianity. Famous for his use of paradox, Chesterton explained that while Christianity had the most mysteries, it was the most practical religion.[459][460] He pointed to the advance of Christian civilizations as proof of its practicality.[461] The physicist and priest John Polkinghorne, in his Questions of Truth, discusses the subject of religion and science, a topic that other Christian apologists such as Ravi Zacharias, John Lennox, and William Lane Craig have engaged, with the latter two men opining that the inflationary Big Bang model is evidence for the existence of God.[462]
+
+Hence all the power of magic became dissolved; and every bond of wickedness was destroyed, men's ignorance was taken away, and the old kingdom abolished God Himself appearing in the form of a man, for the renewal of eternal life.
+
+We have also as a Physician the Lord our God Jesus the Christ the only-begotten Son and Word, before time began, but who afterwards became also man, of Mary the virgin. For 'the Word was made flesh.' Being incorporeal, He was in the body; being impassible, He was in a passable body; being immortal, He was in a mortal body; being life, He became subject to corruption, that He might free our souls from death and corruption, and heal them, and might restore them to health, when they were diseased with ungodliness and wicked lusts
+
+The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: ...one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father 'to gather all things in one,' and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Savior, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, 'every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess; to him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all...
+
+For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water

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+
+
+Albinism is the "congenital absence of any pigmentation or coloration in a person, animal or plant, resulting in white hair, feathers, scales and skin and pink eyes in mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish and invertebrates as well."[1] Varied use and interpretation of the terms mean that written reports of albinistic animals can be difficult to verify.  Albinism can reduce the survivability of an animal; for example, it has been suggested that albino alligators have an average survival span of only 24 hours due to the lack of protection from UV radiation and their lack of camouflage to avoid predators.[2] It is a common misconception that all albino animals have characteristic pink or red eyes (resulting from the lack of pigment in the iris allowing the blood vessels of the retina to be visible), however this is not the case for some forms of albinism.[3] Familiar albino animals include in-bred strains of laboratory animals (rats, mice and rabbits), but populations of naturally occurring albino animals exist in the wild, e.g. Mexican cave tetra.  Albinism is a well-recognized phenomenon in molluscs, both in the shell and in the soft parts.  It has been claimed by some, e.g.[4] that "albinism" can occur for a number of reasons aside from inheritance, including genetic mutations, diet, living conditions, age, disease, or injury.  However, this is contrary to definitions where the condition is inherited.
+
+Oculocutaneous albinism (OCA) is a clearly defined set of seven types of genetic mutations which reduce or completely prevent the synthesis of eumelanin or pheomelanin, resulting in reduced pigmentation.[5] Type I oculocutaneous albinism (OCA1a) is the form most commonly recognised as 'albino' as this results in a complete absence of melanin in the skin, hair/fur/feathers, and pink pupils, however this has led many to assume that all albinos are pure white with pink pupils, which is not the case.[6][7][5]
+
+In plants, albinism is characterised by partial or complete loss of chlorophyll pigments and incomplete differentiation of chloroplast membranes. Albinism in plants interferes with photosynthesis, which can reduce survivability.[8] Some plant variations may have white flowers or other parts.  However, these plants are not totally devoid of chlorophyll. Terms associated with this phenomenon are "hypochromia" and "albiflora".[9]
+
+Biological pigments are substances produced by living organisms that have a colour resulting from selective colour absorption. What we perceive as "colour" are the wavelengths of light that are not absorbed by the pigment, but instead are reflected.  Biological pigments include plant pigments and flower pigments.
+
+Animals can appear colored due to two mechanisms, pigments and structural colors. Animals may have both biological pigments and structural colors, for example, some butterflies with white wings.
+
+Many animal body-parts, such as skin, eyes, feathers, fur, hair, scales and cuticles, contain pigments in specialized cells called chromatophores.  These cells are found in a wide range of animals including amphibians, fish, reptiles, crustaceans and cephalopods. Mammals and birds, in contrast, have a class of cells called melanocytes for colouration.  The term chromatophore can also refer to coloured, membrane-associated vesicles found in some forms of photosynthetic bacteria.  Chromatophores are largely responsible for generating skin and eye colour in poikilothermic animals and are generated in the neural crest during embryonic development. Mature chromatophores are grouped into subclasses based on their colour under white light:
+
+Animals can also appear coloured due to structural colour, the result of coherent scattering[10] perceived as iridescence. The structures themselves are colourless.  Light typically passes through multiple layers and is reflected more than once. The multiple reflections compound one another and intensify the colours.  Structural colour differs according to the observer's position whereas pigments appear the same regardless of the angle-of-view. Animals that show iridescence include mother of pearl seashells, fish, and peacocks.  These are just a few examples of animals with this quality, but it is most pronounced in the butterfly family.
+
+The primary function of pigments in plants is photosynthesis, which uses the green pigment chlorophyll along with several red and yellow pigments including porphyrins, carotenoids, anthocyanins and betalains.
+
+Definitions of albinism vary and are inconsistent.  While they are clear and precise for humans and other mammals, this is because the majority of mammals have only one pigment, melanin.  Many animals have pigments other than melanin, and some also have structural colours.  Some definitions of albinism, whilst taking most taxa into account, ignore others.  So, "a person or animal with very pale skin, white hair or fur, and pink eyes caused by a medical condition that they were born with"[12] and "a person or animal with white skin and hair and pink eyes"[13] do not include feathers, scales or cuticles of birds, fish and invertebrates.  Nor do they include plants. Some definitions are too broad to be of much use, e.g. "an animal or plant with a marked deficiency in pigmentation"[14]
+
+Other definitions of albinism encompass most of the major animal taxa, but ignore the several other pigments that non-mammalian animals have and also structural colouration.  For example, "Absence of the pigment melanin in the eyes, skin, hair, scales, or feathers."[15] refers only to the pigment melanin.
+
+Because of the various uses of different terms applied to colouration, some authors have indicated that the colour of the eyes is the defining characteristic of albinism, e.g. "This leads to a good diagnostic feature with which to distinguish leucistic and albino individuals – the colour of the eye."[16] However, there are multiple forms of albinism - currently seven types recognised for humans - most of which do not result in red or pink pupils.[3]
+
+The term "partial albino" is sometimes used in the literature, however, it has been stated that "A common misnomer is ‘partial albino’ – this is not possible since albinism affects the whole plumage of a bird, not just part"[16] and the definition of albinism precludes the possibility of "partial albinism" in which a mostly white bird shows some form of melanin pigmentation. "It is simply impossible, just like being ‘partially pregnant’ ".[17] Conditions that are commonly termed "partial albino" include neural crest disorders such as piebaldism, Waardenburg syndrome, or other depigmentation conditions such as vitiligo. These conditions result from fundamentally different causes to the seven types of oculocutaneous albinism that have been identified in humans (and confirmed in some other animals) and the use of the term "partial albino" is therefore misleading.[5]
+
+One definition states that "albinism, (from the Latin albus, meaning "white"), hereditary condition characterized by the absence of pigment in the eyes, skin, hair, scales, or feathers",[18] however, this does not encompass invertebrates, nor does it include plants.  Furthermore, it could be interpreted that "...absence of pigment..." does not include an absence of structural colours.
+
+The lack of clarity about the term is furthered when the name of an animal includes the term "albino" although the animals (clearly) do not have the condition.  For example, the albino gaur has this name because it is ash-grey whereas other gaur are almost black.
+
+A clear definition appears to be – "Congenital absence of any pigmentation or coloration in a person, animal, or plant, resulting in white hair and pink eyes in mammals."[1] Whilst this does not state specifically that non-mammalian albino animals (or plants) are white, this can be inferred from "...absence of any pigmentation or coloration..."  Due to the varied use and interpretation of the term "albino", written reports of albinistic organisms can often not be verified.
+
+Melanin is an organic pigment that produces most of the colour seen in mammals. Depending on how it is created, melanin comes in two colour ranges, eumelanin (producing dark browns and blacks) and pheomelanin (producing light reddish tans and blondes). The dark and light melanins have their influence either alone or in conjunction, making either plain or multi-coloured coats.  Sometimes, in a condition called agouti, they make multi-coloured individual hairs.  The production of melanin occurs in melanocytes in a complex process involving the enzyme tyrosinase.  Mammals have a gene that codes for the presence of tyrosinase in cells – called the TYR gene.  If this gene is altered or damaged, melanin cannot be reliably produced and the mammal becomes an albino. Besides the TYR gene, several other genes can cause albinism.  This is because other hormones and proteins are involved in melanin production, the presence of which is genetically determined. In mice, a total of 100 genes are known to affect albinism.[19]
+
+All the genetic traits for albinism are recessive traits.  This means that their influence is hidden when paired with stronger traits. For the recessive albino trait to be expressed in a mammal, the offspring must inherit a recessive gene from both parents.[19]
+
+Albinism occurs throughout the animal kingdom.  The condition is most commonly seen in birds, reptiles and amphibians, but more rarely seen in mammals and other taxa. It is often difficult to explain occasional occurrences, especially when only one documented incidence has occurred, such as only one albino gorilla and one albino koala.[20] In mammals, albinism occurs once in every 10,000 births, but in birds, the rate is once in every 1,764 births.[21]
+
+Some species, such as white peacocks, swans and geese, are not believed to be true albinos, as they do not have red eyes, rather, their colouration is suggested to be the expression of a white fur or feather gene, not a lack of melanin.[22]
+
+Melanin has several functions in most mammals and other animals; these are disrupted by albinism.
+
+Melanin functions in the normal development of various parts of the eye, including the iris, retina, eye muscles, and optic nerve. The absence of melanin results in abnormal development of eyes and leads to problems with focusing, and depth perception.  The eyes of albino animals appear red because the colour of the red blood cells in the retina can be seen through the iris, which has no pigment to obscure this.  Some albino animals may have pale-blue eyes due to other colour generating processes.  Albino vertebrates exposed to intense light typically lose photoreceptors due to apoptosis.[23]
+
+In all albino mammals studied, the centre of the retina is under-developed and there is a deficit of rod cells; the central ganglion cell density is approximately 25% below normal (except for the gray squirrel).  In nearly all mammals, the overwhelming majority of photoreceptors are rods rather than cones. Albinism specifically affects the rod cells, but the number and distribution of the cones is unaffected.  In contrast, the retina of birds is cone rich meaning that the vision of albino birds is affected less than albino mammals.[24]
+
+Melanin protects the skin from ultra-violet radiation in sunlight.  Melanosomes block harmful electromagnetic radiation from the sun while allowing beneficial frequencies to enter the body.
+
+Many animals with albinism lack their protective camouflage and are therefore less able to conceal themselves from their predators or prey: The survival rate of animals with albinism in the wild can be low,[25][26] however, it has been stated that in studies where animals had many places to hide, predators captured albino and normally coloured animals at the same rate.[19] Furthermore, albino animals may be excluded from families or other groups,[21] or rejected as mates.[19]
+
+The novelty of albino animals has occasionally led to their protection by groups such as the Albino Squirrel Preservation Society.  They have also been protected in studies on their ecology and behaviour.[27]
+
+Studies on medaka fish in the laboratory, i.e. with no predators, sufficient food supply, controlled temperatures, etc., found that albinos had considerably reduced viability; from 800 albino embryos, only 29 survived to full adulthood.[28] Early studies on fish led some researchers to describe albinism as a "semi-lethal mutation".[28]
+
+Pigmentation disorders such as albinism are occasionally associated with hearing impairments in mice, rats, guinea pigs and cats.[29]
+
+Intentionally bred albinistic strains of some animal species are commonly used as model organisms in biomedical research and also as pets. Examples include the BALB/c mouse and Wistar and Sprague Dawley rat strains, laboratory rabbits and ferrets.  Albino axolotl (an amphibian) are also used widely in the laboratory as their transparent skin allows observation of the underlying tissues during limb regeneration.[30] Some researchers have argued that albino animals are not always the best choice for scientific studies due to the consequences of albinism (e.g. hearing and visual impairments).[31]
+
+Many individual albino mammals are in captivity and were caught as youngsters.  It is doubtful whether these individuals would have survived to become adults without the protection and care they receive in captivity.
+
+It has been claimed that "Squirrels are the only known albino mammal to survive successfully in the wild".[24] The retina of the squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) is unusual for mammals as it is rich in cones.  Central cell densities are less than 5% lower in albino squirrels than in pigmented individuals.  This relatively minor disruption to vision is thought to assist in the survivability of albino squirrels in the wild.  This is supported by observations that the behaviour of albinos in the wild, e.g. leaping from branch to branch, is similar to pigmented squirrels.[24]
+
+A 2012 survey of the literature reported that in India, there were several records of albino mammals including the tiger, lesser mouse-tailed bat, chital, common palm civet, Northern palm squirrel, five-striped palm squirrel and wild boar.[32]
+
+Albino macaques have been reported in several occasions including a toque macaque (M. sinica), rhesus macaque (M. mulatta), and bonnet macaque (M. radiata).[32]
+
+Albinism was observed in jungle cats (Felis chaus) and jackals (Canis aureus) along the coastline of the southern Western Ghats (Kerala and Kanyakumari coast, India). Albinism was observed in jungle cats from the Amaravila area of Trivandrum district in the Kerala State. Albinism in jackals was observed from the Polooni area in Malappuram district and Chaliyam area of Calicut district (Kerala). As albinism is observed in those areas where the density of these mammals is comparatively low, it is concluded that continuous inbreeding could be the reason for expression of albinism.[33]
+
+A study on albinistic prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster) found that albinism in this species conferred an advantage for the males compared to the wild-type; albino males had higher mount frequencies than wild-type males. In addition, the albinos had greater differential fertilizing capacity.[34]
+
+Albinism can also occur in marsupials and monotremes as well such as echidnas, kangaroos, koalas, possums, wallabies and wombats as well.
+
+The costs of albinism for marine mammals may include reduced heat absorption in colder waters, poor camouflage from predators, increased sensitivity to sunlight, and impaired visual communication. Despite the costs, some individuals do reach adult age and breeding status.[35]
+
+Albino dolphins were first sighted in the Gulf of Mexico in 1962.  Since 1994, three further individuals have been seen.  These tend to be pink in color due to blood vessels showing through the blubber and unpigmented skin.
+
+A report published in 2008 stated that in marine mammals, "anomalously white" individuals have been reported for 21 cetacean species and 7 pinniped species but there were no known reports of anomalously white sea otters (Enhydra lutris) or sirenians.[35]
+
+Whales and dolphins also may appear white if extensively scarred, or covered with a fungus, such as Lobo's disease (also known as "lobomycosis").[35]
+
+Famous albino mammals include "Migaloo", a humpback whale living off the coast of Australia; Pinky, a bottlenose dolphin living in and around in Calcasieu Lake, Louisiana; "Carolina Snowball", a popular albino bottlenose dolphin displayed at the Miami Seaquarium in the early 1960s; "Snowflake", a Barcelona Zoo gorilla, and "Mahpiya Ska", (Sioux for "White Cloud"), a buffalo in Jamestown, North Dakota.[36][37] The inspiration for Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick was a sperm whale known as Mocha Dick.
+
+The most important pigments that determine plumage coloration in birds are melanines and carotenoids.  The latter are ingested in food and transformed into colour pigments by enzymes.  Aberrations in this pigmentation are mostly caused by food deficiencies and usually do not have a genetic basis. Well-known examples are flamingos, which owe their distinct pink colour to the presence of red carotenoids in their natural food. When these carotenoids are in short supply, these birds appear white after the next moult.  Mutations causing changes in carotenoid-based colour pigments are rare; melanine mutations occur much more frequently.  Two types of melanin, eumelanin and phaeomelanin, are present in birds. In the skin and eyes, only eumelanin is present.  In some bird species, the colour is completely caused by eumelanin, however, both types of melanin are found in most species.  In birds, albinism has been defined as "a total lack of both melanins in feathers, eyes and skin as a result of an inherited absence of tyrosinase",[17] however, this ignores the effects of other pigments and structural colours.
+
+An albino bird has a white beak, white plumage, non-coloured skin, white talons and pink or red eyes.
+Albinism is only seen in about 1 of every 1,800 birds.  The two most common species of albino birds are the common house martin and the American robin.[20] Famous albino birds include "Snowdrop", a Bristol Zoo penguin.[38]
+
+In one study, albinism in birds has been categorised according to the extent of pigment absence.[39] –
+
+However, it has been argued that the definition of albinism precludes the possibility of "partial albinism" in which a mostly white bird shows some form of melanin pigmentation. "It is simply impossible, just like being ‘partially pregnant’.[17]
+
+As with other animals, it has been stated that for fish to be properly described as "albino", they must have a white body and pink or red eyes.[28]
+
+Several types of aquarium fish have "albino" in their names, e.g. albino driftwood catfish, albino festivum, albino red tailed shark, and albino tiger shark, however, photographs of these four fish indicate that the latter three have dark eyes and/or pigmented fins.[40][failed verification]
+
+Zebrafish have three types of chromatophores—iridophores, melanophores, and xanthophores—which produce silver, black, and yellow pigmentation respectively.  Zebrafish that lack iridophores are known as roy mutants, those that lack melanophores as albino mutants, and those which lack both melanophores and iridophores are ruby mutants.  The gross eye morphology, feeding and swimming behaviours between wild-type and albino zebrafish were indistinguishable, except under dim or bright light or low contrast.[41]
+In mammals, albinism is occasionally associated with hearing impairments. However, when tested, there was no differences in responses between wild-type and albinistic European wels catfish (Silurus glanis) and South American bronze catfish (Corydoras aeneus).  Similarly, Mexican blind cave fish (Astyanax mexicanus) do not differ in hearing sensitivity from the normally pigmented and eyed surface-dwelling populations.  Fish lack melanin in the inner ear, meaning that hearing in fishes is less likely to be affected by albinism than in mammals.[29]
+
+There are several reports of total albinism in both freshwater and marine fish, however, frequently captured albino fish are only reported in aquarium magazines and local newspapers.[42]
+
+The incidence of albinism can be artificially increased in fish by exposing the eggs to heavy metals (e.g. arsenic, cadmium, copper, mercury, selenium, zinc).[43]
+
+In the wild, albinism is reasonably common in the teleosts, especially the Pleuronectiformes (flatfish), however, it is rarely reported in the elasmobranchs.[44] Albinism has been reported in hagfish, lampreys, sharks, rays and numerous teleost fishes, e.g. catfishes, grunts or cyprinids.[29]
+
+Albino and normally pigmented channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) differ in their characteristics.  Normal individuals of this species are superior to albinos in body weight and total length. Albinos crossed with other albinos require 11 days longer to spawn and produce smaller egg masses.  These masses contain eggs of lighter weight with poorer hatchability than crosses of normal fish. The albino fish have lower survival rates than normal fish but dress-out percentages are nearly equal.[45]
+
+Some wild cave fish have populations that are albinistic.  The Mexican cave tetra is a species that has evolved specialized characteristics in a series of independent caves.  One of these is albinism linked to the Oca2 gene, a known pigmentation gene, This trait has evolved independently in at least two caves.[46]
+
+In the class chondrichthyes, several species of naturally occurring albino rays and sharks have been recorded.  Furthermore, an albino individual spotted ratfish (Hydrolagus colliei) from the order Chimaeriformes has been reported.[47]
+
+Albinistic individuals of the following shark species have been reported:[48][49]
+
+A study published in 2006 reported albinistic individuals of the following ray species:[49]
+
+There are several reports of albino lampreys and it has been estimated that this occurs at a frequency of one in 100,000 normal individuals.[28]
+
+Albinism in the African lungfish has been reported on at least two occasions.[50]
+
+Many reptiles labeled as albino are, in fact, not completely lacking in all colour pigments.  They are actually amelanistic, not albino.  Reptiles often possess at least two pigments.  Among the most common are xanthin (yellow) and erythrin (red). An amelanistic reptile therefore, may still have pale yellow, orange, or red pigmentation.
+
+The California Academy of Science, in the Steinhart Aquarium, as of 2015, has on display an albino American alligator named "Claude". The alligator is partially blind because of lack of pigment in its eyes.[51] The albino alligator hatched from the egg in 1995 in Florida, and was brought to the Academy in 2008. This alligator would not have survived in the wild because its whiteness would have made it too easy a prey object. The only known albino alligators are in captivity.[52] While extremely rare, white-colored crocodiles and alligators do exist in other places. However, most of these animals are leucistic given that they have a general loss of pigmentation with some color tinges remaining on their bodies although looking at first like other albino creatures, thus creating the misconception that the reptiles are albino themselves when they are not. Four such alligators are kept at the Gatorland theme park in the U.S. state of Florida.[53] In Australia, a crocodile believed to be "part-albino" and nicknamed by people in the area as "Michael Jackson", attacked and killed a man.[54]
+
+In snakes, partial absence of pigment is more common than absolute albinism.  For snakes that are usually patterned in colours, they appear as a faint blue, peach or yellowish.  In these cases, there has been a genetic mutation in the melanin and pigment delivery.  The appearance comes from the inability for full colours to be present, such as black, red, brown and others. The eyes of an albino snake are typically red or pink. Albino snakes can remain in the sunlight for several hours with minimal harm.  Corn snakes and snakes of larger types, such as a boa or diamondback snakes, are the most commonly affected by albinism often appearing to be a pinkish or yellowish colour.[20]
+
+Albino tortoises and turtles are uncommon; Sulcata tortoises are the most likely type of turtle to express albinism. The shells have an almost yellow colouration and they have pink eyes. For turtles, a pure white colour is nearly impossible, even with albinism.  Albino turtles can have a longer lifespan than many other albino animals; their hard shells help to prevent predation and other environmental challenges. Vision and sensory organs are slightly affected.[20]
+
+An albino anole has been reported and photographed.[55] In 2007, it was reported that an albino stumpy-tail lizard (possibly a shingleback lizard), approximately 12 cm long and about one-year-old, had been found in Victoria, Australia.[56] (Also see [1])
+
+There are three known "albino" strains of leopard gecko, however, breeders state that albinos are generally recognized by their lack of black pigment and having red eyes is not a requirement to be considered an albino.  These three strains are called "tremper albinos", "rainwater albinos" and "bell albinos".[57]
+
+As with reptiles, many amphibians labeled as albino are, in fact, not completely lacking in all colour pigments.  They are actually amelanistic, not albino.  Amphibians have six types of chromatophore in their skin, i.e. melanophores, xantophores, erythrophores, leucophores, cyanophores and iridophores.[58] An amelanistic amphibian therefore, may still have various pigmentation.
+
+The incidence of albinism in frogs, salamanders, and newts is relatively higher than other taxa.  It has been estimated that one in four hundred of these animals is albino.  When albino tadpoles hatch, they are almost transparent.  This may help camouflage them initially, however, after two weeks, when their hind legs begin to emerge, they become milky white.  A survey in 2001 found hundreds of tiny albino plains leopard frogs, but when the researcher returned a few months later, not a single albino adult could be found.[30]
+
+In European Salamandridae, albinism has been recorded in the fire salamander (Salamandra salamandra), gold-striped salamander (Chioglossa lusitanica), Italian crested newt (Triturus carnifex), marbled newt (Triturus marmoratus), Iberian ribbed newt (Pleurodeles waltl), alpine newt (Ichthyosaura alpestris) and two sub-species of the smooth newt (Lissotriton vulgaris vulgaris and Lissotriton vulgaris meridionalis).[58]
+
+Albinism in molluscs has been recognized to be a hereditary phenomenon at least since 1900.[59] Albinism in molluscs can exist to a variable degree. Sometimes an individual snail has a normally pigmented body, but the shell is completely without the normal pigmentation because of a defect in the cells of the mantle.  Shells of certain mollusc species can be translucent when they lack the normal pigmentation.[60]
+
+An exhibit showing albino and normal specimens of nine local species of marine molluscs, both gastropods and bivalves (The Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum in Sanibel, Florida).
+
+Normal (left) and albinistic (right) forms of the land snail Pseudofusulus varians, note that in the albino both the body and the shell are lacking the normal pigmentation.
+
+Albino freshwater snail Biomphalaria glabrata showing the red oxygen-transport pigment haemoglobin. Without its normal pigment, the shell of this species is translucent.
+
+The neurohormone [His7]-corazonin induces darkening of the cuticle of Locusta migratoria.  The Okinawa strain of this species is deficient in [His7]-corazonin and is albino.  One of the typical features of Locusta migratoria ia that they are gregarious locusts.  However, the albino strain shows more solitarious behaviour.[61]
+
+The yellow mutation in fruit flies is a mutation causing a congenital lack of normal pigment; it is a similar phenomenon to albinism in other organisms.[62]
+
+The Japanese sea cucumber (Apostichopus japonicus) is an echinoderm that is caught in the wild or cultivated for food.
+Normal Japanese sea cucumbers start to develop pigmentation when they are about 1 cm long.  The upper side becomes a dull, yellowish -brown to maroon and the underside a light brown.  The body walls of adult, albino Japanese sea cucumbers contain only 0.24% melanin compared to 3.12% in normal adults.  The difference in melanin content becomes visually apparent at 60 days of age.  The epidermis is thinner in the albinos and contains fewer melanocytes.  Albino individuals are similar to normal individuals in growth rate, digestion rate and fertility.[63]
+
+Astaxanthin is the main carotenoid in marine crustaceans (and fish).  It has been shown that adding astaxanthin to the feed can improve the skin and muscle colour of marine organisms and thereby increase their commercial and ornamental value.[63]
+
+"Depigmented" arthropods have been found, usually in cave populations.[64]
+"Albino" individuals of normally red citrus red mites (Panonychus citri) occasionally appear in laboratory colonies, however, these still contain green and yellow pigments. This albinism does not affect mortality.[65]
+
+In some animals, albinism-like conditions may affect other pigments or pigment-production mechanisms:
+
+In plants, albinism is characterised by partial or complete loss of chlorophyll pigments and incomplete differentiation of chloroplast membranes.  Albinism in plants interferes with photosynthesis, which can reduce survivability.[8] Some plant variations may have white flowers or other parts.  However, these plants are not totally devoid of chlorophyll. Terms associated with this phenomenon are "hypochromia" and "albiflora".[9]
+
+Plants that are pale simply from being in the dark are termed etiolated.
+
+Albino redwoods are rare examples of an albino tree with white needles; despite its lack of chlorophyll it may grow to substantial size as a parasite, usually on the base of the (normal) redwood tree from which it first grew.[69][70][71] Only about sixty examples of albino redwoods are known.[70] Additionally, an even smaller number of "chimeric" redwood trees have both normal and white needles.
+
+Albinism has frequently occurred in progeny of Black Tartarian, Bing and Hedelfingen varieties of sweet cherry.[72]
+
+The Albino Squirrel Preservation Society was founded at the University of Texas at Austin in 2001.  Members of the society at the University of North Texas petitioned for an election to name their albino squirrel as the university's secondary mascot. The University of Louisville in Kentucky also has a documented population of albino squirrels.[73]
+
+Albino animals are often kept as pets, for example, African clawed frog, guinea pigs and peacocks.[73]

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+Jesus[e] (c. 4 BC – c. AD 30 / 33), also referred to as Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus Christ,[f] was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious leader.[12] He is the central figure of Christianity. Most Christians believe he is the incarnation of God the Son and the awaited Messiah (the Christ) prophesied in the Old Testament.[13][14]
+
+Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed historically,[g] although the quest for the historical Jesus has yielded major uncertainty on the historical reliability of the Gospels and on how closely the Jesus portrayed in the Bible reflects the historical Jesus, as the only records of Jesus's life are contained in the four Gospels.[21][h][i] Jesus was a Galilean Jew,[12] who was baptized by John the Baptist and began his own ministry. He preached orally[24] and was often referred to as "rabbi".[25] Jesus debated with fellow Jews on how to best follow God, engaged in healings, taught in parables and gathered followers.[26][27] He was arrested and tried by the Jewish authorities,[28] turned over to the Roman government, and crucified on the order of Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect.[26] After his death, his followers believed he rose from the dead, and the community they formed eventually became the early Church.[29]
+
+Christian doctrines include the beliefs that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, was born of a virgin named Mary, performed miracles, founded the Christian Church, died by crucifixion as a sacrifice to achieve atonement for sin, rose from the dead, and ascended into Heaven, from where he will return.[30] Most Christians believe Jesus enables people to be reconciled to God. The Nicene Creed asserts that Jesus will judge the living and the dead[31] either before or after their bodily resurrection,[32][33][34] an event tied to the Second Coming of Jesus in Christian eschatology.[35] The great majority of Christians worship Jesus as the incarnation of God the Son, the second of three persons of the Trinity. A minority of Christian denominations reject Trinitarianism, wholly or partly, as non-scriptural. The birth of Jesus is celebrated annually on December 25 (on the Julian Calendar in some Eastern Churches) as Christmas. His crucifixion is honored on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter Sunday. The widely used calendar era "AD", from the Latin anno Domini ("year of the Lord"), and the equivalent  alternative "CE", are based on the approximate birthdate of Jesus.[36][j]
+
+Jesus is also revered outside of Christianity. In Islam, Jesus (commonly transliterated as Isa) is considered one of God's important prophets and a messiah.[38][39][40] Muslims believe Jesus was born of a virgin, but was neither God nor a begotten God. The Quran states that Jesus never claimed divinity.[41] Muslims do not believe that he was killed or crucified, but that he was physically raised into Heaven by God. In contrast, Judaism rejects the belief that Jesus was the awaited Messiah, arguing that he did not fulfill Messianic prophecies, and was neither divine nor resurrected.[42]
+
+A typical Jew in Jesus' time had only one name, sometimes followed by the phrase "son of [father's name]", or the individual's hometown.[43] Thus, in the New Testament, Jesus is commonly referred to as "Jesus of Nazareth"[k] (e.g., Mark 10:47).[44] Jesus' neighbors in Nazareth refer to him as "the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon" (Mark 6:3),[45] "the carpenter's son" (Matthew 13:55),[46] or "Joseph's son" (Luke 4:22).[47] In the Gospel of John, the disciple Philip refers to him as "Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth" (John 1:45).[48]
+
+The English name Jesus is derived from the Latin Iesus, a transliteration of the Greek Ἰησοῦς (Iēsoûs).[49] The Greek form is a rendering of the Hebrew ישוע‎ (Yeshua), a variant of the earlier name יהושע‎ (Yehoshua), or in English, "Joshua",[50][51][52][53] meaning "Yah saves".[54][55] This was also the name of Moses' successor[56] and of a Jewish high priest in the Old Testament.[57]
+
+The name Yeshua appears to have been in use in Judea at the time of the birth of Jesus.[58] The 1st-century works of historian Flavius Josephus, who wrote in Koine Greek, the same language as that of the New Testament,[59] refer to at least twenty different people with the name Jesus (i.e. Ἰησοῦς).[60] The etymology of Jesus' name in the context of the New Testament is generally given as "Yahweh is salvation".[61]
+
+Since the early period of Christianity, Christians have commonly referred to Jesus as "Jesus Christ".[62] "Jesus Christ" is the name that the author of the Gospel of John claims Jesus gave to himself during his high priestly prayer.[63] The word Christ was a title or office ("the Christ"), not a given name.[64][65] It derives from the Greek Χριστός (Christos),[49][66] a translation of the Hebrew mashiakh (משיח) meaning "anointed", and is usually transliterated into English as "Messiah".[67][68] In biblical Judaism, sacred oil was used to anoint certain exceptionally holy people and objects as part of their religious investiture (see Leviticus 8:10–12 and Exodus 30:29).
+
+Christians of the time designated Jesus as "the Christ" because they believed him to be the Messiah, whose arrival is prophesied in the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. In postbiblical usage, Christ became viewed as a name—one part of "Jesus Christ". The term Christian (meaning a follower of Christ) has been in use since the 1st century.[69]
+
+Portals:  Christianity  Bible
+
+The four canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) are the foremost sources for the life and message of Jesus.[43] However, other parts of the New Testament also include references to key episodes in his life, such as the Last Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26.[70][71][72] Acts of the Apostles (Acts 10:37–38 and Acts 19:4) refers to the early ministry of Jesus and its anticipation by John the Baptist.[73][74] Acts 1:1–11 says more about the Ascension of Jesus (also mentioned in 1 Timothy 3:16) than the canonical gospels do.[75] In the undisputed Pauline letters, which were written earlier than the gospels, the words or instructions of Jesus are cited several times (1 Corinthians 7:10–11, 9:14, 11:23–25, 2 Corinthians 12:9).[l]
+
+Some early Christian groups had separate descriptions of the life and teachings of Jesus that are not included in the New Testament. These include the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Peter, and Gospel of Judas, the Apocryphon of James, and many other apocryphal writings. Most scholars conclude that these are written much later and are less reliable accounts than the canonical gospels.[77][78][79]
+
+The canonical gospels are four accounts, each written by a different author. The authors of the gospels are all anonymous, attributed by tradition to the four evangelists, each with close ties to Jesus:[80] Mark by John Mark, an associate of Peter;[81] Matthew by one of Jesus' disciples;[80] Luke by a companion of Paul mentioned in a few epistles;[80] and John by another of Jesus' disciples,[80] the "beloved disciple".[82]
+
+One important aspect of the study of the gospels is the literary genre under which they fall. Genre "is a key convention guiding both the composition and the interpretation of writings".[83] Whether the gospel authors set out to write novels, myths, histories, or biographies has a tremendous impact on how they ought to be interpreted. Some recent studies suggest that the genre of the gospels ought to be situated within the realm of ancient biography.[84][85][86] Although not without critics,[87] the position that the gospels are a type of ancient biography is the consensus among scholars today.[88][89]
+
+Concerning the accuracy of the accounts, viewpoints run the gamut from considering them as inerrant descriptions of the life of Jesus,[90] to doubting whether they are historically reliable on a number of points,[91] to considering them to provide very little historical information about his life beyond the basics.[92][93] According to a broad scholarly consensus, the Synoptic Gospels (the first three – Matthew, Mark, and Luke), are the most reliable sources of information about Jesus.[94][95][43]
+
+According to the Marcan priority, the first to be written was the Gospel of Mark (written AD 60–75), followed by the Gospel of Matthew (AD 65–85), the Gospel of Luke (AD 65–95), and the Gospel of John (AD 75–100).[96] Furthermore, most scholars agree that the authors of Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source when writing their gospels. Since Matthew and Luke also share some content not found in Mark, many scholars explain this by assuming that another source (commonly called the "Q source") was used by these two authors in addition to Mark.[97]
+
+Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the Synoptic Gospels, from the Greek σύν (syn "together") and ὄψις (opsis "view").[98][99][100] They are similar in content, narrative arrangement, language and paragraph structure.[98][99] Scholars generally agree that it is impossible to find any direct literary relationship between the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John.[101] While the flow of some events (such as Jesus' baptism, transfiguration, crucifixion and interactions with the apostles) are shared among the Synoptic Gospels, incidents such as the transfiguration do not appear in John, which also differs on other matters, such as the Cleansing of the Temple.[102]
+
+The Synoptics emphasize different aspects of Jesus. In Mark, Jesus is the Son of God whose mighty works demonstrate the presence of God's Kingdom.[81] He is a tireless wonder worker, the servant of both God and man.[105] This short gospel records few of Jesus' words or teachings.[81] The Gospel of Matthew emphasizes that Jesus is the fulfillment of God's will as revealed in the Old Testament, and he is the Lord of the Church.[106] He is the "Son of David", a "king", and the Messiah.[105][13][14] Luke presents Jesus as the divine-human savior who shows compassion to the needy.[107] He is the friend of sinners and outcasts, come to seek and save the lost.[105] This gospel includes well-known parables, such as the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son.[107]
+
+The prologue to the Gospel of John identifies Jesus as an incarnation of the divine Word (Logos).[108]
+As the Word, Jesus was eternally present with God, active in all creation, and the source of humanity's moral and spiritual nature.[108] Jesus is not only greater than any past human prophet but greater than any prophet could be. He not only speaks God's Word; he is God's Word.[109] In the Gospel of John, Jesus reveals his divine role publicly. Here he is the Bread of Life, the Light of the World, the True Vine and more.[105]
+
+In general, the authors of the New Testament showed little interest in an absolute chronology of Jesus or in synchronizing the episodes of his life with the secular history of the age.[110] As stated in John 21:25, the gospels do not claim to provide an exhaustive list of the events in the life of Jesus.[111] The accounts were primarily written as theological documents in the context of early Christianity, with timelines as a secondary consideration.[112] In this respect, it is noteworthy that the Gospels devote about one third of their text to the last week of the life of Jesus in Jerusalem, referred to as the Passion.[113] Although the gospels do not provide enough details to satisfy the demands of modern historians regarding exact dates, it is possible to draw from them a general picture of the life story of Jesus.[91][110][112]
+
+Jesus was Jewish,[12] born to Mary, wife of Joseph (Matthew 1; Luke 2). The Gospels of Matthew and Luke offer two accounts of the genealogy of Jesus. Matthew traces Jesus' ancestry to Abraham through David.[114][115] Luke traces Jesus' ancestry through Adam to God.[116][117] The lists are identical between Abraham and David, but differ radically from that point. Matthew has twenty-seven generations from David to Joseph, whereas Luke has forty-two, with almost no overlap between the names on the two lists.[m][118] Various theories have been put forward seeking to explain why the two genealogies are so different.[n]
+
+Matthew and Luke each describe Jesus' birth, especially that Jesus was born to a virgin named Mary in Bethlehem in fulfillment of prophecy. Luke's account emphasizes events before the birth of Jesus and centers on Mary, while Matthew's mostly covers those after the birth and centers on Joseph.[119][120][121] Both accounts state that Jesus was born to Joseph and Mary, his betrothed, in Bethlehem, and both support the doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus, according to which Jesus was miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit in Mary's womb when she was still a virgin.[122][123][124] At the same time, there is evidence, at least in the Lukan Acts of the Apostles, that Jesus was thought to have had, like many figures in antiquity, a dual paternity, since there it is stated he descended from the seed or loins of David.[125] By taking him as his own, Joseph will give him the necessary Davidic descent.[126]
+
+In Matthew, Joseph is troubled because Mary, his betrothed, is pregnant (Matthew 1:19–20), but in the first of Joseph's three dreams an angel assures him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife, because her child was conceived by the Holy Spirit.[127]
+In Matthew 2:1–12, wise men or Magi from the East bring gifts to the young Jesus as the King of the Jews. They find Jesus in a house in Bethlehem. Jesus is now a child and not an infant. Matthew focuses on an event after the Luke Nativity where Jesus was an infant. In Matthew Herod the Great hears of Jesus' birth and, wanting him killed, orders the murders of male infants in Bethlehem under age of 2. But an angel warns Joseph in his second dream, and the family flees to Egypt—later to return and settle in Nazareth.[127][128][129]
+
+In Luke 1:31–38, Mary learns from the angel Gabriel that she will conceive and bear a child called Jesus through the action of the Holy Spirit.[120][122] When Mary is due to give birth, she and Joseph travel from Nazareth to Joseph's ancestral home in Bethlehem to register in the census ordered by Caesar Augustus. While there Mary gives birth to Jesus, and as they have found no room in the inn, she places the newborn in a manger (Luke 2:1–7). An angel announces the birth to a group of shepherds, who go to Bethlehem to see Jesus, and subsequently spread the news abroad (Luke 2:8–20). After the presentation of Jesus at the Temple, Joseph, Mary and Jesus return to Nazareth.[120][122]
+
+Jesus' childhood home is identified in the gospels of Luke and Matthew as the town of Nazareth in Galilee, where he lived with his family. Although Joseph appears in descriptions of Jesus' childhood, no mention is made of him thereafter.[130] His other family members—his mother, Mary, his brothers James, Joses (or Joseph), Judas and Simon and his unnamed sisters—are mentioned in the gospels and other sources.[131]
+
+The Gospel of Mark reports that Jesus comes into conflict with his neighbors and family.[132]
+Jesus' mother and brothers come to get him (Mark 3:31–35) because people are saying that he is crazy (Mark 3:21).
+Jesus responds that his followers are his true family.
+In John, Mary follows Jesus to his crucifixion, and he expresses concern over her well-being (John 19:25–27).
+
+Jesus is called a τέκτων (tektōn) in Mark 6:3, traditionally understood as carpenter but it could cover makers of objects in various materials, including builders.[133][134] The gospels indicate that Jesus could read, paraphrase, and debate scripture, but this does not necessarily mean that he received formal scribal training.[135]
+
+When Jesus is presented as a baby in the temple per Jewish Law, a man named Simeon says to Mary and Joseph that Jesus "shall stand as a sign of contradiction, while a sword will pierce your own soul. Then the secret thoughts of many will come to light" (Luke 2:28–35). Several years later, when Jesus goes missing on a visit to Jerusalem, his parents find him in the temple sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking questions, and the people are amazed at his understanding and answers; Mary scolds Jesus for going missing, to which Jesus replies that he must "be in his father's house" (Luke 2:41–52).
+
+The Synoptic accounts of Jesus' baptism are all preceded by information about John the Baptist.[136][137][138] They show John preaching penance and repentance for the remission of sins and encouraging the giving of alms to the poor (Luke 3:11) as he baptizes people in the area of the Jordan River around Perea and foretells (Luke 3:16) the arrival of someone "more powerful" than he.[139][140]
+Later, Jesus identifies John as "the Elijah who was to come" (Matthew 11:14, Mark 9:13–14), the prophet who was expected to arrive before the "great and terrible day of the Lord" (Malachi 4:5). Likewise, Luke says that John had the spirit and power of Elijah (Luke 1:17).
+
+In Mark, John baptizes Jesus, and as he comes out of the water he sees the Holy Spirit descending to him like a dove and he hears a voice from heaven declaring him to be God's Son (Mark 1:9–11). This is one of two events described in the gospels where a voice from Heaven calls Jesus "Son", the other being the Transfiguration.[141][142] The spirit then drives him into the wilderness where he is tempted by Satan (Mark 1:12–13). Jesus then begins his ministry after John's arrest (Mark 1:14). Jesus' baptism in Matthew is similar. Here, before Jesus' baptism, John protests, saying, "I need to be baptized by you" (Matthew 3:14). Jesus instructs him to carry on with the baptism "to fulfill all righteousness" (Matthew 3:15). Matthew also details the three temptations that Satan offers Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 4:3–11). In Luke, the Holy Spirit descends as a dove after everyone has been baptized and Jesus is praying (Luke 3:21–22). John implicitly recognizes Jesus from prison after sending his followers to ask about him (Luke 7:18–23). Jesus' baptism and temptation serve as preparation for his public ministry.[143]
+
+The Gospel of John leaves out Jesus' baptism and temptation.[144] Here, John the Baptist testifies that he saw the Spirit descend on Jesus (John 1:32).[140][145] John publicly proclaims Jesus as the sacrificial Lamb of God, and some of John's followers become disciples of Jesus.[95] In this Gospel, John denies that he is Elijah (John 1:21). Before John is imprisoned, Jesus leads his followers to baptize disciples as well (John 3:22–24), and they baptize more people than John (John 4:1).
+
+The Synoptics depict two distinct geographical settings in Jesus' ministry. The first takes place north of Judea, in Galilee, where Jesus conducts a successful ministry; and the second shows Jesus rejected and killed when he travels to Jerusalem.[25] Often referred to as "rabbi",[25] Jesus preaches his message orally.[24] Notably, Jesus forbids those who recognize him as the Messiah to speak of it, including people he heals and demons he exorcises (see Messianic Secret).[146]
+
+John depicts Jesus' ministry as largely taking place in and around Jerusalem, rather than in Galilee; and Jesus' divine identity is openly proclaimed and immediately recognized.[109]
+
+Scholars divide the ministry of Jesus into several stages. The Galilean ministry begins when Jesus returns to Galilee from the Judaean Desert after rebuffing the temptation of Satan. Jesus preaches around Galilee, and in Matthew 4:18–20, his first disciples, who will eventually form the core of the early Church, encounter him and begin to travel with him.[138][147] This period includes the Sermon on the Mount, one of Jesus' major discourses,[147][148] as well as the calming of the storm, the feeding of the 5,000, walking on water and a number of other miracles and parables.[149] It ends with the Confession of Peter and the Transfiguration.[150][151]
+
+As Jesus travels towards Jerusalem, in the Perean ministry, he returns to the area where he was baptized, about a third of the way down from the Sea of Galilee along the Jordan River (John 10:40–42).[152][153] The final ministry in Jerusalem begins with Jesus' triumphal entry into the city on Palm Sunday.[154] In the Synoptic Gospels, during that week Jesus drives the money changers from the Second Temple and Judas bargains to betray him. This period culminates in the Last Supper and the Farewell Discourse.[136][154][155]
+
+Near the beginning of his ministry, Jesus appoints twelve apostles. In Matthew and Mark, despite Jesus only briefly requesting that they join him, Jesus' first four apostles, who were fishermen, are described as immediately consenting, and abandoning their nets and boats to do so (Matthew 4:18–22, Mark 1:16–20). In John, Jesus' first two apostles were disciples of John the Baptist. The Baptist sees Jesus and calls him the Lamb of God; the two hear this and follow Jesus.[156][157] In addition to the Twelve Apostles, the opening of the passage of the Sermon on the Plain identifies a much larger group of people as disciples (Luke 6:17). Also, in Luke 10:1–16 Jesus sends seventy or seventy-two of his followers in pairs to prepare towns for his prospective visit. They are instructed to accept hospitality, heal the sick and spread the word that the Kingdom of God is coming.[158]
+
+In Mark, the disciples are notably obtuse. They fail to understand Jesus' miracles (Mark 4:35–41, Mark 6:52), his parables (Mark 4:13), or what "rising from the dead" would mean (Mark 9:9–10). When Jesus is later arrested, they desert him.[146]
+
+In the Synoptics, Jesus teaches extensively, often in parables,[159] about the Kingdom of God (or, in Matthew, the Kingdom of Heaven). The Kingdom is described as both imminent (Mark 1:15) and already present in the ministry of Jesus (Luke 17:21). Jesus promises inclusion in the Kingdom for those who accept his message (Mark 10:13–27). Jesus talks of the "Son of Man," an apocalyptic figure who would come to gather the chosen.[43]
+
+Jesus calls people to repent their sins and to devote themselves completely to God.[43] Jesus tells his followers to adhere to Jewish law, although he is perceived by some to have broken the law himself, for example regarding the Sabbath.[43] When asked what the greatest commandment is, Jesus replies: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind ... And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:37–39). Other ethical teachings of Jesus include loving your enemies, refraining from hatred and lust, turning the other cheek, and forgiving people who have sinned against you (Matthew 5–7).[160]
+
+John's Gospel presents the teachings of Jesus not merely as his own preaching, but as divine revelation. John the Baptist, for example, states in John 3:34: "He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure." In John 7:16 Jesus says, "My teaching is not mine but his who sent me." He asserts the same thing in John 14:10: "Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works."[161][162]
+
+Approximately thirty parables form about one third of Jesus' recorded teachings.[161][163] The parables appear within longer sermons and at other places in the narrative.[164] They often contain symbolism, and usually relate the physical world to the spiritual.[165][166] Common themes in these tales include the kindness and generosity of God and the perils of transgression.[167] Some of his parables, such as the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32), are relatively simple, while others, such as the Growing Seed (Mark 4:26–29), are sophisticated, profound and abstruse.[168] When asked by his disciples about why he speaks in parables to the people, Jesus replies that the chosen disciples have been given to "know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven", unlike the rest of their people, "For the one who has will be given more and he will have in abundance. But the one who does not have will be deprived even more.", going on to say that the majority of their generation have grown "dull hearts" and thus are unable to understand (Matthew 13:10–17).
+
+In the gospel accounts, Jesus devotes a large portion of his ministry performing miracles, especially healings.[169] The miracles can be classified into two main categories: healing miracles and nature miracles.[170] The healing miracles include cures for physical ailments, exorcisms,[103][171] and resurrections of the dead.[172] The nature miracles show Jesus' power over nature, and include turning water into wine, walking on water, and calming a storm, among others. Jesus states that his miracles are from a divine source. When Jesus' opponents suddenly accuse him of performing exorcisms by the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons, Jesus counters that he performs them by the "Spirit of God" (Matthew 12:28) or "finger of God", arguing that all logic suggests that Satan would not let his demons assist the Children of God because it would divide Satan's house and bring his kingdom to desolation; furthermore, he asks his opponents that if he exorcises by Beel'zebub, "by whom do your sons cast them out?"(Luke 11:20).[173][174] In Matthew 12:31–32, he goes on to say that while all manner of sin, "even insults against God" or "insults against the son of man", shall be forgiven, whoever insults goodness (or "The Holy Spirit") shall never be forgiven; he/she carries the guilt of his/her sin forever.
+
+In John, Jesus' miracles are described as "signs", performed to prove his mission and divinity.[175][176] However, in the Synoptics, when asked by some teachers of the Law and some Pharisees to give miraculous signs to prove his authority, Jesus refuses,[175] saying that no sign shall come to corrupt and evil people except the sign of the prophet Jonah. Also, in the Synoptic Gospels, the crowds regularly respond to Jesus' miracles with awe and press on him to heal their sick. In John's Gospel, Jesus is presented as unpressured by the crowds, who often respond to his miracles with trust and faith.[177] One characteristic shared among all miracles of Jesus in the gospel accounts is that he performed them freely and never requested or accepted any form of payment.[178] The gospel episodes that include descriptions of the miracles of Jesus also often include teachings, and the miracles themselves involve an element of teaching.[179][180] Many of the miracles teach the importance of faith. In the cleansing of ten lepers and the raising of Jairus' daughter, for instance, the beneficiaries are told that their healing was due to their faith.[181][182]
+
+At about the middle of each of the three Synoptic Gospels are two significant events: the Confession of Peter and the Transfiguration of Jesus.[151][183][141][142] These two events are not mentioned in the Gospel of John.[184]
+
+In his Confession, Peter tells Jesus, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."[185][186][187] Jesus affirms that Peter's confession is divinely revealed truth.[188][189] After the confession, Jesus tells his disciples about his upcoming death and resurrection (Matthew 16:21, Mark 8:31, Luke 9:22)
+
+In the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1–9, Mark 9:2–8, and Luke 9:28–36),[141][142][151] Jesus takes Peter and two other apostles up an unnamed mountain, where "he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white."[190] A bright cloud appears around them, and a voice from the cloud says, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him" (Matthew 17:1–9).[141]
+
+The description of the last week of the life of Jesus (often called Passion Week) occupies about one third of the narrative in the canonical gospels,[113] starting with Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem and ending with his Crucifixion.[136][154]
+
+In the Synoptics, the last week in Jerusalem is the conclusion of the journey through Perea and Judea that Jesus began in Galilee.[154]
+Jesus rides a young donkey into Jerusalem, reflecting the tale of the Messiah's Donkey, an oracle from the Book of Zechariah in which the Jews' humble king enters Jerusalem this way (Zechariah 9:9).[81] People along the way lay cloaks and small branches of trees (known as palm fronds) in front of him and sing part of Psalms 118:25–26.[191][192][193]
+
+Jesus next expels the money changers from the Second Temple, accusing them of turning it into a den of thieves through their commercial activities. Jesus then prophesies about the coming destruction, including false prophets, wars, earthquakes, celestial disorders, persecution of the faithful, the appearance of an "abomination of desolation," and unendurable tribulations (Mark 13:1–23). The mysterious "Son of Man," he says, will dispatch angels to gather the faithful from all parts of the earth (Mark 13:24–27). Jesus warns that these wonders will occur in the lifetimes of the hearers (Mark 13:28–32).[146] In John, the Cleansing of the Temple occurs at the beginning of Jesus' ministry instead of at the end (John 2:13–16).[109]
+
+Jesus comes into conflict with the Jewish elders, such as when they question his authority and when he criticizes them and calls them hypocrites.[191][193] Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve apostles, secretly strikes a bargain with the Jewish elders, agreeing to betray Jesus to them for 30 silver coins.[194][195]
+
+The Gospel of John recounts of two other feasts in which Jesus taught in Jerusalem before the Passion Week (John 7:1–10:42).[132] In Bethany, a village near Jerusalem, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. This potent sign[109] increases the tension with authorities,[154] who conspire to kill him (John 11).[132] Mary of Bethany anoints Jesus' feet, foreshadowing his entombment.[196] Jesus then makes his Messianic entry into Jerusalem.[132]
+The cheering crowds greeting Jesus as he enters Jerusalem add to the animosity between him and the establishment.[154] In John, Jesus has already cleansed the Second Temple during an earlier Passover visit to Jerusalem. John next recounts Jesus' Last Supper with his disciples.[132]
+
+The Last Supper is the final meal that Jesus shares with his 12 apostles in Jerusalem before his crucifixion. The Last Supper is mentioned in all four canonical gospels; Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians (11:23–26) also refers to it.[71][72][197] During the meal, Jesus predicts that one of his apostles will betray him.[198] Despite each Apostle's assertion that he would not betray him, Jesus reiterates that the betrayer would be one of those present. Matthew 26:23–25 and John 13:26–27 specifically identify Judas as the traitor.[71][72][198]
+
+In the Synoptics, Jesus takes bread, breaks it, and gives it to the disciples, saying, "This is my body, which is given for you". He then has them all drink from a cup, saying, "This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood" (Luke 22:19–20).[71][199] The Christian sacrament or ordinance of the Eucharist is based on these events.[200] Although the Gospel of John does not include a description of the bread-and-wine ritual during the Last Supper, most scholars agree that John 6:22–59 (the Bread of Life Discourse) has a eucharistic character and resonates with the institution narratives in the Synoptic Gospels and in the Pauline writings on the Last Supper.[201]
+
+In all four gospels, Jesus predicts that Peter will deny knowledge of him three times before the rooster crows the next morning.[202][203] In Luke and John, the prediction is made during the Supper (Luke 22:34, John 22:34). In Matthew and Mark, the prediction is made after the Supper; Jesus also predicts that all his disciples will desert him (Matthew 26:31–34, Mark 14:27–30).[204] The Gospel of John provides the only account of Jesus washing his disciples' feet after the meal.[128] John also includes a long sermon by Jesus, preparing his disciples (now without Judas) for his departure. Chapters 14–17 of the Gospel of John are known as the Farewell Discourse and are a significant source of Christological content.[205][206]
+
+In the Synoptics, Jesus and his disciples go to the garden Gethsemane, where Jesus prays to be spared his coming ordeal. Then Judas comes with an armed mob, sent by the chief priests, scribes and elders. He kisses Jesus to identify him to the crowd, which then arrests Jesus. In an attempt to stop them, an unnamed disciple of Jesus uses a sword to cut off the ear of a man in the crowd. After Jesus' arrest, his disciples go into hiding, and Peter, when questioned, thrice denies knowing Jesus. After the third denial, Peter hears the rooster crow and recalls Jesus' prediction about his denial. Peter then weeps bitterly.[204][146][202]
+
+In John (18:1–11), Jesus does not pray to be spared his crucifixion, as the gospel portrays him as scarcely touched by such human weakness.[207] The people who arrest him are Roman soldiers and Temple guards.[208] Instead of being betrayed by a kiss, Jesus proclaims his identity, and when he does, the soldiers and officers fall to the ground. The gospel identifies Peter as the disciple who used the sword, and Jesus rebukes him for it.
+
+After his arrest, Jesus is taken to the Sanhedrin, a Jewish judicial body.[209] The gospel accounts differ on the details of the trials.[210] In Matthew 26:57, Mark 14:53 and Luke 22:54, Jesus is taken to the house of the high priest, Caiaphas, where he is mocked and beaten that night. Early the next morning, the chief priests and scribes lead Jesus away into their council.[211][212][213] John 18:12–14 states that Jesus is first taken to Annas, Caiaphas' father-in-law, and then to the high priest.[211][212][213]
+
+During the trials Jesus speaks very little, mounts no defense, and gives very infrequent and indirect answers to the priests' questions, prompting an officer to slap him. In Matthew 26:62 Jesus' unresponsiveness leads Caiaphas to ask him, "Have you no answer?"[211][212][213] In Mark 14:61 the high priest then asks Jesus, "Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?" Jesus replies, "I am", and then predicts the coming of the Son of Man.[43] This provokes Caiaphas to tear his own robe in anger and to accuse Jesus of blasphemy. In Matthew and Luke, Jesus' answer is more ambiguous:[43][214] in Matthew 26:64 he responds, "You have said so", and in Luke 22:70 he says, "You say that I am".[215][216]
+
+The Jewish elders take Jesus to Pilate's Court and ask the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, to judge and condemn Jesus for various allegations, accusing him of blasphemy, perverting the nation, forbidding the payment of tribute, inciting sedition against Rome, sorcery, claiming to be the King of the Jews, the Son of God, and a savior to the world.[213] The use of the word "king" is central to the discussion between Jesus and Pilate. In John 18:36 Jesus states, "My kingdom is not from this world", but he does not unequivocally deny being the King of the Jews.[217][218] In Luke 23:7–15 Pilate realizes that Jesus is a Galilean, and thus comes under the jurisdiction of Herod Antipas, the Tetrarch of Galilee and Perea.[219][220] Pilate sends Jesus to Herod to be tried,[221] but Jesus says almost nothing in response to Herod's questions. Herod and his soldiers mock Jesus, put an expensive robe on him to make him look like a king, and return him to Pilate,[219] who then calls together the Jewish elders and announces that he has "not found this man guilty".[221]
+
+Observing a Passover custom of the time, Pilate allows one prisoner chosen by the crowd to be released. He gives the people a choice between Jesus and a murderer called Barabbas (בר-אבא or  Bar-abbâ, "son of the father", from the common given name Abba: 'father').[222] Persuaded by the elders (Matthew 27:20), the mob chooses to release Barabbas and crucify Jesus.[223] Pilate writes a sign in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek that reads "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews" (abbreviated as INRI in depictions) to be affixed to Jesus' cross (John 19:19–20),[224] then scourges Jesus and sends him to be crucified. The soldiers place a Crown of Thorns on Jesus' head and ridicule him as the King of the Jews. They beat and taunt him before taking him to Calvary,[225] also called Golgotha, for crucifixion.[211][213][226]
+
+Jesus' crucifixion is described in all four canonical gospels. After the trials, Jesus is led to Calvary carrying his cross; the route traditionally thought to have been taken is known as the Via Dolorosa. The three Synoptic Gospels indicate that Simon of Cyrene assists him, having been compelled by the Romans to do so.[227][228] In Luke 23:27–28 Jesus tells the women in the multitude of people following him not to weep for him but for themselves and their children.[227] At Calvary, Jesus is offered a sponge soaked in a concoction usually offered as a painkiller. According to Matthew and Mark, he refuses it.[227][228]
+
+The soldiers then crucify Jesus and cast lots for his clothes. Above Jesus' head on the cross is Pilate's inscription, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." Soldiers and passersby mock him about it. Two convicted thieves are crucified along with Jesus. In Matthew and Mark, both thieves mock Jesus. In Luke, one of them rebukes Jesus, while the other defends him.[227][229][230] Jesus tells the latter: "today you will be with me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43). In John, Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the beloved disciple were at the crucifixion. Jesus tells the beloved disciple to take care of his mother (John 19:26–27).
+
+The Roman soldiers break the two thieves' legs (a procedure designed to hasten death in a crucifixion), but they do not break those of Jesus, as he is already dead (John 19:33). In John 19:34, one soldier pierces Jesus' side with a lance, and blood and water flow out.[229] In the Synoptics, when Jesus dies, the heavy curtain at the Temple is torn. In Matthew 27:51–54, an earthquake breaks open tombs. In Matthew and Mark, terrified by the events, a Roman centurion states that Jesus was the Son of God.[227][231]
+
+On the same day, Joseph of Arimathea, with Pilate's permission and with Nicodemus' help, removes Jesus' body from the cross, wraps him in a clean cloth, and buries him in his new rock-hewn tomb.[227] In Matthew 27:62–66, on the following day the chief Jewish priests ask Pilate for the tomb to be secured, and with Pilate's permission the priests place seals on the large stone covering the entrance.[227][232]
+
+Mary Magdalene (alone in the Gospel of John, but accompanied by other women in the Synoptics) goes to Jesus' tomb on Sunday morning and is surprised to find it empty. Despite Jesus' teaching, the disciples had not understood that Jesus would rise again.[233]
+
+Jesus' ascension into Heaven is described in Luke 24:50–53, Acts 1:1–11 and mentioned in 1 Timothy 3:16. In the Acts of the Apostles, forty days after the Resurrection, as the disciples look on, "he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight". 1 Peter 3:22 states that Jesus has "gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God".[75]
+
+The Acts of the Apostles describes several appearances of Jesus after his Ascension. In Acts 7:55, Stephen gazes into heaven and sees "Jesus standing at the right hand of God" just before his death.[236] On the road to Damascus, the Apostle Paul is converted to Christianity after seeing a blinding light and hearing a voice saying, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting" (Acts 9:5). In Acts 9:10–18, Jesus instructs Ananias of Damascus in a vision to heal Paul.[237] The Book of Revelation includes a revelation from Jesus concerning the last days.[238]
+
+After Jesus' life, his followers, as described in the first chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, were all Jews either by birth or conversion, for which the biblical term "proselyte" is used,[239] and referred to by historians as Jewish Christians. The early Gospel message was spread orally, probably in Aramaic,[240] but almost immediately also in Greek.[241] The New Testament's Acts of the Apostles and Epistle to the Galatians record that the first Christian community was centered in Jerusalem and its leaders included Peter, James, the brother of Jesus, and John the Apostle.[242]
+
+After the conversion of Paul the Apostle, he claimed the title of "Apostle to the Gentiles". Paul's influence on Christian thinking is said to be more significant than that of any other New Testament author.[243] By the end of the 1st century, Christianity began to be recognized internally and externally as a separate religion from Judaism which itself was refined and developed further in the centuries after the destruction of the Second Temple.[244]
+
+Numerous quotations in the New Testament and other Christian writings of the first centuries, indicate that early Christians generally used and revered the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh) as religious text, mostly in the Greek (Septuagint) or Aramaic (Targum) translations.[245]
+
+Early Christians wrote many religious works, including the ones included in the canon of the New Testament.  The canonical texts, which have become the main sources used by historians to try to understand the historical Jesus and sacred texts within Christianity, were probably written between 50 and 120 AD.[246]
+
+Prior to the Enlightenment, the gospels were usually regarded as accurate historical accounts, but since then scholars have emerged who question the reliability of the gospels and draw a distinction between the Jesus described in the gospels and the Jesus of history.[247] Since the 18th century, three separate scholarly quests for the historical Jesus have taken place, each with distinct characteristics and based on different research criteria, which were often developed during the quest that applied them.[103][248] While there is widespread scholarly agreement on the existence of Jesus,[g] and a basic consensus on the general outline of his life,[o] the portraits of Jesus constructed by various scholars often differ from each other, and from the image portrayed in the gospel accounts.[250][251]
+
+Approaches to the historical reconstruction of the life of Jesus have varied from the "maximalist" approaches of the 19th century, in which the gospel accounts were accepted as reliable evidence wherever it is possible, to the "minimalist" approaches of the early 20th century, where hardly anything about Jesus was accepted as historical.[252] In the 1950s, as the second quest for the historical Jesus gathered pace, the minimalist approaches faded away, and in the 21st century, minimalists such as Price are a very small minority.[253][254] Although a belief in the inerrancy of the gospels cannot be supported historically, many scholars since the 1980s have held that, beyond the few facts considered to be historically certain, certain other elements of Jesus' life are "historically probable".[253][255][256] Modern scholarly research on the historical Jesus thus focuses on identifying the most probable elements.[257][258]
+
+In AD 6, Judea, Idumea, and Samaria were transformed from a client kingdom of the Roman Empire into an imperial province, also called Judea. A Roman prefect, rather than a client king, ruled the land. The prefect ruled from Caesarea Maritima, leaving Jerusalem to be run by the High Priest of Israel. As an exception, the prefect came to Jerusalem during religious festivals, when religious and patriotic enthusiasm sometimes inspired unrest or uprisings. Gentile lands surrounded the Jewish territories of Judea and Galilee, but Roman law and practice allowed Jews to remain separate legally and culturally. Galilee was evidently prosperous, and poverty was limited enough that it did not threaten the social order.[43]
+
+This was the era of Hellenistic Judaism, which combined Jewish religious tradition with elements of Hellenistic Greek culture. Until the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Muslim conquests of the Eastern Mediterranean, the main centers of Hellenistic Judaism were Alexandria (Egypt) and Antioch (now Southern Turkey), the two main Greek urban settlements of the Middle East and North Africa area, both founded at the end of the 4th century BCE in the wake of the conquests of Alexander the Great. Hellenistic Judaism also existed in Jerusalem during the Second Temple Period, where there was conflict between Hellenizers and traditionalists (sometimes called Judaizers).  The Hebrew Bible was translated from Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic into Jewish Koine Greek; the Targum translations into Aramaic were also generated during this era, both due to the decline of knowledge of Hebrew.[259]
+
+Jews based their faith and religious practice on the Torah, five books said to have been given by God to Moses. The three prominent religious parties were the Pharisees, the Essenes, and the Sadducees. Together these parties represented only a small fraction of the population. Most Jews looked forward to a time that God would deliver them from their pagan rulers, possibly through war against the Romans.[43]
+
+New Testament scholars face a formidable challenge when they analyze the canonical Gospels.[261]
+The Gospels are not biographies in the modern sense, and the authors explain Jesus' theological significance and recount his public ministry while omitting many details of his life.[261]
+The reports of supernatural events associated with Jesus' death and resurrection make the challenge even more difficult.[261]
+Scholars regard the gospels as compromised sources of information because the writers were trying to glorify Jesus.[91]
+Even so, the sources for Jesus' life are better than sources scholars have for the life of Alexander the Great.[91]
+Scholars use a number of criteria, such as the criterion of independent attestation, the criterion of coherence, and the criterion of discontinuity to judge the historicity of events.[262] The historicity of an event also depends on the reliability of the source; indeed, the gospels are not independent nor consistent records of Jesus' life. Mark, which is most likely the earliest written gospel, has been considered for many decades the most historically accurate.[263] John, the latest written gospel, differs considerably from the Synoptic Gospels, and thus is generally considered less reliable, although more and more scholars now also recognize that it may contain a core of older material as historically valuable as the Synoptic tradition or even more so.[264]
+
+The non-canonical Gospel of Thomas might be an independent witness to many of Jesus' parables and aphorisms. For example, Thomas confirms that Jesus blessed the poor and that this saying circulated independently before being combined with similar sayings in the Q source.[265] Other select non-canonical Christian texts may also have value for historical Jesus research.[95]
+
+Early non-Christian sources that attest to the historical existence of Jesus include the works of the historians Josephus and Tacitus.[p][260][267] Josephus scholar Louis Feldman has stated that "few have doubted the genuineness" of Josephus' reference to Jesus in book 20 of the Antiquities of the Jews, and it is disputed only by a small number of scholars.[268][269] Tacitus referred to Christ and his execution by Pilate in book 15 of his work Annals. Scholars generally consider Tacitus' reference to the execution of Jesus to be both authentic and of historical value as an independent Roman source.[270]
+
+Non-Christian sources are valuable in two ways. First, they show that even neutral or hostile parties never show any doubt that Jesus actually existed. Second, they present a rough picture of Jesus that is compatible with that found in the Christian sources: that Jesus was a teacher, had a reputation as a miracle worker, had a brother James, and died a violent death.[11]
+
+Archaeology helps scholars better understand Jesus' social world.[271] Recent archaeological work, for example, indicates that Capernaum, a city important in Jesus' ministry, was poor and small, without even a forum or an agora.[272][273] This archaeological discovery resonates well with the scholarly view that Jesus advocated reciprocal sharing among the destitute in that area of Galilee.[272]
+
+Jesus was a Galilean Jew,[12] born around the beginning of the 1st century, who died in 30 or 33 AD in Judea.[6] The general scholarly consensus is that Jesus was a contemporary of John the Baptist and was crucified by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, who held office from 26 to 36 AD.[26]
+
+The gospels offer several indications concerning the year of Jesus' birth. Matthew 2:1 associates the birth of Jesus with the reign of Herod the Great, who died around 4 BC, and Luke 1:5 mentions that Herod was on the throne shortly before the birth of Jesus,[274][275] although this gospel also associates the birth with the Census of Quirinius which took place ten years later.[276][277] Luke 3:23 states that Jesus was "about thirty years old" at the start of his ministry, which according to Acts 10:37–38 was preceded by John the Baptist's ministry, which was recorded in Luke 3:1–2 to have begun in the 15th year of Tiberius' reign (28 or 29 AD).[275][278] By collating the gospel accounts with historical data and using various other methods, most scholars arrive at a date of birth for Jesus between 6 and 4 BC,[278][279] but some propose estimates that include a wider range.[q]
+
+The date range for Jesus' ministry have been estimated using several different approaches.[280][281] One of these applies the reference in Luke 3:1–2, Acts 10:37–38 and the dates of Tiberius' reign, which are well known, to give a date of around 28–29 AD for the start of Jesus' ministry.[282] Another approach estimates a date around 27–29 AD by using the statement about the temple in John 2:13–20, which asserts that the temple in Jerusalem was in its 46th year of construction at the start of Jesus' ministry, together with Josephus' statement that the temple's reconstruction was started by Herod the Great in the 18th year of his reign.[280][283] A further method uses the date of the death of John the Baptist and the marriage of Herod Antipas to Herodias, based on the writings of Josephus, and correlates it with Matthew 14:4 and Mark 6:18.[284][285] Given that most scholars date the marriage of Herod and Herodias as AD 28–35, this yields a date about 28–29 AD.[281]
+
+A number of approaches have been used to estimate the year of the crucifixion of Jesus. Most scholars agree that he died in 30 or 33 AD.[6][286] The gospels state that the event occurred during the prefecture of Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea from 26 to 36 AD.[287][288][289] The date for the conversion of Paul (estimated to be 33–36 AD) acts as an upper bound for the date of Crucifixion. The dates for Paul's conversion and ministry can be determined by analyzing the Pauline epistles and the Acts of the Apostles.[290][291] Astronomers have tried to estimate the precise date of the Crucifixion by analyzing lunar motion and calculating historic dates of Passover, a festival based on the lunisolar Hebrew calendar. The most widely accepted dates derived from this method are April 7, 30 AD, and April 3, 33 AD (both Julian).[292]
+
+Scholars have reached a limited consensus on the basics of Jesus' life.[293]
+
+Many scholars agree that Joseph, Jesus' father, died before Jesus began his ministry. Joseph is not mentioned at all in the gospels during Jesus' ministry. Joseph's death would explain why in Mark 6:3, Jesus' neighbors refer to Jesus as the "son of Mary" (sons were usually identified by their fathers).[294]
+
+According to Theissen and Merz, it is common for extraordinary charismatic leaders, such as Jesus, to come into conflict with their ordinary families.[295] In Mark, Jesus' family comes to get him, fearing that he is mad (Mark 3:20–34), and this account is thought to be historical because early Christians would likely not have invented it.[296] After Jesus' death, many members of his family joined the Christian movement.[295] Jesus' brother James became a leader of the Jerusalem Church.[297]
+
+Géza Vermes says that the doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus arose from theological development rather than from historical events.[298]
+Despite the widely held view that the authors of the Synoptic Gospels drew upon each other (the so-called synoptic problem), other scholars take it as significant that the virgin birth is attested by two separate gospels, Matthew and Luke.[299][300][301][302][303][304]
+
+According to E. P. Sanders, the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke are the clearest case of invention in the Gospel narratives of Jesus' life. Both accounts have Jesus born in Bethlehem, in accordance with Jewish salvation history, and both have him growing up in Nazareth. But Sanders points that the two Gospels report completely different and irreconcilable explanations for how that happened. Luke's account of a census in which everyone returned to their ancestral cities is not plausible. Matthew's account is more plausible, but the story reads as though it was invented to identify Jesus as like a new Moses, and the historian Josephus reports Herod the Great's brutality without ever mentioning that he massacred little boys.[305]
+
+Sanders says that the genealogies of Jesus are based not on historical information but on the authors' desire to show that Jesus was the universal Jewish savior.[115] In any event, once the doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus became established, that tradition superseded the earlier tradition that he was descended from David through Joseph.[306] Luke reports that Jesus was a blood relation of John the Baptist, but scholars generally consider this connection to be invented.[115][307]
+
+Most modern scholars consider Jesus' baptism to be a definite historical fact, along with his crucifixion.[7] Theologian James D. G. Dunn states that they "command almost universal assent" and "rank so high on the 'almost impossible to doubt or deny' scale of historical facts" that they are often the starting points for the study of the historical Jesus.[7] Scholars adduce the criterion of embarrassment, saying that early Christians would not have invented a baptism that might imply that Jesus committed sins and wanted to repent.[308][309] According to Theissen and Merz, Jesus was inspired by John the Baptist and took over from him many elements of his teaching.[310]
+
+Most scholars hold that Jesus lived in Galilee and Judea and did not preach or study elsewhere.[311] They agree that Jesus debated with Jewish authorities on the subject of God, performed some healings, taught in parables and gathered followers.[26] Jesus' Jewish critics considered his ministry to be scandalous because he feasted with sinners, fraternized with women, and allowed his followers to pluck grain on the Sabbath.[80] According to Sanders, it is not plausible that disagreements over how to interpret the Law of Moses and the Sabbath would have led Jewish authorities to want Jesus killed.[312]
+
+According to Ehrman, Jesus taught that a coming kingdom was everyone's proper focus, not anything in this life.[313] He taught about the Jewish Law, seeking its true meaning, sometimes in opposition to other traditions.[314] Jesus put love at the center of the Law, and following that Law was an apocalyptic necessity.[314] His ethical teachings called for forgiveness, not judging others, loving enemies, and caring for the poor.[315] Funk and Hoover note that typical of Jesus were paradoxical or surprising turns of phrase, such as advising one, when struck on the cheek, to offer the other cheek to be struck as well (Luke 6:29).[316]
+
+The Gospels portray Jesus teaching in well-defined sessions, such as the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew or the parallel Sermon on the Plain in Luke. According to Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz, these teaching sessions include authentic teachings of Jesus, but the scenes were invented by the respective evangelists to frame these teachings, which had originally been recorded without context.[95] While Jesus' miracles fit within the social context of antiquity, he defined them differently. First, he attributed them to the faith of those healed. Second, he connected them to end times prophecy.[317]
+
+Jesus chose twelve disciples [318] (the "Twelve"), evidently as an apocalyptic message.[319] All three Synoptics mention the Twelve, although the names on Luke's list vary from those in Mark and Matthew, suggesting that Christians were not certain who all the disciples were.[319] The twelve disciples might have represented the twelve original tribes of Israel, which would be restored once God's rule was instituted.[319] The disciples were reportedly meant to be the rulers of the tribes in the coming Kingdom (Matthew 19:28, Luke 22:30).[319] According to Bart Ehrman, Jesus' promise that the Twelve would rule is historical, because the Twelve included Judas Iscariot. In Ehrman's view, no Christians would have invented a line from Jesus, promising rulership to the disciple who betrayed him.[319]
+In Mark, the disciples play hardly any role other than a negative one. While others sometimes respond to Jesus with complete faith, his disciples are puzzled and doubtful.[320] They serve as a foil to Jesus and to other characters.[320] The failings of the disciples are probably exaggerated in Mark, and the disciples make a better showing in Matthew and Luke.[320]
+
+Sanders says that Jesus' mission was not about repentance, although he acknowledges that this opinion is unpopular. He argues that repentance appears as a strong theme only in Luke, that repentance was John the Baptist's message, and that Jesus' ministry would not have been scandalous if the sinners he ate with had been repentant.[321] According to Theissen and Merz, Jesus taught that God was generously giving people an opportunity to repent.[322]
+
+Jesus taught that an apocalyptic figure, the "Son of Man", would soon come on clouds of glory to gather the elect, or chosen ones (Mark 13:24–27, Matthew 24:29–31, Luke 21:25–28). He referred to himself as a "son of man" in the colloquial sense of "a person", but scholars do not know whether he also meant himself when he referred to the heavenly "Son of Man". Paul the Apostle and other early Christians interpreted the "Son of Man" as the risen Jesus.[43]
+
+The title Christ, or Messiah, indicates that Jesus' followers believed him to be the anointed heir of King David, whom some Jews expected to save Israel. The Gospels refer to him not only as a Messiah but in the absolute form as "the Messiah" or, equivalently, "the Christ". In early Judaism, this absolute form of the title is not found, but only phrases such as "his Messiah". The tradition is ambiguous enough to leave room for debate as to whether Jesus defined his eschatological role as that of the Messiah.[323] The Jewish messianic tradition included many different forms, some of them focused on a Messiah figure and others not.[324] Based on the Christian tradition, Gerd Theissen advances the hypothesis that Jesus saw himself in messianic terms but did not claim the title "Messiah".[324] Bart Ehrman argues that Jesus did consider himself to be the Messiah, albeit in the sense that he would be the king of the new political order that God would usher in,[325] not in the sense that most people today think of the term.[326]
+
+Around AD 30, Jesus and his followers traveled from Galilee to Jerusalem to observe Passover.[318] Jesus caused a disturbance in the Second Temple,[28] which was the center of Jewish religious and civil authority. Sanders associates it with Jesus' prophecy that the Temple would be totally demolished.[327] Jesus held a last meal with his disciples, which is the origin of the Christian sacrament of bread and wine. His words as recorded in the Synoptic gospels and Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians do not entirely agree, but this symbolic meal appears to have pointed to Jesus' place in the coming Kingdom of God when very probably Jesus knew he was about to be killed, although he may have still hoped that God might yet intervene.[328]
+
+The Gospels say that Jesus was betrayed to the authorities by a disciple, and many scholars consider this report to be highly reliable.[144] He was executed on the orders of Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect of Judaea.[28] Pilate most likely saw Jesus' reference to the Kingdom of God as a threat to Roman authority and worked with the Temple elites to have Jesus executed.[329] The Sadducean high-priestly leaders of the Temple more plausibly had Jesus executed for political reasons than for his teaching.[144] They may have regarded him as a threat to stability, especially after he caused a disturbance at the Second Temple.[144][42] Other factors, such as Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, may have contributed to this decision.[330] Most scholars consider Jesus' crucifixion to be factual, because early Christians would not have invented the painful death of their leader.[7][331]
+
+After Jesus' death, his followers said he rose from the dead, although exact details of their experiences are unclear. The Gospel reports contradict each other, possibly suggesting competition among those claiming to have seen him first rather than deliberate fraud.[332] On the other hand, L. Michael White suggests that inconsistencies in the Gospels reflect differences in the agendas of their unknown authors.[293] The followers of Jesus formed a community to wait for his return and the founding of his kingdom.[28]
+
+Modern research on the historical Jesus has not led to a unified picture of the historical figure, partly because of the variety of academic traditions represented by the scholars.[333] Given the scarcity of historical sources, it is generally difficult for any scholar to construct a portrait of Jesus that can be considered historically valid beyond the basic elements of his life.[92][93] The portraits of Jesus constructed in these quests often differ from each other, and from the image portrayed in the gospels.[250][334]
+
+Jesus is seen as the founder of, in the words of Sanders, a '"renewal movement within Judaism." One of the criteria used to discern historical details in the "third quest" is the criterion of plausibility, relative to Jesus' Jewish context and to his influence on Christianity. A disagreement in contemporary research is whether Jesus was apocalyptic. Most scholars conclude that he was an apocalyptic preacher, like John the Baptist and Paul the Apostle. In contrast, certain prominent North American scholars, such as Burton Mack and John Dominic Crossan, advocate for a non-eschatological Jesus, one who is more of a Cynic sage than an apocalyptic preacher.[335] In addition to portraying Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet, a charismatic healer or a cynic philosopher, some scholars portray him as the true Messiah or an egalitarian prophet of social change.[336][337] However, the attributes described in the portraits sometimes overlap, and scholars who differ on some attributes sometimes agree on others.[338]
+
+Since the 18th century, scholars have occasionally put forth that Jesus was a political national messiah, but the evidence for this portrait is negligible. Likewise, the proposal that Jesus was a Zealot does not fit with the earliest strata of the Synoptic tradition.[144]
+
+Jesus grew up in Galilee and much of his ministry took place there.[341] The languages spoken in Galilee and Judea during the 1st century AD include Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek, with Aramaic being predominant.[342][343] There is substantial consensus that Jesus gave most of his teachings in Aramaic[344] in the Galilean dialect.[345][346]
+
+Modern scholars agree that Jesus was a Jew of 1st-century Palestine.[347][348] Ioudaios in New Testament Greek[r] is a term which in the contemporary context may refer to religion (Second Temple Judaism), ethnicity (of Judea), or both.[350][351][352] In a review of the state of modern scholarship, Amy-Jill Levine writes that the entire question of ethnicity is "fraught with difficulty", and that "beyond recognizing that 'Jesus was Jewish', rarely does the scholarship address what being 'Jewish' means".[353]
+
+The New Testament gives no description of the physical appearance of Jesus before his death—it is generally indifferent to racial appearances and does not refer to the features of the people it mentions.[354][355][356] Jesus probably looked like a typical Jew of his time and according to some scholars was likely to have had a sinewy appearance due to his ascetic and itinerant lifestyle.[357] One scholar has drawn on biblical and extra-biblical sources, to suggest an appearance of Jesus much different from that of Western art.[358] Unlike such depictions, his clothing may have suggested poverty consisting of a mantle (shawl) with tassels, a knee-length basic tunic and sandals.[359]
+
+The Christ myth theory is the hypothesis that Jesus of Nazareth never existed; or if he did, that he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity and the accounts in the gospels.[s] Stories of Jesus' birth, along with other key events, have so many mythic elements that some scholars have suggested that Jesus himself was a myth.[361]
+Bruno Bauer (1809–1882) taught that the first Gospel was a work of literature that produced history rather than described it.[362]
+According to Albert Kalthoff (1850–1906) a social movement produced Jesus when it encountered Jewish messianic expectations.[362]
+Arthur Drews (1865–1935) saw Jesus as the concrete form of a myth that predated Christianity.[362]
+Despite arguments put forward by authors who have questioned the existence of a historical Jesus, there remains a strong consensus in historical-critical biblical scholarship that a historical Jesus did live in that area and in that time period.[363][364][365][366][367][368][369]
+
+Apart from his own disciples and followers, the Jews of Jesus' day generally rejected him as the Messiah, as do the great majority of Jews today. Christian theologians, ecumenical councils, reformers and others have written extensively about Jesus over the centuries. Christian sects and schisms have often been defined or characterized by their descriptions of Jesus. Meanwhile, Manichaeans, Gnostics, Muslims, Druzes,[370][371] Baha'is, and others have found prominent places for Jesus in their religions.[372][373][374]
+
+Jesus is the central figure of Christianity.[13] Although Christian views of Jesus vary, it is possible to summarize the key beliefs shared among major denominations, as stated in their catechetical or confessional texts.[375][376][377] Christian views of Jesus are derived from various sources, including the canonical gospels and New Testament letters such as the Pauline epistles and the Johannine writings. These documents outline the key beliefs held by Christians about Jesus, including his divinity, humanity, and earthly life, and that he is the Christ and the Son of God.[378] Despite their many shared beliefs, not all Christian denominations agree on all doctrines, and both major and minor differences on teachings and beliefs have persisted throughout Christianity for centuries.[379]
+
+The New Testament states that the resurrection of Jesus is the foundation of the Christian faith (1 Corinthians 15:12–20).[380] Christians believe that through his sacrificial death and resurrection, humans can be reconciled with God and are thereby offered salvation and the promise of eternal life.[32] Recalling the words of John the Baptist on the day after Jesus' baptism, these doctrines sometimes refer to Jesus as the Lamb of God, who was crucified to fulfill his role as the servant of God.[381][382] Jesus is thus seen as the new and last Adam, whose obedience contrasts with Adam's disobedience.[383] Christians view Jesus as a role model, whose God-focused life believers are encouraged to imitate.[13]
+
+Most Christians believe that Jesus was both human and the Son of God.[14] While there has been theological debate over his nature,[t] Trinitarian Christians generally believe that Jesus is the Logos, God's incarnation and God the Son, both fully divine and fully human. However, the doctrine of the Trinity is not universally accepted among Christians.[385][386] With the Protestant Reformation, Christians such as Michael Servetus and the Socinians started questioning the ancient creeds that had established Jesus' two natures.[43] Nontrinitarian Christian groups include The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,[387] Unitarians and Jehovah's Witnesses.[384]
+
+Christians revere not only Jesus himself, but also his name. Devotions to the Holy Name of Jesus go back to the earliest days of Christianity.[388][389] These devotions and feasts exist in both Eastern and Western Christianity.[389]
+
+A central tenet of Judaism is the absolute unity and singularity of God (Deuteronomy 6:4), and the worship of a person is understood as a form of idolatry.[390]   Therefore, Judaism rejects the idea of Jesus (or any future Jewish Messiah) being God,[42] or a mediator to God, or part of a Trinity.[391] It holds that Jesus is not the Messiah, arguing that he neither fulfilled the Messianic prophecies in the Tanakh nor embodied the personal qualifications of the Messiah.[392] Jews argue that Jesus did not fulfill prophesies to build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26–28), gather Jews back to Israel (Isaiah 43:5–6), bring world peace (Isaiah 2:4), and unite humanity under the God of Israel (Zechariah 14:9).[393] Furthermore, according to Jewish tradition, there were no prophets after Malachi,[394] who delivered his prophesies in the 5th century BC.[395]
+
+Judaic criticism of Jesus is long-standing. The Talmud, written and compiled from the 3rd to the 5th century AD,[396] includes stories that since medieval times have been considered to be defamatory accounts of Jesus.[397] In one such story, Yeshu HaNozri ("Jesus the Nazarene"), a lewd apostate, is executed by the Jewish high court for spreading idolatry and practicing magic.[398] The majority of contemporary scholars consider that this material provides no information on the historical Jesus.[399] The Mishneh Torah, a late 12th-century work of Jewish law written by Moses Maimonides, states that Jesus is a "stumbling block" who makes "the majority of the world to err and serve a god other than the Lord".[400]
+
+Medieval Hebrew literature contains the anecdotal "Episode of Jesus" (known also as Toledot Yeshu), in which Jesus is described as being the son of Joseph, the son of Pandera  (see: Episode of Jesus). The account portrays Jesus as an impostor.[401]
+
+A major figure in Islam,[38][40] Jesus (commonly transliterated as ʾĪsā) is considered to be a messenger of God (Allah) and a messiah (al-Masih) who was sent to guide the Children of Israel (Bani Isra'il) with a new scripture, the Gospel (referred to in Islam as Injil).[39][402] Muslims regard the gospels of the New Testament as partially authentic, and believe that Jesus' original message was altered and that Muhammad came later to revive it.[403] Belief in Jesus (and all other messengers of God) is a requirement for being a Muslim.[404] The Quran mentions Jesus by name 25 times—more often than Muhammad[405][406]—and emphasizes that Jesus was a mortal human who, like all other prophets, had been divinely chosen to spread God's message.[407] While the Qur'an affirms the Virgin birth of Jesus, he is considered to be neither an incarnation nor a begotten God. Islamic texts emphasize a strict notion of monotheism (tawhid) and forbid the association of partners with God, which would be idolatry.[408] Like all prophets in Islam, Jesus is considered a Muslim.[409]
+
+The Quran describes the annunciation to Mary (Maryam) by the Holy Spirit that she is to give birth to Jesus while remaining a virgin. It calls the virgin birth a miracle that occurred by the will of God.[410][411] The Quran (21:91 and 66:12) states that God breathed his spirit into Mary while she was chaste.[410][411] Jesus is called a "spirit from God" because he was born through the action of the Spirit,[410] but that belief does not imply his pre-existence.[412]
+
+To aid in his ministry to the Jewish people, Jesus was given the ability to perform miracles, by permission of God rather than by his own power.[41] Through his ministry, Jesus is seen as a precursor to Muhammad.[407] According to the Quran, Jesus was not killed but was merely made to appear that way to unbelievers,[413] and he was physically raised into the heavens by God.[414] To Muslims, it is the ascension rather than the crucifixion that constitutes a major event in the life of Jesus.[415] Most Muslims believe that Jesus will return to earth at the end of time and defeat the Antichrist (ad-Dajjal) by killing him.[39]
+
+The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community has several distinct teachings about Jesus. Ahmadis believe that he was a mortal man who survived his crucifixion and died a natural death at the age of 120 in Kashmir, India and is buried at Roza Bal.[416]
+
+Bahá'í teachings consider Jesus to be a manifestation of God, a Bahá'í concept for prophets[417]—intermediaries between God and humanity, serving as messengers and reflecting God's qualities and attributes.[418] The Bahá'í concept emphasizes the simultaneous qualities of humanity and divinity;[418] thus, it is similar to the Christian concept of incarnation.[417] Bahá'í thought accepts Jesus as the Son of God.[419] In Bahá'í thought, Jesus was a perfect incarnation of God's attributes, but Bahá'í teachings reject the idea that "ineffable essence" of the Divinity was contained within a single human body because of their beliefs regarding "omnipresence and transcendence of the essence of God".[417]
+
+Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, wrote that since each manifestation of God has the same divine attributes, they can be seen as the spiritual "return" of all previous manifestations of God, and the appearance of each new manifestation of God inaugurates a religion that supersedes the former ones, a concept known as progressive revelation.[418] Bahá'ís believe that God's plan unfolds gradually through this process as mankind matures, and that some of the manifestations arrive in specific fulfillment of the missions of previous ones. Thus, Bahá'ís believe that Bahá'u'lláh is the promised return of Christ.[420] Bahá'í teachings confirm many, but not all, aspects of Jesus as portrayed in the gospels. Bahá'ís believe in the virgin birth and in the Crucifixion,[421][422] but see the Resurrection and the miracles of Jesus as symbolic.[419][422]
+
+In Christian Gnosticism (now a largely extinct religious movement),[423] Jesus was sent from the divine realm and provided the secret knowledge (gnosis) necessary for salvation. Most Gnostics believed that Jesus was a human who became possessed by the spirit of "the Christ" at his baptism. This spirit left Jesus' body during the crucifixion, but was rejoined to him when he was raised from the dead. Some Gnostics, however, were docetics, believed that Jesus did not have a physical body, but only appeared to possess one.[424] Manichaeism, a Gnostic sect, accepted Jesus as a prophet, in addition to revering Gautama Buddha and Zoroaster.[425][426] In the Druze faith, Jesus is considered one of God's important prophets.[370][371]
+
+Some Hindus consider Jesus to be an avatar or a sadhu.[427] Paramahansa Yogananda, an Indian guru, taught that Jesus was the reincarnation of Elisha and a student of John the Baptist, the reincarnation of Elijah.[428] Some Buddhists, including Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, regard Jesus as a bodhisattva who dedicated his life to the welfare of people.[429] The New Age movement entertains a wide variety of views on Jesus.[430] Theosophists, from whom many New Age teachings originated,[431] refer to Jesus as the Master Jesus, a spiritual reformer, and they believe that Christ, after various incarnations, occupied the body of Jesus.[432] The Urantia Book teaches Jesus is one of more than 700,000 heavenly sons of God.[433] Scientologists recognize Jesus (along with other religious figures such as Zoroaster, Muhammad, and Buddha) as part of their "religious heritage".[430][434] Atheists reject Jesus' divinity, but have different views about him – from challenging Jesus' mental health,[435][436] through criticizing his teachings, to emphasizing his ″moral superiority″ (Richard Dawkins).[437]
+
+Some of the earliest depictions of Jesus at the Dura-Europos church are firmly dated to before 256.[439] Thereafter, despite the lack of biblical references or historical records, a wide range of depictions of Jesus appeared during the last two millennia, often influenced by cultural settings, political circumstances and theological contexts.[339][340][355] As in other Early Christian art, the earliest depictions date to the late 2nd or early 3rd century, and surviving images are found especially in the Catacombs of Rome.[440]
+
+The depiction of Christ in pictorial form was highly controversial in the early Church.[441][u][442] From the 5th century onward, flat painted icons became popular in the Eastern Church.[443] The Byzantine Iconoclasm acted as a barrier to developments in the East, but by the 9th century, art was permitted again.[339] The Protestant Reformation brought renewed resistance to imagery, but total prohibition was atypical, and Protestant objections to images have tended to reduce since the 16th century. Although large images are generally avoided, few Protestants now object to book illustrations depicting Jesus.[444][445] The use of depictions of Jesus is advocated by the leaders of denominations such as Anglicans and Catholics[446][447][448] and is a key element of the Eastern Orthodox tradition.[449][450]
+
+The Transfiguration was a major theme in Eastern Christian art, and every Eastern Orthodox monk who had trained in icon painting had to prove his craft by painting an icon depicting it.[451] Icons receive the external marks of veneration, such as kisses and prostration, and they are thought to be powerful channels of divine grace.[443] The Renaissance brought forth a number of artists who focused on depictions of Jesus; Fra Angelico and others followed Giotto in the systematic development of uncluttered images.[339]
+
+Before the Protestant Reformation, the crucifix was common in Western Christianity. It is a model of the cross with Jesus crucified on it. The crucifix became the central ornament of the altar in the 13th century, a use that has been nearly universal in Roman Catholic churches since then.[452]
+
+Jesus appears as an infant in a manger (feed trough) in Christmas creches, which depict the Nativity scene.[453] He is typically joined by Mary, Joseph, animals, shepherds, angels, and the Magi.[453] Francis of Assisi (1181/82–1226) is credited with popularizing the creche, although he probably did not initiate it.[453] The creche reached its height of popularity in the 17th and 18th centuries in southern Europe.[453]
+
+The total destruction that ensued with the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70 made the survival of items from 1st-century Judea very rare and almost no direct records survive about the history of Judaism from the last part of the 1st century through the 2nd century.[454][455][v] Margaret M. Mitchell writes that although Eusebius reports (Ecclesiastical History III 5.3) that the early Christians left Jerusalem for Pella just before Jerusalem was subjected to the final lockdown, we must accept that no first-hand Christian items from the early Jerusalem Church have reached us.[457] Joe Nickell writes, "as investigation after investigation has shown, not a single, reliably authenticated relic of Jesus exists."[458][w]
+
+However, throughout the history of Christianity, a number of relics attributed to Jesus have been claimed, although doubt has been cast on them. The 16th-century Catholic theologian Erasmus wrote sarcastically about the proliferation of relics and the number of buildings that could have been constructed from the wood claimed to be from the cross used in the Crucifixion.[461] Similarly, while experts debate whether Jesus was crucified with three nails or with four, at least thirty holy nails continue to be venerated as relics across Europe.[462]
+
+Some relics, such as purported remnants of the Crown of Thorns, receive only a modest number of pilgrims, while the Shroud of Turin (which is associated with an approved Catholic devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus), has received millions,[463] including popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.[464][465]

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+Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Its adherents, known as Christians, believe that Jesus is the Christ, whose coming as the messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible, called the Old Testament in Christianity, and chronicled in the New Testament.[1] It is the world's largest religion, with about 2.4 billion followers.[2]
+
+Christianity remains culturally diverse in its Western and Eastern branches, as well as in its doctrines concerning justification and the nature of salvation, ecclesiology, ordination, and Christology. Their creeds generally hold in common Jesus as the Son of God—the logos incarnated—who ministered, suffered, and died on a cross, but rose from the dead for the salvation of mankind; as referred to as the gospel, meaning the "good news", in the Bible. Describing Jesus' life and teachings are the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John with the Jewish Old Testament as the gospel's respected background.
+
+Christianity began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the 1st century in the Roman province of Judea. Jesus' apostles and their followers spread around the Levant, Europe, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Transcaucasia, Egypt, and Ethiopia, despite initial persecution. It soon attracted gentile God-fearers, which led to a departure from Jewish customs, and, after the Fall of Jerusalem, AD 70 which ended the Temple-based Judaism, Christianity slowly separated from Judaism. Emperor Constantine the Great decriminalized Christianity in the Roman Empire by the Edict of Milan (313), later convening the Council of Nicaea (325) where Early Christianity was consolidated into what would become the State church of the Roman Empire (380). The early history of Christianity's united church before major schisms is sometimes referred to as the "Great Church". The Church of the East split after the Council of Ephesus (431) and Oriental Orthodoxy split after the Council of Chalcedon (451) over differences in Christology,[3] while the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church separated in the East–West Schism (1054), especially over the authority of the bishop of Rome. Protestantism split in numerous denominations from the Latin Catholic Church in the Reformation era (16th century) over theological and ecclesiological disputes, most predominantly on the issue of justification and papal primacy. Christianity played a prominent role in the development of Western civilization, particularly in Europe from late antiquity and the Middle Ages.[4][5][6][7][8] Following the Age of Discovery (15th–17th century), Christianity was spread into the Americas, Oceania, sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest of the world via missionary work.[9][10][11]
+
+The four largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church (1.3 billion/50.1%), Protestantism (920 million/36.7%), the Eastern Orthodox Church (230 million) and Oriental Orthodoxy (62 million/Orthodoxy combined at 11.9%),[12][13] amid various efforts toward unity (ecumenism).[14] Despite a decline in adherence in the West, Christianity remains the dominant religion in the region, with about 70% of the population identifying as Christian.[15] Christianity is growing in Africa and Asia, the world's most populous continents.[16] Christians remain persecuted in some regions the world, especially in the Middle-East, North Africa, East Asia, and South Asia.[17][18]
+
+Early Jewish Christians referred to themselves as 'The Way' (της οδου), probably coming from Isaiah 40:3, "prepare the way of the Lord."[19][note 1] According to Acts 11:26, the term "Christian" (Greek: Χριστιανός) was first used in reference to Jesus's disciples in the city of Antioch, meaning "followers of Christ," by the non-Jewish inhabitants of Antioch.[25] The earliest recorded use of the term "Christianity" (Greek: Χριστιανισμός) was by Ignatius of Antioch, in around 100 AD.[26]
+
+While Christians worldwide share basic convictions, there are also differences of interpretations and opinions of the Bible and sacred traditions on which Christianity is based.[27]
+
+Concise doctrinal statements or confessions of religious beliefs are known as creeds. They began as baptismal formulae and were later expanded during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries to become statements of faith.
+
+The Apostles' Creed is the most widely accepted statement of the articles of Christian faith. It is used by a number of Christian denominations for both liturgical and catechetical purposes, most visibly by liturgical churches of Western Christian tradition, including the Latin Church of the Catholic Church, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and Western Rite Orthodoxy. It is also used by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists. This particular creed was developed between the 2nd and 9th centuries. Its central doctrines are those of the Trinity and God the Creator. Each of the doctrines found in this creed can be traced to statements current in the apostolic period. The creed was apparently used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome.[28] Its points include:
+
+The Nicene Creed was formulated, largely in response to Arianism, at the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople in 325 and 381 respectively,[29][30] and ratified as the universal creed of Christendom by the First Council of Ephesus in 431.[31]
+
+The Chalcedonian Definition, or Creed of Chalcedon, developed at the Council of Chalcedon in 451,[32] though rejected by the Oriental Orthodox,[33] taught Christ "to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably": one divine and one human, and that both natures, while perfect in themselves, are nevertheless also perfectly united into one person.[34]
+
+The Athanasian Creed, received in the Western Church as having the same status as the Nicene and Chalcedonian, says: "We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance."[35]
+
+Most Christians (Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Protestant alike) accept the use of creeds, and subscribe to at least one of the creeds mentioned above.[36]
+
+Many Evangelical Protestants reject creeds as definitive statements of faith, even while agreeing with some or all of the substance of the creeds. Most Baptists do not use creeds "in that they have not sought to establish binding authoritative confessions of faith on one another."[37]:111 Also rejecting creeds are groups with roots in the Restoration Movement, such as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada, and the Churches of Christ.[38][39]:14–15[40]:123
+
+The central tenet of Christianity is the belief in Jesus as the Son of God and the Messiah (Christ). Christians believe that Jesus, as the Messiah, was anointed by God as savior of humanity and hold that Jesus' coming was the fulfillment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The Christian concept of messiah differs significantly from the contemporary Jewish concept. The core Christian belief is that through belief in and acceptance of the death and resurrection of Jesus, sinful humans can be reconciled to God, and thereby are offered salvation and the promise of eternal life.[41]
+
+While there have been many theological disputes over the nature of Jesus over the earliest centuries of Christian history, generally, Christians believe that Jesus is God incarnate and "true God and true man" (or both fully divine and fully human). Jesus, having become fully human, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, but did not sin. As fully God, he rose to life again. According to the New Testament, he rose from the dead,[42] ascended to heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father,[43] and will ultimately return[Acts 1:9–11] to fulfill the rest of the Messianic prophecy, including the resurrection of the dead, the Last Judgment, and the final establishment of the Kingdom of God.
+
+According to the canonical gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born from the Virgin Mary. Little of Jesus' childhood is recorded in the canonical gospels, although infancy gospels were popular in antiquity. In comparison, his adulthood, especially the week before his death, is well documented in the gospels contained within the New Testament, because that part of his life is believed to be most important. The biblical accounts of Jesus' ministry include: his baptism, miracles, preaching, teaching, and deeds.
+
+Christians consider the resurrection of Jesus to be the cornerstone of their faith (see 1 Corinthians 15) and the most important event in history.[44] Among Christian beliefs, the death and resurrection of Jesus are two core events on which much of Christian doctrine and theology is based.[45] According to the New Testament, Jesus was crucified, died a physical death, was buried within a tomb, and rose from the dead three days later.[Jn. 19:30–31] [Mk. 16:1] [16:6]
+
+The New Testament mentions several post-resurrection appearances of Jesus on different occasions to his twelve apostles and disciples, including "more than five hundred brethren at once",[1Cor 15:6] before Jesus' ascension to heaven. Jesus' death and resurrection are commemorated by Christians in all worship services, with special emphasis during Holy Week, which includes Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
+
+The death and resurrection of Jesus are usually considered the most important events in Christian theology, partly because they demonstrate that Jesus has power over life and death and therefore has the authority and power to give people eternal life.[46]
+
+Christian churches accept and teach the New Testament account of the resurrection of Jesus with very few exceptions.[47] Some modern scholars use the belief of Jesus' followers in the resurrection as a point of departure for establishing the continuity of the historical Jesus and the proclamation of the early church.[48] Some liberal Christians do not accept a literal bodily resurrection,[49][50] seeing the story as richly symbolic and spiritually nourishing myth. Arguments over death and resurrection claims occur at many religious debates and interfaith dialogues.[51] Paul the Apostle, an early Christian convert and missionary, wrote, "If Christ was not raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your trust in God is useless."[1Cor 15:14][52]
+
+Paul the Apostle, like Jews and Roman pagans of his time, believed that sacrifice can bring about new kinship ties, purity, and eternal life.[53] For Paul, the necessary sacrifice was the death of Jesus: Gentiles who are "Christ's" are, like Israel, descendants of Abraham and "heirs according to the promise".[Gal. 3:29][54] The God who raised Jesus from the dead would also give new life to the "mortal bodies" of Gentile Christians, who had become with Israel, the "children of God", and were therefore no longer "in the flesh".[Rom. 8:9,11,16][53]
+
+Modern Christian churches tend to be much more concerned with how humanity can be saved from a universal condition of sin and death than the question of how both Jews and Gentiles can be in God's family. According to Eastern Orthodox theology, based upon their understanding of the atonement as put forward by Irenaeus' recapitulation theory, Jesus' death is a ransom. This restores the relation with God, who is loving and reaches out to humanity, and offers the possibility of theosis c.q. divinization, becoming the kind of humans God wants humanity to be. According to Catholic doctrine, Jesus' death satisfies the wrath of God, aroused by the offense to God's honor caused by human's sinfulness. The Catholic Church teaches that salvation does not occur without faithfulness on the part of Christians; converts must live in accordance with principles of love and ordinarily must be baptized.[55] In Protestant theology, Jesus' death is regarded as a substitutionary penalty carried by Jesus, for the debt that has to be paid by humankind when it broke God's moral law. Martin Luther taught that baptism was necessary for salvation, but modern Lutherans and other Protestants tend to teach that salvation is a gift that comes to an individual by God's grace, sometimes defined as "unmerited favor", even apart from baptism.[citation needed]
+
+Christians differ in their views on the extent to which individuals' salvation is pre-ordained by God. Reformed theology places distinctive emphasis on grace by teaching that individuals are completely incapable of self-redemption, but that sanctifying grace is irresistible.[56] In contrast Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Arminian Protestants believe that the exercise of free will is necessary to have faith in Jesus.[57]
+
+Trinity refers to the teaching that the one God[59] comprises three distinct, eternally co-existing persons: the Father, the Son (incarnate in Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. Together, these three persons are sometimes called the Godhead,[60][61][62] although there is no single term in use in Scripture to denote the unified Godhead.[63] In the words of the Athanasian Creed, an early statement of Christian belief, "the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God".[64] They are distinct from another: the Father has no source, the Son is begotten of the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father. Though distinct, the three persons cannot be divided from one another in being or in operation. While some Christians also believe that God appeared as the Father in the Old Testament, it is agreed that he appeared as the Son in the New Testament, and will still continue to manifest as the Holy Spirit in the present. But still, God still existed as three persons in each of these times.[65] However, traditionally there is a belief that it was the Son who appeared in the Old Testament because, for example, when the Trinity is depicted in art, the Son typically has the distinctive appearance, a cruciform halo identifying Christ, and in depictions of the Garden of Eden, this looks forward to an Incarnation yet to occur. In some Early Christian sarcophagi the Logos is distinguished with a beard, "which allows him to appear ancient, even pre-existent."[66]
+
+The Trinity is an essential doctrine of mainstream Christianity. From earlier than the times of the Nicene Creed (325) Christianity advocated[67] the triune mystery-nature of God as a normative profession of faith. According to Roger E. Olson and Christopher Hall, through prayer, meditation, study and practice, the Christian community concluded "that God must exist as both a unity and trinity", codifying this in ecumenical council at the end of the 4th century.[68][69]
+
+According to this doctrine, God is not divided in the sense that each person has a third of the whole; rather, each person is considered to be fully God (see Perichoresis). The distinction lies in their relations, the Father being unbegotten; the Son being begotten of the Father; and the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and (in Western Christian theology) from the Son. Regardless of this apparent difference, the three "persons" are each eternal and omnipotent. Other Christian religions including Unitarian Universalism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Mormonism, do not share those views on the Trinity.
+
+The Greek word trias[70][note 2] is first seen in this sense in the works of Theophilus of Antioch; his text reads: "of the Trinity, of God, and of His Word, and of His Wisdom".[74] The term may have been in use before this time; its Latin equivalent,[note 2] trinitas,[72] appears afterwards with an explicit reference to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in Tertullian.[75][76] In the following century, the word was in general use. It is found in many passages of Origen.[77]
+
+Trinitarianism denotes Christians who believe in the concept of the Trinity. Almost all Christian denominations and churches hold Trinitarian beliefs. Although the words "Trinity" and "Triune" do not appear in the Bible, beginning in the 3rd century theologians developed the term and concept to facilitate comprehension of the New Testament teachings of God as being Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Since that time, Christian theologians have been careful to emphasize that Trinity does not imply that there are three gods (the antitrinitarian heresy of Tritheism), nor that each hypostasis of the Trinity is one-third of an infinite God (partialism), nor that the Son and the Holy Spirit are beings created by and subordinate to the Father (Arianism). Rather, the Trinity is defined as one God in three persons.[78]
+
+Nontrinitarianism (or antitrinitarianism) refers to theology that rejects the doctrine of the Trinity. Various nontrinitarian views, such as adoptionism or modalism, existed in early Christianity, leading to the disputes about Christology.[79] Nontrinitarianism reappeared in the Gnosticism of the Cathars between the 11th and 13th centuries, among groups with Unitarian theology in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century,[80] in the 18th-century Enlightenment, and in some groups arising during the Second Great Awakening of the 19th century.
+
+The end of things, whether the end of an individual life, the end of the age, or the end of the world, broadly speaking, is Christian eschatology; the study of the destiny of humans as it is revealed in the Bible. The major issues in Christian eschatology are the Tribulation, death and the afterlife, (mainly for Evangelical groups) the Millennium and the following Rapture, the Second Coming of Jesus, Resurrection of the Dead, Heaven, (for liturgical branches) Purgatory, and Hell, the Last Judgment, the end of the world, and the New Heavens and New Earth.
+
+Christians believe that the second coming of Christ will occur at the end of time, after a period of severe persecution (the Great Tribulation). All who have died will be resurrected bodily from the dead for the Last Judgment. Jesus will fully establish the Kingdom of God in fulfillment of scriptural prophecies.[82][83]
+
+Most Christians believe that human beings experience divine judgment and are rewarded either with eternal life or eternal damnation. This includes the general judgement at the resurrection of the dead as well as the belief (held by Catholics,[84][85] Orthodox[86][87] and most Protestants) in a judgment particular to the individual soul upon physical death.
+
+In the liturgical branches (e.g. Catholicism or Eastern or Oriental Orthodoxy), those who die in a state of grace, i.e., without any mortal sin separating them from God, but are still imperfectly purified from the effects of sin, undergo purification through the intermediate state of purgatory to achieve the holiness necessary for entrance into God's presence.[88] Those who have attained this goal are called saints (Latin sanctus, "holy").[89]
+
+Some Christian groups, such as Seventh-day Adventists, hold to mortalism, the belief that the human soul is not naturally immortal, and is unconscious during the intermediate state between bodily death and resurrection. These Christians also hold to Annihilationism, the belief that subsequent to the final judgement, the wicked will cease to exist rather than suffer everlasting torment. Jehovah's Witnesses hold to a similar view.[90]
+
+Depending on the specific denomination of Christianity, practices may include baptism, the Eucharist (Holy Communion or the Lord's Supper), prayer (including the Lord's Prayer), confession, confirmation, burial rites, marriage rites and the religious education of children. Most denominations have ordained clergy who lead regular communal worship services.[91]
+
+Services of worship typically follow a pattern or form known as liturgy.[note 3] Justin Martyr described 2nd-century Christian liturgy in his First Apology (c. 150) to Emperor Antoninus Pius, and his description remains relevant to the basic structure of Christian liturgical worship:
+
+And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need.[93]
+
+Thus, as Justin described, Christians assemble for communal worship typically on Sunday, the day of the resurrection, though other liturgical practices often occur outside this setting. Scripture readings are drawn from the Old and New Testaments, but especially the gospels.[note 4][94] Instruction is given based on these readings, called a sermon or homily. There are a variety of congregational prayers, including thanksgiving, confession, and intercession, which occur throughout the service and take a variety of forms including recited, responsive, silent, or sung.[91] Psalms, hymns, or worship songs may be sung.[95][96] Services can be varied for special events like significant feast days.[97]
+
+Nearly all forms of worship incorporate the Eucharist, which consists of a meal. It is reenacted in accordance with Jesus' instruction at the Last Supper that his followers do in remembrance of him as when he gave his disciples bread, saying, "This is my body", and gave them wine saying, "This is my blood".[98] In the early church, Christians and those yet to complete initiation would separate for the Eucharistic part of the service.[99] Some denominations continue to practice 'closed communion'. They offer communion to those who are already united in that denomination or sometimes individual church. Catholics restrict participation to their members who are not in a state of mortal sin.[100] Many other churches practice 'open communion' since they view communion as a means to unity, rather than an end, and invite all believing Christians to participate.[101][102]
+
+Justin Martyr[93]
+
+In Christian belief and practice, a sacrament is a rite, instituted by Christ, that confers grace, constituting a sacred mystery. The term is derived from the Latin word sacramentum, which was used to translate the Greek word for mystery. Views concerning both which rites are sacramental, and what it means for an act to be a sacrament, vary among Christian denominations and traditions.[103]
+
+The most conventional functional definition of a sacrament is that it is an outward sign, instituted by Christ, that conveys an inward, spiritual grace through Christ. The two most widely accepted sacraments are Baptism and the Eucharist, however, the majority of Christians also recognize five additional sacraments: Confirmation (Chrismation in the Orthodox tradition), Holy Orders (or ordination), Penance (or Confession), Anointing of the Sick, and Matrimony (see Christian views on marriage).[103]
+
+Taken together, these are the Seven Sacraments as recognized by churches in the High Church tradition—notably Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Independent Catholic, Old Catholic, many Anglicans, and some Lutherans. Most other denominations and traditions typically affirm only Baptism and Eucharist as sacraments, while some Protestant groups, such as the Quakers, reject sacramental theology.[103] Christian denominations, such as Baptists, which believe these rites do not communicate grace, prefer to call Baptism and Holy Communion ordinances rather than sacraments.[citation needed]
+
+In addition to this, the Church of the East has two additional sacraments in place of the traditional sacraments of Matrimony and the Anointing of the Sick. These include Holy Leaven (Melka) and the sign of the cross.[104]
+
+Baptism, specifically infant baptism, in the Lutheran tradition
+
+A penitent confessing his sins in a Ukrainian Catholic church
+
+A Methodist minister celebrating the Eucharist
+
+Confirmation being administered in an Anglican church
+
+Ordination of a priest in the Eastern Orthodox tradition
+
+Crowning during Holy Matrimony in the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church
+
+Service of the Sacrament of Holy Unction served on Great and Holy Wednesday
+
+Catholics, Eastern Christians, Lutherans, Anglicans and other traditional Protestant communities frame worship around the liturgical year.[105] The liturgical cycle divides the year into a series of seasons, each with their theological emphases, and modes of prayer, which can be signified by different ways of decorating churches, colors of paraments and vestments for clergy,[106] scriptural readings, themes for preaching and even different traditions and practices often observed personally or in the home.
+
+Western Christian liturgical calendars are based on the cycle of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church,[106] and Eastern Christians use analogous calendars based on the cycle of their respective rites. Calendars set aside holy days, such as solemnities which commemorate an event in the life of Jesus, Mary, or the saints, and periods of fasting, such as Lent and other pious events such as memoria, or lesser festivals commemorating saints. Christian groups that do not follow a liturgical tradition often retain certain celebrations, such as Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost: these are the celebrations of Christ's birth, resurrection, and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Church, respectively. A few denominations make no use of a liturgical calendar.[107]
+
+Christianity has not generally practiced aniconism, the avoidance or prohibition of devotional images, even if early Jewish Christians and some modern denominations, invoking the Decalogue's prohibition of idolatry, avoided figures in their symbols.
+
+The cross, today one of the most widely recognized symbols, was used by Christians from the earliest times.[108][109] Tertullian, in his book De Corona, tells how it was already a tradition for Christians to trace the sign of the cross on their foreheads.[110] Although the cross was known to the early Christians, the crucifix did not appear in use until the 5th century.[111]
+
+Among the earliest Christian symbols, that of the fish or Ichthys seems to have ranked first in importance, as seen on monumental sources such as tombs from the first decades of the 2nd century.[112] Its popularity seemingly arose from the Greek word ichthys (fish) forming an acronym for the Greek phrase Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter (Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ),[note 5] (Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior), a concise summary of Christian faith.[112]
+
+Other major Christian symbols include the chi-rho monogram, the dove (symbolic of the Holy Spirit), the sacrificial lamb (representing Christ's sacrifice), the vine (symbolizing the connection of the Christian with Christ) and many others. These all derive from passages of the New Testament.[111]
+
+Baptism is the ritual act, with the use of water, by which a person is admitted to membership of the Church. Beliefs on baptism vary among denominations. Differences occur firstly on whether the act has any spiritual significance. Some, such as the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, as well as Lutherans and Anglicans, hold to the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, which affirms that baptism creates or strengthens a person's faith, and is intimately linked to salvation. Others view baptism as a purely symbolic act, an external public declaration of the inward change which has taken place in the person, but not as spiritually efficacious. Secondly, there are differences of opinion on the methodology of the act. These methods are: by immersion; if immersion is total, by submersion; by affusion (pouring); and by aspersion (sprinkling). Those who hold the first view may also adhere to the tradition of infant baptism;[113] the Orthodox Churches all practice infant baptism and always baptize by total immersion repeated three times in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.[114][115] The Catholic Church also practices infant baptism,[116] usually by affusion, and utilizing the Trinitarian formula.[117]
+
+— The Lord’s Prayer, Matthew 6:9-13, EHV[118]
+
+Jesus' teaching on prayer in the Sermon on the Mount displays a distinct lack of interest in the external aspects of prayer. A concern with the techniques of prayer is condemned as "pagan", and instead a simple trust in God's fatherly goodness is encouraged.[Mat. 6:5–15] Elsewhere in the New Testament, this same freedom of access to God is also emphasized.[Phil. 4:6][Jam. 5:13–19] This confident position should be understood in light of Christian belief in the unique relationship between the believer and Christ through the indweling of the Holy Spirit.[119]
+
+In subsequent Christian traditions, certain physical gestures are emphasized, including medieval gestures such as genuflection or making the sign of the cross. Kneeling, bowing, and prostrations (see also poklon) are often practiced in more traditional branches of Christianity. Frequently in Western Christianity, the hands are placed palms together and forward as in the feudal commendation ceremony. At other times the older orans posture may be used, with palms up and elbows in.
+
+Intercessory prayer is prayer offered for the benefit of other people. There are many intercessory prayers recorded in the Bible, including prayers of the Apostle Peter on behalf of sick persons[Acts 9:40] and by prophets of the Old Testament in favor of other people.[1Ki 17:19–22] In the Epistle of James, no distinction is made between the intercessory prayer offered by ordinary believers and the prominent Old Testament prophet Elijah.[Jam 5:16–18] The effectiveness of prayer in Christianity derives from the power of God rather than the status of the one praying.[119]
+
+The ancient church, in both Eastern and Western Christianity, developed a tradition of asking for the intercession of (deceased) saints, and this remains the practice of most Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic, and some Anglican churches. Churches of the Protestant Reformation, however, rejected prayer to the saints, largely on the basis of the sole mediatorship of Christ.[120] The reformer Huldrych Zwingli admitted that he had offered prayers to the saints until his reading of the Bible convinced him that this was idolatrous.[121]
+
+According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God."[122] The Book of Common Prayer in the Anglican tradition is a guide which provides a set order for services, containing set prayers, scripture readings, and hymns or sung Psalms.[123]
+
+Christianity, like other religions, has adherents whose beliefs and biblical interpretations vary. Christianity regards the biblical canon, the Old Testament and the New Testament, as the inspired word of God. The traditional view of inspiration is that God worked through human authors so that what they produced was what God wished to communicate. The Greek word referring to inspiration in 2 Timothy 3:16 is theopneustos, which literally means "God-breathed".[124]
+
+Some believe that divine inspiration makes our present Bibles inerrant. Others claim inerrancy for the Bible in its original manuscripts, although none of those are extant. Still others maintain that only a particular translation is inerrant, such as the King James Version.[125][126][127] Another closely related view is biblical infallibility or limited inerrancy, which affirms that the Bible is free of error as a guide to salvation, but may include errors on matters such as history, geography, or science.
+
+The books of the Bible accepted by the Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant churches vary somewhat, with Jews accepting only the Hebrew Bible as canonical; however, there is substantial overlap. These variations are a reflection of the range of traditions, and of the councils that have convened on the subject. Every version of the Old Testament always includes the books of the Tanakh, the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Catholic and Orthodox canons, in addition to the Tanakh, also include the deuterocanonical books as part of the Old Testament. These books appear in the Septuagint, but are regarded by Protestants to be apocryphal. However, they are considered to be important historical documents which help to inform the understanding of words, grammar, and syntax used in the historical period of their conception. Some versions of the Bible include a separate Apocrypha section between the Old Testament and the New Testament.[128] The New Testament, originally written in Koine Greek, contains 27 books which are agreed upon by all churches.
+
+Modern scholarship has raised many issues with the Bible. While the King James Version is held to by many because of its striking English prose, in fact it was translated from the Erasmus Greek Bible, which in turn "was based on a single 12th Century manuscript that is one of the worst manuscripts we have available to us".[129] Much scholarship in the past several hundred years has gone into comparing different manuscripts in order to reconstruct the original text. Another issue is that several books are considered to be forgeries. The injunction that women "be silent and submissive" in 1 Timothy 2[130] is thought by many to be a forgery by a follower of Paul, a similar phrase in 1 Corinthians 14,[131] which is thought to be by Paul, appears in different places in different manuscripts and is thought to originally be a margin note by a copyist.[129] Other verses in 1 Corinthians, such as 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 where women are instructed to wear a covering over their hair "when they pray or prophesies",[132] contradict this verse.
+
+A final issue with the Bible is the way in which books were selected for inclusion in the New Testament. Other gospels have now been recovered, such as those found near Nag Hammadi in 1945, and while some of these texts are quite different from what Christians have been used to, it should be understood that some of this newly recovered Gospel material is quite possibly contemporaneous with, or even earlier than, the New Testament Gospels. The core of the Gospel of Thomas, in particular, may date from as early as AD 50 (although some major scholars contest this early dating),[133] and if so would provide an insight into the earliest gospel texts that underlie the canonical Gospels, texts that are mentioned in Luke 1:1–2. The Gospel of Thomas contains much that is familiar from the canonical Gospels—verse 113, for example ("The Father's Kingdom is spread out upon the earth, but people do not see it"),[134] is reminiscent of Luke 17:20–21[135][136]—and the Gospel of John, with a terminology and approach that is suggestive of what was later termed Gnosticism, has recently been seen as a possible response to the Gospel of Thomas, a text that is commonly labeled proto-Gnostic. Scholarship, then, is currently exploring the relationship in the early church between mystical speculation and experience on the one hand and the search for church order on the other, by analyzing new-found texts, by subjecting canonical texts to further scrutiny, and by an examination of the passage of New Testament texts to canonical status.
+
+In antiquity, two schools of exegesis developed in Alexandria and Antioch. The Alexandrian interpretation, exemplified by Origen, tended to read Scripture allegorically, while the Antiochene interpretation adhered to the literal sense, holding that other meanings (called theoria) could only be accepted if based on the literal meaning.[137]
+
+Catholic theology distinguishes two senses of scripture: the literal and the spiritual.[138]
+
+The literal sense of understanding scripture is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture. The spiritual sense is further subdivided into:
+
+Regarding exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation, Catholic theology holds:
+
+Protestant Christians believe that the Bible is a self-sufficient revelation, the final authority on all Christian doctrine, and revealed all truth necessary for salvation. This concept is known as sola scriptura.[144] Protestants characteristically believe that ordinary believers may reach an adequate understanding of Scripture because Scripture itself is clear in its meaning (or "perspicuous"). Martin Luther believed that without God's help, Scripture would be "enveloped in darkness".[145] He advocated for "one definite and simple understanding of Scripture".[145] John Calvin wrote, "all who refuse not to follow the Holy Spirit as their guide, find in the Scripture a clear light".[146] Related to this is "efficacy", that Scripture is able to lead people to faith; and "sufficiency", that the Scriptures contain everything that one needs to know in order to obtain salvation and to live a Christian life.[147]
+
+Protestants stress the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture, the historical-grammatical method.[148] The historical-grammatical method or grammatico-historical method is an effort in Biblical hermeneutics to find the intended original meaning in the text.[149] This original intended meaning of the text is drawn out through examination of the passage in light of the grammatical and syntactical aspects, the historical background, the literary genre, as well as theological (canonical) considerations.[150] The historical-grammatical method distinguishes between the one original meaning and the significance of the text. The significance of the text includes the ensuing use of the text or application. The original passage is seen as having only a single meaning or sense. As Milton S. Terry said: "A fundamental principle in grammatico-historical exposition is that the words and sentences can have but one significance in one and the same connection. The moment we neglect this principle we drift out upon a sea of uncertainty and conjecture."[151] Technically speaking, the grammatical-historical method of interpretation is distinct from the determination of the passage's significance in light of that interpretation. Taken together, both define the term (Biblical) hermeneutics.[149]
+
+Some Protestant interpreters make use of typology.[152]
+
+Christianity developed during the 1st century CE as a Jewish Christian sect of Second Temple Judaism.[154][155] An early Jewish Christian community was founded in Jerusalem under the leadership of the Pillars of the Church, namely James the Just, the brother of the Lord, Peter, and John.[156]
+
+Jewish Christianity soon attracted Gentile God-fearers, posing a problem for its Jewish religious outlook, which insisted on close observance of the Jewish commands. Paul the Apostle solved this by insisting that salvation by faith in Christ, and participation in his death and resurrection, sufficed.[157] At first he persecuted the early Christians, but after a conversion experience he preached to the gentiles, and is regarded as having had a formative effect on the emerging Christian identity as separate from Judaism. Eventually, his departure from Jewish customs would result in the establishment of Christianity as an independent religion.[158]
+
+This formative period was followed by the early bishops, whom Christians consider the successors of Christ's apostles. From the year 150, Christian teachers began to produce theological and apologetic works aimed at defending the faith. These authors are known as the Church Fathers, and the study of them is called patristics. Notable early Fathers include Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria and Origen.
+
+According to the New Testament, Christians were from the beginning, subject to persecution by some Jewish and Roman religious authorities. This involved punishments, including death, for Christians such as Stephen[Acts 7:59] and James, son of Zebedee.[Acts 12:2] Further widespread persecution of the Church occurred under nine subsequent Roman emperors, most intensely under Decius and Diocletian.
+
+Christianity spread to Aramaic-speaking peoples along the Mediterranean coast and also to the inland parts of the Roman Empire and beyond that into the Parthian Empire and the later Sasanian Empire, including Mesopotamia, which was dominated at different times and to varying extents by these empires.[159] The presence of Christianity in Africa began in the middle of the 1st century in Egypt and by the end of the 2nd century in the region around Carthage. Mark the Evangelist is claimed to have started the Church of Alexandria in about 43 CE; various later churches claim this as their own legacy, including the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.[160][161][162] Important Africans who influenced the early development of Christianity include Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen of Alexandria, Cyprian, Athanasius, and Augustine of Hippo.
+
+King Tiridates III made Christianity the state religion in Armenia between 301 and 314[81][163][164], thus Armenia became the first officially Christian state. It was not an entirely new religion in Armenia, having penetrated into the country from at least the third century, but it may have been present even earlier.[165]
+
+Constantine I was exposed to Christianity in his youth, and throughout his life his support for the religion grew, culminating in baptism on his deathbed.[166] During his reign, state-sanctioned persecution of Christians was ended with the Edict of Toleration in 311 and the Edict of Milan in 313. At that point, Christianity was still a minority belief, comprising perhaps only five percent of the Roman population.[167] Influenced by his adviser Mardonius, Constantine's nephew Julian unsuccessfully tried to suppress Christianity.[168] On 27 February 380, Theodosius I, Gratian, and Valentinian II established Nicene Christianity as the State church of the Roman Empire.[169] As soon as it became connected to the state, Christianity grew wealthy; the Church solicited donations from the rich and could now own land.[170]
+
+Constantine was also instrumental in the convocation of the First Council of Nicaea in 325, which sought to address Arianism and formulated the Nicene Creed, which is still used by in Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and many other Protestant churches.[171][36] Nicaea was the first of a series of ecumenical councils, which formally defined critical elements of the theology of the Church, notably concerning Christology.[172] The Church of the East did not accept the third and following ecumenical councils and is still separate today by its successors (Assyrian Church of the East).
+
+In terms of prosperity and cultural life, the Byzantine Empire was one of the peaks in Christian history and Christian civilization,[173] and Constantinople remained the leading city of the Christian world in size, wealth, and culture.[174] There was a renewed interest in classical Greek philosophy, as well as an increase in literary output in vernacular Greek.[175] Byzantine art and literature held a preeminent place in Europe, and the cultural impact of Byzantine art on the West during this period was enormous and of long-lasting significance.[176] The later rise of Islam in North Africa reduced the size and numbers of Christian congregations, leaving in large numbers only the Coptic Church in Egypt, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in the Horn of Africa and the Nubian Church in the Sudan (Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia).
+
+With the decline and fall of the Roman Empire in the West, the papacy became a political player, first visible in Pope Leo's diplomatic dealings with Huns and Vandals.[177] The church also entered into a long period of missionary activity and expansion among the various tribes. While Arianists instituted the death penalty for practicing pagans (see the Massacre of Verden, for example), what would later become Catholicism also spread among the Hungarians, the Germanic,[177] the Celtic, the Baltic and some Slavic peoples.
+
+Around 500, St. Benedict set out his Monastic Rule, establishing a system of regulations for the foundation and running of monasteries.[177] Monasticism became a powerful force throughout Europe,[177] and gave rise to many early centers of learning, most famously in Ireland, Scotland, and Gaul, contributing to the Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th century.
+
+In the 7th century, Muslims conquered Syria (including Jerusalem), North Africa, and Spain, converting some of the Christian population to Islam, and placing the rest under a separate legal status. Part of the Muslims' success was due to the exhaustion of the Byzantine Empire in its decades long conflict with Persia.[178] Beginning in the 8th century, with the rise of Carolingian leaders, the Papacy sought greater political support in the Frankish Kingdom.[179]
+
+The Middle Ages brought about major changes within the church. Pope Gregory the Great dramatically reformed the ecclesiastical structure and administration.[180] In the early 8th century, iconoclasm became a divisive issue, when it was sponsored by the Byzantine emperors. The Second Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (787) finally pronounced in favor of icons.[181] In the early 10th century, Western Christian monasticism was further rejuvenated through the leadership of the great Benedictine monastery of Cluny.[182]
+
+In the West, from the 11th century onward, some older cathedral schools became universities (see, for example, University of Oxford, University of Paris and University of Bologna). Previously, higher education had been the domain of Christian cathedral schools or monastic schools (Scholae monasticae), led by monks and nuns. Evidence of such schools dates back to the 6th century CE.[183] These new universities expanded the curriculum to include academic programs for clerics, lawyers, civil servants, and physicians.[184] The university is generally regarded as an institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting.[185]
+
+Accompanying the rise of the "new towns" throughout Europe, mendicant orders were founded, bringing the consecrated religious life out of the monastery and into the new urban setting. The two principal mendicant movements were the Franciscans[186] and the Dominicans,[187] founded by St. Francis and St. Dominic, respectively. Both orders made significant contributions to the development of the great universities of Europe. Another new order was the Cistercians, whose large isolated monasteries spearheaded the settlement of former wilderness areas. In this period, church building and ecclesiastical architecture reached new heights, culminating in the orders of Romanesque and Gothic architecture and the building of the great European cathedrals.[188]
+
+Christian nationalism emerged during this era in which Christians felt the impulse to recover lands in which Christianity had historically flourished.[189] From 1095 under the pontificate of Urban II, the Crusades were launched.[190] These were a series of military campaigns in the Holy Land and elsewhere, initiated in response to pleas from the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I for aid against Turkish expansion. The Crusades ultimately failed to stifle Islamic aggression and even contributed to Christian enmity with the sacking of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.[191]
+
+The Christian Church experienced internal conflict between the 7th and 13th centuries that resulted in a schism between the so-called Latin or Western Christian branch (the Catholic Church),[192] and an Eastern, largely Greek, branch (the Eastern Orthodox Church). The two sides disagreed on a number of administrative, liturgical and doctrinal issues, most notably papal primacy of jurisdiction.[193][194] The Second Council of Lyon (1274) and the Council of Florence (1439) attempted to reunite the churches, but in both cases, the Eastern Orthodox refused to implement the decisions, and the two principal churches remain in schism to the present day. However, the Catholic Church has achieved union with various smaller eastern churches.
+
+In the thirteenth century, a new emphasis on Jesus' suffering, exemplified by the Franciscans' preaching, had the consequence of turning worshippers' attention towards Jews, on whom Christians had placed the blame for Jesus' death. Christianity's limited tolerance of Jews was not new—Augustine of Hippo said that Jews should not be allowed to enjoy the citizenship that Christians took for granted—but the growing antipathy towards Jews was a factor that led to the expulsion of Jews from England in 1290, the first of many such expulsions in Europe.[195][196]
+
+Beginning around 1184, following the crusade against Cathar heresy,[197] various institutions, broadly referred to as the Inquisition, were established with the aim of suppressing heresy and securing religious and doctrinal unity within Christianity through conversion and prosecution.[198]
+
+The 15th-century Renaissance brought about a renewed interest in ancient and classical learning. During the Reformation, Martin Luther posted the Ninety-five Theses 1517 against the sale of indulgences.[199] Printed copies soon spread throughout Europe. In 1521 the Edict of Worms condemned and excommunicated Luther and his followers, resulting in the schism of the Western Christendom into several branches.[200]
+
+Other reformers like Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Calvin, Knox, and Arminius further criticized Catholic teaching and worship. These challenges developed into the movement called Protestantism, which repudiated the primacy of the pope, the role of tradition, the seven sacraments, and other doctrines and practices.[199] The Reformation in England began in 1534, when King Henry VIII had himself declared head of the Church of England. Beginning in 1536, the monasteries throughout England, Wales and Ireland were dissolved.[201]
+
+Thomas Müntzer, Andreas Karlstadt and other theologians perceived both the Catholic Church and the confessions of the Magisterial Reformation as corrupted. Their activity brought about the Radical Reformation, which gave birth to various Anabaptist denominations.
+
+Partly in response to the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church engaged in a substantial process of reform and renewal, known as the Counter-Reformation or Catholic Reform.[205] The Council of Trent clarified and reasserted Catholic doctrine. During the following centuries, competition between Catholicism and Protestantism became deeply entangled with political struggles among European states.[206]
+
+Meanwhile, the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492 brought about a new wave of missionary activity. Partly from missionary zeal, but under the impetus of colonial expansion by the European powers, Christianity spread to the Americas, Oceania, East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
+
+Throughout Europe, the division caused by the Reformation led to outbreaks of religious violence and the establishment of separate state churches in Europe. Lutheranism spread into the northern, central, and eastern parts of present-day Germany, Livonia, and Scandinavia. Anglicanism was established in England in 1534. Calvinism and its varieties, such as Presbyterianism, were introduced in Scotland, the Netherlands, Hungary, Switzerland, and France. Arminianism gained followers in the Netherlands and Frisia. Ultimately, these differences led to the outbreak of conflicts in which religion played a key factor. The Thirty Years' War, the English Civil War, and the French Wars of Religion are prominent examples. These events intensified the Christian debate on persecution and toleration.[207]
+
+In the era known as the Great Divergence, when in the West, the Age of Enlightenment and the scientific revolution brought about great societal changes, Christianity was confronted with various forms of skepticism and with certain modern political ideologies, such as versions of socialism and liberalism.[208] Events ranged from mere anti-clericalism to violent outbursts against Christianity, such as the dechristianization of France during the French Revolution,[209] the Spanish Civil War, and certain Marxist movements, especially the Russian Revolution and the persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union under state atheism.[210][211][212][213]
+
+Especially pressing in Europe was the formation of nation states after the Napoleonic era. In all European countries, different Christian denominations found themselves in competition to greater or lesser extents with each other and with the state. Variables were the relative sizes of the denominations and the religious, political, and ideological orientation of the states. Urs Altermatt of the University of Fribourg, looking specifically at Catholicism in Europe, identifies four models for the European nations. In traditionally Catholic-majority countries such as Belgium, Spain, and Austria, to some extent, religious and national communities are more or less identical. Cultural symbiosis and separation are found in Poland, the Republic of Ireland, and Switzerland, all countries with competing denominations. Competition is found in Germany, the Netherlands, and again Switzerland, all countries with minority Catholic populations, which to a greater or lesser extent identified with the nation. Finally, separation between religion (again, specifically Catholicism) and the state is found to a great degree in France and Italy, countries where the state actively opposed itself to the authority of the Catholic Church.[214]
+
+The combined factors of the formation of nation states and ultramontanism, especially in Germany and the Netherlands, but also in England to a much lesser extent,[215] often forced Catholic churches, organizations, and believers to choose between the national demands of the state and the authority of the Church, specifically the papacy. This conflict came to a head in the First Vatican Council, and in Germany would lead directly to the Kulturkampf, where liberals and Protestants under the leadership of Bismarck managed to severely restrict Catholic expression and organization.
+
+Christian commitment in Europe dropped as modernity and secularism came into their own,[216] particularly in Czechia and Estonia,[217] while religious commitments in America have been generally high in comparison to Europe. The late 20th century has shown the shift of Christian adherence to the Third World and the Southern Hemisphere in general,[218][219] with the West no longer the chief standard bearer of Christianity. Approximately 7 to 10% of Arabs are Christians,[220] most prevalent in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.
+
+With around 2.4 billion adherents,[221][222] split into three main branches of Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox, Christianity is the world's largest religion.[223] The Christian share of the world's population has stood at around 33% for the last hundred years, which means that one in three persons on Earth are Christians. This masks a major shift in the demographics of Christianity; large increases in the developing world have been accompanied by substantial declines in the developed world, mainly in Europe and North America.[224] According to a 2015 Pew Research Center study, within the next four decades, Christians will remain the world's largest religion; and by 2050, the Christian population is expected to exceed 3 billion.[225]:60
+
+As a percentage of Christians, the Catholic Church and Orthodoxy (both Eastern and Oriental) are declining in parts of the world (though Catholicism is growing in Asia, in Africa, vibrant in Eastern Europe, etc.), while Protestants and other Christians are on the rise in the developing world.[226][227][228] The so-called popular Protestantism[note 6] is one of the fastest growing religious categories in the world.[229][230] Nevertheless, Catholicism will also continue to grow to 1.63 billion by 2050, according to Todd Johnson of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity.[231] Africa alone, by 2015, will be home to 230 million African Catholics.[232] And if in 2018, the U.N. projects that Africa's population will reach 4.5 billion by 2100 (not 2 billion as predicted in 2004), Catholicism will indeed grow, as will other religious groups.[233]
+
+Christianity is the predominant religion in Europe, the Americas, and Southern Africa.[15] In Asia, it is the dominant religion in Georgia, Armenia, East Timor, and the Philippines.[234] However, it is declining in many areas including the Northern and Western United States,[235] Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), northern Europe (including Great Britain,[236] Scandinavia and other places), France, Germany, and the Canadian provinces of Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec, and parts of Asia (especially the Middle East, due to the Christian emigration,[237][238][239] South Korea,[240] Taiwan,[241] and Macau[242]).
+
+The Christian population is not decreasing in Brazil, the Southern United States,[243] and the province of Alberta, Canada,[244] but the percentage is decreasing. In countries such as Australia[245] and New Zealand,[246] the Christian population are declining in both numbers and percentage.
+
+Despite the declining numbers, Christianity remains the dominant religion in the Western World, where 70% are Christians.[15] A 2011 Pew Research Center survey found that 76% of Europeans, 73% in Oceania and about 86% in the Americas (90% in Latin America and 77% in North America) identified themselves as Christians.[15][247][248][249] By 2010 about 157 countries and territories in the world had Christian majorities.[223]
+
+However, there are many charismatic movements that have become well established over large parts of the world, especially Africa, Latin America, and Asia.[250][251][252][253][254] Since 1900, primarily due to conversion, Protestantism has spread rapidly in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Latin America.[255] From 1960 to 2000, the global growth of the number of reported Evangelical Protestants grew three times the world's population rate, and twice that of Islam.[256] A study conducted by St. Mary's University estimated about 10.2 million Muslim converts to Christianity in 2015.[257] The results also state that significant numbers of Muslims converts to Christianity in Afghanistan,[258] Albania,[257] Azerbaijan,[259][260] Algeria,[261][262] Belgium,[263] France,[262] Germany,[264] Iran,[265] India,[262] Indonesia,[266] Malaysia,[267] Morocco,[262][268] Russia,[262] the Netherlands,[269] Saudi Arabia,[270] Tunisia,[257] Turkey,[262][271][272][273] Kazakhstan,[274] Kyrgyzstan,[257] Kosovo,[275] the United States,[276] and Central Asia.[277][278] It is also reported that Christianity is popular among people of different backgrounds in India (mostly Hindus),[279][280] and Malaysia,[281] Mongolia,[282] Nigeria,[283] Vietnam,[284] Singapore,[285] Indonesia,[286][287] China,[288] Japan,[289] and South Korea.[290]
+
+In most countries in the developed world, church attendance among people who continue to identify themselves as Christians has been falling over the last few decades.[291] Some sources view this simply as part of a drift away from traditional membership institutions,[292] while others link it to signs of a decline in belief in the importance of religion in general.[293] Europe's Christian population, though in decline, still constitutes the largest geographical component of the religion.[294] According to data from the 2012 European Social Survey, around a third of European Christians say they attend services once a month or more,[295] Conversely about more than two-thirds of Latin American Christians; according to the World Values Survey, about 90% of African Christians (in Ghana, Nigeria, Rwand], South Africa and Zimbabwe) said they attended church regularly.[295]
+
+Christianity, in one form or another, is the sole state religion of the following nations: Argentina (Catholic),[296] Tuvalu (Reformed), Tonga (Methodist), Norway (Lutheran),[297][298][299] Costa Rica (Catholic),[300] the Kingdom of Denmark (Lutheran),[301] England (Anglican),[302] Georgia (Georgian Orthodox),[303] Greece (Greek Orthodox),[304] Iceland (Lutheran),[305] Liechtenstein (Catholic),[306] Malta (Catholic),[307] Monaco (Catholic),[308] and Vatican City (Catholic).[309]
+
+There are numerous other countries, such as Cyprus, which although do not have an established church, still give official recognition and support to a specific Christian denomination.[310]
+
+
+
+
+
+Countries with 50% or more Christians are colored purple; countries with 10% to 50% Christians are colored pink
+
+Nations with Christianity as their state religion are in blue
+
+Distribution of Catholics
+
+Distribution of Protestants
+
+Distribution of Eastern Orthodox
+
+Distribution of Oriental Orthodox
+
+Distribution of other Christians
+
+The four primary divisions of Christianity are the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, and Protestantism.[40]:14[314] A broader distinction that is sometimes drawn is between Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity, which has its origins in the East–West Schism (Great Schism) of the 11th century. Recently, neither Western or Eastern World Christianity has also stood out, for example, African-initiated churches. However, there are other present[315] and historical[316] Christian groups that do not fit neatly into one of these primary categories.
+
+There is a diversity of doctrines and liturgical practices among groups calling themselves Christian. These groups may vary ecclesiologically in their views on a classification of Christian denominations.[317] The Nicene Creed (325), however, is typically accepted as authoritative by most Christians, including the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and major Protestant (including Anglican) denominations.[318]
+
+
+
+The Catholic Church consists of those particular churches, headed by bishops, in communion with the pope, the bishop of Rome, as its highest authority in matters of faith, morality, and Church governance.[319][320] Like Eastern Orthodoxy, the Catholic Church, through apostolic succession, traces its origins to the Christian community founded by Jesus Christ.[321][322] Catholics maintain that the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church" founded by Jesus subsists fully in the Catholic Church, but also acknowledges other Christian churches and communities[323][324] and works towards reconciliation among all Christians.[323] The Catholic faith is detailed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.[325][326]
+
+As the world's oldest and largest continuously functioning international institution,[327] it has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization.[328] The 2,834 sees[329] are grouped into 24 particular autonomous Churches (the largest of which being the Latin Church), each with its own distinct traditions regarding the liturgy and the administering of sacraments.[330] With more than 1.1 billion baptized members, the Catholic Church is the largest Christian church and represents 50.1%[15] all Christians as well as one sixth of the world's population.[331][332][333]
+
+The Eastern Orthodox Church consists of those churches in communion with the patriarchal sees of the East, such as the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.[334] Like the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church also traces its heritage to the foundation of Christianity through apostolic succession and has an episcopal structure, though the autonomy of its component parts is emphasized, and most of them are national churches.
+
+A number of conflicts with Western Christianity over questions of doctrine and authority culminated in the Great Schism. Eastern Orthodoxy is the second largest single denomination in Christianity, with an estimated 230 million adherents, although Protestants collectively outnumber them, substantially.[15][13][335] As one of the oldest surviving religious institutions in the world, the Eastern Orthodox Church has played a prominent role in the history and culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, the Caucasus, and the Near East.[336]
+
+The Oriental Orthodox Churches (also called "Old Oriental" churches) are those eastern churches that recognize the first three ecumenical councils—Nicaea, Constantinople, and Ephesus—but reject the dogmatic definitions of the Council of Chalcedon and instead espouse a Miaphysite christology.
+
+The Oriental Orthodox communion consists of six groups: Syriac Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, Eritrean Orthodox, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (India), and Armenian Apostolic churches.[337] These six churches, while being in communion with each other, are completely independent hierarchically.[338] These churches are generally not in communion with Eastern Orthodox Church, with whom they are in dialogue for erecting a communion.[339] And together have about 62 million members worldwide.[340][341][342]
+
+The Assyrian Church of the East, with an unbroken patriarchate established in the 17th century, is an independent Eastern Christian denomination which claims continuity from the Church of the East—in parallel to the Catholic patriarchate established in the 16th century that evolved into the Chaldean Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic church in full communion with the Pope. It is an Eastern Christian church that follows the traditional christology and ecclesiology of the historical Church of the East. Largely aniconic and not in communion with any other church, it belongs to the eastern branch of Syriac Christianity, and uses the East Syriac Rite in its liturgy.[343]
+
+Its main spoken language is Syriac, a dialect of Eastern Aramaic, and the majority of its adherents are ethnic Assyrians. It is officially headquartered in the city of Erbil in northern Iraqi Kurdistan, and its original area also spreads into south-eastern Turkey and north-western Iran, corresponding to ancient Assyria. Its hierarchy is composed of metropolitan bishops and diocesan bishops, while lower clergy consists of priests and deacons, who serve in dioceses (eparchies) and parishes throughout the Middle East, India, North America, Oceania, and Europe (including the Caucasus and Russia).[344]
+
+The Ancient Church of the East distinguished itself from the Assyrian Church of the East in 1964. It is one of the Assyrian churches that claim continuity with the historical Patriarchate of Seleucia-Ctesiphon—the Church of the East, one of the oldest Christian churches in Mesopotamia.[345]
+
+In 1521, the Edict of Worms condemned Martin Luther and officially banned citizens of the Holy Roman Empire from defending or propagating his ideas.[346] This split within the Roman Catholic church is now called the Reformation. Prominent Reformers included Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, and John Calvin. The 1529 Protestation at Speyer against being excommunicated gave this party the name Protestantism. Luther's primary theological heirs are known as Lutherans. Zwingli and Calvin's heirs are far broader denominationally, and are referred to as the Reformed tradition.[347] Protestants have developed their own culture, with major contributions in education, the humanities and sciences, the political and social order, the economy and the arts, and many other fields.[348]
+
+The Anglican churches descended from the Church of England and organized in the Anglican Communion. Some, but not all Anglicans consider themselves both Protestant and Catholic.[349][350]
+
+Since the Anglican, Lutheran, and the Reformed branches of Protestantism originated for the most part in cooperation with the government, these movements are termed the  "Magisterial Reformation". On the other hand, groups such as the Anabaptists, who often do not consider themselves to be Protestant, originated in the Radical Reformation, which though sometimes protected under Acts of Toleration, do not trace their history back to any state church. They are further distinguished by their rejection of infant baptism; they believe in baptism only of adult believers—credobaptism (Anabaptists include the Amish, Apostolic, Mennonites, Hutterites and Schwarzenau Brethren/German Baptist groups.)[351][352][353]
+
+The term Protestant also refers to any churches which formed later, with either the Magisterial or Radical traditions. In the 18th century, for example, Methodism grew out of Anglican minister John Wesley's evangelical and revival movement.[354] Several Pentecostal and non-denominational churches, which emphasize the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit, in turn grew out of Methodism.[355] Because Methodists, Pentecostals and other evangelicals stress "accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior",[356] which comes from Wesley's emphasis of the New Birth,[357] they often refer to themselves as being born-again.[358][359]
+
+Protestantism is the second largest major group of Christians after Catholicism by number of followers, although the Eastern Orthodox Church is larger than any single Protestant denomination.[332] Estimates vary, mainly over the question of which denominations to classify as Protestant. Yet, the total number of Protestant Christians is  generally estimated between 800 million and 1 billion, corresponding to nearly 40% of world's Christians.[13][226][360][361] The majority of Protestants are members of just a handful of denominational families, i.e. Adventists, Anglicans, Baptists, Reformed (Calvinists),[362] Lutherans, Methodists, and Pentecostals.[226] Nondenominational, evangelical, charismatic, neo-charismatic, independent, and other churches are on the rise, and constitute a significant part of Protestant Christianity.[363]
+
+Some groups of individuals who hold basic Protestant tenets identify themselves simply as "Christians" or "born-again Christians". They typically distance themselves from the confessionalism and creedalism of other Christian communities[364] by calling themselves "non-denominational" or "evangelical". Often founded by individual pastors, they have little affiliation with historic denominations.[365]
+
+The Second Great Awakening, a period of religious revival that occurred in the United States during the early 1800s, saw the development of a number of unrelated churches. They generally saw themselves as restoring the original church of Jesus Christ rather than reforming one of the existing churches.[366] A common belief held by Restorationists was that the other divisions of Christianity had introduced doctrinal defects into Christianity, which was known as the Great Apostasy.[367] In Asia, Iglesia ni Cristo is a known restorationist religion that was established during the early 1900s.
+
+Some of the churches originating during this period are historically connected to early 19th-century camp meetings in the Midwest and upstate New York. One of the largest churches produced from the movement is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[368] American Millennialism and Adventism, which arose from Evangelical Protestantism, influenced the Jehovah's Witnesses movement and, as a reaction specifically to William Miller, the Seventh-day Adventists. Others, including the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Evangelical Christian Church in Canada,[369][370] Churches of Christ, and the Christian churches and churches of Christ, have their roots in the contemporaneous Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement, which was centered in Kentucky and Tennessee. Other groups originating in this time period include the Christadelphians and the previously mentioned Latter Day Saints movement. While the churches originating in the Second Great Awakening have some superficial similarities, their doctrine and practices vary significantly.[citation needed]
+
+Various smaller Independent Catholic communities, such as the Old Catholic Church, include the word Catholic in their title, and arguably have more or less liturgical practices in common with the Catholic Church, but are no longer in full communion with the Holy See.
+
+Spiritual Christians, such as the Doukhobor and Molokan, broke from the Russian Orthodox Church and maintain close association with Mennonites and Quakers due to similar religious practices; all of these groups are furthermore collectively considered to be peace churches due to their belief in pacifism.[371][372]
+
+Messianic Judaism (or the Messianic Movement) is the name of a Christian movement comprising a number of streams, whose members may consider themselves Jewish. The movement originated in the 1960s and 1970s, and it blends elements of religious Jewish practice with evangelical Christianity. Messianic Judaism affirms Christian creeds such as the messiahship and divinity of "Yeshua" (the Hebrew name of Jesus) and the Triune Nature of God, while also adhering to some Jewish dietary laws and customs.[373]
+
+Esoteric Christians regard Christianity as a mystery religion,[374][375] and profess the existence and possession of certain esoteric doctrines or practices,[376][377] hidden from the public but accessible only to a narrow circle of "enlightened", "initiated", or highly educated people.[378][379] Some of the esoteric Christian institutions include the Rosicrucian Fellowship, the Anthroposophical Society, and Martinism.
+
+Western culture, throughout most of its history, has been nearly equivalent to Christian culture, and a large portion of the population of the Western Hemisphere can be described as practicing or nominal Christians. The notion of "Europe" and the "Western World" has been intimately connected with the concept of "Christianity and Christendom". Many even attribute Christianity for being the link that created a unified European identity.[380]
+
+Though Western culture contained several polytheistic religions during its early years under the Greek and Roman empires, as the centralized Roman power waned, the dominance of the Catholic Church was the only consistent force in Western Europe.[381] Until the Age of Enlightenment,[382] Christian culture guided the course of philosophy, literature, art, music and science.[381][383] Christian disciplines of the respective arts have subsequently developed into Christian philosophy, Christian art, Christian music, Christian literature, etc.
+
+Christianity has had a significant impact on education, as the church created the bases of the Western system of education,[384] and was the sponsor of founding universities in the Western world, as the university is generally regarded as an institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting.[185] Historically, Christianity has often been a patron of science and medicine; many Catholic clergy,[385] Jesuits in particular,[386][387] have been active in the sciences throughout history and have made significant contributions to the development of science.[388] Protestantism also has had an important influence on science. According to the Merton Thesis, there was a positive correlation between the rise of English Puritanism and German Pietism on the one hand, and early experimental science on the other.[389] The civilizing influence of Christianity includes social welfare,[390] founding hospitals,[391] economics (as the Protestant work ethic),[392][393][394] architecture,[395] politics,[396] literature,[397] personal hygiene (ablution),[398][399][400] and family life.[401][402]
+
+Eastern Christians (particularly Nestorian Christians) contributed to the Arab Islamic civilization during the reign of the Ummayad and the Abbasid, by translating works of Greek philosophers to Syriac and afterwards, to Arabic.[403][404][405] They also excelled in philosophy, science, theology, and medicine.[406][407][408]
+
+Christians have made a myriad of contributions to human progress in a broad and diverse range of fields,[409] including philosophy,[410][411] science and technology,[412][413][414][415][416][417] fine arts and architecture,[418] politics, literatures, music,[419] and business.[420] According to 100 Years of Nobel Prizes a review of the Nobel Prizes award between 1901 and 2000 reveals that (65.4%) of Nobel Prizes Laureates, have identified Christianity in its various forms as their religious preference.[421]
+
+Postchristianity[422] is the term for the decline of Christianity, particularly in Europe, Canada, Australia, and to a minor degree the Southern Cone, in the 20th and 21st centuries, considered in terms of postmodernism. It refers to the loss of Christianity's monopoly on values and world view in historically Christian societies.
+
+Cultural Christians are secular people with a Christian heritage who may not believe in the religious claims of Christianity, but who retain an affinity for the popular culture, art, music, and so on related to the religion.[423]
+
+Christian groups and denominations have long expressed ideals of being reconciled, and in the 20th century, Christian ecumenism advanced in two ways.[424] One way was greater cooperation between groups, such as the World Evangelical Alliance founded in 1846 in London or the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of Protestants in 1910, the Justice, Peace and Creation Commission of the World Council of Churches founded in 1948 by Protestant and Orthodox churches, and similar national councils like the National Council of Churches in Australia, which includes Catholics.[424]
+
+The other way was an institutional union with united churches, a practice that can be traced back to unions between Lutherans and Calvinists in early 19th-century Germany. Congregationalist, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches united in 1925 to form the United Church of Canada,[425] and in 1977 to form the Uniting Church in Australia. The Church of South India was formed in 1947 by the union of Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, Congregationalist, and Presbyterian churches.[426]
+
+The ecumenical, monastic Taizé Community is notable for being composed of more than one hundred brothers from Protestant and Catholic traditions.[427] The community emphasizes the reconciliation of all denominations and its main church, located in Taizé, Saône-et-Loire, France, is named the "Church of Reconciliation".[427] The community is internationally known, attracting over 100,000 young pilgrims annually.[428]
+
+Steps towards reconciliation on a global level were taken in 1965 by the Catholic and Orthodox churches, mutually revoking the excommunications that marked their Great Schism in 1054;[429] the Anglican Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) working towards full communion between those churches since 1970;[430] and some Lutheran and Catholic churches signing the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in 1999 to address conflicts at the root of the Protestant Reformation. In 2006, the World Methodist Council, representing all Methodist denominations, adopted the declaration.[431]
+
+Criticism of Christianity and Christians goes back to the Apostolic Age, with the New Testament recording friction between the followers of Jesus and the Pharisees and scribes (e.g. Matthew 15:1–20 and Mark 7:1–23).[432] In the 2nd century, Christianity was criticized by the Jews on various grounds, e.g. that the prophecies of the Hebrew Bible could not have been fulfilled by Jesus, given that he did not have a successful life.[433] Additionally, a sacrifice to remove sins in advance, for everyone or as a human being, did not fit to the Jewish sacrifice ritual; furthermore, God is said to judge people on their deeds instead of their beliefs.[434][435] One of the first comprehensive attacks on Christianity came from the Greek philosopher Celsus, who wrote The True Word, a polemic criticizing Christians as being unprofitable members of society.[436][437][438] In response, the church father Origen published his treatise Contra Celsum, or Against Celsus, a seminal work of Christian apologetics, which systematically addressed Celsus's criticisms and helped bring Christianity a level of academic respectability.[439][438]
+
+By the 3rd century, criticism of Christianity had mounted. Wild rumors about Christians were widely circulated, claiming that they were atheists and that, as part of their rituals, they devoured human infants and engaged in incestuous orgies.[440][441] The Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry wrote the fifteen-volume Adversus Christianos as a comprehensive attack on Christianity, in part building on the teachings of Plotinus.[442][443]
+
+By the 12th century, the Mishneh Torah (i.e., Rabbi Moses Maimonides) was criticizing Christianity on the grounds of idol worship, in that Christians attributed divinity to Jesus, who had a physical body.[444] In the 19th century, Nietzsche began to write a series of polemics on the "unnatural" teachings of Christianity (e.g. sexual abstinence), and continued his criticism of Christianity to the end of his life.[445] In the 20th century, the philosopher Bertrand Russell expressed his criticism of Christianity in Why I Am Not a Christian, formulating his rejection of Christianity in the setting of logical arguments.[446]
+
+Criticism of Christianity continues to date, e.g. Jewish and Muslim theologians criticize the doctrine of the Trinity held by most Christians, stating that this doctrine in effect assumes that there are three gods, running against the basic tenet of monotheism.[447] New Testament scholar Robert M. Price has outlined the possibility that some Bible stories are based partly on myth in The Christ Myth Theory and its problems.[448]
+
+Christians are one of the most persecuted religious group in the world, especially in the Middle-East, North Africa and South and East Asia.[449] In 2017, Open Doors estimated approximately 260 million Christians are subjected annually to "high, very high, or extreme persecution"[450] with North Korea considered the most hazardous nation for Christians.[451][452] In 2019, a report[453][454] commissioned by the United Kingdom's Secretary of State of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to investigate global persecution of Christians found persecution has increased, and is highest in the Middle East, North Africa, India, China, North Korea, and Latin America,[clarification needed]  among others,[455] and that it is global and not limited to Islamic states.[454] This investigation found that approximately 80% of persecuted believers worldwide are Christians.[18]
+
+Christian apologetics aims to present a rational basis for Christianity. The word "apologetic" (Greek: ἀπολογητικός apologētikos) comes from the Greek verb ἀπολογέομαι apologeomai, meaning "(I) speak in defense of".[456] Christian apologetics has taken many forms over the centuries, starting with Paul the Apostle. The philosopher Thomas Aquinas presented five arguments for God's existence in the Summa Theologica, while his Summa contra Gentiles was a major apologetic work.[457][458] Another famous apologist, G. K. Chesterton, wrote in the early twentieth century about the benefits of religion and, specifically, Christianity. Famous for his use of paradox, Chesterton explained that while Christianity had the most mysteries, it was the most practical religion.[459][460] He pointed to the advance of Christian civilizations as proof of its practicality.[461] The physicist and priest John Polkinghorne, in his Questions of Truth, discusses the subject of religion and science, a topic that other Christian apologists such as Ravi Zacharias, John Lennox, and William Lane Craig have engaged, with the latter two men opining that the inflationary Big Bang model is evidence for the existence of God.[462]
+
+Hence all the power of magic became dissolved; and every bond of wickedness was destroyed, men's ignorance was taken away, and the old kingdom abolished God Himself appearing in the form of a man, for the renewal of eternal life.
+
+We have also as a Physician the Lord our God Jesus the Christ the only-begotten Son and Word, before time began, but who afterwards became also man, of Mary the virgin. For 'the Word was made flesh.' Being incorporeal, He was in the body; being impassible, He was in a passable body; being immortal, He was in a mortal body; being life, He became subject to corruption, that He might free our souls from death and corruption, and heal them, and might restore them to health, when they were diseased with ungodliness and wicked lusts
+
+The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: ...one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father 'to gather all things in one,' and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Savior, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, 'every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess; to him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all...
+
+For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water

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+Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Its adherents, known as Christians, believe that Jesus is the Christ, whose coming as the messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible, called the Old Testament in Christianity, and chronicled in the New Testament.[1] It is the world's largest religion, with about 2.4 billion followers.[2]
+
+Christianity remains culturally diverse in its Western and Eastern branches, as well as in its doctrines concerning justification and the nature of salvation, ecclesiology, ordination, and Christology. Their creeds generally hold in common Jesus as the Son of God—the logos incarnated—who ministered, suffered, and died on a cross, but rose from the dead for the salvation of mankind; as referred to as the gospel, meaning the "good news", in the Bible. Describing Jesus' life and teachings are the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John with the Jewish Old Testament as the gospel's respected background.
+
+Christianity began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the 1st century in the Roman province of Judea. Jesus' apostles and their followers spread around the Levant, Europe, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Transcaucasia, Egypt, and Ethiopia, despite initial persecution. It soon attracted gentile God-fearers, which led to a departure from Jewish customs, and, after the Fall of Jerusalem, AD 70 which ended the Temple-based Judaism, Christianity slowly separated from Judaism. Emperor Constantine the Great decriminalized Christianity in the Roman Empire by the Edict of Milan (313), later convening the Council of Nicaea (325) where Early Christianity was consolidated into what would become the State church of the Roman Empire (380). The early history of Christianity's united church before major schisms is sometimes referred to as the "Great Church". The Church of the East split after the Council of Ephesus (431) and Oriental Orthodoxy split after the Council of Chalcedon (451) over differences in Christology,[3] while the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church separated in the East–West Schism (1054), especially over the authority of the bishop of Rome. Protestantism split in numerous denominations from the Latin Catholic Church in the Reformation era (16th century) over theological and ecclesiological disputes, most predominantly on the issue of justification and papal primacy. Christianity played a prominent role in the development of Western civilization, particularly in Europe from late antiquity and the Middle Ages.[4][5][6][7][8] Following the Age of Discovery (15th–17th century), Christianity was spread into the Americas, Oceania, sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest of the world via missionary work.[9][10][11]
+
+The four largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church (1.3 billion/50.1%), Protestantism (920 million/36.7%), the Eastern Orthodox Church (230 million) and Oriental Orthodoxy (62 million/Orthodoxy combined at 11.9%),[12][13] amid various efforts toward unity (ecumenism).[14] Despite a decline in adherence in the West, Christianity remains the dominant religion in the region, with about 70% of the population identifying as Christian.[15] Christianity is growing in Africa and Asia, the world's most populous continents.[16] Christians remain persecuted in some regions the world, especially in the Middle-East, North Africa, East Asia, and South Asia.[17][18]
+
+Early Jewish Christians referred to themselves as 'The Way' (της οδου), probably coming from Isaiah 40:3, "prepare the way of the Lord."[19][note 1] According to Acts 11:26, the term "Christian" (Greek: Χριστιανός) was first used in reference to Jesus's disciples in the city of Antioch, meaning "followers of Christ," by the non-Jewish inhabitants of Antioch.[25] The earliest recorded use of the term "Christianity" (Greek: Χριστιανισμός) was by Ignatius of Antioch, in around 100 AD.[26]
+
+While Christians worldwide share basic convictions, there are also differences of interpretations and opinions of the Bible and sacred traditions on which Christianity is based.[27]
+
+Concise doctrinal statements or confessions of religious beliefs are known as creeds. They began as baptismal formulae and were later expanded during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries to become statements of faith.
+
+The Apostles' Creed is the most widely accepted statement of the articles of Christian faith. It is used by a number of Christian denominations for both liturgical and catechetical purposes, most visibly by liturgical churches of Western Christian tradition, including the Latin Church of the Catholic Church, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and Western Rite Orthodoxy. It is also used by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists. This particular creed was developed between the 2nd and 9th centuries. Its central doctrines are those of the Trinity and God the Creator. Each of the doctrines found in this creed can be traced to statements current in the apostolic period. The creed was apparently used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome.[28] Its points include:
+
+The Nicene Creed was formulated, largely in response to Arianism, at the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople in 325 and 381 respectively,[29][30] and ratified as the universal creed of Christendom by the First Council of Ephesus in 431.[31]
+
+The Chalcedonian Definition, or Creed of Chalcedon, developed at the Council of Chalcedon in 451,[32] though rejected by the Oriental Orthodox,[33] taught Christ "to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably": one divine and one human, and that both natures, while perfect in themselves, are nevertheless also perfectly united into one person.[34]
+
+The Athanasian Creed, received in the Western Church as having the same status as the Nicene and Chalcedonian, says: "We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance."[35]
+
+Most Christians (Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Protestant alike) accept the use of creeds, and subscribe to at least one of the creeds mentioned above.[36]
+
+Many Evangelical Protestants reject creeds as definitive statements of faith, even while agreeing with some or all of the substance of the creeds. Most Baptists do not use creeds "in that they have not sought to establish binding authoritative confessions of faith on one another."[37]:111 Also rejecting creeds are groups with roots in the Restoration Movement, such as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada, and the Churches of Christ.[38][39]:14–15[40]:123
+
+The central tenet of Christianity is the belief in Jesus as the Son of God and the Messiah (Christ). Christians believe that Jesus, as the Messiah, was anointed by God as savior of humanity and hold that Jesus' coming was the fulfillment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The Christian concept of messiah differs significantly from the contemporary Jewish concept. The core Christian belief is that through belief in and acceptance of the death and resurrection of Jesus, sinful humans can be reconciled to God, and thereby are offered salvation and the promise of eternal life.[41]
+
+While there have been many theological disputes over the nature of Jesus over the earliest centuries of Christian history, generally, Christians believe that Jesus is God incarnate and "true God and true man" (or both fully divine and fully human). Jesus, having become fully human, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, but did not sin. As fully God, he rose to life again. According to the New Testament, he rose from the dead,[42] ascended to heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father,[43] and will ultimately return[Acts 1:9–11] to fulfill the rest of the Messianic prophecy, including the resurrection of the dead, the Last Judgment, and the final establishment of the Kingdom of God.
+
+According to the canonical gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born from the Virgin Mary. Little of Jesus' childhood is recorded in the canonical gospels, although infancy gospels were popular in antiquity. In comparison, his adulthood, especially the week before his death, is well documented in the gospels contained within the New Testament, because that part of his life is believed to be most important. The biblical accounts of Jesus' ministry include: his baptism, miracles, preaching, teaching, and deeds.
+
+Christians consider the resurrection of Jesus to be the cornerstone of their faith (see 1 Corinthians 15) and the most important event in history.[44] Among Christian beliefs, the death and resurrection of Jesus are two core events on which much of Christian doctrine and theology is based.[45] According to the New Testament, Jesus was crucified, died a physical death, was buried within a tomb, and rose from the dead three days later.[Jn. 19:30–31] [Mk. 16:1] [16:6]
+
+The New Testament mentions several post-resurrection appearances of Jesus on different occasions to his twelve apostles and disciples, including "more than five hundred brethren at once",[1Cor 15:6] before Jesus' ascension to heaven. Jesus' death and resurrection are commemorated by Christians in all worship services, with special emphasis during Holy Week, which includes Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
+
+The death and resurrection of Jesus are usually considered the most important events in Christian theology, partly because they demonstrate that Jesus has power over life and death and therefore has the authority and power to give people eternal life.[46]
+
+Christian churches accept and teach the New Testament account of the resurrection of Jesus with very few exceptions.[47] Some modern scholars use the belief of Jesus' followers in the resurrection as a point of departure for establishing the continuity of the historical Jesus and the proclamation of the early church.[48] Some liberal Christians do not accept a literal bodily resurrection,[49][50] seeing the story as richly symbolic and spiritually nourishing myth. Arguments over death and resurrection claims occur at many religious debates and interfaith dialogues.[51] Paul the Apostle, an early Christian convert and missionary, wrote, "If Christ was not raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your trust in God is useless."[1Cor 15:14][52]
+
+Paul the Apostle, like Jews and Roman pagans of his time, believed that sacrifice can bring about new kinship ties, purity, and eternal life.[53] For Paul, the necessary sacrifice was the death of Jesus: Gentiles who are "Christ's" are, like Israel, descendants of Abraham and "heirs according to the promise".[Gal. 3:29][54] The God who raised Jesus from the dead would also give new life to the "mortal bodies" of Gentile Christians, who had become with Israel, the "children of God", and were therefore no longer "in the flesh".[Rom. 8:9,11,16][53]
+
+Modern Christian churches tend to be much more concerned with how humanity can be saved from a universal condition of sin and death than the question of how both Jews and Gentiles can be in God's family. According to Eastern Orthodox theology, based upon their understanding of the atonement as put forward by Irenaeus' recapitulation theory, Jesus' death is a ransom. This restores the relation with God, who is loving and reaches out to humanity, and offers the possibility of theosis c.q. divinization, becoming the kind of humans God wants humanity to be. According to Catholic doctrine, Jesus' death satisfies the wrath of God, aroused by the offense to God's honor caused by human's sinfulness. The Catholic Church teaches that salvation does not occur without faithfulness on the part of Christians; converts must live in accordance with principles of love and ordinarily must be baptized.[55] In Protestant theology, Jesus' death is regarded as a substitutionary penalty carried by Jesus, for the debt that has to be paid by humankind when it broke God's moral law. Martin Luther taught that baptism was necessary for salvation, but modern Lutherans and other Protestants tend to teach that salvation is a gift that comes to an individual by God's grace, sometimes defined as "unmerited favor", even apart from baptism.[citation needed]
+
+Christians differ in their views on the extent to which individuals' salvation is pre-ordained by God. Reformed theology places distinctive emphasis on grace by teaching that individuals are completely incapable of self-redemption, but that sanctifying grace is irresistible.[56] In contrast Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Arminian Protestants believe that the exercise of free will is necessary to have faith in Jesus.[57]
+
+Trinity refers to the teaching that the one God[59] comprises three distinct, eternally co-existing persons: the Father, the Son (incarnate in Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. Together, these three persons are sometimes called the Godhead,[60][61][62] although there is no single term in use in Scripture to denote the unified Godhead.[63] In the words of the Athanasian Creed, an early statement of Christian belief, "the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God".[64] They are distinct from another: the Father has no source, the Son is begotten of the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father. Though distinct, the three persons cannot be divided from one another in being or in operation. While some Christians also believe that God appeared as the Father in the Old Testament, it is agreed that he appeared as the Son in the New Testament, and will still continue to manifest as the Holy Spirit in the present. But still, God still existed as three persons in each of these times.[65] However, traditionally there is a belief that it was the Son who appeared in the Old Testament because, for example, when the Trinity is depicted in art, the Son typically has the distinctive appearance, a cruciform halo identifying Christ, and in depictions of the Garden of Eden, this looks forward to an Incarnation yet to occur. In some Early Christian sarcophagi the Logos is distinguished with a beard, "which allows him to appear ancient, even pre-existent."[66]
+
+The Trinity is an essential doctrine of mainstream Christianity. From earlier than the times of the Nicene Creed (325) Christianity advocated[67] the triune mystery-nature of God as a normative profession of faith. According to Roger E. Olson and Christopher Hall, through prayer, meditation, study and practice, the Christian community concluded "that God must exist as both a unity and trinity", codifying this in ecumenical council at the end of the 4th century.[68][69]
+
+According to this doctrine, God is not divided in the sense that each person has a third of the whole; rather, each person is considered to be fully God (see Perichoresis). The distinction lies in their relations, the Father being unbegotten; the Son being begotten of the Father; and the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and (in Western Christian theology) from the Son. Regardless of this apparent difference, the three "persons" are each eternal and omnipotent. Other Christian religions including Unitarian Universalism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Mormonism, do not share those views on the Trinity.
+
+The Greek word trias[70][note 2] is first seen in this sense in the works of Theophilus of Antioch; his text reads: "of the Trinity, of God, and of His Word, and of His Wisdom".[74] The term may have been in use before this time; its Latin equivalent,[note 2] trinitas,[72] appears afterwards with an explicit reference to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in Tertullian.[75][76] In the following century, the word was in general use. It is found in many passages of Origen.[77]
+
+Trinitarianism denotes Christians who believe in the concept of the Trinity. Almost all Christian denominations and churches hold Trinitarian beliefs. Although the words "Trinity" and "Triune" do not appear in the Bible, beginning in the 3rd century theologians developed the term and concept to facilitate comprehension of the New Testament teachings of God as being Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Since that time, Christian theologians have been careful to emphasize that Trinity does not imply that there are three gods (the antitrinitarian heresy of Tritheism), nor that each hypostasis of the Trinity is one-third of an infinite God (partialism), nor that the Son and the Holy Spirit are beings created by and subordinate to the Father (Arianism). Rather, the Trinity is defined as one God in three persons.[78]
+
+Nontrinitarianism (or antitrinitarianism) refers to theology that rejects the doctrine of the Trinity. Various nontrinitarian views, such as adoptionism or modalism, existed in early Christianity, leading to the disputes about Christology.[79] Nontrinitarianism reappeared in the Gnosticism of the Cathars between the 11th and 13th centuries, among groups with Unitarian theology in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century,[80] in the 18th-century Enlightenment, and in some groups arising during the Second Great Awakening of the 19th century.
+
+The end of things, whether the end of an individual life, the end of the age, or the end of the world, broadly speaking, is Christian eschatology; the study of the destiny of humans as it is revealed in the Bible. The major issues in Christian eschatology are the Tribulation, death and the afterlife, (mainly for Evangelical groups) the Millennium and the following Rapture, the Second Coming of Jesus, Resurrection of the Dead, Heaven, (for liturgical branches) Purgatory, and Hell, the Last Judgment, the end of the world, and the New Heavens and New Earth.
+
+Christians believe that the second coming of Christ will occur at the end of time, after a period of severe persecution (the Great Tribulation). All who have died will be resurrected bodily from the dead for the Last Judgment. Jesus will fully establish the Kingdom of God in fulfillment of scriptural prophecies.[82][83]
+
+Most Christians believe that human beings experience divine judgment and are rewarded either with eternal life or eternal damnation. This includes the general judgement at the resurrection of the dead as well as the belief (held by Catholics,[84][85] Orthodox[86][87] and most Protestants) in a judgment particular to the individual soul upon physical death.
+
+In the liturgical branches (e.g. Catholicism or Eastern or Oriental Orthodoxy), those who die in a state of grace, i.e., without any mortal sin separating them from God, but are still imperfectly purified from the effects of sin, undergo purification through the intermediate state of purgatory to achieve the holiness necessary for entrance into God's presence.[88] Those who have attained this goal are called saints (Latin sanctus, "holy").[89]
+
+Some Christian groups, such as Seventh-day Adventists, hold to mortalism, the belief that the human soul is not naturally immortal, and is unconscious during the intermediate state between bodily death and resurrection. These Christians also hold to Annihilationism, the belief that subsequent to the final judgement, the wicked will cease to exist rather than suffer everlasting torment. Jehovah's Witnesses hold to a similar view.[90]
+
+Depending on the specific denomination of Christianity, practices may include baptism, the Eucharist (Holy Communion or the Lord's Supper), prayer (including the Lord's Prayer), confession, confirmation, burial rites, marriage rites and the religious education of children. Most denominations have ordained clergy who lead regular communal worship services.[91]
+
+Services of worship typically follow a pattern or form known as liturgy.[note 3] Justin Martyr described 2nd-century Christian liturgy in his First Apology (c. 150) to Emperor Antoninus Pius, and his description remains relevant to the basic structure of Christian liturgical worship:
+
+And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need.[93]
+
+Thus, as Justin described, Christians assemble for communal worship typically on Sunday, the day of the resurrection, though other liturgical practices often occur outside this setting. Scripture readings are drawn from the Old and New Testaments, but especially the gospels.[note 4][94] Instruction is given based on these readings, called a sermon or homily. There are a variety of congregational prayers, including thanksgiving, confession, and intercession, which occur throughout the service and take a variety of forms including recited, responsive, silent, or sung.[91] Psalms, hymns, or worship songs may be sung.[95][96] Services can be varied for special events like significant feast days.[97]
+
+Nearly all forms of worship incorporate the Eucharist, which consists of a meal. It is reenacted in accordance with Jesus' instruction at the Last Supper that his followers do in remembrance of him as when he gave his disciples bread, saying, "This is my body", and gave them wine saying, "This is my blood".[98] In the early church, Christians and those yet to complete initiation would separate for the Eucharistic part of the service.[99] Some denominations continue to practice 'closed communion'. They offer communion to those who are already united in that denomination or sometimes individual church. Catholics restrict participation to their members who are not in a state of mortal sin.[100] Many other churches practice 'open communion' since they view communion as a means to unity, rather than an end, and invite all believing Christians to participate.[101][102]
+
+Justin Martyr[93]
+
+In Christian belief and practice, a sacrament is a rite, instituted by Christ, that confers grace, constituting a sacred mystery. The term is derived from the Latin word sacramentum, which was used to translate the Greek word for mystery. Views concerning both which rites are sacramental, and what it means for an act to be a sacrament, vary among Christian denominations and traditions.[103]
+
+The most conventional functional definition of a sacrament is that it is an outward sign, instituted by Christ, that conveys an inward, spiritual grace through Christ. The two most widely accepted sacraments are Baptism and the Eucharist, however, the majority of Christians also recognize five additional sacraments: Confirmation (Chrismation in the Orthodox tradition), Holy Orders (or ordination), Penance (or Confession), Anointing of the Sick, and Matrimony (see Christian views on marriage).[103]
+
+Taken together, these are the Seven Sacraments as recognized by churches in the High Church tradition—notably Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Independent Catholic, Old Catholic, many Anglicans, and some Lutherans. Most other denominations and traditions typically affirm only Baptism and Eucharist as sacraments, while some Protestant groups, such as the Quakers, reject sacramental theology.[103] Christian denominations, such as Baptists, which believe these rites do not communicate grace, prefer to call Baptism and Holy Communion ordinances rather than sacraments.[citation needed]
+
+In addition to this, the Church of the East has two additional sacraments in place of the traditional sacraments of Matrimony and the Anointing of the Sick. These include Holy Leaven (Melka) and the sign of the cross.[104]
+
+Baptism, specifically infant baptism, in the Lutheran tradition
+
+A penitent confessing his sins in a Ukrainian Catholic church
+
+A Methodist minister celebrating the Eucharist
+
+Confirmation being administered in an Anglican church
+
+Ordination of a priest in the Eastern Orthodox tradition
+
+Crowning during Holy Matrimony in the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church
+
+Service of the Sacrament of Holy Unction served on Great and Holy Wednesday
+
+Catholics, Eastern Christians, Lutherans, Anglicans and other traditional Protestant communities frame worship around the liturgical year.[105] The liturgical cycle divides the year into a series of seasons, each with their theological emphases, and modes of prayer, which can be signified by different ways of decorating churches, colors of paraments and vestments for clergy,[106] scriptural readings, themes for preaching and even different traditions and practices often observed personally or in the home.
+
+Western Christian liturgical calendars are based on the cycle of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church,[106] and Eastern Christians use analogous calendars based on the cycle of their respective rites. Calendars set aside holy days, such as solemnities which commemorate an event in the life of Jesus, Mary, or the saints, and periods of fasting, such as Lent and other pious events such as memoria, or lesser festivals commemorating saints. Christian groups that do not follow a liturgical tradition often retain certain celebrations, such as Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost: these are the celebrations of Christ's birth, resurrection, and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Church, respectively. A few denominations make no use of a liturgical calendar.[107]
+
+Christianity has not generally practiced aniconism, the avoidance or prohibition of devotional images, even if early Jewish Christians and some modern denominations, invoking the Decalogue's prohibition of idolatry, avoided figures in their symbols.
+
+The cross, today one of the most widely recognized symbols, was used by Christians from the earliest times.[108][109] Tertullian, in his book De Corona, tells how it was already a tradition for Christians to trace the sign of the cross on their foreheads.[110] Although the cross was known to the early Christians, the crucifix did not appear in use until the 5th century.[111]
+
+Among the earliest Christian symbols, that of the fish or Ichthys seems to have ranked first in importance, as seen on monumental sources such as tombs from the first decades of the 2nd century.[112] Its popularity seemingly arose from the Greek word ichthys (fish) forming an acronym for the Greek phrase Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter (Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ),[note 5] (Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior), a concise summary of Christian faith.[112]
+
+Other major Christian symbols include the chi-rho monogram, the dove (symbolic of the Holy Spirit), the sacrificial lamb (representing Christ's sacrifice), the vine (symbolizing the connection of the Christian with Christ) and many others. These all derive from passages of the New Testament.[111]
+
+Baptism is the ritual act, with the use of water, by which a person is admitted to membership of the Church. Beliefs on baptism vary among denominations. Differences occur firstly on whether the act has any spiritual significance. Some, such as the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, as well as Lutherans and Anglicans, hold to the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, which affirms that baptism creates or strengthens a person's faith, and is intimately linked to salvation. Others view baptism as a purely symbolic act, an external public declaration of the inward change which has taken place in the person, but not as spiritually efficacious. Secondly, there are differences of opinion on the methodology of the act. These methods are: by immersion; if immersion is total, by submersion; by affusion (pouring); and by aspersion (sprinkling). Those who hold the first view may also adhere to the tradition of infant baptism;[113] the Orthodox Churches all practice infant baptism and always baptize by total immersion repeated three times in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.[114][115] The Catholic Church also practices infant baptism,[116] usually by affusion, and utilizing the Trinitarian formula.[117]
+
+— The Lord’s Prayer, Matthew 6:9-13, EHV[118]
+
+Jesus' teaching on prayer in the Sermon on the Mount displays a distinct lack of interest in the external aspects of prayer. A concern with the techniques of prayer is condemned as "pagan", and instead a simple trust in God's fatherly goodness is encouraged.[Mat. 6:5–15] Elsewhere in the New Testament, this same freedom of access to God is also emphasized.[Phil. 4:6][Jam. 5:13–19] This confident position should be understood in light of Christian belief in the unique relationship between the believer and Christ through the indweling of the Holy Spirit.[119]
+
+In subsequent Christian traditions, certain physical gestures are emphasized, including medieval gestures such as genuflection or making the sign of the cross. Kneeling, bowing, and prostrations (see also poklon) are often practiced in more traditional branches of Christianity. Frequently in Western Christianity, the hands are placed palms together and forward as in the feudal commendation ceremony. At other times the older orans posture may be used, with palms up and elbows in.
+
+Intercessory prayer is prayer offered for the benefit of other people. There are many intercessory prayers recorded in the Bible, including prayers of the Apostle Peter on behalf of sick persons[Acts 9:40] and by prophets of the Old Testament in favor of other people.[1Ki 17:19–22] In the Epistle of James, no distinction is made between the intercessory prayer offered by ordinary believers and the prominent Old Testament prophet Elijah.[Jam 5:16–18] The effectiveness of prayer in Christianity derives from the power of God rather than the status of the one praying.[119]
+
+The ancient church, in both Eastern and Western Christianity, developed a tradition of asking for the intercession of (deceased) saints, and this remains the practice of most Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic, and some Anglican churches. Churches of the Protestant Reformation, however, rejected prayer to the saints, largely on the basis of the sole mediatorship of Christ.[120] The reformer Huldrych Zwingli admitted that he had offered prayers to the saints until his reading of the Bible convinced him that this was idolatrous.[121]
+
+According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God."[122] The Book of Common Prayer in the Anglican tradition is a guide which provides a set order for services, containing set prayers, scripture readings, and hymns or sung Psalms.[123]
+
+Christianity, like other religions, has adherents whose beliefs and biblical interpretations vary. Christianity regards the biblical canon, the Old Testament and the New Testament, as the inspired word of God. The traditional view of inspiration is that God worked through human authors so that what they produced was what God wished to communicate. The Greek word referring to inspiration in 2 Timothy 3:16 is theopneustos, which literally means "God-breathed".[124]
+
+Some believe that divine inspiration makes our present Bibles inerrant. Others claim inerrancy for the Bible in its original manuscripts, although none of those are extant. Still others maintain that only a particular translation is inerrant, such as the King James Version.[125][126][127] Another closely related view is biblical infallibility or limited inerrancy, which affirms that the Bible is free of error as a guide to salvation, but may include errors on matters such as history, geography, or science.
+
+The books of the Bible accepted by the Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant churches vary somewhat, with Jews accepting only the Hebrew Bible as canonical; however, there is substantial overlap. These variations are a reflection of the range of traditions, and of the councils that have convened on the subject. Every version of the Old Testament always includes the books of the Tanakh, the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Catholic and Orthodox canons, in addition to the Tanakh, also include the deuterocanonical books as part of the Old Testament. These books appear in the Septuagint, but are regarded by Protestants to be apocryphal. However, they are considered to be important historical documents which help to inform the understanding of words, grammar, and syntax used in the historical period of their conception. Some versions of the Bible include a separate Apocrypha section between the Old Testament and the New Testament.[128] The New Testament, originally written in Koine Greek, contains 27 books which are agreed upon by all churches.
+
+Modern scholarship has raised many issues with the Bible. While the King James Version is held to by many because of its striking English prose, in fact it was translated from the Erasmus Greek Bible, which in turn "was based on a single 12th Century manuscript that is one of the worst manuscripts we have available to us".[129] Much scholarship in the past several hundred years has gone into comparing different manuscripts in order to reconstruct the original text. Another issue is that several books are considered to be forgeries. The injunction that women "be silent and submissive" in 1 Timothy 2[130] is thought by many to be a forgery by a follower of Paul, a similar phrase in 1 Corinthians 14,[131] which is thought to be by Paul, appears in different places in different manuscripts and is thought to originally be a margin note by a copyist.[129] Other verses in 1 Corinthians, such as 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 where women are instructed to wear a covering over their hair "when they pray or prophesies",[132] contradict this verse.
+
+A final issue with the Bible is the way in which books were selected for inclusion in the New Testament. Other gospels have now been recovered, such as those found near Nag Hammadi in 1945, and while some of these texts are quite different from what Christians have been used to, it should be understood that some of this newly recovered Gospel material is quite possibly contemporaneous with, or even earlier than, the New Testament Gospels. The core of the Gospel of Thomas, in particular, may date from as early as AD 50 (although some major scholars contest this early dating),[133] and if so would provide an insight into the earliest gospel texts that underlie the canonical Gospels, texts that are mentioned in Luke 1:1–2. The Gospel of Thomas contains much that is familiar from the canonical Gospels—verse 113, for example ("The Father's Kingdom is spread out upon the earth, but people do not see it"),[134] is reminiscent of Luke 17:20–21[135][136]—and the Gospel of John, with a terminology and approach that is suggestive of what was later termed Gnosticism, has recently been seen as a possible response to the Gospel of Thomas, a text that is commonly labeled proto-Gnostic. Scholarship, then, is currently exploring the relationship in the early church between mystical speculation and experience on the one hand and the search for church order on the other, by analyzing new-found texts, by subjecting canonical texts to further scrutiny, and by an examination of the passage of New Testament texts to canonical status.
+
+In antiquity, two schools of exegesis developed in Alexandria and Antioch. The Alexandrian interpretation, exemplified by Origen, tended to read Scripture allegorically, while the Antiochene interpretation adhered to the literal sense, holding that other meanings (called theoria) could only be accepted if based on the literal meaning.[137]
+
+Catholic theology distinguishes two senses of scripture: the literal and the spiritual.[138]
+
+The literal sense of understanding scripture is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture. The spiritual sense is further subdivided into:
+
+Regarding exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation, Catholic theology holds:
+
+Protestant Christians believe that the Bible is a self-sufficient revelation, the final authority on all Christian doctrine, and revealed all truth necessary for salvation. This concept is known as sola scriptura.[144] Protestants characteristically believe that ordinary believers may reach an adequate understanding of Scripture because Scripture itself is clear in its meaning (or "perspicuous"). Martin Luther believed that without God's help, Scripture would be "enveloped in darkness".[145] He advocated for "one definite and simple understanding of Scripture".[145] John Calvin wrote, "all who refuse not to follow the Holy Spirit as their guide, find in the Scripture a clear light".[146] Related to this is "efficacy", that Scripture is able to lead people to faith; and "sufficiency", that the Scriptures contain everything that one needs to know in order to obtain salvation and to live a Christian life.[147]
+
+Protestants stress the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture, the historical-grammatical method.[148] The historical-grammatical method or grammatico-historical method is an effort in Biblical hermeneutics to find the intended original meaning in the text.[149] This original intended meaning of the text is drawn out through examination of the passage in light of the grammatical and syntactical aspects, the historical background, the literary genre, as well as theological (canonical) considerations.[150] The historical-grammatical method distinguishes between the one original meaning and the significance of the text. The significance of the text includes the ensuing use of the text or application. The original passage is seen as having only a single meaning or sense. As Milton S. Terry said: "A fundamental principle in grammatico-historical exposition is that the words and sentences can have but one significance in one and the same connection. The moment we neglect this principle we drift out upon a sea of uncertainty and conjecture."[151] Technically speaking, the grammatical-historical method of interpretation is distinct from the determination of the passage's significance in light of that interpretation. Taken together, both define the term (Biblical) hermeneutics.[149]
+
+Some Protestant interpreters make use of typology.[152]
+
+Christianity developed during the 1st century CE as a Jewish Christian sect of Second Temple Judaism.[154][155] An early Jewish Christian community was founded in Jerusalem under the leadership of the Pillars of the Church, namely James the Just, the brother of the Lord, Peter, and John.[156]
+
+Jewish Christianity soon attracted Gentile God-fearers, posing a problem for its Jewish religious outlook, which insisted on close observance of the Jewish commands. Paul the Apostle solved this by insisting that salvation by faith in Christ, and participation in his death and resurrection, sufficed.[157] At first he persecuted the early Christians, but after a conversion experience he preached to the gentiles, and is regarded as having had a formative effect on the emerging Christian identity as separate from Judaism. Eventually, his departure from Jewish customs would result in the establishment of Christianity as an independent religion.[158]
+
+This formative period was followed by the early bishops, whom Christians consider the successors of Christ's apostles. From the year 150, Christian teachers began to produce theological and apologetic works aimed at defending the faith. These authors are known as the Church Fathers, and the study of them is called patristics. Notable early Fathers include Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria and Origen.
+
+According to the New Testament, Christians were from the beginning, subject to persecution by some Jewish and Roman religious authorities. This involved punishments, including death, for Christians such as Stephen[Acts 7:59] and James, son of Zebedee.[Acts 12:2] Further widespread persecution of the Church occurred under nine subsequent Roman emperors, most intensely under Decius and Diocletian.
+
+Christianity spread to Aramaic-speaking peoples along the Mediterranean coast and also to the inland parts of the Roman Empire and beyond that into the Parthian Empire and the later Sasanian Empire, including Mesopotamia, which was dominated at different times and to varying extents by these empires.[159] The presence of Christianity in Africa began in the middle of the 1st century in Egypt and by the end of the 2nd century in the region around Carthage. Mark the Evangelist is claimed to have started the Church of Alexandria in about 43 CE; various later churches claim this as their own legacy, including the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.[160][161][162] Important Africans who influenced the early development of Christianity include Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen of Alexandria, Cyprian, Athanasius, and Augustine of Hippo.
+
+King Tiridates III made Christianity the state religion in Armenia between 301 and 314[81][163][164], thus Armenia became the first officially Christian state. It was not an entirely new religion in Armenia, having penetrated into the country from at least the third century, but it may have been present even earlier.[165]
+
+Constantine I was exposed to Christianity in his youth, and throughout his life his support for the religion grew, culminating in baptism on his deathbed.[166] During his reign, state-sanctioned persecution of Christians was ended with the Edict of Toleration in 311 and the Edict of Milan in 313. At that point, Christianity was still a minority belief, comprising perhaps only five percent of the Roman population.[167] Influenced by his adviser Mardonius, Constantine's nephew Julian unsuccessfully tried to suppress Christianity.[168] On 27 February 380, Theodosius I, Gratian, and Valentinian II established Nicene Christianity as the State church of the Roman Empire.[169] As soon as it became connected to the state, Christianity grew wealthy; the Church solicited donations from the rich and could now own land.[170]
+
+Constantine was also instrumental in the convocation of the First Council of Nicaea in 325, which sought to address Arianism and formulated the Nicene Creed, which is still used by in Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and many other Protestant churches.[171][36] Nicaea was the first of a series of ecumenical councils, which formally defined critical elements of the theology of the Church, notably concerning Christology.[172] The Church of the East did not accept the third and following ecumenical councils and is still separate today by its successors (Assyrian Church of the East).
+
+In terms of prosperity and cultural life, the Byzantine Empire was one of the peaks in Christian history and Christian civilization,[173] and Constantinople remained the leading city of the Christian world in size, wealth, and culture.[174] There was a renewed interest in classical Greek philosophy, as well as an increase in literary output in vernacular Greek.[175] Byzantine art and literature held a preeminent place in Europe, and the cultural impact of Byzantine art on the West during this period was enormous and of long-lasting significance.[176] The later rise of Islam in North Africa reduced the size and numbers of Christian congregations, leaving in large numbers only the Coptic Church in Egypt, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in the Horn of Africa and the Nubian Church in the Sudan (Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia).
+
+With the decline and fall of the Roman Empire in the West, the papacy became a political player, first visible in Pope Leo's diplomatic dealings with Huns and Vandals.[177] The church also entered into a long period of missionary activity and expansion among the various tribes. While Arianists instituted the death penalty for practicing pagans (see the Massacre of Verden, for example), what would later become Catholicism also spread among the Hungarians, the Germanic,[177] the Celtic, the Baltic and some Slavic peoples.
+
+Around 500, St. Benedict set out his Monastic Rule, establishing a system of regulations for the foundation and running of monasteries.[177] Monasticism became a powerful force throughout Europe,[177] and gave rise to many early centers of learning, most famously in Ireland, Scotland, and Gaul, contributing to the Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th century.
+
+In the 7th century, Muslims conquered Syria (including Jerusalem), North Africa, and Spain, converting some of the Christian population to Islam, and placing the rest under a separate legal status. Part of the Muslims' success was due to the exhaustion of the Byzantine Empire in its decades long conflict with Persia.[178] Beginning in the 8th century, with the rise of Carolingian leaders, the Papacy sought greater political support in the Frankish Kingdom.[179]
+
+The Middle Ages brought about major changes within the church. Pope Gregory the Great dramatically reformed the ecclesiastical structure and administration.[180] In the early 8th century, iconoclasm became a divisive issue, when it was sponsored by the Byzantine emperors. The Second Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (787) finally pronounced in favor of icons.[181] In the early 10th century, Western Christian monasticism was further rejuvenated through the leadership of the great Benedictine monastery of Cluny.[182]
+
+In the West, from the 11th century onward, some older cathedral schools became universities (see, for example, University of Oxford, University of Paris and University of Bologna). Previously, higher education had been the domain of Christian cathedral schools or monastic schools (Scholae monasticae), led by monks and nuns. Evidence of such schools dates back to the 6th century CE.[183] These new universities expanded the curriculum to include academic programs for clerics, lawyers, civil servants, and physicians.[184] The university is generally regarded as an institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting.[185]
+
+Accompanying the rise of the "new towns" throughout Europe, mendicant orders were founded, bringing the consecrated religious life out of the monastery and into the new urban setting. The two principal mendicant movements were the Franciscans[186] and the Dominicans,[187] founded by St. Francis and St. Dominic, respectively. Both orders made significant contributions to the development of the great universities of Europe. Another new order was the Cistercians, whose large isolated monasteries spearheaded the settlement of former wilderness areas. In this period, church building and ecclesiastical architecture reached new heights, culminating in the orders of Romanesque and Gothic architecture and the building of the great European cathedrals.[188]
+
+Christian nationalism emerged during this era in which Christians felt the impulse to recover lands in which Christianity had historically flourished.[189] From 1095 under the pontificate of Urban II, the Crusades were launched.[190] These were a series of military campaigns in the Holy Land and elsewhere, initiated in response to pleas from the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I for aid against Turkish expansion. The Crusades ultimately failed to stifle Islamic aggression and even contributed to Christian enmity with the sacking of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.[191]
+
+The Christian Church experienced internal conflict between the 7th and 13th centuries that resulted in a schism between the so-called Latin or Western Christian branch (the Catholic Church),[192] and an Eastern, largely Greek, branch (the Eastern Orthodox Church). The two sides disagreed on a number of administrative, liturgical and doctrinal issues, most notably papal primacy of jurisdiction.[193][194] The Second Council of Lyon (1274) and the Council of Florence (1439) attempted to reunite the churches, but in both cases, the Eastern Orthodox refused to implement the decisions, and the two principal churches remain in schism to the present day. However, the Catholic Church has achieved union with various smaller eastern churches.
+
+In the thirteenth century, a new emphasis on Jesus' suffering, exemplified by the Franciscans' preaching, had the consequence of turning worshippers' attention towards Jews, on whom Christians had placed the blame for Jesus' death. Christianity's limited tolerance of Jews was not new—Augustine of Hippo said that Jews should not be allowed to enjoy the citizenship that Christians took for granted—but the growing antipathy towards Jews was a factor that led to the expulsion of Jews from England in 1290, the first of many such expulsions in Europe.[195][196]
+
+Beginning around 1184, following the crusade against Cathar heresy,[197] various institutions, broadly referred to as the Inquisition, were established with the aim of suppressing heresy and securing religious and doctrinal unity within Christianity through conversion and prosecution.[198]
+
+The 15th-century Renaissance brought about a renewed interest in ancient and classical learning. During the Reformation, Martin Luther posted the Ninety-five Theses 1517 against the sale of indulgences.[199] Printed copies soon spread throughout Europe. In 1521 the Edict of Worms condemned and excommunicated Luther and his followers, resulting in the schism of the Western Christendom into several branches.[200]
+
+Other reformers like Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Calvin, Knox, and Arminius further criticized Catholic teaching and worship. These challenges developed into the movement called Protestantism, which repudiated the primacy of the pope, the role of tradition, the seven sacraments, and other doctrines and practices.[199] The Reformation in England began in 1534, when King Henry VIII had himself declared head of the Church of England. Beginning in 1536, the monasteries throughout England, Wales and Ireland were dissolved.[201]
+
+Thomas Müntzer, Andreas Karlstadt and other theologians perceived both the Catholic Church and the confessions of the Magisterial Reformation as corrupted. Their activity brought about the Radical Reformation, which gave birth to various Anabaptist denominations.
+
+Partly in response to the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church engaged in a substantial process of reform and renewal, known as the Counter-Reformation or Catholic Reform.[205] The Council of Trent clarified and reasserted Catholic doctrine. During the following centuries, competition between Catholicism and Protestantism became deeply entangled with political struggles among European states.[206]
+
+Meanwhile, the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492 brought about a new wave of missionary activity. Partly from missionary zeal, but under the impetus of colonial expansion by the European powers, Christianity spread to the Americas, Oceania, East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
+
+Throughout Europe, the division caused by the Reformation led to outbreaks of religious violence and the establishment of separate state churches in Europe. Lutheranism spread into the northern, central, and eastern parts of present-day Germany, Livonia, and Scandinavia. Anglicanism was established in England in 1534. Calvinism and its varieties, such as Presbyterianism, were introduced in Scotland, the Netherlands, Hungary, Switzerland, and France. Arminianism gained followers in the Netherlands and Frisia. Ultimately, these differences led to the outbreak of conflicts in which religion played a key factor. The Thirty Years' War, the English Civil War, and the French Wars of Religion are prominent examples. These events intensified the Christian debate on persecution and toleration.[207]
+
+In the era known as the Great Divergence, when in the West, the Age of Enlightenment and the scientific revolution brought about great societal changes, Christianity was confronted with various forms of skepticism and with certain modern political ideologies, such as versions of socialism and liberalism.[208] Events ranged from mere anti-clericalism to violent outbursts against Christianity, such as the dechristianization of France during the French Revolution,[209] the Spanish Civil War, and certain Marxist movements, especially the Russian Revolution and the persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union under state atheism.[210][211][212][213]
+
+Especially pressing in Europe was the formation of nation states after the Napoleonic era. In all European countries, different Christian denominations found themselves in competition to greater or lesser extents with each other and with the state. Variables were the relative sizes of the denominations and the religious, political, and ideological orientation of the states. Urs Altermatt of the University of Fribourg, looking specifically at Catholicism in Europe, identifies four models for the European nations. In traditionally Catholic-majority countries such as Belgium, Spain, and Austria, to some extent, religious and national communities are more or less identical. Cultural symbiosis and separation are found in Poland, the Republic of Ireland, and Switzerland, all countries with competing denominations. Competition is found in Germany, the Netherlands, and again Switzerland, all countries with minority Catholic populations, which to a greater or lesser extent identified with the nation. Finally, separation between religion (again, specifically Catholicism) and the state is found to a great degree in France and Italy, countries where the state actively opposed itself to the authority of the Catholic Church.[214]
+
+The combined factors of the formation of nation states and ultramontanism, especially in Germany and the Netherlands, but also in England to a much lesser extent,[215] often forced Catholic churches, organizations, and believers to choose between the national demands of the state and the authority of the Church, specifically the papacy. This conflict came to a head in the First Vatican Council, and in Germany would lead directly to the Kulturkampf, where liberals and Protestants under the leadership of Bismarck managed to severely restrict Catholic expression and organization.
+
+Christian commitment in Europe dropped as modernity and secularism came into their own,[216] particularly in Czechia and Estonia,[217] while religious commitments in America have been generally high in comparison to Europe. The late 20th century has shown the shift of Christian adherence to the Third World and the Southern Hemisphere in general,[218][219] with the West no longer the chief standard bearer of Christianity. Approximately 7 to 10% of Arabs are Christians,[220] most prevalent in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.
+
+With around 2.4 billion adherents,[221][222] split into three main branches of Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox, Christianity is the world's largest religion.[223] The Christian share of the world's population has stood at around 33% for the last hundred years, which means that one in three persons on Earth are Christians. This masks a major shift in the demographics of Christianity; large increases in the developing world have been accompanied by substantial declines in the developed world, mainly in Europe and North America.[224] According to a 2015 Pew Research Center study, within the next four decades, Christians will remain the world's largest religion; and by 2050, the Christian population is expected to exceed 3 billion.[225]:60
+
+As a percentage of Christians, the Catholic Church and Orthodoxy (both Eastern and Oriental) are declining in parts of the world (though Catholicism is growing in Asia, in Africa, vibrant in Eastern Europe, etc.), while Protestants and other Christians are on the rise in the developing world.[226][227][228] The so-called popular Protestantism[note 6] is one of the fastest growing religious categories in the world.[229][230] Nevertheless, Catholicism will also continue to grow to 1.63 billion by 2050, according to Todd Johnson of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity.[231] Africa alone, by 2015, will be home to 230 million African Catholics.[232] And if in 2018, the U.N. projects that Africa's population will reach 4.5 billion by 2100 (not 2 billion as predicted in 2004), Catholicism will indeed grow, as will other religious groups.[233]
+
+Christianity is the predominant religion in Europe, the Americas, and Southern Africa.[15] In Asia, it is the dominant religion in Georgia, Armenia, East Timor, and the Philippines.[234] However, it is declining in many areas including the Northern and Western United States,[235] Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), northern Europe (including Great Britain,[236] Scandinavia and other places), France, Germany, and the Canadian provinces of Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec, and parts of Asia (especially the Middle East, due to the Christian emigration,[237][238][239] South Korea,[240] Taiwan,[241] and Macau[242]).
+
+The Christian population is not decreasing in Brazil, the Southern United States,[243] and the province of Alberta, Canada,[244] but the percentage is decreasing. In countries such as Australia[245] and New Zealand,[246] the Christian population are declining in both numbers and percentage.
+
+Despite the declining numbers, Christianity remains the dominant religion in the Western World, where 70% are Christians.[15] A 2011 Pew Research Center survey found that 76% of Europeans, 73% in Oceania and about 86% in the Americas (90% in Latin America and 77% in North America) identified themselves as Christians.[15][247][248][249] By 2010 about 157 countries and territories in the world had Christian majorities.[223]
+
+However, there are many charismatic movements that have become well established over large parts of the world, especially Africa, Latin America, and Asia.[250][251][252][253][254] Since 1900, primarily due to conversion, Protestantism has spread rapidly in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Latin America.[255] From 1960 to 2000, the global growth of the number of reported Evangelical Protestants grew three times the world's population rate, and twice that of Islam.[256] A study conducted by St. Mary's University estimated about 10.2 million Muslim converts to Christianity in 2015.[257] The results also state that significant numbers of Muslims converts to Christianity in Afghanistan,[258] Albania,[257] Azerbaijan,[259][260] Algeria,[261][262] Belgium,[263] France,[262] Germany,[264] Iran,[265] India,[262] Indonesia,[266] Malaysia,[267] Morocco,[262][268] Russia,[262] the Netherlands,[269] Saudi Arabia,[270] Tunisia,[257] Turkey,[262][271][272][273] Kazakhstan,[274] Kyrgyzstan,[257] Kosovo,[275] the United States,[276] and Central Asia.[277][278] It is also reported that Christianity is popular among people of different backgrounds in India (mostly Hindus),[279][280] and Malaysia,[281] Mongolia,[282] Nigeria,[283] Vietnam,[284] Singapore,[285] Indonesia,[286][287] China,[288] Japan,[289] and South Korea.[290]
+
+In most countries in the developed world, church attendance among people who continue to identify themselves as Christians has been falling over the last few decades.[291] Some sources view this simply as part of a drift away from traditional membership institutions,[292] while others link it to signs of a decline in belief in the importance of religion in general.[293] Europe's Christian population, though in decline, still constitutes the largest geographical component of the religion.[294] According to data from the 2012 European Social Survey, around a third of European Christians say they attend services once a month or more,[295] Conversely about more than two-thirds of Latin American Christians; according to the World Values Survey, about 90% of African Christians (in Ghana, Nigeria, Rwand], South Africa and Zimbabwe) said they attended church regularly.[295]
+
+Christianity, in one form or another, is the sole state religion of the following nations: Argentina (Catholic),[296] Tuvalu (Reformed), Tonga (Methodist), Norway (Lutheran),[297][298][299] Costa Rica (Catholic),[300] the Kingdom of Denmark (Lutheran),[301] England (Anglican),[302] Georgia (Georgian Orthodox),[303] Greece (Greek Orthodox),[304] Iceland (Lutheran),[305] Liechtenstein (Catholic),[306] Malta (Catholic),[307] Monaco (Catholic),[308] and Vatican City (Catholic).[309]
+
+There are numerous other countries, such as Cyprus, which although do not have an established church, still give official recognition and support to a specific Christian denomination.[310]
+
+
+
+
+
+Countries with 50% or more Christians are colored purple; countries with 10% to 50% Christians are colored pink
+
+Nations with Christianity as their state religion are in blue
+
+Distribution of Catholics
+
+Distribution of Protestants
+
+Distribution of Eastern Orthodox
+
+Distribution of Oriental Orthodox
+
+Distribution of other Christians
+
+The four primary divisions of Christianity are the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, and Protestantism.[40]:14[314] A broader distinction that is sometimes drawn is between Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity, which has its origins in the East–West Schism (Great Schism) of the 11th century. Recently, neither Western or Eastern World Christianity has also stood out, for example, African-initiated churches. However, there are other present[315] and historical[316] Christian groups that do not fit neatly into one of these primary categories.
+
+There is a diversity of doctrines and liturgical practices among groups calling themselves Christian. These groups may vary ecclesiologically in their views on a classification of Christian denominations.[317] The Nicene Creed (325), however, is typically accepted as authoritative by most Christians, including the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and major Protestant (including Anglican) denominations.[318]
+
+
+
+The Catholic Church consists of those particular churches, headed by bishops, in communion with the pope, the bishop of Rome, as its highest authority in matters of faith, morality, and Church governance.[319][320] Like Eastern Orthodoxy, the Catholic Church, through apostolic succession, traces its origins to the Christian community founded by Jesus Christ.[321][322] Catholics maintain that the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church" founded by Jesus subsists fully in the Catholic Church, but also acknowledges other Christian churches and communities[323][324] and works towards reconciliation among all Christians.[323] The Catholic faith is detailed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.[325][326]
+
+As the world's oldest and largest continuously functioning international institution,[327] it has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization.[328] The 2,834 sees[329] are grouped into 24 particular autonomous Churches (the largest of which being the Latin Church), each with its own distinct traditions regarding the liturgy and the administering of sacraments.[330] With more than 1.1 billion baptized members, the Catholic Church is the largest Christian church and represents 50.1%[15] all Christians as well as one sixth of the world's population.[331][332][333]
+
+The Eastern Orthodox Church consists of those churches in communion with the patriarchal sees of the East, such as the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.[334] Like the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church also traces its heritage to the foundation of Christianity through apostolic succession and has an episcopal structure, though the autonomy of its component parts is emphasized, and most of them are national churches.
+
+A number of conflicts with Western Christianity over questions of doctrine and authority culminated in the Great Schism. Eastern Orthodoxy is the second largest single denomination in Christianity, with an estimated 230 million adherents, although Protestants collectively outnumber them, substantially.[15][13][335] As one of the oldest surviving religious institutions in the world, the Eastern Orthodox Church has played a prominent role in the history and culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, the Caucasus, and the Near East.[336]
+
+The Oriental Orthodox Churches (also called "Old Oriental" churches) are those eastern churches that recognize the first three ecumenical councils—Nicaea, Constantinople, and Ephesus—but reject the dogmatic definitions of the Council of Chalcedon and instead espouse a Miaphysite christology.
+
+The Oriental Orthodox communion consists of six groups: Syriac Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, Eritrean Orthodox, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (India), and Armenian Apostolic churches.[337] These six churches, while being in communion with each other, are completely independent hierarchically.[338] These churches are generally not in communion with Eastern Orthodox Church, with whom they are in dialogue for erecting a communion.[339] And together have about 62 million members worldwide.[340][341][342]
+
+The Assyrian Church of the East, with an unbroken patriarchate established in the 17th century, is an independent Eastern Christian denomination which claims continuity from the Church of the East—in parallel to the Catholic patriarchate established in the 16th century that evolved into the Chaldean Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic church in full communion with the Pope. It is an Eastern Christian church that follows the traditional christology and ecclesiology of the historical Church of the East. Largely aniconic and not in communion with any other church, it belongs to the eastern branch of Syriac Christianity, and uses the East Syriac Rite in its liturgy.[343]
+
+Its main spoken language is Syriac, a dialect of Eastern Aramaic, and the majority of its adherents are ethnic Assyrians. It is officially headquartered in the city of Erbil in northern Iraqi Kurdistan, and its original area also spreads into south-eastern Turkey and north-western Iran, corresponding to ancient Assyria. Its hierarchy is composed of metropolitan bishops and diocesan bishops, while lower clergy consists of priests and deacons, who serve in dioceses (eparchies) and parishes throughout the Middle East, India, North America, Oceania, and Europe (including the Caucasus and Russia).[344]
+
+The Ancient Church of the East distinguished itself from the Assyrian Church of the East in 1964. It is one of the Assyrian churches that claim continuity with the historical Patriarchate of Seleucia-Ctesiphon—the Church of the East, one of the oldest Christian churches in Mesopotamia.[345]
+
+In 1521, the Edict of Worms condemned Martin Luther and officially banned citizens of the Holy Roman Empire from defending or propagating his ideas.[346] This split within the Roman Catholic church is now called the Reformation. Prominent Reformers included Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, and John Calvin. The 1529 Protestation at Speyer against being excommunicated gave this party the name Protestantism. Luther's primary theological heirs are known as Lutherans. Zwingli and Calvin's heirs are far broader denominationally, and are referred to as the Reformed tradition.[347] Protestants have developed their own culture, with major contributions in education, the humanities and sciences, the political and social order, the economy and the arts, and many other fields.[348]
+
+The Anglican churches descended from the Church of England and organized in the Anglican Communion. Some, but not all Anglicans consider themselves both Protestant and Catholic.[349][350]
+
+Since the Anglican, Lutheran, and the Reformed branches of Protestantism originated for the most part in cooperation with the government, these movements are termed the  "Magisterial Reformation". On the other hand, groups such as the Anabaptists, who often do not consider themselves to be Protestant, originated in the Radical Reformation, which though sometimes protected under Acts of Toleration, do not trace their history back to any state church. They are further distinguished by their rejection of infant baptism; they believe in baptism only of adult believers—credobaptism (Anabaptists include the Amish, Apostolic, Mennonites, Hutterites and Schwarzenau Brethren/German Baptist groups.)[351][352][353]
+
+The term Protestant also refers to any churches which formed later, with either the Magisterial or Radical traditions. In the 18th century, for example, Methodism grew out of Anglican minister John Wesley's evangelical and revival movement.[354] Several Pentecostal and non-denominational churches, which emphasize the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit, in turn grew out of Methodism.[355] Because Methodists, Pentecostals and other evangelicals stress "accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior",[356] which comes from Wesley's emphasis of the New Birth,[357] they often refer to themselves as being born-again.[358][359]
+
+Protestantism is the second largest major group of Christians after Catholicism by number of followers, although the Eastern Orthodox Church is larger than any single Protestant denomination.[332] Estimates vary, mainly over the question of which denominations to classify as Protestant. Yet, the total number of Protestant Christians is  generally estimated between 800 million and 1 billion, corresponding to nearly 40% of world's Christians.[13][226][360][361] The majority of Protestants are members of just a handful of denominational families, i.e. Adventists, Anglicans, Baptists, Reformed (Calvinists),[362] Lutherans, Methodists, and Pentecostals.[226] Nondenominational, evangelical, charismatic, neo-charismatic, independent, and other churches are on the rise, and constitute a significant part of Protestant Christianity.[363]
+
+Some groups of individuals who hold basic Protestant tenets identify themselves simply as "Christians" or "born-again Christians". They typically distance themselves from the confessionalism and creedalism of other Christian communities[364] by calling themselves "non-denominational" or "evangelical". Often founded by individual pastors, they have little affiliation with historic denominations.[365]
+
+The Second Great Awakening, a period of religious revival that occurred in the United States during the early 1800s, saw the development of a number of unrelated churches. They generally saw themselves as restoring the original church of Jesus Christ rather than reforming one of the existing churches.[366] A common belief held by Restorationists was that the other divisions of Christianity had introduced doctrinal defects into Christianity, which was known as the Great Apostasy.[367] In Asia, Iglesia ni Cristo is a known restorationist religion that was established during the early 1900s.
+
+Some of the churches originating during this period are historically connected to early 19th-century camp meetings in the Midwest and upstate New York. One of the largest churches produced from the movement is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[368] American Millennialism and Adventism, which arose from Evangelical Protestantism, influenced the Jehovah's Witnesses movement and, as a reaction specifically to William Miller, the Seventh-day Adventists. Others, including the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Evangelical Christian Church in Canada,[369][370] Churches of Christ, and the Christian churches and churches of Christ, have their roots in the contemporaneous Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement, which was centered in Kentucky and Tennessee. Other groups originating in this time period include the Christadelphians and the previously mentioned Latter Day Saints movement. While the churches originating in the Second Great Awakening have some superficial similarities, their doctrine and practices vary significantly.[citation needed]
+
+Various smaller Independent Catholic communities, such as the Old Catholic Church, include the word Catholic in their title, and arguably have more or less liturgical practices in common with the Catholic Church, but are no longer in full communion with the Holy See.
+
+Spiritual Christians, such as the Doukhobor and Molokan, broke from the Russian Orthodox Church and maintain close association with Mennonites and Quakers due to similar religious practices; all of these groups are furthermore collectively considered to be peace churches due to their belief in pacifism.[371][372]
+
+Messianic Judaism (or the Messianic Movement) is the name of a Christian movement comprising a number of streams, whose members may consider themselves Jewish. The movement originated in the 1960s and 1970s, and it blends elements of religious Jewish practice with evangelical Christianity. Messianic Judaism affirms Christian creeds such as the messiahship and divinity of "Yeshua" (the Hebrew name of Jesus) and the Triune Nature of God, while also adhering to some Jewish dietary laws and customs.[373]
+
+Esoteric Christians regard Christianity as a mystery religion,[374][375] and profess the existence and possession of certain esoteric doctrines or practices,[376][377] hidden from the public but accessible only to a narrow circle of "enlightened", "initiated", or highly educated people.[378][379] Some of the esoteric Christian institutions include the Rosicrucian Fellowship, the Anthroposophical Society, and Martinism.
+
+Western culture, throughout most of its history, has been nearly equivalent to Christian culture, and a large portion of the population of the Western Hemisphere can be described as practicing or nominal Christians. The notion of "Europe" and the "Western World" has been intimately connected with the concept of "Christianity and Christendom". Many even attribute Christianity for being the link that created a unified European identity.[380]
+
+Though Western culture contained several polytheistic religions during its early years under the Greek and Roman empires, as the centralized Roman power waned, the dominance of the Catholic Church was the only consistent force in Western Europe.[381] Until the Age of Enlightenment,[382] Christian culture guided the course of philosophy, literature, art, music and science.[381][383] Christian disciplines of the respective arts have subsequently developed into Christian philosophy, Christian art, Christian music, Christian literature, etc.
+
+Christianity has had a significant impact on education, as the church created the bases of the Western system of education,[384] and was the sponsor of founding universities in the Western world, as the university is generally regarded as an institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian setting.[185] Historically, Christianity has often been a patron of science and medicine; many Catholic clergy,[385] Jesuits in particular,[386][387] have been active in the sciences throughout history and have made significant contributions to the development of science.[388] Protestantism also has had an important influence on science. According to the Merton Thesis, there was a positive correlation between the rise of English Puritanism and German Pietism on the one hand, and early experimental science on the other.[389] The civilizing influence of Christianity includes social welfare,[390] founding hospitals,[391] economics (as the Protestant work ethic),[392][393][394] architecture,[395] politics,[396] literature,[397] personal hygiene (ablution),[398][399][400] and family life.[401][402]
+
+Eastern Christians (particularly Nestorian Christians) contributed to the Arab Islamic civilization during the reign of the Ummayad and the Abbasid, by translating works of Greek philosophers to Syriac and afterwards, to Arabic.[403][404][405] They also excelled in philosophy, science, theology, and medicine.[406][407][408]
+
+Christians have made a myriad of contributions to human progress in a broad and diverse range of fields,[409] including philosophy,[410][411] science and technology,[412][413][414][415][416][417] fine arts and architecture,[418] politics, literatures, music,[419] and business.[420] According to 100 Years of Nobel Prizes a review of the Nobel Prizes award between 1901 and 2000 reveals that (65.4%) of Nobel Prizes Laureates, have identified Christianity in its various forms as their religious preference.[421]
+
+Postchristianity[422] is the term for the decline of Christianity, particularly in Europe, Canada, Australia, and to a minor degree the Southern Cone, in the 20th and 21st centuries, considered in terms of postmodernism. It refers to the loss of Christianity's monopoly on values and world view in historically Christian societies.
+
+Cultural Christians are secular people with a Christian heritage who may not believe in the religious claims of Christianity, but who retain an affinity for the popular culture, art, music, and so on related to the religion.[423]
+
+Christian groups and denominations have long expressed ideals of being reconciled, and in the 20th century, Christian ecumenism advanced in two ways.[424] One way was greater cooperation between groups, such as the World Evangelical Alliance founded in 1846 in London or the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of Protestants in 1910, the Justice, Peace and Creation Commission of the World Council of Churches founded in 1948 by Protestant and Orthodox churches, and similar national councils like the National Council of Churches in Australia, which includes Catholics.[424]
+
+The other way was an institutional union with united churches, a practice that can be traced back to unions between Lutherans and Calvinists in early 19th-century Germany. Congregationalist, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches united in 1925 to form the United Church of Canada,[425] and in 1977 to form the Uniting Church in Australia. The Church of South India was formed in 1947 by the union of Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, Congregationalist, and Presbyterian churches.[426]
+
+The ecumenical, monastic Taizé Community is notable for being composed of more than one hundred brothers from Protestant and Catholic traditions.[427] The community emphasizes the reconciliation of all denominations and its main church, located in Taizé, Saône-et-Loire, France, is named the "Church of Reconciliation".[427] The community is internationally known, attracting over 100,000 young pilgrims annually.[428]
+
+Steps towards reconciliation on a global level were taken in 1965 by the Catholic and Orthodox churches, mutually revoking the excommunications that marked their Great Schism in 1054;[429] the Anglican Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) working towards full communion between those churches since 1970;[430] and some Lutheran and Catholic churches signing the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in 1999 to address conflicts at the root of the Protestant Reformation. In 2006, the World Methodist Council, representing all Methodist denominations, adopted the declaration.[431]
+
+Criticism of Christianity and Christians goes back to the Apostolic Age, with the New Testament recording friction between the followers of Jesus and the Pharisees and scribes (e.g. Matthew 15:1–20 and Mark 7:1–23).[432] In the 2nd century, Christianity was criticized by the Jews on various grounds, e.g. that the prophecies of the Hebrew Bible could not have been fulfilled by Jesus, given that he did not have a successful life.[433] Additionally, a sacrifice to remove sins in advance, for everyone or as a human being, did not fit to the Jewish sacrifice ritual; furthermore, God is said to judge people on their deeds instead of their beliefs.[434][435] One of the first comprehensive attacks on Christianity came from the Greek philosopher Celsus, who wrote The True Word, a polemic criticizing Christians as being unprofitable members of society.[436][437][438] In response, the church father Origen published his treatise Contra Celsum, or Against Celsus, a seminal work of Christian apologetics, which systematically addressed Celsus's criticisms and helped bring Christianity a level of academic respectability.[439][438]
+
+By the 3rd century, criticism of Christianity had mounted. Wild rumors about Christians were widely circulated, claiming that they were atheists and that, as part of their rituals, they devoured human infants and engaged in incestuous orgies.[440][441] The Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry wrote the fifteen-volume Adversus Christianos as a comprehensive attack on Christianity, in part building on the teachings of Plotinus.[442][443]
+
+By the 12th century, the Mishneh Torah (i.e., Rabbi Moses Maimonides) was criticizing Christianity on the grounds of idol worship, in that Christians attributed divinity to Jesus, who had a physical body.[444] In the 19th century, Nietzsche began to write a series of polemics on the "unnatural" teachings of Christianity (e.g. sexual abstinence), and continued his criticism of Christianity to the end of his life.[445] In the 20th century, the philosopher Bertrand Russell expressed his criticism of Christianity in Why I Am Not a Christian, formulating his rejection of Christianity in the setting of logical arguments.[446]
+
+Criticism of Christianity continues to date, e.g. Jewish and Muslim theologians criticize the doctrine of the Trinity held by most Christians, stating that this doctrine in effect assumes that there are three gods, running against the basic tenet of monotheism.[447] New Testament scholar Robert M. Price has outlined the possibility that some Bible stories are based partly on myth in The Christ Myth Theory and its problems.[448]
+
+Christians are one of the most persecuted religious group in the world, especially in the Middle-East, North Africa and South and East Asia.[449] In 2017, Open Doors estimated approximately 260 million Christians are subjected annually to "high, very high, or extreme persecution"[450] with North Korea considered the most hazardous nation for Christians.[451][452] In 2019, a report[453][454] commissioned by the United Kingdom's Secretary of State of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to investigate global persecution of Christians found persecution has increased, and is highest in the Middle East, North Africa, India, China, North Korea, and Latin America,[clarification needed]  among others,[455] and that it is global and not limited to Islamic states.[454] This investigation found that approximately 80% of persecuted believers worldwide are Christians.[18]
+
+Christian apologetics aims to present a rational basis for Christianity. The word "apologetic" (Greek: ἀπολογητικός apologētikos) comes from the Greek verb ἀπολογέομαι apologeomai, meaning "(I) speak in defense of".[456] Christian apologetics has taken many forms over the centuries, starting with Paul the Apostle. The philosopher Thomas Aquinas presented five arguments for God's existence in the Summa Theologica, while his Summa contra Gentiles was a major apologetic work.[457][458] Another famous apologist, G. K. Chesterton, wrote in the early twentieth century about the benefits of religion and, specifically, Christianity. Famous for his use of paradox, Chesterton explained that while Christianity had the most mysteries, it was the most practical religion.[459][460] He pointed to the advance of Christian civilizations as proof of its practicality.[461] The physicist and priest John Polkinghorne, in his Questions of Truth, discusses the subject of religion and science, a topic that other Christian apologists such as Ravi Zacharias, John Lennox, and William Lane Craig have engaged, with the latter two men opining that the inflationary Big Bang model is evidence for the existence of God.[462]
+
+Hence all the power of magic became dissolved; and every bond of wickedness was destroyed, men's ignorance was taken away, and the old kingdom abolished God Himself appearing in the form of a man, for the renewal of eternal life.
+
+We have also as a Physician the Lord our God Jesus the Christ the only-begotten Son and Word, before time began, but who afterwards became also man, of Mary the virgin. For 'the Word was made flesh.' Being incorporeal, He was in the body; being impassible, He was in a passable body; being immortal, He was in a mortal body; being life, He became subject to corruption, that He might free our souls from death and corruption, and heal them, and might restore them to health, when they were diseased with ungodliness and wicked lusts
+
+The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: ...one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father 'to gather all things in one,' and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Savior, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, 'every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess; to him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all...
+
+For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water

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+Portuguese professional footballer
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+Eponyms
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+Films
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+Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro GOIH ComM (European Portuguese: [kɾiʃˈtjɐnu ʁɔˈnaɫdu]; born 5 February 1985) is a Portuguese professional footballer who plays as a forward for Serie A club Juventus and captains the Portugal national team. Often considered the best player in the world and  widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time,[note 3] Ronaldo has won five Ballons d'Or[note 4] and four European Golden Shoes, both of which are records for a European player. He has won 30 major trophies in his career, including seven league titles, five UEFA Champions Leagues, one UEFA European Championship, and one UEFA Nations League title. Ronaldo holds the records for the most goals (128) and assists (40) in the history of the UEFA Champions League[11]. He is one of the few recorded players to have made over 1,000 professional career appearances and has scored over 700 senior career goals for club and country.[12]
+
+Born and raised in Madeira, Ronaldo began his senior club career playing for Sporting CP, before signing with Manchester United in 2003, aged 18. After winning the FA Cup in his first season, he helped United win three successive Premier League titles, the UEFA Champions League, and the FIFA Club World Cup; at age 23, he won his first Ballon d'Or. In 2009, Ronaldo was the subject of the then-most expensive association football transfer when signed for Real Madrid in a transfer worth €94 million (£80 million). There, Ronaldo won 15 trophies, including two La Liga titles, two Copas del Rey, and four UEFA Champions League titles, and became the club's all-time top goalscorer. After joining Madrid, Ronaldo finished runner-up for the Ballon d'Or three times, behind Lionel Messi—his perceived career rival—before winning back-to-back Ballons d'Or from 2013–2014 and again from 2016–2017. After winning a third consecutive Champions League title in 2018, Ronaldo became the first player to win the trophy five times. In 2018, he signed for Juventus in a transfer worth an initial €100 million (£88 million), the highest ever paid by an Italian club and the highest ever paid for a player over 30 years old. He won the Serie A in his first two seasons with the club.
+
+A Portuguese international, Ronaldo was named the best Portuguese player of all time by the Portuguese Football Federation in 2015. He made his senior debut in 2003 at age 18, and has since earned over 160 caps, including appearing and scoring in ten major tournaments, becoming Portugal's most capped player and his country's all-time top goalscorer. He scored his first international goal at Euro 2004 and helped Portugal reach the final of the competition. He assumed full captaincy in July 2008, leading Portugal to their first-ever triumph in a major tournament by winning Euro 2016, and received the Silver Boot as the second-highest goalscorer of the tournament. He became the highest European international goalscorer of all-time in 2018.[13]
+
+One of the most marketable and famous athletes in the world, Ronaldo was ranked the world's highest-paid athlete by Forbes in 2016 and 2017 and the world's most famous athlete by ESPN from 2016 to 2019. Time included him on their list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2014. As of April 2020, Ronaldo is also the most followed user on both Instagram and Facebook.[14] With earnings of €720 million (£615 million) from 2010 to 2019, he was ranked second in Forbes list of highest-paid athletes of the decade, and according to the same publication, he is the first footballer, as well as only the third sportsman, to earn $1 billion in their career.[15]
+
+Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro was born in São Pedro, Funchal, on the Portuguese island of Madeira, and grew up in Santo António, Funchal.[16][17] He is the fourth and youngest child of Maria Dolores dos Santos Viveiros da Aveiro (b. 1954), a cook, and José Dinis Aveiro (1953–2005), a municipal gardener and part-time kit man.[18] His great-grandmother on his father's side, Isabel da Piedade, was from the island of São Vicente, Cape Verde.[19] He has one older brother, Hugo (b. 1975), and two older sisters, Elma (b. 1973) and Liliana Cátia "Katia" (b. 1977), who is a singer.[20] Ronaldo grew up in a Catholic and impoverished home, sharing a room with all his siblings.[21] The name Ronaldo was added to Cristiano's name in honour of his father's favourite movie actor, Ronald Reagan, who was U.S. president at the time of Cristiano's birth.[22]
+
+As a child, Ronaldo played for amateur team Andorinha from 1992 to 1995,[23] where his father was the kit man,[18] and later spent two years with Nacional. In 1997, aged 12, he went on a three-day trial with Sporting CP, who signed him for a fee of £1,500.[24] He subsequently moved from Madeira to Alcochete, near Lisbon, to join Sporting's other youth players at the club's football academy.[24] By age 14, Ronaldo believed he had the ability to play semi-professionally, and agreed with his mother to cease his education in order to focus entirely on football.[25] While popular with other students at school, he had been expelled after throwing a chair at his teacher, who he said had "disrespected" him.[25] However, one year later, he was diagnosed with a racing heart, a condition that could have forced him to give up playing football.[26] Ronaldo underwent heart surgery where a laser was used to cauterise multiple cardiac pathways into one, altering his resting heart rate.[27] He was discharged from the hospital hours after the procedure and resumed training a few days later.[28][29]
+
+At age 16, Ronaldo was promoted from Sporting's youth team by first-team manager László Bölöni, who was impressed with his dribbling.[30] He subsequently became the first player to play for the club's under-16, under-17 and under-18 teams, the B team, and the first team, all within a single season.[24] A year later, on 7 October 2002, Ronaldo made his debut in the Primeira Liga, against Moreirense, and scored two goals in their 3–0 win.[31] Over the course of the 2002–03 season, his representatives suggested the player to Liverpool manager Gérard Houllier and Barcelona president Joan Laporta.[32] Manager Arsène Wenger, who was interested in signing the winger, met with him at Arsenal's grounds in November to discuss a possible transfer.[33]
+
+Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson, however, was determined to acquire Ronaldo on a permanent move urgently, after Sporting defeated United 3–1 at the inauguration of the Estádio José Alvalade in August 2003. Initially, United had just planned to sign Ronaldo and then loan him back to Sporting for a year.[34] Having been impressed by him, however, the Manchester United players urged Ferguson to sign him. After the game, Ferguson agreed to pay Sporting £12.24 million[34] for what he considered to be "one of the most exciting young players" he had ever seen.[35] A decade after his departure from the club, in April 2013, Sporting honoured Ronaldo by selecting him to become their 100,000th member.[36]
+
+Ronaldo became Manchester United's first-ever Portuguese player when he signed before the 2003–04 season.[37] His transfer fee of £12.24 million made him, at the time, the most expensive teenager in English football history.[38] Although he requested the number 28, his number at Sporting, he received the number 7 shirt, which had previously been worn by such United players as George Best, Eric Cantona and David Beckham.[39] Wearing the number 7 became an extra source of motivation for Ronaldo.[40] A key element in his development during his time in England proved to be his manager, Alex Ferguson, of whom he later said, "He's been my father in sport, one of the most important and influential factors in my career."[41]
+
+Ronaldo made his debut in the Premier League in a 4–0 home victory over Bolton Wanderers on 16 August 2003, receiving a standing ovation when he came on as a 60th-minute substitute for Nicky Butt.[42] His performance earned praise from George Best, who hailed it as "undoubtedly the most exciting debut" he had ever seen.[43] Ronaldo scored his first goal for Manchester United with a free-kick in a 3–0 win over Portsmouth on 1 November.[44] Three other league goals followed in the second half of the campaign,[45] the last of which came against Aston Villa on the final day of the season, a match in which he also received his first red card.[46] Ronaldo ended his first season in English football by scoring the opening goal in United's 3–0 victory over Millwall in the FA Cup final, earning his first trophy.[47]
+
+At the start of 2005, Ronaldo played two of his best matches of the 2004–05 season, producing a goal and an assist against Aston Villa and scoring twice against rivals Arsenal.[48][49] He played the full 120 minutes of the decisive match against Arsenal in the FA Cup final, which ended in a goalless draw, and scored his attempt in the lost penalty shootout.[50] He scored Manchester United's 1000th Premier League goal on 29 October, their only strike in a 4–1 loss to Middlesbrough.[51] Midway through the season, in November, he signed a new contract which extended his previous deal by two years to 2010.[52] Ronaldo won his second trophy in English football, the Football League Cup, after scoring the third goal in United's 4–0 final victory over Wigan Athletic.[53]
+
+During his third season in England, Ronaldo was involved in several incidents. He had a one-match ban imposed on him by UEFA for a "one-fingered gesture" towards Benfica fans,[54] and was sent off in the Manchester derby (a 3–1 defeat) for kicking Manchester City's former United player Andy Cole.[55] Ronaldo clashed with a teammate, striker Ruud van Nistelrooy, who took offence at the winger's showboating style of play.[56] Following the 2006 FIFA World Cup, in which he was involved in an incident where club teammate Wayne Rooney was sent off,[57] Ronaldo publicly asked for a transfer, lamenting the lack of support he felt he had received from the club over the incident.[58] United, however, denied the possibility of him leaving the club.[59]
+
+Although his World Cup altercation with Rooney resulted in Ronaldo being booed throughout the 2006–07 season,[60] it proved to be his breakout year, as he broke the 20-goal barrier for the first time and won his first Premier League title. An important factor in this success was his one-to-one training by first-team coach René Meulensteen, who taught him to make himself more unpredictable, improve his teamwork, call for the ball, and capitalise on goalscoring opportunities rather than waiting for the chance to score the aesthetically pleasing goals for which he was already known.[61] He scored three consecutive braces at the end of December, against Aston Villa (a victory that put United on top of the league), Wigan Athletic and Reading.[62][63][64] Ronaldo was named the Premier League Player of the Month in November and December, becoming only the third player to receive consecutive honours.[65][66]
+
+At the quarter-final stage of the 2006–07 UEFA Champions League, Ronaldo scored his first-ever goals in his 30th match in the competition,[67] finding the net twice in a 7–1 victory over Roma.[68] He subsequently scored four minutes into the first semi-final leg against Milan, which ended in a 3–2 win,[69] but was marked out of the second leg as United lost 3–0 at the San Siro.[70] He also helped United reach the FA Cup final, but the decisive match against Chelsea ended in a 1–0 defeat.[71] Ronaldo scored the only goal in the Manchester derby on 5 May 2007 (his 50th goal for the club), as Manchester United claimed their first Premier League title in four years.[72] As a result of his performances, he amassed a host of personal awards for the season. He won the Professional Footballers' Association's Player's Player, Fans' Player, and Young Player of the Year awards, as well as the Football Writers' Association's Footballer of the Year award,[73][74] becoming the first player to win all four main PFA and FWA honours.[75] His club wages were concurrently upgraded to £120,000 a week (£31 million total) as part of a five-year contract extension with United.[76] At the end of 2007, Ronaldo was named runner-up to Kaká for the Ballon d'Or,[77] and came third, behind Kaká and Lionel Messi, in the running for the FIFA World Player of the Year award.[78]
+
+Ronaldo scored his first and only hat-trick for Manchester United in a 6–0 win against Newcastle United on 12 January 2008, bringing United up to the top of the Premier League table.[79] A month later, on 19 March, he captained United for the first time in a home win over Bolton, and scored both goals of the match.[80] His second goal was his 33rd of the campaign, which bettered George Best's total of 32 goals in the 1967–68 season, thus setting the club's new single-season record by a midfielder.[81] His 31 league goals earned him the Premier League Golden Boot,[82] as well as the European Golden Shoe, which made him the first winger to win the latter award.[83] He additionally received the PFA Players' Player of the Year and FWA Footballer of the Year awards for the second consecutive season.[84][85]
+
+In the knockout stage of the Champions League, Ronaldo scored the decisive goal against Lyon, which helped United advance to the quarter-finals 2–1 on aggregate,[86] and, while playing as a striker, scored with a header in the 3–0 aggregate victory over Roma.[87] United advanced to the final against Chelsea in Moscow, where, despite his opening goal being negated by an equaliser and his penalty being saved in the shoot-out,[88] Manchester United emerged victorious.[89] As the Champions League top scorer, Ronaldo was named the UEFA Club Footballer of the Year.[90]
+
+Ronaldo scored a total of 42 goals in all competitions during the 2007–08 season, his most prolific campaign during his time in England. He missed three matches after headbutting a Portsmouth player at the start of the season, an experience he said taught him not to let opponents provoke him.[91] As rumours circulated of Ronaldo's interest in moving to Real Madrid, United filed a tampering complaint with governing body FIFA over Madrid's alleged pursuit of their player, but they declined to take action.[92] FIFA president Sepp Blatter asserted that the player should be allowed to leave his club, describing the situation as "modern slavery".[93] Despite Ronaldo publicly agreeing with Blatter,[94] he remained at United for another year.[95]
+
+Ahead of the 2008–09 season, on 7 July, Ronaldo underwent ankle surgery,[96] which kept him out of action for 10 weeks.[97] Following his return, he scored his 100th goal in all competitions for United with the first of two free kicks in a 5–0 win against Stoke City on 15 November,[98] which meant he had now scored against all 19 opposition teams in the Premier League at the time.[99] At the close of 2008, Ronaldo helped United win the FIFA Club World Cup in Japan,[100] assisting the final-winning goal against Liga de Quito and winning the Silver Ball in the process.[101] He subsequently became United's first Ballon d'Or winner since George Best in 1968,[102] and the first Premier League player to be named the FIFA World Player of the Year.[103]
+
+His match-winning goal in the second leg against Porto, a 40-yard strike, earned him the inaugural FIFA Puskás Award, presented by FIFA in recognition of the best goal of the year;[104] he later called it the best goal he had ever scored.[105] United advanced to the final in Rome,[106] where he made little impact in United's 2–0 defeat to Barcelona.[107] Ronaldo ended his time in England with nine trophies, as United claimed their third successive Premier League title and a Football League Cup.[108][109] He finished the campaign with 26 goals in all competitions, 16 goals fewer than the previous season, in four more appearances.[110] His final ever goal for Manchester United came on 10 May 2009 with a free kick in the Manchester derby at Old Trafford.[111]
+
+Ahead of the 2009–10 season, Ronaldo joined Real Madrid for a world record transfer fee at the time, of £80 million (€94 million).[112] His contract, which ran until 2015, was worth €11 million per year and contained a €1 billion buy-out clause.[113] At least 80,000 fans attended his presentation at the Santiago Bernabéu, surpassing the 25-year record of 75,000 fans who had welcomed Diego Maradona at Napoli.[114] Since club captain Raúl already wore the number 7 (the number Ronaldo wore at Manchester United), Ronaldo received the number 9 shirt,[115] which was presented to him by former Madrid player Alfredo Di Stéfano.[116]
+
+Ronaldo made his debut in La Liga on 29 August 2009, against Deportivo La Coruña, and scored from the penalty spot in Madrid's 3–2 home win.[117] He scored in each of his first four league fixtures with the club, the first Madrid player to do so.[118] His first Champions League goals for the club followed with two free kicks in the first group match against Zürich.[119] His strong start to the season, however, was interrupted when he suffered an ankle injury in October while on international duty, which kept him sidelined for seven weeks.[120][121] A week after his return, he received his first red card in Spain in a match against Almería.[122] Midway through the season, Ronaldo placed second in the running for the Ballon d'Or and the FIFA World Player of the Year award, behind Lionel Messi of Barcelona, Madrid's historic rivals. He finished the campaign with 33 goals in all competitions, including a hat-trick in a 4–1 win against Mallorca on 5 May 2010, his first in the Spanish competition.[123][124] His first season at Real Madrid ended trophyless.[125]
+
+Following Raúl's departure, Ronaldo was handed the number 7 shirt for Real Madrid before the 2010–11 season.[126] His subsequent return to his Ballon d'Or-winning form was epitomised when, for the first time in his career, he scored four goals in a single match during a 6–1 rout against Racing Santander on 23 October.[127] His haul concluded a goalscoring run of six consecutive matches (three in La Liga, one in the Champions League, and two for Portugal) totalling 11 goals, the most he had scored in a single month. Ronaldo subsequently scored further hat-tricks against Athletic Bilbao, Levante, Villarreal, and Málaga.[128][129][130] Despite his performance, he did not make the podium for the inaugural FIFA Ballon d'Or at the end of 2010.[131]
+
+During a historical series of four Clásicos against rivals Barcelona in April 2011, Ronaldo scored twice to equal his personal record of 42 goals in all competitions in a single season. Although he failed to find the net during Madrid's eventual elimination in the Champions League semi-finals, he equalised from the penalty spot in the return league game and scored the match-winning goal in the 103rd minute of the Copa del Rey final, winning his first trophy in Spain.[132][133] Over the next two weeks, Ronaldo scored another four-goal haul against Sevilla,[134] a hat-trick against Getafe,[135] and a brace of free kicks against Villarreal, taking his league total to 38 goals, which equalled the record for most goals scored in a season held by Telmo Zarra and Hugo Sánchez.[136] His two goals in the last match of the season, against Almería, made him the first player in La Liga to score 40 goals.[137] In addition to the Pichichi Trophy, Ronaldo consequently won the European Golden Shoe for a second time, becoming the first player to win the award in two different leagues.[138]
+
+During the following campaign, the 2011–12 season, Ronaldo surpassed his previous goalscoring feats to achieve a new personal best of 60 goals across all competitions.[139] His 100th goal for Real Madrid came at Camp Nou in the Supercopa de España, though Barcelona claimed the trophy 5–4 on aggregate.[140] He regained a place on the FIFA Ballon d'Or podium, as runner-up to Messi, after scoring hat-tricks against Real Zaragoza, Rayo Vallecano, Málaga, Osasuna, and Sevilla, the last of which put Madrid on top of the league by the season's midway point.[141][142][143] Despite two goals from Ronaldo, Madrid were subsequently defeated by Barcelona, 4–3, on aggregate in the quarter-finals of the Copa del Rey. He again scored twice, including a penalty, in the Champions League semi-finals against Bayern Munich, resulting in a 3–3 draw, but his penalty kick in the shootout was saved by Manuel Neuer, leading to Madrid's elimination.[144]
+
+Ronaldo found greater team success in the league, as he helped Real Madrid win their first La Liga title in four years, with a record 100 points. Following a hat-trick against Levante, further increasing Madrid's lead over Barcelona,[145] he scored his 100th league goal for Madrid in a 5–1 win over Real Sociedad on 24 March 2012, a milestone he reached in just 92 matches across three seasons, breaking the previous club record held by Ferenc Puskás.[146] Another hat-trick in the Madrid derby against Atlético Madrid brought his total to 40 league goals, equalling his record of the previous season.[147] On 21 April Ronaldo scored the winner in a 2–1 victory over Barcelona at the Camp Nou, which saw him mocking the hostile crowd with a "calm down" gesture during his goal celebration – a celebration he would repeat against Barca four years later.[148] His final league goal of the campaign, against Mallorca, took his total to 46 goals, four short of the new record set by Messi,[149] and earned him the distinction of being the first player to score against all 19 opposition teams in a single season in La Liga.[150]
+
+Ronaldo began the 2012–13 season by lifting the Supercopa de España, his third trophy in Spain. With a goal in each leg by the Portuguese, Madrid won the Spanish Super Cup on away goals following a 4–4 aggregate draw against Barcelona.[151] Although Ronaldo publicly commented that he was unhappy with a "professional issue" within the club, prompted by his refusal to celebrate his 150th goal for Madrid,[152] his goalscoring rate did not suffer. After netting a hat-trick, including two penalties, against Deportivo La Coruña, he scored his first hat-trick in the Champions League in a 4–1 victory over Ajax.[153] Four days later, he became the first player to score in six successive Clásicos when he hit a brace in a 2–2 draw at Camp Nou.[154] His performances in 2012 again saw Ronaldo voted second in the running for the FIFA Ballon d'Or, finishing runner-up to four-time winner Messi.[155]
+
+Following the 2012–13 winter break, Ronaldo captained Real Madrid for the first time in an official match, scoring a brace to lift 10-man Madrid to a 4–3 victory over Real Sociedad on 6 January.[156] He subsequently became the first non-Spanish player in 60 years to captain Madrid in El Clásico on 30 January, a match which also marked his 500th club appearance.[157] Three days prior, he had scored his 300th club goal as part of a perfect hat-trick against Getafe.[158] He scored his 200th goal for Real Madrid on 8 May in a 6–2 win against Málaga, reaching the landmark in 197 games.[159] He helped Madrid reach the Copa del Rey final by scoring twice in El Clásico, which marked the sixth successive match at Camp Nou in which he had scored,[160] a Real Madrid record.[151] In the final, he headed the opening goal of an eventual 2–1 defeat to Atlético Madrid, but was shown a red card for violent conduct.[161] In the first knockout round of the Champions League, Ronaldo faced his former club Manchester United for the first time. After scoring the equaliser in a 1–1 draw at the Santiago Bernabéu,[162] he scored the match-winning goal in a 2–1 victory at Old Trafford, his first return to his former home ground.[163] He did not celebrate scoring against his former club as a mark of respect.[164] After scoring three goals against Galatasaray in the quarters, he scored Madrid's only goal in the 4–1 away defeat to Borussia Dortmund in the semi-finals, but failed to increase his side's 2–0 victory in the second leg, as they were eliminated at the semi-final stage for the third consecutive year.[165]
+
+At the start of the 2013–14 season, Ronaldo signed a new contract that extended his stay by three years to 2018, with a salary of €17 million net, making him briefly the highest-paid player in football.[166] He was joined at the club by winger Gareth Bale, whose world record transfer fee of €100 million surpassed the fee Madrid had paid for Ronaldo four years prior.[167] Together with striker Karim Benzema, they formed an attacking trio popularly dubbed "BBC", an acronym of Bale, Benzema, and Cristiano, and a play off the name of the public service broadcaster.[168] By late November, Ronaldo had scored 32 goals from 22 matches for both club and country, including hat-tricks against Galatasaray, Sevilla, Real Sociedad, Northern Ireland, and Sweden.[169][170][171] He ended 2013 with 69 goals in 59 appearances, his highest year-end goal tally.[172] He received the FIFA Ballon d'Or, an amalgamation of the Ballon d'Or and the FIFA World Player of the Year award, for the first time in his career.[173]
+
+Concurrently with his individual achievements, Ronaldo enjoyed his greatest team success in Spain to date, as he helped Real Madrid win La Décima, their tenth European Cup. His goal in a 3–0 home win over Borussia Dortmund (his 100th Champions League match) took his total for the season to 14 goals, equalling the record Messi had set two years before.[174] After hitting a brace in a 4–0 defeat of Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena,[175] he scored from the penalty spot in the 120th minute of the 4–1 final victory over Atlético Madrid, becoming the first player to score in two European Cup finals for two different winning teams.[176] His overall performance in the final was subdued as a result of patellar tendinitis and related hamstring problems, which had plagued him in the last months of the campaign. Ronaldo played the final against medical advice, later commenting: "In your life you do not win without sacrifices and you must take risks."[177] As the Champions League top goalscorer for the third time, with a record 17 goals,[178] he was named the UEFA Best Player in Europe.[179]
+
+In the Copa del Rey, Ronaldo helped Madrid reach the final by scoring two penalties against Atlético Madrid at the Vicente Calderón,[180] the first of which meant he had now scored in every single minute of a 90-minute football match.[181] His continued issues with his knee and thigh caused him to miss the final, where Real Madrid defeated Barcelona 2–1 to claim the trophy.[182] Ronaldo scored 31 goals in 30 league games, which earned him the Pichichi and the European Golden Shoe, receiving the latter award jointly with Liverpool striker Luis Suárez.[183] Among his haul was his 400th career goal, in 653 appearances for club and country, which came with a brace against Celta Vigo on 6 January; he dedicated his goals to compatriot Eusébio, who had died two days before.[184] A last-minute, back-heeled volley scored against Valencia on 4 May (his 50th goal in all competitions) was recognised as the best goal of the season by the Liga de Fútbol Profesional,[185] which additionally named Ronaldo the Best Player in La Liga.[186]
+
+During the next campaign, the 2014–15 season, Ronaldo set a new personal best of 61 goals in all competitions, starting with both goals in Real Madrid's 2–0 victory over Sevilla in the UEFA Super Cup.[187] He subsequently achieved his best-ever goalscoring start to a league campaign, with a record 15 goals in the first eight rounds of La Liga.[188] His record 23rd hat-trick in La Liga, scored against Celta Vigo on 6 December, made him the fastest player to reach 200 goals in the Spanish league, as he reached the milestone in only his 178th game.[188][189] After lifting the FIFA Club World Cup with Madrid in Morocco,[190] Ronaldo received a second successive FIFA Ballon d'Or,[191] joining Johan Cruyff, Michel Platini, and Marco van Basten as a three-time Ballon d'Or winner.[192]
+
+Madrid finished in second-place in La Liga in the 2014–15 season and exited at the semi-final stage in the Champions League.[193] In the latter competition, Ronaldo extended his run of scoring away to a record 12 matches with his strike in a 2–0 win against Schalke 04.[194] He scored both of his side's goals in the semi-finals against Juventus, where Madrid were eliminated 2–3 on aggregate.[195] With 10 goals, he finished the campaign as top scorer for a third consecutive season, alongside Messi and Neymar.[196] In La Liga, for the first time in his career he scored five goals in one game, including an eight-minute hat-trick, in a 9–1 rout of Granada on 5 April.[197] His 300th goal for his club followed three days later in a 2–0 win against Rayo Vallecano.[198] Subsequent hat-tricks against Sevilla, Espanyol, and Getafe took his number of hat-tricks for Real Madrid to 31, surpassing Di Stéfano's club record of 28.[187] He finished the season with 48 goals, winning a second consecutive Pichichi and the European Golden Shoe for a record fourth time.[187]
+
+At the start of his seventh season at Real Madrid, the 2015–16 campaign, Ronaldo became the club's all-time top scorer, first in the league and then in all competitions. His five-goal haul in a 6–0 away win over Espanyol on 12 September took his tally in La Liga to 230 goals in 203 games, surpassing the club's previous recordholder, Raúl.[199] A month later, on 17 October, he again surpassed Raúl when he scored the second goal in a 3–0 defeat of Levante at the Bernabéu to take his overall total for the club to 324 goals.[note 5] Ronaldo also became the all-time top scorer in the Champions League with a hat-trick in the first group match against Shakhtar Donetsk, having finished the previous season level with Messi on 77 goals.[201] Two goals against Malmö FF in a 2–0 away win on 30 September saw him reach the milestone of 500 career goals for both club and country.[202] He subsequently became the first player to score double figures in the competition's group stage, setting the record at 11 goals, including another four-goal haul against Malmö.[203]
+
+Ronaldo's four goals in a 7–1 home win over Celta de Vigo on 5 March 2016 took his total to 252 goals in La Liga, becoming the competition's second-highest scorer in history behind Messi.[204] He scored a hat-trick against VfL Wolfsburg to send his club into the Champions League semi-finals.[205] The treble took his tally in the competition to 16 goals, making him the top scorer for the fourth consecutive season, and the fifth overall.[206] Suffering apparent fitness issues, Ronaldo gave a poorly-received performance in the final against Atlético Madrid, in a repeat of the 2014 final, though his penalty in the subsequent shoot-out secured La Undécima, Madrid's 11th victory.[207] For the sixth successive year, he ended the season having scored more than 50 goals across all competitions.[207] For his efforts during the season, he received the UEFA Best Player in Europe Award for a second time.[208]
+
+Ronaldo missed Real Madrid's first three matches of the 2016–17 season, including the 2016 UEFA Super Cup against Sevilla, as he continued to rehabilitate the knee injury he suffered against France in the final of Euro 2016.[209] On 15 September, he did not celebrate his late free kick equaliser against Sporting CP in the Champions League, with Ronaldo stating post match, "they made me who I am."[210] On 19 November, he scored a hat-trick in a 3–0 away win against Atlético Madrid, making him the all-time top scorer in the Madrid derby with 18 goals.[211] On 15 December, Ronaldo scored his 500th club career goal in the 2–0 victory over Club América in the semi-finals of the FIFA Club World Cup.[212] He then scored a hat-trick in the 4–2 win over Japanese club Kashima Antlers in the final.[213] Ronaldo finished the tournament as top scorer with four goals and was also named player of the tournament.[214] He won the Ballon d'Or for a fourth time and the inaugural Best FIFA Men's Player, a revival of the former FIFA World Player of the Year, largely owing to his success with Portugal in winning Euro 2016.[215]
+
+In the 2016–17 UEFA Champions League quarter-final against Bayern Munich in April, Ronaldo scored both goals in a 2–1 away win which saw him make history in becoming the first player to reach 100 goals in UEFA club competition.[216] In the second leg of the quarter-finals, Ronaldo scored a ‘perfect’ hat-trick and reached his 100th UEFA Champions League goal, becoming the first player to do so as Real Madrid again defeated Bayern 4–2 after extra-time.[217] On 2 May, Ronaldo scored another hat-trick as Real Madrid defeated Atlético Madrid 3–0 in the Champions League semi-final first leg. On 17 May, Ronaldo overtook Jimmy Greaves as the all-time top scorer in the top five European leagues, scoring twice against Celta de Vigo.[218] He finished the season with 42 goals in all competitions as he helped Madrid to win their first La Liga title since 2012.[219] In the 2017 Champions League final, Ronaldo scored two goals in the victory against Juventus and became the top goalscorer for the fifth-straight season, and sixth overall, with 12 goals, while also becoming the first player to score in three finals in the Champions League era as well as reaching his 600th senior career goal.[220] Madrid also became the first team to win back-to-back finals in the Champions League era.[221]
+
+At the start of the 2017–18 season, Ronaldo scored Madrid's second goal in a 3–1 Supercopa de España first-leg victory over Barcelona at Camp Nou.[222] On 23 October, his performances in the first half of 2017 saw him claim his fifth FIFA Player of the Year award by receiving The Best FIFA Men's Player award for the second consecutive year.[223] On 6 December, he became the first player to score in all six Champions League group stage matches with a curling strike at home to Borussia Dortmund.[224] A day later, Ronaldo won the Ballon d'Or for a fifth time, receiving the award on the Eiffel Tower in Paris.[225] On 3 March 2018, he scored two goals in a 3–1 home win over Getafe, his first being his 300th La Liga goal in his 286th La Liga appearance, making him the fastest player to reach this landmark and only the second player to do so after Lionel Messi.[226] On 18 March, he reached his 50th career hat-trick, scoring four goals in a 6–3 win against Girona.[227]
+
+On 3 April, Ronaldo scored the first two goals in a 3–0 away win against Juventus in the quarter-finals of the 2017–18 UEFA Champions League, with his second goal being an acrobatic bicycle kick.[228] The goal, described as a "PlayStation goal" by Juventus defender Andrea Barzagli, garnered him a standing ovation from the Juventus fans in the stadium, as well as a plethora of plaudits from peers, pundits and coaches.[229][230] On 11 April, he scored the goal Real Madrid needed to advance to the semi-final, in the second leg of the Champions League quarter-final at home to Juventus, from a 98th-minute injury time penalty in a 3–1 defeat, with an overall 4–3 aggregate win.[231] It was also his tenth goal against Juventus, a Champions League record against a single club.[232] In the final of the tournament, on 26 May, Real Madrid defeated Liverpool 3–1, winning Ronaldo his fifth Champions League title as he became the first player to win the trophy five times.[233] He finished as the top scorer of the tournament for the sixth consecutive season, ending the campaign with 15 goals.[234] After the final, Ronaldo referred to his time with the Champions League winners in the past tense, sparking speculation that he could leave Real Madrid.[235]
+
+On 10 July 2018, Ronaldo signed a four-year contract with Italian club Juventus after completing a €100 million transfer, which included an additional €12 million in other fees,[236] and solidarity contributions to Ronaldo's youth clubs. The transfer was the highest ever for a player over 30 years old,[237] and the highest ever paid by an Italian club.[238] Upon signing, Ronaldo cited his need for a new challenge as his rationale for departing Real Madrid,[239] but later attributed the transfer to the lack of support he felt was shown by club president Florentino Pérez.[240]
+
+On 16 September, Ronaldo scored his first goals for Juventus in his fourth appearance for the club in a 2–1 home win over Sassuolo. His second was the 400th league goal of his career.[241] On 19 September, in his first Champions League match for Juventus, he was sent off in the 29th minute for "violent conduct", his first red card in 154 Champions League appearances.[242] Ronaldo became the first player in history to win 100 Champions League matches, setting up Mario Mandžukić's winner in a 1–0 home victory over Valencia, which sealed Juventus's passage to the knock-out stages of the competition.[243] In December, he scored his tenth Serie A goal of the season, from the penalty spot, netting the final goal in a 3–0 away win over rivals Fiorentina; with this goal, Ronaldo became the first Juventus player since John Charles in 1957 to score 10 goals in his first 14 league games for the club.[244] After placing second in both the UEFA Men's Player of the Year and The Best FIFA Men's Player for the first time in three years, behind Luka Modrić, Ronaldo performances in 2018 also saw him voted runner-up for the 2018 Ballon d'Or, finishing once again behind his former Real Madrid teammate.[245]
+
+Ronaldo won his first trophy with the club in January 2019, the 2018 Supercoppa Italiana, after he scored the game-winning and only goal from a header against A.C. Milan.[246] On 10 February, Ronaldo scored in a 3–0 away win over Sassuolo; the ninth consecutive away game in which he had scored for Juventus in the league, which enabled him to equal Giuseppe Signori's single season Serie A record of most consecutive away games with at least one goal.[247] On 12 March, Ronaldo scored a hat-trick in a 3–0 home win against Atlético Madrid in the second leg of the Champions League round of 16, helping Juventus overcome a two-goal deficit to reach the quarter-finals.[248] The following month, Ronaldo scored his 125th goal in the competition, opening the scoring in a 1–1 away draw in the first leg of Juventus' quarter-final against Ajax, on 10 April.[249] In the second leg in Turin on 16 April, he scored the opening goal of the match in the first half, but Juventus eventually lost the match 2–1, and were eliminated from the competition.[250] On 20 April, Ronaldo played in the Scudetto clinching game against rivals Fiorentina as Juventus won their eighth successive Serie A title after a 2–1 home win, thereby becoming the first player to win league titles in England, Spain and Italy.[251] On 27 April, he scored his 600th club goal, the equaliser in a 1–1 away draw against rivals Inter.[252] Finishing his first Serie A campaign with 21 goals and 8 assists, Ronaldo won the inaugural Serie A Award for Most Valuable Player.[253]
+
+Ronaldo scored his first goal of the 2019–20 season for Juventus in a 4–3 home win over Napoli in Serie A on 31 August 2019.[254] On 23 September, he came in 3rd place for the 2019 Best FIFA Men's Player Award.[255] On 1 October, he reached several milestones in Juventus's 3–0 group stage win over Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League: his goal during the match saw him score for the 14th consecutive Champions League season, equalling Raúl and Messi's record; he also broke Iker Casillas’ record for most Champions League wins of all time, and equalled Raúl's record of scoring against 33 different Champions League opponents.[256] On 6 November, in a 2–1 away win against Lokomotiv Moscow in the Champions League group stage, he equalled Paolo Maldini as the second-most capped player in UEFA club competitions with 174 appearances.[257] On 18 December, Ronaldo leapt to a height of 8.39 ft (2.56m) – higher than the crossbar (8 ft) – before heading the winning goal in a 2–1 away win for Juventus against Sampdoria in Serie A.[258]
+
+Ronaldo scored his first Serie A hat-trick on 6 January 2020, in a 4–0 home win against Cagliari. His 56th career hat-trick, he became only the second player after Alexis Sánchez to score hat-tricks in the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A.[259] On 2 February, he scored twice from the penalty spot in a 3–0 home win over Fiorentina, equalling David Trezeguet's club record of nine consecutive appearances in Serie A with at least one goal.[260] He broke the club record six days later, when he scored in his tenth consecutive league game, a 2–1 away defeat to Verona.[261] On 22 February, Ronaldo scored for a record-equalling 11th consecutive Serie A game (a record shared with Gabriel Batistuta and Fabio Quagliarella), in what was his 1,000th senior professional game, in a 2–1 away win for Juventus against SPAL.[262]
+
+On 17 June 2020, Cristiano Ronaldo started in the Coppa Italia Final against Napoli, although Juventus suffered a 4–2 defeat on penalties following a goalless draw after regulation time.[263] On 22 June, he scored a penalty in a 2–0 away win over Bologna, overtaking Rui Costa to become the highest scoring Portuguese player in Serie A history.[264] Eight days later, he scored his 746th career goal for club and country (including youth matches) with a long-range effort in a 3–1 away win over Genoa in Serie A, which saw him equal Ferenc Puskás as the fourth–highest scorer in football history.[265][266] On 4 July, he assisted Juan Cuadrado's goal and later scored his 25th league goal of the season from a free kick in a 4–1 home win over rivals Torino, becoming the first Juventus player to achieve this milestone since Omar Sívori in 1961; the goal was also his first from a free kick with the club, after 43 attempts.[267]
+
+On 20 July, Ronaldo scored twice in a 2–1 home win over Lazio; his first goal was his 50th in Serie A. He became the second fastest player to reach this landmark, after Gunnar Nordahl, and the first player in history to reach that milestone in the Premier League, La Liga, and Serie A. With his brace, he also reached 30 league goals for the season, becoming just the third player in Juventus's history to reach that milestone in a single season,[268][269] after Felice Borel in 1933–34 and John Hansen in 1951–52. Moreover, he became the oldest player, at the age of 35 years and 166 days, to score more than 30 goals in one of the five top European leagues since Ronnie Rooke with Arsenal in 1948.[270] He also became the first player to reach 50 goals in the Premier League, La Liga, and Serie A.[271]
+
+Ronaldo began his international career with Portugal at the 2001 European Youth Summer Olympic Festival, debuting in a 3–1 defeat to Finland.[272] The following year he would represent his country under-17 side at the 2002 UEFA European Under-17 Football Championship, where they failed to progress past the group stage.[31] Ronaldo also featured in the Olympic squad at the 2004 Summer Olympics, scoring one goal in the tournament, though the team was eliminated in the first round, finishing bottom of their group with three points after 4–2 defeats to eventual semi-finalists Iraq and quarter-finalists Costa Rica.[273][274] During his international youth career, Ronaldo would go on to represent the under-15 team, under-17, under-20, under-21, and under-23 national sides, amassing 34 youth caps and scoring 18 goals overall.[275]
+
+At age 18, Ronaldo made his first senior appearance for Portugal in a 1–0 victory over Kazakhstan on 20 August 2003.[276] He was subsequently called up for UEFA Euro 2004, held in his home country, and scored his first international goal in a 2–1 group stage loss to eventual champions Greece.[277] After converting his penalty in a shootout against England in the quarter-finals,[278] he helped Portugal reach the final by scoring the opening goal in a 2–1 win over the Netherlands.[279] He was featured in the team of the tournament, having provided two assists in addition to his two goals.[280]
+
+Ronaldo was Portugal's second-highest scorer in the European qualification for the 2006 FIFA World Cup with seven goals.[281] During the tournament, he scored his first World Cup goal against Iran with a penalty kick in Portugal's second match of the group stage.[282] In the quarter-final against England, his Manchester United teammate Wayne Rooney was sent off for stamping on Portugal defender Ricardo Carvalho. Although the referee later clarified that the red card was only due to Rooney's infraction,[283] the English media speculated that Ronaldo had influenced his decision by aggressively complaining, after which he was seen in replays winking at Portugal's bench following Rooney's dismissal.[284] Ronaldo went on to score the vital winning penalty during the penalty shoot out which sent Portugal into the semi-finals.[285] Ronaldo was subsequently booed during their 1–0 semi-final defeat to France.[286] FIFA's Technical Study Group overlooked him for the tournament's Best Young Player award and handed it to Germany's Lukas Podolski, citing his behaviour as a factor in the decision.[287] Following the 2006 World Cup, Ronaldo would go on to represent Portugal in four qualifying games for Euro 2008, scoring two goals in the process.[288][289]
+
+One day after his 22nd birthday, Ronaldo captained Portugal for the first time in a friendly game against Brazil on 6 February 2007,[290] as requested by Portuguese Football Federation president Carlos Silva, who had died two days earlier.[291] Ahead of Euro 2008, he was given the number 7 shirt for the first time.[292] While he scored eight goals in the qualification,[293] the second-highest tally, he scored just one goal in the tournament, netting the second goal of their 3–1 win in the group stage match against the Czech Republic; in the same game, he also set-up Portugal's third goal in injury time, which was scored by Quaresma, and was named man of the match for his performance.[294][295] Portugal were eliminated in the quarter-finals with a 3–2 loss against eventual finalists Germany.[296]
+
+After Portugal's unsuccessful performance in the European Championship, Luiz Felipe Scolari was replaced as coach by Carlos Queiroz, formerly the assistant manager at United.[297] Queiroz made Ronaldo the squad's permanent captain in July 2008.[298] Ronaldo failed to score a single goal in the qualification for the 2010 World Cup, as Portugal narrowly avoided a premature elimination from the tournament with a play-off victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina.[299] In the group stage of the World Cup, he was named man of the match in all three matches against Ivory Coast, North Korea, and Brazil.[300][301][302] His only goal of the tournament came in their 7–0 rout of North Korea, which marked his first international goal in 16 months.[303] Portugal's World Cup ended with a 1–0 loss against eventual champions Spain in the round of 16.[304]
+
+Ronaldo scored seven goals in the qualification for Euro 2012, including two strikes against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the play-offs, to send Portugal into the tournament, where they were drawn in a "group of death".[305] In the last group stage game against the Netherlands, Ronaldo scored twice to secure a 2–1 victory.[306] He scored a header in the quarter-final against the Czech Republic to give his team a 1–0 win.[307] In both games against the Netherlands and the Czech Republic he was named man of the match.[308][309] After the semi-finals against Spain ended scoreless, with Ronaldo having sent three shots over the bar,[310] Portugal were eliminated in the penalty shootout. Ronaldo did not take a penalty as he had been slated to take the unused fifth slot,[311] a decision that drew criticism.[312] As the joint top scorer with three goals, alongside five other players, he was again included in the team of the tournament.[313]
+
+During the qualification for the 2014 World Cup, Ronaldo scored a total of eight goals. A qualifying match on 17 October 2012, a 1–1 draw against Northern Ireland, earned him his 100th cap.[314] His first international hat-trick also came against Northern Ireland, when he found the net three times in a 15-minute spell of a 4–2 qualifying victory on 6 September 2013.[315] After Portugal failed to qualify during the regular campaign, Ronaldo scored all four of the team's goals in the play-offs against Sweden – billed as a battle between Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimović – which ensured their place at the tournament.[316] His hat-trick in the second leg took his international tally to 47 goals, equaling Pauleta's record.[317] Ronaldo subsequently scored twice in a 5–1 friendly win over Cameroon on 5 March 2014 to become his country's all-time top scorer.[318]
+
+Ronaldo took part in the tournament despite suffering from patellar tendinitis and a related thigh injury,[319][320] potentially risking his career.[321] Ronaldo later commented: "If we had two or three Cristiano Ronaldos in the team I would feel more comfortable. But we don't."[322] Despite ongoing doubts over his fitness, being forced to abort practice twice,[323] Ronaldo played the full 90 minutes of the opening match against Germany, though he was unable to prevent a 4–0 defeat.[324] After assisting an injury-time 2–2 equaliser against the United States,[325] he scored a late match-winning goal in a 2–1 victory over Ghana.[326] His 50th international goal made him the first Portuguese to play and score in three World Cups.[327] Portugal were eliminated from the tournament at the close of the group stage on goal difference.[326]
+
+Ronaldo scored five goals, including a hat-trick against Armenia, in the qualification for Euro 2016.[328] With the only goal in another victory over Armenia on 14 November 2014, he reached 23 goals in the European Championship, including qualifying matches, to become the competition's all-time leading goalscorer.[329] At the start of the tournament, however, Ronaldo failed to convert his chances in Portugal's draws against Iceland and Austria, despite taking a total of 20 shots on goal. In the latter match, he overtook Luís Figo as his nation's most capped player with his 128th international appearance, which ended scoreless after he missed a penalty in the second half.[330] With two goals and an assist in the last match of the group stage, a 3–3 draw against Hungary, Ronaldo became the first player to score in four European Championships, having made a record 17 appearances in the tournament.[331][332] Though placed third in their group behind Hungary and Iceland, his team qualified for the knockout round as a result of the competition's newly expanded format.[333]
+
+In Portugal's first knockout match, Ronaldo's only attempt on goal was parried by Croatia's goalkeeper into the path of Ricardo Quaresma, whose finish then secured a 1–0 victory late in extra time.[334] After his team progressed past Poland on penalties,[335] Ronaldo became the first player to participate in three European Championship semi-finals;[336] he scored the opening goal and assisted a second in a 2–0 win against Wales, equaling Michel Platini as the competition's all-time top scorer with nine goals.[337] In the final against hosts France, Ronaldo was forced off after just 25 minutes following a challenge from Dimitri Payet. After multiple treatments and attempts to play on, he was stretchered off the pitch and replaced by Quaresma. During extra time, substitute Eder scored in the 109th minute to earn Portugal a 1–0 victory.[338] As team captain, Ronaldo later lifted the trophy in celebration of his country's first-ever triumph in a major tournament. He was awarded the Silver Boot as the joint second-highest goalscorer, with three goals and three assists, and was named to the team of the tournament for the third time in his career.[339][340]
+
+Following the Euro 2016 success, Ronaldo scored six goals in the opening rounds of the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifiers with four being against Andorra[341] and two against Latvia. These goals brought his international tally to 68 goals, putting level with Gerd Müller and Robbie Keane as the fourth-highest European international goalscorer of all-time.[342] He played his first professional match on his home island of Madeira on 28 March 2017 at age 32, opening a 2–3 friendly defeat to Sweden at the Estádio dos Barreiros. With the goal, he tied with Miroslav Klose on 71 goals as the third-highest scoring European in international football.[343]
+
+In Portugal's opening match of the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup against Mexico on 17 June, Cristiano Ronaldo set-up Quaresma's opening goal in a 2–2 draw.[344] Three days later, he scored in a 1–0 win over hosts Russia.[345] On 24 June, he scored from a penalty in a 4–0 win over New Zealand, which saw Portugal top their group and advance to the semi-finals of the competition. With his 75th international goal, Ronaldo also equalled Sándor Kocsis as the second-highest European international goalscorer of all-time, behind only Ferenc Puskás.[346][347] He was named man of the match in all three of Portugal's group stage matches.[348] Ronaldo left the competition early: after Chile defeated Portugal 3–0 on penalties in the semi-finals, he was allowed to return home to be with his newborn children.[349] Therefore, he missed Portugal's third-place play-off match in which Portugal defeated Mexico 2–1 after extra time.[350]
+
+On 31 August 2017, Ronaldo scored a hat-trick in a 5–1 win in a World Cup qualifier over the Faroe Islands, which saw him overtake Pelé and equal Hussein Saeed as the joint-fifth-highest goalscorer in international football with 78 goals.[351] These goals brought his tally in the 2018 World Cup qualifiers to 14, equalling Predrag Mijatović's record for most goals in a single UEFA senior men's qualifying campaign, and also saw him break the record for the most goals scored in a single European qualifying group, overtaking the previous record of 13 goals set by David Healy and Robert Lewandowski. Ronaldo's hat-trick took his World Cup qualifying goals total to 29, making him the highest scorer in European World Cup qualifiers, ahead of Andriy Shevchenko, and the highest goalscorer in World Cup qualifying and finals matches combined, with 32 goals, ahead of Miroslav Klose.[352] Ronaldo later added to this tally by scoring a goal against Andorra in a 2–0 victory.[353]
+
+In the build-up to the 2018 World Cup, Portugal hosted friendlies against Tunisia, Belgium and Algeria. Ronaldo featured in the final of the three matches in which he made his 150th international appearance.[354] On 15 June 2018, Ronaldo became the oldest player ever to score a hat-trick in a World Cup match, helping Portugal secure a 3–3 draw against Spain in their opening match at the World Cup. In doing so, he also became the first Portuguese player to score a goal in four World Cups and one of four players to do so in total.[355] His third goal saw him curl in a 30-yard free kick with two minutes remaining for the equaliser.[356] His hat-trick also drew him level with Ferenc Puskás as the highest European goalscorer of all-time, with 84 international goals.[357] In Portugal's second game on 20 June, Ronaldo scored the only goal in a 1–0 victory against Morocco, breaking Puskás' record.[13] In the final group match against Iran on 25 June, Ronaldo missed a penalty in an eventual 1–1 draw which saw Portugal progress to the second round as group runners-up behind Spain.[358] On 30 June, Portugal were eliminated following a 2–1 defeat to Uruguay in the last 16.[359] For his performances throughout the tournament, Ronaldo was later named to the 2018 FIFA World Cup Dream Team.[360]
+
+After the 2018 FIFA World Cup, Ronaldo missed six international matches, including the entire league phase of the 2018–19 UEFA Nations League. Ronaldo played for hosts Portugal in the inaugural Nations League Finals in June 2019. In the semi-finals on 5 June, he scored a hat-trick against Switzerland to secure a spot in the final. Upon netting the match's opening goal, he became the first player to score in 10 consecutive international competitions, breaking the record of nine he previously shared with Ghana's Asamoah Gyan.[361] In the final of the tournament four days later, Portugal defeated Netherlands 1–0.[362]
+
+On 10 September 2019, Ronaldo scored four goals in a 5–1 away win over Lithuania in a Euro 2020 qualifying match;[363] in the process, he overtook Robbie Keane (23 goals) as the player with most goals in the UEFA European Championship qualifiers, setting a new record with 25 goals.[364] On that occasion, Ronaldo also set a new record as the player who scored against the most national teams, 40,[365] while also completing his eighth international hat-trick.[366] On 14 October, he scored his 700th senior career goal for club and country from the penalty spot, in his 974th senior career appearance, a 2–1 away loss to Ukraine in a Euro 2020 qualifier.[367] On 17 November, Ronaldo scored his 99th international goal in a 2–0 win over Luxembourg, leading Portugal to qualify for Euro 2020.[368]
+
+A versatile attacker, Ronaldo is capable of playing on either wing as well as through the centre of the pitch,[369] and, while ostensibly right-footed, is very strong with both feet.[370] He ranks among the world's fastest footballers, both with and without the ball.[371] Tactically, Ronaldo has undergone several evolutions throughout his career. While at Sporting and during his first season at Manchester United, he was typically deployed as a traditional winger on the right side of midfield, where he regularly looked to deliver crosses into the penalty area. In this position, he was able to use his pace and acceleration, agility, and technical skills to take on opponents in one-on-one situations. Ronaldo became noted for his dribbling and flair, often displaying an array of tricks and feints,[371][372] such as the step overs and so-called 'chops' that became his trademark;[373] he has also been known to use the flip–flap.[374]
+
+As Ronaldo matured, he underwent a major physical transformation, developing a muscular body type that allows him to retain possession of the ball, and strong legs that make for an outstanding jumping ability.[376] His strength and jumping ability, combined with his elevation, heading accuracy, and height of 1.87 m (6 ft 1 1⁄2 in), give him an edge in winning aerial challenges for balls. These attributes allow him to function as a target-man, and make him an aerial goal threat in the penalty area; consequently, many of his goals have been headers.[377][378][379] Allied with his increased stamina and work-rate, his goalscoring ability improved drastically on the left wing where he was given the positional freedom to move into the centre to finish attacks. He also increasingly played a creative role for his team, often dropping deep to pick up the ball, participate in the build-up of plays, and create chances for his teammates, courtesy of his good vision and passing ability.[371][377]
+
+In his final seasons at United, Ronaldo played an even more attacking and central role, functioning both as a striker and as a supporting forward, or even as an attacking midfielder on occasion.[380] He developed into a prolific goalscorer, capable of finishing well both inside the penalty area and from distance with an accurate and powerful shot, courtesy of his striking ability.[377][380][381] An accurate penalty kick taker,[382] he also became a set piece specialist, renowned for his powerful, bending free kicks,[383] though his ability in this regard deteriorated later on in his career.[384][385] When taking free kicks, Ronaldo is known for using the knuckleball technique, which had previously been popularised by Juninho Pernambucano;[386] he also adopts a trademark stance before striking the ball, which involves him standing with his legs far apart.[387] Regarding Cristiano Ronaldo's unique style of taking free kicks, former Manchester United assistant manager Mike Phelan has commented: "People used to put the ball down, walk away, run up and hit it. He brought in a more dynamic showmanship. He places the ball down, the concentration level is high, he takes his certain amount of steps back so that his standing foot is in the perfect place to hit the ball in the sweet spot. He is the ultimate showman. He has that slight arrogance. When he pulls those shorts up and shows his thighs, he is saying 'All eyes on me' and this is going in. He understands the marketing side of it. The way he struts up and places it; the world is watching him."[388]
+
+At Real Madrid, Ronaldo continued to play a more offensive role, while his creative and defensive duties became more limited, although not entirely diminished.[380] Initially deployed as a centre forward by managers Manuel Pellegrini and José Mourinho, he was later moved back onto the left wing, though in a free tactical role; this position allowed him to drift into the centre at will to get onto the end of crosses and score, or draw out defenders with his movement off the ball and leave space for teammates to exploit.[377][390][391][392][393] Madrid's counter-attacking style of play also allowed him to become a more efficient and consistent player, as evidenced by his record-breaking goalscoring feats. However, while he mainly drew praise in the media for his prolific goalscoring, he also demonstrated his ability as an effective creator in this role.[394][395][396] This unique role has been described by pundits as that of a "false," "attacking," or "goalscoring winger," as Ronaldo effectively almost functioned as a striker at times with his central runs into the penalty area, despite actually playing on the left flank.[390][397][398][399] From 2013 onwards, under manager Carlo Ancelotti, he effectively adapted his style to the physical effects of ageing with increasingly reduced off the ball movement and general involvement, completing fewer dribbles and passes per game, and instead focusing on short-distance creating and goalscoring.[373][392][400][401] Since 2017, Ronaldo has adapted his style of play yet again to become more of a free-roaming centre forward under manager Zinedine Zidane, a role in which he continued to excel and maintain a prolific goalscoring record; in this position, he earned praise in the media for his intelligent movement both on and off the ball, his excellent positional sense, link-up play, clinical finishing, and his opportunism, as well as his ability to lose or anticipate his markers, find space in the box, and score from few touches or opportunities.[402][403][404][405]
+
+In his first season at Juventus, Ronaldo continued to play in a variety of different attacking roles under manager Massimiliano Allegri, depending on whom he was partnered with. While he had occupied an increasingly offensive role in his final years at Real Madrid, at times he functioned in a free role at Juventus, either as a lone striker or in his trademark role on the left wing, in a 4–2–3–1 or 4–3–3 formation, in which he often switched positions with Mario Mandžukić. In this role, he was also given licence to drop deep or even out wide onto the right flank in order to receive the ball, and be more involved in the build-up of plays; as such, aside from scoring goals himself, he began to take on opponents and create chances for other players with greater frequency than he had in his final seasons with Real Madrid. Off the ball, he was also capable of creating space for teammates with his movement and attacking runs into the box, or finishing off chances with his head or feet by getting onto the end of his teammates' crosses.[406][407] On occasion he also played in an attacking partnership alongside Mandžukić in a 4–3–1–2, 4–4–2, or 3–5–2 formation.[408][409][410] He continued to play a similar role in his second season with the club under manager Maurizio Sarri.[407]
+
+– Former manager Alex Ferguson, January 2013[411]
+
+Ronaldo is widely regarded as one of the two best players of his generation, alongside Lionel Messi.[note 6] After winning his first Ballon d'Or by a record-high vote count at age 23, the public debate regarding his qualities as a player moved beyond his status in contemporary football to the possibility that he was one of the greatest players of all time.[412] Acclaimed for his prolific and consistent goal-scoring,[note 7] he is considered a decisive player who is also a game changer,[413] especially in important and high-pressured situations.[note 8]
+
+Ronaldo is noted for his work ethic, elite body conditioning, and dedication to improvement on the training pitch, as well being regarded as a natural leader.[414][415] Writing of his "extraordinary commitment to physical preparation", Adam Bate of Sky Sports adds, "Dedication is a huge part of staying at the top and Ronaldo's focus is perhaps unparalleled within the game."[389] His drive and determination to succeed are fuelled by a desire to be talked about alongside Pelé and Diego Maradona once retiring.[416] He has at times, however, been criticised for simulating when tackled.[note 9] In addition to this, he was occasionally criticised early in his career by manager Alex Ferguson, teammates, and the media for being a selfish or overly flamboyant player.[417][418]
+
+During his career, Ronaldo has also been described as having an "arrogant image" on the pitch,[419] with Ronaldo stating that he had become a "victim" because of how he was portrayed in the media.[420] He is often seen moaning, gesticulating and scowling while trying to inspire his team to victory,[419] with Ronaldo insisting that his competitive nature should not be mistaken for arrogance.[420] His managers, teammates and various journalists have commented that this reputation has caused an unfair image of him.[421][422][423] In 2014, Ronaldo told France Football that he had made a "mistake" when he said in 2011, "People are jealous of me as I am rich, handsome and a great player", adding that he had matured since then and fans understood him better.[424]
+
+Ronaldo has adopted several goalscoring celebrations throughout his career, including one particular celebration which gained widespread coverage in the media, when he squatted and stared directly into a camera on the sidelines of the pitch with his hand on his chin.[425][426][427] However, after scoring a goal, he usually celebrates with a "storming jump" and "turn", before "landing in spread-eagled fashion"[426] into his "signature power stance",[427] while usually simultaneously exclaiming "Sí" (Spanish and Italian for "yes");[425][428] as such, this trademark celebration has been dubbed the "Sii!" in the media.[425][426][429]
+
+Both players have scored in at least two UEFA Champions League finals and have regularly broken the 50-goal barrier in a single season. Sports journalists and pundits regularly argue the individual merits of both players in an attempt to argue who they believe is the best player in modern football.[430] It has been compared to sports rivalries such as the Muhammad Ali–Joe Frazier rivalry in boxing, the Borg–McEnroe rivalry in tennis, and the Ayrton Senna–Alain Prost rivalry from Formula One motor racing.[431][432]
+
+Some commentators choose to analyse the differing physiques and playing styles of the two,[433] while part of the debate revolves around the contrasting personalities of the two players: Ronaldo is sometimes depicted as an arrogant and theatrical showoff, while Messi is portrayed as a shy, humble character.[434][435][436][437]
+
+– Cristiano Ronaldo commenting on his rivalry with Messi.[438]
+
+In a 2012 interview, Ronaldo commented on the rivalry, saying "I think we push each other sometimes in the competition, this is why the competition is so high",[439] while Ronaldo's manager during his time at Manchester United, Alex Ferguson, opined that "I don't think the rivalry against each other bothers them. I think they have their own personal pride in terms of wanting to be the best".[440] Messi himself denied any rivalry, saying that it was "only the media, the press, who wants us to be at loggerheads but I've never fought with Cristiano".[441] Responding to the claims that he and Messi do not get on well on a personal level, Ronaldo commented, "We don't have a relationship outside the world of football, just as we don't with a lot of other players", before adding that in years to come he hopes they can laugh about it together, stating; "We have to look on this rivalry with a positive spirit, because it's a good thing."[438] Representing archrivals Barcelona and Real Madrid, the two players faced each other at least twice every season in the world's biggest club game, El Clásico, which is among the world's most viewed annual sporting events.[442]
+
+In a debate at Oxford Union in October 2013, when asked whether FIFA president Sepp Blatter preferred Messi or Ronaldo, Blatter paid tribute to the work ethic of the Argentine before taking a swipe at Ronaldo, claiming "one of them has more expenses for the hairdresser than the other". Real Madrid demanded – and promptly received – a full apology, and the Portuguese issued his own riposte with a mock-salute celebration after scoring a penalty against Sevilla, after Blatter had described him as a "commander" on the pitch.[443] In August 2019, Ronaldo and Messi were interviewed while sat next to each other prior to the announcement of the UEFA Men's Player of the Year, with Ronaldo stating, "Of course, we have a good relationship. We haven't had dinner together yet, but I hope in the future. I pushed him and he pushed me as well. So it's good to be part of the history of football."[444]
+
+As his reputation grew from his time at Manchester United, Ronaldo has signed many sponsorship deals for consumer products, including sportswear, football boots (since November 2012 Ronaldo has worn the Nike Mercurial Vapor personalized CR7 edition),[445] soft drinks, clothing, automotive lubricants, financial services, electronics, and computer video games.[446][447][448][449] Ronaldo was featured as the cover athlete of EA Sports' FIFA video game FIFA 18 and was heavily involved in the game's promotion.[450] His 'Siiii' goal celebration features in the FIFA series, accompanied with his own voiceover.[425] He was also the face of Pro Evolution Soccer, appearing on the cover in 2008, 2012, and 2013.[451]
+
+With earnings of €720 million (£615 million) from 2010 to 2019, Ronaldo was ranked second in Forbes list of The Highest-Paid Athletes Of The Decade, with only boxer Floyd Mayweather, Jr. earning more.[452] Forbes has twice ranked Ronaldo first on its list of the world's highest-paid football players; his combined income from salaries, bonuses, and endorsements was $73 million in 2013–14 and $79 million in 2014–15.[453][454] The latter earnings saw him listed behind only Mayweather on the magazine's list of The World's Highest-Paid Athletes.[455] In 2016, he became the first footballer to top the Forbes list of highest-earning athletes, with a total income of $88 million from his salary and endorsements in 2015–16.[456] He topped the list for the second straight year with earnings of $93 million in 2016–17.[457] Ronaldo is one of the world's most marketable athletes: SportsPro rated him the fifth most marketable athlete in 2012[458] and eighth most marketable athlete in 2013, with Brazilian footballer Neymar topping both lists.[458][459] Sports market research company Repucom named Ronaldo the most marketable and most recognised football player in the world in May 2014.[460] He was additionally named in the 2014 Time 100, Time's annual list of the most influential people in the world.[461] ESPN named Ronaldo the world's most famous athlete in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019.[462][463][464][465]
+
+Ronaldo has established a strong online presence; the most popular sportsperson on social media, he counted 438 million total followers across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by June 2020.[467] As of July 2019[update], he has the world's biggest Facebook fanbase with 122 million followers:[467] he became the first sportsperson to reach 50 million followers in August 2010,[468] and in October 2014, he became the first sportsperson, and the second person after Shakira, to reach 100 million followers.[469] By June 2017, Ronaldo had 277 million followers across social media.[457] His sponsors earned $936 million in media value across his social media accounts between June 2016 to June 2017.[457] Ronaldo has released two mobile apps: in December 2011, he launched an iPhone game called Heads Up with Cristiano, created by developer RockLive,[470] and in December 2013, he launched Viva Ronaldo, a dedicated social networking website and mobile app.[471] Computer security company McAfee produced a 2012 report ranking footballers by the probability of an internet search for their name leading to an unsafe website, with Ronaldo's name first on the list.[472]
+
+Ronaldo's life and person have been the subject of several works. His autobiography, titled Moments, was published in December 2007.[473] His sponsor Castrol produced the television film Ronaldo: Tested to the Limit, in which he is physically and mentally tested in several areas; his physical performance was consequently subject to scrutiny by world media upon the film's release in September 2011.[474] Cristiano Ronaldo: The World at His Feet, a documentary narrated by the actor Benedict Cumberbatch, was released via Vimeo in June 2014.[475] A documentary film about his life and career, titled Ronaldo, was released worldwide on 9 November 2015.[476] Directed by BAFTA-winner Anthony Wonke, the film is produced and distributed by Universal Pictures, while Asif Kapadia is the executive producer.[477]
+
+Demand for a replica Ronaldo jersey has been high throughout his career. In 2008, Ronaldo's number 7 Manchester United jersey was the best-selling sports product under the auspices of the Premier League.[478] In 2015, Ronaldo's number 7 Real Madrid jersey was the second best-selling jersey worldwide, after Messi's number 10 Barcelona jersey.[479] In 2018, within 24 hours of his number 7 Juventus jersey being released, over 520,000 had been sold, with $62.4 million generated in one day.[480]
+
+Ronaldo opened his first fashion boutique under the name CR7 (his initials and shirt number) on the island of Madeira, Portugal, in 2006. Ronaldo expanded his business with a second clothes boutique in Lisbon in 2008.[481] In partnership with Scandinavian manufacturer JBS Textile Group and the New York fashion designer Richard Chai, Ronaldo co-designed a range of underwear and sock line, released in November 2013.[482] He later expanded his CR7 fashion brand by launching a line of premium shirts[483] and shoes by July 2014.[484] In September 2015, Ronaldo released his own fragrance, "Legacy", in a partnership with Eden Parfums.[485]
+
+In 2007, C.D. Nacional renamed its youth campus Cristiano Ronaldo Campus Futebol (Cristiano Ronaldo Football Campus).[486] In December 2013, Ronaldo opened a museum, Museu CR7, in his hometown of Funchal, Madeira, to house trophies and memorabilia of his life and playing career;[487] the museum is an official sponsor of the local football team União da Madeira.[488][489] At a ceremony held at the Belém Palace in January 2014, President of Portugal Aníbal Cavaco Silva raised Ronaldo to the rank of Grand Officer of the Order of Prince Henry, "to distinguish an athlete of world renown who has been a symbol of Portugal globally, contributing to the international projection of the country and setting an example of tenacity for future generations".[490] A bronze statue of Ronaldo, designed by artist Ricardo Madeira Veloso, was unveiled in Funchal on 21 December 2014.[491][492]
+
+In June 2010, during the build-up to the World Cup, Ronaldo became the fourth footballer – after Steven Gerrard, Pelé and David Beckham – to be represented as a waxwork at Madame Tussauds London.[493] Another waxwork of him was presented at the Madrid Wax Museum in December 2013.[494] In June 2015, astronomers led by David Sobral from Lisbon and Leiden discovered a galaxy which they named CR7 (Cosmos Redshift 7) in tribute to Ronaldo.[495][496]
+
+On 23 July 2016, following Portugal's triumph at Euro 2016, Madeira Airport in Funchal was renamed as Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport.[497] The unveiling of the rebranded terminal took place on 29 March 2017, which included a bust of his head being presented.[498] The bust and the name change were controversial, with the lack of the bust's likeness to Ronaldo being ridiculed by comedians, including Saturday Night Live,[499] while the name change was subject to much debate locally by some politicians and citizens, who even started a petition against the move, an action criticised by President of Madeira Miguel Albuquerque.[500][498] A year later, sports website Bleacher Report commissioned sculptor Emanuel Santos to create another bust.[501] However, this bust was never used; instead, a new one was made by a Spanish sculptor, shown to the public on 15 June 2018.[502]
+
+In February 2020, the United Arab Emirates awarded a golden visa to Ronaldo, under the Dubai Sports Council initiative to connect global players, and to encourage them to live and invest in the UAE.[503]
+
+Ronaldo has four children. He first became a father to a son, Cristiano Jr., born on 17 June 2010 in the United States.[504] He stated that he has full custody of the child and would not be publicly revealing the identity of the mother as per agreement with her.[505][506] In January 2015, Ronaldo announced his five-year relationship with Russian model Irina Shayk had ended.[507]
+
+Ronaldo then became father to twins, daughter Eva and son Mateo, born on 8 June 2017 in the United States via surrogacy.[508] He is in a relationship with Spanish Georgina Rodríguez, a former shop assistant,[509] who gave birth to their daughter Alana Martina, on 12 November 2017.[510]
+
+Ronaldo's father, José, died of an alcoholism-related liver condition at age 52 in September 2005 when Ronaldo was 20.[511][512] Ronaldo has said that he does not drink alcohol,[513] and he received libel damages over a Daily Telegraph article that reported him drinking heavily in a nightclub while recovering from an injury in July 2008.[514] His mother, Dolores, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007 but eventually recovered.[515]
+
+Ronaldo has made contributions to various charitable causes throughout his career. Television footage of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami showed an eight-year-old boy survivor named Martunis wearing a number 7 Portuguese football shirt who was stranded for 19 days after his family was killed. Following this, Ronaldo visited Aceh, Indonesia, to raise funds for rehabilitation and reconstruction.[516][517] After accepting undisclosed damages from a libel case against The Sun newspaper in 2008, Ronaldo donated the damages to a charity in Madeira.[518] In 2009, Ronaldo donated £100,000 to the hospital that saved his mother's life in Madeira following her battle with cancer, so that they could build a cancer centre on the island.[519] In support of the victims of the 2010 Madeira flood, Ronaldo pledged to play in a charity match in Madeira between Primeira Liga club Porto and players from Madeiran-based clubs Marítimo and Nacional.[520]
+
+In 2012, Ronaldo and his agent paid for specialist treatment for a nine-year-old Canarian boy with apparently terminal cancer.[521] In December 2012, Ronaldo joined FIFA's "11 for Health" programme to raise awareness amongst kids of how to steer clear of conditions including drug addiction, HIV, malaria and obesity.[522] In January 2013, Ronaldo became Save the Children's new Global Artist Ambassador, in which he hopes to help fight child hunger and obesity.[523] In March, Ronaldo agreed to be the ambassador for The Mangrove Care Forum in Indonesia, an organisation aiming to raise awareness of mangrove conservation.[524]
+
+Ronaldo was named the world's most charitable sportsperson in 2015 after donating £5 million to the relief effort after the earthquake in Nepal which killed over 8,000 people.[525] In June 2016, Ronaldo donated the entirety of his €600,000 Champions League bonus after Real Madrid won the 2015–16 UEFA Champions League.[525] In August 2016, Ronaldo launched CR7Selfie, a selfie app for charity to help Save the Children that lets participants take a selfie with him in one of several different outfits and poses.[526] In the app, fans can select from among 68 photos of Ronaldo in different outfits and poses, and scroll through 39 filters to apply to their selfies.[527]
+
+In July 2017, Ronaldo was charged with fraudulently evading almost €15 million in tax between 2011 and 2014, a claim he denied at the time.[528] In June 2018, Ronaldo was given a two-year suspended jail sentence and fined €18.8 million, later reduced to €16.8 million after reaching a deal with Spanish authorities. The sentence can be served under probation, without any jail time, so long as he does not re-offend.[529]
+
+Ronaldo and another man were investigated by the British Crown Prosecution Service after a 2005 rape allegation was brought forward by two women. Within days, the two women withdrew their allegation and Scotland Yard later issued a statement declaring there was not enough evidence for a prosecution.[530] In April 2017, it was reported that Ronaldo was being investigated for a rape allegation by the Las Vegas Police Department originating in 2009.[531][532] Documents, confirmed by Ronaldo's lawyers, state that Ronaldo paid a woman US$375,000 in a non-disclosure settlement.[531][533] Ronaldo and his lawyers issued a lengthy statement denying all accusations, describing them as an "intentional defamation campaign" with parts significantly "altered and/or completely fabricated",[534][535] a claim which Der Spiegel categorically denied.[536] In July 2019, Las Vegas prosecutors said they would not charge Ronaldo over allegations of rape; the statement added: "Based upon a review of information at this time, the allegations of sexual assault against Cristiano Ronaldo cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt."[537]
+
+Notes
+
+Sporting
+
+Manchester United[548][549]
+
+Real Madrid[549]
+
+Juventus[544]
+
+Portugal
+
+Individual
+
+Orders
+
+Notes
+
+Citations
+
+Biographies

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+Christopher Columbus[a] (/kəˈlʌmbəs/;[3] Ligurian: Cristoffa Corombo; Italian: Cristoforo Colombo; Spanish: Cristóbal Colón; before 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italian explorer and navigator who completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean, opening the way for European exploration and colonization of the Americas.[4] His expeditions, sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, were the first European contact with the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.
+
+Columbus's early life is somewhat obscure, but scholars generally agree that he was born in the Republic of Genoa and spoke a dialect of Ligurian as his first language. He went to sea at a young age and travelled widely, as far north as the British Isles (and possibly Iceland) and as far south as what is now Ghana. He married Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Moniz Perestrelo and was based in Lisbon for several years, but later took a Castilian mistress; he had one son with each woman. Though largely self-educated, Columbus was widely read in geography, astronomy, and history. He formulated a plan to seek a western sea passage to the East Indies, hoping to profit from the lucrative spice trade. Following persistent lobbying, Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand II agreed to sponsor a journey west, in the name of the Crown of Castile. Columbus left Castile in August 1492 with three ships, and after a stopover in the Canary Islands made landfall in the Americas on 12 October (later celebrated as Columbus Day). His landing place was an island in the Bahamas, known by its native inhabitants as Guanahani; its exact location is uncertain. Columbus subsequently visited the islands now known as Cuba and Hispaniola, establishing a colony in what is now Haiti: the first European settlement in the Americas since the Norse colonies nearly 500 years earlier. He arrived back in Castile in early 1493, bringing a number of captive natives with him. Word of his voyages soon spread throughout Europe.
+
+Columbus made three further voyages to the New World, exploring the Lesser Antilles in 1493, Trinidad and the northern coast of South America in 1498, and the eastern coast of Central America in 1502. Many of the names he gave to geographical features—particularly islands—are still in use. He continued to seek a passage to the East Indies, and the extent to which he was aware that the Americas were a wholly separate landmass is uncertain. He never clearly renounced his belief that he had reached the Far East and gave the name indios ("Indians") to the indigenous peoples he encountered. Columbus's strained relationship with the Spanish crown and its appointed colonial administrators in America led to his arrest and removal from Hispaniola in 1500, and later to protracted litigation over the benefits that he and his heirs claimed were owed to them by the crown. Columbus's expeditions inaugurated a period of exploration, conquest, and colonization that lasted for centuries, helping create the modern Western world. The transfers between the Old World and New World that followed his first voyage are known as the Columbian exchange, and the period of human habitation in the Americas prior to his arrival is referred to as the Pre-Columbian era.
+
+The debate over Columbus's legacy continues. He was widely venerated in the centuries after his death, but public perception has fractured in recent decades as scholars give greater attention to the harm committed under his governance, particularly the near extermination of the indigenous Taino population from mistreatment and European diseases. There is good evidence that Columbus's regime brutally subjugated and enslaved the Taino to aid the Spanish quest for gold. Some other allegations, such as tyrannical rule over the Spanish colonists, are murkier: a contemporaneous, persistent smear campaign called the "black legend" makes the extent of Columbus's blame uncertain. Many landmarks and institutions in the Western Hemisphere bear his name, including the country of Colombia and the name Columbia, which is used as a personification for the United States, and appears in many place names there.
+
+The name Christopher Columbus is the Anglicisation of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. His name in Ligurian is  Cristoffa Corombo, in Italian Cristoforo Colombo, and in Spanish Cristóbal Colón.[5] He was born before 31 October 1451 in the territory of the Republic of Genoa (now part of modern Italy), though the exact location remains disputed.[6][b] His father was Domenico Colombo,[5] a wool weaver who worked both in Genoa and Savona and who also owned a cheese stand at which young Christopher worked as a helper. His mother was Susanna Fontanarossa.[5] He had three brothers, Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino, and Giacomo.  He also had a sister named Bianchinetta.[7] His brother Bartolomeo worked in a cartography workshop in Lisbon for at least part of his adulthood.[8]
+
+Columbus never wrote in his native language, which is presumed to have been a Genoese variety of Ligurian: his name in the 16th-century Genoese language would have been Cristoffa[9] Corombo[10] (Ligurian pronunciation: [kriˈʃtɔffa kuˈɹuŋbu]).[11][12] In one of his writings, he says he went to sea at the age of 10. In 1470, the Columbus family moved to Savona, where Domenico took over a tavern. In the same year, Christopher was on a Genoese ship hired in the service of René of Anjou to support his attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Naples. Some modern authors have argued that he was not from Genoa but, instead, from the Aragon region of Spain[13] or from Portugal.[14] These competing hypotheses have generally been discounted by mainstream scholars.[15][16]
+
+In 1473, Columbus began his apprenticeship as business agent for the important Centurione, Di Negro and Spinola families of Genoa. Later, he allegedly made a trip to Chios, an Aegean island then ruled by Genoa.[17] In May 1476, he took part in an armed convoy sent by Genoa to carry valuable cargo to northern Europe. He probably docked in Bristol, England,[18] and Galway, Ireland. A few writers speculate that in 1477, he was in Iceland.[5][19] It is known that in the autumn of 1477, he sailed on a Portuguese ship from Galway to Lisbon, where he found his brother Bartolomeo, and they continued trading for the Centurione family. Columbus based himself in Lisbon from 1477 to 1485. He married Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, daughter of the Porto Santo governor and Portuguese nobleman of Lombard origin Bartolomeu Perestrello.[20]
+
+In 1479 or 1480, his son Diego Columbus was born. Between 1482 and 1485, Columbus traded along the coasts of West Africa, reaching the Portuguese trading post of Elmina at the Guinea coast (in present-day Ghana).[21] Some records report that Filipa died sometime around 1485, while Columbus was away in Castile.  He returned to Portugal to settle her estate and take his son Diego with him.[22] He had left Portugal for Castile in 1485, where he found a mistress in 1487, a 20-year-old orphan named Beatriz Enríquez de Arana.[23] It is likely that Beatriz met Columbus when he was in Córdoba, a gathering site of many Genoese merchants and where the court of the Catholic Monarchs was located at intervals. Beatriz, unmarried at the time, gave birth to Columbus's natural son Fernando Columbus in July 1488, named for the monarch of Aragon. Columbus recognized the boy as his offspring. Columbus entrusted his older, legitimate son Diego to take care of Beatriz and pay the pension set aside for her following his death, but Diego was negligent in his duties.[24]
+
+Ambitious, Columbus eventually learned Latin, Portuguese, and Castilian. He read widely about astronomy, geography, and history, including the works of Claudius Ptolemy, Pierre Cardinal d'Ailly's Imago Mundi, the travels of Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville, Pliny's Natural History, and Pope Pius II's Historia Rerum Ubique Gestarum. According to historian Edmund Morgan,
+
+Columbus was not a scholarly man. Yet he studied these books, made hundreds of marginal notations in them and came out with ideas about the world that were characteristically simple and strong and sometimes wrong, ...[25]
+
+Throughout his life, Columbus also showed a keen interest in the Bible and in Biblical prophecies, often quoting biblical texts in his letters and logs. For example, part of the argument that he submitted to the Spanish Catholic Monarchs when he sought their support for his proposed expedition to reach the Indies by sailing west was based on his reading of the Second Book of Esdras (Ezra): see 2 Esdras 6:42, which he took to mean that the Earth is made of six parts of land to one of water. Towards the end of his life, he produced a Book of Prophecies in which his career as an explorer is interpreted in the light of Christian eschatology and of apocalypticism.[8]
+
+Carol Delaney has argued that Columbus was a millennialist and that these beliefs motivated his quest for Asia in a variety of ways.[26]  Columbus wrote often about seeking gold in the diaries of his voyages and writes about acquiring the precious metal “in such quantity that the sovereigns… will undertake and prepare to go conquer the Holy Sepulcher”.[26] In an account of his fourth voyage, Columbus wrote that “Jerusalem and Mount Sion must be rebuilt by Christian hands”.[27] It has also been written that “conversion of all people to the Christian faith” is a central theme in Columbus's writings which is a central tenet of some Millenarian beliefs.[26] In a more specific identification of his motivations, Hamandi writes that the “deliverance of Jerusalem from Muslim hands” could be accomplished by “using the resources of newly discovered lands”.[28]
+
+Under the Mongol Empire's hegemony over Asia (the Pax Mongolica, or Mongol peace), Europeans had long enjoyed a safe land passage, the Silk Road, to the Indies (then construed roughly as all of south and east Asia) and China, which were sources of valuable goods such as spices and silk. With the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the land route to Asia became much more difficult and dangerous. Portuguese navigators tried to find a sea way to Asia.
+
+In 1470, the Florentine astronomer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli suggested to King Afonso V of Portugal that sailing west across the Atlantic would be a quicker way to reach the Spice Islands, Cathay, and Cipangu than the route around Africa, but Afonso rejected his proposal.[29] In 1474, Toscanelli sent Columbus a map with the notion of a westward route to Asia.[30][31] In the 1480s, the Columbus brothers proposed a plan to reach the Indies by sailing west across the "Ocean Sea" (the Atlantic). However, this was complicated by the opening of the southeast passage to Asia around Africa by Bartolomeu Dias in 1488, when he reached the Cape of Good Hope (modern-day South Africa).[32]
+
+Washington Irving's 1828 biography of Columbus popularized the idea that Columbus had difficulty obtaining support for his plan because many Catholic theologians insisted that the Earth was flat.[33] In fact, nearly all educated Westerners had understood, at least since the time of Aristotle, that the Earth is spherical.[34][32] The sphericity of the Earth is also accounted for in the work of Ptolemy, on which medieval astronomy was largely based. Christian writers whose works clearly reflect the conviction that the Earth is spherical include Saint Bede the Venerable in his Reckoning of Time, written around AD 723. In Columbus's time, the techniques of celestial navigation, which use the position of the sun and the stars in the sky, together with the understanding that the Earth is a sphere, had long been in use by astronomers and were beginning to be implemented by mariners.[35]
+
+As far back as the 3rd century BC, Eratosthenes had correctly computed the circumference of the Earth by using simple geometry and studying the shadows cast by objects at two remote locations.[36][37] In the 1st century BC, Posidonius confirmed Eratosthenes's results by comparing stellar observations at two separate locations. These measurements were widely known among scholars, but confusion about the old-fashioned units of distance in which they were expressed led to some debate about the size of the Earth.[citation needed]
+
+From Pierre d'Ailly's Imago Mundi Columbus learned of Alfraganus's estimate that a degree of latitude (or a degree of longitude along the equator) spanned 56​2⁄3 Arabic miles (equivalent to 66.2 nautical miles or 122.6 kilometres), but he did not realize that this was expressed in the Arabic mile rather than the shorter Roman mile with which he was familiar.[39] He therefore would have estimated the circumference of the Earth to be about 30,200 kilometres (16,300 nmi) at the equator and 26,200 kilometres (14,100 nmi) at 30 degrees north (around where he was sailing), whereas the correct value is 40,075 kilometres (21,639 nmi) at the equator and 34,735 kilometres (18,755 nmi) at 30 degrees north.[citation needed]
+
+Furthermore, most scholars accepted Ptolemy's estimate that Eurasia spanned 180° longitude, rather than the actual 130° (to the Chinese mainland) or 150° (to Japan at the latitude of Spain). Columbus, for his part, believed an even higher estimate, leaving a smaller percentage for water.  Some people have suggested he followed the estimate of Marinus of Tyre, which put the longitudinal span of the Eurasian landmass at 225°.[citation needed]  Other people have suggested he followed Esdras's statement that "six parts [of the globe] are habitable and the seventh is covered with water."[30] He also believed that Japan (which he called "Cipangu", following Marco Polo) was much larger, farther to the east from China ("Cathay"), and closer to the equator than it is, and that there were inhabited islands even farther to the east than Japan, including the mythical Antillia, which he thought might lie not much farther to the west than the Azores. In this, he was influenced by the ideas of Toscanelli.[30]
+
+Columbus therefore would have estimated the distance from the Canary Islands west to Japan to be about 9,800 kilometres (5,300 nmi) or 3,700 kilometres (2,000 nmi), depending on which estimate he used for Eurasia's longitudinal span. The true figure is now known to be vastly larger: about 20,000 kilometres (11,000 nmi).[40][c] No ship in the 15th century could have carried enough food and fresh water for such a long voyage, and the dangers involved in navigating through the uncharted ocean would have been formidable. Most European navigators reasonably concluded that a westward voyage from Europe to Asia was unfeasible. The Catholic Monarchs, however, having completed an expensive war in the Iberian Peninsula, were eager to obtain a competitive edge over other European countries in the quest for trade with the Indies. Columbus's project, though far-fetched, held the promise of such an advantage.[citation needed]
+
+Though Columbus was wrong about the number of degrees of longitude that separated Europe from the Far East and about the distance that each degree represented, he did possess valuable knowledge about the trade winds, which would prove to be the key to his successful navigation of the Atlantic Ocean. During his first voyage in 1492, the brisk trade winds from the east, commonly called "easterlies", propelled Columbus's fleet for five weeks, from the Canary Islands to The Bahamas. The precise first land sighting and landing point was San Salvador Island.[32] To return to Spain against this prevailing wind would have required several months of an arduous sailing technique, called beating, during which food and drinkable water would probably have been exhausted.
+
+Instead, Columbus returned home by following the curving trade winds northeastward to the middle latitudes of the North Atlantic, where he was able to catch the "westerlies" that blow eastward to the coast of Western Europe. There, in turn, the winds curve southward towards the Iberian Peninsula.[41][42]
+
+It is unclear whether Columbus learned about the winds from his own sailing experience or if he had heard about them from others. The corresponding technique for efficient travel in the Atlantic appears to have been exploited first by the Portuguese, who referred to it as the Volta do mar ("turn of the sea"). Columbus's knowledge of the Atlantic wind patterns was, however, imperfect at the time of his first voyage. By sailing directly due west from the Canary Islands during hurricane season, skirting the so-called horse latitudes of the mid-Atlantic, Columbus risked either being becalmed or running into a tropical cyclone, both of which, by chance, he avoided.[30]
+
+In 1485, Columbus presented his plans to King John II of Portugal. He proposed that the king equip three sturdy ships and grant Columbus one year's time to sail out into the Atlantic, search for a western route to the Orient, and return. Columbus also requested he be made "Great Admiral of the Ocean", appointed governor of any and all lands he discovered, and given one-tenth of all revenue from those lands. The king submitted Columbus's proposal to his experts, who rejected it. It was their considered opinion that Columbus's estimation of a travel distance of 2,400 miles (3,860 km) was, in fact, far too low.[30]
+
+In 1488, Columbus again appealed to the court of Portugal, resulting in John II again inviting him for an audience. That meeting also proved unsuccessful, in part because not long afterwards Bartolomeu Dias returned to Portugal with news of his successful rounding of the southern tip of Africa (near the Cape of Good Hope). With an eastern sea route to Asia apparently at hand, King John was no longer interested in Columbus's far-fetched project.
+
+Columbus traveled from Portugal to both Genoa and Venice, but he received encouragement from neither. He had also dispatched his brother Bartholomew to the court of Henry VII of England to inquire whether the English crown might sponsor his expedition, but also without success.
+
+Columbus had sought an audience from the monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, who had united several kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula by marrying and were ruling together. On 1 May 1486, permission having been granted, Columbus presented his plans to Queen Isabella, who, in turn, referred it to a committee. After the passing of much time, the savants of Spain, like their counterparts in Portugal, replied that Columbus had grossly underestimated the distance to Asia. They pronounced the idea impractical and advised their Royal Highnesses to pass on the proposed venture.
+
+However, to keep Columbus from taking his ideas elsewhere, and perhaps to keep their options open, the Catholic Monarchs gave him an annual allowance of 12,000 maravedis and, in 1489, furnished him with a letter ordering all cities and towns under their domain to provide him food and lodging at no cost.[44]
+
+After continually lobbying at the Spanish court and two years of negotiations, he finally had success in January 1492. Ferdinand and Isabella had just conquered Granada, the last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula, and they received Columbus in Córdoba, in the Alcázar castle. Isabella turned him down on the advice of her confessor. Columbus was leaving town by mule in despair when Ferdinand intervened. Isabella then sent a royal guard to fetch him, and Ferdinand later claimed credit for being "the principal cause why those islands were discovered".[45]
+
+In the April 1492 "Capitulations of Santa Fe", King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella promised Columbus that if he succeeded he would be given the rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and appointed Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands he could claim for Spain. He had the right to nominate three persons, from whom the sovereigns would choose one, for any office in the new lands. He would be entitled to 10 percent of all the revenues from the new lands in perpetuity. Additionally, he would also have the option of buying one-eighth interest in any commercial venture with the new lands and receive one-eighth of the profits.[30]
+
+Columbus was later arrested in 1500 and dismissed from his posts. He and his sons, Diego and Fernando, then conducted a lengthy series of court cases against the Castilian crown, known as the pleitos colombinos, alleging that the Crown had illegally reneged on its contractual obligations to Columbus and his heirs. The Columbus family had some success in their first litigation, as a judgment of 1511 confirmed Diego's position as Viceroy, but reduced his powers. Diego resumed litigation in 1512, which lasted until 1536, and further disputes continued until 1790.[46]
+
+Between 1492 and 1503, Columbus completed four round-trip voyages between Spain and the Americas, each voyage being sponsored by the Crown of Castile. On his first voyage, he independently discovered the Americas and magnetic declination.[d][47][48] These voyages marked the beginning of the European exploration and colonization of the American continents, and are thus of enormous significance in Western history.[8]
+
+Columbus always insisted, in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, that the lands that he visited during those voyages were part of the Asian continent, as previously described by Marco Polo and other European travelers.[8] Columbus's refusal to accept that the lands he had visited and claimed for Spain were not part of Asia might explain, in part, why the American continent was named after the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci and not after Columbus.[49]
+
+On the evening of 3 August 1492, Columbus departed from Palos de la Frontera with three ships. The largest was a carrack (Spanish: nao), the Santa María ex-Gallega ("Galician")[further explanation needed]. The other two were smaller caravels. The name of one is lost: it is known today only by the nickname Pinta, which in Castilian of the time meant "painted one".[50] The Santa Clara was nicknamed affectionately the Niña ("the little one"), a pun on the name of her owner, Juan Niño of Moguer.[51] The monarchs forced the citizens of Palos to contribute to the expedition. The Santa María was owned by Juan de la Cosa and captained by Columbus. The Pinta and the Niña were piloted by the Pinzón brothers (Martín Alonso and Vicente Yáñez).[32]
+
+Columbus first sailed to the Canary Islands, which belonged to Castile. He restocked provisions and made repairs in Gran Canaria, then departed from San Sebastián de La Gomera on 6 September, for what turned out to be a five-week voyage across the ocean. At about 2:00 in the morning of 12 October, a lookout on the Pinta, Rodrigo de Triana (also known as Juan Rodríguez Bermeo), spotted land, and immediately alerted the rest of the crew with a shout. Thereupon, the captain of the Pinta, Martín Alonso Pinzón, verified the sight of land and alerted Columbus by firing a lombard.[52] Columbus later maintained that he himself had already seen a light on the land a few hours earlier, thereby claiming for himself the lifetime pension promised by Ferdinand and Isabella to the first person to sight land.[32][53]
+
+Columbus called the island (in what is now the Bahamas) San Salvador (meaning "Holy Savior"); the natives called it Guanahani. Exactly which island in the Bahamas this corresponds to is unresolved. Based on primary accounts and the geographic positions of the islands given Columbus's course, the prime candidates are San Salvador Island (so named in 1925 on the theory that it was Columbus's San Salvador),[54] Samana Cay, and Plana Cays.[32]
+
+The indigenous people he encountered, the Lucayan, Taíno, and Arawak, were peaceful and friendly. He called the inhabitants of the lands that he visited indios (Spanish for "Indians").[55][56][57] Noting their gold ear ornaments, Columbus took some of the Arawaks prisoner and insisted that they guide him to the source of the gold.[58] From the entry in his journal of 12 October 1492, in which he wrote of them: "Many of the men I have seen have scars on their bodies, and when I made signs to them to find out how this happened, they indicated that people from other nearby islands come to San Salvador to capture them; they defend themselves the best they can. I believe that people from the mainland come here to take them as slaves. They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them. I think they can very easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion. If it pleases our Lord, I will take six of them to Your Highnesses when I depart, in order that they may learn our language."[59] Columbus noted that their primitive weapons and military tactics made them susceptible to easy conquest, writing, "these people are very simple in war-like matters … I could conquer the whole of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased."[60]
+
+Columbus also explored the northeast coast of Cuba, where he landed on 28 October. On 22 November, Martín Alonso Pinzón took the Pinta on an unauthorized expedition in search of an island called "Babeque" or "Baneque", which the natives had told him was rich in gold. Columbus, for his part, continued to the northern coast of Hispaniola, where he landed on 5 December.[61] There, the Santa María ran aground on Christmas Day 1492 and had to be abandoned. The wreck was used as a target for cannon fire to impress the native peoples.[32] Columbus was received by the native cacique Guacanagari, who gave him permission to leave some of his men behind. Columbus left 39 men, including Luis de Torres, the converso interpreter, who spoke Hebrew and Arabic,[citation needed] and founded the settlement of La Navidad at the site of present-day Bord de Mer de Limonade, Haiti.[62] Columbus took more natives prisoner and continued his exploration.[58] He kept sailing along the northern coast of Hispaniola with a single ship, until he encountered Pinzón and the Pinta on 6 January.
+
+On 13 January 1493, Columbus made his last stop of this voyage in the New World, in the Bay of Rincón at the eastern end of the Samaná Peninsula in northeast Hispaniola.[63] There he encountered the warlike Cigüayos, the only natives who offered violent resistance during his first voyage to the Americas.[64] The Cigüayos refused to trade the amount of bows and arrows that Columbus desired; in the ensuing clash one Ciguayo was stabbed in the buttocks and another wounded with an arrow in his chest.[65] Because of this and because of the Cigüayos' use of arrows, he called the inlet where he met them the Bay of Arrows (or Gulf of Arrows).[66] Columbus captured about 10 to 25 natives and took them back with him (only seven or eight of the natives arrived in Spain alive).[67]
+
+Columbus headed for Spain on the Niña, but a storm separated him from the Pinta, and forced the Niña to stop at the island of Santa Maria in the Azores. Half of his crew went ashore to say prayers in a chapel to give thanks for having survived the storm. But while praying, they were imprisoned by the governor of the island, ostensibly on suspicion of being pirates.  After a two-day standoff, the prisoners were released, and Columbus again set sail for Spain.[68]
+
+Another storm forced him into the port at Lisbon.[32] He anchored next to the King's harbor patrol ship on 4 March 1493 in Portugal. There, he was interviewed by Bartolomeu Dias, who had rounded the Cape of Good Hope a few years earlier, in 1488–1489. Dias's success had complicated Columbus's attempts to secure funding from the Portuguese court because the sure route to the Indies that Dias pioneered made a risky, conjectural western route unnecessary.[32] Not finding King John II of Portugal in Lisbon, Columbus wrote a letter to him and waited for John's reply. John asked Columbus to go to Vale do Paraíso north of Lisbon to meet him. Relations between Portugal and Castile were poor at the time. Columbus went to meet with John at Vale do Paraíso. Hearing of Columbus's voyage, John told him that he believed the voyage to be in violation of the 1479 Treaty of Alcáçovas.
+
+After spending more than a week in Portugal, and paying his respects to Eleanor of Viseu, Columbus again set sail for Spain. Ferdinand Magellan was a young boy and a ward of Eleanor's court; it is likely he saw Columbus during this visit.[32] After departing, and after reportedly being saved from assassins by King John, Columbus crossed the bar of Saltes and entered the harbor of Palos de la Frontera on 15 March 1493. Word of his finding new lands rapidly spread throughout Europe.
+
+Columbus left the port of Cádiz on 24 September 1493, with a fleet of 17 ships carrying 1,200 men and the supplies to establish permanent colonies in the New World. The passengers included priests, farmers, and soldiers, who would be the new colonists. This reflected the new policy of creating not just "colonies of exploitation", but also "colonies of settlement" from which to launch missions dedicated to converting the natives to Christianity.[69] Modern studies suggest that "crew members may have included free black Africans who arrived in the New World about a decade before the slave trade began".[70]
+
+As in the first voyage, the fleet stopped at the Canary Islands, from which it departed on 13 October, following a more southerly course than on the previous expedition. On 3 November, Columbus sighted a rugged island that he named Dominica (Latin for Sunday); later that day, he landed at Marie-Galante, which he named Santa María la Galante. After sailing past Les Saintes (Los Santos, "The Saints"), he arrived at the island of Guadeloupe, which he named Santa María de Guadalupe de Extremadura, after the image of the Virgin Mary venerated at the Spanish monastery of Villuercas, in Guadalupe, Cáceres, Spain. He explored that island from 4 to 10 November.
+
+Michele da Cuneo, Columbus's childhood friend from Savona, sailed with Columbus during the second voyage and wrote: "In my opinion, since Genoa was Genoa, there was never born a man so well equipped and expert in the art of navigation as the said lord Admiral."[71] Columbus named the small island of "Saona ... to honor Michele da Cuneo, his friend from Savona."[72]
+
+The same childhood friend reported in a letter that Columbus had provided one of the captured indigenous women to him. He wrote, "While I was in the boat, I captured a very beautiful Carib woman, whom the said Lord Admiral gave to me. When I had taken her to my cabin she was naked—as was their custom. I was filled with a desire to take my pleasure with her and attempted to satisfy my desire. She was unwilling, and so treated me with her nails that I wished I had never begun. But—to cut a long story short—I then took a piece of rope and whipped her soundly, and she let forth such incredible screams that you would not have believed your ears. Eventually we came to such terms, I assure you, that you would have thought that she had been brought up in a school for whores."[73]
+
+Pedro de las Casas, father of the priest Bartolomé de las Casas, also accompanied Columbus on this voyage.[74]
+
+The exact course of Columbus's voyage through the Lesser Antilles is debated, but it seems likely that he turned north, sighting and naming several islands, including:
+
+Columbus also sighted the chain of the Virgin Islands, which he named Islas de Santa Úrsula y las Once Mil Vírgenes, "Islands of Saint Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins" (shortened, both on maps of the time and in common parlance, to Islas Vírgenes). He also named the islands of Virgin Gorda ("Fat Virgin"), Tortola, and Peter Island (San Pedro).
+
+One of the first skirmishes between Native Americans and Europeans since the time of the Vikings occurred on 14 November, when at Saint Croix, Columbus's men rescued two native boys from several cannibalistic Island Caribs.[76] Columbus's men pursued the Carib canoe, which met them with arrows. Several Europeans were wounded, but they killed all of the Caribs, and learned that the two boys had recently been castrated by their captors. Columbus continued to the Virgin Islands, and landed in Puerto Rico, which he named San Juan Bautista[77] in honor of Saint John the Baptist (a name that was later given to the capital city of San Juan).
+
+On 22 November, Columbus returned to Hispaniola, where he intended to visit the fort of La Navidad, built during his first voyage and located on the northern coast of Haiti. Columbus found the fort in ruins, destroyed by the native Taino people.[78] Among the ruins were the corpses of 11 of the 39 Spaniards who had stayed behind as the first colonists in the New World.
+
+Columbus then sailed more than 100 kilometres (62 miles) eastwards along the northern coast of Hispaniola, establishing a new settlement, which he called La Isabela, in the present-day Dominican Republic.[79] However, La Isabela proved to be poorly located and the settlement was short-lived.
+
+According to the abstract of Columbus's journal made by Bartolomé de Las Casas, the objective of the third voyage was to verify the existence of a continent that King John II of Portugal suggested was located to the southwest of the Cape Verde Islands. King John reportedly knew of the existence of such a mainland because "canoes had been found which set out from the coast of Guinea [West Africa] and sailed to the west with merchandise."[80][81]
+
+On 30 May 1498, Columbus left with six ships from Sanlúcar, Spain, for his third trip to the New World. Three of the ships headed directly for Hispaniola with much-needed supplies, while Columbus took the other three in an exploration of what might lie to the south of the Caribbean islands he had already visited, including a hoped-for passage to continental Asia.[82]
+
+Columbus led his fleet to the Portuguese island of Porto Santo, his wife's native land. He then sailed to Madeira and spent some time there with the Portuguese captain João Gonçalves da Camara, before sailing to the Canary Islands and Cape Verde. As he crossed the Atlantic, Columbus discovered that the angle between North as indicated by a magnetic compass and North as measured by the position of the pole star changed with his position (a phenomenon now known as "compass variation"). He would later use his previous measurements of the compass variation to adjust his reckoning.[21]
+
+After being becalmed for several days in the doldrums of the mid-Atlantic, Columbus's fleet regained its wind and, dangerously low on water, turned north in the direction of Dominica, which Columbus had visited in his previous voyage. The ships arrived at King John's hypothesized continent, which is South America, when they sighted the land of Trinidad on 31 July approaching from the southeast.[83] The fleet sailed along the southern coast and entered Dragon's Mouth, anchoring near Soldado Rock where they made contact with a group of native Amerindians in canoes.[84] Columbus then landed on Trinidad at Icacos Point (which he named Punta de Arenal) on 2 August.[85] After resupplying with food and water, from 4 to 12 August Columbus explored the Gulf of Paria, which separates Trinidad from what is now Venezuela, near the delta of the Orinoco River. He then touched the mainland of South America at the Paria Peninsula.[citation needed]
+
+Exploring the new continent, Columbus correctly interpreted the enormous quantity of fresh water that the Orinoco delivered into the Atlantic Ocean as evidence that he had reached a large landmass rather than another island. He also speculated that the new continent might be the location of the biblical Garden of Eden. He then sailed to the islands of Chacachacare and Margarita. He sighted Tobago (which he named "Bella Forma") and Grenada (which he named "Concepción").[86]
+
+In poor health, Columbus returned to Hispaniola on 19 August, only to find that many of the Spanish settlers of the new colony were in rebellion against his rule, claiming that Columbus had misled them about the supposedly bountiful riches of the New World. A number of returning settlers and sailors lobbied against Columbus at the Spanish court, accusing him and his brothers of gross mismanagement. Columbus had some of his crew hanged for disobedience. He had an economic interest in the enslavement of the Hispaniola natives and for that reason was not eager to baptize them, which attracted criticism from some churchmen.[87] An entry in his journal from September 1498 reads: "From here one might send, in the name of the Holy Trinity, as many slaves as could be sold ..."[88]
+
+Columbus was eventually forced to make peace with the rebellious colonists on humiliating terms.[89] In 1500, the Crown had him removed as governor, arrested, and transported in chains to Spain (see "Accusations of tyranny" section below). He was eventually freed and allowed to return to the New World, but not as governor.[citation needed]
+
+Before leaving for his fourth voyage, Columbus wrote a letter to the Governors of the Bank of Saint George, Genoa, dated at Seville, 2 April 1502.[90] He wrote "Although my body is here my heart is always near you."[91]
+
+Columbus made a fourth voyage nominally in search of the Strait of Malacca to the Indian Ocean. Accompanied by his brother Bartolomeo and his 13-year-old son Fernando, he left Cádiz on 11 May 1502, with his flagship Santa María and the vessels Gallega, Vizcaína, and Santiago de Palos. He sailed to Arzila on the Moroccan coast to rescue Portuguese soldiers whom he had heard were under siege by the Moors.
+
+On 15 June, they landed at Carbet on the island of Martinique (Martinica). A hurricane was brewing, so he continued on, hoping to find shelter on Hispaniola. He arrived at Santo Domingo on 29 June, but was denied port, and the new governor refused to listen to his storm prediction. Instead, while Columbus's ships sheltered at the mouth of the Rio Jaina, the first Spanish treasure fleet sailed into the hurricane. Columbus's ships survived with only minor damage, while 29 of the 30 ships in the governor's fleet were lost to a storm on 1 July. In addition to the ships, 500 lives (including that of the governor, Francisco de Bobadilla) and an immense cargo of gold were surrendered to the sea.[citation needed]
+
+After a brief stop at Jamaica, Columbus sailed to Central America, arriving at Guanaja (Isla de Pinos) in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras on 30 July. Here Bartolomeo found native merchants and a large canoe, which was described as being "long as a galley" and filled with cargo. On 14 August, he landed on the continental mainland at Puerto Castilla, near Trujillo, Honduras. He spent two months exploring the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, before arriving in Almirante Bay in Panama on 16 October.[citation needed]
+
+On 5 December 1502, Columbus and his crew found themselves in a storm unlike any they had ever experienced. In his journal Columbus writes,
+
+For nine days I was as one lost, without hope of life. Eyes never beheld the sea so angry, so high, so covered with foam. The wind not only prevented our progress, but offered no opportunity to run behind any headland for shelter; hence we were forced to keep out in this bloody ocean, seething like a pot on a hot fire. Never did the sky look more terrible; for one whole day and night it blazed like a furnace, and the lightning broke with such violence that each time I wondered if it had carried off my spars and sails; the flashes came with such fury and frightfulness that we all thought that the ship would be blasted. All this time the water never ceased to fall from the sky; I do not say it rained, for it was like another deluge. The men were so worn out that they longed for death to end their dreadful suffering.[92]
+
+In Panama, Columbus learned from the Ngobe of gold and a strait to another ocean, but was told by local leader Quibían not to go past a certain point down the river. After much exploration, in January 1503, he established a garrison at the mouth of the Belén River. On 6 April, one of the ships became stranded in the river. At the same time, the garrison was attacked by Quibían and the other ships were damaged. Shipworms also damaged the ships in tropical waters.[93]
+
+Columbus left for Hispaniola on 16 April heading north. On 10 May he sighted the Cayman Islands, naming them "Las Tortugas" after the numerous sea turtles there. His ships next sustained more damage in a storm off the coast of Cuba. Unable to travel farther, on 25 June 1503 they were beached in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica.[citation needed]
+
+For one year Columbus and his men remained stranded on Jamaica. A Spaniard, Diego Méndez, and some natives paddled a canoe to get help from Hispaniola. The governor, Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres, detested Columbus and obstructed all efforts to rescue him and his men. In the meantime Columbus, in a desperate effort to induce the natives to continue provisioning him and his hungry men, won their favor by predicting a lunar eclipse for 29 February 1504, using Abraham Zacuto's astronomical charts.[94][95][96] Help finally arrived, no thanks to the governor, on 29 June 1504, and Columbus and his men arrived in Sanlúcar, Spain, on 7 November.
+
+Following his first voyage, Columbus was appointed Viceroy and Governor of the Indies under the terms of the Capitulations of Santa Fe. In practice, this primarily entailed the administration of the colonies in the island of Hispaniola, whose capital was established in Santo Domingo. By the end of his third voyage, Columbus was physically and mentally exhausted, his body wracked by arthritis and his eyes by ophthalmia. In October 1499, he sent two ships to Spain, asking the Court of Spain to appoint a royal commissioner to help him govern.[97]
+
+By this time, accusations of tyranny and incompetence on the part of Columbus had also reached the Court. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand responded by removing Columbus from power and replacing him with Francisco de Bobadilla, a member of the Order of Calatrava. Bobadilla, who ruled as governor from 1500 until his death in a storm in 1502, had also been tasked by the Court with investigating the accusations of brutality made against Columbus.
+
+Arriving in Santo Domingo while Columbus was away during the explorations of his third voyage, Bobadilla was immediately met with complaints about all three Columbus brothers: Christopher, Bartolomeo, and Diego. Bobadilla reported to Spain that Columbus regularly used torture and mutilation to govern Hispaniola. The 48-page report, found in 2006 in the national archive in the Spanish city of Simancas, contains testimonies from 23 people, including both enemies and supporters of Columbus, about the treatment of colonial subjects by Columbus and his brothers during his seven-year rule.[98]
+
+According to the report, Columbus once punished a man found guilty of stealing corn by having his ears and nose cut off and then selling him into slavery. Testimony recorded in the report stated that Columbus congratulated his brother Bartolomeo on "defending the family" when the latter ordered a woman paraded naked through the streets and then had her tongue cut out for suggesting that Columbus was of lowly birth.[98] The document also describes how Columbus put down native unrest and revolt: he first ordered a brutal crackdown in which many natives were killed, and then paraded their dismembered bodies through the streets in an attempt to discourage further rebellion.[99]
+
+The neutrality and accuracy of this report and the accusations of Bobadilla towards Columbus and his brothers have been disputed by historians, given the anti-Italian sentiment of the Spaniards and Bobadilla's desire to take over Columbus' position.[100][101][102]
+
+"Columbus's government was characterised by a form of tyranny," Consuelo Varela, a Spanish historian who has seen the document, told journalists. "Even those who loved him had to admit the atrocities that had taken place."[98]
+
+Because of their gross misgovernance, Columbus and his brothers were arrested and imprisoned upon their return to Spain from the third voyage. They lingered in jail for six weeks before King Ferdinand ordered their release. Not long after, the king and queen summoned the Columbus brothers to the Alhambra palace in Granada. There, the royal couple heard the brothers' pleas; restored their freedom and wealth; and, after much persuasion, agreed to fund Columbus's fourth voyage. But the door was firmly shut on Columbus's role as governor. Henceforth Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres was to be the new governor of the West Indies.[103]
+
+Columbus had always claimed the conversion of non-believers as one reason for his explorations, but he grew increasingly religious in his later years. Probably with the assistance of his son Diego and his friend the Carthusian monk Gaspar Gorricio, Columbus produced two books during his later years: a Book of Privileges (1502), detailing and documenting the rewards from the Spanish Crown to which he believed he and his heirs were entitled, and a Book of Prophecies (1505), in which he considered his achievements as an explorer but a fulfillment of Bible prophecy in the context of Christian eschatology.[8][105]
+
+In his later years, Columbus demanded that the Spanish Crown give him 10 percent of all profits made in the new lands, as stipulated in the Capitulations of Santa Fe. Because he had been relieved of his duties as governor, the crown did not feel bound by that contract and his demands were rejected. After his death, his heirs sued the Crown for a part of the profits from trade with America, as well as other rewards. This led to a protracted series of legal disputes known as the pleitos colombinos ("Columbian lawsuits").
+
+During a violent storm on his first return voyage, Columbus, then 41, suffered an attack of what was believed at the time to be gout. In subsequent years, he was plagued with what was thought to be influenza and other fevers, bleeding from the eyes, temporary blindness and prolonged attacks of gout. The attacks increased in duration and severity, sometimes leaving Columbus bedridden for months at a time, and culminated in his death 14 years later.
+
+Based on Columbus's lifestyle and the described symptoms, modern doctors suspect that he suffered from reactive arthritis, rather than gout.[107][108] Reactive arthritis is a joint inflammation caused by intestinal bacterial infections or after acquiring certain sexually transmitted diseases (primarily chlamydia or gonorrhea). "It seems likely that [Columbus] acquired reactive arthritis from food poisoning on one of his ocean voyages because of poor sanitation and improper food preparation," writes Dr. Frank C. Arnett, a rheumatologist and professor of internal medicine, pathology and laboratory medicine the University of Texas Medical School at Houston.[107]
+
+On 20 May 1506, aged probably 54, Columbus died in Valladolid, Spain. His remains were first interred at Valladolid, then at the monastery of La Cartuja in Seville (southern Spain) by the will of his son Diego Colón, who had been governor of Hispaniola. In 1542, the remains were transferred to Colonial Santo Domingo, in the present-day Dominican Republic. In 1795, when France took over the entire island of Hispaniola, Columbus's remains were moved to Havana, Cuba. After Cuba became independent following the Spanish–American War in 1898, the remains were moved back to Spain, to the Cathedral of Seville,[109] where they were placed on an elaborate catafalque.
+
+However, a lead box bearing an inscription identifying "Don Christopher Columbus" and containing bone fragments and a bullet was discovered at Santo Domingo in 1877. These bones were considered legitimate by physician and future United States Assistant Secretary of State John Eugene Osborne, who suggested in 1913 that the remains be placed on a battleship and travel through the Panama Canal as a part of its opening ceremony. Ultimately, it was decided not to do so.[111]
+
+To lay to rest claims that the wrong relics had been moved to Havana and that Columbus's remains had been left buried in the Cathedral of Santo Domingo, DNA samples of the corpse resting in Seville were taken in June 2003 (History Today August 2003) as well as other DNA samples from the remains of his brother Diego and younger son Fernando Colón. Initial observations suggested that the bones did not appear to belong to somebody with the physique or age at death associated with Columbus.[112] DNA extraction proved difficult; only short fragments of mitochondrial DNA could be isolated. The mitochondrial DNA fragments matched corresponding DNA from Columbus's brother, giving support that both individuals had shared the same mother.[113]
+
+Such evidence, together with anthropologic and historic analyses, led the researchers to conclude that the remains found in Seville belonged to Christopher Columbus.[114] The authorities in Santo Domingo have never allowed the remains there to be exhumed, so it is unknown if any of those remains could be from Columbus's body as well.[113][114] The Dominican remains are located in "The Columbus Lighthouse" (Faro a Colón), in Santo Domingo.
+
+The anniversary of Columbus's 1492 landing in the Americas is usually observed on 12 October in Spain and throughout the Americas, except Canada. In Spain it is called the Fiesta Nacional de España y Día de la Hispanidad commemorating the role of Spain in world history, while a number of countries in Latin America celebrate it as Día de la Raza commemorating their common heritage. In the United States it is called Columbus Day and is observed annually on the second Monday in October.
+It was promoted by Italian-Americans to place themselves as part of the history of the US among discrimination against Italians and Catholics.[115]
+There are efforts in the US to rename Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples' Day.
+
+Historically, the English had downplayed Columbus and emphasized the role of the Venetian John Cabot as a pioneer explorer, but for the emerging United States, Cabot made for a poor national hero.[116]
+American navitists preferred Leif Erikson.[115]
+Veneration of Columbus in America dates back to colonial times. The name Columbia for "America" first appeared in a 1738 weekly publication of the debates of the British Parliament.[117] The use of Columbus as a founding figure of New World nations and the use of the word "Columbia", or simply the name "Columbus", spread rapidly after the American Revolution. This was out of a desire to develop a national history and founding myth with less ties to Britain.[118] Columbus's name was given to the federal capital of the United States (District of Columbia), the capital cities of two U.S. states (Ohio and South Carolina), and the Columbia River. Outside the United States the name was used in 1819 for the Gran Colombia, a precursor of the modern Republic of Colombia. Numerous cities, towns, counties, streets, and plazas (called Plaza Colón or Plaza de Colón throughout Latin America and Spain) have been named after him. A candidate for sainthood in the Catholic Church in 1866, celebration of Columbus's legacy perhaps reached a zenith in 1892 with the 400th anniversary of his first arrival in the Americas. Monuments to Columbus like the Columbian Exposition in Chicago and Columbus Circle in New York City were erected throughout the United States and Latin America extolling him.
+The Knights of Columbus is a fraternal organization for Catholic men founded in 1882.
+While its initial membership was mainly Irish, they took Columbus as a symbol of Catholicism in America.[115]
+
+The World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893, commemorated the 400th anniversary of the landing of Christopher Columbus in the Americas.[119] Over 27 million people attended the exposition during its six-month duration.
+
+The United States Postal Service participated in the celebration issuing the first US commemorative postage stamps, a series of 16 postage issues called the Columbian Issue depicting Columbus, Queen Isabella and others in the various stages of his several voyages. The issues range in value from the 1-cent to the 5-dollar denominations. Under Benjamin Harrison and his Postmaster General John Wanamaker the Columbian commemorative stamps were made available and were first issued at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, in 1893. Wanamaker originally introduced the idea of issuing the nation's first commemorative stamp to Harrison, the Congress and the U.S. Post Office. To demonstrate his confidence in the new Columbian commemorative issues Wanamaker purchased $10,000 worth of stamps with his own money. The Columbian Exposition lasted several months, and over $40 million in commemorative postage stamps had been sold.[120] The 400th anniversary Columbian issues were very popular in the United States. A total of two billion stamps were issued for all the Columbian denominations, and 72 percent of these were the two-cent stamps, "Landing of Columbus", which paid the first-class rate for domestic mail at the time.[121]
+
+In 1992, a second Columbian issue was released that was identical to the first to commemorate the 500th anniversary, except for the date in the upper right hand corner of each stamp. These issues were made from the original dies of which the first engraved issues of 1893 were produced. The United States issued the series jointly for the first time with three other countries, Italy in lire, Portugal in escudos and Spain in pesetas.[122]
+
+In 1909, descendants of Columbus undertook to dismantle the Columbus family chapel in Spain and move it to Boalsburg near State College, Pennsylvania, where it may now be visited by the public.[123] At the museum associated with the chapel, there are a number of Columbus relics worthy of note, including the armchair that the "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" used at his chart table.
+
+Columbus's voyages are considered some of the most important events in world history, kickstarting modern globalism and resulting in major demographic, commercial, economic, social, and political changes.[125][126] These explorations resulted in the permanent contact between the two hemispheres. There was a massive exchange of animals, plants, fungi, diseases, technologies, mineral wealth and ideas.[127][128][129][130] Exposed to old world diseases, the indigenous populations of the New world collapsed and were largely replaced by Europeans and Africans who brought with them new methods of farming, business, governance, and religious worship.[131][132]
+
+Though Christopher Columbus came to be considered the discoverer of America in US and European popular culture, his historical legacy is more nuanced. America had been discovered and populated by its indigenous population. Columbus was not even the first European to reach its shores, having been preceded by Erik the Red in 10th-century Greenland and Leif Erikson in 11th-century Vinland at L'Anse aux Meadows.[133][134]  However, Columbus's efforts brought the Americas to the attention of Europe at a time ripe for Europe to act upon. Thus, Columbus was able to initiate the enduring association between the Earth's two major landmasses and their inhabitants. "Columbus's claim to fame isn't that he got there first," explains historian Martin Dugard, "it's that he stayed."[135]
+
+Historians have traditionally argued that Columbus remained convinced until his death that his journeys had been along the east coast of Asia as he originally intended,[136][118] but writer Kirkpatrick Sale argues that a document in the Book of Privileges indicates Columbus knew he found a new continent.[137] Furthermore, his journals from the third voyage call the "land of Paria" a "hitherto unknown" continent.[138] On the other hand, his other writings continued to claim that he had reached Asia, such as a 1502 letter to Pope Alexander VI where he asserted that Cuba was the east coast of Asia.[139] He also rationalized that the new continent of South America was the "Earthly Paradise" that was located "at the end of the Orient".[138] Thus, it remains unclear what his true beliefs were.
+
+The term "pre-Columbian" is usually used to refer to the peoples and cultures of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus and his European successors.
+
+Columbus is often credited with refuting a prevalent belief in a flat Earth. However, this legacy is a popular misconception. To the contrary, the spherical shape of the Earth had been known to scholars since antiquity, and was common knowledge among sailors. Coincidentally, the oldest surviving globe of the Earth, the Erdapfel, was made in 1492, just before Columbus's return to Europe. As such it contains no sign of the Americas and yet demonstrates the common belief in a spherical Earth.[140]
+
+Since the late 20th century, historians have criticized Columbus for initiating colonization and for abuse of natives.[141][142][143][144] Among reasons for this criticism is the poor treatment of the native Taíno people of Hispaniola, whose population declined rapidly after contact with the Spanish. Modern estimates for the pre-Columbian population of Hispaniola vary from several hundred thousand to more than a million.[145] According to the historian Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, by 1548, 56 years after Columbus landed, and 42 years after he died, fewer than 500 Taíno were living on the island.[146] The indigenous population declined rapidly, due primarily to the first pandemic of European endemic diseases, which struck Hispaniola after 1519. The natives had no acquired immunity to these new diseases and suffered high fatalities. There is also documentation that they were overworked.[147][148][149] Historian Andrés Reséndez of University of California, Davis, pushes back against this narrative, and says the available evidence suggests "slavery has emerged as major killer" of the indigenous populations of the Caribbean between 1492 and 1550 more so than diseases such as smallpox, influenza and malaria.[150] He says that indigenous populations did not experience a rebound like European populations did following the Black Death because unlike the latter, the former were subjected to deadly forced labor in gold and silver mines on a massive scale.[151]
+
+The natives of the island were systematically subjugated via the encomienda system implemented by Columbus.[152] Adapted to the New World from Spain, it resembled the feudal system in Medieval Europe, as it was based on a lord offering "protection" to a class of people who owed labor.[153] In addition, Spanish colonists under his rule began to buy and sell natives as slaves, including children.[154]
+
+When natives on Hispaniola began fighting back against their oppressors in 1495, Columbus's men captured 1,500 Arawak men, women, and children in a single raid. The strongest were transported to Spain to be sold as slaves;[155] 40 percent of the 500 shipped died en route.[58] Historian James W. Loewen asserts that "Columbus not only sent the first slaves across the Atlantic, he probably sent more slaves—about five thousand—than any other individual."[156]
+
+Columbus's forced labor system was described by his son, Ferdinand: "In the Cibao, where the gold mines were, every person of fourteen years of age or upward was to pay a large hawk's bell of gold dust; all others were each to pay twenty-five pounds of cotton. Whenever an Indian delivered his tribute, he was to receive a brass or copper token which he must wear about his neck as proof that he had made his payment; any Indian found without such a token was to be punished." [157] A claim popularized by Hans Koning's 1976 biography of Columbus and Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States that the said punishment was cutting off the hands of those without tokens, letting them bleed to death.[58][158] A letter from Ferdinand and Isabella on the tribute calls for a light punishment. [159] Thousands of natives committed suicide by poison to escape their persecution.[155]
+
+During his brief reign, Columbus executed Spanish colonists for minor crimes, and used dismemberment as another form of punishment.[160]
+
+When Columbus fell ill in 1495, "what little restraint he had maintained over his men disappeared as he went through a lengthy period of recuperation. The troops went wild, stealing, killing, raping, and torturing natives, trying to force them to divulge the whereabouts of the imagined treasure-houses of gold."[161] According to Las Casas, 50,000 natives perished during this period, although Las Casas' account has been criticized by modern historians as lacking objectivity and his population estimates are often dismissed.[162]  Upon his recovery, Columbus organized his troops' efforts, forming a squadron of several hundred heavily armed men and more than twenty attack dogs. Dogs were used to hunt down natives who attempted to flee.[155] Columbus's men tore across the land, killing thousands of sick and unarmed natives. Soldiers would use their captives for sword practice, attempting to decapitate them or cut them in half with a single blow.[163]
+
+The Arawaks attempted to fight back against Columbus's men but lacked their armor, guns, swords, and horses. When taken prisoner, they were hanged or burned to death. Desperation led to mass suicides and infanticide among the natives. Howard Zinn states, although without quoting any sources, in just two years under Columbus's governorship, over 125,000 of the 250,000–300,000 natives in Haiti were dead,[58] many died from lethal forced labor in the mines, in which a third of workers died every six months.[164] Within three decades, the surviving Arawak population numbered only in the hundreds.[164] "Virtually every member of the gentle race ... had been wiped out."[155] Disease, warfare and harsh enslavement contributed to the depopulation.[165][166][167]
+
+Within indigenous circles, Columbus is often viewed as a key agent of genocide.[168] Samuel Eliot Morison, a Harvard historian and author of a multivolume biography on Columbus, writes, "The cruel policy initiated by Columbus and pursued by his successors resulted in complete genocide."[169] Loewen laments that while "Haiti under the Spanish is one of the primary instances of genocide in all human history", only one major history text he reviewed mentions Columbus's role in it.[170]
+
+Some of these accounts may be part of the Black Legend, an intentional defamation of Spain,[171][172][173] while others challenge the genocide narrative.[160][174] Noble David Cook, writing about the Black Legend and the conquest of the Americas wrote, "There were too few Spaniards to have killed the millions who were reported to have died in the first century after Old and New World contact". He instead estimates that the death toll was caused by diseases like smallpox,[175] which according to some estimates had an 80–90% fatality rate in Native American populations.[176] Disease played a significant role in the destruction of the natives. Indirect evidence suggests that some serious illness may have arrived with the 1500 colonists who accompanied Columbus's second expedition in 1493.
+
+By the end of 1494, disease and famine had claimed two-thirds of the Spanish settlers.[148][177] A native Nahuatl account depicted the social breakdown that accompanied the pandemics: "A great many died from this plague, and many others died of hunger. They could not get up to search for food, and everyone else was too sick to care for them, so they starved to death in their beds."[178] When the pandemic finally struck in 1519, it wiped out much of the remaining native population.[179][180] Charles C. Mann wrote "It was as if the suffering these diseases had caused in Eurasia over the past millennia were concentrated into the span of decades."[181]
+
+Some historians have argued that, while brutal, Columbus was simply a product of his time, and being a figure of the 15th century, should not be judged by the morality of the 20th century.[182]
+
+Biographers and historians have a wide range of opinions over Columbus's expertise and experience navigating and captaining ships. European works ranging from the 1890s to 1980s support his experience and skill as among the best in Genoa, while American works over a similar timeframe picture the explorer as an untrained entrepreneur, only having minor crew or passenger experience prior to his noted journeys.[183]
+
+Although an abundance of artwork involving Christopher Columbus exists, no authentic contemporary portrait has been found.[184] James W. Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me, believes the various posthumous portraits have no historical value.[185]
+
+Sometime between 1531 and 1536, Alejo Fernández painted an altarpiece, The Virgin of the Navigators, that includes a depiction of Columbus. The painting was commissioned for a chapel in Seville's Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) and remains there, as the earliest known painting about the voyages of Columbus.[186][187]
+
+At the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, 71 alleged portraits of Columbus were displayed; most did not match contemporary descriptions.[188] These writings describe him as having reddish or blond hair, which turned to white early in his life, light colored eyes,[189] as well as being a lighter-skinned person with too much sun exposure turning his face red. Accounts consistently describe Columbus as a large and physically strong man of some six feet (1.83 metres) or more in height, easily taller than the average European of his day.[190]
+
+The most iconic image of Columbus is a portrait by Sebastiano del Piombo, which has been reproduced in many textbooks. It agrees with descriptions of Columbus in that it shows a large man with auburn hair, but the painting dates from 1519 and cannot, therefore, have been painted from life. Furthermore, the inscription identifying the subject as Columbus was probably added later, and the face shown differs from other images, including that of the "Virgin of the Navigators."[191]

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+Christopher Columbus[a] (/kəˈlʌmbəs/;[3] Ligurian: Cristoffa Corombo; Italian: Cristoforo Colombo; Spanish: Cristóbal Colón; before 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italian explorer and navigator who completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean, opening the way for European exploration and colonization of the Americas.[4] His expeditions, sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, were the first European contact with the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.
+
+Columbus's early life is somewhat obscure, but scholars generally agree that he was born in the Republic of Genoa and spoke a dialect of Ligurian as his first language. He went to sea at a young age and travelled widely, as far north as the British Isles (and possibly Iceland) and as far south as what is now Ghana. He married Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Moniz Perestrelo and was based in Lisbon for several years, but later took a Castilian mistress; he had one son with each woman. Though largely self-educated, Columbus was widely read in geography, astronomy, and history. He formulated a plan to seek a western sea passage to the East Indies, hoping to profit from the lucrative spice trade. Following persistent lobbying, Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand II agreed to sponsor a journey west, in the name of the Crown of Castile. Columbus left Castile in August 1492 with three ships, and after a stopover in the Canary Islands made landfall in the Americas on 12 October (later celebrated as Columbus Day). His landing place was an island in the Bahamas, known by its native inhabitants as Guanahani; its exact location is uncertain. Columbus subsequently visited the islands now known as Cuba and Hispaniola, establishing a colony in what is now Haiti: the first European settlement in the Americas since the Norse colonies nearly 500 years earlier. He arrived back in Castile in early 1493, bringing a number of captive natives with him. Word of his voyages soon spread throughout Europe.
+
+Columbus made three further voyages to the New World, exploring the Lesser Antilles in 1493, Trinidad and the northern coast of South America in 1498, and the eastern coast of Central America in 1502. Many of the names he gave to geographical features—particularly islands—are still in use. He continued to seek a passage to the East Indies, and the extent to which he was aware that the Americas were a wholly separate landmass is uncertain. He never clearly renounced his belief that he had reached the Far East and gave the name indios ("Indians") to the indigenous peoples he encountered. Columbus's strained relationship with the Spanish crown and its appointed colonial administrators in America led to his arrest and removal from Hispaniola in 1500, and later to protracted litigation over the benefits that he and his heirs claimed were owed to them by the crown. Columbus's expeditions inaugurated a period of exploration, conquest, and colonization that lasted for centuries, helping create the modern Western world. The transfers between the Old World and New World that followed his first voyage are known as the Columbian exchange, and the period of human habitation in the Americas prior to his arrival is referred to as the Pre-Columbian era.
+
+The debate over Columbus's legacy continues. He was widely venerated in the centuries after his death, but public perception has fractured in recent decades as scholars give greater attention to the harm committed under his governance, particularly the near extermination of the indigenous Taino population from mistreatment and European diseases. There is good evidence that Columbus's regime brutally subjugated and enslaved the Taino to aid the Spanish quest for gold. Some other allegations, such as tyrannical rule over the Spanish colonists, are murkier: a contemporaneous, persistent smear campaign called the "black legend" makes the extent of Columbus's blame uncertain. Many landmarks and institutions in the Western Hemisphere bear his name, including the country of Colombia and the name Columbia, which is used as a personification for the United States, and appears in many place names there.
+
+The name Christopher Columbus is the Anglicisation of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. His name in Ligurian is  Cristoffa Corombo, in Italian Cristoforo Colombo, and in Spanish Cristóbal Colón.[5] He was born before 31 October 1451 in the territory of the Republic of Genoa (now part of modern Italy), though the exact location remains disputed.[6][b] His father was Domenico Colombo,[5] a wool weaver who worked both in Genoa and Savona and who also owned a cheese stand at which young Christopher worked as a helper. His mother was Susanna Fontanarossa.[5] He had three brothers, Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino, and Giacomo.  He also had a sister named Bianchinetta.[7] His brother Bartolomeo worked in a cartography workshop in Lisbon for at least part of his adulthood.[8]
+
+Columbus never wrote in his native language, which is presumed to have been a Genoese variety of Ligurian: his name in the 16th-century Genoese language would have been Cristoffa[9] Corombo[10] (Ligurian pronunciation: [kriˈʃtɔffa kuˈɹuŋbu]).[11][12] In one of his writings, he says he went to sea at the age of 10. In 1470, the Columbus family moved to Savona, where Domenico took over a tavern. In the same year, Christopher was on a Genoese ship hired in the service of René of Anjou to support his attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Naples. Some modern authors have argued that he was not from Genoa but, instead, from the Aragon region of Spain[13] or from Portugal.[14] These competing hypotheses have generally been discounted by mainstream scholars.[15][16]
+
+In 1473, Columbus began his apprenticeship as business agent for the important Centurione, Di Negro and Spinola families of Genoa. Later, he allegedly made a trip to Chios, an Aegean island then ruled by Genoa.[17] In May 1476, he took part in an armed convoy sent by Genoa to carry valuable cargo to northern Europe. He probably docked in Bristol, England,[18] and Galway, Ireland. A few writers speculate that in 1477, he was in Iceland.[5][19] It is known that in the autumn of 1477, he sailed on a Portuguese ship from Galway to Lisbon, where he found his brother Bartolomeo, and they continued trading for the Centurione family. Columbus based himself in Lisbon from 1477 to 1485. He married Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, daughter of the Porto Santo governor and Portuguese nobleman of Lombard origin Bartolomeu Perestrello.[20]
+
+In 1479 or 1480, his son Diego Columbus was born. Between 1482 and 1485, Columbus traded along the coasts of West Africa, reaching the Portuguese trading post of Elmina at the Guinea coast (in present-day Ghana).[21] Some records report that Filipa died sometime around 1485, while Columbus was away in Castile.  He returned to Portugal to settle her estate and take his son Diego with him.[22] He had left Portugal for Castile in 1485, where he found a mistress in 1487, a 20-year-old orphan named Beatriz Enríquez de Arana.[23] It is likely that Beatriz met Columbus when he was in Córdoba, a gathering site of many Genoese merchants and where the court of the Catholic Monarchs was located at intervals. Beatriz, unmarried at the time, gave birth to Columbus's natural son Fernando Columbus in July 1488, named for the monarch of Aragon. Columbus recognized the boy as his offspring. Columbus entrusted his older, legitimate son Diego to take care of Beatriz and pay the pension set aside for her following his death, but Diego was negligent in his duties.[24]
+
+Ambitious, Columbus eventually learned Latin, Portuguese, and Castilian. He read widely about astronomy, geography, and history, including the works of Claudius Ptolemy, Pierre Cardinal d'Ailly's Imago Mundi, the travels of Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville, Pliny's Natural History, and Pope Pius II's Historia Rerum Ubique Gestarum. According to historian Edmund Morgan,
+
+Columbus was not a scholarly man. Yet he studied these books, made hundreds of marginal notations in them and came out with ideas about the world that were characteristically simple and strong and sometimes wrong, ...[25]
+
+Throughout his life, Columbus also showed a keen interest in the Bible and in Biblical prophecies, often quoting biblical texts in his letters and logs. For example, part of the argument that he submitted to the Spanish Catholic Monarchs when he sought their support for his proposed expedition to reach the Indies by sailing west was based on his reading of the Second Book of Esdras (Ezra): see 2 Esdras 6:42, which he took to mean that the Earth is made of six parts of land to one of water. Towards the end of his life, he produced a Book of Prophecies in which his career as an explorer is interpreted in the light of Christian eschatology and of apocalypticism.[8]
+
+Carol Delaney has argued that Columbus was a millennialist and that these beliefs motivated his quest for Asia in a variety of ways.[26]  Columbus wrote often about seeking gold in the diaries of his voyages and writes about acquiring the precious metal “in such quantity that the sovereigns… will undertake and prepare to go conquer the Holy Sepulcher”.[26] In an account of his fourth voyage, Columbus wrote that “Jerusalem and Mount Sion must be rebuilt by Christian hands”.[27] It has also been written that “conversion of all people to the Christian faith” is a central theme in Columbus's writings which is a central tenet of some Millenarian beliefs.[26] In a more specific identification of his motivations, Hamandi writes that the “deliverance of Jerusalem from Muslim hands” could be accomplished by “using the resources of newly discovered lands”.[28]
+
+Under the Mongol Empire's hegemony over Asia (the Pax Mongolica, or Mongol peace), Europeans had long enjoyed a safe land passage, the Silk Road, to the Indies (then construed roughly as all of south and east Asia) and China, which were sources of valuable goods such as spices and silk. With the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the land route to Asia became much more difficult and dangerous. Portuguese navigators tried to find a sea way to Asia.
+
+In 1470, the Florentine astronomer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli suggested to King Afonso V of Portugal that sailing west across the Atlantic would be a quicker way to reach the Spice Islands, Cathay, and Cipangu than the route around Africa, but Afonso rejected his proposal.[29] In 1474, Toscanelli sent Columbus a map with the notion of a westward route to Asia.[30][31] In the 1480s, the Columbus brothers proposed a plan to reach the Indies by sailing west across the "Ocean Sea" (the Atlantic). However, this was complicated by the opening of the southeast passage to Asia around Africa by Bartolomeu Dias in 1488, when he reached the Cape of Good Hope (modern-day South Africa).[32]
+
+Washington Irving's 1828 biography of Columbus popularized the idea that Columbus had difficulty obtaining support for his plan because many Catholic theologians insisted that the Earth was flat.[33] In fact, nearly all educated Westerners had understood, at least since the time of Aristotle, that the Earth is spherical.[34][32] The sphericity of the Earth is also accounted for in the work of Ptolemy, on which medieval astronomy was largely based. Christian writers whose works clearly reflect the conviction that the Earth is spherical include Saint Bede the Venerable in his Reckoning of Time, written around AD 723. In Columbus's time, the techniques of celestial navigation, which use the position of the sun and the stars in the sky, together with the understanding that the Earth is a sphere, had long been in use by astronomers and were beginning to be implemented by mariners.[35]
+
+As far back as the 3rd century BC, Eratosthenes had correctly computed the circumference of the Earth by using simple geometry and studying the shadows cast by objects at two remote locations.[36][37] In the 1st century BC, Posidonius confirmed Eratosthenes's results by comparing stellar observations at two separate locations. These measurements were widely known among scholars, but confusion about the old-fashioned units of distance in which they were expressed led to some debate about the size of the Earth.[citation needed]
+
+From Pierre d'Ailly's Imago Mundi Columbus learned of Alfraganus's estimate that a degree of latitude (or a degree of longitude along the equator) spanned 56​2⁄3 Arabic miles (equivalent to 66.2 nautical miles or 122.6 kilometres), but he did not realize that this was expressed in the Arabic mile rather than the shorter Roman mile with which he was familiar.[39] He therefore would have estimated the circumference of the Earth to be about 30,200 kilometres (16,300 nmi) at the equator and 26,200 kilometres (14,100 nmi) at 30 degrees north (around where he was sailing), whereas the correct value is 40,075 kilometres (21,639 nmi) at the equator and 34,735 kilometres (18,755 nmi) at 30 degrees north.[citation needed]
+
+Furthermore, most scholars accepted Ptolemy's estimate that Eurasia spanned 180° longitude, rather than the actual 130° (to the Chinese mainland) or 150° (to Japan at the latitude of Spain). Columbus, for his part, believed an even higher estimate, leaving a smaller percentage for water.  Some people have suggested he followed the estimate of Marinus of Tyre, which put the longitudinal span of the Eurasian landmass at 225°.[citation needed]  Other people have suggested he followed Esdras's statement that "six parts [of the globe] are habitable and the seventh is covered with water."[30] He also believed that Japan (which he called "Cipangu", following Marco Polo) was much larger, farther to the east from China ("Cathay"), and closer to the equator than it is, and that there were inhabited islands even farther to the east than Japan, including the mythical Antillia, which he thought might lie not much farther to the west than the Azores. In this, he was influenced by the ideas of Toscanelli.[30]
+
+Columbus therefore would have estimated the distance from the Canary Islands west to Japan to be about 9,800 kilometres (5,300 nmi) or 3,700 kilometres (2,000 nmi), depending on which estimate he used for Eurasia's longitudinal span. The true figure is now known to be vastly larger: about 20,000 kilometres (11,000 nmi).[40][c] No ship in the 15th century could have carried enough food and fresh water for such a long voyage, and the dangers involved in navigating through the uncharted ocean would have been formidable. Most European navigators reasonably concluded that a westward voyage from Europe to Asia was unfeasible. The Catholic Monarchs, however, having completed an expensive war in the Iberian Peninsula, were eager to obtain a competitive edge over other European countries in the quest for trade with the Indies. Columbus's project, though far-fetched, held the promise of such an advantage.[citation needed]
+
+Though Columbus was wrong about the number of degrees of longitude that separated Europe from the Far East and about the distance that each degree represented, he did possess valuable knowledge about the trade winds, which would prove to be the key to his successful navigation of the Atlantic Ocean. During his first voyage in 1492, the brisk trade winds from the east, commonly called "easterlies", propelled Columbus's fleet for five weeks, from the Canary Islands to The Bahamas. The precise first land sighting and landing point was San Salvador Island.[32] To return to Spain against this prevailing wind would have required several months of an arduous sailing technique, called beating, during which food and drinkable water would probably have been exhausted.
+
+Instead, Columbus returned home by following the curving trade winds northeastward to the middle latitudes of the North Atlantic, where he was able to catch the "westerlies" that blow eastward to the coast of Western Europe. There, in turn, the winds curve southward towards the Iberian Peninsula.[41][42]
+
+It is unclear whether Columbus learned about the winds from his own sailing experience or if he had heard about them from others. The corresponding technique for efficient travel in the Atlantic appears to have been exploited first by the Portuguese, who referred to it as the Volta do mar ("turn of the sea"). Columbus's knowledge of the Atlantic wind patterns was, however, imperfect at the time of his first voyage. By sailing directly due west from the Canary Islands during hurricane season, skirting the so-called horse latitudes of the mid-Atlantic, Columbus risked either being becalmed or running into a tropical cyclone, both of which, by chance, he avoided.[30]
+
+In 1485, Columbus presented his plans to King John II of Portugal. He proposed that the king equip three sturdy ships and grant Columbus one year's time to sail out into the Atlantic, search for a western route to the Orient, and return. Columbus also requested he be made "Great Admiral of the Ocean", appointed governor of any and all lands he discovered, and given one-tenth of all revenue from those lands. The king submitted Columbus's proposal to his experts, who rejected it. It was their considered opinion that Columbus's estimation of a travel distance of 2,400 miles (3,860 km) was, in fact, far too low.[30]
+
+In 1488, Columbus again appealed to the court of Portugal, resulting in John II again inviting him for an audience. That meeting also proved unsuccessful, in part because not long afterwards Bartolomeu Dias returned to Portugal with news of his successful rounding of the southern tip of Africa (near the Cape of Good Hope). With an eastern sea route to Asia apparently at hand, King John was no longer interested in Columbus's far-fetched project.
+
+Columbus traveled from Portugal to both Genoa and Venice, but he received encouragement from neither. He had also dispatched his brother Bartholomew to the court of Henry VII of England to inquire whether the English crown might sponsor his expedition, but also without success.
+
+Columbus had sought an audience from the monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, who had united several kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula by marrying and were ruling together. On 1 May 1486, permission having been granted, Columbus presented his plans to Queen Isabella, who, in turn, referred it to a committee. After the passing of much time, the savants of Spain, like their counterparts in Portugal, replied that Columbus had grossly underestimated the distance to Asia. They pronounced the idea impractical and advised their Royal Highnesses to pass on the proposed venture.
+
+However, to keep Columbus from taking his ideas elsewhere, and perhaps to keep their options open, the Catholic Monarchs gave him an annual allowance of 12,000 maravedis and, in 1489, furnished him with a letter ordering all cities and towns under their domain to provide him food and lodging at no cost.[44]
+
+After continually lobbying at the Spanish court and two years of negotiations, he finally had success in January 1492. Ferdinand and Isabella had just conquered Granada, the last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula, and they received Columbus in Córdoba, in the Alcázar castle. Isabella turned him down on the advice of her confessor. Columbus was leaving town by mule in despair when Ferdinand intervened. Isabella then sent a royal guard to fetch him, and Ferdinand later claimed credit for being "the principal cause why those islands were discovered".[45]
+
+In the April 1492 "Capitulations of Santa Fe", King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella promised Columbus that if he succeeded he would be given the rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and appointed Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands he could claim for Spain. He had the right to nominate three persons, from whom the sovereigns would choose one, for any office in the new lands. He would be entitled to 10 percent of all the revenues from the new lands in perpetuity. Additionally, he would also have the option of buying one-eighth interest in any commercial venture with the new lands and receive one-eighth of the profits.[30]
+
+Columbus was later arrested in 1500 and dismissed from his posts. He and his sons, Diego and Fernando, then conducted a lengthy series of court cases against the Castilian crown, known as the pleitos colombinos, alleging that the Crown had illegally reneged on its contractual obligations to Columbus and his heirs. The Columbus family had some success in their first litigation, as a judgment of 1511 confirmed Diego's position as Viceroy, but reduced his powers. Diego resumed litigation in 1512, which lasted until 1536, and further disputes continued until 1790.[46]
+
+Between 1492 and 1503, Columbus completed four round-trip voyages between Spain and the Americas, each voyage being sponsored by the Crown of Castile. On his first voyage, he independently discovered the Americas and magnetic declination.[d][47][48] These voyages marked the beginning of the European exploration and colonization of the American continents, and are thus of enormous significance in Western history.[8]
+
+Columbus always insisted, in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, that the lands that he visited during those voyages were part of the Asian continent, as previously described by Marco Polo and other European travelers.[8] Columbus's refusal to accept that the lands he had visited and claimed for Spain were not part of Asia might explain, in part, why the American continent was named after the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci and not after Columbus.[49]
+
+On the evening of 3 August 1492, Columbus departed from Palos de la Frontera with three ships. The largest was a carrack (Spanish: nao), the Santa María ex-Gallega ("Galician")[further explanation needed]. The other two were smaller caravels. The name of one is lost: it is known today only by the nickname Pinta, which in Castilian of the time meant "painted one".[50] The Santa Clara was nicknamed affectionately the Niña ("the little one"), a pun on the name of her owner, Juan Niño of Moguer.[51] The monarchs forced the citizens of Palos to contribute to the expedition. The Santa María was owned by Juan de la Cosa and captained by Columbus. The Pinta and the Niña were piloted by the Pinzón brothers (Martín Alonso and Vicente Yáñez).[32]
+
+Columbus first sailed to the Canary Islands, which belonged to Castile. He restocked provisions and made repairs in Gran Canaria, then departed from San Sebastián de La Gomera on 6 September, for what turned out to be a five-week voyage across the ocean. At about 2:00 in the morning of 12 October, a lookout on the Pinta, Rodrigo de Triana (also known as Juan Rodríguez Bermeo), spotted land, and immediately alerted the rest of the crew with a shout. Thereupon, the captain of the Pinta, Martín Alonso Pinzón, verified the sight of land and alerted Columbus by firing a lombard.[52] Columbus later maintained that he himself had already seen a light on the land a few hours earlier, thereby claiming for himself the lifetime pension promised by Ferdinand and Isabella to the first person to sight land.[32][53]
+
+Columbus called the island (in what is now the Bahamas) San Salvador (meaning "Holy Savior"); the natives called it Guanahani. Exactly which island in the Bahamas this corresponds to is unresolved. Based on primary accounts and the geographic positions of the islands given Columbus's course, the prime candidates are San Salvador Island (so named in 1925 on the theory that it was Columbus's San Salvador),[54] Samana Cay, and Plana Cays.[32]
+
+The indigenous people he encountered, the Lucayan, Taíno, and Arawak, were peaceful and friendly. He called the inhabitants of the lands that he visited indios (Spanish for "Indians").[55][56][57] Noting their gold ear ornaments, Columbus took some of the Arawaks prisoner and insisted that they guide him to the source of the gold.[58] From the entry in his journal of 12 October 1492, in which he wrote of them: "Many of the men I have seen have scars on their bodies, and when I made signs to them to find out how this happened, they indicated that people from other nearby islands come to San Salvador to capture them; they defend themselves the best they can. I believe that people from the mainland come here to take them as slaves. They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them. I think they can very easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion. If it pleases our Lord, I will take six of them to Your Highnesses when I depart, in order that they may learn our language."[59] Columbus noted that their primitive weapons and military tactics made them susceptible to easy conquest, writing, "these people are very simple in war-like matters … I could conquer the whole of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased."[60]
+
+Columbus also explored the northeast coast of Cuba, where he landed on 28 October. On 22 November, Martín Alonso Pinzón took the Pinta on an unauthorized expedition in search of an island called "Babeque" or "Baneque", which the natives had told him was rich in gold. Columbus, for his part, continued to the northern coast of Hispaniola, where he landed on 5 December.[61] There, the Santa María ran aground on Christmas Day 1492 and had to be abandoned. The wreck was used as a target for cannon fire to impress the native peoples.[32] Columbus was received by the native cacique Guacanagari, who gave him permission to leave some of his men behind. Columbus left 39 men, including Luis de Torres, the converso interpreter, who spoke Hebrew and Arabic,[citation needed] and founded the settlement of La Navidad at the site of present-day Bord de Mer de Limonade, Haiti.[62] Columbus took more natives prisoner and continued his exploration.[58] He kept sailing along the northern coast of Hispaniola with a single ship, until he encountered Pinzón and the Pinta on 6 January.
+
+On 13 January 1493, Columbus made his last stop of this voyage in the New World, in the Bay of Rincón at the eastern end of the Samaná Peninsula in northeast Hispaniola.[63] There he encountered the warlike Cigüayos, the only natives who offered violent resistance during his first voyage to the Americas.[64] The Cigüayos refused to trade the amount of bows and arrows that Columbus desired; in the ensuing clash one Ciguayo was stabbed in the buttocks and another wounded with an arrow in his chest.[65] Because of this and because of the Cigüayos' use of arrows, he called the inlet where he met them the Bay of Arrows (or Gulf of Arrows).[66] Columbus captured about 10 to 25 natives and took them back with him (only seven or eight of the natives arrived in Spain alive).[67]
+
+Columbus headed for Spain on the Niña, but a storm separated him from the Pinta, and forced the Niña to stop at the island of Santa Maria in the Azores. Half of his crew went ashore to say prayers in a chapel to give thanks for having survived the storm. But while praying, they were imprisoned by the governor of the island, ostensibly on suspicion of being pirates.  After a two-day standoff, the prisoners were released, and Columbus again set sail for Spain.[68]
+
+Another storm forced him into the port at Lisbon.[32] He anchored next to the King's harbor patrol ship on 4 March 1493 in Portugal. There, he was interviewed by Bartolomeu Dias, who had rounded the Cape of Good Hope a few years earlier, in 1488–1489. Dias's success had complicated Columbus's attempts to secure funding from the Portuguese court because the sure route to the Indies that Dias pioneered made a risky, conjectural western route unnecessary.[32] Not finding King John II of Portugal in Lisbon, Columbus wrote a letter to him and waited for John's reply. John asked Columbus to go to Vale do Paraíso north of Lisbon to meet him. Relations between Portugal and Castile were poor at the time. Columbus went to meet with John at Vale do Paraíso. Hearing of Columbus's voyage, John told him that he believed the voyage to be in violation of the 1479 Treaty of Alcáçovas.
+
+After spending more than a week in Portugal, and paying his respects to Eleanor of Viseu, Columbus again set sail for Spain. Ferdinand Magellan was a young boy and a ward of Eleanor's court; it is likely he saw Columbus during this visit.[32] After departing, and after reportedly being saved from assassins by King John, Columbus crossed the bar of Saltes and entered the harbor of Palos de la Frontera on 15 March 1493. Word of his finding new lands rapidly spread throughout Europe.
+
+Columbus left the port of Cádiz on 24 September 1493, with a fleet of 17 ships carrying 1,200 men and the supplies to establish permanent colonies in the New World. The passengers included priests, farmers, and soldiers, who would be the new colonists. This reflected the new policy of creating not just "colonies of exploitation", but also "colonies of settlement" from which to launch missions dedicated to converting the natives to Christianity.[69] Modern studies suggest that "crew members may have included free black Africans who arrived in the New World about a decade before the slave trade began".[70]
+
+As in the first voyage, the fleet stopped at the Canary Islands, from which it departed on 13 October, following a more southerly course than on the previous expedition. On 3 November, Columbus sighted a rugged island that he named Dominica (Latin for Sunday); later that day, he landed at Marie-Galante, which he named Santa María la Galante. After sailing past Les Saintes (Los Santos, "The Saints"), he arrived at the island of Guadeloupe, which he named Santa María de Guadalupe de Extremadura, after the image of the Virgin Mary venerated at the Spanish monastery of Villuercas, in Guadalupe, Cáceres, Spain. He explored that island from 4 to 10 November.
+
+Michele da Cuneo, Columbus's childhood friend from Savona, sailed with Columbus during the second voyage and wrote: "In my opinion, since Genoa was Genoa, there was never born a man so well equipped and expert in the art of navigation as the said lord Admiral."[71] Columbus named the small island of "Saona ... to honor Michele da Cuneo, his friend from Savona."[72]
+
+The same childhood friend reported in a letter that Columbus had provided one of the captured indigenous women to him. He wrote, "While I was in the boat, I captured a very beautiful Carib woman, whom the said Lord Admiral gave to me. When I had taken her to my cabin she was naked—as was their custom. I was filled with a desire to take my pleasure with her and attempted to satisfy my desire. She was unwilling, and so treated me with her nails that I wished I had never begun. But—to cut a long story short—I then took a piece of rope and whipped her soundly, and she let forth such incredible screams that you would not have believed your ears. Eventually we came to such terms, I assure you, that you would have thought that she had been brought up in a school for whores."[73]
+
+Pedro de las Casas, father of the priest Bartolomé de las Casas, also accompanied Columbus on this voyage.[74]
+
+The exact course of Columbus's voyage through the Lesser Antilles is debated, but it seems likely that he turned north, sighting and naming several islands, including:
+
+Columbus also sighted the chain of the Virgin Islands, which he named Islas de Santa Úrsula y las Once Mil Vírgenes, "Islands of Saint Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins" (shortened, both on maps of the time and in common parlance, to Islas Vírgenes). He also named the islands of Virgin Gorda ("Fat Virgin"), Tortola, and Peter Island (San Pedro).
+
+One of the first skirmishes between Native Americans and Europeans since the time of the Vikings occurred on 14 November, when at Saint Croix, Columbus's men rescued two native boys from several cannibalistic Island Caribs.[76] Columbus's men pursued the Carib canoe, which met them with arrows. Several Europeans were wounded, but they killed all of the Caribs, and learned that the two boys had recently been castrated by their captors. Columbus continued to the Virgin Islands, and landed in Puerto Rico, which he named San Juan Bautista[77] in honor of Saint John the Baptist (a name that was later given to the capital city of San Juan).
+
+On 22 November, Columbus returned to Hispaniola, where he intended to visit the fort of La Navidad, built during his first voyage and located on the northern coast of Haiti. Columbus found the fort in ruins, destroyed by the native Taino people.[78] Among the ruins were the corpses of 11 of the 39 Spaniards who had stayed behind as the first colonists in the New World.
+
+Columbus then sailed more than 100 kilometres (62 miles) eastwards along the northern coast of Hispaniola, establishing a new settlement, which he called La Isabela, in the present-day Dominican Republic.[79] However, La Isabela proved to be poorly located and the settlement was short-lived.
+
+According to the abstract of Columbus's journal made by Bartolomé de Las Casas, the objective of the third voyage was to verify the existence of a continent that King John II of Portugal suggested was located to the southwest of the Cape Verde Islands. King John reportedly knew of the existence of such a mainland because "canoes had been found which set out from the coast of Guinea [West Africa] and sailed to the west with merchandise."[80][81]
+
+On 30 May 1498, Columbus left with six ships from Sanlúcar, Spain, for his third trip to the New World. Three of the ships headed directly for Hispaniola with much-needed supplies, while Columbus took the other three in an exploration of what might lie to the south of the Caribbean islands he had already visited, including a hoped-for passage to continental Asia.[82]
+
+Columbus led his fleet to the Portuguese island of Porto Santo, his wife's native land. He then sailed to Madeira and spent some time there with the Portuguese captain João Gonçalves da Camara, before sailing to the Canary Islands and Cape Verde. As he crossed the Atlantic, Columbus discovered that the angle between North as indicated by a magnetic compass and North as measured by the position of the pole star changed with his position (a phenomenon now known as "compass variation"). He would later use his previous measurements of the compass variation to adjust his reckoning.[21]
+
+After being becalmed for several days in the doldrums of the mid-Atlantic, Columbus's fleet regained its wind and, dangerously low on water, turned north in the direction of Dominica, which Columbus had visited in his previous voyage. The ships arrived at King John's hypothesized continent, which is South America, when they sighted the land of Trinidad on 31 July approaching from the southeast.[83] The fleet sailed along the southern coast and entered Dragon's Mouth, anchoring near Soldado Rock where they made contact with a group of native Amerindians in canoes.[84] Columbus then landed on Trinidad at Icacos Point (which he named Punta de Arenal) on 2 August.[85] After resupplying with food and water, from 4 to 12 August Columbus explored the Gulf of Paria, which separates Trinidad from what is now Venezuela, near the delta of the Orinoco River. He then touched the mainland of South America at the Paria Peninsula.[citation needed]
+
+Exploring the new continent, Columbus correctly interpreted the enormous quantity of fresh water that the Orinoco delivered into the Atlantic Ocean as evidence that he had reached a large landmass rather than another island. He also speculated that the new continent might be the location of the biblical Garden of Eden. He then sailed to the islands of Chacachacare and Margarita. He sighted Tobago (which he named "Bella Forma") and Grenada (which he named "Concepción").[86]
+
+In poor health, Columbus returned to Hispaniola on 19 August, only to find that many of the Spanish settlers of the new colony were in rebellion against his rule, claiming that Columbus had misled them about the supposedly bountiful riches of the New World. A number of returning settlers and sailors lobbied against Columbus at the Spanish court, accusing him and his brothers of gross mismanagement. Columbus had some of his crew hanged for disobedience. He had an economic interest in the enslavement of the Hispaniola natives and for that reason was not eager to baptize them, which attracted criticism from some churchmen.[87] An entry in his journal from September 1498 reads: "From here one might send, in the name of the Holy Trinity, as many slaves as could be sold ..."[88]
+
+Columbus was eventually forced to make peace with the rebellious colonists on humiliating terms.[89] In 1500, the Crown had him removed as governor, arrested, and transported in chains to Spain (see "Accusations of tyranny" section below). He was eventually freed and allowed to return to the New World, but not as governor.[citation needed]
+
+Before leaving for his fourth voyage, Columbus wrote a letter to the Governors of the Bank of Saint George, Genoa, dated at Seville, 2 April 1502.[90] He wrote "Although my body is here my heart is always near you."[91]
+
+Columbus made a fourth voyage nominally in search of the Strait of Malacca to the Indian Ocean. Accompanied by his brother Bartolomeo and his 13-year-old son Fernando, he left Cádiz on 11 May 1502, with his flagship Santa María and the vessels Gallega, Vizcaína, and Santiago de Palos. He sailed to Arzila on the Moroccan coast to rescue Portuguese soldiers whom he had heard were under siege by the Moors.
+
+On 15 June, they landed at Carbet on the island of Martinique (Martinica). A hurricane was brewing, so he continued on, hoping to find shelter on Hispaniola. He arrived at Santo Domingo on 29 June, but was denied port, and the new governor refused to listen to his storm prediction. Instead, while Columbus's ships sheltered at the mouth of the Rio Jaina, the first Spanish treasure fleet sailed into the hurricane. Columbus's ships survived with only minor damage, while 29 of the 30 ships in the governor's fleet were lost to a storm on 1 July. In addition to the ships, 500 lives (including that of the governor, Francisco de Bobadilla) and an immense cargo of gold were surrendered to the sea.[citation needed]
+
+After a brief stop at Jamaica, Columbus sailed to Central America, arriving at Guanaja (Isla de Pinos) in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras on 30 July. Here Bartolomeo found native merchants and a large canoe, which was described as being "long as a galley" and filled with cargo. On 14 August, he landed on the continental mainland at Puerto Castilla, near Trujillo, Honduras. He spent two months exploring the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, before arriving in Almirante Bay in Panama on 16 October.[citation needed]
+
+On 5 December 1502, Columbus and his crew found themselves in a storm unlike any they had ever experienced. In his journal Columbus writes,
+
+For nine days I was as one lost, without hope of life. Eyes never beheld the sea so angry, so high, so covered with foam. The wind not only prevented our progress, but offered no opportunity to run behind any headland for shelter; hence we were forced to keep out in this bloody ocean, seething like a pot on a hot fire. Never did the sky look more terrible; for one whole day and night it blazed like a furnace, and the lightning broke with such violence that each time I wondered if it had carried off my spars and sails; the flashes came with such fury and frightfulness that we all thought that the ship would be blasted. All this time the water never ceased to fall from the sky; I do not say it rained, for it was like another deluge. The men were so worn out that they longed for death to end their dreadful suffering.[92]
+
+In Panama, Columbus learned from the Ngobe of gold and a strait to another ocean, but was told by local leader Quibían not to go past a certain point down the river. After much exploration, in January 1503, he established a garrison at the mouth of the Belén River. On 6 April, one of the ships became stranded in the river. At the same time, the garrison was attacked by Quibían and the other ships were damaged. Shipworms also damaged the ships in tropical waters.[93]
+
+Columbus left for Hispaniola on 16 April heading north. On 10 May he sighted the Cayman Islands, naming them "Las Tortugas" after the numerous sea turtles there. His ships next sustained more damage in a storm off the coast of Cuba. Unable to travel farther, on 25 June 1503 they were beached in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica.[citation needed]
+
+For one year Columbus and his men remained stranded on Jamaica. A Spaniard, Diego Méndez, and some natives paddled a canoe to get help from Hispaniola. The governor, Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres, detested Columbus and obstructed all efforts to rescue him and his men. In the meantime Columbus, in a desperate effort to induce the natives to continue provisioning him and his hungry men, won their favor by predicting a lunar eclipse for 29 February 1504, using Abraham Zacuto's astronomical charts.[94][95][96] Help finally arrived, no thanks to the governor, on 29 June 1504, and Columbus and his men arrived in Sanlúcar, Spain, on 7 November.
+
+Following his first voyage, Columbus was appointed Viceroy and Governor of the Indies under the terms of the Capitulations of Santa Fe. In practice, this primarily entailed the administration of the colonies in the island of Hispaniola, whose capital was established in Santo Domingo. By the end of his third voyage, Columbus was physically and mentally exhausted, his body wracked by arthritis and his eyes by ophthalmia. In October 1499, he sent two ships to Spain, asking the Court of Spain to appoint a royal commissioner to help him govern.[97]
+
+By this time, accusations of tyranny and incompetence on the part of Columbus had also reached the Court. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand responded by removing Columbus from power and replacing him with Francisco de Bobadilla, a member of the Order of Calatrava. Bobadilla, who ruled as governor from 1500 until his death in a storm in 1502, had also been tasked by the Court with investigating the accusations of brutality made against Columbus.
+
+Arriving in Santo Domingo while Columbus was away during the explorations of his third voyage, Bobadilla was immediately met with complaints about all three Columbus brothers: Christopher, Bartolomeo, and Diego. Bobadilla reported to Spain that Columbus regularly used torture and mutilation to govern Hispaniola. The 48-page report, found in 2006 in the national archive in the Spanish city of Simancas, contains testimonies from 23 people, including both enemies and supporters of Columbus, about the treatment of colonial subjects by Columbus and his brothers during his seven-year rule.[98]
+
+According to the report, Columbus once punished a man found guilty of stealing corn by having his ears and nose cut off and then selling him into slavery. Testimony recorded in the report stated that Columbus congratulated his brother Bartolomeo on "defending the family" when the latter ordered a woman paraded naked through the streets and then had her tongue cut out for suggesting that Columbus was of lowly birth.[98] The document also describes how Columbus put down native unrest and revolt: he first ordered a brutal crackdown in which many natives were killed, and then paraded their dismembered bodies through the streets in an attempt to discourage further rebellion.[99]
+
+The neutrality and accuracy of this report and the accusations of Bobadilla towards Columbus and his brothers have been disputed by historians, given the anti-Italian sentiment of the Spaniards and Bobadilla's desire to take over Columbus' position.[100][101][102]
+
+"Columbus's government was characterised by a form of tyranny," Consuelo Varela, a Spanish historian who has seen the document, told journalists. "Even those who loved him had to admit the atrocities that had taken place."[98]
+
+Because of their gross misgovernance, Columbus and his brothers were arrested and imprisoned upon their return to Spain from the third voyage. They lingered in jail for six weeks before King Ferdinand ordered their release. Not long after, the king and queen summoned the Columbus brothers to the Alhambra palace in Granada. There, the royal couple heard the brothers' pleas; restored their freedom and wealth; and, after much persuasion, agreed to fund Columbus's fourth voyage. But the door was firmly shut on Columbus's role as governor. Henceforth Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres was to be the new governor of the West Indies.[103]
+
+Columbus had always claimed the conversion of non-believers as one reason for his explorations, but he grew increasingly religious in his later years. Probably with the assistance of his son Diego and his friend the Carthusian monk Gaspar Gorricio, Columbus produced two books during his later years: a Book of Privileges (1502), detailing and documenting the rewards from the Spanish Crown to which he believed he and his heirs were entitled, and a Book of Prophecies (1505), in which he considered his achievements as an explorer but a fulfillment of Bible prophecy in the context of Christian eschatology.[8][105]
+
+In his later years, Columbus demanded that the Spanish Crown give him 10 percent of all profits made in the new lands, as stipulated in the Capitulations of Santa Fe. Because he had been relieved of his duties as governor, the crown did not feel bound by that contract and his demands were rejected. After his death, his heirs sued the Crown for a part of the profits from trade with America, as well as other rewards. This led to a protracted series of legal disputes known as the pleitos colombinos ("Columbian lawsuits").
+
+During a violent storm on his first return voyage, Columbus, then 41, suffered an attack of what was believed at the time to be gout. In subsequent years, he was plagued with what was thought to be influenza and other fevers, bleeding from the eyes, temporary blindness and prolonged attacks of gout. The attacks increased in duration and severity, sometimes leaving Columbus bedridden for months at a time, and culminated in his death 14 years later.
+
+Based on Columbus's lifestyle and the described symptoms, modern doctors suspect that he suffered from reactive arthritis, rather than gout.[107][108] Reactive arthritis is a joint inflammation caused by intestinal bacterial infections or after acquiring certain sexually transmitted diseases (primarily chlamydia or gonorrhea). "It seems likely that [Columbus] acquired reactive arthritis from food poisoning on one of his ocean voyages because of poor sanitation and improper food preparation," writes Dr. Frank C. Arnett, a rheumatologist and professor of internal medicine, pathology and laboratory medicine the University of Texas Medical School at Houston.[107]
+
+On 20 May 1506, aged probably 54, Columbus died in Valladolid, Spain. His remains were first interred at Valladolid, then at the monastery of La Cartuja in Seville (southern Spain) by the will of his son Diego Colón, who had been governor of Hispaniola. In 1542, the remains were transferred to Colonial Santo Domingo, in the present-day Dominican Republic. In 1795, when France took over the entire island of Hispaniola, Columbus's remains were moved to Havana, Cuba. After Cuba became independent following the Spanish–American War in 1898, the remains were moved back to Spain, to the Cathedral of Seville,[109] where they were placed on an elaborate catafalque.
+
+However, a lead box bearing an inscription identifying "Don Christopher Columbus" and containing bone fragments and a bullet was discovered at Santo Domingo in 1877. These bones were considered legitimate by physician and future United States Assistant Secretary of State John Eugene Osborne, who suggested in 1913 that the remains be placed on a battleship and travel through the Panama Canal as a part of its opening ceremony. Ultimately, it was decided not to do so.[111]
+
+To lay to rest claims that the wrong relics had been moved to Havana and that Columbus's remains had been left buried in the Cathedral of Santo Domingo, DNA samples of the corpse resting in Seville were taken in June 2003 (History Today August 2003) as well as other DNA samples from the remains of his brother Diego and younger son Fernando Colón. Initial observations suggested that the bones did not appear to belong to somebody with the physique or age at death associated with Columbus.[112] DNA extraction proved difficult; only short fragments of mitochondrial DNA could be isolated. The mitochondrial DNA fragments matched corresponding DNA from Columbus's brother, giving support that both individuals had shared the same mother.[113]
+
+Such evidence, together with anthropologic and historic analyses, led the researchers to conclude that the remains found in Seville belonged to Christopher Columbus.[114] The authorities in Santo Domingo have never allowed the remains there to be exhumed, so it is unknown if any of those remains could be from Columbus's body as well.[113][114] The Dominican remains are located in "The Columbus Lighthouse" (Faro a Colón), in Santo Domingo.
+
+The anniversary of Columbus's 1492 landing in the Americas is usually observed on 12 October in Spain and throughout the Americas, except Canada. In Spain it is called the Fiesta Nacional de España y Día de la Hispanidad commemorating the role of Spain in world history, while a number of countries in Latin America celebrate it as Día de la Raza commemorating their common heritage. In the United States it is called Columbus Day and is observed annually on the second Monday in October.
+It was promoted by Italian-Americans to place themselves as part of the history of the US among discrimination against Italians and Catholics.[115]
+There are efforts in the US to rename Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples' Day.
+
+Historically, the English had downplayed Columbus and emphasized the role of the Venetian John Cabot as a pioneer explorer, but for the emerging United States, Cabot made for a poor national hero.[116]
+American navitists preferred Leif Erikson.[115]
+Veneration of Columbus in America dates back to colonial times. The name Columbia for "America" first appeared in a 1738 weekly publication of the debates of the British Parliament.[117] The use of Columbus as a founding figure of New World nations and the use of the word "Columbia", or simply the name "Columbus", spread rapidly after the American Revolution. This was out of a desire to develop a national history and founding myth with less ties to Britain.[118] Columbus's name was given to the federal capital of the United States (District of Columbia), the capital cities of two U.S. states (Ohio and South Carolina), and the Columbia River. Outside the United States the name was used in 1819 for the Gran Colombia, a precursor of the modern Republic of Colombia. Numerous cities, towns, counties, streets, and plazas (called Plaza Colón or Plaza de Colón throughout Latin America and Spain) have been named after him. A candidate for sainthood in the Catholic Church in 1866, celebration of Columbus's legacy perhaps reached a zenith in 1892 with the 400th anniversary of his first arrival in the Americas. Monuments to Columbus like the Columbian Exposition in Chicago and Columbus Circle in New York City were erected throughout the United States and Latin America extolling him.
+The Knights of Columbus is a fraternal organization for Catholic men founded in 1882.
+While its initial membership was mainly Irish, they took Columbus as a symbol of Catholicism in America.[115]
+
+The World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893, commemorated the 400th anniversary of the landing of Christopher Columbus in the Americas.[119] Over 27 million people attended the exposition during its six-month duration.
+
+The United States Postal Service participated in the celebration issuing the first US commemorative postage stamps, a series of 16 postage issues called the Columbian Issue depicting Columbus, Queen Isabella and others in the various stages of his several voyages. The issues range in value from the 1-cent to the 5-dollar denominations. Under Benjamin Harrison and his Postmaster General John Wanamaker the Columbian commemorative stamps were made available and were first issued at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, in 1893. Wanamaker originally introduced the idea of issuing the nation's first commemorative stamp to Harrison, the Congress and the U.S. Post Office. To demonstrate his confidence in the new Columbian commemorative issues Wanamaker purchased $10,000 worth of stamps with his own money. The Columbian Exposition lasted several months, and over $40 million in commemorative postage stamps had been sold.[120] The 400th anniversary Columbian issues were very popular in the United States. A total of two billion stamps were issued for all the Columbian denominations, and 72 percent of these were the two-cent stamps, "Landing of Columbus", which paid the first-class rate for domestic mail at the time.[121]
+
+In 1992, a second Columbian issue was released that was identical to the first to commemorate the 500th anniversary, except for the date in the upper right hand corner of each stamp. These issues were made from the original dies of which the first engraved issues of 1893 were produced. The United States issued the series jointly for the first time with three other countries, Italy in lire, Portugal in escudos and Spain in pesetas.[122]
+
+In 1909, descendants of Columbus undertook to dismantle the Columbus family chapel in Spain and move it to Boalsburg near State College, Pennsylvania, where it may now be visited by the public.[123] At the museum associated with the chapel, there are a number of Columbus relics worthy of note, including the armchair that the "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" used at his chart table.
+
+Columbus's voyages are considered some of the most important events in world history, kickstarting modern globalism and resulting in major demographic, commercial, economic, social, and political changes.[125][126] These explorations resulted in the permanent contact between the two hemispheres. There was a massive exchange of animals, plants, fungi, diseases, technologies, mineral wealth and ideas.[127][128][129][130] Exposed to old world diseases, the indigenous populations of the New world collapsed and were largely replaced by Europeans and Africans who brought with them new methods of farming, business, governance, and religious worship.[131][132]
+
+Though Christopher Columbus came to be considered the discoverer of America in US and European popular culture, his historical legacy is more nuanced. America had been discovered and populated by its indigenous population. Columbus was not even the first European to reach its shores, having been preceded by Erik the Red in 10th-century Greenland and Leif Erikson in 11th-century Vinland at L'Anse aux Meadows.[133][134]  However, Columbus's efforts brought the Americas to the attention of Europe at a time ripe for Europe to act upon. Thus, Columbus was able to initiate the enduring association between the Earth's two major landmasses and their inhabitants. "Columbus's claim to fame isn't that he got there first," explains historian Martin Dugard, "it's that he stayed."[135]
+
+Historians have traditionally argued that Columbus remained convinced until his death that his journeys had been along the east coast of Asia as he originally intended,[136][118] but writer Kirkpatrick Sale argues that a document in the Book of Privileges indicates Columbus knew he found a new continent.[137] Furthermore, his journals from the third voyage call the "land of Paria" a "hitherto unknown" continent.[138] On the other hand, his other writings continued to claim that he had reached Asia, such as a 1502 letter to Pope Alexander VI where he asserted that Cuba was the east coast of Asia.[139] He also rationalized that the new continent of South America was the "Earthly Paradise" that was located "at the end of the Orient".[138] Thus, it remains unclear what his true beliefs were.
+
+The term "pre-Columbian" is usually used to refer to the peoples and cultures of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus and his European successors.
+
+Columbus is often credited with refuting a prevalent belief in a flat Earth. However, this legacy is a popular misconception. To the contrary, the spherical shape of the Earth had been known to scholars since antiquity, and was common knowledge among sailors. Coincidentally, the oldest surviving globe of the Earth, the Erdapfel, was made in 1492, just before Columbus's return to Europe. As such it contains no sign of the Americas and yet demonstrates the common belief in a spherical Earth.[140]
+
+Since the late 20th century, historians have criticized Columbus for initiating colonization and for abuse of natives.[141][142][143][144] Among reasons for this criticism is the poor treatment of the native Taíno people of Hispaniola, whose population declined rapidly after contact with the Spanish. Modern estimates for the pre-Columbian population of Hispaniola vary from several hundred thousand to more than a million.[145] According to the historian Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, by 1548, 56 years after Columbus landed, and 42 years after he died, fewer than 500 Taíno were living on the island.[146] The indigenous population declined rapidly, due primarily to the first pandemic of European endemic diseases, which struck Hispaniola after 1519. The natives had no acquired immunity to these new diseases and suffered high fatalities. There is also documentation that they were overworked.[147][148][149] Historian Andrés Reséndez of University of California, Davis, pushes back against this narrative, and says the available evidence suggests "slavery has emerged as major killer" of the indigenous populations of the Caribbean between 1492 and 1550 more so than diseases such as smallpox, influenza and malaria.[150] He says that indigenous populations did not experience a rebound like European populations did following the Black Death because unlike the latter, the former were subjected to deadly forced labor in gold and silver mines on a massive scale.[151]
+
+The natives of the island were systematically subjugated via the encomienda system implemented by Columbus.[152] Adapted to the New World from Spain, it resembled the feudal system in Medieval Europe, as it was based on a lord offering "protection" to a class of people who owed labor.[153] In addition, Spanish colonists under his rule began to buy and sell natives as slaves, including children.[154]
+
+When natives on Hispaniola began fighting back against their oppressors in 1495, Columbus's men captured 1,500 Arawak men, women, and children in a single raid. The strongest were transported to Spain to be sold as slaves;[155] 40 percent of the 500 shipped died en route.[58] Historian James W. Loewen asserts that "Columbus not only sent the first slaves across the Atlantic, he probably sent more slaves—about five thousand—than any other individual."[156]
+
+Columbus's forced labor system was described by his son, Ferdinand: "In the Cibao, where the gold mines were, every person of fourteen years of age or upward was to pay a large hawk's bell of gold dust; all others were each to pay twenty-five pounds of cotton. Whenever an Indian delivered his tribute, he was to receive a brass or copper token which he must wear about his neck as proof that he had made his payment; any Indian found without such a token was to be punished." [157] A claim popularized by Hans Koning's 1976 biography of Columbus and Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States that the said punishment was cutting off the hands of those without tokens, letting them bleed to death.[58][158] A letter from Ferdinand and Isabella on the tribute calls for a light punishment. [159] Thousands of natives committed suicide by poison to escape their persecution.[155]
+
+During his brief reign, Columbus executed Spanish colonists for minor crimes, and used dismemberment as another form of punishment.[160]
+
+When Columbus fell ill in 1495, "what little restraint he had maintained over his men disappeared as he went through a lengthy period of recuperation. The troops went wild, stealing, killing, raping, and torturing natives, trying to force them to divulge the whereabouts of the imagined treasure-houses of gold."[161] According to Las Casas, 50,000 natives perished during this period, although Las Casas' account has been criticized by modern historians as lacking objectivity and his population estimates are often dismissed.[162]  Upon his recovery, Columbus organized his troops' efforts, forming a squadron of several hundred heavily armed men and more than twenty attack dogs. Dogs were used to hunt down natives who attempted to flee.[155] Columbus's men tore across the land, killing thousands of sick and unarmed natives. Soldiers would use their captives for sword practice, attempting to decapitate them or cut them in half with a single blow.[163]
+
+The Arawaks attempted to fight back against Columbus's men but lacked their armor, guns, swords, and horses. When taken prisoner, they were hanged or burned to death. Desperation led to mass suicides and infanticide among the natives. Howard Zinn states, although without quoting any sources, in just two years under Columbus's governorship, over 125,000 of the 250,000–300,000 natives in Haiti were dead,[58] many died from lethal forced labor in the mines, in which a third of workers died every six months.[164] Within three decades, the surviving Arawak population numbered only in the hundreds.[164] "Virtually every member of the gentle race ... had been wiped out."[155] Disease, warfare and harsh enslavement contributed to the depopulation.[165][166][167]
+
+Within indigenous circles, Columbus is often viewed as a key agent of genocide.[168] Samuel Eliot Morison, a Harvard historian and author of a multivolume biography on Columbus, writes, "The cruel policy initiated by Columbus and pursued by his successors resulted in complete genocide."[169] Loewen laments that while "Haiti under the Spanish is one of the primary instances of genocide in all human history", only one major history text he reviewed mentions Columbus's role in it.[170]
+
+Some of these accounts may be part of the Black Legend, an intentional defamation of Spain,[171][172][173] while others challenge the genocide narrative.[160][174] Noble David Cook, writing about the Black Legend and the conquest of the Americas wrote, "There were too few Spaniards to have killed the millions who were reported to have died in the first century after Old and New World contact". He instead estimates that the death toll was caused by diseases like smallpox,[175] which according to some estimates had an 80–90% fatality rate in Native American populations.[176] Disease played a significant role in the destruction of the natives. Indirect evidence suggests that some serious illness may have arrived with the 1500 colonists who accompanied Columbus's second expedition in 1493.
+
+By the end of 1494, disease and famine had claimed two-thirds of the Spanish settlers.[148][177] A native Nahuatl account depicted the social breakdown that accompanied the pandemics: "A great many died from this plague, and many others died of hunger. They could not get up to search for food, and everyone else was too sick to care for them, so they starved to death in their beds."[178] When the pandemic finally struck in 1519, it wiped out much of the remaining native population.[179][180] Charles C. Mann wrote "It was as if the suffering these diseases had caused in Eurasia over the past millennia were concentrated into the span of decades."[181]
+
+Some historians have argued that, while brutal, Columbus was simply a product of his time, and being a figure of the 15th century, should not be judged by the morality of the 20th century.[182]
+
+Biographers and historians have a wide range of opinions over Columbus's expertise and experience navigating and captaining ships. European works ranging from the 1890s to 1980s support his experience and skill as among the best in Genoa, while American works over a similar timeframe picture the explorer as an untrained entrepreneur, only having minor crew or passenger experience prior to his noted journeys.[183]
+
+Although an abundance of artwork involving Christopher Columbus exists, no authentic contemporary portrait has been found.[184] James W. Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me, believes the various posthumous portraits have no historical value.[185]
+
+Sometime between 1531 and 1536, Alejo Fernández painted an altarpiece, The Virgin of the Navigators, that includes a depiction of Columbus. The painting was commissioned for a chapel in Seville's Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) and remains there, as the earliest known painting about the voyages of Columbus.[186][187]
+
+At the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, 71 alleged portraits of Columbus were displayed; most did not match contemporary descriptions.[188] These writings describe him as having reddish or blond hair, which turned to white early in his life, light colored eyes,[189] as well as being a lighter-skinned person with too much sun exposure turning his face red. Accounts consistently describe Columbus as a large and physically strong man of some six feet (1.83 metres) or more in height, easily taller than the average European of his day.[190]
+
+The most iconic image of Columbus is a portrait by Sebastiano del Piombo, which has been reproduced in many textbooks. It agrees with descriptions of Columbus in that it shows a large man with auburn hair, but the painting dates from 1519 and cannot, therefore, have been painted from life. Furthermore, the inscription identifying the subject as Columbus was probably added later, and the face shown differs from other images, including that of the "Virgin of the Navigators."[191]

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+Christopher Columbus[a] (/kəˈlʌmbəs/;[3] Ligurian: Cristoffa Corombo; Italian: Cristoforo Colombo; Spanish: Cristóbal Colón; before 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italian explorer and navigator who completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean, opening the way for European exploration and colonization of the Americas.[4] His expeditions, sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, were the first European contact with the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.
+
+Columbus's early life is somewhat obscure, but scholars generally agree that he was born in the Republic of Genoa and spoke a dialect of Ligurian as his first language. He went to sea at a young age and travelled widely, as far north as the British Isles (and possibly Iceland) and as far south as what is now Ghana. He married Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Moniz Perestrelo and was based in Lisbon for several years, but later took a Castilian mistress; he had one son with each woman. Though largely self-educated, Columbus was widely read in geography, astronomy, and history. He formulated a plan to seek a western sea passage to the East Indies, hoping to profit from the lucrative spice trade. Following persistent lobbying, Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand II agreed to sponsor a journey west, in the name of the Crown of Castile. Columbus left Castile in August 1492 with three ships, and after a stopover in the Canary Islands made landfall in the Americas on 12 October (later celebrated as Columbus Day). His landing place was an island in the Bahamas, known by its native inhabitants as Guanahani; its exact location is uncertain. Columbus subsequently visited the islands now known as Cuba and Hispaniola, establishing a colony in what is now Haiti: the first European settlement in the Americas since the Norse colonies nearly 500 years earlier. He arrived back in Castile in early 1493, bringing a number of captive natives with him. Word of his voyages soon spread throughout Europe.
+
+Columbus made three further voyages to the New World, exploring the Lesser Antilles in 1493, Trinidad and the northern coast of South America in 1498, and the eastern coast of Central America in 1502. Many of the names he gave to geographical features—particularly islands—are still in use. He continued to seek a passage to the East Indies, and the extent to which he was aware that the Americas were a wholly separate landmass is uncertain. He never clearly renounced his belief that he had reached the Far East and gave the name indios ("Indians") to the indigenous peoples he encountered. Columbus's strained relationship with the Spanish crown and its appointed colonial administrators in America led to his arrest and removal from Hispaniola in 1500, and later to protracted litigation over the benefits that he and his heirs claimed were owed to them by the crown. Columbus's expeditions inaugurated a period of exploration, conquest, and colonization that lasted for centuries, helping create the modern Western world. The transfers between the Old World and New World that followed his first voyage are known as the Columbian exchange, and the period of human habitation in the Americas prior to his arrival is referred to as the Pre-Columbian era.
+
+The debate over Columbus's legacy continues. He was widely venerated in the centuries after his death, but public perception has fractured in recent decades as scholars give greater attention to the harm committed under his governance, particularly the near extermination of the indigenous Taino population from mistreatment and European diseases. There is good evidence that Columbus's regime brutally subjugated and enslaved the Taino to aid the Spanish quest for gold. Some other allegations, such as tyrannical rule over the Spanish colonists, are murkier: a contemporaneous, persistent smear campaign called the "black legend" makes the extent of Columbus's blame uncertain. Many landmarks and institutions in the Western Hemisphere bear his name, including the country of Colombia and the name Columbia, which is used as a personification for the United States, and appears in many place names there.
+
+The name Christopher Columbus is the Anglicisation of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. His name in Ligurian is  Cristoffa Corombo, in Italian Cristoforo Colombo, and in Spanish Cristóbal Colón.[5] He was born before 31 October 1451 in the territory of the Republic of Genoa (now part of modern Italy), though the exact location remains disputed.[6][b] His father was Domenico Colombo,[5] a wool weaver who worked both in Genoa and Savona and who also owned a cheese stand at which young Christopher worked as a helper. His mother was Susanna Fontanarossa.[5] He had three brothers, Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino, and Giacomo.  He also had a sister named Bianchinetta.[7] His brother Bartolomeo worked in a cartography workshop in Lisbon for at least part of his adulthood.[8]
+
+Columbus never wrote in his native language, which is presumed to have been a Genoese variety of Ligurian: his name in the 16th-century Genoese language would have been Cristoffa[9] Corombo[10] (Ligurian pronunciation: [kriˈʃtɔffa kuˈɹuŋbu]).[11][12] In one of his writings, he says he went to sea at the age of 10. In 1470, the Columbus family moved to Savona, where Domenico took over a tavern. In the same year, Christopher was on a Genoese ship hired in the service of René of Anjou to support his attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Naples. Some modern authors have argued that he was not from Genoa but, instead, from the Aragon region of Spain[13] or from Portugal.[14] These competing hypotheses have generally been discounted by mainstream scholars.[15][16]
+
+In 1473, Columbus began his apprenticeship as business agent for the important Centurione, Di Negro and Spinola families of Genoa. Later, he allegedly made a trip to Chios, an Aegean island then ruled by Genoa.[17] In May 1476, he took part in an armed convoy sent by Genoa to carry valuable cargo to northern Europe. He probably docked in Bristol, England,[18] and Galway, Ireland. A few writers speculate that in 1477, he was in Iceland.[5][19] It is known that in the autumn of 1477, he sailed on a Portuguese ship from Galway to Lisbon, where he found his brother Bartolomeo, and they continued trading for the Centurione family. Columbus based himself in Lisbon from 1477 to 1485. He married Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, daughter of the Porto Santo governor and Portuguese nobleman of Lombard origin Bartolomeu Perestrello.[20]
+
+In 1479 or 1480, his son Diego Columbus was born. Between 1482 and 1485, Columbus traded along the coasts of West Africa, reaching the Portuguese trading post of Elmina at the Guinea coast (in present-day Ghana).[21] Some records report that Filipa died sometime around 1485, while Columbus was away in Castile.  He returned to Portugal to settle her estate and take his son Diego with him.[22] He had left Portugal for Castile in 1485, where he found a mistress in 1487, a 20-year-old orphan named Beatriz Enríquez de Arana.[23] It is likely that Beatriz met Columbus when he was in Córdoba, a gathering site of many Genoese merchants and where the court of the Catholic Monarchs was located at intervals. Beatriz, unmarried at the time, gave birth to Columbus's natural son Fernando Columbus in July 1488, named for the monarch of Aragon. Columbus recognized the boy as his offspring. Columbus entrusted his older, legitimate son Diego to take care of Beatriz and pay the pension set aside for her following his death, but Diego was negligent in his duties.[24]
+
+Ambitious, Columbus eventually learned Latin, Portuguese, and Castilian. He read widely about astronomy, geography, and history, including the works of Claudius Ptolemy, Pierre Cardinal d'Ailly's Imago Mundi, the travels of Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville, Pliny's Natural History, and Pope Pius II's Historia Rerum Ubique Gestarum. According to historian Edmund Morgan,
+
+Columbus was not a scholarly man. Yet he studied these books, made hundreds of marginal notations in them and came out with ideas about the world that were characteristically simple and strong and sometimes wrong, ...[25]
+
+Throughout his life, Columbus also showed a keen interest in the Bible and in Biblical prophecies, often quoting biblical texts in his letters and logs. For example, part of the argument that he submitted to the Spanish Catholic Monarchs when he sought their support for his proposed expedition to reach the Indies by sailing west was based on his reading of the Second Book of Esdras (Ezra): see 2 Esdras 6:42, which he took to mean that the Earth is made of six parts of land to one of water. Towards the end of his life, he produced a Book of Prophecies in which his career as an explorer is interpreted in the light of Christian eschatology and of apocalypticism.[8]
+
+Carol Delaney has argued that Columbus was a millennialist and that these beliefs motivated his quest for Asia in a variety of ways.[26]  Columbus wrote often about seeking gold in the diaries of his voyages and writes about acquiring the precious metal “in such quantity that the sovereigns… will undertake and prepare to go conquer the Holy Sepulcher”.[26] In an account of his fourth voyage, Columbus wrote that “Jerusalem and Mount Sion must be rebuilt by Christian hands”.[27] It has also been written that “conversion of all people to the Christian faith” is a central theme in Columbus's writings which is a central tenet of some Millenarian beliefs.[26] In a more specific identification of his motivations, Hamandi writes that the “deliverance of Jerusalem from Muslim hands” could be accomplished by “using the resources of newly discovered lands”.[28]
+
+Under the Mongol Empire's hegemony over Asia (the Pax Mongolica, or Mongol peace), Europeans had long enjoyed a safe land passage, the Silk Road, to the Indies (then construed roughly as all of south and east Asia) and China, which were sources of valuable goods such as spices and silk. With the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the land route to Asia became much more difficult and dangerous. Portuguese navigators tried to find a sea way to Asia.
+
+In 1470, the Florentine astronomer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli suggested to King Afonso V of Portugal that sailing west across the Atlantic would be a quicker way to reach the Spice Islands, Cathay, and Cipangu than the route around Africa, but Afonso rejected his proposal.[29] In 1474, Toscanelli sent Columbus a map with the notion of a westward route to Asia.[30][31] In the 1480s, the Columbus brothers proposed a plan to reach the Indies by sailing west across the "Ocean Sea" (the Atlantic). However, this was complicated by the opening of the southeast passage to Asia around Africa by Bartolomeu Dias in 1488, when he reached the Cape of Good Hope (modern-day South Africa).[32]
+
+Washington Irving's 1828 biography of Columbus popularized the idea that Columbus had difficulty obtaining support for his plan because many Catholic theologians insisted that the Earth was flat.[33] In fact, nearly all educated Westerners had understood, at least since the time of Aristotle, that the Earth is spherical.[34][32] The sphericity of the Earth is also accounted for in the work of Ptolemy, on which medieval astronomy was largely based. Christian writers whose works clearly reflect the conviction that the Earth is spherical include Saint Bede the Venerable in his Reckoning of Time, written around AD 723. In Columbus's time, the techniques of celestial navigation, which use the position of the sun and the stars in the sky, together with the understanding that the Earth is a sphere, had long been in use by astronomers and were beginning to be implemented by mariners.[35]
+
+As far back as the 3rd century BC, Eratosthenes had correctly computed the circumference of the Earth by using simple geometry and studying the shadows cast by objects at two remote locations.[36][37] In the 1st century BC, Posidonius confirmed Eratosthenes's results by comparing stellar observations at two separate locations. These measurements were widely known among scholars, but confusion about the old-fashioned units of distance in which they were expressed led to some debate about the size of the Earth.[citation needed]
+
+From Pierre d'Ailly's Imago Mundi Columbus learned of Alfraganus's estimate that a degree of latitude (or a degree of longitude along the equator) spanned 56​2⁄3 Arabic miles (equivalent to 66.2 nautical miles or 122.6 kilometres), but he did not realize that this was expressed in the Arabic mile rather than the shorter Roman mile with which he was familiar.[39] He therefore would have estimated the circumference of the Earth to be about 30,200 kilometres (16,300 nmi) at the equator and 26,200 kilometres (14,100 nmi) at 30 degrees north (around where he was sailing), whereas the correct value is 40,075 kilometres (21,639 nmi) at the equator and 34,735 kilometres (18,755 nmi) at 30 degrees north.[citation needed]
+
+Furthermore, most scholars accepted Ptolemy's estimate that Eurasia spanned 180° longitude, rather than the actual 130° (to the Chinese mainland) or 150° (to Japan at the latitude of Spain). Columbus, for his part, believed an even higher estimate, leaving a smaller percentage for water.  Some people have suggested he followed the estimate of Marinus of Tyre, which put the longitudinal span of the Eurasian landmass at 225°.[citation needed]  Other people have suggested he followed Esdras's statement that "six parts [of the globe] are habitable and the seventh is covered with water."[30] He also believed that Japan (which he called "Cipangu", following Marco Polo) was much larger, farther to the east from China ("Cathay"), and closer to the equator than it is, and that there were inhabited islands even farther to the east than Japan, including the mythical Antillia, which he thought might lie not much farther to the west than the Azores. In this, he was influenced by the ideas of Toscanelli.[30]
+
+Columbus therefore would have estimated the distance from the Canary Islands west to Japan to be about 9,800 kilometres (5,300 nmi) or 3,700 kilometres (2,000 nmi), depending on which estimate he used for Eurasia's longitudinal span. The true figure is now known to be vastly larger: about 20,000 kilometres (11,000 nmi).[40][c] No ship in the 15th century could have carried enough food and fresh water for such a long voyage, and the dangers involved in navigating through the uncharted ocean would have been formidable. Most European navigators reasonably concluded that a westward voyage from Europe to Asia was unfeasible. The Catholic Monarchs, however, having completed an expensive war in the Iberian Peninsula, were eager to obtain a competitive edge over other European countries in the quest for trade with the Indies. Columbus's project, though far-fetched, held the promise of such an advantage.[citation needed]
+
+Though Columbus was wrong about the number of degrees of longitude that separated Europe from the Far East and about the distance that each degree represented, he did possess valuable knowledge about the trade winds, which would prove to be the key to his successful navigation of the Atlantic Ocean. During his first voyage in 1492, the brisk trade winds from the east, commonly called "easterlies", propelled Columbus's fleet for five weeks, from the Canary Islands to The Bahamas. The precise first land sighting and landing point was San Salvador Island.[32] To return to Spain against this prevailing wind would have required several months of an arduous sailing technique, called beating, during which food and drinkable water would probably have been exhausted.
+
+Instead, Columbus returned home by following the curving trade winds northeastward to the middle latitudes of the North Atlantic, where he was able to catch the "westerlies" that blow eastward to the coast of Western Europe. There, in turn, the winds curve southward towards the Iberian Peninsula.[41][42]
+
+It is unclear whether Columbus learned about the winds from his own sailing experience or if he had heard about them from others. The corresponding technique for efficient travel in the Atlantic appears to have been exploited first by the Portuguese, who referred to it as the Volta do mar ("turn of the sea"). Columbus's knowledge of the Atlantic wind patterns was, however, imperfect at the time of his first voyage. By sailing directly due west from the Canary Islands during hurricane season, skirting the so-called horse latitudes of the mid-Atlantic, Columbus risked either being becalmed or running into a tropical cyclone, both of which, by chance, he avoided.[30]
+
+In 1485, Columbus presented his plans to King John II of Portugal. He proposed that the king equip three sturdy ships and grant Columbus one year's time to sail out into the Atlantic, search for a western route to the Orient, and return. Columbus also requested he be made "Great Admiral of the Ocean", appointed governor of any and all lands he discovered, and given one-tenth of all revenue from those lands. The king submitted Columbus's proposal to his experts, who rejected it. It was their considered opinion that Columbus's estimation of a travel distance of 2,400 miles (3,860 km) was, in fact, far too low.[30]
+
+In 1488, Columbus again appealed to the court of Portugal, resulting in John II again inviting him for an audience. That meeting also proved unsuccessful, in part because not long afterwards Bartolomeu Dias returned to Portugal with news of his successful rounding of the southern tip of Africa (near the Cape of Good Hope). With an eastern sea route to Asia apparently at hand, King John was no longer interested in Columbus's far-fetched project.
+
+Columbus traveled from Portugal to both Genoa and Venice, but he received encouragement from neither. He had also dispatched his brother Bartholomew to the court of Henry VII of England to inquire whether the English crown might sponsor his expedition, but also without success.
+
+Columbus had sought an audience from the monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, who had united several kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula by marrying and were ruling together. On 1 May 1486, permission having been granted, Columbus presented his plans to Queen Isabella, who, in turn, referred it to a committee. After the passing of much time, the savants of Spain, like their counterparts in Portugal, replied that Columbus had grossly underestimated the distance to Asia. They pronounced the idea impractical and advised their Royal Highnesses to pass on the proposed venture.
+
+However, to keep Columbus from taking his ideas elsewhere, and perhaps to keep their options open, the Catholic Monarchs gave him an annual allowance of 12,000 maravedis and, in 1489, furnished him with a letter ordering all cities and towns under their domain to provide him food and lodging at no cost.[44]
+
+After continually lobbying at the Spanish court and two years of negotiations, he finally had success in January 1492. Ferdinand and Isabella had just conquered Granada, the last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula, and they received Columbus in Córdoba, in the Alcázar castle. Isabella turned him down on the advice of her confessor. Columbus was leaving town by mule in despair when Ferdinand intervened. Isabella then sent a royal guard to fetch him, and Ferdinand later claimed credit for being "the principal cause why those islands were discovered".[45]
+
+In the April 1492 "Capitulations of Santa Fe", King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella promised Columbus that if he succeeded he would be given the rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and appointed Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands he could claim for Spain. He had the right to nominate three persons, from whom the sovereigns would choose one, for any office in the new lands. He would be entitled to 10 percent of all the revenues from the new lands in perpetuity. Additionally, he would also have the option of buying one-eighth interest in any commercial venture with the new lands and receive one-eighth of the profits.[30]
+
+Columbus was later arrested in 1500 and dismissed from his posts. He and his sons, Diego and Fernando, then conducted a lengthy series of court cases against the Castilian crown, known as the pleitos colombinos, alleging that the Crown had illegally reneged on its contractual obligations to Columbus and his heirs. The Columbus family had some success in their first litigation, as a judgment of 1511 confirmed Diego's position as Viceroy, but reduced his powers. Diego resumed litigation in 1512, which lasted until 1536, and further disputes continued until 1790.[46]
+
+Between 1492 and 1503, Columbus completed four round-trip voyages between Spain and the Americas, each voyage being sponsored by the Crown of Castile. On his first voyage, he independently discovered the Americas and magnetic declination.[d][47][48] These voyages marked the beginning of the European exploration and colonization of the American continents, and are thus of enormous significance in Western history.[8]
+
+Columbus always insisted, in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, that the lands that he visited during those voyages were part of the Asian continent, as previously described by Marco Polo and other European travelers.[8] Columbus's refusal to accept that the lands he had visited and claimed for Spain were not part of Asia might explain, in part, why the American continent was named after the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci and not after Columbus.[49]
+
+On the evening of 3 August 1492, Columbus departed from Palos de la Frontera with three ships. The largest was a carrack (Spanish: nao), the Santa María ex-Gallega ("Galician")[further explanation needed]. The other two were smaller caravels. The name of one is lost: it is known today only by the nickname Pinta, which in Castilian of the time meant "painted one".[50] The Santa Clara was nicknamed affectionately the Niña ("the little one"), a pun on the name of her owner, Juan Niño of Moguer.[51] The monarchs forced the citizens of Palos to contribute to the expedition. The Santa María was owned by Juan de la Cosa and captained by Columbus. The Pinta and the Niña were piloted by the Pinzón brothers (Martín Alonso and Vicente Yáñez).[32]
+
+Columbus first sailed to the Canary Islands, which belonged to Castile. He restocked provisions and made repairs in Gran Canaria, then departed from San Sebastián de La Gomera on 6 September, for what turned out to be a five-week voyage across the ocean. At about 2:00 in the morning of 12 October, a lookout on the Pinta, Rodrigo de Triana (also known as Juan Rodríguez Bermeo), spotted land, and immediately alerted the rest of the crew with a shout. Thereupon, the captain of the Pinta, Martín Alonso Pinzón, verified the sight of land and alerted Columbus by firing a lombard.[52] Columbus later maintained that he himself had already seen a light on the land a few hours earlier, thereby claiming for himself the lifetime pension promised by Ferdinand and Isabella to the first person to sight land.[32][53]
+
+Columbus called the island (in what is now the Bahamas) San Salvador (meaning "Holy Savior"); the natives called it Guanahani. Exactly which island in the Bahamas this corresponds to is unresolved. Based on primary accounts and the geographic positions of the islands given Columbus's course, the prime candidates are San Salvador Island (so named in 1925 on the theory that it was Columbus's San Salvador),[54] Samana Cay, and Plana Cays.[32]
+
+The indigenous people he encountered, the Lucayan, Taíno, and Arawak, were peaceful and friendly. He called the inhabitants of the lands that he visited indios (Spanish for "Indians").[55][56][57] Noting their gold ear ornaments, Columbus took some of the Arawaks prisoner and insisted that they guide him to the source of the gold.[58] From the entry in his journal of 12 October 1492, in which he wrote of them: "Many of the men I have seen have scars on their bodies, and when I made signs to them to find out how this happened, they indicated that people from other nearby islands come to San Salvador to capture them; they defend themselves the best they can. I believe that people from the mainland come here to take them as slaves. They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them. I think they can very easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion. If it pleases our Lord, I will take six of them to Your Highnesses when I depart, in order that they may learn our language."[59] Columbus noted that their primitive weapons and military tactics made them susceptible to easy conquest, writing, "these people are very simple in war-like matters … I could conquer the whole of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased."[60]
+
+Columbus also explored the northeast coast of Cuba, where he landed on 28 October. On 22 November, Martín Alonso Pinzón took the Pinta on an unauthorized expedition in search of an island called "Babeque" or "Baneque", which the natives had told him was rich in gold. Columbus, for his part, continued to the northern coast of Hispaniola, where he landed on 5 December.[61] There, the Santa María ran aground on Christmas Day 1492 and had to be abandoned. The wreck was used as a target for cannon fire to impress the native peoples.[32] Columbus was received by the native cacique Guacanagari, who gave him permission to leave some of his men behind. Columbus left 39 men, including Luis de Torres, the converso interpreter, who spoke Hebrew and Arabic,[citation needed] and founded the settlement of La Navidad at the site of present-day Bord de Mer de Limonade, Haiti.[62] Columbus took more natives prisoner and continued his exploration.[58] He kept sailing along the northern coast of Hispaniola with a single ship, until he encountered Pinzón and the Pinta on 6 January.
+
+On 13 January 1493, Columbus made his last stop of this voyage in the New World, in the Bay of Rincón at the eastern end of the Samaná Peninsula in northeast Hispaniola.[63] There he encountered the warlike Cigüayos, the only natives who offered violent resistance during his first voyage to the Americas.[64] The Cigüayos refused to trade the amount of bows and arrows that Columbus desired; in the ensuing clash one Ciguayo was stabbed in the buttocks and another wounded with an arrow in his chest.[65] Because of this and because of the Cigüayos' use of arrows, he called the inlet where he met them the Bay of Arrows (or Gulf of Arrows).[66] Columbus captured about 10 to 25 natives and took them back with him (only seven or eight of the natives arrived in Spain alive).[67]
+
+Columbus headed for Spain on the Niña, but a storm separated him from the Pinta, and forced the Niña to stop at the island of Santa Maria in the Azores. Half of his crew went ashore to say prayers in a chapel to give thanks for having survived the storm. But while praying, they were imprisoned by the governor of the island, ostensibly on suspicion of being pirates.  After a two-day standoff, the prisoners were released, and Columbus again set sail for Spain.[68]
+
+Another storm forced him into the port at Lisbon.[32] He anchored next to the King's harbor patrol ship on 4 March 1493 in Portugal. There, he was interviewed by Bartolomeu Dias, who had rounded the Cape of Good Hope a few years earlier, in 1488–1489. Dias's success had complicated Columbus's attempts to secure funding from the Portuguese court because the sure route to the Indies that Dias pioneered made a risky, conjectural western route unnecessary.[32] Not finding King John II of Portugal in Lisbon, Columbus wrote a letter to him and waited for John's reply. John asked Columbus to go to Vale do Paraíso north of Lisbon to meet him. Relations between Portugal and Castile were poor at the time. Columbus went to meet with John at Vale do Paraíso. Hearing of Columbus's voyage, John told him that he believed the voyage to be in violation of the 1479 Treaty of Alcáçovas.
+
+After spending more than a week in Portugal, and paying his respects to Eleanor of Viseu, Columbus again set sail for Spain. Ferdinand Magellan was a young boy and a ward of Eleanor's court; it is likely he saw Columbus during this visit.[32] After departing, and after reportedly being saved from assassins by King John, Columbus crossed the bar of Saltes and entered the harbor of Palos de la Frontera on 15 March 1493. Word of his finding new lands rapidly spread throughout Europe.
+
+Columbus left the port of Cádiz on 24 September 1493, with a fleet of 17 ships carrying 1,200 men and the supplies to establish permanent colonies in the New World. The passengers included priests, farmers, and soldiers, who would be the new colonists. This reflected the new policy of creating not just "colonies of exploitation", but also "colonies of settlement" from which to launch missions dedicated to converting the natives to Christianity.[69] Modern studies suggest that "crew members may have included free black Africans who arrived in the New World about a decade before the slave trade began".[70]
+
+As in the first voyage, the fleet stopped at the Canary Islands, from which it departed on 13 October, following a more southerly course than on the previous expedition. On 3 November, Columbus sighted a rugged island that he named Dominica (Latin for Sunday); later that day, he landed at Marie-Galante, which he named Santa María la Galante. After sailing past Les Saintes (Los Santos, "The Saints"), he arrived at the island of Guadeloupe, which he named Santa María de Guadalupe de Extremadura, after the image of the Virgin Mary venerated at the Spanish monastery of Villuercas, in Guadalupe, Cáceres, Spain. He explored that island from 4 to 10 November.
+
+Michele da Cuneo, Columbus's childhood friend from Savona, sailed with Columbus during the second voyage and wrote: "In my opinion, since Genoa was Genoa, there was never born a man so well equipped and expert in the art of navigation as the said lord Admiral."[71] Columbus named the small island of "Saona ... to honor Michele da Cuneo, his friend from Savona."[72]
+
+The same childhood friend reported in a letter that Columbus had provided one of the captured indigenous women to him. He wrote, "While I was in the boat, I captured a very beautiful Carib woman, whom the said Lord Admiral gave to me. When I had taken her to my cabin she was naked—as was their custom. I was filled with a desire to take my pleasure with her and attempted to satisfy my desire. She was unwilling, and so treated me with her nails that I wished I had never begun. But—to cut a long story short—I then took a piece of rope and whipped her soundly, and she let forth such incredible screams that you would not have believed your ears. Eventually we came to such terms, I assure you, that you would have thought that she had been brought up in a school for whores."[73]
+
+Pedro de las Casas, father of the priest Bartolomé de las Casas, also accompanied Columbus on this voyage.[74]
+
+The exact course of Columbus's voyage through the Lesser Antilles is debated, but it seems likely that he turned north, sighting and naming several islands, including:
+
+Columbus also sighted the chain of the Virgin Islands, which he named Islas de Santa Úrsula y las Once Mil Vírgenes, "Islands of Saint Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins" (shortened, both on maps of the time and in common parlance, to Islas Vírgenes). He also named the islands of Virgin Gorda ("Fat Virgin"), Tortola, and Peter Island (San Pedro).
+
+One of the first skirmishes between Native Americans and Europeans since the time of the Vikings occurred on 14 November, when at Saint Croix, Columbus's men rescued two native boys from several cannibalistic Island Caribs.[76] Columbus's men pursued the Carib canoe, which met them with arrows. Several Europeans were wounded, but they killed all of the Caribs, and learned that the two boys had recently been castrated by their captors. Columbus continued to the Virgin Islands, and landed in Puerto Rico, which he named San Juan Bautista[77] in honor of Saint John the Baptist (a name that was later given to the capital city of San Juan).
+
+On 22 November, Columbus returned to Hispaniola, where he intended to visit the fort of La Navidad, built during his first voyage and located on the northern coast of Haiti. Columbus found the fort in ruins, destroyed by the native Taino people.[78] Among the ruins were the corpses of 11 of the 39 Spaniards who had stayed behind as the first colonists in the New World.
+
+Columbus then sailed more than 100 kilometres (62 miles) eastwards along the northern coast of Hispaniola, establishing a new settlement, which he called La Isabela, in the present-day Dominican Republic.[79] However, La Isabela proved to be poorly located and the settlement was short-lived.
+
+According to the abstract of Columbus's journal made by Bartolomé de Las Casas, the objective of the third voyage was to verify the existence of a continent that King John II of Portugal suggested was located to the southwest of the Cape Verde Islands. King John reportedly knew of the existence of such a mainland because "canoes had been found which set out from the coast of Guinea [West Africa] and sailed to the west with merchandise."[80][81]
+
+On 30 May 1498, Columbus left with six ships from Sanlúcar, Spain, for his third trip to the New World. Three of the ships headed directly for Hispaniola with much-needed supplies, while Columbus took the other three in an exploration of what might lie to the south of the Caribbean islands he had already visited, including a hoped-for passage to continental Asia.[82]
+
+Columbus led his fleet to the Portuguese island of Porto Santo, his wife's native land. He then sailed to Madeira and spent some time there with the Portuguese captain João Gonçalves da Camara, before sailing to the Canary Islands and Cape Verde. As he crossed the Atlantic, Columbus discovered that the angle between North as indicated by a magnetic compass and North as measured by the position of the pole star changed with his position (a phenomenon now known as "compass variation"). He would later use his previous measurements of the compass variation to adjust his reckoning.[21]
+
+After being becalmed for several days in the doldrums of the mid-Atlantic, Columbus's fleet regained its wind and, dangerously low on water, turned north in the direction of Dominica, which Columbus had visited in his previous voyage. The ships arrived at King John's hypothesized continent, which is South America, when they sighted the land of Trinidad on 31 July approaching from the southeast.[83] The fleet sailed along the southern coast and entered Dragon's Mouth, anchoring near Soldado Rock where they made contact with a group of native Amerindians in canoes.[84] Columbus then landed on Trinidad at Icacos Point (which he named Punta de Arenal) on 2 August.[85] After resupplying with food and water, from 4 to 12 August Columbus explored the Gulf of Paria, which separates Trinidad from what is now Venezuela, near the delta of the Orinoco River. He then touched the mainland of South America at the Paria Peninsula.[citation needed]
+
+Exploring the new continent, Columbus correctly interpreted the enormous quantity of fresh water that the Orinoco delivered into the Atlantic Ocean as evidence that he had reached a large landmass rather than another island. He also speculated that the new continent might be the location of the biblical Garden of Eden. He then sailed to the islands of Chacachacare and Margarita. He sighted Tobago (which he named "Bella Forma") and Grenada (which he named "Concepción").[86]
+
+In poor health, Columbus returned to Hispaniola on 19 August, only to find that many of the Spanish settlers of the new colony were in rebellion against his rule, claiming that Columbus had misled them about the supposedly bountiful riches of the New World. A number of returning settlers and sailors lobbied against Columbus at the Spanish court, accusing him and his brothers of gross mismanagement. Columbus had some of his crew hanged for disobedience. He had an economic interest in the enslavement of the Hispaniola natives and for that reason was not eager to baptize them, which attracted criticism from some churchmen.[87] An entry in his journal from September 1498 reads: "From here one might send, in the name of the Holy Trinity, as many slaves as could be sold ..."[88]
+
+Columbus was eventually forced to make peace with the rebellious colonists on humiliating terms.[89] In 1500, the Crown had him removed as governor, arrested, and transported in chains to Spain (see "Accusations of tyranny" section below). He was eventually freed and allowed to return to the New World, but not as governor.[citation needed]
+
+Before leaving for his fourth voyage, Columbus wrote a letter to the Governors of the Bank of Saint George, Genoa, dated at Seville, 2 April 1502.[90] He wrote "Although my body is here my heart is always near you."[91]
+
+Columbus made a fourth voyage nominally in search of the Strait of Malacca to the Indian Ocean. Accompanied by his brother Bartolomeo and his 13-year-old son Fernando, he left Cádiz on 11 May 1502, with his flagship Santa María and the vessels Gallega, Vizcaína, and Santiago de Palos. He sailed to Arzila on the Moroccan coast to rescue Portuguese soldiers whom he had heard were under siege by the Moors.
+
+On 15 June, they landed at Carbet on the island of Martinique (Martinica). A hurricane was brewing, so he continued on, hoping to find shelter on Hispaniola. He arrived at Santo Domingo on 29 June, but was denied port, and the new governor refused to listen to his storm prediction. Instead, while Columbus's ships sheltered at the mouth of the Rio Jaina, the first Spanish treasure fleet sailed into the hurricane. Columbus's ships survived with only minor damage, while 29 of the 30 ships in the governor's fleet were lost to a storm on 1 July. In addition to the ships, 500 lives (including that of the governor, Francisco de Bobadilla) and an immense cargo of gold were surrendered to the sea.[citation needed]
+
+After a brief stop at Jamaica, Columbus sailed to Central America, arriving at Guanaja (Isla de Pinos) in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras on 30 July. Here Bartolomeo found native merchants and a large canoe, which was described as being "long as a galley" and filled with cargo. On 14 August, he landed on the continental mainland at Puerto Castilla, near Trujillo, Honduras. He spent two months exploring the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, before arriving in Almirante Bay in Panama on 16 October.[citation needed]
+
+On 5 December 1502, Columbus and his crew found themselves in a storm unlike any they had ever experienced. In his journal Columbus writes,
+
+For nine days I was as one lost, without hope of life. Eyes never beheld the sea so angry, so high, so covered with foam. The wind not only prevented our progress, but offered no opportunity to run behind any headland for shelter; hence we were forced to keep out in this bloody ocean, seething like a pot on a hot fire. Never did the sky look more terrible; for one whole day and night it blazed like a furnace, and the lightning broke with such violence that each time I wondered if it had carried off my spars and sails; the flashes came with such fury and frightfulness that we all thought that the ship would be blasted. All this time the water never ceased to fall from the sky; I do not say it rained, for it was like another deluge. The men were so worn out that they longed for death to end their dreadful suffering.[92]
+
+In Panama, Columbus learned from the Ngobe of gold and a strait to another ocean, but was told by local leader Quibían not to go past a certain point down the river. After much exploration, in January 1503, he established a garrison at the mouth of the Belén River. On 6 April, one of the ships became stranded in the river. At the same time, the garrison was attacked by Quibían and the other ships were damaged. Shipworms also damaged the ships in tropical waters.[93]
+
+Columbus left for Hispaniola on 16 April heading north. On 10 May he sighted the Cayman Islands, naming them "Las Tortugas" after the numerous sea turtles there. His ships next sustained more damage in a storm off the coast of Cuba. Unable to travel farther, on 25 June 1503 they were beached in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica.[citation needed]
+
+For one year Columbus and his men remained stranded on Jamaica. A Spaniard, Diego Méndez, and some natives paddled a canoe to get help from Hispaniola. The governor, Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres, detested Columbus and obstructed all efforts to rescue him and his men. In the meantime Columbus, in a desperate effort to induce the natives to continue provisioning him and his hungry men, won their favor by predicting a lunar eclipse for 29 February 1504, using Abraham Zacuto's astronomical charts.[94][95][96] Help finally arrived, no thanks to the governor, on 29 June 1504, and Columbus and his men arrived in Sanlúcar, Spain, on 7 November.
+
+Following his first voyage, Columbus was appointed Viceroy and Governor of the Indies under the terms of the Capitulations of Santa Fe. In practice, this primarily entailed the administration of the colonies in the island of Hispaniola, whose capital was established in Santo Domingo. By the end of his third voyage, Columbus was physically and mentally exhausted, his body wracked by arthritis and his eyes by ophthalmia. In October 1499, he sent two ships to Spain, asking the Court of Spain to appoint a royal commissioner to help him govern.[97]
+
+By this time, accusations of tyranny and incompetence on the part of Columbus had also reached the Court. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand responded by removing Columbus from power and replacing him with Francisco de Bobadilla, a member of the Order of Calatrava. Bobadilla, who ruled as governor from 1500 until his death in a storm in 1502, had also been tasked by the Court with investigating the accusations of brutality made against Columbus.
+
+Arriving in Santo Domingo while Columbus was away during the explorations of his third voyage, Bobadilla was immediately met with complaints about all three Columbus brothers: Christopher, Bartolomeo, and Diego. Bobadilla reported to Spain that Columbus regularly used torture and mutilation to govern Hispaniola. The 48-page report, found in 2006 in the national archive in the Spanish city of Simancas, contains testimonies from 23 people, including both enemies and supporters of Columbus, about the treatment of colonial subjects by Columbus and his brothers during his seven-year rule.[98]
+
+According to the report, Columbus once punished a man found guilty of stealing corn by having his ears and nose cut off and then selling him into slavery. Testimony recorded in the report stated that Columbus congratulated his brother Bartolomeo on "defending the family" when the latter ordered a woman paraded naked through the streets and then had her tongue cut out for suggesting that Columbus was of lowly birth.[98] The document also describes how Columbus put down native unrest and revolt: he first ordered a brutal crackdown in which many natives were killed, and then paraded their dismembered bodies through the streets in an attempt to discourage further rebellion.[99]
+
+The neutrality and accuracy of this report and the accusations of Bobadilla towards Columbus and his brothers have been disputed by historians, given the anti-Italian sentiment of the Spaniards and Bobadilla's desire to take over Columbus' position.[100][101][102]
+
+"Columbus's government was characterised by a form of tyranny," Consuelo Varela, a Spanish historian who has seen the document, told journalists. "Even those who loved him had to admit the atrocities that had taken place."[98]
+
+Because of their gross misgovernance, Columbus and his brothers were arrested and imprisoned upon their return to Spain from the third voyage. They lingered in jail for six weeks before King Ferdinand ordered their release. Not long after, the king and queen summoned the Columbus brothers to the Alhambra palace in Granada. There, the royal couple heard the brothers' pleas; restored their freedom and wealth; and, after much persuasion, agreed to fund Columbus's fourth voyage. But the door was firmly shut on Columbus's role as governor. Henceforth Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres was to be the new governor of the West Indies.[103]
+
+Columbus had always claimed the conversion of non-believers as one reason for his explorations, but he grew increasingly religious in his later years. Probably with the assistance of his son Diego and his friend the Carthusian monk Gaspar Gorricio, Columbus produced two books during his later years: a Book of Privileges (1502), detailing and documenting the rewards from the Spanish Crown to which he believed he and his heirs were entitled, and a Book of Prophecies (1505), in which he considered his achievements as an explorer but a fulfillment of Bible prophecy in the context of Christian eschatology.[8][105]
+
+In his later years, Columbus demanded that the Spanish Crown give him 10 percent of all profits made in the new lands, as stipulated in the Capitulations of Santa Fe. Because he had been relieved of his duties as governor, the crown did not feel bound by that contract and his demands were rejected. After his death, his heirs sued the Crown for a part of the profits from trade with America, as well as other rewards. This led to a protracted series of legal disputes known as the pleitos colombinos ("Columbian lawsuits").
+
+During a violent storm on his first return voyage, Columbus, then 41, suffered an attack of what was believed at the time to be gout. In subsequent years, he was plagued with what was thought to be influenza and other fevers, bleeding from the eyes, temporary blindness and prolonged attacks of gout. The attacks increased in duration and severity, sometimes leaving Columbus bedridden for months at a time, and culminated in his death 14 years later.
+
+Based on Columbus's lifestyle and the described symptoms, modern doctors suspect that he suffered from reactive arthritis, rather than gout.[107][108] Reactive arthritis is a joint inflammation caused by intestinal bacterial infections or after acquiring certain sexually transmitted diseases (primarily chlamydia or gonorrhea). "It seems likely that [Columbus] acquired reactive arthritis from food poisoning on one of his ocean voyages because of poor sanitation and improper food preparation," writes Dr. Frank C. Arnett, a rheumatologist and professor of internal medicine, pathology and laboratory medicine the University of Texas Medical School at Houston.[107]
+
+On 20 May 1506, aged probably 54, Columbus died in Valladolid, Spain. His remains were first interred at Valladolid, then at the monastery of La Cartuja in Seville (southern Spain) by the will of his son Diego Colón, who had been governor of Hispaniola. In 1542, the remains were transferred to Colonial Santo Domingo, in the present-day Dominican Republic. In 1795, when France took over the entire island of Hispaniola, Columbus's remains were moved to Havana, Cuba. After Cuba became independent following the Spanish–American War in 1898, the remains were moved back to Spain, to the Cathedral of Seville,[109] where they were placed on an elaborate catafalque.
+
+However, a lead box bearing an inscription identifying "Don Christopher Columbus" and containing bone fragments and a bullet was discovered at Santo Domingo in 1877. These bones were considered legitimate by physician and future United States Assistant Secretary of State John Eugene Osborne, who suggested in 1913 that the remains be placed on a battleship and travel through the Panama Canal as a part of its opening ceremony. Ultimately, it was decided not to do so.[111]
+
+To lay to rest claims that the wrong relics had been moved to Havana and that Columbus's remains had been left buried in the Cathedral of Santo Domingo, DNA samples of the corpse resting in Seville were taken in June 2003 (History Today August 2003) as well as other DNA samples from the remains of his brother Diego and younger son Fernando Colón. Initial observations suggested that the bones did not appear to belong to somebody with the physique or age at death associated with Columbus.[112] DNA extraction proved difficult; only short fragments of mitochondrial DNA could be isolated. The mitochondrial DNA fragments matched corresponding DNA from Columbus's brother, giving support that both individuals had shared the same mother.[113]
+
+Such evidence, together with anthropologic and historic analyses, led the researchers to conclude that the remains found in Seville belonged to Christopher Columbus.[114] The authorities in Santo Domingo have never allowed the remains there to be exhumed, so it is unknown if any of those remains could be from Columbus's body as well.[113][114] The Dominican remains are located in "The Columbus Lighthouse" (Faro a Colón), in Santo Domingo.
+
+The anniversary of Columbus's 1492 landing in the Americas is usually observed on 12 October in Spain and throughout the Americas, except Canada. In Spain it is called the Fiesta Nacional de España y Día de la Hispanidad commemorating the role of Spain in world history, while a number of countries in Latin America celebrate it as Día de la Raza commemorating their common heritage. In the United States it is called Columbus Day and is observed annually on the second Monday in October.
+It was promoted by Italian-Americans to place themselves as part of the history of the US among discrimination against Italians and Catholics.[115]
+There are efforts in the US to rename Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples' Day.
+
+Historically, the English had downplayed Columbus and emphasized the role of the Venetian John Cabot as a pioneer explorer, but for the emerging United States, Cabot made for a poor national hero.[116]
+American navitists preferred Leif Erikson.[115]
+Veneration of Columbus in America dates back to colonial times. The name Columbia for "America" first appeared in a 1738 weekly publication of the debates of the British Parliament.[117] The use of Columbus as a founding figure of New World nations and the use of the word "Columbia", or simply the name "Columbus", spread rapidly after the American Revolution. This was out of a desire to develop a national history and founding myth with less ties to Britain.[118] Columbus's name was given to the federal capital of the United States (District of Columbia), the capital cities of two U.S. states (Ohio and South Carolina), and the Columbia River. Outside the United States the name was used in 1819 for the Gran Colombia, a precursor of the modern Republic of Colombia. Numerous cities, towns, counties, streets, and plazas (called Plaza Colón or Plaza de Colón throughout Latin America and Spain) have been named after him. A candidate for sainthood in the Catholic Church in 1866, celebration of Columbus's legacy perhaps reached a zenith in 1892 with the 400th anniversary of his first arrival in the Americas. Monuments to Columbus like the Columbian Exposition in Chicago and Columbus Circle in New York City were erected throughout the United States and Latin America extolling him.
+The Knights of Columbus is a fraternal organization for Catholic men founded in 1882.
+While its initial membership was mainly Irish, they took Columbus as a symbol of Catholicism in America.[115]
+
+The World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893, commemorated the 400th anniversary of the landing of Christopher Columbus in the Americas.[119] Over 27 million people attended the exposition during its six-month duration.
+
+The United States Postal Service participated in the celebration issuing the first US commemorative postage stamps, a series of 16 postage issues called the Columbian Issue depicting Columbus, Queen Isabella and others in the various stages of his several voyages. The issues range in value from the 1-cent to the 5-dollar denominations. Under Benjamin Harrison and his Postmaster General John Wanamaker the Columbian commemorative stamps were made available and were first issued at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, in 1893. Wanamaker originally introduced the idea of issuing the nation's first commemorative stamp to Harrison, the Congress and the U.S. Post Office. To demonstrate his confidence in the new Columbian commemorative issues Wanamaker purchased $10,000 worth of stamps with his own money. The Columbian Exposition lasted several months, and over $40 million in commemorative postage stamps had been sold.[120] The 400th anniversary Columbian issues were very popular in the United States. A total of two billion stamps were issued for all the Columbian denominations, and 72 percent of these were the two-cent stamps, "Landing of Columbus", which paid the first-class rate for domestic mail at the time.[121]
+
+In 1992, a second Columbian issue was released that was identical to the first to commemorate the 500th anniversary, except for the date in the upper right hand corner of each stamp. These issues were made from the original dies of which the first engraved issues of 1893 were produced. The United States issued the series jointly for the first time with three other countries, Italy in lire, Portugal in escudos and Spain in pesetas.[122]
+
+In 1909, descendants of Columbus undertook to dismantle the Columbus family chapel in Spain and move it to Boalsburg near State College, Pennsylvania, where it may now be visited by the public.[123] At the museum associated with the chapel, there are a number of Columbus relics worthy of note, including the armchair that the "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" used at his chart table.
+
+Columbus's voyages are considered some of the most important events in world history, kickstarting modern globalism and resulting in major demographic, commercial, economic, social, and political changes.[125][126] These explorations resulted in the permanent contact between the two hemispheres. There was a massive exchange of animals, plants, fungi, diseases, technologies, mineral wealth and ideas.[127][128][129][130] Exposed to old world diseases, the indigenous populations of the New world collapsed and were largely replaced by Europeans and Africans who brought with them new methods of farming, business, governance, and religious worship.[131][132]
+
+Though Christopher Columbus came to be considered the discoverer of America in US and European popular culture, his historical legacy is more nuanced. America had been discovered and populated by its indigenous population. Columbus was not even the first European to reach its shores, having been preceded by Erik the Red in 10th-century Greenland and Leif Erikson in 11th-century Vinland at L'Anse aux Meadows.[133][134]  However, Columbus's efforts brought the Americas to the attention of Europe at a time ripe for Europe to act upon. Thus, Columbus was able to initiate the enduring association between the Earth's two major landmasses and their inhabitants. "Columbus's claim to fame isn't that he got there first," explains historian Martin Dugard, "it's that he stayed."[135]
+
+Historians have traditionally argued that Columbus remained convinced until his death that his journeys had been along the east coast of Asia as he originally intended,[136][118] but writer Kirkpatrick Sale argues that a document in the Book of Privileges indicates Columbus knew he found a new continent.[137] Furthermore, his journals from the third voyage call the "land of Paria" a "hitherto unknown" continent.[138] On the other hand, his other writings continued to claim that he had reached Asia, such as a 1502 letter to Pope Alexander VI where he asserted that Cuba was the east coast of Asia.[139] He also rationalized that the new continent of South America was the "Earthly Paradise" that was located "at the end of the Orient".[138] Thus, it remains unclear what his true beliefs were.
+
+The term "pre-Columbian" is usually used to refer to the peoples and cultures of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus and his European successors.
+
+Columbus is often credited with refuting a prevalent belief in a flat Earth. However, this legacy is a popular misconception. To the contrary, the spherical shape of the Earth had been known to scholars since antiquity, and was common knowledge among sailors. Coincidentally, the oldest surviving globe of the Earth, the Erdapfel, was made in 1492, just before Columbus's return to Europe. As such it contains no sign of the Americas and yet demonstrates the common belief in a spherical Earth.[140]
+
+Since the late 20th century, historians have criticized Columbus for initiating colonization and for abuse of natives.[141][142][143][144] Among reasons for this criticism is the poor treatment of the native Taíno people of Hispaniola, whose population declined rapidly after contact with the Spanish. Modern estimates for the pre-Columbian population of Hispaniola vary from several hundred thousand to more than a million.[145] According to the historian Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, by 1548, 56 years after Columbus landed, and 42 years after he died, fewer than 500 Taíno were living on the island.[146] The indigenous population declined rapidly, due primarily to the first pandemic of European endemic diseases, which struck Hispaniola after 1519. The natives had no acquired immunity to these new diseases and suffered high fatalities. There is also documentation that they were overworked.[147][148][149] Historian Andrés Reséndez of University of California, Davis, pushes back against this narrative, and says the available evidence suggests "slavery has emerged as major killer" of the indigenous populations of the Caribbean between 1492 and 1550 more so than diseases such as smallpox, influenza and malaria.[150] He says that indigenous populations did not experience a rebound like European populations did following the Black Death because unlike the latter, the former were subjected to deadly forced labor in gold and silver mines on a massive scale.[151]
+
+The natives of the island were systematically subjugated via the encomienda system implemented by Columbus.[152] Adapted to the New World from Spain, it resembled the feudal system in Medieval Europe, as it was based on a lord offering "protection" to a class of people who owed labor.[153] In addition, Spanish colonists under his rule began to buy and sell natives as slaves, including children.[154]
+
+When natives on Hispaniola began fighting back against their oppressors in 1495, Columbus's men captured 1,500 Arawak men, women, and children in a single raid. The strongest were transported to Spain to be sold as slaves;[155] 40 percent of the 500 shipped died en route.[58] Historian James W. Loewen asserts that "Columbus not only sent the first slaves across the Atlantic, he probably sent more slaves—about five thousand—than any other individual."[156]
+
+Columbus's forced labor system was described by his son, Ferdinand: "In the Cibao, where the gold mines were, every person of fourteen years of age or upward was to pay a large hawk's bell of gold dust; all others were each to pay twenty-five pounds of cotton. Whenever an Indian delivered his tribute, he was to receive a brass or copper token which he must wear about his neck as proof that he had made his payment; any Indian found without such a token was to be punished." [157] A claim popularized by Hans Koning's 1976 biography of Columbus and Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States that the said punishment was cutting off the hands of those without tokens, letting them bleed to death.[58][158] A letter from Ferdinand and Isabella on the tribute calls for a light punishment. [159] Thousands of natives committed suicide by poison to escape their persecution.[155]
+
+During his brief reign, Columbus executed Spanish colonists for minor crimes, and used dismemberment as another form of punishment.[160]
+
+When Columbus fell ill in 1495, "what little restraint he had maintained over his men disappeared as he went through a lengthy period of recuperation. The troops went wild, stealing, killing, raping, and torturing natives, trying to force them to divulge the whereabouts of the imagined treasure-houses of gold."[161] According to Las Casas, 50,000 natives perished during this period, although Las Casas' account has been criticized by modern historians as lacking objectivity and his population estimates are often dismissed.[162]  Upon his recovery, Columbus organized his troops' efforts, forming a squadron of several hundred heavily armed men and more than twenty attack dogs. Dogs were used to hunt down natives who attempted to flee.[155] Columbus's men tore across the land, killing thousands of sick and unarmed natives. Soldiers would use their captives for sword practice, attempting to decapitate them or cut them in half with a single blow.[163]
+
+The Arawaks attempted to fight back against Columbus's men but lacked their armor, guns, swords, and horses. When taken prisoner, they were hanged or burned to death. Desperation led to mass suicides and infanticide among the natives. Howard Zinn states, although without quoting any sources, in just two years under Columbus's governorship, over 125,000 of the 250,000–300,000 natives in Haiti were dead,[58] many died from lethal forced labor in the mines, in which a third of workers died every six months.[164] Within three decades, the surviving Arawak population numbered only in the hundreds.[164] "Virtually every member of the gentle race ... had been wiped out."[155] Disease, warfare and harsh enslavement contributed to the depopulation.[165][166][167]
+
+Within indigenous circles, Columbus is often viewed as a key agent of genocide.[168] Samuel Eliot Morison, a Harvard historian and author of a multivolume biography on Columbus, writes, "The cruel policy initiated by Columbus and pursued by his successors resulted in complete genocide."[169] Loewen laments that while "Haiti under the Spanish is one of the primary instances of genocide in all human history", only one major history text he reviewed mentions Columbus's role in it.[170]
+
+Some of these accounts may be part of the Black Legend, an intentional defamation of Spain,[171][172][173] while others challenge the genocide narrative.[160][174] Noble David Cook, writing about the Black Legend and the conquest of the Americas wrote, "There were too few Spaniards to have killed the millions who were reported to have died in the first century after Old and New World contact". He instead estimates that the death toll was caused by diseases like smallpox,[175] which according to some estimates had an 80–90% fatality rate in Native American populations.[176] Disease played a significant role in the destruction of the natives. Indirect evidence suggests that some serious illness may have arrived with the 1500 colonists who accompanied Columbus's second expedition in 1493.
+
+By the end of 1494, disease and famine had claimed two-thirds of the Spanish settlers.[148][177] A native Nahuatl account depicted the social breakdown that accompanied the pandemics: "A great many died from this plague, and many others died of hunger. They could not get up to search for food, and everyone else was too sick to care for them, so they starved to death in their beds."[178] When the pandemic finally struck in 1519, it wiped out much of the remaining native population.[179][180] Charles C. Mann wrote "It was as if the suffering these diseases had caused in Eurasia over the past millennia were concentrated into the span of decades."[181]
+
+Some historians have argued that, while brutal, Columbus was simply a product of his time, and being a figure of the 15th century, should not be judged by the morality of the 20th century.[182]
+
+Biographers and historians have a wide range of opinions over Columbus's expertise and experience navigating and captaining ships. European works ranging from the 1890s to 1980s support his experience and skill as among the best in Genoa, while American works over a similar timeframe picture the explorer as an untrained entrepreneur, only having minor crew or passenger experience prior to his noted journeys.[183]
+
+Although an abundance of artwork involving Christopher Columbus exists, no authentic contemporary portrait has been found.[184] James W. Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me, believes the various posthumous portraits have no historical value.[185]
+
+Sometime between 1531 and 1536, Alejo Fernández painted an altarpiece, The Virgin of the Navigators, that includes a depiction of Columbus. The painting was commissioned for a chapel in Seville's Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) and remains there, as the earliest known painting about the voyages of Columbus.[186][187]
+
+At the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, 71 alleged portraits of Columbus were displayed; most did not match contemporary descriptions.[188] These writings describe him as having reddish or blond hair, which turned to white early in his life, light colored eyes,[189] as well as being a lighter-skinned person with too much sun exposure turning his face red. Accounts consistently describe Columbus as a large and physically strong man of some six feet (1.83 metres) or more in height, easily taller than the average European of his day.[190]
+
+The most iconic image of Columbus is a portrait by Sebastiano del Piombo, which has been reproduced in many textbooks. It agrees with descriptions of Columbus in that it shows a large man with auburn hair, but the painting dates from 1519 and cannot, therefore, have been painted from life. Furthermore, the inscription identifying the subject as Columbus was probably added later, and the face shown differs from other images, including that of the "Virgin of the Navigators."[191]

en/1117.html.txt

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+
+
+Christ the Redeemer (Portuguese: Cristo Redentor, standard Brazilian Portuguese: [ˈkɾistu ʁedenˈtoʁ], local pronunciation: [ˈkɾiɕtŭ̻ xe̞denˈtoɦ]) is an Art Deco statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, created by French sculptor Paul Landowski and built by Brazilian engineer Heitor da Silva Costa, in collaboration with French engineer Albert Caquot. Romanian sculptor Gheorghe Leonida fashioned the face. Constructed between 1922 and 1931, the statue is 30 metres (98 ft) high, excluding its 8-metre (26 ft) pedestal. The arms stretch 28 metres (92 ft) wide.[1][2]
+
+The statue weighs 635 metric tons (625 long, 700 short tons), and is located at the peak of the 700-metre (2,300 ft) Corcovado mountain in the Tijuca Forest National Park overlooking the city of Rio de Janeiro. A symbol of Christianity across the world, the statue has also become a cultural icon of both Rio de Janeiro and Brazil, and is listed as one of the New7Wonders of the World.[3] It is made of reinforced concrete and soapstone.[4][5][6]
+
+Vincentian priest Pedro Maria Boss first suggested placing a Christian monument on Mount Corcovado in the mid 1850s to honor Princess Isabel, regent of Brazil and the daughter of Emperor Pedro II, but the project was not approved.[1] In 1889, the country became a republic, and due to the separation of church and state, the proposed statue was dismissed.[7]
+
+The Catholic Circle[clarification needed] of Rio made a second proposal for a landmark statue on the mountain in 1920.[8] The group organized an event called Semana do Monumento ("Monument Week") to attract donations and collect signatures to support the building of the statue. The organization was motivated by what they perceived as 'Godlessness' in the society. The donations came mostly from Brazilian Catholics.[4] The designs considered for the "Statue of the Christ" included a representation of the Christian cross, a statue of Jesus with a globe in his hands, and a pedestal symbolizing the world.[9] The statue of Christ the Redeemer with open arms, a symbol of peace, was chosen.
+
+Local engineer Heitor da Silva Costa designed the statue. French sculptor Paul Landowski created the work.[10]
+
+In 1922, Landowski commissioned fellow Parisian Romanian sculptor Gheorghe Leonida, who studied sculpture at the Fine Arts Conservatory in Bucharest and in Italy.[11]
+
+A group of engineers and technicians studied Landowski's submissions and felt building the structure of reinforced concrete (designed by Albert Caquot) instead of steel was more suitable for the cross-shaped statue. The concrete making up the base was supplied from Limhamn, Sweden.[12][13] The outer layers are soapstone, chosen for its enduring qualities and ease of use.[5] Construction took nine years, from 1922 to 1931 and cost the equivalent of US$250,000 (equivalent to $3,600,000 in 2019) and the monument opened on October 12, 1931.[5][6] During the opening ceremony, the statue was to be lit by a battery of floodlights turned on remotely by Italian shortwave radio inventor Guglielmo Marconi, stationed 9,200 kilometres (5,700 mi) away in Rome but because of bad weather, the lights were activated on-site.[8]
+
+In October 2006, on the 75th anniversary of the statue's completion, Archbishop of Rio, Cardinal Eusebio Oscar Scheid, consecrated a chapel, named after Brazil's patron saint—Our Lady of the Apparition, under the statue, allowing Catholics to hold baptisms and weddings there.[6]
+
+Lightning struck the statue during a violent thunderstorm on February 10, 2008, causing some damage to the fingers, head and eyebrows. The Rio de Janeiro state government initiated a restoration effort to replace some of the outer soapstone layers and repair the lightning rods on the statue. Lightning damaged it again, on January 17, 2014, dislodging a finger on the right hand.[14][15][16][17]
+
+In 2010, a massive restoration of the statue began. Work included cleaning, replacing the mortar and soapstone on the exterior, restoring iron in the internal structure, and waterproofing the monument. Vandals attacked the statue during renovation, spraying paint along the arm. Mayor Eduardo Paes called the act "a crime against the nation". The culprits later apologized and presented themselves to the police.[18][19][20]
+
+In reference to Brazil striker Ronaldo's usual goal celebration of both arms outstretched, the Pirelli tyre company ran a 1998 commercial in which he replaced the statue while in an Inter Milan strip.[21] The commercial was controversial with the Catholic Church.[22]
+
+In 1990, several organizations, including the Archdiocese of Rio de Janeiro, media company Grupo Globo, oil company Shell do Brasil, environmental regulator IBAMA, National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage, and the city government of Rio de Janeiro entered an agreement to conduct restoration work.
+
+More work on the statue and its environs was conducted in 2003 and early 2010. In 2003, a set of escalators, walkways, and elevators were installed to facilitate access to the platform surrounding the statue. The four-month restoration in 2010[23] focused on the statue itself. The statue's internal structure was renovated and its soapstone mosaic covering was restored by removing a crust of fungi and other microorganisms and repairing small cracks. The lightning rods located in the statue's head and arms were also repaired, and new lighting fixtures were installed at the foot of the statue.[24]
+
+The restoration involved one hundred people and used more than 60,000 pieces of stone taken from the same quarry as the original statue.[23]  During the unveiling of the restored statue, it was illuminated with green-and-yellow lighting in support of the Brazil national football team playing in the 2010 FIFA World Cup.[23]
+
+Maintenance work needs to be conducted periodically due to the strong winds and erosion to which the statue is exposed, as well as lightning strikes.[25] The original pale stone is no longer available in sufficient quantity, and replacement stones are increasingly darker in hue.[26]
+
+The statue
+
+Access escalators
+
+Christ the Redeemer after restoration
+
+The statue illuminated in yellow and green, the colors of Brazil, during the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
+
+Christ the Redeemer lit in the colours of the French flag after the November 2015 Paris attacks
+
+The Corcovado and Christ the Redeemer as seen from Sugarloaf Mountain.
+
+Christ the Redeemer with moon in the background.

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+
+
+A chromosome is a DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) molecule with part or all of the genetic material (genome) of an organism. Most eukaryotic chromosomes include packaging proteins which, aided by chaperone proteins, bind to and condense the DNA molecule to prevent it from becoming an unmanageable tangle.[1][2] This three-dimensional genome structure plays a significant role in transcriptional regulation.[3]
+
+Chromosomes are normally visible under a light microscope only when the cell is undergoing the metaphase of cell division (where all chromosomes are aligned in the center of the cell in their condensed form).[4] Before this happens, every chromosome is copied once (S phase), and the copy is joined to the original by a centromere, resulting either in an X-shaped structure (pictured here) if the centromere is located in the middle of the chromosome or a two-arm structure if the centromere is located near one of the ends. The original chromosome and the copy are now called sister chromatids. During metaphase the X-shape structure is called a metaphase chromosome. In this highly condensed form chromosomes are easiest to distinguish and study.[5] In animal cells, chromosomes reach their highest compaction level in anaphase during chromosome segregation.[6]
+
+Chromosomal recombination during meiosis and subsequent sexual reproduction play a significant role in genetic diversity. If these structures are manipulated incorrectly, through processes known as chromosomal instability and translocation, the cell may undergo mitotic catastrophe. Usually, this will make the cell initiate apoptosis leading to its own death, but sometimes mutations in the cell hamper this process and thus cause progression of cancer.
+
+Some use the term chromosome in a wider sense, to refer to the individualized portions of chromatin in cells, either visible or not under light microscopy. Others use the concept in a narrower sense, to refer to the individualized portions of chromatin during cell division, visible under light microscopy due to high condensation.
+
+The word chromosome (/ˈkroʊməˌsoʊm, -ˌzoʊm/[7][8]) comes from the Greek χρῶμα (chroma, "colour") and σῶμα (soma, "body"), describing their strong staining by particular dyes.[9] The term was coined by the German scientist von Waldeyer-Hartz,[10] referring to the term chromatin, which was itself introduced by Walther Flemming, who discovered cell division.
+
+Some of the early karyological terms have become outdated.[11][12] For example, Chromatin (Flemming 1880) and Chromosom (Waldeyer 1888), both ascribe color to a non-colored state.[13]
+
+The German scientists Schleiden,[5] Virchow and Bütschli were among the first scientists who recognized the structures now familiar as chromosomes.[14]
+
+In a series of experiments beginning in the mid-1880s, Theodor Boveri gave the definitive demonstration that chromosomes are the vectors of heredity; his two principles or postulates were the continuity of chromosomes and the individuality of chromosomes.[citation needed][further explanation needed] It is the second of these principles that was so original.[citation needed] Wilhelm Roux suggested that each chromosome carries a different genetic configuration , and Boveri was able to test and confirm this hypothesis. Aided by the rediscovery at the start of the 1900s of Gregor Mendel's earlier work, Boveri was able to point out the connection between the rules of inheritance and the behaviour of the chromosomes. Boveri influenced two generations of American cytologists: Edmund Beecher Wilson, Nettie Stevens, Walter Sutton and Theophilus Painter were all influenced by Boveri (Wilson, Stevens, and Painter actually worked with him).[15]
+
+In his famous textbook The Cell in Development and Heredity, Wilson linked together the independent work of Boveri and Sutton (both around 1902) by naming the chromosome theory of inheritance the Boveri–Sutton chromosome theory (the names are sometimes reversed).[16] Ernst Mayr remarks that the theory was hotly contested by some famous geneticists: William Bateson, Wilhelm Johannsen, Richard Goldschmidt and T.H. Morgan, all of a rather dogmatic turn of mind. Eventually, complete proof came from chromosome maps in Morgan's own lab.[17]
+
+The number of human chromosomes was published in 1923 by Theophilus Painter. By inspection through the microscope, he counted 24 pairs, which would mean 48 chromosomes. His error was copied by others and it was not until 1956 that the true number, 46, was determined by Indonesia-born cytogeneticist Joe Hin Tjio.[18]
+
+The prokaryotes – bacteria and archaea – typically have a single circular chromosome, but many variations exist.[19] The chromosomes of most bacteria, which some authors prefer to call genophores, can range in size from only 130,000 base pairs in the endosymbiotic bacteria Candidatus Hodgkinia cicadicola[20] and Candidatus Tremblaya princeps,[21] to more than 14,000,000 base pairs in the soil-dwelling bacterium Sorangium cellulosum.[22] Spirochaetes of the genus Borrelia are a notable exception to this arrangement, with bacteria such as Borrelia burgdorferi, the cause of Lyme disease, containing a single linear chromosome.[23]
+
+Prokaryotic chromosomes have less sequence-based structure than eukaryotes. Bacteria typically have a one-point (the origin of replication) from which replication starts, whereas some archaea contain multiple replication origins.[24] The genes in prokaryotes are often organized in operons, and do not usually contain introns, unlike eukaryotes.
+
+Prokaryotes do not possess nuclei. Instead, their DNA is organized into a structure called the nucleoid.[25][26] The nucleoid is a distinct structure and occupies a defined region of the bacterial cell. This structure is, however, dynamic and is maintained and remodeled by the actions of a range of histone-like proteins, which associate with the bacterial chromosome.[27] In archaea, the DNA in chromosomes is even more organized, with the DNA packaged within structures similar to eukaryotic nucleosomes.[28][29]
+
+Certain bacteria also contain plasmids or other extrachromosomal DNA. These are circular structures in the cytoplasm that contain cellular DNA and play a role in horizontal gene transfer.[5] In prokaryotes (see nucleoids) and viruses,[30] the DNA is often densely packed and organized; in the case of archaea, by homology to eukaryotic histones, and in the case of bacteria, by histone-like proteins.
+
+Bacterial chromosomes tend to be tethered to the plasma membrane of the bacteria. In molecular biology application, this allows for its isolation from plasmid DNA by centrifugation of lysed bacteria and pelleting of the membranes (and the attached DNA).
+
+Prokaryotic chromosomes and plasmids are, like eukaryotic DNA, generally supercoiled. The DNA must first be released into its relaxed state for access for transcription, regulation, and replication.
+
+Chromosomes in eukaryotes are composed of chromatin fiber. Chromatin fiber is made of nucleosomes (histone octamers with part of a DNA strand attached to and wrapped around it). Chromatin fibers are packaged by proteins into a condensed structure called chromatin. Chromatin contains the vast majority of DNA, but a small amount inherited maternally, can be found in the mitochondria. Chromatin is present in most cells, with a few exceptions, for example, red blood cells.
+
+Chromatin allows the very long DNA molecules to fit into the cell nucleus. During cell division chromatin condenses further to form microscopically visible chromosomes. The structure of chromosomes varies through the cell cycle. During cellular division chromosomes are replicated, divided, and passed successfully to their daughter cells so as to ensure the genetic diversity and survival of their progeny. Chromosomes may exist as either duplicated or unduplicated. Unduplicated chromosomes are single double helixes, whereas duplicated chromosomes contain two identical copies (called chromatids or sister chromatids) joined by a centromere.
+
+Eukaryotes (cells with nuclei such as those found in plants, fungi, and animals) possess multiple large linear chromosomes contained in the cell's nucleus. Each chromosome has one centromere, with one or two arms projecting from the centromere, although, under most circumstances, these arms are not visible as such. In addition, most eukaryotes have a small circular mitochondrial genome, and some eukaryotes may have additional small circular or linear cytoplasmic chromosomes.
+
+In the nuclear chromosomes of eukaryotes, the uncondensed DNA exists in a semi-ordered structure, where it is wrapped around histones (structural proteins), forming a composite material called chromatin.
+
+During interphase (the period of the cell cycle where the cell is not dividing), two types of chromatin can be distinguished:
+
+In the early stages of mitosis or meiosis (cell division), the chromatin double helix become more and more condensed. They cease to function as accessible genetic material (transcription stops) and become a compact transportable form. This compact form makes the individual chromosomes visible, and they form the classic four arm structure, a pair of sister chromatids attached to each other at the centromere. The shorter arms are called p arms (from the French petit, small) and the longer arms are called q arms (q follows p in the Latin alphabet; q-g "grande"; alternatively it is sometimes said q is short for queue meaning tail in French[31]). This is the only natural context in which individual chromosomes are visible with an optical microscope.
+
+Mitotic metaphase chromosomes are best described by a linearly organized longitudinally compressed array of consecutive chromatin loops.[32]
+
+During mitosis, microtubules grow from centrosomes located at opposite ends of the cell and also attach to the centromere at specialized structures called kinetochores, one of which is present on each sister chromatid. A special DNA base sequence in the region of the kinetochores provides, along with special proteins, longer-lasting attachment in this region. The microtubules then pull the chromatids apart toward the centrosomes, so that each daughter cell inherits one set of chromatids. Once the cells have divided, the chromatids are uncoiled and DNA can again be transcribed. In spite of their appearance, chromosomes are structurally highly condensed, which enables these giant DNA structures to be contained within a cell nucleus.
+
+Chromosomes in humans can be divided into two types: autosomes (body chromosome(s)) and allosome (sex chromosome(s)). Certain genetic traits are linked to a person's sex and are passed on through the sex chromosomes. The autosomes contain the rest of the genetic hereditary information. All act in the same way during cell division. Human cells have 23 pairs of chromosomes (22 pairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes), giving a total of 46 per cell. In addition to these, human cells have many hundreds of copies of the mitochondrial genome. Sequencing of the human genome has provided a great deal of information about each of the chromosomes. Below is a table compiling statistics for the chromosomes, based on the Sanger Institute's human genome information in the Vertebrate Genome Annotation (VEGA) database.[33] Number of genes is an estimate, as it is in part based on gene predictions. Total chromosome length is an estimate as well, based on the estimated size of unsequenced heterochromatin regions.
+
+These tables give the total number of chromosomes (including sex chromosomes) in a cell nucleus. For example, most eukaryotes are diploid, like humans who have 22 different types of autosomes, each present as two homologous pairs, and two sex chromosomes. This gives 46 chromosomes in total. Other organisms have more than two copies of their chromosome types, such as bread wheat, which is hexaploid and has six copies of seven different chromosome types – 42 chromosomes in total.
+
+Normal members of a particular eukaryotic species all have the same number of nuclear chromosomes (see the table). Other eukaryotic chromosomes, i.e., mitochondrial and plasmid-like small chromosomes, are much more variable in number, and there may be thousands of copies per cell.
+
+Asexually reproducing species have one set of chromosomes that are the same in all body cells. However, asexual species can be either haploid or diploid.
+
+Sexually reproducing species have somatic cells (body cells), which are diploid [2n] having two sets of chromosomes (23 pairs in humans with one set of 23 chromosomes from each parent), one set from the mother and one from the father. Gametes, reproductive cells, are haploid [n]: They have one set of chromosomes. Gametes are produced by meiosis of a diploid germ line cell. During meiosis, the matching chromosomes of father and mother can exchange small parts of themselves (crossover), and thus create new chromosomes that are not inherited solely from either parent. When a male and a female gamete merge (fertilization), a new diploid organism is formed.
+
+Some animal and plant species are polyploid [Xn]: They have more than two sets of homologous chromosomes. Plants important in agriculture such as tobacco or wheat are often polyploid, compared to their ancestral species. Wheat has a haploid number of seven chromosomes, still seen in some cultivars as well as the wild progenitors. The more-common pasta and bread wheat types are polyploid, having 28 (tetraploid) and 42 (hexaploid) chromosomes, compared to the 14 (diploid) chromosomes in the wild wheat.[62]
+
+Prokaryote species generally have one copy of each major chromosome, but most cells can easily survive with multiple copies.[63] For example, Buchnera, a symbiont of aphids has multiple copies of its chromosome, ranging from 10–400 copies per cell.[64] However, in some large bacteria, such as Epulopiscium fishelsoni up to 100,000 copies of the chromosome can be present.[65] Plasmids and plasmid-like small chromosomes are, as in eukaryotes, highly variable in copy number. The number of plasmids in the cell is almost entirely determined by the rate of division of the plasmid – fast division causes high copy number.
+
+In general, the karyotype is the characteristic chromosome complement of a eukaryote species.[66] The preparation and study of karyotypes is part of cytogenetics.
+
+Although the replication and transcription of DNA is highly standardized in eukaryotes, the same cannot be said for their karyotypes, which are often highly variable. There may be variation between species in chromosome number and in detailed organization.
+In some cases, there is significant variation within species. Often there is:
+
+Also, variation in karyotype may occur during development from the fertilized egg.
+
+The technique of determining the karyotype is usually called karyotyping. Cells can be locked part-way through division (in metaphase) in vitro (in a reaction vial) with colchicine. These cells are then stained, photographed, and arranged into a karyogram, with the set of chromosomes arranged, autosomes in order of length, and sex chromosomes (here X/Y) at the end.
+
+Like many sexually reproducing species, humans have special gonosomes (sex chromosomes, in contrast to autosomes). These are XX in females and XY in males.
+
+Investigation into the human karyotype took many years to settle the most basic question: How many chromosomes does a normal diploid human cell contain? In 1912, Hans von Winiwarter reported 47 chromosomes in spermatogonia and 48 in oogonia, concluding an XX/XO sex determination mechanism.[67] Painter in 1922 was not certain whether the diploid number of man is 46 or 48, at first favouring 46.[68] He revised his opinion later from 46 to 48, and he correctly insisted on humans having an XX/XY system.[69]
+
+New techniques were needed to definitively solve the problem:
+
+It took until 1954 before the human diploid number was confirmed as 46.[70][71] Considering the techniques of Winiwarter and Painter, their results were quite remarkable.[72] Chimpanzees, the closest living relatives to modern humans, have 48 chromosomes as do the other great apes: in humans two chromosomes fused to form chromosome 2.
+
+Chromosomal aberrations are disruptions in the normal chromosomal content of a cell and are a major cause of genetic conditions in humans, such as Down syndrome, although most aberrations have little to no effect. Some chromosome abnormalities do not cause disease in carriers, such as translocations, or chromosomal inversions, although they may lead to a higher chance of bearing a child with a chromosome disorder. Abnormal numbers of chromosomes or chromosome sets, called aneuploidy, may be lethal or may give rise to genetic disorders.[73] Genetic counseling is offered for families that may carry a chromosome rearrangement.
+
+The gain or loss of DNA from chromosomes can lead to a variety of genetic disorders. Human examples include:
+
+Exposure of males to certain lifestyle, environmental and/or occupational hazards may increase the risk of aneuploid spermatozoa.[77]  In particular, risk of aneuploidy is increased by tobacco smoking,[78][79] and occupational exposure to benzene,[80] insecticides,[81][82]  and perfluorinated compounds.[83]  Increased aneuploidy is often associated with increased DNA damage in spermatozoa.

en/1119.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,86 @@
+
+
+A chromosome is a DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) molecule with part or all of the genetic material (genome) of an organism. Most eukaryotic chromosomes include packaging proteins which, aided by chaperone proteins, bind to and condense the DNA molecule to prevent it from becoming an unmanageable tangle.[1][2] This three-dimensional genome structure plays a significant role in transcriptional regulation.[3]
+
+Chromosomes are normally visible under a light microscope only when the cell is undergoing the metaphase of cell division (where all chromosomes are aligned in the center of the cell in their condensed form).[4] Before this happens, every chromosome is copied once (S phase), and the copy is joined to the original by a centromere, resulting either in an X-shaped structure (pictured here) if the centromere is located in the middle of the chromosome or a two-arm structure if the centromere is located near one of the ends. The original chromosome and the copy are now called sister chromatids. During metaphase the X-shape structure is called a metaphase chromosome. In this highly condensed form chromosomes are easiest to distinguish and study.[5] In animal cells, chromosomes reach their highest compaction level in anaphase during chromosome segregation.[6]
+
+Chromosomal recombination during meiosis and subsequent sexual reproduction play a significant role in genetic diversity. If these structures are manipulated incorrectly, through processes known as chromosomal instability and translocation, the cell may undergo mitotic catastrophe. Usually, this will make the cell initiate apoptosis leading to its own death, but sometimes mutations in the cell hamper this process and thus cause progression of cancer.
+
+Some use the term chromosome in a wider sense, to refer to the individualized portions of chromatin in cells, either visible or not under light microscopy. Others use the concept in a narrower sense, to refer to the individualized portions of chromatin during cell division, visible under light microscopy due to high condensation.
+
+The word chromosome (/ˈkroʊməˌsoʊm, -ˌzoʊm/[7][8]) comes from the Greek χρῶμα (chroma, "colour") and σῶμα (soma, "body"), describing their strong staining by particular dyes.[9] The term was coined by the German scientist von Waldeyer-Hartz,[10] referring to the term chromatin, which was itself introduced by Walther Flemming, who discovered cell division.
+
+Some of the early karyological terms have become outdated.[11][12] For example, Chromatin (Flemming 1880) and Chromosom (Waldeyer 1888), both ascribe color to a non-colored state.[13]
+
+The German scientists Schleiden,[5] Virchow and Bütschli were among the first scientists who recognized the structures now familiar as chromosomes.[14]
+
+In a series of experiments beginning in the mid-1880s, Theodor Boveri gave the definitive demonstration that chromosomes are the vectors of heredity; his two principles or postulates were the continuity of chromosomes and the individuality of chromosomes.[citation needed][further explanation needed] It is the second of these principles that was so original.[citation needed] Wilhelm Roux suggested that each chromosome carries a different genetic configuration , and Boveri was able to test and confirm this hypothesis. Aided by the rediscovery at the start of the 1900s of Gregor Mendel's earlier work, Boveri was able to point out the connection between the rules of inheritance and the behaviour of the chromosomes. Boveri influenced two generations of American cytologists: Edmund Beecher Wilson, Nettie Stevens, Walter Sutton and Theophilus Painter were all influenced by Boveri (Wilson, Stevens, and Painter actually worked with him).[15]
+
+In his famous textbook The Cell in Development and Heredity, Wilson linked together the independent work of Boveri and Sutton (both around 1902) by naming the chromosome theory of inheritance the Boveri–Sutton chromosome theory (the names are sometimes reversed).[16] Ernst Mayr remarks that the theory was hotly contested by some famous geneticists: William Bateson, Wilhelm Johannsen, Richard Goldschmidt and T.H. Morgan, all of a rather dogmatic turn of mind. Eventually, complete proof came from chromosome maps in Morgan's own lab.[17]
+
+The number of human chromosomes was published in 1923 by Theophilus Painter. By inspection through the microscope, he counted 24 pairs, which would mean 48 chromosomes. His error was copied by others and it was not until 1956 that the true number, 46, was determined by Indonesia-born cytogeneticist Joe Hin Tjio.[18]
+
+The prokaryotes – bacteria and archaea – typically have a single circular chromosome, but many variations exist.[19] The chromosomes of most bacteria, which some authors prefer to call genophores, can range in size from only 130,000 base pairs in the endosymbiotic bacteria Candidatus Hodgkinia cicadicola[20] and Candidatus Tremblaya princeps,[21] to more than 14,000,000 base pairs in the soil-dwelling bacterium Sorangium cellulosum.[22] Spirochaetes of the genus Borrelia are a notable exception to this arrangement, with bacteria such as Borrelia burgdorferi, the cause of Lyme disease, containing a single linear chromosome.[23]
+
+Prokaryotic chromosomes have less sequence-based structure than eukaryotes. Bacteria typically have a one-point (the origin of replication) from which replication starts, whereas some archaea contain multiple replication origins.[24] The genes in prokaryotes are often organized in operons, and do not usually contain introns, unlike eukaryotes.
+
+Prokaryotes do not possess nuclei. Instead, their DNA is organized into a structure called the nucleoid.[25][26] The nucleoid is a distinct structure and occupies a defined region of the bacterial cell. This structure is, however, dynamic and is maintained and remodeled by the actions of a range of histone-like proteins, which associate with the bacterial chromosome.[27] In archaea, the DNA in chromosomes is even more organized, with the DNA packaged within structures similar to eukaryotic nucleosomes.[28][29]
+
+Certain bacteria also contain plasmids or other extrachromosomal DNA. These are circular structures in the cytoplasm that contain cellular DNA and play a role in horizontal gene transfer.[5] In prokaryotes (see nucleoids) and viruses,[30] the DNA is often densely packed and organized; in the case of archaea, by homology to eukaryotic histones, and in the case of bacteria, by histone-like proteins.
+
+Bacterial chromosomes tend to be tethered to the plasma membrane of the bacteria. In molecular biology application, this allows for its isolation from plasmid DNA by centrifugation of lysed bacteria and pelleting of the membranes (and the attached DNA).
+
+Prokaryotic chromosomes and plasmids are, like eukaryotic DNA, generally supercoiled. The DNA must first be released into its relaxed state for access for transcription, regulation, and replication.
+
+Chromosomes in eukaryotes are composed of chromatin fiber. Chromatin fiber is made of nucleosomes (histone octamers with part of a DNA strand attached to and wrapped around it). Chromatin fibers are packaged by proteins into a condensed structure called chromatin. Chromatin contains the vast majority of DNA, but a small amount inherited maternally, can be found in the mitochondria. Chromatin is present in most cells, with a few exceptions, for example, red blood cells.
+
+Chromatin allows the very long DNA molecules to fit into the cell nucleus. During cell division chromatin condenses further to form microscopically visible chromosomes. The structure of chromosomes varies through the cell cycle. During cellular division chromosomes are replicated, divided, and passed successfully to their daughter cells so as to ensure the genetic diversity and survival of their progeny. Chromosomes may exist as either duplicated or unduplicated. Unduplicated chromosomes are single double helixes, whereas duplicated chromosomes contain two identical copies (called chromatids or sister chromatids) joined by a centromere.
+
+Eukaryotes (cells with nuclei such as those found in plants, fungi, and animals) possess multiple large linear chromosomes contained in the cell's nucleus. Each chromosome has one centromere, with one or two arms projecting from the centromere, although, under most circumstances, these arms are not visible as such. In addition, most eukaryotes have a small circular mitochondrial genome, and some eukaryotes may have additional small circular or linear cytoplasmic chromosomes.
+
+In the nuclear chromosomes of eukaryotes, the uncondensed DNA exists in a semi-ordered structure, where it is wrapped around histones (structural proteins), forming a composite material called chromatin.
+
+During interphase (the period of the cell cycle where the cell is not dividing), two types of chromatin can be distinguished:
+
+In the early stages of mitosis or meiosis (cell division), the chromatin double helix become more and more condensed. They cease to function as accessible genetic material (transcription stops) and become a compact transportable form. This compact form makes the individual chromosomes visible, and they form the classic four arm structure, a pair of sister chromatids attached to each other at the centromere. The shorter arms are called p arms (from the French petit, small) and the longer arms are called q arms (q follows p in the Latin alphabet; q-g "grande"; alternatively it is sometimes said q is short for queue meaning tail in French[31]). This is the only natural context in which individual chromosomes are visible with an optical microscope.
+
+Mitotic metaphase chromosomes are best described by a linearly organized longitudinally compressed array of consecutive chromatin loops.[32]
+
+During mitosis, microtubules grow from centrosomes located at opposite ends of the cell and also attach to the centromere at specialized structures called kinetochores, one of which is present on each sister chromatid. A special DNA base sequence in the region of the kinetochores provides, along with special proteins, longer-lasting attachment in this region. The microtubules then pull the chromatids apart toward the centrosomes, so that each daughter cell inherits one set of chromatids. Once the cells have divided, the chromatids are uncoiled and DNA can again be transcribed. In spite of their appearance, chromosomes are structurally highly condensed, which enables these giant DNA structures to be contained within a cell nucleus.
+
+Chromosomes in humans can be divided into two types: autosomes (body chromosome(s)) and allosome (sex chromosome(s)). Certain genetic traits are linked to a person's sex and are passed on through the sex chromosomes. The autosomes contain the rest of the genetic hereditary information. All act in the same way during cell division. Human cells have 23 pairs of chromosomes (22 pairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes), giving a total of 46 per cell. In addition to these, human cells have many hundreds of copies of the mitochondrial genome. Sequencing of the human genome has provided a great deal of information about each of the chromosomes. Below is a table compiling statistics for the chromosomes, based on the Sanger Institute's human genome information in the Vertebrate Genome Annotation (VEGA) database.[33] Number of genes is an estimate, as it is in part based on gene predictions. Total chromosome length is an estimate as well, based on the estimated size of unsequenced heterochromatin regions.
+
+These tables give the total number of chromosomes (including sex chromosomes) in a cell nucleus. For example, most eukaryotes are diploid, like humans who have 22 different types of autosomes, each present as two homologous pairs, and two sex chromosomes. This gives 46 chromosomes in total. Other organisms have more than two copies of their chromosome types, such as bread wheat, which is hexaploid and has six copies of seven different chromosome types – 42 chromosomes in total.
+
+Normal members of a particular eukaryotic species all have the same number of nuclear chromosomes (see the table). Other eukaryotic chromosomes, i.e., mitochondrial and plasmid-like small chromosomes, are much more variable in number, and there may be thousands of copies per cell.
+
+Asexually reproducing species have one set of chromosomes that are the same in all body cells. However, asexual species can be either haploid or diploid.
+
+Sexually reproducing species have somatic cells (body cells), which are diploid [2n] having two sets of chromosomes (23 pairs in humans with one set of 23 chromosomes from each parent), one set from the mother and one from the father. Gametes, reproductive cells, are haploid [n]: They have one set of chromosomes. Gametes are produced by meiosis of a diploid germ line cell. During meiosis, the matching chromosomes of father and mother can exchange small parts of themselves (crossover), and thus create new chromosomes that are not inherited solely from either parent. When a male and a female gamete merge (fertilization), a new diploid organism is formed.
+
+Some animal and plant species are polyploid [Xn]: They have more than two sets of homologous chromosomes. Plants important in agriculture such as tobacco or wheat are often polyploid, compared to their ancestral species. Wheat has a haploid number of seven chromosomes, still seen in some cultivars as well as the wild progenitors. The more-common pasta and bread wheat types are polyploid, having 28 (tetraploid) and 42 (hexaploid) chromosomes, compared to the 14 (diploid) chromosomes in the wild wheat.[62]
+
+Prokaryote species generally have one copy of each major chromosome, but most cells can easily survive with multiple copies.[63] For example, Buchnera, a symbiont of aphids has multiple copies of its chromosome, ranging from 10–400 copies per cell.[64] However, in some large bacteria, such as Epulopiscium fishelsoni up to 100,000 copies of the chromosome can be present.[65] Plasmids and plasmid-like small chromosomes are, as in eukaryotes, highly variable in copy number. The number of plasmids in the cell is almost entirely determined by the rate of division of the plasmid – fast division causes high copy number.
+
+In general, the karyotype is the characteristic chromosome complement of a eukaryote species.[66] The preparation and study of karyotypes is part of cytogenetics.
+
+Although the replication and transcription of DNA is highly standardized in eukaryotes, the same cannot be said for their karyotypes, which are often highly variable. There may be variation between species in chromosome number and in detailed organization.
+In some cases, there is significant variation within species. Often there is:
+
+Also, variation in karyotype may occur during development from the fertilized egg.
+
+The technique of determining the karyotype is usually called karyotyping. Cells can be locked part-way through division (in metaphase) in vitro (in a reaction vial) with colchicine. These cells are then stained, photographed, and arranged into a karyogram, with the set of chromosomes arranged, autosomes in order of length, and sex chromosomes (here X/Y) at the end.
+
+Like many sexually reproducing species, humans have special gonosomes (sex chromosomes, in contrast to autosomes). These are XX in females and XY in males.
+
+Investigation into the human karyotype took many years to settle the most basic question: How many chromosomes does a normal diploid human cell contain? In 1912, Hans von Winiwarter reported 47 chromosomes in spermatogonia and 48 in oogonia, concluding an XX/XO sex determination mechanism.[67] Painter in 1922 was not certain whether the diploid number of man is 46 or 48, at first favouring 46.[68] He revised his opinion later from 46 to 48, and he correctly insisted on humans having an XX/XY system.[69]
+
+New techniques were needed to definitively solve the problem:
+
+It took until 1954 before the human diploid number was confirmed as 46.[70][71] Considering the techniques of Winiwarter and Painter, their results were quite remarkable.[72] Chimpanzees, the closest living relatives to modern humans, have 48 chromosomes as do the other great apes: in humans two chromosomes fused to form chromosome 2.
+
+Chromosomal aberrations are disruptions in the normal chromosomal content of a cell and are a major cause of genetic conditions in humans, such as Down syndrome, although most aberrations have little to no effect. Some chromosome abnormalities do not cause disease in carriers, such as translocations, or chromosomal inversions, although they may lead to a higher chance of bearing a child with a chromosome disorder. Abnormal numbers of chromosomes or chromosome sets, called aneuploidy, may be lethal or may give rise to genetic disorders.[73] Genetic counseling is offered for families that may carry a chromosome rearrangement.
+
+The gain or loss of DNA from chromosomes can lead to a variety of genetic disorders. Human examples include:
+
+Exposure of males to certain lifestyle, environmental and/or occupational hazards may increase the risk of aneuploid spermatozoa.[77]  In particular, risk of aneuploidy is increased by tobacco smoking,[78][79] and occupational exposure to benzene,[80] insecticides,[81][82]  and perfluorinated compounds.[83]  Increased aneuploidy is often associated with increased DNA damage in spermatozoa.

en/112.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,169 @@
+
+
+Albinism is the "congenital absence of any pigmentation or coloration in a person, animal or plant, resulting in white hair, feathers, scales and skin and pink eyes in mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish and invertebrates as well."[1] Varied use and interpretation of the terms mean that written reports of albinistic animals can be difficult to verify.  Albinism can reduce the survivability of an animal; for example, it has been suggested that albino alligators have an average survival span of only 24 hours due to the lack of protection from UV radiation and their lack of camouflage to avoid predators.[2] It is a common misconception that all albino animals have characteristic pink or red eyes (resulting from the lack of pigment in the iris allowing the blood vessels of the retina to be visible), however this is not the case for some forms of albinism.[3] Familiar albino animals include in-bred strains of laboratory animals (rats, mice and rabbits), but populations of naturally occurring albino animals exist in the wild, e.g. Mexican cave tetra.  Albinism is a well-recognized phenomenon in molluscs, both in the shell and in the soft parts.  It has been claimed by some, e.g.[4] that "albinism" can occur for a number of reasons aside from inheritance, including genetic mutations, diet, living conditions, age, disease, or injury.  However, this is contrary to definitions where the condition is inherited.
+
+Oculocutaneous albinism (OCA) is a clearly defined set of seven types of genetic mutations which reduce or completely prevent the synthesis of eumelanin or pheomelanin, resulting in reduced pigmentation.[5] Type I oculocutaneous albinism (OCA1a) is the form most commonly recognised as 'albino' as this results in a complete absence of melanin in the skin, hair/fur/feathers, and pink pupils, however this has led many to assume that all albinos are pure white with pink pupils, which is not the case.[6][7][5]
+
+In plants, albinism is characterised by partial or complete loss of chlorophyll pigments and incomplete differentiation of chloroplast membranes. Albinism in plants interferes with photosynthesis, which can reduce survivability.[8] Some plant variations may have white flowers or other parts.  However, these plants are not totally devoid of chlorophyll. Terms associated with this phenomenon are "hypochromia" and "albiflora".[9]
+
+Biological pigments are substances produced by living organisms that have a colour resulting from selective colour absorption. What we perceive as "colour" are the wavelengths of light that are not absorbed by the pigment, but instead are reflected.  Biological pigments include plant pigments and flower pigments.
+
+Animals can appear colored due to two mechanisms, pigments and structural colors. Animals may have both biological pigments and structural colors, for example, some butterflies with white wings.
+
+Many animal body-parts, such as skin, eyes, feathers, fur, hair, scales and cuticles, contain pigments in specialized cells called chromatophores.  These cells are found in a wide range of animals including amphibians, fish, reptiles, crustaceans and cephalopods. Mammals and birds, in contrast, have a class of cells called melanocytes for colouration.  The term chromatophore can also refer to coloured, membrane-associated vesicles found in some forms of photosynthetic bacteria.  Chromatophores are largely responsible for generating skin and eye colour in poikilothermic animals and are generated in the neural crest during embryonic development. Mature chromatophores are grouped into subclasses based on their colour under white light:
+
+Animals can also appear coloured due to structural colour, the result of coherent scattering[10] perceived as iridescence. The structures themselves are colourless.  Light typically passes through multiple layers and is reflected more than once. The multiple reflections compound one another and intensify the colours.  Structural colour differs according to the observer's position whereas pigments appear the same regardless of the angle-of-view. Animals that show iridescence include mother of pearl seashells, fish, and peacocks.  These are just a few examples of animals with this quality, but it is most pronounced in the butterfly family.
+
+The primary function of pigments in plants is photosynthesis, which uses the green pigment chlorophyll along with several red and yellow pigments including porphyrins, carotenoids, anthocyanins and betalains.
+
+Definitions of albinism vary and are inconsistent.  While they are clear and precise for humans and other mammals, this is because the majority of mammals have only one pigment, melanin.  Many animals have pigments other than melanin, and some also have structural colours.  Some definitions of albinism, whilst taking most taxa into account, ignore others.  So, "a person or animal with very pale skin, white hair or fur, and pink eyes caused by a medical condition that they were born with"[12] and "a person or animal with white skin and hair and pink eyes"[13] do not include feathers, scales or cuticles of birds, fish and invertebrates.  Nor do they include plants. Some definitions are too broad to be of much use, e.g. "an animal or plant with a marked deficiency in pigmentation"[14]
+
+Other definitions of albinism encompass most of the major animal taxa, but ignore the several other pigments that non-mammalian animals have and also structural colouration.  For example, "Absence of the pigment melanin in the eyes, skin, hair, scales, or feathers."[15] refers only to the pigment melanin.
+
+Because of the various uses of different terms applied to colouration, some authors have indicated that the colour of the eyes is the defining characteristic of albinism, e.g. "This leads to a good diagnostic feature with which to distinguish leucistic and albino individuals – the colour of the eye."[16] However, there are multiple forms of albinism - currently seven types recognised for humans - most of which do not result in red or pink pupils.[3]
+
+The term "partial albino" is sometimes used in the literature, however, it has been stated that "A common misnomer is ‘partial albino’ – this is not possible since albinism affects the whole plumage of a bird, not just part"[16] and the definition of albinism precludes the possibility of "partial albinism" in which a mostly white bird shows some form of melanin pigmentation. "It is simply impossible, just like being ‘partially pregnant’ ".[17] Conditions that are commonly termed "partial albino" include neural crest disorders such as piebaldism, Waardenburg syndrome, or other depigmentation conditions such as vitiligo. These conditions result from fundamentally different causes to the seven types of oculocutaneous albinism that have been identified in humans (and confirmed in some other animals) and the use of the term "partial albino" is therefore misleading.[5]
+
+One definition states that "albinism, (from the Latin albus, meaning "white"), hereditary condition characterized by the absence of pigment in the eyes, skin, hair, scales, or feathers",[18] however, this does not encompass invertebrates, nor does it include plants.  Furthermore, it could be interpreted that "...absence of pigment..." does not include an absence of structural colours.
+
+The lack of clarity about the term is furthered when the name of an animal includes the term "albino" although the animals (clearly) do not have the condition.  For example, the albino gaur has this name because it is ash-grey whereas other gaur are almost black.
+
+A clear definition appears to be – "Congenital absence of any pigmentation or coloration in a person, animal, or plant, resulting in white hair and pink eyes in mammals."[1] Whilst this does not state specifically that non-mammalian albino animals (or plants) are white, this can be inferred from "...absence of any pigmentation or coloration..."  Due to the varied use and interpretation of the term "albino", written reports of albinistic organisms can often not be verified.
+
+Melanin is an organic pigment that produces most of the colour seen in mammals. Depending on how it is created, melanin comes in two colour ranges, eumelanin (producing dark browns and blacks) and pheomelanin (producing light reddish tans and blondes). The dark and light melanins have their influence either alone or in conjunction, making either plain or multi-coloured coats.  Sometimes, in a condition called agouti, they make multi-coloured individual hairs.  The production of melanin occurs in melanocytes in a complex process involving the enzyme tyrosinase.  Mammals have a gene that codes for the presence of tyrosinase in cells – called the TYR gene.  If this gene is altered or damaged, melanin cannot be reliably produced and the mammal becomes an albino. Besides the TYR gene, several other genes can cause albinism.  This is because other hormones and proteins are involved in melanin production, the presence of which is genetically determined. In mice, a total of 100 genes are known to affect albinism.[19]
+
+All the genetic traits for albinism are recessive traits.  This means that their influence is hidden when paired with stronger traits. For the recessive albino trait to be expressed in a mammal, the offspring must inherit a recessive gene from both parents.[19]
+
+Albinism occurs throughout the animal kingdom.  The condition is most commonly seen in birds, reptiles and amphibians, but more rarely seen in mammals and other taxa. It is often difficult to explain occasional occurrences, especially when only one documented incidence has occurred, such as only one albino gorilla and one albino koala.[20] In mammals, albinism occurs once in every 10,000 births, but in birds, the rate is once in every 1,764 births.[21]
+
+Some species, such as white peacocks, swans and geese, are not believed to be true albinos, as they do not have red eyes, rather, their colouration is suggested to be the expression of a white fur or feather gene, not a lack of melanin.[22]
+
+Melanin has several functions in most mammals and other animals; these are disrupted by albinism.
+
+Melanin functions in the normal development of various parts of the eye, including the iris, retina, eye muscles, and optic nerve. The absence of melanin results in abnormal development of eyes and leads to problems with focusing, and depth perception.  The eyes of albino animals appear red because the colour of the red blood cells in the retina can be seen through the iris, which has no pigment to obscure this.  Some albino animals may have pale-blue eyes due to other colour generating processes.  Albino vertebrates exposed to intense light typically lose photoreceptors due to apoptosis.[23]
+
+In all albino mammals studied, the centre of the retina is under-developed and there is a deficit of rod cells; the central ganglion cell density is approximately 25% below normal (except for the gray squirrel).  In nearly all mammals, the overwhelming majority of photoreceptors are rods rather than cones. Albinism specifically affects the rod cells, but the number and distribution of the cones is unaffected.  In contrast, the retina of birds is cone rich meaning that the vision of albino birds is affected less than albino mammals.[24]
+
+Melanin protects the skin from ultra-violet radiation in sunlight.  Melanosomes block harmful electromagnetic radiation from the sun while allowing beneficial frequencies to enter the body.
+
+Many animals with albinism lack their protective camouflage and are therefore less able to conceal themselves from their predators or prey: The survival rate of animals with albinism in the wild can be low,[25][26] however, it has been stated that in studies where animals had many places to hide, predators captured albino and normally coloured animals at the same rate.[19] Furthermore, albino animals may be excluded from families or other groups,[21] or rejected as mates.[19]
+
+The novelty of albino animals has occasionally led to their protection by groups such as the Albino Squirrel Preservation Society.  They have also been protected in studies on their ecology and behaviour.[27]
+
+Studies on medaka fish in the laboratory, i.e. with no predators, sufficient food supply, controlled temperatures, etc., found that albinos had considerably reduced viability; from 800 albino embryos, only 29 survived to full adulthood.[28] Early studies on fish led some researchers to describe albinism as a "semi-lethal mutation".[28]
+
+Pigmentation disorders such as albinism are occasionally associated with hearing impairments in mice, rats, guinea pigs and cats.[29]
+
+Intentionally bred albinistic strains of some animal species are commonly used as model organisms in biomedical research and also as pets. Examples include the BALB/c mouse and Wistar and Sprague Dawley rat strains, laboratory rabbits and ferrets.  Albino axolotl (an amphibian) are also used widely in the laboratory as their transparent skin allows observation of the underlying tissues during limb regeneration.[30] Some researchers have argued that albino animals are not always the best choice for scientific studies due to the consequences of albinism (e.g. hearing and visual impairments).[31]
+
+Many individual albino mammals are in captivity and were caught as youngsters.  It is doubtful whether these individuals would have survived to become adults without the protection and care they receive in captivity.
+
+It has been claimed that "Squirrels are the only known albino mammal to survive successfully in the wild".[24] The retina of the squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) is unusual for mammals as it is rich in cones.  Central cell densities are less than 5% lower in albino squirrels than in pigmented individuals.  This relatively minor disruption to vision is thought to assist in the survivability of albino squirrels in the wild.  This is supported by observations that the behaviour of albinos in the wild, e.g. leaping from branch to branch, is similar to pigmented squirrels.[24]
+
+A 2012 survey of the literature reported that in India, there were several records of albino mammals including the tiger, lesser mouse-tailed bat, chital, common palm civet, Northern palm squirrel, five-striped palm squirrel and wild boar.[32]
+
+Albino macaques have been reported in several occasions including a toque macaque (M. sinica), rhesus macaque (M. mulatta), and bonnet macaque (M. radiata).[32]
+
+Albinism was observed in jungle cats (Felis chaus) and jackals (Canis aureus) along the coastline of the southern Western Ghats (Kerala and Kanyakumari coast, India). Albinism was observed in jungle cats from the Amaravila area of Trivandrum district in the Kerala State. Albinism in jackals was observed from the Polooni area in Malappuram district and Chaliyam area of Calicut district (Kerala). As albinism is observed in those areas where the density of these mammals is comparatively low, it is concluded that continuous inbreeding could be the reason for expression of albinism.[33]
+
+A study on albinistic prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster) found that albinism in this species conferred an advantage for the males compared to the wild-type; albino males had higher mount frequencies than wild-type males. In addition, the albinos had greater differential fertilizing capacity.[34]
+
+Albinism can also occur in marsupials and monotremes as well such as echidnas, kangaroos, koalas, possums, wallabies and wombats as well.
+
+The costs of albinism for marine mammals may include reduced heat absorption in colder waters, poor camouflage from predators, increased sensitivity to sunlight, and impaired visual communication. Despite the costs, some individuals do reach adult age and breeding status.[35]
+
+Albino dolphins were first sighted in the Gulf of Mexico in 1962.  Since 1994, three further individuals have been seen.  These tend to be pink in color due to blood vessels showing through the blubber and unpigmented skin.
+
+A report published in 2008 stated that in marine mammals, "anomalously white" individuals have been reported for 21 cetacean species and 7 pinniped species but there were no known reports of anomalously white sea otters (Enhydra lutris) or sirenians.[35]
+
+Whales and dolphins also may appear white if extensively scarred, or covered with a fungus, such as Lobo's disease (also known as "lobomycosis").[35]
+
+Famous albino mammals include "Migaloo", a humpback whale living off the coast of Australia; Pinky, a bottlenose dolphin living in and around in Calcasieu Lake, Louisiana; "Carolina Snowball", a popular albino bottlenose dolphin displayed at the Miami Seaquarium in the early 1960s; "Snowflake", a Barcelona Zoo gorilla, and "Mahpiya Ska", (Sioux for "White Cloud"), a buffalo in Jamestown, North Dakota.[36][37] The inspiration for Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick was a sperm whale known as Mocha Dick.
+
+The most important pigments that determine plumage coloration in birds are melanines and carotenoids.  The latter are ingested in food and transformed into colour pigments by enzymes.  Aberrations in this pigmentation are mostly caused by food deficiencies and usually do not have a genetic basis. Well-known examples are flamingos, which owe their distinct pink colour to the presence of red carotenoids in their natural food. When these carotenoids are in short supply, these birds appear white after the next moult.  Mutations causing changes in carotenoid-based colour pigments are rare; melanine mutations occur much more frequently.  Two types of melanin, eumelanin and phaeomelanin, are present in birds. In the skin and eyes, only eumelanin is present.  In some bird species, the colour is completely caused by eumelanin, however, both types of melanin are found in most species.  In birds, albinism has been defined as "a total lack of both melanins in feathers, eyes and skin as a result of an inherited absence of tyrosinase",[17] however, this ignores the effects of other pigments and structural colours.
+
+An albino bird has a white beak, white plumage, non-coloured skin, white talons and pink or red eyes.
+Albinism is only seen in about 1 of every 1,800 birds.  The two most common species of albino birds are the common house martin and the American robin.[20] Famous albino birds include "Snowdrop", a Bristol Zoo penguin.[38]
+
+In one study, albinism in birds has been categorised according to the extent of pigment absence.[39] –
+
+However, it has been argued that the definition of albinism precludes the possibility of "partial albinism" in which a mostly white bird shows some form of melanin pigmentation. "It is simply impossible, just like being ‘partially pregnant’.[17]
+
+As with other animals, it has been stated that for fish to be properly described as "albino", they must have a white body and pink or red eyes.[28]
+
+Several types of aquarium fish have "albino" in their names, e.g. albino driftwood catfish, albino festivum, albino red tailed shark, and albino tiger shark, however, photographs of these four fish indicate that the latter three have dark eyes and/or pigmented fins.[40][failed verification]
+
+Zebrafish have three types of chromatophores—iridophores, melanophores, and xanthophores—which produce silver, black, and yellow pigmentation respectively.  Zebrafish that lack iridophores are known as roy mutants, those that lack melanophores as albino mutants, and those which lack both melanophores and iridophores are ruby mutants.  The gross eye morphology, feeding and swimming behaviours between wild-type and albino zebrafish were indistinguishable, except under dim or bright light or low contrast.[41]
+In mammals, albinism is occasionally associated with hearing impairments. However, when tested, there was no differences in responses between wild-type and albinistic European wels catfish (Silurus glanis) and South American bronze catfish (Corydoras aeneus).  Similarly, Mexican blind cave fish (Astyanax mexicanus) do not differ in hearing sensitivity from the normally pigmented and eyed surface-dwelling populations.  Fish lack melanin in the inner ear, meaning that hearing in fishes is less likely to be affected by albinism than in mammals.[29]
+
+There are several reports of total albinism in both freshwater and marine fish, however, frequently captured albino fish are only reported in aquarium magazines and local newspapers.[42]
+
+The incidence of albinism can be artificially increased in fish by exposing the eggs to heavy metals (e.g. arsenic, cadmium, copper, mercury, selenium, zinc).[43]
+
+In the wild, albinism is reasonably common in the teleosts, especially the Pleuronectiformes (flatfish), however, it is rarely reported in the elasmobranchs.[44] Albinism has been reported in hagfish, lampreys, sharks, rays and numerous teleost fishes, e.g. catfishes, grunts or cyprinids.[29]
+
+Albino and normally pigmented channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) differ in their characteristics.  Normal individuals of this species are superior to albinos in body weight and total length. Albinos crossed with other albinos require 11 days longer to spawn and produce smaller egg masses.  These masses contain eggs of lighter weight with poorer hatchability than crosses of normal fish. The albino fish have lower survival rates than normal fish but dress-out percentages are nearly equal.[45]
+
+Some wild cave fish have populations that are albinistic.  The Mexican cave tetra is a species that has evolved specialized characteristics in a series of independent caves.  One of these is albinism linked to the Oca2 gene, a known pigmentation gene, This trait has evolved independently in at least two caves.[46]
+
+In the class chondrichthyes, several species of naturally occurring albino rays and sharks have been recorded.  Furthermore, an albino individual spotted ratfish (Hydrolagus colliei) from the order Chimaeriformes has been reported.[47]
+
+Albinistic individuals of the following shark species have been reported:[48][49]
+
+A study published in 2006 reported albinistic individuals of the following ray species:[49]
+
+There are several reports of albino lampreys and it has been estimated that this occurs at a frequency of one in 100,000 normal individuals.[28]
+
+Albinism in the African lungfish has been reported on at least two occasions.[50]
+
+Many reptiles labeled as albino are, in fact, not completely lacking in all colour pigments.  They are actually amelanistic, not albino.  Reptiles often possess at least two pigments.  Among the most common are xanthin (yellow) and erythrin (red). An amelanistic reptile therefore, may still have pale yellow, orange, or red pigmentation.
+
+The California Academy of Science, in the Steinhart Aquarium, as of 2015, has on display an albino American alligator named "Claude". The alligator is partially blind because of lack of pigment in its eyes.[51] The albino alligator hatched from the egg in 1995 in Florida, and was brought to the Academy in 2008. This alligator would not have survived in the wild because its whiteness would have made it too easy a prey object. The only known albino alligators are in captivity.[52] While extremely rare, white-colored crocodiles and alligators do exist in other places. However, most of these animals are leucistic given that they have a general loss of pigmentation with some color tinges remaining on their bodies although looking at first like other albino creatures, thus creating the misconception that the reptiles are albino themselves when they are not. Four such alligators are kept at the Gatorland theme park in the U.S. state of Florida.[53] In Australia, a crocodile believed to be "part-albino" and nicknamed by people in the area as "Michael Jackson", attacked and killed a man.[54]
+
+In snakes, partial absence of pigment is more common than absolute albinism.  For snakes that are usually patterned in colours, they appear as a faint blue, peach or yellowish.  In these cases, there has been a genetic mutation in the melanin and pigment delivery.  The appearance comes from the inability for full colours to be present, such as black, red, brown and others. The eyes of an albino snake are typically red or pink. Albino snakes can remain in the sunlight for several hours with minimal harm.  Corn snakes and snakes of larger types, such as a boa or diamondback snakes, are the most commonly affected by albinism often appearing to be a pinkish or yellowish colour.[20]
+
+Albino tortoises and turtles are uncommon; Sulcata tortoises are the most likely type of turtle to express albinism. The shells have an almost yellow colouration and they have pink eyes. For turtles, a pure white colour is nearly impossible, even with albinism.  Albino turtles can have a longer lifespan than many other albino animals; their hard shells help to prevent predation and other environmental challenges. Vision and sensory organs are slightly affected.[20]
+
+An albino anole has been reported and photographed.[55] In 2007, it was reported that an albino stumpy-tail lizard (possibly a shingleback lizard), approximately 12 cm long and about one-year-old, had been found in Victoria, Australia.[56] (Also see [1])
+
+There are three known "albino" strains of leopard gecko, however, breeders state that albinos are generally recognized by their lack of black pigment and having red eyes is not a requirement to be considered an albino.  These three strains are called "tremper albinos", "rainwater albinos" and "bell albinos".[57]
+
+As with reptiles, many amphibians labeled as albino are, in fact, not completely lacking in all colour pigments.  They are actually amelanistic, not albino.  Amphibians have six types of chromatophore in their skin, i.e. melanophores, xantophores, erythrophores, leucophores, cyanophores and iridophores.[58] An amelanistic amphibian therefore, may still have various pigmentation.
+
+The incidence of albinism in frogs, salamanders, and newts is relatively higher than other taxa.  It has been estimated that one in four hundred of these animals is albino.  When albino tadpoles hatch, they are almost transparent.  This may help camouflage them initially, however, after two weeks, when their hind legs begin to emerge, they become milky white.  A survey in 2001 found hundreds of tiny albino plains leopard frogs, but when the researcher returned a few months later, not a single albino adult could be found.[30]
+
+In European Salamandridae, albinism has been recorded in the fire salamander (Salamandra salamandra), gold-striped salamander (Chioglossa lusitanica), Italian crested newt (Triturus carnifex), marbled newt (Triturus marmoratus), Iberian ribbed newt (Pleurodeles waltl), alpine newt (Ichthyosaura alpestris) and two sub-species of the smooth newt (Lissotriton vulgaris vulgaris and Lissotriton vulgaris meridionalis).[58]
+
+Albinism in molluscs has been recognized to be a hereditary phenomenon at least since 1900.[59] Albinism in molluscs can exist to a variable degree. Sometimes an individual snail has a normally pigmented body, but the shell is completely without the normal pigmentation because of a defect in the cells of the mantle.  Shells of certain mollusc species can be translucent when they lack the normal pigmentation.[60]
+
+An exhibit showing albino and normal specimens of nine local species of marine molluscs, both gastropods and bivalves (The Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum in Sanibel, Florida).
+
+Normal (left) and albinistic (right) forms of the land snail Pseudofusulus varians, note that in the albino both the body and the shell are lacking the normal pigmentation.
+
+Albino freshwater snail Biomphalaria glabrata showing the red oxygen-transport pigment haemoglobin. Without its normal pigment, the shell of this species is translucent.
+
+The neurohormone [His7]-corazonin induces darkening of the cuticle of Locusta migratoria.  The Okinawa strain of this species is deficient in [His7]-corazonin and is albino.  One of the typical features of Locusta migratoria ia that they are gregarious locusts.  However, the albino strain shows more solitarious behaviour.[61]
+
+The yellow mutation in fruit flies is a mutation causing a congenital lack of normal pigment; it is a similar phenomenon to albinism in other organisms.[62]
+
+The Japanese sea cucumber (Apostichopus japonicus) is an echinoderm that is caught in the wild or cultivated for food.
+Normal Japanese sea cucumbers start to develop pigmentation when they are about 1 cm long.  The upper side becomes a dull, yellowish -brown to maroon and the underside a light brown.  The body walls of adult, albino Japanese sea cucumbers contain only 0.24% melanin compared to 3.12% in normal adults.  The difference in melanin content becomes visually apparent at 60 days of age.  The epidermis is thinner in the albinos and contains fewer melanocytes.  Albino individuals are similar to normal individuals in growth rate, digestion rate and fertility.[63]
+
+Astaxanthin is the main carotenoid in marine crustaceans (and fish).  It has been shown that adding astaxanthin to the feed can improve the skin and muscle colour of marine organisms and thereby increase their commercial and ornamental value.[63]
+
+"Depigmented" arthropods have been found, usually in cave populations.[64]
+"Albino" individuals of normally red citrus red mites (Panonychus citri) occasionally appear in laboratory colonies, however, these still contain green and yellow pigments. This albinism does not affect mortality.[65]
+
+In some animals, albinism-like conditions may affect other pigments or pigment-production mechanisms:
+
+In plants, albinism is characterised by partial or complete loss of chlorophyll pigments and incomplete differentiation of chloroplast membranes.  Albinism in plants interferes with photosynthesis, which can reduce survivability.[8] Some plant variations may have white flowers or other parts.  However, these plants are not totally devoid of chlorophyll. Terms associated with this phenomenon are "hypochromia" and "albiflora".[9]
+
+Plants that are pale simply from being in the dark are termed etiolated.
+
+Albino redwoods are rare examples of an albino tree with white needles; despite its lack of chlorophyll it may grow to substantial size as a parasite, usually on the base of the (normal) redwood tree from which it first grew.[69][70][71] Only about sixty examples of albino redwoods are known.[70] Additionally, an even smaller number of "chimeric" redwood trees have both normal and white needles.
+
+Albinism has frequently occurred in progeny of Black Tartarian, Bing and Hedelfingen varieties of sweet cherry.[72]
+
+The Albino Squirrel Preservation Society was founded at the University of Texas at Austin in 2001.  Members of the society at the University of North Texas petitioned for an election to name their albino squirrel as the university's secondary mascot. The University of Louisville in Kentucky also has a documented population of albino squirrels.[73]
+
+Albino animals are often kept as pets, for example, African clawed frog, guinea pigs and peacocks.[73]

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+In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or  Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages.
+
+Population decline, counterurbanisation, collapse of centralized authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes, which had begun in Late Antiquity, continued in the Early Middle Ages. The large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, an Islamic empire, after conquest by Muhammad's successors.  Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire, Rome's direct continuation, survived in the Eastern Mediterranean and remained a major power. The empire's law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or "Code of Justinian", was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages.  In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions. Monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th and early 9th centuries. It covered much of Western Europe but later succumbed to the pressures of internal civil wars combined with external invasions: Vikings from the north, Magyars from the east, and Saracens from the south.
+
+During the High Middle Ages, which began after 1000, the population of Europe increased greatly as technological and agricultural innovations allowed trade to flourish and the Medieval Warm Period climate change allowed crop yields to increase. Manorialism, the organisation of peasants into villages that owed rent and labour services to the nobles, and feudalism, the political structure whereby knights and lower-status nobles owed military service to their overlords in return for the right to rent from lands and manors, were two of the ways society was organised in the High Middle Ages. The Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation-states, reducing crime and violence but making the ideal of a unified Christendom more distant. Intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. The theology of Thomas Aquinas, the paintings of Giotto, the poetry of Dante and Chaucer, the travels of Marco Polo, and the Gothic architecture of cathedrals such as Chartres are among the outstanding achievements toward the end of this period and into the Late Middle Ages.
+
+The Late Middle Ages was marked by difficulties and calamities including famine, plague, and war, which significantly diminished the population of Europe; between 1347 and 1350, the Black Death killed about a third of Europeans. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the interstate conflict, civil strife, and peasant revolts that occurred in the kingdoms. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages and beginning the early modern period.
+
+The Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history: classical civilisation or Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Modern Period.[1] The "Middle Ages" first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or "middle season".[2][A] In early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or "middle age", first recorded in 1604,[4] and media saecula, or "middle centuries", first recorded in 1625.[5] The adjective "medieval" (or sometimes "mediaeval"[6] or "mediæval"),[7] meaning pertaining to the Middle Ages, derives from medium aevum.[6]
+
+Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the "Six Ages" or the "Four Empires", and considered their time to be the last before the end of the world.[8] When referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being "modern".[9] In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua (or "ancient") and to the Christian period as nova (or "new").[10] Leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People (1442), with a middle period "between the fall of the Roman Empire and the revival of city life sometime in late eleventh and twelfth centuries".[11] Tripartite periodisation became standard after the 17th-century German historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods: ancient, medieval, and modern.[5]
+
+The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is around 500,[12] with the date of 476 first used by Bruni.[11][B] Later starting dates are sometimes used in the outer parts of Europe.[14] For Europe as a whole, 1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages,[15] but there is no universally agreed upon end date. Depending on the context, events such as the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, Christopher Columbus's first voyage to the Americas in 1492,  or the Protestant Reformation in 1517 are sometimes used.[16] English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period.[17] For Spain, dates commonly used are the death of King Ferdinand II in 1516, the death of Queen Isabella I of Castile in 1504, or the conquest of Granada in 1492.[18]
+
+Historians from Romance-speaking countries tend to divide the Middle Ages into two parts: an earlier "High" and later "Low" period. English-speaking historians, following their German counterparts, generally subdivide the Middle Ages into three intervals: "Early", "High", and "Late".[1] In the 19th century, the entire Middle Ages were often referred to as the "Dark Ages",[19][C] but with the adoption of these subdivisions, use of this term was restricted to the Early Middle Ages, at least among historians.[8]
+
+The Roman Empire reached its greatest territorial extent during the 2nd century AD; the following two centuries witnessed the slow decline of Roman control over its outlying territories.[21] Economic issues, including inflation, and external pressure on the frontiers combined to create the Crisis of the Third Century, with emperors coming to the throne only to be rapidly replaced by new usurpers.[22] Military expenses increased steadily during the 3rd century, mainly in response to the war with the Sasanian Empire, which revived in the middle of the 3rd century.[23] The army doubled in size, and cavalry and smaller units replaced the Roman legion as the main tactical unit.[24] The need for revenue led to increased taxes and a decline in numbers of the curial, or landowning, class, and decreasing numbers of them willing to shoulder the burdens of holding office in their native towns.[23] More bureaucrats were needed in the central administration to deal with the needs of the army, which led to complaints from civilians that there were more tax-collectors in the empire than tax-payers.[24]
+
+The Emperor Diocletian (r. 284–305) split the empire into separately administered eastern and western halves in 286; the empire was not considered divided by its inhabitants or rulers, as legal and administrative promulgations in one division were considered valid in the other.[25][D] In 330, after a period of civil war, Constantine the Great (r. 306–337) refounded the city of Byzantium as the newly renamed eastern capital, Constantinople.[26] Diocletian's reforms strengthened the governmental bureaucracy, reformed taxation, and strengthened the army, which bought the empire time but did not resolve the problems it was facing: excessive taxation, a declining birthrate, and pressures on its frontiers, among others.[27] Civil war between rival emperors became common in the middle of the 4th century, diverting soldiers from the empire's frontier forces and allowing invaders to encroach.[28] For much of the 4th century, Roman society stabilised in a new form that differed from the earlier classical period, with a widening gulf between the rich and poor, and a decline in the vitality of the smaller towns.[29] Another change was the Christianisation, or conversion of the empire to Christianity, a gradual process that lasted from the 2nd to the 5th centuries.[30][31]
+
+In 376, the Goths, fleeing from the Huns, received permission from Emperor Valens (r. 364–378) to settle in the Roman province of Thracia in the Balkans. The settlement did not go smoothly, and when Roman officials mishandled the situation, the Goths began to raid and plunder.[E] Valens, attempting to put down the disorder, was killed fighting the Goths at the Battle of Adrianople on 9 August 378.[33] As well as the threat from such tribal confederacies from the north, internal divisions within the empire, especially within the Christian Church, caused problems.[34] In 400, the Visigoths invaded the Western Roman Empire and, although briefly forced back from Italy, in 410 sacked the city of Rome.[35] In 406 the Alans, Vandals, and Suevi crossed into Gaul; over the next three years they spread across Gaul and in 409 crossed the Pyrenees Mountains into modern-day Spain.[36] The Migration Period began, when various peoples, initially largely Germanic peoples, moved across Europe. The Franks, Alemanni, and the Burgundians all ended up in northern Gaul while the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes settled in Britain,[37] and the Vandals went on to cross the strait of Gibraltar after which they conquered the province of Africa.[38] In the 430s the Huns began invading the empire; their king Attila (r. 434–453) led invasions into the Balkans in 442 and 447, Gaul in 451, and Italy in 452.[39] The Hunnic threat remained until Attila's death in 453, when the Hunnic confederation he led fell apart.[40] These invasions by the tribes completely changed the political and demographic nature of what had been the Western Roman Empire.[37]
+
+By the end of the 5th century the western section of the empire was divided into smaller political units, ruled by the tribes that had invaded in the early part of the century.[41] The deposition of the last emperor of the west, Romulus Augustulus, in 476 has traditionally marked the end of the Western Roman Empire.[13][F] By 493 the Italian peninsula was conquered by the Ostrogoths.[42] The Eastern Roman Empire, often referred to as the Byzantine Empire after the fall of its western counterpart, had little ability to assert control over the lost western territories. The Byzantine emperors maintained a claim over the territory, but while none of the new kings in the west dared to elevate himself to the position of emperor of the west, Byzantine control of most of the Western Empire could not be sustained; the reconquest of the Mediterranean periphery and the Italian Peninsula (Gothic War) in the reign of Justinian (r. 527–565) was the sole, and temporary, exception.[43]
+
+The political structure of Western Europe changed with the end of the united Roman Empire. Although the movements of peoples during this period are usually described as "invasions", they were not just military expeditions but migrations of entire peoples into the empire. Such movements were aided by the refusal of the Western Roman elites to support the army or pay the taxes that would have allowed the military to suppress the migration.[44] The emperors of the 5th century were often controlled by military strongmen such as Stilicho (d. 408), Aetius (d. 454), Aspar (d. 471), Ricimer (d. 472), or Gundobad (d. 516), who were partly or fully of non-Roman background. When the line of Western emperors ceased, many of the kings who replaced them were from the same background. Intermarriage between the new kings and the Roman elites was common.[45] This led to a fusion of Roman culture with the customs of the invading tribes, including the popular assemblies that allowed free male tribal members more say in political matters than was common in the Roman state.[46] Material artefacts left by the Romans and the invaders are often similar, and tribal items were often modelled on Roman objects.[47] Much of the scholarly and written culture of the new kingdoms was also based on Roman intellectual traditions.[48] An important difference was the gradual loss of tax revenue by the new polities. Many of the new political entities no longer supported their armies through taxes, instead relying on granting them land or rents. This meant there was less need for large tax revenues and so the taxation systems decayed.[49] Warfare was common between and within the kingdoms. Slavery declined as the supply weakened, and society became more rural.[50][G]
+
+Between the 5th and 8th centuries, new peoples and individuals filled the political void left by Roman centralised government.[48] The Ostrogoths, a Gothic tribe, settled in Roman Italy in the late fifth century under Theoderic the Great (d. 526) and set up a kingdom marked by its co-operation between the Italians and the Ostrogoths, at least until the last years of Theodoric's reign.[52] The Burgundians settled in Gaul, and after an earlier realm was destroyed by the Huns in 436 formed a new kingdom in the 440s. Between today's Geneva and Lyon, it grew to become the realm of Burgundy in the late 5th and early 6th centuries.[53] Elsewhere in Gaul, the Franks and Celtic Britons set up small polities. Francia was centred in northern Gaul, and the first king of whom much is known is Childeric I (d. 481). His grave was discovered in 1653 and is remarkable for its grave goods, which included weapons and a large quantity of gold.[54]
+
+Under Childeric's son Clovis I (r. 509–511), the founder of the Merovingian dynasty, the Frankish kingdom expanded and converted to Christianity. The Britons, related to the natives of Britannia – modern-day Great Britain – settled in what is now Brittany.[55][H] Other monarchies were established by the Visigothic Kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula, the Suebi in northwestern Iberia, and the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa.[53] In the sixth century, the Lombards settled in Northern Italy, replacing the Ostrogothic kingdom with a grouping of duchies that occasionally selected a king to rule over them all. By the late sixth century, this arrangement had been replaced by a permanent monarchy, the Kingdom of the Lombards.[56]
+
+The invasions brought new ethnic groups to Europe, although some regions received a larger influx of new peoples than others. In Gaul for instance, the invaders settled much more extensively in the north-east than in the south-west. Slavs settled in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkan Peninsula. The settlement of peoples was accompanied by changes in languages. Latin, the literary language of the Western Roman Empire, was gradually replaced by vernacular languages which evolved from Latin, but were distinct from it, collectively known as Romance languages. These changes from Latin to the new languages took many centuries. Greek remained the language of the Byzantine Empire, but the migrations of the Slavs added Slavic languages to Eastern Europe.[57]
+
+As Western Europe witnessed the formation of new kingdoms, the Eastern Roman Empire remained intact and experienced an economic revival that lasted into the early 7th century. There were fewer invasions of the eastern section of the empire; most occurred in the Balkans. Peace with the Sasanian Empire, the traditional enemy of Rome, lasted throughout most of the 5th century. The Eastern Empire was marked by closer relations between the political state and Christian Church, with doctrinal matters assuming an importance in Eastern politics that they did not have in Western Europe. Legal developments included the codification of Roman law; the first effort—the Codex Theodosianus—was completed in 438.[59] Under Emperor Justinian (r. 527–565), another compilation took place—the Corpus Juris Civilis.[60] Justinian also oversaw the construction of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople and the reconquest of North Africa from the Vandals and Italy from the Ostrogoths,[61] under Belisarius (d. 565).[62] The conquest of Italy was not complete, as a deadly outbreak of plague in 542 led to the rest of Justinian's reign concentrating on defensive measures rather than further conquests.[61]
+
+At the Emperor's death, the Byzantines had control of most of Italy, North Africa, and a small foothold in southern Spain. Justinian's reconquests have been criticised by historians for overextending his realm and setting the stage for the early Muslim conquests, but many of the difficulties faced by Justinian's successors were due not just to over-taxation to pay for his wars but to the essentially civilian nature of the empire, which made raising troops difficult.[63]
+
+In the Eastern Empire the slow infiltration of the Balkans by the Slavs added a further difficulty for Justinian's successors. It began gradually, but by the late 540s Slavic tribes were in Thrace and Illyrium, and had defeated an imperial army near Adrianople in 551. In the 560s the Avars began to expand from their base on the north bank of the Danube; by the end of the 6th-century, they were the dominant power in Central Europe and routinely able to force the Eastern emperors to pay tribute. They remained a strong power until 796.[64]
+
+An additional problem to face the empire came as a result of the involvement of Emperor Maurice (r. 582–602) in Persian politics when he intervened in a succession dispute. This led to a period of peace, but when Maurice was overthrown, the Persians invaded and during the reign of Emperor Heraclius (r. 610–641) controlled large chunks of the empire, including Egypt, Syria, and Anatolia until Heraclius' successful counterattack. In 628 the empire secured a peace treaty and recovered all of its lost territories.[65]
+
+In Western Europe, some of the older Roman elite families died out while others became more involved with ecclesiastical than secular affairs. Values attached to Latin scholarship and education mostly disappeared, and while literacy remained important, it became a practical skill rather than a sign of elite status. In the 4th century, Jerome (d. 420) dreamed that God rebuked him for spending more time reading Cicero than the Bible. By the 6th century, Gregory of Tours (d. 594) had a similar dream, but instead of being chastised for reading Cicero, he was chastised for learning shorthand.[66] By the late 6th century, the principal means of religious instruction in the Church had become music and art rather than the book.[67] Most intellectual efforts went towards imitating classical scholarship, but some original works were created, along with now-lost oral compositions. The writings of Sidonius Apollinaris (d. 489), Cassiodorus (d. c. 585), and Boethius (d. c. 525) were typical of the age.[68]
+
+Changes also took place among laymen, as aristocratic culture focused on great feasts held in halls rather than on literary pursuits. Clothing for the elites was richly embellished with jewels and gold. Lords and kings supported entourages of fighters who formed the backbone of the military forces.[I] Family ties within the elites were important, as were the virtues of loyalty, courage, and honour. These ties led to the prevalence of the feud in aristocratic society, examples of which included those related by Gregory of Tours that took place in Merovingian Gaul. Most feuds seem to have ended quickly with the payment of some sort of compensation.[71] Women took part in aristocratic society mainly in their roles as wives and mothers of men, with the role of mother of a ruler being especially prominent in Merovingian Gaul. In Anglo-Saxon society the lack of many child rulers meant a lesser role for women as queen mothers, but this was compensated for by the increased role played by abbesses of monasteries. Only in Italy does it appear that women were always considered under the protection and control of a male relative.[72]
+
+Peasant society is much less documented than the nobility. Most of the surviving information available to historians comes from archaeology; few detailed written records documenting peasant life remain from before the 9th century. Most of the descriptions of the lower classes come from either law codes or writers from the upper classes.[73] Landholding patterns in the West were not uniform; some areas had greatly fragmented landholding patterns, but in other areas large contiguous blocks of land were the norm. These differences allowed for a wide variety of peasant societies, some dominated by aristocratic landholders and others having a great deal of autonomy.[74] Land settlement also varied greatly. Some peasants lived in large settlements that numbered as many as 700 inhabitants. Others lived in small groups of a few families and still others lived on isolated farms spread over the countryside. There were also areas where the pattern was a mix of two or more of those systems.[75] Unlike in the late Roman period, there was no sharp break between the legal status of the free peasant and the aristocrat, and it was possible for a free peasant's family to rise into the aristocracy over several generations through military service to a powerful lord.[76]
+
+Roman city life and culture changed greatly in the early Middle Ages. Although Italian cities remained inhabited, they contracted significantly in size. Rome, for instance, shrank from a population of hundreds of thousands to around 30,000 by the end of the 6th century. Roman temples were converted into Christian churches and city walls remained in use.[77] In Northern Europe, cities also shrank, while civic monuments and other public buildings were raided for building materials. The establishment of new kingdoms often meant some growth for the towns chosen as capitals.[78] Although there had been Jewish communities in many Roman cities, the Jews suffered periods of persecution after the conversion of the empire to Christianity. Officially they were tolerated, if subject to conversion efforts, and at times were even encouraged to settle in new areas.[79]
+
+Religious beliefs in the Eastern Empire and Iran were in flux during the late sixth and early seventh centuries. Judaism was an active proselytising faith, and at least one Arab political leader converted to it.[J] Christianity had active missions competing with the Persians' Zoroastrianism in seeking converts, especially among residents of the Arabian Peninsula. All these strands came together with the emergence of Islam in Arabia during the lifetime of Muhammad (d. 632).[81] After his death, Islamic forces conquered much of the Eastern Empire and Persia, starting with Syria in 634–635, continuing with Persia between 637 and 642, reaching Egypt in 640–641, North Africa in the later seventh century, and the Iberian Peninsula in 711.[82] By 714, Islamic forces controlled much of the peninsula in a region they called Al-Andalus.[83]
+
+The Islamic conquests reached their peak in the mid-eighth century. The defeat of Muslim forces at the Battle of Tours in 732 led to the reconquest of southern France by the Franks, but the main reason for the halt of Islamic growth in Europe was the overthrow of the Umayyad Caliphate and its replacement by the Abbasid Caliphate. The Abbasids moved their capital to Baghdad and were more concerned with the Middle East than Europe, losing control of sections of the Muslim lands. Umayyad descendants took over the Iberian Peninsula, the Aghlabids controlled North Africa, and the Tulunids became rulers of Egypt.[84] By the middle of the 8th century, new trading patterns were emerging in the Mediterranean; trade between the Franks and the Arabs replaced the old Roman economy. Franks traded timber, furs, swords and slaves in return for silks and other fabrics, spices, and precious metals from the Arabs.[85]
+
+The migrations and invasions of the 4th and 5th centuries disrupted trade networks around the Mediterranean. African goods stopped being imported into Europe, first disappearing from the interior and by the 7th century found only in a few cities such as Rome or Naples. By the end of the 7th century, under the impact of the Muslim conquests, African products were no longer found in Western Europe. The replacement of goods from long-range trade with local products was a trend throughout the old Roman lands that happened in the Early Middle Ages. This was especially marked in the lands that did not lie on the Mediterranean, such as northern Gaul or Britain. Non-local goods appearing in the archaeological record are usually luxury goods. In the northern parts of Europe, not only were the trade networks local, but the goods carried were simple, with little pottery or other complex products. Around the Mediterranean, pottery remained prevalent and appears to have been traded over medium-range networks, not just produced locally.[86]
+
+The various Germanic states in the west all had coinages that imitated existing Roman and Byzantine forms. Gold continued to be minted until the end of the 7th century in 693-94 when it was replaced by silver in the Merovingian kindgon. The basic Frankish silver coin was the denarius or denier, while the Anglo-Saxon version was called a penny. From these areas, the denier or penny spread throughout Europe from 700 to 1000 AD. Copper or bronze coins were not struck, nor were gold except in Southern Europe. No silver coins denominated in multiple units were minted.[87]
+
+Christianity was a major unifying factor between Eastern and Western Europe before the Arab conquests, but the conquest of North Africa sundered maritime connections between those areas. Increasingly, the Byzantine Church differed in language, practices, and liturgy from the Western Church. The Eastern Church used Greek instead of the Western Latin. Theological and political differences emerged, and by the early and middle 8th century issues such as iconoclasm, clerical marriage, and state control of the Church had widened to the extent that the cultural and religious differences were greater than the similarities.[88] The formal break, known as the East–West Schism, came in 1054, when the papacy and the patriarchy of Constantinople clashed over papal supremacy and excommunicated each other, which led to the division of Christianity into two Churches—the Western branch became the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern branch the Eastern Orthodox Church.[89]
+
+The ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Empire survived the movements and invasions in the west mostly intact, but the papacy was little regarded, and few of the Western bishops looked to the bishop of Rome for religious or political leadership. Many of the popes prior to 750 were more concerned with Byzantine affairs and Eastern theological controversies. The register, or archived copies of the letters, of Pope Gregory the Great (pope 590–604) survived, and of those more than 850 letters, the vast majority were concerned with affairs in Italy or Constantinople. The only part of Western Europe where the papacy had influence was Britain, where Gregory had sent the Gregorian mission in 597 to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity.[90] Irish missionaries were most active in Western Europe between the 5th and the 7th centuries, going first to England and Scotland and then on to the continent. Under such monks as Columba (d. 597) and Columbanus (d. 615), they founded monasteries, taught in Latin and Greek, and authored secular and religious works.[91]
+
+The Early Middle Ages witnessed the rise of monasticism in the West. The shape of European monasticism was determined by traditions and ideas that originated with the Desert Fathers of Egypt and Syria. Most European monasteries were of the type that focuses on community experience of the spiritual life, called cenobitism, which was pioneered by Pachomius (d. 348) in the 4th century. Monastic ideals spread from Egypt to Western Europe in the 5th and 6th centuries through hagiographical literature such as the Life of Anthony.[92] Benedict of Nursia (d. 547) wrote the Benedictine Rule for Western monasticism during the 6th century, detailing the administrative and spiritual responsibilities of a community of monks led by an abbot.[93] Monks and monasteries had a deep effect on the religious and political life of the Early Middle Ages, in various cases acting as land trusts for powerful families, centres of propaganda and royal support in newly conquered regions, and bases for missions and proselytisation.[94] They were the main and sometimes only outposts of education and literacy in a region. Many of the surviving manuscripts of the Latin classics were copied in monasteries in the Early Middle Ages.[95] Monks were also the authors of new works, including history, theology, and other subjects, written by authors such as Bede (d. 735), a native of northern England who wrote in the late 7th and early 8th centuries.[96]
+
+The Frankish kingdom in northern Gaul split into kingdoms called Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy during the 6th and 7th centuries, all of them ruled by the Merovingian dynasty, who were descended from Clovis. The 7th century was a tumultuous period of wars between Austrasia and Neustria.[97] Such warfare was exploited by Pippin (d. 640), the Mayor of the Palace for Austrasia who became the power behind the Austrasian throne. Later members of his family inherited the office, acting as advisers and regents. One of his descendants, Charles Martel (d. 741), won the Battle of Poitiers in 732, halting the advance of Muslim armies across the Pyrenees.[98][K] Great Britain was divided into small states dominated by the kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, and East Anglia which descended from the Anglo-Saxon invaders. Smaller kingdoms in present-day Wales and Scotland were still under the control of the native Britons and Picts.[100] Ireland was divided into even smaller political units, usually known as tribal kingdoms, under the control of kings. There were perhaps as many as 150 local kings in Ireland, of varying importance.[101]
+
+The Carolingian dynasty, as the successors to Charles Martel are known, officially took control of the kingdoms of Austrasia and Neustria in a coup of 753 led by Pippin III (r. 752–768). A contemporary chronicle claims that Pippin sought, and gained, authority for this coup from Pope Stephen II (pope 752–757). Pippin's takeover was reinforced with propaganda that portrayed the Merovingians as inept or cruel rulers, exalted the accomplishments of Charles Martel, and circulated stories of the family's great piety. At the time of his death in 768, Pippin left his kingdom in the hands of his two sons, Charles (r. 768–814) and Carloman (r. 768–771). When Carloman died of natural causes, Charles blocked the succession of Carloman's young son and installed himself as the king of the united Austrasia and Neustria. Charles, more often known as Charles the Great or Charlemagne, embarked upon a programme of systematic expansion in 774 that unified a large portion of Europe, eventually controlling modern-day France, northern Italy, and Saxony. In the wars that lasted beyond 800, he rewarded allies with war booty and command over parcels of land.[102] In 774, Charlemagne conquered the Lombards, which freed the papacy from the fear of Lombard conquest and marked the beginnings of the Papal States.[103][L]
+
+The coronation of Charlemagne as emperor on Christmas Day 800 is regarded as a turning point in medieval history, marking a return of the Western Roman Empire, since the new emperor ruled over much of the area previously controlled by the Western emperors.[106] It also marks a change in Charlemagne's relationship with the Byzantine Empire, as the assumption of the imperial title by the Carolingians asserted their equivalence to the Byzantine state.[107] There were several differences between the newly established Carolingian Empire and both the older Western Roman Empire and the concurrent Byzantine Empire. The Frankish lands were rural in character, with only a few small cities. Most of the people were peasants settled on small farms. Little trade existed and much of that was with the British Isles and Scandinavia, in contrast to the older Roman Empire with its trading networks centred on the Mediterranean.[106] The empire was administered by an itinerant court that travelled with the emperor, as well as approximately 300 imperial officials called counts, who administered the counties the empire had been divided into. Clergy and local bishops served as officials, as well as the imperial officials called missi dominici, who served as roving inspectors and troubleshooters.[108]
+
+Charlemagne's court in Aachen was the centre of the cultural revival sometimes referred to as the "Carolingian Renaissance". Literacy increased, as did development in the arts, architecture and jurisprudence, as well as liturgical and scriptural studies. The English monk Alcuin (d. 804) was invited to Aachen and brought the education available in the monasteries of Northumbria. Charlemagne's chancery—or writing office—made use of a new script today known as Carolingian minuscule,[M] allowing a common writing style that advanced communication across much of Europe. Charlemagne sponsored changes in church liturgy, imposing the Roman form of church service on his domains, as well as the Gregorian chant in liturgical music for the churches. An important activity for scholars during this period was the copying, correcting, and dissemination of basic works on religious and secular topics, with the aim of encouraging learning. New works on religious topics and schoolbooks were also produced.[110] Grammarians of the period modified the Latin language, changing it from the Classical Latin of the Roman Empire into a more flexible form to fit the needs of the Church and government. By the reign of Charlemagne, the language had so diverged from the classical Latin that it was later called Medieval Latin.[111]
+
+Charlemagne planned to continue the Frankish tradition of dividing his kingdom between all his heirs, but was unable to do so as only one son, Louis the Pious (r. 814–840), was still alive by 813. Just before Charlemagne died in 814, he crowned Louis as his successor. Louis's reign of 26 years was marked by numerous divisions of the empire among his sons and, after 829, civil wars between various alliances of father and sons over the control of various parts of the empire. Eventually, Louis recognised his eldest son Lothair I (d. 855) as emperor and gave him Italy.[N] Louis divided the rest of the empire between Lothair and Charles the Bald (d. 877), his youngest son. Lothair took East Francia, comprising both banks of the Rhine and eastwards, leaving Charles West Francia with the empire to the west of the Rhineland and the Alps. Louis the German (d. 876), the middle child, who had been rebellious to the last, was allowed to keep Bavaria under the suzerainty of his elder brother. The division was disputed. Pepin II of Aquitaine (d. after 864), the emperor's grandson, rebelled in a contest for Aquitaine, while Louis the German tried to annex all of East Francia. Louis the Pious died in 840, with the empire still in chaos.[113]
+
+A three-year civil war followed his death. By the Treaty of Verdun (843), a kingdom between the Rhine and Rhone rivers was created for Lothair to go with his lands in Italy, and his imperial title was recognised. Louis the German was in control of Bavaria and the eastern lands in modern-day Germany. Charles the Bald received the western Frankish lands, comprising most of modern-day France.[113] Charlemagne's grandsons and great-grandsons divided their kingdoms between their descendants, eventually causing all internal cohesion to be lost.[114][O] In 987 the Carolingian dynasty was replaced in the western lands, with the crowning of Hugh Capet (r. 987–996) as king.[P][Q] In the eastern lands the dynasty had died out earlier, in 911, with the death of Louis the Child,[117] and the selection of the unrelated Conrad I (r. 911–918) as king.[118]
+
+The breakup of the Carolingian Empire was accompanied by invasions, migrations, and raids by external foes. The Atlantic and northern shores were harassed by the Vikings, who also raided the British Isles and settled there as well as in Iceland. In 911, the Viking chieftain Rollo (d. c. 931) received permission from the Frankish King Charles the Simple (r. 898–922) to settle in what became Normandy.[119][R] The eastern parts of the Frankish kingdoms, especially Germany and Italy, were under continual Magyar assault until the invader's defeat at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955.[121] The breakup of the Abbasid dynasty meant that the Islamic world fragmented into smaller political states, some of which began expanding into Italy and Sicily, as well as over the Pyrenees into the southern parts of the Frankish kingdoms.[122]
+
+Efforts by local kings to fight the invaders led to the formation of new political entities. In Anglo-Saxon England, King Alfred the Great (r. 871–899) came to an agreement with the Viking invaders in the late 9th century, resulting in Danish settlements in Northumbria, Mercia, and parts of East Anglia.[123] By the middle of the 10th century, Alfred's successors had conquered Northumbria, and restored English control over most of the southern part of Great Britain.[124] In northern Britain, Kenneth MacAlpin (d. c. 860) united the Picts and the Scots into the Kingdom of Alba.[125] In the early 10th century, the Ottonian dynasty had established itself in Germany, and was engaged in driving back the Magyars. Its efforts culminated in the coronation in 962 of Otto I (r. 936–973) as Holy Roman Emperor.[126] In 972, he secured recognition of his title by the Byzantine Empire, which he sealed with the marriage of his son Otto II (r. 967–983) to Theophanu (d. 991), daughter of an earlier Byzantine Emperor Romanos II (r. 959–963).[127] By the late 10th century Italy had been drawn into the Ottonian sphere after a period of instability;[128] Otto III (r. 996–1002) spent much of his later reign in the kingdom.[129] The western Frankish kingdom was more fragmented, and although kings remained nominally in charge, much of the political power devolved to the local lords.[130]
+
+Missionary efforts to Scandinavia during the 9th and 10th centuries helped strengthen the growth of kingdoms such as Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, which gained power and territory. Some kings converted to Christianity, although not all by 1000. Scandinavians also expanded and colonised throughout Europe. Besides the settlements in Ireland, England, and Normandy, further settlement took place in what became Russia and Iceland. Swedish traders and raiders ranged down the rivers of the Russian steppe, and even attempted to seize Constantinople in 860 and 907.[131] Christian Spain, initially driven into a small section of the peninsula in the north, expanded slowly south during the 9th and 10th centuries, establishing the kingdoms of Asturias and León.[132]
+
+In Eastern Europe, Byzantium revived its fortunes under Emperor Basil I (r. 867–886) and his successors Leo VI (r. 886–912) and Constantine VII (r. 913–959), members of the Macedonian dynasty. Commerce revived and the emperors oversaw the extension of a uniform administration to all the provinces. The military was reorganised, which allowed the emperors John I (r. 969–976) and Basil II (r. 976–1025) to expand the frontiers of the empire on all fronts. The imperial court was the centre of a revival of classical learning, a process known as the Macedonian Renaissance. Writers such as John Geometres (fl. early 10th century) composed new hymns, poems, and other works.[133] Missionary efforts by both Eastern and Western clergy resulted in the conversion of the Moravians, Bulgars, Bohemians, Poles, Magyars, and Slavic inhabitants of the Kievan Rus'. These conversions contributed to the founding of political states in the lands of those peoples—the states of Moravia, Bulgaria, Bohemia, Poland, Hungary, and the Kievan Rus'.[134] Bulgaria, which was founded around 680, at its height reached from Budapest to the Black Sea and from the Dnieper River in modern Ukraine to the Adriatic Sea.[135] By 1018, the last Bulgarian nobles had surrendered to the Byzantine Empire.[136]
+
+Few large stone buildings were constructed between the Constantinian basilicas of the 4th century and the 8th century, although many smaller ones were built during the 6th and 7th centuries. By the beginning of the 8th century, the Carolingian Empire revived the basilica form of architecture.[138] One feature of the basilica is the use of a transept,[139] or the "arms" of a cross-shaped building that are perpendicular to the long nave.[140] Other new features of religious architecture include the crossing tower and a monumental entrance to the church, usually at the west end of the building.[141]
+
+Carolingian art was produced for a small group of figures around the court, and the monasteries and churches they supported. It was dominated by efforts to regain the dignity and classicism of imperial Roman and Byzantine art, but was also influenced by the Insular art of the British Isles. Insular art integrated the energy of Irish Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Germanic styles of ornament with Mediterranean forms such as the book, and established many characteristics of art for the rest of the medieval period. Surviving religious works from the Early Middle Ages are mostly illuminated manuscripts and carved ivories, originally made for metalwork that has since been melted down.[142][143] Objects in precious metals were the most prestigious form of art, but almost all are lost except for a few crosses such as the Cross of Lothair, several reliquaries, and finds such as the Anglo-Saxon burial at Sutton Hoo and the hoards of Gourdon from Merovingian France, Guarrazar from Visigothic Spain and Nagyszentmiklós near Byzantine territory. There are survivals from the large brooches in fibula or penannular form that were a key piece of personal adornment for elites, including the Irish Tara Brooch.[144] Highly decorated books were mostly Gospel Books and these have survived in larger numbers, including the Insular Book of Kells, the Book of Lindisfarne, and the imperial Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram, which is one of the few to retain its "treasure binding" of gold encrusted with jewels.[145] Charlemagne's court seems to have been responsible for the acceptance of figurative monumental sculpture in Christian art,[146] and by the end of the period near life-sized figures such as the Gero Cross were common in important churches.[147]
+
+During the later Roman Empire, the principal military developments were attempts to create an effective cavalry force as well as the continued development of highly specialised types of troops. The creation of heavily armoured cataphract-type soldiers as cavalry was an important feature of the 5th-century Roman military. The various invading tribes had differing emphases on types of soldiers—ranging from the primarily infantry Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain to the Vandals and Visigoths who had a high proportion of cavalry in their armies.[148] During the early invasion period, the stirrup had not been introduced into warfare, which limited the usefulness of cavalry as shock troops because it was not possible to put the full force of the horse and rider behind blows struck by the rider.[149] The greatest change in military affairs during the invasion period was the adoption of the Hunnic composite bow in place of the earlier, and weaker, Scythian composite bow.[150] Another development was the increasing use of longswords[151] and the progressive replacement of scale armour by mail armour and lamellar armour.[152]
+
+The importance of infantry and light cavalry began to decline during the early Carolingian period, with a growing dominance of elite heavy cavalry. The use of militia-type levies of the free population declined over the Carolingian period.[153] Although much of the Carolingian armies were mounted, a large proportion during the early period appear to have been mounted infantry, rather than true cavalry.[154] One exception was Anglo-Saxon England, where the armies were still composed of regional levies, known as the fyrd, which were led by the local elites.[155] In military technology, one of the main changes was the return of the crossbow, which had been known in Roman times and reappeared as a military weapon during the last part of the Early Middle Ages.[156] Another change was the introduction of the stirrup, which increased the effectiveness of cavalry as shock troops. A technological advance that had implications beyond the military was the horseshoe, which allowed horses to be used in rocky terrain.[157]
+
+The High Middle Ages was a period of tremendous expansion of population. The estimated population of Europe grew from 35 to 80 million between 1000 and 1347, although the exact causes remain unclear: improved agricultural techniques, the decline of slaveholding, a more clement climate and the lack of invasion have all been suggested.[160][161] As much as 90 per cent of the European population remained rural peasants. Many were no longer settled in isolated farms but had gathered into small communities, usually known as manors or villages.[161] These peasants were often subject to noble overlords and owed them rents and other services, in a system known as manorialism. There remained a few free peasants throughout this period and beyond,[162] with more of them in the regions of Southern Europe than in the north. The practice of assarting, or bringing new lands into production by offering incentives to the peasants who settled them, also contributed to the expansion of population.[163]
+
+The open-field system of agriculture was commonly practiced in most of Europe, especially in "northwestern and central Europe".[164] Such agricultural communities had three basic characteristics: individual peasant holdings in the form of strips of land were scattered among the different fields belonging to the manor; crops were rotated from year to year to preserve soil fertility; and common land was used for grazing livestock and other purposes. Some regions used a three-field system of crop rotation, others retained the older two-field system.[165]
+
+Other sections of society included the nobility, clergy, and townsmen. Nobles, both the titled nobility and simple knights, exploited the manors and the peasants, although they did not own lands outright but were granted rights to the income from a manor or other lands by an overlord through the system of feudalism. During the 11th and 12th centuries, these lands, or fiefs, came to be considered hereditary, and in most areas they were no longer divisible between all the heirs as had been the case in the early medieval period. Instead, most fiefs and lands went to the eldest son.[166][S] The dominance of the nobility was built upon its control of the land, its military service as heavy cavalry, control of castles, and various immunities from taxes or other impositions.[T] Castles, initially in wood but later in stone, began to be constructed in the 9th and 10th centuries in response to the disorder of the time, and provided protection from invaders as well as allowing lords defence from rivals. Control of castles allowed the nobles to defy kings or other overlords.[168] Nobles were stratified; kings and the highest-ranking nobility controlled large numbers of commoners and large tracts of land, as well as other nobles. Beneath them, lesser nobles had authority over smaller areas of land and fewer people. Knights were the lowest level of nobility; they controlled but did not own land, and had to serve other nobles.[169][U]
+
+The clergy was divided into two types: the secular clergy, who lived out in the world, and the regular clergy, who lived isolated under a religious rule and usually consisted of monks.[171] Throughout the period monks remained a very small proportion of the population, usually less than one percent.[172] Most of the regular clergy were drawn from the nobility, the same social class that served as the recruiting ground for the upper levels of the secular clergy. The local parish priests were often drawn from the peasant class.[173] Townsmen were in a somewhat unusual position, as they did not fit into the traditional three-fold division of society into nobles, clergy, and peasants. During the 12th and 13th centuries, the ranks of the townsmen expanded greatly as existing towns grew and new population centres were founded.[174] But throughout the Middle Ages the population of the towns probably never exceeded 10 percent of the total population.[175]
+
+Jews also spread across Europe during the period. Communities were established in Germany and England in the 11th and 12th centuries, but Spanish Jews, long settled in Spain under the Muslims, came under Christian rule and increasing pressure to convert to Christianity.[79] Most Jews were confined to the cities, as they were not allowed to own land or be peasants.[176][V] Besides the Jews, there were other non-Christians on the edges of Europe—pagan Slavs in Eastern Europe and Muslims in Southern Europe.[177]
+
+Women in the Middle Ages were officially required to be subordinate to some male, whether their father, husband, or other kinsman. Widows, who were often allowed much control over their own lives, were still restricted legally. Women's work generally consisted of household or other domestically inclined tasks. Peasant women were usually responsible for taking care of the household, child-care, as well as gardening and animal husbandry near the house. They could supplement the household income by spinning or brewing at home. At harvest-time, they were also expected to help with field-work.[178] Townswomen, like peasant women, were responsible for the household, and could also engage in trade. What trades were open to women varied by country and period.[179] Noblewomen were responsible for running a household, and could occasionally be expected to handle estates in the absence of male relatives, but they were usually restricted from participation in military or government affairs. The only role open to women in the Church was that of nuns, as they were unable to become priests.[178]
+
+In central and northern Italy and in Flanders, the rise of towns that were to a degree self-governing stimulated economic growth and created an environment for new types of trade associations. Commercial cities on the shores of the Baltic entered into agreements known as the Hanseatic League, and the Italian Maritime republics such as Venice, Genoa, and Pisa expanded their trade throughout the Mediterranean.[W] Great trading fairs were established and flourished in northern France during the period, allowing Italian and German merchants to trade with each other as well as local merchants.[181] In the late 13th century new land and sea routes to the Far East were pioneered, famously described in The Travels of Marco Polo written by one of the traders, Marco Polo (d. 1324).[182] Besides new trading opportunities, agricultural and technological improvements enabled an increase in crop yields, which in turn allowed the trade networks to expand.[183] Rising trade brought new methods of dealing with money, and gold coinage was again minted in Europe, first in Italy and later in France and other countries. New forms of commercial contracts emerged, allowing risk to be shared among merchants. Accounting methods improved, partly through the use of double-entry bookkeeping; letters of credit also appeared, allowing easy transmission of money.[184]
+
+The High Middle Ages was the formative period in the history of the modern Western state. Kings in France, England, and Spain consolidated their power, and set up lasting governing institutions.[185] New kingdoms such as Hungary and Poland, after their conversion to Christianity, became Central European powers.[186] The Magyars settled Hungary around 900 under King Árpád (d. c. 907) after a series of invasions in the 9th century.[187] The papacy, long attached to an ideology of independence from secular kings, first asserted its claim to temporal authority over the entire Christian world; the Papal Monarchy reached its apogee in the early 13th century under the pontificate of Innocent III (pope 1198–1216).[188] Northern Crusades and the advance of Christian kingdoms and military orders into previously pagan regions in the Baltic and Finnic north-east brought the forced assimilation of numerous native peoples into European culture.[189]
+
+During the early High Middle Ages, Germany was ruled by the Ottonian dynasty, which struggled to control the powerful dukes ruling over territorial duchies tracing back to the Migration period. In 1024, they were replaced by the Salian dynasty, who famously clashed with the papacy under Emperor Henry IV (r. 1084–1105) over Church appointments as part of the Investiture Controversy.[190] His successors continued to struggle against the papacy as well as the German nobility. A period of instability followed the death of Emperor Henry V (r. 1111–25), who died without heirs, until Frederick I Barbarossa (r. 1155–90) took the imperial throne.[191] Although he ruled effectively, the basic problems remained, and his successors continued to struggle into the 13th century.[192] Barbarossa's grandson Frederick II (r. 1220–1250), who was also heir to the throne of Sicily through his mother, clashed repeatedly with the papacy. His court was famous for its scholars and he was often accused of heresy.[193] He and his successors faced many difficulties, including the invasion of the Mongols into Europe in the mid-13th century. Mongols first shattered the Kievan Rus' principalities and then invaded Eastern Europe in 1241, 1259, and 1287.[194]
+
+Under the Capetian dynasty the French monarchy slowly began to expand its authority over the nobility, growing out of the Île-de-France to exert control over more of the country in the 11th and 12th centuries.[195] They faced a powerful rival in the Dukes of Normandy, who in 1066 under William the Conqueror (duke 1035–1087), conquered England (r. 1066–87) and created a cross-channel empire that lasted, in various forms, throughout the rest of the Middle Ages.[196][197] Normans also settled in Sicily and southern Italy, when Robert Guiscard (d. 1085) landed there in 1059 and established a duchy that later became the Kingdom of Sicily.[198] Under the Angevin dynasty of Henry II (r. 1154–89) and his son Richard I (r. 1189–99), the kings of England ruled over England and large areas of France,[199][X] brought to the family by Henry II's marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine (d. 1204), heiress to much of southern France.[201][Y] Richard's younger brother John (r. 1199–1216) lost Normandy and the rest of the northern French possessions in 1204 to the French King Philip II Augustus (r. 1180–1223). This led to dissension among the English nobility, while John's financial exactions to pay for his unsuccessful attempts to regain Normandy led in 1215 to Magna Carta, a charter that confirmed the rights and privileges of free men in England. Under Henry III (r. 1216–72), John's son, further concessions were made to the nobility, and royal power was diminished.[202] The French monarchy continued to make gains against the nobility during the late 12th and 13th centuries, bringing more territories within the kingdom under the king's personal rule and centralising the royal administration.[203] Under Louis IX (r. 1226–70), royal prestige rose to new heights as Louis served as a mediator for most of Europe.[204][Z]
+
+In Iberia, the Christian states, which had been confined to the north-western part of the peninsula, began to push back against the Islamic states in the south, a period known as the Reconquista.[206] By about 1150, the Christian north had coalesced into the five major kingdoms of León, Castile, Aragon, Navarre, and Portugal.[207] Southern Iberia remained under control of Islamic states, initially under the Caliphate of Córdoba, which broke up in 1031 into a shifting number of petty states known as taifas,[206] who fought with the Christians until the Almohad Caliphate re-established centralised rule over Southern Iberia in the 1170s.[208] Christian forces advanced again in the early 13th century, culminating in the capture of Seville in 1248.[209]
+
+In the 11th century, the Seljuk Turks took over much of the Middle East, occupying Persia during the 1040s, Armenia in the 1060s, and Jerusalem in 1070. In 1071, the Turkish army defeated the Byzantine army at the Battle of Manzikert and captured the Byzantine Emperor Romanus IV (r. 1068–71). The Turks were then free to invade Asia Minor, which dealt a dangerous blow to the Byzantine Empire by seizing a large part of its population and its economic heartland. Although the Byzantines regrouped and recovered somewhat, they never fully regained Asia Minor and were often on the defensive. The Turks also had difficulties, losing control of Jerusalem to the Fatimids of Egypt and suffering from a series of internal civil wars.[211] The Byzantines also faced a revived Bulgaria, which in the late 12th and 13th centuries spread throughout the Balkans.[212]
+
+The crusades were intended to seize Jerusalem from Muslim control. The First Crusade was proclaimed by Pope Urban II (pope 1088–99) at the Council of Clermont in 1095 in response to a request from the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081–1118) for aid against further Muslim advances. Urban promised indulgence to anyone who took part. Tens of thousands of people from all levels of society mobilised across Europe and captured Jerusalem in 1099.[213] One feature of the crusades was the pogroms against local Jews that often took place as the crusaders left their countries for the East. These were especially brutal during the First Crusade,[79] when the Jewish communities in Cologne, Mainz, and Worms were destroyed, as well as other communities in cities between the rivers Seine and the Rhine.[214] Another outgrowth of the crusades was the foundation of a new type of monastic order, the military orders of the Templars and Hospitallers, which fused monastic life with military service.[215]
+
+The crusaders consolidated their conquests into crusader states. During the 12th and 13th centuries, there were a series of conflicts between them and the surrounding Islamic states. Appeals from the crusader states to the papacy led to further crusades,[213] such as the Third Crusade, called to try to regain Jerusalem, which had been captured by Saladin (d. 1193) in 1187.[216][AA] In 1203, the Fourth Crusade was diverted from the Holy Land to Constantinople, and captured the city in 1204, setting up a Latin Empire of Constantinople[218] and greatly weakening the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines recaptured the city in 1261, but never regained their former strength.[219] By 1291 all the crusader states had been captured or forced from the mainland, although a titular Kingdom of Jerusalem survived on the island of Cyprus for several years afterwards.[220]
+
+Popes called for crusades to take place elsewhere besides the Holy Land: in Spain, southern France, and along the Baltic.[213] The Spanish crusades became fused with the Reconquista of Spain from the Muslims. Although the Templars and Hospitallers took part in the Spanish crusades, similar Spanish military religious orders were founded, most of which had become part of the two main orders of Calatrava and Santiago by the beginning of the 12th century.[221] Northern Europe also remained outside Christian influence until the 11th century or later, and became a crusading venue as part of the Northern Crusades of the 12th to 14th centuries. These crusades also spawned a military order, the Order of the Sword Brothers. Another order, the Teutonic Knights, although founded in the crusader states, focused much of its activity in the Baltic after 1225, and in 1309 moved its headquarters to Marienburg in Prussia.[222]
+
+During the 11th century, developments in philosophy and theology led to increased intellectual activity. There was debate between the realists and the nominalists over the concept of "universals". Philosophical discourse was stimulated by the rediscovery of Aristotle and his emphasis on empiricism and rationalism. Scholars such as Peter Abelard (d. 1142) and Peter Lombard (d. 1164) introduced Aristotelian logic into theology. In the late 11th and early 12th centuries cathedral schools spread throughout Western Europe, signalling the shift of learning from monasteries to cathedrals and towns.[223] Cathedral schools were in turn replaced by the universities established in major European cities.[224] Philosophy and theology fused in scholasticism, an attempt by 12th- and 13th-century scholars to reconcile authoritative texts, most notably Aristotle and the Bible. This movement tried to employ a systemic approach to truth and reason[225] and culminated in the thought of Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), who wrote the Summa Theologica, or Summary of Theology.[226]
+
+Chivalry and the ethos of courtly love developed in royal and noble courts. This culture was expressed in the vernacular languages rather than Latin, and comprised poems, stories, legends, and popular songs spread by troubadours, or wandering minstrels. Often the stories were written down in the chansons de geste, or "songs of great deeds", such as The Song of Roland or The Song of Hildebrand.[227] Secular and religious histories were also produced.[228] Geoffrey of Monmouth (d. c. 1155) composed his Historia Regum Britanniae, a collection of stories and legends about Arthur.[229] Other works were more clearly history, such as Otto von Freising's (d. 1158) Gesta Friderici Imperatoris detailing the deeds of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, or William of Malmesbury's (d. c. 1143) Gesta Regum on the kings of England.[228]
+
+Legal studies advanced during the 12th century. Both secular law and canon law, or ecclesiastical law, were studied in the High Middle Ages. Secular law, or Roman law, was advanced greatly by the discovery of the Corpus Juris Civilis in the 11th century, and by 1100 Roman law was being taught at Bologna. This led to the recording and standardisation of legal codes throughout Western Europe. Canon law was also studied, and around 1140 a monk named Gratian (fl. 12th century), a teacher at Bologna, wrote what became the standard text of canon law—the Decretum.[230]
+
+Among the results of the Greek and Islamic influence on this period in European history was the replacement of Roman numerals with the decimal positional number system and the invention of algebra, which allowed more advanced mathematics. Astronomy advanced following the translation of Ptolemy's Almagest from Greek into Latin in the late 12th century. Medicine was also studied, especially in southern Italy, where Islamic medicine influenced the school at Salerno.[231]
+
+In the 12th and 13th centuries, Europe experienced economic growth and innovations in methods of production. Major technological advances included the invention of the windmill, the first mechanical clocks, the manufacture of distilled spirits, and the use of the astrolabe.[233] Concave spectacles were invented around 1286 by an unknown Italian artisan, probably working in or near Pisa.[234]
+
+The development of a three-field rotation system for planting crops[161][AB] increased the usage of land from one half in use each year under the old two-field system to two-thirds under the new system, with a consequent increase in production.[235] The development of the heavy plough allowed heavier soils to be farmed more efficiently, aided by the spread of the horse collar, which led to the use of draught horses in place of oxen. Horses are faster than oxen and require less pasture, factors that aided the implementation of the three-field system.[236] Legumes – such as peas, beans, or lentils – were grown more widely as crops, in addition to the usual cereal crops of wheat, oats, barley, and rye.[237]
+
+The construction of cathedrals and castles advanced building technology, leading to the development of large stone buildings. Ancillary structures included new town halls, houses, bridges, and tithe barns.[238] Shipbuilding improved with the use of the rib and plank method rather than the old Roman system of mortise and tenon. Other improvements to ships included the use of lateen sails and the stern-post rudder, both of which increased the speed at which ships could be sailed.[239]
+
+In military affairs, the use of infantry with specialised roles increased. Along with the still-dominant heavy cavalry, armies often included mounted and infantry crossbowmen, as well as sappers and engineers.[240] Crossbows, which had been known in Late Antiquity, increased in use partly because of the increase in siege warfare in the 10th and 11th centuries.[156][AC] The increasing use of crossbows during the 12th and 13th centuries led to the use of closed-face helmets, heavy body armour, as well as horse armour.[242] Gunpowder was known in Europe by the mid-13th century with a recorded use in European warfare by the English against the Scots in 1304, although it was merely used as an explosive and not as a weapon. Cannon were being used for sieges in the 1320s, and hand-held guns were in use by the 1360s.[243]
+
+In the 10th century the establishment of churches and monasteries led to the development of stone architecture that elaborated vernacular Roman forms, from which the term "Romanesque" is derived. Where available, Roman brick and stone buildings were recycled for their materials. From the tentative beginnings known as the First Romanesque, the style flourished and spread across Europe in a remarkably homogeneous form. Just before 1000 there was a great wave of building stone churches all over Europe.[244] Romanesque buildings have massive stone walls, openings topped by semi-circular arches, small windows, and, particularly in France, arched stone vaults.[245] The large portal with coloured sculpture in high relief became a central feature of façades, especially in France, and the capitals of columns were often carved with narrative scenes of imaginative monsters and animals.[246] According to art historian C. R. Dodwell, "virtually all the churches in the West were decorated with wall-paintings", of which few survive.[247] Simultaneous with the development in church architecture, the distinctive European form of the castle was developed and became crucial to politics and warfare.[248]
+
+Romanesque art, especially metalwork, was at its most sophisticated in Mosan art, in which distinct artistic personalities including Nicholas of Verdun (d. 1205) become apparent, and an almost classical style is seen in works such as a font at Liège,[249] contrasting with the writhing animals of the exactly contemporary Gloucester Candlestick. Large illuminated bibles and psalters were the typical forms of luxury manuscripts, and wall-painting flourished in churches, often following a scheme with a Last Judgement on the west wall, a Christ in Majesty at the east end, and narrative biblical scenes down the nave, or in the best surviving example, at Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, on the barrel-vaulted roof.[250]
+
+From the early 12th century, French builders developed the Gothic style, marked by the use of rib vaults, pointed arches, flying buttresses, and large stained glass windows. It was used mainly in churches and cathedrals and continued in use until the 16th century in much of Europe. Classic examples of Gothic architecture include Chartres Cathedral and Reims Cathedral in France as well as Salisbury Cathedral in England.[251] Stained glass became a crucial element in the design of churches, which continued to use extensive wall-paintings, now almost all lost.[252]
+
+During this period the practice of manuscript illumination gradually passed from monasteries to lay workshops, so that according to Janetta Benton "by 1300 most monks bought their books in shops",[253] and the book of hours developed as a form of devotional book for lay-people. Metalwork continued to be the most prestigious form of art, with Limoges enamel a popular and relatively affordable option for objects such as reliquaries and crosses.[254] In Italy the innovations of Cimabue and Duccio, followed by the Trecento master Giotto (d. 1337), greatly increased the sophistication and status of panel painting and fresco.[255] Increasing prosperity during the 12th century resulted in greater production of secular art; many carved ivory objects such as gaming-pieces, combs, and small religious figures have survived.[256]
+
+Monastic reform became an important issue during the 11th century, as elites began to worry that monks were not adhering to the rules binding them to a strictly religious life. Cluny Abbey, founded in the Mâcon region of France in 909, was established as part of the Cluniac Reforms, a larger movement of monastic reform in response to this fear.[258] Cluny quickly established a reputation for austerity and rigour. It sought to maintain a high quality of spiritual life by placing itself under the protection of the papacy and by electing its own abbot without interference from laymen, thus maintaining economic and political independence from local lords.[259]
+
+Monastic reform inspired change in the secular Church. The ideals upon which it was based were brought to the papacy by Pope Leo IX (pope 1049–1054), and provided the ideology of clerical independence that led to the Investiture Controversy in the late 11th century. This involved Pope Gregory VII (pope 1073–85) and Emperor Henry IV, who initially clashed over episcopal appointments, a dispute that turned into a battle over the ideas of investiture, clerical marriage, and simony. The emperor saw the protection of the Church as one of his responsibilities as well as wanting to preserve the right to appoint his own choices as bishops within his lands, but the papacy insisted on the Church's independence from secular lords. These issues remained unresolved after the compromise of 1122 known as the Concordat of Worms. The dispute represents a significant stage in the creation of a papal monarchy separate from and equal to lay authorities. It also had the permanent consequence of empowering German princes at the expense of the German emperors.[258]
+
+The High Middle Ages was a period of great religious movements. Besides the Crusades and monastic reforms, people sought to participate in new forms of religious life. New monastic orders were founded, including the Carthusians and the Cistercians. The latter, in particular, expanded rapidly in their early years under the guidance of Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153). These new orders were formed in response to the feeling of the laity that Benedictine monasticism no longer met the needs of the laymen, who along with those wishing to enter the religious life wanted a return to the simpler hermetical monasticism of early Christianity, or to live an Apostolic life.[215] Religious pilgrimages were also encouraged. Old pilgrimage sites such as Rome, Jerusalem, and Compostela received increasing numbers of visitors, and new sites such as Monte Gargano and Bari rose to prominence.[260]
+
+In the 13th century mendicant orders—the Franciscans and the Dominicans—who swore vows of poverty and earned their living by begging, were approved by the papacy.[261] Religious groups such as the Waldensians and the Humiliati also attempted to return to the life of early Christianity in the middle 12th and early 13th centuries, another heretical movement condemned by the papacy. Others joined the Cathars, another movement condemned as heretical by the papacy. In 1209, a crusade was preached against the Cathars, the Albigensian Crusade, which in combination with the medieval Inquisition, eliminated them.[262]
+
+The first years of the 14th century were marked by famines, culminating in the Great Famine of 1315–17.[263] The causes of the Great Famine included the slow transition from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age, which left the population vulnerable when bad weather caused crop failures.[264] The years 1313–14 and 1317–21 were excessively rainy throughout Europe, resulting in widespread crop failures.[265] The climate change—which resulted in a declining average annual temperature for Europe during the 14th century—was accompanied by an economic downturn.[266]
+
+These troubles were followed in 1347 by the Black Death, a pandemic that spread throughout Europe during the following three years.[267][AD] The death toll was probably about 35 million people in Europe, about one-third of the population. Towns were especially hard-hit because of their crowded conditions.[AE] Large areas of land were left sparsely inhabited, and in some places fields were left unworked. Wages rose as landlords sought to entice the reduced number of available workers to their fields. Further problems were lower rents and lower demand for food, both of which cut into agricultural income. Urban workers also felt that they had a right to greater earnings, and popular uprisings broke out across Europe.[270] Among the uprisings were the jacquerie in France, the Peasants' Revolt in England, and revolts in the cities of Florence in Italy and Ghent and Bruges in Flanders. The trauma of the plague led to an increased piety throughout Europe, manifested by the foundation of new charities, the self-mortification of the flagellants, and the scapegoating of Jews.[271] Conditions were further unsettled by the return of the plague throughout the rest of the 14th century; it continued to strike Europe periodically during the rest of the Middle Ages.[267]
+
+Society throughout Europe was disturbed by the dislocations caused by the Black Death. Lands that had been marginally productive were abandoned, as the survivors were able to acquire more fertile areas.[272] Although serfdom declined in Western Europe it became more common in Eastern Europe, as landlords imposed it on those of their tenants who had previously been free.[273] Most peasants in Western Europe managed to change the work they had previously owed to their landlords into cash rents.[274] The percentage of serfs amongst the peasantry declined from a high of 90 to closer to 50 percent by the end of the period.[170] Landlords also became more conscious of common interests with other landholders, and they joined together to extort privileges from their governments. Partly at the urging of landlords, governments attempted to legislate a return to the economic conditions that existed before the Black Death.[274] Non-clergy became increasingly literate, and urban populations began to imitate the nobility's interest in chivalry.[275]
+
+Jewish communities were expelled from England in 1290 and from France in 1306. Although some were allowed back into France, most were not, and many Jews emigrated eastwards, settling in Poland and Hungary.[276] The Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, and dispersed to Turkey, France, Italy, and Holland.[79] The rise of banking in Italy during the 13th century continued throughout the 14th century, fuelled partly by the increasing warfare of the period and the needs of the papacy to move money between kingdoms. Many banking firms loaned money to royalty, at great risk, as some were bankrupted when kings defaulted on their loans.[277][AF]
+
+Strong, royalty-based nation states rose throughout Europe in the Late Middle Ages, particularly in England, France, and the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula: Aragon, Castile, and Portugal. The long conflicts of the period strengthened royal control over their kingdoms and were extremely hard on the peasantry. Kings profited from warfare that extended royal legislation and increased the lands they directly controlled.[278] Paying for the wars required that methods of taxation become more effective and efficient, and the rate of taxation often increased.[279] The requirement to obtain the consent of taxpayers allowed representative bodies such as the English Parliament and the French Estates General to gain power and authority.[280]
+
+Throughout the 14th century, French kings sought to expand their influence at the expense of the territorial holdings of the nobility.[281] They ran into difficulties when attempting to confiscate the holdings of the English kings in southern France, leading to the Hundred Years' War,[282] waged from 1337 to 1453.[283] Early in the war the English under Edward III (r. 1327–77) and his son Edward, the Black Prince (d. 1376),[AG] won the battles of Crécy and Poitiers, captured the city of Calais, and won control of much of France.[AH] The resulting stresses almost caused the disintegration of the French kingdom during the early years of the war.[286] In the early 15th century, France again came close to dissolving, but in the late 1420s the military successes of Joan of Arc (d. 1431) led to the victory of the French and the capture of the last English possessions in southern France in 1453.[287] The price was high, as the population of France at the end of the Wars was likely half what it had been at the start of the conflict. Conversely, the Wars had a positive effect on English national identity, doing much to fuse the various local identities into a national English ideal. The conflict with France also helped create a national culture in England separate from French culture, which had previously been the dominant influence.[288] The dominance of the English longbow began during early stages of the Hundred Years' War,[289] and cannon appeared on the battlefield at Crécy in 1346.[243]
+
+In modern-day Germany, the Holy Roman Empire continued to rule, but the elective nature of the imperial crown meant there was no enduring dynasty around which a strong state could form.[290] Further east, the kingdoms of Poland, Hungary, and Bohemia grew powerful.[291] In Iberia, the Christian kingdoms continued to gain land from the Muslim kingdoms of the peninsula;[292] Portugal concentrated on expanding overseas during the 15th century, while the other kingdoms were riven by difficulties over royal succession and other concerns.[293][294] After losing the Hundred Years' War, England went on to suffer a long civil war known as the Wars of the Roses, which lasted into the 1490s[294] and only ended when Henry Tudor (r. 1485–1509 as Henry VII) became king and consolidated power with his victory over Richard III (r. 1483–85) at Bosworth in 1485.[295] In Scandinavia, Margaret I of Denmark (r. in Denmark 1387–1412) consolidated Norway, Denmark, and Sweden in the Union of Kalmar, which continued until 1523. The major power around the Baltic Sea was the Hanseatic League, a commercial confederation of city-states that traded from Western Europe to Russia.[296] Scotland emerged from English domination under Robert the Bruce (r. 1306–29), who secured papal recognition of his kingship in 1328.[297]
+
+Although the Palaeologi emperors recaptured Constantinople from the Western Europeans in 1261, they were never able to regain control of much of the former imperial lands. They usually controlled only a small section of the Balkan Peninsula near Constantinople, the city itself, and some coastal lands on the Black Sea and around the Aegean Sea. The former Byzantine lands in the Balkans were divided between the new Kingdom of Serbia, the Second Bulgarian Empire and the city-state of Venice. The power of the Byzantine emperors was threatened by a new Turkish tribe, the Ottomans, who established themselves in Anatolia in the 13th century and steadily expanded throughout the 14th century. The Ottomans expanded into Europe, reducing Bulgaria to a vassal state by 1366 and taking over Serbia after its defeat at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. Western Europeans rallied to the plight of the Christians in the Balkans and declared a new crusade in 1396; a great army was sent to the Balkans, where it was defeated at the Battle of Nicopolis.[298] Constantinople was finally captured by the Ottomans in 1453.[299]
+
+During the tumultuous 14th century, disputes within the leadership of the Church led to the Avignon Papacy of 1309–76,[300] also called the "Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy" (a reference to the Babylonian captivity of the Jews),[301] and then to the Great Schism, lasting from 1378 to 1418, when there were two and later three rival popes, each supported by several states.[302] Ecclesiastical officials convened at the Council of Constance in 1414, and in the following year the council deposed one of the rival popes, leaving only two claimants. Further depositions followed, and in November 1417, the council elected Martin V (pope 1417–31) as pope.[303]
+
+Besides the schism, the Western Church was riven by theological controversies, some of which turned into heresies. John Wycliffe (d. 1384), an English theologian, was condemned as a heretic in 1415 for teaching that the laity should have access to the text of the Bible as well as for holding views on the Eucharist that were contrary to Church doctrine.[304] Wycliffe's teachings influenced two of the major heretical movements of the later Middle Ages: Lollardy in England and Hussitism in Bohemia.[305] The Bohemian movement initiated with the teaching of Jan Hus, who was burned at the stake in 1415, after being condemned as a heretic by the Council of Constance. The Hussite Church, although the target of a crusade, survived beyond the Middle Ages.[306] Other heresies were manufactured, such as the accusations against the Knights Templar that resulted in their suppression in 1312, and the division of their great wealth between the French King Philip IV (r. 1285–1314) and the Hospitallers.[307]
+
+The papacy further refined the practice in the Mass in the Late Middle Ages, holding that the clergy alone was allowed to partake of the wine in the Eucharist. This further distanced the secular laity from the clergy. The laity continued the practices of pilgrimages, veneration of relics, and belief in the power of the Devil. Mystics such as Meister Eckhart (d. 1327) and Thomas à Kempis (d. 1471) wrote works that taught the laity to focus on their inner spiritual life, which laid the groundwork for the Protestant Reformation. Besides mysticism, belief in witches and witchcraft became widespread, and by the late 15th century the Church had begun to lend credence to populist fears of witchcraft with its condemnation of witches in 1484, and the publication in 1486 of the Malleus Maleficarum, the most popular handbook for witch-hunters.[308]
+
+During the Later Middle Ages, theologians such as John Duns Scotus (d. 1308) and William of Ockham (d. c. 1348)[225] led a reaction against intellectualist scholasticism, objecting to the application of reason to faith. Their efforts undermined the prevailing Platonic idea of universals. Ockham's insistence that reason operates independently of faith allowed science to be separated from theology and philosophy.[309] Legal studies were marked by the steady advance of Roman law into areas of jurisprudence previously governed by customary law. The lone exception to this trend was in England, where the common law remained pre-eminent. Other countries codified their laws; legal codes were promulgated in Castile, Poland, and Lithuania.[310]
+
+Education remained mostly focused on the training of future clergy. The basic learning of the letters and numbers remained the province of the family or a village priest, but the secondary subjects of the trivium—grammar, rhetoric, logic—were studied in cathedral schools or in schools provided by cities. Commercial secondary schools spread, and some Italian towns had more than one such enterprise. Universities also spread throughout Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries. Lay literacy rates rose, but were still low; one estimate gave a literacy rate of 10 per cent of males and 1 per cent of females in 1500.[311]
+
+The publication of vernacular literature increased, with Dante (d. 1321), Petrarch (d. 1374) and Giovanni Boccaccio (d. 1375) in 14th-century Italy, Geoffrey Chaucer (d. 1400) and William Langland (d. c. 1386) in England, and François Villon (d. 1464) and Christine de Pizan (d. c. 1430) in France. Much literature remained religious in character, and although a great deal of it continued to be written in Latin, a new demand developed for saints' lives and other devotional tracts in the vernacular languages.[310] This was fed by the growth of the Devotio Moderna movement, most prominently in the formation of the Brethren of the Common Life, but also in the works of German mystics such as Meister Eckhart and Johannes Tauler (d. 1361).[312] Theatre also developed in the guise of miracle plays put on by the Church.[310] At the end of the period, the development of the printing press in about 1450 led to the establishment of publishing houses throughout Europe by 1500.[313]
+
+In the early 15th century, the countries of the Iberian Peninsula began to sponsor exploration beyond the boundaries of Europe. Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal (d. 1460) sent expeditions that discovered the Canary Islands, the Azores, and Cape Verde during his lifetime. After his death, exploration continued; Bartolomeu Dias (d. 1500) went around the Cape of Good Hope in 1486, and Vasco da Gama (d. 1524) sailed around Africa to India in 1498.[314] The combined Spanish monarchies of Castile and Aragon sponsored the voyage of exploration by Christopher Columbus (d. 1506) in 1492 that discovered the Americas.[315] The English crown under Henry VII sponsored the voyage of John Cabot (d. 1498) in 1497, which landed on Cape Breton Island.[316]
+
+
+
+One of the major developments in the military sphere during the Late Middle Ages was the increased use of infantry and light cavalry.[317] The English also employed longbowmen, but other countries were unable to create similar forces with the same success.[318] Armour continued to advance, spurred by the increasing power of crossbows, and plate armour was developed to protect soldiers from crossbows as well as the hand-held guns that were developed.[319] Pole arms reached new prominence with the development of the Flemish and Swiss infantry armed with pikes and other long spears.[320]
+
+In agriculture, the increased usage of sheep with long-fibred wool allowed a stronger thread to be spun. In addition, the spinning wheel replaced the traditional distaff for spinning wool, tripling production.[321][AI] A less technological refinement that still greatly affected daily life was the use of buttons as closures for garments, which allowed for better fitting without having to lace clothing on the wearer.[323] Windmills were refined with the creation of the tower mill, allowing the upper part of the windmill to be spun around to face the direction from which the wind was blowing.[324] The blast furnace appeared around 1350 in Sweden, increasing the quantity of iron produced and improving its quality.[325] The first patent law in 1447 in Venice protected the rights of inventors to their inventions.[326]
+
+The Late Middle Ages in Europe as a whole correspond to the Trecento and Early Renaissance cultural periods in Italy. Northern Europe and Spain continued to use Gothic styles, which became increasingly elaborate in the 15th century, until almost the end of the period. International Gothic was a courtly style that reached much of Europe in the decades around 1400, producing masterpieces such as the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry.[327] All over Europe secular art continued to increase in quantity and quality, and in the 15th century the mercantile classes of Italy and Flanders became important patrons, commissioning small portraits of themselves in oils as well as a growing range of luxury items such as jewellery, ivory caskets, cassone chests, and maiolica pottery. These objects also included the Hispano-Moresque ware produced by mostly Mudéjar potters in Spain. Although royalty owned huge collections of plate, little survives except for the Royal Gold Cup.[328] Italian silk manufacture developed, so that Western churches and elites no longer needed to rely on imports from Byzantium or the Islamic world. In France and Flanders tapestry weaving of sets like The Lady and the Unicorn became a major luxury industry.[329]
+
+The large external sculptural schemes of Early Gothic churches gave way to more sculpture inside the building, as tombs became more elaborate and other features such as pulpits were sometimes lavishly carved, as in the Pulpit by Giovanni Pisano in Sant'Andrea. Painted or carved wooden relief altarpieces became common, especially as churches created many side-chapels. Early Netherlandish painting by artists such as Jan van Eyck (d. 1441) and Rogier van der Weyden (d. 1464) rivalled that of Italy, as did northern illuminated manuscripts, which in the 15th century began to be collected on a large scale by secular elites, who also commissioned secular books, especially histories. From about 1450 printed books rapidly became popular, though still expensive. There were around 30,000 different editions of incunabula, or works printed before 1500,[330] by which time illuminated manuscripts were commissioned only by royalty and a few others. Very small woodcuts, nearly all religious, were affordable even by peasants in parts of Northern Europe from the middle of the 15th century. More expensive engravings supplied a wealthier market with a variety of images.[331]
+
+The medieval period is frequently caricatured as a "time of ignorance and superstition" that placed "the word of religious authorities over personal experience and rational activity."[332] This is a legacy from both the Renaissance and Enlightenment when scholars favourably contrasted their intellectual cultures with those of the medieval period. Renaissance scholars saw the Middle Ages as a period of decline from the high culture and civilisation of the Classical world. Enlightenment scholars saw reason as superior to faith, and thus viewed the Middle Ages as a time of ignorance and superstition.[16]
+
+Others argue that reason was generally held in high regard during the Middle Ages. Science historian Edward Grant writes, "If revolutionary rational thoughts were expressed [in the 18th century], they were only made possible because of the long medieval tradition that established the use of reason as one of the most important of human activities".[333] Also, contrary to common belief, David Lindberg writes, "the late medieval scholar rarely experienced the coercive power of the Church and would have regarded himself as free (particularly in the natural sciences) to follow reason and observation wherever they led".[334]
+
+The caricature of the period is also reflected in some more specific notions. One misconception, first propagated in the 19th century[335] and still very common, is that all people in the Middle Ages believed that the Earth was flat.[335] This is untrue, as lecturers in the medieval universities commonly argued that evidence showed the Earth was a sphere.[336] Lindberg and Ronald Numbers, another scholar of the period, state that there "was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [Earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference".[337] Other misconceptions such as "the Church prohibited autopsies and dissections during the Middle Ages", "the rise of Christianity killed off ancient science", or "the medieval Christian Church suppressed the growth of natural philosophy", are all cited by Numbers as examples of widely popular myths that still pass as historical truth, although they are not supported by historical research.[338]
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+Pokémon[a] (English: /ˈpoʊkɪˌmɒn, -ki-, -keɪ-/),[1][2][3] also known as Pocket Monsters[b] in Japan, is a Japanese media franchise managed by the Pokémon Company, a company founded and with shares divided between Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures.[4] The franchise copyright and Japanese trademark is shared by all three companies,[5] but Nintendo is the sole owner of the trademark in other countries.[6] The franchise was created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1995,[7] and is centered on fictional creatures called "Pokémon", which humans, known as Pokémon Trainers, catch and train to battle each other for sport. The English slogan for the franchise is "Gotta Catch 'Em All".[8][9] Works within the franchise are set in the Pokémon universe.
+
+The franchise began as Pokémon Red and Green (later released outside of Japan as Pokémon Red and Blue), a pair of video games for the original Game Boy handheld system that were developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo in February 1996. It soon became a media mix franchise adapted into various different media.[10] Pokémon has since become the highest-grossing media franchise of all time,[11][12][13] with $90 billion in total franchise revenue.[14][15] The original video game series is the second-best-selling video game franchise (behind Nintendo's Mario franchise)[16] with more than 346 million copies sold[17] and one billion mobile downloads,[18] and it spawned a hit anime television series that has become the most successful video game adaptation[19] with over 20 seasons and 1,000 episodes in 169 countries.[17] In addition, the Pokémon franchise includes the world's top-selling toy brand,[20] the top-selling trading card game[21] with over 28.8 billion cards sold,[17] an anime film series, a live-action film, books, manga comics, music, merchandise, and a theme park. The franchise is also represented in other Nintendo media, such as the Super Smash Bros. series.
+
+In November 2005, 4Kids Entertainment, which had managed the non-game related licensing of Pokémon, announced that it had agreed not to renew the Pokémon representation agreement. The Pokémon Company International oversees all Pokémon licensing outside Asia.[22] In 2006, the franchise celebrated its tenth anniversary.[23] In 2016, the Pokémon Company celebrated Pokémon's 20th anniversary by airing an ad during Super Bowl 50 in January and issuing re-releases of the 1996 Game Boy games Pokémon Red, Green (only in Japan), and Blue, and the 1998 Game Boy Color game Pokémon Yellow for the Nintendo 3DS on February 26, 2016.[24][25] The mobile augmented reality game Pokémon Go was released in July 2016.[26] The first live-action film in the franchise, Pokémon Detective Pikachu, based on the 2018 Nintendo 3DS spinoff game Detective Pikachu, was released in 2019.[11] The most recently released games, Pokémon Sword and Shield, were released worldwide on the Nintendo Switch on November 15, 2019.[27]
+
+The name Pokémon is the portmanteau of the Japanese brand Pocket Monsters.[28] The term "Pokémon", in addition to referring to the Pokémon franchise itself, also collectively refers to the 896 fictional species that have made appearances in Pokémon media as of the release of the eighth generation titles Pokémon Sword and Shield. "Pokémon" is identical in the singular and plural, as is each individual species name; it is grammatically correct to say "one Pokémon" and "many Pokémon", as well as "one Pikachu" and "many Pikachu".[29]
+
+Pokémon executive director Satoshi Tajiri first thought of Pokémon, albeit with a different concept and name, around 1989, when the Game Boy was released. The concept of the Pokémon universe, in both the video games and the general fictional world of Pokémon, stems from the hobby of insect collecting, a popular pastime which Tajiri enjoyed as a child.[30] Players are designated as Pokémon Trainers and have three general goals: to complete the regional Pokédex by collecting all of the available Pokémon species found in the fictional region where a game takes place, to complete the national Pokédex by transferring Pokémon from other regions, and to train a team of powerful Pokémon from those they have caught to compete against teams owned by other Trainers so they may eventually win the Pokémon League and become the regional Champion. These themes of collecting, training, and battling are present in almost every version of the Pokémon franchise, including the video games, the anime and manga series, and the Pokémon Trading Card Game.
+
+In most incarnations of the Pokémon universe, a Trainer who encounters a wild Pokémon is able to capture that Pokémon by throwing a specially designed, mass-producible spherical tool called a Poké Ball at it. If the Pokémon is unable to escape the confines of the Poké Ball, it is considered to be under the ownership of that Trainer. Afterwards, it will obey whatever commands it receives from its new Trainer, unless the Trainer demonstrates such a lack of experience that the Pokémon would rather act on its own accord. Trainers can send out any of their Pokémon to wage non-lethal battles against other Pokémon; if the opposing Pokémon is wild, the Trainer can capture that Pokémon with a Poké Ball, increasing their collection of creatures. In Pokémon Go, and in Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!, wild Pokémon encountered by players can be caught in Poké Balls, but generally cannot be battled. Pokémon already owned by other Trainers cannot be captured, except under special circumstances in certain side games. If a Pokémon fully defeats an opponent in battle so that the opponent is knocked out ("faints"), the winning Pokémon gains experience points and may level up. Beginning with Pokémon X and Y, experience points are also gained from catching Pokémon in Poké Balls. When leveling up, the Pokémon's battling aptitude statistics ("stats", such as "Attack" and "Speed") increase. At certain levels, the Pokémon may also learn new moves, which are techniques used in battle. In addition, many species of Pokémon can undergo a form of metamorphosis and transform into a similar but stronger species of Pokémon, a process called evolution; this process occurs spontaneously under differing circumstances, and is itself a central theme of the series. Some species of Pokémon may undergo a maximum of two evolutionary transformations, while others may undergo only one, and others may not evolve at all. For example, the Pokémon Pichu may evolve into Pikachu, which in turn may evolve into Raichu, following which no further evolutions may occur. Pokémon X and Y introduced the concept of "Mega Evolution," by which certain fully evolved Pokémon may temporarily undergo an additional evolution into a stronger form for the purpose of battling; this evolution is considered a special case, and unlike other evolutionary stages, is reversible.
+
+In the main series, each game's single-player mode requires the Trainer to raise a team of Pokémon to defeat many non-player character (NPC) Trainers and their Pokémon. Each game lays out a somewhat linear path through a specific region of the Pokémon world for the Trainer to journey through, completing events and battling opponents along the way (including foiling the plans of an 'evil' team of Pokémon Trainers who serve as antagonists to the player). Excluding Pokémon Sun and Moon and Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, the games feature eight powerful Trainers, referred to as Gym Leaders, that the Trainer must defeat in order to progress. As a reward, the Trainer receives a Gym Badge, and once all eight badges are collected, the Trainer is eligible to challenge the region's Pokémon League, where four talented trainers (referred to collectively as the "Elite Four") challenge the Trainer to four Pokémon battles in succession. If the trainer can overcome this gauntlet, they must challenge the Regional Champion, the master Trainer who had previously defeated the Elite Four. Any Trainer who wins this last battle becomes the new champion.
+
+All of the licensed Pokémon properties overseen by the Pokémon Company International are divided roughly by generation. These generations are roughly chronological divisions by release; every several years, when a sequel to the 1996 role-playing video games Pokémon Red and Green is released that features new Pokémon, characters, and gameplay concepts, that sequel is considered the start of a new generation of the franchise. The main Pokémon video games and their spin-offs, the anime, manga, and trading card game are all updated with the new Pokémon properties each time a new generation begins.[32] Some Pokémon from the newer games appear in anime episodes or films months, or even years, before the game they were programmed for came out. The first generation began in Japan with Pokémon Red and Green on the Game Boy. As of 2020, there currently are eight generations of main series video games. The most recent games in the main series, Pokémon Sword and Shield, began the eighth and latest generation and were released worldwide for the Nintendo Switch on November 15, 2019.[33][34][35]
+
+Pokémon, also known as Pokémon the Series to Western audiences since 2013, is an anime television series based on the Pokémon video game series. It was originally broadcast on TV Tokyo in 1997. To date, the anime has produced and aired over 1,000 episodes, divided into 7 series in Japan and 22 seasons internationally. It is one of the longest currently running anime series.[38]
+
+The anime follows the quest of the main character, Ash Ketchum (known as Satoshi in Japan), a Pokémon Master in training, as he and a small group of friends travel around the world of Pokémon along with their Pokémon partners.[39]
+
+Various children's books, collectively known as Pokémon Junior, are also based on the anime.[40]
+
+A new seven part anime series called Pokémon: Twilight Wings began airing on YouTube in 2020.[41] The series was animated by Studio Colorido.[42]
+
+To date, there have been 23 animated theatrical Pokémon films (one in the making for July 2020[43]), which have been directed by Kunihiko Yuyama and Tetsuo Yajima, and distributed in Japan by Toho since 1998. The pair of films, Pokémon the Movie: Black—Victini and Reshiram and White—Victini and Zekrom are considered together as one film. Collectibles, such as promotional trading cards, have been available with some of the films. Since the 20th film, the films have been set in an alternate continuity separate from the anime series.
+
+List of Pokémon animated theatrical films
+
+A reboot to the film franchise began with the release of the 20th movie, Pokémon the Movie: I Choose You!, in Japan on July 15, 2017. It was followed by a continuation, Pokémon the Movie: The Power of Us, which was released in Japan on July 13, 2018.
+
+A live-action Pokémon film directed by Rob Letterman, produced by Legendary Entertainment,[48] and distributed in Japan by Toho and internationally by Warner Bros.[49] began filming in January 2018.[50] On August 24, the film's official title was announced as Pokémon Detective Pikachu.[51] It was released on May 10, 2019.[11] The film is based on the 2018 Nintendo 3DS spin-off video game Detective Pikachu. Development of a sequel was announced in January 2019, before the release of the first film.[52]
+
+Pokémon CDs have been released in North America, some of them in conjunction with the theatrical releases of the first three and the 20th Pokémon films. These releases were commonplace until late 2001. On March 27, 2007, a tenth anniversary CD was released containing 18 tracks from the English dub; this was the first English-language release in over five years. Soundtracks of the Pokémon feature films have been released in Japan each year in conjunction with the theatrical releases. In 2017, a soundtrack album featuring music from the North American versions of the 17th through 20th movies was released.
+
+^  The exact date of release is unknown.
+
+^  Featuring music from Pokémon the Movie: Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction, Pokémon the Movie: Hoopa and the Clash of Ages, Pokémon the Movie: Volcanion and the Mechanical Marvel, and Pokémon the Movie: I Choose You!
+
+The Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG) is a collectible card game with a goal similar to a Pokémon battle in the video game series. Players use Pokémon cards, with individual strengths and weaknesses, in an attempt to defeat their opponent by "knocking out" their Pokémon cards.[55] The game was published in North America by Wizards of the Coast in 1999.[56] With the release of the Game Boy Advance video games Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, the Pokémon Company took back the card game from Wizards of the Coast and started publishing the cards themselves.[56] The Expedition expansion introduced the Pokémon-e Trading Card Game, where the cards (for the most part) were compatible with the Nintendo e-Reader. Nintendo discontinued its production of e-Reader compatible cards with the release of FireRed and LeafGreen. In 1998, Nintendo released a Game Boy Color version of the trading card game in Japan; Pokémon Trading Card Game was subsequently released to the US and Europe in 2000. The game included digital versions cards from the original set of cards and the first two expansions (Jungle and Fossil), as well as several cards exclusive to the game. A sequel was released in Japan in 2001.[57]
+
+There are various Pokémon manga series, four of which were released in English by Viz Media, and seven of them released in English by Chuang Yi. The manga series vary from game-based series to being based on the anime and the Trading Card Game. Original stories have also been published. As there are several series created by different authors, most Pokémon manga series differ greatly from each other and other media, such as the anime.[example  needed] Pokémon Pocket Monsters and Pokémon Adventures are the two manga in production since the first generation.
+
+A Pokémon-styled Monopoly board game was released in August 2014.[72]
+
+Pokémon has been criticized by some fundamentalist Christians over perceived occult and violent themes and the concept of "Pokémon evolution", which they feel goes against the Biblical creation account in Genesis.[73] Sat2000, a satellite television station based in Vatican City, has countered that the Pokémon Trading Card Game and video games are "full of inventive imagination" and have no "harmful moral side effects".[74][75] In the United Kingdom, the "Christian Power Cards" game was introduced in 1999 by David Tate who stated, "Some people aren't happy with Pokémon and want an alternative, others just want Christian games." The game was similar to the Pokémon Trading Card Game but used Biblical figures.[76]
+
+In 1999, Nintendo stopped manufacturing the Japanese version of the "Koga's Ninja Trick" trading card because it depicted a manji, a traditionally Buddhist symbol with no negative connotations. The Jewish civil rights group Anti-Defamation League complained because the symbol is the reverse of a swastika, a Nazi symbol. The cards were intended for sale in Japan only, but the popularity of Pokémon led to import into the United States with approval from Nintendo. The Anti-Defamation League understood that the portrayed symbol was not intended to offend and acknowledged the sensitivity that Nintendo showed by removing the product.[77][78]
+
+In 1999, two nine-year-old boys from Merrick, New York sued Nintendo because they claimed the Pokémon Trading Card Game caused their problematic gambling.[79]
+
+In 2001, Saudi Arabia banned Pokémon games and the trading cards, alleging that the franchise promoted Zionism by displaying the Star of David in the trading cards (a six-pointed star is featured in the card game) as well as other religious symbols such as crosses they associated with Christianity and triangles they associated with Freemasonry; the games also involved gambling, which is in violation of Muslim doctrine.[80][81]
+
+Pokémon has also been accused of promoting materialism.[82]
+
+In 2012, PETA criticized the concept of Pokémon as supporting cruelty to animals. PETA compared the game's concept, of capturing animals and forcing them to fight, to cockfights, dog fighting rings and circuses, events frequently criticized for cruelty to animals. PETA released a game spoofing Pokémon where the Pokémon battle their trainers to win their freedom.[83] PETA reaffirmed their objections in 2016 with the release of Pokémon Go, promoting the hashtag #GottaFreeThemAll.[84]
+
+On December 16, 1997, more than 635 Japanese children were admitted to hospitals with epileptic seizures.[85] It was determined the seizures were caused by watching an episode of Pokémon "Dennō Senshi Porygon", (most commonly translated "Electric Soldier Porygon", season 1, episode 38); as a result, this episode has not been aired since. In this particular episode, there were bright explosions with rapidly alternating blue and red color patterns.[86] It was determined in subsequent research that these strobing light effects cause some individuals to have epileptic seizures, even if the person had no previous history of epilepsy.[87] This incident is a common focus of Pokémon-related parodies in other media, and was lampooned by The Simpsons episode "Thirty Minutes over Tokyo"[88] and the South Park episode "Chinpokomon",[89] among others.
+
+In March 2000, Morrison Entertainment Group, a toy developer based at Manhattan Beach, California, sued Nintendo over claims that Pokémon infringed on its own Monster in My Pocket characters. A judge ruled there was no infringement and Morrison appealed the ruling. On February 4, 2003, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the decision by the District Court to dismiss the suit.[90]
+
+Within its first two days of release, Pokémon Go raised safety concerns among players. Multiple people also suffered minor injuries from falling while playing the game due to being distracted.[91]
+
+Multiple police departments in various countries have issued warnings, some tongue-in-cheek, regarding inattentive driving, trespassing, and being targeted by criminals due to being unaware of one's surroundings.[92][93] People have suffered various injuries from accidents related to the game,[94][95][96][97] and Bosnian players have been warned to stay out of minefields left over from the 1990s Bosnian War.[98] On July 20, 2016, it was reported that an 18-year-old boy in Chiquimula, Guatemala was shot and killed while playing the game in the late evening hours. This was the first reported death in connection with the app. The boy's 17-year-old cousin, who was accompanying the victim, was shot in the foot. Police speculated that the shooters used the game's GPS capability to find the two.[99]
+
+Pokémon, being a globally popular franchise, has left a significant mark on today's popular culture. The various species of Pokémon have become pop culture icons; examples include two different Pikachu balloons in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Pokémon-themed airplanes operated by All Nippon Airways, merchandise items, and a traveling theme park that was in Nagoya, Japan in 2005 and in Taipei in 2006. Pokémon also appeared on the cover of the U.S. magazine Time in 1999.[100] The Comedy Central show Drawn Together has a character named Ling-Ling who is a parody of Pikachu.[101] Several other shows such as The Simpsons,[102] South Park[103] and Robot Chicken[104] have made references and spoofs of Pokémon, among other series. Pokémon was featured on VH1's I Love the '90s: Part Deux. A live action show based on the anime called Pokémon Live! toured the United States in late 2000.[105] Jim Butcher cites Pokémon as one of the inspirations for the Codex Alera series of novels.[106]
+
+Pokémon has even made its mark in the realm of science. This includes animals named after Pokémon, such as Stentorceps weedlei (named after the Pokémon Weedle for its resemblance) and Chilicola Charizard Monckton (named after the Pokémon Charizard).[107] There is also a protein named after Pikachu, called Pikachurin.
+
+In November 2001, Nintendo opened a store called the Pokémon Center in New York, in Rockefeller Center,[108] modeled after the two other Pokémon Center stores in Tokyo and Osaka and named after a staple of the video game series. Pokémon Centers are fictional buildings where Trainers take their injured Pokémon to be healed after combat.[109] The store sold Pokémon merchandise on a total of two floors, with items ranging from collectible shirts to stuffed Pokémon plushies.[110] The store also featured a Pokémon Distributing Machine in which players would place their game to receive an egg of a Pokémon that was being given out at that time. The store also had tables that were open for players of the Pokémon Trading Card Game to duel each other or an employee. The store was closed and replaced by the Nintendo World Store on May 14, 2005.[111] Four Pokémon Center kiosks were put in malls in the Seattle area.[112] The Pokémon Center online store was relaunched on August 6, 2014.[113]
+
+Professor of Education Joseph Tobin theorizes that the success of the franchise was due to the long list of names that could be learned by children and repeated in their peer groups. Its rich fictional universe provides opportunities for discussion and demonstration of knowledge in front of their peers. The names of the creatures were linked to its characteristics, which converged with the children's belief that names have symbolic power. Children can pick their favourite Pokémon and affirm their individuality while at the same time affirming their conformance to the values of the group, and they can distinguish themselves from others by asserting what they liked and what they did not like from every chapter. Pokémon gained popularity because it provides a sense of identity to a wide variety of children, and lost it quickly when many of those children found that the identity groups were too big and searched for identities that would distinguish them into smaller groups.[114]
+
+Pokémon's history has been marked at times by rivalry with the Digimon media franchise that debuted at a similar time. Described as "the other 'mon'" by IGN's Juan Castro, Digimon has not enjoyed Pokémon's level of international popularity or success, but has maintained a dedicated fanbase.[115] IGN's Lucas M. Thomas stated that Pokémon is Digimon's "constant competition and comparison", attributing the former's relative success to the simplicity of its evolution mechanic as opposed to Digivolution.[116] The two have been noted for conceptual and stylistic similarities by sources such as GameZone.[117] A debate among fans exists over which of the two franchises came first.[118] In actuality, the first Pokémon media, Pokémon Red and Green, were released initially on February 27, 1996;[119] whereas the Digimon virtual pet was released on June 26, 1997.
+
+While Pokémon's target demographic is children, early purchasers of Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire were in their 20s.[120] Many fans are adults who originally played the games as children and had later returned to the series.[121]
+
+Numerous fan sites exist for the Pokémon franchise, including Bulbapedia, a wiki-based encyclopedia,[122][123][124] and Serebii,[125] a news and reference website.[126] Other large fan communities exist on other platforms, such as the r/pokemon subreddit with over 2.2 million subscribers.[127]
+
+A significant community around the Pokémon video games' metagame has existed for a long time, analyzing the best ways to use each Pokémon to their full potential in competitive battles. The most prolific competitive community is Smogon University, which has created a widely accepted tier-based battle system.[128]
+Smogon is affiliated with an online Pokémon game called Pokémon Showdown, in which players create a team and battle against other players around the world using the competitive tiers created by Smogon.[129]
+
+In early 2014, an anonymous video streamer on Twitch launched Twitch Plays Pokémon, an experiment trying to crowdsource playing subsequent Pokémon games, starting with Pokémon Red.[130][131]
+
+A challenge called the Nuzlocke Challenge allows players to only capture the first Pokémon encountered in each area. If they do not succeed in capturing that Pokémon, there are no second chances. When a Pokémon faints, it is considered "dead" and must be released or stored in the PC permanently.[132] If the player faints, the game is considered over, and the player must restart.[133] The original idea consisted of 2 to 3 rules that the community has built upon. There are many fan made Pokémon games that contain a game mode similar to the Nuzlocke Challenge, such as Pokémon Uranium.[134]
+
+A study at Stanford Neurosciences published in Nature performed magnetic resonance imaging scans of 11 Pokémon experts and 11 controls, finding that seeing Pokémon stimulated activity in the visual cortex, in a different place than is triggered by recognizing faces, places or words, demonstrating the brain's ability to create such specialized areas.[135]

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+
+
+C or c is the third letter in the English and ISO basic Latin alphabets. Its name in English is cee (pronounced /ˈsiː/), plural cees.[1]
+
+"C" comes from the same letter as "G". The Semites named it gimel. The sign is possibly adapted from an Egyptian hieroglyph for a staff sling, which may have been the meaning of the name gimel. Another possibility is that it depicted a camel, the Semitic name for which was gamal. Barry B. Powell, a specialist in the history of writing, states "It is hard to imagine how gimel = "camel" can be derived from the picture of a camel (it may show his hump, or his head and neck!)".[2]
+
+In the Etruscan language, plosive consonants had no contrastive voicing, so the Greek 'Γ' (Gamma) was adopted into the Etruscan alphabet to represent /k/. Already in the Western Greek alphabet, Gamma first took a '' form in Early Etruscan, then '' in Classical Etruscan. In Latin it eventually took the 'c' form in Classical Latin. In the earliest Latin inscriptions, the letters 'c k q' were used to represent the sounds /k/ and /ɡ/ (which were not differentiated in writing).  Of these, 'q' was used to represent /k/ or /ɡ/ before a rounded vowel, 'k' before 'a', and 'c' elsewhere.[3]  During the 3rd century BC, a modified character was introduced for /ɡ/, and 'c' itself was retained for /k/. The use of 'c' (and its variant 'g') replaced most usages of 'k' and 'q'.  Hence, in the classical period and after, 'g' was treated as the equivalent of Greek gamma, and 'c' as the equivalent of kappa; this shows in the romanization of Greek words, as in 'ΚΑΔΜΟΣ', 'ΚΥΡΟΣ', and 'ΦΩΚΙΣ' came into Latin as 'cadmvs', 'cyrvs' and 'phocis', respectively.
+
+Other alphabets have letters homoglyphic to 'c' but not analogous in use and derivation, like the Cyrillic letter Es (С, с) which derives from the lunate sigma, named due to its resemblance to the crescent moon.
+
+When the Roman alphabet was introduced into Britain, ⟨c⟩ represented only /k/, and this value of the letter has been retained in loanwords to all the insular Celtic languages: in Welsh,[4] Irish, Gaelic, ⟨c⟩ represents only /k/. The Old English Latin-based writing system was learned from the Celts, apparently of Ireland; hence ⟨c⟩ in Old English also originally represented /k/; the Modern English words kin, break, broken, thick, and seek, all come from Old English words written with ⟨c⟩: cyn, brecan, brocen, þicc, and séoc. But during the course of the Old English period, /k/ before front vowels (/e/ and /i/) were palatalized, having changed by the tenth century to [tʃ], though ⟨c⟩ was still used, as in cir(i)ce, wrecc(e)a. On the continent, meanwhile, a similar phonetic change had also been going on (for example, in Italian).
+
+In Vulgar Latin, /k/ became palatalized to [tʃ] in Italy and Dalmatia; in France and the Iberian peninsula, it became [ts]. Yet for these new sounds ⟨c⟩ was still used before the letters ⟨e⟩ and ⟨i⟩.  The letter thus represented two distinct values. Subsequently, the Latin phoneme /kʷ/ (spelled ⟨qv⟩) de-labialized to /k/ meaning that the various Romance languages had /k/ before front vowels.  In addition, Norman used the letter ⟨k⟩ so that the sound /k/ could be represented by either ⟨k⟩ or ⟨c⟩, the latter of which could represent either /k/ or /ts/ depending on whether it preceded a front vowel letter or not. The convention of using both ⟨c⟩ and ⟨k⟩ was applied to the writing of English after the Norman Conquest, causing a considerable re-spelling of the Old English words. Thus while Old English candel, clif, corn, crop, cú, remained unchanged, Cent, cæ´ᵹ (cé´ᵹ), cyng, brece, séoce, were now (without any change of sound) spelled 'Kent', 'keȝ', 'kyng', 'breke', and 'seoke'; even cniht ('knight') was subsequently changed to 'kniht' and þic ('thick') changed to 'thik' or 'thikk'. The Old English 'cw' was also at length displaced by the French 'qu' so that the Old English cwén ('queen') and cwic ('quick') became Middle English 'quen' 'quik', respectively. The sound [tʃ], to which Old English palatalized /k/ had advanced, also occurred in French, chiefly from Latin /k/ before 'a'. In French it was represented by the digraph ⟨ch⟩, as in champ (from Latin camp-um) and this spelling was introduced into English: the Hatton Gospels, written about 1160, have in Matt. i-iii, child, chyld, riche, mychel, for the cild, rice, mycel, of the Old English version whence they were copied. In these cases, the Old English ⟨c⟩ gave place to ⟨k qu ch⟩ but, on the other hand, ⟨c⟩ in its new value of /ts/ came in largely in French words like processiun, emperice, grace, and was also substituted for 'ts' in a few Old English words, as miltse, bletsien, in early Middle English milce, blecien. By the end of the thirteenth century both in France and England, this sound /ts/ de-affricated to /s/; and from that time ⟨c⟩ has represented /s/ before front vowels either for etymological reasons, as in lance, cent, or to avoid the ambiguity due to the "etymological" use of ⟨s⟩ for /z/, as in ace, mice, once, pence, defence.
+
+Thus, to show etymology, English spelling has advise, devise (instead of advize, devize), while advice, device, dice, ice, mice, twice, etc., do not reflect etymology; example has extended this to hence, pence, defence, etc., where there is no etymological reason for using ⟨c⟩. Former generations also wrote sence for sense. Hence, today the Romance languages and English have a common feature inherited from Vulgar Latin spelling conventions where ⟨c⟩ takes on either a "hard" or "soft" value depending on the following letter.
+
+In English orthography, ⟨c⟩ generally represents the "soft" value of /s/ before the letters ⟨e⟩ (including the Latin-derived digraphs ⟨ae⟩ and ⟨oe⟩, or the corresponding ligatures ⟨æ⟩ and ⟨œ⟩), ⟨i⟩, and ⟨y⟩, and a "hard" value of /k/ before any other letters or at the end of a word. However, there are a number of exceptions in English: "soccer" and "Celt" are words that have /k/ where /s/ would be expected.
+
+The "soft" ⟨c⟩ may represent the /ʃ/ sound in the digraph ⟨ci⟩ when this precedes a vowel, as in the words 'delicious' and 'appreciate', and also in the word "ocean" and its derivatives.
+
+The digraph ⟨ch⟩ most commonly represents /tʃ/, but can also represent /k/ (mainly in words of Greek origin) or /ʃ/ (mainly in words of French origin). For some dialects of English, it may also represent /x/ in words like loch, while other speakers pronounce the final sound as /k/. The trigraph ⟨tch⟩ always represents /tʃ/.
+
+The digraph ⟨ck⟩ is often used to represent the sound /k/  after short vowels, like "wicket".
+
+C is the eleventh least frequently used letter in the English language (after G, Y, P, B, V, K, J, X, Q, and Z), with a frequency of about 2.20% in words.
+
+In the Romance languages French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian and Portuguese, ⟨c⟩ generally has a "hard" value of /k/ and a "soft" value whose pronunciation varies by language. In French, Portuguese, Catalan and Spanish from Latin America and some places in Spain, the soft ⟨c⟩ value is /s/ as it is in English.  In the Spanish spoken in most of Spain, the soft ⟨c⟩ is a voiceless dental fricative /θ/. In Italian and Romanian, the soft ⟨c⟩ is [t͡ʃ].
+
+All Balto-Slavic languages that use the Latin alphabet, as well as Albanian, Hungarian, Pashto, several Sami languages, Esperanto, Ido, Interlingua, and Americanist phonetic notation (and those aboriginal languages of North America whose practical orthography derives from it) use ⟨c⟩ to represent /t͡s/, the voiceless alveolar or voiceless dental sibilant affricate. In Hanyu Pinyin, the standard romanization of Mandarin Chinese, the letter represents an aspirated version of this sound, /t͡sʰ/.
+
+Among non-European languages that have adopted the Latin alphabet, ⟨c⟩ represents a variety of sounds. Yup'ik, Indonesian, Malay, and a number of African languages such as Hausa, Fula, and Manding share the soft Italian value of /t͡ʃ/.  In Azeri, Crimean Tatar, Kurmanji Kurdish, and Turkish ⟨c⟩ stands for the voiced counterpart of this sound, the voiced postalveolar affricate /d͡ʒ/. In Yabem and similar languages, such as Bukawa, ⟨c⟩ stands for a glottal stop /ʔ/. Xhosa and Zulu use this letter to represent the click /ǀ/. In some other African languages, such as Berber languages, ⟨c⟩ is used for /ʃ/. In Fijian, ⟨c⟩ stands for a voiced dental fricative /ð/, while in Somali it has the value of /ʕ/.
+
+The letter ⟨c⟩ is also used as a transliteration of Cyrillic ⟨ц⟩ in the Latin forms of Serbian, Macedonian, and sometimes Ukrainian, along with the digraph ⟨ts⟩.
+
+As a phonetic symbol, lowercase ⟨c⟩ is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and X-SAMPA symbol for the voiceless palatal plosive, and capital ⟨C⟩ is the X-SAMPA symbol for the voiceless palatal fricative.
+
+There are several common digraphs with ⟨c⟩, the most common being ⟨ch⟩, which in some languages (such as German) is far more common than ⟨c⟩ alone. ⟨ch⟩ takes various values in other languages.
+
+As in English, ⟨ck⟩, with the value /k/, is often used after short vowels in other Germanic languages such as German and Swedish (other Germanic languages, such as Dutch and Norwegian, use ⟨kk⟩ instead). The digraph ⟨cz⟩ is found in Polish and ⟨cs⟩ in Hungarian, both representing /t͡ʃ/. The digraph ⟨sc⟩ represents /ʃ/ in Old English, Italian, and a few languages related to Italian (where this only happens before front vowels, while otherwise it represents /sk/). The trigraph ⟨sch⟩ represents /ʃ/ in German.
+
+Add to C with diacritics
+

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+
+
+A waterfall is an area where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops in the course of a stream or river. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf.
+
+Waterfalls are commonly formed in the upper course of a river where lakes fall into in steep mountains.[1] Because of their landscape position, many waterfalls occur over bedrock fed by little contributing area, so they may be ephemeral and flow only during rainstorms or significant snowmelt. The further downstream, the more perennial a waterfall can be. Waterfalls can have a wide range of widths and depths.
+
+When the river courses over resistant bedrock, erosion happens slowly and is dominated by impacts of water-borne sediment on the rock, while downstream the erosion occurs more rapidly.[1][3] As the watercourse increases its velocity at the edge of the waterfall, it may pluck material from the riverbed, if the bed is fractured or otherwise more erodible. Hydraulic jets and hydraulic jumps at the toe of a falls can generate large forces to erode the bed,[4] especially when forces are amplified by water-borne sediment. Horseshoe-shaped falls focus the erosion to a central point, also enhancing riverbed change below a waterfalls.[5] A process known as "potholing" involves local erosion of a potentially deep hole in bedrock due to turbulent whirlpools spinning stones around on the bed, drilling it out. Sand and stones carried by the watercourse therefore increase erosion capacity.[1] This causes the waterfall to carve deeper into the bed and to recede upstream. Often over time, the waterfall will recede back to form a canyon or gorge downstream as it recedes upstream, and it will carve deeper into the ridge above it.[6] The rate of retreat for a waterfall can be as high as one-and-a-half metres per year.[1]
+
+Often, the rock stratum just below the more resistant shelf will be of a softer type, meaning that undercutting due to splashback will occur here to form a shallow cave-like formation known as a rock shelter under and behind the waterfall. Eventually, the outcropping, more resistant cap rock will collapse under pressure to add blocks of rock to the base of the waterfall. These blocks of rock are then broken down into smaller boulders by attrition as they collide with each other, and they also erode the base of the waterfall by abrasion, creating a deep plunge pool in the gorge downstream.
+
+Streams can become wider and shallower just above waterfalls due to flowing over the rock shelf, and there is usually a deep area just below the waterfall because of the kinetic energy of the water hitting the bottom. However, a study of waterfalls systematics reported that waterfalls can be wider or narrower above or below a falls, so almost anything is possible given the right geological and hydrological setting.[7] Waterfalls normally form in a rocky area due to erosion. After a long period of being fully formed, the water falling off the ledge will retreat, causing a horizontal pit parallel to the waterfall wall. Eventually, as the pit grows deeper, the waterfall collapses to be replaced by a steeply sloping stretch of river bed.[1] In addition to gradual processes such as erosion, earth movement caused by earthquakes or landslides or volcanoes can cause a differential in land heights which interfere with the natural course of a water flow, and result in waterfalls.
+
+A river sometimes flows over a large step in the rocks that may have been formed by a fault line. Waterfalls can occur along the edge of a glacial trough, where a stream or river flowing into a glacier continues to flow into a valley after the glacier has receded or melted. The large waterfalls in Yosemite Valley are examples of this phenomenon, which is referred to as a hanging valley. Another reason hanging valleys may form is where two rivers join and one is flowing faster than the other.[1]
+
+Waterfalls can be grouped into ten broad classes based on the average volume of water present on the fall (which depends on both the waterfall's average flow and its height) using a logarithmic scale.  Class 10 waterfalls include Niagara Falls, Paulo Afonso Falls and Khone Falls.
+
+Classes of other well-known waterfalls include Victoria Falls and Kaieteur Falls (Class 9); Rhine Falls and Gullfoss (Class 8); Angel Falls and Dettifoss (Class 7); Yosemite Falls, Lower Yellowstone Falls, and Umphang Thee Lor Sue Waterfall (Class 6); and Sutherland Falls (Class 5).[8]
+
+Alexander von Humboldt (1820s) "Father of Modern Geography" Humboldt was mostly marking waterfalls on maps for river navigation purposes.
+
+Oscar von Engeln (1930s) Published "Geomorphology: systematic and regional", this book had a whole chapter devoted to waterfalls, and is one of the earliest examples of published works on waterfalls.
+
+R. W. Young (1980s) Wrote "Waterfalls: form and process" this work made waterfalls a much more serious topic for research for modern Geoscientists.[9]
+
+Some waterfalls are also distinct in that they do not flow continuously. Ephemeral waterfalls only flow after a rain or a significant snowmelt.[11][12][13]
+
+Powerscourt Waterfall is the tallest Waterfall in Ireland.
+
+Aerial view of Iguazu Falls on the Iguazu River between Brazil and Argentina.
+
+Aerial view of Niagara Falls in the state of New York, United States, and province of Ontario, Canada.
+
+Nohkalikai Falls is one of the tallest plunge type waterfalls in India.[14]
+
+Shaki Waterfall in Armenia, Syunik Province
+
+Significant waterfalls,[15] listed alphabetically:
+
+Huangguoshu Waterfall in Guizhou province, China, is a block-type waterfall and a cataract.
+
+Song Khon Waterfall in Loei Province, Thailand is an example of a cascade waterfall.
+
+In Pamukkale, Turkey is an example of travertine terraces built by flowing water.
+
+First fall of Elephant Falls in Shillong, India, is an example of a horsetail-punchbowl waterfall.

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+
+
+
+
+The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer, pronounced [bɛʁˈliːnɐ ˈmaʊ̯ɐ] (listen)) was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989.[1] Construction of the wall was commenced by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) on 13 August 1961. The Wall cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany, including East Berlin.[2] The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls,[3] accompanied by a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, beds of nails, and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc portrayed the Wall as protecting its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" from building a socialist state in East Germany.
+
+GDR authorities officially referred to the Berlin Wall as the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall). The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame", a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt in reference to the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement.[4] Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB), which demarcated the border between East and West Germany, it came to physically symbolize the "Iron Curtain" that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.[5]
+
+Before the Wall's erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, many by crossing over the border from East Berlin into West Berlin; from there they could then travel to West Germany and to other Western European countries. Between 1961 and 1989, the Wall prevented almost all such emigration.[6] During this period, over 100,000[5] people attempted to escape, and over 5,000 people succeeded in escaping over the Wall, with an estimated death toll ranging from 136[7] to more than 200[5][8] in and around Berlin.
+
+In 1989, a series of revolutions in nearby Eastern Bloc countries—in Poland and Hungary in particular—caused a chain reaction in East Germany that ultimately resulted in the demise of the Wall.[9] After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the Wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, euphoric people and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the Wall.[5] The Brandenburg Gate, a few meters from the Berlin Wall, was opened on 22 December 1989. The demolition of the Wall officially began on 13 June 1990 and was completed in November 1991. The "fall of the Berlin Wall" paved the way for German reunification, which formally took place on 3 October 1990.[5]
+
+After the end of World War II in Europe, what remained of pre-war Germany west of the Oder-Neisse line was divided into four occupation zones (as per the Potsdam Agreement), each one controlled by one of the four occupying Allied powers: the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union. The capital of Berlin, as the seat of the Allied Control Council, was similarly subdivided into four sectors despite the city's location, which was fully within the Soviet zone.[10]
+
+Within two years, political divisions increased between the Soviets and the other occupying powers. These included the Soviets' refusal to agree to reconstruction plans making post-war Germany self-sufficient, and to a detailed accounting of industrial plants, goods and infrastructure—some of which had already been removed by the Soviets.[11] France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Benelux countries later met to combine the non-Soviet zones of Germany into one zone for reconstruction, and to approve the extension of the Marshall Plan.[5]
+
+Following the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, the Soviet Union engineered the installation of friendly Communist governments in most of the countries occupied by Soviet military forces at the end of the War, including Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, and the GDR, which together with Albania formed the Comecon in 1949 and later a military alliance, the Warsaw Pact.[citation needed] This bloc of nations was set up by the Soviets in opposition to NATO in the capitalist West in what became the Cold War.[citation needed]
+
+Since the end of the War, the Soviets together with like-minded East Germans created a new Soviet-style regime in the Soviet Zone and later the GDR, on a centrally planned socialist economic model with nationalized means of production, and with repressive police state institutions, under party dictatorship of the SED similar to the party dictatorship of the Soviet Communist Party in the USSR.[citation needed]
+
+At the same time, a parallel regime was established under the strict control of the Western powers in the zones of post-war Germany occupied by them, culminating in the foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949,[12] which initially claimed to be the sole legitimate power in all of Germany, East and West. The material standard of life in the Western zones of Berlin began to improve quickly, and residents of the Soviet Zone soon began leaving for the West in large numbers, fleeing hunger, poverty and repression in the Soviet Zone for a better life in the West. Soon residents of other parts of the Soviet Zone began to escape to the West through Berlin, and this migration, called in Germany "Republikflucht", deprived the Soviet Zone not only of working forces desperately needed for post-war reconstruction, but disproportionately highly educated people, which came to be known as the "Brain Drain".[citation needed]
+
+In 1948, in response to moves by the Western powers to establish a separate, federal system of government in the Western zones, and to extend the Marshall Plan to Germany, the Soviets instituted the Berlin Blockade, preventing people, food, materials and supplies from arriving in West Berlin by land routes through the Soviet zone.[13] The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several other countries began a massive "airlift", supplying West Berlin with food and other supplies.[14] The Soviets mounted a public relations campaign against the Western policy change. Communists attempted to disrupt the elections of 1948, preceding large losses therein,[15] while 300,000 Berliners demonstrated for the international airlift to continue.[16] In May 1949, Stalin lifted the blockade, permitting the resumption of Western shipments to Berlin.[17][18]
+
+The German Democratic Republic (the "GDR"; East Germany) was declared on 7 October 1949. On that day, the USSR ended the Soviet military government which had governed the Soviet Occupation Zone (Sowetische Besatzungszone) since the end of the War, and handed over legal power [19] to the Provisorische Volkskammer under the new Constitution of the GDR which came into force that day. However, until 1955, the Soviets maintained considerable legal control over the GDR state, including the regional governments, through the Sowetische Kontrollkommission and maintained a presence in various East German administrative, military, and secret police structures.[20][21] Even after legal sovereignty of the GDR was restored in 1955, the Soviet Union continued to maintain considerable influence over administration and lawmaking in the GDR through the Soviet embassy and through the implicit threat of force which could be exercised through the continuing large Soviet military presence in the GDR, which was used to bloodily repress protests in East Germany in June 1953.[22]
+
+East Germany differed from West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany), which developed into a Western capitalist country with a social market economy and a democratic parliamentary government. Continual economic growth starting in the 1950s fueled a 20-year "economic miracle" ("Wirtschaftswunder"). As West Germany's economy grew, and its standard of living steadily improved, many East Germans wanted to move to West Germany.[23]
+
+After the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, the majority of those living in the newly acquired areas of the Eastern Bloc aspired to independence and wanted the Soviets to leave.[24] Taking advantage of the zonal border between occupied zones in Germany, the number of GDR citizens moving to West Germany totaled 187,000 in 1950; 165,000 in 1951; 182,000 in 1952; and 331,000 in 1953.[25][26] One reason for the sharp 1953 increase was fear of potential further Sovietization, given the increasingly paranoid actions of Joseph Stalin in late 1952 and early 1953.[27] 226,000 had fled in just the first six months of 1953.[28]
+
+By the early 1950s, the Soviet approach to controlling national movement, restricting emigration, was emulated by most of the rest of the Eastern Bloc, including East Germany.[29] The restrictions presented a quandary for some Eastern Bloc states, which had been more economically advanced and open than the Soviet Union, such that crossing borders seemed more natural—especially where no prior border existed between East and West Germany.[30]
+
+Up until 1952, the demarcation lines between East Germany and the western occupied zones could be easily crossed in most places.[31] On 1 April 1952, East German leaders met the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in Moscow; during the discussions Stalin's foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov proposed that the East Germans should "introduce a system of passes for visits of West Berlin residents to the territory of East Berlin [so as to stop] free movement of Western agents" in the GDR. Stalin agreed, calling the situation "intolerable". He advised the East Germans to build up their border defenses, telling them that "The demarcation line between East and West Germany should be considered a border—and not just any border, but a dangerous one ... The Germans will guard the line of defence with their lives."[32]
+
+Consequently, the inner German border between the two German states was closed, and a barbed-wire fence erected. The border between the Western and Eastern sectors of Berlin, however, remained open, although traffic between the Soviet and the Western sectors was somewhat restricted. This resulted in Berlin becoming a magnet for East Germans desperate to escape life in the GDR, and also a flashpoint for tension between the United States and the Soviet Union.[5]
+
+In 1955, the Soviets gave East Germany authority over civilian movement in Berlin, passing control to a regime not recognized in the West.[33] Initially, East Germany granted "visits" to allow its residents access to West Germany. However, following the defection of large numbers of East Germans (known as Republikflucht) under this regime, the new East German state legally restricted virtually all travel to the West in 1956.[31] Soviet East German ambassador Mikhail Pervukhin observed that "the presence in Berlin of an open and essentially uncontrolled border between the socialist and capitalist worlds unwittingly prompts the population to make a comparison between both parts of the city, which unfortunately does not always turn out in favour of Democratic [East] Berlin."[34]
+
+With the closing of the inner German border officially in 1952,[34] the border in Berlin remained considerably more accessible because it was administered by all four occupying powers.[31] Accordingly, Berlin became the main route by which East Germans left for the West.[35] On 11 December 1957, East Germany introduced a new passport law that reduced the overall number of refugees leaving Eastern Germany.[5]
+
+It had the unintended result of drastically increasing the percentage of those leaving through West Berlin from 60% to well over 90% by the end of 1958.[34] Those caught trying to leave East Berlin were subjected to heavy penalties, but with no physical barrier and subway train access still available to West Berlin, such measures were ineffective.[36] The Berlin sector border was essentially a "loophole" through which Eastern Bloc citizens could still escape.[34] The 3.5 million East Germans who had left by 1961 totalled approximately 20% of the entire East German population.[36]
+
+An important reason that passage between East Germany and West Berlin was not stopped earlier was that doing so would cut off much of the railway traffic in East Germany. Construction of a new railway bypassing West Berlin, the Berlin outer ring, commenced in 1951. Following the completion of the railway in 1961, closing the border became a more practical proposition. (See History of rail transport in Germany.)
+
+The emigrants tended to be young and well-educated, leading to the "brain drain" feared by officials in East Germany.[24] Yuri Andropov, then the CPSU Director on Relations with Communist and Workers' Parties of Socialist Countries, wrote an urgent letter on 28 August 1958, to the Central Committee about the significant 50% increase in the number of East German intelligentsia among the refugees.[37] Andropov reported that, while the East German leadership stated that they were leaving for economic reasons, testimony from refugees indicated that the reasons were more political than material.[37] He stated "the flight of the intelligentsia has reached a particularly critical phase."[37]
+
+By 1960, the combination of World War II and the massive emigration westward left East Germany with only 61% of its population of working age, compared to 70.5% before the war. The loss was disproportionately heavy among professionals: engineers, technicians, physicians, teachers, lawyers and skilled workers. The direct cost of manpower losses to East Germany (and corresponding gain to the West) has been estimated at $7 billion to $9 billion, with East German party leader Walter Ulbricht later claiming that West Germany owed him $17 billion in compensation, including reparations as well as manpower losses.[36] In addition, the drain of East Germany's young population potentially cost it over 22.5 billion marks in lost educational investment.[38] The brain drain of professionals had become so damaging to the political credibility and economic viability of East Germany that the re-securing of the German communist frontier was imperative.[39]
+
+The exodus of emigrants from East Germany presented two minor potential benefits: an easy opportunity to smuggle East German secret agents to West Germany, and a reduction in the number of citizens hostile to the communist regime. Neither of these advantages, however, proved particularly useful.[40]
+
+
+
+On 15 June 1961, First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party and GDR State Council chairman Walter Ulbricht stated in an international press conference, "Niemand hat die Absicht, eine Mauer zu errichten!" (No one has the intention of erecting a wall!). It was the first time the colloquial term Mauer (wall) had been used in this context.[41]
+
+The transcript of a telephone call between Nikita Khrushchev and Ulbricht, on 1 August in the same year, suggests that the initiative for the construction of the Wall came from Khrushchev.[42][43] However, other sources suggest that Khrushchev had initially been wary about building a wall, fearing negative Western reaction. Nevertheless, Ulbricht had pushed for a border closure for quite some time, arguing that East Germany's very existence was at stake.[44]
+
+Khrushchev had become emboldened upon seeing US president John F. Kennedy's youth and inexperience, a weakness against Khrushchev's brutal, undiplomatic aggression. In the 1961 Vienna summit, Kennedy made the error of admitting that the US wouldn't actively oppose the building of a barrier.[45] A feeling of miscalculation and failure immediately afterwards was admitted by Kennedy in a candid interview with New York Times columnist James "Scotty" Reston.[46] On Saturday, 12 August 1961, the leaders of the GDR attended a garden party at a government guesthouse in Döllnsee, in a wooded area to the north of East Berlin. There, Ulbricht signed the order to close the border and erect a wall.[5]
+
+At midnight, the police and units of the East German army began to close the border and, by Sunday morning, 13 August, the border with West Berlin was closed. East German troops and workers had begun to tear up streets running alongside the border to make them impassable to most vehicles and to install barbed wire entanglements and fences along the 156 kilometres (97 mi) around the three western sectors, and the 43 kilometres (27 mi) that divided West and East Berlin.[47] The date of 13 August became commonly referred to as Barbed Wire Sunday in Germany.[5]
+
+The barrier was built inside East Berlin or East German territory to ensure that it did not encroach on West Berlin at any point. Generally, the Wall was only slightly inside East Berlin, but in a few places it was some distance from the legal border, most notably at Potsdamer Bahnhof[48] and the Lenné Triangle[49] that is now much of the Potsdamer Platz development.
+
+Later, the initial barrier was built up into the Wall proper, the first concrete elements and large blocks being put in place on 17 August. During the construction of the Wall, National People's Army (NVA) and Combat Groups of the Working Class (KdA) soldiers stood in front of it with orders to shoot anyone who attempted to defect. Additionally, chain fences, walls, minefields and other obstacles were installed along the length of East Germany's western border with West Germany proper. A huge no man's land was cleared to provide a clear line of fire at fleeing refugees.[50]
+
+With the closing of the east–west sector boundary in Berlin, the vast majority of East Germans could no longer travel or emigrate to West Germany. Berlin soon went from being the easiest place to make an unauthorized crossing between East and West Germany to being the most difficult.[51] Many families were split, while East Berliners employed in the West were cut off from their jobs. West Berlin became an isolated exclave in a hostile land. West Berliners demonstrated against the Wall, led by their Mayor (Oberbürgermeister) Willy Brandt, who strongly criticized the United States for failing to respond. Allied intelligence agencies had hypothesized about a wall to stop the flood of refugees, but the main candidate for its location was around the perimeter of the city. In 1961, Secretary of State Dean Rusk proclaimed, "The Wall certainly ought not to be a permanent feature of the European landscape. I see no reason why the Soviet Union should think it is—it is to their advantage in any way to leave there that monument to communist failure."[50]
+
+United States and UK sources had expected the Soviet sector to be sealed off from West Berlin, but were surprised by how long the East Germans took for such a move. They considered the Wall as an end to concerns about a GDR/Soviet retaking or capture of the whole of Berlin; the Wall would presumably have been an unnecessary project if such plans were afloat. Thus, they concluded that the possibility of a Soviet military conflict over Berlin had decreased.[52]
+
+The East German government claimed that the Wall was an "anti-fascist protective rampart" (German: "antifaschistischer Schutzwall") intended to dissuade aggression from the West.[53] Another official justification was the activities of Western agents in Eastern Europe.[54] The Eastern German government also claimed that West Berliners were buying out state-subsidized goods in East Berlin. East Germans and others greeted such statements with skepticism, as most of the time, the border was only closed for citizens of East Germany traveling to the West, but not for residents of West Berlin travelling to the East.[55] The construction of the Wall had caused considerable hardship to families divided by it. Most people believed that the Wall was mainly a means of preventing the citizens of East Germany from entering or fleeing to West Berlin.[56]
+
+The National Security Agency was the only American intelligence agency that was aware that East Germany was to take action to deal with the brain drain problem. On 9 August 1961, the NSA intercepted an advance warning information of the Socialist Unity Party's plan to close the intra-Berlin border between East and West Berlin completely for foot traffic. The interagency intelligence Berlin Watch Committee assessed that this intercept "might be the first step in a plan to close the border."[57][58] This warning did not reach John F. Kennedy until noon on 13 August 1961, while he was vacationing in his yacht off the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. While Kennedy was angry that he had no advance warning, he was relieved that the East Germans and the Soviets had only divided Berlin without taking any action against West Berlin's access to the West. However, he denounced the Berlin Wall, whose erection worsened the relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.[57][58]
+
+In response to the erection of the Berlin Wall, a retired general, Lucius D. Clay, was appointed by Kennedy as his special advisor and sent to Berlin with ambassadorial rank. Clay had been the Military Governor of the US Zone of Occupation in Germany during the period of the Berlin Blockade and had ordered the first measures in what became the Berlin Airlift. He was immensely popular with the residents of West Berlin, and his appointment was an unambiguous sign that Kennedy would not compromise on the status of West Berlin. Clay and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson arrived at Tempelhof Airport on the afternoon of Saturday, 19 August 1961.[5]
+
+They arrived in a city defended by three Allied brigades—one each from the UK (Berlin Infantry Brigade), the US (Berlin Brigade), and France (Forces Françaises à Berlin). On 16 August, Kennedy had given the order for them to be reinforced. Early on 19 August, the 1st Battle Group, 18th Infantry (commanded by Colonel Glover S. Johns Jr.) was alerted.[59]
+
+On Sunday morning, U.S. troops marched from West Germany through East Germany, bound for West Berlin. Lead elements—arranged in a column of 491 vehicles and trailers carrying 1,500 men, divided into five march units—left the Helmstedt-Marienborn checkpoint at 06:34. At Marienborn, the Soviet checkpoint next to Helmstedt on the West German-East German border, US personnel were counted by guards. The column was 160 kilometres (99 mi) long, and covered 177 kilometres (110 mi) from Marienborn to Berlin in full battle gear. East German police watched from beside trees next to the autobahn all the way along.[5]
+
+The front of the convoy arrived at the outskirts of Berlin just before noon, to be met by Clay and Johnson, before parading through the streets of Berlin in front of a large crowd. At 04:00 on 21 August, Lyndon Johnson left West Berlin in the hands of General Frederick O. Hartel and his brigade of 4,224 officers and men. "For the next three and a half years, American battalions would rotate into West Berlin, by autobahn, at three month intervals to demonstrate Allied rights to the city".[60]
+
+The creation of the Wall had important implications for both German states. By stemming the exodus of people from East Germany, the East German government was able to reassert its control over the country: in spite of discontent with the Wall, economic problems caused by dual currency and the black market were largely eliminated. The economy in the GDR began to grow. However, the Wall proved a public relations disaster for the communist bloc as a whole. Western powers portrayed it as a symbol of communist tyranny, particularly after East German border guards shot and killed would-be defectors. Such fatalities were later treated as acts of murder by the reunified Germany.[61]
+
+The Berlin Wall was more than 140 kilometres (87 mi) long. In June 1962, a second, parallel fence, also known as a “hinterland” wall (inner wall),[64] was built some 100 metres (110 yd) farther into East German territory. The houses contained between the wall and fences were razed and the inhabitants relocated, thus establishing what later became known as the death strip. The death strip was covered with raked sand or gravel, rendering footprints easy to notice, easing the detection of trespassers and also enabling officers to see which guards had neglected their task;[65] it offered no cover; and, most importantly, it offered clear fields of fire for the Wall guards.
+
+Through the years, the Berlin Wall evolved through four versions:[66]
+
+The "fourth-generation Wall", known officially as "Stützwandelement UL 12.11" (retaining wall element UL 12.11), was the final and most sophisticated version of the Wall. Begun in 1975[67] and completed about 1980,[68] it was constructed from 45,000 separate sections of reinforced concrete, each 3.6 metres (12 ft) high and 1.2 metres (3.9 ft) wide, and cost DDM16,155,000 or about US$3,638,000.[69] The concrete provisions added to this version of the Wall were done to prevent escapees from driving their cars through the barricades.[70] At strategic points, the Wall was constructed to a somewhat weaker standard, so that East German and Soviet armored vehicles could easily break through in the event of war.[70]
+
+The top of the wall was lined with a smooth pipe, intended to make it more difficult to scale. The Wall was reinforced by mesh fencing, signal fencing, anti-vehicle trenches, barbed wire, dogs on long lines, "beds of nails" (also known as "Stalin's Carpet") under balconies hanging over the "death strip", over 116 watchtowers,[71] and 20 bunkers with hundreds of guards. This version of the Wall is the one most commonly seen in photographs, and surviving fragments of the Wall in Berlin and elsewhere around the world are generally pieces of the fourth-generation Wall. The layout came to resemble the inner German border in most technical aspects, except that the Berlin Wall had no landmines nor spring-guns.[65] Maintenance was performed on the outside of the wall by personnel who accessed the area outside it either via ladders or via hidden doors within the wall.[72] These doors could not be opened by a single person, needing two separate keys in two separate keyholes to unlock.[73]
+
+As was the case with the inner German border, an unfortified strip of Eastern territory was left outside the wall.[74] This outer strip was used by workers to paint over graffiti and perform other maintenance on the outside of the wall [74] Unlike the inner German border, however, the outer strip was usually no more than four meters wide, and, in photos from the era, the exact location of the actual border in many places appears not even to have been marked. Also in contrast with the inner German border, little interest was shown by East German law enforcement in keeping outsiders off the outer strip; sidewalks of West Berlin streets even ran inside it.[74]
+
+Despite the East German government's general policy of benign neglect, vandals were known to have been pursued in the outer strip, and even arrested. In 1986, defector and political activist Wolfram Hasch and four other defectors were standing inside the outer strip defacing the wall when East German personnel emerged from one of the hidden doors to apprehend them. All but Hasch escaped back into the western sector. Hasch himself was arrested, dragged through the door into the death strip, and later convicted of illegally crossing the de jure border outside the wall.[75] Graffiti artist Thierry Noir has reported having often been pursued there by East German soldiers.[76] While some graffiti artists were chased off the outer strip, others, such as Keith Haring, were seemingly tolerated.[77]
+
+Besides the sector-sector boundary within Berlin itself, the Wall also separated West Berlin from the present-day state of Brandenburg. The following present-day municipalities, listed in counter-clockwise direction, share a border with the former West Berlin:
+
+There were nine border crossings between East and West Berlin. These allowed visits by West Berliners, other West Germans, Western foreigners and Allied personnel into East Berlin, as well as visits by GDR citizens and citizens of other socialist countries into West Berlin, provided that they held the necessary permits. These crossings were restricted according to which nationality was allowed to use it (East Germans, West Germans, West Berliners, other countries). The best known was the vehicle and pedestrian checkpoint at the corner of Friedrichstraße and Zimmerstraße (Checkpoint Charlie), which was restricted to Allied personnel and foreigners.[78]
+
+Several other border crossings existed between West Berlin and surrounding East Germany. These could be used for transit between West Germany and West Berlin, for visits by West Berliners into East Germany, for transit into countries neighbouring East Germany (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Denmark), and for visits by East Germans into West Berlin carrying a permit. After the 1972 agreements, new crossings were opened to allow West Berlin waste to be transported into East German dumps, as well as some crossings for access to West Berlin's exclaves (see Steinstücken).
+
+Four autobahns connected West Berlin to West Germany, including Berlin-Helmstedt autobahn, which entered East German territory between the towns of Helmstedt and Marienborn (Checkpoint Alpha), and which entered West Berlin at Dreilinden (Checkpoint Bravo for the Allied forces) in southwestern Berlin. Access to West Berlin was also possible by railway (four routes) and by boat for commercial shipping via canals and rivers.[5][66][79]
+
+Non-German Westerners could cross the border at Friedrichstraße station in East Berlin and at Checkpoint Charlie. When the Wall was erected, Berlin's complex public transit networks, the S-Bahn and U-Bahn, were divided with it.[68] Some lines were cut in half; many stations were shut down. Three western lines traveled through brief sections of East Berlin territory, passing through eastern stations (called Geisterbahnhöfe, or ghost stations) without stopping. Both the eastern and western networks converged at Friedrichstraße, which became a major crossing point for those (mostly Westerners) with permission to cross.[79][80]
+
+West Germans and citizens of other Western countries could generally visit East Germany, often after applying for a visa[81] at an East German embassy several weeks in advance. Visas for day trips restricted to East Berlin were issued without previous application in a simplified procedure at the border crossing. However, East German authorities could refuse entry permits without stating a reason. In the 1980s, visitors from the western part of the city who wanted to visit the eastern part had to exchange at least DM 25 into East German currency at the poor exchange rate of 1:1. It was forbidden to export East German currency from the East, but money not spent could be left at the border for possible future visits. Tourists crossing from the west had to also pay for a visa, which cost DM 5; West Berliners did not have to pay this fee.[80]
+
+West Berliners initially could not visit East Berlin or East Germany at all—all crossing points were closed to them between 26 August 1961 and 17 December 1963. In 1963, negotiations between East and West resulted in a limited possibility for visits during the Christmas season that year (Passierscheinregelung). Similar, very limited arrangements were made in 1964, 1965 and 1966.[80]
+
+In 1971, with the Four Power Agreement on Berlin, agreements were reached that allowed West Berliners to apply for visas to enter East Berlin and East Germany regularly, comparable to the regulations already in force for West Germans. However, East German authorities could still refuse entry permits.[80]
+
+East Berliners and East Germans could not, at first, travel to West Berlin or West Germany at all. This regulation remained in force essentially until the fall of the Wall, but over the years several exceptions to these rules were introduced, the most significant being:
+
+For each of these exceptions, GDR citizens had to apply for individual approval, which was never guaranteed. In addition, even if travel was approved, GDR travellers could exchange only a very small amount of East German Marks into Deutsche Marks (DM), thus limiting the financial resources available for them to travel to the West. This led to the West German practice of granting a small amount of DM annually (Begrüßungsgeld, or welcome money) to GDR citizens visiting West Germany and West Berlin to help alleviate this situation.[80]
+
+Citizens of other East European countries were in general subject to the same prohibition of visiting Western countries as East Germans, though the applicable exception (if any) varied from country to country.[80]
+
+Allied military personnel and civilian officials of the Allied forces could enter and exit East Berlin without submitting to East German passport controls, purchasing a visa or being required to exchange money. Likewise, Soviet military patrols could enter and exit West Berlin. This was a requirement of the post-war Four Powers Agreements. A particular area of concern for the Western Allies involved official dealings with East German authorities when crossing the border, since Allied policy did not recognize the authority of the GDR to regulate Allied military traffic to and from West Berlin, as well as the Allied presence within Greater Berlin, including entry into, exit from, and presence within East Berlin.[80]
+
+The Allies held that only the Soviet Union, and not the GDR, had authority to regulate Allied personnel in such cases. For this reason, elaborate procedures were established to prevent inadvertent recognition of East German authority when engaged in travel through the GDR and when in East Berlin. Special rules applied to travel by Western Allied military personnel assigned to the military liaison missions accredited to the commander of Soviet forces in East Germany, located in Potsdam.[80]
+
+Allied personnel were restricted by policy when travelling by land to the following routes:
+
+As with military personnel, special procedures applied to travel by diplomatic personnel of the Western Allies accredited to their respective embassies in the GDR. This was intended to prevent inadvertent recognition of East German authority when crossing between East and West Berlin, which could jeopardize the overall Allied position governing the freedom of movement by Allied forces personnel within all Berlin.
+
+Ordinary citizens of the Western Allied powers, not formally affiliated with the Allied forces, were authorized to use all designated transit routes through East Germany to and from West Berlin. Regarding travel to East Berlin, such persons could also use the Friedrichstraße train station to enter and exit the city, in addition to Checkpoint Charlie. In these instances, such travelers, unlike Allied personnel, had to submit to East German border controls.[80]
+
+During the years of the Wall, around 5,000 people successfully defected to West Berlin. The number of people who died trying to cross the Wall, or as a result of the Wall's existence, has been disputed. The most vocal claims by Alexandra Hildebrandt, Director of the Checkpoint Charlie Museum and widow of the Museum's founder, estimated the death toll to be well above 200.[7][8] A historic research group at the Centre for Contemporary History (ZZF) in Potsdam has confirmed at least 140 deaths.[8] Prior official figures listed 98 as being killed.
+
+The East German government issued shooting orders (Schießbefehl) to border guards dealing with defectors, though such orders are not the same as "shoot to kill" orders. GDR officials denied issuing the latter. In an October 1973 order later discovered by researchers, guards were instructed that people attempting to cross the Wall were criminals and needed to be shot:
+
+"Do not hesitate to use your firearm, not even when the border is breached in the company of women and children, which is a tactic the traitors have often used".[83]
+
+Early successful escapes involved people jumping the initial barbed wire or leaping out of apartment windows along the line, but these ended as the Wall was fortified. East German authorities no longer permitted apartments near the Wall to be occupied, and any building near the Wall had its windows boarded and later bricked up. On 15 August 1961, Conrad Schumann was the first East German border guard to escape by jumping the barbed wire to West Berlin.[84]
+
+On 22 August 1961, Ida Siekmann was the first casualty at the Berlin Wall: she died after she jumped out of her third floor apartment at 48 Bernauer Strasse.[85] The first person to be shot and killed while trying to cross to West Berlin was Günter Litfin, a twenty-four-year-old tailor. He attempted to swim across the Spree to West Berlin on 24 August 1961, the same day that East German police had received shoot-to-kill orders to prevent anyone from escaping.[86]
+
+Another dramatic escape was carried out in April 1963 by Wolfgang Engels, a 19-year-old civilian employee of the Nationale Volksarmee (NVA). Engels stole a Soviet armored personnel carrier from a base where he was deployed and drove it right into the Wall. He was fired at and seriously wounded by border guards. But a West German policeman intervened, firing his weapon at the East German border guards. The policeman removed Engels from the vehicle, which had become entangled in the barbed wire.[87]
+
+East Germans successfully defected by a variety of methods: digging long tunnels under the Wall, waiting for favorable winds and taking a hot air balloon, sliding along aerial wires, flying ultralights and, in one instance, simply driving a sports car at full speed through the basic, initial fortifications. When a metal beam was placed at checkpoints to prevent this kind of defection, up to four people (two in the front seats and possibly two in the boot) drove under the bar in a sports car that had been modified to allow the roof and windscreen to come away when it made contact with the beam. They lay flat and kept driving forward. The East Germans then built zig-zagging roads at checkpoints. The sewer system predated the Wall, and some people escaped through the sewers,[88] in a number of cases with assistance from the Unternehmen Reisebüro.[89] In September 1962, 29 people escaped through a tunnel to the west. At least 70 tunnels were dug under the wall; only 19 were successful in allowing fugitives—about 400 persons—to escape. The East Germany authorities eventually used seismographic and acoustic equipment to detect the practice.[90][91] In 1962, they planned an attempt to use explosives to destroy one tunnel, but this was not carried out as it was apparently sabotaged by a member of the Stasi.[91]
+
+An airborne escape was made by Thomas Krüger, who landed a Zlin Z 42M light aircraft of the Gesellschaft für Sport und Technik, an East German youth military training organization, at RAF Gatow. His aircraft, registration DDR-WOH, was dismantled and returned to the East Germans by road, complete with humorous slogans painted on it by airmen of the Royal Air Force, such as "Wish you were here" and "Come back soon".[citation needed]
+
+If an escapee was wounded in a crossing attempt and lay on the death strip, no matter how close they were to the Western wall, Westerners could not intervene for fear of triggering engaging fire from the 'Grepos', the East Berlin border guards. The guards often let fugitives bleed to death in the middle of this ground, as in the most notorious failed attempt, that of Peter Fechter (aged 18) at a point near Zimmerstrasse in East Berlin. He was shot and bled to death, in full view of the Western media, on 17 August 1962.[92] Fechter's death created negative publicity worldwide that led the leaders of East Berlin to place more restrictions on shooting in public places, and provide medical care for possible "would-be escapers".[93] The last person to be shot and killed while trying to cross the border was Chris Gueffroy on 6 February 1989, while the final person to die in an escape attempt was Winfried Freudenberg who was killed when his homemade natural gas-filled balloon crashed on 8 March 1989.
+
+The Wall gave rise to a widespread sense of desperation and oppression in East Berlin, as expressed in the private thoughts of one resident, who confided to her diary "Our lives have lost their spirit… we can do nothing to stop them."[94]
+
+Every stone bears witness to the moral bankruptcy of the society it encloses
+
+— Margaret Thatcher commenting about the wall, West Berlin, 1982[95]
+
+On 6 June 1987, David Bowie, who earlier for several years lived and recorded in West Berlin, played a concert close to the Wall. This was attended by thousands of Eastern concertgoers across the Wall,[96] followed by violent rioting in East Berlin. According to Tobias Ruther, these protests in East Berlin were the first in the sequence of riots that led to those of November 1989.[97][98]
+Although other factors were probably more influential in the fall of the Wall,[96] upon his death, the German Foreign Office tweeted "Good-bye, David Bowie. You are now among #Heroes. Thank you for helping to bring down the #wall."[99]
+
+On 19 July 1988, 16 months before the Wall came down, Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band, played Rocking the Wall, a live concert in East Berlin, which was attended by 300,000 in person and broadcast on television. Springsteen spoke to the crowd in German, saying: "I'm not here for or against any government. I've come to play rock 'n' roll for you in the hope that one day all the barriers will be torn down".[100] East Germany and its FDJ youth organization were worried they were losing an entire generation. They hoped that by letting Springsteen in, they could improve their sentiment among East Germans. However, this strategy of "one step backwards, two steps forwards" backfired, and the concert only made East Germans hungrier for more of the freedoms that Springsteen epitomized. While John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan delivered their famous speeches from the safety of West Berlin, Springsteen's speaking out against the Wall in the middle of East Berlin added to the euphoria.[100]
+
+On 31 December 1989, American TV actor and pop music singer David Hasselhoff was the headlining performer for the Freedom Tour Live concert, which was attended by over 500,000 people on both sides of the Wall. The live concert footage was directed by music video director Thomas Mignone and aired on broadcast television station Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen ZDF throughout Europe. During shooting film crew personnel pulled people up from both sides to stand and celebrate on top of the wall. Hasselhoff sang his number one hit song "Looking For Freedom" on a platform at the end of a twenty-meter steel crane that swung above and over the Wall adjacent to the Brandenburg Gate.[101]
+
+On 26 June 1963, 22 months after the erection of the Berlin Wall, U.S. President John F. Kennedy visited West Berlin. Speaking from a platform erected on the steps of Rathaus Schöneberg for an audience of 450,000 he declared in his Ich bin ein Berliner speech the support of the United States for West Germany and the people of West Berlin in particular:
+
+Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was civis romanus sum ["I am a Roman citizen"]. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is "Ich bin ein Berliner!"... All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner!"
+
+The message was aimed as much at the Soviets as it was at Berliners and was a clear statement of U.S. policy in the wake of the construction of the Berlin Wall. The speech is considered one of Kennedy's best, both a significant moment in the Cold War and a high point of the New Frontier. It was a great morale boost for West Berliners, who lived in an exclave deep inside East Germany and feared a possible East German occupation.
+
+In a speech at the Brandenburg Gate commemorating the 750th anniversary of Berlin[102] on 12 June 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan challenged Mikhail Gorbachev, then the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to tear down the Wall as a symbol of increasing freedom in the Eastern Bloc:
+
+We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this Wall![103]
+
+The fall of the communist government in neighboring Poland's 1989 Polish legislative election in June played a role in the fall of the Berlin Wall. Also in June 1989 the Hungarian government began dismantling the electrified fence along its border with Austria (with Western TV crews present), and then, in September, more than 13,000 East German tourists escaped through Hungary to Austria.[104] This set up a chain of events. The Hungarians prevented many more East Germans from crossing the border and returned them to Budapest. These East Germans flooded the West German embassy and refused to return to East Germany.[105]
+
+The East German government responded by disallowing any further travel to Hungary, but allowed those already there to return to East Germany.[9] This triggered similar events in neighboring Czechoslovakia. This time, however, the East German authorities allowed people to leave, provided that they did so by train through East Germany. This was followed by mass demonstrations within East Germany itself.[106] Despite the policy of state atheism in East Germany, Christian pastor Christian Führer regularly met with his congregation at Leipzig's St. Nicholas Church for prayer since 1982.[106][107] Over the next seven years, the Church grew, despite authorities barricading the streets leading to it, and after church services, peaceful candlelit marches took place.[106] The secret police issued death threats and even attacked some of the marchers, but the crowd still continued to gather.[106] Protest demonstrations spread throughout East Germany in September 1989. Initially, protesters were mostly people wanting to leave to the West, chanting "Wir wollen raus!" ("We want out!"). Then protestors began to chant "Wir bleiben hier!" ("We are staying here!"). This was the start of what East Germans generally call the "Peaceful Revolution" of late 1989.[108] The protest demonstrations grew considerably by early November. The movement neared its height on 4 November, when half a million people gathered to demand political change, at the Alexanderplatz demonstration, East Berlin's large public square and transportation hub.[109] On 9 October 1989, the police and army units were given permission to use force against those assembled, but this did not deter the church service and march from taking place, which gathered 70,000 people.[106][107] Many of those people started to cross into West Berlin,[citation needed] without a shot being fired.[106]
+
+The longtime leader of East Germany, Erich Honecker, resigned on 18 October 1989 and was replaced by Egon Krenz that day. Honecker had predicted in January of that year that the Wall would stand for 50 or 100 more years[110] if the conditions that had caused its construction did not change.
+
+The wave of refugees leaving East Germany for the West kept increasing. By early November refugees were finding their way to Hungary via Czechoslovakia, or via the West German Embassy in Prague. This was tolerated by the new Krenz government, because of long-standing agreements with the communist Czechoslovak government, allowing free travel across their common border. However this movement of people grew so large it caused difficulties for both countries. To ease the difficulties, the politburo led by Krenz decided on 9 November to allow refugees to exit directly through crossing points between East Germany and West Germany, including between East and West Berlin. Later the same day, the ministerial administration modified the proposal to include private, round-trip, and travel. The new regulations were to take effect the next day.[111]
+
+Günter Schabowski, the party boss in East Berlin and the spokesman for the SED Politburo, had the task of announcing the new regulations. However, he had not been involved in the discussions about the new regulations and had not been fully updated.[112] Shortly before a press conference on 9 November, he was handed a note announcing the changes, but given no further instructions on how to handle the information. These regulations had only been completed a few hours earlier and were to take effect the following day, so as to allow time to inform the border guards. But this starting time delay was not communicated to Schabowski.[44] At the end of the press conference, Schabowski read out loud the note he had been given. A reporter, ANSA's Riccardo Ehrman,[113] asked when the regulations would take effect. After a few seconds' hesitation, Schabowski replied, "As far as I know, it takes effect immediately, without delay".[44] After further questions from journalists, he confirmed that the regulations included the border crossings through the Wall into West Berlin, which he had not mentioned until then.[114] He repeated that it was immediate in an interview with American journalist Tom Brokaw.[115] (In 2009 Ehrman said that a GDR official who was a personal friend had actually specifically requested that Ehrman ask about the travel law during the press conference, but Schabowski called that absurd.[113])
+
+Excerpts from Schabowski's press conference were the lead story on West Germany's two main news programs that night—at 7:17 p.m. on ZDF's heute and at 8 p.m. on ARD's Tagesschau. As ARD and ZDF had broadcast to nearly all of East Germany since the late 1950s and had become accepted by the East German authorities, the news was broadcast there as well simultaneously. Later that night, on ARD's Tagesthemen, anchorman Hanns Joachim Friedrichs proclaimed, "This 9 November is a historic day. The GDR has announced that, starting immediately, its borders are open to everyone. The gates in the Wall stand open wide."[44][112]
+
+After hearing the broadcast, East Germans began gathering at the Wall, at the six checkpoints between East and West Berlin, demanding that border guards immediately open the gates.[112] The surprised and overwhelmed guards made many hectic telephone calls to their superiors about the problem. At first, they were ordered to find the "more aggressive" people gathered at the gates and stamp their passports with a special stamp that barred them from returning to East Germany—in effect, revoking their citizenship. However, this still left thousands of people demanding to be let through "as Schabowski said we can".[44] It soon became clear that no one among the East German authorities would take personal responsibility for issuing orders to use lethal force, so the vastly outnumbered soldiers had no way to hold back the huge crowd of East German citizens. Finally, at 10:45 p.m. on 9 November, Harald Jäger, the commander of the Bornholmer Straße border crossing yielded, allowing for the guards to open the checkpoints and allowing people through with little or no identity checking.[116] As the Ossis swarmed through, they were greeted by Wessis waiting with flowers and champagne amid wild rejoicing. Soon afterward, a crowd of West Berliners jumped on top of the Wall, and were soon joined by East German youngsters.[117] The evening of 9 November 1989 is known as the night the Wall came down.[118]
+
+Another border crossing to the south may have been opened earlier. An account by Heinz Schäfer indicates that he also acted independently and ordered the opening of the gate at Waltersdorf-Rudow a couple of hours earlier.[119] This may explain reports of East Berliners appearing in West Berlin earlier than the opening of the Bornholmer Straße border crossing.[citation needed]
+
+Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, The Guardian collected short stories from 9 November 1989 by five German writers who reflect on the day. In this, Kathrin Schmidt remembers comically: 'I downed almost an entire bottle of schnapps'.[120]
+
+Remaining stretch of the Wall near Ostbahnhof in Friedrichshain called East Side Gallery, August 2006
+
+Remains of the Wall adjacent to the Topography of Terror, August 2007
+
+A memorial of over a thousand crosses and a segment of the Wall for those who died trying to cross. The memorial stood for ten months in 2004 and 2005 before it was removed.
+
+A "BERLINER MAUER 1961–1989" plaque near Checkpoint Charlie signifying where the Wall stood
+
+Display of two sections of the Wall and a "You are leaving" sign at Fort Gordon, Georgia
+
+The Berlin Wall from the East Berlin side, 1967
+
+A sign reading "Until we see each other again in the capital of the GDR"
+
+Czech hedgehog anti-tank obstacles and the Wall
+
+An exhibition dedicated to the 25th anniversary to the Berlin Wall destruction was located at Potsdamer Platz Arkaden
+
+Line indicating where the inner part of the wall once stood on Leipziger Platz, just off Potsdamer Platz, in 2015
+
+A hole in the Berlin wall, 2019
+
+Little is left of the Wall at its original site, which was destroyed almost in its entirety. Three long sections are still standing: an 80-metre-long (260 ft) piece of the first (westernmost) wall at the Topography of Terror, site of the former Gestapo headquarters, halfway between Checkpoint Charlie and Potsdamer Platz; a longer section of the second (easternmost) wall along the Spree River near the Oberbaumbrücke, nicknamed East Side Gallery; and a third section that is partly reconstructed, in the north at Bernauer Straße, which was turned into a memorial in 1999. Other isolated fragments, lampposts, other elements, and a few watchtowers also remain in various parts of the city.
+
+Nothing still accurately represents the Wall's original appearance better than a very short stretch at Bernauer Straße associated with the Berlin Wall Documentation Center.[122] Other remnants are badly damaged by souvenir seekers. Fragments of the Wall were taken and some were sold around the world. Appearing both with and without certificates of authenticity, these fragments are now a staple on the online auction service eBay as well as German souvenir shops. Today, the eastern side is covered in graffiti that did not exist while the Wall was guarded by the armed soldiers of East Germany. Previously, graffiti appeared only on the western side. Along some tourist areas of the city centre, the city government has marked the location of the former Wall by a row of cobblestones in the street. In most places only the "first" wall is marked, except near Potsdamer Platz where the stretch of both walls is marked, giving visitors an impression of the dimension of the barrier system.[citation needed]
+
+After the fall of the Berlin Wall, there were initiatives that they want to preserve the death strip walkways and redevelop it into a hiking and cycling area, known as Berliner Mauerweg. It is part of the initiative by Berlin Senate since 2005.[citation needed]
+
+For many years after reunification, people in Germany talked about cultural differences between East and West Germans (colloquially Ossis and Wessis), sometimes described as Mauer im Kopf (The wall in the head). A September 2004 poll found that 25 percent of West Germans and 12 percent of East Germans wished that East and West should be separated again by a "Wall".[123] A poll taken in October 2009 on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall indicated, however, that only about a tenth of the population was still unhappy with the unification (8 percent in the East; 12 percent in the West). Although differences are still perceived between East and West, Germans make similar distinctions between North and South.[124]
+
+A 2009 poll conducted by Russia's VTsIOM, found that more than half of all Russians do not know who built the Berlin Wall. Ten percent of people surveyed thought Berlin residents built it themselves. Six percent said Western powers built it and four percent thought it was a "bilateral initiative" of the Soviet Union and the West. Fifty-eight percent said they did not know who built it, with just 24 percent correctly naming the Soviet Union and its then-communist ally East Germany.[125]
+
+Not all segments of the Wall were ground up as the Wall was being torn down. Many segments have been given to various institutions in the world. They can be found, for instance, in presidential and historical museums, lobbies of hotels and corporations, at universities and government buildings, and in public spaces in different countries of the world.[126]
+
+On 13 August 2011, Germany marked the 50th anniversary of East Germany beginning the erection of the Berlin Wall. Chancellor Angela Merkel joined with President Christian Wulff and Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit at the Bernauer Straße memorial park to remember lives and liberty. Speeches extolled freedom and a minute of silence at noon honored those who died trying to flee to the West. "It is our shared responsibility to keep the memory alive and to pass it on to the coming generations as a reminder to stand up for freedom and democracy to ensure that such injustice may never happen again," entreated Mayor Wowereit. "It has been shown once again: Freedom is invincible at the end. No wall can permanently withstand the desire for freedom", proclaimed President Wulff.[127][128][129][130]
+
+Documentary films specifically about the Berlin Wall include:
+
+Fictional films featuring the Berlin Wall have included:
+
+Some novels specifically about the Berlin Wall include:
+
+Music related to the Berlin Wall includes:
+
+Artworks related to the Berlin Wall include:
+
+Video games related to the Berlin Wall include:
+
+Notes
+
+Bibliography
+
+Further reading

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+The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer, pronounced [bɛʁˈliːnɐ ˈmaʊ̯ɐ] (listen)) was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989.[1] Construction of the wall was commenced by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) on 13 August 1961. The Wall cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany, including East Berlin.[2] The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls,[3] accompanied by a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, beds of nails, and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc portrayed the Wall as protecting its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" from building a socialist state in East Germany.
+
+GDR authorities officially referred to the Berlin Wall as the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall). The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame", a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt in reference to the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement.[4] Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB), which demarcated the border between East and West Germany, it came to physically symbolize the "Iron Curtain" that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.[5]
+
+Before the Wall's erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, many by crossing over the border from East Berlin into West Berlin; from there they could then travel to West Germany and to other Western European countries. Between 1961 and 1989, the Wall prevented almost all such emigration.[6] During this period, over 100,000[5] people attempted to escape, and over 5,000 people succeeded in escaping over the Wall, with an estimated death toll ranging from 136[7] to more than 200[5][8] in and around Berlin.
+
+In 1989, a series of revolutions in nearby Eastern Bloc countries—in Poland and Hungary in particular—caused a chain reaction in East Germany that ultimately resulted in the demise of the Wall.[9] After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the Wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, euphoric people and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the Wall.[5] The Brandenburg Gate, a few meters from the Berlin Wall, was opened on 22 December 1989. The demolition of the Wall officially began on 13 June 1990 and was completed in November 1991. The "fall of the Berlin Wall" paved the way for German reunification, which formally took place on 3 October 1990.[5]
+
+After the end of World War II in Europe, what remained of pre-war Germany west of the Oder-Neisse line was divided into four occupation zones (as per the Potsdam Agreement), each one controlled by one of the four occupying Allied powers: the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union. The capital of Berlin, as the seat of the Allied Control Council, was similarly subdivided into four sectors despite the city's location, which was fully within the Soviet zone.[10]
+
+Within two years, political divisions increased between the Soviets and the other occupying powers. These included the Soviets' refusal to agree to reconstruction plans making post-war Germany self-sufficient, and to a detailed accounting of industrial plants, goods and infrastructure—some of which had already been removed by the Soviets.[11] France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Benelux countries later met to combine the non-Soviet zones of Germany into one zone for reconstruction, and to approve the extension of the Marshall Plan.[5]
+
+Following the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, the Soviet Union engineered the installation of friendly Communist governments in most of the countries occupied by Soviet military forces at the end of the War, including Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, and the GDR, which together with Albania formed the Comecon in 1949 and later a military alliance, the Warsaw Pact.[citation needed] This bloc of nations was set up by the Soviets in opposition to NATO in the capitalist West in what became the Cold War.[citation needed]
+
+Since the end of the War, the Soviets together with like-minded East Germans created a new Soviet-style regime in the Soviet Zone and later the GDR, on a centrally planned socialist economic model with nationalized means of production, and with repressive police state institutions, under party dictatorship of the SED similar to the party dictatorship of the Soviet Communist Party in the USSR.[citation needed]
+
+At the same time, a parallel regime was established under the strict control of the Western powers in the zones of post-war Germany occupied by them, culminating in the foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949,[12] which initially claimed to be the sole legitimate power in all of Germany, East and West. The material standard of life in the Western zones of Berlin began to improve quickly, and residents of the Soviet Zone soon began leaving for the West in large numbers, fleeing hunger, poverty and repression in the Soviet Zone for a better life in the West. Soon residents of other parts of the Soviet Zone began to escape to the West through Berlin, and this migration, called in Germany "Republikflucht", deprived the Soviet Zone not only of working forces desperately needed for post-war reconstruction, but disproportionately highly educated people, which came to be known as the "Brain Drain".[citation needed]
+
+In 1948, in response to moves by the Western powers to establish a separate, federal system of government in the Western zones, and to extend the Marshall Plan to Germany, the Soviets instituted the Berlin Blockade, preventing people, food, materials and supplies from arriving in West Berlin by land routes through the Soviet zone.[13] The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several other countries began a massive "airlift", supplying West Berlin with food and other supplies.[14] The Soviets mounted a public relations campaign against the Western policy change. Communists attempted to disrupt the elections of 1948, preceding large losses therein,[15] while 300,000 Berliners demonstrated for the international airlift to continue.[16] In May 1949, Stalin lifted the blockade, permitting the resumption of Western shipments to Berlin.[17][18]
+
+The German Democratic Republic (the "GDR"; East Germany) was declared on 7 October 1949. On that day, the USSR ended the Soviet military government which had governed the Soviet Occupation Zone (Sowetische Besatzungszone) since the end of the War, and handed over legal power [19] to the Provisorische Volkskammer under the new Constitution of the GDR which came into force that day. However, until 1955, the Soviets maintained considerable legal control over the GDR state, including the regional governments, through the Sowetische Kontrollkommission and maintained a presence in various East German administrative, military, and secret police structures.[20][21] Even after legal sovereignty of the GDR was restored in 1955, the Soviet Union continued to maintain considerable influence over administration and lawmaking in the GDR through the Soviet embassy and through the implicit threat of force which could be exercised through the continuing large Soviet military presence in the GDR, which was used to bloodily repress protests in East Germany in June 1953.[22]
+
+East Germany differed from West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany), which developed into a Western capitalist country with a social market economy and a democratic parliamentary government. Continual economic growth starting in the 1950s fueled a 20-year "economic miracle" ("Wirtschaftswunder"). As West Germany's economy grew, and its standard of living steadily improved, many East Germans wanted to move to West Germany.[23]
+
+After the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, the majority of those living in the newly acquired areas of the Eastern Bloc aspired to independence and wanted the Soviets to leave.[24] Taking advantage of the zonal border between occupied zones in Germany, the number of GDR citizens moving to West Germany totaled 187,000 in 1950; 165,000 in 1951; 182,000 in 1952; and 331,000 in 1953.[25][26] One reason for the sharp 1953 increase was fear of potential further Sovietization, given the increasingly paranoid actions of Joseph Stalin in late 1952 and early 1953.[27] 226,000 had fled in just the first six months of 1953.[28]
+
+By the early 1950s, the Soviet approach to controlling national movement, restricting emigration, was emulated by most of the rest of the Eastern Bloc, including East Germany.[29] The restrictions presented a quandary for some Eastern Bloc states, which had been more economically advanced and open than the Soviet Union, such that crossing borders seemed more natural—especially where no prior border existed between East and West Germany.[30]
+
+Up until 1952, the demarcation lines between East Germany and the western occupied zones could be easily crossed in most places.[31] On 1 April 1952, East German leaders met the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in Moscow; during the discussions Stalin's foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov proposed that the East Germans should "introduce a system of passes for visits of West Berlin residents to the territory of East Berlin [so as to stop] free movement of Western agents" in the GDR. Stalin agreed, calling the situation "intolerable". He advised the East Germans to build up their border defenses, telling them that "The demarcation line between East and West Germany should be considered a border—and not just any border, but a dangerous one ... The Germans will guard the line of defence with their lives."[32]
+
+Consequently, the inner German border between the two German states was closed, and a barbed-wire fence erected. The border between the Western and Eastern sectors of Berlin, however, remained open, although traffic between the Soviet and the Western sectors was somewhat restricted. This resulted in Berlin becoming a magnet for East Germans desperate to escape life in the GDR, and also a flashpoint for tension between the United States and the Soviet Union.[5]
+
+In 1955, the Soviets gave East Germany authority over civilian movement in Berlin, passing control to a regime not recognized in the West.[33] Initially, East Germany granted "visits" to allow its residents access to West Germany. However, following the defection of large numbers of East Germans (known as Republikflucht) under this regime, the new East German state legally restricted virtually all travel to the West in 1956.[31] Soviet East German ambassador Mikhail Pervukhin observed that "the presence in Berlin of an open and essentially uncontrolled border between the socialist and capitalist worlds unwittingly prompts the population to make a comparison between both parts of the city, which unfortunately does not always turn out in favour of Democratic [East] Berlin."[34]
+
+With the closing of the inner German border officially in 1952,[34] the border in Berlin remained considerably more accessible because it was administered by all four occupying powers.[31] Accordingly, Berlin became the main route by which East Germans left for the West.[35] On 11 December 1957, East Germany introduced a new passport law that reduced the overall number of refugees leaving Eastern Germany.[5]
+
+It had the unintended result of drastically increasing the percentage of those leaving through West Berlin from 60% to well over 90% by the end of 1958.[34] Those caught trying to leave East Berlin were subjected to heavy penalties, but with no physical barrier and subway train access still available to West Berlin, such measures were ineffective.[36] The Berlin sector border was essentially a "loophole" through which Eastern Bloc citizens could still escape.[34] The 3.5 million East Germans who had left by 1961 totalled approximately 20% of the entire East German population.[36]
+
+An important reason that passage between East Germany and West Berlin was not stopped earlier was that doing so would cut off much of the railway traffic in East Germany. Construction of a new railway bypassing West Berlin, the Berlin outer ring, commenced in 1951. Following the completion of the railway in 1961, closing the border became a more practical proposition. (See History of rail transport in Germany.)
+
+The emigrants tended to be young and well-educated, leading to the "brain drain" feared by officials in East Germany.[24] Yuri Andropov, then the CPSU Director on Relations with Communist and Workers' Parties of Socialist Countries, wrote an urgent letter on 28 August 1958, to the Central Committee about the significant 50% increase in the number of East German intelligentsia among the refugees.[37] Andropov reported that, while the East German leadership stated that they were leaving for economic reasons, testimony from refugees indicated that the reasons were more political than material.[37] He stated "the flight of the intelligentsia has reached a particularly critical phase."[37]
+
+By 1960, the combination of World War II and the massive emigration westward left East Germany with only 61% of its population of working age, compared to 70.5% before the war. The loss was disproportionately heavy among professionals: engineers, technicians, physicians, teachers, lawyers and skilled workers. The direct cost of manpower losses to East Germany (and corresponding gain to the West) has been estimated at $7 billion to $9 billion, with East German party leader Walter Ulbricht later claiming that West Germany owed him $17 billion in compensation, including reparations as well as manpower losses.[36] In addition, the drain of East Germany's young population potentially cost it over 22.5 billion marks in lost educational investment.[38] The brain drain of professionals had become so damaging to the political credibility and economic viability of East Germany that the re-securing of the German communist frontier was imperative.[39]
+
+The exodus of emigrants from East Germany presented two minor potential benefits: an easy opportunity to smuggle East German secret agents to West Germany, and a reduction in the number of citizens hostile to the communist regime. Neither of these advantages, however, proved particularly useful.[40]
+
+
+
+On 15 June 1961, First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party and GDR State Council chairman Walter Ulbricht stated in an international press conference, "Niemand hat die Absicht, eine Mauer zu errichten!" (No one has the intention of erecting a wall!). It was the first time the colloquial term Mauer (wall) had been used in this context.[41]
+
+The transcript of a telephone call between Nikita Khrushchev and Ulbricht, on 1 August in the same year, suggests that the initiative for the construction of the Wall came from Khrushchev.[42][43] However, other sources suggest that Khrushchev had initially been wary about building a wall, fearing negative Western reaction. Nevertheless, Ulbricht had pushed for a border closure for quite some time, arguing that East Germany's very existence was at stake.[44]
+
+Khrushchev had become emboldened upon seeing US president John F. Kennedy's youth and inexperience, a weakness against Khrushchev's brutal, undiplomatic aggression. In the 1961 Vienna summit, Kennedy made the error of admitting that the US wouldn't actively oppose the building of a barrier.[45] A feeling of miscalculation and failure immediately afterwards was admitted by Kennedy in a candid interview with New York Times columnist James "Scotty" Reston.[46] On Saturday, 12 August 1961, the leaders of the GDR attended a garden party at a government guesthouse in Döllnsee, in a wooded area to the north of East Berlin. There, Ulbricht signed the order to close the border and erect a wall.[5]
+
+At midnight, the police and units of the East German army began to close the border and, by Sunday morning, 13 August, the border with West Berlin was closed. East German troops and workers had begun to tear up streets running alongside the border to make them impassable to most vehicles and to install barbed wire entanglements and fences along the 156 kilometres (97 mi) around the three western sectors, and the 43 kilometres (27 mi) that divided West and East Berlin.[47] The date of 13 August became commonly referred to as Barbed Wire Sunday in Germany.[5]
+
+The barrier was built inside East Berlin or East German territory to ensure that it did not encroach on West Berlin at any point. Generally, the Wall was only slightly inside East Berlin, but in a few places it was some distance from the legal border, most notably at Potsdamer Bahnhof[48] and the Lenné Triangle[49] that is now much of the Potsdamer Platz development.
+
+Later, the initial barrier was built up into the Wall proper, the first concrete elements and large blocks being put in place on 17 August. During the construction of the Wall, National People's Army (NVA) and Combat Groups of the Working Class (KdA) soldiers stood in front of it with orders to shoot anyone who attempted to defect. Additionally, chain fences, walls, minefields and other obstacles were installed along the length of East Germany's western border with West Germany proper. A huge no man's land was cleared to provide a clear line of fire at fleeing refugees.[50]
+
+With the closing of the east–west sector boundary in Berlin, the vast majority of East Germans could no longer travel or emigrate to West Germany. Berlin soon went from being the easiest place to make an unauthorized crossing between East and West Germany to being the most difficult.[51] Many families were split, while East Berliners employed in the West were cut off from their jobs. West Berlin became an isolated exclave in a hostile land. West Berliners demonstrated against the Wall, led by their Mayor (Oberbürgermeister) Willy Brandt, who strongly criticized the United States for failing to respond. Allied intelligence agencies had hypothesized about a wall to stop the flood of refugees, but the main candidate for its location was around the perimeter of the city. In 1961, Secretary of State Dean Rusk proclaimed, "The Wall certainly ought not to be a permanent feature of the European landscape. I see no reason why the Soviet Union should think it is—it is to their advantage in any way to leave there that monument to communist failure."[50]
+
+United States and UK sources had expected the Soviet sector to be sealed off from West Berlin, but were surprised by how long the East Germans took for such a move. They considered the Wall as an end to concerns about a GDR/Soviet retaking or capture of the whole of Berlin; the Wall would presumably have been an unnecessary project if such plans were afloat. Thus, they concluded that the possibility of a Soviet military conflict over Berlin had decreased.[52]
+
+The East German government claimed that the Wall was an "anti-fascist protective rampart" (German: "antifaschistischer Schutzwall") intended to dissuade aggression from the West.[53] Another official justification was the activities of Western agents in Eastern Europe.[54] The Eastern German government also claimed that West Berliners were buying out state-subsidized goods in East Berlin. East Germans and others greeted such statements with skepticism, as most of the time, the border was only closed for citizens of East Germany traveling to the West, but not for residents of West Berlin travelling to the East.[55] The construction of the Wall had caused considerable hardship to families divided by it. Most people believed that the Wall was mainly a means of preventing the citizens of East Germany from entering or fleeing to West Berlin.[56]
+
+The National Security Agency was the only American intelligence agency that was aware that East Germany was to take action to deal with the brain drain problem. On 9 August 1961, the NSA intercepted an advance warning information of the Socialist Unity Party's plan to close the intra-Berlin border between East and West Berlin completely for foot traffic. The interagency intelligence Berlin Watch Committee assessed that this intercept "might be the first step in a plan to close the border."[57][58] This warning did not reach John F. Kennedy until noon on 13 August 1961, while he was vacationing in his yacht off the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. While Kennedy was angry that he had no advance warning, he was relieved that the East Germans and the Soviets had only divided Berlin without taking any action against West Berlin's access to the West. However, he denounced the Berlin Wall, whose erection worsened the relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.[57][58]
+
+In response to the erection of the Berlin Wall, a retired general, Lucius D. Clay, was appointed by Kennedy as his special advisor and sent to Berlin with ambassadorial rank. Clay had been the Military Governor of the US Zone of Occupation in Germany during the period of the Berlin Blockade and had ordered the first measures in what became the Berlin Airlift. He was immensely popular with the residents of West Berlin, and his appointment was an unambiguous sign that Kennedy would not compromise on the status of West Berlin. Clay and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson arrived at Tempelhof Airport on the afternoon of Saturday, 19 August 1961.[5]
+
+They arrived in a city defended by three Allied brigades—one each from the UK (Berlin Infantry Brigade), the US (Berlin Brigade), and France (Forces Françaises à Berlin). On 16 August, Kennedy had given the order for them to be reinforced. Early on 19 August, the 1st Battle Group, 18th Infantry (commanded by Colonel Glover S. Johns Jr.) was alerted.[59]
+
+On Sunday morning, U.S. troops marched from West Germany through East Germany, bound for West Berlin. Lead elements—arranged in a column of 491 vehicles and trailers carrying 1,500 men, divided into five march units—left the Helmstedt-Marienborn checkpoint at 06:34. At Marienborn, the Soviet checkpoint next to Helmstedt on the West German-East German border, US personnel were counted by guards. The column was 160 kilometres (99 mi) long, and covered 177 kilometres (110 mi) from Marienborn to Berlin in full battle gear. East German police watched from beside trees next to the autobahn all the way along.[5]
+
+The front of the convoy arrived at the outskirts of Berlin just before noon, to be met by Clay and Johnson, before parading through the streets of Berlin in front of a large crowd. At 04:00 on 21 August, Lyndon Johnson left West Berlin in the hands of General Frederick O. Hartel and his brigade of 4,224 officers and men. "For the next three and a half years, American battalions would rotate into West Berlin, by autobahn, at three month intervals to demonstrate Allied rights to the city".[60]
+
+The creation of the Wall had important implications for both German states. By stemming the exodus of people from East Germany, the East German government was able to reassert its control over the country: in spite of discontent with the Wall, economic problems caused by dual currency and the black market were largely eliminated. The economy in the GDR began to grow. However, the Wall proved a public relations disaster for the communist bloc as a whole. Western powers portrayed it as a symbol of communist tyranny, particularly after East German border guards shot and killed would-be defectors. Such fatalities were later treated as acts of murder by the reunified Germany.[61]
+
+The Berlin Wall was more than 140 kilometres (87 mi) long. In June 1962, a second, parallel fence, also known as a “hinterland” wall (inner wall),[64] was built some 100 metres (110 yd) farther into East German territory. The houses contained between the wall and fences were razed and the inhabitants relocated, thus establishing what later became known as the death strip. The death strip was covered with raked sand or gravel, rendering footprints easy to notice, easing the detection of trespassers and also enabling officers to see which guards had neglected their task;[65] it offered no cover; and, most importantly, it offered clear fields of fire for the Wall guards.
+
+Through the years, the Berlin Wall evolved through four versions:[66]
+
+The "fourth-generation Wall", known officially as "Stützwandelement UL 12.11" (retaining wall element UL 12.11), was the final and most sophisticated version of the Wall. Begun in 1975[67] and completed about 1980,[68] it was constructed from 45,000 separate sections of reinforced concrete, each 3.6 metres (12 ft) high and 1.2 metres (3.9 ft) wide, and cost DDM16,155,000 or about US$3,638,000.[69] The concrete provisions added to this version of the Wall were done to prevent escapees from driving their cars through the barricades.[70] At strategic points, the Wall was constructed to a somewhat weaker standard, so that East German and Soviet armored vehicles could easily break through in the event of war.[70]
+
+The top of the wall was lined with a smooth pipe, intended to make it more difficult to scale. The Wall was reinforced by mesh fencing, signal fencing, anti-vehicle trenches, barbed wire, dogs on long lines, "beds of nails" (also known as "Stalin's Carpet") under balconies hanging over the "death strip", over 116 watchtowers,[71] and 20 bunkers with hundreds of guards. This version of the Wall is the one most commonly seen in photographs, and surviving fragments of the Wall in Berlin and elsewhere around the world are generally pieces of the fourth-generation Wall. The layout came to resemble the inner German border in most technical aspects, except that the Berlin Wall had no landmines nor spring-guns.[65] Maintenance was performed on the outside of the wall by personnel who accessed the area outside it either via ladders or via hidden doors within the wall.[72] These doors could not be opened by a single person, needing two separate keys in two separate keyholes to unlock.[73]
+
+As was the case with the inner German border, an unfortified strip of Eastern territory was left outside the wall.[74] This outer strip was used by workers to paint over graffiti and perform other maintenance on the outside of the wall [74] Unlike the inner German border, however, the outer strip was usually no more than four meters wide, and, in photos from the era, the exact location of the actual border in many places appears not even to have been marked. Also in contrast with the inner German border, little interest was shown by East German law enforcement in keeping outsiders off the outer strip; sidewalks of West Berlin streets even ran inside it.[74]
+
+Despite the East German government's general policy of benign neglect, vandals were known to have been pursued in the outer strip, and even arrested. In 1986, defector and political activist Wolfram Hasch and four other defectors were standing inside the outer strip defacing the wall when East German personnel emerged from one of the hidden doors to apprehend them. All but Hasch escaped back into the western sector. Hasch himself was arrested, dragged through the door into the death strip, and later convicted of illegally crossing the de jure border outside the wall.[75] Graffiti artist Thierry Noir has reported having often been pursued there by East German soldiers.[76] While some graffiti artists were chased off the outer strip, others, such as Keith Haring, were seemingly tolerated.[77]
+
+Besides the sector-sector boundary within Berlin itself, the Wall also separated West Berlin from the present-day state of Brandenburg. The following present-day municipalities, listed in counter-clockwise direction, share a border with the former West Berlin:
+
+There were nine border crossings between East and West Berlin. These allowed visits by West Berliners, other West Germans, Western foreigners and Allied personnel into East Berlin, as well as visits by GDR citizens and citizens of other socialist countries into West Berlin, provided that they held the necessary permits. These crossings were restricted according to which nationality was allowed to use it (East Germans, West Germans, West Berliners, other countries). The best known was the vehicle and pedestrian checkpoint at the corner of Friedrichstraße and Zimmerstraße (Checkpoint Charlie), which was restricted to Allied personnel and foreigners.[78]
+
+Several other border crossings existed between West Berlin and surrounding East Germany. These could be used for transit between West Germany and West Berlin, for visits by West Berliners into East Germany, for transit into countries neighbouring East Germany (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Denmark), and for visits by East Germans into West Berlin carrying a permit. After the 1972 agreements, new crossings were opened to allow West Berlin waste to be transported into East German dumps, as well as some crossings for access to West Berlin's exclaves (see Steinstücken).
+
+Four autobahns connected West Berlin to West Germany, including Berlin-Helmstedt autobahn, which entered East German territory between the towns of Helmstedt and Marienborn (Checkpoint Alpha), and which entered West Berlin at Dreilinden (Checkpoint Bravo for the Allied forces) in southwestern Berlin. Access to West Berlin was also possible by railway (four routes) and by boat for commercial shipping via canals and rivers.[5][66][79]
+
+Non-German Westerners could cross the border at Friedrichstraße station in East Berlin and at Checkpoint Charlie. When the Wall was erected, Berlin's complex public transit networks, the S-Bahn and U-Bahn, were divided with it.[68] Some lines were cut in half; many stations were shut down. Three western lines traveled through brief sections of East Berlin territory, passing through eastern stations (called Geisterbahnhöfe, or ghost stations) without stopping. Both the eastern and western networks converged at Friedrichstraße, which became a major crossing point for those (mostly Westerners) with permission to cross.[79][80]
+
+West Germans and citizens of other Western countries could generally visit East Germany, often after applying for a visa[81] at an East German embassy several weeks in advance. Visas for day trips restricted to East Berlin were issued without previous application in a simplified procedure at the border crossing. However, East German authorities could refuse entry permits without stating a reason. In the 1980s, visitors from the western part of the city who wanted to visit the eastern part had to exchange at least DM 25 into East German currency at the poor exchange rate of 1:1. It was forbidden to export East German currency from the East, but money not spent could be left at the border for possible future visits. Tourists crossing from the west had to also pay for a visa, which cost DM 5; West Berliners did not have to pay this fee.[80]
+
+West Berliners initially could not visit East Berlin or East Germany at all—all crossing points were closed to them between 26 August 1961 and 17 December 1963. In 1963, negotiations between East and West resulted in a limited possibility for visits during the Christmas season that year (Passierscheinregelung). Similar, very limited arrangements were made in 1964, 1965 and 1966.[80]
+
+In 1971, with the Four Power Agreement on Berlin, agreements were reached that allowed West Berliners to apply for visas to enter East Berlin and East Germany regularly, comparable to the regulations already in force for West Germans. However, East German authorities could still refuse entry permits.[80]
+
+East Berliners and East Germans could not, at first, travel to West Berlin or West Germany at all. This regulation remained in force essentially until the fall of the Wall, but over the years several exceptions to these rules were introduced, the most significant being:
+
+For each of these exceptions, GDR citizens had to apply for individual approval, which was never guaranteed. In addition, even if travel was approved, GDR travellers could exchange only a very small amount of East German Marks into Deutsche Marks (DM), thus limiting the financial resources available for them to travel to the West. This led to the West German practice of granting a small amount of DM annually (Begrüßungsgeld, or welcome money) to GDR citizens visiting West Germany and West Berlin to help alleviate this situation.[80]
+
+Citizens of other East European countries were in general subject to the same prohibition of visiting Western countries as East Germans, though the applicable exception (if any) varied from country to country.[80]
+
+Allied military personnel and civilian officials of the Allied forces could enter and exit East Berlin without submitting to East German passport controls, purchasing a visa or being required to exchange money. Likewise, Soviet military patrols could enter and exit West Berlin. This was a requirement of the post-war Four Powers Agreements. A particular area of concern for the Western Allies involved official dealings with East German authorities when crossing the border, since Allied policy did not recognize the authority of the GDR to regulate Allied military traffic to and from West Berlin, as well as the Allied presence within Greater Berlin, including entry into, exit from, and presence within East Berlin.[80]
+
+The Allies held that only the Soviet Union, and not the GDR, had authority to regulate Allied personnel in such cases. For this reason, elaborate procedures were established to prevent inadvertent recognition of East German authority when engaged in travel through the GDR and when in East Berlin. Special rules applied to travel by Western Allied military personnel assigned to the military liaison missions accredited to the commander of Soviet forces in East Germany, located in Potsdam.[80]
+
+Allied personnel were restricted by policy when travelling by land to the following routes:
+
+As with military personnel, special procedures applied to travel by diplomatic personnel of the Western Allies accredited to their respective embassies in the GDR. This was intended to prevent inadvertent recognition of East German authority when crossing between East and West Berlin, which could jeopardize the overall Allied position governing the freedom of movement by Allied forces personnel within all Berlin.
+
+Ordinary citizens of the Western Allied powers, not formally affiliated with the Allied forces, were authorized to use all designated transit routes through East Germany to and from West Berlin. Regarding travel to East Berlin, such persons could also use the Friedrichstraße train station to enter and exit the city, in addition to Checkpoint Charlie. In these instances, such travelers, unlike Allied personnel, had to submit to East German border controls.[80]
+
+During the years of the Wall, around 5,000 people successfully defected to West Berlin. The number of people who died trying to cross the Wall, or as a result of the Wall's existence, has been disputed. The most vocal claims by Alexandra Hildebrandt, Director of the Checkpoint Charlie Museum and widow of the Museum's founder, estimated the death toll to be well above 200.[7][8] A historic research group at the Centre for Contemporary History (ZZF) in Potsdam has confirmed at least 140 deaths.[8] Prior official figures listed 98 as being killed.
+
+The East German government issued shooting orders (Schießbefehl) to border guards dealing with defectors, though such orders are not the same as "shoot to kill" orders. GDR officials denied issuing the latter. In an October 1973 order later discovered by researchers, guards were instructed that people attempting to cross the Wall were criminals and needed to be shot:
+
+"Do not hesitate to use your firearm, not even when the border is breached in the company of women and children, which is a tactic the traitors have often used".[83]
+
+Early successful escapes involved people jumping the initial barbed wire or leaping out of apartment windows along the line, but these ended as the Wall was fortified. East German authorities no longer permitted apartments near the Wall to be occupied, and any building near the Wall had its windows boarded and later bricked up. On 15 August 1961, Conrad Schumann was the first East German border guard to escape by jumping the barbed wire to West Berlin.[84]
+
+On 22 August 1961, Ida Siekmann was the first casualty at the Berlin Wall: she died after she jumped out of her third floor apartment at 48 Bernauer Strasse.[85] The first person to be shot and killed while trying to cross to West Berlin was Günter Litfin, a twenty-four-year-old tailor. He attempted to swim across the Spree to West Berlin on 24 August 1961, the same day that East German police had received shoot-to-kill orders to prevent anyone from escaping.[86]
+
+Another dramatic escape was carried out in April 1963 by Wolfgang Engels, a 19-year-old civilian employee of the Nationale Volksarmee (NVA). Engels stole a Soviet armored personnel carrier from a base where he was deployed and drove it right into the Wall. He was fired at and seriously wounded by border guards. But a West German policeman intervened, firing his weapon at the East German border guards. The policeman removed Engels from the vehicle, which had become entangled in the barbed wire.[87]
+
+East Germans successfully defected by a variety of methods: digging long tunnels under the Wall, waiting for favorable winds and taking a hot air balloon, sliding along aerial wires, flying ultralights and, in one instance, simply driving a sports car at full speed through the basic, initial fortifications. When a metal beam was placed at checkpoints to prevent this kind of defection, up to four people (two in the front seats and possibly two in the boot) drove under the bar in a sports car that had been modified to allow the roof and windscreen to come away when it made contact with the beam. They lay flat and kept driving forward. The East Germans then built zig-zagging roads at checkpoints. The sewer system predated the Wall, and some people escaped through the sewers,[88] in a number of cases with assistance from the Unternehmen Reisebüro.[89] In September 1962, 29 people escaped through a tunnel to the west. At least 70 tunnels were dug under the wall; only 19 were successful in allowing fugitives—about 400 persons—to escape. The East Germany authorities eventually used seismographic and acoustic equipment to detect the practice.[90][91] In 1962, they planned an attempt to use explosives to destroy one tunnel, but this was not carried out as it was apparently sabotaged by a member of the Stasi.[91]
+
+An airborne escape was made by Thomas Krüger, who landed a Zlin Z 42M light aircraft of the Gesellschaft für Sport und Technik, an East German youth military training organization, at RAF Gatow. His aircraft, registration DDR-WOH, was dismantled and returned to the East Germans by road, complete with humorous slogans painted on it by airmen of the Royal Air Force, such as "Wish you were here" and "Come back soon".[citation needed]
+
+If an escapee was wounded in a crossing attempt and lay on the death strip, no matter how close they were to the Western wall, Westerners could not intervene for fear of triggering engaging fire from the 'Grepos', the East Berlin border guards. The guards often let fugitives bleed to death in the middle of this ground, as in the most notorious failed attempt, that of Peter Fechter (aged 18) at a point near Zimmerstrasse in East Berlin. He was shot and bled to death, in full view of the Western media, on 17 August 1962.[92] Fechter's death created negative publicity worldwide that led the leaders of East Berlin to place more restrictions on shooting in public places, and provide medical care for possible "would-be escapers".[93] The last person to be shot and killed while trying to cross the border was Chris Gueffroy on 6 February 1989, while the final person to die in an escape attempt was Winfried Freudenberg who was killed when his homemade natural gas-filled balloon crashed on 8 March 1989.
+
+The Wall gave rise to a widespread sense of desperation and oppression in East Berlin, as expressed in the private thoughts of one resident, who confided to her diary "Our lives have lost their spirit… we can do nothing to stop them."[94]
+
+Every stone bears witness to the moral bankruptcy of the society it encloses
+
+— Margaret Thatcher commenting about the wall, West Berlin, 1982[95]
+
+On 6 June 1987, David Bowie, who earlier for several years lived and recorded in West Berlin, played a concert close to the Wall. This was attended by thousands of Eastern concertgoers across the Wall,[96] followed by violent rioting in East Berlin. According to Tobias Ruther, these protests in East Berlin were the first in the sequence of riots that led to those of November 1989.[97][98]
+Although other factors were probably more influential in the fall of the Wall,[96] upon his death, the German Foreign Office tweeted "Good-bye, David Bowie. You are now among #Heroes. Thank you for helping to bring down the #wall."[99]
+
+On 19 July 1988, 16 months before the Wall came down, Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band, played Rocking the Wall, a live concert in East Berlin, which was attended by 300,000 in person and broadcast on television. Springsteen spoke to the crowd in German, saying: "I'm not here for or against any government. I've come to play rock 'n' roll for you in the hope that one day all the barriers will be torn down".[100] East Germany and its FDJ youth organization were worried they were losing an entire generation. They hoped that by letting Springsteen in, they could improve their sentiment among East Germans. However, this strategy of "one step backwards, two steps forwards" backfired, and the concert only made East Germans hungrier for more of the freedoms that Springsteen epitomized. While John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan delivered their famous speeches from the safety of West Berlin, Springsteen's speaking out against the Wall in the middle of East Berlin added to the euphoria.[100]
+
+On 31 December 1989, American TV actor and pop music singer David Hasselhoff was the headlining performer for the Freedom Tour Live concert, which was attended by over 500,000 people on both sides of the Wall. The live concert footage was directed by music video director Thomas Mignone and aired on broadcast television station Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen ZDF throughout Europe. During shooting film crew personnel pulled people up from both sides to stand and celebrate on top of the wall. Hasselhoff sang his number one hit song "Looking For Freedom" on a platform at the end of a twenty-meter steel crane that swung above and over the Wall adjacent to the Brandenburg Gate.[101]
+
+On 26 June 1963, 22 months after the erection of the Berlin Wall, U.S. President John F. Kennedy visited West Berlin. Speaking from a platform erected on the steps of Rathaus Schöneberg for an audience of 450,000 he declared in his Ich bin ein Berliner speech the support of the United States for West Germany and the people of West Berlin in particular:
+
+Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was civis romanus sum ["I am a Roman citizen"]. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is "Ich bin ein Berliner!"... All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner!"
+
+The message was aimed as much at the Soviets as it was at Berliners and was a clear statement of U.S. policy in the wake of the construction of the Berlin Wall. The speech is considered one of Kennedy's best, both a significant moment in the Cold War and a high point of the New Frontier. It was a great morale boost for West Berliners, who lived in an exclave deep inside East Germany and feared a possible East German occupation.
+
+In a speech at the Brandenburg Gate commemorating the 750th anniversary of Berlin[102] on 12 June 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan challenged Mikhail Gorbachev, then the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to tear down the Wall as a symbol of increasing freedom in the Eastern Bloc:
+
+We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this Wall![103]
+
+The fall of the communist government in neighboring Poland's 1989 Polish legislative election in June played a role in the fall of the Berlin Wall. Also in June 1989 the Hungarian government began dismantling the electrified fence along its border with Austria (with Western TV crews present), and then, in September, more than 13,000 East German tourists escaped through Hungary to Austria.[104] This set up a chain of events. The Hungarians prevented many more East Germans from crossing the border and returned them to Budapest. These East Germans flooded the West German embassy and refused to return to East Germany.[105]
+
+The East German government responded by disallowing any further travel to Hungary, but allowed those already there to return to East Germany.[9] This triggered similar events in neighboring Czechoslovakia. This time, however, the East German authorities allowed people to leave, provided that they did so by train through East Germany. This was followed by mass demonstrations within East Germany itself.[106] Despite the policy of state atheism in East Germany, Christian pastor Christian Führer regularly met with his congregation at Leipzig's St. Nicholas Church for prayer since 1982.[106][107] Over the next seven years, the Church grew, despite authorities barricading the streets leading to it, and after church services, peaceful candlelit marches took place.[106] The secret police issued death threats and even attacked some of the marchers, but the crowd still continued to gather.[106] Protest demonstrations spread throughout East Germany in September 1989. Initially, protesters were mostly people wanting to leave to the West, chanting "Wir wollen raus!" ("We want out!"). Then protestors began to chant "Wir bleiben hier!" ("We are staying here!"). This was the start of what East Germans generally call the "Peaceful Revolution" of late 1989.[108] The protest demonstrations grew considerably by early November. The movement neared its height on 4 November, when half a million people gathered to demand political change, at the Alexanderplatz demonstration, East Berlin's large public square and transportation hub.[109] On 9 October 1989, the police and army units were given permission to use force against those assembled, but this did not deter the church service and march from taking place, which gathered 70,000 people.[106][107] Many of those people started to cross into West Berlin,[citation needed] without a shot being fired.[106]
+
+The longtime leader of East Germany, Erich Honecker, resigned on 18 October 1989 and was replaced by Egon Krenz that day. Honecker had predicted in January of that year that the Wall would stand for 50 or 100 more years[110] if the conditions that had caused its construction did not change.
+
+The wave of refugees leaving East Germany for the West kept increasing. By early November refugees were finding their way to Hungary via Czechoslovakia, or via the West German Embassy in Prague. This was tolerated by the new Krenz government, because of long-standing agreements with the communist Czechoslovak government, allowing free travel across their common border. However this movement of people grew so large it caused difficulties for both countries. To ease the difficulties, the politburo led by Krenz decided on 9 November to allow refugees to exit directly through crossing points between East Germany and West Germany, including between East and West Berlin. Later the same day, the ministerial administration modified the proposal to include private, round-trip, and travel. The new regulations were to take effect the next day.[111]
+
+Günter Schabowski, the party boss in East Berlin and the spokesman for the SED Politburo, had the task of announcing the new regulations. However, he had not been involved in the discussions about the new regulations and had not been fully updated.[112] Shortly before a press conference on 9 November, he was handed a note announcing the changes, but given no further instructions on how to handle the information. These regulations had only been completed a few hours earlier and were to take effect the following day, so as to allow time to inform the border guards. But this starting time delay was not communicated to Schabowski.[44] At the end of the press conference, Schabowski read out loud the note he had been given. A reporter, ANSA's Riccardo Ehrman,[113] asked when the regulations would take effect. After a few seconds' hesitation, Schabowski replied, "As far as I know, it takes effect immediately, without delay".[44] After further questions from journalists, he confirmed that the regulations included the border crossings through the Wall into West Berlin, which he had not mentioned until then.[114] He repeated that it was immediate in an interview with American journalist Tom Brokaw.[115] (In 2009 Ehrman said that a GDR official who was a personal friend had actually specifically requested that Ehrman ask about the travel law during the press conference, but Schabowski called that absurd.[113])
+
+Excerpts from Schabowski's press conference were the lead story on West Germany's two main news programs that night—at 7:17 p.m. on ZDF's heute and at 8 p.m. on ARD's Tagesschau. As ARD and ZDF had broadcast to nearly all of East Germany since the late 1950s and had become accepted by the East German authorities, the news was broadcast there as well simultaneously. Later that night, on ARD's Tagesthemen, anchorman Hanns Joachim Friedrichs proclaimed, "This 9 November is a historic day. The GDR has announced that, starting immediately, its borders are open to everyone. The gates in the Wall stand open wide."[44][112]
+
+After hearing the broadcast, East Germans began gathering at the Wall, at the six checkpoints between East and West Berlin, demanding that border guards immediately open the gates.[112] The surprised and overwhelmed guards made many hectic telephone calls to their superiors about the problem. At first, they were ordered to find the "more aggressive" people gathered at the gates and stamp their passports with a special stamp that barred them from returning to East Germany—in effect, revoking their citizenship. However, this still left thousands of people demanding to be let through "as Schabowski said we can".[44] It soon became clear that no one among the East German authorities would take personal responsibility for issuing orders to use lethal force, so the vastly outnumbered soldiers had no way to hold back the huge crowd of East German citizens. Finally, at 10:45 p.m. on 9 November, Harald Jäger, the commander of the Bornholmer Straße border crossing yielded, allowing for the guards to open the checkpoints and allowing people through with little or no identity checking.[116] As the Ossis swarmed through, they were greeted by Wessis waiting with flowers and champagne amid wild rejoicing. Soon afterward, a crowd of West Berliners jumped on top of the Wall, and were soon joined by East German youngsters.[117] The evening of 9 November 1989 is known as the night the Wall came down.[118]
+
+Another border crossing to the south may have been opened earlier. An account by Heinz Schäfer indicates that he also acted independently and ordered the opening of the gate at Waltersdorf-Rudow a couple of hours earlier.[119] This may explain reports of East Berliners appearing in West Berlin earlier than the opening of the Bornholmer Straße border crossing.[citation needed]
+
+Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, The Guardian collected short stories from 9 November 1989 by five German writers who reflect on the day. In this, Kathrin Schmidt remembers comically: 'I downed almost an entire bottle of schnapps'.[120]
+
+Remaining stretch of the Wall near Ostbahnhof in Friedrichshain called East Side Gallery, August 2006
+
+Remains of the Wall adjacent to the Topography of Terror, August 2007
+
+A memorial of over a thousand crosses and a segment of the Wall for those who died trying to cross. The memorial stood for ten months in 2004 and 2005 before it was removed.
+
+A "BERLINER MAUER 1961–1989" plaque near Checkpoint Charlie signifying where the Wall stood
+
+Display of two sections of the Wall and a "You are leaving" sign at Fort Gordon, Georgia
+
+The Berlin Wall from the East Berlin side, 1967
+
+A sign reading "Until we see each other again in the capital of the GDR"
+
+Czech hedgehog anti-tank obstacles and the Wall
+
+An exhibition dedicated to the 25th anniversary to the Berlin Wall destruction was located at Potsdamer Platz Arkaden
+
+Line indicating where the inner part of the wall once stood on Leipziger Platz, just off Potsdamer Platz, in 2015
+
+A hole in the Berlin wall, 2019
+
+Little is left of the Wall at its original site, which was destroyed almost in its entirety. Three long sections are still standing: an 80-metre-long (260 ft) piece of the first (westernmost) wall at the Topography of Terror, site of the former Gestapo headquarters, halfway between Checkpoint Charlie and Potsdamer Platz; a longer section of the second (easternmost) wall along the Spree River near the Oberbaumbrücke, nicknamed East Side Gallery; and a third section that is partly reconstructed, in the north at Bernauer Straße, which was turned into a memorial in 1999. Other isolated fragments, lampposts, other elements, and a few watchtowers also remain in various parts of the city.
+
+Nothing still accurately represents the Wall's original appearance better than a very short stretch at Bernauer Straße associated with the Berlin Wall Documentation Center.[122] Other remnants are badly damaged by souvenir seekers. Fragments of the Wall were taken and some were sold around the world. Appearing both with and without certificates of authenticity, these fragments are now a staple on the online auction service eBay as well as German souvenir shops. Today, the eastern side is covered in graffiti that did not exist while the Wall was guarded by the armed soldiers of East Germany. Previously, graffiti appeared only on the western side. Along some tourist areas of the city centre, the city government has marked the location of the former Wall by a row of cobblestones in the street. In most places only the "first" wall is marked, except near Potsdamer Platz where the stretch of both walls is marked, giving visitors an impression of the dimension of the barrier system.[citation needed]
+
+After the fall of the Berlin Wall, there were initiatives that they want to preserve the death strip walkways and redevelop it into a hiking and cycling area, known as Berliner Mauerweg. It is part of the initiative by Berlin Senate since 2005.[citation needed]
+
+For many years after reunification, people in Germany talked about cultural differences between East and West Germans (colloquially Ossis and Wessis), sometimes described as Mauer im Kopf (The wall in the head). A September 2004 poll found that 25 percent of West Germans and 12 percent of East Germans wished that East and West should be separated again by a "Wall".[123] A poll taken in October 2009 on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall indicated, however, that only about a tenth of the population was still unhappy with the unification (8 percent in the East; 12 percent in the West). Although differences are still perceived between East and West, Germans make similar distinctions between North and South.[124]
+
+A 2009 poll conducted by Russia's VTsIOM, found that more than half of all Russians do not know who built the Berlin Wall. Ten percent of people surveyed thought Berlin residents built it themselves. Six percent said Western powers built it and four percent thought it was a "bilateral initiative" of the Soviet Union and the West. Fifty-eight percent said they did not know who built it, with just 24 percent correctly naming the Soviet Union and its then-communist ally East Germany.[125]
+
+Not all segments of the Wall were ground up as the Wall was being torn down. Many segments have been given to various institutions in the world. They can be found, for instance, in presidential and historical museums, lobbies of hotels and corporations, at universities and government buildings, and in public spaces in different countries of the world.[126]
+
+On 13 August 2011, Germany marked the 50th anniversary of East Germany beginning the erection of the Berlin Wall. Chancellor Angela Merkel joined with President Christian Wulff and Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit at the Bernauer Straße memorial park to remember lives and liberty. Speeches extolled freedom and a minute of silence at noon honored those who died trying to flee to the West. "It is our shared responsibility to keep the memory alive and to pass it on to the coming generations as a reminder to stand up for freedom and democracy to ensure that such injustice may never happen again," entreated Mayor Wowereit. "It has been shown once again: Freedom is invincible at the end. No wall can permanently withstand the desire for freedom", proclaimed President Wulff.[127][128][129][130]
+
+Documentary films specifically about the Berlin Wall include:
+
+Fictional films featuring the Berlin Wall have included:
+
+Some novels specifically about the Berlin Wall include:
+
+Music related to the Berlin Wall includes:
+
+Artworks related to the Berlin Wall include:
+
+Video games related to the Berlin Wall include:
+
+Notes
+
+Bibliography
+
+Further reading

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+Niagara Falls /naɪˈæɡrə, naɪˈæɡərə/ is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the United States. The largest of the three is Horseshoe Falls, also known as Canadian Falls, which straddles the international border of the two countries.[1] The smaller American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls lie within the United States. Bridal Veil Falls are separated from Horseshoe Falls by Goat Island and from American Falls by Luna Island, with both islands situated in New York.
+
+Located on the Niagara River, which drains Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, the combined falls have the highest flow rate of any waterfall in North America that has a vertical drop of more than 50 metres (160 ft). During peak daytime tourist hours, more than 168,000 m3  (six million cubic feet) of water goes over the crest of the falls every minute.[2] Horseshoe Falls is the most powerful waterfall in North America, as measured by flow rate.[3]
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+The falls are 27 kilometres (17 mi) north-northwest of Buffalo, New York, and 121 kilometres (75 mi) south-southeast of Toronto, between the twin cities of Niagara Falls, Ontario, and Niagara Falls, New York. Niagara Falls was formed when glaciers receded at the end of the Wisconsin glaciation (the last ice age), and water from the newly formed Great Lakes carved a path through the Niagara Escarpment en route to the Atlantic Ocean.
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+Niagara Falls is famed both for its beauty and as a valuable source of hydroelectric power. Balancing recreational, commercial, and industrial uses has been a challenge for the stewards of the falls since the 19th century.
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+The Horseshoe Falls drop about 57 metres (187 ft),[4] while the height of the American Falls varies between 21 and 30 metres (69 and 98 ft) because of the presence of giant boulders at its base. The larger Horseshoe Falls are about 790 metres (2,590 ft) wide, while the American Falls are 320 metres (1,050 ft) wide. The distance between the American extremity of the Niagara Falls and the Canadian extremity is 3,409 feet (1,039 m).
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+The peak flow over Horseshoe Falls was recorded at 6,400 cubic metres (230,000 cu ft) per second.[5] The average annual flow rate is 2,400 cubic metres (85,000 cu ft) per second.[6] Since the flow is a direct function of the Lake Erie water elevation, it typically peaks in late spring or early summer. During the summer months, at least 2,800 cubic metres (99,000 cu ft) per second of water traverses the falls, some 90% of which goes over the Horseshoe Falls, while the balance is diverted to hydroelectric facilities. This is accomplished by employing a weir – the International Control Dam – with movable gates upstream from the Horseshoe Falls.
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+The falls' flow is further halved at night, and, during the low tourist season in the winter, remains a minimum of 1,400 cubic metres (49,000 cu ft) per second. Water diversion is regulated by the 1950 Niagara Treaty and is administered by the International Niagara Board of Control (IJC).[7] The verdant green color of the water flowing over the Niagara Falls is a byproduct of the estimated 60 tonnes/minute of dissolved salts and "rock flour" (very finely ground rock) generated by the erosive force of the Niagara River itself.[8]
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+The features that became Niagara Falls were created by the Wisconsin glaciation about 10,000 years ago.[9] The retreat of the ice sheet left behind a large amount of meltwater (see Lake Algonquin, Lake Chicago, Glacial Lake Iroquois, and Champlain Sea) that filled up the basins that the glaciers had carved, thus creating the Great Lakes as we know them today.[10][11] Scientists argue there is an old valley, St David's Buried Gorge, buried by glacial drift, at the approximate location of the present Welland Canal.
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+When the ice melted, the upper Great Lakes emptied into the Niagara River, which followed the rearranged topography across the Niagara Escarpment. In time, the river cut a gorge through the north-facing cliff, or cuesta.[12] Because of the interactions of three major rock formations, the rocky bed did not erode evenly. The top rock formation was composed of erosion-resistant limestone and dolomite of the Lockport Formation. That hard layer of stone eroded more slowly than the underlying materials. The aerial photo on the right clearly shows the hard caprock, the Lockport Formation (Middle Silurian), which underlies the rapids above the falls, and approximately the upper third of the high gorge wall.[12] Immediately below the hard-rock formation, comprising about two-thirds of the cliff, lay the weaker, softer, sloping Rochester Formation (Lower Silurian). This formation was composed mainly of shale, though it has some thin limestone layers. It also contains ancient fossils. In time, the river eroded the soft layer that supported the hard layers, undercutting the hard caprock, which gave way in great chunks. This process repeated countless times, eventually carving out the falls.
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+Submerged in the river in the lower valley, hidden from view, is the Queenston Formation (Upper Ordovician), which is composed of shales and fine sandstones. All three formations were laid down in an ancient sea, their differences of character deriving from changing conditions within that sea.
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+About 10,900 years ago, the Niagara Falls was between present-day Queenston, Ontario, and Lewiston, New York, but erosion of their crest has caused the waterfalls to retreat approximately 6.8 miles (10.9 km) southward.[13] The Horseshoe Falls, which are about 2,600 feet (790 m) wide, have also changed their shape through the process of erosion; evolving from a small arch to a horseshoe bend, to the present day gigantic V.[14] Just upstream from the falls' current location, Goat Island splits the course of the Niagara River, resulting in the separation of the mostly Canadian Horseshoe Falls to the west from the American and Bridal Veil Falls to the east. Engineering has slowed erosion and recession.[15]
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+The current rate of erosion is approximately 30 centimeters (1 ft) per year, down from a historical average of 0.91 m (3 ft) per year. According to the timeline of the far future, in roughly 50,000 years Niagara Falls will have eroded the remaining 32 kilometres (20 mi) to Lake Erie and cease to exist.[8]
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+In the 1870s, sightseers had limited access to Niagara Falls and often had to pay for a glimpse, and industrialization threatened to carve up Goat Island to further expand commercial development.[16] Other industrial encroachments and lack of public access led to a conservation movement in the U.S. known as Free Niagara, led by such notables as Hudson River School artist Frederic Edwin Church, landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted, and architect Henry Hobson Richardson. Church approached Lord Dufferin, governor-general of Canada, with a proposal for international discussions on the establishment of a public park.[17]
+
+Goat Island was one of the inspirations for the American side of the effort. William Dorsheimer, moved by the scene from the island, brought Olmsted to Buffalo in 1868 to design a city park system and helped promote Olmsted's career. In 1879, the New York state legislature commissioned Olmsted and James T. Gardner to survey the falls and to create the single most important document in the Niagara preservation movement, a Special Report on the preservation of Niagara Falls.[18] The report advocated for State purchase, restoration and preservation through public ownership of the scenic lands surrounding Niagara Falls. Restoring the former beauty of the falls was described in the report as a "sacred obligation to mankind."[19] In 1883, New York Governor Grover Cleveland drafted legislation authorizing acquisition of lands for a state reservation at Niagara, and the Niagara Falls Association, a private citizens group founded in 1882, mounted a great letter-writing campaign and petition drive in support of the park. Professor Charles Eliot Norton and Olmsted were among the leaders of the public campaign, while New York Governor Alonzo Cornell opposed.[20]
+
+Preservationists' efforts were rewarded on April 30, 1885, when Governor David B. Hill signed legislation creating the Niagara Reservation, New York's first state park. New York State began to purchase land from developers, under the charter of the Niagara Reservation State Park. In the same year, the province of Ontario established the Queen Victoria Niagara Falls Park for the same purpose. On the Canadian side, the Niagara Parks Commission governs land usage along the entire course of the Niagara River, from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario.[21]
+
+In 1887, Olmsted and Calvert Vaux issued a supplemental report detailing plans to restore the falls. Their intent was "to restore and conserve the natural surroundings of the Falls of Niagara, rather than to attempt to add anything thereto," and the report anticipated fundamental questions. How would preservationists provide access without destroying the beauty of the falls? How would they restore natural landscapes damaged by man? They planned a park with scenic roadways, paths and a few shelters designed to protect the landscape while allowing large numbers of visitors to enjoy the falls.[22] Commemorative statues, shops, restaurants, and a 1959 glass and metal observation tower were added later. Preservationists continue to strive to strike a balance between Olmsted's idyllic vision and the realities of administering a popular scenic attraction.[23]
+
+Preservation efforts continued well into the 20th century. J. Horace McFarland, the Sierra Club, and the Appalachian Mountain Club persuaded the United States Congress in 1906 to enact legislation to preserve the falls by regulating the waters of the Niagara River.[24] The act sought, in cooperation with the Canadian government, to restrict diversion of water, and a treaty resulted in 1909 that limited the total amount of water diverted from the falls by both nations to approximately 56,000 cubic feet (1,600 m3) per second. That limitation remained in effect until 1950.[25]
+
+Erosion control efforts have always been of extreme importance. Underwater weirs redirect the most damaging currents, and the top of the falls has also been strengthened. In June 1969, the Niagara River was completely diverted from the American Falls for several months through construction of a temporary rock and earth dam.[26] During this time, two bodies were removed from under the falls, including a man who had been seen jumping over the falls, and the body of a woman, which was discovered once the falls dried.[27][28]
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+While the Horseshoe Falls absorbed the extra flow, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers studied the riverbed and mechanically bolted and strengthened any faults they found; faults that would, if left untreated, have hastened the retreat of the American Falls. A plan to remove the huge mound of talus deposited in 1954 was abandoned owing to cost,[29] and in November 1969, the temporary dam was dynamited, restoring flow to the American Falls.[30] Even after these undertakings, Luna Island, the small piece of land between the main waterfall and the Bridal Veil, remained off limits to the public for years owing to fears that it was unstable and could collapse into the gorge.
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+Commercial interests have continued to encroach on the land surrounding the state park, including the construction of several tall buildings (most of them hotels) on the Canadian side. The result is a significant alteration and urbanisation of the landscape. One study indicated it has caused the airflow near the falls to change direction. Students at the University of Guelph demonstrated, using scale models, that as air passes over the top of the new hotels it causes a breeze to roll down the south sides of the buildings and spill into the gorge below the falls, where it feeds into a whirlpool of moisture and air. The inference was that a documented rise in the number of "mist days" was a result of these breezes, where mist days refers to the mist plume of the falls reaching landside.[31] In 1996 there were 29 mist days recorded, but by 2003 that number had risen to 68.[32] Another study has discounted this opinion and linked mist production to the difference in air and water temperature at the falls. However, this study does not offer opinion as to why mist days have been increasing, just that the hotel breezes are an unlikely cause.[33]
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+In 2013, New York State began an effort to renovate The Sisters Islands located on Goat Island. New York State used funds from the re-licensing of the New York Power Authority hydroelectric plant downriver in Lewiston, New York, to rebuild walking paths on the Three Sisters Islands and to plant native vegetation on the islands. The state also renovated the area around Prospect Point at the brink of the American Falls in the state park.
+
+Theories differ as to the origin of the name of the falls. According to Iroquoian scholar Bruce Trigger, Niagara is derived from the name given to a branch of the local native Neutral Confederacy, who are described as being called the Niagagarega people on several late-17th-century French maps of the area.[35] According to George R. Stewart, it comes from the name of an Iroquois town called Onguiaahra, meaning "point of land cut in two".[36]
+
+Henry Schoolcraft reported:
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+Niagara Falls. This name is Mohawk. It means, according to Mrs. Kerr, the neck; the term being first applied to the portage or neck of land, between lakes Erie and Ontario. By referring to Mr. Elliott's vocabulary, (chapter xi) it will be seen that the human neck, that is, according to the concrete vocabulary, his neck, is onyara. Red Jacket pronounced the word Niagara to me, in the spring of 1820, as if written O-ne-au-ga-rah.[37]
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+Many figures have been suggested as first circulating a European eyewitness description of Niagara Falls. The Frenchman Samuel de Champlain visited the area as early as 1604 during his exploration of Canada, and members of his party reported to him the spectacular waterfalls, which he described in his journals. The Finnish-Swedish naturalist Pehr Kalm explored the area in the early 18th century and is credited with the first scientific description of the falls. The consensus honoree for the first description is the Belgian missionary Louis Hennepin, who observed and described the falls in 1677, earlier than Kalm, after traveling with the explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, thus bringing the falls to the attention of Europeans. Further complicating matters, there is credible evidence the French Jesuit missionary Paul Ragueneau visited the falls some 35 years before Hennepin's visit while working among the Huron First Nation in Canada. Jean de Brébeuf also may have visited the falls, while spending time with the Neutral Nation.[38]
+
+In 1762, Captain Thomas Davies, a British Army officer and artist, surveyed the area and painted the watercolor, An East View of the Great Cataract of Niagara, the first eyewitness painting of the falls.[39][40]
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+During the 19th century, tourism became popular, and by mid-century, it was the area's main industry. Theodosia Burr Alston (daughter of Vice President Aaron Burr) and her husband Joseph Alston were the first recorded couple to honeymoon there in 1801.[41] Napoleon Bonaparte's brother Jérôme visited with his bride in the early 19th century.[42]
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+In 1825, British explorer John Franklin visited the falls while passing through New York en route to Cumberland House as part of his second Arctic expedition, calling them "so justly celebrated as the first in the world for grandeur".[43]
+
+In March 1848, an ice blockage caused the falls to stop; no water (or at best a trickle) fell for as much as 40 hours. Waterwheels stopped, and mills and factories shut down for having no power.[44]
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+Later that year, demand for passage over the Niagara River led to the building of a footbridge and then Charles Ellet's Niagara Suspension Bridge. This was supplanted by German-born John Augustus Roebling's Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge in 1855. After the American Civil War, the New York Central Railroad publicized Niagara Falls as a focus of pleasure and honeymoon visits. With increased railroad traffic, in 1886, Leffert Buck replaced Roebling's wood and stone bridge with the predominantly steel bridge that still carries trains over the Niagara River today. The first steel archway bridge near the falls was completed in 1897. Known today as the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge, it carries passenger vehicles and trains between Canada (through Canadian Customs Border Control) and the U.S.A. just downstream of the falls.
+
+In about 1840, the English industrial chemist Hugh Lee Pattinson traveled to Canada, stopping at the Niagara Falls long enough to make the earliest known photograph of the falls, a daguerreotype in the collection of Newcastle University. It was once believed that the small figure standing silhouetted with a top hat was added by an engraver working from imagination as well as the daguerreotype as his source, but the figure is clearly present in the photograph.[45] Because of the very long exposure required, of ten minutes or more, the figure is assumed by Canada's Niagara Parks agency to be Pattinson himself.[45] The image is left-right inverted and taken from the Canadian side.[46] Pattinson made other photographs of the Horseshoe Falls as well as of Rome and Paris. These were then transferred to engravings to illustrate Noël Marie Paymal Lerebours' Excursions Daguerriennes (Paris, 1841–1864).[47]
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+On 6 August 1918, an iron scow became stuck on the rocks above the falls.[48] The two men on the scow were rescued but the vessel remained trapped on rocks in the river, and is still visible there in a deteriorate state, although its position shifted by 50 meters during a storm on 31 October 2019.[49] Daredevil William "Red" Hill Sr. was particularly praised for his role in the rescue.[50]
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+After the First World War, tourism boomed again, as automobiles made getting to the falls much easier. The story of Niagara Falls in the 20th century is largely that of efforts to harness the energy of the falls for hydroelectric power, and to control the development on both sides that threaten the area's natural beauty. In 1941, the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission completed the third current crossing in the immediate area of Niagara Falls with the Rainbow Bridge, carrying both pedestrian and vehicular traffic between the two countries and Canadian and U.S. customs for each country.
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+Before the late 20th century, the northeastern end of the Horseshoe Falls was in the United States, flowing around the Terrapin Rocks, which were once connected to Goat Island by a series of bridges. In 1955, the area between the rocks and Goat Island was filled in, creating Terrapin Point.[51] In the early 1980s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers filled in more land and built diversion dams and retaining walls to force the water away from Terrapin Point. Altogether, 400 ft (120 m) of the Horseshoe Falls were eliminated, including 100 ft (30 m) on the Canadian side. According to author Ginger Strand, the Horseshoe Falls is now entirely in Canada.[52] Other sources say "most of" Horseshoe Falls is in Canada.[53]
+
+The only recorded freeze-up of the river and falls was due to an ice jam on March 29, 1848. In 1912, the American Falls was completely frozen but the other two kept flowing. Although the falls commonly ice up most winters, the river and the falls do not freeze completely. The years 1885, 1902, 1906, 1911, 1932, 1936, 2014, 2017 and 2019 are noted for partial freezing of the falls.[54][55][56]
+
+A so-called ice bridge was also common in certain years at the base of the falls and was used by people who wanted to cross the river before bridges had been built. During some winters, the ice sheet was as thick as 40 feet (12m) to 100 feet (30m) but that thickness has not occurred since 1954. The ice bridge of 1841 was said to be at least 100 feet thick.   
+[57] On 12 February 1912, the ice bridge which had formed on 15 January began breaking up while people were still on it. Many escaped but three died during the event, later named the Ice Bridge Disaster or Tragedy.[58]
+
+A number of bridges have spanned the Niagara River in the general vicinity of the falls. The first, not far from the Whirlpool, was a suspension bridge above the gorge. It opened for use by the public in July 1848 and remained in use until 1855. A second bridge in the Upper Falls area was commissioned, with two levels or decks, one for use by the Great Western Railway. This Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge opened in 1855. In 1882, the Grand Trunk Railway took over control of the second deck after it absorbed the Great Western company. Significant structural improvements were made in the late 1870s and then in 1886; this bridge remained in use until 1897.[59]
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+Due to the volume of traffic, the decision was made to construct a new arch bridge nearby: under and around the existing bridge. After it opened in September 1897, a decision was made to remove and scrap the Railway Suspension Bridge. This new bridge was initially known as the Niagara Railway Arch, or Lower Steel Arch Bridge; it had two decks, the lower one used for carriages and the upper for trains. In 1937, it was renamed the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge and remains in use today. All of the structures built up to that time were referred to as Lower Niagara bridges and were some distance from the falls.[59]
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+The first bridge in the so-called Upper Niagara area (closer to the falls) was a two level suspension structure that opened in January 1869; it was destroyed during a severe storm in January 1889. The replacement was built quickly and opened in May of the same year. In order to handle heavy traffic a second bridge was commissioned, slightly closer to the American Falls. This one was fully made of steel and opened to traffic in June 1897; it was known as the Upper Steel Arch Bridge, but was often called the Honeymoon Bridge. The single level included a track for trolleys and space for carriages and pedestrians. The design led to the bridge being very close to the surface of the river and in January, 1938, an ice jam twisted the steel frame of the bridge which later collapsed, on January 27, 1938.[60]
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+Another Lower Niagara bridge had been commissioned in 1883 by Cornelius Vanderbilt for use by railways at a location roughly approximately 200 feet south of the Railway Suspension Bridge. This one was of an entirely different design; it was a Cantilever bridge to provide greater strength. The Niagara Cantilever Bridge had two cantilevers which were joined by steel sections; it opened officially in December 1883 and improvements were made over the years for a stronger structure. As rail traffic was increasing, the Michigan Central Railroad company decided to build a new bridge in 1923, to be located between the Lower Steel Arch Bridge and the Cantilever Bridge. The Michigan Central Railway Bridge opened in February 1925 and remained in use until the early 21st century. The Cantilever Bridge was removed and scrapped after the new rail bridge opened.[59] Nonetheless, it was inducted into the North America Railway Hall of Fame in 2006.[61][59]
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+There was a lengthy dispute as to which agency should build the replacement for the Niagara Railway Arch, or Lower Steel Arch Bridge in the Upper Niagara area. When that was resolved, construction of a steel bridge commenced in February 1940. Named the Rainbow Bridge, and featuring two lanes for traffic separated by a barrier, this one opened in November 1941. It remains in use today.[60]
+
+The enormous energy of Niagara Falls has long been recognized as a potential source of power. The first known effort to harness the waters was in 1759, when Daniel Joncaire built a small canal above the falls to power his sawmill.[62] Augustus and Peter Porter purchased this area and all of American Falls in 1805 from the New York state government, and enlarged the original canal to provide hydraulic power for their gristmill and tannery. In 1853, the Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power and Mining Company was chartered, which eventually constructed the canals that would be used to generate electricity.[63] In 1881, under the leadership of Jacob F. Schoellkopf, the Niagara River's first hydroelectric generating station was built. The water fell 86 feet (26 m) and generated direct current electricity, which ran the machinery of local mills and lit up some of the village streets.
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+The Niagara Falls Power Company, a descendant of Schoellkopf's firm, formed the Cataract Company headed by Edward Dean Adams,[64] with the intent of expanding Niagara Falls' power capacity. In 1890, a five-member International Niagara Commission headed by Sir William Thomson among other distinguished scientists deliberated on the expansion of Niagara hydroelectric capacity based on seventeen proposals, but could not select any as the best combined project for hydraulic development and distribution. In 1893, Westinghouse Electric (which had built the smaller-scale Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant near Ophir, Colorado, two years earlier) was hired to design a system to generate alternating current on Niagara Falls, and three years after that this large-scale AC power system was created (activated on August 26, 1895).[65] The Adams Power Plant Transformer House remains as a landmark of the original system.
+
+By 1896, financing from moguls including J.P. Morgan, John Jacob Astor IV, and the Vanderbilts had fueled the construction of giant underground conduits leading to turbines generating upwards of 100,000 horsepower (75 MW), sent as far as Buffalo, 20 miles (32 km) away. Some of the original designs for the power transmission plants were created by the Swiss firm Faesch & Piccard, which also constructed the original 5,000 hp waterwheels.
+
+Private companies on the Canadian side also began to harness the energy of the falls. The Government of Ontario eventually brought power transmission operations under public control in 1906, distributing Niagara's energy to various parts of the Canadian province.
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+Other hydropower plants were also being built along the Niagara River. But in 1956, disaster struck when the region's largest hydropower station was partially destroyed in a landslide. This drastically reduced power production and put tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs at stake. In 1957, Congress passed the Niagara Redevelopment Act,[66] which granted the New York Power Authority the right to fully develop the United States' share of the Niagara River's hydroelectric potential.[67]
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+In 1961, when the Niagara Falls hydroelectric project went online, it was the largest hydropower facility in the Western world. Today, Niagara is still the largest electricity producer in New York state, with a generating capacity of 2.4 GW. Up to 1,420 cubic metres (380,000 US gal) of water a second is diverted from the Niagara River through conduits under the city of Niagara Falls to the Lewiston and Robert Moses power plants. Currently between 50% and 75% of the Niagara River's flow is diverted via four huge tunnels that arise far upstream from the waterfalls. The water then passes through hydroelectric turbines that supply power to nearby areas of Canada and the United States before returning to the river well past the falls.[68] This water spins turbines that power generators, converting mechanical energy into electrical energy. When electrical demand is low, the Lewiston units can operate as pumps to transport water from the lower bay back up to the plant's reservoir, allowing this water to be used again during the daytime when electricity use peaks. During peak electrical demand, the same Lewiston pumps are reversed and actually become generators, similar to those at the Moses plant.[67]
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+To preserve Niagara Falls' natural beauty, a 1950 treaty signed by the U.S. and Canada limited water usage by the power plants. The treaty allows higher summertime diversion at night when tourists are fewer and during the winter months when there are even fewer tourists.[69] This treaty, designed to ensure an "unbroken curtain of water" flowing over the falls, states that during daylight time during the tourist season (April 1 to October 31) there must be 100,000 cubic feet per second (2,800 m3/s) of water flowing over the falls, and during the night and off-tourist season there must be 50,000 cubic feet per second (1,400 m3/s) of water flowing over the falls. This treaty is monitored by the International Niagara Board of Control, using a NOAA gauging station above the falls. During winter, the Power Authority of New York works with Ontario Power Generation to prevent ice on the Niagara River from interfering with power production or causing flooding of shoreline property. One of their joint efforts is an 8,800-foot-long (2,700 m) ice boom, which prevents the buildup of ice, yet allows water to continue flowing downstream.[67] In addition to minimum water volume, the crest of the Horseshoe falls was reduced to maintain an uninterrupted "curtain of water."[70]
+
+The most powerful hydroelectric stations on the Niagara River are the Sir Adam Beck 1 and 2 on the Canadian side and the Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant and the Lewiston Pump Generating Plant on the American side. Together, Niagara's generating stations can produce about 4.4 gigawatts of power.
+
+In August 2005 Ontario Power Generation, which is responsible for the Sir Adam Beck stations, started a major civil engineering project, called the Niagara Tunnel Project, to increase power production by building a new 12.7-metre (42 ft) diameter, 10.2-kilometre-long (6.3 mi) water diversion tunnel. It was officially placed into service in March 2013, helping to increase the generating complex's nameplate capacity by 150 megawatts. It did so by tapping water from farther up the Niagara River than was possible with the preexisting arrangement. The tunnel provided new hydroelectricity for approximately 160,000 homes.[71][72]
+
+Ships can bypass Niagara Falls by means of the Welland Canal, which was improved and incorporated into the Saint Lawrence Seaway in the mid-1950s. While the seaway diverted water traffic from nearby Buffalo and led to the demise of its steel and grain mills, other industries in the Niagara River valley flourished with the help of the electric power produced by the river. However, since the 1970s the region has declined economically.
+
+The cities of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, and Niagara Falls, New York, United States, are connected by two international bridges. The Rainbow Bridge, just downriver from the falls, affords the closest view of the falls and is open to non-commercial vehicle traffic and pedestrians. The Whirlpool Rapids Bridge lies one mile (1.6 km) north of the Rainbow Bridge and is the oldest bridge over the Niagara River. Nearby Niagara Falls International Airport and Buffalo Niagara International Airport were named after the waterfall, as were Niagara University, countless local businesses, and even an asteroid.[73]
+
+
+
+In October 1829, Sam Patch, who called himself "the Yankee Leapster", jumped from a high tower into the gorge below the falls and survived; this began a long tradition of daredevils trying to go over the falls.
+
+Englishman Captain Matthew Webb, the first man to swim the English Channel, drowned in 1883 trying to swim the rapids downriver from the falls.[74]
+
+On October 24, 1901, 63-year-old Michigan school teacher Annie Edson Taylor became the first person to go over the falls in a barrel as a publicity stunt; she survived, bleeding, but otherwise unharmed. Soon after exiting the barrel, she said, "No one ought ever do that again."[75] Before Taylor's attempt, on October 19 her domestic cat named Iagara was sent over the Horseshoe Falls in her barrel to test its strength. Contrary to rumours at the time, the cat survived the plunge unharmed and later posed with Taylor in photographs.[76] Since Taylor's historic ride, over a dozen people have intentionally gone over the falls in or on a device, despite her advice. Some have survived unharmed, but others have drowned or been severely injured. Survivors face charges and stiff fines, as it is now illegal, on both sides of the border, to attempt to go over the falls.
+
+Bobby Leach went over the Horseshoe Falls in a crude steel barrel in 1911, and needed rescuing by William "Red" Hill Sr..[77] Hill would again come to the rescue of Leach following his failed attempt to swim the Niagara Gorge in 1920.
+
+In 1918, there was a near disaster when a barge working upriver, known locally as the Niagara Scow, broke its tow line and almost plunged over the falls. The two workers on board saved themselves by grounding the vessel on rocks just short of the falls, where it has remained ever since. "Red" Hill was credited with the rescue of the two boatmen.[78] In October 2019, as a result of inclement weather, the Niagara Scow finally moved from its original resting place, moving closer to the brink of Horseshoe Falls.[79]
+
+In 1928, "Smiling Jean" Lussier tried an entirely different concept, going over the falls in a large rubber ball; he was successful and survived the ordeal.[80]
+
+Charles Stephens, a 58-year-old barber from Bristol, England, went over the falls in a wooden barrel in July 1920 and was the first person to die in an endeavor of this type.[81]
+
+In the "Miracle at Niagara", Roger Woodward, a seven-year-old American boy, was swept over the Horseshoe Falls after their boat lost power on July 9, 1960; two tourists pulled his 17-year-old sister Deanne from the river only 20 feet (6.1 m) from the lip of the Horseshoe Falls at Goat Island.[82] Minutes later, Woodward was plucked from the roiling plunge pool beneath the Horseshoe Falls after grabbing a life ring thrown to him by the crew of the Maid of the Mist boat.[83][84] The third person who had been in the boat, James Hunicutt, did not survive the mishap.[85]
+
+On July 2, 1984, Canadian Karel Soucek from Hamilton, Ontario, plunged over the Horseshoe Falls in a barrel with only minor injuries. Soucek was fined $500 for performing the stunt without a license. In 1985, he was fatally injured while attempting to re-create the Niagara drop at the Houston Astrodome. His aim was to climb into a barrel hoisted to the rafters of the Astrodome and to drop 180 feet (55 m) into a water tank on the floor. After his barrel released prematurely, it hit the side of the tank and he died the next day from his injuries.[86][87]
+
+In August 1985, Steve Trotter, an aspiring stuntman from Rhode Island, became the youngest person ever (age 22) and the first American in 25 years to go over the falls in a barrel. Ten years later, Trotter went over the falls again, becoming the second person to go over the falls twice and survive. It was also the second-ever "duo"; Lori Martin joined Trotter for the barrel ride over the falls. They survived the fall but their barrel became stuck at the bottom of the falls, requiring a rescue.[88]
+
+On September 28, 1989, Niagara natives Peter DeBernardi (age 42) and Jeffery James Petkovich (age 25) became the first "team" to make it over the falls in a two-person barrel. The stunt was conceived by DeBenardi, who wanted to discourage youth from following in his path of addictive drug use. The pair emerged shortly after going over with minor injuries and were charged with performing an illegal stunt under the Niagara Parks Act.[89]
+
+On June 5, 1990, Jesse Sharp, a whitewater canoeist from Tennessee paddled over the falls in a closed deck canoe. He neglected to wear a helmet to make his face more visible for photographs of the event. He also did not wear a life vest because he believed it would hinder his escape from the hydraulics at the base of the falls. His boat flushed out of the falls, but his body was never found.[90]
+
+On September 27, 1993, John "David" Munday, of Caistor Centre, Ontario, completed his second journey over the falls.[91]
+
+On October 1, 1995, Robert Douglas "Firecracker" Overacker went over the falls on a Jet Ski to raise awareness for the homeless. His rocket-propelled parachute failed to open and he plunged to his death. Overacker's body was recovered before he was pronounced dead at Niagara General Hospital.[92]
+
+Kirk Jones of Canton, Michigan, became the first known person to survive a plunge over the Horseshoe Falls without a flotation device on October 20, 2003. According to some reports, Jones had attempted to commit suicide,[93] he survived the 16-story fall with only battered ribs, scrapes, and bruises.[94][95] Jones tried going over the falls again in 2017, this time, using a large inflatable ball, but died in the process.[96][97] Later reports revealed that Jones had arranged for a friend to shoot video clips of his stunt.
+[98]
+
+On March 11, 2009, a man survived an unprotected trip over the Horseshoe Falls, and when rescued from the river, was reported to be suffering from severe hypothermia and a large wound to his head. His identity was never released. Eyewitnesses reported seeing the man intentionally enter the water.[99][100]
+
+On May 21, 2012, an unidentified man in his early 40s became the fourth person to survive an unprotected trip over the Horseshoe Falls. Eyewitness reports show he "deliberately jumped" into the Niagara River after climbing over a railing.[101][102]
+
+On July 8, 2019, at roughly 4 am, officers responded to a report of a person in crisis at the brink of the Canadian side of the falls. Once officers got to the scene, the man climbed the retaining wall, jumped into the river and went over the Horseshoe Falls. Authorities subsequently began to search the lower Niagara River basin, where the man was found sitting on the rocks at the water's edge.[103]
+
+Other daredevils have made crossing the gorge their goal, starting with the successful passage by Jean François "Blondin" Gravelet, who crossed Niagara Gorge in 1859.[105] Between 1859 and 1896 a wire-walking craze emerged, resulting in frequent feats over the river below the falls. One inexperienced walker slid down his safety rope. Only one man fell to his death, at night and under mysterious circumstances, at the anchoring place for his wire.[106]
+
+Maria Spelterini, a 23-year-old Italian was the first and only woman to cross the Niagara River gorge; she did so on a tightrope, on 8 July 1876. She repeated the stunt several times during the same month. During one crossing she was blindfolded and during another, her ankles and wrists were handcuffed.[107]
+
+The tightrope walkers drew huge crowds to witness their exploits. Their wires ran across the gorge, near the current Rainbow Bridge, not over the waterfall itself. Blondin made his first gorge crossing on a tightrope on 30 June 1859 and did so again eight times that year. His most difficult crossing occurred on August 14, when he carried his manager, Harry Colcord, on his back.[108]   His final crossing, on 8 September 1860, was witnessed by the Prince of Wales.[106]
+
+Among the many competitors was Ontario's William Hunt, who billed himself as "The Great Farini"; his first crossing was in 1860. Farini competed with Blondin in performing outrageous stunts over the gorge.[109] On 8 August  1864 however, an attempt failed and he needed to be rescued.[110]
+
+On 15 June 2012, high wire artist Nik Wallenda became the first person to walk across the falls area in 116 years, after receiving special permission from both governments.[111] The full length of his tightrope was 1,800 feet (550 m).[112] Wallenda crossed near the brink of the Horseshoe Falls, unlike walkers who had crossed farther downstream. According to Wallenda, it was the longest unsupported tightrope walk in history.[113] He carried his passport on the trip and was required to present it upon arrival on the Canadian side of the falls.[114]
+
+Peak visitor traffic occurs in the summertime, when Niagara Falls are both a daytime and evening attraction. From the Canadian side, floodlights illuminate both sides of the falls for several hours after dark (until midnight). The number of visitors in 2007 was expected to total 20 million, and by 2009 the annual rate was expected to top 28 million tourists.[115]
+
+The oldest and best known tourist attraction at Niagara Falls is the Maid of the Mist boat cruise, named for an ancient Ongiara Indian mythical character, which has carried passengers into the rapids immediately below the falls since 1846. Cruise boats operate from boat docks on both sides of the falls, with the Maid of the Mist operating from the American side and Hornblower Cruises (originally Maid of the Mist until 2014[116]) from the Canadian side.[117][118]
+
+From the U.S. side, the American Falls can be viewed from walkways along Prospect Point Park, which also features the Prospect Point Observation Tower and a boat dock for the Maid of the Mist. Goat Island offers more views of the falls and is accessible by foot and automobile traffic by bridge above the American Falls. From Goat Island, the Cave of the Winds is accessible by elevator and leads hikers to a point beneath Bridal Veil Falls. Also on Goat Island are the Three Sisters Islands, the Power Portal where a statue of Nikola Tesla (the inventor whose patents for the AC induction motor and other devices for AC power transmission helped make the harnessing of the falls possible) can be seen, and a walking path that enables views of the rapids, the Niagara River, the gorge, and all of the falls. Most of these attractions lie within the Niagara Falls State Park.[119]
+
+The Niagara Scenic Trolley offers guided trips along the American Falls and around Goat Island. Panoramic and aerial views of the falls can also be viewed by helicopter. The Niagara Gorge Discovery Center showcases the natural and local history of Niagara Falls and the Niagara Gorge. A casino and luxury hotel was opened in Niagara Falls, New York, by the Seneca Indian tribe. The Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel occupies the former Niagara Falls Convention Center. The new hotel is the first addition to the city's skyline since completion of the United Office Building in the 1920s.[119][120]
+
+On the Canadian side, Queen Victoria Park features manicured gardens, platforms offering views of both the American and Horseshoe Falls, and underground walkways leading into observation rooms that yield the illusion of being within the falling waters. Along the Niagara River, the Niagara River Recreational Trail runs 35 miles (56 km) from Fort Erie to Fort George, and includes many historical sites from the War of 1812.[121]
+
+The observation deck of the nearby Skylon Tower offers the highest view of the falls, and in the opposite direction gives views as far as Toronto. Along with the Tower Hotel (built as the Seagrams Tower, later renamed the Heritage Tower, the Royal Inn Tower, the Royal Center Tower, the Panasonic Tower, the Minolta Tower, and most recently the Konica Minolta Tower[122] before receiving its current name in 2010), it is one of two towers in Canada with a view of the falls.[123]
+
+The Whirlpool Aero Car, built in 1916 from a design by Spanish engineer Leonardo Torres y Quevedo, is a cable car that takes passengers over the Niagara Whirlpool on the Canadian side. The Journey Behind the Falls consists of an observation platform and series of tunnels near the bottom of the Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side.[124]
+
+There are two casinos on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, the Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort and Casino Niagara.[125]
+
+Already a huge tourist attraction and favorite spot for honeymooners, Niagara Falls visits rose sharply in 1953 after the release of Niagara, a movie starring Marilyn Monroe and Joseph Cotten.[126]
+
+The 1956 animated short Niagara Fools featured Woody Woodpecker attempting to go over the falls in a barrel.[127] The falls was a featured location in the major motion picture Superman II in 1980,[128] and was itself the subject of a popular IMAX movie, Niagara: Miracles, Myths and Magic.[129] Illusionist David Copperfield performed a trick in which he appeared to travel over the Horseshoe Falls in 1990.[130]
+
+The falls, or more particularly, the tourist-supported complex near the falls, was the setting of the short-lived Canadian-shot US television show Wonderfalls in early 2004. Location footage of the falls was shot in October 2006 to portray "World's End" of the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.[131] Professional kayaker Rafa Ortiz's preparation to paddle over the falls in a kayak is documented in the 2015 film Chasing Niagara.[132]
+
+Composer Ferde Grofé was commissioned by the Niagara Falls Power Generation project in 1960 to compose the Niagara Falls Suite in honor of the completion of the first stage of hydroelectric work at the falls.[133] In 1997, composer Michael Daugherty composed Niagara Falls, a piece for concert band inspired by the falls.[134]
+
+The Niagara Falls area features as the base camp for a German aerial invasion of the United States in the H. G. Wells novel The War in the Air.[135]
+
+Many poets have been inspired to write about the falls. Among them was the Cuban poet José Maria Heredia, who wrote the poem "Niagara". There are commemorative plaques on both sides of the falls recognising the poem.[136]
+
+In the original 1920s and 1930s Buck Rogers stories and newspaper cartoons, Buck Rogers, in his adventures in the 25th century that take place on Earth.[137]
+
+Part of Mark Twain's 1893 short story, "Extract from Adam's Diary" is set at Niagara Falls.[138]
+
+The Bulgarian writer Aleko Konstantinov portrays the impressiveness of the Niagara Falls in his book, To Chicago and Back.
+
+In 2014, the writer Alessandro Baricco published the book Smith & Wesson recounting the story of Rachel Green going over the falls.
+
+The Niagara Falls were such an attraction to landscape artists that, writes John Howat, they were "the most popular, the most often treated, and the tritest single item of subject matter to appear in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European and American landscape painting".[139]
+
+A General View of the Falls of Niagara by Alvan Fisher, 1820
+
+Distant View of Niagara Falls by Thomas Cole, 1830
+
+Niagara Fälle. Les chûtes du Niagara. Niagara Falls by Karl Bodmer, circa 1832
+
+Voute sous la Chute du Niagara – Niagara Falls, circa 1841
+
+Niagara by Frederic Edwin Church, 1857
+
+Underneath Niagara Falls by Ferdinand Richardt, 1862
+
+Niagara by Louis Rémy Mignot, circa 1866
+
+Falls of Niagara from Below by Albert Bierstadt, 1869
+
+Niagara Falls by William Morris Hunt, 1878
+
+Niagara Falls, circa 1880

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+
+
+Niagara Falls /naɪˈæɡrə, naɪˈæɡərə/ is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the United States. The largest of the three is Horseshoe Falls, also known as Canadian Falls, which straddles the international border of the two countries.[1] The smaller American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls lie within the United States. Bridal Veil Falls are separated from Horseshoe Falls by Goat Island and from American Falls by Luna Island, with both islands situated in New York.
+
+Located on the Niagara River, which drains Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, the combined falls have the highest flow rate of any waterfall in North America that has a vertical drop of more than 50 metres (160 ft). During peak daytime tourist hours, more than 168,000 m3  (six million cubic feet) of water goes over the crest of the falls every minute.[2] Horseshoe Falls is the most powerful waterfall in North America, as measured by flow rate.[3]
+
+The falls are 27 kilometres (17 mi) north-northwest of Buffalo, New York, and 121 kilometres (75 mi) south-southeast of Toronto, between the twin cities of Niagara Falls, Ontario, and Niagara Falls, New York. Niagara Falls was formed when glaciers receded at the end of the Wisconsin glaciation (the last ice age), and water from the newly formed Great Lakes carved a path through the Niagara Escarpment en route to the Atlantic Ocean.
+
+Niagara Falls is famed both for its beauty and as a valuable source of hydroelectric power. Balancing recreational, commercial, and industrial uses has been a challenge for the stewards of the falls since the 19th century.
+
+The Horseshoe Falls drop about 57 metres (187 ft),[4] while the height of the American Falls varies between 21 and 30 metres (69 and 98 ft) because of the presence of giant boulders at its base. The larger Horseshoe Falls are about 790 metres (2,590 ft) wide, while the American Falls are 320 metres (1,050 ft) wide. The distance between the American extremity of the Niagara Falls and the Canadian extremity is 3,409 feet (1,039 m).
+
+The peak flow over Horseshoe Falls was recorded at 6,400 cubic metres (230,000 cu ft) per second.[5] The average annual flow rate is 2,400 cubic metres (85,000 cu ft) per second.[6] Since the flow is a direct function of the Lake Erie water elevation, it typically peaks in late spring or early summer. During the summer months, at least 2,800 cubic metres (99,000 cu ft) per second of water traverses the falls, some 90% of which goes over the Horseshoe Falls, while the balance is diverted to hydroelectric facilities. This is accomplished by employing a weir – the International Control Dam – with movable gates upstream from the Horseshoe Falls.
+
+The falls' flow is further halved at night, and, during the low tourist season in the winter, remains a minimum of 1,400 cubic metres (49,000 cu ft) per second. Water diversion is regulated by the 1950 Niagara Treaty and is administered by the International Niagara Board of Control (IJC).[7] The verdant green color of the water flowing over the Niagara Falls is a byproduct of the estimated 60 tonnes/minute of dissolved salts and "rock flour" (very finely ground rock) generated by the erosive force of the Niagara River itself.[8]
+
+The features that became Niagara Falls were created by the Wisconsin glaciation about 10,000 years ago.[9] The retreat of the ice sheet left behind a large amount of meltwater (see Lake Algonquin, Lake Chicago, Glacial Lake Iroquois, and Champlain Sea) that filled up the basins that the glaciers had carved, thus creating the Great Lakes as we know them today.[10][11] Scientists argue there is an old valley, St David's Buried Gorge, buried by glacial drift, at the approximate location of the present Welland Canal.
+
+When the ice melted, the upper Great Lakes emptied into the Niagara River, which followed the rearranged topography across the Niagara Escarpment. In time, the river cut a gorge through the north-facing cliff, or cuesta.[12] Because of the interactions of three major rock formations, the rocky bed did not erode evenly. The top rock formation was composed of erosion-resistant limestone and dolomite of the Lockport Formation. That hard layer of stone eroded more slowly than the underlying materials. The aerial photo on the right clearly shows the hard caprock, the Lockport Formation (Middle Silurian), which underlies the rapids above the falls, and approximately the upper third of the high gorge wall.[12] Immediately below the hard-rock formation, comprising about two-thirds of the cliff, lay the weaker, softer, sloping Rochester Formation (Lower Silurian). This formation was composed mainly of shale, though it has some thin limestone layers. It also contains ancient fossils. In time, the river eroded the soft layer that supported the hard layers, undercutting the hard caprock, which gave way in great chunks. This process repeated countless times, eventually carving out the falls.
+
+Submerged in the river in the lower valley, hidden from view, is the Queenston Formation (Upper Ordovician), which is composed of shales and fine sandstones. All three formations were laid down in an ancient sea, their differences of character deriving from changing conditions within that sea.
+
+About 10,900 years ago, the Niagara Falls was between present-day Queenston, Ontario, and Lewiston, New York, but erosion of their crest has caused the waterfalls to retreat approximately 6.8 miles (10.9 km) southward.[13] The Horseshoe Falls, which are about 2,600 feet (790 m) wide, have also changed their shape through the process of erosion; evolving from a small arch to a horseshoe bend, to the present day gigantic V.[14] Just upstream from the falls' current location, Goat Island splits the course of the Niagara River, resulting in the separation of the mostly Canadian Horseshoe Falls to the west from the American and Bridal Veil Falls to the east. Engineering has slowed erosion and recession.[15]
+
+The current rate of erosion is approximately 30 centimeters (1 ft) per year, down from a historical average of 0.91 m (3 ft) per year. According to the timeline of the far future, in roughly 50,000 years Niagara Falls will have eroded the remaining 32 kilometres (20 mi) to Lake Erie and cease to exist.[8]
+
+In the 1870s, sightseers had limited access to Niagara Falls and often had to pay for a glimpse, and industrialization threatened to carve up Goat Island to further expand commercial development.[16] Other industrial encroachments and lack of public access led to a conservation movement in the U.S. known as Free Niagara, led by such notables as Hudson River School artist Frederic Edwin Church, landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted, and architect Henry Hobson Richardson. Church approached Lord Dufferin, governor-general of Canada, with a proposal for international discussions on the establishment of a public park.[17]
+
+Goat Island was one of the inspirations for the American side of the effort. William Dorsheimer, moved by the scene from the island, brought Olmsted to Buffalo in 1868 to design a city park system and helped promote Olmsted's career. In 1879, the New York state legislature commissioned Olmsted and James T. Gardner to survey the falls and to create the single most important document in the Niagara preservation movement, a Special Report on the preservation of Niagara Falls.[18] The report advocated for State purchase, restoration and preservation through public ownership of the scenic lands surrounding Niagara Falls. Restoring the former beauty of the falls was described in the report as a "sacred obligation to mankind."[19] In 1883, New York Governor Grover Cleveland drafted legislation authorizing acquisition of lands for a state reservation at Niagara, and the Niagara Falls Association, a private citizens group founded in 1882, mounted a great letter-writing campaign and petition drive in support of the park. Professor Charles Eliot Norton and Olmsted were among the leaders of the public campaign, while New York Governor Alonzo Cornell opposed.[20]
+
+Preservationists' efforts were rewarded on April 30, 1885, when Governor David B. Hill signed legislation creating the Niagara Reservation, New York's first state park. New York State began to purchase land from developers, under the charter of the Niagara Reservation State Park. In the same year, the province of Ontario established the Queen Victoria Niagara Falls Park for the same purpose. On the Canadian side, the Niagara Parks Commission governs land usage along the entire course of the Niagara River, from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario.[21]
+
+In 1887, Olmsted and Calvert Vaux issued a supplemental report detailing plans to restore the falls. Their intent was "to restore and conserve the natural surroundings of the Falls of Niagara, rather than to attempt to add anything thereto," and the report anticipated fundamental questions. How would preservationists provide access without destroying the beauty of the falls? How would they restore natural landscapes damaged by man? They planned a park with scenic roadways, paths and a few shelters designed to protect the landscape while allowing large numbers of visitors to enjoy the falls.[22] Commemorative statues, shops, restaurants, and a 1959 glass and metal observation tower were added later. Preservationists continue to strive to strike a balance between Olmsted's idyllic vision and the realities of administering a popular scenic attraction.[23]
+
+Preservation efforts continued well into the 20th century. J. Horace McFarland, the Sierra Club, and the Appalachian Mountain Club persuaded the United States Congress in 1906 to enact legislation to preserve the falls by regulating the waters of the Niagara River.[24] The act sought, in cooperation with the Canadian government, to restrict diversion of water, and a treaty resulted in 1909 that limited the total amount of water diverted from the falls by both nations to approximately 56,000 cubic feet (1,600 m3) per second. That limitation remained in effect until 1950.[25]
+
+Erosion control efforts have always been of extreme importance. Underwater weirs redirect the most damaging currents, and the top of the falls has also been strengthened. In June 1969, the Niagara River was completely diverted from the American Falls for several months through construction of a temporary rock and earth dam.[26] During this time, two bodies were removed from under the falls, including a man who had been seen jumping over the falls, and the body of a woman, which was discovered once the falls dried.[27][28]
+
+While the Horseshoe Falls absorbed the extra flow, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers studied the riverbed and mechanically bolted and strengthened any faults they found; faults that would, if left untreated, have hastened the retreat of the American Falls. A plan to remove the huge mound of talus deposited in 1954 was abandoned owing to cost,[29] and in November 1969, the temporary dam was dynamited, restoring flow to the American Falls.[30] Even after these undertakings, Luna Island, the small piece of land between the main waterfall and the Bridal Veil, remained off limits to the public for years owing to fears that it was unstable and could collapse into the gorge.
+
+Commercial interests have continued to encroach on the land surrounding the state park, including the construction of several tall buildings (most of them hotels) on the Canadian side. The result is a significant alteration and urbanisation of the landscape. One study indicated it has caused the airflow near the falls to change direction. Students at the University of Guelph demonstrated, using scale models, that as air passes over the top of the new hotels it causes a breeze to roll down the south sides of the buildings and spill into the gorge below the falls, where it feeds into a whirlpool of moisture and air. The inference was that a documented rise in the number of "mist days" was a result of these breezes, where mist days refers to the mist plume of the falls reaching landside.[31] In 1996 there were 29 mist days recorded, but by 2003 that number had risen to 68.[32] Another study has discounted this opinion and linked mist production to the difference in air and water temperature at the falls. However, this study does not offer opinion as to why mist days have been increasing, just that the hotel breezes are an unlikely cause.[33]
+
+In 2013, New York State began an effort to renovate The Sisters Islands located on Goat Island. New York State used funds from the re-licensing of the New York Power Authority hydroelectric plant downriver in Lewiston, New York, to rebuild walking paths on the Three Sisters Islands and to plant native vegetation on the islands. The state also renovated the area around Prospect Point at the brink of the American Falls in the state park.
+
+Theories differ as to the origin of the name of the falls. According to Iroquoian scholar Bruce Trigger, Niagara is derived from the name given to a branch of the local native Neutral Confederacy, who are described as being called the Niagagarega people on several late-17th-century French maps of the area.[35] According to George R. Stewart, it comes from the name of an Iroquois town called Onguiaahra, meaning "point of land cut in two".[36]
+
+Henry Schoolcraft reported:
+
+Niagara Falls. This name is Mohawk. It means, according to Mrs. Kerr, the neck; the term being first applied to the portage or neck of land, between lakes Erie and Ontario. By referring to Mr. Elliott's vocabulary, (chapter xi) it will be seen that the human neck, that is, according to the concrete vocabulary, his neck, is onyara. Red Jacket pronounced the word Niagara to me, in the spring of 1820, as if written O-ne-au-ga-rah.[37]
+
+Many figures have been suggested as first circulating a European eyewitness description of Niagara Falls. The Frenchman Samuel de Champlain visited the area as early as 1604 during his exploration of Canada, and members of his party reported to him the spectacular waterfalls, which he described in his journals. The Finnish-Swedish naturalist Pehr Kalm explored the area in the early 18th century and is credited with the first scientific description of the falls. The consensus honoree for the first description is the Belgian missionary Louis Hennepin, who observed and described the falls in 1677, earlier than Kalm, after traveling with the explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, thus bringing the falls to the attention of Europeans. Further complicating matters, there is credible evidence the French Jesuit missionary Paul Ragueneau visited the falls some 35 years before Hennepin's visit while working among the Huron First Nation in Canada. Jean de Brébeuf also may have visited the falls, while spending time with the Neutral Nation.[38]
+
+In 1762, Captain Thomas Davies, a British Army officer and artist, surveyed the area and painted the watercolor, An East View of the Great Cataract of Niagara, the first eyewitness painting of the falls.[39][40]
+
+During the 19th century, tourism became popular, and by mid-century, it was the area's main industry. Theodosia Burr Alston (daughter of Vice President Aaron Burr) and her husband Joseph Alston were the first recorded couple to honeymoon there in 1801.[41] Napoleon Bonaparte's brother Jérôme visited with his bride in the early 19th century.[42]
+
+In 1825, British explorer John Franklin visited the falls while passing through New York en route to Cumberland House as part of his second Arctic expedition, calling them "so justly celebrated as the first in the world for grandeur".[43]
+
+In March 1848, an ice blockage caused the falls to stop; no water (or at best a trickle) fell for as much as 40 hours. Waterwheels stopped, and mills and factories shut down for having no power.[44]
+
+Later that year, demand for passage over the Niagara River led to the building of a footbridge and then Charles Ellet's Niagara Suspension Bridge. This was supplanted by German-born John Augustus Roebling's Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge in 1855. After the American Civil War, the New York Central Railroad publicized Niagara Falls as a focus of pleasure and honeymoon visits. With increased railroad traffic, in 1886, Leffert Buck replaced Roebling's wood and stone bridge with the predominantly steel bridge that still carries trains over the Niagara River today. The first steel archway bridge near the falls was completed in 1897. Known today as the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge, it carries passenger vehicles and trains between Canada (through Canadian Customs Border Control) and the U.S.A. just downstream of the falls.
+
+In about 1840, the English industrial chemist Hugh Lee Pattinson traveled to Canada, stopping at the Niagara Falls long enough to make the earliest known photograph of the falls, a daguerreotype in the collection of Newcastle University. It was once believed that the small figure standing silhouetted with a top hat was added by an engraver working from imagination as well as the daguerreotype as his source, but the figure is clearly present in the photograph.[45] Because of the very long exposure required, of ten minutes or more, the figure is assumed by Canada's Niagara Parks agency to be Pattinson himself.[45] The image is left-right inverted and taken from the Canadian side.[46] Pattinson made other photographs of the Horseshoe Falls as well as of Rome and Paris. These were then transferred to engravings to illustrate Noël Marie Paymal Lerebours' Excursions Daguerriennes (Paris, 1841–1864).[47]
+
+On 6 August 1918, an iron scow became stuck on the rocks above the falls.[48] The two men on the scow were rescued but the vessel remained trapped on rocks in the river, and is still visible there in a deteriorate state, although its position shifted by 50 meters during a storm on 31 October 2019.[49] Daredevil William "Red" Hill Sr. was particularly praised for his role in the rescue.[50]
+
+After the First World War, tourism boomed again, as automobiles made getting to the falls much easier. The story of Niagara Falls in the 20th century is largely that of efforts to harness the energy of the falls for hydroelectric power, and to control the development on both sides that threaten the area's natural beauty. In 1941, the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission completed the third current crossing in the immediate area of Niagara Falls with the Rainbow Bridge, carrying both pedestrian and vehicular traffic between the two countries and Canadian and U.S. customs for each country.
+
+Before the late 20th century, the northeastern end of the Horseshoe Falls was in the United States, flowing around the Terrapin Rocks, which were once connected to Goat Island by a series of bridges. In 1955, the area between the rocks and Goat Island was filled in, creating Terrapin Point.[51] In the early 1980s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers filled in more land and built diversion dams and retaining walls to force the water away from Terrapin Point. Altogether, 400 ft (120 m) of the Horseshoe Falls were eliminated, including 100 ft (30 m) on the Canadian side. According to author Ginger Strand, the Horseshoe Falls is now entirely in Canada.[52] Other sources say "most of" Horseshoe Falls is in Canada.[53]
+
+The only recorded freeze-up of the river and falls was due to an ice jam on March 29, 1848. In 1912, the American Falls was completely frozen but the other two kept flowing. Although the falls commonly ice up most winters, the river and the falls do not freeze completely. The years 1885, 1902, 1906, 1911, 1932, 1936, 2014, 2017 and 2019 are noted for partial freezing of the falls.[54][55][56]
+
+A so-called ice bridge was also common in certain years at the base of the falls and was used by people who wanted to cross the river before bridges had been built. During some winters, the ice sheet was as thick as 40 feet (12m) to 100 feet (30m) but that thickness has not occurred since 1954. The ice bridge of 1841 was said to be at least 100 feet thick.   
+[57] On 12 February 1912, the ice bridge which had formed on 15 January began breaking up while people were still on it. Many escaped but three died during the event, later named the Ice Bridge Disaster or Tragedy.[58]
+
+A number of bridges have spanned the Niagara River in the general vicinity of the falls. The first, not far from the Whirlpool, was a suspension bridge above the gorge. It opened for use by the public in July 1848 and remained in use until 1855. A second bridge in the Upper Falls area was commissioned, with two levels or decks, one for use by the Great Western Railway. This Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge opened in 1855. In 1882, the Grand Trunk Railway took over control of the second deck after it absorbed the Great Western company. Significant structural improvements were made in the late 1870s and then in 1886; this bridge remained in use until 1897.[59]
+
+Due to the volume of traffic, the decision was made to construct a new arch bridge nearby: under and around the existing bridge. After it opened in September 1897, a decision was made to remove and scrap the Railway Suspension Bridge. This new bridge was initially known as the Niagara Railway Arch, or Lower Steel Arch Bridge; it had two decks, the lower one used for carriages and the upper for trains. In 1937, it was renamed the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge and remains in use today. All of the structures built up to that time were referred to as Lower Niagara bridges and were some distance from the falls.[59]
+
+The first bridge in the so-called Upper Niagara area (closer to the falls) was a two level suspension structure that opened in January 1869; it was destroyed during a severe storm in January 1889. The replacement was built quickly and opened in May of the same year. In order to handle heavy traffic a second bridge was commissioned, slightly closer to the American Falls. This one was fully made of steel and opened to traffic in June 1897; it was known as the Upper Steel Arch Bridge, but was often called the Honeymoon Bridge. The single level included a track for trolleys and space for carriages and pedestrians. The design led to the bridge being very close to the surface of the river and in January, 1938, an ice jam twisted the steel frame of the bridge which later collapsed, on January 27, 1938.[60]
+
+Another Lower Niagara bridge had been commissioned in 1883 by Cornelius Vanderbilt for use by railways at a location roughly approximately 200 feet south of the Railway Suspension Bridge. This one was of an entirely different design; it was a Cantilever bridge to provide greater strength. The Niagara Cantilever Bridge had two cantilevers which were joined by steel sections; it opened officially in December 1883 and improvements were made over the years for a stronger structure. As rail traffic was increasing, the Michigan Central Railroad company decided to build a new bridge in 1923, to be located between the Lower Steel Arch Bridge and the Cantilever Bridge. The Michigan Central Railway Bridge opened in February 1925 and remained in use until the early 21st century. The Cantilever Bridge was removed and scrapped after the new rail bridge opened.[59] Nonetheless, it was inducted into the North America Railway Hall of Fame in 2006.[61][59]
+
+There was a lengthy dispute as to which agency should build the replacement for the Niagara Railway Arch, or Lower Steel Arch Bridge in the Upper Niagara area. When that was resolved, construction of a steel bridge commenced in February 1940. Named the Rainbow Bridge, and featuring two lanes for traffic separated by a barrier, this one opened in November 1941. It remains in use today.[60]
+
+The enormous energy of Niagara Falls has long been recognized as a potential source of power. The first known effort to harness the waters was in 1759, when Daniel Joncaire built a small canal above the falls to power his sawmill.[62] Augustus and Peter Porter purchased this area and all of American Falls in 1805 from the New York state government, and enlarged the original canal to provide hydraulic power for their gristmill and tannery. In 1853, the Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power and Mining Company was chartered, which eventually constructed the canals that would be used to generate electricity.[63] In 1881, under the leadership of Jacob F. Schoellkopf, the Niagara River's first hydroelectric generating station was built. The water fell 86 feet (26 m) and generated direct current electricity, which ran the machinery of local mills and lit up some of the village streets.
+
+The Niagara Falls Power Company, a descendant of Schoellkopf's firm, formed the Cataract Company headed by Edward Dean Adams,[64] with the intent of expanding Niagara Falls' power capacity. In 1890, a five-member International Niagara Commission headed by Sir William Thomson among other distinguished scientists deliberated on the expansion of Niagara hydroelectric capacity based on seventeen proposals, but could not select any as the best combined project for hydraulic development and distribution. In 1893, Westinghouse Electric (which had built the smaller-scale Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant near Ophir, Colorado, two years earlier) was hired to design a system to generate alternating current on Niagara Falls, and three years after that this large-scale AC power system was created (activated on August 26, 1895).[65] The Adams Power Plant Transformer House remains as a landmark of the original system.
+
+By 1896, financing from moguls including J.P. Morgan, John Jacob Astor IV, and the Vanderbilts had fueled the construction of giant underground conduits leading to turbines generating upwards of 100,000 horsepower (75 MW), sent as far as Buffalo, 20 miles (32 km) away. Some of the original designs for the power transmission plants were created by the Swiss firm Faesch & Piccard, which also constructed the original 5,000 hp waterwheels.
+
+Private companies on the Canadian side also began to harness the energy of the falls. The Government of Ontario eventually brought power transmission operations under public control in 1906, distributing Niagara's energy to various parts of the Canadian province.
+
+Other hydropower plants were also being built along the Niagara River. But in 1956, disaster struck when the region's largest hydropower station was partially destroyed in a landslide. This drastically reduced power production and put tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs at stake. In 1957, Congress passed the Niagara Redevelopment Act,[66] which granted the New York Power Authority the right to fully develop the United States' share of the Niagara River's hydroelectric potential.[67]
+
+In 1961, when the Niagara Falls hydroelectric project went online, it was the largest hydropower facility in the Western world. Today, Niagara is still the largest electricity producer in New York state, with a generating capacity of 2.4 GW. Up to 1,420 cubic metres (380,000 US gal) of water a second is diverted from the Niagara River through conduits under the city of Niagara Falls to the Lewiston and Robert Moses power plants. Currently between 50% and 75% of the Niagara River's flow is diverted via four huge tunnels that arise far upstream from the waterfalls. The water then passes through hydroelectric turbines that supply power to nearby areas of Canada and the United States before returning to the river well past the falls.[68] This water spins turbines that power generators, converting mechanical energy into electrical energy. When electrical demand is low, the Lewiston units can operate as pumps to transport water from the lower bay back up to the plant's reservoir, allowing this water to be used again during the daytime when electricity use peaks. During peak electrical demand, the same Lewiston pumps are reversed and actually become generators, similar to those at the Moses plant.[67]
+
+To preserve Niagara Falls' natural beauty, a 1950 treaty signed by the U.S. and Canada limited water usage by the power plants. The treaty allows higher summertime diversion at night when tourists are fewer and during the winter months when there are even fewer tourists.[69] This treaty, designed to ensure an "unbroken curtain of water" flowing over the falls, states that during daylight time during the tourist season (April 1 to October 31) there must be 100,000 cubic feet per second (2,800 m3/s) of water flowing over the falls, and during the night and off-tourist season there must be 50,000 cubic feet per second (1,400 m3/s) of water flowing over the falls. This treaty is monitored by the International Niagara Board of Control, using a NOAA gauging station above the falls. During winter, the Power Authority of New York works with Ontario Power Generation to prevent ice on the Niagara River from interfering with power production or causing flooding of shoreline property. One of their joint efforts is an 8,800-foot-long (2,700 m) ice boom, which prevents the buildup of ice, yet allows water to continue flowing downstream.[67] In addition to minimum water volume, the crest of the Horseshoe falls was reduced to maintain an uninterrupted "curtain of water."[70]
+
+The most powerful hydroelectric stations on the Niagara River are the Sir Adam Beck 1 and 2 on the Canadian side and the Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant and the Lewiston Pump Generating Plant on the American side. Together, Niagara's generating stations can produce about 4.4 gigawatts of power.
+
+In August 2005 Ontario Power Generation, which is responsible for the Sir Adam Beck stations, started a major civil engineering project, called the Niagara Tunnel Project, to increase power production by building a new 12.7-metre (42 ft) diameter, 10.2-kilometre-long (6.3 mi) water diversion tunnel. It was officially placed into service in March 2013, helping to increase the generating complex's nameplate capacity by 150 megawatts. It did so by tapping water from farther up the Niagara River than was possible with the preexisting arrangement. The tunnel provided new hydroelectricity for approximately 160,000 homes.[71][72]
+
+Ships can bypass Niagara Falls by means of the Welland Canal, which was improved and incorporated into the Saint Lawrence Seaway in the mid-1950s. While the seaway diverted water traffic from nearby Buffalo and led to the demise of its steel and grain mills, other industries in the Niagara River valley flourished with the help of the electric power produced by the river. However, since the 1970s the region has declined economically.
+
+The cities of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, and Niagara Falls, New York, United States, are connected by two international bridges. The Rainbow Bridge, just downriver from the falls, affords the closest view of the falls and is open to non-commercial vehicle traffic and pedestrians. The Whirlpool Rapids Bridge lies one mile (1.6 km) north of the Rainbow Bridge and is the oldest bridge over the Niagara River. Nearby Niagara Falls International Airport and Buffalo Niagara International Airport were named after the waterfall, as were Niagara University, countless local businesses, and even an asteroid.[73]
+
+
+
+In October 1829, Sam Patch, who called himself "the Yankee Leapster", jumped from a high tower into the gorge below the falls and survived; this began a long tradition of daredevils trying to go over the falls.
+
+Englishman Captain Matthew Webb, the first man to swim the English Channel, drowned in 1883 trying to swim the rapids downriver from the falls.[74]
+
+On October 24, 1901, 63-year-old Michigan school teacher Annie Edson Taylor became the first person to go over the falls in a barrel as a publicity stunt; she survived, bleeding, but otherwise unharmed. Soon after exiting the barrel, she said, "No one ought ever do that again."[75] Before Taylor's attempt, on October 19 her domestic cat named Iagara was sent over the Horseshoe Falls in her barrel to test its strength. Contrary to rumours at the time, the cat survived the plunge unharmed and later posed with Taylor in photographs.[76] Since Taylor's historic ride, over a dozen people have intentionally gone over the falls in or on a device, despite her advice. Some have survived unharmed, but others have drowned or been severely injured. Survivors face charges and stiff fines, as it is now illegal, on both sides of the border, to attempt to go over the falls.
+
+Bobby Leach went over the Horseshoe Falls in a crude steel barrel in 1911, and needed rescuing by William "Red" Hill Sr..[77] Hill would again come to the rescue of Leach following his failed attempt to swim the Niagara Gorge in 1920.
+
+In 1918, there was a near disaster when a barge working upriver, known locally as the Niagara Scow, broke its tow line and almost plunged over the falls. The two workers on board saved themselves by grounding the vessel on rocks just short of the falls, where it has remained ever since. "Red" Hill was credited with the rescue of the two boatmen.[78] In October 2019, as a result of inclement weather, the Niagara Scow finally moved from its original resting place, moving closer to the brink of Horseshoe Falls.[79]
+
+In 1928, "Smiling Jean" Lussier tried an entirely different concept, going over the falls in a large rubber ball; he was successful and survived the ordeal.[80]
+
+Charles Stephens, a 58-year-old barber from Bristol, England, went over the falls in a wooden barrel in July 1920 and was the first person to die in an endeavor of this type.[81]
+
+In the "Miracle at Niagara", Roger Woodward, a seven-year-old American boy, was swept over the Horseshoe Falls after their boat lost power on July 9, 1960; two tourists pulled his 17-year-old sister Deanne from the river only 20 feet (6.1 m) from the lip of the Horseshoe Falls at Goat Island.[82] Minutes later, Woodward was plucked from the roiling plunge pool beneath the Horseshoe Falls after grabbing a life ring thrown to him by the crew of the Maid of the Mist boat.[83][84] The third person who had been in the boat, James Hunicutt, did not survive the mishap.[85]
+
+On July 2, 1984, Canadian Karel Soucek from Hamilton, Ontario, plunged over the Horseshoe Falls in a barrel with only minor injuries. Soucek was fined $500 for performing the stunt without a license. In 1985, he was fatally injured while attempting to re-create the Niagara drop at the Houston Astrodome. His aim was to climb into a barrel hoisted to the rafters of the Astrodome and to drop 180 feet (55 m) into a water tank on the floor. After his barrel released prematurely, it hit the side of the tank and he died the next day from his injuries.[86][87]
+
+In August 1985, Steve Trotter, an aspiring stuntman from Rhode Island, became the youngest person ever (age 22) and the first American in 25 years to go over the falls in a barrel. Ten years later, Trotter went over the falls again, becoming the second person to go over the falls twice and survive. It was also the second-ever "duo"; Lori Martin joined Trotter for the barrel ride over the falls. They survived the fall but their barrel became stuck at the bottom of the falls, requiring a rescue.[88]
+
+On September 28, 1989, Niagara natives Peter DeBernardi (age 42) and Jeffery James Petkovich (age 25) became the first "team" to make it over the falls in a two-person barrel. The stunt was conceived by DeBenardi, who wanted to discourage youth from following in his path of addictive drug use. The pair emerged shortly after going over with minor injuries and were charged with performing an illegal stunt under the Niagara Parks Act.[89]
+
+On June 5, 1990, Jesse Sharp, a whitewater canoeist from Tennessee paddled over the falls in a closed deck canoe. He neglected to wear a helmet to make his face more visible for photographs of the event. He also did not wear a life vest because he believed it would hinder his escape from the hydraulics at the base of the falls. His boat flushed out of the falls, but his body was never found.[90]
+
+On September 27, 1993, John "David" Munday, of Caistor Centre, Ontario, completed his second journey over the falls.[91]
+
+On October 1, 1995, Robert Douglas "Firecracker" Overacker went over the falls on a Jet Ski to raise awareness for the homeless. His rocket-propelled parachute failed to open and he plunged to his death. Overacker's body was recovered before he was pronounced dead at Niagara General Hospital.[92]
+
+Kirk Jones of Canton, Michigan, became the first known person to survive a plunge over the Horseshoe Falls without a flotation device on October 20, 2003. According to some reports, Jones had attempted to commit suicide,[93] he survived the 16-story fall with only battered ribs, scrapes, and bruises.[94][95] Jones tried going over the falls again in 2017, this time, using a large inflatable ball, but died in the process.[96][97] Later reports revealed that Jones had arranged for a friend to shoot video clips of his stunt.
+[98]
+
+On March 11, 2009, a man survived an unprotected trip over the Horseshoe Falls, and when rescued from the river, was reported to be suffering from severe hypothermia and a large wound to his head. His identity was never released. Eyewitnesses reported seeing the man intentionally enter the water.[99][100]
+
+On May 21, 2012, an unidentified man in his early 40s became the fourth person to survive an unprotected trip over the Horseshoe Falls. Eyewitness reports show he "deliberately jumped" into the Niagara River after climbing over a railing.[101][102]
+
+On July 8, 2019, at roughly 4 am, officers responded to a report of a person in crisis at the brink of the Canadian side of the falls. Once officers got to the scene, the man climbed the retaining wall, jumped into the river and went over the Horseshoe Falls. Authorities subsequently began to search the lower Niagara River basin, where the man was found sitting on the rocks at the water's edge.[103]
+
+Other daredevils have made crossing the gorge their goal, starting with the successful passage by Jean François "Blondin" Gravelet, who crossed Niagara Gorge in 1859.[105] Between 1859 and 1896 a wire-walking craze emerged, resulting in frequent feats over the river below the falls. One inexperienced walker slid down his safety rope. Only one man fell to his death, at night and under mysterious circumstances, at the anchoring place for his wire.[106]
+
+Maria Spelterini, a 23-year-old Italian was the first and only woman to cross the Niagara River gorge; she did so on a tightrope, on 8 July 1876. She repeated the stunt several times during the same month. During one crossing she was blindfolded and during another, her ankles and wrists were handcuffed.[107]
+
+The tightrope walkers drew huge crowds to witness their exploits. Their wires ran across the gorge, near the current Rainbow Bridge, not over the waterfall itself. Blondin made his first gorge crossing on a tightrope on 30 June 1859 and did so again eight times that year. His most difficult crossing occurred on August 14, when he carried his manager, Harry Colcord, on his back.[108]   His final crossing, on 8 September 1860, was witnessed by the Prince of Wales.[106]
+
+Among the many competitors was Ontario's William Hunt, who billed himself as "The Great Farini"; his first crossing was in 1860. Farini competed with Blondin in performing outrageous stunts over the gorge.[109] On 8 August  1864 however, an attempt failed and he needed to be rescued.[110]
+
+On 15 June 2012, high wire artist Nik Wallenda became the first person to walk across the falls area in 116 years, after receiving special permission from both governments.[111] The full length of his tightrope was 1,800 feet (550 m).[112] Wallenda crossed near the brink of the Horseshoe Falls, unlike walkers who had crossed farther downstream. According to Wallenda, it was the longest unsupported tightrope walk in history.[113] He carried his passport on the trip and was required to present it upon arrival on the Canadian side of the falls.[114]
+
+Peak visitor traffic occurs in the summertime, when Niagara Falls are both a daytime and evening attraction. From the Canadian side, floodlights illuminate both sides of the falls for several hours after dark (until midnight). The number of visitors in 2007 was expected to total 20 million, and by 2009 the annual rate was expected to top 28 million tourists.[115]
+
+The oldest and best known tourist attraction at Niagara Falls is the Maid of the Mist boat cruise, named for an ancient Ongiara Indian mythical character, which has carried passengers into the rapids immediately below the falls since 1846. Cruise boats operate from boat docks on both sides of the falls, with the Maid of the Mist operating from the American side and Hornblower Cruises (originally Maid of the Mist until 2014[116]) from the Canadian side.[117][118]
+
+From the U.S. side, the American Falls can be viewed from walkways along Prospect Point Park, which also features the Prospect Point Observation Tower and a boat dock for the Maid of the Mist. Goat Island offers more views of the falls and is accessible by foot and automobile traffic by bridge above the American Falls. From Goat Island, the Cave of the Winds is accessible by elevator and leads hikers to a point beneath Bridal Veil Falls. Also on Goat Island are the Three Sisters Islands, the Power Portal where a statue of Nikola Tesla (the inventor whose patents for the AC induction motor and other devices for AC power transmission helped make the harnessing of the falls possible) can be seen, and a walking path that enables views of the rapids, the Niagara River, the gorge, and all of the falls. Most of these attractions lie within the Niagara Falls State Park.[119]
+
+The Niagara Scenic Trolley offers guided trips along the American Falls and around Goat Island. Panoramic and aerial views of the falls can also be viewed by helicopter. The Niagara Gorge Discovery Center showcases the natural and local history of Niagara Falls and the Niagara Gorge. A casino and luxury hotel was opened in Niagara Falls, New York, by the Seneca Indian tribe. The Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel occupies the former Niagara Falls Convention Center. The new hotel is the first addition to the city's skyline since completion of the United Office Building in the 1920s.[119][120]
+
+On the Canadian side, Queen Victoria Park features manicured gardens, platforms offering views of both the American and Horseshoe Falls, and underground walkways leading into observation rooms that yield the illusion of being within the falling waters. Along the Niagara River, the Niagara River Recreational Trail runs 35 miles (56 km) from Fort Erie to Fort George, and includes many historical sites from the War of 1812.[121]
+
+The observation deck of the nearby Skylon Tower offers the highest view of the falls, and in the opposite direction gives views as far as Toronto. Along with the Tower Hotel (built as the Seagrams Tower, later renamed the Heritage Tower, the Royal Inn Tower, the Royal Center Tower, the Panasonic Tower, the Minolta Tower, and most recently the Konica Minolta Tower[122] before receiving its current name in 2010), it is one of two towers in Canada with a view of the falls.[123]
+
+The Whirlpool Aero Car, built in 1916 from a design by Spanish engineer Leonardo Torres y Quevedo, is a cable car that takes passengers over the Niagara Whirlpool on the Canadian side. The Journey Behind the Falls consists of an observation platform and series of tunnels near the bottom of the Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side.[124]
+
+There are two casinos on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, the Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort and Casino Niagara.[125]
+
+Already a huge tourist attraction and favorite spot for honeymooners, Niagara Falls visits rose sharply in 1953 after the release of Niagara, a movie starring Marilyn Monroe and Joseph Cotten.[126]
+
+The 1956 animated short Niagara Fools featured Woody Woodpecker attempting to go over the falls in a barrel.[127] The falls was a featured location in the major motion picture Superman II in 1980,[128] and was itself the subject of a popular IMAX movie, Niagara: Miracles, Myths and Magic.[129] Illusionist David Copperfield performed a trick in which he appeared to travel over the Horseshoe Falls in 1990.[130]
+
+The falls, or more particularly, the tourist-supported complex near the falls, was the setting of the short-lived Canadian-shot US television show Wonderfalls in early 2004. Location footage of the falls was shot in October 2006 to portray "World's End" of the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.[131] Professional kayaker Rafa Ortiz's preparation to paddle over the falls in a kayak is documented in the 2015 film Chasing Niagara.[132]
+
+Composer Ferde Grofé was commissioned by the Niagara Falls Power Generation project in 1960 to compose the Niagara Falls Suite in honor of the completion of the first stage of hydroelectric work at the falls.[133] In 1997, composer Michael Daugherty composed Niagara Falls, a piece for concert band inspired by the falls.[134]
+
+The Niagara Falls area features as the base camp for a German aerial invasion of the United States in the H. G. Wells novel The War in the Air.[135]
+
+Many poets have been inspired to write about the falls. Among them was the Cuban poet José Maria Heredia, who wrote the poem "Niagara". There are commemorative plaques on both sides of the falls recognising the poem.[136]
+
+In the original 1920s and 1930s Buck Rogers stories and newspaper cartoons, Buck Rogers, in his adventures in the 25th century that take place on Earth.[137]
+
+Part of Mark Twain's 1893 short story, "Extract from Adam's Diary" is set at Niagara Falls.[138]
+
+The Bulgarian writer Aleko Konstantinov portrays the impressiveness of the Niagara Falls in his book, To Chicago and Back.
+
+In 2014, the writer Alessandro Baricco published the book Smith & Wesson recounting the story of Rachel Green going over the falls.
+
+The Niagara Falls were such an attraction to landscape artists that, writes John Howat, they were "the most popular, the most often treated, and the tritest single item of subject matter to appear in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European and American landscape painting".[139]
+
+A General View of the Falls of Niagara by Alvan Fisher, 1820
+
+Distant View of Niagara Falls by Thomas Cole, 1830
+
+Niagara Fälle. Les chûtes du Niagara. Niagara Falls by Karl Bodmer, circa 1832
+
+Voute sous la Chute du Niagara – Niagara Falls, circa 1841
+
+Niagara by Frederic Edwin Church, 1857
+
+Underneath Niagara Falls by Ferdinand Richardt, 1862
+
+Niagara by Louis Rémy Mignot, circa 1866
+
+Falls of Niagara from Below by Albert Bierstadt, 1869
+
+Niagara Falls by William Morris Hunt, 1878
+
+Niagara Falls, circa 1880

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+Niagara Falls /naɪˈæɡrə, naɪˈæɡərə/ is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the United States. The largest of the three is Horseshoe Falls, also known as Canadian Falls, which straddles the international border of the two countries.[1] The smaller American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls lie within the United States. Bridal Veil Falls are separated from Horseshoe Falls by Goat Island and from American Falls by Luna Island, with both islands situated in New York.
+
+Located on the Niagara River, which drains Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, the combined falls have the highest flow rate of any waterfall in North America that has a vertical drop of more than 50 metres (160 ft). During peak daytime tourist hours, more than 168,000 m3  (six million cubic feet) of water goes over the crest of the falls every minute.[2] Horseshoe Falls is the most powerful waterfall in North America, as measured by flow rate.[3]
+
+The falls are 27 kilometres (17 mi) north-northwest of Buffalo, New York, and 121 kilometres (75 mi) south-southeast of Toronto, between the twin cities of Niagara Falls, Ontario, and Niagara Falls, New York. Niagara Falls was formed when glaciers receded at the end of the Wisconsin glaciation (the last ice age), and water from the newly formed Great Lakes carved a path through the Niagara Escarpment en route to the Atlantic Ocean.
+
+Niagara Falls is famed both for its beauty and as a valuable source of hydroelectric power. Balancing recreational, commercial, and industrial uses has been a challenge for the stewards of the falls since the 19th century.
+
+The Horseshoe Falls drop about 57 metres (187 ft),[4] while the height of the American Falls varies between 21 and 30 metres (69 and 98 ft) because of the presence of giant boulders at its base. The larger Horseshoe Falls are about 790 metres (2,590 ft) wide, while the American Falls are 320 metres (1,050 ft) wide. The distance between the American extremity of the Niagara Falls and the Canadian extremity is 3,409 feet (1,039 m).
+
+The peak flow over Horseshoe Falls was recorded at 6,400 cubic metres (230,000 cu ft) per second.[5] The average annual flow rate is 2,400 cubic metres (85,000 cu ft) per second.[6] Since the flow is a direct function of the Lake Erie water elevation, it typically peaks in late spring or early summer. During the summer months, at least 2,800 cubic metres (99,000 cu ft) per second of water traverses the falls, some 90% of which goes over the Horseshoe Falls, while the balance is diverted to hydroelectric facilities. This is accomplished by employing a weir – the International Control Dam – with movable gates upstream from the Horseshoe Falls.
+
+The falls' flow is further halved at night, and, during the low tourist season in the winter, remains a minimum of 1,400 cubic metres (49,000 cu ft) per second. Water diversion is regulated by the 1950 Niagara Treaty and is administered by the International Niagara Board of Control (IJC).[7] The verdant green color of the water flowing over the Niagara Falls is a byproduct of the estimated 60 tonnes/minute of dissolved salts and "rock flour" (very finely ground rock) generated by the erosive force of the Niagara River itself.[8]
+
+The features that became Niagara Falls were created by the Wisconsin glaciation about 10,000 years ago.[9] The retreat of the ice sheet left behind a large amount of meltwater (see Lake Algonquin, Lake Chicago, Glacial Lake Iroquois, and Champlain Sea) that filled up the basins that the glaciers had carved, thus creating the Great Lakes as we know them today.[10][11] Scientists argue there is an old valley, St David's Buried Gorge, buried by glacial drift, at the approximate location of the present Welland Canal.
+
+When the ice melted, the upper Great Lakes emptied into the Niagara River, which followed the rearranged topography across the Niagara Escarpment. In time, the river cut a gorge through the north-facing cliff, or cuesta.[12] Because of the interactions of three major rock formations, the rocky bed did not erode evenly. The top rock formation was composed of erosion-resistant limestone and dolomite of the Lockport Formation. That hard layer of stone eroded more slowly than the underlying materials. The aerial photo on the right clearly shows the hard caprock, the Lockport Formation (Middle Silurian), which underlies the rapids above the falls, and approximately the upper third of the high gorge wall.[12] Immediately below the hard-rock formation, comprising about two-thirds of the cliff, lay the weaker, softer, sloping Rochester Formation (Lower Silurian). This formation was composed mainly of shale, though it has some thin limestone layers. It also contains ancient fossils. In time, the river eroded the soft layer that supported the hard layers, undercutting the hard caprock, which gave way in great chunks. This process repeated countless times, eventually carving out the falls.
+
+Submerged in the river in the lower valley, hidden from view, is the Queenston Formation (Upper Ordovician), which is composed of shales and fine sandstones. All three formations were laid down in an ancient sea, their differences of character deriving from changing conditions within that sea.
+
+About 10,900 years ago, the Niagara Falls was between present-day Queenston, Ontario, and Lewiston, New York, but erosion of their crest has caused the waterfalls to retreat approximately 6.8 miles (10.9 km) southward.[13] The Horseshoe Falls, which are about 2,600 feet (790 m) wide, have also changed their shape through the process of erosion; evolving from a small arch to a horseshoe bend, to the present day gigantic V.[14] Just upstream from the falls' current location, Goat Island splits the course of the Niagara River, resulting in the separation of the mostly Canadian Horseshoe Falls to the west from the American and Bridal Veil Falls to the east. Engineering has slowed erosion and recession.[15]
+
+The current rate of erosion is approximately 30 centimeters (1 ft) per year, down from a historical average of 0.91 m (3 ft) per year. According to the timeline of the far future, in roughly 50,000 years Niagara Falls will have eroded the remaining 32 kilometres (20 mi) to Lake Erie and cease to exist.[8]
+
+In the 1870s, sightseers had limited access to Niagara Falls and often had to pay for a glimpse, and industrialization threatened to carve up Goat Island to further expand commercial development.[16] Other industrial encroachments and lack of public access led to a conservation movement in the U.S. known as Free Niagara, led by such notables as Hudson River School artist Frederic Edwin Church, landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted, and architect Henry Hobson Richardson. Church approached Lord Dufferin, governor-general of Canada, with a proposal for international discussions on the establishment of a public park.[17]
+
+Goat Island was one of the inspirations for the American side of the effort. William Dorsheimer, moved by the scene from the island, brought Olmsted to Buffalo in 1868 to design a city park system and helped promote Olmsted's career. In 1879, the New York state legislature commissioned Olmsted and James T. Gardner to survey the falls and to create the single most important document in the Niagara preservation movement, a Special Report on the preservation of Niagara Falls.[18] The report advocated for State purchase, restoration and preservation through public ownership of the scenic lands surrounding Niagara Falls. Restoring the former beauty of the falls was described in the report as a "sacred obligation to mankind."[19] In 1883, New York Governor Grover Cleveland drafted legislation authorizing acquisition of lands for a state reservation at Niagara, and the Niagara Falls Association, a private citizens group founded in 1882, mounted a great letter-writing campaign and petition drive in support of the park. Professor Charles Eliot Norton and Olmsted were among the leaders of the public campaign, while New York Governor Alonzo Cornell opposed.[20]
+
+Preservationists' efforts were rewarded on April 30, 1885, when Governor David B. Hill signed legislation creating the Niagara Reservation, New York's first state park. New York State began to purchase land from developers, under the charter of the Niagara Reservation State Park. In the same year, the province of Ontario established the Queen Victoria Niagara Falls Park for the same purpose. On the Canadian side, the Niagara Parks Commission governs land usage along the entire course of the Niagara River, from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario.[21]
+
+In 1887, Olmsted and Calvert Vaux issued a supplemental report detailing plans to restore the falls. Their intent was "to restore and conserve the natural surroundings of the Falls of Niagara, rather than to attempt to add anything thereto," and the report anticipated fundamental questions. How would preservationists provide access without destroying the beauty of the falls? How would they restore natural landscapes damaged by man? They planned a park with scenic roadways, paths and a few shelters designed to protect the landscape while allowing large numbers of visitors to enjoy the falls.[22] Commemorative statues, shops, restaurants, and a 1959 glass and metal observation tower were added later. Preservationists continue to strive to strike a balance between Olmsted's idyllic vision and the realities of administering a popular scenic attraction.[23]
+
+Preservation efforts continued well into the 20th century. J. Horace McFarland, the Sierra Club, and the Appalachian Mountain Club persuaded the United States Congress in 1906 to enact legislation to preserve the falls by regulating the waters of the Niagara River.[24] The act sought, in cooperation with the Canadian government, to restrict diversion of water, and a treaty resulted in 1909 that limited the total amount of water diverted from the falls by both nations to approximately 56,000 cubic feet (1,600 m3) per second. That limitation remained in effect until 1950.[25]
+
+Erosion control efforts have always been of extreme importance. Underwater weirs redirect the most damaging currents, and the top of the falls has also been strengthened. In June 1969, the Niagara River was completely diverted from the American Falls for several months through construction of a temporary rock and earth dam.[26] During this time, two bodies were removed from under the falls, including a man who had been seen jumping over the falls, and the body of a woman, which was discovered once the falls dried.[27][28]
+
+While the Horseshoe Falls absorbed the extra flow, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers studied the riverbed and mechanically bolted and strengthened any faults they found; faults that would, if left untreated, have hastened the retreat of the American Falls. A plan to remove the huge mound of talus deposited in 1954 was abandoned owing to cost,[29] and in November 1969, the temporary dam was dynamited, restoring flow to the American Falls.[30] Even after these undertakings, Luna Island, the small piece of land between the main waterfall and the Bridal Veil, remained off limits to the public for years owing to fears that it was unstable and could collapse into the gorge.
+
+Commercial interests have continued to encroach on the land surrounding the state park, including the construction of several tall buildings (most of them hotels) on the Canadian side. The result is a significant alteration and urbanisation of the landscape. One study indicated it has caused the airflow near the falls to change direction. Students at the University of Guelph demonstrated, using scale models, that as air passes over the top of the new hotels it causes a breeze to roll down the south sides of the buildings and spill into the gorge below the falls, where it feeds into a whirlpool of moisture and air. The inference was that a documented rise in the number of "mist days" was a result of these breezes, where mist days refers to the mist plume of the falls reaching landside.[31] In 1996 there were 29 mist days recorded, but by 2003 that number had risen to 68.[32] Another study has discounted this opinion and linked mist production to the difference in air and water temperature at the falls. However, this study does not offer opinion as to why mist days have been increasing, just that the hotel breezes are an unlikely cause.[33]
+
+In 2013, New York State began an effort to renovate The Sisters Islands located on Goat Island. New York State used funds from the re-licensing of the New York Power Authority hydroelectric plant downriver in Lewiston, New York, to rebuild walking paths on the Three Sisters Islands and to plant native vegetation on the islands. The state also renovated the area around Prospect Point at the brink of the American Falls in the state park.
+
+Theories differ as to the origin of the name of the falls. According to Iroquoian scholar Bruce Trigger, Niagara is derived from the name given to a branch of the local native Neutral Confederacy, who are described as being called the Niagagarega people on several late-17th-century French maps of the area.[35] According to George R. Stewart, it comes from the name of an Iroquois town called Onguiaahra, meaning "point of land cut in two".[36]
+
+Henry Schoolcraft reported:
+
+Niagara Falls. This name is Mohawk. It means, according to Mrs. Kerr, the neck; the term being first applied to the portage or neck of land, between lakes Erie and Ontario. By referring to Mr. Elliott's vocabulary, (chapter xi) it will be seen that the human neck, that is, according to the concrete vocabulary, his neck, is onyara. Red Jacket pronounced the word Niagara to me, in the spring of 1820, as if written O-ne-au-ga-rah.[37]
+
+Many figures have been suggested as first circulating a European eyewitness description of Niagara Falls. The Frenchman Samuel de Champlain visited the area as early as 1604 during his exploration of Canada, and members of his party reported to him the spectacular waterfalls, which he described in his journals. The Finnish-Swedish naturalist Pehr Kalm explored the area in the early 18th century and is credited with the first scientific description of the falls. The consensus honoree for the first description is the Belgian missionary Louis Hennepin, who observed and described the falls in 1677, earlier than Kalm, after traveling with the explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, thus bringing the falls to the attention of Europeans. Further complicating matters, there is credible evidence the French Jesuit missionary Paul Ragueneau visited the falls some 35 years before Hennepin's visit while working among the Huron First Nation in Canada. Jean de Brébeuf also may have visited the falls, while spending time with the Neutral Nation.[38]
+
+In 1762, Captain Thomas Davies, a British Army officer and artist, surveyed the area and painted the watercolor, An East View of the Great Cataract of Niagara, the first eyewitness painting of the falls.[39][40]
+
+During the 19th century, tourism became popular, and by mid-century, it was the area's main industry. Theodosia Burr Alston (daughter of Vice President Aaron Burr) and her husband Joseph Alston were the first recorded couple to honeymoon there in 1801.[41] Napoleon Bonaparte's brother Jérôme visited with his bride in the early 19th century.[42]
+
+In 1825, British explorer John Franklin visited the falls while passing through New York en route to Cumberland House as part of his second Arctic expedition, calling them "so justly celebrated as the first in the world for grandeur".[43]
+
+In March 1848, an ice blockage caused the falls to stop; no water (or at best a trickle) fell for as much as 40 hours. Waterwheels stopped, and mills and factories shut down for having no power.[44]
+
+Later that year, demand for passage over the Niagara River led to the building of a footbridge and then Charles Ellet's Niagara Suspension Bridge. This was supplanted by German-born John Augustus Roebling's Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge in 1855. After the American Civil War, the New York Central Railroad publicized Niagara Falls as a focus of pleasure and honeymoon visits. With increased railroad traffic, in 1886, Leffert Buck replaced Roebling's wood and stone bridge with the predominantly steel bridge that still carries trains over the Niagara River today. The first steel archway bridge near the falls was completed in 1897. Known today as the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge, it carries passenger vehicles and trains between Canada (through Canadian Customs Border Control) and the U.S.A. just downstream of the falls.
+
+In about 1840, the English industrial chemist Hugh Lee Pattinson traveled to Canada, stopping at the Niagara Falls long enough to make the earliest known photograph of the falls, a daguerreotype in the collection of Newcastle University. It was once believed that the small figure standing silhouetted with a top hat was added by an engraver working from imagination as well as the daguerreotype as his source, but the figure is clearly present in the photograph.[45] Because of the very long exposure required, of ten minutes or more, the figure is assumed by Canada's Niagara Parks agency to be Pattinson himself.[45] The image is left-right inverted and taken from the Canadian side.[46] Pattinson made other photographs of the Horseshoe Falls as well as of Rome and Paris. These were then transferred to engravings to illustrate Noël Marie Paymal Lerebours' Excursions Daguerriennes (Paris, 1841–1864).[47]
+
+On 6 August 1918, an iron scow became stuck on the rocks above the falls.[48] The two men on the scow were rescued but the vessel remained trapped on rocks in the river, and is still visible there in a deteriorate state, although its position shifted by 50 meters during a storm on 31 October 2019.[49] Daredevil William "Red" Hill Sr. was particularly praised for his role in the rescue.[50]
+
+After the First World War, tourism boomed again, as automobiles made getting to the falls much easier. The story of Niagara Falls in the 20th century is largely that of efforts to harness the energy of the falls for hydroelectric power, and to control the development on both sides that threaten the area's natural beauty. In 1941, the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission completed the third current crossing in the immediate area of Niagara Falls with the Rainbow Bridge, carrying both pedestrian and vehicular traffic between the two countries and Canadian and U.S. customs for each country.
+
+Before the late 20th century, the northeastern end of the Horseshoe Falls was in the United States, flowing around the Terrapin Rocks, which were once connected to Goat Island by a series of bridges. In 1955, the area between the rocks and Goat Island was filled in, creating Terrapin Point.[51] In the early 1980s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers filled in more land and built diversion dams and retaining walls to force the water away from Terrapin Point. Altogether, 400 ft (120 m) of the Horseshoe Falls were eliminated, including 100 ft (30 m) on the Canadian side. According to author Ginger Strand, the Horseshoe Falls is now entirely in Canada.[52] Other sources say "most of" Horseshoe Falls is in Canada.[53]
+
+The only recorded freeze-up of the river and falls was due to an ice jam on March 29, 1848. In 1912, the American Falls was completely frozen but the other two kept flowing. Although the falls commonly ice up most winters, the river and the falls do not freeze completely. The years 1885, 1902, 1906, 1911, 1932, 1936, 2014, 2017 and 2019 are noted for partial freezing of the falls.[54][55][56]
+
+A so-called ice bridge was also common in certain years at the base of the falls and was used by people who wanted to cross the river before bridges had been built. During some winters, the ice sheet was as thick as 40 feet (12m) to 100 feet (30m) but that thickness has not occurred since 1954. The ice bridge of 1841 was said to be at least 100 feet thick.   
+[57] On 12 February 1912, the ice bridge which had formed on 15 January began breaking up while people were still on it. Many escaped but three died during the event, later named the Ice Bridge Disaster or Tragedy.[58]
+
+A number of bridges have spanned the Niagara River in the general vicinity of the falls. The first, not far from the Whirlpool, was a suspension bridge above the gorge. It opened for use by the public in July 1848 and remained in use until 1855. A second bridge in the Upper Falls area was commissioned, with two levels or decks, one for use by the Great Western Railway. This Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge opened in 1855. In 1882, the Grand Trunk Railway took over control of the second deck after it absorbed the Great Western company. Significant structural improvements were made in the late 1870s and then in 1886; this bridge remained in use until 1897.[59]
+
+Due to the volume of traffic, the decision was made to construct a new arch bridge nearby: under and around the existing bridge. After it opened in September 1897, a decision was made to remove and scrap the Railway Suspension Bridge. This new bridge was initially known as the Niagara Railway Arch, or Lower Steel Arch Bridge; it had two decks, the lower one used for carriages and the upper for trains. In 1937, it was renamed the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge and remains in use today. All of the structures built up to that time were referred to as Lower Niagara bridges and were some distance from the falls.[59]
+
+The first bridge in the so-called Upper Niagara area (closer to the falls) was a two level suspension structure that opened in January 1869; it was destroyed during a severe storm in January 1889. The replacement was built quickly and opened in May of the same year. In order to handle heavy traffic a second bridge was commissioned, slightly closer to the American Falls. This one was fully made of steel and opened to traffic in June 1897; it was known as the Upper Steel Arch Bridge, but was often called the Honeymoon Bridge. The single level included a track for trolleys and space for carriages and pedestrians. The design led to the bridge being very close to the surface of the river and in January, 1938, an ice jam twisted the steel frame of the bridge which later collapsed, on January 27, 1938.[60]
+
+Another Lower Niagara bridge had been commissioned in 1883 by Cornelius Vanderbilt for use by railways at a location roughly approximately 200 feet south of the Railway Suspension Bridge. This one was of an entirely different design; it was a Cantilever bridge to provide greater strength. The Niagara Cantilever Bridge had two cantilevers which were joined by steel sections; it opened officially in December 1883 and improvements were made over the years for a stronger structure. As rail traffic was increasing, the Michigan Central Railroad company decided to build a new bridge in 1923, to be located between the Lower Steel Arch Bridge and the Cantilever Bridge. The Michigan Central Railway Bridge opened in February 1925 and remained in use until the early 21st century. The Cantilever Bridge was removed and scrapped after the new rail bridge opened.[59] Nonetheless, it was inducted into the North America Railway Hall of Fame in 2006.[61][59]
+
+There was a lengthy dispute as to which agency should build the replacement for the Niagara Railway Arch, or Lower Steel Arch Bridge in the Upper Niagara area. When that was resolved, construction of a steel bridge commenced in February 1940. Named the Rainbow Bridge, and featuring two lanes for traffic separated by a barrier, this one opened in November 1941. It remains in use today.[60]
+
+The enormous energy of Niagara Falls has long been recognized as a potential source of power. The first known effort to harness the waters was in 1759, when Daniel Joncaire built a small canal above the falls to power his sawmill.[62] Augustus and Peter Porter purchased this area and all of American Falls in 1805 from the New York state government, and enlarged the original canal to provide hydraulic power for their gristmill and tannery. In 1853, the Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power and Mining Company was chartered, which eventually constructed the canals that would be used to generate electricity.[63] In 1881, under the leadership of Jacob F. Schoellkopf, the Niagara River's first hydroelectric generating station was built. The water fell 86 feet (26 m) and generated direct current electricity, which ran the machinery of local mills and lit up some of the village streets.
+
+The Niagara Falls Power Company, a descendant of Schoellkopf's firm, formed the Cataract Company headed by Edward Dean Adams,[64] with the intent of expanding Niagara Falls' power capacity. In 1890, a five-member International Niagara Commission headed by Sir William Thomson among other distinguished scientists deliberated on the expansion of Niagara hydroelectric capacity based on seventeen proposals, but could not select any as the best combined project for hydraulic development and distribution. In 1893, Westinghouse Electric (which had built the smaller-scale Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant near Ophir, Colorado, two years earlier) was hired to design a system to generate alternating current on Niagara Falls, and three years after that this large-scale AC power system was created (activated on August 26, 1895).[65] The Adams Power Plant Transformer House remains as a landmark of the original system.
+
+By 1896, financing from moguls including J.P. Morgan, John Jacob Astor IV, and the Vanderbilts had fueled the construction of giant underground conduits leading to turbines generating upwards of 100,000 horsepower (75 MW), sent as far as Buffalo, 20 miles (32 km) away. Some of the original designs for the power transmission plants were created by the Swiss firm Faesch & Piccard, which also constructed the original 5,000 hp waterwheels.
+
+Private companies on the Canadian side also began to harness the energy of the falls. The Government of Ontario eventually brought power transmission operations under public control in 1906, distributing Niagara's energy to various parts of the Canadian province.
+
+Other hydropower plants were also being built along the Niagara River. But in 1956, disaster struck when the region's largest hydropower station was partially destroyed in a landslide. This drastically reduced power production and put tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs at stake. In 1957, Congress passed the Niagara Redevelopment Act,[66] which granted the New York Power Authority the right to fully develop the United States' share of the Niagara River's hydroelectric potential.[67]
+
+In 1961, when the Niagara Falls hydroelectric project went online, it was the largest hydropower facility in the Western world. Today, Niagara is still the largest electricity producer in New York state, with a generating capacity of 2.4 GW. Up to 1,420 cubic metres (380,000 US gal) of water a second is diverted from the Niagara River through conduits under the city of Niagara Falls to the Lewiston and Robert Moses power plants. Currently between 50% and 75% of the Niagara River's flow is diverted via four huge tunnels that arise far upstream from the waterfalls. The water then passes through hydroelectric turbines that supply power to nearby areas of Canada and the United States before returning to the river well past the falls.[68] This water spins turbines that power generators, converting mechanical energy into electrical energy. When electrical demand is low, the Lewiston units can operate as pumps to transport water from the lower bay back up to the plant's reservoir, allowing this water to be used again during the daytime when electricity use peaks. During peak electrical demand, the same Lewiston pumps are reversed and actually become generators, similar to those at the Moses plant.[67]
+
+To preserve Niagara Falls' natural beauty, a 1950 treaty signed by the U.S. and Canada limited water usage by the power plants. The treaty allows higher summertime diversion at night when tourists are fewer and during the winter months when there are even fewer tourists.[69] This treaty, designed to ensure an "unbroken curtain of water" flowing over the falls, states that during daylight time during the tourist season (April 1 to October 31) there must be 100,000 cubic feet per second (2,800 m3/s) of water flowing over the falls, and during the night and off-tourist season there must be 50,000 cubic feet per second (1,400 m3/s) of water flowing over the falls. This treaty is monitored by the International Niagara Board of Control, using a NOAA gauging station above the falls. During winter, the Power Authority of New York works with Ontario Power Generation to prevent ice on the Niagara River from interfering with power production or causing flooding of shoreline property. One of their joint efforts is an 8,800-foot-long (2,700 m) ice boom, which prevents the buildup of ice, yet allows water to continue flowing downstream.[67] In addition to minimum water volume, the crest of the Horseshoe falls was reduced to maintain an uninterrupted "curtain of water."[70]
+
+The most powerful hydroelectric stations on the Niagara River are the Sir Adam Beck 1 and 2 on the Canadian side and the Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant and the Lewiston Pump Generating Plant on the American side. Together, Niagara's generating stations can produce about 4.4 gigawatts of power.
+
+In August 2005 Ontario Power Generation, which is responsible for the Sir Adam Beck stations, started a major civil engineering project, called the Niagara Tunnel Project, to increase power production by building a new 12.7-metre (42 ft) diameter, 10.2-kilometre-long (6.3 mi) water diversion tunnel. It was officially placed into service in March 2013, helping to increase the generating complex's nameplate capacity by 150 megawatts. It did so by tapping water from farther up the Niagara River than was possible with the preexisting arrangement. The tunnel provided new hydroelectricity for approximately 160,000 homes.[71][72]
+
+Ships can bypass Niagara Falls by means of the Welland Canal, which was improved and incorporated into the Saint Lawrence Seaway in the mid-1950s. While the seaway diverted water traffic from nearby Buffalo and led to the demise of its steel and grain mills, other industries in the Niagara River valley flourished with the help of the electric power produced by the river. However, since the 1970s the region has declined economically.
+
+The cities of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, and Niagara Falls, New York, United States, are connected by two international bridges. The Rainbow Bridge, just downriver from the falls, affords the closest view of the falls and is open to non-commercial vehicle traffic and pedestrians. The Whirlpool Rapids Bridge lies one mile (1.6 km) north of the Rainbow Bridge and is the oldest bridge over the Niagara River. Nearby Niagara Falls International Airport and Buffalo Niagara International Airport were named after the waterfall, as were Niagara University, countless local businesses, and even an asteroid.[73]
+
+
+
+In October 1829, Sam Patch, who called himself "the Yankee Leapster", jumped from a high tower into the gorge below the falls and survived; this began a long tradition of daredevils trying to go over the falls.
+
+Englishman Captain Matthew Webb, the first man to swim the English Channel, drowned in 1883 trying to swim the rapids downriver from the falls.[74]
+
+On October 24, 1901, 63-year-old Michigan school teacher Annie Edson Taylor became the first person to go over the falls in a barrel as a publicity stunt; she survived, bleeding, but otherwise unharmed. Soon after exiting the barrel, she said, "No one ought ever do that again."[75] Before Taylor's attempt, on October 19 her domestic cat named Iagara was sent over the Horseshoe Falls in her barrel to test its strength. Contrary to rumours at the time, the cat survived the plunge unharmed and later posed with Taylor in photographs.[76] Since Taylor's historic ride, over a dozen people have intentionally gone over the falls in or on a device, despite her advice. Some have survived unharmed, but others have drowned or been severely injured. Survivors face charges and stiff fines, as it is now illegal, on both sides of the border, to attempt to go over the falls.
+
+Bobby Leach went over the Horseshoe Falls in a crude steel barrel in 1911, and needed rescuing by William "Red" Hill Sr..[77] Hill would again come to the rescue of Leach following his failed attempt to swim the Niagara Gorge in 1920.
+
+In 1918, there was a near disaster when a barge working upriver, known locally as the Niagara Scow, broke its tow line and almost plunged over the falls. The two workers on board saved themselves by grounding the vessel on rocks just short of the falls, where it has remained ever since. "Red" Hill was credited with the rescue of the two boatmen.[78] In October 2019, as a result of inclement weather, the Niagara Scow finally moved from its original resting place, moving closer to the brink of Horseshoe Falls.[79]
+
+In 1928, "Smiling Jean" Lussier tried an entirely different concept, going over the falls in a large rubber ball; he was successful and survived the ordeal.[80]
+
+Charles Stephens, a 58-year-old barber from Bristol, England, went over the falls in a wooden barrel in July 1920 and was the first person to die in an endeavor of this type.[81]
+
+In the "Miracle at Niagara", Roger Woodward, a seven-year-old American boy, was swept over the Horseshoe Falls after their boat lost power on July 9, 1960; two tourists pulled his 17-year-old sister Deanne from the river only 20 feet (6.1 m) from the lip of the Horseshoe Falls at Goat Island.[82] Minutes later, Woodward was plucked from the roiling plunge pool beneath the Horseshoe Falls after grabbing a life ring thrown to him by the crew of the Maid of the Mist boat.[83][84] The third person who had been in the boat, James Hunicutt, did not survive the mishap.[85]
+
+On July 2, 1984, Canadian Karel Soucek from Hamilton, Ontario, plunged over the Horseshoe Falls in a barrel with only minor injuries. Soucek was fined $500 for performing the stunt without a license. In 1985, he was fatally injured while attempting to re-create the Niagara drop at the Houston Astrodome. His aim was to climb into a barrel hoisted to the rafters of the Astrodome and to drop 180 feet (55 m) into a water tank on the floor. After his barrel released prematurely, it hit the side of the tank and he died the next day from his injuries.[86][87]
+
+In August 1985, Steve Trotter, an aspiring stuntman from Rhode Island, became the youngest person ever (age 22) and the first American in 25 years to go over the falls in a barrel. Ten years later, Trotter went over the falls again, becoming the second person to go over the falls twice and survive. It was also the second-ever "duo"; Lori Martin joined Trotter for the barrel ride over the falls. They survived the fall but their barrel became stuck at the bottom of the falls, requiring a rescue.[88]
+
+On September 28, 1989, Niagara natives Peter DeBernardi (age 42) and Jeffery James Petkovich (age 25) became the first "team" to make it over the falls in a two-person barrel. The stunt was conceived by DeBenardi, who wanted to discourage youth from following in his path of addictive drug use. The pair emerged shortly after going over with minor injuries and were charged with performing an illegal stunt under the Niagara Parks Act.[89]
+
+On June 5, 1990, Jesse Sharp, a whitewater canoeist from Tennessee paddled over the falls in a closed deck canoe. He neglected to wear a helmet to make his face more visible for photographs of the event. He also did not wear a life vest because he believed it would hinder his escape from the hydraulics at the base of the falls. His boat flushed out of the falls, but his body was never found.[90]
+
+On September 27, 1993, John "David" Munday, of Caistor Centre, Ontario, completed his second journey over the falls.[91]
+
+On October 1, 1995, Robert Douglas "Firecracker" Overacker went over the falls on a Jet Ski to raise awareness for the homeless. His rocket-propelled parachute failed to open and he plunged to his death. Overacker's body was recovered before he was pronounced dead at Niagara General Hospital.[92]
+
+Kirk Jones of Canton, Michigan, became the first known person to survive a plunge over the Horseshoe Falls without a flotation device on October 20, 2003. According to some reports, Jones had attempted to commit suicide,[93] he survived the 16-story fall with only battered ribs, scrapes, and bruises.[94][95] Jones tried going over the falls again in 2017, this time, using a large inflatable ball, but died in the process.[96][97] Later reports revealed that Jones had arranged for a friend to shoot video clips of his stunt.
+[98]
+
+On March 11, 2009, a man survived an unprotected trip over the Horseshoe Falls, and when rescued from the river, was reported to be suffering from severe hypothermia and a large wound to his head. His identity was never released. Eyewitnesses reported seeing the man intentionally enter the water.[99][100]
+
+On May 21, 2012, an unidentified man in his early 40s became the fourth person to survive an unprotected trip over the Horseshoe Falls. Eyewitness reports show he "deliberately jumped" into the Niagara River after climbing over a railing.[101][102]
+
+On July 8, 2019, at roughly 4 am, officers responded to a report of a person in crisis at the brink of the Canadian side of the falls. Once officers got to the scene, the man climbed the retaining wall, jumped into the river and went over the Horseshoe Falls. Authorities subsequently began to search the lower Niagara River basin, where the man was found sitting on the rocks at the water's edge.[103]
+
+Other daredevils have made crossing the gorge their goal, starting with the successful passage by Jean François "Blondin" Gravelet, who crossed Niagara Gorge in 1859.[105] Between 1859 and 1896 a wire-walking craze emerged, resulting in frequent feats over the river below the falls. One inexperienced walker slid down his safety rope. Only one man fell to his death, at night and under mysterious circumstances, at the anchoring place for his wire.[106]
+
+Maria Spelterini, a 23-year-old Italian was the first and only woman to cross the Niagara River gorge; she did so on a tightrope, on 8 July 1876. She repeated the stunt several times during the same month. During one crossing she was blindfolded and during another, her ankles and wrists were handcuffed.[107]
+
+The tightrope walkers drew huge crowds to witness their exploits. Their wires ran across the gorge, near the current Rainbow Bridge, not over the waterfall itself. Blondin made his first gorge crossing on a tightrope on 30 June 1859 and did so again eight times that year. His most difficult crossing occurred on August 14, when he carried his manager, Harry Colcord, on his back.[108]   His final crossing, on 8 September 1860, was witnessed by the Prince of Wales.[106]
+
+Among the many competitors was Ontario's William Hunt, who billed himself as "The Great Farini"; his first crossing was in 1860. Farini competed with Blondin in performing outrageous stunts over the gorge.[109] On 8 August  1864 however, an attempt failed and he needed to be rescued.[110]
+
+On 15 June 2012, high wire artist Nik Wallenda became the first person to walk across the falls area in 116 years, after receiving special permission from both governments.[111] The full length of his tightrope was 1,800 feet (550 m).[112] Wallenda crossed near the brink of the Horseshoe Falls, unlike walkers who had crossed farther downstream. According to Wallenda, it was the longest unsupported tightrope walk in history.[113] He carried his passport on the trip and was required to present it upon arrival on the Canadian side of the falls.[114]
+
+Peak visitor traffic occurs in the summertime, when Niagara Falls are both a daytime and evening attraction. From the Canadian side, floodlights illuminate both sides of the falls for several hours after dark (until midnight). The number of visitors in 2007 was expected to total 20 million, and by 2009 the annual rate was expected to top 28 million tourists.[115]
+
+The oldest and best known tourist attraction at Niagara Falls is the Maid of the Mist boat cruise, named for an ancient Ongiara Indian mythical character, which has carried passengers into the rapids immediately below the falls since 1846. Cruise boats operate from boat docks on both sides of the falls, with the Maid of the Mist operating from the American side and Hornblower Cruises (originally Maid of the Mist until 2014[116]) from the Canadian side.[117][118]
+
+From the U.S. side, the American Falls can be viewed from walkways along Prospect Point Park, which also features the Prospect Point Observation Tower and a boat dock for the Maid of the Mist. Goat Island offers more views of the falls and is accessible by foot and automobile traffic by bridge above the American Falls. From Goat Island, the Cave of the Winds is accessible by elevator and leads hikers to a point beneath Bridal Veil Falls. Also on Goat Island are the Three Sisters Islands, the Power Portal where a statue of Nikola Tesla (the inventor whose patents for the AC induction motor and other devices for AC power transmission helped make the harnessing of the falls possible) can be seen, and a walking path that enables views of the rapids, the Niagara River, the gorge, and all of the falls. Most of these attractions lie within the Niagara Falls State Park.[119]
+
+The Niagara Scenic Trolley offers guided trips along the American Falls and around Goat Island. Panoramic and aerial views of the falls can also be viewed by helicopter. The Niagara Gorge Discovery Center showcases the natural and local history of Niagara Falls and the Niagara Gorge. A casino and luxury hotel was opened in Niagara Falls, New York, by the Seneca Indian tribe. The Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel occupies the former Niagara Falls Convention Center. The new hotel is the first addition to the city's skyline since completion of the United Office Building in the 1920s.[119][120]
+
+On the Canadian side, Queen Victoria Park features manicured gardens, platforms offering views of both the American and Horseshoe Falls, and underground walkways leading into observation rooms that yield the illusion of being within the falling waters. Along the Niagara River, the Niagara River Recreational Trail runs 35 miles (56 km) from Fort Erie to Fort George, and includes many historical sites from the War of 1812.[121]
+
+The observation deck of the nearby Skylon Tower offers the highest view of the falls, and in the opposite direction gives views as far as Toronto. Along with the Tower Hotel (built as the Seagrams Tower, later renamed the Heritage Tower, the Royal Inn Tower, the Royal Center Tower, the Panasonic Tower, the Minolta Tower, and most recently the Konica Minolta Tower[122] before receiving its current name in 2010), it is one of two towers in Canada with a view of the falls.[123]
+
+The Whirlpool Aero Car, built in 1916 from a design by Spanish engineer Leonardo Torres y Quevedo, is a cable car that takes passengers over the Niagara Whirlpool on the Canadian side. The Journey Behind the Falls consists of an observation platform and series of tunnels near the bottom of the Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side.[124]
+
+There are two casinos on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, the Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort and Casino Niagara.[125]
+
+Already a huge tourist attraction and favorite spot for honeymooners, Niagara Falls visits rose sharply in 1953 after the release of Niagara, a movie starring Marilyn Monroe and Joseph Cotten.[126]
+
+The 1956 animated short Niagara Fools featured Woody Woodpecker attempting to go over the falls in a barrel.[127] The falls was a featured location in the major motion picture Superman II in 1980,[128] and was itself the subject of a popular IMAX movie, Niagara: Miracles, Myths and Magic.[129] Illusionist David Copperfield performed a trick in which he appeared to travel over the Horseshoe Falls in 1990.[130]
+
+The falls, or more particularly, the tourist-supported complex near the falls, was the setting of the short-lived Canadian-shot US television show Wonderfalls in early 2004. Location footage of the falls was shot in October 2006 to portray "World's End" of the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.[131] Professional kayaker Rafa Ortiz's preparation to paddle over the falls in a kayak is documented in the 2015 film Chasing Niagara.[132]
+
+Composer Ferde Grofé was commissioned by the Niagara Falls Power Generation project in 1960 to compose the Niagara Falls Suite in honor of the completion of the first stage of hydroelectric work at the falls.[133] In 1997, composer Michael Daugherty composed Niagara Falls, a piece for concert band inspired by the falls.[134]
+
+The Niagara Falls area features as the base camp for a German aerial invasion of the United States in the H. G. Wells novel The War in the Air.[135]
+
+Many poets have been inspired to write about the falls. Among them was the Cuban poet José Maria Heredia, who wrote the poem "Niagara". There are commemorative plaques on both sides of the falls recognising the poem.[136]
+
+In the original 1920s and 1930s Buck Rogers stories and newspaper cartoons, Buck Rogers, in his adventures in the 25th century that take place on Earth.[137]
+
+Part of Mark Twain's 1893 short story, "Extract from Adam's Diary" is set at Niagara Falls.[138]
+
+The Bulgarian writer Aleko Konstantinov portrays the impressiveness of the Niagara Falls in his book, To Chicago and Back.
+
+In 2014, the writer Alessandro Baricco published the book Smith & Wesson recounting the story of Rachel Green going over the falls.
+
+The Niagara Falls were such an attraction to landscape artists that, writes John Howat, they were "the most popular, the most often treated, and the tritest single item of subject matter to appear in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European and American landscape painting".[139]
+
+A General View of the Falls of Niagara by Alvan Fisher, 1820
+
+Distant View of Niagara Falls by Thomas Cole, 1830
+
+Niagara Fälle. Les chûtes du Niagara. Niagara Falls by Karl Bodmer, circa 1832
+
+Voute sous la Chute du Niagara – Niagara Falls, circa 1841
+
+Niagara by Frederic Edwin Church, 1857
+
+Underneath Niagara Falls by Ferdinand Richardt, 1862
+
+Niagara by Louis Rémy Mignot, circa 1866
+
+Falls of Niagara from Below by Albert Bierstadt, 1869
+
+Niagara Falls by William Morris Hunt, 1878
+
+Niagara Falls, circa 1880

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+Scholastic Press (USA)
+
+Harry Potter is a series of fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young wizard, Harry Potter, and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The main story arc concerns Harry's struggle against Lord Voldemort, a dark wizard who intends to become immortal, overthrow the wizard governing body known as the Ministry of Magic and subjugate all wizards and Muggles (non-magical people).
+
+Since the release of the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, on 26 June 1997, the books have found immense popularity, critical acclaim and commercial success worldwide. They have attracted a wide adult audience as well as younger readers and are often considered cornerstones of modern young adult literature.[2] As of February 2018[update], the books have sold more than 500 million copies worldwide, making them the best-selling book series in history, and have been translated into eighty languages.[3] The last four books consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history, with the final installment selling roughly eleven million copies in the United States within twenty-four hours of its release.
+
+The series was originally published in English by two major publishers, Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom and Scholastic Press in the United States. A play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, based on a story co-written by Rowling, premiered in London on 30 July 2016 at the Palace Theatre, and its script was published by Little, Brown. The original seven books were adapted into an eight-part namesake film series by Warner Bros. Pictures, which is the third highest-grossing film series of all time as of February 2020[update]. In 2016, the total value of the Harry Potter franchise was estimated at $25 billion,[4] making Harry Potter one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time.
+
+A series of many genres, including fantasy, drama, coming of age, and the British school story (which includes elements of mystery, thriller, adventure, horror, and romance), the world of Harry Potter explores numerous themes and includes many cultural meanings and references.[5] According to Rowling, the main theme is death.[6] Other major themes in the series include prejudice, corruption, and madness.[7]
+
+The success of the books and films has allowed the Harry Potter franchise to expand with numerous derivative works, a travelling exhibition that premiered in Chicago in 2009, a studio tour in London that opened in 2012, a digital platform on which J. K. Rowling updates the series with new information and insight, and a pentalogy of spin-off films premiering in November 2016 with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, among many other developments. Most recently, themed attractions, collectively known as The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, have been built at several Universal Parks & Resorts amusement parks around the world.
+
+The central character in the series is Harry Potter, a boy who lives in the fictional town of Little Whinging, Surrey with his aunt, uncle, and cousin – the Dursleys – and discovers at the age of eleven that he is a wizard, though he lives in the ordinary world of non-magical people known as Muggles.[8] The wizarding world exists parallel to the Muggle world, albeit hidden and in secrecy. His magical ability is inborn, and children with such abilities are invited to attend exclusive magic schools that teach the necessary skills to succeed in the wizarding world.[9]
+
+Harry becomes a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a wizarding academy in Scotland, and it is here where most of the events in the series take place. As Harry develops through his adolescence, he learns to overcome the problems that face him: magical, social, and emotional, including ordinary teenage challenges such as friendships, infatuation, romantic relationships, schoolwork and exams, anxiety, depression, stress, and the greater test of preparing himself for the confrontation that lies ahead in wizarding Britain's increasingly-violent second wizarding war.[10]
+
+Each novel chronicles one year in Harry's life[11] during the period from 1991 to 1998.[12] The books also contain many flashbacks, which are frequently experienced by Harry viewing the memories of other characters in a device called a Pensieve.
+
+The environment Rowling created is intimately connected to reality. The British magical community of the Harry Potter books is inspired by 1990s British culture, European folklore, classical mythology and alchemy, incorporating objects and wildlife such as magic wands, magic plants, potions, spells, flying broomsticks, centaurs and other magical creatures, and the Philosopher's Stone, beside others invented by Rowling. While the fantasy land of Narnia is an alternate universe and the Lord of the Rings' Middle-earth a mythic past, the wizarding world of Harry Potter exists parallel to the real world and contains magical versions of the ordinary elements of everyday life, with the action mostly set in Scotland (Hogwarts), the West Country, Devon, London, and Surrey in southeast England.[13] The world only accessible to wizards and magical beings comprises a fragmented collection of overlooked hidden streets, ancient pubs, lonely country manors, and secluded castles invisible to the Muggle population.[9]
+
+When the first novel of the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, opens, it is apparent that some significant event has taken place in the wizarding world – an event so very remarkable that even Muggles (non-magical people) notice signs of it. The full background to this event and Harry Potter's past is revealed gradually throughout the series. After the introductory chapter, the book leaps forward to a time shortly before Harry Potter's eleventh birthday, and it is at this point that his magical background begins to be revealed.
+
+Despite Harry's aunt and uncle's desperate prevention of Harry learning about his abilities,[14] their efforts are in vain. Harry meets a half-giant, Rubeus Hagrid, who is also his first contact with the wizarding world. Hagrid reveals himself to be the Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts as well as some of Harry's history.[14] Harry learns that, as a baby, he witnessed his parents' murder by the power-obsessed dark wizard Lord Voldemort, who subsequently attempted to kill him as well.[14] Instead, the unexpected happened: Harry survived with only a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead as a memento of the attack, and Voldemort disappeared soon afterwards, gravely weakened by his own rebounding curse.
+
+As its inadvertent saviour from Voldemort's reign of terror, Harry has become a living legend in the wizarding world. However, at the orders of the venerable and well-known wizard Albus Dumbledore, the orphaned Harry had been placed in the home of his unpleasant Muggle relatives, the Dursleys, who have kept him safe but treated him poorly, including confining him to a cupboard without meals and treating him as their servant. Hagrid then officially invites Harry to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a famous magic school in Scotland that educates young teenagers on their magical development for seven years, from age eleven to seventeen.
+
+With Hagrid's help, Harry prepares for and undertakes his first year of study at Hogwarts. As Harry begins to explore the magical world, the reader is introduced to many of the primary locations used throughout the series. Harry meets most of the main characters and gains his two closest friends: Ron Weasley, a fun-loving member of an ancient, large, happy, but poor wizarding family, and Hermione Granger, a gifted, bright, and hardworking witch of non-magical parentage.[14][15] Harry also encounters the school's potions master, Severus Snape, who displays a conspicuously deep and abiding dislike for him, the rich brat Draco Malfoy whom he quickly makes enemies with, and the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Quirinus Quirrell, who later turns out to be allied with Lord Voldemort. He also discovers a talent of flying on broomsticks and is recruited for his house's Quidditch team, a sport in the wizarding world where players fly on broomsticks. The first book concludes with Harry's second confrontation with Lord Voldemort, who, in his quest to regain a body, yearns to gain the power of the Philosopher's Stone, a substance that bestows everlasting life and turns any metal into pure gold.[14]
+
+The series continues with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, describing Harry's second year at Hogwarts. He and his friends investigate a 50-year-old mystery that appears uncannily related to recent sinister events at the school. Ron's younger sister, Ginny Weasley, enrolls in her first year at Hogwarts, and finds an old notebook in her belongings which turns out to be the diary of a previous student, Tom Marvolo Riddle, later revealed to be Voldemort's younger self, who is bent on ridding the school of "mudbloods", a derogatory term describing wizards and witches of non-magical parentage. The memory of Tom Riddle resides inside of the diary and when Ginny begins to confide in the diary, Voldemort is able to possess her.
+
+Through the diary, Ginny acts on Voldemort's orders and unconsciously opens the "Chamber of Secrets", unleashing an ancient monster, later revealed to be a basilisk, which begins attacking students at Hogwarts. It kills those who make direct eye contact with it and petrifies those who look at it indirectly. The book also introduces a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Gilderoy Lockhart, a highly cheerful, self-conceited wizard with a pretentious facade, later turning out to be a fraud. Harry discovers that prejudice exists in the Wizarding World through delving into the school's history, and learns that Voldemort's reign of terror was often directed at wizards and witches who were descended from Muggles.
+
+Harry also learns that his ability to speak the snake language Parseltongue is rare and often associated with the Dark Arts. When Hermione is attacked and petrified, Harry and Ron finally piece together the puzzles and unlock the Chamber of Secrets, with Harry destroying the diary for good and saving Ginny, and, as they learn later, also destroying a part of Voldemort's soul. The end of the book reveals Lucius Malfoy, Draco's father and rival of Ron and Ginny's father, to be the culprit who slipped the book into Ginny's belongings.
+
+The third novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, follows Harry in his third year of magical education. It is the only book in the series which does not feature Lord Voldemort in any form, only being mentioned. Instead, Harry must deal with the knowledge that he has been targeted by Sirius Black, his father's best friend, and, according to the Wizarding World, an escaped mass murderer who assisted in the murder of Harry's parents. As Harry struggles with his reaction to the dementors – dark creatures with the power to devour a human soul and feed on despair – which are ostensibly protecting the school, he reaches out to Remus Lupin, a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher who is eventually revealed to be a werewolf. Lupin teaches Harry defensive measures which are well above the level of magic generally executed by people his age. Harry comes to know that both Lupin and Black were best friends of his father and that Black was framed by their fourth friend, Peter Pettigrew, who had been hiding as Ron's pet rat, Scabbers.[16] In this book, a recurring theme throughout the series is emphasised – in every book there is a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, none of whom lasts more than one school year.
+
+During Harry's fourth year of school (detailed in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), Harry is unwillingly entered as a participant in the Triwizard Tournament, a dangerous yet exciting contest where three "champions", one from each participating school, must compete with each other in three tasks in order to win the Triwizard Cup. This year, Harry must compete against a witch and a wizard "champion" from overseas schools Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, as well as another Hogwarts student, causing Harry's friends to distance themselves from him.[17]
+
+Harry is guided through the tournament by their new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, who turns out to be an impostor – one of Voldemort's supporters named Barty Crouch, Jr. in disguise, who secretly entered Harry's name into the tournament. The point at which the mystery is unravelled marks the series' shift from foreboding and uncertainty into open conflict. Voldemort's plan to have Crouch use the tournament to bring Harry to Voldemort succeeds. Although Harry manages to escape, Cedric Diggory, the other Hogwarts champion in the tournament, is killed by Peter Pettigrew and Voldemort re-enters the Wizarding World with a physical body.
+
+In the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry must confront the newly resurfaced Voldemort. In response to Voldemort's reappearance, Dumbledore re-activates the Order of the Phoenix, a secret society which works from Sirius Black's dark family home to defeat Voldemort's minions and protect Voldemort's targets, especially Harry. Despite Harry's description of Voldemort's recent activities, the Ministry of Magic and many others in the magical world refuse to believe that Voldemort has returned. In an attempt to counter and eventually discredit Dumbledore, who along with Harry is the most prominent voice in the Wizarding World attempting to warn of Voldemort's return, the Ministry appoints Dolores Umbridge as the High Inquisitor of Hogwarts and the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. She transforms the school into a dictatorial regime and refuses to allow the students to learn ways to defend themselves against dark magic.[18]
+
+Hermione and Ron form "Dumbledore's Army", a secret study group in which Harry agrees to teach his classmates the higher-level skills of Defence Against the Dark Arts that he has learned from his previous encounters with Dark wizards. Through those lessons, Harry begins to develop a crush on the popular and attractive Cho Chang. Juggling schoolwork, Umbridge's incessant and persistent efforts to land him in trouble and the defensive lessons, Harry begins to lose sleep as he constantly receives disturbing dreams about a dark corridor in the Ministry of Magic, followed by a burning desire to learn more. An important prophecy concerning Harry and Lord Voldemort is then revealed,[19] and Harry discovers that he and Voldemort have a painful connection, allowing Harry to view some of Voldemort's actions telepathically. In the novel's climax, Harry is tricked into seeing Sirius tortured and races to the Ministry of Magic. He and his friends face off against Voldemort's followers (nicknamed Death Eaters) at the Ministry of Magic. Although the timely arrival of members of the Order of the Phoenix saves the teenagers' lives, Sirius Black is killed in the conflict.
+
+In the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Voldemort begins waging open warfare. Harry and his friends are relatively protected from that danger at Hogwarts. They are subject to all the difficulties of adolescence – Harry eventually begins dating Ginny, Ron establishes a strong infatuation with fellow Hogwarts student Lavender Brown, and Hermione starts to develop romantic feelings towards Ron. Near the beginning of the novel, lacking his own book, Harry is given an old potions textbook filled with many annotations and recommendations signed by a mysterious writer titled; "the Half-Blood Prince". This book is a source of scholastic success and great recognition from their new potions master, Horace Slughorn, but because of the potency of the spells that are written in it, becomes a source of concern.
+
+With war drawing near, Harry takes private lessons with Dumbledore, who shows him various memories concerning the early life of Voldemort in a device called a Pensieve. These reveal that in order to preserve his life, Voldemort has split his soul into pieces, used to create a series of Horcruxes – evil enchanted items hidden in various locations, one of which was the diary destroyed in the second book.[20] Draco, who has joined with the Death Eaters, attempts to attack Dumbledore upon his return from collecting a Horcrux, and the book culminates in the killing of Dumbledore by Professor Snape, the titular Half-Blood Prince.
+
+Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the last original novel in the series, begins directly after the events of the sixth book. Lord Voldemort has completed his ascension to power and gained control of the Ministry of Magic. Harry, Ron and Hermione drop out of school so that they can find and destroy Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes. To ensure their own safety as well as that of their family and friends, they are forced to isolate themselves. A ghoul pretends to be Ron ill with a contagious disease, Harry and the Dursleys separate, and Hermione wipes her parents' memories and sends them abroad.
+
+As the trio searches for the Horcruxes, they learn details about an ancient prophecy of the Deathly Hallows, three legendary items that when united under one Keeper, would supposedly allow that person to be the Master of Death. Harry discovers his handy Invisibility Cloak to be one of those items, and Voldemort to be searching for another: the Elder Wand, the most powerful wand in history. At the end of the book, Harry and his friends learn about Dumbledore's past, as well as Snape's true motives – he had worked on Dumbledore's behalf since the murder of Harry's mother. Eventually, Snape is killed by Voldemort out of paranoia.
+
+The book culminates in the Battle of Hogwarts. Harry, Ron and Hermione, in conjunction with members of the Order of the Phoenix and many of the teachers and students, defend Hogwarts from Voldemort, his Death Eaters, and various dangerous magical creatures. Several major characters are killed in the first wave of the battle, including Remus Lupin and Fred Weasley, Ron's older brother. After learning that he himself is a Horcrux, Harry surrenders himself to Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest, who casts a killing curse (Avada Kedavra) at him. The defenders of Hogwarts do not surrender after learning of Harry's presumed death and continue to fight on. Harry awakens and faces Voldemort, whose Horcruxes have all been destroyed. In the final battle, Voldemort's killing curse rebounds off Harry's defensive spell (Expelliarmus), killing Voldemort.
+
+An epilogue "Nineteen Years Later" (set on 1 September 2017)[21] describes the lives of the surviving characters and the effects of Voldemort's death on the Wizarding World. In the epilogue, Harry and Ginny are married with three children, and Ron and Hermione are married with two children.[22]
+
+Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a two-part West End stage play.[23] It was written by Jack Thorne, based on a story by J. K. Rowling, Thorne and director John Tiffany. The play opened on 30 July 2016 at the Palace Theatre, London, England. The script was released on 31 July 2016.[24] The story is set nineteen years after the ending of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and follows Harry Potter, now a Ministry of Magic employee, and his younger son Albus Severus Potter. The play's official synopsis was released on 23 October 2015:[25]
+
+It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn't much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband, and father of three school-age children.
+While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.
+
+Rowling expanded the Harry Potter universe with several short books produced for various charities.[26][27] In 2001, she released Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (a purported Hogwarts textbook) and Quidditch Through the Ages (a book Harry reads for fun). Proceeds from the sale of these two books benefited the charity Comic Relief.[28] In 2007, Rowling composed seven handwritten copies of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a collection of fairy tales that is featured in the final novel, one of which was auctioned to raise money for the Children's High Level Group, a fund for mentally disabled children in poor countries. The book was published internationally on 4 December 2008.[29][30] Rowling also wrote an 800-word prequel in 2008 as part of a fundraiser organised by the bookseller Waterstones.[31] All three of these books contain extra information about the wizarding world not included in the original novels.
+
+In 2016, she released three new e-books: Hogwarts: An Incomplete and Unreliable Guide, Short Stories from Hogwarts of Power, Politics and Pesky Poltergeists
+and Short Stories from Hogwarts of Heroism, Hardship and Dangerous Hobbies.[32]
+
+In 2011, Rowling launched a new website announcing an upcoming project called Pottermore.[33] Pottermore opened to the general public on 14 April 2012.[34] Pottermore allows users to be sorted, be chosen by their wand and play various minigames. The main purpose of the website was to allow the user to journey through the story with access to content not revealed by JK Rowling previously, with over 18,000 words of additional content.[35]
+
+In September 2015, the website was completely overhauled and most of the features were removed. The site has been redesigned and it mainly focuses on the information already available, rather than exploration.[36]
+
+The Harry Potter novels are mainly directed at a young adult audience as opposed to an audience of middle grade readers, children, or adults. The novels fall within the genre of fantasy literature, and qualify as a type of fantasy called "urban fantasy", "contemporary fantasy", or "low fantasy". They are mainly dramas, and maintain a fairly serious and dark tone throughout, though they do contain some notable instances of tragicomedy and black humour. In many respects, they are also examples of the bildungsroman, or coming of age novel,[37] and contain elements of mystery, adventure, horror, thriller, and romance. The books are also, in the words of Stephen King, "shrewd mystery tales",[38] and each book is constructed in the manner of a Sherlock Holmes-style mystery adventure. The stories are told from a third person limited point of view with very few exceptions (such as the opening chapters of Philosopher's Stone, Goblet of Fire and Deathly Hallows and the first two chapters of Half-Blood Prince).
+
+The series can be considered part of the British children's boarding school genre, which includes Rudyard Kipling's Stalky & Co., Enid Blyton's Malory Towers, St. Clare's and the Naughtiest Girl series, and Frank Richards's Billy Bunter novels: the Harry Potter books are predominantly set in Hogwarts, a fictional British boarding school for wizards, where the curriculum includes the use of magic.[39] In this sense they are "in a direct line of descent from Thomas Hughes's Tom Brown's School Days and other Victorian and Edwardian novels of British public school life", though they are, as many note, more contemporary, grittier, darker, and more mature than the typical boarding school novel, addressing serious themes of death, love, loss, prejudice, coming-of-age, and the loss of innocence in a 1990s British setting.[40][41]
+
+The Harry Potter stories feature medieval imagery and motifs drawn from the King Arthur stories. Hogwarts resembles a medieval university-cum-castle with several professors who belonging to an Order of Merlin; Old Professor Binns still lectures about the International Warlock Convention of 1289; and a real historical person, a 14th-century scribe, Sir Nicolas Flamel, is described as a holder of the Philosopher's Stone.[42] Other medieval elements in Hogwarts include coats-of-arms and medieval weapons on the walls, letters written on parchment and sealed with wax, the Great Hall of Hogwarts which is similar to the Great Hall of Camelot, the use of Latin phrases, the tents put up for Quidditch tournaments are similar to the "marvellous tents" put up for knightly tournaments, imaginary animals like dragons and unicorns which exist around Hogwarts, and the banners with heraldic animals for the four Houses of Hogwarts.[42]
+
+Many of the motifs of the Potter stories such as the hero's quest invoking objects that confer invisibility, magical animals and trees, a forest full of danger and the recognition of a character based upon scars are drawn from medieval French Arthurian romances.[42] Other aspects borrowed from French Arthurian romances include the use of owls as messengers, werewolves as characters, and white deer.[42] The American scholars Heather Arden and Kathrn Lorenz in particular argue that many aspects of the Potter stories are inspired by a 14th-century French Arthurian romance, Claris et Laris, writing of the "startling" similarities between the adventures of Potter and the knight Claris.[42] Arden and Lorenz noted that Rowling graduated from the University of Exeter in 1986 with a degree in French literature and spent a year living in France afterwards.[42]
+
+Arnden and Lorenz wrote about the similarity between the Arthurian romances, where Camelot is a place of wonder and safety, and from where the heroic knights must venture forth facing various perils, usually in an enchanted forest; and Hogwarts, likewise a wondrous safe place, where Harry Potter and friends must periodically venture forth from to the magical forest that surrounds Hogwarts.[42] In the same way that knights in the Arthurian romances usually have a female helper, who is very intelligent and has a connection with nature, Harry has Hermione who plays a similar role.[42]
+
+Like an Arthurian knight, Harry receives advice and encouragement from his mentor, Albus Dumbledore, who resembles both Merlin and King Arthur, but must vanquish his foes alone.[42] Arnden and Lorenz wrote that with Rowling's books, the characters are "...not a simple reworking of the well-known heroes of romance, but a protean melding of different characters to form new ones...".[42] However, Lorenz and Arnden argue the main inspiration for Harry Potter was Sir Percival, one of the Knights of the Round Table who searches for the Holy Grail.[42] Both Potter and Sir Percival had an "orphaned or semi-orphaned youth, with inherent nobility and powers", being raised by relatives who tried to keep them away from the places where they really belong, Hogwarts and Camelot respectively.[42]
+
+Both Percival and Potter are however outsiders in the places that they belong, unfamiliar with the rules of knighthood and magic, but both show extraordinary natural abilities with Percival proving himself an exceptional fighter while Potter is an excellent player of Quidditch.[42] And finally, both Percival and Potter found love and acceptance from surrogate families, in the form of the Knights of the Round Table and the Weasley family respectively.[42]
+
+Each of the seven books is set over the course of one school year. Harry struggles with the problems he encounters, and dealing with them often involves the need to violate some school rules. If students are caught breaking rules, they are often disciplined by Hogwarts professors. The stories reach their climax in the summer term, near or just after final exams, when events escalate far beyond in-school squabbles and struggles, and Harry must confront either Voldemort or one of his followers, the Death Eaters, with the stakes a matter of life and death – a point underlined, as the series progresses, by characters being killed in each of the final four books.[43][44] In the aftermath, he learns important lessons through exposition and discussions with head teacher and mentor Albus Dumbledore. The only exception to this school-centred setting is the final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in which Harry and his friends spend most of their time away from Hogwarts, and only return there to face Voldemort at the dénouement.[43]
+
+According to Rowling, a major theme in the series is death: "My books are largely about death. They open with the death of Harry's parents. There is Voldemort's obsession with conquering death and his quest for immortality at any price, the goal of anyone with magic. I so understand why Voldemort wants to conquer death. We're all frightened of it."[6]
+
+Rowling stated that "Harry Potter books have always, in fact, dealt explicitly with religious themes and questions" and that she did not reveal its Christian parallels in the beginning because doing so would have "give[n] too much away to fans who might then see the parallels".[45] In the final book of the series Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Rowling makes the book's Christian imagery more explicit, quoting both Matthew 6:21 and 1 Corinthians 15:26 (King James Version) when Harry visits his parents' graves.[45]
+
+Hermione Granger teaches Harry Potter that the meaning of these verses from the Christian Bible are "living beyond death. Living after death", which Rowling states is "one of the central foundations of resurrection theology" and that these bible verses "epitomize the whole series".[45][46][47] Rowling also exhibits Christian values in developing Albus Dumbledore as a God-like character, the divine, trusted leader of the series, guiding the long-suffering hero along his quest. In the seventh novel, Harry speaks with and questions the deceased Dumbledore much like a person of faith would talk to and question God.[48]
+
+Academics and journalists have developed many other interpretations of themes in the books, some more complex than others, and some including political subtexts. Themes such as normality, oppression, survival, and overcoming imposing odds have all been considered as prevalent throughout the series.[49] Similarly, the theme of making one's way through adolescence and "going over one's most harrowing ordeals – and thus coming to terms with them" has also been considered.[50] Rowling has stated that the books comprise "a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry" and that they also pass on a message to "question authority and... not assume that the establishment or the press tells you all of the truth".[51]
+
+While the books could be said to comprise many other themes, such as power/abuse of power, violence and hatred, love, loss, prejudice, and free choice, they are, as Rowling states, "deeply entrenched in the whole plot"; the writer prefers to let themes "grow organically", rather than sitting down and consciously attempting to impart such ideas to her readers.[7] Along the same lines is the ever-present theme of adolescence, in whose depiction Rowling has been purposeful in acknowledging her characters' sexualities and not leaving Harry, as she put it, "stuck in a state of permanent pre-pubescence". Rowling has also been praised for her nuanced depiction of the ways in which death and violence affects youth, and humanity as a whole.[52]
+
+Rowling said that, to her, the moral significance of the tales seems "blindingly obvious". The key for her was the choice between what is right and what is easy, "because that ... is how tyranny is started, with people being apathetic and taking the easy route and suddenly finding themselves in deep trouble."[53]
+
+In 1990, Rowling was on a crowded train from Manchester to London when the idea for Harry suddenly "fell into her head". Rowling gives an account of the experience on her website saying:[54]
+
+"I had been writing almost continuously since the age of six but I had never been so excited about an idea before. I simply sat and thought, for four (delayed train) hours, and all the details bubbled up in my brain, and this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who did not know he was a wizard became more and more real to me."
+
+Rowling completed Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in 1995 and the manuscript was sent off to several prospective agents.[55] The second agent she tried, Christopher Little, offered to represent her and sent the manuscript to Bloomsbury.
+
+After eight other publishers had rejected Philosopher's Stone, Bloomsbury offered Rowling a £2,500 advance for its publication.[57][58] Despite Rowling's statement that she did not have any particular age group in mind when beginning to write the Harry Potter books, the publishers initially targeted children aged nine to eleven.[59] On the eve of publishing, Rowling was asked by her publishers to adopt a more gender-neutral pen name in order to appeal to the male members of this age group, fearing that they would not be interested in reading a novel they knew to be written by a woman. She elected to use J. K. Rowling (Joanne Kathleen Rowling), using her grandmother's name as her second name because she has no middle name.[58][60]
+
+Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published by Bloomsbury, the publisher of all Harry Potter books in the United Kingdom, on 26 June 1997.[61] It was released in the United States on 1 September 1998 by Scholastic – the American publisher of the books – as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,[62] after Rowling had received US$105,000 for the American rights – a record amount for a children's book by an unknown author.[63] Fearing that American readers would not associate the word "philosopher" with magic (although the Philosopher's Stone is an ancient tradition in alchemy), Scholastic insisted that the book be given the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the American market.[64]
+
+The second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was originally published in the UK on 2 July 1998 and in the US on 2 June 1999. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was published a year later in the UK on 8 July 1999 and in the US on 8 September 1999.[65] Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was published on 8 July 2000 at the same time by Bloomsbury and Scholastic.[66] Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the longest book in the series, at 766 pages in the UK version and 870 pages in the US version.[67] It was published worldwide in English on 21 June 2003.[68] Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was published on 16 July 2005; it sold 9 million copies in the first 24 hours of its worldwide release.[69][70] The seventh and final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was published on 21 July 2007.[71] The book sold 11 million copies in the first 24 hours of release, breaking down to 2.7 million copies in the UK and 8.3 million in the US.[70]
+
+The series has been translated into 80 languages,[3] placing Rowling among the most translated authors in history.[72] The books have seen translations to diverse languages such as Korean, Armenian, Ukrainian, Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Bulgarian, Welsh, Afrikaans, Albanian, Latvian, Vietnamese and Hawaiian. The first volume has been translated into Latin and even Ancient Greek,[73] making it the longest published work in Ancient Greek since the novels of Heliodorus of Emesa in the 3rd century AD.[74] The second volume has also been translated into Latin.[75]
+
+Some of the translators hired to work on the books were well-known authors before their work on Harry Potter, such as Viktor Golyshev, who oversaw the Russian translation of the series' fifth book. The Turkish translation of books two to seven was undertaken by Sevin Okyay, a popular literary critic and cultural commentator.[76] For reasons of secrecy, translation on a given book could only start after it had been released in English, leading to a lag of several months before the translations were available. This led to more and more copies of the English editions being sold to impatient fans in non-English speaking countries; for example, such was the clamour to read the fifth book that its English language edition became the first English-language book ever to top the best-seller list in France.[77]
+
+The United States editions were adapted into American English to make them more understandable to a young American audience.[78]
+
+In December 2005, Rowling stated on her web site, "2006 will be the year when I write the final book in the Harry Potter series."[79] Updates then followed in her online diary chronicling the progress of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, with the release date of 21 July 2007. The book itself was finished on 11 January 2007 in the Balmoral Hotel, Edinburgh, where she scrawled a message on the back of a bust of Hermes. It read: "J. K. Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (552) on 11 January 2007."[80]
+
+Rowling herself has stated that the last chapter of the final book (in fact, the epilogue) was completed "in something like 1990".[81][82] In June 2006, Rowling, on an appearance on the British talk show Richard & Judy, announced that the chapter had been modified as one character "got a reprieve" and two others who previously survived the story had in fact been killed. On 28 March 2007, the cover art for the Bloomsbury Adult and Child versions and the Scholastic version were released.[83][84]
+
+In September 2012, Rowling mentioned in an interview that she might go back to make a "director's cut" of two of the existing Harry Potter books.[85]
+
+For cover art, Bloomsbury chose painted art in a classic style of design, with the first cover a watercolour and pencil drawing by illustrator Thomas Taylor showing Harry boarding the Hogwarts Express, and a title in the font Cochin Bold.[86] The first releases of the successive books in the series followed in the same style but somewhat more realistic, illustrating scenes from the books. These covers were created by first Cliff Wright and then Jason Cockroft.[87]
+
+Due to the appeal of the books among an adult audience, Bloomsbury commissioned a second line of editions in an 'adult' style. These initially used black-and-white photographic art for the covers showing objects from the books (including a very American Hogwarts Express) without depicting people, but later shifted to partial colourisation with a picture of Slytherin's locket on the cover of the final book.
+
+International and later editions have been created by a range of designers, including Mary GrandPré for U.S. audiences and Mika Launis in Finland.[88][89] For a later American release, Kazu Kibuishi created covers in a somewhat anime-influenced style.[90][91]
+
+Fans of the series were so eager for the latest instalment that bookstores around the world began holding events to coincide with the midnight release of the books, beginning with the 2000 publication of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The events, commonly featuring mock sorting, games, face painting, and other live entertainment have achieved popularity with Potter fans and have been highly successful in attracting fans and selling books with nearly nine million of the 10.8 million initial print copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince sold in the first 24 hours.[92][93]
+
+The final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows became the fastest selling book in history, moving 11 million units in the first twenty-four hours of release.[94] The series has also gathered adult fans, leading to the release of two editions of each Harry Potter book, identical in text but with one edition's cover artwork aimed at children and the other aimed at adults.[95] Besides meeting online through blogs, podcasts, and fansites, Harry Potter super-fans can also meet at Harry Potter symposia.
+
+The word Muggle has spread beyond its Harry Potter origins, becoming one of few pop culture words to land in the Oxford English Dictionary.[96] The Harry Potter fandom has embraced podcasts as a regular, often weekly, insight to the latest discussion in the fandom. Both MuggleCast and PotterCast[97] have reached the top spot of iTunes podcast rankings and have been polled one of the top 50 favourite podcasts.[98]
+
+Some lessons identified in the series include diversity, acceptance, political tolerance, and equality. Surveys of over 1,000 college students in the United States show that those who read the books were significantly different from those who had not. Readers of the series were found to be more tolerant, more opposed to violence and torture, less authoritarian, and less cynical. Although it is not known if this is a cause-and-effect relationship, there is a clear correlation, and it seems that Harry Potter's cultural impact may be stronger than just a fandom bond.[99]
+
+Many fan fiction and fan art works about Harry Potter have been made. In March 2007, "Harry Potter" was the most commonly searched fan fiction subject on the internet.[100] At the University of Michigan in 2009, StarKid Productions performed an original musical parodying the Harry Potter series called A Very Potter Musical. The musical was awarded Entertainment Weekly's 10 Best Viral Videos of 2009.[101]
+
+The sport Quidditch, played by characters in the Harry Potter series, was created in 2005 and is played worldwide including at universities such as Harvard University, Yale University, and Washington University in St. Louis.[102][103][104][105] Characters and elements from the series have inspired scientific names of several organisms, including the dinosaur Dracorex hogwartsia, the spider Eriovixia gryffindori, the wasp Ampulex dementor, and the crab Harryplax severus.[106]
+
+The popularity of the Harry Potter series has translated into substantial financial success for Rowling, her publishers, and other Harry Potter related license holders. This success has made Rowling the first and thus far only billionaire author.[107] The books have sold more than 500 million copies worldwide and have also given rise to the popular film adaptations produced by Warner Bros., all of which have been highly successful in their own right.[108][109] The films have in turn spawned eight video games and have led to the licensing of more than 400 additional Harry Potter products. The Harry Potter brand has been estimated to be worth as much as $25 billion.[4]
+
+The great demand for Harry Potter books motivated The New York Times to create a separate best-seller list for children's literature in 2000, just before the release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. By 24 June 2000, Rowling's novels had been on the list for 79 straight weeks; the first three novels were each on the hardcover best-seller list.[110] On 12 April 2007, Barnes & Noble declared that Deathly Hallows had broken its pre-order record, with more than 500,000 copies pre-ordered through its site.[111] For the release of Goblet of Fire, 9,000 FedEx trucks were used with no other purpose than to deliver the book.[112]
+
+Together, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble pre-sold more than 700,000 copies of the book.[112] In the United States, the book's initial printing run was 3.8 million copies.[112] This record statistic was broken by Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, with 8.5 million, which was then shattered by Half-Blood Prince with 10.8 million copies.[113] 6.9 million copies of Prince were sold in the U.S. within the first 24 hours of its release; in the United Kingdom more than two million copies were sold on the first day.[114] The initial U.S. print run for Deathly Hallows was 12 million copies, and more than a million were pre-ordered through Amazon and Barnes & Noble.[115]
+
+The Harry Potter series has been recognised by a host of awards since the initial publication of Philosopher's Stone including four Whitaker Platinum Book Awards (all of which were awarded in 2001),[116] three Nestlé Smarties Book Prizes (1997–1999),[117] two Scottish Arts Council Book Awards (1999 and 2001),[118] the inaugural Whitbread children's book of the year award (1999),[119] the WHSmith book of the year (2006),[120] among others. In 2000, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Novel, and in 2001, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire won said award.[121] Honours include a commendation for the Carnegie Medal (1997),[122] a short listing for the Guardian Children's Award (1998), and numerous listings on the notable books, editors' Choices, and best books lists of the American Library Association, The New York Times, Chicago Public Library, and Publishers Weekly.[123]
+
+In 2002, sociologist Andrew Blake named Harry Potter a British pop culture icon along with the likes of James Bond and Sherlock Holmes.[124] In 2003, four of the books were named in the top 24 of the BBC's The Big Read survey of the best loved novels in the UK.[125] A 2004 study found that books in the series were commonly read aloud in elementary schools in San Diego County, California.[126] Based on a 2007 online poll, the U.S. National Education Association listed the series in its "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children".[127] Three of the books placed among the "Top 100 Chapter Books" of all time, or children's novels, in a 2012 survey published by School Library Journal: Sorcerer's Stone ranked number three, Prisoner of Azkaban 12th, and Goblet of Fire 98th.[128] In 2012, the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London featured a 100-foot tall rendition of Lord Voldemort in a segment designed to show off the UK's cultural icons.[129] In November 2019, the BBC listed the Harry Potter series on its list of the 100 most influential novels.[130]
+
+Early in its history, Harry Potter received positive reviews. On publication, the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, attracted attention from the Scottish newspapers, such as The Scotsman, which said it had "all the makings of a classic,"[131] and The Glasgow Herald, which called it "Magic stuff".[131] Soon the English newspapers joined in, with more than one comparing it to Roald Dahl's work: The Mail on Sunday rated it as "the most imaginative debut since Roald Dahl",[131] a view echoed by The Sunday Times ("comparisons to Dahl are, this time, justified"),[131] while The Guardian called it "a richly textured novel given lift-off by an inventive wit".[131]
+
+By the time of the release of the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the books began to receive strong criticism from a number of literary scholars. Yale professor, literary scholar, and critic Harold Bloom raised criticisms of the books' literary merits, saying, "Rowling's mind is so governed by clichés and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing."[132] A. S. Byatt authored an op-ed article in The New York Times calling Rowling's universe a "secondary secondary world, made up of intelligently patchworked derivative motifs from all sorts of children's literature ... written for people whose imaginative lives are confined to TV cartoons, and the exaggerated (more exciting, not threatening) mirror-worlds of soaps, reality TV and celebrity gossip."[133]
+
+Michael Rosen, a novelist and poet, advocated the books were not suited for children, as they would be unable to grasp the complex themes. Rosen also stated that "J. K. Rowling is more of an adult writer."[134] The critic Anthony Holden wrote in The Observer on his experience of judging Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for the 1999 Whitbread Awards. His overall view of the series was negative – "the Potter saga was essentially patronising, conservative, highly derivative, dispiritingly nostalgic for a bygone Britain," and he speaks of "a pedestrian, ungrammatical prose style."[135] Ursula K. Le Guin said, "I have no great opinion of it. When so many adult critics were carrying on about the 'incredible originality' of the first Harry Potter book, I read it to find out what the fuss was about, and remained somewhat puzzled; it seemed a lively kid's fantasy crossed with a 'school novel,' good fare for its age group, but stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited."[136]
+
+By contrast, author Fay Weldon, while admitting that the series is "not what the poets hoped for," nevertheless goes on to say, "but this is not poetry, it is readable, saleable, everyday, useful prose."[137] The literary critic A. N. Wilson praised the Harry Potter series in The Times, stating, "There are not many writers who have JK's Dickensian ability to make us turn the pages, to weep – openly, with tears splashing – and a few pages later to laugh, at invariably good jokes ... We have lived through a decade in which we have followed the publication of the liveliest, funniest, scariest and most moving children's stories ever written."[138]
+
+Charles Taylor of Salon.com, who is primarily a movie critic,[139] took issue with Byatt's criticisms in particular. While he conceded that she may have "a valid cultural point – a teeny one – about the impulses that drive us to reassuring pop trash and away from the troubling complexities of art,"[140] he rejected her claims that the series is lacking in serious literary merit and that it owes its success merely to the childhood reassurances it offers. Taylor stressed the progressively darker tone of the books, shown by the murder of a classmate and close friend and the psychological wounds and social isolation each causes. Taylor also argued that Philosopher's Stone, said to be the most light-hearted of the seven published books, disrupts the childhood reassurances that Byatt claims spur the series' success: the book opens with news of a double murder, for example.[140]
+
+Stephen King called the series "a feat of which only a superior imagination is capable," and declared "Rowling's punning, one-eyebrow-cocked sense of humor" to be "remarkable". However, he wrote that despite the story being "a good one," he is "a little tired of discovering Harry at home with his horrible aunt and uncle," the formulaic beginning of all seven books.[38] King has also joked that "Rowling's never met an adverb she did not like!" He does however predict that Harry Potter "will indeed stand time's test and wind up on a shelf where only the best are kept; I think Harry will take his place with Alice, Huck, Frodo, and Dorothy and this is one series not just for the decade, but for the ages."[141]
+
+Sameer Rahim of The Daily Telegraph disagreed, saying "It depresses me to see 16- and 17-year-olds reading the series when they could be reading the great novels of childhood such as Oliver Twist or A House for Mr Biswas. What that says about the adults who are fanatical fans I'm not sure – but I suspect in years to come people will make a link between our plump, comfortable, infantilising society and the popularity of Potter."[142]
+
+There is ongoing discussion regarding the extent to which the series was inspired by Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books.[143]
+
+Although Time magazine named Rowling as a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year award, noting the social, moral, and political inspiration she has given her fandom,[144] cultural comments on the series have been mixed. The Washington Post book critic Ron Charles opined in July 2007 that the large numbers of adults reading the Potter series but few other books may represent a "bad case of cultural infantilism", and that the straightforward "good vs. evil" theme of the series is "childish". He also argued "through no fault of Rowling's", the cultural and marketing "hysteria" marked by the publication of the later books "trains children and adults to expect the roar of the coliseum, a mass-media experience that no other novel can possibly provide".[145]
+
+Librarian Nancy Knapp pointed out the books' potential to improve literacy by motivating children to read much more than they otherwise would.[146] The seven-book series has a word count of 1,083,594 (US edition). Agreeing about the motivating effects, Diane Penrod also praised the books' blending of simple entertainment with "the qualities of highbrow literary fiction", but expressed concern about the distracting effect of the prolific merchandising that accompanies the book launches.[147] However, the assumption that Harry Potter books have increased literacy among young people is "largely a folk legend".[148]
+
+Research by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has found no increase in reading among children coinciding with the Harry Potter publishing phenomenon, nor has the broader downward trend in reading among Americans been arrested during the rise in the popularity of the Harry Potter books.[148][149] The research also found that children who read Harry Potter books were not more likely to go on to read outside the fantasy and mystery genres.[148] NEA chairman Dana Gioia said the series, "got millions of kids to read a long and reasonably complex series of books. The trouble is that one Harry Potter novel every few years is not enough to reverse the decline in reading."[150]
+
+Jennifer Conn used Snape's and Quidditch coach Madam Hooch's teaching methods as examples of what to avoid and what to emulate in clinical teaching,[151] and Joyce Fields wrote that the books illustrate four of the five main topics in a typical first-year sociology class: "sociological concepts including culture, society, and socialisation; stratification and social inequality; social institutions; and social theory".[152]
+
+From the early 2000s onwards several news reports appeared in the UK of the Harry Potter book and movie series driving demand for pet owls[153] and even reports that after the end of the movie series these same pet owls were now being abandoned by their owners.[154] This led J. K. Rowling to issue several statements urging Harry Potter fans to refrain from purchasing pet owls.[155] Despite the media flurry, research into the popularity of Harry Potter and sales of owls in the UK failed to find any evidence that the Harry Potter franchise had influenced the buying of owls in the country or the number of owls reaching animal shelters and sanctuaries.[156]
+
+Jenny Sawyer wrote in The Christian Science Monitor on 25 July 2007 that the books represent a "disturbing trend in commercial storytelling and Western society" in that stories' "moral center [sic] have all but vanished from much of today's pop culture ... after 10 years, 4,195 pages, and over 375 million copies, J. K. Rowling's towering achievement lacks the cornerstone of almost all great children's literature: the hero's moral journey". Harry Potter, Sawyer argues, neither faces a "moral struggle" nor undergoes any ethical growth, and is thus "no guide in circumstances in which right and wrong are anything less than black and white".[157] In contrast Emily Griesinger described Harry's first passage through to Platform ​9 3⁄4 as an application of faith and hope, and his encounter with the Sorting Hat as the first of many in which Harry is shaped by the choices he makes. She also noted the "deeper magic" by which the self-sacrifice of Harry's mother protects the boy throughout the series, and which the power-hungry Voldemort fails to understand.[158]
+
+In an 8 November 2002 Slate article, Chris Suellentrop likened Potter to a "trust-fund kid whose success at school is largely attributable to the gifts his friends and relatives lavish upon him". Noting that in Rowling's fiction, magical ability potential is "something you are born to, not something you can achieve", Suellentrop wrote that Dumbledore's maxim that "It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities" is hypocritical, as "the school that Dumbledore runs values native gifts above all else".[159] In a 12 August 2007, review of Deathly Hallows in The New York Times, however, Christopher Hitchens praised Rowling for "unmooring" her "English school story" from literary precedents "bound up with dreams of wealth and class and snobbery", arguing that she had instead created "a world of youthful democracy and diversity".[160]
+
+In 2010, coinciding with the release of the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, a series of articles were written about Private Harry Potter of the British army.[161] This real-life Harry Potter was killed in the Arab Revolt near Hebron in 1939. His grave, located in the British cemetery in Ramla, Israel, began to receive curious visitors leading the Ramla Municipality to list it on their website.[162]
+
+In 2016, an article written by Diana C. Mutz compares the politics of Harry Potter to the 2016 Donald Trump presidential campaign. She states that 3 themes throughout the books are widely predominant '1) the value of tolerance and respect for difference; 2) opposition to violence and punitiveness; and 3) the dangers of authoritarianism.' She suggests that these themes are also present in the presidential election and it may play a significant role in how Americans have responded to the campaign.[163]
+
+The books have been the subject of a number of legal proceedings, stemming from various conflicts over copyright and trademark infringements. The popularity and high market value of the series has led Rowling, her publishers, and film distributor Warner Bros. to take legal measures to protect their copyright, which have included banning the sale of Harry Potter imitations, targeting the owners of websites over the "Harry Potter" domain name, and suing author Nancy Stouffer to counter her accusations that Rowling had plagiarised her work.[164][165][166] Various religious fundamentalists have claimed that the books promote witchcraft and religions such as Wicca and are therefore unsuitable for children,[167][168][169] while a number of critics have criticised the books for promoting various political agendas.[170][171]
+
+The books also aroused controversies in the literary and publishing worlds. From 1997 to 1998, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone won almost all the UK awards judged by children, but none of the children's book awards judged by adults,[172] and Sandra Beckett suggested the reason was intellectual snobbery towards books that were popular among children.[173] In 1999, the winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year award children's division was entered for the first time on the shortlist for the main award, and one judge threatened to resign if Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was declared the overall winner; it finished second, very close behind the winner of the poetry prize, Seamus Heaney's translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf.[173]
+
+In 2000, shortly before the publication of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the previous three Harry Potter books topped The New York Times fiction best-seller list and a third of the entries were children's books. The newspaper created a new children's section covering children's books, including both fiction and non-fiction, and initially counting only hardback sales. The move was supported by publishers and booksellers.[110] In 2004, The New York Times further split the children's list, which was still dominated by Harry Potter books into sections for series and individual books, and removed the Harry Potter books from the section for individual books.[174] The split in 2000 attracted condemnation, praise and some comments that presented both benefits and disadvantages of the move.[175] Time suggested that, on the same principle, Billboard should have created a separate "mop-tops" list in 1964 when the Beatles held the top five places in its list, and Nielsen should have created a separate game-show list when Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? dominated the ratings.[176]
+
+In 1998, Rowling sold the film rights of the first four Harry Potter books to Warner Bros. for a reported £1 million ($1,982,900).[177][178] Rowling demanded the principal cast be kept strictly British, nonetheless allowing for the inclusion of Irish actors such as the late Richard Harris as Dumbledore, and for casting of French and Eastern European actors in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire where characters from the book are specified as such.[179] After many directors including Steven Spielberg, Terry Gilliam, Jonathan Demme, and Alan Parker were considered, Chris Columbus was appointed on 28 March 2000 as the director for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (titled "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in the United States), with Warner Bros. citing his work on other family films such as Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire and proven experience with directing children as influences for their decision.[180]
+
+After extensive casting, filming began in October 2000 at Leavesden Film Studios and in London itself, with production ending in July 2001.[181][182] Philosopher's Stone was released on 14 November 2001. Just three days after the film's release, production for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, also directed by Columbus, began. Filming was completed in summer 2002, with the film being released on 15 November 2002.[183] Daniel Radcliffe portrayed Harry Potter, doing so for all succeeding films in the franchise.
+
+Columbus declined to direct Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, only acting as producer. Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón took over the job, and after shooting in 2003, the film was released on 4 June 2004. Due to the fourth film beginning its production before the third's release, Mike Newell was chosen as the director for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, released on 18 November 2005.[184] Newell became the first British director of the series, with television director David Yates following suit after he was chosen to helm Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Production began in January 2006 and the film was released the following year in July 2007.[185] After executives were "really delighted" with his work on the film, Yates was selected to direct Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which was released on 15 July 2009.[186][187][188][189]
+
+In March 2008, Warner Bros. President and COO Alan F. Horn announced that the final instalment in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, would be released in two cinematic parts: Part 1 on 19 November 2010 and Part 2 on 15 July 2011. Production of both parts started in February 2009, with the final day of principal photography taking place on 12 June 2010.[190][191]
+
+Rowling had creative control on the film series, observing the filmmaking process of Philosopher's Stone and serving as producer on the two-part Deathly Hallows, alongside David Heyman and David Barron.[192] The Harry Potter films have been top-rank box office hits, with all eight releases on the list of highest-grossing films worldwide. Philosopher's Stone was the highest-grossing Harry Potter film up until the release of the final instalment of the series, Deathly Hallows Part 2, while Prisoner of Azkaban grossed the least.[193] As well as being a financial success, the film series has also been a success among film critics.[194][195]
+
+Opinions of the films are generally divided among fans, with one group preferring the more faithful approach of the first two films, and another group preferring the more stylised character-driven approach of the later films.[196] Rowling has been constantly supportive of all the films and evaluated Deathly Hallows as her "favourite one" in the series.[197][198][199][200] She wrote on her website of the changes in the book-to-film transition, "It is simply impossible to incorporate every one of my storylines into a film that has to be kept under four hours long. Obviously films have restrictions novels do not have, constraints of time and budget; I can create dazzling effects relying on nothing but the interaction of my own and my readers' imaginations".[201]
+
+At the 64th British Academy Film Awards in February 2011, Rowling was joined by producers David Heyman and David Barron along with directors David Yates, Alfonso Cuarón and Mike Newell in collecting the Michael Balcon Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema on behalf of all the films in the series. Actors Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, who play main characters Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, were also in attendance.[202][203]
+
+A new prequel series consisting of five films will take place before the main series.[204] The first film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was released in November 2016, followed by the second Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald in November 2018; the next three are due to be released in 2021, 2022 and 2024 respectively.[205] Rowling wrote the screenplay for the first three instalments,[206] marking her foray into screenwriting.
+
+A number of other non-interactive media games and board games have been released such as Cluedo Harry Potter Edition, Scene It? Harry Potter and Lego Harry Potter models, which are influenced by the themes of both the novels and films.
+
+There are thirteen Harry Potter video games, eight corresponding with the films and books and five spin-offs. The film/book-based games are produced by Electronic Arts, as was Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup, with the game version of the first entry in the series, Philosopher's Stone, being released in November 2001. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone went on to become one of the best-selling PlayStation games ever.[207] The video games were released to coincide with the films, containing scenery and details from the films as well as the tone and spirit of the books. Objectives usually occur in and around Hogwarts, along with various other magical areas. The story and design of the games follow the selected film's characterisation and plot; EA worked closely with Warner Bros. to include scenes from the films. The last game in the series, Deathly Hallows, was split, with Part 1 released in November 2010 and Part 2 debuting on consoles in July 2011. The two-part game forms the first entry to convey an intense theme of action and violence, with the gameplay revolving around a third-person shooter style format.[208][209]
+
+The spin-off games Lego Harry Potter: Years 1–4 and Lego Harry Potter: Years 5–7 were developed by Traveller's Tales and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The spin-off games Book of Spells and Book of Potions were developed by SCE London Studio and use the Wonderbook, an augmented reality book designed to be used in conjunction with the PlayStation Move and PlayStation Eye.[210] The Harry Potter universe is also featured in Lego Dimensions, with the settings and side characters featured in the Harry Potter Adventure World, and Harry, Voldemort, and Hermione as playable characters. In 2017, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment opened its own Harry Potter-themed game design studio, by the name of Portkey Games, before releasing Hogwarts Mystery in 2018, developed by Jam City.[211]
+
+All seven Harry Potter books have been released in unabridged audiobook versions, with Stephen Fry reading the UK editions and Jim Dale voicing the series for the American editions.[212][213]
+
+Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts I and II is a play which serves as a sequel to the books, beginning nineteen years after the events of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It was written by Jack Thorne based on an original new story by Thorne, Rowling and John Tiffany.[214] It has run at the Palace Theatre in London's West End since previews began on 7 June 2016 with an official premiere on 30 June 2016.[215] The first four months of tickets for the June–September performances were sold out within several hours upon release.[216] Forthcoming productions are planned for Broadway[217] and Melbourne.[218]
+
+The script was released as a book at the time of the premiere, with a revised version following the next year.
+
+Puffs, or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic is a play which is a spin-off from the Harry Potter franchise. It takes place at the same time of the book series but focuses on the "Puffs", who only wish to be in as much glory as Mr. Potter. It is written by Matt Cox and was originally directed by Kristin McCarthy Parker. It played off-off-Broadway at the Peoples' Improv Theatre from December 3, 2015 to fall 2016. It then transferred to the off-Broadway Elektra Theater where it was modified by Parker and Cox. However, Puffs soon transferred to a more prominent off-broadway space, New World Stages, where it played from July 17, 2017 – August 18, 2019. Soon after, a production was performed at The Entertainment Quarter in Sydney, Australia for a limited run. Another production ran at The Lower Ossington Theatre in Toronto, Canada from June 7 – August 14 in 2019. Since then, the rights to the show has been released (including a junior version) through Samuel French, Inc. (now Concord Theatricals).
+
+Since the COVID-19 pandemic has begun, Cox has written three additional plays to the Puffs universe. Nineteen-ish Years After or; There and Back Again was performed on April 4, 2020. A Patreon link was included in the bio of the livestream and all the proceeds from the event went to Queens Feeds Hospitals. A second play, Dude, Where's My Fantastic Friends?, was broadcast live on April 17, 2020. The proceeds from this event went to the New York Humaine Society. Finally, on April 24, 2020, PUF3S: Eventfulness Maximus was broadcast as the finale to the Puffs tetralogy. The proceeds went to the Ali Forney Center. All of these readings were performed over Zoom and broadcast live on YouTube. While all the readings were free, the donations from watchers combined came out to $10,200.
+
+They have also hosted several Q+A's and watchings of Puffs on their YouTube and Instagram accounts.
+
+After the success of the films and books, Universal and Warner Brothers announced they would create The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, a new Harry Potter-themed expansion to the Islands of Adventure theme park at Universal Orlando Resort in Florida. The land officially opened to the public on 18 June 2010.[219] It includes a re-creation of Hogsmeade and several rides. The flagship attraction is Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, which exists within a re-creation of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Other rides include Dragon Challenge, a pair of inverted roller coasters, and Flight of the Hippogriff, a family roller coaster.
+
+Four years later, on 8 July 2014, Universal opened a Harry Potter-themed area at the Universal Studios Florida theme park. It includes a re-creation of Diagon Alley and connecting alleys and a small section of Muggle London. The flagship attraction is Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts roller coaster ride. Universal also added a completely functioning recreation of the Hogwarts Express connecting Kings Cross Station at Universal Studios Florida to the Hogsmeade station at Islands of Adventure. Both Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley contain many shops and restaurants from the book series, including Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and The Leaky Cauldron.
+
+On 15 July 2014, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter opened at the Universal Studios Japan theme park in Osaka, Japan. It includes the village of Hogsmeade, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride, and Flight of the Hippogriff roller coaster.[220][221]
+
+On 7 April 2016, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter opened at the Universal Studios Hollywood theme park near Los Angeles, California.[222][223]
+
+In March 2011, Warner Bros. announced plans to build a tourist attraction in the United Kingdom to showcase the Harry Potter film series. The Making of Harry Potter is a behind-the-scenes walking tour featuring authentic sets, costumes and props from the film series. The attraction is located at Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden, where all eight of the Harry Potter films were made. Warner Bros. constructed two new sound stages to house and showcase the famous sets from each of the British-made productions, following a £100 million investment.[224] It opened to the public in March 2012.[225]
+

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+Niagara Falls /naɪˈæɡrə, naɪˈæɡərə/ is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the United States. The largest of the three is Horseshoe Falls, also known as Canadian Falls, which straddles the international border of the two countries.[1] The smaller American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls lie within the United States. Bridal Veil Falls are separated from Horseshoe Falls by Goat Island and from American Falls by Luna Island, with both islands situated in New York.
+
+Located on the Niagara River, which drains Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, the combined falls have the highest flow rate of any waterfall in North America that has a vertical drop of more than 50 metres (160 ft). During peak daytime tourist hours, more than 168,000 m3  (six million cubic feet) of water goes over the crest of the falls every minute.[2] Horseshoe Falls is the most powerful waterfall in North America, as measured by flow rate.[3]
+
+The falls are 27 kilometres (17 mi) north-northwest of Buffalo, New York, and 121 kilometres (75 mi) south-southeast of Toronto, between the twin cities of Niagara Falls, Ontario, and Niagara Falls, New York. Niagara Falls was formed when glaciers receded at the end of the Wisconsin glaciation (the last ice age), and water from the newly formed Great Lakes carved a path through the Niagara Escarpment en route to the Atlantic Ocean.
+
+Niagara Falls is famed both for its beauty and as a valuable source of hydroelectric power. Balancing recreational, commercial, and industrial uses has been a challenge for the stewards of the falls since the 19th century.
+
+The Horseshoe Falls drop about 57 metres (187 ft),[4] while the height of the American Falls varies between 21 and 30 metres (69 and 98 ft) because of the presence of giant boulders at its base. The larger Horseshoe Falls are about 790 metres (2,590 ft) wide, while the American Falls are 320 metres (1,050 ft) wide. The distance between the American extremity of the Niagara Falls and the Canadian extremity is 3,409 feet (1,039 m).
+
+The peak flow over Horseshoe Falls was recorded at 6,400 cubic metres (230,000 cu ft) per second.[5] The average annual flow rate is 2,400 cubic metres (85,000 cu ft) per second.[6] Since the flow is a direct function of the Lake Erie water elevation, it typically peaks in late spring or early summer. During the summer months, at least 2,800 cubic metres (99,000 cu ft) per second of water traverses the falls, some 90% of which goes over the Horseshoe Falls, while the balance is diverted to hydroelectric facilities. This is accomplished by employing a weir – the International Control Dam – with movable gates upstream from the Horseshoe Falls.
+
+The falls' flow is further halved at night, and, during the low tourist season in the winter, remains a minimum of 1,400 cubic metres (49,000 cu ft) per second. Water diversion is regulated by the 1950 Niagara Treaty and is administered by the International Niagara Board of Control (IJC).[7] The verdant green color of the water flowing over the Niagara Falls is a byproduct of the estimated 60 tonnes/minute of dissolved salts and "rock flour" (very finely ground rock) generated by the erosive force of the Niagara River itself.[8]
+
+The features that became Niagara Falls were created by the Wisconsin glaciation about 10,000 years ago.[9] The retreat of the ice sheet left behind a large amount of meltwater (see Lake Algonquin, Lake Chicago, Glacial Lake Iroquois, and Champlain Sea) that filled up the basins that the glaciers had carved, thus creating the Great Lakes as we know them today.[10][11] Scientists argue there is an old valley, St David's Buried Gorge, buried by glacial drift, at the approximate location of the present Welland Canal.
+
+When the ice melted, the upper Great Lakes emptied into the Niagara River, which followed the rearranged topography across the Niagara Escarpment. In time, the river cut a gorge through the north-facing cliff, or cuesta.[12] Because of the interactions of three major rock formations, the rocky bed did not erode evenly. The top rock formation was composed of erosion-resistant limestone and dolomite of the Lockport Formation. That hard layer of stone eroded more slowly than the underlying materials. The aerial photo on the right clearly shows the hard caprock, the Lockport Formation (Middle Silurian), which underlies the rapids above the falls, and approximately the upper third of the high gorge wall.[12] Immediately below the hard-rock formation, comprising about two-thirds of the cliff, lay the weaker, softer, sloping Rochester Formation (Lower Silurian). This formation was composed mainly of shale, though it has some thin limestone layers. It also contains ancient fossils. In time, the river eroded the soft layer that supported the hard layers, undercutting the hard caprock, which gave way in great chunks. This process repeated countless times, eventually carving out the falls.
+
+Submerged in the river in the lower valley, hidden from view, is the Queenston Formation (Upper Ordovician), which is composed of shales and fine sandstones. All three formations were laid down in an ancient sea, their differences of character deriving from changing conditions within that sea.
+
+About 10,900 years ago, the Niagara Falls was between present-day Queenston, Ontario, and Lewiston, New York, but erosion of their crest has caused the waterfalls to retreat approximately 6.8 miles (10.9 km) southward.[13] The Horseshoe Falls, which are about 2,600 feet (790 m) wide, have also changed their shape through the process of erosion; evolving from a small arch to a horseshoe bend, to the present day gigantic V.[14] Just upstream from the falls' current location, Goat Island splits the course of the Niagara River, resulting in the separation of the mostly Canadian Horseshoe Falls to the west from the American and Bridal Veil Falls to the east. Engineering has slowed erosion and recession.[15]
+
+The current rate of erosion is approximately 30 centimeters (1 ft) per year, down from a historical average of 0.91 m (3 ft) per year. According to the timeline of the far future, in roughly 50,000 years Niagara Falls will have eroded the remaining 32 kilometres (20 mi) to Lake Erie and cease to exist.[8]
+
+In the 1870s, sightseers had limited access to Niagara Falls and often had to pay for a glimpse, and industrialization threatened to carve up Goat Island to further expand commercial development.[16] Other industrial encroachments and lack of public access led to a conservation movement in the U.S. known as Free Niagara, led by such notables as Hudson River School artist Frederic Edwin Church, landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted, and architect Henry Hobson Richardson. Church approached Lord Dufferin, governor-general of Canada, with a proposal for international discussions on the establishment of a public park.[17]
+
+Goat Island was one of the inspirations for the American side of the effort. William Dorsheimer, moved by the scene from the island, brought Olmsted to Buffalo in 1868 to design a city park system and helped promote Olmsted's career. In 1879, the New York state legislature commissioned Olmsted and James T. Gardner to survey the falls and to create the single most important document in the Niagara preservation movement, a Special Report on the preservation of Niagara Falls.[18] The report advocated for State purchase, restoration and preservation through public ownership of the scenic lands surrounding Niagara Falls. Restoring the former beauty of the falls was described in the report as a "sacred obligation to mankind."[19] In 1883, New York Governor Grover Cleveland drafted legislation authorizing acquisition of lands for a state reservation at Niagara, and the Niagara Falls Association, a private citizens group founded in 1882, mounted a great letter-writing campaign and petition drive in support of the park. Professor Charles Eliot Norton and Olmsted were among the leaders of the public campaign, while New York Governor Alonzo Cornell opposed.[20]
+
+Preservationists' efforts were rewarded on April 30, 1885, when Governor David B. Hill signed legislation creating the Niagara Reservation, New York's first state park. New York State began to purchase land from developers, under the charter of the Niagara Reservation State Park. In the same year, the province of Ontario established the Queen Victoria Niagara Falls Park for the same purpose. On the Canadian side, the Niagara Parks Commission governs land usage along the entire course of the Niagara River, from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario.[21]
+
+In 1887, Olmsted and Calvert Vaux issued a supplemental report detailing plans to restore the falls. Their intent was "to restore and conserve the natural surroundings of the Falls of Niagara, rather than to attempt to add anything thereto," and the report anticipated fundamental questions. How would preservationists provide access without destroying the beauty of the falls? How would they restore natural landscapes damaged by man? They planned a park with scenic roadways, paths and a few shelters designed to protect the landscape while allowing large numbers of visitors to enjoy the falls.[22] Commemorative statues, shops, restaurants, and a 1959 glass and metal observation tower were added later. Preservationists continue to strive to strike a balance between Olmsted's idyllic vision and the realities of administering a popular scenic attraction.[23]
+
+Preservation efforts continued well into the 20th century. J. Horace McFarland, the Sierra Club, and the Appalachian Mountain Club persuaded the United States Congress in 1906 to enact legislation to preserve the falls by regulating the waters of the Niagara River.[24] The act sought, in cooperation with the Canadian government, to restrict diversion of water, and a treaty resulted in 1909 that limited the total amount of water diverted from the falls by both nations to approximately 56,000 cubic feet (1,600 m3) per second. That limitation remained in effect until 1950.[25]
+
+Erosion control efforts have always been of extreme importance. Underwater weirs redirect the most damaging currents, and the top of the falls has also been strengthened. In June 1969, the Niagara River was completely diverted from the American Falls for several months through construction of a temporary rock and earth dam.[26] During this time, two bodies were removed from under the falls, including a man who had been seen jumping over the falls, and the body of a woman, which was discovered once the falls dried.[27][28]
+
+While the Horseshoe Falls absorbed the extra flow, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers studied the riverbed and mechanically bolted and strengthened any faults they found; faults that would, if left untreated, have hastened the retreat of the American Falls. A plan to remove the huge mound of talus deposited in 1954 was abandoned owing to cost,[29] and in November 1969, the temporary dam was dynamited, restoring flow to the American Falls.[30] Even after these undertakings, Luna Island, the small piece of land between the main waterfall and the Bridal Veil, remained off limits to the public for years owing to fears that it was unstable and could collapse into the gorge.
+
+Commercial interests have continued to encroach on the land surrounding the state park, including the construction of several tall buildings (most of them hotels) on the Canadian side. The result is a significant alteration and urbanisation of the landscape. One study indicated it has caused the airflow near the falls to change direction. Students at the University of Guelph demonstrated, using scale models, that as air passes over the top of the new hotels it causes a breeze to roll down the south sides of the buildings and spill into the gorge below the falls, where it feeds into a whirlpool of moisture and air. The inference was that a documented rise in the number of "mist days" was a result of these breezes, where mist days refers to the mist plume of the falls reaching landside.[31] In 1996 there were 29 mist days recorded, but by 2003 that number had risen to 68.[32] Another study has discounted this opinion and linked mist production to the difference in air and water temperature at the falls. However, this study does not offer opinion as to why mist days have been increasing, just that the hotel breezes are an unlikely cause.[33]
+
+In 2013, New York State began an effort to renovate The Sisters Islands located on Goat Island. New York State used funds from the re-licensing of the New York Power Authority hydroelectric plant downriver in Lewiston, New York, to rebuild walking paths on the Three Sisters Islands and to plant native vegetation on the islands. The state also renovated the area around Prospect Point at the brink of the American Falls in the state park.
+
+Theories differ as to the origin of the name of the falls. According to Iroquoian scholar Bruce Trigger, Niagara is derived from the name given to a branch of the local native Neutral Confederacy, who are described as being called the Niagagarega people on several late-17th-century French maps of the area.[35] According to George R. Stewart, it comes from the name of an Iroquois town called Onguiaahra, meaning "point of land cut in two".[36]
+
+Henry Schoolcraft reported:
+
+Niagara Falls. This name is Mohawk. It means, according to Mrs. Kerr, the neck; the term being first applied to the portage or neck of land, between lakes Erie and Ontario. By referring to Mr. Elliott's vocabulary, (chapter xi) it will be seen that the human neck, that is, according to the concrete vocabulary, his neck, is onyara. Red Jacket pronounced the word Niagara to me, in the spring of 1820, as if written O-ne-au-ga-rah.[37]
+
+Many figures have been suggested as first circulating a European eyewitness description of Niagara Falls. The Frenchman Samuel de Champlain visited the area as early as 1604 during his exploration of Canada, and members of his party reported to him the spectacular waterfalls, which he described in his journals. The Finnish-Swedish naturalist Pehr Kalm explored the area in the early 18th century and is credited with the first scientific description of the falls. The consensus honoree for the first description is the Belgian missionary Louis Hennepin, who observed and described the falls in 1677, earlier than Kalm, after traveling with the explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, thus bringing the falls to the attention of Europeans. Further complicating matters, there is credible evidence the French Jesuit missionary Paul Ragueneau visited the falls some 35 years before Hennepin's visit while working among the Huron First Nation in Canada. Jean de Brébeuf also may have visited the falls, while spending time with the Neutral Nation.[38]
+
+In 1762, Captain Thomas Davies, a British Army officer and artist, surveyed the area and painted the watercolor, An East View of the Great Cataract of Niagara, the first eyewitness painting of the falls.[39][40]
+
+During the 19th century, tourism became popular, and by mid-century, it was the area's main industry. Theodosia Burr Alston (daughter of Vice President Aaron Burr) and her husband Joseph Alston were the first recorded couple to honeymoon there in 1801.[41] Napoleon Bonaparte's brother Jérôme visited with his bride in the early 19th century.[42]
+
+In 1825, British explorer John Franklin visited the falls while passing through New York en route to Cumberland House as part of his second Arctic expedition, calling them "so justly celebrated as the first in the world for grandeur".[43]
+
+In March 1848, an ice blockage caused the falls to stop; no water (or at best a trickle) fell for as much as 40 hours. Waterwheels stopped, and mills and factories shut down for having no power.[44]
+
+Later that year, demand for passage over the Niagara River led to the building of a footbridge and then Charles Ellet's Niagara Suspension Bridge. This was supplanted by German-born John Augustus Roebling's Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge in 1855. After the American Civil War, the New York Central Railroad publicized Niagara Falls as a focus of pleasure and honeymoon visits. With increased railroad traffic, in 1886, Leffert Buck replaced Roebling's wood and stone bridge with the predominantly steel bridge that still carries trains over the Niagara River today. The first steel archway bridge near the falls was completed in 1897. Known today as the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge, it carries passenger vehicles and trains between Canada (through Canadian Customs Border Control) and the U.S.A. just downstream of the falls.
+
+In about 1840, the English industrial chemist Hugh Lee Pattinson traveled to Canada, stopping at the Niagara Falls long enough to make the earliest known photograph of the falls, a daguerreotype in the collection of Newcastle University. It was once believed that the small figure standing silhouetted with a top hat was added by an engraver working from imagination as well as the daguerreotype as his source, but the figure is clearly present in the photograph.[45] Because of the very long exposure required, of ten minutes or more, the figure is assumed by Canada's Niagara Parks agency to be Pattinson himself.[45] The image is left-right inverted and taken from the Canadian side.[46] Pattinson made other photographs of the Horseshoe Falls as well as of Rome and Paris. These were then transferred to engravings to illustrate Noël Marie Paymal Lerebours' Excursions Daguerriennes (Paris, 1841–1864).[47]
+
+On 6 August 1918, an iron scow became stuck on the rocks above the falls.[48] The two men on the scow were rescued but the vessel remained trapped on rocks in the river, and is still visible there in a deteriorate state, although its position shifted by 50 meters during a storm on 31 October 2019.[49] Daredevil William "Red" Hill Sr. was particularly praised for his role in the rescue.[50]
+
+After the First World War, tourism boomed again, as automobiles made getting to the falls much easier. The story of Niagara Falls in the 20th century is largely that of efforts to harness the energy of the falls for hydroelectric power, and to control the development on both sides that threaten the area's natural beauty. In 1941, the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission completed the third current crossing in the immediate area of Niagara Falls with the Rainbow Bridge, carrying both pedestrian and vehicular traffic between the two countries and Canadian and U.S. customs for each country.
+
+Before the late 20th century, the northeastern end of the Horseshoe Falls was in the United States, flowing around the Terrapin Rocks, which were once connected to Goat Island by a series of bridges. In 1955, the area between the rocks and Goat Island was filled in, creating Terrapin Point.[51] In the early 1980s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers filled in more land and built diversion dams and retaining walls to force the water away from Terrapin Point. Altogether, 400 ft (120 m) of the Horseshoe Falls were eliminated, including 100 ft (30 m) on the Canadian side. According to author Ginger Strand, the Horseshoe Falls is now entirely in Canada.[52] Other sources say "most of" Horseshoe Falls is in Canada.[53]
+
+The only recorded freeze-up of the river and falls was due to an ice jam on March 29, 1848. In 1912, the American Falls was completely frozen but the other two kept flowing. Although the falls commonly ice up most winters, the river and the falls do not freeze completely. The years 1885, 1902, 1906, 1911, 1932, 1936, 2014, 2017 and 2019 are noted for partial freezing of the falls.[54][55][56]
+
+A so-called ice bridge was also common in certain years at the base of the falls and was used by people who wanted to cross the river before bridges had been built. During some winters, the ice sheet was as thick as 40 feet (12m) to 100 feet (30m) but that thickness has not occurred since 1954. The ice bridge of 1841 was said to be at least 100 feet thick.   
+[57] On 12 February 1912, the ice bridge which had formed on 15 January began breaking up while people were still on it. Many escaped but three died during the event, later named the Ice Bridge Disaster or Tragedy.[58]
+
+A number of bridges have spanned the Niagara River in the general vicinity of the falls. The first, not far from the Whirlpool, was a suspension bridge above the gorge. It opened for use by the public in July 1848 and remained in use until 1855. A second bridge in the Upper Falls area was commissioned, with two levels or decks, one for use by the Great Western Railway. This Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge opened in 1855. In 1882, the Grand Trunk Railway took over control of the second deck after it absorbed the Great Western company. Significant structural improvements were made in the late 1870s and then in 1886; this bridge remained in use until 1897.[59]
+
+Due to the volume of traffic, the decision was made to construct a new arch bridge nearby: under and around the existing bridge. After it opened in September 1897, a decision was made to remove and scrap the Railway Suspension Bridge. This new bridge was initially known as the Niagara Railway Arch, or Lower Steel Arch Bridge; it had two decks, the lower one used for carriages and the upper for trains. In 1937, it was renamed the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge and remains in use today. All of the structures built up to that time were referred to as Lower Niagara bridges and were some distance from the falls.[59]
+
+The first bridge in the so-called Upper Niagara area (closer to the falls) was a two level suspension structure that opened in January 1869; it was destroyed during a severe storm in January 1889. The replacement was built quickly and opened in May of the same year. In order to handle heavy traffic a second bridge was commissioned, slightly closer to the American Falls. This one was fully made of steel and opened to traffic in June 1897; it was known as the Upper Steel Arch Bridge, but was often called the Honeymoon Bridge. The single level included a track for trolleys and space for carriages and pedestrians. The design led to the bridge being very close to the surface of the river and in January, 1938, an ice jam twisted the steel frame of the bridge which later collapsed, on January 27, 1938.[60]
+
+Another Lower Niagara bridge had been commissioned in 1883 by Cornelius Vanderbilt for use by railways at a location roughly approximately 200 feet south of the Railway Suspension Bridge. This one was of an entirely different design; it was a Cantilever bridge to provide greater strength. The Niagara Cantilever Bridge had two cantilevers which were joined by steel sections; it opened officially in December 1883 and improvements were made over the years for a stronger structure. As rail traffic was increasing, the Michigan Central Railroad company decided to build a new bridge in 1923, to be located between the Lower Steel Arch Bridge and the Cantilever Bridge. The Michigan Central Railway Bridge opened in February 1925 and remained in use until the early 21st century. The Cantilever Bridge was removed and scrapped after the new rail bridge opened.[59] Nonetheless, it was inducted into the North America Railway Hall of Fame in 2006.[61][59]
+
+There was a lengthy dispute as to which agency should build the replacement for the Niagara Railway Arch, or Lower Steel Arch Bridge in the Upper Niagara area. When that was resolved, construction of a steel bridge commenced in February 1940. Named the Rainbow Bridge, and featuring two lanes for traffic separated by a barrier, this one opened in November 1941. It remains in use today.[60]
+
+The enormous energy of Niagara Falls has long been recognized as a potential source of power. The first known effort to harness the waters was in 1759, when Daniel Joncaire built a small canal above the falls to power his sawmill.[62] Augustus and Peter Porter purchased this area and all of American Falls in 1805 from the New York state government, and enlarged the original canal to provide hydraulic power for their gristmill and tannery. In 1853, the Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power and Mining Company was chartered, which eventually constructed the canals that would be used to generate electricity.[63] In 1881, under the leadership of Jacob F. Schoellkopf, the Niagara River's first hydroelectric generating station was built. The water fell 86 feet (26 m) and generated direct current electricity, which ran the machinery of local mills and lit up some of the village streets.
+
+The Niagara Falls Power Company, a descendant of Schoellkopf's firm, formed the Cataract Company headed by Edward Dean Adams,[64] with the intent of expanding Niagara Falls' power capacity. In 1890, a five-member International Niagara Commission headed by Sir William Thomson among other distinguished scientists deliberated on the expansion of Niagara hydroelectric capacity based on seventeen proposals, but could not select any as the best combined project for hydraulic development and distribution. In 1893, Westinghouse Electric (which had built the smaller-scale Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant near Ophir, Colorado, two years earlier) was hired to design a system to generate alternating current on Niagara Falls, and three years after that this large-scale AC power system was created (activated on August 26, 1895).[65] The Adams Power Plant Transformer House remains as a landmark of the original system.
+
+By 1896, financing from moguls including J.P. Morgan, John Jacob Astor IV, and the Vanderbilts had fueled the construction of giant underground conduits leading to turbines generating upwards of 100,000 horsepower (75 MW), sent as far as Buffalo, 20 miles (32 km) away. Some of the original designs for the power transmission plants were created by the Swiss firm Faesch & Piccard, which also constructed the original 5,000 hp waterwheels.
+
+Private companies on the Canadian side also began to harness the energy of the falls. The Government of Ontario eventually brought power transmission operations under public control in 1906, distributing Niagara's energy to various parts of the Canadian province.
+
+Other hydropower plants were also being built along the Niagara River. But in 1956, disaster struck when the region's largest hydropower station was partially destroyed in a landslide. This drastically reduced power production and put tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs at stake. In 1957, Congress passed the Niagara Redevelopment Act,[66] which granted the New York Power Authority the right to fully develop the United States' share of the Niagara River's hydroelectric potential.[67]
+
+In 1961, when the Niagara Falls hydroelectric project went online, it was the largest hydropower facility in the Western world. Today, Niagara is still the largest electricity producer in New York state, with a generating capacity of 2.4 GW. Up to 1,420 cubic metres (380,000 US gal) of water a second is diverted from the Niagara River through conduits under the city of Niagara Falls to the Lewiston and Robert Moses power plants. Currently between 50% and 75% of the Niagara River's flow is diverted via four huge tunnels that arise far upstream from the waterfalls. The water then passes through hydroelectric turbines that supply power to nearby areas of Canada and the United States before returning to the river well past the falls.[68] This water spins turbines that power generators, converting mechanical energy into electrical energy. When electrical demand is low, the Lewiston units can operate as pumps to transport water from the lower bay back up to the plant's reservoir, allowing this water to be used again during the daytime when electricity use peaks. During peak electrical demand, the same Lewiston pumps are reversed and actually become generators, similar to those at the Moses plant.[67]
+
+To preserve Niagara Falls' natural beauty, a 1950 treaty signed by the U.S. and Canada limited water usage by the power plants. The treaty allows higher summertime diversion at night when tourists are fewer and during the winter months when there are even fewer tourists.[69] This treaty, designed to ensure an "unbroken curtain of water" flowing over the falls, states that during daylight time during the tourist season (April 1 to October 31) there must be 100,000 cubic feet per second (2,800 m3/s) of water flowing over the falls, and during the night and off-tourist season there must be 50,000 cubic feet per second (1,400 m3/s) of water flowing over the falls. This treaty is monitored by the International Niagara Board of Control, using a NOAA gauging station above the falls. During winter, the Power Authority of New York works with Ontario Power Generation to prevent ice on the Niagara River from interfering with power production or causing flooding of shoreline property. One of their joint efforts is an 8,800-foot-long (2,700 m) ice boom, which prevents the buildup of ice, yet allows water to continue flowing downstream.[67] In addition to minimum water volume, the crest of the Horseshoe falls was reduced to maintain an uninterrupted "curtain of water."[70]
+
+The most powerful hydroelectric stations on the Niagara River are the Sir Adam Beck 1 and 2 on the Canadian side and the Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant and the Lewiston Pump Generating Plant on the American side. Together, Niagara's generating stations can produce about 4.4 gigawatts of power.
+
+In August 2005 Ontario Power Generation, which is responsible for the Sir Adam Beck stations, started a major civil engineering project, called the Niagara Tunnel Project, to increase power production by building a new 12.7-metre (42 ft) diameter, 10.2-kilometre-long (6.3 mi) water diversion tunnel. It was officially placed into service in March 2013, helping to increase the generating complex's nameplate capacity by 150 megawatts. It did so by tapping water from farther up the Niagara River than was possible with the preexisting arrangement. The tunnel provided new hydroelectricity for approximately 160,000 homes.[71][72]
+
+Ships can bypass Niagara Falls by means of the Welland Canal, which was improved and incorporated into the Saint Lawrence Seaway in the mid-1950s. While the seaway diverted water traffic from nearby Buffalo and led to the demise of its steel and grain mills, other industries in the Niagara River valley flourished with the help of the electric power produced by the river. However, since the 1970s the region has declined economically.
+
+The cities of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, and Niagara Falls, New York, United States, are connected by two international bridges. The Rainbow Bridge, just downriver from the falls, affords the closest view of the falls and is open to non-commercial vehicle traffic and pedestrians. The Whirlpool Rapids Bridge lies one mile (1.6 km) north of the Rainbow Bridge and is the oldest bridge over the Niagara River. Nearby Niagara Falls International Airport and Buffalo Niagara International Airport were named after the waterfall, as were Niagara University, countless local businesses, and even an asteroid.[73]
+
+
+
+In October 1829, Sam Patch, who called himself "the Yankee Leapster", jumped from a high tower into the gorge below the falls and survived; this began a long tradition of daredevils trying to go over the falls.
+
+Englishman Captain Matthew Webb, the first man to swim the English Channel, drowned in 1883 trying to swim the rapids downriver from the falls.[74]
+
+On October 24, 1901, 63-year-old Michigan school teacher Annie Edson Taylor became the first person to go over the falls in a barrel as a publicity stunt; she survived, bleeding, but otherwise unharmed. Soon after exiting the barrel, she said, "No one ought ever do that again."[75] Before Taylor's attempt, on October 19 her domestic cat named Iagara was sent over the Horseshoe Falls in her barrel to test its strength. Contrary to rumours at the time, the cat survived the plunge unharmed and later posed with Taylor in photographs.[76] Since Taylor's historic ride, over a dozen people have intentionally gone over the falls in or on a device, despite her advice. Some have survived unharmed, but others have drowned or been severely injured. Survivors face charges and stiff fines, as it is now illegal, on both sides of the border, to attempt to go over the falls.
+
+Bobby Leach went over the Horseshoe Falls in a crude steel barrel in 1911, and needed rescuing by William "Red" Hill Sr..[77] Hill would again come to the rescue of Leach following his failed attempt to swim the Niagara Gorge in 1920.
+
+In 1918, there was a near disaster when a barge working upriver, known locally as the Niagara Scow, broke its tow line and almost plunged over the falls. The two workers on board saved themselves by grounding the vessel on rocks just short of the falls, where it has remained ever since. "Red" Hill was credited with the rescue of the two boatmen.[78] In October 2019, as a result of inclement weather, the Niagara Scow finally moved from its original resting place, moving closer to the brink of Horseshoe Falls.[79]
+
+In 1928, "Smiling Jean" Lussier tried an entirely different concept, going over the falls in a large rubber ball; he was successful and survived the ordeal.[80]
+
+Charles Stephens, a 58-year-old barber from Bristol, England, went over the falls in a wooden barrel in July 1920 and was the first person to die in an endeavor of this type.[81]
+
+In the "Miracle at Niagara", Roger Woodward, a seven-year-old American boy, was swept over the Horseshoe Falls after their boat lost power on July 9, 1960; two tourists pulled his 17-year-old sister Deanne from the river only 20 feet (6.1 m) from the lip of the Horseshoe Falls at Goat Island.[82] Minutes later, Woodward was plucked from the roiling plunge pool beneath the Horseshoe Falls after grabbing a life ring thrown to him by the crew of the Maid of the Mist boat.[83][84] The third person who had been in the boat, James Hunicutt, did not survive the mishap.[85]
+
+On July 2, 1984, Canadian Karel Soucek from Hamilton, Ontario, plunged over the Horseshoe Falls in a barrel with only minor injuries. Soucek was fined $500 for performing the stunt without a license. In 1985, he was fatally injured while attempting to re-create the Niagara drop at the Houston Astrodome. His aim was to climb into a barrel hoisted to the rafters of the Astrodome and to drop 180 feet (55 m) into a water tank on the floor. After his barrel released prematurely, it hit the side of the tank and he died the next day from his injuries.[86][87]
+
+In August 1985, Steve Trotter, an aspiring stuntman from Rhode Island, became the youngest person ever (age 22) and the first American in 25 years to go over the falls in a barrel. Ten years later, Trotter went over the falls again, becoming the second person to go over the falls twice and survive. It was also the second-ever "duo"; Lori Martin joined Trotter for the barrel ride over the falls. They survived the fall but their barrel became stuck at the bottom of the falls, requiring a rescue.[88]
+
+On September 28, 1989, Niagara natives Peter DeBernardi (age 42) and Jeffery James Petkovich (age 25) became the first "team" to make it over the falls in a two-person barrel. The stunt was conceived by DeBenardi, who wanted to discourage youth from following in his path of addictive drug use. The pair emerged shortly after going over with minor injuries and were charged with performing an illegal stunt under the Niagara Parks Act.[89]
+
+On June 5, 1990, Jesse Sharp, a whitewater canoeist from Tennessee paddled over the falls in a closed deck canoe. He neglected to wear a helmet to make his face more visible for photographs of the event. He also did not wear a life vest because he believed it would hinder his escape from the hydraulics at the base of the falls. His boat flushed out of the falls, but his body was never found.[90]
+
+On September 27, 1993, John "David" Munday, of Caistor Centre, Ontario, completed his second journey over the falls.[91]
+
+On October 1, 1995, Robert Douglas "Firecracker" Overacker went over the falls on a Jet Ski to raise awareness for the homeless. His rocket-propelled parachute failed to open and he plunged to his death. Overacker's body was recovered before he was pronounced dead at Niagara General Hospital.[92]
+
+Kirk Jones of Canton, Michigan, became the first known person to survive a plunge over the Horseshoe Falls without a flotation device on October 20, 2003. According to some reports, Jones had attempted to commit suicide,[93] he survived the 16-story fall with only battered ribs, scrapes, and bruises.[94][95] Jones tried going over the falls again in 2017, this time, using a large inflatable ball, but died in the process.[96][97] Later reports revealed that Jones had arranged for a friend to shoot video clips of his stunt.
+[98]
+
+On March 11, 2009, a man survived an unprotected trip over the Horseshoe Falls, and when rescued from the river, was reported to be suffering from severe hypothermia and a large wound to his head. His identity was never released. Eyewitnesses reported seeing the man intentionally enter the water.[99][100]
+
+On May 21, 2012, an unidentified man in his early 40s became the fourth person to survive an unprotected trip over the Horseshoe Falls. Eyewitness reports show he "deliberately jumped" into the Niagara River after climbing over a railing.[101][102]
+
+On July 8, 2019, at roughly 4 am, officers responded to a report of a person in crisis at the brink of the Canadian side of the falls. Once officers got to the scene, the man climbed the retaining wall, jumped into the river and went over the Horseshoe Falls. Authorities subsequently began to search the lower Niagara River basin, where the man was found sitting on the rocks at the water's edge.[103]
+
+Other daredevils have made crossing the gorge their goal, starting with the successful passage by Jean François "Blondin" Gravelet, who crossed Niagara Gorge in 1859.[105] Between 1859 and 1896 a wire-walking craze emerged, resulting in frequent feats over the river below the falls. One inexperienced walker slid down his safety rope. Only one man fell to his death, at night and under mysterious circumstances, at the anchoring place for his wire.[106]
+
+Maria Spelterini, a 23-year-old Italian was the first and only woman to cross the Niagara River gorge; she did so on a tightrope, on 8 July 1876. She repeated the stunt several times during the same month. During one crossing she was blindfolded and during another, her ankles and wrists were handcuffed.[107]
+
+The tightrope walkers drew huge crowds to witness their exploits. Their wires ran across the gorge, near the current Rainbow Bridge, not over the waterfall itself. Blondin made his first gorge crossing on a tightrope on 30 June 1859 and did so again eight times that year. His most difficult crossing occurred on August 14, when he carried his manager, Harry Colcord, on his back.[108]   His final crossing, on 8 September 1860, was witnessed by the Prince of Wales.[106]
+
+Among the many competitors was Ontario's William Hunt, who billed himself as "The Great Farini"; his first crossing was in 1860. Farini competed with Blondin in performing outrageous stunts over the gorge.[109] On 8 August  1864 however, an attempt failed and he needed to be rescued.[110]
+
+On 15 June 2012, high wire artist Nik Wallenda became the first person to walk across the falls area in 116 years, after receiving special permission from both governments.[111] The full length of his tightrope was 1,800 feet (550 m).[112] Wallenda crossed near the brink of the Horseshoe Falls, unlike walkers who had crossed farther downstream. According to Wallenda, it was the longest unsupported tightrope walk in history.[113] He carried his passport on the trip and was required to present it upon arrival on the Canadian side of the falls.[114]
+
+Peak visitor traffic occurs in the summertime, when Niagara Falls are both a daytime and evening attraction. From the Canadian side, floodlights illuminate both sides of the falls for several hours after dark (until midnight). The number of visitors in 2007 was expected to total 20 million, and by 2009 the annual rate was expected to top 28 million tourists.[115]
+
+The oldest and best known tourist attraction at Niagara Falls is the Maid of the Mist boat cruise, named for an ancient Ongiara Indian mythical character, which has carried passengers into the rapids immediately below the falls since 1846. Cruise boats operate from boat docks on both sides of the falls, with the Maid of the Mist operating from the American side and Hornblower Cruises (originally Maid of the Mist until 2014[116]) from the Canadian side.[117][118]
+
+From the U.S. side, the American Falls can be viewed from walkways along Prospect Point Park, which also features the Prospect Point Observation Tower and a boat dock for the Maid of the Mist. Goat Island offers more views of the falls and is accessible by foot and automobile traffic by bridge above the American Falls. From Goat Island, the Cave of the Winds is accessible by elevator and leads hikers to a point beneath Bridal Veil Falls. Also on Goat Island are the Three Sisters Islands, the Power Portal where a statue of Nikola Tesla (the inventor whose patents for the AC induction motor and other devices for AC power transmission helped make the harnessing of the falls possible) can be seen, and a walking path that enables views of the rapids, the Niagara River, the gorge, and all of the falls. Most of these attractions lie within the Niagara Falls State Park.[119]
+
+The Niagara Scenic Trolley offers guided trips along the American Falls and around Goat Island. Panoramic and aerial views of the falls can also be viewed by helicopter. The Niagara Gorge Discovery Center showcases the natural and local history of Niagara Falls and the Niagara Gorge. A casino and luxury hotel was opened in Niagara Falls, New York, by the Seneca Indian tribe. The Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel occupies the former Niagara Falls Convention Center. The new hotel is the first addition to the city's skyline since completion of the United Office Building in the 1920s.[119][120]
+
+On the Canadian side, Queen Victoria Park features manicured gardens, platforms offering views of both the American and Horseshoe Falls, and underground walkways leading into observation rooms that yield the illusion of being within the falling waters. Along the Niagara River, the Niagara River Recreational Trail runs 35 miles (56 km) from Fort Erie to Fort George, and includes many historical sites from the War of 1812.[121]
+
+The observation deck of the nearby Skylon Tower offers the highest view of the falls, and in the opposite direction gives views as far as Toronto. Along with the Tower Hotel (built as the Seagrams Tower, later renamed the Heritage Tower, the Royal Inn Tower, the Royal Center Tower, the Panasonic Tower, the Minolta Tower, and most recently the Konica Minolta Tower[122] before receiving its current name in 2010), it is one of two towers in Canada with a view of the falls.[123]
+
+The Whirlpool Aero Car, built in 1916 from a design by Spanish engineer Leonardo Torres y Quevedo, is a cable car that takes passengers over the Niagara Whirlpool on the Canadian side. The Journey Behind the Falls consists of an observation platform and series of tunnels near the bottom of the Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side.[124]
+
+There are two casinos on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, the Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort and Casino Niagara.[125]
+
+Already a huge tourist attraction and favorite spot for honeymooners, Niagara Falls visits rose sharply in 1953 after the release of Niagara, a movie starring Marilyn Monroe and Joseph Cotten.[126]
+
+The 1956 animated short Niagara Fools featured Woody Woodpecker attempting to go over the falls in a barrel.[127] The falls was a featured location in the major motion picture Superman II in 1980,[128] and was itself the subject of a popular IMAX movie, Niagara: Miracles, Myths and Magic.[129] Illusionist David Copperfield performed a trick in which he appeared to travel over the Horseshoe Falls in 1990.[130]
+
+The falls, or more particularly, the tourist-supported complex near the falls, was the setting of the short-lived Canadian-shot US television show Wonderfalls in early 2004. Location footage of the falls was shot in October 2006 to portray "World's End" of the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.[131] Professional kayaker Rafa Ortiz's preparation to paddle over the falls in a kayak is documented in the 2015 film Chasing Niagara.[132]
+
+Composer Ferde Grofé was commissioned by the Niagara Falls Power Generation project in 1960 to compose the Niagara Falls Suite in honor of the completion of the first stage of hydroelectric work at the falls.[133] In 1997, composer Michael Daugherty composed Niagara Falls, a piece for concert band inspired by the falls.[134]
+
+The Niagara Falls area features as the base camp for a German aerial invasion of the United States in the H. G. Wells novel The War in the Air.[135]
+
+Many poets have been inspired to write about the falls. Among them was the Cuban poet José Maria Heredia, who wrote the poem "Niagara". There are commemorative plaques on both sides of the falls recognising the poem.[136]
+
+In the original 1920s and 1930s Buck Rogers stories and newspaper cartoons, Buck Rogers, in his adventures in the 25th century that take place on Earth.[137]
+
+Part of Mark Twain's 1893 short story, "Extract from Adam's Diary" is set at Niagara Falls.[138]
+
+The Bulgarian writer Aleko Konstantinov portrays the impressiveness of the Niagara Falls in his book, To Chicago and Back.
+
+In 2014, the writer Alessandro Baricco published the book Smith & Wesson recounting the story of Rachel Green going over the falls.
+
+The Niagara Falls were such an attraction to landscape artists that, writes John Howat, they were "the most popular, the most often treated, and the tritest single item of subject matter to appear in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European and American landscape painting".[139]
+
+A General View of the Falls of Niagara by Alvan Fisher, 1820
+
+Distant View of Niagara Falls by Thomas Cole, 1830
+
+Niagara Fälle. Les chûtes du Niagara. Niagara Falls by Karl Bodmer, circa 1832
+
+Voute sous la Chute du Niagara – Niagara Falls, circa 1841
+
+Niagara by Frederic Edwin Church, 1857
+
+Underneath Niagara Falls by Ferdinand Richardt, 1862
+
+Niagara by Louis Rémy Mignot, circa 1866
+
+Falls of Niagara from Below by Albert Bierstadt, 1869
+
+Niagara Falls by William Morris Hunt, 1878
+
+Niagara Falls, circa 1880

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+
+
+Cyprus (/ˈsaɪprəs/ (listen); Greek: Κύπρος [ˈcipros]; Turkish: Kıbrıs [ˈkɯbɾɯs]), officially called the Republic of Cyprus,[f][g] is an island country in the Eastern Mediterranean. The third largest[12] and third most populous[13] island in the Mediterranean, it is located south of Turkey; west of Syria and Lebanon; north of Egypt, Israel, and the Palestinian region of the Gaza Strip; and southeast of Greece.
+
+The earliest known human activity on the island dates to around the 10th millennium BC. Archaeological remains from this period include the well-preserved Neolithic village of Khirokitia, and Cyprus is home to some of the oldest water wells in the world.[14] Cyprus was settled by Mycenaean Greeks in two waves in the 2nd millennium BC. As a strategic location in the Middle East, it was subsequently occupied by several major powers, including the empires of the Assyrians, Egyptians and Persians, from whom the island was seized in 333 BC by Alexander the Great. Subsequent rule by Ptolemaic Egypt, the Classical and Eastern Roman Empire, Arab caliphates for a short period, the French Lusignan dynasty and the Venetians, was followed by over three centuries of Ottoman rule between 1571 and 1878 (de jure until 1914).[15]
+
+Cyprus was placed under the UK's administration based on the Cyprus Convention in 1878 and was formally annexed by the UK in 1914. While Turkish Cypriots made up 18% of the population, the partition of Cyprus and creation of a Turkish state in the north became a policy of Turkish Cypriot leaders and Turkey in the 1950s. Turkish leaders for a period advocated the annexation of Cyprus to Turkey as Cyprus was considered an "extension of Anatolia" by them; while, since the 19th century,[16][17] the majority Greek Cypriot population and its Orthodox church had been pursuing union with Greece, which became a Greek national policy in the 1950s.[18] Following nationalist violence in the 1950s, Cyprus was granted independence in 1960.[19] The crisis of 1963–64 brought further intercommunal violence between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, which displaced more than 25,000 Turkish Cypriots into enclaves[20][21] and brought the end of Turkish Cypriot representation in the republic. On 15 July 1974, a coup d'état was staged by Greek Cypriot nationalists[22][23] and elements of the Greek military junta[24] in an attempt at enosis, the incorporation of Cyprus into Greece. This action precipitated the Turkish invasion of Cyprus on 20 July,[25] which led to the capture of the present-day territory of Northern Cyprus in the following month, after a ceasefire collapsed, and the displacement of over 150,000 Greek Cypriots[26][27] and 50,000 Turkish Cypriots.[28] A separate Turkish Cypriot state in the north was established by unilateral declaration in 1983; the move was widely condemned by the international community, with Turkey alone recognising the new state. These events and the resulting political situation are matters of a continuing dispute.
+
+The Republic of Cyprus has de jure sovereignty over the entire island, including its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone, with the exception of the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, which remain under the UK's control according to the London and Zürich Agreements. However, the Republic of Cyprus is de facto partitioned into two main parts: the area under the effective control of the Republic, located in the south and west and comprising about 59% of the island's area, and the north,[29] administered by the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, covering about 36% of the island's area. Another nearly 4% of the island's area is covered by the UN buffer zone. The international community considers the northern part of the island to be territory of the Republic of Cyprus occupied by Turkish forces.[h] The occupation is viewed as illegal under international law and amounting to illegal occupation of EU territory since Cyprus became a member of the European Union.[35]
+
+Cyprus is a major tourist destination in the Mediterranean.[36][37][38] With an advanced,[39] high-income economy and a very high Human Development Index,[40][41] the Republic of Cyprus has been a member of the Commonwealth since 1961 and was a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement until it joined the European Union on 1 May 2004.[42] On 1 January 2008, the Republic of Cyprus joined the eurozone.[43]
+
+The earliest attested reference to Cyprus is the 15th century BC Mycenaean Greek 𐀓𐀠𐀪𐀍, ku-pi-ri-jo,[44] meaning "Cypriot" (Greek: Κύπριος), written in Linear B syllabic script.[45]
+The classical Greek form of the name is Κύπρος (Kýpros).
+
+The etymology of the name is unknown.
+Suggestions include:
+
+Through overseas trade, the island has given its name to the Classical Latin word for copper through the phrase aes Cyprium, "metal of Cyprus", later shortened to Cuprum.[46][47]
+
+The standard demonym relating to Cyprus or its people or culture is Cypriot. The terms Cypriote and Cyprian are also used, though less frequently.
+
+The state's official name in Greek literally translates to "Cypriot Republic" in English, but this translation is not used officially; "Republic of Cyprus" is used instead.
+
+The earliest confirmed site of human activity on Cyprus is Aetokremnos, situated on the south coast, indicating that hunter-gatherers were active on the island from around 10,000 BC,[48] with settled village communities dating from 8200 BC. The arrival of the first humans correlates with the extinction of the dwarf hippos and dwarf elephants.[49] Water wells discovered by archaeologists in western Cyprus are believed to be among the oldest in the world, dated at 9,000 to 10,500 years old.[14]
+
+Remains of an 8-month-old cat were discovered buried with a human body at a separate Neolithic site in Cyprus.[50] The grave is estimated to be 9,500 years old (7500 BC), predating ancient Egyptian civilisation and pushing back the earliest known feline-human association significantly.[51] The remarkably well-preserved Neolithic village of Khirokitia is a UNESCO World Heritage Site dating to approximately 6800 BC.[52]
+
+During the late Bronze Age the island experienced two waves of Greek settlement.[53] The first wave consisted of Mycenaean Greek traders who started visiting Cyprus around 1400 BC.[54]
+
+[55][56] A major wave of Greek settlement is believed to have taken place following the Bronze Age collapse of Mycenaean Greece from 1100 to 1050 BC, with the island's predominantly Greek character dating from this period.[56][57] The first recorded name of a Cypriote king is "Kushmeshusha" as appears on letters sent to Ugarit in the 13th c. BCE.[58] Cyprus occupies an important role in Greek mythology being the birthplace of Aphrodite and Adonis, and home to King Cinyras, Teucer and Pygmalion.[59] Literary evidence suggests an early Phoenician presence at Kition which was under Tyrian rule at the beginning of the 10th century BC.[60] Some Phoenician merchants who were believed to come from Tyre colonised the area and expanded the political influence of Kition. After c. 850 BC the sanctuaries [at the Kathari site] were rebuilt and reused by the Phoenicians."
+
+Cyprus is at a strategic location in the Middle East.[61][62][63] It was ruled by Assyria for a century starting in 708 BC, before a brief spell under Egyptian rule and eventually Persian rule in 545 BC.[56] The Cypriots, led by Onesilus, king of Salamis, joined their fellow Greeks in the Ionian cities during the unsuccessful Ionian Revolt in 499 BC against the Achaemenid Empire. The revolt was suppressed, but Cyprus managed to maintain a high degree of autonomy and remained inclined towards the Greek world.[56]
+
+The island was conquered by Alexander the Great in 333 BC. Following his death and the subsequent division of his empire and wars among his successors, Cyprus became part of the Hellenistic empire of Ptolemaic Egypt. It was during this period that the island was fully Hellenized. In 58 BC Cyprus was acquired by the Roman Republic.[56]
+
+When the Roman Empire was divided into Eastern and Western parts in 395, Cyprus became part of the East Roman, or Byzantine Empire, and would remain so until the Crusades some 800 years later. Under Byzantine rule, the Greek orientation that had been prominent since antiquity developed the strong Hellenistic-Christian character that continues to be a hallmark of the Greek Cypriot community.[64]
+
+Beginning in 649, Cyprus endured several attacks launched by raiders from the Levant, which continued for the next 300 years. Many were quick piratical raids, but others were large-scale attacks in which many Cypriots were slaughtered and great wealth carried off or destroyed.[64]
+
+There are no Byzantine churches which survive from this period; thousands of people were killed, and many cities – such as Salamis – were destroyed and never rebuilt.[56] Byzantine rule was restored in 965, when Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas scored decisive victories on land and sea.[56]
+
+In 1191, during the Third Crusade, Richard I of England captured the island from Isaac Komnenos of Cyprus[65] He used it as a major supply base that was relatively safe from the Saracens. A year later Richard sold the island to the Knights Templar, who, following a bloody revolt, in turn sold it to Guy of Lusignan. His brother and successor Aimery was recognised as King of Cyprus by Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor.[56]
+
+Following the death in 1473 of James II, the last Lusignan king, the Republic of Venice assumed control of the island, while the late king's Venetian widow, Queen Catherine Cornaro, reigned as figurehead. Venice formally annexed the Kingdom of Cyprus in 1489, following the abdication of Catherine.[56] The Venetians fortified Nicosia by building the Walls of Nicosia, and used it as an important commercial hub. Throughout Venetian rule, the Ottoman Empire frequently raided Cyprus. In 1539 the Ottomans destroyed Limassol and so fearing the worst, the Venetians also fortified Famagusta and Kyrenia.[56]
+
+Although the Lusignan French aristocracy remained the dominant social class in Cyprus throughout the medieval period, the former assumption that Greeks were treated only as serfs on the island[56] is no longer considered by academics to be accurate. It is now accepted that the medieval period saw increasing numbers of Greek Cypriots elevated to the upper classes, a growing Greek middle ranks,[66] and the Lusignan royal household even marrying Greeks. This included King John II of Cyprus who married Helena Palaiologina.[67]
+
+In 1570, a full-scale Ottoman assault with 60,000 troops brought the island under Ottoman control, despite stiff resistance by the inhabitants of Nicosia and Famagusta. Ottoman forces capturing Cyprus massacred many Greek and Armenian Christian inhabitants.[68] The previous Latin elite were destroyed and the first significant demographic change since antiquity took place with the formation of a Muslim community.[69] Soldiers who fought in the conquest settled on the island and Turkish peasants and craftsmen were brought to the island from Anatolia.[70] This new community also included banished Anatolian tribes, "undesirable" persons and members of various "troublesome" Muslim sects, as well as a number of new converts on the island.[71]
+
+The Ottomans abolished the feudal system previously in place and applied the millet system to Cyprus, under which non-Muslim peoples were governed by their own religious authorities. In a reversal from the days of Latin rule, the head of the Church of Cyprus was invested as leader of the Greek Cypriot population and acted as mediator between Christian Greek Cypriots and the Ottoman authorities. This status ensured that the Church of Cyprus was in a position to end the constant encroachments of the Roman Catholic Church.[72] Ottoman rule of Cyprus was at times indifferent, at times oppressive, depending on the temperaments of the sultans and local officials, and the island began over 250 years of economic decline.[73]
+
+The ratio of Muslims to Christians fluctuated throughout the period of Ottoman domination. In 1777–78, 47,000 Muslims constituted a majority over the island's 37,000 Christians.[74] By 1872, the population of the island had risen to 144,000, comprising 44,000 Muslims and 100,000 Christians.[75] The Muslim population included numerous crypto-Christians,[76] including the Linobambaki, a crypto-Catholic community that arose due to religious persecution of the Catholic community by the Ottoman authorities;[76][77] this community would assimilate into the Turkish Cypriot community during British rule.[78]
+
+As soon as the Greek War of Independence broke out in 1821, several Greek Cypriots left for Greece to join the Greek forces. In response, the Ottoman governor of Cyprus arrested and executed 486 prominent Greek Cypriots, including the Archbishop of Cyprus, Kyprianos, and four other bishops.[79] In 1828, modern Greece's first president Ioannis Kapodistrias called for union of Cyprus with Greece, and numerous minor uprisings took place.[80] Reaction to Ottoman misrule led to uprisings by both Greek and Turkish Cypriots, although none were successful. After centuries of neglect by the Turks, the unrelenting poverty of most of the people, and the ever-present tax collectors fuelled Greek nationalism, and by the 20th century idea of enosis, or union, with newly independent Greece was firmly rooted among Greek Cypriots.[73]
+
+Under the Ottoman rule, numeracy, school enrolment and literacy rates were all low. They persisted sometime after Ottoman rule ended and then increased rapidly during the twentieth century.[81]
+
+In the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) and the Congress of Berlin, Cyprus was leased to the British Empire which de facto took over its administration in 1878 (though, in terms of sovereignty, Cyprus remained a de jure Ottoman territory until 5 November 1914, together with Egypt and Sudan)[15] in exchange for guarantees that Britain would use the island as a base to protect the Ottoman Empire against possible Russian aggression.[56]
+
+The island would serve Britain as a key military base for its colonial routes. By 1906, when the Famagusta harbour was completed, Cyprus was a strategic naval outpost overlooking the Suez Canal, the crucial main route to India which was then Britain's most important overseas possession. Following the outbreak of the First World War and the decision of the Ottoman Empire to join the war on the side of the Central Powers, on 5 November 1914 the British Empire formally annexed Cyprus and declared the Ottoman Khedivate of Egypt and Sudan a Sultanate and British protectorate.[15][56]
+
+In 1915, Britain offered Cyprus to Greece, ruled by King Constantine I of Greece, on condition that Greece join the war on the side of the British. The offer was declined. In 1923, under the Treaty of Lausanne, the nascent Turkish republic relinquished any claim to Cyprus,[82] and in 1925 it was declared a British crown colony.[56] Many Greek and Turkish Cypriots fought in the British Army during both world wars.[83][failed verification] During the Second World War, many enlisted in the Cyprus Regiment.
+
+The Greek Cypriot population, meanwhile, had become hopeful that the British administration would lead to enosis. The idea of enosis was historically part of the Megali Idea, a greater political ambition of a Greek state encompassing the territories with Greek inhabitants in the former Ottoman Empire, including Cyprus and Asia Minor with a capital in Constantinople, and was actively pursued by the Cypriot Orthodox Church, which had its members educated in Greece. These religious officials, together with Greek military officers and professionals, some of whom still pursued the Megali Idea, would later found the guerrilla organisation Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston or National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters (EOKA).[84][85] The Greek Cypriots viewed the island as historically Greek and believed that union with Greece was a natural right.[86] In the 1950s, the pursuit of enosis became a part of the Greek national policy.[87]
+
+Initially, the Turkish Cypriots favoured the continuation of the British rule.[88] However, they were alarmed by the Greek Cypriot calls for enosis as they saw the union of Crete with Greece, which led to the exodus of Cretan Turks, as a precedent to be avoided,[89][90] and they took a pro-partition stance in response to the militant activity of EOKA.[91] The Turkish Cypriots also viewed themselves as a distinct ethnic group of the island and believed in their having a separate right to self-determination from Greek Cypriots.[86] Meanwhile, in the 1950s, Turkish leader Menderes considered Cyprus an "extension of Anatolia", rejected the partition of Cyprus along ethnic lines and favoured the annexation of the whole island to Turkey. Nationalistic slogans centred on the idea that "Cyprus is Turkish" and the ruling party declared Cyprus to be a part of the Turkish homeland that was vital to its security. Upon realising the fact that the Turkish Cypriot population was only 20% of the islanders made annexation unfeasible, the national policy was changed to favour partition. The slogan "Partition or Death" was frequently used in Turkish Cypriot and Turkish protests starting in the late 1950s and continuing throughout the 1960s. Although after the Zürich and London conferences Turkey seemed to accept the existence of the Cypriot state and to distance itself from its policy of favouring the partition of the island, the goal of the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot leaders remained that of creating an independent Turkish state in the northern part of the island.[92][93]
+
+In January 1950, the Church of Cyprus organised a referendum under the supervision of clerics and with no Turkish Cypriot participation,[94] where 96% of the participating Greek Cypriots voted in favour of enosis,[95][96][97] The Greeks were 80.2% of the total island' s population at the time (census 1946). Restricted autonomy under a constitution was proposed by the British administration but eventually rejected. In 1955 the EOKA organisation was founded, seeking union with Greece through armed struggle. At the same time the Turkish Resistance Organisation (TMT), calling for Taksim, or partition, was established by the Turkish Cypriots as a counterweight.[98] British officials also tolerated the creation of the Turkish underground organisation T.M.T. The Secretary of State for the Colonies in a letter dated 15 July 1958 had advised the Governor of Cyprus not to act against T.M.T despite its illegal actions so as not to harm British relations with the Turkish government.[93]
+
+On 16 August 1960, Cyprus attained independence after the Zürich and London Agreement between the United Kingdom, Greece and Turkey. Cyprus had a total population of 573,566; of whom 442,138 (77.1%) were Greeks, 104,320 (18.2%) Turks, and 27,108 (4.7%) others.[99] The UK retained the two Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, while government posts and public offices were allocated by ethnic quotas, giving the minority Turkish Cypriots a permanent veto, 30% in parliament and administration, and granting the three mother-states guarantor rights.
+
+However, the division of power as foreseen by the constitution soon resulted in legal impasses and discontent on both sides, and nationalist militants started training again, with the military support of Greece and Turkey respectively. The Greek Cypriot leadership believed that the rights given to Turkish Cypriots under the 1960 constitution were too extensive and designed the Akritas plan, which was aimed at reforming the constitution in favour of Greek Cypriots, persuading the international community about the correctness of the changes and violently subjugating Turkish Cypriots in a few days should they not accept the plan.[100] Tensions were heightened when Cypriot President Archbishop Makarios III called for constitutional changes, which were rejected by Turkey[20] and opposed by Turkish Cypriots.[100]
+
+Intercommunal violence erupted on 21 December 1963, when two Turkish Cypriots were killed at an incident involving the Greek Cypriot police. The violence resulted in the death of 364 Turkish and 174 Greek Cypriots,[101] destruction of 109 Turkish Cypriot or mixed villages and displacement of 25,000–30,000 Turkish Cypriots. The crisis resulted in the end of the Turkish Cypriot involvement in the administration and their claiming that it had lost its legitimacy;[20] the nature of this event is still controversial. In some areas, Greek Cypriots prevented Turkish Cypriots from travelling and entering government buildings, while some Turkish Cypriots willingly withdrew due to the calls of the Turkish Cypriot administration.[102] Turkish Cypriots started living in enclaves. The republic's structure was changed, unilaterally, by Makarios when Nicosia was divided by the Green Line, with the deployment of UNFICYP troops.[20]
+
+In 1964, Turkey threatened to invade Cyprus[103] in response to the continuing Cypriot intercommunal violence, but this was stopped by a strongly worded telegram from the US President Lyndon B. Johnson on 5 June, warning that the US would not stand beside Turkey in case of a consequential Soviet invasion of Turkish territory.[104] Meanwhile, by 1964, enosis was a Greek policy that could not be abandoned; Makarios and the Greek prime minister Georgios Papandreou agreed that enosis should be the ultimate aim and King Constantine wished Cyprus "a speedy union with the mother country". Greece dispatched 10,000 troops to Cyprus to counter a possible Turkish invasion.[105]
+
+On 15 July 1974, the Greek military junta under Dimitrios Ioannides carried out a coup d'état in Cyprus, to unite the island with Greece.[106][107][108] The coup ousted president Makarios III and replaced him with pro-enosis nationalist Nikos Sampson.[109] In response to the coup,[i] five days later, on 20 July 1974, the Turkish army invaded the island, citing a right to intervene to restore the constitutional order from the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee. This justification has been rejected by the United Nations and the international community.[115]
+
+The Turkish air force began bombing Greek positions in Cyprus, and hundreds of paratroopers were dropped in the area between Nicosia and Kyrenia, where well-armed Turkish Cypriot enclaves had been long-established; while off the Kyrenia coast, Turkish troop ships landed 6,000 men as well as tanks, trucks and armoured vehicles.[116][117]
+
+Three days later, when a ceasefire had been agreed,[118] Turkey had landed 30,000 troops on the island and captured Kyrenia, the corridor linking Kyrenia to Nicosia, and the Turkish Cypriot quarter of Nicosia itself.[118] The junta in Athens, and then the Sampson regime in Cyprus fell from power. In Nicosia, Glafkos Clerides assumed the presidency and constitutional order was restored, removing the pretext for the Turkish invasion.[118] But after the peace negotiations in Geneva, the Turkish government reinforced their Kyrenia bridgehead and started a second invasion on 14 August.[119] The invasion resulted in the seizure of Morphou, Karpass, Famagusta and the Mesaoria.
+
+International pressure led to a ceasefire, and by then 36% of the island had been taken over by the Turks and 180,000 Greek Cypriots had been evicted from their homes in the north.[120] At the same time, around 50,000 Turkish Cypriots were displaced to the north and settled in the properties of the displaced Greek Cypriots. Among a variety of sanctions against Turkey, in mid-1975 the US Congress imposed an arms embargo on Turkey for using US-supplied equipment during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974.[121] There were 1,534 Greek Cypriots[122] and 502 Turkish Cypriots[123] missing as a result of the fighting.
+
+After the restoration of constitutional order and the return of Archbishop Makarios III to Cyprus in December 1974, Turkish troops remained, occupying the northeastern portion of the island. In 1983, the Turkish Cypriot leader proclaimed the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which is recognised only by Turkey.[4]
+
+The events of the summer of 1974 dominate the politics on the island, as well as Greco-Turkish relations. Around 150,000 settlers from Turkey are believed to be living in the north—many of whom were forced from Turkey by the Turkish government—in violation of the Geneva Convention and various UN resolutions.[124][125]
+
+The Turkish invasion, the ensuing occupation and the declaration of independence by the TRNC have been condemned by United Nations resolutions, which are reaffirmed by the Security Council every year.[126] The last major effort to settle the Cyprus dispute was the Annan Plan in 2004, drafted by the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan. The plan was put to a referendum in both Northern Cyprus and the Cypriot Republic. 65% of Turkish Cypriots voted in support of the plan and 74% Greek Cypriots voted against the plan, claiming that it disproportionately favoured the Turkish side.[127] In total, 66.7% of the voters rejected the Annan Plan.
+
+On 1 May 2004 Cyprus joined the European Union, together with nine other countries.[128] Cyprus was accepted into the EU as a whole, although the EU legislation is suspended in Northern Cyprus until a final settlement of the Cyprus problem. In July 2006, the island served as a haven for people fleeing Lebanon, due to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah (also called "The July War").[129]
+
+Efforts have been made to enhance freedom of movement between the two sides. In April 2003, Northern Cyprus unilaterally eased border restrictions, permitting Cypriots to cross between the two sides for the first time in 30 years.[130] In March 2008, a wall that had stood for decades at the boundary between the Republic of Cyprus and the UN buffer zone was demolished.[131] The wall had cut across Ledra Street in the heart of Nicosia and was seen as a strong symbol of the island's 32-year division. On 3 April 2008, Ledra Street was reopened in the presence of Greek and Turkish Cypriot officials.[132] North and South relaunched reunification talks on 15 May 2015.[133]
+
+The European Union issued a warning in February 2019 that Cyprus, an EU member, was selling EU passports to Russian oligarchs, saying it would allow organised crime syndicates to infiltrate the EU.[134]
+
+Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after the Italian islands of Sicily and Sardinia[4] (both in terms of area and population). It is also the world's 80th largest by area and world's 51st largest by population. It measures 240 kilometres (149 mi) long from end to end and 100 kilometres (62 mi) wide at its widest point, with Turkey 75 kilometres (47 mi) to the north. It lies between latitudes 34° and 36° N, and longitudes 32° and 35° E.
+
+Other neighbouring territories include Syria and Lebanon to the east (105 and 108 kilometres (65 and 67 mi), respectively), Israel 200 kilometres (124 mi) to the southeast, Egypt 380 kilometres (236 mi) to the south, and Greece to the northwest: 280 kilometres (174 mi) to the small Dodecanesian island of Kastellorizo (Megisti), 400 kilometres (249 mi) to Rhodes and 800 kilometres (497 mi) to the Greek mainland. Sources alternatively place Cyprus in Europe,[135][136][137] or Western Asia and the Middle East.[138][139]
+
+The physical relief of the island is dominated by two mountain ranges, the Troodos Mountains and the smaller Kyrenia Range, and the central plain they encompass, the Mesaoria. The Mesaoria plain is drained by the Pedieos River, the longest on the island. The Troodos Mountains cover most of the southern and western portions of the island and account for roughly half its area. The highest point on Cyprus is Mount Olympus at 1,952 m (6,404 ft), located in the centre of the Troodos range. The narrow Kyrenia Range, extending along the northern coastline, occupies substantially less area, and elevations are lower, reaching a maximum of 1,024 m (3,360 ft). The island lies within the Anatolian Plate.[140]
+
+Geopolitically, the island is subdivided into four main segments. The Republic of Cyprus occupies the southern two-thirds of the island (59.74%). The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus occupies the northern third (34.85%), and the United Nations-controlled Green Line provides a buffer zone that separates the two and covers 2.67% of the island. Lastly, two bases under British sovereignty are located on the island: Akrotiri and Dhekelia, covering the remaining 2.74%.
+
+Cyprus has a subtropical climate – Mediterranean and semi-arid type (in the north-eastern part of the island) – Köppen climate classifications Csa and BSh,[141][142] with very mild winters (on the coast) and warm to hot summers. Snow is possible only in the Troodos Mountains in the central part of island. Rain occurs mainly in winter, with summer being generally dry.
+
+Cyprus has one of the warmest climates in the Mediterranean part of the European Union.[citation needed] The average annual temperature on the coast is around 24 °C (75 °F) during the day and 14 °C (57 °F) at night. Generally, summers last about eight months, beginning in April with average temperatures of 21–23 °C (70–73 °F) during the day and 11–13 °C (52–55 °F) at night, and ending in November with average temperatures of 22–23 °C (72–73 °F) during the day and 12–14 °C (54–57 °F) at night, although in the remaining four months temperatures sometimes exceed 20 °C (68 °F).[143]
+
+Among all cities in the Mediterranean part of the European Union, Limassol has one of the warmest winters, in the period January – February average temperature is 17–18 °C (63–64 °F) during the day and 7–8 °C (45–46 °F) at night, in other coastal locations in Cyprus is generally 16–17 °C (61–63 °F) during the day and 6–8 °C (43–46 °F) at night. During March, Limassol has average temperatures of 19–20 °C (66–68 °F) during the day and 9–11 °C (48–52 °F) at night, in other coastal locations in Cyprus is generally 17–19 °C (63–66 °F) during the day and 8–10 °C (46–50 °F) at night.[143]
+
+The middle of summer is hot – in July and August on the coast the average temperature is usually around 33 °C (91 °F) during the day and around 22 °C (72 °F) at night (inland, in the highlands average temperature exceeds 35 °C (95 °F)) while in the June and September on the coast the average temperature is usually around 30 °C (86 °F) during the day and around 20 °C (68 °F) at night in Limassol, while is usually around 28 °C (82 °F) during the day and around 18 °C (64 °F) at night in Paphos. Large fluctuations in temperature are rare. Inland temperatures are more extreme, with colder winters and hotter summers compared with the coast of the island.[143]
+
+Average annual temperature of sea is 21–22 °C (70–72 °F), from 17 °C (63 °F) in February to 27–28 °C (81–82 °F) in August (depending on the location). In total 7 months – from May to November – the average sea temperature exceeds 20 °C (68 °F).[144]
+
+Sunshine hours on the coast are around 3,200 per year, from an average of 5–6 hours of sunshine per day in December to an average of 12–13 hours in July.[144] This is about double that of cities in the northern half of Europe; for comparison, London receives about 1,540 per year.[145] In December, London receives about 50 hours of sunshine[145] while coastal locations in Cyprus about 180 hours (almost as much as in May in London).
+
+Cyprus suffers from a chronic shortage of water. The country relies heavily on rain to provide household water, but in the past 30 years average yearly precipitation has decreased.[146] Between 2001 and 2004, exceptionally heavy annual rainfall pushed water reserves up, with supply exceeding demand, allowing total storage in the island's reservoirs to rise to an all-time high by the start of 2005.
+However, since then demand has increased annually – a result of local population growth, foreigners moving to Cyprus and the number of visiting tourists – while supply has fallen as a result of more frequent droughts.[146]
+
+Dams remain the principal source of water both for domestic and agricultural use; Cyprus has a total of 107 dams (plus one currently under construction) and reservoirs, with a total water storage capacity of about 330,000,000 m3 (1.2×1010 cu ft).[147] Water desalination plants are gradually being constructed to deal with recent years of prolonged drought.
+The Government has invested heavily in the creation of water desalination plants which have supplied almost 50 per cent of domestic water since 2001. Efforts have also been made to raise public awareness of the situation and to encourage domestic water users to take more responsibility for the conservation of this increasingly scarce commodity.
+
+Turkey has built a water pipeline under the Mediterranean Sea from Anamur on its southern coast to the northern coast of Cyprus, to supply Northern Cyprus with potable and irrigation water (see Northern Cyprus Water Supply Project).
+
+Cyprus is a presidential republic. The head of state and of the government is elected by a process of universal suffrage for a five-year term. Executive power is exercised by the government with legislative power vested in the House of Representatives whilst the Judiciary is independent of both the executive and the legislature.
+
+The 1960 Constitution provided for a presidential system of government with independent executive, legislative and judicial branches as well as a complex system of checks and balances including a weighted power-sharing ratio designed to protect the interests of the Turkish Cypriots. The executive was led by a Greek Cypriot president and a Turkish Cypriot vice-president elected by their respective communities for five-year terms and each possessing a right of veto over certain types of legislation and executive decisions. Legislative power rested on the House of Representatives who were also elected on the basis of separate voters' rolls.
+
+Since 1965, following clashes between the two communities, the Turkish Cypriot seats in the House remain vacant. In 1974 Cyprus was divided de facto when the Turkish army occupied the northern third of the island. The Turkish Cypriots subsequently declared independence in 1983 as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus but were recognised only by Turkey. In 1985 the TRNC adopted a constitution and held its first elections. The United Nations recognises the sovereignty of the Republic of Cyprus over the entire island of Cyprus.
+
+The House of Representatives currently has 59 members elected for a five-year term, 56 members by proportional representation and 3 observer members representing the Armenian, Latin and Maronite minorities. 24 seats are allocated to the Turkish community but remain vacant since 1964. The political environment is dominated by the communist AKEL, the liberal conservative Democratic Rally, the centrist[148] Democratic Party, the social-democratic EDEK and the centrist EURO.KO.
+In 2008, Dimitris Christofias became the country's first Communist head of state. Due to his involvement in the 2012–13 Cypriot financial crisis, Christofias did not run for re-election in 2013. The Presidential election in 2013 resulted in Democratic Rally candidate Nicos Anastasiades winning 57.48% of the vote. As a result, Anastasiades was sworn in on and has been President since 28 February 2013. Anastasiades was re-elected with 56% of the vote in the 2018 presidential election.[149]
+
+The Republic of Cyprus is divided into six districts: Nicosia, Famagusta, Kyrenia, Larnaca, Limassol and Paphos.[150]
+
+Cyprus has four exclaves, all in territory that belongs to the British Sovereign Base Area of Dhekelia. The first two are the villages of Ormidhia and Xylotymvou. The third is the Dhekelia Power Station, which is divided by a British road into two parts. The northern part is the EAC refugee settlement. The southern part, even though located by the sea, is also an exclave because it has no territorial waters of its own, those being UK waters.[151]
+
+The UN buffer zone runs up against Dhekelia and picks up again from its east side off Ayios Nikolaos and is connected to the rest of Dhekelia by a thin land corridor. In that sense the buffer zone turns the Paralimni area on the southeast corner of the island into a de facto, though not de jure, exclave.
+
+The Republic of Cyprus is a member of the following international groups: Australia Group, CN, CE, CFSP, EBRD, EIB, EU, FAO, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, ICCt, ITUC, IDA, IFAD, IFC, IHO, ILO, IMF, IMO, Interpol, IOC, IOM, IPU, ITU, MIGA, NAM, NSG, OPCW, OSCE, PCA, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNHCR, UNIDO, UPU, WCL, WCO, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTO.[4][152]
+
+The Cyprus Police (Greek: Αστυνομία Κύπρου, Turkish: Kıbrıs Polisi) is the only National Police Service of the Republic of Cyprus and is under the Ministry of Justice and Public Order since 1993.[153]
+
+In "Freedom in the World 2011", Freedom House rated Cyprus as "free".[154] In January 2011, the Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the question of Human Rights in Cyprus noted that the ongoing division of Cyprus continues to affect human rights throughout the island "... including freedom of movement, human rights pertaining to the question of missing persons, discrimination, the right to life, freedom of religion, and economic, social and cultural rights."[155] The constant focus on the division of the island can sometimes mask other human rights issues.[citation needed]
+
+In 2014, Turkey was ordered by the European Court of Human Rights to pay well over $100m in compensation to Cyprus for the invasion;[156] Ankara announced that it would ignore the judgment.[157] In 2014, a group of Cypriot refugees and a European parliamentarian, later joined by the Cypriot government, filed a complaint to the International Court of Justice, accusing Turkey of violating the Geneva Conventions by directly or indirectly transferring its civilian population into occupied territory.[citation needed] Over the preceding ten years, civilian transfer by Turkey had "reached new heights", in the words of one US ambassador.[j][158] Other violations of the Geneva and the Hague Conventions—both ratified by Turkey—amount to what archaeologist Sophocles Hadjisavvas called "the organized destruction of Greek and Christian heritage in the north".[159] These violations include looting of cultural treasures, deliberate destruction of churches, neglect of works of art, and altering the names of important historical sites, which was condemned by the International Council on Monuments and Sites. Hadjisavvas has asserted that these actions are motivated by a Turkish policy of erasing the Greek presence in Northern Cyprus within a framework of ethnic cleansing, as well as by greed and profit-seeking on the part of the individuals involved.[159]
+
+The Cypriot National Guard is the main military institution of the Republic of Cyprus. It is a combined arms force, with land, air and naval elements. Historically all men were required to spend 24 months serving in the National Guard after their 17th birthday, but in 2016 this period of compulsory service was reduced to 14 months.[160]
+
+Annually, approximately 10,000 persons are trained in recruit centres. Depending on their awarded speciality the conscript recruits are then transferred to speciality training camps or to operational units.
+
+While until 2016 the armed forces were mainly conscript based, since then a large Professional Enlisted institution has been adopted (ΣΥΟΠ), which combined with the reduction of conscript service produces an approximate 3:1 ratio between conscript and professional enlisted.
+
+In the early 21st century the Cypriot economy has diversified and become prosperous.[161] However, in 2012 it became affected by the Eurozone financial and banking crisis. In June 2012, the Cypriot government announced it would need €1.8 billion in foreign aid to support the Cyprus Popular Bank, and this was followed by Fitch downgrading Cyprus's credit rating to junk status.[162] Fitch said Cyprus would need an additional €4 billion to support its banks and the downgrade was mainly due to the exposure of Bank of Cyprus, Cyprus Popular Bank and Hellenic Bank, Cyprus's three largest banks, to the Greek financial crisis.[162]
+
+The 2012–2013 Cypriot financial crisis led to an agreement with the Eurogroup in March 2013 to split the country's second largest bank, the Cyprus Popular Bank (also known as Laiki Bank), into a "bad" bank which would be wound down over time and a "good" bank which would be absorbed by the Bank of Cyprus. In return for a €10 billion bailout from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, often referred to as the "troika", the Cypriot government was required to impose a significant haircut on uninsured deposits, a large proportion of which were held by wealthy Russians who used Cyprus as a tax haven. Insured deposits of €100,000 or less were not affected.[163][164][165]
+
+According to the 2017 International Monetary Fund estimates, its per capita GDP (adjusted for purchasing power) at $36,442 is below the average of the European Union.[166][167] Cyprus has been sought as a base for several offshore businesses for its low tax rates. Tourism, financial services and shipping are significant parts of the economy. Economic policy of the Cyprus government has focused on meeting the criteria for admission to the European Union. The Cypriot government adopted the euro as the national currency on 1 January 2008.[161]
+
+Cyprus is last EU member fully isolated from energy interconnections and it is expected that will be connected to European network via EuroAsia Interconnector, 2000 MW HVDC undersea power cable.[168] EuroAsia Interconnector will connect Greek, Cypriot, and Israeli power grids. It is a leading Project of Common Interest of the European Union and also priority Electricity Highway Interconnector Project.[169][170]
+
+In recent years significant quantities of offshore natural gas have been discovered in the area known as Aphrodite (at the exploratory drilling block 12) in Cyprus' exclusive economic zone (EEZ),[171] about 175 kilometres (109 miles) south of Limassol at 33°5'40″N and 32°59'0″E.[172] However, Turkey's offshore drilling companies have accessed both natural gas and oil resources since 2013.[173] Cyprus demarcated its maritime border with Egypt in 2003, with Lebanon in 2007,[174] and with Israel in 2010.[175] In August 2011, the US-based firm Noble Energy entered into a production-sharing agreement with the Cypriot government regarding the block's commercial development.[176]
+
+Turkey, which does not recognise the border agreements of Cyprus with its neighbours,[177] threatened to mobilise its naval forces if Cyprus proceeded with plans to begin drilling at Block 12.[178] Cyprus' drilling efforts have the support of the US, EU, and UN, and on 19 September 2011 drilling in Block 12 began without any incidents being reported.[179]
+
+Because of the heavy influx of tourists and foreign investors, the property rental market in Cyprus has grown in recent years.[when?][180] In late 2013, the Cyprus Town Planning Department announced a series of incentives to stimulate the property market and increase the number of property developments in the country's town centres.[181] This followed earlier measures to quickly give immigration permits to third country nationals investing in Cyprus property.[182]
+
+Available modes of transport are by road, sea and air. Of the 10,663 km (6,626 mi) of roads in the Republic of Cyprus in 1998, 6,249 km (3,883 mi) were paved, and 4,414 km (2,743 mi) were unpaved. In 1996 the Turkish-occupied area had a similar ratio of paved to unpaved, with approximately 1,370 km (850 mi) of paved road and 980 km (610 mi) unpaved.[citation needed] Cyprus is one of only three EU nations in which vehicles drive on the left-hand side of the road, a remnant of British colonisation (the others being Ireland and Malta). A series of motorways runs along the coast from Paphos east to Ayia Napa, with two motorways running inland to Nicosia, one from Limassol and one from Larnaca.
+
+Per capita private car ownership is the 29th-highest in the world.[183] There were approximately 344,000 privately owned vehicles, and a total of 517,000 registered motor vehicles in the Republic of Cyprus in 2006.[184] In 2006, plans were announced to improve and expand bus services and other public transport throughout Cyprus, with the financial backing of the European Union Development Bank. In 2010 the new bus network was implemented.[185]
+
+Cyprus has several heliports and two international airports: Larnaca International Airport and Paphos International Airport. A third airport, Ercan International Airport, operates in the Turkish Cypriot administered area with direct flights only to Turkey (Turkish Cypriot ports are closed to international traffic apart from Turkey). Nicosia International Airport has been closed since 1974.
+
+The main harbours of the island are Limassol and Larnaca, which service cargo, passenger and cruise ships.
+
+Cyta, the state-owned telecommunications company, manages most telecommunications and Internet connections on the island. However, following deregulation of the sector, a few private telecommunications companies emerged, including epic, Cablenet, OTEnet Telecom, Omega Telecom and PrimeTel. In the Turkish-controlled area of Cyprus, three different companies are present: Turkcell, KKTC Telsim and Turk Telekom.
+
+According to the CIA World Factbook, in 2001 Greek Cypriots comprised 77%, Turkish Cypriots 18%, and others 5% of the Cypriot population.[186] At the time of the 2011 government census, there were 10,520 people of Russian origin living in Cyprus.[187][188][189][190]
+
+According to the first population census after the declaration of independence, carried out in December 1960 and covering the entire island, Cyprus had a total population of 573,566, of whom 442,138 (77.1%) were Greeks, 104,320 (18.2%) Turkish, and 27,108 (4.7%) others.[99][191]
+
+Due to the inter-communal ethnic tensions between 1963 and 1974, an island-wide census was regarded as impossible. Nevertheless, the Cypriot government conducted one in 1973, without the Turkish Cypriot populace.[192] According to this census, the Greek Cypriot population was 482,000. One year later, in 1974, the Cypriot government's Department of Statistics and Research estimated the total population of Cyprus at 641,000; of whom 506,000 (78.9%) were Greeks, and 118,000 (18.4%) Turkish.[193] After the partition of the island in 1974, the government of Cyprus conducted four more censuses: in 1976, 1982, 1992 and 2001; these excluded the Turkish population which was resident in the northern part of the island.[191]
+
+According to the Republic of Cyprus's latest estimate, in 2005, the number of Cypriot citizens currently living in the Republic of Cyprus is around 871,036. In addition to this, the Republic of Cyprus is home to 110,200 foreign permanent residents[194] and an estimated 10,000–30,000 undocumented illegal immigrants currently living in the south of the island.[195]
+
+According to the 2006 census carried out by Northern Cyprus, there were 256,644 (de jure) people living in Northern Cyprus. 178,031 were citizens of Northern Cyprus, of whom 147,405 were born in Cyprus (112,534 from the north; 32,538 from the south; 371 did not indicate what part of Cyprus they were from); 27,333 born in Turkey; 2,482 born in the UK and 913 born in Bulgaria. Of the 147,405 citizens born in Cyprus, 120,031 say both parents were born in Cyprus; 16,824 say both parents born in Turkey; 10,361 have one parent born in Turkey and one parent born in Cyprus.[196]
+
+In 2010, the International Crisis Group estimated that the total population of Cyprus was 1.1 million,[197] of which there was an estimated 300,000 residents in the north, perhaps half of whom were either born in Turkey or are children of such settlers.[198]
+
+The villages of Rizokarpaso (only one in the north), Potamia (Nicosia district) and Pyla (Larnaca District) are the only settlements remaining with a mixed Greek and Turkish Cypriot population.[199]
+
+Y-Dna haplogroups are found at the following frequencies in Cyprus: J (43.07% including 6.20% J1), E1b1b (20.00%), R1 (12.30% including 9.2% R1b), F (9.20%), I (7.70%), K (4.60%), A (3.10%).[200] J, K, F and E1b1b haplogroups consist of lineages with differential distribution within Middle East, North Africa and Europe while R1 and I are typical in West European populations.
+
+Outside Cyprus there is a significant and thriving Greek Cypriot diaspora and Turkish Cypriot diaspora in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the United States, Greece and Turkey.
+
+
+
+The majority of Greek Cypriots identify as Greek Orthodox,[203][204][205] whereas most Turkish Cypriots are adherents of Sunni Islam. According to Eurobarometer 2005,[206] Cyprus was the second most religious state in the European Union at that time, after Malta (although in 2005 Romania wasn't in the European Union; currently Romania is the most religious state in the EU) (see Religion in the European Union). The first President of Cyprus, Makarios III, was an archbishop. The current leader of the Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus is Archbishop Chrysostomos II.
+
+Hala Sultan Tekke, situated near the Larnaca Salt Lake is an object of pilgrimage for both Muslims[207] and Christians.[208]
+
+According to the 2001 census carried out in the Government-controlled area,[209] 94.8% of the population were Eastern Orthodox, 0.9% Armenians and Maronites, 1.5% Roman Catholics, 1.0% Church of England, and 0.6% Muslims. There is also a Jewish community on Cyprus. The remaining 1.3% adhered to other religious denominations or did not state their religion.
+
+Cyprus has two official languages, Greek and Turkish.[210] Armenian and Cypriot Maronite Arabic are recognised as minority languages.[211][212] Although without official status, English is widely spoken and it features widely on road signs, public notices, and in advertisements, etc.[213] English was the sole official language during British colonial rule and the lingua franca until 1960, and continued to be used (de facto) in courts of law until 1989 and in legislation until 1996.[214] 80.4% of Cypriots are proficient in the English language as a second language.[215] Russian is widely spoken among the country's minorities, residents and citizens of post-Soviet countries, and Pontic Greeks. Russian, after English and Greek, is the third language used on many signs of shops and restaurants, particularly in Limassol and Paphos. In addition to these languages, 12% speak French and 5% speak German.[216]
+
+The everyday spoken language of Greek Cypriots is Cypriot Greek and that of Turkish Cypriots is Cypriot Turkish.[214] These vernaculars both differ from their standard registers significantly.[214]
+
+Cyprus has a highly developed system of primary and secondary education offering both public and private education. The high quality of instruction can be attributed in part to the fact that nearly 7% of the GDP is spent on education which makes Cyprus one of the top three spenders of education in the EU along with Denmark and Sweden.[217]
+
+State schools are generally seen as equivalent in quality of education to private-sector institutions. However, the value of a state high-school diploma is limited by the fact that the grades obtained account for only around 25% of the final grade for each topic, with the remaining 75% assigned by the teacher during the semester, in a minimally transparent way. Cypriot universities (like universities in Greece) ignore high school grades almost entirely for admissions purposes. While a high-school diploma is mandatory for university attendance, admissions are decided almost exclusively on the basis of scores at centrally administered university entrance examinations that all university candidates are required to take.
+
+The majority of Cypriots receive their higher education at Greek, British, Turkish, other European and North American universities. Cyprus currently[when?] has the highest percentage of citizens of working age who have higher-level education in the EU at 30% which is ahead of Finland's 29.5%. In addition, 47% of its population aged 25–34 have tertiary education, which is the highest in the EU. The body of Cypriot students is highly mobile, with 78.7% studying in a university outside Cyprus.
+
+Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots share a lot in common in their culture due to cultural exchanges but also have differences. Several traditional food (such as souvla and halloumi) and beverages are similar, as well as expressions and ways of life. Hospitality and buying or offering food and drinks for guests or others are common among both. In both communities, music, dance and art are integral parts of social life and many artistic, verbal and nonverbal expressions, traditional dances such as tsifteteli, similarities in dance costumes and importance placed on social activities are shared between the communities.[218] However, the two communities have distinct religions and religious cultures, with the Greek Cypriots traditionally being Greek Orthodox and Turkish Cypriots traditionally being Sunni Muslims, which has partly hindered cultural exchange.[219] Greek Cypriots have influences from Greece and Christianity, while Turkish Cypriots have influences from Turkey and Islam.
+
+The Limassol Carnival Festival is an annual carnival which is held at Limassol, in Cyprus. The event which is very popular in Cyprus was introduced in the 20th century.[220]
+
+The art history of Cyprus can be said to stretch back up to 10,000 years, following the discovery of a series of Chalcolithic period carved figures in the villages of Khoirokoitia and Lempa.[221] The island is the home to numerous examples of high quality religious icon painting from the Middle Ages as well as many painted churches. Cypriot architecture was heavily influenced by French Gothic and Italian renaissance introduced in the island during the era of Latin domination (1191–1571).
+
+A well known traditional art that dates at least from the 14th century is the Lefkara Lace (also known as "Lefkaratika", which originates from the village Lefkara. Lefkara lace is recognised as an intangible cultural heritage (ICH) by Unesco, and it is characterised by distinct design patterns, and its intricate, time-consuming production process. A genuine Lefkara lace with full embroidery can take typically hundreds of hours to be made, and that is why it is usually priced quite high. Another local form of art the originated from Lefkara is the production of Cypriot Filigree (locally known as Trifourenio), a type of jewellery that is made with twisted threads of silver. In Lefkara village there is government funded center named Lefkara Handicraft Center the mission of which is to educate and teach the art of making the embroidery and silver jewellery. There's also the Museum of Traditional Embroidery and Silversmithing located in the village which has large collection of local handmade art.
+
+In modern times Cypriot art history begins with the painter Vassilis Vryonides (1883–1958) who studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice.[222] Arguably the two founding fathers of modern Cypriot art were Adamantios Diamantis (1900–1994) who studied at London's Royal College of Art and Christopheros Savva (1924–1968) who also studied in London, at Saint Martin's School of Art.[223] In many ways these two artists set the template for subsequent Cypriot art and both their artistic styles and the patterns of their education remain influential to this day. In particular the majority of Cypriot artists still train in England[224] while others train at art schools in Greece and local art institutions such as the Cyprus College of Art, University of Nicosia and the Frederick Institute of Technology.
+
+One of the features of Cypriot art is a tendency towards figurative painting although conceptual art is being rigorously promoted by a number of art "institutions" and most notably the Nicosia Municipal Art Centre. Municipal art galleries exist in all the main towns and there is a large and lively commercial art scene. Cyprus was due to host the international art festival Manifesta in 2006 but this was cancelled at the last minute following a dispute between the Dutch organizers of Manifesta and the Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture over the location of some of the Manifesta events in the Turkish sector of the capital Nicosia.[225][226]
+
+Other notable Greek Cypriot artists include Helene Black, Kalopedis family, Panayiotis Kalorkoti, Nicos Nicolaides, Stass Paraskos, Arestís Stasí, Telemachos Kanthos, Konstantia Sofokleous and Chris Achilleos, and Turkish Cypriot artists include İsmet Güney, Ruzen Atakan and Mutlu Çerkez.
+
+The traditional folk music of Cyprus has several common elements with Greek, Turkish, and Arabic Music, all of which have descended from Byzantine music, including Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot dances such as the sousta, syrtos, zeibekikos, tatsia, and karsilamas as well as the Middle Eastern-inspired tsifteteli and arapies. There is also a form of musical poetry known as chattista which is often performed at traditional feasts and celebrations. The instruments commonly associated with Cyprus folk music are the violin ("fkiolin"), lute ("laouto"), accordion, Cyprus flute (pithkiavlin), oud ("outi"), kanonaki and percussions (including the "toumperleki"). Composers associated with traditional Cypriot music include Solon Michaelides, Marios Tokas, Evagoras Karageorgis and Savvas Salides. Among musicians is also the acclaimed pianist Cyprien Katsaris, composer Andreas G. Orphanides, and composer and artistic director of the European Capital of Culture initiative Marios Joannou Elia.
+
+Popular music in Cyprus is generally influenced by the Greek Laïka scene; artists who play in this genre include international platinum star Anna Vissi,[227][228][229][230] Evridiki, and Sarbel. hip hop, R&B have been supported by the emergence of Cypriot rap and the urban music scene at Ayia Napa, while in the last years the reggae scene is growing, especially through the participation of many Cypriot artists at the annual Reggae Sunjam festival. Is also noted Cypriot rock music and Éntekhno rock is often associated with artists such as Michalis Hatzigiannis and Alkinoos Ioannidis. Metal also has a small following in Cyprus represented by bands such as Armageddon (rev.16:16), Blynd, Winter's Verge, Methysos and Quadraphonic.
+
+Literary production of the antiquity includes the Cypria, an epic poem, probably composed in the late 7th century BC and attributed to Stasinus. The Cypria is one of the very first specimens of Greek and European poetry.[231] The Cypriot Zeno of Citium was the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy.
+
+Epic poetry, notably the "acritic songs", flourished during Middle Ages. Two chronicles, one written by Leontios Machairas and the other by Georgios Boustronios, cover the entire Middle Ages until the end of Frankish rule (4th century–1489). Poèmes d'amour written in medieval Greek Cypriot date back from the 16th century. Some of them are actual translations of poems written by Petrarch, Bembo, Ariosto and G. Sannazzaro.[232] Many Cypriot scholars fled Cyprus at troubled times such as Ioannis Kigalas (c. 1622–1687) who migrated from Cyprus to Italy in the 17th century, several of his works have survived in books of other scholars.[233]
+
+Hasan Hilmi Efendi, a Turkish Cypriot poet, was rewarded by the Ottoman sultan Mahmud II and said to be the "sultan of the poems".[235]
+
+Modern Greek Cypriot literary figures include the poet and writer Kostas Montis, poet Kyriakos Charalambides, poet Michalis Pasiardis, writer Nicos Nicolaides, Stylianos Atteshlis, Altheides, Loukis Akritas[236] and Demetris Th. Gotsis. Dimitris Lipertis, Vasilis Michaelides and Pavlos Liasides are folk poets who wrote poems mainly in the Cypriot-Greek dialect.[237][238] Among leading Turkish Cypriot writers are Osman Türkay, twice nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature,[239] Özker Yaşın, Neriman Cahit, Urkiye Mine Balman, Mehmet Yaşın and Neşe Yaşın.
+
+There is an increasingly strong presence of both temporary and permanent emigre Cypriot writers in world literature, as well as writings by second and third -generation Cypriot writers born or raised abroad, often writing in English. This includes writers such as Michael Paraskos and Stephanos Stephanides.[240]
+
+Examples of Cyprus in foreign literature include the works of Shakespeare, with most of the play Othello by William Shakespeare set on the island of Cyprus. British writer Lawrence Durrell lived in Cyprus from 1952 until 1956, during his time working for the British colonial government on the island, and wrote the book Bitter Lemons about his time in Cyprus which won the second Duff Cooper Prize in 1957.
+
+In the 2015 Freedom of the Press report of Freedom House, the Republic of Cyprus and Northern Cyprus were ranked "free". The Republic of Cyprus scored 25/100 in press freedom, 5/30 in Legal Environment, 11/40 in Political Environment, and 9/30 in Economic Environment (the lower scores the better).[241] Reporters Without Borders rank the Republic of Cyprus 24th out of 180 countries in the 2015 World Press Freedom Index, with a score of 15.62[242]
+
+The law provides for freedom of speech and press, and the government generally respects these rights in practice. An independent press, an effective judiciary, and a functioning democratic political system combine to ensure freedom of speech and of the press. The law prohibits arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home, or correspondence, and the government generally respects these prohibitions in practice.[243]
+
+Local television companies in Cyprus include the state owned Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation which runs two television channels. In addition on the Greek side of the island there are the private channels ANT1 Cyprus, Plus TV, Mega Channel, Sigma TV, Nimonia TV (NTV) and New Extra. In Northern Cyprus, the local channels are BRT, the Turkish Cypriot equivalent to the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation, and a number of private channels. The majority of local arts and cultural programming is produced by the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation and BRT, with local arts documentaries, review programmes and filmed drama series.
+
+The most worldwide known Cypriot director, to have worked abroad, is Michael Cacoyannis.
+
+In the late 1960s and early 1970s, George Filis produced and directed Gregoris Afxentiou, Etsi Prodothike i Kypros, and The Mega Document. In 1994, Cypriot film production received a boost with the establishment of the Cinema Advisory Committee. In 2000, the annual amount set aside for filmmaking in the national budget was CYP£500,000 (about €850,000). In addition to government grants, Cypriot co-productions are eligible for funding from the Council of Europe's Eurimages Fund, which finances European film co-productions. To date, four feature films on which a Cypriot was an executive producer have received funding from Eurimages. The first was I Sphagi tou Kokora (1996), followed by Hellados (unreleased), To Tama (1999), and O Dromos gia tin Ithaki (2000).[244]
+
+Only a small number of foreign films have been made in Cyprus. This includes Incense for the Damned (1970), The Beloved (1970), and Ghost in the Noonday Sun (1973).[245] Parts of the John Wayne film The Longest Day (1962) were also filmed in Cyprus.
+
+During the medieval period, under the French Lusignan monarchs of Cyprus an elaborate form of courtly cuisine developed, fusing French, Byzantine and Middle Eastern forms. The Lusignan kings were known for importing Syrian cooks to Cyprus, and it has been suggested that one of the key routes for the importation of Middle Eastern recipes into France and other Western European countries, such as blancmange, was via the Lusignan Kingdom of Cyprus. These recipes became known in the West as Vyands de Chypre, or Foods of Cyprus, and the food historian William Woys Weaver has identified over one hundred of them in English, French, Italian and German recipe books of the Middle Ages. One that became particularly popular across Europe in the medieval and early modern periods was a stew made with chicken or fish called malmonia, which in English became mawmeny.[246]
+
+Another example of a Cypriot food ingredient entering the Western European canon is the cauliflower, still popular and used in a variety of ways on the island today, which was associated with Cyprus from the early Middle Ages. Writing in the 12th and 13th centuries the Arab botanists Ibn al-'Awwam and Ibn al-Baitar claimed the vegetable had its origins in Cyprus,[247][248] and this association with the island was echoed in Western Europe, where cauliflowers were originally known as Cyprus cabbage or Cyprus colewart. There was also a long and extensive trade in cauliflower seeds from Cyprus, until well into the sixteenth century.[249]
+
+Although much of the Lusignan food culture was lost after the fall of Cyprus to the Ottomans in 1571, a number of dishes that would have been familiar to the Lusignans survive today, including various forms of tahini and houmous, zalatina, skordalia and pickled wild song birds called ambelopoulia. Ambelopoulia, which is today highly controversial, and illegal, was exported in vast quantities from Cyprus during the Lusignan and Venetian periods, particularly to Italy and France. In 1533 the English traveller to Cyprus, John Locke, claimed to have seen the pickled wild birds packed into large jars, or which 1200 jars were exported from Cyprus annually.[250]
+
+Also familiar to the Lusignans would have been Halloumi cheese, which some food writers today claim originated in Cyprus during the Byzantine period[251][252][253] although the name of the cheese itself is thought by academics to be of Arabic origin.[254] There is no surviving written documentary evidence of the cheese being associated with Cyprus before the year 1554, when the Italian historian Florio Bustron wrote of a sheep-milk cheese from Cyprus he called calumi.[254] Halloumi (Hellim) is commonly served sliced, grilled, fried and sometimes fresh, as an appetiser or meze dish.
+
+Seafood and fish dishes include squid, octopus, red mullet, and sea bass. Cucumber and tomato are used widely in salads. Common vegetable preparations include potatoes in olive oil and parsley, pickled cauliflower and beets, asparagus and taro. Other traditional delicacies are meat marinated in dried coriander seeds and wine, and eventually dried and smoked, such as lountza (smoked pork loin), charcoal-grilled lamb, souvlaki (pork and chicken cooked over charcoal), and sheftalia (minced meat wrapped in mesentery). Pourgouri (bulgur, cracked wheat) is the traditional source of carbohydrate other than bread, and is used to make the delicacy koubes.
+
+Fresh vegetables and fruits are common ingredients. Frequently used vegetables include courgettes, green peppers, okra, green beans, artichokes, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and grape leaves, and pulses such as beans, broad beans, peas, black-eyed beans, chick-peas and lentils. The most common fruits and nuts are pears, apples, grapes, oranges, mandarines, nectarines, medlar, blackberries, cherry, strawberries, figs, watermelon, melon, avocado, lemon, pistachio, almond, chestnut, walnut, and hazelnut.
+
+Cyprus is also well known for its desserts, including lokum (also known as Turkish Delight) and Soutzoukos.[255] This island has protected geographical indication (PGI) for its lokum produced in the village of Geroskipou.[256][257]
+
+Sport governing bodies include the Cyprus Football Association, Cyprus Basketball Federation, Cyprus Volleyball Federation, Cyprus Automobile Association, Cyprus Badminton Federation,[258] Cyprus Cricket Association, Cyprus Rugby Federation and the Cyprus Pool Association.
+
+Notable sports teams in the Cyprus leagues include APOEL FC, Anorthosis Famagusta FC, AC Omonia, AEL Lemesos, Apollon FC, Nea Salamis Famagusta FC, AEK Larnaca FC, AEL Limassol B.C., Keravnos B.C. and Apollon Limassol B.C.. Stadiums or sports venues include the GSP Stadium (the largest in the Republic of Cyprus-controlled areas), Tsirion Stadium (second largest), Neo GSZ Stadium, Antonis Papadopoulos Stadium, Ammochostos Stadium and Makario Stadium.
+
+In the 2008–09 season, Anorthosis Famagusta FC was the first Cypriot team to qualify for the UEFA Champions League Group stage. Next season, APOEL FC qualified for the UEFA Champions League group stage, and reached the last 8 of the 2011–12 UEFA Champions League after finishing top of its group and beating French Olympique Lyonnais in the Round of 16.
+
+The Cyprus national rugby union team known as The Moufflons currently holds the record for most consecutive international wins, which is especially notable as the Cyprus Rugby Federation was only formed in 2006.
+
+Tennis player Marcos Baghdatis was ranked 8th in the world, was a finalist at the Australian Open, and reached the Wimbledon semi-final, all in 2006. High jumper Kyriakos Ioannou achieved a jump of 2.35 m at the 11th IAAF World Championships in Athletics in Osaka, Japan, in 2007, winning the bronze medal. He has been ranked third in the world. In motorsports, Tio Ellinas is a successful race car driver, currently racing in the GP3 Series for Marussia Manor Motorsport. There is also mixed martial artist Costas Philippou, who competes in the Ultimate Fighting Championship promotion's middleweight division. Costas holds a 6–3 record in UFC bouts, and recently defeated "The Monsoon" Lorenz Larkin by a knockout in the first round.
+
+Also notable for a Mediterranean island, the siblings Christopher and Sophia Papamichalopoulou qualified for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. They were the only athletes who managed to qualify and thus represented Cyprus at the 2010 Winter Olympics.
+
+The country's first ever Olympic medal, a silver medal, was won by the sailor Pavlos Kontides, at the 2012 Summer Olympics in the Men's Laser class.
+
+Government
+
+Tourism
+
+Official publications
+
+Coordinates: 35°N 33°E / 35°N 33°E / 35; 33

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+
+
+A cigarette is a narrow cylinder containing psychoactive material, typically tobacco, that is rolled into thin paper for smoking. Most cigarettes contain a "reconstituted tobacco" product known as "sheet", which consists of "recycled [tobacco] stems, stalks, scraps, collected dust, and floor sweepings", to which are added glue, chemicals and fillers; the product is then sprayed with nicotine that was extracted from the tobacco scraps, and shaped into curls.[1] The cigarette is ignited at one end, causing it to smolder; the resulting smoke is orally inhaled via the opposite end. Most modern cigarettes are filtered, although this does not make them safer. Cigarette manufacturers have described cigarettes as a drug administration system for the delivery of nicotine in acceptable and attractive form.[2][3][4][5] Cigarettes are addictive (because of nicotine) and cause cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart disease, and other health problems.
+
+The term cigarette, as commonly used, refers to a tobacco cigarette but is sometimes used to refer to other substances, such as a cannabis cigarette. A cigarette is distinguished from a cigar by its usually smaller size, use of processed leaf, and paper wrapping, which is typically white. Cigar wrappers are typically composed of tobacco leaf or paper dipped in tobacco extract.
+
+Smoking rates have generally declined in the developed world, but continue to rise in some developing nations.[6][7][8] Cigarette smoking causes disease and harms nearly every organ of the body.[9] Nicotine is also highly addictive. About half of cigarette smokers die of tobacco-related disease[10] and lose on average 14 years of life.[11] Every year, tobacco cigarettes kill more than 8 million people worldwide; with 1.2 million of those being non-smokers dying as the result of exposure to second-hand smoke.[12] Second-hand smoke from cigarettes causes many of the same health problems as smoking, including cancer,[13][14][15][16] which has led to legislation and policy that has prohibited smoking in many workplaces and public areas. Cigarette smoke contains over 7,000 chemical compounds, including arsenic, formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide, lead, nicotine, carbon monoxide, acrolein, and other poisonous substances.[17] Over 70 of these are carcinogenic.[18] Cigarette use by pregnant women has also been shown to cause birth defects, including low birth weight, fetal abnormalities, and premature birth.[19]
+
+The earliest forms of cigarettes were similar to their predecessor, the cigar. Cigarettes appear to have had antecedents in Mexico and Central America around the 9th century in the form of reeds and smoking tubes. The Maya, and later the Aztecs, smoked tobacco and other psychoactive drugs in religious rituals and frequently depicted priests and deities smoking on pottery and temple engravings. The cigarette and the cigar were the most common methods of smoking in the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central and South America until recent times.[20]
+
+The North American, Central American, and South American cigarette used various plant wrappers; when it was brought back to Spain, maize wrappers were introduced, and by the 17th century, fine paper.  The resulting product was called papelate and is documented in Goya's paintings La Cometa, La Merienda en el Manzanares, and El juego de la pelota a pala (18th century).[21]
+
+By 1830, the cigarette had crossed into France, where it received the name cigarette; and in 1845, the French state tobacco monopoly began manufacturing them.[21] The French word was adopted by English in the 1840s.[22] Some American reformers promoted the spelling cigaret,[23][24] but this was never widespread and is now largely abandoned.[25]
+
+The first patented cigarette-making machine was invented by Juan Nepomuceno Adorno of Mexico in 1847.[26] However, production climbed markedly when another cigarette-making machine was developed in the 1880s by James Albert Bonsack, which vastly increased the productivity of cigarette companies, which went from making about 40,000 hand-rolled cigarettes daily to around 4 million.[27]
+
+In the English-speaking world, the use of tobacco in cigarette form became increasingly widespread during and after the Crimean War, when British soldiers began emulating their Ottoman Turkish comrades and Russian enemies, who had begun rolling and smoking tobacco in strips of old newspaper for lack of proper cigar-rolling leaf.[21] This was helped by the development of tobaccos suitable for cigarette use, and by the development of the Egyptian cigarette export industry.
+
+Cigarettes may have been initially used in a manner similar to pipes, cigars, and cigarillos and not inhaled; for evidence, see the Lucky Strike ad campaign asking
+consumers "Do You Inhale?" from the 1930s. As cigarette tobacco became milder and more acidic, inhaling may have become perceived as more agreeable. However, Moltke noticed in the 1830s (cf. Unter dem Halbmond) that Ottomans (and he himself) inhaled the Turkish tobacco and Latakia from their pipes[28] (which are both initially sun-cured, acidic leaf varieties).
+
+The widespread smoking of cigarettes in the Western world is largely a 20th-century phenomenon. At the start of the 20th century, the per capita annual consumption in the U.S. was 54 cigarettes (with less than 0.5% of the population smoking more than 100 cigarettes per year), and consumption there peaked at 4,259 per capita in 1965. At that time, about 50% of men and 33% of women smoked (defined as smoking more than 100 cigarettes per year).[29] By 2000, consumption had fallen to 2,092 per capita, corresponding to about 30% of men and 22% of women smoking more than 100 cigarettes per year, and by 2006 per capita consumption had declined to 1,691;[30] implying that about 21% of the population smoked 100 cigarettes or more per year.
+
+The adverse health effects of cigarettes were known by the mid-19th century when they became known as coffins nails.[31]  German doctors were the first to identify the link between smoking and lung cancer, which led to the first antitobacco movement in Nazi Germany.[32][33] During World War I and World War II, cigarettes were rationed to soldiers. During the Vietnam War, cigarettes were included with C-ration meals. In 1975, the U.S. government stopped putting cigarettes in military rations. During the second half of the 20th century, the adverse health effects of tobacco smoking started to become widely known and text-only health warnings became common on cigarette packets.
+
+The United States has not implemented graphical cigarette warning labels, which are considered a more effective method to communicate to the public the dangers of cigarette smoking.[34] Canada, Mexico, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru,[35] Greece, the Netherlands,[citation needed] New Zealand, Norway, Hungary, the United Kingdom, France, Romania, Singapore, Egypt, Nepal and Turkey, however, have both textual warnings and graphic visual images displaying, among other things, the damaging effects tobacco use has on the human body.
+
+The cigarette has evolved much since its conception; for example, the thin bands that travel transverse to the "axis of smoking" (thus forming circles along the length of the cigarette) are alternate sections of thin and thick paper to facilitate effective burning when being drawn, and retard burning when at rest. Synthetic particulate filters may remove some of the tar before it reaches the smoker.
+
+The "holy grail" for cigarette companies has been a cancer-free cigarette. On record, the closest historical attempt was produced by scientist James Mold. Under the name project TAME, he produced the XA cigarette. However, in 1978, his project was terminated.[36][37][38]
+
+Since 1950, the average nicotine and tar content of cigarettes has steadily fallen. Research has shown that the fall in overall nicotine content has led to smokers inhaling larger volumes per puff.[39]
+
+Many governments impose restrictions on smoking tobacco, especially in public areas. The primary justification has been the negative health effects of second-hand smoke.[40] Laws vary by country and locality. Nearly all countries have laws restricting places where people can smoke in public, and over 40 countries have comprehensive smoke-free laws that prohibit smoking in virtually all public venues. Bhutan is currently the only country in the world to completely outlaw the cultivation, harvesting, production, and sale of tobacco and tobacco products under the Tobacco Control Act of Bhutan 2010. However, small allowances for personal possession are permitted as long as the possessors can prove that they have paid import duties.[41] The Pitcairn Islands had previously banned the sale of cigarettes, but it now permits sales from a government-run store. The Pacific island of Niue hopes to become the next country to prohibit the sale of tobacco.[42] Iceland is also proposing banning tobacco sales from shops, making it prescription-only and therefore dispensable only in pharmacies on doctor's orders.[43] New Zealand hopes to achieve being tobacco-free by 2025 and Finland by 2040. Singapore and the Australian state of Tasmania have proposed a 'tobacco free millennium generation initiative' by banning the sale of all tobacco products to anyone born in and after the year 2000. 
+In March 2012, Brazil became the world's first country to ban all flavored tobacco including menthols. It also banned the majority of the estimated 600 additives used, permitting only eight. This regulation applies to domestic and imported cigarettes. Tobacco manufacturers had 18 months to remove the noncompliant cigarettes, 24 months to remove the other forms of noncompliant tobacco.[44][45] Under sharia law, the consumption of cigarettes by Muslims is prohibited.[46]
+
+In the United States, the age to buy tobacco products is 21 in all states as of 2020.
+
+Similar laws exist in many other countries. In Canada, most of the provinces require smokers to be 19 years of age to purchase cigarettes (except for Quebec and the prairie provinces, where the age is 18). However, the minimum age only concerns the purchase of tobacco, not use. Alberta, however, does have a law which prohibits the possession or use of tobacco products by all persons under 18, punishable by a $100 fine. Australia, New Zealand, Poland, and Pakistan have a nationwide ban on the selling of all tobacco products to people under the age of 18.
+
+Since 1 October 2007, it has been illegal for retailers to sell tobacco in all forms to people under the age of 18 in three of the UK's four constituent countries (England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland) (rising from 16). It is also illegal to sell lighters, rolling papers, and all other tobacco-associated items to people under 18. It is not illegal for people under 18 to buy or smoke tobacco, just as it was not previously for people under 16; it is only illegal for the said retailer to sell the item. The age increase from 16 to 18 came into force in Northern Ireland on 1 September 2008. In the Republic of Ireland, bans on the sale of the smaller 10-packs and confectionery that resembles tobacco products (candy cigarettes) came into force on May 31, 2007, in a bid to cut underaged smoking.
+
+Most countries in the world have a legal vending age of 18. In Macedonia, Italy, Malta, Austria, Luxembourg, and Belgium, the age for legal vending is 16. Since January 1, 2007, all cigarette machines in public places in Germany must attempt to verify a customer's age by requiring the insertion of a debit card. Turkey, which has one of the highest percentage of smokers in its population,[47] has a legal age of 18. Japan is one of the highest tobacco-consuming nations, and requires purchasers to be 20 years of age (suffrage in Japan is 20 years old).[48] Since July 2008, Japan has enforced this age limit at cigarette vending machines through use of the taspo smart card. In other countries, such as Egypt, it is legal to use and purchase tobacco products regardless of age.[citation needed] Germany raised the purchase age from 16 to 18 on the 1 September 2007.
+
+Some police departments in the United States occasionally send an underaged teenager into a store where cigarettes are sold, and have the teen attempt to purchase cigarettes, with their own or no ID. If the vendor then completes the sale, the store is issued a fine.[49]  Similar enforcement practices are regularly performed by Trading Standards officers in the UK, Israel, and  the Republic of Ireland.[50]
+
+Cigarettes are taxed both to reduce use, especially among youth, and to raise revenue. Higher prices for cigarettes discourage smoking. Every 10% increase in the price of cigarettes reduces youth smoking by about 7% and overall cigarette consumption by about 4%.[52]  The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that globally cigarettes be taxed at a rate of three-quarters of cigarettes sale price as a way of deterring cancer and other negative health outcomes.[53]
+
+Cigarette sales are a significant source of tax revenue in many localities. This fact has historically been an impediment for health groups seeking to discourage cigarette smoking, since governments seek to maximize tax revenues. Furthermore, some countries have made cigarettes a state monopoly, which has the same effect on the attitude of government officials outside the health field.[54]
+
+In the United States, states are a primary determinant of the total tax rate on cigarettes. Generally, states that rely on tobacco as a significant farm product tend to tax cigarettes at a low rate.[55]  Coupled with the federal cigarette tax of $1.01 per pack, total cigarette-specific taxes range from $1.18 per pack in Missouri to $8.00 per pack in Silver Bay, New York. As part of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, the federal government collects user fees to fund Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory measures over tobacco.
+
+Cigarettes are a frequent source of deadly fires in private homes, which prompted both the European Union and the United States to require cigarettes to be fire-standard compliant.[56][57]
+
+According to Simon Chapman, a professor of public health at the University of Sydney, reduction of burning agents in cigarettes would be a simple and effective means of dramatically reducing the ignition propensity of cigarettes.[58] Since the 1980s, prominent cigarette manufacturers such as Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds developed fire safe cigarettes, but did not market them.[59]
+
+The burn rate of cigarette paper is regulated through the application of different forms of microcrystalline cellulose to the paper.[60] Cigarette paper has been specially engineered by creating bands of different porosity to create "fire-safe" cigarettes. These cigarettes have a reduced idle burning speed which allows them to self-extinguish.[61] This fire-safe paper is manufactured by mechanically altering the setting of the paper slurry.[62]
+
+New York was the first U.S. state to mandate that all cigarettes manufactured or sold within the state comply with a fire-safe standard. Canada has passed a similar nationwide mandate based on the same standard. All U.S. states are gradually passing fire-safe mandates.[63]
+
+The European Union in 2011 banned cigarettes that do not meet a fire-safety standard. According to a study made by the European Union in 16 European countries, 11,000 fires were due to people carelessly handling cigarettes between 2005 and 2007. This caused 520 deaths with 1,600 people injured.[64]
+
+Many countries have restrictions on cigarette advertising, promotion, sponsorship, and marketing. For example, in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Alberta, the retail store display of cigarettes is completely prohibited if persons under the legal age of consumption have access to the premises.[65] In Ontario, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Quebec, Canada and the Australian Capital Territory the display of tobacco is prohibited for everyone, regardless of age, as of 2010. This retail display ban includes noncigarette products such as cigars and blunt wraps.[66][67]
+
+As a result of tight advertising and marketing prohibitions, tobacco companies look at the pack differently: they view it as a strong component in displaying brand imagery and a creating significant in-store presence at the point of purchase. Market testing shows the influence of this dimension in shifting the consumer's choice when the same product displays in an alternative package. Studies also show how companies have manipulated a variety of elements in packs designs to communicate the impression of lower in tar or milder cigarettes, whereas the components were the same.[citation needed]
+
+Some countries require cigarette packs to contain warnings about health hazards. The United States was the first,[68] later followed by other countries including Canada, most of Europe, Australia,[69] Pakistan,[70] India, Hong Kong, and Singapore. In 1985, Iceland became the first country to enforce graphic warnings on cigarette packaging.[71][72] At the end of December 2010, new regulations from Ottawa increased the size of tobacco warnings to cover three-quarters of the cigarette package in Canada.[73] As of November 2010, 39 countries have adopted similar legislation.[68]
+
+In February 2011, the Canadian government passed regulations requiring cigarette packs to contain 12 new images to cover 75% of the outside panel and eight new health messages on the inside panel with full color.[74]
+
+As of April 2011, Australian regulations require all packs to use a bland olive green that researchers determined to be the least attractive color,[75] with 75% coverage on the front of the pack and all of the back consisting of graphic health warnings. The only feature that differentiates one brand from another is the product name in a standard color, position, font size, and style.[76] Similar policies have since been adopted in France and the United Kingdom.[77][78] In response to these regulations, Philip Morris International, Japan Tobacco Inc., British American Tobacco Plc., and Imperial Tobacco attempted to sue the Australian government. On August 15, 2012, the High Court of Australia dismissed the suit and made Australia the first country to introduce brand-free plain cigarette packaging with health warnings covering 90 and 70% of back and front packaging, respectively. This took effect on December 1, 2012.[79]
+
+Modern commercially manufactured cigarettes are seemingly simple objects consisting mainly of a tobacco blend, paper, PVA glue to bond the outer layer of paper together, and often also a cellulose acetate–based filter.[80]  While the assembly of cigarettes is straightforward, much focus is given to the creation of each of the components, in particular the tobacco blend. A key ingredient that makes cigarettes more addictive is the inclusion of reconstituted tobacco, which has additives to make nicotine more volatile as the cigarette burns.[81]
+
+The paper for holding the tobacco blend may vary in porosity to allow ventilation of the burning ember or contain materials that control the burning rate of the cigarette and stability of the produced ash. The papers used in tipping the cigarette (forming the mouthpiece) and surrounding the filter stabilize the mouthpiece from saliva and moderate the burning of the cigarette, as well as the delivery of smoke with the presence of one or two rows of small laser-drilled air holes.[82]
+
+The process of blending gives the end product a consistent taste from batches of tobacco grown in different areas of a country that may change in flavor profile from year to year due to different environmental conditions.[83]
+
+Modern cigarettes produced after the 1950s, although composed mainly of shredded tobacco leaf, use a significant quantity of tobacco processing byproducts in the blend. Each cigarette's tobacco blend is made mainly from the leaves of flue-cured brightleaf, burley tobacco, and oriental tobacco. These leaves are selected, processed, and aged prior to blending and filling. The processing of brightleaf and burley tobaccos for tobacco leaf "strips" produces several byproducts such as leaf stems, tobacco dust, and tobacco leaf pieces ("small laminate").[83] To improve the economics of producing cigarettes, these byproducts are processed separately into forms where they can then be added back into the cigarette blend without an apparent or marked change in the cigarette's quality. The most common tobacco byproducts include:
+
+In recent years, the manufacturers' pursuit of maximum profits has led to the practice of using not just the leaves, but also recycled tobacco offal[81] and the plant stem.[86] The stem is first crushed and cut to resemble the leaf before being merged or blended into the cut leaf.[87] According to data from the World Health Organization,[88] the amount of tobacco per 1000 cigarettes fell from 2.28 pounds in 1960 to 0.91 pounds in 1999, largely as a result of reconstituting tobacco, fluffing, and additives.
+
+A recipe-specified combination of brightleaf, burley-leaf, and oriental-leaf tobacco is mixed with various additives to improve its flavors.
+
+Various additives are combined into the shredded tobacco product mixtures, with humectants such as propylene glycol or glycerol, as well as flavoring products and enhancers such as cocoa solids, licorice, tobacco extracts, and various sugars, which are known collectively as "casings". The leaf tobacco is then shredded, along with a specified amount of small laminate, expanded tobacco, BL, RL, ES, and IS. A perfume-like flavor/fragrance, called the "topping" or "toppings", which is most often formulated by flavor companies, is then blended into the tobacco mixture to improve the consistency in flavor and taste of the cigarettes associated with a certain brand name.[83] Additionally, they replace lost flavors due to the repeated wetting and drying used in processing the tobacco. Finally, the tobacco mixture is filled into cigarette tubes and packaged.
+
+A list of 599 cigarette additives, created by five major American cigarette companies, was approved by the Department of Health and Human Services in April 1994.  None of these additives is listed as an ingredient on the cigarette pack(s). Chemicals are added for organoleptic purposes and many boost the addictive properties of cigarettes, especially when burned.[citation needed]
+
+One of the classes of chemicals on the list, ammonia salts, convert bound nicotine molecules in tobacco smoke into free nicotine molecules. This process, known as freebasing, could potentially increase the effect of nicotine on the smoker, but experimental data suggests that absorption is, in practice, unaffected.[89]
+
+Cigarette tubes are prerolled cigarette paper usually with an acetate or paper filter at the end. They have an appearance similar to a finished cigarette, but are without any tobacco or smoking material inside. The length varies from what is known as King Size (84 mm) to 100s (100 mm).[90][self-published source?]
+
+Filling a cigarette tube is usually done with a cigarette injector (also known as a shooter). Cone-shaped cigarette tubes, known as cones, can be filled using a packing stick or straw because of their shape. Cone smoking is popular because as the cigarette burns, it tends to get stronger and stronger. A cone allows more tobacco to be burned at the beginning than the end, allowing for an even flavor[91]
+
+The United States Tobacco Taxation Bureau defines a cigarette tube as "Cigarette paper made into a hollow cylinder for use in making cigarettes."[92]
+
+A cigarette filter or filter tip is a component of a cigarette. Filters are typically made from cellulose acetate fibre. Most factory-made cigarettes are equipped with a filter; those who roll their own can buy them separately. Filters can reduce some substances from smoke but do not make cigarettes any safer to smoke.
+
+The common name for the remains of a cigarette after smoking is a cigarette butt. The butt is typically about 30% of the cigarette's original length. It consists of a tissue tube which holds a filter and some remains of tobacco mixed with ash.  They are the most numerically frequent litter in the world.[93] Cigarette butts accumulate outside buildings, on parking lots, and streets where they can be transported through storm drains to streams, rivers, and beaches.[94] It is also called a fag-end or dog-end.[95]
+
+In a 2013 trial the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, partnered with TerraCycle to create a system for recycling of cigarette butts. A reward of 1¢ per collected butt was offered to determine the effectiveness of a deposit system similar to that of beverage containers.[96][97]
+
+Cigarette filters are made up of thousands of polymer chains of cellulose acetate, which has the chemical structure shown to the right.  Once discarded into the environment, the filters create a large waste problem.  Cigarette filters are the most common form of litter in the world, as approximately 5.6 trillion cigarettes are smoked every year worldwide.[98] Of those, an estimated 4.5 trillion cigarette filters become litter every year.[99] To develop an idea of the waste weight amount produced a year the table below was created.
+
+Discarded cigarette filters usually end up in the water system through drainage ditches and are transported by rivers and other waterways to the ocean.
+
+In the 2006 International Coastal Cleanup, cigarettes and cigarette butts constituted 24.7% of the total collected pieces of garbage, over twice as many as any other category, which is not surprising seeing the numbers in the table above of waste produced each year.[100]
+Cigarette filters contain the chemicals filtered from cigarettes and can leach into waterways and water supplies.[101] The toxicity of used cigarette filters depends on the specific tobacco blend and additives used by the cigarette companies. After a cigarette is smoked, the filter retains some of the chemicals, and some of which are considered carcinogenic.[93] When studying the environmental impact of cigarette filters, the various chemicals that can be found in cigarette filters are not studied individually, due to its complexity.  Researchers instead focus on the whole cigarette filter and its LD50.  LD50 is defined as the lethal dose that kills 50% of a sample population.  This allows for a simpler study of the toxicity of cigarettes filters.  One recent study has looked at the toxicity of smoked cigarette filters (smoked filter + tobacco), smoked cigarette filters (no tobacco), and unsmoked cigarette filters (no tobacco). The results of the study showed that for the LD50of both marine topsmelt (Atherinops affinis) and freshwater fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas), smoked cigarette filters + tobacco are more toxic than smoked cigarette filters, but both are severely more toxic than unsmoked cigarette filters.[102]
+
+Toxic chemicals are not the only human health concern to take into considerations; the others are cellulose acetate and carbon particles that are breathed in while smoking. These particles are suspected of causing lung damage.[103] 
+The next health concern is that of plants. Under certain growing conditions, plants on average grow taller and have longer roots than those exposed to cigarette filters in the soil.  A connection exists between cigarette filters introduced to soil and the depletion of some soil nutrients over a period time.
+Another health concern to the environment is not only the toxic carcinogens that are harmful to the wildlife, but also the filters themselves pose an ingestion risk to wildlife that may presume filter litter as food.[104]
+The last major health concern to make note of for marine life is the toxicity that deep marine topsmelt and fathead minnow pose to their predators.  This could lead to toxin build-up (bioaccumulation) in the food chain and have long reaching negative effects.
+Smoldering cigarette filters have also been blamed for triggering fires from residential areas[105] to major wildfires and bushfires which has caused major property damage and also death[106][107][108] as well as disruption to services by triggering alarms and warning systems.[109]
+
+Once in the environment, cellulose acetate can go through biodegradation and photodegradation.[110][111][112]  Several factors go into determining the rate of both degradation process. This variance in rate and resistance to biodegradation in many conditions is a factor in littering[113] and environmental damage.[114]
+
+The first step in the biodegradation of cellulose acetate is the deactylation of the acetate from the polymer chain (which is the opposite of acetylation).  An acetate is a negative ion with the chemical formula of C2H3O2−.  Deacetylation can be performed by either chemical hydrolysis or acetylesterase.  Chemical hydrolysis is the cleavage of a chemical bond by addition of water.  In the reaction, water (H2O) reacts with the acetic ester functional group attached the cellulose polymer chain and forms an alcohol and acetate.  The alcohol is simply the cellulose polymer chain with the acetate replaced with an alcohol group. The second reaction is exactly the same as chemical hydrolysis with the exception of the use of an acetylesterase enzyme.  The enzyme, found in most plants, catalyzes the chemical reaction shown below.[115]
+
+In the case of the enzymatic reaction, the two substrates (reactants) are again acetic ester and H2O, the two products of the reaction are alcohol and acetate.  This reaction is exactly the same as the chemical hydrolysis.  Both of these products are perfectly fine in the environment. Once the acetate group is removed from the cellulose chain, the polymer can be readily degraded by cellulase, which is another enzyme found in fungi, bacteria, and protozoans. Cellulases break down the cellulose molecule into monosaccharides ("simple sugars") such as beta-glucose, or shorter polysaccharides and oligosaccharides.
+
+These simple sugars are not harmful to the environment and are in fact are a useful product for many plants and animals.  The breakdown of cellulose is of interest in the field of biofuel.[116] Due to the conditions that affect the process, large variation in the degradation time of cellulose acetate occurs.
+
+The duration of the biodegradation process is cited as taking as little as one month[110] to as long as 15 years or more, depending on the environmental conditions. The major factor that affects the biodegradation duration is the availability of acetylesterase and cellulase enzymes.  Without these enzymes, biodegradation only occurs through chemical hydrolysis and stops there.  Temperature is another major factor, if the organisms that contain the enzymes are too cold to grow, then biodegradation is severely hindered.  Availability of oxygen in the environment also affects the degradation.  Cellulose acetate is degraded within 2–3 weeks under aerobic assay systems of in vitro enrichment cultivation techniques and an activated sludge wastewater treatment system.[117] It is degraded within 14 weeks under anaerobic conditions of incubation with special cultures of fungi.[118] Ideal conditions were used for the degradation (i.e. right temperature, and available organisms to provide the enzymes).  Thus, filters last longer in places with low oxygen concentration (ex. swamps and bogs).  Overall, the biodegraditon process of cellulose acetate is not an instantaneous process.
+
+The other process of degradation is photodegradation, which is when a molecular bond is broken by the absorption of photon radiation (i.e. light).  Due to cellulose acetate carbonyl groups, the molecule naturally absorbs light at 260 nm,[119] but it contains some impurities which can absorb light.  These impurities are known to absorb light in the far UV light region (< 280 nm).[120]  The atmosphere filters radiation from the sun and allows radiation of > 300 nm only to reach the surface.  Thus, the primary photodegradation of cellulose acetate is considered insignificant to the total degradation process, since cellulose acetate and its impurities absorb light at shorter wavelengths.  Research is focused on the secondary mechanisms of photodegradation of cellulose acetate to help make up for some of the limitations of biodegradation.  The secondary mechanisms would be the addition of a compound to the filters that would be able to absorb natural light and use it to start the degradation process.  The main two areas of research are in photocatalytic oxidation[121] and photosensitized degradation.[122] Photocatalytic oxidation uses a species that absorbs radiation and creates hydroxyl radicals that react with the filters and start the breakdown.  Photosensitized degradation, though, uses a species that absorbs radiation and transfers the energy to the cellulose acetate to start the degradation process. Both processes use other species that absorbed light > 300 nm to start the degradation of cellulose acetate.[citation needed]
+
+Several options are available to help reduce the environmental impact of cigarette butts.  Proper disposal into receptacles leads to decreased numbers found in the environment and their effect on the environment.  Another method is making fines and penalties for littering filters; many governments have sanctioned stiff penalties for littering of cigarette filters; for example, Washington  imposes a penalty of $1,025 for littering cigarette filters.[123] Another option is developing better biodegradable filters; much of this work relies heavily on the research in the secondary mechanism for photodegradation as stated above, but a new research group has developed an acid tablet that goes inside the filters, and once wet enough, releases acid that speeds up the degradation to around two weeks.[124]  The research is still only in test phase and the hope is soon it will go into production. The next option is using cigarette packs with a compartment in which to discard cigarette butts, implementing monetary deposits on filters, increasing the availability of butt receptacles, and expanding public education. It may even be possible to ban the sale of filtered cigarettes altogether on the basis of their adverse environmental impact.[125] Recent research has been put into finding ways to use the filter waste to develop a desired product.  One research group in South Korea has developed a simple one-step process that converts the cellulose acetate in discarded cigarette filters into a high-performing material that could be integrated into computers, handheld devices, electrical vehicles, and wind turbines to store energy.  These materials have demonstrated superior performance as compared to commercially available carbon, grapheme, and carbon nanotubes. The product is showing high promise as a green alternative for the waste problem.[126]
+
+
+
+Smoking has become less popular, but is still a large public health problem globally. Worldwide, smoking rates fell from 41% in 1980 to 31% in 2012, although the actual number of smokers increased because of population growth.[128] In 2017, 5.4 trillion cigarettes were produced globally, and were smoked by almost 1 billion people.[129] Smoking rates have leveled off or declined in most countries but is increasing in some low- and middle-income countries. The significant reductions in smoking rates in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Brazil, and other countries that implemented strong tobacco control programs[according to whom?] have been offset by the increasing consumption in low income countries, especially China. The Chinese market now consumes more cigarettes than all other low- and middle-income countries combined.
+
+Other regions are increasingly playing larger roles in the growing global smoking epidemic. The WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMRO) now has the highest growth rate in the cigarette market, with more than a one-third increase in cigarette consumption since 2000. Due to its recent dynamic economic development and continued population growth, Africa presents the greatest risk in terms of future growth in tobacco use.
+
+Within countries, patterns of cigarette consumption also can vary widely.  For example, in many of the countries where few women smoke, smoking rates are often high in males (e.g., in Asia). By contrast, in most developed countries, female smoking rates are typically only a few percentage points below those of males. In many high and middle income countries lower socioeconomic status is a strong predictor of smoking.
+
+Smoking rates in the United States have dropped by more than half from 1965 to 2016, falling from 42% to 15.5% of US adults.[130] Australia is cutting their overall smoking consumption faster than most of the developed world, in part due to landmark Plain Packaging Act, which standardized the appearance of cigarette packs. Other countries have considered similar measures. In New Zealand, a bill has been presented to parliament in which the government's associate health minister said "takes away the last means of promoting tobacco as a desirable product."[131]
+
+Some cigarettes are marketed as “Lights”, “Milds”, or “Low-tar.”[134] These cigarettes were historically marketed as being less harmful, but there is no research showing that they are any less harmful. The filter design is one of the main differences between light and regular cigarettes, although not all cigarettes contain perforated holes in the filter. In some light cigarettes, the filter is perforated with small holes that theoretically diffuse the tobacco smoke with clean air.  In regular cigarettes, the filter does not include these perforations.  In ultralight cigarettes, the filter's perforations are larger. The majority of major cigarette manufacturers offer a light, low-tar, and/or mild cigarette brand.  Due to recent U.S. legislation prohibiting the use of these descriptors, tobacco manufacturers are turning to color-coding to allow consumers to differentiate between regular and light brands.[135]
+
+Research shows that smoking "light" or "low-tar" cigarettes is just as harmful as smoking other cigarettes.[136][137][138]
+
+A very strong argument can be made about the association between adolescent exposure to nicotine by smoking conventional cigarettes and the subsequent onset of using other dependence-producing substances.[139] Strong, temporal, and dose-dependent associations have been reported, and a plausible biological mechanism (via rodent and human modeling) suggests that long-term changes in the neural reward system take place as a result of adolescent smoking.[139] Adolescent smokers of conventional cigarettes have disproportionately high rates of comorbid substance abuse, and longitudinal studies have suggested that early adolescent smoking may be a starting point or "gateway" for substance abuse later in life, with this effect more likely for persons with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).[139] Although factors such as genetic comorbidity, innate propensity for risk taking, and social influences may underlie these findings, both human neuroimaging and animal studies suggest a neurobiological mechanism also plays a role.[139] In addition, behavioral studies in adolescent and young adult smokers have revealed an increased propensity for risk taking, both generally and in the presence of peers, and neuroimaging studies have shown altered frontal neural activation during a risk-taking task as compared with nonsmokers.[139] In 2011, Rubinstein and colleagues used neuroimaging to show decreased brain response to a natural reinforcer (pleasurable food cues) in adolescent light smokers (1–5 cigarettes per day), with their results highlighting the possibility of neural alterations consistent with nicotine dependence and altered brain response to reward even in adolescent low-level smokers.[139]
+
+The harm from smoking comes from the many toxic chemicals in the natural tobacco leaf and those formed in smoke from burning tobacco. People keep smoking because the nicotine, the primary psychoactive chemical in cigarettes, is highly addictive.[140]  About half of smokers die from a smoking-related cause. Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body.  Smoking leads most commonly to diseases affecting the heart, liver, and lungs, being a major risk factor for heart attacks, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (including emphysema and chronic bronchitis), and cancer (particularly lung cancer, cancers of the larynx and mouth, and pancreatic cancer). It also causes peripheral vascular disease and hypertension. Children born to women who smoke during pregnancy are at higher risk of congenital disorders, cancer, respiratory disease, and sudden death. On average, each cigarette smoked is estimated to shorten life by 11 minutes.[11][141][142] Starting smoking earlier in life and smoking cigarettes higher in tar increases the risk of these diseases. The World Health Organization  estimates that tobacco kills 8 million people each year as of 2019[143] and 100 million deaths over the course of the 20th century.[144] Cigarettes produce an aerosol containing over 4,000 chemical compounds, including nicotine, carbon monoxide, acrolein, and oxidant substances.[17] Over 70 of these are carcinogens.[18]
+
+The most important chemical compounds causing cancer are those that produce DNA damage since such damage appears to be the primary underlying cause of cancer.[145]  Cunningham et al.[146] combined the microgram weight of the compound in the smoke of one cigarette with the known genotoxic effect per microgram to identify the most carcinogenic compounds in cigarette smoke.  The seven most important carcinogens in tobacco smoke are shown in the table, along with DNA alterations they cause.
+
+"Ulcerative colitis is a condition of nonsmokers in which nicotine is of therapeutic benefit."[154] A recent review of the available scientific literature concluded that the apparent decrease in Alzheimer disease risk may be simply because smokers tend to die before reaching the age at which it normally occurs. "Differential mortality is always likely to be a problem where there is a need to investigate the effects of smoking in a disorder with very low incidence rates before age 75 years, which is the case of Alzheimer's disease", it stated, noting that smokers are only half as likely as nonsmokers to survive to the age of 80.[155]
+
+Second-hand smoke is a mixture of smoke from the burning end of a cigarette and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers. It is involuntarily inhaled, lingers in the air for hours after cigarettes have been extinguished, and can cause a wide range of adverse health effects, including cancer, respiratory infections, and asthma.[156] Nonsmokers who are exposed to second-hand smoke at home or work increase their heart disease risk by 25–30% and their lung cancer risk by 20–30%. Second-hand smoke has been estimated to cause 38,000 deaths per year, of which 3,400 are deaths from lung cancer in nonsmokers.[157] Sudden infant death syndrome, ear infections, respiratory infections, and asthma attacks can occur in children who are exposed to second-hand smoke.[158][159][160]  Scientific evidence shows that no level of exposure to second-hand smoke is safe.[158][159]
+
+Smoking cessation (quitting smoking) is the process of discontinuing the practice of inhaling a smoked substance.[161]
+
+Smoking cessation can be achieved with or without assistance from healthcare professionals or the use of medications.[162] Methods that have been found to be effective include interventions directed at or through health care providers and health care systems; medications including nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) and varenicline; individual and group counselling; and web-based or stand-alone computer programs.  Although stopping smoking can cause short-term side effects such as reversible weight gain, smoking cessation services and activities are cost-effective because of the positive health benefits.
+
+At the University of Buffalo, researchers found out that fruit and vegetable consumption can help a smoker cut down or even quit smoking[163]
+
+Tobacco contains nicotine. Smoking cigarettes can lead to nicotine addiction.[165]:2300–2301 The addiction begins when nicotine acts on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors to release neurotransmitters such as dopamine, glutamate, and gamma-aminobutyric acid.[165]:2296  Cessation of smoking leads to symptoms of nicotine withdrawal such as anxiety and irritability.[165]:2298  Professional smoking cessation support methods generally endeavour to address both nicotine addiction and nicotine withdrawal symptoms.
+
+The number of nicotinic receptors in the brain returns to the level of a nonsmoker between 6 and 12 weeks after quitting.[166] In 2019, the FDA authorized the selling of low-nicotine cigarettes in hopes of lowering the number of people addicted to nicotine.[167]
+
+An electronic cigarette is a handheld battery-powered vaporizer that simulates smoking by providing some of the behavioral aspects of smoking, including the hand-to-mouth action of smoking, but without combusting tobacco.[168] Using an e-cigarette is known as "vaping" and the user is referred to as a "vaper."[169] Instead of cigarette smoke, the user inhales an aerosol, commonly called vapor.[170] E-cigarettes typically have a heating element that atomizes a liquid solution called e-liquid.[171] E-cigarettes are automatically activated by taking a puff;[172] others turn on manually by pressing a button.[169] Some e-cigarettes look like traditional cigarettes,[173] but they come in many variations.[169] Most versions are reusable, though some are disposable.[174] There are first-generation,[175] second-generation,[176] third-generation,[177] and fourth-generation devices.[178] E-liquids usually contain propylene glycol, glycerin, nicotine, flavorings, additives, and differing amounts of contaminants.[179] E-liquids are also sold without propylene glycol,[180] nicotine,[181] or flavors.[182]
+
+The benefits and the health risks of e-cigarettes are uncertain.[183][184][185] There is tentative evidence they may help people quit smoking,[186] although they have not been proven to be more effective than smoking cessation medicine.[187] There is concern with the possibility that non-smokers and children may start nicotine use with e-cigarettes at a rate higher than anticipated than if they were never created.[188] Following the possibility of nicotine addiction from e-cigarette use, there is concern children may start smoking cigarettes.[188] Youth who use e-cigarettes are more likely to go on to smoke cigarettes.[189][190] Their part in tobacco harm reduction is unclear,[191] while another review found they appear to have the potential to lower tobacco-related death and disease.[192] Regulated US Food and Drug Administration nicotine replacement products may be safer than e-cigarettes,[191] but e-cigarettes are generally seen as safer than combusted tobacco products.[193][194] It is estimated their safety risk to users is similar to that of smokeless tobacco.[195] The long-term effects of e-cigarette use are unknown.[196][197][198] The risk from serious adverse events was reported in 2016 to be low.[199] Less serious adverse effects include abdominal pain, headache, blurry vision,[200] throat and mouth irritation, vomiting, nausea, and coughing.[201] Nicotine itself is associated with some health harms.[202] In 2019 and 2020, an outbreak of severe lung illness throughout the US was linked to the use of vaping products[203]
+
+E-cigarettes create vapor made of fine and ultrafine particles of particulate matter,[201] which have been found to contain propylene glycol, glycerin, nicotine, flavors, small amounts of toxicants,[201] carcinogens,[204] and heavy metals, as well as metal nanoparticles, and other substances.[201] Its exact composition varies across and within manufacturers, and depends on the contents of the liquid, the physical and electrical design of the device, and user behavior, among other factors.[170] E-cigarette vapor potentially contains harmful chemicals not found in tobacco smoke.[205] E-cigarette vapor contains fewer toxic chemicals,[201] and lower concentrations of potential toxic chemicals than cigarette smoke.[206] The vapor is probably much less harmful to users and bystanders than cigarette smoke,[204] although concern exists that the exhaled vapor may be inhaled by non-users, particularly indoors.[207]
+
+
+