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23862 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python%20%28programming%20language%29 | Python (programming language) | Python is a high-level, general-purpose programming language. Its design philosophy emphasizes code readability with the use of significant indentation.
Python is dynamically typed and garbage-collected. It supports multiple programming paradigms, including structured (particularly procedural), object-oriented and functional programming. It is often described as a "batteries included" language due to its comprehensive standard library.
Guido van Rossum began working on Python in the late 1980s as a successor to the ABC programming language and first released it in 1991 as Python 0.9.0. Python 2.0 was released in 2000. Python 3.0, released in 2008, was a major revision not completely backward-compatible with earlier versions. Python 2.7.18, released in 2020, was the last release of Python 2.
Python consistently ranks as one of the most popular programming languages, and has gained widespread use in the machine learning community.
History
Python was invented in the late 1980s by Guido van Rossum at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in the Netherlands as a successor to the ABC programming language, which was inspired by SETL, capable of exception handling and interfacing with the Amoeba operating system. Its implementation began in December 1989. Van Rossum shouldered sole responsibility for the project, as the lead developer, until 12 July 2018, when he announced his "permanent vacation" from his responsibilities as Python's "benevolent dictator for life" (BDFL), a title the Python community bestowed upon him to reflect his long-term commitment as the project's chief decision-maker (he's since come out of retirement and is self-titled "BDFL-emeritus"). In January 2019, active Python core developers elected a five-member Steering Council to lead the project.
Python 2.0 was released on 16 October 2000, with many major new features such as list comprehensions, cycle-detecting garbage collection, reference counting, and Unicode support. Python 3.0 was released on 3 December 2008, with many of its major features backported to Python 2.6.x and 2.7.x. Releases of Python 3 include the 2to3 utility, which automates the translation of Python 2 code to Python 3.
Python 2.7's end-of-life was initially set for 2015, then postponed to 2020 out of concern that a large body of existing code could not easily be forward-ported to Python 3. No further security patches or other improvements will be released for it. Currently only 3.8 and later are supported (2023 security issues were fixed in e.g. 3.7.17, the final 3.7.x release). While Python 2.7 and older is officially unsupported, a different unofficial Python implementation, PyPy, continues to support Python 2, i.e. "2.7.18+" (plus 3.9 and 3.10), with the plus meaning (at least some) "backported security updates".
In 2021 (and again twice in 2022), security updates were expedited, since all Python versions were insecure (including 2.7) because of security issues leading to possible remote code execution and web-cache poisoning. In 2022, Python 3.10.4 and 3.9.12 were expedited and 3.8.13, because of many security issues. When Python 3.9.13 was released in May 2022, it was announced that the 3.9 series (joining the older series 3.8 and 3.7) would only receive security fixes in the future. On 7 September 2022, four new releases were made due to a potential denial-of-service attack: 3.10.7, 3.9.14, 3.8.14, and 3.7.14.
Every Python release since 3.5 has added some syntax to the language. 3.10 added the | union type operator and the match and case keywords (for structural pattern matching statements). 3.11 expanded exception handling functionality. Python 3.12 added the new keyword type.
Notable changes in 3.11 from 3.10 include increased program execution speed and improved error reporting. Python 3.11 claims to be between 10 and 60% faster than Python 3.10, and Python 3.12 adds another 5% on top of that. It also has improved error messages, and many other changes.
Python 3.12 is the stable release, and 3.12 is the only version with active (as opposed to just security) support.
, Python 3.8 is the oldest supported version of Python (albeit in the 'security support' phase), due to Python 3.7 reaching end-of-life.
Python 3.13 introduced an incremental garbage collector (producing shorter pauses for collection in programs with a lot of objects); an experimental JIT compiler; and removals from the C API. Some standard library modules and many deprecated classes, functions and methods, will be removed in Python 3.15 and or 3.16. Starting with 3.13, it and later versions have 2 years of full support (up from one and a half); followed by 3 years of security support (for same total support as before).
Design philosophy and features
Python is a multi-paradigm programming language. Object-oriented programming and structured programming are fully supported, and many of their features support functional programming and aspect-oriented programming (including metaprogramming and metaobjects). Many other paradigms are supported via extensions, including design by contract and logic programming.
Python uses dynamic typing and a combination of reference counting and a cycle-detecting garbage collector for memory management. It uses dynamic name resolution (late binding), which binds method and variable names during program execution.
Its design offers some support for functional programming in the Lisp tradition. It has functions; list comprehensions, dictionaries, sets, and generator expressions. The standard library has two modules ( and ) that implement functional tools borrowed from Haskell and Standard ML.
Its core philosophy is summarized in the Zen of Python (PEP 20), which includes aphorisms such as:
Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Readability counts.
However, Python features regularly violate these principles and have received criticism for adding unnecessary language bloat. Responses to these criticisms are that the Zen of Python is a guideline rather than a rule. The addition of some new features had been so controversial that Guido van Rossum resigned as Benevolent Dictator for Life following vitriol over the addition of the assignment expression operator in Python 3.8.
Nevertheless, rather than building all of its functionality into its core, Python was designed to be highly extensible via modules. This compact modularity has made it particularly popular as a means of adding programmable interfaces to existing applications. Van Rossum's vision of a small core language with a large standard library and easily extensible interpreter stemmed from his frustrations with ABC, which espoused the opposite approach.
Python claims to strive for a simpler, less-cluttered syntax and grammar while giving developers a choice in their coding methodology. In contrast to Perl's "there is more than one way to do it" motto, Python embraces a "there should be one—and preferably only one—obvious way to do it." philosophy. In practice, however, Python provides many ways to achieve the same task. There are, for example, at least three ways to format a string literal, with no certainty as to which one a programmer should use. Alex Martelli, a Fellow at the Python Software Foundation and Python book author, wrote: "To describe something as 'clever' is not considered a compliment in the Python culture."
Python's developers usually strive to avoid premature optimization and reject patches to non-critical parts of the CPython reference implementation that would offer marginal increases in speed at the cost of clarity. Execution speed can be improved by moving speed-critical functions to extension modules written in languages such as C, or by using a just-in-time compiler like PyPy. It is also possible to cross-compile to other languages, but it either doesn't provide the full speed-up that might be expected, since Python is a very dynamic language, or a restricted subset of Python is compiled, and possibly semantics are slightly changed.
Python's developers aim for it to be fun to use. This is reflected in its name—a tribute to the British comedy group Monty Python—and in occasionally playful approaches to tutorials and reference materials, such as the use of the terms "spam" and "eggs" (a reference to a Monty Python sketch) in examples, instead of the often-used "foo" and "bar". A common neologism in the Python community is pythonic, which has a wide range of meanings related to program style. "Pythonic" code may use Python idioms well, be natural or show fluency in the language, or conform with Python's minimalist philosophy and emphasis on readability. Code that is difficult to understand or reads like a rough transcription from another programming language is called unpythonic.
Syntax and semantics
Python is meant to be an easily readable language. Its formatting is visually uncluttered and often uses English keywords where other languages use punctuation. Unlike many other languages, it does not use curly brackets to delimit blocks, and semicolons after statements are allowed but rarely used. It has fewer syntactic exceptions and special cases than C or Pascal.
Indentation
Python uses whitespace indentation, rather than curly brackets or keywords, to delimit blocks. An increase in indentation comes after certain statements; a decrease in indentation signifies the end of the current block. Thus, the program's visual structure accurately represents its semantic structure. This feature is sometimes termed the off-side rule. Some other languages use indentation this way; but in most, indentation has no semantic meaning. The recommended indent size is four spaces.
Statements and control flow
Python's statements include:
The assignment statement, using a single equals sign =
The if statement, which conditionally executes a block of code, along with else and elif (a contraction of else-if)
The for statement, which iterates over an iterable object, capturing each element to a local variable for use by the attached block
The while statement, which executes a block of code as long as its condition is true
The try statement, which allows exceptions raised in its attached code block to be caught and handled by except clauses (or new syntax except* in Python 3.11 for exception groups); it also ensures that clean-up code in a finally block is always run regardless of how the block exits
The raise statement, used to raise a specified exception or re-raise a caught exception
The class statement, which executes a block of code and attaches its local namespace to a class, for use in object-oriented programming
The def statement, which defines a function or method
The with statement, which encloses a code block within a context manager (for example, acquiring a lock before it is run, then releasing the lock; or opening and closing a file), allowing resource-acquisition-is-initialization (RAII)-like behavior and replacing a common try/finally idiom
The break statement, which exits a loop
The continue statement, which skips the rest of the current iteration and continues with the next
The del statement, which removes a variable—deleting the reference from the name to the value, and producing an error if the variable is referred to before it is redefined
The pass statement, serving as a NOP, syntactically needed to create an empty code block
The assert statement, used in debugging to check for conditions that should apply
The yield statement, which returns a value from a generator function (and also an operator); used to implement coroutines
The return statement, used to return a value from a function
The import and from statements, used to import modules whose functions or variables can be used in the current program
The match and case statements, an analog of the switch statement construct, that compares an expression against one or more cases as a control-of-flow measure.
The assignment statement (=) binds a name as a reference to a separate, dynamically allocated object. Variables may subsequently be rebound at any time to any object. In Python, a variable name is a generic reference holder without a fixed data type; however, it always refers to some object with a type. This is called dynamic typing—in contrast to statically-typed languages, where each variable may contain only a value of a certain type.
Python does not support tail call optimization or first-class continuations, and, according to Van Rossum, it never will. However, better support for coroutine-like functionality is provided by extending Python's generators. Before 2.5, generators were lazy iterators; data was passed unidirectionally out of the generator. From Python 2.5 on, it is possible to pass data back into a generator function; and from version 3.3, it can be passed through multiple stack levels.
Expressions
Python's expressions include:
The +, -, and * operators for mathematical addition, subtraction, and multiplication are similar to other languages, but the behavior of division differs. There are two types of divisions in Python: floor division (or integer division) // and floating-point/division. Python uses the ** operator for exponentiation.
Python uses the + operator for string concatenation. Python uses the * operator for duplicating a string a specified number of times.
The @ infix operator. It is intended to be used by libraries such as NumPy for matrix multiplication.
The syntax :=, called the "walrus operator", was introduced in Python 3.8. It assigns values to variables as part of a larger expression.
In Python, == compares by value. Python's is operator may be used to compare object identities (comparison by reference), and comparisons may be chained—for example, .
Python uses and, or, and not as Boolean operators.
Python has a type of expression named a list comprehension, and a more general expression named a generator expression.
Anonymous functions are implemented using lambda expressions; however, there may be only one expression in each body.
Conditional expressions are written as (different in order of operands from the c ? x : y operator common to many other languages).
Python makes a distinction between lists and tuples. Lists are written as , are mutable, and cannot be used as the keys of dictionaries (dictionary keys must be immutable in Python). Tuples, written as , are immutable and thus can be used as keys of dictionaries, provided all of the tuple's elements are immutable. The + operator can be used to concatenate two tuples, which does not directly modify their contents, but produces a new tuple containing the elements of both. Thus, given the variable t initially equal to , executing first evaluates , which yields , which is then assigned back to t—thereby effectively "modifying the contents" of t while conforming to the immutable nature of tuple objects. Parentheses are optional for tuples in unambiguous contexts.
Python features sequence unpacking where multiple expressions, each evaluating to anything that can be assigned (to a variable, writable property, etc.) are associated in an identical manner to that forming tuple literals—and, as a whole, are put on the left-hand side of the equal sign in an assignment statement. The statement expects an iterable object on the right-hand side of the equal sign that produces the same number of values as the provided writable expressions; when iterated through them, it assigns each of the produced values to the corresponding expression on the left.
Python has a "string format" operator % that functions analogously to printf format strings in C—e.g. evaluates to "spam=blah eggs=2". In Python 2.6+ and 3+, this was supplemented by the format() method of the str class, e.g. . Python 3.6 added "f-strings": .
Strings in Python can be concatenated by "adding" them (with the same operator as for adding integers and floats), e.g. returns "spameggs". If strings contain numbers, they are added as strings rather than integers, e.g. returns "22".
Python has various string literals:
Delimited by single or double quotes; unlike in Unix shells, Perl, and Perl-influenced languages, single and double quotes work the same. Both use the backslash (\) as an escape character. String interpolation became available in Python 3.6 as "formatted string literals".
Triple-quoted (beginning and ending with three single or double quotes), which may span multiple lines and function like here documents in shells, Perl, and Ruby.
Raw string varieties, denoted by prefixing the string literal with r. Escape sequences are not interpreted; hence raw strings are useful where literal backslashes are common, such as regular expressions and Windows-style paths. (Compare "@-quoting" in C#.)
Python has array index and array slicing expressions in lists, denoted as a[key], or . Indexes are zero-based, and negative indexes are relative to the end. Slices take elements from the start index up to, but not including, the stop index. The third slice parameter, called step or stride, allows elements to be skipped and reversed. Slice indexes may be omitted—for example, returns a copy of the entire list. Each element of a slice is a shallow copy.
In Python, a distinction between expressions and statements is rigidly enforced, in contrast to languages such as Common Lisp, Scheme, or Ruby. This leads to duplicating some functionality. For example:
List comprehensions vs. for-loops
Conditional expressions vs. if blocks
The eval() vs. exec() built-in functions (in Python 2, exec is a statement); the former is for expressions, the latter is for statements
Statements cannot be a part of an expression—so list and other comprehensions or lambda expressions, all being expressions, cannot contain statements. A particular case is that an assignment statement such as cannot form part of the conditional expression of a conditional statement.
Methods
Methods on objects are functions attached to the object's class; the syntax is, for normal methods and functions, syntactic sugar for . Python methods have an explicit self parameter to access instance data, in contrast to the implicit self (or this) in some other object-oriented programming languages (e.g., C++, Java, Objective-C, Ruby). Python also provides methods, often called dunder methods (due to their names beginning and ending with double-underscores), to allow user-defined classes to modify how they are handled by native operations including length, comparison, in arithmetic operations and type conversion.
Typing
Python uses duck typing and has typed objects but untyped variable names. Type constraints are not checked at compile time; rather, operations on an object may fail, signifying that it is not of a suitable type. Despite being dynamically typed, Python is strongly typed, forbidding operations that are not well-defined (for example, adding a number to a string) rather than silently attempting to make sense of them.
Python allows programmers to define their own types using classes, most often used for object-oriented programming. New instances of classes are constructed by calling the class (for example, or ), and the classes are instances of the metaclass type (itself an instance of itself), allowing metaprogramming and reflection.
Before version 3.0, Python had two kinds of classes (both using the same syntax): old-style and new-style; current Python versions only support the semantics of the new style.
Python supports optional type annotations. These annotations are not enforced by the language, but may be used by external tools such as mypy to catch errors. Mypy also supports a Python compiler called mypyc, which leverages type annotations for optimization.
Arithmetic operations
Python has the usual symbols for arithmetic operators (+, -, *, /), the floor division operator // and the modulo operation % (where the remainder can be negative, e.g. 4 % -3 == -2). It also has ** for exponentiation, e.g. 5**3 == 125 and 9**0.5 == 3.0, and a matrix‑multiplication operator @ . These operators work like in traditional math; with the same precedence rules, the operators infix (+ and - can also be unary to represent positive and negative numbers respectively).
The division between integers produces floating-point results. The behavior of division has changed significantly over time:
Current Python (i.e. since 3.0) changed / to always be floating-point division, e.g. .
The floor division // operator was introduced. So 7//3 == 2, -7//3 == -3, 7.5//3 == 2.0 and -7.5//3 == -3.0. Adding causes a module used in Python 2.7 to use Python 3.0 rules for division (see above).
In Python terms, / is true division (or simply division), and // is floor division. / before version 3.0 is classic division.
Rounding towards negative infinity, though different from most languages, adds consistency. For instance, it means that the equation is always true. It also means that the equation is valid for both positive and negative values of a. However, maintaining the validity of this equation means that while the result of a%b is, as expected, in the half-open interval [0, b), where b is a positive integer, it has to lie in the interval (b, 0] when b is negative.
Python provides a round function for rounding a float to the nearest integer. For tie-breaking, Python 3 uses round to even: round(1.5) and round(2.5) both produce 2. Versions before 3 used round-away-from-zero: round(0.5) is 1.0, round(-0.5) is −1.0.
Python allows Boolean expressions with multiple equality relations in a manner that is consistent with general use in mathematics. For example, the expression a < b < c tests whether a is less than b and b is less than c. C-derived languages interpret this expression differently: in C, the expression would first evaluate a < b, resulting in 0 or 1, and that result would then be compared with c.
Python uses arbitrary-precision arithmetic for all integer operations. The Decimal type/class in the decimal module provides decimal floating-point numbers to a pre-defined arbitrary precision and several rounding modes. The Fraction class in the fractions module provides arbitrary precision for rational numbers.
Due to Python's extensive mathematics library, and the third-party library NumPy that further extends the native capabilities, it is frequently used as a scientific scripting language to aid in problems such as numerical data processing and manipulation.
Programming examples
"Hello, World!" program:
print('Hello, world!')
Program to calculate the factorial of a positive integer:
n = int(input('Type a number, and its factorial will be printed: '))
if n < 0:
raise ValueError('You must enter a non-negative integer')
factorial = 1
for i in range(2, n + 1):
factorial *= i
print(factorial)
Libraries
Python's large standard library provides tools suited to many tasks and is commonly cited as one of its greatest strengths. For Internet-facing applications, many standard formats and protocols such as MIME and HTTP are supported. It includes modules for creating graphical user interfaces, connecting to relational databases, generating pseudorandom numbers, arithmetic with arbitrary-precision decimals, manipulating regular expressions, and unit testing.
Some parts of the standard library are covered by specifications—for example, the Web Server Gateway Interface (WSGI) implementation wsgiref follows PEP 333—but most are specified by their code, internal documentation, and test suites. However, because most of the standard library is cross-platform Python code, only a few modules need altering or rewriting for variant implementations.
the Python Package Index (PyPI), the official repository for third-party Python software, contains over 523,000 packages with a wide range of functionality, including:
Development environments
Most Python implementations (including CPython) include a read–eval–print loop (REPL), permitting them to function as a command line interpreter for which users enter statements sequentially and receive results immediately.
Python also comes with an Integrated development environment (IDE) called IDLE, which is more beginner-oriented.
Other shells, including IDLE and IPython, add further abilities such as improved auto-completion, session state retention, and syntax highlighting.
As well as standard desktop integrated development environments including PyCharm, IntelliJ Idea, Visual Studio Code etc, there are web browser-based IDEs, including SageMath, for developing science- and math-related programs; PythonAnywhere, a browser-based IDE and hosting environment; and Canopy IDE, a commercial IDE emphasizing scientific computing.
Implementations
Reference implementation
CPython is the reference implementation of Python. It is written in C, meeting the C89 standard (Python 3.11 uses C11) with several select C99 features. CPython includes its own C extensions, but third-party extensions are not limited to older C versions—e.g. they can be implemented with C11 or C++. CPython compiles Python programs into an intermediate bytecode which is then executed by its virtual machine. CPython is distributed with a large standard library written in a mixture of C and native Python, and is available for many platforms, including Windows (starting with Python 3.9, the Python installer deliberately fails to install on Windows 7 and 8; Windows XP was supported until Python 3.5) and most modern Unix-like systems, including macOS (and Apple M1 Macs, since Python 3.9.1, with experimental installer), with unofficial support for VMS. Platform portability was one of its earliest priorities. (During Python 1 and 2 development, even OS/2 and Solaris were supported, but support has since been dropped for many platforms.)
Python, since 3.7, only supports operating systems with multi-threading support.
Other implementations
PyPy is a fast, compliant interpreter of Python 2.7 and 3.8. Its just-in-time compiler often brings a significant speed improvement over CPython, but some libraries written in C cannot be used with it.
Stackless Python is a significant fork of CPython that implements microthreads; it does not use the call stack in the same way, thus allowing massively concurrent programs. PyPy also has a stackless version.
MicroPython and CircuitPython are Python 3 variants optimized for microcontrollers, including Lego Mindstorms EV3.
Pyston is a variant of the Python runtime that uses just-in-time compilation to speed up the execution of Python programs.
Cinder is a performance-oriented fork of CPython 3.8 that contains a number of optimizations, including bytecode inline caching, eager evaluation of coroutines, a method-at-a-time JIT, and an experimental bytecode compiler.
Snek Embedded Computing Language (compatible with e.g. 8-bit AVR microcontrollers such as ATmega 328P-based Arduino, as well as larger ones compatible with MicroPython) "is Python-inspired, but it is not Python. It is possible to write Snek programs that run under a full Python system, but most Python programs will not run under Snek." It is an imperative language not including OOP / classes, unlike Python, and simplifying to one number type with 32-bit single-precision (similar to JavaScript, except smaller).
No longer supported implementations
Other just-in-time Python compilers have been developed, but are now unsupported:
Google began a project named Unladen Swallow in 2009, with the aim of speeding up the Python interpreter five-fold by using the LLVM, and of improving its multithreading ability to scale to thousands of cores, while ordinary implementations suffer from the global interpreter lock.
Psyco is a discontinued just-in-time specializing compiler that integrates with CPython and transforms bytecode to machine code at runtime. The emitted code is specialized for certain data types and is faster than the standard Python code. Psyco does not support Python 2.7 or later.
PyS60 was a Python 2 interpreter for Series 60 mobile phones released by Nokia in 2005. It implemented many of the modules from the standard library and some additional modules for integrating with the Symbian operating system. The Nokia N900 also supports Python with GTK widget libraries, enabling programs to be written and run on the target device.
Cross-compilers to other languages
There are several compilers/transpilers to high-level object languages, with either unrestricted Python, a restricted subset of Python, or a language similar to Python as the source language:
Brython, Transcrypt and Pyjs (latest release in 2012) compile Python to JavaScript.
Codon compiles a subset of statically typed Python to machine code (via LLVM) and supports native multithreading.
Cython compiles (a superset of) Python to C. The resulting code is also usable with Python via direct C-level API calls into the Python interpreter.
PyJL compiles/transpiles a subset of Python to "human-readable, maintainable, and high-performance Julia source code". Despite claiming high performance, no tool can claim to do that for arbitrary Python code; i.e. it's known not possible to compile to a faster language or machine code. Unless semantics of Python are changed, but in many cases speedup is possible with few or no changes in the Python code. The faster Julia source code can then be used from Python, or compiled to machine code, and based that way.
Nuitka compiles Python into C.
Numba uses LLVM to compile a subset of Python to machine code.
Pythran compiles a subset of Python 3 to C++ (C++11).
RPython can be compiled to C, and is used to build the PyPy interpreter of Python.
The Python → 11l → C++ transpiler compiles a subset of Python 3 to C++ (C++17).
Specialized:
MyHDL is a Python-based hardware description language (HDL), that converts MyHDL code to Verilog or VHDL code.
Older projects (or not to be used with Python 3.x and latest syntax):
Google's Grumpy (latest release in 2017) transpiles Python 2 to Go.
IronPython allows running Python 2.7 programs (and an alpha, released in 2021, is also available for "Python 3.4, although features and behaviors from later versions may be included") on the .NET Common Language Runtime.
Jython compiles Python 2.7 to Java bytecode, allowing the use of the Java libraries from a Python program.
Pyrex (latest release in 2010) and Shed Skin (latest release in 2013) compile to C and C++ respectively.
Performance
Performance comparison of various Python implementations on a non-numerical (combinatorial) workload was presented at EuroSciPy '13. Python's performance compared to other programming languages is also benchmarked by The Computer Language Benchmarks Game.
Development
Python's development is conducted largely through the Python Enhancement Proposal (PEP) process, the primary mechanism for proposing major new features, collecting community input on issues, and documenting Python design decisions. Python coding style is covered in PEP 8. Outstanding PEPs are reviewed and commented on by the Python community and the steering council.
Enhancement of the language corresponds with the development of the CPython reference implementation. The mailing list python-dev is the primary forum for the language's development. Specific issues were originally discussed in the Roundup bug tracker hosted at by the foundation. In 2022, all issues and discussions were migrated to GitHub. Development originally took place on a self-hosted source-code repository running Mercurial, until Python moved to GitHub in January 2017.
CPython's public releases come in three types, distinguished by which part of the version number is incremented:
Backward-incompatible versions, where code is expected to break and needs to be manually ported. The first part of the version number is incremented. These releases happen infrequently—version 3.0 was released 8 years after 2.0. According to Guido van Rossum, a version 4.0 is very unlikely to ever happen.
Major or "feature" releases are largely compatible with the previous version but introduce new features. The second part of the version number is incremented. Starting with Python 3.9, these releases are expected to happen annually. Each major version is supported by bug fixes for several years after its release.
Bugfix releases, which introduce no new features, occur about every 3 months and are made when a sufficient number of bugs have been fixed upstream since the last release. Security vulnerabilities are also patched in these releases. The third and final part of the version number is incremented.
Many alpha, beta, and release-candidates are also released as previews and for testing before final releases. Although there is a rough schedule for each release, they are often delayed if the code is not ready. Python's development team monitors the state of the code by running the large unit test suite during development.
The major academic conference on Python is PyCon. There are also special Python mentoring programs, such as PyLadies.
Python 3.12 removed wstr meaning Python extensions need to be modified, and 3.10 added pattern matching to the language.
Python 3.12 dropped some outdated modules, and more will be dropped in the future, deprecated as of 3.13; already deprecated array 'u' format code will emit DeprecationWarning since 3.13 and will be removed in Python 3.16. The 'w' format code should be used instead. Part of ctypes is also deprecated and http.server.CGIHTTPRequestHandler will emit a DeprecationWarning, and will be removed in 3.15. Using that code already has a high potential for both security and functionality bugs. Parts of the typing module are deprecated, e.g. creating a typing.NamedTuple class using keyword arguments to denote the fields and such (and more) will be disallowed in Python 3.15.
API documentation generators
Tools that can generate documentation for Python API include pydoc (available as part of the standard library), Sphinx, Pdoc and its forks, Doxygen and Graphviz, among others.
Naming
Python's name is derived from the British comedy group Monty Python, whom Python creator Guido van Rossum enjoyed while developing the language. Monty Python references appear frequently in Python code and culture; for example, the metasyntactic variables often used in Python literature are spam and eggs instead of the traditional foo and bar. The official Python documentation also contains various references to Monty Python routines. Users of Python are sometimes referred to as "Pythonistas".
The prefix Py- is used to show that something is related to Python. Examples of the use of this prefix in names of Python applications or libraries include Pygame, a binding of Simple DirectMedia Layer to Python (commonly used to create games); PyQt and PyGTK, which bind Qt and GTK to Python respectively; and PyPy, a Python implementation originally written in Python.
Popularity
Since 2003, Python has consistently ranked in the top ten most popular programming languages in the TIOBE Programming Community Index where it was the most popular language (ahead of C, C++, and Java). It was selected as Programming Language of the Year (for "the highest rise in ratings in a year") in 2007, 2010, 2018, and 2020 (the only language to have done so four times ).
Large organizations that use Python include Wikipedia, Google, Yahoo!, CERN, NASA, Facebook, Amazon, Instagram, Spotify, and some smaller entities like Industrial Light & Magic and ITA. The social news networking site Reddit was written mostly in Python.
Uses
Python can serve as a scripting language for web applications, e.g. via for the Apache webserver. With Web Server Gateway Interface, a standard API has evolved to facilitate these applications. Web frameworks like Django, Pylons, Pyramid, TurboGears, web2py, Tornado, Flask, Bottle, and Zope support developers in the design and maintenance of complex applications. Pyjs and IronPython can be used to develop the client-side of Ajax-based applications. SQLAlchemy can be used as a data mapper to a relational database. Twisted is a framework to program communications between computers, and is used (for example) by Dropbox.
Libraries such as NumPy, SciPy and Matplotlib allow the effective use of Python in scientific computing, with specialized libraries such as Biopython and Astropy providing domain-specific functionality. SageMath is a computer algebra system with a notebook interface programmable in Python: its library covers many aspects of mathematics, including algebra, combinatorics, numerical mathematics, number theory, and calculus. OpenCV has Python bindings with a rich set of features for computer vision and image processing.
Python is commonly used in artificial intelligence projects and machine learning projects with the help of libraries like TensorFlow, Keras, Pytorch, scikit-learn and the Logic language ProbLog. As a scripting language with a modular architecture, simple syntax, and rich text processing tools, Python is often used for natural language processing.
The combination of Python and Prolog has proved to be particularly useful for AI applications, with Prolog providing knowledge representation and reasoning capabilities. The Janus system, in particular, exploits the similarities between these two languages,
in part because of their use of dynamic typing, and the simple recursive nature of their
data structures. Typical applications of this combination include natural language processing, visual query
answering, geospatial reasoning, and handling of semantic web data.
The Natlog system, implemented in Python, uses Definite Clause Grammars (DCGs) as prompt generators for text-to-text generators like GPT3 and text-to-image generators like DALL-E or Stable Diffusion.
Python can also be used for graphical user interface (GUI) by using libraries like Tkinter.
Python has been successfully embedded in many software products as a scripting language, including in finite element method software such as Abaqus, 3D parametric modelers like FreeCAD, 3D animation packages such as 3ds Max, Blender, Cinema 4D, Lightwave, Houdini, Maya, modo, MotionBuilder, Softimage, the visual effects compositor Nuke, 2D imaging programs like GIMP, Inkscape, Scribus and Paint Shop Pro, and musical notation programs like scorewriter and capella. GNU Debugger uses Python as a pretty printer to show complex structures such as C++ containers. Esri promotes Python as the best choice for writing scripts in ArcGIS. It has also been used in several video games, and has been adopted as first of the three available programming languages in Google App Engine, the other two being Java and Go.
Many operating systems include Python as a standard component. It ships with most Linux distributions, AmigaOS 4 (using Python 2.7), FreeBSD (as a package), NetBSD, and OpenBSD (as a package) and can be used from the command line (terminal). Many Linux distributions use installers written in Python: Ubuntu uses the Ubiquity installer, while Red Hat Linux and Fedora Linux use the Anaconda installer. Gentoo Linux uses Python in its package management system, Portage.
Python is used extensively in the information security industry, including in exploit development.
Most of the Sugar software for the One Laptop per Child XO, developed at Sugar Labs , is written in Python. The Raspberry Pi single-board computer project has adopted Python as its main user-programming language.
LibreOffice includes Python and intends to replace Java with Python. Its Python Scripting Provider is a core feature since Version 4.0 from 7 February 2013.
Languages influenced by Python
Python's design and philosophy have influenced many other programming languages:
Boo uses indentation, a similar syntax, and a similar object model.
Cobra uses indentation and a similar syntax, and its Acknowledgements document lists Python first among languages that influenced it.
CoffeeScript, a programming language that cross-compiles to JavaScript, has Python-inspired syntax.
ECMAScript–JavaScript borrowed iterators and generators from Python.
GDScript, a scripting language very similar to Python, built-in to the Godot game engine.
Go is designed for the "speed of working in a dynamic language like Python" and shares the same syntax for slicing arrays.
Groovy was motivated by the desire to bring the Python design philosophy to Java.
Julia was designed to be "as usable for general programming as Python".
Mojo is a non-strict superset of Python (e.g. still missing classes, and adding e.g. struct).
Nim uses indentation and similar syntax.
Ruby's creator, Yukihiro Matsumoto, has said: "I wanted a scripting language that was more powerful than Perl, and more object-oriented than Python. That's why I decided to design my own language."
Swift, a programming language developed by Apple, has some Python-inspired syntax.
Kotlin blends Python and Java features, minimizing boilerplate code for enhanced developer efficiency.
Python's development practices have also been emulated by other languages. For example, the practice of requiring a document describing the rationale for, and issues surrounding, a change to the language (in Python, a PEP) is also used in Tcl, Erlang, and Swift.
See also
Python syntax and semantics
pip (package manager)
List of programming languages
History of programming languages
Comparison of programming languages
References
Sources
Further reading
External links
Articles with example Python (programming language) code
Class-based programming languages
Notebook interface
Computer science in the Netherlands
Concurrent programming languages
Cross-platform free software
Cross-platform software
Dutch inventions
Dynamically typed programming languages
Educational programming languages
High-level programming languages
Information technology in the Netherlands
Multi-paradigm programming languages
Object-oriented programming languages
Pattern matching programming languages
Programming languages
Programming languages created in 1991
Scripting languages
Text-oriented programming languages |
23863 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyridine | Pyridine | Pyridine is a basic heterocyclic organic compound with the chemical formula . It is structurally related to benzene, with one methine group replaced by a nitrogen atom . It is a highly flammable, weakly alkaline, water-miscible liquid with a distinctive, unpleasant fish-like smell. Pyridine is colorless, but older or impure samples can appear yellow, due to the formation of extended, unsaturated polymeric chains, which show significant electrical conductivity. The pyridine ring occurs in many important compounds, including agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, and vitamins. Historically, pyridine was produced from coal tar. As of 2016, it is synthesized on the scale of about 20,000 tons per year worldwide.
Properties
Physical properties
Pyridine is diamagnetic. Its critical parameters are: pressure 5.63 MPa, temperature 619 K and volume 248 cm3/mol. In the temperature range 340–426 °C its vapor pressure p can be described with the Antoine equation
where T is temperature, A = 4.16272, B = 1371.358 K and C = −58.496 K.
Structure
Pyridine ring forms a hexagon. Slight variations of the and distances as well as the bond angles are observed.
Crystallography
Pyridine crystallizes in an orthorhombic crystal system with space group Pna21 and lattice parameters a = 1752 pm, b = 897 pm, c = 1135 pm, and 16 formula units per unit cell (measured at 153 K). For comparison, crystalline benzene is also orthorhombic, with space group Pbca, a = 729.2 pm, b = 947.1 pm, c = 674.2 pm (at 78 K), but the number of molecules per cell is only 4. This difference is partly related to the lower symmetry of the individual pyridine molecule (C2v vs D6h for benzene). A trihydrate (pyridine·3H2O) is known; it also crystallizes in an orthorhombic system in the space group Pbca, lattice parameters a = 1244 pm, b = 1783 pm, c = 679 pm and eight formula units per unit cell (measured at 223 K).
Spectroscopy
The optical absorption spectrum of pyridine in hexane consists of bands at the wavelengths of 195, 251, and 270 nm. With respective extinction coefficients (ε) of 7500, 2000, and 450 L·mol−1·cm−1, these bands are assigned to π → π*, π → π*, and n → π* transitions. The compound displays very low fluorescence.
The 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrum shows signals for α-(δ 8.5), γ-(δ7.5) and β-protons (δ7). By contrast, the proton signal for benzene is found at δ7.27. The larger chemical shifts of the α- and γ-protons in comparison to benzene result from the lower electron density in the α- and γ-positions, which can be derived from the resonance structures. The situation is rather similar for the 13C NMR spectra of pyridine and benzene: pyridine shows a triplet at δ(α-C) = 150 ppm, δ(β-C) = 124 ppm and δ(γ-C) = 136 ppm, whereas benzene has a single line at 129 ppm. All shifts are quoted for the solvent-free substances. Pyridine is conventionally detected by the gas chromatography and mass spectrometry methods.
Bonding
Pyridine has a conjugated system of six π electrons that are delocalized over the ring. The molecule is planar and, thus, follows the Hückel criteria for aromatic systems. In contrast to benzene, the electron density is not evenly distributed over the ring, reflecting the negative inductive effect of the nitrogen atom. For this reason, pyridine has a dipole moment and a weaker resonant stabilization than benzene (resonance energy 117 kJ/mol in pyridine vs. 150 kJ/mol in benzene).
The ring atoms in the pyridine molecule are sp2-hybridized. The nitrogen is involved in the π-bonding aromatic system using its unhybridized p orbital. The lone pair is in an sp2 orbital, projecting outward from the ring in the same plane as the σ bonds. As a result, the lone pair does not contribute to the aromatic system but importantly influences the chemical properties of pyridine, as it easily supports bond formation via an electrophilic attack. However, because of the separation of the lone pair from the aromatic ring system, the nitrogen atom cannot exhibit a positive mesomeric effect.
Many analogues of pyridine are known where N is replaced by other heteroatoms from the same column of the Periodic Table of Elements (see figure below). Substitution of one C–H in pyridine with a second N gives rise to the diazine heterocycles (C4H4N2), with the names pyridazine, pyrimidine, and pyrazine.
History
Impure pyridine was undoubtedly prepared by early alchemists by heating animal bones and other organic matter, but the earliest documented reference is attributed to the Scottish scientist Thomas Anderson. In 1849, Anderson examined the contents of the oil obtained through high-temperature heating of animal bones. Among other substances, he separated from the oil a colorless liquid with unpleasant odor, from which he isolated pure pyridine two years later. He described it as highly soluble in water, readily soluble in concentrated acids and salts upon heating, and only slightly soluble in oils.
Owing to its flammability, Anderson named the new substance pyridine, after (pyr) meaning fire. The suffix idine was added in compliance with the chemical nomenclature, as in toluidine, to indicate a cyclic compound containing a nitrogen atom.
The chemical structure of pyridine was determined decades after its discovery. Wilhelm Körner (1869) and James Dewar (1871) suggested that, in analogy between quinoline and naphthalene, the structure of pyridine is derived from benzene by substituting one C–H unit with a nitrogen atom. The suggestion by Körner and Dewar was later confirmed in an experiment where pyridine was reduced to piperidine with sodium in ethanol. In 1876, William Ramsay combined acetylene and hydrogen cyanide into pyridine in a red-hot iron-tube furnace. This was the first synthesis of a heteroaromatic compound.
The first major synthesis of pyridine derivatives was described in 1881 by Arthur Rudolf Hantzsch. The Hantzsch pyridine synthesis typically uses a 2:1:1 mixture of a β-keto acid (often acetoacetate), an aldehyde (often formaldehyde), and ammonia or its salt as the nitrogen donor. First, a double hydrogenated pyridine is obtained, which is then oxidized to the corresponding pyridine derivative. Emil Knoevenagel showed that asymmetrically substituted pyridine derivatives can be produced with this process.
The contemporary methods of pyridine production had a low yield, and the increasing demand for the new compound urged to search for more efficient routes. A breakthrough came in 1924 when the Russian chemist Aleksei Chichibabin invented a pyridine synthesis reaction, which was based on inexpensive reagents. This method is still used for the industrial production of pyridine.
Occurrence
Pyridine is not abundant in nature, except for the leaves and roots of belladonna (Atropa belladonna) and in marshmallow (Althaea officinalis). Pyridine derivatives, however, are often part of biomolecules such as alkaloids.
In daily life, trace amounts of pyridine are components of the volatile organic compounds that are produced in roasting and canning processes, e.g. in fried chicken, sukiyaki, roasted coffee, potato chips, and fried bacon. Traces of pyridine can be found in Beaufort cheese, vaginal secretions, black tea, saliva of those suffering from gingivitis, and sunflower honey.
Production
Historically, pyridine was extracted from coal tar or obtained as a byproduct of coal gasification. The process is labor-consuming and inefficient: coal tar contains only about 0.1% pyridine, and therefore a multi-stage purification was required, which further reduced the output. Nowadays, most pyridines are synthesized from ammonia, aldehydes, and nitriles, a few combinations of which are suited for pyridine itself. Various name reactions are also known, but they are not practiced on scale.
In 1989, 26,000 tonnes of pyridine was produced worldwide. Other major derivatives are 2-, 3-, 4-methylpyridines and 5-ethyl-2-methylpyridine. The combined scale of these alkylpyridines matches that of pyridine itself. Among the largest 25 production sites for pyridine, eleven are located in Europe (as of 1999). The major producers of pyridine include Evonik Industries, Rütgers Chemicals, Jubilant Life Sciences, Imperial Chemical Industries, and Koei Chemical. Pyridine production significantly increased in the early 2000s, with an annual production capacity of 30,000 tonnes in mainland China alone. The US–Chinese joint venture Vertellus is currently the world leader in pyridine production.
Chichibabin synthesis
The Chichibabin pyridine synthesis was reported in 1924 and the basic approach underpins several industrial routes. In its general form, the reaction involves the condensation reaction of aldehydes, ketones, α,β-unsaturated carbonyl compounds, or any combination of the above, in ammonia or ammonia derivatives. Application of the Chichibabin pyridine synthesis suffer from low yields, often about 30%, however the precursors are inexpensive. In particular, unsubstituted pyridine is produced from formaldehyde and acetaldehyde. First, acrolein is formed in a Knoevenagel condensation from the acetaldehyde and formaldehyde. The acrolein then condenses with acetaldehyde and ammonia to give dihydropyridine, which is oxidized to pyridine. This process is carried out in a gas phase at 400–450 °C. Typical catalysts are modified forms of alumina and silica. The reaction has been tailored to produce various methylpyridines.
Dealkylation and decarboxylation of substituted pyridines
Pyridine can be prepared by dealkylation of alkylated pyridines, which are obtained as byproducts in the syntheses of other pyridines. The oxidative dealkylation is carried out either using air over vanadium(V) oxide catalyst, by vapor-dealkylation on nickel-based catalyst, or hydrodealkylation with a silver- or platinum-based catalyst. Yields of pyridine up to be 93% can be achieved with the nickel-based catalyst. Pyridine can also be produced by the decarboxylation of nicotinic acid with copper chromite.
Bönnemann cyclization
The trimerization of a part of a nitrile molecule and two parts of acetylene into pyridine is called Bönnemann cyclization. This modification of the Reppe synthesis can be activated either by heat or by light. While the thermal activation requires high pressures and temperatures, the photoinduced cycloaddition proceeds at ambient conditions with CoCp2(cod) (Cp = cyclopentadienyl, cod = 1,5-cyclooctadiene) as a catalyst, and can be performed even in water. A series of pyridine derivatives can be produced in this way. When using acetonitrile as the nitrile, 2-methylpyridine is obtained, which can be dealkylated to pyridine.
Other methods
The Kröhnke pyridine synthesis provides a fairly general method for generating substituted pyridines using pyridine itself as a reagent which does not become incorporated into the final product. The reaction of pyridine with bromomethyl ketones gives the related pyridinium salt, wherein the methylene group is highly acidic. This species undergoes a Michael-like addition to α,β-unsaturated carbonyls in the presence of ammonium acetate to undergo ring closure and formation of the targeted substituted pyridine as well as pyridinium bromide.
The Ciamician–Dennstedt rearrangement entails the ring-expansion of pyrrole with dichlorocarbene to 3-chloropyridine.
In the Gattermann–Skita synthesis, a malonate ester salt reacts with dichloromethylamine.
Other methods include the Boger pyridine synthesis and Diels–Alder reaction of an alkene and an oxazole.
Biosynthesis
Several pyridine derivatives play important roles in biological systems. While its biosynthesis is not fully understood, nicotinic acid (vitamin B3) occurs in some bacteria, fungi, and mammals. Mammals synthesize nicotinic acid through oxidation of the amino acid tryptophan, where an intermediate product, the aniline derivative kynurenine, creates a pyridine derivative, quinolinate and then nicotinic acid. On the contrary, the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Escherichia coli produce nicotinic acid by condensation of glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate and aspartic acid.
Reactions
Because of the electronegative nitrogen in the pyridine ring, pyridine enters less readily into electrophilic aromatic substitution reactions than benzene derivatives. Instead, in terms of its reactivity, pyridine resembles nitrobenzene.
Correspondingly pyridine is more prone to nucleophilic substitution, as evidenced by the ease of metalation by strong organometallic bases. The reactivity of pyridine can be distinguished for three chemical groups. With electrophiles, electrophilic substitution takes place where pyridine expresses aromatic properties. With nucleophiles, pyridine reacts at positions 2 and 4 and thus behaves similar to imines and carbonyls. The reaction with many Lewis acids results in the addition to the nitrogen atom of pyridine, which is similar to the reactivity of tertiary amines. The ability of pyridine and its derivatives to oxidize, forming amine oxides (N-oxides), is also a feature of tertiary amines.
The nitrogen center of pyridine features a basic lone pair of electrons. This lone pair does not overlap with the aromatic π-system ring, consequently pyridine is basic, having chemical properties similar to those of tertiary amines. Protonation gives pyridinium, C5H5NH+.The pKa of the conjugate acid (the pyridinium cation) is 5.25. The structures of pyridine and pyridinium are almost identical. The pyridinium cation is isoelectronic with benzene. Pyridinium p-toluenesulfonate (PPTS) is an illustrative pyridinium salt; it is produced by treating pyridine with p-toluenesulfonic acid. In addition to protonation, pyridine undergoes N-centred alkylation, acylation, and N-oxidation. Pyridine and poly(4-vinyl) pyridine have been shown to form conducting molecular wires with remarkable polyenimine structure on UV irradiation, a process which accounts for at least some of the visible light absorption by aged pyridine samples. These wires have been theoretically predicted to be both highly efficient electron donors and acceptors, and yet are resistant to air oxidation.
Electrophilic substitutions
Owing to the decreased electron density in the aromatic system, electrophilic substitutions are suppressed in pyridine and its derivatives. Friedel–Crafts alkylation or acylation, usually fail for pyridine because they lead only to the addition at the nitrogen atom. Substitutions usually occur at the 3-position, which is the most electron-rich carbon atom in the ring and is, therefore, more susceptible to an electrophilic addition.
Direct nitration of pyridine is sluggish. Pyridine derivatives wherein the nitrogen atom is screened sterically and/or electronically can be obtained by nitration with nitronium tetrafluoroborate (NO2BF4). In this way, 3-nitropyridine can be obtained via the synthesis of 2,6-dibromopyridine followed by nitration and debromination.
Sulfonation of pyridine is even more difficult than nitration. However, pyridine-3-sulfonic acid can be obtained. Reaction with the SO3 group also facilitates addition of sulfur to the nitrogen atom, especially in the presence of a mercury(II) sulfate catalyst.
In contrast to the sluggish nitrations and sulfonations, the bromination and chlorination of pyridine proceed well.
Pyridine N-oxide
Oxidation of pyridine occurs at nitrogen to give pyridine N-oxide. The oxidation can be achieved with peracids:
C5H5N + RCO3H → C5H5NO + RCO2H
Some electrophilic substitutions on the pyridine are usefully effected using pyridine N-oxide followed by deoxygenation. Addition of oxygen suppresses further reactions at nitrogen atom and promotes substitution at the 2- and 4-carbons. The oxygen atom can then be removed, e.g., using zinc dust.
Nucleophilic substitutions
In contrast to benzene ring, pyridine efficiently supports several nucleophilic substitutions. The reason for this is relatively lower electron density of the carbon atoms of the ring. These reactions include substitutions with elimination of a hydride ion and elimination-additions with formation of an intermediate aryne configuration, and usually proceed at the 2- or 4-position.
Many nucleophilic substitutions occur more easily not with bare pyridine but with pyridine modified with bromine, chlorine, fluorine, or sulfonic acid fragments that then become a leaving group. So fluorine is the best leaving group for the substitution with organolithium compounds. The nucleophilic attack compounds may be alkoxides, thiolates, amines, and ammonia (at elevated pressures).
In general, the hydride ion is a poor leaving group and occurs only in a few heterocyclic reactions. They include the Chichibabin reaction, which yields pyridine derivatives aminated at the 2-position. Here, sodium amide is used as the nucleophile yielding 2-aminopyridine. The hydride ion released in this reaction combines with a proton of an available amino group, forming a hydrogen molecule.
Analogous to benzene, nucleophilic substitutions to pyridine can result in the formation of pyridyne intermediates as heteroaryne. For this purpose, pyridine derivatives can be eliminated with good leaving groups using strong bases such as sodium and potassium tert-butoxide. The subsequent addition of a nucleophile to the triple bond has low selectivity, and the result is a mixture of the two possible adducts.
Radical reactions
Pyridine supports a series of radical reactions, which is used in its dimerization to bipyridines. Radical dimerization of pyridine with elemental sodium or Raney nickel selectively yields 4,4'-bipyridine, or 2,2'-bipyridine, which are important precursor reagents in the chemical industry. One of the name reactions involving free radicals is the Minisci reaction. It can produce 2-tert-butylpyridine upon reacting pyridine with pivalic acid, silver nitrate and ammonium in sulfuric acid with a yield of 97%.
Reactions on the nitrogen atom
Lewis acids easily add to the nitrogen atom of pyridine, forming pyridinium salts. The reaction with alkyl halides leads to alkylation of the nitrogen atom. This creates a positive charge in the ring that increases the reactivity of pyridine to both oxidation and reduction. The Zincke reaction is used for the selective introduction of radicals in pyridinium compounds (it has no relation to the chemical element zinc).
Hydrogenation and reduction
Piperidine is produced by hydrogenation of pyridine with a nickel-, cobalt-, or ruthenium-based catalyst at elevated temperatures. The hydrogenation of pyridine to piperidine releases 193.8 kJ/mol, which is slightly less than the energy of the hydrogenation of benzene (205.3 kJ/mol).
Partially hydrogenated derivatives are obtained under milder conditions. For example, reduction with lithium aluminium hydride yields a mixture of 1,4-dihydropyridine, 1,2-dihydropyridine, and 2,5-dihydropyridine. Selective synthesis of 1,4-dihydropyridine is achieved in the presence of organometallic complexes of magnesium and zinc, and (Δ3,4)-tetrahydropyridine is obtained by electrochemical reduction of pyridine. Birch reduction converts pyridine to dihydropyridines.
Lewis basicity and coordination compounds
Pyridine is a Lewis base, donating its pair of electrons to a Lewis acid. Its Lewis base properties are discussed in the ECW model. Its relative donor strength toward a series of acids, versus other Lewis bases, can be illustrated by C-B plots. One example is the sulfur trioxide pyridine complex (melting point 175 °C), which is a sulfation agent used to convert alcohols to sulfate esters. Pyridine-borane (, melting point 10–11 °C) is a mild reducing agent.
Transition metal pyridine complexes are numerous.
Typical octahedral complexes have the stoichiometry and . Octahedral homoleptic complexes of the type are rare or tend to dissociate pyridine. Numerous square planar complexes are known, such as Crabtree's catalyst. The pyridine ligand replaced during the reaction is restored after its completion.
The η6 coordination mode, as occurs in η6 benzene complexes, is observed only in sterically encumbered derivatives that block the nitrogen center.
Applications
Pesticides and pharmaceuticals
The main use of pyridine is as a precursor to the herbicides paraquat and diquat. The first synthesis step of insecticide chlorpyrifos consists of the chlorination of pyridine. Pyridine is also the starting compound for the preparation of pyrithione-based fungicides. Cetylpyridinium and laurylpyridinium, which can be produced from pyridine with a Zincke reaction, are used as antiseptic in oral and dental care products. Pyridine is easily attacked by alkylating agents to give N-alkylpyridinium salts. One example is cetylpyridinium chloride.
It is also used in the textile industry to improve network capacity of cotton.
Laboratory use
Pyridine is used as a polar, basic, low-reactive solvent, for example in Knoevenagel condensations. It is especially suitable for the dehalogenation, where it acts as the base for the elimination reaction. In esterifications and acylations, pyridine activates the carboxylic acid chlorides and anhydrides. Even more active in these reactions are the derivatives 4-dimethylaminopyridine (DMAP) and 4-(1-pyrrolidinyl) pyridine. Pyridine is also used as a base in some condensation reactions.
Reagents
As a base, pyridine can be used as the Karl Fischer reagent, but it is usually replaced by alternatives with a more pleasant odor, such as imidazole.
Pyridinium chlorochromate, pyridinium dichromate, and the Collins reagent (the complex of chromium(VI) oxide) are used for the oxidation of alcohols.
Hazards
Pyridine is a toxic, flammable liquid with a strong and unpleasant fishy odour. Its odour threshold of 0.04 to 20 ppm is close to its threshold limit of 5 ppm for adverse effects, thus most (but not all) adults will be able to tell when it is present at harmful levels. Pyridine easily dissolves in water and harms both animals and plants in aquatic systems.
Fire
Pyridine has a flash point of 20 °C and is therefore highly flammable. Combustion produces toxic fumes which can include bipyridines, nitrogen oxides, and carbon monoxide.
Short-term exposure
Pyridine can cause chemical burns on contact with the skin and its fumes may be irritating to the eyes or upon inhalation. Pyridine depresses the nervous system giving symptoms similar to intoxication with vapor concentrations of above 3600 ppm posing a greater health risk. The effects may have a delayed onset of several hours and include dizziness, headache, lack of coordination, nausea, salivation, and loss of appetite. They may progress into abdominal pain, pulmonary congestion and unconsciousness. The lowest known lethal dose (LDLo) for the ingestion of pyridine in humans is 500 mg/kg.
Long-term exposure
Prolonged exposure to pyridine may result in liver, heart and kidney damage. Evaluations as a possible carcinogenic agent showed that there is inadequate evidence in humans for the carcinogenicity of pyridine, although there is sufficient evidence in experimental animals. Therefore, IARC considers pyridine as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B).
Occurrence
Trace amounts of up to 16 μg/m3 have been detected in tobacco smoke. Minor amounts of pyridine are released into environment from some industrial processes such as steel manufacture, processing of oil shale, coal gasification, coking plants and incinerators. The atmosphere at oil shale processing plants can contain pyridine concentrations of up to 13 μg/m3, and 53 μg/m3 levels were measured in the groundwater in the vicinity of a coal gasification plant. According to a study by the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, about 43,000 Americans work in contact with pyridine.
In foods
Pyridine has historically been added to foods to give them a bitter flavour, although this practise is now banned in the U.S. It may still be added to ethanol to make it unsuitable for drinking.
Metabolism
Exposure to pyridine would normally lead to its inhalation and absorption in the lungs and gastrointestinal tract, where it either remains unchanged or is metabolized. The major products of pyridine metabolism are N-methylpyridiniumhydroxide, which are formed by N-methyltransferases (e.g., pyridine N-methyltransferase), as well as pyridine N-oxide, and 2-, 3-, and 4-hydroxypyridine, which are generated by the action of monooxygenase. In humans, pyridine is metabolized only into N-methylpyridiniumhydroxide.
Environmental fate
Pyridine is readily degraded by bacteria to ammonia and carbon dioxide. The unsubstituted pyridine ring degrades more rapidly than picoline, lutidine, chloropyridine, or aminopyridines, and a number of pyridine degraders have been shown to overproduce riboflavin in the presence of pyridine. Ionizable N-heterocyclic compounds, including pyridine, interact with environmental surfaces (such as soils and sediments) via multiple pH-dependent mechanisms, including partitioning to soil organic matter, cation exchange, and surface complexation. Such adsorption to surfaces reduces bioavailability of pyridines for microbial degraders and other organisms, thus slowing degradation rates and reducing ecotoxicity.
Nomenclature
The systematic name of pyridine, within the Hantzsch–Widman nomenclature recommended by the IUPAC, is . However, systematic names for simple compounds are used very rarely; instead, heterocyclic nomenclature follows historically established common names. IUPAC discourages the use of in favor of pyridine. The numbering of the ring atoms in pyridine starts at the nitrogen (see infobox). An allocation of positions by letter of the Greek alphabet (α-γ) and the substitution pattern nomenclature common for homoaromatic systems (ortho, meta, para) are used sometimes. Here α (ortho), β (meta), and γ (para) refer to the 2, 3, and 4 position, respectively. The systematic name for the pyridine derivatives is pyridinyl, wherein the position of the substituted atom is preceded by a number. However, the historical name pyridyl is encouraged by the IUPAC and used instead of the systematic name. The cationic derivative formed by the addition of an electrophile to the nitrogen atom is called pyridinium.
See also
6-membered aromatic rings with one carbon replaced by another group: borabenzene, silabenzene, germabenzene, stannabenzene, pyridine, phosphorine, arsabenzene, stibabenzene, bismabenzene, pyrylium, thiopyrylium, selenopyrylium, telluropyrylium
6-membered rings with two nitrogen atoms: diazines
6-membered rings with three nitrogen atoms: triazines
6-membered rings with four nitrogen atoms: tetrazines
6-membered rings with five nitrogen atoms: pentazine
6-membered rings with six nitrogen atoms: hexazine
References
Bibliography
External links
Synthesis and properties of pyridines at chemsynthesis.com
International Chemical Safety Card 0323
NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards
Synthesis of pyridines (overview of recent methods)
Amine solvents
Foul-smelling chemicals
Aromatic bases
Simple aromatic rings
Functional groups
Aromatic solvents |
23864 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production%20car%20racing | Production car racing | Production car racing, showroom stock racing, street stock, pure stock, touring and U-car racing are all categories of auto racing where unmodified (or very lightly modified) production cars race each other, outright and also in classes.
Cars usually have a protective roll cage and run race tires (either slicks or radials). Some freedoms are allowed, like gearbox coolers, giving the cars increased performance and components longevity. Production car racing, known in the US as "showroom stock", is an economical and rules restricted version of touring car racing.
Many production racing categories are based on particular makes of cars. There are many Porsche and Audi racing series around the world. These are also called "one make series". Some series use a handicapped start, where the smaller cars are released up to 45 seconds ahead of the larger cars, and are slowly caught, the idea being that all the cars are together at the finish of the race. Many series follow the group N regulation with a few exceptions. There are several different series that have run all over the world, most notably, Japan's Super Taikyu and IMSA's Firehawk Series which ran between the 1980s to 1990s all over the United States.
Major races include the Bathurst 6 Hour, Bahrain 24 Hour, Dubai 24 Hour and Malaysian 12 Hour and sanctioned by organisations such as the FIA and SCCA. Normally using an entry-level formula, it has grown into a stand-alone series, with national, state and club events and championships. The first NASCAR "strictly stock" race was held at Charlotte Speedway, on June 19, 1949. Where a racing class requires that the cars raced be production vehicles only slightly adapted for racing, manufacturers typically produce a limited run of such vehicles for public sale so that they can legitimately race them in the class. These cars are commonly called "homologation specials".
In British oval racing, the term "production car racing" has been used as an alternative for hot rods, as run in the West Country during the late 1960s to the mid-1970s, and a production car world championship race was held twice in the 1970s, won by Spence Morgan in 1974 and Ralph Sanders in 1975, both driving Ford Anglias. The West Country production cars were later reclassified as hot rods to come in line with the country's other promoters although this causes some confusion with the history of the West country racing as there was another class called hot rods that ran on those tracks.
See also
Banger racing
Group N
Production car
Super 2000
Track day
Stock car racing
Touring car racing
References
External links
Australian Production Touring Car Championship PTCC (AASA) -
Pure Stock Muscle Car Drag Race
SCCA Production Car Racing -
UCAR CLASH SERIES
Auto racing by type
Touring car racing series
Mixed-sex sports |
23865 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenols | Phenols | In organic chemistry, phenols, sometimes called phenolics, are a class of chemical compounds consisting of one or more hydroxyl groups (−O H) bonded directly to an aromatic hydrocarbon group. The simplest is phenol, . Phenolic compounds are classified as simple phenols or polyphenols based on the number of phenol units in the molecule.
Phenols are both synthesized industrially and produced by plants and microorganisms.
Properties
Acidity
Phenols are more acidic than typical alcohols. The acidity of the hydroxyl group in phenols is commonly intermediate between that of aliphatic alcohols and carboxylic acids (their pKa is usually between 10 and 12). Deprotonation of a phenol forms a corresponding negative phenolate ion or phenoxide ion, and the corresponding salts are called phenolates or phenoxides (aryloxides according to the IUPAC Gold Book).
Condensation with aldehydes and ketones
Phenols are susceptible to Electrophilic aromatic substitutions. Condensation with formaldehyde gives resinous materials, famously Bakelite.
Another industrial-scale electrophilic aromatic substitution is the production of bisphenol A, which is produced by the condensation with acetone.
C-Alkylation with alkenes
Phenol is readily alkylated at the ortho positions using alkenes in the presence of a Lewis acid such as aluminium phenoxide:
CH2=CR2 + C6H5OH → R2CHCH2-2-C6H4OH
More than 100,000 tons of tert-butyl phenols are produced annually (year: 2000) in this way, using isobutylene (CH2=CMe2) as the alkylating agent. Especially important is 2,6-ditert-butylphenol, a versatile antioxidant.
Other reactions
Phenols undergo esterification. Phenol esters are active esters, being prone to hydrolysis. Phenols are reactive species toward oxidation. Oxidative cleavage, for instance cleavage of 1,2-dihydroxybenzene to the monomethylester of 2,4 hexadienedioic acid with oxygen, copper chloride in pyridine Oxidative de-aromatization to quinones also known as the Teuber reaction. and oxone. In reaction depicted below 3,4,5-trimethylphenol reacts with singlet oxygen generated from oxone/sodium carbonate in an acetonitrile/water mixture to a para-peroxyquinole. This hydroperoxide is reduced to the quinole with sodium thiosulfate.
Phenols are oxidized to hydroquinones in the Elbs persulfate oxidation.
Reaction of naphtols and hydrazines and sodium bisulfite in the Bucherer carbazole synthesis.
Synthesis
Many phenols of commercial interest are prepared by elaboration of phenol or cresols. They are typically produced by the alkylation of benzene/toluene with propylene to form cumene then is added with to form phenol (Hock process). In addition to the reactions above, many other more specialized reactions produce phenols:
rearrangement of esters in the Fries rearrangement
rearrangement of N-phenylhydroxylamines in the Bamberger rearrangement
dealkylation of phenolic ethers
reduction of quinones
replacement of an aromatic amine by an hydroxyl group with water and sodium bisulfide in the Bucherer reaction
thermal decomposition of aryl diazonium salts, the salts are converted to phenol
by the oxidation of aryl silanes—an aromatic variation of the Fleming-Tamao oxidation
catalytic synthesis from aryl bromides and iodides using nitrous oxide
Classification
There are various classification schemes. A commonly used scheme is based on the number of carbons and was devised by Jeffrey Harborne and Simmonds in 1964 and published in 1980:
Drugs and bioactive natural products
More than 371 drugs approved by the FDA between the years of 1951 and 2020 contain either a phenol or a phenolic ether (a phenol with an alkyl), with nearly every class of small molecule drugs being represented, and natural products making up a large portion of this list.
References
Functional groups
Disinfectants |
23867 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompey | Pompey | Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (; 29 September 106 BC – 28 September 48 BC), known in English as Pompey ( ) or Pompey the Great, was a general and statesman of the Roman Republic. He played a significant role in the transformation of Rome from republic to empire. Early in his career, he was a partisan and protégé of the Roman general and dictator Sulla; later, he became the political ally, and finally the enemy, of Julius Caesar.
A member of the senatorial nobility, Pompey entered into a military career while still young. He rose to prominence serving the dictator Sulla as a commander in the civil war of 83–81 BC. Pompey's success as a general while young enabled him to advance directly to his first consulship without following the traditional cursus honorum (the required steps to advance in a political career). He was elected as consul on three occasions (70, 55, 52 BC). He celebrated three triumphs, served as a commander in the Sertorian War, the Third Servile War, the Third Mithridatic War, and in various other military campaigns. Pompey's early success earned him the cognomen Magnus – "the Great" – after his boyhood hero Alexander the Great. His adversaries gave him the nickname adulescentulus carnifex ("teenage butcher") for his ruthlessness.
In 60 BC, Pompey joined Crassus and Caesar in the informal political alliance known as the First Triumvirate, cemented by Pompey's marriage with Caesar's daughter, Julia. After the deaths of Julia and Crassus (in 54 and 53 BC), Pompey switched to the political faction known as the optimates—a conservative faction of the Roman Senate. Pompey and Caesar then began contending for leadership of the Roman state in its entirety, eventually leading to Caesar's Civil War. Pompey was defeated at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC, and he sought refuge in Ptolemaic Egypt, where he was assassinated by the courtiers of Ptolemy XIII.
Early life and career
Pompey was born in Picenum on 29 September 106 BC, eldest son of a provincial noble called Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo. Although the dominant family in Picenum, Strabo was the first of his branch to achieve senatorial status in Rome; he completed the traditional cursus honorum, becoming consul in 89 BC, and acquired a reputation for greed, political duplicity, and military ruthlessness. Pompey began his career serving with his father in the Social War (91–87 BC).
Strabo died in 87 BC during the short-lived civil war known as the , although sources differ on whether he succumbed to disease, or was murdered by his own soldiers. Prior to his death, Strabo was accused of embezzlement; as his legal heir, Pompey was held responsible for the alleged crime and put on trial. He was acquitted, supposedly after agreeing to marry the judge's daughter, Antistia.
One of the main issues at stake in 87 BC was the appointment of the consul Lucius Cornelius Sulla as commander of the Roman army in the ongoing First Mithridatic War, an opportunity to amass enormous wealth. During his absence in the East, his political rivals led by Lucius Cornelius Cinna, Gnaeus Papirius Carbo and Gaius Marius the Younger regained control of the Roman Senate. Sulla's return in 83 BC sparked a civil war within the Roman world.
Pompey during Sulla's civil war
In the year prior to Sulla's return Pompey had raised and equipped a full legion from amongst his father's old clients and veterans in Picenum. In the spring of 83 Sulla landed in Brundusium. As he marched north-west towards Campania, Pompey led his own legion south to join him. The government in Rome sent out three separate armies in an attempt to prevent the union between Pompey's and Sulla's army. Pompey attacked one of these armies and routed it. The three enemy commanders, unable to agree on a course of action, withdrew. Soon after Pompey arrived at Sulla's camp. He was greeted by Sulla with the official title of Imperator (General).
At some point in 83 BC, it is not clear when but definitely before the onset of winter, Sulla sent Pompey back to Picenum to raise more troops. When fighting broke out once more in 82 Sulla advanced towards Rome, while Metellus (one of his lieutenants), supported by Pompey, campaigned against the consul Gaius Papirius Carbo in Cisalpine Gaul. During this campaign Pompey acted as Metellus's cavalry commander.
Metellus and Pompey defeated Carbo's lieutenant, the praetor Gaius Carrinas, in a six-hour battle at the river Aesis, only to be blockaded by Carbo himself. When word of Sulla's victory at the Battle of Sacriportus reached them, Carbo retreated to his base at Ariminium, severely harassed by Pompey's cavalry. Some time later Metellus defeated Gaius Marcius Censorinus, another of Carbo's lieutenants, Pompey's cavalry caught Censorinus's fleeing troops outside their base at Sena Gallica, defeating them and plundering the town. While Metellus remained in the north-west, Pompey seems to have transferred to Sulla's command in the south.
Pompey advanced south-west along the Via Flaminia towards Spoletium, where he joined Marcus Licinius Crassus, together they defeated Carrinas once again. Pompey laid siege to Carrinas in Spoletium but the latter managed to escape. Pompey resumed his march to join Sulla's command. Not long afterwards Pompey successfully ambushed another large force under Censorinus, which was trying to get through to Praeneste where Carbo's consular colleague, Marius the Younger (who was the figurehead of the struggle against Sulla), was blockaded. It was the failure of these attempts to get through the Sullan blockade in Umbria and Etruria, added to Metellus's success in winning control of the north, which broke the back of the government's resistance.
At the end of the campaigning season of 82, the government forces made one final effort to march to the relief of Praeneste. They mustered 10,000 legionaries and marched to join forces with the Samnites and the Lucanians, fierce enemies of Sulla, who had campaigned against them in the Social War. Pursued by Pompey they united their forces and made for Praeneste. Unable to break through Sulla's blockade, they marched for undefended Rome, only to be caught just in time and defeated by Sulla at the Battle of the Colline Gate. Pompey, who was pursuing the government forces, arrived just after the battle.
By the end of 82 BC, Sulla had expelled his opponents from Italy, and engineered his nomination as Dictator by the Senate. Either through admiration of his abilities, or concern at his ambition, Sulla sought to consolidate his alliance with Pompey by persuading him to divorce Antistia, and marry his stepdaughter Aemilia. Plutarch claims she was already pregnant by her former husband, and died in childbirth soon after.
Sicily, Africa and Lepidus' rebellion
The surviving Marians escaped to Sicily, where their ally Marcus Perperna was propraetor. They were supported by a fleet under Carbo, while Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus occupied the Roman province of Africa. Perperna abandoned Sicily after Pompey landed on the island with a large force, while Carbo was captured and later executed. Pompey claimed this was justified by Carbo's alleged crimes against Roman citizens, but his opponents nicknamed him adulescentulus carnifex, or "young butcher", as a result.
Pompey now sailed for Africa, leaving Sicily in the hands of his brother-in-law, Gaius Memmius. After defeating and killing Ahenobarbus at the Battle of Utica, Pompey subdued Numidia and executed its king Hiarbas, a Marian ally. He restored the deposed Hiempsal to the Numidian throne. Around this time, his troops began referring to him as Magnus, or "the Great", after Alexander the Great, a figure much admired by the Romans. Shortly thereafter, Pompey formally made this part of his name.
On returning to Rome, he asked for a triumph to celebrate his victories, an unprecedented demand for someone so young. Pompey refused to disband his army until Sulla agreed, although the latter tried to offset the impact by awarding simultaneous triumphs to Lucius Licinius Murena and Gaius Valerius Flaccus. Sometime during this period, Pompey married Mucia Tertia, a member of the powerful Metellus family. They had three children before their divorce in 61 BC; Pompey the younger, usually known as Gnaeus, a daughter, Pompeia Magna, and a younger son, Sextus.
Pompey supported Marcus Aemilius Lepidus as consul for 78 BC; Plutarch claims he did so against Sulla's advice, but most modern historians refute the idea. When Sulla died in 78 BC, Lepidus sought to block his state funeral and roll back some of Sulla's laws, then became proconsul of Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul in January 77 BC. When the Senate ordered him back to Rome, Lepidus refused to comply unless granted another term as consul, a proposal that was rapidly rejected. Assembling an army, he began marching on Rome; the Senate responded with a series of measures, one of which was to appoint Pompey to a military command.
While Lepidus continued south, Pompey raised troops from among his veterans in Picenum, and moved north to besiege Mutina, capital of Cisalpine Gaul. The town was held by Lepidus' ally Marcus Junius Brutus, who surrendered after a lengthy siege, and was assassinated next day, allegedly on Pompey's orders. Catulus then defeated Lepidus outside Rome, while Pompey marched against his rear, catching him near Cosa. Lepidus and the remnants of his army retreated to Sardinia, where he died.
Sertorian War
The Sertorian War began in 80 BC when Quintus Sertorius, a prominent proscribed Marian general, initiated a rebellion in Hispania, where he was joined by other Roman exiles like Perperna. Supported by local Iberian tribes, he took control of Hispania Ulterior and repeatedly defeated Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius through skillful use of guerrilla warfare. Sertorius defeated other Roman generals sent to oust him and soon conquered Hispania Citerior as well. Backed by his allies in the Senate, Pompey was appointed military commander in Spain with proconsular authority in order to defeat Sertorius. This act was technically illegal as he had yet to hold public office, illustrating Pompey's preference for military glory, and disregard for traditional political constraints.
Pompey recruited 30,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry, evidence of the threat posed by Sertorius. En route to Hispania, he subdued a rebellion in Gallia Narbonensis, after which his army entered winter quarters near Narbo Martius. In early 76 BC, he crossed the Col de Portet and entered the Iberian peninsula, where he would remain for the next five years. His arrival boosted the morale of Metellus' troops, while some rebels changed sides, but soon after he was defeated by Sertorius at the Battle of Lauron, losing one third of his army while inflicting next to no losses on Sertorius' army. This was a serious blow to Pompey's prestige, who spent the rest of the year re-organising his army. Metellus' failure to dislodge Sertorius and Pompey's defeat meant the senatorial generals made no progress in the year.
In 75 BC, Sertorius led the campaign against Metellus, while Pompey defeated his subordinates Perperna and Gaius Herennius outside Valencia. When Sertorius took over operations against Pompey, Metellus defeated his deputy Lucius Hirtuleius at the Battle of Italica. Pompey faced Sertorius in the indecisive Battle of Sucro, in which Sertorius defeated Pompey's right flank and nearly captured Pompey himself, but his legate Lucius Afranius defeated the Sertorian right. Sertorius withdrew inland, then turned to fight at Saguntum, where Pompey lost 6,000 men, including his brother-in-law Memmius, reputedly his most effective subordinate. Sertorius himself suffered 3,000 casualties, one of whom was Hirtuleius.
Although Metellus defeated Perperna in a separate battle, Sertorius was able to withdraw to Clunia late in the year, where he repaired the walls to lure his opponents into a siege, while forming garrisons from other towns into a new field army. Once this was ready, he escaped from Clunia and used it to disrupt Roman logistics on land and by sea. Lack of supplies forced Metellus to quarter his troops in Gaul, while Pompey wintered among the Vaccaei. Dire straits caused by this stretch of the campaign and Sertorius' guerrilla warfare led Pompey to write a letter to the Senate asking for funds and men, and scolding their lack of support for him and Metellus.
Pompey's letter had the effect of galvanizing the Senate into sending him more men and funds. Reinforced by two more legions, in 74 BC he and Metellus began a war of attrition against their enemy. As his chief opponent had lost most of his Roman legionaries and could no longer match him in the field, Pompey, along with Metellus, gained the upper hand, conquering more and more Sertorian cities, slowly grinding down Sertorius' revolt. By now, Sertorius was being undermined by internal divisions. Discontent in Sertorius' coalition of Iberian and Roman forces came to a head in 72 or 73 BC when Perperna, leading a conspiracy with other prominent Sertorians, had Sertorius assassinated and assumed control of the rebel army.
Pompey engaged Perperna in battle and defeated him swiftly at the Battle near Osca. Perperna was captured and attempted to persuade Pompey to spare him by giving over Sertorius' correspondence, allegedly containing proof of communications between the rebel leader and leading men in Rome. Pompey burned the letters unread and executed Perperna, and then spent some time restructuring the local Roman administration, showing a lack of animosity towards his former opponents, which extended his patronage throughout Hispania and into southern Gaul. Pompey and his army remained in Hispania for a few years conquering the Sertorian remnants, and then marched back to Rome.
First Consulship
During Pompey's absence, Marcus Licinius Crassus was charged with suppressing the slave rebellion led by Spartacus known as the Third Servile War. Pompey returned to Italy just before Crassus defeated the main rebel army in 71 BC, arriving in time to massacre 6,000 fugitives from the battle. His claim to have ended the war by doing so was a long-standing source of resentment for Crassus.
Pompey was granted a second triumph for his victory in Hispania, and nominated for the consulship. Since he was both too young and technically ineligible, this required a special senatorial decree. Plutarch suggests Pompey supported Crassus as his co-consul in order to put him under an obligation. The two men were elected consuls for 70 BC, but allegedly differed on almost every measure, rendering their term "politically barren and without achievement."
However, their consulship did see the plebeian tribune recover powers removed by Sulla. One of the most significant was the ability to veto Senatorial bills, an act often seen as a turning point in the politics of the late Republic. Although popular with the people, the measure must have been opposed by the optimates, and thus passing it required support from both consuls, although most extant sources barely mention Crassus.
Campaign against the pirates
Pirates operated throughout the Mediterranean, while their fleets often formed temporary alliances with enemies of Rome, including Sertorius and Mithridates. Their power and range had increased over the past fifty years, partly because of the decline of traditional naval powers like Rhodes, while previous attempts to subdue them had been unsuccessful. However, Romans routinely referred to their opponents as "pirates" or "brigands", and some historians argue it is more accurate to see them as a conventional enemy, rather than disorganised outlaws.
Principally based in Cilicia, in 68 BC they raided as far as Ostia, Rome's port, and kidnapped two senators, to general outrage. Prompted by Pompey, Aulus Gabinius, tribune of the plebs in 67 BC, proposed the Lex Gabinia, giving him a mandate for their suppression. It granted him proconsular authority for three years in any province within 50 miles of the Mediterranean, along with the power to appoint legates and significant financial resources. Concerned by one man holding such wide-ranging powers, the law was opposed by the Senate, but passed by the tribunate. Most of the difficulties Pompey faced came from officials who resented his authority. In Gaul, Piso hampered his recruitment efforts, while in Crete, Quintus Metellus refused to comply with his instructions.
Pompey spread his forces throughout the Mediterranean to prevent the pirates escaping a Roman fleet by moving elsewhere. Fifteen legates were given specific areas to patrol, while he secured the grain route to Rome. These measures won him control of the western Mediterranean in just 40 days, after which his fleets moved to the east, forcing the pirates back to their bases in Cilicia. Pompey led the decisive assault on their stronghold in Coracaesium, winning the Battle of Korakesion and concluding the war in only three months.
Most of his opponents surrendered without fighting, thanks to Pompey's reputation for clemency. They were granted lands in cities devastated during the Mithridatic War, notably Soli, renamed Pompeiopolis, and Dyme in Greece, with others sent to towns in Libya and Calabria. These communities retained a strong attachment to both Rome and Pompey.
Third Mithridatic War and re-organisation of the east
Third Mithridatic War
In 73 BC, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, formerly one of Sulla's chief lieutenants, was made proconsul of Cilicia, and commander in the Third Mithridatic War. The war began in 74 BC, when the last ruler of Bithynia died and left his kingdom to Rome, sparking an invasion by Mithridates VI of Pontus, and Tigranes the Great of Armenia. Lucullus was a skilled general who won numerous victories, but claims he was protracting the war for "power and wealth" led to a Senate investigation, while by 69 BC his troops were weary and mutinous.
In 68 BC, Quintus Marcius Rex replaced Lucullus in Cicilia, while Manius Acilius Glabrio received Bithynia. He also assumed leadership of the war against Mithridates, but failed to respond decisively when the latter re-occupied much of Pontus in 67 BC, then attacked Cappadocia, a Roman ally. Seeing an opportunity, in 66 BC Pompey used the tribunate to pass the lex Manilia, giving him extensive powers throughout Asia Minor in order to defeat Mithridates, in addition to those granted by the lex Gabinia. The optimates were privately horrified that one man should hold so much influence, but fearful of his popularity allowed the measure to pass.
Incensed at being replaced, Lucullus called Pompey a "vulture" who profited from the work of others, a reference both to his new command and claim to have finished the war against Spartacus. Pompey agreed an alliance with Phraates III, king of Parthia, whom he persuaded to invade Armenia. When Mithridates offered a truce, Lucullus argued the war was over, but Pompey demanded concessions which could not be accepted. Outnumbered, Mithridates withdrew into Armenia, followed by Pompey, who defeated him at Lycus near the end of 66 BC.
According to contemporary sources, Mithridates and a small contingent escaped the battle, outstripped their pursuers, and reached Colchis on the Black Sea. While there, he took control of the Cimmerian Bosporus from its Roman-backed ruler, his son Machares, who later committed suicide. Meanwhile, Pompey invaded Armenia supported by Tigranes the Younger, whose father quickly came to terms; in return for the restoration of Armenian territories taken by Lucullus, he paid a substantial cash indemnity and allowed Roman troops to be based on his territory.
In 65 BC, Pompey set out to take Colchis, but to do so had first to subdue various local tribes and allies of Mithridrates. After winning a series of battles, he reached Phasis and linked up with Servilius, admiral of his Euxine fleet, before a fresh revolt in Caucasian Albania forced him to retrace his steps. Victory at the Abas enabled him to impose terms on the Albanians and agree truces with other tribes on the northern side of the Caucasus. Pompey then wintered in Armenia, settling minor border contests and raids between his allies Phraates and Tigranes.
Relying on his naval blockade to wear down Mithridates, Pompey spent 64 BC annexing the independent and wealthy cities of Syria, which were incorporated into a new Roman province. In the process, he acquired large amounts of money and prestige, as well as criticism from his opponents in Rome, who argued doing so exceeded his authority. Meanwhile, an ageing Mithridates had been cornered in Panticapaeum by another of his sons, Pharnaces II of Pontus. An attempt to commit suicide by taking poison allegedly failed due to his habit of taking "precautionary antidotes", and he was killed by the rebels. Pharnaces sent his embalmed body to Pompey, in return for which he was granted the Bosporan Kingdom and made an ally of Rome.
Re-organisation of the East
The final collapse of the Seleucid Empire allowed Pompey to annex Syria in 64 BC, but its dissolution destabilised the region, while many of its cities had used the power vacuum to achieve independence. In early 63 BC, Pompey left Antioch and marched south, occupying coastal cities like Apamea, before crossing the Anti-Lebanon Mountains and capturing Pella, Jordan and Damascus.
Pompey's incursion further south, into Judea, was occasioned on account of its inhabitants, under the leadership of Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, having ravaged Phoenicia and Pompey wanting to bring a stop to it. The initial onslaught was disrupted by the Hasmonean Civil War, in which Pompey backed Hyrcanus II over his brother Aristobulus II. When he compelled the latter to surrender Jerusalem, its defenders took refuge in the Temple, which the Romans first stormed, then looted. Judea became a client kingdom ruled by Hyrcanus, while its northern section was incorporated into the Decapolis, a league of semi-autonomous cities (see map). Both Judea and the League were made subordinate to the new province of Syria.
Other organisational changes included creating the province of Bithynia and Pontus, with the rest of Mithridates' territories distributed among Roman allies. Elsewhere, Ariobarzanes I of Cappadocia was restored to his throne, while Lesser Armenia was taken from Tigranes and incorporated into Galatia, with Pompey's client Deiotarus becoming ruler of the new kingdom. Finally, Cilicia received the coastal region of Pamphylia, previously a centre of piracy, along with other inland areas and reorganised into six parts. These actions significantly increased Roman state income and presented Pompey with multiple opportunities to increase his personal wealth and patronage base.
Return to Rome and the First Triumvirate
Before his return to Italy in 62 BC, Pompey paid his troops bonuses totalling around 16,000 talents, but despite fears he intended to follow Sulla's example, they were dismissed upon arrival at Brundisium. His journey to Rome drew huge crowds wherever he stopped, showing that although opinion in the Senate was divided, Pompey remained as popular as ever with the masses. He was awarded a third triumph for his achievements in Asia Minor, celebrated on his 45th birthday in 61 BC.
Pompey claimed the new provinces established in the East had increased annual state income from 200 million to 340 million sesterces, plus an additional payment of 480 million sesterces to the treasury. He refused to provide details of his personal fortune, but given the amounts declared publicly, this must have been enormous. Some of it was used to build one of the most famous structures of Ancient Rome, the Theatre of Pompey.
However, the Senate then refused to ratify the treaties agreed by Pompey as part of his settlement of the East. Opposition was led by the optimates Cato the Younger and Metellus Celer, whose sister Mucia had recently been divorced by Pompey, for reasons still disputed. They also defeated a bill to distribute farmland to his veterans, and landless members of the urban poor. A similar measure had been rejected in 63 BC, which arguably made the Senate over confident in their ability to control popular unrest.
Although Pompey could not overcome optimate opposition on his own, the situation changed when Marius' nephew Julius Caesar sought his endorsement for the consulship in 59 BC. A skilled, unscrupulous, and ambitious politician, an alliance allowed Caesar to harness Pompey's influence with the urban electorate. With additional support from Crassus, Caesar became one of the two consuls for 59 BC, the other being the optimate Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus. This meant Caesar could help pass legislation sponsored by Pompey and Crassus, while it was in his interest to keep them aligned, an important factor given the rivalry between his two patrons.
Despite appearing to be the most junior, Caesar thus became central to the First Triumvirate, an informal political alliance designed to counter-balance the optimates. Pompey's influence was based on his reputation as a military commander, and popularity with the Roman people. Crassus' wealth allowed him to construct extensive patronage networks, but he lacked the military clout essential for political success in the late Republican era.
Once elected, Caesar secured the passage of a new agrarian bill, helped by Pompey's veterans, who filled the streets of Rome and allegedly intimidated the Senate. When Bibulus opposed the measure, he was attacked in the forum, and spent the rest of his consulship under virtual house arrest. Caesar then ensured ratification of Pompey's settlements in the east, while the Lex Vatinia made him governor of Gallia Cisalpina and Illyricum. He was also assigned Gallia Transalpina after its governor died in office, before leaving Rome to launch the Gallic Wars in 58 BC. His alliance with Pompey was strengthened when the latter married Caesar's daughter Julia.
Senatorial opposition to the triumvirate was led by Cicero, a long-standing Pompeian ally. Despite this, the latter supported the populist politician Publius Clodius Pulcher in an attack on Cicero for executing Roman citizens without trial during the Catilinarian conspiracy. Although Clodius succeeded in having Cicero exiled, he was recalled to Rome by Pompey eighteen months later in 58 BC. As a result, when shortages of grain caused popular unrest in 57 BC, a grateful Cicero backed Pompey's appointment as praefectus annonae, a temporary position set up for such occasions.
Pompey and Crassus were competing for command of a new expedition to Asia Minor, and in 56 BC they met with Caesar to resolve these issues. Although Crassus was a long-standing rival, there are also indications Pompey felt his status as the foremost soldier of the Republic was threatened by Caesar's success in Gaul. With this in mind, Pompey set aside his differences with Crassus to promote their joint candidature as consuls for 55 BC. With Caesar's support, they were duly elected after prolonged periods of the violence which had become a feature of Roman political campaigns.
Once in office, they ensured passage of a law giving Crassus the province of Syria and command of a punitive expedition against Parthia, providing him opportunities for both military glory and loot. Pompey was assigned the restive provinces of Hispania, along with Africa, while Caesar's governorships in Gaul were extended. All three men were given these positions for a period of five years, as well as the right to levy troops and "make peace and war with whomsoever they pleased."
From confrontation to civil war
In 54 BC, Caesar continued his conquest of Gaul, Crassus opened his campaign against the Parthians, and Pompey remained in Rome, where his wife Julia died in child birth in September. Contemporary sources suggest that combined with the death of Crassus and his son Publius at Carrhae in May 53 BC, this removed any obstacle to direct confrontation between Caesar and Pompey.
Consular elections in 52 BC had to be suspended due to widespread violence. Seeking to end his alliance with Caesar, the optimate Bibulus proposed Pompey be elected sole consul, an unprecedented act backed by both Cato and the tribunate. Having restored order, Pompey married Cornelia, widow of Publius Crassus and daughter of Metellus Scipio Nasica, whom he appointed as his colleague for the last five months of the year.
As consul, Pompey helped enact legislation which some historians view as crucial to understanding the drift to war in 49 BC. Accused of using violence during his consulship in 59 BC, Caesar had previously been shielded by his proconsular immunity. With private support from Pompey, new laws made such prosecutions retrospective, which meant Caesar would probably be put on trial the moment he left Gaul and lost his Imperium. To avoid this, he had secured approval to stand for the consulship in 48 BC while still in Gaul, but another law backed by Pompey required electoral candidates to be physically present in Rome.
Although the two continued to co-operate in public, Pompey clearly viewed his colleague as a threat, as did much of the Senate. Both consuls for 50 BC, Paullus and Gaius Claudius, were opponents of Caesar, as was Curio, a plebeian tribune. They initiated legislation to remove Caesar from his command in Gaul, who allegedly bypassed this by bribing Paullus and Curio. For whatever reason, Curio came up with an alternative proposal; Caesar and Pompey should disarm at the same time, or be declared enemies of the state.
This was a clever move, since it was popular with those who wanted to avoid war, but unacceptable to the optimates who saw Caesar as a danger that had to be eliminated. Rejection made open conflict more likely, and the Senate agreed to fund a consular army, organised by Pompey. When he fell ill while recruiting in Naples, the celebrations that followed his recovery allegedly convinced Pompey his popularity was sufficient to see off any opponent. In December, Caesar crossed the Alps with a single veteran legion and arrived at Ravenna, close to the border with the Roman Republic.
A significant number of senators opposed any concessions to Caesar, but many also mistrusted Pompey, who has been criticised for "weak and ineffectual leadership" in this period. On 1 January 49 BC, Caesar sent an ultimatum demanding acceptance of his compromise, failing which he would march on Rome "to avenge his country's wrongs". Confident their forces significantly outnumbered those available to Caesar, on 7 January the Senate declared him a public enemy; four days later, he crossed the Rubicon into Italy.
The Road to Pharsalus
When the war began, Caesar was a rebel with no navy and three understrength legions, while Pompey was backed by all the resources of the Roman state and his clients in the East. However, his position was weaker than it seemed, since he was simply an advisor to the Senate, many of whose members either preferred a negotiated solution, or regarded him with as much suspicion as Caesar. His military strategy had to be approved by the consuls, and he could only issue recommendations, which were not always followed. For example, Cicero rejected a request to help him with recruitment, and Cato refused to take command of Sicily, vital for control of Rome's grain supply.
Plans to defend Italy were undone by the speed with which Caesar moved, advancing directly on Rome with minimal resistance. Although outnumbered, his troops were experienced veterans, while many of Pompey's were new recruits, a weakness made worse by lack of co-ordination. Cato's brother-in-law, the optimate leader Lucius Domitius, was cut off and captured in a hopeless defence of Corfinium, and his 13,000 men incorporated into Caesar's army. Led by Asinius Pollio, they were later used to occupy Sicily.
Pompey had abandoned Rome, ordering all senators and public officials to accompany him as he withdrew south to Brundisium. From there, he transported his troops across the Adriatic to Dyrrhachium in Thessaly, an operation performed with almost complete success. Lacking ships to pursue him, Caesar first secured his rear by subduing Pompeian forces in Hispania, before returning to Rome in December 49 BC. This gave Pompey time to build an army nearly twice the size of his opponents, while his navy destroyed two fleets being built for Caesar, ensuring the Pompeians retained control of the sea lanes.
Despite this, in January 48 BC Caesar managed to cross the Adriatic with seven legions and land in southern Albania. After capturing Oricum and Apollonia, he advanced on Pompey's main supply base at Dyrrhachium. The latter arrived in time to block the attempt, and establish a fortified camp on the other side of the River Apus, where the two armies remained until spring. Neither commander was anxious to begin hostilities, since Caesar was too weak militarily, while as with Mithridates, Pompey preferred to starve his opponent into submission.
In late March the stalemate was broken when Mark Antony finally managed to cross the Adriatic with four more legions and land at Nymphaeum, some 57 kilometres north of Dyrrachium. Pompey tried to prevent the two Caesarian armies from linking up, by marching north-east and laying an ambush for Antony. The ambush, however, was revealed to Antony by some local Caesarian sympathisers, and he stayed in camp until Caesar approached. Pompey not willing to be caught between the two Caesarian forces withdrew.
Caesar, his army now united with Antony's force, redeployed his forces by sending one-and-a-half legion to win support and gather supplies in Aetolia and Thessaly, and a further two legions under Domitius Calvinus to intercept Metellus Scipio in Macedonia. Meanwhile, Gnaeus, Pompey's oldest son, managed to destroy Caesar's fleet at Oricum and Lissus, making sure no more reinforcements and supplies would reach Caesar from Italy. Caesar tried to lure Pompey into a pitched battle at Asparagium, but the latter refused. The next day Caesar outmaneuvred Pompey and marched for Dyrrachium again. When Pompey arrived at the city Caesar had already set up camp.
Caesar lacked the siege equipment needed to take Dyrrhachium, and could not risk leaving Pompey to threaten his rear. He solved this by besieging Pompey in his camp. Although the latter had enough food, water was scarce because Caesar had dammed the local rivers, and the Pompeian cavalry lacked forage for their horses. Ending the stalemate became a matter of urgency, and in late July Pompey finally managed to break through part of Caesar's defensive lines. Since this made the blockade pointless, Caesar cut his losses and withdrew to Apollonia.
At this point Metellus Scipio arrived in Thessaly. Caesar moved south to confront this threat and link up with Domitius Calvinus, allowing his men to sack Gomphi en route. Pursued by Pompey, he then withdrew to the area near Pharsalus, but failed to tempt Pompey into giving battle. Although it was later claimed Pompey only did so after being pressured by his subordinates, the delay may simply have been a reflection of his natural caution.
Regardless, Pompey's army of around 38,000 outnumbered the 22,000 men commanded by Caesar, with 7,000 cavalry to 1,000. On 9 August he deployed his men in battle formation, planning to use his superior cavalry to outflank his opponent on his left. Caesar had anticipated this, and repulsed the cavalry which fled in confusion, exposing the infantry behind them. Under pressure from the left and in front, the Pompeian army collapsed.
Death
Pompey escaped from the battlefield and made his way to Mytilene, where he was reunited with his wife Cornelia. Most of his Eastern allies were present at Pharsalus, and had either been killed or captured. The main absentee was 14-year-old Ptolemy XIII, ruler of the wealthy and strategically important kingdom of Egypt, making it an obvious destination. Cato announced his intention to continue the war from Africa, although most of his senatorial colleagues, including Cicero and Marcus Junius Brutus, made their peace with Caesar, and returned to Rome.
Pompey sailed from Cyprus with a small fleet, and on 28 September 48 BC arrived at Pelusium in Egypt, where Ptolemy was engaged in a bitter civil war with his co-ruler and elder sister, Cleopatra VII. When he went ashore to greet an official delegation, Pompey was killed by Lucius Septimius, a Roman officer and former colleague serving in the Egyptian army. His body was cremated by two servants, while the head was kept as evidence.
One suggestion is that Ptolemy and his advisors feared Pompey planned to seize control of Egypt, especially since many Egyptian army officers were Roman mercenaries like Septimius who had previously served with him. At the same time, it seemed an easy way to win Caesar's support against Cleopatra, although ultimately this proved not to be the case. Pompey's head was later returned to Cornelia for burial at his villa in the Alban Hills, while his ignominious death prompted Cicero to write "his life outlasted his power".
Marriages and issue
Pompey had five wives:
Antistia. They married in 86 BC and divorced in 82 BC. By her he had no issue.
Aemilia Scaura. When they married in 82 BC, Aemilia was pregnant by her former husband and died in childbirth in the same year.
Mucia Tertia. They married in 79 BC and divorced in 61 BC. By her he had two sons and a daughter:
Gnaeus Pompeus
Pompeia
Sextus Pompeus
Julia, the daughter of Julius Caesar. They married in 59 BC and she died in childbirth in 54 BC. The child died a few days after birth.
Cornelia Metella. They married in 52 BC and had no children together.
Generalship
Pompey's military glory was second to none for two decades, yet his skills were occasionally criticized by some of his contemporaries. Sertorius or Lucullus, for instance, were especially critical. Pompey's tactics were usually efficient, albeit not particularly innovative or imaginative, and they could prove insufficient against greater tacticians. However, Pharsalus was his only decisive defeat. At times, he was reluctant to risk an open battle. While not extremely charismatic, Pompey could display tremendous bravery and fighting skills on the battlefield, which inspired his men. While being a superb commander, Pompey also earned a reputation for stealing other generals' victories.
On the other hand, Pompey is usually considered an outstanding strategist and organizer, who could win campaigns without displaying genius on the battlefield, but simply by constantly outmaneuvering his opponents and gradually pushing them into a desperate situation. Pompey was a great forward planner, and had tremendous organizational skill, which allowed him to devise grand strategies and operate effectively with large armies. During his campaigns in the east, he relentlessly pursued his enemies, choosing the ground for his battles.
Above all, he was often able to adapt to his enemies and showed determination. On many occasions, he acted very swiftly and decisively, as he did during his campaigns in Sicily and Africa, or against the Cilician pirates. During the Sertorian war, on the other hand, Pompey was beaten several times by Sertorius. Despite an abysmal first year of the war for Pompey in 76 BC, he continued to campaign vigorously and as a result defeated many of Sertorius' subordinates. After Sertorius' army was greatly diminished, Pompey then decided to conduct a war of attrition, in which he would avoid open battles against his chief opponent but instead tried to gradually regain the strategic advantage by capturing his fortresses and cities and defeating his junior officers. This strategy was unspectacular, but it led to constant territorial gains and did much to demoralize the Sertorian forces. By 73 or 72 BC, when he was assassinated, Sertorius was already in a desperate situation and his troops were deserting. Against Perperna, a tactician far inferior to his former commander-in-chief, Pompey decided to revert to a more aggressive strategy and he scored a decisive victory that effectively ended the war.
Against Caesar too, his strategy was sound. During the campaign in Greece, he managed to regain the initiative, join his forces to that of Metellus Scipio (something that Caesar wanted to avoid) and trap his enemy. His strategic position was hence much better than that of Caesar and he could have starved Caesar's army to death. However, he was finally compelled to fight an open battle by his allies, and his conventional tactics proved no match to those of Caesar (who also commanded the more experienced troops).
Literary heritage
Pompey was so striking a figure, and his fall so dramatic, that his story became the subject of frequent literary treatment. In the century after his death, the civil war between himself and Caesar was retold in Lucan's epic De Bello Civili, now known as the Pharsalia after the culminating battle. In the poem's final sections, however, Pompey's vengeful ghost returns to possess those responsible for his murder in Egypt and bring about their death.
In Renaissance Britain, too, several plays returned to the subject of "Caesar and Pompey", including George Chapman'sThe Wars of Pompey and Caesar (c. 1604). Another contemporary treatment by Thomas Kyd, Cornelia, or Pompey the Great, his faire Cornelia's tragedy (1594), was a translation from the French of Robert Garnier. Later in France, Pompey's story was told without the character appearing onstage in Pierre Corneille's La Mort de Pompée (1643) and this too had English adaptations: as Pompey (1663) by Catherine Philips, as Pompey the Great by Edmund Waller and others in 1664, and later as The Death of Pompey (1724) by Colley Cibber.
Later in the 18th century, Pompey is made the recipient of a 'heroical epistle' in rhyming couplets from a supposed former lover in John Hervey's "Flora to Pompey". He also figures in narrative poems of the 19th century. John Edmund Reade's "The Vale of Tempe" records the fugitive's desperate appearance as glimpsed by a bystander in the Greek valley; his arrival in Egypt is related by Alaric Watts in "The Death of Pompey the Great", and the ruined column raised to mark the site of his killing outside Alexandria is described by Nicholas Michell in Ruins of Many Lands. These were followed by John Masefield's prose drama The Tragedy of Pompey the Great of 1910, covering the period from his decision to fight Caesar to his assassination in Egypt. The play was later filmed for television in 1950 for the BBC Sunday Night Theatre.
Pompey's career is recapitulated a century later in series of historical novels. In Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome, Pompey is mainly featured in Books III-V, covering his rise to prominence through to his betrayal and murder in Egypt. Pompey is also a recurring character in Steven Saylor's Roma Sub Rosa crime fiction novels, where he brushes shoulders with Gordianus, the main protagonist of the series. Another fiction series in which Pompey plays a part in the historical background is Robert Harris's trilogy of the life of Cicero.
Chronology of Pompey's life and career
29 September 106 BC – Born in Picenum;
86 BC – Marriage to Antistia;
89 BC – Serves under his father at Asculum (during the Social War);
83 BC – Aligns with Sulla, after his return from the First Mithridatic War against King Mithridates VI of Pontus, raising a legion and cavalry in hopes of joining him;
83–82 BC – Fights for Sulla during the war in Italy. First as cavalry commander then joint-commands and finally commanding an independent army.
82 BC – Divorce by Antistia and marriage to Aemilia at the behest of Sulla, but Aemilia is already pregnant and eventually dies during childbirth;
82–81 BC – Defeats Gaius Marius' allies in Sicily and Africa;
81 BC – Returns to Rome and celebrates first triumph;
79 BC – Pompey marries Mucia Tertia, of the Mucii Scaevolae family;
79 BC – Pompey supports the election of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, who openly revolts against the Senate a few months later. Pompey suppresses the rebellion with an army raised from Picenum and puts down the rebellion, killing the rebel Marcus Junius Brutus, father of Brutus, who would go on to assassinate Julius Caesar;
76–71 BC – Campaign in Hispania against Sertorius;
71 BC – Returns to Italy and participates in the suppression of a slave rebellion led by Spartacus, obtaining his second triumph;
70 BC – First consulship (with Marcus Licinius Crassus);
67 BC – Defeats the pirates and goes to the province of Asia;
66–61 BC – Defeats King Mithridates of Pontus, ending the Third Mithridatic War;
64–63 BC – Marches through Syria, the Levant, and Judea;
61 BC – Divorce by Mucia Tertia;
29 September 61 BC – Third triumph;
April 59 BC – The so-called first triumvirate is constituted. Pompey allies with Julius Caesar and Crassus, marrying Caesar's daughter Julia;
58–55 BC – Governs Hispania Ulterior by proxy, while the Theater of Pompey is constructed;
55 BC – Second consulship (with Marcus Licinius Crassus), and the Theater of Pompey is finally inaugurated;
54 BC – Julia dies in childbirth, and the first triumvirate ends;
52 BC – Serves as sole consul for an intercalary month, but has a third ordinary consulship with Metellus Scipio for the rest of the year, marrying his daughter Cornelia Metella;
51 BC – Forbids Caesar (in Gaul) to stand for consulship in absentia;
50 BC – Falls dangerously ill with fever in Campania, but is saved "by public prayers";
49 BC – Caesar crosses the Rubicon river and invades Italy, while Pompey retreats to Greece with the conservatives;
48 BC – Caesar defeats Pompey's army near Pharsalus, Greece. Pompey retreats to Egypt and is killed at Pelusium.
Footnotes
References
Bibliography
Further reading
Hillman, T., P., The Reputation of Cn. Pompeius Magnus among His Contemporaries from 83 to 59 B.C., Diss. New York 1989.
Nicols, Marianne Schoenlin. Appearance and Reality. A Study of the Clientele of Pompey the Great, Diss. Berkeley/Cal. 1992.
Southern, P., Pompey the Great: Caesar's Friend and Foe, The History Press, 2003;
Stockton, D., The First Consulship of Pompey, Historia 22 (1973), 205–18.
Van Ooteghem, J., Pompée le Grand. Bâtisseur d’Empire. Brussels 1954.
Wylie, G., J., Pompey Megalopsychos, Klio 72 (1990), 445–456.
106 BC births
48 BC deaths
1st-century BC Roman augurs
1st-century BC Roman consuls
1st-century BC Roman generals
People involved in anti-piracy efforts
Assassinated ancient Roman politicians
Correspondents of Cicero
Deaths by stabbing in Egypt
First Triumvirate
Julius Caesar
People from le Marche
People murdered in Egypt
Pompeii (Romans)
Roman governors of Hispania
Supporters of Sulla
People of Sulla's civil war
People of the Sertorian War
Ancient Roman triumphators |
23869 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymorphism | Polymorphism | Polymorphism, polymorphic, polymorph, polymorphous, or polymorphy may refer to:
Computing
Polymorphism (computer science), the ability in programming to present the same programming interface for differing underlying forms
Ad hoc polymorphism, applying polymorphic functions to arguments of different types
Parametric polymorphism, abstracts types, so that multiple can be used with a single implementation
Bounded quantification, restricts type parameters to a range of subtypes
Subtyping, different classes related by some common superclass can be used in place of that superclass
Row polymorphism, uses structural subtyping to allow polymorphism over records
Polymorphic code, self-modifying program code designed to defeat anti-virus programs or reverse engineering
Science
Biology
Chromosomal polymorphism, a condition where one species contains members with varying chromosome counts or shapes
Cell polymorphism, variability in size of cells or nuclei
Gene polymorphism, the existence of more than one allele at a gene's locus within a population
Lipid polymorphism, the property of amphiphiles that gives rise to various aggregations of lipids
Polymorphic, a wave pattern seen on an electrocardiogram; see QRS complex
Polymorphism (biology), the occurrence of more than one form in the same population of a species
Polymorphism (RLFP), a technique that exploits variations in homologous DNA sequences
Other sciences
Polymorphism (materials science), the existence of a solid material in two or more crystal structures, known as polymorphs
Polymorph, a marketing name for polycaprolactone, a type of thermoplastic which fuses at 60 °C
Fiction
Polymorph, a shapeshifting being in:
"Polymorph" (Red Dwarf), third episode of series III of the science fiction sitcom
"Emohawk: Polymorph II", fourth episode of series VI of the science fiction sitcom
Polymorph (novel), a 1997 cyberpunk novel by Scott Westerfeld
Polymorph, a magical spell in many fantasy role-playing games that transforms a target into one of many different creatures for a period of time
See also
Dimorphism (disambiguation)
Monomorphic (disambiguation)
Polymorphism in Lepidoptera
Shapeshifter (disambiguation) |
23871 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasta | Pasta | Pasta (, , ) is a type of food typically made from an unleavened dough of wheat flour mixed with water or eggs, and formed into sheets or other shapes, then cooked by boiling or baking. Pasta was traditionally only made with durum, although the definition has been expanded to include alternatives for a gluten-free diet, such as rice flour, or legumes such as beans or lentils. While Asian noodles originated in China, pasta is believed to have developed independently in Italy and is a staple food of Italian cuisine, with evidence of Etruscans making pasta as early as 400 BCE in Italy.
Pastas are divided into two broad categories: dried () and fresh (Italian: ). Most dried pasta is produced commercially via an extrusion process, although it can be produced at home. Fresh pasta is traditionally produced by hand, sometimes with the aid of simple machines. Fresh pastas available in grocery stores are produced commercially by large-scale machines.
Both dried and fresh pastas come in a number of shapes and varieties, with 310 specific forms known by over 1,300 documented names. In Italy, the names of specific pasta shapes or types often vary by locale. For example, the pasta form is known by 28 different names depending upon the town and region. Common forms of pasta include long and short shapes, tubes, flat shapes or sheets, miniature shapes for soup, those meant to be filled or stuffed, and specialty or decorative shapes.
As a category in Italian cuisine, both fresh and dried pastas are classically used in one of three kinds of prepared dishes: as (or ), cooked pasta is plated and served with a complementary sauce or condiment; a second classification of pasta dishes is , in which the pasta is part of a soup-type dish. A third category is , in which the pasta is incorporated into a dish that is subsequently baked in the oven. Pasta dishes are generally simple, but individual dishes vary in preparation. Some pasta dishes are served as a small first course or for light lunches, such as pasta salads. Other dishes may be portioned larger and used for dinner. Pasta sauces similarly may vary in taste, color and texture.
In terms of nutrition, cooked plain pasta is 31% carbohydrates (mostly starch), 6% protein, and low in fat, with moderate amounts of manganese, but pasta generally has low micronutrient content. Pasta may be enriched or fortified, or made from whole grains.
Etymology
Earliest appearances in the English language are in the 1830s, the word pasta comes from Italian , in turn from Latin , latinisation of the Greek .
History
Evidence of Etruscans making pasta dates back to 400 BCE. The first concrete information on pasta products in Italy dates to the 13th or 14th centuries.
In the 1st century AD writings of Horace, (: ) were fine sheets of fried dough and were an everyday foodstuff. Writing in the 2nd century, Athenaeus of Naucratis provides a recipe for which he attributes to the 1st century Chrysippus of Tyana: sheets of dough made of wheat flour and the juice of crushed lettuce, then flavored with spices and deep-fried in oil. An early 5th century cookbook describes a dish called that consisted of layers of dough with meat stuffing, an ancestor of modern-day lasagna. However, the method of cooking these sheets of dough does not correspond to the modern definition of either a fresh or dry pasta product, which only had similar basic ingredients and perhaps the shape.
Historians have noted several lexical milestones relevant to pasta, none of which changes these basic characteristics. For example, the works of the 2nd century AD Greek physician Galen mention , homogeneous compounds made of flour and water. The Jerusalem Talmud records that , a kind of boiled dough, was common in Palestine from the 3rd to 5th centuries AD. A dictionary compiled by the 9th century Arab physician and lexicographer Isho bar Ali defines , the Arabic cognate, as string-like shapes made of semolina and dried before cooking. The geographical text of Muhammad al-Idrisi, compiled for the Norman King of Sicily Roger II in 1154 mentions manufactured and exported from Norman Sicily:
One form of with a long history is , which in Latin refers to thin sheets of dough, and gave rise to the Italian .
In North Africa, a food similar to pasta, known as couscous, has been eaten for centuries. However, it lacks the distinguishing malleable nature of pasta, couscous being more akin to droplets of dough. At first, dry pasta was a luxury item in Italy because of high labor costs; durum wheat semolina had to be kneaded for a long time.
There is a legend of Marco Polo importing pasta from China which originated with the Macaroni Journal, published by an association of food industries with the goal of promoting pasta in the United States. Rustichello da Pisa writes in his Travels that Marco Polo described a food similar to . The way pasta reached Europe is unknown, however there are many theories, Jeffrey Steingarten asserts that Moors introduced pasta in the Emirate of Sicily in the ninth century, mentioning also that traces of pasta have been found in ancient Greece and that Jane Grigson believed the Marco Polo story to have originated in the 1920s or 1930s in an advertisement for a Canadian spaghetti company.
Food historians estimate that the dish probably took hold in Italy as a result of extensive Mediterranean trading in the Middle Ages. From the 13th century, references to pasta dishes—macaroni, ravioli, gnocchi, vermicelli—crop up with increasing frequency across the Italian peninsula. In the 14th-century writer Boccaccio's collection of earthy tales, The Decameron, he recounts a mouthwatering fantasy concerning a mountain of Parmesan cheese down which pasta chefs roll macaroni and ravioli to gluttons waiting below.
In the 14th and 15th centuries, dried pasta became popular for its easy storage. This allowed people to store pasta on ships when exploring the New World. A century later, pasta was present around the globe during the voyages of discovery.
Although tomatoes were introduced to Italy in the 16th century and incorporated in Italian cuisine in the 17th century, description of the first Italian tomato sauces dates from the late 18th century: the first written record of pasta with tomato sauce can be found in the 1790 cookbook by Roman chef Francesco Leonardi. Before tomato sauce was introduced, pasta was eaten dry with the fingers; the liquid sauce demanded the use of a fork.
History of manufacturing
At the beginning of the 17th century, Naples had rudimentary machines for producing pasta, later establishing the kneading machine and press, making pasta manufacturing cost-effective. In 1740, a license for the first pasta factory was issued in Venice. During the 1800s, watermills and stone grinders were used to separate semolina from the bran, initiating expansion of the pasta market. In 1859, Joseph Topits (1824−1876) founded Hungary's first pasta factory, in the city of Pest, which worked with steam machines; it was one of the first pasta factories in Central Europe. By 1867, Buitoni Company in Sansepolcro, Tuscany, was an established pasta manufacturer. During the early 1900s, artificial drying and extrusion processes enabled greater variety of pasta preparation and larger volumes for export, beginning a period called "The Industry of Pasta". In 1884, the Zátka Brothers's plant in Boršov nad Vltavou was founded, making it Bohemia's first pasta factory.
In modern times
The art of pasta making and the devotion to the food as a whole has evolved since pasta was first conceptualized. In 2008, it was estimated that Italians ate over of pasta per person, per year, easily beating Americans, who ate about per person. Pasta is so beloved in Italy that individual consumption exceeds the average production of wheat of the country; thus, Italy frequently imports wheat for pasta making. In contemporary society, pasta is ubiquitous and there is a variety of types in local supermarkets, in many countries. With the worldwide demand for this staple food, pasta is now largely mass-produced in factories and only a tiny proportion is crafted by hand.
Ingredients and preparation
Since at least the time of Cato's , basic pasta dough has been made mostly of wheat flour or semolina, with durum wheat used predominantly in the south of Italy and soft wheat in the north. Regionally other grains have been used, including those from barley, buckwheat, rye, rice, and maize, as well as chestnut and chickpea flours. Liquid, often in the form of eggs, is used to turn the flour into a dough.
To address the needs of people affected by gluten-related disorders (such as coeliac disease, non-celiac gluten sensitivity and wheat allergy sufferers), some recipes use rice or maize for making pasta. Grain flours may also be supplemented with cooked potatoes.
Other additions to the basic flour-liquid mixture may include vegetable purees such as spinach or tomato, mushrooms, cheeses, herbs, spices and other seasonings. While pastas are, most typically, made from unleavened doughs, the use of yeast-raised doughs are also known for at least nine different pasta forms.
Additives in dried, commercially sold pasta include vitamins and minerals that are lost from the durum wheat endosperm during milling. They are added back to the semolina flour once it is ground, creating enriched flour. Micronutrients added may include niacin (vitamin B3), riboflavin (vitamin B2), folate, thiamine (vitamin B1), and ferrous iron.
Varieties
Fresh
Fresh pasta is usually locally made with fresh ingredients unless it is destined to be shipped, in which case consideration is given to the spoilage rates of the desired ingredients such as eggs or herbs. Furthermore, fresh pasta is usually made with a mixture of eggs and all-purpose flour or "00" low-gluten flour. Since it contains eggs, it is more tender compared to dried pasta and only takes about half the time to cook. Delicate sauces are preferred for fresh pasta in order to let the pasta take front stage.
Fresh pastas do not expand in size after cooking; therefore, of pasta are needed to serve four people generously. Fresh egg pasta is generally cut into strands of various widths and thicknesses depending on which pasta is to be made (e.g., fettuccine, pappardelle, and lasagne). It is best served with meat, cheese, or vegetables to create filled pastas such as ravioli, tortellini, and cannelloni. Fresh egg pasta is well known in the Piedmont and Emilia-Romagna regions of northern Italy. In this area, dough is only made out of egg yolk and flour resulting in a very refined flavor and texture. This pasta is often served simply with butter sauce and thinly sliced truffles that are native to this region. In other areas, such as Apulia, fresh pasta can be made without eggs. The only ingredients needed to make the pasta dough are semolina flour and water, which is often shaped into orecchiette or . Fresh pasta for is also popular in other places including Sicily. However, the dough is prepared differently: it is made of flour and ricotta cheese instead.
Dried
Dried pasta can also be defined as factory-made pasta because it is usually produced in large amounts that require large machines with superior processing capabilities to manufacture. Dried pasta can be shipped further and has a longer shelf life. The ingredients required to make dried pasta include semolina flour and water. Eggs can be added for flavor and richness, but are not needed to make dried pasta. In contrast to fresh pasta, dried pasta needs to be dried at a low temperature for several days to evaporate all the moisture allowing it to be stored for a longer period. Dried pastas are best served in hearty dishes, such as ragù sauces, soups, and casseroles. Once it is cooked, the dried pasta will usually grow to twice its original size. Therefore, approximately of dried pasta serves up to four people.
Culinary uses
Cooking
Pasta, whether dry or fresh, is eaten after cooking it in hot water. For Italian pasta, which is unsalted, salt is added to the cooking water. This is not the case for Asian wheat noodles, such as udon and lo mein, which are made from salty dough.
In Italy, pasta is often cooked to be al dente, such that it is still firm to the bite. This is because it is then often cooked in the sauce for a short time, which makes it soften further.
There are number of urban myths about how pasta should be cooked. In fact, it does not generally matter whether pasta is cooked at a lower or a higher temperature, although lower temperatures require more stirring to avoid sticking, and certain stuffed pasta, such as tortellini, break up in higher temperatures. It also does not matter whether salt is added before or after bringing the water to a boil. The amount of salt has no influence on cooking speed.
Sauce
Pasta is generally served with some type of sauce; the sauce and the type of pasta are usually matched based on consistency and ease of eating. Northern Italian cooking uses less tomato sauce, garlic and herbs, and béchamel sauce is more common. However, Italian cuisine is best identified by individual regions. Pasta dishes with lighter use of tomato are found in Trentino-Alto Adige and Emilia-Romagna regions of northern Italy. In Bologna, the meat-based Bolognese sauce incorporates a small amount of tomato concentrate and a green sauce called pesto originates from Genoa. In central Italy, there are sauces such as tomato sauce, , , and the egg-based carbonara.
Tomato sauces are also present in southern Italian cuisine, where they originated. In southern Italy more complex variations include pasta paired with fresh vegetables, olives, capers or seafood. Varieties include , (tomatoes, eggplant and fresh or baked cheese), (fresh sardines, pine nuts, fennel and olive oil), (), (crispy peppers and breadcrumbs).
Pasta can be served also in broth (pastina, or stuffed pasta, such as tortellini, and ) or in vegetable soup, typically minestrone or bean soup ().
Processing
Fresh
Ingredients to make pasta dough include semolina flour, egg, salt and water. Flour is first mounded on a flat surface and then a well in the pile of flour is created. Egg is then poured into the well and a fork is used to mix the egg and flour. There are a variety of ways to shape the sheets of pasta depending on the type required. The most popular types include penne, spaghetti, and macaroni.
Kitchen pasta machines, also called pasta makers, are popular with cooks who make large amounts of fresh pasta. The cook feeds sheets of pasta dough into the machine by hand and, by turning a hand crank, rolls the pasta to thin it incrementally. On the final pass through the pasta machine, the pasta may be directed through a machine 'comb' to shape of the pasta as it emerges.
Matrix and extrusion
Semolina flour consists of a protein matrix with entrapped starch granules. Upon the addition of water, during mixing, intermolecular forces allow the protein to form a more ordered structure in preparation for cooking.
Durum wheat is ground into semolina flour which is sorted by optical scanners and cleaned. Pipes allow the flour to move to a mixing machine where it is mixed with warm water by rotating blades. When the mixture is of a lumpy consistency, the mixture is pressed into sheets or extruded. Varieties of pasta such as spaghetti and linguine are cut by rotating blades, while pasta such as penne and fusilli are extruded. The size and shape of the dies in the extruder through which the pasta is pushed determine the shape that results. The pasta is then dried at a high temperature.
Factory-manufactured
The ingredients to make dried pasta usually include water and semolina flour; egg for color and richness (in some types of pasta), and possibly vegetable juice (such as spinach, beet, tomato, carrot), herbs or spices for color and flavor. After mixing semolina flour with warm water the dough is kneaded mechanically until it becomes firm and dry. If pasta is to be flavored, eggs, vegetable juices, and herbs are added at this stage. The dough is then passed into the laminator to be flattened into sheets, then compressed by a vacuum mixer-machine to clear out air bubbles and excess water from the dough until the moisture content is reduced to 12%. Next, the dough is processed in a steamer to kill any bacteria it may contain.
The dough is then ready to be shaped into different types of pasta. Depending on the type of pasta to be made, the dough can either be cut or extruded through dies. The pasta is set in a drying tank under specific conditions of heat, moisture, and time depending on the type of pasta. The dried pasta is then packaged: Fresh pasta is sealed in a clear, airtight plastic container with a mixture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen that inhibits microbial growth and prolongs the product's shelf life; dried pastas are sealed in clear plastic or cardboard packages.
Gluten-free
Gluten, the protein found in grains such as wheat, rye, spelt, and barley, contributes to protein aggregation and firm texture of a normally cooked pasta. Gluten-free pasta is produced with wheat flour substitutes, such as vegetable powders, rice, corn, quinoa, amaranth, oats and buckwheat flours. Other possible gluten-free pasta ingredients may include hydrocolloids to improve cooking pasta with high heat resistance, xanthan gum to retain moisture during storage, or hydrothermally-treated polysaccharide mixtures to produce textures similar to those of wheat pasta.
Storage
The storage of pasta depends on its processing and extent of drying. Uncooked pasta is kept dry and can sit in the cupboard for a year if airtight and stored in a cool, dry area. Cooked pasta is stored in the refrigerator for a maximum of five days in an airtight container. Adding a couple teaspoons of oil helps keep the food from sticking to itself and the container. Cooked pasta may be frozen for up to two or three months. Should the pasta be dried completely, it can be placed back in the cupboard.
Science
Molecular and physical composition
Pasta exhibits a random molecular order rather than a crystalline structure. The moisture content of dried pasta is typically around 12%, indicating that dried pasta will remain a brittle solid until it is cooked and becomes malleable. The cooked product is, as a result, softer, more flexible, and chewy.
Semolina flour is the ground endosperm of durum wheat, producing granules that absorb water during heating and an increase in viscosity due to semi-reordering of starch molecules.
Another major component of durum wheat is protein which plays a large role in pasta dough rheology. Gluten proteins, which include monomeric gliadins and polymeric glutenin, make up the major protein component of durum wheat (about 75–80%). As more water is added and shear stress is applied, gluten proteins take on an elastic characteristic and begin to form strands and sheets. The gluten matrix that results during forming of the dough becomes irreversibly associated during drying as the moisture content is lowered to form the dried pasta product.
Impact of processing on physical structure
Before the mixing process takes place, semolina particles are irregularly shaped and present in different sizes. Semolina particles become hydrated during mixing. The amount of water added to the semolina is determined based on the initial moisture content of the flour and the desired shape of the pasta. The desired moisture content of the dough is around 32% wet basis and will vary depending on the shape of pasta being produced.
The forming process involves the dough entering an extruder in which the rotation of a single or double screw system pushes the dough toward a die set to a specific shape. As the starch granules swell slightly in the presence of water and a low amount of thermal energy, they become embedded within the protein matrix and align along the direction of the shear caused by the extrusion process.
Starch gelatinization and protein coagulation are the major changes that take place when pasta is cooked in boiling water. Protein and starch competing for water within the pasta cause a constant change in structure as the pasta cooks.
Production and market
In 2015–16, the largest producers of dried pasta were Italy (3.2 million tonnes), United States (2 million tonnes), Turkey (1.3 million tons), Brazil (1.2 million tonnes), and Russia (1 million tons). In 2018, Italy was the world's largest exporter of pasta, with $2.9 billion sold, followed by China with $0.9 billion.
The largest per capita consumers of pasta in 2015 were Italy (23.5kg/person), Tunisia (16.0kg/person), Venezuela (12.0kg/person) and Greece (11.2kg/person). In 2017, the United States was the largest consumer of pasta with 2.7 million tons.
Nutrition
When cooked, plain pasta is composed of 62% water, 31% carbohydrates (26% starch), 6% protein, and 1% fat. A portion of unenriched cooked pasta provides of food energy and a moderate level of manganese (15% of the Daily Value), but few other micronutrients.
Pasta has a lower glycemic index than many other staple foods in Western culture, such as bread, potatoes, and rice.
International adaptations
As pasta was introduced elsewhere in the world, it became incorporated into a number of local cuisines, which often have significantly different ways of preparation from those of Italy. When pasta was introduced to different nations, each culture would adopt a different style of preparation. In the past, ancient Romans cooked pasta-like foods by frying rather than boiling. It was also sweetened with honey or tossed with garum. Ancient Romans also enjoyed baking it in rich pies, called timballi.
Africa
Countries such as Somalia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea were introduced to pasta from colonization and occupation through the Italian Empire, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Southern Somalia has a dish called which has a meat sauce, typically beef based, with their local spice mix. In Ethiopia, pasta can also be served over , where it is also eaten with hands instead of cutlery. A dollop of bolognese with spice blend can be served on the side.
Asia
In Hong Kong, the local Chinese have adopted pasta, primarily spaghetti and macaroni, as an ingredient in the Hong Kong–style Western cuisine. In , macaroni is cooked in water and served in broth with ham or frankfurter sausages, peas, black mushrooms, and optionally eggs, reminiscent of noodle soup dishes. This is often a course for breakfast or light lunch fare. These affordable dining shops evolved from American food rations after World War II due to lack of supplies, and they continue to be popular for people with modest means.
Two common spaghetti dishes served in Japan are the Bolognese and the Naporitan.
In Nepal, macaroni has been adopted and cooked in a Nepalese way. Boiled macaroni is sautéed along with cumin, turmeric, finely chopped green chillies, onions and cabbage.
In the Philippines, spaghetti is often served with a distinct, slightly sweet yet flavorful meat sauce (based on tomato sauce or paste and ketchup), frequently containing ground beef or pork and diced hot dogs and ham. It is spiced with soy sauce, heavy quantities of garlic, dried oregano sprigs and sometimes with dried bay leaf, and topped with grated cheese. Other pasta dishes are also cooked nowadays in Filipino kitchens, such as carbonara, pasta with alfredo sauce, and baked macaroni. These dishes are often cooked for gatherings and special occasions, such as family reunions or Christmas. Macaroni or other tube pasta is also used in , a local chicken broth soup.
Europe
In Armenia, a popular traditional pasta called arishta is first dry pan toasted so as slightly golden, and then boiled to make the pasta dish which is often topped with yogurt, butter and garlic.
In Greece, is considered one of the finest types of dried egg pasta. It is cooked either in tomato sauce or with various kinds of casserole meat. It is usually served with Greek cheese of any type.
In Sweden, spaghetti is traditionally served with (Bolognese sauce), which is minced meat in a thick tomato soup.
Twice a year, hundreds of people in Sardinia make a nighttime pilgrimage from the city of Nuoro to the village of Lula for the biannual Feast of San Francesco, where they eat what is possibly the world's rarest pasta. (literally "threads of God" in the Sardinian language) is an incredibly intricate semolina pasta made by just three women who only make the pasta for the festival.
South America
Pasta is also widespread in the Southern Cone, as well most of the rest of Brazil, mostly pervasive in the areas with mild to strong Italian roots, such as Central Argentina, and the eight southernmost Brazilian states (where macaroni is called , and more general pasta is known under the umbrella term , literally "dough", together with some Japanese noodles, such as bifum rice vermicelli and yakisoba, which also entered general taste). The local names for the pasta are many times varieties of the Italian names, such as for gnocchi, for ravioli, or for tagliatelle, although some of the most popular pasta in Brazil, such as the ("screw", "bolt"), a specialty of the country's pasta salads, are also way different both in name and format from its closest Italian relatives, in this case the fusilli.
North America
Fettuccine Alfredo with cream, cheese and butter, and spaghetti with tomato sauce (with or without meat) are popular Italian-style dishes in the United States.
Oceania
In Australia, boscaiola sauce, based on bacon and mushrooms, is popular.
Regulations
Italy
Although numerous variations of ingredients for different pasta products are known, in Italy the commercial manufacturing and labeling of pasta for sale as a food product within the country is highly regulated. Italian regulations recognize three categories of commercially manufactured dried pasta as well as manufactured fresh and stabilized pasta:
Pasta, or dried pasta with three subcategories – (i.) Durum wheat semolina pasta (), (ii.) Low grade durum wheat semolina pasta () and (iii.) Durum wheat whole meal pasta (). Pastas made under this category must be made only with durum wheat semolina or durum wheat whole-meal semolina and water, with an allowance for up to 3% of soft-wheat flour as part of the durum flour. Dried pastas made under this category must be labeled according to the subcategory.
Special pastas (paste speciali) – As with the pasta above, with additional ingredients other than flour and water or eggs. Special pastas must be labeled as durum wheat semolina pasta on the packaging completed by mentioning the added ingredients used (e.g., spinach). The 3% soft flour limitation still applies.
Egg pasta () – May only be manufactured using durum wheat semolina with at least 4 hens' eggs (chicken) weighing at least (without the shells) per kilogram of semolina, or a liquid egg product produced only with hen's eggs. Pasta made and sold in Italy under this category must be labeled egg pasta.
Fresh and stabilized pastas () – Includes fresh and stabilized pastas, which may be made with soft-wheat flour without restriction on the amount. Prepackaged fresh pasta must have a water content not less than 24%, must be stored refrigerated at a temperature of not more than (with a tolerance), must have undergone a heat treatment at least equivalent to pasteurisation, and must be sold within five days of the date of manufacture. Stabilized pasta has a lower allowed water content of 20%, and is manufactured using a process and heat treatment that allows it to be transported and stored at ambient temperatures.
The Italian regulations under Presidential Decree No. 187 apply only to the commercial manufacturing of pastas both made and sold within Italy. They are not applicable either to pasta made for export from Italy or to pastas imported into Italy from other countries. They also do not apply to pastas made in restaurants.
United States
In the US, regulations for commercial pasta products occur both at the federal and state levels. At the Federal level, consistent with Section 341 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has defined standards of identity for what are broadly termed macaroni products. These standards appear in 21 CFR Part 139. Those regulations state the requirements for standardized macaroni products of 15 specific types of dried pastas, including the ingredients and product-specific labeling for conforming products sold in the US, including imports:
Macaroni products – defined as the class of food prepared by drying formed units of dough made from semolina, durum flour, farina, flour, or any combination of those ingredients with water. Within this category various optional ingredients may also be used within specified ranges, including egg white, frozen egg white or dried egg white alone or in any combination; disodium phosphate; onions, celery, garlic or bay leaf, alone or in any combination; salt; gum gluten; and concentrated glyceryl monostearate. Specific dimensions are given for the shapes named macaroni, spaghetti and vermicelli.
Enriched macaroni products – largely the same as macaroni products except that each such food must contain thiamin, riboflavin, niacin or niacinamide, folic acid and iron, with specified limits. Additional optional ingredients that may be added include vitamin D, calcium, and defatted wheat germ. The optional ingredients specified may be supplied through the use of dried yeast, dried torula yeast, partly defatted wheat germ, enriched farina, or enriched flour.
Enriched macaroni products with fortified protein – similar to enriched macaroni products with the addition of other ingredients to meet specific protein requirements. Edible protein sources that may be used include food grade flours or meals from nonwheat cereals or oilseeds. Products in this category must include specified amounts of thiamin, riboflavin, niacin or niacinamide and iron, but not folic acid. The products in this category may also optionally contain up to of calcium.
Milk macaroni products – the same as macaroni products except that milk or a specified milk product is used as the sole moistening ingredient in preparing the dough. Other than milk, allowed milk products include concentrated milk, evaporated milk, dried milk, and a mixture of butter with skim, concentrated skim, evaporated skim, or nonfat dry milk, in any combination, with the limitation on the amount of milk solids relative to amount of milk fat.
Nonfat milk macaroni products – the same as macaroni products except that nonfat dry milk or concentrated skim milk is used in preparing the dough. The finished macaroni product must contain between 12% and 25% milk solids-not-fat. Carageenan or carageenan salts may be added in specified amounts. The use of egg whites, disodium phosphate and gum gluten optionally allowed for macaroni products is not permitted for this category.
Enriched nonfat milk macaroni products – similar to nonfat milk macaroni products with added requirements that products in this category contain thiamin, riboflavin, niacin or niacinamide, folic acid and iron, all within specified ranges.
Vegetable macaroni products – macaroni products except that tomato (of any red variety), artichoke, beet, carrot, parsley or spinach is added in a quantity such that the solids of the added component are at least 3% by weight of the finished macaroni product. The vegetable additions may be in the form of fresh, canned, dried or a puree or paste. The addition of either the various forms of egg whites or disodium phosphate allowed for macaroni products is not permitted in this category.
Enriched vegetable macaroni products – the same as vegetable macaroni products with the added requirement for nutrient content specified for enriched macaroni products.
Whole wheat macaroni products – similar to macaroni products except that only whole wheat flour or whole wheat durum flour, or both, may be used as the wheat ingredient. Further the addition of the various forms of egg whites, disodium phosphate and gum gluten are not permitted.
Wheat and soy macaroni products – begins as macaroni products with the addition of at least 12.5% of soy flour as a fraction of the total soy and wheat flour used. The addition the various forms of egg whites and disodium phosphate are not permitted. Gum gluten may be added with a limitation that the total protein content derived from the combination of the flours and added gluten not exceed 13%.
Noodle products – the class of food that is prepared by drying units of dough made from semolina, durum flour, farina, flour, alone or in any combination with liquid eggs, frozen eggs, dried eggs, egg yolks, frozen yolks, dried yolks, alone or in any combination, with or without water. Optional ingredients that may be added in allowed amounts are onions, celery, garlic, and bay leaf; salt; gum gluten; and concentrated glyceryl monostearate.
Enriched noodle products – similar to noodle products with the addition of specific requirements for amounts of thiamin, riboflavin, niacin or niacinamide, folic acid and iron, each within specified ranges. Additionally products in this category may optionally contain added vitamin D, calcium or defatted wheat germ, each within specified limits.
Vegetable noodle products – the same as noodle products with the addition of tomato (of any red variety), artichoke, beet, carrot, parsley, or spinach in an amount that is at least 3% of the finished product weight. The vegetable component may be added as fresh, canned, dried, or in the form of a puree or paste.
Enriched vegetable noodle products – the same as vegetable noodle products excluding carrot, with the specified nutrient requirements for enriched noodle products.
Wheat and soy noodle products – similar to noodle products except that soy flour is added in a quantity not less than 12.5% of the combined weight of the wheat and soy ingredients.
State mandates
The federal regulations under 21 CFR Part 139 are standards for the products noted, not mandates. Following the FDA's standards, a number of states have, at various times, enacted their own statutes that serve as mandates for various forms of macaroni and noodle products that may be produced or sold within their borders. Many of these specifically require that the products sold within those states be of the enriched form. According to a report released by the Connecticut Office of Legislative Research, when Connecticut's law was adopted in 1972 that mandated certain grain products, including macaroni products, sold within the state to be enriched it joined 38 to 40 other states in adopting the federal standards as mandates.
USDA school nutrition
Beyond the FDA's standards and state statutes, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which regulates federal school nutrition programs, broadly requires grain and bread products served under these programs either be enriched or whole grain (see 7 CFR 210.10 (k) (5)). This includes macaroni and noodle products that are served as part the category grains/breads requirements within those programs. The USDA also allows that enriched macaroni products fortified with protein may be used and counted to meet either a grains/breads or meat/alternative meat requirement, but not as both components within the same meal.
See also
Al dente – cooking technique
National Pasta Association
Pasta by Design
References
Bibliography
Italian cuisine
Mediterranean cuisine
Staple foods
Italian words and phrases
Wheat dishes
National dishes |
23872 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerization | Polymerization | In polymer chemistry, polymerization (American English), or polymerisation (British English), is a process of reacting monomer molecules together in a chemical reaction to form polymer chains or three-dimensional networks. There are many forms of polymerization and different systems exist to categorize them.
In chemical compounds, polymerization can occur via a variety of reaction mechanisms that vary in complexity due to the functional groups present in the reactants and their inherent steric effects. In more straightforward polymerizations, alkenes form polymers through relatively simple radical reactions; in contrast, reactions involving substitution at a carbonyl group require more complex synthesis due to the way in which reactants polymerize.
As alkenes can polymerize in somewhat straightforward radical reactions, they form useful compounds such as polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which are produced in high tonnages each year due to their usefulness in manufacturing processes of commercial products, such as piping, insulation and packaging. In general, polymers such as PVC are referred to as "homopolymers", as they consist of repeated long chains or structures of the same monomer unit, whereas polymers that consist of more than one monomer unit are referred to as copolymers (or co-polymers).
Other monomer units, such as formaldehyde hydrates or simple aldehydes, are able to polymerize themselves at quite low temperatures (ca. −80 °C) to form trimers; molecules consisting of 3 monomer units, which can cyclize to form ring cyclic structures, or undergo further reactions to form tetramers, or 4 monomer-unit compounds. Such small polymers are referred to as oligomers. Generally, because formaldehyde is an exceptionally reactive electrophile it allows nucleophilic addition of hemiacetal intermediates, which are in general short-lived and relatively unstable "mid-stage" compounds that react with other non-polar molecules present to form more stable polymeric compounds.
Polymerization that is not sufficiently moderated and proceeds at a fast rate can be very hazardous. This phenomenon is known as autoacceleration, and can cause fires and explosions.
Step-growth vs. chain-growth polymerization
Step-growth and chain-growth are the main classes of polymerization reaction mechanisms. The former is often easier to implement but requires precise control of stoichiometry. The latter more reliably affords high molecular-weight polymers, but only applies to certain monomers.
Step-growth
In step-growth (or step) polymerization, pairs of reactants, of any lengths, combine at each step to form a longer polymer molecule. The average molar mass increases slowly. Long chains form only late in the reaction.
Step-growth polymers are formed by independent reaction steps between functional groups of monomer units, usually containing heteroatoms such as nitrogen or oxygen. Most step-growth polymers are also classified as condensation polymers, since a small molecule such as water is lost when the polymer chain is lengthened. For example, polyester chains grow by reaction of alcohol and carboxylic acid groups to form ester links with loss of water. However, there are exceptions; for example polyurethanes are step-growth polymers formed from isocyanate and alcohol bifunctional monomers) without loss of water or other volatile molecules, and are classified as addition polymers rather than condensation polymers.
Step-growth polymers increase in molecular weight at a very slow rate at lower conversions and reach moderately high molecular weights only at very high conversion (i.e., >95%). Solid state polymerization to afford polyamides (e.g., nylons) is an example of step-growth polymerization.
Chain-growth
In chain-growth (or chain) polymerization, the only chain-extension reaction step is the addition of a monomer to a growing chain with an active center such as a free radical, cation, or anion. Once the growth of a chain is initiated by formation of an active center, chain propagation is usually rapid by addition of a sequence of monomers. Long chains are formed from the beginning of the reaction.
Chain-growth polymerization (or addition polymerization) involves the linking together of unsaturated monomers, especially containing carbon-carbon double bonds. The pi-bond is lost by formation of a new sigma bond. Chain-growth polymerization is involved in the manufacture of polymers such as polyethylene, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and acrylate. In these cases, the alkenes RCH=CH2 are converted to high molecular weight alkanes (-RCHCH2-)n (R = H, CH3, Cl, CO2CH3).
Other forms of chain growth polymerization include cationic addition polymerization and anionic addition polymerization. A special case of chain-growth polymerization leads to living polymerization. Ziegler–Natta polymerization allows considerable control of polymer branching.
Diverse methods are employed to manipulate the initiation, propagation, and termination rates during chain polymerization. A related issue is temperature control, also called heat management, during these reactions, which are often highly exothermic. For example, for the polymerization of ethylene, 93.6 kJ of energy are released per mole of monomer.
The manner in which polymerization is conducted is a highly evolved technology. Methods include emulsion polymerization, solution polymerization, suspension polymerization, and precipitation polymerization. Although the polymer dispersity and molecular weight may be improved, these methods may introduce additional processing requirements to isolate the product from a solvent.
Photopolymerization
Most photopolymerization reactions are chain-growth polymerizations which are initiated by the absorption of visible or ultraviolet light. Photopolymerization can also be a step-growth polymerization. The light may be absorbed either directly by the reactant monomer (direct photopolymerization), or else by a photosensitizer which absorbs the light and then transfers energy to the monomer. In general, only the initiation step differs from that of the ordinary thermal polymerization of the same monomer; subsequent propagation, termination, and chain-transfer steps are unchanged.
In step-growth photopolymerization, absorption of light triggers an addition (or condensation) reaction between two comonomers that do not react without light. A propagation cycle is not initiated because each growth step requires the assistance of light.
Photopolymerization can be used as a photographic or printing process because polymerization only occurs in regions which have been exposed to light. Unreacted monomer can be removed from unexposed regions, leaving a relief polymeric image. Several forms of 3D printing—including layer-by-layer stereolithography and two-photon absorption 3D photopolymerization—use photopolymerization.
Multiphoton polymerization using single pulses have also been demonstrated for fabrication of complex structures using a digital micromirror device.
See also
Cross-link
Enzymatic polymerization
In situ polymerization
Metallocene
Plasma polymerization
Polymer characterization
Polymer physics
Reversible addition−fragmentation chain-transfer polymerization
Ring-opening polymerization
Sequence-controlled polymers
Sol-gel
References |
23873 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat%20Cadigan | Pat Cadigan | Patricia Oren Kearney Cadigan (born September 10, 1953) is a British-American science fiction author, whose work is most often identified with the cyberpunk movement. Her novels and short stories often explore the relationship between the human mind and technology. Her debut novel, Mindplayers, was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award in 1988.
Early years
Cadigan was born in Schenectady, New York, and grew up in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.
In the 1960s Cadigan and a childhood friend "invented a whole secret life in which we were twins from the planet Venus", she told National Public Radio. "The Beatles "came to us for advice about their songs and how to deal with fame and other important matters." She goes on to say: "On occasion, they would ask us to use our highly developed shape-shifting ability to become them, and finish recording sessions and concert tours when they were too tired to go on themselves." The Venusian twins had other superpowers, that they would sometimes use to help out Superman, Wonder Woman and other heroes, she said.
Cadigan was educated in theater at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and studied science fiction and science fiction writing at the University of Kansas (KU) under science fiction author and editor James Gunn.
Cadigan met her first husband, Rufus Cadigan, while in college; they divorced shortly after she graduated from KU in 1975. That same year, Cadigan joined the convention committee for MidAmeriCon, the 34th World Science Fiction Convention being held in Kansas City, Missouri, over the 1976 Labor Day weekend; she served on the committee as the convention's guest liaison to writer guest of honor Robert A. Heinlein, as well as helped to develop programming for the convention. At the same time, she also worked for fantasy writer Tom Reamy at his Nickelodeon Graphics Arts Service studio, where she daily typset various jobs. She also prepared the type galleys for MidAmeriCon's various publications, including the convention's hardcover program book. Following Reamy's death on 4 November 1977, Cadigan went to work as a writer for Kansas City, MO's Hallmark Cards company. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, she also edited the small press fantasy and science fiction magazines Chacal and later Shayol with her second husband, Arnie Fenner.
Cadigan emigrated to London in 1996, where she is married to her third husband, Christopher Fowler (not to be confused with the author of the same name). She became a UK citizen in late 2014.
Writing career
Cadigan sold her first professional science fiction story in 1980. Her success as an author encouraged her to become a full-time writer in 1987.
Cadigan's first novel, Mindplayers, introduces what becomes the common theme to all her works: her stories blur the line between reality and perception by making the human mind a real, explorable place. Her second novel, Synners, expands upon the same theme; both feature a future where direct access to the mind via technology is possible. While her stories include many of the gritty, unvarnished characteristics of the cyberpunk genre, she further specializes in this exploration of the speculative relationship between technology and the perceptions of the human mind.
Cadigan has won a number of awards, including the 2013 Hugo Award for "The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi" in the Best Novelette category, and the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1992 and 1995 for her novels Synners and Fools.
Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his 1982 novel Friday in part to Cadigan following her being the guest liaison to him at the 34th Worldcon in Kansas City.
Health
In 2013, Cadigan announced that she had been diagnosed with cancer. She underwent surgery after an early diagnosis, suffered a relapse some years after, and recovered after extensive chemotherapy.
Bibliography
From the Internet Speculative Fiction Database.
Series
Deadpan Allie
Mindplayers, (Bantam Spectra Aug. 1987)/(Gollancz Feb. 1988); revised and expanded from the following linked stories:
"The Pathosfinder", (nv) The Berkley Showcase: New Writings in Science Fiction & Fantasy, ed. John Silbersack & Victoria Schochet, Berkley July 1981
"Nearly Departed", (ss) Asimov's June 1983; read online
"Variation on a Man", (ss) Omni Jan. 1984
"Lunatic Bridge", (nv) The Fifth Omni Book of Science Fiction, ed. Ellen Datlow, Zebra Books April 1987
"Dirty Work", (nv) Blood Is Not Enough, ed. Ellen Datlow, Morrow 1989
"A Lie for a Lie", (nv) Lethal Kisses, ed. Ellen Datlow, Millennium Dec. 1996 {aka Wild Justice}
Dore Konstantin (TechnoCrime, Artificial Reality Division)
Tea from an Empty Cup, (Tor Oct. 1998); loosely based on the following linked novellas:
"Death in the Promised Land", (na) Omni Online March 1995 / Asimov’s Nov. 1995
"Tea from an Empty Cup", (na) Omni Online Oct. 1995 / Black Mist and Other Japanese Futures, ed. Orson Scott Card & Keith Ferrell, DAW Dec. 1997
Dervish is Digital, (Macmillan UK Oct. 2000) / (Tor July 2001)
Short fiction
Collections
Patterns (1989)
Introduction, Bruce Sterling
"Patterns", (ss) Omni Aug. 1987
"Eenie, Meenie, Ipsateenie", (ss) Shadows 6, ed. Charles L. Grant, Doubleday 1983
"Vengeance Is Yours", (ss) Omni May 1983
"The Day the Martels Got the Cable", (ss) F&SF Dec. 1982
"Roadside Rescue", (ss) Omni July 1985
"Rock On", (ss) Light Years and Dark, ed. Michael Bishop, Berkley 1984
"Heal", (vi) Omni April 1988
"Another One Hits the Road", (nv) F&SF Jan. 1984
"My Brother's Keeper", (nv) Asimov's Jan. 1988
"Pretty Boy Crossover", (ss) Asimov's Jan. 1986
"Two", (nv) F&SF Jan. 1988
"Angel", (ss) Asimov's May 1987; read online
"It Was the Heat", (ss) Tropical Chills, ed. Tim Sullivan, Avon 1988
"The Power and the Passion", (ss)
Home by the Sea (1992)
Introduction, Mike Resnick
"Dirty Work", (nv) Blood Is Not Enough, ed. Ellen Datlow, Morrow 1989
"50 Ways to Improve Your Orgasm", (ss) Asimov's April 1992
"Dispatches from the Revolution", (nv) Asimov's July 1991; read online (Alternate Presidents ed. Mike Resnick)
"Home by the Sea", (nv) A Whisper of Blood, ed. Ellen Datlow, Morrow 1991; Read online
A Cadigan Bibliography, (bi)
Dirty Work (1993)
Introduction, Storm Constantine (in)
"Dirty Work", (nv) Blood Is Not Enough, ed. Ellen Datlow, Morrow 1989
"Second Comings—Reasonable Rates", (ss) F&SF Feb. 1981
"The Sorceress in Spite of Herself", (ss) Asimov's Dec. 1982
"50 Ways to Improve Your Orgasm", (ss) Asimov's April 1992
"Mother's Milt", (ss) OMNI Best Science Fiction Two, ed. Ellen Datlow, OMNI Books 1992
"True Faces", (nv) F&SF April 1992
"New Life for Old", (ss) Aladdin: Master of the Lamp, ed. Mike Resnick & Martin H. Greenberg, DAW 1992
"The Coming of the Doll", (ss) F&SF June 1981
"The Pond", (ss) Fears, ed. Charles L. Grant, Berkley 1983
"The Boys in the Rain", (ss) Twilight Zone June 1987
"In the Dark", (ss) When the Music's Over, ed. Lewis Shiner, Bantam Spectra 1991
"Johnny Come Home", (ss) Omni June 1991
"Naming Names", (nv) Narrow Houses, ed. Peter Crowther, Little Brown UK 1992
"A Deal with God", (nv) Grails: Quests, Visitations and Other Occurrences, ed. Richard Gilliam, Martin H. Greenberg & Edward E. Kramer, Unnameable Press 1992
"Dispatches from the Revolution", (nv) Asimov's July 1991; read online
"No Prisoners", (nv) Alternate Kennedys, ed. Mike Resnick, Tor 1992
"Home by the Sea", (nv) A Whisper of Blood, ed. Ellen Datlow, Morrow 1991; Read online
"Lost Girls", (ss)
Chapbooks
My Brother's Keeper, (Pulphouse July 1992); novelette, reprinted from Asimov's Jan. 1988
Chalk, (This is Horror Nov. 2013); novelette
The Web: Avatar, (Dolphin April 1999); novella
Novels
Stand-alone novels
Tie-ins
Lost in Space: Promised Land (HarperEntertainment April 1999/Thorndike Press July 1999; sequel to the film Lost in Space)
Upgrade & Sensuous Cindy (Black Flame April 2004; novelization of episodes from The Twilight Zone)
Cellular (Black Flame Aug. 2004; novelization of Cellular)
Jason X (Black Flame Feb. 2005; novelization of Jason X)
Jason X: The Experiment (Black Flame February 2005; sequel to Jason X)
Gemini Man (Titan Books, 2018; novelization of the film Gemini Man, credited as "Titan Books")
Alita: Battle Angel - Iron City (Titan Books, November 2018; prequel to the film Alita: Battle Angel)
Harley Quinn: Mad Love with Paul Dini, (Titan Books, November 2018, novelization the one-shot comic book)
Alita: Battle Angel — The Official Movie Novelization (Titan Books, February 2019; novelization of the film Alita: Battle Angel)
Alien 3: The Unproduced Screenplay (Titan Books, August 2021; novelization of the unproduced screenplay by William Gibson)
Ultraman: The Official Novelization (Titan Books, March 2023; novelization of the series Ultraman)
Ultraman: UltraSeven (Titan Books, March 2024 scheduled release date)
Tie-in nonfiction
The Making of Lost in Space (HarperPrism, May 1998; tie-in with Lost in Space film)
Resurrecting the Mummy: The Making of the Movie (Ebury Press June 1999; tie-in with 1999 The Mummy film)
References
External links
Ceci N'est Pas Une Blog—Pat Cadigan on LiveJournal
Story behind Chalk by Pat Cadigan—Online Essay at Upcoming4.me
Interviews
1993 interview with Cadigan at The Hardcore
2000 interview with Cadigan at SF Site
2006 interview with Cadigan at SF Site
2019 Interview with Cadigan" at Cyberpunks.com
"Step Outside: An Interview with Pat Cadigan" at SFsite.com
2009 interview with Cadigan at The Hathor Legacy
2010 video interview with Cadigan at Salon Futura
Driving through a Cloud with Pat Cadigan (interview) at Clarkesworld Magazine, January 2014
1953 births
20th-century American novelists
20th-century American short story writers
20th-century American women writers
21st-century American novelists
21st-century American short story writers
21st-century American women writers
21st-century British novelists
American science fiction writers
American speculative fiction editors
American women novelists
American women short story writers
British science fiction writers
British short story writers
British speculative fiction editors
British women short story writers
Cyberpunk writers
Hugo Award-winning writers
Living people
Novelists from New York (state)
Postmodern writers
Women science fiction and fantasy writers
World Fantasy Award-winning writers
Writers from Schenectady, New York |
23875 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix%20%28Australian%20TV%20series%29 | Phoenix (Australian TV series) | Phoenix is a Logie Award-winning Australian crime drama television series broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation from 1992 to 1993. It was created by Alison Nisselle and Tony McDonald.
The first series recounts the investigation of the bombing of a Victorian police social function, loosely based on the real life Russell Street Bombing in 1986. It was followed by a second series, Phoenix II, based on a series of violent aggravated burglaries ("ag burgs") against wealthy senior citizens.
The series was filmed in Melbourne, Victoria and was characterised by its dark, noir-ish visual tone and non-linear editing, reminiscent of the ABC crime dramas Scales of Justice, Blue Murder and Wildside, which all also dealt with corruption in the police force.
The show was lauded for its realistic depiction of police investigation techniques, aided by extensive research by the show's writers. It won several Logie Awards, including Most Outstanding Miniseries Logie in 1993 and 1994, as well as several Australian Film Institute Awards, and the Television or Film Theme of the Year Award at the APRA Music Awards of 1993.
The series spawned the 1994 spin-off Janus, with Simon Westaway reprising his role as Sergeant Peter Faithful.
Cast
Phoenix (1992)
Starring
Paul Sonkkila as Jock Brennan (13 episodes)
Sean Scully as Ian "Goose" Cochrane (13 episodes)
Andy Anderson as Lochie Renford (13 episodes)
Peter Cummins as Superintendent Wallace (13 episodes)
Simon Westaway as Sergeant Peter "Noddy" Faithful (13 episodes)
Nell Feeney as Megan Edwards (11 episodes)
Susie Edmonds as Carol Cochrane (12 episodes)
Tony Poli as Lazarus "Laz" Carides (10 episodes)
Also starring
Kevin Summers as Colin Toohey (8 episodes)
Dominic Sweeney as Wheels (9 episodes)
David Bradshaw as Senior Detective Andrew 'Fluff' Saunders (5 episodes)
George Vidalis as Mick (12 episodes)
Todd Telford as Dennis (5 episodes)
Patrick Ward as Blazo (4 episodes)
Nicholas Politis as Nick (9 episodes)
Brett Swain as Tattoo (1 episode)
Phoenix II (1993)
Starring
Simon Westaway as Sergeant Peter 'Noddy' Faithful (13 episodes)
Stuart McCreery as Senior Sergeant Adrian Moon (13 episodes)
David Bradshaw as Senior Detective Andrew 'Fluff' Saunders (13 episodes)
Jennifer Jarman-Walker as Senior Detective Cath Darby (13 episodes)
Peter Cummins as Superintendent Wallace (13 episodes)
Vikki Blanche as Chris Faithful (9 episodes)
Susie Edmonds as Carol Cochrane (9 episodes)
Sean Scully as Ian 'Goose' Cochrane (13 episodes)
Also starring
Peter McCauley as Inspector Lew Murdoch (12 episodes)
David Roberts as Detective Robert Howie (10 episodes)
Keith Agius as Docket (13 episodes)
Bob Halsall as Boomer (13 episodes)
Russell Fletcher as Kermie (6 episodes)
Greg Scealey as Fish (7 episodes)
Paul Sonkkila as Jock Brennan (3 episodes)
Alan Hopgood as Bill Douglas
Radha Mitchell as Joanna (1 episode)
Mark Hembrow as Damian Thorpe
Greg Stone as Detective Inspector Miller (1 episode)
Nadine Garner as Lindy (1 episode)
Episodes
Phoenix (1992)
Phoenix II (1993)
Awards and nominations
Logie Awards
1993: Most Outstanding Series (won)
1994: Most Outstanding Achievement in Drama Production (won)
Home release
The series was released in 2009 by the ABC on DVD in two volumes, each containing 13 episodes across 4 discs. However, it has since gone out of print.
Presently (Feb 2023) available for viewing in Australia on ABC TV iview.
See also
List of Australian television series
References
External links
1990s Australian crime television series
1990s Australian drama television series
Australian Broadcasting Corporation original programming
Television shows set in Victoria (state)
1992 Australian television series debuts
1993 Australian television series endings
1992 Australian television seasons
1993 Australian television seasons
APRA Award winners |
23878 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penguin | Penguin | Penguins are a group of aquatic flightless birds from the family Spheniscidae () of the order Sphenisciformes (). They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is found north of the Equator. Highly adapted for life in the ocean water, penguins have countershaded dark and white plumage and flippers for swimming. Most penguins feed on krill, fish, squid and other forms of sea life which they catch with their bills and swallow whole while swimming. A penguin has a spiny tongue and powerful jaws to grip slippery prey.
They spend about half of their lives on land and the other half in the sea. The largest living species is the emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri): on average, adults are about tall and weigh . The smallest penguin species is the little blue penguin (Eudyptula minor), also known as the fairy penguin, which stands around tall and weighs . Today, larger penguins generally inhabit colder regions, and smaller penguins inhabit regions with temperate or tropical climates. Some prehistoric penguin species were enormous: as tall or heavy as an adult human. There was a great diversity of species in subantarctic regions, and at least one giant species in a region around 2,000 km south of the equator 35 mya, during the Late Eocene, a climate decidedly warmer than today.
Etymology
The word penguin first appears in literature at the end of the 16th century as a synonym for the great auk. When European explorers discovered what are today known as penguins in the Southern Hemisphere, they noticed their similar appearance to the great auk of the Northern Hemisphere and named them after this bird, although they are not closely related.
The etymology of the word penguin is still debated. The English word is not apparently of French, Breton or Spanish origin (the latter two are attributed to the French word ), but first appears in English or Dutch.
Some dictionaries suggest a derivation from Welsh , 'head' and , 'white', including the Oxford English Dictionary, the American Heritage Dictionary, the Century Dictionary and Merriam-Webster, on the basis that the name was originally applied to the great auk, either because it was found on White Head Island () in Newfoundland, or because it had white circles around its eyes (though the head was black).
An alternative etymology links the word to Latin , which means 'fat' or 'oil'. Support for this etymology can be found in the alternative Germanic word for penguin, or 'fat-goose', and the related Dutch word .
Adult male penguins are sometimes called cocks, females sometimes called hens; a group of penguins on land is a waddle, and a group of penguins in the water is a raft.
Pinguinus
Since 1871, the Latin word Pinguinus has been used in scientific classification to name the genus of the great auk (Pinguinus impennis, meaning "plump or fat without flight feathers"), which became extinct in the mid-19th century. As confirmed by a 2004 genetic study, the genus Pinguinus belongs in the family of the auks (Alcidae), within the order of the Charadriiformes.
The birds currently known as penguins were discovered later and were so named by sailors because of their physical resemblance to the great auk. Despite this resemblance, however, they are not auks, and are not closely related to the great auk. They do not belong in the genus Pinguinus, and are not classified in the same family and order as the great auk. They were classified in 1831 by Charles Lucien Bonaparte in several distinct genera within the family Spheniscidae and order Sphenisciformes.
Systematics and evolution
Taxonomy
The family name of Spheniscidae was given by Charles Lucien Bonaparte from the genus Spheniscus, the name of that genus comes from the Greek word sphēn "wedge" used for the shape of an African penguin's swimming flippers.
Some recent sources apply the phylogenetic taxon Spheniscidae to what here is referred to as Spheniscinae. Furthermore, they restrict the phylogenetic taxon Sphenisciformes to flightless taxa, and establish the phylogenetic taxon Pansphenisciformes as equivalent to the Linnean taxon Sphenisciformes, i.e., including any flying basal "proto-penguins" to be discovered eventually. Given that neither the relationships of the penguin subfamilies to each other nor the placement of the penguins in the avian phylogeny is presently resolved, this is confusing, so the established Linnean system is followed here.
Evolution
Although the evolutionary and biogeographic history of Sphenisciformes is well-researched, many prehistoric forms are not fully described. Some seminal articles about the evolutionary history of penguins have been published since 2005.
The basal penguins lived around the time of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event in the general area of southern New Zealand and Byrd Land, Antarctica. Due to plate tectonics, these areas were at that time less than apart rather than . The most recent common ancestor of penguins and Procellariiformes can be roughly dated to the Campanian–Maastrichtian boundary, around 70–68 mya.
Basal fossils
The oldest known fossil penguin species is Waimanu manneringi, which lived 62 mya in New Zealand. While they were not as well-adapted to aquatic life as modern penguins, Waimanu were flightless, with short wings adapted for deep diving. They swam on the surface using mainly their feet, but the wings were – as opposed to most other diving birds (both living and extinct) – already adapting to underwater locomotion.
Perudyptes from northern Peru was dated to 42 mya. An unnamed fossil from Argentina proves that, by the Bartonian (Middle Eocene), some 39–38 mya, primitive penguins had spread to South America and were in the process of expanding into Atlantic waters.
Palaeeudyptines
During the Late Eocene and the Early Oligocene (40–30 mya), some lineages of gigantic penguins existed. Nordenskjoeld's giant penguin was the tallest, growing nearly tall. The New Zealand giant penguin was probably the heaviest, weighing or more. Both were found on New Zealand, the former also in the Antarctic farther eastwards.
Traditionally, most extinct species of penguins, giant or small, had been placed in the paraphyletic subfamily called Palaeeudyptinae. More recently, with new taxa being discovered and placed in the phylogeny if possible, it is becoming accepted that there were at least two major extinct lineages. One or two closely related ones occurred in Patagonia, and at least one other—which is or includes the paleeudyptines as recognized today – occurred on most Antarctic and Subantarctic coasts.
Size plasticity was significant at this initial stage of radiation: on Seymour Island, Antarctica, for example, around 10 known species of penguins ranging in size from medium to large apparently coexisted some 35 mya during the Priabonian (Late Eocene). It is not known whether the palaeeudyptines constitute a monophyletic lineage, or whether gigantism was evolved independently in a restricted Palaeeudyptinae and the Anthropornithinae – whether they were considered valid, or whether there was a wide size range present in the Palaeeudyptinae as delimited (i.e., including Anthropornis nordenskjoeldi). The oldest well-described giant penguin, the -tall Icadyptes salasi, existed as far north as northern Peru about 36 mya.
Gigantic penguins had disappeared by the end of the Paleogene, around 25 mya. Their decline and disappearance coincided with the spread of the Squalodontidae and other primitive, fish-eating toothed whales, which competed with them for food and were ultimately more successful. A new lineage, the Paraptenodytes, which includes smaller and stout-legged forms, had already arisen in southernmost South America by that time. The early Neogene saw the emergence of another morphotype in the same area, the similarly sized but more gracile Palaeospheniscinae, as well as the radiation that gave rise to the current biodiversity of penguins.
Origin and systematics of modern penguins
Modern penguins constitute two undisputed clades and another two more basal genera with more ambiguous relationships. To help resolve the evolution of this order, 19 high-coverage genomes that, together with two previously published genomes, encompass all extant penguin species have been sequenced. The origin of the Spheniscinae lies probably in the latest Paleogene and, geographically, it must have been much the same as the general area in which the order evolved: the oceans between the Australia-New Zealand region and the Antarctic. Presumably diverging from other penguins around 40 mya, it seems that the Spheniscinae were for quite some time limited to their ancestral area, as the well-researched deposits of the Antarctic Peninsula and Patagonia have not yielded Paleogene fossils of the subfamily. Also, the earliest spheniscine lineages are those with the most southern distribution.
The genus Aptenodytes appears to be the basalmost divergence among living penguins. They have bright yellow-orange neck, breast, and bill patches; incubate by placing their eggs on their feet, and when they hatch the chicks are almost naked. This genus has a distribution centred on the Antarctic coasts and barely extends to some Subantarctic islands today.
Pygoscelis contains species with a fairly simple black-and-white head pattern; their distribution is intermediate, centred on Antarctic coasts but extending somewhat northwards from there. In external morphology, these apparently still resemble the common ancestor of the Spheniscinae, as Aptenodytes autapomorphies are, in most cases, fairly pronounced adaptations related to that genus' extreme habitat conditions. As the former genus, Pygoscelis seems to have diverged during the Bartonian, but the range expansion and radiation that led to the present-day diversity probably did not occur until much later; around the Burdigalian stage of the Early Miocene, roughly 20–15 mya.
The genera Spheniscus and Eudyptula contain species with a mostly Subantarctic distribution centred on South America; some, however, range quite far northwards. They all lack carotenoid colouration and the former genus has a conspicuous banded head pattern; they are unique among living penguins by nesting in burrows. This group probably radiated eastwards with the Antarctic Circumpolar Current out of the ancestral range of modern penguins throughout the Chattian (Late Oligocene), starting approximately 28 mya. While the two genera separated during this time, the present-day diversity is the result of a Pliocene radiation, taking place some 4–2 mya.
The Megadyptes–Eudyptes clade occurs at similar latitudes (though not as far north as the Galápagos penguin), has its highest diversity in the New Zealand region, and represents a westward dispersal. They are characterized by hairy yellow ornamental head feathers; their bills are at least partly red. These two genera diverged apparently in the Middle Miocene (Langhian, roughly 15–14 mya), although the living species of Eudyptes are the product of a later radiation, stretching from about the late Tortonian (Late Miocene, 8 mya) to the end of the Pliocene.
Geography
The geographical and temporal pattern of spheniscine evolution corresponds closely to two episodes of global cooling (disambiguation) documented in the paleoclimatic record. The emergence of the Subantarctic lineage at the end of the Bartonian corresponds with the onset of the slow period of cooling that eventually led to the ice ages some 35 million years later. With habitat on the Antarctic coasts declining, by the Priabonian more hospitable conditions for most penguins existed in the Subantarctic regions rather than in Antarctica itself. Notably, the cold Antarctic Circumpolar Current also started as a continuous circumpolar flow only around 30 mya, on the one hand forcing the Antarctic cooling, and on the other facilitating the eastward expansion of Spheniscus to South America and eventually beyond. Despite this, there is no fossil evidence to support the idea of crown radiation from the Antarctic continent in the Paleogene, although DNA study favors such a radiation.
Later, an interspersed period of slight warming was ended by the Middle Miocene Climate Transition, a sharp drop in global average temperature from 14 to 12 mya, and similar abrupt cooling events followed at 8 mya and 4 mya; by the end of the Tortonian, the Antarctic ice sheet was already much like today in volume and extent. The emergence of most of today's Subantarctic penguin species almost certainly was caused by this sequence of Neogene climate shifts.
Relationship to other bird orders
Penguin ancestry beyond Waimanu remains unknown and not well-resolved by molecular or morphological analyses. The latter tend to be confounded by the strong adaptive autapomorphies of the Sphenisciformes; a sometimes perceived fairly close relationship between penguins and grebes is almost certainly an error based on both groups' strong diving adaptations, which are homoplasies. On the other hand, different DNA sequence datasets do not agree in detail with each other either.
What seems clear is that penguins belong to a clade of Neoaves (living birds except for paleognaths and fowl) that comprises what is sometimes called "higher waterbirds" to distinguish them from the more ancient waterfowl. This group contains such birds as storks, rails, and the seabirds, with the possible exception of the Charadriiformes.
Inside this group, penguin relationships are far less clear. Depending on the analysis and dataset, a close relationship to Ciconiiformes or to Procellariiformes has been suggested. Some think the penguin-like plotopterids (usually considered relatives of cormorants and anhingas) may actually be a sister group of the penguins and those penguins may have ultimately shared a common ancestor with the Pelecaniformes and consequently would have to be included in that order, or that the plotopterids were not as close to other pelecaniforms as generally assumed, which would necessitate splitting the traditional Pelecaniformes into three.
A 2014 analysis of whole genomes of 48 representative bird species has concluded that penguins are the sister group of Procellariiformes, from which they diverged about 60 million years ago (95% CI, 56.8–62.7).
The distantly related Puffins, which live in the North Pacific and North Atlantic, developed similar characteristics to survive in the Arctic and sub-Arctic environments. Like the penguins, puffins have a white chest, black back and short stubby wings providing excellent swimming ability in icy water. But, unlike penguins, puffins can fly, as flightless birds would not survive alongside land-based predators such as polar bears and foxes; there are no such predators in the Antarctic. Their similarities indicate that similar environments, although at great distances, can result in similar evolutionary developments, i.e. convergent evolution.
Anatomy and physiology
Penguins are superbly adapted to aquatic life. Their wings have evolved to become flippers, useless for flight in the air. In the water, however, penguins are astonishingly agile. Penguins' swimming looks very similar to birds' flight in the air. Within the smooth plumage a layer of air is preserved, ensuring buoyancy. The air layer also helps insulate the birds in cold waters. On land, penguins use their tails and wings to maintain balance for their upright stance.
All penguins are countershaded for camouflage – that is, they have black backs and wings with white fronts. A predator looking up from below (such as an orca or a leopard seal) has difficulty distinguishing between a white penguin belly and the reflective water surface. The dark plumage on their backs camouflages them from above.
Gentoo penguins are the fastest underwater birds in the world. They are capable of reaching speeds up to 36 km (about 22 miles) per hour while searching for food or escaping from predators. They are also able to dive to depths of 170–200 meters (about 560–660 feet). The small penguins do not usually dive deep; they catch their prey near the surface in dives that normally last only one or two minutes. Larger penguins can dive deep in case of need. Emperor penguins are the world's deepest-diving birds. They can dive to depths of approximately while searching for food.
Penguins either waddle on their feet or slide on their bellies across the snow while using their feet to propel and steer themselves, a movement called "tobogganing", which conserves energy while moving quickly. They also jump with both feet together if they want to move more quickly or cross steep or rocky terrain.
Penguins have an average sense of hearing for birds; this is used by parents and chicks to locate one another in crowded colonies. Their eyes are adapted for underwater vision and are their primary means of locating prey and avoiding predators; in air it has been suggested that they are nearsighted, although research has not supported this hypothesis.
Penguins have a thick layer of insulating feathers that keeps them warm in water (heat loss in water is much greater than in air). The emperor penguin has a maximum feather density of about nine feathers per square centimeter which is actually much lower than other birds that live in antarctic environments. However, they have been identified as having at least four different types of feather: in addition to the traditional feather, the emperor has afterfeathers, plumules, and filoplumes. The afterfeathers are downy plumes that attach directly to the main feathers and were once believed to account for the bird's ability to conserve heat when under water; the plumules are small down feathers that attach directly to the skin, and are much more dense in penguins than other birds; lastly the filoplumes are small (less than 1 cm long) naked shafts that end in a splay of fibers— filoplumes were believed to give flying birds a sense of where their plumage was and whether or not it needed preening, so their presence in penguins may seem inconsistent, but penguins also preen extensively.
The emperor penguin has the largest body mass of all penguins, which further reduces relative surface area and heat loss. They also are able to control blood flow to their extremities, reducing the amount of blood that gets cold, but still keeping the extremities from freezing. In the extreme cold of the Antarctic winter, the females are at sea fishing for food, leaving the males to brave the weather by themselves. They often huddle together to keep warm and rotate positions to make sure that each penguin gets a turn in the centre of the heat pack.
Calculations of the heat loss and retention ability of marine endotherms suggest that most extant penguins are too small to survive in such cold environments. In 2007, Thomas and Fordyce wrote about the "heterothermic loophole" that penguins utilize in order to survive in Antarctica. All extant penguins, even those that live in warmer climates, have a counter-current heat exchanger called the humeral plexus. The flippers of penguins have at least three branches of the axillary artery, which allows cold blood to be heated by blood that has already been warmed and limits heat loss from the flippers. This system allows penguins to efficiently use their body heat and explains why such small animals can survive in the extreme cold.
They can drink salt water because their supraorbital gland filters excess salt from the bloodstream. The salt is excreted in a concentrated fluid from the nasal passages.
The great auk of the Northern Hemisphere, now extinct, was superficially similar to penguins, and the word penguin was originally used for that bird centuries ago. They are only distantly related to the penguins, but are an example of convergent evolution.
Isabelline penguins
Perhaps one in 50,000 penguins (of most species) are born with brown rather than black plumage. These are called isabelline penguins. Isabellinism is different from albinism. Isabelline penguins tend to live shorter lives than normal penguins, as they are not well-camouflaged against the deep and are often passed over as mates.
Distribution and habitat
Although almost all penguin species are native to the Southern Hemisphere, they are not found only in cold climates, such as Antarctica. In fact, only a few species of penguin actually live so far south. Several species live in the temperate zone; one, the Galápagos penguin, lives as far north as the Galápagos Islands, but this is only made possible by the cold, rich waters of the Antarctic Humboldt Current that flows around these islands. Also, though the climate of the Arctic and Antarctic regions is similar, there are no penguins found in the Arctic.
Several authors have suggested that penguins are a good example of Bergmann's Rule where larger-bodied populations live at higher latitudes than smaller-bodied populations. There is some disagreement about this and several other authors have noted that there are fossil penguin species that contradict this hypothesis and that ocean currents and upwellings are likely to have had a greater effect on species diversity than latitude alone.
Major populations of penguins are found in Angola, Antarctica, Argentina, Australia, Chile, Namibia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Satellite images and photos released in 2018 show the population of 2 million in France's remote Ile aux Cochons has collapsed, with barely 200,000 remaining, according to a study published in Antarctic Science.
Behaviour
Breeding
Penguins for the most part breed in large colonies, the exceptions being the yellow-eyed and Fiordland species; these colonies may range in size from as few as 100 pairs for gentoo penguins to several hundred thousand in the case of king, macaroni and chinstrap penguins. Living in colonies results in a high level of social interaction between birds, which has led to a large repertoire of visual as well as vocal displays in all penguin species. Agonistic displays are those intended to confront or drive off, or alternately appease and avoid conflict with, other individuals.
Penguins form monogamous pairs for a breeding season, though the rate the same pair recouples varies drastically. Most penguins lay two eggs in a clutch, although the two largest species, the emperor and the king penguins, lay only one. With the exception of the emperor penguin, where the male does it all, all penguins share the incubation duties. These incubation shifts can last days and even weeks as one member of the pair feeds at sea.
Penguins generally only lay one brood; the exception is the little penguin, which can raise two or three broods in a season.
Penguin eggs are smaller than any other bird species when compared proportionally to the weight of the parent birds; at , the little penguin egg is 4.7% of its mothers' weight, and the emperor penguin egg is 2.3%. The relatively thick shell forms between 10 and 16% of the weight of a penguin egg, presumably to reduce the effects of dehydration and to minimize the risk of breakage in an adverse nesting environment. The yolk, too, is large and comprises 22–31% of the egg. Some yolk often remains when a chick is born, and is thought to help sustain the chick if the parents are delayed in returning with food.
When emperor penguin mothers lose a chick, they sometimes attempt to "steal" another mother's chick, usually unsuccessfully as other females in the vicinity assist the defending mother in keeping her chick. In some species, such as emperor and king penguins, the chicks assemble in large groups called crèches.
Conservation status
The majority of living penguin species have declining populations. According to the IUCN Red List, their conservation statuses range from Least Concern through to Endangered.
Penguins and humans
Penguins have no special fear of humans and will often approach groups of people. This is probably because penguins have no land predators in Antarctica or the nearby offshore islands. They are preyed upon by other birds like skuas, especially in eggs and as fledglings. Other birds like petrels, sheathbills, and gulls also eat the chicks. Dogs preyed upon penguins while they were allowed in Antarctica during the age of early human exploration as sled dogs, but dogs have long since been banned from Antarctica. Instead, adult penguins are at risk at sea from predators such as sharks, orcas, and leopard seals. Typically, penguins do not approach closer than around , at which point they appear to become nervous.
In June 2011, an emperor penguin came ashore on New Zealand's Peka Peka Beach, off course on its journey to Antarctica. Nicknamed Happy Feet, after the film of the same name, it was suffering from heat exhaustion and had to undergo a number of operations to remove objects like driftwood and sand from its stomach. Happy Feet was a media sensation, with extensive coverage on TV and the web, including a live stream that had thousands of views and a visit from English actor Stephen Fry. Once he had recovered, Happy Feet was released back into the water south of New Zealand.
In popular culture
Penguins are widely considered endearing for their unusually upright, waddling gait, swimming ability and (compared to other birds) lack of fear of humans. Their black-and-white plumage is often likened to a white tie suit. Some writers and artists have penguins based at the North Pole, but there are no wild penguins in the Arctic. The cartoon series Chilly Willy helped perpetuate this myth, as the title penguin would interact with Arctic or sub-Arctic species, such as polar bears and walruses.
Penguins have been the subject of many books and films, such as Happy Feet, Surf's Up and Penguins of Madagascar, all CGI films; March of the Penguins, a documentary based on the migration process of the emperor penguin; and Farce of the Penguins, a parody of the documentary. Mr. Popper's Penguins is a children's book written by Richard and Florence Atwater; it was named a Newbery Honor Book in 1939. Penguins have also appeared in a number of cartoons and television dramas, including Pingu, co-created by Otmar Gutmann and Erika Brueggemann in 1990 and covering more than 100 short episodes. At the end of 2009, Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list, saying, "Whether they were walking (March of the Penguins), dancing (Happy Feet), or hanging ten (Surf's Up), these oddly adorable birds took flight at the box office all decade long."
A video game called Pengo was released by Sega in 1982. Set in Antarctica, the player controls a penguin character who must navigate mazes of ice cubes. The player is rewarded with cut-scenes of animated penguins marching, dancing, saluting and playing peekaboo. Several remakes and enhanced editions have followed, most recently in 2012. Penguins are also sometimes depicted in music.
In 1941, DC Comics introduced the avian-themed character of the Penguin as a supervillain adversary of the superhero Batman (Detective Comics #58). He became one of the most enduring enemies in Batman's rogues gallery. In the 60s Batman TV series, as played by Burgess Meredith, he was one of the most popular characters, and in Tim Burton's reimagining of the story, the character played by Danny Devito in the 1992 film Batman Returns, employed an actual army of penguins (mostly African penguins and king penguins).
Several pro, minor, college and high school sport teams in the United States have named themselves after the species, including the Pittsburgh Penguins team in the National Hockey League and the Youngstown State Penguins in college athletics.
Penguins featured regularly in the cartoons of U.K. cartoonist Steve Bell in his strip in The Guardian newspaper, particularly during and following the Falklands War. Opus the Penguin, from the cartoons of Berkeley Breathed, is also described as hailing from the Falklands. Opus was a comical, "existentialist" penguin character in the cartoons Bloom County, Outland and Opus. He was also the star in the animated Christmas TV special A Wish for Wings That Work.
In the mid-2000s, penguins became one of the most publicized species of animals that form lasting homosexual couples. A children's book, And Tango Makes Three, was written about one such penguin family in the New York Zoo.
References
Bibliography
External links
Two new fossil penguin species found in Peru. news.nationalgeographic.com
Information about penguins at pinguins.info
Integrated Taxonomic Information System (archived February 17, 2006)
Penguin information on 70South (archived March 15, 2006)
Penguin research projects on the web
Penguin videos and photos on the Internet Bird Collection (archived December 27, 2015)
Penguin World
Penguins in Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand the Encyclopedia of New Zealand (archived September 5, 2008)
Seaworld Penguin Information (archived October 17, 2013)
"Lessons in a Land of Wind and Ice" from National Wildlife Magazine 1/15/2010
Curious Penguins
Live 24/7 camera inside a penguin habitat
Articles containing video clips
Flightless birds
Seabirds
Danian first appearances
Taxa named by Charles Lucien Bonaparte
Extant Danian first appearances |
23880 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho%20%281960%20film%29 | Psycho (1960 film) | Psycho is a 1960 American horror film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The screenplay, written by Joseph Stefano, was based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch. The film stars Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, and Martin Balsam. The plot centers on an encounter between on-the-run embezzler Marion Crane (Leigh) and shy motel proprietor Norman Bates (Perkins) and its aftermath, in which a private investigator (Balsam), Marion's lover Sam Loomis (Gavin), and her sister Lila (Miles) investigate her disappearance.
Psycho was seen as a departure from Hitchcock's previous film North by Northwest, as it was filmed on a small budget in black-and-white by the crew of his television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Initially, the film divided critics due to its controversial subject matter, but audience interest and outstanding box-office returns prompted a major critical re-evaluation. Psycho was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Director for Alfred Hitchcock and Best Supporting Actress for Janet Leigh.
Psycho is now considered one of Hitchcock's best films, and is arguably his most famous and influential work. It has been hailed as a major work of cinematic art by international film critics and scholars who praise its slick direction, tense atmosphere, impressive camerawork, memorable score and iconic performances. Often ranked among the greatest films of all time, it set a new level of acceptability for violence, deviant behavior and sexuality in American films, and has been considered to be one of the earliest examples of the slasher film genre. After Hitchcock's death in 1980, Universal Pictures produced follow-ups: three sequels, a remake, a made-for-television spin-off, and a television series. In 1992, the Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
Plot
Phoenix real estate secretary Marion Crane steals $40,000 cash from her employer after hearing her boyfriend, Sam, complain that his debts are delaying their marriage. She sets off to drive to Sam's home in Fairvale, California, and switches cars after she encounters a suspicious policeman. A heavy rainstorm forces Marion to stop at the Bates Motel just a few miles from Fairvale. Norman Bates, the proprietor, whose Second Empire style house overlooks the motel, registers Marion (who uses an alias) and invites her to eat with him in the motel's office. When Norman returns to his house to retrieve the food, Marion hears him arguing with his mother about his desire to dine with Marion. After he returns, he discusses his hobby as a taxidermist, his mother's "illness", and how people have a "private trap" they want to escape. When Marion suggests that Norman should have his mother institutionalized, he becomes greatly offended. Marion decides to drive back to Phoenix in the morning to return the stolen money. As she showers, a shadowy figure enters the bathroom and stabs her to death. Shortly afterward, Norman comes to check on Marion, only to discover her dead body. Horrified, he hurriedly cleans up the murder scene. He then puts Marion's body, her belongings, and the hidden cash in her car, then sinks the car in a swamp.
Marion's sister Lila arrives in Fairvale a week later, tells Sam about the theft, and demands to know where Marion is. He denies knowing anything about her disappearance. A private investigator named Arbogast approaches them, saying that he has been hired to retrieve the money. He stops at the Bates Motel and questions Norman, whose nervous behavior and inconsistent answers arouse his suspicion. He examines the guest register and discovers from her handwriting that Marion spent a night in the motel. When Arbogast infers from Norman that Marion had spoken to his mother, he asks to speak to her, but Norman refuses to allow it. After Arbogast enters the Bates home to search for Norman's mother, the shadowy figure emerges from the bedroom and stabs him to death.
When Sam and Lila do not hear back from Arbogast, Sam goes to the motel to look for him. He sees a figure in the house who he assumes is Norman's mother. Lila and Sam alert the local sheriff, Al Chambers, who tells them Norman's mother died in a murder-suicide by strychnine poisoning ten years earlier. Chambers suggests that Arbogast lied to Sam and Lila so he could pursue Marion and the money. Convinced that something happened to Arbogast, Lila and Sam drive to the motel. Sam distracts Norman in the office while Lila sneaks into the house. Suspicious, Norman knocks Sam unconscious. As he goes to the house, Lila hides in the fruit cellar, where she discovers the mummified body of Norman's mother. Lila screams in horror, and Norman, wearing women's clothes and a wig, enters the cellar and tries to stab her. Sam appears and subdues him.
At the police station, a psychiatrist explains that Norman killed his mother and her lover ten years earlier out of jealousy. Unable to bear the guilt, he mummified his mother's corpse and treated it as if she were still alive. He recreated his mother as an alternate personality, as jealous and possessive towards Norman as he felt about his mother. Whenever Norman is attracted to a woman, "Mother" takes over. He killed two women before he killed Marion and Arbogast. The psychiatrist concludes that "Mother" has now submerged Norman's personality. Norman sits in a jail cell and hears his mother's voice saying the murders were all his doing. Marion's car, which contains her remains and the stolen money, is retrieved from the swamp.
Cast
Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates
Vera Miles as Lila Crane
John Gavin as Sam Loomis
Martin Balsam as Private Investigator Milton Arbogast
John McIntire as Deputy Sheriff Al Chambers
Simon Oakland as Dr. Richmond
Frank Albertson as Tom Cassidy
Pat Hitchcock as Caroline
Vaughn Taylor as George Lowery
Lurene Tuttle as Mrs. Chambers
John Anderson as California Charlie
Mort Mills as Highway Patrol Officer
Janet Leigh as Marion Crane
Virginia Gregg, Paul Jasmin, and Jeanette Nolan make uncredited appearances as the voice of Norma "Mother" Bates. The three voices were used interchangeably, except for the speech in the final scene, which was performed entirely by Gregg.
Production
Development
Psycho is based on Robert Bloch's 1959 novel of the same name, loosely inspired by the case of convicted Wisconsin murderer and grave robber Ed Gein. Both Gein, who lived only from Bloch, and the story's protagonist Norman Bates, were solitary murderers in isolated rural locations. Each had deceased, domineering mothers, had sealed off a room in their home as a shrine to them, and dressed in women's clothes. Gein was apprehended after killing only twice.
Peggy Robertson, Hitchcock's long-time assistant, read Anthony Boucher's positive review of the novel in his "Criminals at Large" column in The New York Times and decided to show the book to her employer; however, studio readers at Paramount Pictures had already rejected its premise for a film. Hitchcock acquired rights to the novel for $9,500 and reportedly ordered Robertson to buy all copies to preserve the novel's surprises. Hitchcock, who had come to face genre competitors whose works were critically compared to his own, was seeking new material to recover from two aborted projects with Paramount: Flamingo Feather and No Bail for the Judge. He disliked stars' salary demands and trusted only a few people to choose prospective material, including Robertson.
Paramount executives balked at Hitchcock's proposal and refused to provide his usual budget. In response, Hitchcock offered to film Psycho quickly and cheaply in black and white using his Alfred Hitchcock Presents television series crew. Paramount executives rejected this cost-conscious approach, claiming their sound stages were booked, but the industry was in a slump. Hitchcock countered that he personally would finance the project and film it at Universal-International using his Shamley Productions crew if Paramount would distribute. In lieu of his usual $250,000 director's fee, he proposed a 60% stake in the film negative. This combined offer was accepted, and Hitchcock went ahead in spite of naysaying from producer Herbert Coleman and Shamley Productions executive Joan Harrison.
Screenplay
James P. Cavanagh, a writer on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, wrote the first draft of the screenplay. Hitchcock felt the script dragged and read like a television short horror story, an assessment shared by an assistant. Although Joseph Stefano had worked on only one film before, Hitchcock agreed to meet with him; despite Stefano's inexperience, the meeting went well and he was hired.
The screenplay is relatively faithful to the novel, with a few significant changes by Hitchcock and Stefano. Stefano found the character of Norman Bates unsympathetic—in the book, he is middle-aged, overweight, and more overtly unstable—but became more intrigued when Hitchcock suggested casting Anthony Perkins. Stefano eliminated Bates' drinking, which necessitated removing Bates' "becoming" the mother personality when in a drunken stupor. Also gone is Bates' interest in spiritualism, the occult, and pornography. Hitchcock and Stefano elected to open the film with scenes in Marion's life and not introduce Bates at all until 20 minutes into the film rather than open with Bates reading a history book as Bloch does. Writer Joseph W. Smith observes that "her story occupies only two of the novel's 17 chapters. Hitchcock and Stefano expanded this to nearly half the narrative".
He likewise mentions the absence of a hotel tryst between Marion and Sam in the novel. For Stefano, the conversation between Marion and Norman in the hotel parlor in which she displays maternal sympathy towards him makes it possible for the audience to switch their sympathies towards Norman Bates after Marion's murder. When Lila Crane is looking through Norman's room in the film, she opens a book with a blank cover whose contents are unseen; in the novel, these are "pathologically pornographic" illustrations. Stefano wanted to give the audience "indications that something was quite wrong, but it could not be spelled out or overdone." In his book of conversations with Hitchcock, François Truffaut says the novel "cheats" by having extended conversations between Norman and "Mother" and stating what Mother is "doing" at various given moments.
The first name of the female protagonist was changed from Mary to Marion because a real Mary Crane existed in Phoenix. Also changed is the novel's budding romance between Sam and Lila. Hitchcock preferred to focus the audience's attention on the solution to the mystery, and Stefano thought such a relationship would make Sam Loomis seem cheap. Instead of having Sam explain Norman's pathology to Lila, the film uses a psychiatrist. Stefano was in therapy dealing with his relationship with his own mother while writing the script. The novel is more violent than the film: Marion is beheaded in the shower rather than being stabbed to death. Minor changes include changing Marion's telltale earring found after her death to a scrap of paper that failed to flush down the toilet. This provided some shock effect because toilets almost were never seen in American cinema in the 1960s. The location of Arbogast's death was moved from the foyer to the stairwell. Stefano thought this would make it easier to conceal the truth about "Mother" without tipping that something was being hidden. As Janet Leigh put it, this gave Hitchcock more options for his camera.
Pre-production
Paramount, whose contract guaranteed another film by Hitchcock, did not want Hitchcock to make Psycho. Paramount was expecting No Bail for the Judge starring Audrey Hepburn, who became pregnant and had to bow out, leading Hitchcock to scrap the production. Their official stance was that the book was "too repulsive" and "impossible for films," and nothing but another of his star-studded mystery thrillers would suffice. They did not like "anything about it at all" and denied him his usual budget. In response Hitchcock financed the film's creation through his own Shamley Productions, shooting at Universal Studios under the Revue television unit. The original Bates Motel and Bates house set buildings, which were constructed on the same stage as Lon Chaney's The Phantom of the Opera, are still standing at the Universal Studios backlot in Universal City near Hollywood and are a regular attraction on the studio's tour. As a further result of cost-cutting, Hitchcock chose to film Psycho in black and white, keeping the budget under $1 million. Other reasons for shooting in black and white were his desire to prevent the shower scene from being too gory.
To keep costs down, and because he was most comfortable around them, Hitchcock took most of his crew from his television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including cinematographer John L. Russell, set designer George Milo, script supervisor Marshall Schlom, and assistant director Hilton A. Green. He hired regular collaborators Bernard Herrmann as the music composer, George Tomasini as editor, and Saul Bass for the title design and storyboarding of the shower scene. In all, his crew cost $62,000.
Through the strength of his reputation, Hitchcock cast Leigh for a quarter of her usual fee, paying only $25,000 (in the 1967 book Hitchcock/Truffaut, Hitchcock said that Leigh owed Paramount one final film on her seven-year contract which she had signed in 1953). His first choice, Leigh agreed having only read the novel and making no inquiry into her salary. Her co-star, Anthony Perkins, agreed to $40,000. Both stars were experienced and proven box-office draws.
Paramount distributed the film, but four years later Hitchcock sold his stock in Shamley to Universal's parent company (MCA) and his remaining six films were made at and distributed by Universal Pictures. After another four years, Paramount sold all rights to Universal.
Filming
The film, independently produced and financed by Hitchcock, was shot at Revue Studios, the same location as his television show. Psycho was shot on a tight budget of $807,000, beginning on November 11, 1959, and ending on February 1, 1960. Filming started in the morning and finished by six p.m. or earlier on Thursdays (when Hitchcock and his wife would dine at Chasen's). Nearly the whole film was shot with 50 mm lenses on 35 mm cameras. This provided an angle of view similar to human vision, which helped to further involve the audience.
Before shooting began in November, Hitchcock dispatched Green to Phoenix to scout locations and shoot the opening scene. The shot was supposed to be an aerial shot of Phoenix that slowly zoomed into the hotel window of a passionate Marion and Sam. Ultimately, the helicopter footage proved too shaky and had to be spliced with footage from the studio. Another crew filmed day and night footage on Highway 99 between Gorman and Fresno, California for projection when Marion drives from Phoenix. Footage of her driving into Bakersfield to trade her car is also shown.
They also provided the location shots for the scene in which she is discovered sleeping in her car by the highway patrolman. In one street scene shot in downtown Phoenix, Christmas decorations were discovered to be visible; rather than re-shoot the footage, Hitchcock chose to add a graphic to the opening scene marking the date as "Friday, December the Eleventh".
Green also took photos of a prepared list of 140 locations for later reconstruction in the studio. These included many real estate offices and homes such as those belonging to Marion and her sister. He also found a girl who looked just as he imagined Marion and photographed her whole wardrobe, which would enable Hitchcock to demand realistic looks from Helen Colvig, the wardrobe supervisor. The look of the Bates house was modeled on Edward Hopper's painting House by the Railroad, a fanciful portrait of the Second Empire Victorian home at 18 Conger Avenue in Haverstraw, New York.
Lead actors Perkins and Leigh were given the freedom to interpret their roles and improvise as long as it did not involve moving the camera. An example of Perkins's improvisation is Norman's habit of eating candy corn. Throughout filming, Hitchcock created and hid various versions of the "Mother corpse" prop in Leigh's dressing room closet. Leigh took the joke well, and she wondered whether it was done to keep her in suspense or to judge which corpse would be scarier for the audience.
Hitchcock was forced uncharacteristically to do retakes for some scenes. The final shot in the shower scene, which starts with an extreme close-up on Marion's eye and zooms in and out, proved difficult for Leigh because the water splashing in her eyes made her want to blink, and the cameraman had trouble as well because he had to manually focus while moving the camera. Retakes were required for the opening scene because Hitchcock felt that Leigh and Gavin were not passionate enough. Leigh had trouble saying "Not inordinately" for the real estate office scene, requiring additional retakes. Lastly, the scene in which "Mother" is discovered required complicated coordination of the chair turning around, Vera Miles (as Lila Crane) hitting the light bulb, and a lens flare, which proved to be difficult. Hitchcock forced retakes until all three elements were effected to his satisfaction.
According to Hitchcock, a series of shots with Arbogast going up the stairs in the Bates house before he is stabbed were directed by Green based on Bass' storyboards while Hitchcock was incapacitated by the common cold. However, upon viewing the dailies of the shots, Hitchcock was forced to scrap them. He claimed they were "no good" because they did not portray "an innocent person but a sinister man who was going up those stairs". Hitchcock later re-shot the scene, though a little of the cut footage made its way into the film. Filming the murder of Arbogast proved problematic, owing to the overhead camera angle necessary to hide the film's twist. A camera track constructed on pulleys alongside the stairway together with a chair-like device had to be constructed and thoroughly tested over a period of weeks.
Alfred Hitchcock's cameo is a signature occurrence in most of his films. In Psycho, he can be seen through a window—wearing a Stetson hat—standing outside Marion Crane's office. Wardrobe mistress Rita Riggs has said that Hitchcock chose this scene for his cameo so that he could be in a scene with his daughter, who played one of Marion's colleagues. Others have suggested that he chose this early appearance in the film to avoid distracting the audience.
Shower scene
The murder of Leigh's character in the shower is the film's pivotal scene and one of the best-known in all of cinema. As such, it spawned numerous myths and legends. It was shot from December 17–23, 1959, after Leigh had twice postponed the filming, first because of a cold and then because of her period. The finished scene runs some three minutes, and its flurry of action and edits has produced contradictory attempts to count its parts. Hitchcock himself contributed to this pattern, telling Truffaut that "there were seventy camera setups for forty-five seconds of footage", and maintaining to other interviewers that there were "seventy-eight pieces of the film". The 2017 documentary 78/52: Hitchcock's Shower Scene, by director Alexandre O. Philippe, latches onto this last figure for the production's tagline, '78 Shots & 52 Cuts That Changed Cinema Forever'. But in his careful description of the shower scene, film scholar Philip J. Skerry counted only 60 separate shots, with a table breaking down the middle 34 by type, camera position, angle, movement, focus, POV, and subject. Absent an alternative tabulation, Richard Schickel and Frank Capra, in their 2001 book The Men Who Made the Movies, concluded the most reasonable calculation was 60. Many are close-ups, including extreme close-ups, except for medium shots in the shower directly before and directly after the murder. The combination of the close shots with their short duration makes the sequence feel more subjective than if the images were presented alone or at a wider angle, an example of the technique Hitchcock described as "transferring the menace from the screen into the mind of the audience".
To capture the straight-on shot of the shower head, the camera had to be equipped with a long lens. The inner holes on the shower head were blocked and the camera placed a sufficient distance away so that the water, while appearing to be aimed directly at the lens, actually went around and past it.
The soundtrack of screeching violins, violas, and cellos was an original all-strings piece by composer Bernard Herrmann titled "The Murder". Hitchcock originally intended to have no music for the sequence (and all motel scenes), but Herrmann insisted he try his composition. Afterward, Hitchcock agreed it vastly intensified the scene, and nearly doubled Herrmann's salary. The blood in the scene was Hershey's chocolate syrup, which shows up better on black-and-white film, and has more realistic density than stage blood. The sound of the knife entering flesh was created by plunging a knife into a casaba melon.
There are varying accounts whether Leigh was in the shower the entire time or a body double was used for some parts of the murder sequence and its aftermath. In an interview with Roger Ebert and, in the 1990 book by Stephen Rebello, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, Leigh stated she appeared in the scene the entire time and Hitchcock used a stand-in only for the sequence in which Norman wraps Marion's body in a shower curtain and places it in the trunk of her car. The 2010 book The Girl in Alfred Hitchcock's Shower by Robert Graysmith and the documentary 78/52: Hitchcock's Shower Scene contradicts this, identifying Marli Renfro as Leigh's body double for some of the shower scene's shots. Graysmith also stated that Hitchcock later acknowledged Renfro's participation in the scene. Rita Riggs, who was in charge of the wardrobe, claims it was Leigh in the shower the entire time, explaining that Leigh did not wish to be nude and so she devised strategic items including pasties, moleskin, and bodystockings, to be pasted on Leigh for the scene. Riggs and Leigh went through strip tease magazines that showed all the different costumes, but none of them worked because they all had tassels on them.
A popular myth emerged that ice-cold water was used in the shower scene to make Leigh's scream realistic. Leigh denied this on numerous occasions, saying the crew was accommodating, using hot water throughout the week-long shoot. All of the screams are Leigh's. Another myth was that graphic designer Saul Bass directed the shower scene. This was denied by several figures associated with the film, including Leigh, who stated: "Absolutely not! I have emphatically said this in any interview I've ever given. I've said it to his face in front of other people ... I was in that shower for seven days, and, believe me, Alfred Hitchcock was right next to his camera for every one of those seventy-odd shots". Green also rebuts Bass's claim: "There is not a shot in that movie that I didn't roll the camera for. And I can tell you I never rolled the camera for Mr. Bass". Roger Ebert, a longtime admirer of Hitchcock's work, summarily dismissed the rumor: "It seems unlikely that a perfectionist with an ego like Hitchcock's would let someone else direct such a scene".
Commentators such as Stephen Rebello and Bill Krohn have argued in favor of Bass's contribution to the scene in his capacity as a visual consultant and storyboard artist. Along with designing the opening credits, Bass is termed "Pictorial Consultant" in the credits. When interviewing Hitchcock in 1967, François Truffaut asked about the extent of Bass's contribution, to which Hitchcock replied that in addition to the titles, Bass had provided storyboards for the Arbogast murder (which he claimed to have rejected), but made no mention of Bass's having provided storyboards for the shower scene.
According to Bill Krohn's Hitchcock at Work, Bass's first claim to have directed the scene was in 1970, when he provided a magazine with 48 drawings used as storyboards as proof of his contribution. Krohn's analysis of the production, while rebutting Bass's claims for having directed the scene, notes that these storyboards did introduce key aspects of the final scene—most notably, the fact that the killer appears as a silhouette, and details such as the close-ups of the slashing knife, Leigh's desperate outstretched arm, the shower curtain being torn off its hooks, and the transition from the drain to Marion Crane's dead eye. Krohn notes that this final transition is highly reminiscent of the iris titles that Bass created for Vertigo. Krohn also notes that Hitchcock shot the scene with two cameras: one a Mitchell BNC, the other a handheld French Éclair camera which Orson Welles had used in Touch of Evil (1958). To create an ideal montage for the greatest emotional impact on the audience, Hitchcock shot a lot of footage of this scene which he trimmed down in the editing room. He even brought a Moviola on the set to gauge the footage required. The final sequence, which his editor George Tomasini worked on with Hitchcock's advice, however, did not go far beyond the basic structural elements set up by Bass's storyboards.
According to Donald Spoto in The Dark Side of Genius and to Stephen Rebello in Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, Hitchcock's wife and trusted collaborator, Alma Reville, spotted a blooper in one of the last edits of Psycho before its official release: after Marion was supposedly dead, one could see her blink. According to Patricia Hitchcock, talking in Laurent Bouzereau's "Making of" documentary, Alma spotted that Leigh's character appeared to take a breath. In either case, the postmortem activity was edited out and was never seen by audiences. Although Marion's eyes should have been dilated after her death, the contact lenses necessary for this effect would have required six weeks of acclimatization to wear them, so Hitchcock decided to forgo them.
It is often claimed that, despite its graphic nature, the shower scene never once shows a knife puncturing flesh. However, a frame by frame analysis of the sequence shows one shot in which the knife appears to penetrate Leigh's abdomen, an effect created through lighting and reverse motion. Leigh herself was so affected by this scene when she saw it, that she no longer took showers unless she absolutely had to; she would lock all the doors and windows and would leave the bathroom and shower door open. She never realized until she first watched the film "how vulnerable and defenseless one is".
Before production, Leigh and Hitchcock fully discussed what the scene meant:
Film theorist Robin Wood also discusses how the shower washes "away her guilt". He comments upon the "alienation effect" of killing off the "apparent center of the film" with which spectators had identified. The scene was the subject of Alexandre O. Philippe's 2017 documentary 78/52: Hitchcock's Shower Scene, the title of which references the putative number of cuts and set-ups, respectively, that Hitchcock used to shoot it.
Soundtrack
Score
Hitchcock insisted that Bernard Herrmann write the score for Psycho despite the composer's refusal to accept a reduced fee for the film's lower budget. The resulting score, according to Christopher Palmer in The Composer in Hollywood (1990) is "perhaps Herrmann's most spectacular Hitchcock achievement". Hitchcock was pleased with the tension and drama the score added to the film, later remarking "33% of the effect of Psycho was due to the music" and that "Psycho depended heavily on Herrmann's music for its tension and sense of pervading doom".
Herrmann used the lowered music budget to his advantage by writing for a string orchestra rather than a full symphonic ensemble, contrary to Hitchcock's request for a jazz score. He thought of the single-tone color of the all-string soundtrack as a way of reflecting the black-and-white cinematography of the film. The strings play con sordini (muted) for all the music other than the shower scene, creating a darker and more intense effect. Film composer Fred Steiner, in an analysis of the score to Psycho, points out that string instruments gave Herrmann access to a wider range in tone, dynamics, and instrumental special effects than any other single instrumental group would have.
The main title music, a tense, hurtling piece, sets the tone of impending violence and returns three times on the soundtrack. Though nothing shocking occurs during the first 15–20 minutes of the film, the title music remains in the audience's mind, lending tension to these early scenes. Herrmann also maintains tension through the slower moments in the film through the use of ostinato.
There were rumors that Herrmann had used electronic means, including amplified bird screeches to achieve the shocking effect of the music in the shower scene. The effect was achieved, however, only with violins in a "screeching, stabbing sound-motion of extraordinary viciousness". The only electronic amplification employed was in the placing of the microphones close to the instruments, to get a harsher sound. Besides the emotional impact, the shower scene cue ties the soundtrack to birds. The association of the shower scene music with birds also telegraphs to the audience that it is Norman, the stuffed-bird collector, who is the murderer rather than his mother.
Herrmann biographer Steven C. Smith writes that the music for the shower scene is "probably the most famous (and most imitated) cue in film music", but Hitchcock was originally opposed to having music in this scene. When Herrmann played the shower scene cue for Hitchcock, the director approved its use in the film. Herrmann reminded Hitchcock of his instructions not to score this scene, to which Hitchcock replied: "Improper suggestion, my boy, improper suggestion". This was one of two important disagreements Hitchcock had with Herrmann, in which Herrmann ignored Hitchcock's instructions. The second one, over the score for Torn Curtain (1966), resulted in the end of their professional collaboration. A survey conducted by PRS for Music, in 2009, showed that the British public considers the score from 'the shower scene' to be the scariest theme from any film.
To honor the fiftieth anniversary of Psycho, in July 2010, the San Francisco Symphony obtained a print of the film with the soundtrack removed, and projected it on a large screen in Davies Symphony Hall while the orchestra performed the score live. This was previously mounted by the Seattle Symphony in October 2009 as well, performing at the Benaroya Hall for two consecutive evenings.
Recordings
Several CDs of the film score have been released, including:
October 2, 1975, recording with Bernard Herrmann conducting the National Philharmonic Orchestra [Unicorn CD, 1993].
The 1997 Varèse Sarabande CD features a re-recording of the complete score performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and conducted by Joel McNeely.
The 1998 Soundstage Records SCD 585 CD claims to feature the tracks from the original master tapes, but it has been asserted that the release is a bootleg recording.
The 2016 Doxy Records Picture Disc release (Catalog #: DOP 8008) of the complete original score conducted by Herrmann.
Censorship and taboos
Psycho is a prime example of the type of film that appeared in the United States during the 1960s after the erosion of the Production Code. It was unprecedented in its depiction of sexuality and violence, right from the opening scene in which Sam and Marion are shown as lovers sharing a bed, with Marion in a bra. In the Production Code standards of that time, unmarried couples shown in the same bed would have been taboo.
Another issue was the gender nonconformity. Perkins, who was allegedly homosexual, and Hitchcock, who previously made Rope, were both experienced in the film's transgressive subject matter. The viewer is unaware of Bates's crossdressing until, at the end of the film, it is revealed during the attempted murder of Lila. At the station, Sam asks why Bates was dressed that way. The police officer, ignorant of Bates's split personality, announces his conclusion that Bates is a transvestite. The psychiatrist corrects him and explains that Bates believes that he is his own mother when he dresses in her clothes.
According to Stephen Rebello's 1990 book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, the censors in charge of enforcing the Production Code wrangled with Hitchcock because some of them insisted they could see one of Leigh's breasts. Hitchcock held onto the print for several days, left it untouched, and resubmitted it for approval. Each of the censors reversed their positions: those who had previously seen the breast now did not, and those who had not, now did. They passed the film after the director removed one shot that showed the buttocks of Leigh's stand-in. The board was also upset by the racy opening, so Hitchcock said that if they let him keep the shower scene he would re-shoot the opening with them on the set. Because board members did not show up for the re-shoot, the opening stayed. Another cause of concern for the censors was that Marion was shown flushing a toilet, with its contents (torn-up note paper) fully visible. No flushing toilet had appeared in mainstream film and television in the United States at that time.
Internationally, Hitchcock was forced to make minor changes to the film, mostly to the shower scene. In the United Kingdom, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) required cuts to stabbing sounds and visible nude shots, and in New Zealand the shot of Norman washing blood from his hands was seen as disgusting. In Singapore, though the shower scene was left untouched, the murder of Arbogast and a shot of Norman's mother's corpse were removed. In Ireland, censor Gerry O'Hara banned it upon his initial viewing in 1960. The next year, a highly edited version missing some 47 feet of film was submitted to the Irish censor. O'Hara ultimately requested that an additional seven cuts be made: the line where Marion tells Sam to put his shoes on (which implied that he had his pants or trousers off), two shots of Norman spying on Marion through the hole in the wall, Marion's undressing, the shots of Marion's blood flowing down the shower, the shots of Norman washing his hands when blood is visible, repeated incidents of stabbings ("One stab is surely enough", wrote O'Hara), the words "in bed" from the sheriff's wife's line, "Norman found them dead together in bed", and Arbogast's questions to Norman about whether he spent the night with Marion. In 1986, the uncut version of Psycho was accepted by the BBFC, who classified it at 15. In 2020, Universal Pictures released the uncut version of the film on Blu-ray for the first time to coincide with its 60th anniversary.
Release
The film was released on June 16, 1960, at the DeMille Theatre and the Baronet Theatre in New York City. It was the first film sold in the US on the basis that no one would be admitted to the theater after the film had started.
Hitchcock's "no late admission" policy for the film was unusual for the time. It was not an entirely original publicity strategy as Clouzot had done the same in France for Les Diaboliques (1955). Hitchcock believed people who entered the theater late and thus never saw the appearance of star actress Janet Leigh would feel cheated. At first theater owners opposed the idea, thinking they would lose business. However, after the first day, the owners enjoyed long lines of people waiting to see the film. Shortly before the release of Psycho, Hitchcock promised a film in "the Diabolique manner".
The week after the New York premiere, the film opened at the Paramount Theatre, Boston; the Woods Theatre, Chicago, and the Arcadia Theatre, Philadelphia. After nine weeks of release at the DeMille and the Baronet, the film was released in neighborhood New York theaters, the first time a film had played on Broadway and the neighborhood theaters simultaneously.
Promotion
Hitchcock did most of the promotion himself, forbidding Leigh and Perkins to make the usual television, radio, and print interviews for fear of them revealing the plot. Even critics were not given private screenings but rather had to see the film with the general public, which may have affected their reviews.
The film's original trailer features a jovial Hitchcock taking the viewer on a tour of the set and almost giving away plot details before stopping himself. It is "tracked" with Herrmann's Psycho theme, but also jovial music from Hitchcock's comedy The Trouble with Harry; most of Hitchcock's dialogue is post-synchronized. The trailer was made after the completion of the film, and because Janet Leigh was no longer available for filming, Hitchcock had Vera Miles don a blonde wig and scream loudly as he pulled the shower curtain back in the bathroom sequence of the preview. Because the title Psycho instantly covers most of the screen, the switch went unnoticed by audiences for years. However, a freeze-frame analysis clearly reveals that it is Miles and not Leigh in the shower during the trailer.
Rating
Psycho has been rated and re-rated several times over the years by the MPAA. Upon its initial release, the film received a certificate stating that it was "Approved" (certificate #19564) under the simple pass/fail system of the Production Code in use at that time. Later, when the MPAA switched to a voluntary letter ratings system in 1968, Psycho was one of a number of high-profile motion pictures to be retro-rated with an "M" (Suggested for mature audiences: Parental discretion advised) for further distribution. This remained the only rating the film would receive for 16 years, and according to the guidelines of the time "M" was the equivalent of a "PG" rating. In 1984, amidst a controversy surrounding the levels of violence depicted in "PG"-rated films in the VCR era, the film was re-classified to its current rating of "R".
Re-release
The film had another successful theatrical reissue in 1969. The film was re-released to cinemas on September 20 and 23, 2015, as part of the "TCM Presents" series by Turner Classic Movies and Fathom Events.
Television
CBS purchased the television rights for $450,000. CBS planned to televise the film on September 23, 1966, as an installment of its new movie night The CBS Friday Night Movies. Three days prior to the scheduled telecast, Valerie Percy, daughter of Illinois senate candidate Charles H. Percy, was murdered. As her parents slept mere feet away, she was stabbed a dozen times with a double-edged knife. In light of the murder, CBS agreed to postpone the broadcast. As a result of the Apollo 1 fire on January 27, 1967, the network again postponed the screening of Psycho.
Shortly afterward Paramount included the film in its first syndicated package of post-1950 movies, "Portfolio I". WABC-TV in New York City was the first station in the country to air Psycho (with some scenes significantly edited), on its late-night movie series, The Best of Broadway, on June 24, 1967.
The film finally made its way to general television broadcast in one of Universal's syndicated programming packages for local stations in 1970. Psycho was aired for 20 years in this format, then leased to cable for two years before returning to syndication as part of the "List of a Lifetime" package.
Home media
The film has been released several times on CED, VHS, LaserDisc, DVD and Blu-ray. DiscoVision first released Psycho on the LaserDisc format in "standard play" (5 sides) in 1979, and "extended play" (2 sides) in October 1981. MCA/Universal Home Video released a new LaserDisc version of Psycho in August 1988 (Catalog #: 11003). In May 1998, Universal Studios Home Video released a deluxe edition of Psycho as part of their Signature Collection. This THX-certified Widescreen (1.85:1) LaserDisc Deluxe Edition (Catalog #: 43105) is spread across 4 extended play sides and 1 standard play side, and includes a new documentary and isolated Bernard Herrmann score. A DVD edition was released at the same time as the LaserDisc.
A version of the film with extended footage of Marion undressing (showing her taking off her bra), Norman cleaning up after the murder, and Arbogast's death (in which he is stabbed four times instead of two) has been shown on German TV, and was released there on Blu-ray in 2015. This footage had been cut from the US version of the film in 1968 before the re-release of the movie after the ratings system was first established by the MPAA; these cuts were mandated by the National Legion of Decency.
For the DVD release, Laurent Bouzereau produced a documentary looking at the film's production and reception. Universal released a 50th anniversary edition on Blu-ray in the United Kingdom on August 9, 2010, with Australia making the same edition (with a different cover) available on September 1. To mark the film's 50th anniversary, a Blu-ray in the U.S. was released on October 19, 2010, featuring yet another cover. The film is also included on two different Alfred Hitchcock Blu-ray box-sets from Universal.
The film was released on 4K UHD Blu-Ray as part of The Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection in September 2020, along with an individual "60th anniversary" Blu-Ray release as well. This release includes the extended footage from the German release, making it the first time since 1968 that these scenes were presented to US home video audiences as Hitchcock intended.
Reception
Critical reception
Initial reviews of the film were mixed. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote: "There is not an abundance of subtlety or the lately familiar Hitchcock bent toward significant and colorful scenery in this obviously low-budget job". Crowther called the "slow buildups to sudden shocks" reliably melodramatic but contested Hitchcock's psychological points, reminiscent of Krafft-Ebing's studies, as less effective. While the film did not conclude satisfactorily for the critic, he commended the cast's performances as "fair". British critic C. A. Lejeune was so offended that she not only walked out before the end but permanently resigned her post as film critic for The Observer. Other negative reviews stated, "a blot on an honorable career", "plainly a gimmick movie", and "merely one of those television shows padded out to two hours". The Catholic Legion of Decency gave the film a B rating, meaning "morally objectionable in part".
Critics from other New York newspapers, such as the Daily News, Daily Mirror, and Village Voice were positive, writing, "Anthony Perkins' performance is the best of his career ... Janet Leigh has never been better", "played out beautifully", and "first American movie since Touch of Evil (1958) to stand in the same creative rank as the great European films", respectively. A mixed review from the New York Herald Tribunes review stated it was "rather difficult to be amused at the forms insanity may take [but nonetheless] keeps your attention like a snake-charmer". The Los Angeles Times''' Philip K. Scheuer remarked, in another mixed review, that the film was "one of his most brilliantly directed shockers and also his most disagreeable". The film ranked 9th on Cahiers du Cinéma's Top 10 Films of the Year List in 1960.
It was also well received in Florida, where the Miami Herald's Jack Anderson wrote that "the pudgy master of suspense has dished up a real shocker. And I mean shocker. Psycho saws away at every nerve right from its first scene with Janet Leigh in her unmentionables to its last gruesome moment." Robin Barrett of the St. Petersburg Times wrote that "it's got all the ingredients of a typical Hitchcock if Hitchcock can be termed in any way "typical," and it's definitely his best effort to date, but it's unlike anything he's done in the past. Mr. H. has pledged us not to reveal the shocking ending or talk about the bizarre plot and shaking fear of diabolical Hitchcock reprisals — we won't."
The film opened to a slightly more muted phrase in Washington, D.C.. Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post called it "marvelously gruesome [...] the sort of eerie, creaky, gobby Snap-Apple-Night that will find many sharooshed and others liverish." Harry MacArthur of Washington Evening Star wrote that "Alfred Hitchcock lets his well-known glee with the gruesome romp all over the place in 'Psycho,' latest of his excursions in mayhem and suspense, at the Town Theater. This is a movie he might have made to prove the truth of his oft-quoted statement that he makes pictures for his own amusement. This does not mean, of course, that other moviegoers will not be amused—or shocked or even scared out of their wit by 'Psycho.' It does mean that this is a somewhat transparent example of the master's work in that you can see him sitting there behind it fiendishly dreaming up shocking situations for the sake of shock alone." Don Maclean of The Washington Daily News urged the reader to "go see it if you like movies that shake you up. But if you’re afraid to go in your house afterwards and keep watching behind you the rest of the night, don’t blame me."
A critic who used the Mae Tinee pseudonym in the Chicago Daily Tribune wrote that "the old pro really poured it on in this production. I'm sure the wily Mr. Hitchcock had fun making this one. He used his camera with a sharp skill to achieve shock value the staring eye, the flowing blood, the sudden plunge of a knife. Audiences react much as they do on a high ride, giggling with nerves and excitement." In Buffalo, Jeanette Eichel of the Buffalo Evening News remarked that "Alfred Hitchcock, master of mystery, fuses fear and suspense in his shiver-and-shock show "Psycho" in the Paramount Theater. His pride is that he does not let an audience down by misleading it. His clues are honest and few persons guess the outcome. He especially asked in an epilogue that patrons not betray the ending."
A more mixed review came courtesy of Marjory Adams of the Boston Daily Globe, who wrote that it "is far more macabre and mysterious than any of his previous full-length features. However, the settings are dreary and lack those magnificent backgrounds which Hitchcock employed so effectively in North by Northwest, Vertigo and To Catch a Thief. Perhaps the old mystery master has been more influenced in Psycho by his television programs than by his own classics such as 39 Steps and Notorious. However, he gives the audience its money's worth. You see two murders committed, with accompanying gore and grisly details. There are so many shocks the theater might be connected to an electric battery."
Helen Bower of the Detroit Free Press was appalled by the film, opening her article by writing, "Gee, whiz, Mr. Hitchcock! Stick to making pictures like North by Northwest, instead of one like Psycho at the Palms Theater, will you, huh? So okay, Psycho gets some nervous laughter and a couple of yips of shock from the audience. But when even the great Hitchcock tries to make visual the dark side of star Anthony Perkin's psychopathic personality, the effect is ridiculous. Perhaps the get-up would be the only thing a young man in Perkins' state of mind could produce. All the same, it makes this phase of Hitch's horror movie look laughably corny." Glenn C. Pullen of the Cleveland Plain Dealer praised the performances of Leigh and Perkins, opening his review by writing that "if the movie theater business has any ills, according to 'Doctor' Alfred Hitchcock's diagnosis, they can be cured promptly by some blood-letting horrors, a healthy shot of mystery juice, and a chilling bath in bizarre melodrama. This whimsical prescription by the old master of suspense films again proved to be eminently correct in the case of his long-heralded 'Psycho'." Francis Melrose of the Rocky Mountain News praised Leigh's and Perkins' performances and called the film "a shocker that hits you like a pile driver. You most likely will be stunned and reeling as you come out of the theater."
In the United Kingdom, the film broke attendance records at the London Plaza Cinema, but nearly all British film critics gave it poor reviews, questioning Hitchcock's taste and judgment and calling it his worst film ever. Reasons cited for this were the lack of preview screenings; the fact that they had to turn up at a set time as they would not be admitted after the film had started; their dislike of the gimmicky promotion; and Hitchcock's expatriate status. Alexander Walker of the London Evening Standard wrote that "Allred Hitchcock may at any time try to frighten to death, and welcome to him. But I draw the line at being bored to death. There were moments in 'Psycho' when I thought he had almost succeeded. Quite an achievement when you consider the stomach-turning contents of this nasty essay into horror by the master of suspense. 'Psycho' is the grisly story of multiple murders at a lonely motel on the edge of Arizona swamp land. Hitchcock has laid the film out like a morbid morgue attendant. His eye for corpses has never been as wide open, nor his sense of bizarre death sharper. But what nauseates one Is his sick relish of anything in it that is perverted or blood-spattered. And much is." Dick Richards of the Daily Mirror called it "a fairly ordinary, sometimes ridiculous melodrama".
Jack Bentley of the Sunday Mirror wrote that "Alfred Hitchcock, the 'master of suspense,' has sadly underestimated the intelligence of his audience in presenting this gory story about a homicidal maniac. For his publicity department's entreaties to cinemagoers not to reveal the ending is totally unnecessary. I soon tumbled to it—and so will you. There are, however, excellent performances from Vera Miles, Janet Leigh and, in particular, Anthony Perkins." Ernest Betts of The Sunday People called it a "mad, morbid and monstrous film [in which] Hitchcock mixes old-fashioned hokum and the jargon of the psychiatrist to stretch your nerves to screaming point." In a scathing observation, Frank Lewis of the Sunday Dispatch told viewers to "ignore those pleas to keep the ending secret. Anyone above the mental age of 10 will know, only too well, what's coming."
A critic in The Daily Telegraph who only gave the initials of R.P.M.G. wrote that the film was "for this director, a disappointing murder melodrama with more absurdities than thrills. It is out of the ordinary only in that it is a little unpleasant. The most rewarding feature is Anthony Perkins' study of the murderer suffering as the title foretells from psychological disorders. Janet Leigh also gives a pleasing performance as the girl he kills with a knife while she is under a shower." A critic for the same newspaper, Patrick Gibbs, wrote that "it almost seems as if the director were pulling our legs and by way of improving the joke he leads us up the garden path—like Haydn in the 'Surprise Symphony'—with some serious completely realistic opening passages typically full of tension and suspense." C.A. Lejeune of The Observer wrote that "the stupid air of mystery and portent surrounding 'Psycho's presentation strikes me as a tremendous error. It makes the film automatically suspect. However, an unidentified critic in The Guardian, then based in Manchester, was somewhat more favorable in his reaction, saying that the film offered "no more than quite a good sample of the old Hitchcock style, rich in suspense, tension, and the rest of it; and it is also typical in being brilliant in patches and, as a whole, quite implausible."
Critics later reassessed the film far more positively. Time magazine switched its opinion from "Hitchcock bears down too heavily in this one" to "superlative" and "masterly", and Bosley Crowther changed his initial opinion and included it in his Top Ten list of 1960, deeming it a "bold psychological mystery picture.... [I]t represented expert and sophisticated command of emotional development with cinematic techniques".Psycho was criticized for inspiring other filmmakers to show gory content; three years later, Blood Feast, considered to be the first "splatter film", was released. Inspired by Psycho, Hammer Film Productions launched a series of mystery thrillers including The Nanny (1965) starring Bette Davis and William Castle's Homicidal (1961) was followed by a slew of more than thirteen other splatter films.
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Psycho has an approval rating of 97% based on 116 reviews, with an average score of 9.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Infamous for its shower scene, but immortal for its contribution to the horror genre. Because Psycho was filmed with tact, grace, and art, Hitchcock didn't just create modern horror, he validated it." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 97 out of 100 based on 18 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". In his 1998 review of Psycho film critic Roger Ebert summarised the film's enduring appeal, writing:
Box office
In its opening week, Psycho grossed $46,500 at the DeMille and a record $19,500 at the Baronet. Following its expansion the following week, it grossed $143,000 from 5 theaters. Psycho broke box-office records in Japan and the rest of Asia, France, Britain, South America, the United States, and Canada, and was a moderate success in Australia for a brief period.
It went on to become the second highest-grossing film of 1960, behind Spartacus, earning a box office gross of $32 million, which generated approximately $9.1 million in North American theatrical rentals. Psycho remains the most commercially successful film of Hitchcock's career. Hitchcock personally earned in excess of $15 million from Psycho. He then swapped his rights to Psycho and his TV anthology for 150,000 shares of MCA, making him the third largest shareholder in MCA Inc., and his own boss at Universal, in theory; this did not stop them from interfering with his later films.
Accolades
In 1992, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. In 1998, TV Guide ranked it No. 8 on their list of the 50 Greatest Movies on TV (and Video).Psycho has appeared on a number of lists by websites, television channels, and magazines. The shower scene was featured as number four on the list of Bravo Network's 100 Scariest Movie Moments, while the finale was ranked number four on Premieres similar list. In the British Film Institute's 2012 Sight & Sound polls of the greatest films ever made, Psycho was 35th among critics and 48th among directors.
In the earlier 2002 version of the list the film ranked 35th among critics and 19th among directors. In the 2022 edition of BFI's Greatest films of all time list the film ranked 31st in the critics poll and 46th in the director's poll. In 1998 Time Out conducted a reader's poll and Psycho was voted the 29th greatest film of all time. The Village Voice ranked Psycho at No. 19 in its Top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list in 1999, based on a poll of critics. The film was listed as one of TCM's top 15 most influential films of all-time list. Entertainment Weekly voted it the 11th Greatest film of all time in 1999. In January 2002, the film was voted at No. 72 on the list of the "Top 100 Essential Films of All Time" by the National Society of Film Critics. The film was included in Times All-Time 100 best movies list in 2005. In 2005, Total Film magazine ranked Psycho as the 6th-greatest horror film of all time. In 2010, The Guardian newspaper ranked it as "the best horror film of all time". Director Martin Scorsese included Psycho in his list of the 11 scariest horror films of all time. The film was named as the third best horror movie of all time in a readers' poll by Rolling Stone magazine in 2014. In 2017 Empire magazine's reader's poll ranked Psycho at No. 53 on its list of The 100 Greatest Movies. In an earlier poll held by the same magazine in 2008, it was voted 45th on the list of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time". In 2021, the film was ranked at No. 5 by Time Out on their list of "The 100 best horror movies".
In 2012, the Motion Picture Editors Guild listed the film as the twelfth best-edited film of all time based on a survey of its membership. Psycho was ranked 8th in BBC's 2015 list of the 100 greatest American films. In 2022, Variety named Psycho the greatest movie of all time.
American Film Institute has included Psycho in these lists:
AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Movies – No. 18
AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Thrills – No. 1
AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Heroes and Villains:
Norman Bates – No. 2 Villain
AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Movie Quotes:
"A boy's best friend is his mother." – No. 56
AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores – No. 4
AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – No. 14
Themes and style
Subversion of romance through irony
In Psycho, Hitchcock subverts the romantic elements that are seen in most of his work. The film is instead ironic as it presents "clarity and fulfillment" of romance. The past is central to the film; the main characters "struggle to understand and resolve destructive personal histories" and ultimately fail. Lesley Brill writes: "The inexorable forces of past sins and mistakes crush hopes for regeneration and present happiness". The crushed hope is highlighted by the death of the protagonist, Marion Crane, halfway through the film. Marion is like Persephone of Greek mythology, who is abducted temporarily from the world of the living. The myth does not sustain Marion, who dies hopelessly in her room at the Bates Motel. The room is wallpapered with floral prints like Persephone's flowers, but they are only "reflected in mirrors, as images of images—twice removed from reality". In the scene of Marion's death, Brill describes the transition from the bathroom drain to Marion's lifeless eye, "like the eye of the amorphous sea creature at the end of Fellini's La Dolce Vita, it marks the birth of death, an emblem of final hopelessness and corruption".
Marion is deprived of "the humble treasures of love, marriage, home and family", which Hitchcock considers elements of human happiness. There exists among Psychos secondary characters a lack of "familial warmth and stability", which demonstrates the unlikelihood of domestic fantasies. The film contains ironic jokes about domesticity, such as when Sam writes a letter to Marion, agreeing to marry her, only after the audience sees her buried in the swamp. Sam and Marion's sister Lila, in investigating Marion's disappearance, develop an "increasingly connubial" relationship, a development that Marion is denied. Norman also suffers a similarly perverse definition of domesticity. He has "an infantile and divided personality" and lives in a mansion whose past occupies the present. Norman displays stuffed birds that are "frozen in time" and keeps childhood toys and stuffed animals in his room. He is hostile toward suggestions to move from the past, such as with Marion's suggestion to put his mother "someplace" and as a result kills Marion to preserve his past. Brill explains: Someplace' for Norman is where his delusions of love, home, and family are declared invalid and exposed".
Light and darkness feature prominently in Psycho. The first shot after the intertitle is the sunny landscape of Phoenix before the camera enters a dark hotel room where Sam and Marion appear as bright figures. Marion is almost immediately cast in darkness; she is preceded by her shadow as she reenters the office to steal money and as she enters her bedroom. When she flees Phoenix, darkness descends on her drive. The following sunny morning is punctured by a watchful police officer with black sunglasses, and she finally arrives at the Bates Motel in near darkness. Bright lights are also "the ironic equivalent of darkness" in the film, blinding instead of illuminating. Examples of brightness include the opening window shades in Sam's and Marion's hotel room, vehicle headlights at night, the neon sign at the Bates Motel, "the glaring white" of the bathroom tiles where Marion dies, and the fruit cellar's exposed light bulb shining on the corpse of Norman's mother. Such bright lights typically characterize danger and violence in Hitchcock's films.
Motifs
The film often features shadows, mirrors, windows, and, less so, water. The shadows are present from the first scene where the blinds make bars on Marion and Sam as they peer out of the window. The stuffed birds' shadows loom over Marion as she eats, and Norman's mother is seen in only shadows until the end. More subtly, backlighting turns the rakes in the hardware store into talons above Lila's head.
Mirrors reflect Marion as she packs, her eyes as she checks the rear-view mirror, her face in the policeman's sunglasses, and her hands as she counts out the money in the car dealership's bathroom. A motel window serves as a mirror by reflecting Marion and Norman together. Hitchcock shoots through Marion's windshield and the telephone booth when Arbogast phones Sam and Lila. The heavy downpour can be seen as a foreshadowing of the shower, and its cessation can be seen as a symbol of Marion making up her mind to return to Phoenix.
There are a number of references to birds. Norman's hobby is stuffing birds. Marion's last name is Crane and she is from Phoenix. (In the novel, Norman's hobby is taxidermy but it is not focused on birds, and Marion is from Dallas, Texas.) Norman comments that she eats like a bird. The motel room has pictures of birds on the wall. Brigitte Peucker also suggests that Norman's hobby of stuffing birds literalizes the British slang expression for sex, "stuffing birds", bird being British slang for a desirable woman. Robert Allan suggests that Norman's mother is his original "stuffed bird", both in the sense of having preserved her body and the incestuous nature of Norman's emotional bond with her.
Psychoanalytic interpretation Psycho has been called "the first psychoanalytical thriller". The sex and violence in the film were unlike anything previously seen in a mainstream film. French film critic Serge Kaganski wrote: "The shower scene is both feared and desired. Hitchcock may be scaring his female viewers out of their wits, but he is turning his male viewers into potential rapists because Janet Leigh has been turning men on ever since she appeared in her brassiere in the first scene".
In his documentary The Pervert's Guide to Cinema, Slavoj Žižek remarks that Norman Bates' mansion has three floors, paralleling the three levels of the human mind that are postulated by Freudian psychoanalysis: the top floor would be the superego, where Bates' mother lives; the ground floor is then Bates' ego, where he functions as an apparently normal human being; and the basement would be Bates' id. Žižek interprets Bates' moving his mother's corpse from top floor to basement as a symbol for the deep connection that psychoanalysis posits between superego and id.
Legacy Psycho has become one of the most recognizable films in cinema history, and is arguably Hitchcock's best known film. In his novel, Bloch used an uncommon plot structure: he repeatedly introduced sympathetic protagonists, then killed them off. This played on his reader's expectations of traditional plots, leaving them uncertain and anxious. Hitchcock recognized the effect this approach could have on audiences, and utilized it in his adaptation, killing off Leigh's character at the end of the first act. This daring plot device, coupled with the fact that the character was played by the biggest box-office name in the film, was a shocking turn of events in 1960.
The shower scene has become a pop culture touchstone and is often regarded as one of the most iconic moments in cinematic history, as well as the most suspenseful scene ever filmed. Its effectiveness is often credited to the use of startling editing techniques borrowed from the Soviet montage filmmakers, and to the iconic screeching violins in Bernard Herrmann's musical score. In 2000 The Guardian ranked the shower scene at No. 2 on their list of "The top 10 film moments". The scene has been frequently parodied and referenced in popular culture, complete with the screeching violin sound effects (such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, among many others). 78/52: Hitchcock's Shower Scene, a documentary on its production by Alexandre O. Philippe, was released on October 13, 2017. It features interviews with and analysis by Guillermo del Toro, Peter Bogdanovich, Bret Easton Ellis, Jamie Lee Curtis, Karyn Kusama, Eli Roth, Oz Perkins, Leigh Whannell, Walter Murch, Danny Elfman, Elijah Wood, Richard Stanley, and Neil Marshall.Psycho is considered by some to be the first film in the slasher film genre, though some critics and film historians point to Michael Powell's Peeping Tom, a lesser-known film with similar themes of voyeurism and sexualized violence, whose release happened to precede Psychos by a few months. However, due to Peeping Toms critical drubbing at the time and short lifespan at the box office, Psycho was the more widely known and influential film.
In 2018, Zachary Paul of Bloody Disgusting said Psycho inspired subsequent horror films that had gender bender reveals, citing Terror Train (1980), Sleepaway Camp (1983), and the Insidious franchise (2011-) as examples. Paul criticized all these films for equating queerness with derangement but noted the makers of these films didn't intend to offend anyone. Paul added "The days of gender reveals posing as a big twist come the third act of any mystery or hack n' slash flick are likely numbered. The trope has certainly had its day in the sun, and it's best we all move on."Psycho has been referenced in other films numerous times: examples include the 1974 musical comedy horror film Phantom of the Paradise; the 1978 horror film Halloween (which starred Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Leigh's daughter, and which featured a character named Sam Loomis); the 1977 Mel Brooks tribute to many of Hitchcock's thrillers, High Anxiety; the 1980 Fade to Black; the 1980 Dressed to Kill; and Wes Craven's 1996 horror satire Scream. Bernard Herrmann's opening theme has been sampled by rapper Busta Rhymes on his song "Gimme Some More" (1998). Manuel Muñoz's 2011 novel What You See in the Dark includes a sub-plot that fictionalizes elements of the filming of Psycho, referring to Hitchcock and Leigh only as "The Director" and "The Actress". In the comic book stories of Jonni Future, the house inherited by the title character is patterned after the Bates Motel. The film was played alongside The Shining at the drive-in theater as part of the Night of Horrors combo in the 1996 film Twister. In the 2003 animated film Finding Nemo, the Psycho theme song is played in reference to Dr. Sherman's niece Darla, whose pet fish are known to have died in her possession.
The film boosted Perkins' career, but he soon began to suffer from typecasting. When Perkins was asked whether he would have still taken the role knowing that he would be typecast afterwards, he said, "Yes." As Perkins was in New York working on a Broadway stage show when the shower sequence was filmed, actresses Anne Dore and Margo Epper stepped in as his body doubles for that scene. Until her death in 2004, Leigh received strange and sometimes threatening calls, letters, and even tapes detailing what the caller would like to do to Marion Crane. One letter was so "grotesque" that she passed it to the FBI. Two agents visited Leigh and told her the culprits had been located and that she should notify the FBI if she received any more letters of that type.
Leigh said: "No other murder mystery in the history of the movies has inspired such merchandising". A number of items emblazoned with Bates Motel, stills, lobby cards, and highly valuable posters are available for purchase. In 1992 Innovation Comics published a three-issue, shot-for-shot comics miniseries adaptation of the film. In 2010, Taylor Swift starred in a TV concert-documentary special that aired on NBC on Thanksgiving to promote her album Speak Now. In the special, Swift and her band perform her song "Haunted" at the Bates haunted house during Universal's Halloween Horror Nights. The film was mentioned and a trademark of its soundtrack was also used in Billy Joel's song "We Didn't Start the Fire".
Sequels and remake
Three sequels were produced after Hitchcock died: Psycho II (1983), Psycho III (1986), and Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990), the last being a part-prequel television movie written by the original screenplay author, Joseph Stefano. Anthony Perkins returned to his role of Norman Bates in all three sequels, and also directed the third film. The voice of Norman Bates' mother was maintained by noted radio actress Virginia Gregg with the exception of Psycho IV, where the role was played by Olivia Hussey. Vera Miles also reprised her role of Lila Crane in Psycho II. The sequels received mixed reviews and were universally considered inferior to the original.
In 1998, Gus Van Sant made a nearly shot-for-shot remake (in color) starring Vince Vaughn, Julianne Moore, and Anne Heche. Van Sant said that his film was "a huge kind of experimental project", and that, though it did not do well commercially or critically, he may do it again, with more changes.
See also
Bates Motel, a television series that ran from 2013 to 2017 presented as a "prequel" to Psycho, though set in modern times. Freddie Highmore played a younger Norman Bates, Vera Farmiga played Norma Bates and in the final season, Rihanna guest-starred as Marion Crane.
False protagonist
Hitchcock, a 2012 biopic film about Hitchcock and the making of Psycho with Anthony Hopkins as Hitchcock, Helen Mirren as his wife Alma Reville, Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh, and James D'Arcy as Anthony Perkins.
List of American films of 1960
Notes
References
Further reading
Production of Psycho
Anobile, Richard J.; editor. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (The Film Classics Library). Avon Books, 1974. This volume, published before the proliferation of home video, is entirely composed of photo reproductions of film frames along with dialogue captions, creating a fumetti of the entire motion picture.
Durgnat, Raymond E. A Long Hard Look at Psycho (BFI Film Classics). British Film Institute, 2002.
Kolker, Robert; editor. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho: A Casebook. Oxford University Press, 2005.
Naremore, James. Filmguide to Psycho. Indiana University Press, 1973.
Rebello, Stephen. Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho. Dembner Books, 1990. A definitive "making of" account tracing every stage of the production of the film as well as its aftermath.
Rebello, Stephen. "Psycho: The Making of Alfred Hitchcock's Masterpiece". "Cinefantastique", April 1986 (Volume 16, Number 4/5). Comprehensive 22-page article.
Skerry, Philip J. The Shower Scene in Hitchcock's Psycho: Creating Cinematic Suspense and Terror. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2005.
Smith, Joseph W., III. The Psycho File: A Comprehensive Guide to Hitchcock's Classic Shocker. McFarland, 2009.
Thomson, David, The Moment of Psycho'' (2009)
External links
Psycho essay by Charles Taylor at National Film Registry
Filmsite: Psycho In-depth analysis of the film
Psycho and Bernard Herrmann film score
"Psycho at 50: What We've Learned from Alfred Hitchcock's Horror Classic" by Gary Susman – Moviefone – June 15, 2010
Psycho essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 , pages 563-565
1960 films
1960 horror films
1960 independent films
1960 LGBT-related films
1960s American films
1960s English-language films
1960s serial killer films
American black-and-white films
American LGBT-related films
American slasher films
Articles containing video clips
Censored films
Cross-dressing in American films
Edgar Award-winning works
Fiction about matricide
Films à clef
Films about dissociative identity disorder
Films about embezzlement
Films about sexual repression
Films based on American horror novels
Films based on works by Robert Bloch
Films directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe-winning performance
Films produced by Alfred Hitchcock
Films scored by Bernard Herrmann
Films set in California
Films set in Phoenix, Arizona
Films set in swamps
Films shot in California
Films with screenplays by Joseph Stefano
LGBT-related horror films
Paramount Pictures films
Psycho (franchise) films
United States National Film Registry films
Films about mother–son relationships
Films about incest |
23882 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol%20stack | Protocol stack | The protocol stack or network stack is an implementation of a computer networking protocol suite or protocol family. Some of these terms are used interchangeably but strictly speaking, the suite is the definition of the communication protocols, and the stack is the software implementation of them.
Individual protocols within a suite are often designed with a single purpose in mind. This modularization simplifies design and evaluation. Because each protocol module usually communicates with two others, they are commonly imagined as layers in a stack of protocols. The lowest protocol always deals with low-level interaction with the communications hardware. Each higher layer adds additional capabilities. User applications usually deal only with the topmost layers.
General protocol suite description
T ~ ~ ~ T
[A] [B]_[C]
Imagine three computers: A, B, and C. A and B both have radio equipment and can communicate via the airwaves using a suitable network protocol (such as IEEE 802.11). B and C are connected via a cable, using it to exchange data (again, with the help of a protocol, for example Point-to-Point Protocol). However, neither of these two protocols will be able to transport information from A to C, because these computers are conceptually on different networks. An inter-network protocol is required to connect them.
One could combine the two protocols to form a powerful third, mastering both cable and wireless transmission, but a different super-protocol would be needed for each possible combination of protocols. It is easier to leave the base protocols alone, and design a protocol that can work on top of any of them (the Internet Protocol is an example). This will make two stacks of two protocols each. The inter-network protocol will communicate with each of the base protocol in their simpler language; the base protocols will not talk directly to each other.
A request on computer A to send a chunk of data to C is taken by the upper protocol, which (through whatever means) knows that C is reachable through B. It, therefore, instructs the wireless protocol to transmit the data packet to B. On this computer, the lower layer handlers will pass the packet up to the inter-network protocol, which, on recognizing that B is not the final destination, will again invoke lower-level functions. This time, the cable protocol is used to send the data to C. There, the received packet is again passed to the upper protocol, which (with C being the destination) will pass it on to a higher protocol or application on C.
In practical implementation, protocol stacks are often divided into three major sections: media, transport, and applications. A particular operating system or platform will often have two well-defined software interfaces: one between the media and transport layers, and one between the transport layers and applications. The media-to-transport interface defines how transport protocol software makes use of particular media and hardware types and is associated with a device driver. For example, this interface level would define how TCP/IP transport software would talk to the network interface controller. Examples of these interfaces include ODI and NDIS in the Microsoft Windows and DOS environment. The application-to-transport interface defines how application programs make use of the transport layers. For example, this interface level would define how a web browser program would talk to TCP/IP transport software. Examples of these interfaces include Berkeley sockets and System V STREAMS in Unix-like environments, and Winsock for Microsoft Windows.
Examples
Spanning layer
An important feature of many communities of interoperability based on a common protocol stack is a spanning layer, a term coined by David Clark
Certain protocols are designed with the specific purpose of bridging differences at the lower layers, so that common agreements are not required there. Instead, the layer provides the definitions that permit translation to occur between a range of services or technologies used below. Thus, in somewhat abstract terms, at and above such a layer common standards contribute to interoperation, while below the layer translation is used. Such a layer is called a spanning layer in this paper. As a practical matter, real interoperation is achieved by the definition and use of effective spanning layers. But there are many different ways that a spanning layer can be crafted.
In the Internet protocol stack, the Internet Protocol Suite constitutes a spanning layer that defines a best-effort service for global routing of datagrams at Layer 3. The Internet is the community of interoperation based on this spanning layer.
See also
Cross-layer optimization
DECnet
Hierarchical internetworking model
Protocol Wars
Recursive Internetwork Architecture
Service layer
Signalling System No. 7
Systems Network Architecture
Wireless Application Protocol
X.25
References
Network protocols
Wikipedia articles with ASCII art |
23884 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilsner | Pilsner | Pilsner (also pilsener or simply pils) is a type of pale lager. It takes its name from the Bohemian city of Plzeň (), where the world's first pale lager (now known as Pilsner Urquell) was produced in 1842 by Pilsner Urquell Brewery.
History
Origin
The city of Plzeň was granted brewing rights in 1307. Until the mid-1840s, most Bohemian beers were top-fermented. The Pilsner Urquell Brewery, originally called in (, ), is where Pilsen beer was first brewed.
Brewers had begun aging beer made with cool fermenting yeasts in caves (lager, i.e., [stored]), which improved the beer's clarity and shelf-life. Part of this research benefited from the knowledge already expounded on in a book (printed in German in 1794, in Czech in 1799) written by Czech brewer () (1753–1805) from Brno.
The Plzeň brewery recruited the Bavarian brewer Josef Groll (1813–1887) who, using the local ingredients, produced the first batch of pale lager on 5 October 1842. The combination of Plzeň's remarkably soft water, local Saaz noble hops from nearby Žatec, low-protein Moravian barley malt prepared by indirectly heated kilning, and Bavarian-style lagering produced a clear, golden beer.
By 1853, the beer was available at 35 pubs in Prague. In 1856, it came to Vienna and in 1862 to Paris. In 1859, was registered as a brand name at the Chamber of Commerce and Trade in Plzeň. In 1898, the Pilsner Urquell trademark was created to put emphasis on being the original brewery (Urquell, meaning 'original source').
Some beers are labeled Urtyp Pilsener (UP) meaning they are brewed according to the original process, although many breweries use this accolade for their top beer.
Modern developments
The introduction of modern refrigeration to Germany by Carl von Linde in the late 19th century eliminated the need for caves for beer storage, enabling the brewing and storing of cool fermenting beer in many new locations.
Until 1993 the Pilsner Urquell brewery fermented its beer using open barrels in the cellars beneath their brewery. This changed in 1993 with the use of large cylindrical tanks. Small samples are still brewed in a traditional way for taste comparisons.
A modern pale lager termed a pilsner may have a very light, clear colour from pale to golden yellow, with varying levels of hop aroma and flavour. The alcohol strength of beers termed pilsner vary but are typically around 4.5%–5% (by volume). There are categories such as "European-Style Pilsner" at beer competitions such as the World Beer Cup. Pilsner style lagers are marketed internationally by numerous small brewers and larger conglomerates.
Styles
Czech-style Pilsner Bright golden colour, moderately bitter and distinct aroma, brewed with malt and Saaz hops. In the Czech Republic, only Pilsner Urquell is named as "pilsner". However, outside of the Czech Republic, Czech-style Pilsner is synonymous with any such lager beers (including any Czech brand) – for example Pilsner Urquell, Budweiser Budvar, Gambrinus, Kozel, Radegast, Staropramen, Starobrno and Krušovice.
German-style PilsnerLight straw to golden colour with more bitter or earthy taste – such as Beck's, Bitburger, Flensburger, Fürstenberg, Holsten, Jever, König, Krombacher, Radeberger, St. Pauli Girl, Veltins, Warsteiner, Wernesgrüner and Einbecker.
European-style PilsnerHas a slightly sweet taste, can be produced from grains other than barley malt – such as the Dutch: Amstel, Grolsch and Heineken or Belgian: Jupiler, Maes and Stella Artois.
Mexican-style PilsnerA type of pale lager, with a taste that is crisp, clean, and balanced. Many German and other Europeans immigrated during the period of the Second Mexican Empire, with Maximilian I of Mexico (who had his own brewer) coming from the Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, and they brought their style of beer making traditions with them. Except for some dark beers (Dos Equis Ambar, León Negra, Modelo Negra, and Noche Buena), which are Vienna-style beers almost all beer produced in Mexico is pilsner. Pacífico, a Mexican pilsner is named after the Pacific Ocean. Modelo Especial is described as a Pilsner lager by the brewer, but has a slightly richer and fuller taste than Corona.
American-style Pilsner German immigrants brought pilsner style beers to America in the mid-19th century. American pilsners today are still closer to the German style, but a traditional grist may contain up to 25% corn and/or rice. American pilsners have “significantly less flavor, hops, and bitterness than traditional European Pilsners,” according to the Beer Judge Certification Program.
Australian-style Pilsner Light straw to golden colour with more crisp, clean earthy taste.
See also
Beer by region
References
External links
Gesellschaft für Geschichte des Brauwesens e.V. (GGB)
Die Kunst des Bierbrauens
Beer styles
Beer in the Czech Republic
German beer styles
Plzeň
Types of beer |
23886 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston%20theory | Phlogiston theory | The phlogiston theory, a superseded scientific theory, postulated the existence of a fire-like element dubbed phlogiston () contained within combustible bodies and released during combustion. The name comes from the Ancient Greek (burning up), from (flame). The idea of a substance was first proposed in 1667 by Johann Joachim Becher and later put together more formally in 1703 by Georg Ernst Stahl. Phlogiston theory attempted to explain chemical processes such as combustion and rusting, now collectively known as oxidation. The theory was challenged by the concomitant weight increase and was abandoned before the end of the 18th century following experiments by Antoine Lavoisier in the 1770s and by other scientists. Phlogiston theory led to experiments that ultimately resulted in the identification (), and naming (1777), of oxygen by Joseph Priestley and Antoine Lavoisier, respectively.
Theory
Phlogiston theory states that phlogisticated substances contain phlogiston and that they dephlogisticate when burned, releasing stored phlogiston, which is absorbed by the air. Growing plants then absorb this phlogiston, which is why air does not spontaneously combust and also why plant matter burns. This method of accounting for combustion was inverse to the oxygen theory by Antoine Lavoisier.
In general, substances that burned in the air were said to be rich in phlogiston; the fact that combustion soon ceased in an enclosed space was taken as clear-cut evidence that air had the capacity to absorb only a finite amount of phlogiston. When the air had become completely phlogisticated it would no longer serve to support the combustion of any material, nor would a metal heated in it yield a calx; nor could phlogisticated air support life. Breathing was thought to take phlogiston out of the body.
Joseph Black's Scottish student Daniel Rutherford discovered nitrogen in 1772, and the pair used the theory to explain his results. The residue of air left after burning, in fact, a mixture of nitrogen and carbon dioxide, was sometimes referred to as phlogisticated air, having taken up all of the phlogiston. Conversely, when Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen, he believed it to be dephlogisticated air, capable of combining with more phlogiston and thus supporting combustion for longer than ordinary air.
History
Empedocles had formulated the classical theory that there were four elements—water, earth, fire, and air—and Aristotle reinforced this idea by characterising them as moist, dry, hot, and cold. Fire was thus thought of as a substance, and burning was seen as a process of decomposition that applied only to compounds. Experience had shown that burning was not always accompanied by a loss of material, and a better theory was needed to account for this.
Johann Joachim Becher
In 1667, Johann Joachim Becher published his book , which contained the first instance of what would become the phlogiston theory. In his book, Becher eliminated fire and air from the classical element model and replaced them with three forms of the earth: , , and . was the element that imparted oily, sulphurous, or combustible properties. Becher believed that was a key feature of combustion and was released when combustible substances were burned. Becher did not have much to do with phlogiston theory as we know it now, but he had a large influence on his student Stahl. Becher's main contribution was the start of the theory itself, however much of it was changed after him. Becher's idea was that combustible substances contain an ignitable matter, the .
Georg Ernst Stahl
In 1703, Georg Ernst Stahl, a professor of medicine and chemistry at Halle, proposed a variant of the theory in which he renamed Becher's to phlogiston, and it was in this form that the theory probably had its greatest influence. The term 'phlogiston' itself was not something that Stahl invented. There is evidence that the word was used as early as 1606, and in a way that was very similar to what Stahl was using it for. The term was derived from a Greek word meaning inflame. The following paragraph describes Stahl's view of phlogiston:
Stahl's first definition of phlogiston first appeared in his , published in 1697. His most quoted definition was found in the treatise on chemistry entitled in 1723. According to Stahl, phlogiston was a substance that was not able to be put into a bottle but could be transferred nonetheless. To him, wood was just a combination of ash and phlogiston, and making a metal was as simple as getting a metal calx and adding phlogiston. Soot was almost pure phlogiston, which is why heating it with a metallic calx transforms the calx into the metal and Stahl attempted to prove that the phlogiston in soot and sulphur were identical by converting sulphates to liver of sulphur using charcoal. He did not account for the increase in weight on combustion of tin and lead that were known at the time.
J. H. Pott
Johann Heinrich Pott, a student of one of Stahl's students, expanded the theory and attempted to make it much more understandable to a general audience. He compared phlogiston to light or fire, saying that all three were substances whose natures were widely understood but not easily defined. He thought that phlogiston should not be considered as a particle but as an essence that permeates substances, arguing that in a pound of any substance, one could not simply pick out the particles of phlogiston. Pott also observed the fact that when certain substances are burned they increase in mass instead of losing the mass of the phlogiston as it escapes; according to him, phlogiston was the basic fire principle and could not be obtained by itself. Flames were considered to be a mix of phlogiston and water, while a phlogiston-and-earthy mixture could not burn properly. Phlogiston permeates everything in the universe, it could be released as heat when combined with an acid. Pott proposed the following properties:
The form of phlogiston consists of a circular movement around its axis.
When homogeneous it cannot be consumed or dissipated in a fire.
The reason it causes expansion in most bodies is unknown, but not accidental. It is proportional to the compactness of the texture of the bodies or to the intimacy of their constitution.
The increase of weight during calcination is evident only after a long time, and is due either to the fact that the particles of the body become more compact, decrease the volume and hence increase the density as in the case of lead, or those little heavy particles of air become lodged in the substance as in the case of powdered zinc oxide.
Air attracts the phlogiston of bodies.
When set in motion, phlogiston is the chief active principle in nature of all inanimate bodies.
It is the basis of colours.
It is the principal agent in fermentation.
Pott's formulations proposed little new theory; he merely supplied further details and rendered existing theory more approachable to the common man.
Others
Johann Juncker also created a very complete picture of phlogiston. When reading Stahl's work, he assumed that phlogiston was in fact very material. He, therefore, came to the conclusion that phlogiston has the property of levity, or that it makes the compound that it is in much lighter than it would be without the phlogiston. He also showed that air was needed for combustion by putting substances in a sealed flask and trying to burn them.
Guillaume-François Rouelle brought the theory of phlogiston to France, where he was a very influential scientist and teacher, popularizing the theory very quickly. Many of his students became very influential scientists in their own right, Lavoisier included. The French viewed phlogiston as a very subtle principle that vanishes in all analysis, yet it is in all bodies. Essentially they followed straight from Stahl's theory.
Giovanni Antonio Giobert introduced Lavoisier's work in Italy. Giobert won a prize competition from the Academy of Letters and Sciences of Mantua in 1792 for his work refuting phlogiston theory. He presented a paper at the of Turin on 18 March 1792, entitled ("Chemical examination of the doctrine of phlogiston and the doctrine of pneumatists in relation to the nature of water"), which is considered the most original defence of Lavoisier's theory of water composition to appear in Italy.
Challenge and demise
Eventually, quantitative experiments revealed problems, including the fact that some metals gained weight after they burned, even though they were supposed to have lost phlogiston.
Some phlogiston proponents, like Robert Boyle, explained this by concluding that phlogiston has negative mass; others, such as Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, gave the more conventional argument that it is lighter than air. However, a more detailed analysis based on Archimedes' principle, the densities of magnesium and its combustion product showed that just being lighter than air could not account for the increase in weight. Stahl himself did not address the problem of the metals that burn gaining weight, but those who followed his school of thought were the ones that worked on this problem.
During the eighteenth century, as it became clear that metals gained weight after they were oxidized, phlogiston was increasingly regarded as a principle rather than a material substance. By the end of the eighteenth century, for the few chemists who still used the term phlogiston, the concept was linked to hydrogen. Joseph Priestley, for example, in referring to the reaction of steam on iron, while fully acknowledging that the iron gains weight after it binds with oxygen to form a calx, iron oxide, iron also loses "the basis of inflammable air (hydrogen), and this is the substance or principle, to which we give the name phlogiston". Following Lavoisier's description of oxygen as the oxidizing principle (hence its name, from Ancient Greek: , "sharp"; , "birth" referring to oxygen's supposed role in the formation of acids), Priestley described phlogiston as the alkaline principle.
Phlogiston remained the dominant theory until the 1770s when Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier showed that combustion requires a gas that has weight (specifically, oxygen) and could be measured by means of weighing closed vessels. The use of closed vessels by Lavoisier and earlier by the Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov also negated the buoyancy that had disguised the weight of the gases of combustion, and culminated in the principle of mass conservation. These observations solved the mass paradox and set the stage for the new oxygen theory of combustion. The British chemist Elizabeth Fulhame demonstrated through experiment that many oxidation reactions occur only in the presence of water, that they directly involve water, and that water is regenerated and is detectable at the end of the reaction. Based on her experiments, she disagreed with some of the conclusions of Lavoisier as well as with the phlogiston theorists that he critiqued. Her book on the subject appeared in print soon after Lavoisier's execution for Farm-General membership during the French Revolution.
Experienced chemists who supported Stahl's phlogiston theory attempted to respond to the challenges suggested by Lavoisier and the newer chemists. In doing so, phlogiston theory became more complicated and assumed too much, contributing to the overall demise of the theory. Many people tried to remodel their theories on phlogiston to have the theory work with what Lavoisier was doing in his experiments. Pierre Macquer reworded his theory many times, and even though he is said to have thought the theory of phlogiston was doomed, he stood by phlogiston and tried to make the theory work.
See also
References
External links
1667 introductions
1667 in science
Combustion
Obsolete theories in chemistry
Misidentified chemical elements
Obsolete theories in physics |
23888 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poltergeist | Poltergeist | In German folklore and ghostlore, a poltergeist ( or ; ; or ) is a type of ghost or spirit that is responsible for physical disturbances, such as loud noises and objects being moved or destroyed. Most claims or fictional descriptions of poltergeists show them as being capable of pinching, biting, hitting, and tripping people. They are also depicted as capable of the movement or levitation of objects such as furniture and cutlery, or noises such as knocking on doors. Foul smells are also associated with poltergeist occurrences, as well as spontaneous fires and different electrical issues such as flickering lights.
These manifestations have been recorded in many cultures and countries, including Brazil, Australia, the United States, Japan and most European nations. The first recorded cases date back to the 1st century.
Etymology
The word poltergeist comes from the German language words and and the term itself translates as , or a . A synonym coined by René Sudre is thorybism, from the Ancient Greek () .
Suggested explanations
Hoax
Many claims have been made that poltergeist activity explains strange events (including those by modern self-styled ghost hunters), however their evidence has so far not stood up to scrutiny. Many claimed poltergeist events have been proven upon investigation to be hoaxes.
Psychical researcher Frank Podmore proposed the 'naughty little girl' theory for poltergeist cases (many of which have seemed to centre on an adolescent, usually a girl). He found that the centre of the disturbance was often a child who was throwing objects around to fool or scare people for attention. Skeptical investigator Joe Nickell says that claimed poltergeist incidents typically originate from "an individual who is motivated to cause mischief". According to Nickell:
In the typical poltergeist outbreak, small objects are hurled through the air by unseen forces, furniture is overturned, or other disturbances occur—usually just what could be accomplished by a juvenile trickster determined to plague credulous adults.
Nickell writes that reports are often exaggerated by credulous witnesses.
Time and time again in other "poltergeist" outbreaks, witnesses have reported an object leaping from its resting place supposedly on its own, when it is likely that the perpetrator had secretly obtained the object sometime earlier and waited for an opportunity to fling it, even from outside the room—thus supposedly proving he or she was innocent.
Unsubstantiated claims:
Stockwell ghost (1772) - since 1825
Ballechin House (1876)
The Enfield poltergeist claim (1977) - John Beloff, a former president of the Society for Psychical Research and Anita Gregory concluded that the claimants were playing tricks on the investigators.
Columbus poltergeist case (1984)
Psychological
A claim of activity at Caledonia Mills (1899–1922) was investigated by Walter Franklin Prince, research officer for the American Society for Psychical Research in 1922. Prince concluded that the mysterious fires and alleged poltergeist phenomena were because of a psychological state of dissociation.
Nandor Fodor investigated the Thornton Heath poltergeist claim (1938). His conclusion of the case were a psychoanalytical explanation and in a subsequent publication: "The poltergeist is not a ghost. It is a bundle of projected repressions,".
According to research in anomalistic psychology, claims of poltergeist activity can be explained by psychological factors such as illusion, memory lapses, and wishful thinking. A study (Lange and Houran, 1998) wrote that poltergeist experiences are delusions "resulting from the affective and cognitive dynamics of percipients' interpretation of ambiguous stimuli". Psychologist Donovan Rawcliffe has written that almost all poltergeist cases that have been investigated turned out to be based on trickery, whilst the rest are attributable to psychological factors such as hallucinations.
Psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung was interested in the concept of poltergeists and the occult in general. Jung believed that a female cousin's trance states were responsible for a dining table splitting in two and his later discovery of a broken bread knife.
Jung also believed that when a bookcase gave an explosive cracking sound during a meeting with Sigmund Freud in 1909, he correctly predicted there would be a second sound, speculating that such phenomena were caused by 'exteriorization' of his subconscious mind. Freud disagreed, and concluded there was some natural cause. Freud biographers maintain the sounds were likely caused by the wood of the bookcase contracting as it dried out.
Unverified natural phenomena
Attempts have also been made to scientifically explain poltergeist disturbances that have not been traced to fraud or psychological factors. Skeptic and magician Milbourne Christopher found that some cases of poltergeist activity can be attributed to unusual air currents, such as a 1957 case on Cape Cod where downdrafts from an uncovered chimney became strong enough to blow a mirror off a wall, overturn chairs and knock things off shelves.
In the 1950s, Guy William Lambert proposed that reported poltergeist phenomena could be explained by the movement of underground water causing stress on houses. He suggested that water turbulence could cause strange sounds or structural movement of the property, possibly causing the house to vibrate and move objects. Later researchers, such as Alan Gauld and Tony Cornell, tested Lambert's hypothesis by placing specific objects in different rooms and subjecting the house to strong mechanical vibrations. They discovered that although the structure of the building had been damaged, only a few of the objects moved a very short distance. The skeptic Trevor H. Hall criticized the hypothesis claiming if it was true "the building would almost certainly fall into ruins." According to Richard Wiseman the hypothesis has not held up to scrutiny.
Michael Persinger has theorized that seismic activity could cause poltergeist phenomena. However, Persinger's claims regarding the effects of environmental geomagnetic activity on paranormal experiences have not been independently replicated and, like his findings regarding the God helmet, may simply be explained by the suggestibility of participants.
David Turner, a retired physical chemist, suggested that ball lightning might cause the "spooky movement of objects blamed on poltergeists."
Sampford Peverell (1810–1811) - poltergeistal noises were determined made by smugglers from behind a false wall
Paranormal
Parapsychologists Nandor Fodor and William G. Roll suggested that poltergeist activity can be explained by psychokinesis.
Historically, actual malicious spirits were blamed for apparent poltergeist-type activity, such as objects moving seemingly of their own accord. According to Allan Kardec, the founder of Spiritism, poltergeists are manifestations of disembodied spirits of low level, belonging to the sixth class of the third order. Under this explanation, they are believed to be closely associated with the elements (fire, air, water, earth). In Finland, somewhat famous are the case of the "Mäkkylä Ghost" in 1946, which received attention in the press at the time, and the "Devils of Martin" in Ylöjärvi in the late 19th century, for which affidavits were obtained in court. Samuli Paulaharju has also recorded a memoir of a typical the case of "Salkko-from the south of Lake Inari in his book Memoirs of Lapland (Lapin muisteluksia). The story has also been published in the collection of Mythical Stories (Myytillisiä tarinoita) edited by Lauri Simonsuuri.
Famous cases
Glenluce Devil (1654–1656)
Drummer of Tedworth (1662)
Mackie poltergeist (1695)
Wesley poltergeist claim at Epworth Rectory (1716–1717)
Hinton Ampner (1764–1771)
Bell Witch of Tennessee (1817–1872)
John Bovee Dods (1824)
Bealings Bells (1834)
Angelique Cottin (ca. 1846)
Great Amherst Mystery (1878–1879)
Gef the Talking Mongoose (1931)
Borley Rectory (1937)
Seaford poltergeist (1958)
Matthew Manning (1960s–1970s)
The Black Monk of Pontefract (1960s–1970s)
Rosenheim poltergeist claim (1967)
The Stambovsky v. Ackley poltergeist (1970s–1980s)
The Amityville case (1975)
Enfield poltergeist (1977-1979)
Thornton Road poltergeist claim, Birmingham (1981)
Ammons Haunting case 2011
See also
Apparitional experience
Ghost
Ghost hunting
Parapsychology topics (list)
List of topics characterized as pseudoscience
Lithobolia
Mischievous fairies
Spiritism
Stigmatized property
References
Further reading
Christopher, Milbourne (1970). ESP, Seers & Psychics. Thomas Y. Crowell Co.
Nickell, Joe (2012). The Science of Ghosts: Searching for Spirits of the Dead. Prometheus Books.
Podmore, Frank (1896). Poltergeists. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 12: 45–115.
A.R.G. Owen. (1964). Can We Explain the Poltergeist? Garrett Publications / New York
Goss, Michael. (1979). Poltergeists: An Annotated Bibliography of Works in English, Circa 1880–1975. Scarecrow Press.
Sitwell, Sacheverell. (1988, originally published in 1940). Poltergeists: An Introduction and Examination Followed by Chosen Instances. Dorset Press.
External links
The Poltergeist and his explainers, Andrew Lang, Psychanalyse-paris.com
Skeptic's Dictionary
German ghosts
Germanic legendary creatures
Telekinesis |
23889 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulley | Pulley | A pulley is a wheel on an axle or shaft enabling a taut cable or belt passing over the wheel to move and change direction, or transfer power between itself and a shaft. A sheave or pulley wheel is a pulley using an axle supported by a frame or shell (block) to guide a cable or exert force.
A pulley may have a groove or grooves between flanges around its circumference to locate the cable or belt. The drive element of a pulley system can be a rope, cable, belt, or chain.
The earliest evidence of pulleys dates back to Ancient Egypt in the Twelfth Dynasty (1991–1802 BC) and Mesopotamia in the early 2nd millennium BC. In Roman Egypt, Hero of Alexandria (c. 10–70 AD) identified the pulley as one of six simple machines used to lift weights. Pulleys are assembled to form a block and tackle in order to provide mechanical advantage to apply large forces. Pulleys are also assembled as part of belt and chain drives in order to transmit power from one rotating shaft to another. Plutarch's Parallel Lives recounts a scene where Archimedes proved the effectiveness of compound pulleys and the block-and-tackle system by using one to pull a fully laden ship towards him as if it was gliding through water.
Block and tackle
A block is a set of pulleys (wheels) assembled so that each pulley rotates independently from every other pulley. Two blocks with a rope attached to one of the blocks and threaded through the two sets of pulleys form a block and tackle.
A block and tackle is assembled so one block is attached to the fixed mounting point and the other is attached to the moving load. The ideal mechanical advantage of the block and tackle is equal to the number of sections of the rope that support the moving block.
In the diagram on the right, the ideal mechanical advantage of each of the block and tackle assemblies shown is as follows:
Gun tackle: 2
Luff tackle: 3
Double tackle: 4
Gyn tackle: 5
Threefold purchase: 6
Rope and pulley systems
A rope and pulley system—that is, a block and tackle—is characterised by the use of a single continuous rope to transmit a tension force around one or more pulleys to lift or move a load—the rope may be a light line or a strong cable. This system is included in the list of simple machines identified by Renaissance scientists.
If the rope and pulley system does not dissipate or store energy, then its mechanical advantage is the number of parts of the rope that act on the load. This can be shown as follows.
Consider the set of pulleys that form the moving block and the parts of the rope that support this block. If there are p of these parts of the rope supporting the load W, then a force balance on the moving block shows that the tension in each of the parts of the rope must be W/p. This means the input force on the rope is T=W/p. Thus, the block and tackle reduces the input force by the factor p.
Method of operation
The simplest theory of operation for a pulley system assumes that the pulleys and lines are weightless and that there is no energy loss due to friction. It is also assumed that the lines do not stretch.
In equilibrium, the forces on the moving block must sum to zero. In addition the tension in the rope must be the same for each of its parts. This means that the two parts of the rope supporting the moving block must each support half the load.
These are different types of pulley systems:
Fixed: A fixed pulley has an axle mounted in bearings attached to a supporting structure. A fixed pulley changes the direction of the force on a rope or belt that moves along its circumference. Mechanical advantage is gained by combining a fixed pulley with a movable pulley or another fixed pulley of a different diameter.
Movable: A movable pulley has an axle in a movable block. A single movable pulley is supported by two parts of the same rope and has a mechanical advantage of two.
Compound: A combination of fixed and movable pulleys forms a block and tackle. A block and tackle can have several pulleys mounted on the fixed and moving axles, further increasing the mechanical advantage.
The mechanical advantage of the gun tackle can be increased by interchanging the fixed and moving blocks so the rope is attached to the moving block and the rope is pulled in the direction of the lifted load. In this case the block and tackle is said to be "rove to advantage." Diagram 3 shows that now three rope parts support the load W which means the tension in the rope is W/3. Thus, the mechanical advantage is three.
By adding a pulley to the fixed block of a gun tackle the direction of the pulling force is reversed though the mechanical advantage remains the same, Diagram 3a. This is an example of the Luff tackle.
Free body diagrams
The mechanical advantage of a pulley system can be analysed using free body diagrams which balance the tension force in the rope with the force of gravity on the load. In an ideal system, the massless and frictionless pulleys do not dissipate energy and allow for a change of direction of a rope that does not stretch or wear. In this case, a force balance on a free body that includes the load, W, and n supporting sections of a rope with tension T, yields:
The ratio of the load to the input tension force is the mechanical advantage MA of the pulley system,
Thus, the mechanical advantage of the system is equal to the number of sections of rope supporting the load.
Belt and pulley systems
A belt and pulley system is characterized by two or more pulleys in common to a belt. This allows for mechanical power, torque, and speed to be transmitted across axles. If the pulleys are of differing diameters, a mechanical advantage is realized.
A belt drive is analogous to that of a chain drive; however, a belt sheave may be smooth (devoid of discrete interlocking members as would be found on a chain sprocket, spur gear, or timing belt) so that the mechanical advantage is approximately given by the ratio of the pitch diameter of the sheaves only, not fixed exactly by the ratio of teeth as with gears and sprockets.
In the case of a drum-style pulley, without a groove or flanges, the pulley often is slightly convex to keep the flat belt centered. It is sometimes referred to as a crowned pulley. Though once widely used on factory line shafts, this type of pulley is still found driving the rotating brush in upright vacuum cleaners, in belt sanders and bandsaws. Agricultural tractors built up to the early 1950s generally had a belt pulley for a flat belt (which is what Belt Pulley magazine was named after). It has been replaced by other mechanisms with more flexibility in methods of use, such as power take-off and hydraulics.
Just as the diameters of gears (and, correspondingly, their number of teeth) determine a gear ratio and thus the speed increases or reductions and the mechanical advantage that they can deliver, the diameters of pulleys determine those same factors. Cone pulleys and step pulleys (which operate on the same principle, although the names tend to be applied to flat belt versions and V-belt versions, respectively) are a way to provide multiple drive ratios in a belt-and-pulley system that can be shifted as needed, just as a transmission provides this function with a gear train that can be shifted. V-belt step pulleys are the most common way that drill presses deliver a range of spindle speeds.
With belts and pulleys, friction is one of the most important forces. Some uses for belts and pulleys involve peculiar angles (leading to bad belt tracking and possibly slipping the belt off the pulley) or low belt-tension environments, causing unnecessary slippage of the belt and hence extra wear to the belt. To solve this, pulleys are sometimes lagged. Lagging is the term used to describe the application of a coating, cover or wearing surface with various textured patterns which is sometimes applied to pulley shells. Lagging is often applied in order to extend the life of the shell by providing a replaceable wearing surface or to improve the friction between the belt and the pulley. Notably drive pulleys are often rubber lagged (coated with a rubber friction layer) for exactly this reason. Applying powdered rosin to the belt may increase the friction temporarily, but may shorten the life of the belt.
See also
References
External links
Mechanics
Simple machines
Mechanical power transmission
Egyptian inventions |
23890 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol%20on%20Environmental%20Protection%20to%20the%20Antarctic%20Treaty | Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty | The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, also known as the Madrid Protocol, is a complementary legal instrument to the Antarctic Treaty signed in Madrid on 4 October 1991. It entered into force on 14 January 1998.
The Madrid Protocol designates Antarctica as a "natural reserve, devoted to peace and science" (Art. 2). It complements and reinforces the Antarctic Treaty in order to increase the protection of the Antarctic environment and dependent and associated ecosystems.
Signatories
As of 2022, the original 26 nations to sign the Madrid Protocol have been joined by a further 16 nations. Of the 42 total signatories, 29 are Consultative Parties to the Antarctic Treaty, and the other 13 are Non-Consultative Parties (see Appendix 1).
Main provisions
The Protocol consists of a preamble, a main body with 27 articles, an appendix on Arbitration (13 additional articles) and six annexes, the last of which has not yet entered into force.
The Protocol's preamble describes the desire of the Antarctic Treaty Parties to develop a comprehensive regime for the protection of the Antarctic environment and dependent and associated ecosystems, in the interest of mankind as a whole.
The main body of the Protocol includes the following key provisions:
Article 2: "The Parties commit themselves to the comprehensive protection of the Antarctic environment and dependent and associated ecosystems and hereby designate Antarctica as a natural reserve, devoted to peace and science."
Article 3 contains the environmental principles on which the Protocol is based. These principles state the need to protect the natural and scientific values of Antarctica, with particular emphasis on the obligation to carry out careful planning of Antarctic activities, in order to avoid or mitigate the harmful impacts on the environment that they could cause.
Article 7 prohibits any activity relating to mineral resources, other than scientific research.
Article 8 establishes that, before proceeding with an activity in Antarctica, prior assessment of the likely impacts of the proposed activity on the Antarctic environment or on dependent or associated ecosystems must be carried out.
Articles 11 and 12 establish the Committee for Environmental Protection and its functions, which comprise providing advice and formulating recommendations to the Parties in connection with the implementation of the Protocol.
Article 14 stresses the need to carry out inspections (in accordance with Article VII of the Antarctic Treaty) in order to promote the protection of the Antarctic environment and dependent and associated ecosystems, and to ensure compliance with the Protocol.
Article 15 establishes that each Party agrees to provide for prompt and effective response action in cases of environmental emergencies in the Antarctic Treaty area that might arise in the performance of scientific research programmes, tourism and all other governmental and non-governmental activities.
Annexes to the Protocol
The Protocol has six annexes with practical provisions for the protection of the Antarctic ecosystem. Article 9 of the Protocol allows for the amendment or modification of Annexes and provides for the possibility that new annexes be added to the existing ones, in order to guarantee a permanent updating mechanism.
The annexes are:
Environmental Impact Assessment
Conservation of Antarctic Fauna and Flora
Waste Disposal and Waste Management
Prevention of Marine Pollution
Area Protection and Management
Liability Arising from Environmental Emergencies
The Protocol and its first four annexes entered into force on January 14, 1998, after being adopted by all the Consultative Parties to the Antarctic Treaty. Annex V was drafted after the first four annexes and entered into force on May 24, 2002. The sixth annex was agreed at the XXVIII Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (Stockholm, 2005) and has not yet entered into force as it still awaits adoption by all Consultative Parties. As of 2022, 19 of the 29 Consultative Parties have adopted it. In 2009 an amendment to Annex II was adopted.
Annex I: Environmental Impact Assessment
This Annex establishes that all activities carried out in the Antarctic Treaty area must be preceded by an environmental impact assessment (EIA), to foresee the likely impacts that such activities might cause on the Antarctic environment. The EIA is a process that aims to provide information to decision-makers about the environmental consequences of a proposed activity. Such assessment allows the development and implementation of mitigation and restoration measures.
Annex II: Conservation of Antarctic flora and fauna
In order to protect Antarctic fauna and flora and taking into account that human activity may represent a threat to their survival, Annex II establishes that the taking and harmful interference of Antarctic species, as well as the introduction of non-native species to the continent, are prohibited, except with a permit issued by an Antarctic Treaty Party.
According to Annex II, the taking of Antarctic species means to kill, injure, capture, handle or molest a native mammal or bird, or to remove or damage such quantities of native plants or invertebrates that their local distribution or abundance would be significantly affected. Annex II also establishes that harmful interference to an Antarctic species can occur due to multiple reasons, among which are:
the flight or landing of helicopters or other aircraft, the use of vehicles or boats (including hovercraft and small boats), or explosives and firearms, that disturb the concentration of native birds or seals;
wilful disturbance of breeding or moulting native birds or concentrations of native birds or seals by persons on foot;
significant damage to concentrations of native terrestrial plants by landing aircraft, driving vehicles, by stepping on such plants, or by any other means; and
any activity that results in the significant adverse modification of habitats of any species or population of native mammal, bird, plant or invertebrate.
Annex II also prohibits the introduction onto land or ice shelves, or into water, in the Antarctic Treaty Area of any non-native species of living organisms, except in accordance with a permit. The prohibition of introducing non-native species is related to their potential to negatively affect native species. A non-native species may act as a competitor (for habitat and/or food) with the native species; as a vector of diseases to which native species are not accustomed; as a habitat-modifying agent, or as a predator of the native species. The only types of species allowed to enter Antarctica, after a permit has been issued, are cultivated plants and their reproductive propagules for controlled use and species of living organisms for controlled experimental use.
Finally, Annex II allows for the designation as Specially Protected Antarctic Species those species of native mammals, birds, plants and invertebrates, whose survival or stability could be in a particularly compromised situation.
Annex III: Waste Disposal and Treatment
Pursuant to this Annex, Antarctic waste management includes the planning, classification, management, storage, transportation and final disposal of all waste generated south of 60°S.
Annex III prohibits the open burning or disposal of waste onto ice-free areas or into freshwater systems.
It also establishes that the amount of waste produced or disposed of in the Antarctic Treaty area shall be reduced as far as practicable so as to minimise impact on the Antarctic environment.
The Protocol contemplates three methods for the final disposal of waste in Antarctica:
Removal: Annex III establishes that Antarctic wastes be removed from the Antarctic Treaty Area to the maximum extent practicable. Before being removed, all waste shall be stored in such a way as to prevent its dispersal into the environment.
Controlled incineration: This option can only be carried out in those facilities which, to the maximum extent practicable, reduce harmful emissions (controlled combustion incinerators). Only biodegradable waste can be incinerated. The solid residue of such incineration shall be removed from the Antarctic Treaty area.
Disposal to the sea: Disposal of sewage and domestic liquid waste to the sea is allowed, exclusively in areas where conditions exist for its initial dilution and rapid dispersion (i.e., in currents that go offshore). When the station exceeds 30 people, the Annex requires that such waste be previously treated, at least by maceration.
This Annex also proposes a classification system for waste generated in Antarctica, which serves as a basis for keeping a record of waste and to facilitate studies aimed at evaluating the impacts on the environment of scientific activities and associated logistical support. To this end, this Annex establishes that the waste generated must be classified into five groups:
• Group 1: sewage and domestic liquid waste,
• Group 2: other liquid wastes and chemicals, including fuels and lubricants,
• Group 3: solids to be combusted,
• Group 4: other solid wastes, and
• Group 5: radioactive material.
To further reduce the impact of waste on the Antarctic environment, Annex III to the Protocol establishes that each National Programme* must prepare, review and periodically update waste treatment plans for bases, camps and vessels, specifying programmes for cleaning up existing waste disposal sites and abandoned work sites.
*Note: A National Antarctic Programme is defined as "the entity with national responsibility for managing support for scientific research in the Antarctic Treaty Area on behalf of its government and in the spirit of the Antarctic Treaty". Each signatory to the Antarctic Treaty normally establishes a National Antarctic Programme to coordinate its activities in Antarctica.
Annex IV: Prevention of Marine Pollution
This Annex establishes prohibitions and restrictions on the dumping of waste from ships, while operating in the Antarctic Treaty area. This Annex is part of the provisions of the convention to prevent Marine Pollution from ships, known internationally as MARPOL 73/78 (originally signed in 1973, with amendments in 1978), within the framework of which, in 1990, it was agreed to grant Antarctic waters the status of Special Zone, where greater restrictions must be observed than in other international waters.
Thus, any discharge into the sea of oil or oily mixture, any noxious liquid substance, and any other chemical or other substances (in quantities or concentrations that are harmful to the marine environment), and all plastics (including but not limited to synthetic ropes, synthetic fishing nets, and plastic garbage bags) shall be prohibited.
The Annex also regulates discharges into the sea of untreated sewage, as defined in Annex IV of MARPOL 73/78, and establishes that all ships, before entering the Antarctic Treaty area, are fitted with a tank or tanks of sufficient capacity on board for the retention of all sludge, dirty ballast, tank washing water and other oily residues and mixtures.
Finally, Annex IV states that, to respond more effectively to marine pollution emergencies, the Parties shall develop contingency plans for marine pollution response in the Antarctic Treaty area.
Annex V: Area Protection and Management
Annex V to the Protocol establishes a new scheme of protected areas in Antarctica, made up of three categories: Antarctic Specially Protected Areas (ASPAs), Antarctic Specially Managed Areas (ASMAs), and Historic Sites and Monuments (HSMs).
An Antarctic Specially Protected Area (ASPA) is a terrestrial or marine area that has outstanding environmental, scientific, aesthetic, historic or wilderness values, or ongoing or planned scientific research, that the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM), after any Party's proposal, designates as such to protect those values. Former Sites of Special Scientific Interest and former Specially Protected Areas, designated as such by previous Consultative Meetings, were then reclassified as ASPAs.
Annex V prohibits entering an ASPA, except in accordance with a permit issued by any Party to the Antarctic Treaty. It also establishes that each ASPA shall have a Management Plan, a document that identifies the values to be protected and the measures to be taken to guarantee their proper management.
An Antarctic Specially Managed Area (ASMA) is an area where different types of human activities (logistics, scientific, conservation, tourism) concur and might pose risks of mutual interference or cumulative environmental impacts. They are designated as ASMAs to help plan and coordinate activities, avoid potential conflicts of interest, improve cooperation between Parties or minimise adverse environmental impacts. ASMAs can comprise marine or terrestrial sectors, and may contain ASPAs. Entry to ASMAs does not require a permit, but, if there is an ASPA within, entry to this does require it.
Finally, certain sites, graves, objects, constructions or artifacts located on the Antarctic continent have a historical value that the Antarctic Treaty System recognises through their designation as Antarctic Historic Sites and Monuments (HSMs). HSMs can be part of ASPAs, ASMAs, or simply be listed as such. The elements that are part of a Historic Site and Monument must not be damaged, removed or destroyed.
As of 2022, there are 75 ASPAs, 6 ASMAs and 90 HSMs, although these numbers tend to increase gradually with advances in knowledge of the continent. The Antarctic Treaty Secretariat maintains a database and maps of all protected areas in Antarctica.
Annex VI: Responsibility arising from Environmental Emergencies
This Annex outlines arrangements to prevent and respond to environmental emergencies in the Antarctic Treaty area arising from scientific research programmes, tourism and other governmental and non-governmental activities. It establishes the rules governing liability for environmental emergencies, and provides that compensation may be claimed from the polluter if that party has not taken prompt and effective response action.
Background of the Protocol
The protection of the Antarctic environment was not one of the main original objectives of the Antarctic Treaty. The main engines of this agreement were the safeguarding of peace and freedom for the development of scientific research. However, some prohibitions and restrictions contained in the Treaty, especially those referring to nuclear activity, can be considered important from the environmental point of view. Once the Antarctic Treaty entered into force in 1961, a series of measures were agreed under the provisions of its article IX (which provides for the creation of measures aimed at "the preservation and conservation of living resources in Antarctica"), or in separate conventions, which focused on issues such as the protection of flora and fauna, the designation of protected areas, and waste and fuel management, among others.
The Madrid Protocol was negotiated by the Parties to the Antarctic Treaty between 1989 and 1991, following the failure to agree on an international regulatory instrument governing mining in Antarctica (the Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resource Activities, or CRAMRA).
The Protocol built on a range of environmental provisions agreed at several ATCMs since the signing of the Treaty including the 1964 Agreed Measures on the Conservation of Antarctic Fauna and Flora. It also picked up environmental management elements that had been developed during the CRAMRA negotiations (such as emergency response provisions), as well as previous work of the Scientific Committee of Antarctic Research (SCAR) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO), on waste management and marine pollution, respectively.
The agreement on the Madrid Protocol constituted the culmination of years of development of environmental standards and practices, which were synthesised and articulated into a single comprehensive agreement. The Protocol set out new rules on environmental protection, including new restrictions to human activity in Antarctica and a framework to incorporate new issues through the elaboration of additional annexes. Through the Protocol, the protection of the Antarctic environment was established as the third pillar of the Antarctic Treaty, together with peaceful use and international scientific cooperation.
The issue of minerals in the Protocol
Article 7 of the Madrid Protocol expressly prohibits any activity related to the exploitation of Antarctic mineral resources, except for scientific research. In principle, this prohibition of exploration and exploitation of mineral resources is valid indefinitely, although Article 25 of the Protocol establishes the possibility that any Consultative Party may request a review of the application of its content, once 50 years have elapsed since the entry into force of the Protocol (in the year 2048). This provision applies by extension to Article 7. With particular reference to mineral resources, Article 25, in its first paragraph, establishes that, before proceeding with an amendment to Article 7, a series of circumstances and preconditions must be met. It is for this reason that some authors maintain that the Protocol establishes a 50-year moratorium on the exploration and exploitation of Antarctic minerals, although, in fact, a moratorium would imply the automatic fall of the provisions of Article 7, and this is not exactly the case raised by Article 25.
Appendix 1: Countries that have signed the Madrid Protocol
*The Protocol entered into force on January 14, 1998.
Campaign
The treaty followed a lengthy campaign by Greenpeace, including the construction of an Antarctic base from 1987 to 1991. Greenpeace claims the protocol as a victory.
Honours
Madrid Dome in Aristotle Mountains, Antarctica is named in connection with the Protocol.
References
External links
Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty
Text of the protocol, PDF format.
Ratifications
Environmental treaties
Antarctica agreements
1998 in Antarctica
Treaties concluded in 1991
Treaties entered into force in 1998
Environment of Antarctica
1998 in the environment
Treaties of Argentina
Treaties of Australia
Treaties of Belgium
Treaties of Brazil
Treaties of Bulgaria
Treaties of Chile
Treaties of the People's Republic of China
Treaties of Ecuador
Treaties of Finland
Treaties of France
Treaties of Germany
Treaties of India
Treaties of Italy
Treaties of Japan
Treaties of South Korea
Treaties of the Netherlands
Treaties of Norway
Treaties of Peru
Treaties of Poland
Treaties of Russia
Treaties of South Africa
Treaties of Spain
Treaties of Sweden
Treaties of the United Kingdom
Treaties of the United States
Treaties of Uruguay
Treaties of New Zealand
Treaties of Belarus
Treaties of Canada
Treaties of the Czech Republic
Treaties of Romania
Treaties of Ukraine
Treaties of Greece
1991 in Spain |
23891 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle%20radiation | Particle radiation | Particle radiation is the radiation of energy by means of fast-moving subatomic particles. Particle radiation is referred to as a particle beam if the particles are all moving in the same direction, similar to a light beam.
Due to the wave–particle duality, all moving particles also have wave character. Higher energy particles more easily exhibit particle characteristics, while lower energy particles more easily exhibit wave characteristics.
Types and production
Particles can be electrically charged or uncharged:
Particle radiation can be emitted by an unstable atomic nucleus (via radioactive decay), or it can be produced from some other kind of nuclear reaction. Many types of particles may be emitted:
protons and other hydrogen nuclei stripped of their electrons
positively charged alpha particles (α), equivalent to a helium-4 nucleus
helium ions at high energy levels
HZE ions, which are nuclei heavier than helium
positively or negatively charged beta particles (high-energy positrons β+ or electrons β−; the latter being more common)
high-speed electrons that are not from the beta decay process, but others such as internal conversion and Auger effect
neutrons, subatomic particles which have no charge; neutron radiation
neutrinos
mesons
muons
Mechanisms that produce particle radiation include:
alpha decay
Auger effect
beta decay
cluster decay
internal conversion
neutron emission
nuclear fission and spontaneous fission
nuclear fusion
particle colliders in which streams of high energy particles are smashed
proton emission
solar flares
solar particle events
supernova explosions
Additionally, galactic cosmic rays include these particles, but many are from unknown mechanisms
Charged particles (electrons, mesons, protons, alpha particles, heavier HZE ions, etc.) can be produced by particle accelerators. Ion irradiation is widely used in the semiconductor industry to introduce dopants into
materials, a method known as ion implantation.
Particle accelerators can also produce neutrino beams. Neutron beams are mostly produced by nuclear reactors.
Passage through matter
In radiation protection, radiation is often separated into two categories, ionizing and non-ionizing, to denote the level of danger posed to humans. Ionization is the process of removing electrons from atoms, leaving two electrically charged particles (an electron and a positively charged ion) behind. The negatively charged electrons and positively charged ions created by ionizing radiation may cause damage in living tissue. Basically, a particle is ionizing if its energy is higher than the ionization energy of a typical substance, i.e., a few eV, and interacts with electrons significantly.
According to the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, electromagnetic radiations from ultraviolet to infrared, to radiofrequency (including microwave) radiation, static and time-varying electric and magnetic fields, and ultrasound belong to the non-ionizing radiations.
The charged particles mentioned above all belong to the ionizing radiations. When passing through matter, they ionize and thus lose energy in many small steps. The distance to the point where the charged particle has lost all its energy is called the range of the particle. The range depends upon the type of particle, its initial energy, and the material it traverses. Similarly, the energy loss per unit path length, the 'stopping power', depends on the type and energy of the charged particle and upon the material. The stopping power and hence, the density of ionization, usually increases toward the end of range and reaches a maximum, the Bragg Peak, shortly before the energy drops to zero.
See also
Geiger counter
Ion chamber
Nuclear engineering
Nuclear physics
Particle accelerator
Particle decay
Physics
Proportional counter
Radiation
Radiation therapy
Radioactivity
Stopping power of radiation particles
References
External links
Stopping power and energy loss straggling calculations of ion beams in solids by MELF-GOS model
Radioactivity |
23893 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per%20capita%20income | Per capita income | Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year.
In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such as the American Community Survey. This allows the calculation of per capita income for both the country as a whole and specific regions or demographic groups. However, comparing per capita income across different countries is often difficult, since methodologies, definitions and data quality can vary greatly. Since the 1990s, the OECD has conducted regular surveys among its 38 member countries using a standardized methodology and set of questions.
Per capita income is often used to measure a sector's average income and compare the wealth of different populations. Per capita income is also often used to measure a country's standard of living. When used to compare income levels of different countries, it is usually expressed using a commonly used international currency, such as the euro or United States dollar. It is one of the three components of the Human Development Index of a country.
Limitations
While per capita income can be useful for many economic studies, it is important to keep in mind its limitations.
Comparisons of per capita income over time need to consider inflation. Without adjusting for inflation, figures tend to overstate the effects of economic growth.
International comparisons can be distorted by cost of living differences not reflected in exchange rates. Where the objective is to compare living standards between countries, adjusting for differences in purchasing power parity will more accurately reflect what people are actually able to buy with their money.
It is a mean value and does not reflect income distribution. If a country's income distribution is skewed, a small wealthy class can increase per capita income substantially while the majority of the population has no change in income. In this respect, median income is more useful when measuring of prosperity than per capita income, as it is less influenced by outliers.
Non-monetary activity, such as barter or services provided within the family, is usually not counted. The importance of these services varies widely among economies.
Per capita income does not consider whether income is invested in factors likely to improve the area's development, such as health, education, or infrastructure.
See also
List of countries by average wage
List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita—GDP at market or government official exchange rates per inhabitant
List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita—GDP calculated at purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange per inhabitant
List of countries by GNI (nominal) per capita
List of countries by GNI (PPP) per capita
Real income
List of countries by GNI per capita growth
List of countries by income equality
Total personal income
List of U.S. states by adjusted per capita personal income
References
Gross domestic product
Macroeconomic indicators |
23895 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purus%20River | Purus River | The Purus River (Portuguese: Rio Purus; Spanish: Río Purús) is a tributary of the Amazon River in South America. Its drainage basin is , and the mean annual discharge is . The river shares its name with the Alto Purús National Park and the Purús Province (and its conformed Purús District), one of the four provinces of Peru in the Ucayali Region.
Geography
The Purus River rises in Peru.
It defines the boundary between Peru and Brazil in the centre of the state of Acre, then runs for a short distance along the boundary of the Santa Rosa do Purus National Forest, a sustainable use conservation unit created in 2001 after it is joined by the Santa Rosa River.
The Purus then flows north east through Manoel Urbano
It runs through a continuous forest at the bottom of the great depression, lying between the Madeira River, which skirts the edge of the Brazilian sandstone plateau, and the Ucayali River, which hugs the base of the Andes.
In the state of Amazonas the river runs through the Arapixi Extractive Reserve, created in 2006 and past the town of Boca do Acre at the end of the BR-317 highway.
Further down, it forms the west boundary of the Purus National Forest, created in 1988.
From the town of Pauini down to the town of Lábrea the river is bordered by the Médio Purus Extractive Reserve, created in 2008.
Below this it runs through the Canutama Extractive Reserve along the stretch between the towns of Lábrea and Canutama.
In the lowest reaches the river flows through the Piagaçu-Purus Sustainable Development Reserve, established in 2003, which holds a large part of its floodplain.
It enters the Amazon River west of the Madeira River, which it parallels as far south as the falls of the latter stream.
William Chandless found its elevation above sea level to be only from its mouth. It is one of the most crooked streams in the world, and its length in a straight line is less than half of its length following its curves. It is practically only a drainage ditch for the half-submerged, lake-flooded district it crosses.
Its width is very uniform for up, and for its depth is never less than .
Biodiversity
The Purús red howler (Alouatta puruensis) is a species of howler monkey native to Brazil, Peru and north of Bolivia.
Peckoltia brevis, a kind of catfish, is found in the middle and upper Amazon within the Purus river basin.
Most of the central and lower sections of the river flow through the Purus várzea ecoregion.
In the municipality of Tapauá, Amazonas, the river flows through the Abufari Biological Reserve, a strictly protected area.
Earthworks discovery
In 2008, a previously unknown pre-Columbian civilization was discovered in the upper region of the river close to the Bolivian border. After much of the forest in the region was cleared for agricultural use, satellite pictures revealed the remains of large geometric earthworks.
See also
Amazon rainforest
Esperanza, Ucayali
Brazilian Amazon
Peruvian Amazon
River basin
Catauxi
References
Purus River. (2010). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved January 12, 2010, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
External links
Map of Amazon State with Purus River, Brazilian Ministry of Transport
Tributaries of the Amazon River
Rivers of Acre (state)
Rivers of Amazonas (Brazilian state)
Rivers of Peru
International rivers of South America
Brazil–Peru border
Rivers of Ucayali Region
Border rivers |
23896 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partizan%20Press | Partizan Press | Partizan Press is a publisher of military history, especially about the English Civil War. They are the publishing division of Caliver Books — which is based in Leigh-on-Sea and Newthorpe. They also published Valkyrie Quarterly magazine and distribute miniature figurines for wargaming and role-playing.
References
External links
History books published by Partizan Press
Magazines published by Partizan Press
Role-playing game publishing companies |
23897 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putumayo | Putumayo | Putumayo may refer to:
Putumayo Department, Colombia
Putumayo Province, Loreto Region, Peru
Putumayo District, Putumayo Province, Loreto Region, Peru
Putumayo Canton, Ecuador
Putumayo River or Içá River, a river in South America
Putumayo World Music, a record label
Putumayo, a fictional store in the Seinfeld episode "The Millennium"
See also
Potemayo, Japanese manga and anime series |
23899 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastaza%20River | Pastaza River | The Pastaza River (, formerly known as the Sumatara) also known as the Patate, flowing in Ecuador and Peru is a large tributary to the Marañón River in the northwestern Amazon Basin of South America.
It has its headwaters in the Ecuadorian province of Cotopaxi, flowing off the northwestern slopes of the volcano Cotopaxi and known as the Patate River. The Patate flows south and in Tungurahua Province it is joined by the Chambo River just upstream from the town of Baños de Agua Santa just north of the volcano Mount Tungurahua and becomes the Pastaza. Seven kilometers east of Baños, it is dammed for the Agoyán hydroelectric project, which has created a silty lagoon by the village of La Cieniga. The Agoyán dam was placed in that location specifically to leave the famous Falls of Agoyán, about 5 km further downstream, intact. After the waterfall the river enters a gorge where there is very fast whitewater with class-4 rapids; it is often used for whitewater rafting although it is not considered to be of the same quality as the Tena River and is therefore less popular for the sport.
From the junction with the Chambo, the Pastaza flows almost due east for about where it then turns south-east, as it is joined by the Topo River. The Troncal Amazonas highway parallels the river from Baños to Puyo, passing through seven tunnels, and four major waterfalls that are touristic destinations for many Ecuadorians (Agoyán and Pailón del Diablo being the most popular.) Just past the town of Santa Inez, the Pastaza River crosses into the province of Pastaza, where it forms the boundary between that province and Morona-Santiago. At the town of Mera, shortly before reaching Puyo, the river exits the mountains and flows into a wide valley, becoming wider and shallower. After Shell the river becomes braided and meanders, leaving oxbows and sloughs along its route across the Amazonian floodplain.
After cutting through Ecuador, the Pastaza passes into Peru at the village of Hito Zoilaluz on Isla Zoilaluz and flows south into the Marañón River near Puerto Industrial.
Tributaries
The Pastaza has numerous tributaries, both above and below the hydroelectric dam. These contribute to its rapid flow and to its tendency to flood. On the highway side of the Pastaza, a tributary river occurs about every 3–4 km for a stretch of about 50 km; on the opposite bank, the number of tributaries is slightly lower. The major tributaries are the Chambo, Bobonaza, and Huasaga, also important are the Ambato, the Pindo, and the Puyo.
Economy
There are no major fisheries on the Pastaza River - it is primarily used as a means of transport by canoe. Its rise and fall are rapid and uncertain, and it is shallow and full of sandbanks and snags. Flooding occurs seasonally.
Bridges
In Ecuador, there are very few bridges across the Pastaza. The most significant ones are in Tungurahua province - namely a large span over the exact point of headwaters, just north of Baños, and the secondary span created by the Agoyán dam. After this, bridges tend to be of the suspension type, suitable for foot or small vehicle passage only. However, it is notable that the Pastaza can be forded during the dry season in a 4x4 truck, going across the floodplains below the town of Mera.
See also
Agoyán
References and notes
Tributaries of the Amazon River
Rivers of Ecuador
Rivers of Peru
International rivers of South America
Ramsar sites in Peru
Upper Amazon
Rivers of Loreto Region |
23901 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytope%20compound | Polytope compound | In geometry, a polyhedral compound is a figure that is composed of several polyhedra sharing a common centre. They are the three-dimensional analogs of polygonal compounds such as the hexagram.
The outer vertices of a compound can be connected to form a convex polyhedron called its convex hull. A compound is a facetting of its convex hull.
Another convex polyhedron is formed by the small central space common to all members of the compound. This polyhedron can be used as the core for a set of stellations.
Regular compounds
A regular polyhedral compound can be defined as a compound which, like a regular polyhedron, is vertex-transitive, edge-transitive, and face-transitive. Unlike the case of polyhedra, this is not equivalent to the symmetry group acting transitively on its flags; the compound of two tetrahedra is the only regular compound with that property. There are five regular compounds of polyhedra:
Best known is the regular compound of two tetrahedra, often called the stella octangula, a name given to it by Kepler. The vertices of the two tetrahedra define a cube, and the intersection of the two define a regular octahedron, which shares the same face-planes as the compound. Thus the compound of two tetrahedra is a stellation of the octahedron, and in fact, the only finite stellation thereof.
The regular compound of five tetrahedra comes in two enantiomorphic versions, which together make up the regular compound of ten tetrahedra. The regular compound of ten tetrahedra can also be seen as a compound of five stellae octangulae.
Each of the regular tetrahedral compounds is self-dual or dual to its chiral twin; the regular compound of five cubes and the regular compound of five octahedra are dual to each other.
Hence, regular polyhedral compounds can also be regarded as dual-regular compounds.
Coxeter's notation for regular compounds is given in the table above, incorporating Schläfli symbols. The material inside the square brackets, [d{p,q}], denotes the components of the compound: d separate {p,q}'s. The material before the square brackets denotes the vertex arrangement of the compound: c{m,n}[d{p,q}] is a compound of d {p,q}'s sharing the vertices of {m,n} counted c times. The material after the square brackets denotes the facet arrangement of the compound: [d{p,q}]e{s,t} is a compound of d {p,q}'s sharing the faces of {s,t} counted e times. These may be combined: thus c{m,n}[d{p,q}]e{s,t} is a compound of d {p,q}'s sharing the vertices of {m,n} counted c times and the faces of {s,t} counted e times. This notation can be generalised to compounds in any number of dimensions.
Dual compounds
A dual compound is composed of a polyhedron and its dual, arranged reciprocally about a common midsphere, such that the edge of one polyhedron intersects the dual edge of the dual polyhedron. There are five dual compounds of the regular polyhedra.
The core is the rectification of both solids. The hull is the dual of this rectification, and its rhombic faces have the intersecting edges of the two solids as diagonals (and have their four alternate vertices). For the convex solids, this is the convex hull.
The tetrahedron is self-dual, so the dual compound of a tetrahedron with its dual is the regular stellated octahedron.
The octahedral and icosahedral dual compounds are the first stellations of the cuboctahedron and icosidodecahedron, respectively.
The small stellated dodecahedral (or great dodecahedral) dual compound has the great dodecahedron completely interior to the small stellated dodecahedron.
Uniform compounds
In 1976 John Skilling published Uniform Compounds of Uniform Polyhedra which enumerated 75 compounds (including 6 as infinite prismatic sets of compounds, #20-#25) made from uniform polyhedra with rotational symmetry. (Every vertex is vertex-transitive and every vertex is transitive with every other vertex.) This list includes the five regular compounds above.
The 75 uniform compounds are listed in the Table below. Most are shown singularly colored by each polyhedron element. Some chiral pairs of face groups are colored by symmetry of the faces within each polyhedron.
1-19: Miscellaneous (4,5,6,9,17 are the 5 regular compounds)
20-25: Prism symmetry embedded in prism symmetry,
26-45: Prism symmetry embedded in octahedral or icosahedral symmetry,
46-67: Tetrahedral symmetry embedded in octahedral or icosahedral symmetry,
68-75: enantiomorph pairs
Other compounds
Compound of three octahedra
Compound of four cubes
Two polyhedra that are compounds but have their elements rigidly locked into place are the small complex icosidodecahedron (compound of icosahedron and great dodecahedron) and the great complex icosidodecahedron (compound of small stellated dodecahedron and great icosahedron). If the definition of a uniform polyhedron is generalised, they are uniform.
The section for enantiomorph pairs in Skilling's list does not contain the compound of two great snub dodecicosidodecahedra, as the pentagram faces would coincide. Removing the coincident faces results in the compound of twenty octahedra.
4-polytope compounds
In 4-dimensions, there are a large number of regular compounds of regular polytopes. Coxeter lists a few of these in his book Regular Polytopes. McMullen added six in his paper New Regular Compounds of 4-Polytopes.
Self-duals:
Dual pairs:
Uniform compounds and duals with convex 4-polytopes:
The superscript (var) in the tables above indicates that the labeled compounds are distinct from the other compounds with the same number of constituents.
Compounds with regular star 4-polytopes
Self-dual star compounds:
Dual pairs of compound stars:
Uniform compound stars and duals:
Compounds with duals
Dual positions:
Group theory
In terms of group theory, if G is the symmetry group of a polyhedral compound, and the group acts transitively on the polyhedra (so that each polyhedron can be sent to any of the others, as in uniform compounds), then if H is the stabilizer of a single chosen polyhedron, the polyhedra can be identified with the orbit space G/H – the coset gH corresponds to which polyhedron g sends the chosen polyhedron to.
Compounds of tilings
There are eighteen two-parameter families of regular compound tessellations of the Euclidean plane. In the hyperbolic plane, five one-parameter families and seventeen isolated cases are known, but the completeness of this listing has not been enumerated.
The Euclidean and hyperbolic compound families 2 {p,p} (4 ≤ p ≤ ∞, p an integer) are analogous to the spherical stella octangula, 2 {3,3}.
A known family of regular Euclidean compound honeycombs in any number of dimensions is an infinite family of compounds of hypercubic honeycombs, all sharing vertices and faces with another hypercubic honeycomb. This compound can have any number of hypercubic honeycombs.
There are also dual-regular tiling compounds. A simple example is the E2 compound of a hexagonal tiling and its dual triangular tiling, which shares its edges with the deltoidal trihexagonal tiling. The Euclidean compounds of two hypercubic honeycombs are both regular and dual-regular.
Footnotes
External links
MathWorld: Polyhedron Compound
Compound polyhedra – from Virtual Reality Polyhedra
Uniform Compounds of Uniform Polyhedra
Skilling's 75 Uniform Compounds of Uniform Polyhedra
Skilling's Uniform Compounds of Uniform Polyhedra
Polyhedral Compounds
http://users.skynet.be/polyhedra.fleurent/Compounds_2/Compounds_2.htm
Compound of Small Stellated Dodecahedron and Great Dodecahedron {5/2,5}+{5,5/2}
References
.
.
.
.
.
.
Regular Polytopes, (3rd edition, 1973), Dover edition,
p. 87 Five regular compounds
. |
23905 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic%20solid | Platonic solid | In geometry, a Platonic solid is a convex, regular polyhedron in three-dimensional Euclidean space. Being a regular polyhedron means that the faces are congruent (identical in shape and size) regular polygons (all angles congruent and all edges congruent), and the same number of faces meet at each vertex. There are only five such polyhedra:
Geometers have studied the Platonic solids for thousands of years. They are named for the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, who hypothesized in one of his dialogues, the Timaeus, that the classical elements were made of these regular solids.
History
The Platonic solids have been known since antiquity. It has been suggested that certain carved stone balls created by the late Neolithic people of Scotland represent these shapes; however, these balls have rounded knobs rather than being polyhedral, the numbers of knobs frequently differed from the numbers of vertices of the Platonic solids, there is no ball whose knobs match the 20 vertices of the dodecahedron, and the arrangement of the knobs was not always symmetrical.
The ancient Greeks studied the Platonic solids extensively. Some sources (such as Proclus) credit Pythagoras with their discovery. Other evidence suggests that he may have only been familiar with the tetrahedron, cube, and dodecahedron and that the discovery of the octahedron and icosahedron belong to Theaetetus, a contemporary of Plato. In any case, Theaetetus gave a mathematical description of all five and may have been responsible for the first known proof that no other convex regular polyhedra exist.
The Platonic solids are prominent in the philosophy of Plato, their namesake. Plato wrote about them in the dialogue Timaeus 360 B.C. in which he associated each of the four classical elements (earth, air, water, and fire) with a regular solid. Earth was associated with the cube, air with the octahedron, water with the icosahedron, and fire with the tetrahedron. Of the fifth Platonic solid, the dodecahedron, Plato obscurely remarked, "...the god used [it] for arranging the constellations on the whole heaven". Aristotle added a fifth element, aither (aether in Latin, "ether" in English) and postulated that the heavens were made of this element, but he had no interest in matching it with Plato's fifth solid.
Euclid completely mathematically described the Platonic solids in the Elements, the last book (Book XIII) of which is devoted to their properties. Propositions 13–17 in Book XIII describe the construction of the tetrahedron, octahedron, cube, icosahedron, and dodecahedron in that order. For each solid Euclid finds the ratio of the diameter of the circumscribed sphere to the edge length. In Proposition 18 he argues that there are no further convex regular polyhedra. Andreas Speiser has advocated the view that the construction of the five regular solids is the chief goal of the deductive system canonized in the Elements. Much of the information in Book XIII is probably derived from the work of Theaetetus.
In the 16th century, the German astronomer Johannes Kepler attempted to relate the five extraterrestrial planets known at that time to the five Platonic solids. In Mysterium Cosmographicum, published in 1596, Kepler proposed a model of the Solar System in which the five solids were set inside one another and separated by a series of inscribed and circumscribed spheres. Kepler proposed that the distance relationships between the six planets known at that time could be understood in terms of the five Platonic solids enclosed within a sphere that represented the orbit of Saturn. The six spheres each corresponded to one of the planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn). The solids were ordered with the innermost being the octahedron, followed by the icosahedron, dodecahedron, tetrahedron, and finally the cube, thereby dictating the structure of the solar system and the distance relationships between the planets by the Platonic solids. In the end, Kepler's original idea had to be abandoned, but out of his research came his three laws of orbital dynamics, the first of which was that the orbits of planets are ellipses rather than circles, changing the course of physics and astronomy. He also discovered the Kepler solids, which are two nonconvex regular polyhedra.
Cartesian coordinates
For Platonic solids centered at the origin, simple Cartesian coordinates of the vertices are given below. The Greek letter φ is used to represent the golden ratio ≈ 1.6180.
The coordinates for the tetrahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron are given in two positions such that each can be deduced from the other: in the case of the tetrahedron, by changing all coordinates of sign (central symmetry), or, in the other cases, by exchanging two coordinates (reflection with respect to any of the three diagonal planes).
These coordinates reveal certain relationships between the Platonic solids: the vertices of the tetrahedron represent half of those of the cube, as {4,3} or , one of two sets of 4 vertices in dual positions, as h{4,3} or . Both tetrahedral positions make the compound stellated octahedron.
The coordinates of the icosahedron are related to two alternated sets of coordinates of a nonuniform truncated octahedron, t{3,4} or , also called a snub octahedron, as s{3,4} or , and seen in the compound of two icosahedra.
Eight of the vertices of the dodecahedron are shared with the cube. Completing all orientations leads to the compound of five cubes.
Combinatorial properties
A convex polyhedron is a Platonic solid if and only if all three of the following requirements are met.
All of its faces are congruent convex regular polygons.
None of its faces intersect except at their edges.
The same number of faces meet at each of its vertices.
Each Platonic solid can therefore be assigned a pair {p, q} of integers, where p is the number of edges (or, equivalently, vertices) of each face, and q is the number of faces (or, equivalently, edges) that meet at each vertex. This pair {p, q}, called the Schläfli symbol, gives a combinatorial description of the polyhedron. The Schläfli symbols of the five Platonic solids are given in the table below.
All other combinatorial information about these solids, such as total number of vertices (V), edges (E), and faces (F), can be determined from p and q. Since any edge joins two vertices and has two adjacent faces we must have:
The other relationship between these values is given by Euler's formula:
This can be proved in many ways. Together these three relationships completely determine V, E, and F:
Swapping p and q interchanges F and V while leaving E unchanged. For a geometric interpretation of this property, see .
As a configuration
The elements of a polyhedron can be expressed in a configuration matrix. The rows and columns correspond to vertices, edges, and faces. The diagonal numbers say how many of each element occur in the whole polyhedron. The nondiagonal numbers say how many of the column's element occur in or at the row's element. Dual pairs of polyhedra have their configuration matrices rotated 180 degrees from each other.
Classification
The classical result is that only five convex regular polyhedra exist. Two common arguments below demonstrate no more than five Platonic solids can exist, but positively demonstrating the existence of any given solid is a separate question—one that requires an explicit construction.
Geometric proof
The following geometric argument is very similar to the one given by Euclid in the Elements:
Topological proof
A purely topological proof can be made using only combinatorial information about the solids. The key is Euler's observation that V − E + F = 2, and the fact that pF = 2E = qV, where p stands for the number of edges of each face and q for the number of edges meeting at each vertex. Combining these equations one obtains the equation
Simple algebraic manipulation then gives
Since E is strictly positive we must have
Using the fact that p and q must both be at least 3, one can easily see that there are only five possibilities for {p, q}:
Geometric properties
Angles
There are a number of angles associated with each Platonic solid. The dihedral angle is the interior angle between any two face planes. The dihedral angle, θ, of the solid {p,q} is given by the formula
This is sometimes more conveniently expressed in terms of the tangent by
The quantity h (called the Coxeter number) is 4, 6, 6, 10, and 10 for the tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron respectively.
The angular deficiency at the vertex of a polyhedron is the difference between the sum of the face-angles at that vertex and 2. The defect, δ, at any vertex of the Platonic solids {p,q} is
By a theorem of Descartes, this is equal to 4 divided by the number of vertices (i.e. the total defect at all vertices is 4).
The three-dimensional analog of a plane angle is a solid angle. The solid angle, Ω, at the vertex of a Platonic solid is given in terms of the dihedral angle by
This follows from the spherical excess formula for a spherical polygon and the fact that the vertex figure of the polyhedron {p,q} is a regular q-gon.
The solid angle of a face subtended from the center of a platonic solid is equal to the solid angle of a full sphere (4 steradians) divided by the number of faces. This is equal to the angular deficiency of its dual.
The various angles associated with the Platonic solids are tabulated below. The numerical values of the solid angles are given in steradians. The constant φ = is the golden ratio.
Radii, area, and volume
Another virtue of regularity is that the Platonic solids all possess three concentric spheres:
the circumscribed sphere that passes through all the vertices,
the midsphere that is tangent to each edge at the midpoint of the edge, and
the inscribed sphere that is tangent to each face at the center of the face.
The radii of these spheres are called the circumradius, the midradius, and the inradius. These are the distances from the center of the polyhedron to the vertices, edge midpoints, and face centers respectively. The circumradius R and the inradius r of the solid {p, q} with edge length a are given by
where θ is the dihedral angle. The midradius ρ is given by
where h is the quantity used above in the definition of the dihedral angle (h = 4, 6, 6, 10, or 10). The ratio of the circumradius to the inradius is symmetric in p and q:
The surface area, A, of a Platonic solid {p, q} is easily computed as area of a regular p-gon times the number of faces F. This is:
The volume is computed as F times the volume of the pyramid whose base is a regular p-gon and whose height is the inradius r. That is,
The following table lists the various radii of the Platonic solids together with their surface area and volume. The overall size is fixed by taking the edge length, a, to be equal to 2.
The constants φ and ξ in the above are given by
Among the Platonic solids, either the dodecahedron or the icosahedron may be seen as the best approximation to the sphere. The icosahedron has the largest number of faces and the largest dihedral angle, it hugs its inscribed sphere the most tightly, and its surface area to volume ratio is closest to that of a sphere of the same size (i.e. either the same surface area or the same volume). The dodecahedron, on the other hand, has the smallest angular defect, the largest vertex solid angle, and it fills out its circumscribed sphere the most.
Point in space
For an arbitrary point in the space of a Platonic solid with circumradius R, whose distances to the centroid of the Platonic solid and its n vertices are L and di respectively, and
,
we have
For all five Platonic solids, we have
If di are the distances from the n vertices of the Platonic solid to any point on its circumscribed sphere, then
Rupert property
A polyhedron P is said to have the Rupert property if a polyhedron of the same or larger size and the same shape as P can pass through a hole in P.
All five Platonic solids have this property.
Symmetry
Dual polyhedra
Every polyhedron has a dual (or "polar") polyhedron with faces and vertices interchanged. The dual of every Platonic solid is another Platonic solid, so that we can arrange the five solids into dual pairs.
The tetrahedron is self-dual (i.e. its dual is another tetrahedron).
The cube and the octahedron form a dual pair.
The dodecahedron and the icosahedron form a dual pair.
If a polyhedron has Schläfli symbol {p, q}, then its dual has the symbol {q, p}. Indeed, every combinatorial property of one Platonic solid can be interpreted as another combinatorial property of the dual.
One can construct the dual polyhedron by taking the vertices of the dual to be the centers of the faces of the original figure. Connecting the centers of adjacent faces in the original forms the edges of the dual and thereby interchanges the number of faces and vertices while maintaining the number of edges.
More generally, one can dualize a Platonic solid with respect to a sphere of radius d concentric with the solid. The radii (R, ρ, r) of a solid and those of its dual (R*, ρ*, r*) are related by
Dualizing with respect to the midsphere (d = ρ) is often convenient because the midsphere has the same relationship to both polyhedra. Taking d2 = Rr yields a dual solid with the same circumradius and inradius (i.e. R* = R and r* = r).
Symmetry groups
In mathematics, the concept of symmetry is studied with the notion of a mathematical group. Every polyhedron has an associated symmetry group, which is the set of all transformations (Euclidean isometries) which leave the polyhedron invariant. The order of the symmetry group is the number of symmetries of the polyhedron. One often distinguishes between the full symmetry group, which includes reflections, and the proper symmetry group, which includes only rotations.
The symmetry groups of the Platonic solids are a special class of three-dimensional point groups known as polyhedral groups. The high degree of symmetry of the Platonic solids can be interpreted in a number of ways. Most importantly, the vertices of each solid are all equivalent under the action of the symmetry group, as are the edges and faces. One says the action of the symmetry group is transitive on the vertices, edges, and faces. In fact, this is another way of defining regularity of a polyhedron: a polyhedron is regular if and only if it is vertex-uniform, edge-uniform, and face-uniform.
There are only three symmetry groups associated with the Platonic solids rather than five, since the symmetry group of any polyhedron coincides with that of its dual. This is easily seen by examining the construction of the dual polyhedron. Any symmetry of the original must be a symmetry of the dual and vice versa. The three polyhedral groups are:
the tetrahedral group T,
the octahedral group O (which is also the symmetry group of the cube), and
the icosahedral group I (which is also the symmetry group of the dodecahedron).
The orders of the proper (rotation) groups are 12, 24, and 60 respectively – precisely twice the number of edges in the respective polyhedra. The orders of the full symmetry groups are twice as much again (24, 48, and 120). See (Coxeter 1973) for a derivation of these facts. All Platonic solids except the tetrahedron are centrally symmetric, meaning they are preserved under reflection through the origin.
The following table lists the various symmetry properties of the Platonic solids. The symmetry groups listed are the full groups with the rotation subgroups given in parentheses (likewise for the number of symmetries). Wythoff's kaleidoscope construction is a method for constructing polyhedra directly from their symmetry groups. They are listed for reference Wythoff's symbol for each of the Platonic solids.
In nature and technology
The tetrahedron, cube, and octahedron all occur naturally in crystal structures. These by no means exhaust the numbers of possible forms of crystals. However, neither the regular icosahedron nor the regular dodecahedron are amongst them. One of the forms, called the pyritohedron (named for the group of minerals of which it is typical) has twelve pentagonal faces, arranged in the same pattern as the faces of the regular dodecahedron. The faces of the pyritohedron are, however, not regular, so the pyritohedron is also not regular. Allotropes of boron and many boron compounds, such as boron carbide, include discrete B12 icosahedra within their crystal structures. Carborane acids also have molecular structures approximating regular icosahedra.
In the early 20th century, Ernst Haeckel described (Haeckel, 1904) a number of species of Radiolaria, some of whose skeletons are shaped like various regular polyhedra. Examples include Circoporus octahedrus, Circogonia icosahedra, Lithocubus geometricus and Circorrhegma dodecahedra. The shapes of these creatures should be obvious from their names.
Many viruses, such as the herpes virus, have the shape of a regular icosahedron. Viral structures are built of repeated identical protein subunits and the icosahedron is the easiest shape to assemble using these subunits. A regular polyhedron is used because it can be built from a single basic unit protein used over and over again; this saves space in the viral genome.
In meteorology and climatology, global numerical models of atmospheric flow are of increasing interest which employ geodesic grids that are based on an icosahedron (refined by triangulation) instead of the more commonly used longitude/latitude grid. This has the advantage of evenly distributed spatial resolution without singularities (i.e. the poles) at the expense of somewhat greater numerical difficulty.
Geometry of space frames is often based on platonic solids. In the MERO system, Platonic solids are used for naming convention of various space frame configurations. For example, O+T refers to a configuration made of one half of octahedron and a tetrahedron.
Several Platonic hydrocarbons have been synthesised, including cubane and dodecahedrane and not tetrahedrane.
Platonic solids are often used to make dice, because dice of these shapes can be made fair. 6-sided dice are very common, but the other numbers are commonly used in role-playing games. Such dice are commonly referred to as dn where n is the number of faces (d8, d20, etc.); see dice notation for more details.
These shapes frequently show up in other games or puzzles. Puzzles similar to a Rubik's Cube come in all five shapes – see magic polyhedra.
Liquid crystals with symmetries of Platonic solids
For the intermediate material phase called liquid crystals, the existence of such symmetries was first proposed in 1981 by H. Kleinert and K. Maki.
In aluminum the icosahedral structure was discovered three years after this by Dan Shechtman, which earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2011.
Related polyhedra and polytopes
Uniform polyhedra
There exist four regular polyhedra that are not convex, called Kepler–Poinsot polyhedra. These all have icosahedral symmetry and may be obtained as stellations of the dodecahedron and the icosahedron.
The next most regular convex polyhedra after the Platonic solids are the cuboctahedron, which is a rectification of the cube and the octahedron, and the icosidodecahedron, which is a rectification of the dodecahedron and the icosahedron (the rectification of the self-dual tetrahedron is a regular octahedron). These are both quasi-regular, meaning that they are vertex- and edge-uniform and have regular faces, but the faces are not all congruent (coming in two different classes). They form two of the thirteen Archimedean solids, which are the convex uniform polyhedra with polyhedral symmetry. Their duals, the rhombic dodecahedron and rhombic triacontahedron, are edge- and face-transitive, but their faces are not regular and their vertices come in two types each; they are two of the thirteen Catalan solids.
The uniform polyhedra form a much broader class of polyhedra. These figures are vertex-uniform and have one or more types of regular or star polygons for faces. These include all the polyhedra mentioned above together with an infinite set of prisms, an infinite set of antiprisms, and 53 other non-convex forms.
The Johnson solids are convex polyhedra which have regular faces but are not uniform. Among them are five of the eight convex deltahedra, which have identical, regular faces (all equilateral triangles) but are not uniform. (The other three convex deltahedra are the Platonic tetrahedron, octahedron, and icosahedron.)
Regular tessellations
The three regular tessellations of the plane are closely related to the Platonic solids. Indeed, one can view the Platonic solids as regular tessellations of the sphere. This is done by projecting each solid onto a concentric sphere. The faces project onto regular spherical polygons which exactly cover the sphere. Spherical tilings provide two infinite additional sets of regular tilings, the hosohedra, {2,n} with 2 vertices at the poles, and lune faces, and the dual dihedra, {n,2} with 2 hemispherical faces and regularly spaced vertices on the equator. Such tesselations would be degenerate in true 3D space as polyhedra.
Every regular tessellation of the sphere is characterized by a pair of integers {p, q} with + > . Likewise, a regular tessellation of the plane is characterized by the condition + = . There are three possibilities:
In a similar manner, one can consider regular tessellations of the hyperbolic plane. These are characterized by the condition + < . There is an infinite family of such tessellations.
Higher dimensions
In more than three dimensions, polyhedra generalize to polytopes, with higher-dimensional convex regular polytopes being the equivalents of the three-dimensional Platonic solids.
In the mid-19th century the Swiss mathematician Ludwig Schläfli discovered the four-dimensional analogues of the Platonic solids, called convex regular 4-polytopes. There are exactly six of these figures; five are analogous to the Platonic solids : 5-cell as {3,3,3}, 16-cell as {3,3,4}, 600-cell as {3,3,5}, tesseract as {4,3,3}, and 120-cell as {5,3,3}, and a sixth one, the self-dual 24-cell, {3,4,3}.
In all dimensions higher than four, there are only three convex regular polytopes: the simplex as {3,3,...,3}, the hypercube as {4,3,...,3}, and the cross-polytope as {3,3,...,4}. In three dimensions, these coincide with the tetrahedron as {3,3}, the cube as {4,3}, and the octahedron as {3,4}.
See also
Citations
General and cited sources
Gardner, Martin (1987). The 2nd Scientific American Book of Mathematical Puzzles & Diversions, University of Chicago Press, Chapter 1: The Five Platonic Solids,
Haeckel, Ernst, E. (1904). Kunstformen der Natur. Available as Haeckel, E. (1998); Art forms in nature, Prestel USA. .
Kepler. Johannes Strena seu de nive sexangula (On the Six-Cornered Snowflake), 1611 paper by Kepler which discussed the reason for the six-angled shape of the snow crystals and the forms and symmetries in nature. Talks about platonic solids.
Wildberg, Christian (1988). John Philoponus' Criticism of Aristotle's Theory of Aether. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 11–12. .
External links
Platonic solids at Encyclopaedia of Mathematics
Book XIII of Euclid's Elements.
Interactive 3D Polyhedra in Java
Platonic Solids in Visual Polyhedra
Solid Body Viewer is an interactive 3D polyhedron viewer which allows you to save the model in svg, stl or obj format.
Interactive Folding/Unfolding Platonic Solids in Java
Paper models of the Platonic solids created using nets generated by Stella software
Platonic Solids Free paper models (nets)
Teaching Math with Art student-created models
Teaching Math with Art teacher instructions for making models
Frames of Platonic Solids images of algebraic surfaces
Platonic Solids with some formula derivations
How to make four platonic solids from a cube
Multi-dimensional geometry |
23906 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterborough | Peterborough | Peterborough ( ) is a cathedral city in the City of Peterborough district in the ceremonial county of Cambridgeshire, England. For centuries, the city and many of its surrounding villages formed the Soke of Peterborough, in the historic county of Northamptonshire. The Soke of Peterborough had an independent county council, based in the city, between 1889 and 1965. After the Soke of Peterborough was abolished in 1965, the city formed part of the short-lived Huntingdon and Peterborough until 1974. Though the city has a long history as part of Northamptonshire (from the Middle Ages up to 1965), the city has been part of Cambridgeshire since 1974, and is the largest settlement in that county.
The city is north of London, on the River Nene which flows into The Wash to the north-east; the cathedral city of Ely is east-southeast across the Fens and the university city of Cambridge is to the southeast. The local topography is flat, and in some places, the land lies below sea level, for example in parts of the Fens to the east and to the south of Peterborough. Human settlement in the area began before the Bronze Age, as can be seen at the Flag Fen archaeological site to the east of the current city centre, also with evidence of Roman occupation. The Anglo-Saxon period saw the establishment of a monastery, Medeshamstede, which later became Peterborough Cathedral.
In 2020 the built-up area subdivision had an estimated population of 179,349. In 2021 the Unitary Authority area had a population of 215,671. The population grew rapidly after the railways along with industry, the town became known for brick manufacture, arrived in the 19th century. After the Second World War, industrial employment fell and growth was limited until its designation as a New Town in the 1960s. The town's main economic sectors are financial services and distribution.
History
Toponymy
The original name of the town was Medeshamstede. The town's name changed to Burgh from the late tenth century, possibly after Abbot Kenulf had built a defensive wall around the abbey which was dedicated to Saint Peter; eventually this developed into the form Peterborough. In the 12th century, the town was also known as Gildenburgh, which is found in the Peterborough version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (see Peterborough Chronicle below) and a history of the abbey by the monk Hugh Candidus. The town does not appear to have been a borough until at least the 12th century.
Early history
Peterborough and its surrounding areas around have been inhabited for thousands of years because it is where permanently drained land in The Fens is created by the River Nene. Remains of Iron Age settlement and what is thought to be religious activity can be seen at the Flag Fen archaeological site to the east of the city centre. The Romans established a fortified garrison town at Durobrivae on Ermine Street, to the west in Water Newton, around the middle of the 1st century AD. Durobrivae's earliest appearance among surviving records is in the Antonine Itinerary of the late 2nd century. There was also a large 1st century Roman fort at Longthorpe, designed to house half a legion, or about 3,000 soldiers; it may have been established as early as around AD 44–48. Peterborough was an important area of ceramic production in the Roman period, providing Nene Valley Ware that was traded as far away as Cornwall and the Antonine Wall, Caledonia.
Peterborough is shown by its original name Medeshamstede to have possibly been an Anglian settlement before AD 655, when Sexwulf founded a monastery on land granted to him for that purpose by Peada of Mercia, who converted to Christianity and was briefly ruler of the smaller Middle Angles sub-group. His brother Wulfhere murdered his own sons, similarly converted and then finished the monastery by way of atonement.
Hereward the Wake rampaged through the town in 1069 or 1070. Outraged, Abbot Turold erected a fort or castle, which, from his name, was called Mont Turold: this mound, or hill, is on the outside of the deanery garden, now called Tout Hill, although in 1848 Tot-hill or Toot Hill. The abbey church was rebuilt and greatly enlarged in the 12th century. The Peterborough Chronicle, a version of the Anglo-Saxon one, contains unique information about the history of England after the Norman conquest, written here by monks in the 12th century. This is the only known prose history in English between the conquest and the later 14th century. The burgesses received their first charter from "Abbot Robert" – probably Robert of Sutton (1262–1273). The place suffered materially in the war between King John and the confederate barons, many of whom took refuge in the monastery here and in Crowland Abbey, from which sanctuaries they were forced by the king's soldiers, who plundered the religious houses and carried off great treasures. The abbey church became one of Henry VIII's retained, more secular, cathedrals in 1541, having been assessed at the Dissolution as having revenue of £1,972.7s.0¾d per annum.
When civil war broke out, Peterborough was divided between supporters of King Charles I and the Long Parliament. The city lay on the border of the Eastern Association of counties which sided with Parliament, and the war reached Peterborough in 1643 when soldiers arrived in the city to attack Royalist strongholds at Stamford and Crowland. The Royalist forces were defeated within a few weeks and retreated to Burghley House, where they were captured and sent to Cambridge. While the Parliamentary soldiers were in Peterborough, however, they ransacked the cathedral, destroying the Lady Chapel, chapter house, cloister, high altar and choir stalls, as well as mediaeval decoration and records.
Among the privileges claimed by the abbot as early as the 13th century was that of having a prison for felons taken in the Soke of Peterborough, a liberty within Northamptonshire. This afforded it administrative and judicial independence from the rest of the county, with it having a quarter sessions separate from the rest of Northamptonshire from 1349. In 1576 Bishop Edmund Scambler sold the lordship of the hundred of Nassaburgh, which was coextensive with the Soke, to Queen Elizabeth I, who gave it to Lord Burghley, and from that time until the 19th century he and his descendants, the Earls and Marquesses of Exeter, had a separate gaol for prisoners arrested in the Soke. The abbot formerly held four fairs, of which two, St. Peter's Fair, granted in 1189 and later held on the second Tuesday and Wednesday in July, and the Brigge Fair, granted in 1439 and later held on the first Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in October, were purchased by the corporation from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1876. The Bridge Fair, as it is now known, granted to the abbey by King Henry VI, survives. Prayers for the opening of the fair were once said at the morning service in the cathedral, followed by a civic proclamation and a sausage lunch at the town hall which still takes place. The mayor traditionally leads a procession from the town hall to the fair where the proclamation is read, asking all persons to "behave soberly and civilly, and to pay their just dues and demands according to the laws of the realm and the rights of the City of Peterborough".
Modern history
Railway lines began operating locally during the 1840s, but it was the 1850 opening of the Great Northern Railway's line from London to that transformed Peterborough from a market town to an industrial centre. Lord Exeter had opposed the railway passing through Stamford, so Peterborough, situated between two main terminals at London and Doncaster, increasingly developed as a regional hub.
Coupled with vast local clay deposits, the railway enabled large scale brickmaking and distribution to take place. The area was the UK's leading producer of bricks for much of the twentieth century. Brick-making had been a small seasonal craft since the early nineteenth century, but during the 1890s successful experiments at Fletton using the harder clays from a lower level had resulted in a much more efficient process. The market dominance during this period of the London Brick Company, founded by the prolific Scottish builder and architect John Cathles Hill, gave rise to some of the country's most well-known landmarks, all built using the ubiquitous Fletton Brick. Perkins Engines was established in Peterborough in 1932 by Frank Perkins, creator of the Perkins diesel engine. Thirty years later it employed more than a tenth of the population of Peterborough, mainly at Eastfield. Baker Perkins had relocated from London to Westwood, now the site of HM Prison Peterborough, in 1903, followed by Peter Brotherhood to Walton in 1906; both manufacturers of industrial machinery, they too became major employers in the city. British Sugar has moved its headquarters to Hampton from Woodston, the beet sugar factory, which opened there in 1926, was closed in 1991.
The Norwich and Peterborough (N&P) was formed by the merger of the Norwich Building Society and the Peterborough Building Society in 1986. It was the ninth largest building society at the time of its merger into the Yorkshire Group in 2011. N&P continued to operate under its own brand administered at Lynch Wood until 2018. Prior to merger with the Midlands Co-op in 2013, Anglia Regional, the UK's fifth largest co-operative society, was also based in Peterborough, where it was established in 1876. The combined society began trading as Central England Co-operative in 2014.
Designated a New Town in 1967, Peterborough Development Corporation was formed in partnership with the city and county councils to house London's overspill population in new townships sited around the existing urban area. There were to be four townships, one each at Bretton (originally to be called Milton, a hamlet in the Middle Ages), Orton, Paston/ Werrington and Castor. The last of these was never built, but a fourth, called Hampton, is now taking shape south of the city. It was decided that the city should have a major indoor shopping centre at its heart. Planning permission was received in late summer 1976 and Queensgate, containing over 90 stores and including parking for 2,300 cars, was opened by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in 1982. of urban roads were planned and a network of high-speed landscaped thoroughfares, known as parkways, was constructed.
Peterborough's population grew by 45.4% between 1971 and 1991. New service sector companies like Thomas Cook and Pearl Assurance were attracted to the city, ending the dominance of the manufacturing industry as employers. An urban regeneration company named Opportunity Peterborough, under the chairmanship of Lord Mawhinney, was set up by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in 2005 to oversee Peterborough's future development. Between 2006 and 2012 a £1 billion redevelopment of the city centre and surrounding areas was planned. The master plan provided guidelines on the physical shaping of the city centre over the next 15–20 years. Proposals are still progressing for the north of Westgate, the south bank and the station quarter, where Network Rail is preparing a major mixed use development. Whilst recognising that the reconfiguration of the relationship between the city and station was critical, English Heritage found the current plans for Westgate unconvincing and felt more thought should be given to the vitality of the historic core.
In recent years Peterborough has undergone significant changes with numerous developments underway, most notably are Fletton Quays, a project to construct 350 apartments, various office spaces as well as a new home for Peterborough City Council with other projects within the development to include a Hilton Garden Inn hotel with a sky bar, a new passport office and various leisure, restaurant and retail opportunities. Other projects within the city include the extension to Queensgate Shopping Centre, The Great Northern Hotel and more recently plans to extend the railway station and long stay car park to facilitate more office space in the city centre and further parking.
In 2020 planning permission was granted for a new university, ARU Peterborough, which subsequently opened its doors in September 2022 on Bishops Road, a five-minute walk from the City Centre. It is an employment focused university run by Anglia Ruskin University with four faculties: Business, Innovation and Entrepreneurship; Creative and Digital Arts and Sciences; Agriculture, Environment and Sustainability; Health and Education. The new university took its first cohort of students in 2022, expecting to recruit up to 12,500 by 2028. ARU Peterborough is not expected to receive its degree awarding powers before 2030 when a review will take place to determine its future as part of Anglia Ruskin University or whether it should become its own entity.
Governance
There is one main tier of local government covering Peterborough, at unitary authority level, being Peterborough City Council, which meets at Peterborough Town Hall and has its main offices at Sand Martin House on Bittern Way. The city council is also a member of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, led by the directly elected Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.
The area governed by the city council is the district of Peterborough, which extends beyond the urban area of Peterborough itself to include surrounding villages and rural areas, particularly to the north-west and north-east. Peterborough's city status is formally held by the local government district rather than the urban area. Much of the Peterborough urban area is unparished, but some of the suburbs are included in civil parishes, including Bretton, Hampton Hargate and Vale, Orton Longueville, and Orton Waterville.
Administrative history
Peterborough was an ancient parish, which was historically in the Nassaburgh hundred of Northamptonshire. The parish was divided into five hamlets or townships: Dogsthorpe, Eastfield, Longthorpe, Newark and a Peterborough township covering the central part of the parish including the town. Within the Peterborough township was an extra-parochial area known as the Minster Precincts, covering St Peter's Abbey and its close. When the former abbey church became Peterborough Cathedral in 1541, Peterborough was thereafter deemed to be a city. The area originally holding city status was the Peterborough township plus the Minster Precincts.
Although made a city in 1541, at that time Peterborough was not a borough (despite including the word in its name). Prior to the dissolution of the abbey in 1539, the abbey had been the manorial owner of the town; that ownership passed to the new cathedral authorities. A Peterborough constituency was also created in 1541, covering the same area as the city.
In 1790 a body of improvement commissioners was established to provide public services in the city. In 1874 Peterborough was incorporated as a municipal borough, with the commissioners replaced by an elected council initially comprising a mayor, six aldermen and eighteen councillors.
The municipal borough was abolished in 1974 when the modern district was created, being a lower tier non-metropolitan district, with the area also being transferred to Cambridgeshire at the same time. In 1998 the Peterborough district was removed from the non-metropolitan county of Cambridgeshire (the area governed by Cambridgeshire County Council) to become a unitary authority, whilst remaining part of the ceremonial county of Cambridgeshire for the purposes of lieutenancy and shrievalty.
Economy
Regeneration
Figures plotting growth from 1995 to 2004, revealed that Peterborough had become the most successful economy among unitary authorities in the East of England. They also revealed that the city's economy had grown faster than the regional average and any other economy in the region. It has a strong economy in the environmental goods and services sector and has the largest cluster of environmental businesses in the UK.
In 1994, Peterborough designated itself one of four environment cities in the UK and began working to become the country's acknowledged environment capital. Peterborough Environment City Trust (PECT), an independent charity, was set up at the same time to work towards this goal, delivering projects promoting healthier and sustainable living in the city. Until 2017, PECT organised a yearly 'Green Festival' centered around Cathedral Square, Peterborough, which also benefited local artists and arts organisations through attracting Arts Council funding grants aided by arts facilitator organisation Metal. During the summer of 2018 the last Green Festival was held at Nene Park, in 2019 Peterborough's community environmental projects attracted ministerial attention from the environment secretary Michael Gove. During the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020–21 Peterborough's culture and leisure umbrella charity, Vivacity ceased operating.
The council and regional development agency have taken advice on regeneration issues from a number of internationally recognised experts, including Benjamin Barber (formerly an adviser to President Bill Clinton), Jan Gustav Strandenaes (United Nations adviser on environmental issues) and Patama Roorakwit (a Thai "community architect").
Employment
According to the 2001 census, the workplace population of 90,656 is divided into 60,118 people who live in Peterborough and 30,358 people who commute in. A further 13,161 residents commute out of the city to work. Earnings in Peterborough are lower than average. Median earnings for full-time workers were £11.93 per hour in 2014, less than the regional median for the East of England of £13.62 and the median hourly rate of £13.15 for Great Britain as a whole. As part of the government's M11 corridor, Peterborough is committed to creating 17,500 jobs with the population growing to 200,000 by 2020.
Future employment will also be created through the plan for the city centre launched by the council in 2003. Predictions of the levels and types of employment created were published in 2005. These include 1,421 jobs created in retail; 1,067 created in a variety of leisure and cultural developments; 338 in three hotels; and a further 4,847 jobs created in offices and other workspaces. Recent relocations of large employers include both Tesco (1,070 employees) and Debenhams (850 employees) distribution centres. A further 2,500 jobs were to be created in the £140 million Gateway warehouse and distribution park. This was expected to compensate for the 6,000 job losses as a result of the decline in manufacturing, anticipated in a report cited by the cabinet member for economic growth and regeneration in 2006.
With traditionally low levels of unemployment, Peterborough is a popular destination for workers and has seen significant growth through migration since the postwar period. The leader of the council said in August 2006 that he believed that 80% of the 65,000 people who had arrived in East Anglia from the states that joined the European Union in 2004 were living in Peterborough. To help cope with this influx, the council put forward plans to construct an average of 1,300 homes each year until 2021. Peterborough Trades Council, formed in 1898, is affiliated to the Trades Union Congress.
Transport
Rail
Peterborough railway station is a principal stop on the East Coast Main Line, 45–50 minutes' journey time from central London, with high-speed intercity services from King's Cross to Edinburgh Waverley operated by the London North Eastern Railway at around a 20-minute frequency. It is the northern terminus of slower commuter services from , via and central London, operated by Govia Thameslink Railway.
It is a major railway junction where a number of cross-country routes converge:
East Midlands Railway operates through services between , and Liverpool Lime Street that call at Peterborough, as well as trains on the line to .
CrossCountry provides connections west to and Birmingham, and east to , and .
Greater Anglia also runs trains to and from via .
Water
The River Nene, made navigable from the port at Wisbech to Northampton by 1761, passes through the city centre. The Nene Viaduct carries the railway over the river. It was built in 1847 by Sir William and Joseph Cubitt. William Cubitt was the chief engineer of Crystal Palace erected at Hyde Park in 1851. Apart from some minor repairs in 1910 and 1914 (the steel bands and cross braces around the fluted legs) the bridge remains as Cubitts built it. Now a Grade II* listed structure, it is the oldest surviving cast iron railway bridge in the UK. By the Town Bridge, the Customs House, built in the early eighteenth century, is a visible reminder of the city's past function as an inland port. The Environment Agency navigation starts at the junction with the Northampton arm of the Grand Union Canal and extends for ending at Bevis Hall just upstream of Wisbech. The tidal limit used to be Woodston Wharf until the Dog-in-a-Doublet lock was built downstream in 1937.
Road
The A1/A1(M) primary route (part of European route E15) broadly follows the path of the historic Great North Road from St Paul's Cathedral in the heart of London, passing Peterborough (Junction 17), and continuing north a further to central Edinburgh. In 1899 the British Electric Traction Company sought permission for a tramway joining the northern suburbs with the city centre. The system, which operated under the name Peterborough Electric Traction Company, opened in 1903 and was abandoned in favour of motor buses in 1930, when it was merged into the Eastern Counties Omnibus Company. Today, bus services in the city are operated by several companies including Stagecoach (formerly Cambus and Viscount) and Delaine Buses. Despite its large-scale growth, Peterborough has the fastest peak and off-peak travel times for a city of its size in the UK, due to the construction of the parkways. The Local Transport Plan anticipated expenditure totalling around £180 million for the period up to 2010 on major road schemes to accommodate development.
The combination of rail connections to the Port of Felixstowe and to the East Coast Main Line as well as a road connection via the A1(M) has led to Peterborough being proposed as the site of a rail-road logistics and distribution centre to be known as Magna Park.
Green Wheel and City Cycling
The Peterborough Millennium Green Wheel is a network of cycleways, footpaths and bridleways which provide safe, continuous routes around the city with radiating spokes connecting to the city centre. The project has also created a sculpture trail, which provides functional, landscape artworks along the Green Wheel route and a Living Landmarks project involving the local community in the creation of local landscape features such as mini woodlands, ponds and hedgerows. Another long-distance footpath, the Hereward Way, runs from Oakham in Rutland, through Peterborough, to East Harling in Norfolk. While cycling within the city received a boost during the COVID-19 pandemic with the introduction of new cycle lanes in busy streets, plans to connect the villages to the west of Peterborough with a new cycle track have been refused permission and some cycle lane decisions have been reversed in the city centre during easing of the corona virus lockdowns.
Demography
Population
The City of Peterborough local authority area has a population of (). It is forecast to reach 230,000 in 2031 and 240,000 by around 2041.
Peterborough's population growth was reportedly the second fastest of any British city over the ten years from 2004 to 2013, driven partly by immigration.
Ethnicity
According to the 2011 census, 82.5% of Peterborough's residents categorised themselves as white, 2.8% of mixed ethnic groups, 11.7% Asian, 2.3% black and 0.8% other. Amongst the white population, the largest categories were indigenous groups, those being English/Welsh/Scottish/Northern Irish/British (70.9%), and other white (10.6%). Those of Pakistani ethnicity accounted for 6.6% of the population and those of Indian ethnicity 2.5.%. The largest black group were those of African ethnicity (1.4%).
Peterborough is home to one of the largest concentrations of Italian immigrants in the UK. This is mainly as a result of labour recruitment in the 1950s by the London Brick Company in the southern Italian regions of Apulia and Campania. By 1960, approximately 3,000 Italian men were employed by London Brick, mostly at the Fletton works. In 1962, the Scalabrini Fathers, who first arrived in 1956, purchased an old school and converted it into a mission church named after the patron saint of workers Saint Joseph (San Giuseppe). By 1991, over 3,000 christenings of second-generation Italians had been carried out there. In 1996, it was estimated that the Italian community of Peterborough numbered 7,000, making it the third largest in the UK after London and Bedford. The 2011 Census recorded 1,179 residents born in Italy.
In the late twentieth century the main source of immigration was from new Commonwealth countries. The 2011 Census showed that a total of 24,166 migrants moved to Peterborough between 2001 and 2011. The city has experienced significant immigration from the A8 countries that joined the European Union in 2004, and in 2011, 14,134 residents of the city were people born in Central and Eastern Europe.
According to a report published by the police in 2007, recent migration had resulted in increased translation costs and a change in the nature of crime in the county, with an increase in drink driving offences, knife crime and an international dimension added to activities such as running cannabis factories and human trafficking. The number of foreign nationals arrested in the north of the county rose from 894 in 2003, to 2,435 in 2006, but the report also said that "inappropriately negative" community perceptions about migrant workers often complicate routine incidents, raising tensions and turning them "critical". It also noted there was "little evidence that the increased numbers of migrant workers have caused significant or systematic problems in respect of community safety or cohesion". In 2007, Julie Spence, the then Chief Constable emphasised that the fact that the demographic profile of Cambridgeshire had changed dramatically from one where 95% of teenagers were white four years previously to one of the country's fastest growing diverse populations, and said it had a positive impact on development and jobs. In 2008, the BBC broadcast The Poles are Coming!, a controversial documentary on the impact of Polish migration to Peterborough by Tim Samuels, as part of its White Season.
The number of languages in use is growing where previously few languages other than English were spoken. , Peterborough offered classes in Italian, Urdu and Punjabi in its primary schools.
Religion
Christianity has the largest following in Peterborough, in particular the Church of England, with a significant number of parish churches and a cathedral. 56.7% of Peterborough's residents classified themselves as Christian in the 2011 Census. Recent immigration to the city has also seen the Roman Catholic population increase substantially. Other denominations are also in evidence; the latest church to be constructed is a £7 million "superchurch," KingsGate, formerly Peterborough Community Church, which can seat up to 1,800 worshippers. In comparison with the rest of England, Peterborough has a lower proportion of Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and Sikhs. The city has a higher percentage of Muslims than England as a whole (9.4% compared to 5% nationally). The majority of Muslims reside in the Millfield, West Town and New England areas of the city, where two large mosques (including the Faidhan-e-Madina Mosque and Husaini Islamic Center-Peterborough) are based. Peterborough also has both Hindu (Bharat Hindu Samaj) and Sikh (Singh Sabha Gurdwara) temples in these areas.
The Anglican Diocese of Peterborough covers roughly , including the whole of Northamptonshire, Rutland and the Soke of Peterborough. The parts of the city that lie south of the river, which were historically in Huntingdonshire, fall within the Diocese of Ely, which covers the remainder of Cambridgeshire and western Norfolk. The current Bishop of Peterborough has been appointed Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Ely, with pastoral care for these parishes delegated to her by the Bishop of Ely. The city falls wholly within the Roman Catholic Diocese of East Anglia (which has its seat at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Baptist, Norwich) and is served by Saint Peter and All Souls Church, built in 1896 and decorated in the Gothic style. The Greek Orthodox Community of Saint Cyril, Patriarch of Jerusalem was established in 1991 under the Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain.
Culture
Education
Peterborough has one independent boarding school: The Peterborough School at Westwood House, founded in 1895. The school caters for girls and now boys up to the age of 18. Peterborough's state schools have recently undergone significant change. Five of the city's fifteen secondary schools were closed in July 2007, to be demolished over the coming years. John Mansfield (now an adult learning centre), Hereward (formerly Eastholm, now City of Peterborough Academy, sponsored by the Greenwood Dale Foundation Trust) and Deacon's were replaced with the flagship Thomas Deacon Academy, designed by Lord Foster of Thames Bank which opened in September 2007.
Queen Katharine Academy (previously The Voyager School), which has specialist media arts status, replaced Bretton Woods and Walton Community School. It is part of the Thomas Deacon Education Trust. The schools that remain have been extended and enlarged. Over £200 million was spent and the changes on-going to 2010. The King's School is one of seven schools established, or in some cases re-endowed and renamed, by King Henry VIII during the dissolution of the monasteries to pray for his soul. In 2006, 39.4% of Peterborough local education authority pupils attained five grades A* to C, including English and Mathematics, in the General Certificate of Secondary Education, lower than the national average of 45.8%.
The city has two colleges of further and higher education, Peterborough College (established in 1946 as Peterborough Technical College) and City College Peterborough (known as Peterborough College of Adult Education until 2010). By 2004, Peterborough College attracted over 15,000 students each year from the UK and abroad and was ranked in the top five per cent of colleges in the UK. Greater Peterborough University Technical College is a new education facility set to open in September 2015.
The city is currently without a university, after Loughborough University closed its Peterborough campus in 2003. Consequently, it became the second largest centre of population in the UK (after Swindon) without its own higher education institution. In 2006, however, Peterborough Regional College began talks with Anglia Ruskin University to develop a new university campus for the city. The college and the university completed the legal contracts for the creation of a new joint venture company in 2007, marking the culmination of legal negotiations and securing of funds required in order to build the new higher education centre. University Centre Peterborough opened to the first 850 students in 2009.
The former public library on Broadway was funded by Scottish philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and opened in 1906; Carnegie was made first freeman of the city on the day of the opening ceremony.
Arts
Peterborough enjoys a wide range of events including the annual East of England Show, Peterborough Festival and CAMRA beer festival, which takes place on the river embankment in late August. The yearly festivals have attracted arts funding and enabled further community projects within the city. Nationally published cartoonist John Elson, from Peterborough, has provided imagery for many of the events.
The city acts as the central hub for the region's visual arts community, with the Peterborough Artists Open Studio organisation (PAOS), celebrating its 21st anniversary year as of 2021. A number of statues by the British sculptor Antony Gormley were re-installed in the city in 2018. Removed for repair works from their original setting on concrete pillars next to the rowing lake in Nene Park, they can now be seen on top of buildings surrounding Cathedral Square in the town centre.
The Key Theatre, built in 1973, is situated on the embankment, next to the River Nene. The theatre aims to provide entertainment, enlightenment and education by reflecting the rich culture Peterborough has to offer. The programme is made up of home-grown productions, national touring shows, local community productions and one-off concerts. There is disabled access, an infrared hearing system for the deaf and hard of hearing and there are also regular signed performances.
In 1937, the Odeon Cinema opened on Broadway, where it operated successfully for more than half a century. In 1991, the Odeon showed its last film to the public and was left to fall into a state of disrepair, until 1997, when a local entrepreneur purchased the building as part of a larger project, including a restaurant and art gallery. The Broadway, designed by Tim Foster Architects, was one of the largest theatres in the region and offered a selection of live entertainment, including music, comedy and films. In 2009, it was severely damaged by arsonists, resulting in closure when its insurers refused to pay the claim due to faulty fire detection systems.
The Embassy Theatre, a large Art Deco building designed by David Evelyn Nye, also opened on Broadway in 1937. Nye was usually a cinema architect, and this was his only theatre. The Embassy was converted into a cinema in 1953, becoming the ABC and later the Cannon Cinema, before it was closed in 1989. Since 1996, the premises have been occupied by the Edwards bar chain.
The John Clare Theatre within the new central library, again on Broadway, is home to the Peterborough Film Society. One of the region's leading venues, the Cresset in Bretton, provides a wide range of events for the residents of the city and beyond, including theatre, comedy, music and dance. Peterborough has a 13-screen Showcase Cinema, an ice rink and two indoor swimming pools open to the general public.
A diverse range of restaurants can be found throughout the city, including Chinese, Indian, Thai and many Italian restaurants. Peterborough has recently been used as the setting in popular literature: A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka, A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon and, the first in a projected series, Long Way Home, a debut novel by Eva Doran.
Sport
Peterborough United Football Club, known as "The Posh", has been the local football team since 1934. They play their home matches at London Road on the south bank of the River Nene. Peterborough United have a history of cup giant-killings. They set the record for the highest number of league goals (134, Terry Bly alone scoring 52) in the 1960–61 season, when they won the Fourth Division title in their first season in the Football League. The club's highest finish position to date was 10th place in Division One, then the second tier of English football, in the 1992–93 season. Irish property developer Darragh MacAnthony was appointed chairman in 2006 and is now owner, having undertaken a lengthy purchase from Barry Fry who remains director of football, having also been manager of the club from 1996 to 2005. Peterborough also has a non-league club, Peterborough Sports, who play in the National League North.
As well as football, Peterborough has teams competing in rugby, cricket, hockey, ice hockey, rowing, athletics, American and Australian rules football. Although Cambridgeshire is not a first-class cricket county, Northamptonshire staged some home matches in the city between 1906 and 1974. Peterborough Town Cricket Club and the City of Peterborough Hockey Club compete at their shared ground in Westwood.
After reforming in 2005, rugby union club Peterborough Lions RFC now compete in National League 3 Midlands. Meanwhile, the city's oldest rugby team, Peterborough RUFC, play at Second Drove (otherwise known as "Fortress Fengate"), and have struggled in recent seasons. Relegation in 2013–14 season, from Midlands 1 East, has been followed by a season in the lower-mid table of the Midlands 2 East (South).
Peterborough City Rowing Club moved from its riverside setting to the current Thorpe Meadows location in 1983. The spring and summer regattas held there attract rowers and scullers from competing clubs all over the country. Every February the adjacent River Nene is host to the head of the river race, which again attracts hundreds of entries. Peterborough Athletic Club train and compete at the embankment athletics arena. In 2006, after 10 years, the Great Eastern Run returned to the racing calendar. Around 3,000 runners raced through the flat streets of Peterborough for the half-marathon, supported by thousands of spectators along the course.
Peterborough Phantoms are the city's ice hockey team, playing in the NIHL at Planet Ice Peterborough, located on Mallard Way in Bretton. Motorcycle speedway is also a popular sport in Peterborough, with race meetings held at the East of England Showground. The team, known as the Peterborough Panthers, have operated regularly in the Elite League. The Showground hosts the annual British Motorcycle Federation Rally each May. In 2009, Peterborough hosted one of the first rounds of the Tour Series, a new series of televised town and city centre cycling races. , the city has hosted a round of the Tour Series each year since, with the exception of 2013.
In March 2017 the first bandy session in England for over a century was held in Peterborough, in the form of rink bandy.
In 2018 Peterborough Bandy Club was founded. At the 2022 Women's Bandy World Championship Great Britain made its debut in the tournament, represented by a Peterborough team.
Media
There is a major radio transmitter at Morborne, approximately west of Peterborough, for national FM radio (BBC Radios 1–4 and Classic FM) and BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. This facility includes a high guyed radio mast which collapsed in 2004 after a fire and has since been re-built. Another transmission site at Gunthorpe in the north east of the city transmits AM/MW and local FM radio. The site is only above sea level and has an high active insulated guyed mast situated on it.
Peterborough is covered by six local radio stations and one regional station, though only two community stations broadcast from the city. These are Salaam FM, catering for the local Muslim population, which started broadcasting on 106.2 MHz in 2016 and Peterborough Community Radio (PCR FM), a station formed as a result of a merger between former internet stations Peterborough FM and Radio Peterborough, which started broadcasting on 103.2 MHz in 2017.
Heart Cambridgeshire (now Heart East), the original independent local radio station launched as Hereward Radio in 1980 and becoming Heart Peterborough in 2009, still holds a large section of the market on 102.7 MHz but relocated to Cambridge in 2012, where it began sharing the localised programming (of mainly national output) with Heart Cambridge. Hereward's sister station, WGMS, was launched on the old 1332 kHz (225 meters) frequency in 1992; known as Classic Gold from 1994 to 2007, it is now part of Heart's sister Gold Radio network, but has no programming made in Peterborough. Connect Radio (from 1999 to 2010, known as Lite FM), was the city's second commercial station on 106.8;MHz, but was sold and rebranded as Smooth East Midlands on 1 October 2019.
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, the BBC local radio station, began broadcasting on 1 May 1982 on 95.7 MHz (and, originally, 1449 kHz) in the north of the county; it maintains a studio in Priestgate, having moved from Broadway in 2012. Now rebranded to Greatest Hits Radio formerly Kiss & Vibe 105 < > 108 is now available on 107.7 MHz. NOW Peterborough is the local DAB multiplex; BBC National DAB and the national commercial multiplex, Digital One, are also available in the city. Local news and television programmes is provided by BBC East and ITV Anglia. Television signals are received from the Sandy Heath TV transmitter.
The digital switchover in the East of England took place in 2011. Shopping channel Ideal World is broadcast nationwide on Freeview from studios in Newark Road, Fengate.
The Peterborough Telegraph (established 1948) is the city's newspaper, published on Thursdays and, until 2012, six days a week as the Evening Telegraph, with jobs, property, motors and entertainment supplements. The Telegraph is now owned by National World Publishing Ltd. Its website, Peterborough Today, is updated six days a week. The PT's sister paper, the Peterborough Citizen (1898), was a weekly paper delivered free to many homes in the city. The Peterborough Herald and Post (1989, a replacement for the Peterborough Standard, established 1872) ceased publication in 2008. The publisher Emap, which specialises in the production of magazines and the organisation of business events and conferences, traces its origins back to Peterborough in 1854. The 33rd Mayor of Peterborough, Sir Richard Winfrey JP, founder of what would become the East Midland Allied Press, was perhaps the last person to read the Riot Act in 1914.
Peterborough has been used as a location for various television programmes and films. The 1982 BBC production of The Barchester Chronicles was filmed largely in and around Peterborough. In 1983 opening scenes for the 13th James Bond film, Octopussy, starring Sir Roger Moore, were filmed at Orton Mere. A music video for the song "BreakThru" by the band Queen was also shot on the preserved Nene Valley Railway in 1989. In 1995 Pierce Brosnan filmed train crash sequences for the 17th Bond film, GoldenEye, at the former sugar beet factory. A scene for the film The Da Vinci Code was filmed at Burghley House during five weeks' secret filming in 2006; and actor, Lee Marvin, found himself camping in Ferry Meadows during the filming of The Dirty Dozen: Next Mission in 1985. In October 2008 Hollywood returned to Wansford for the filming of the musical Nine, starring Penélope Cruz and Daniel Day-Lewis.
Landmarks
Peterborough Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Andrew, whose statues look down from the three high gables of the West Front, was founded as a monastery in AD 655 and re-built in its present form between 1118 and 1238. It has been the seat of the Bishop of Peterborough since the diocese was created in 1541, when the last abbot was made the first bishop and the abbot's house was converted into the episcopal palace. Peterborough Cathedral is one of the most intact large Norman buildings in England and is renowned for its imposing early English Gothic West Front which, with its three enormous arches, is without architectural precedent and with no direct successor. The cathedral has the distinction of having had two queens buried beneath its paving: Catherine of Aragon and Mary, Queen of Scots. The remains of Queen Mary were removed to Westminster Abbey by her son James I when he became King of England.
The general layout of Peterborough is attributed to Martin de Vecti who, as abbot from 1133 to 1155, rebuilt the settlement on dry limestone to the west of the monastery, rather than the often-flooded marshlands to the east. Abbot Martin was responsible for laying out the market place and the wharf beside the river. Peterborough's 17th-century Guildhall was built in 1671 by John Lovin, who also restored the bishop's palace shortly after the restoration of King Charles II. It stands on columns, providing an open ground floor for the butter and poultry markets which used to be held there. The Market Place was renamed Cathedral Square and the adjacent Gates Memorial Fountain moved to Bishop's Road Gardens in 1963, when the (then weekly) market was transferred to the site of the old cattle market.
Peterscourt on City Road was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1864, housing St. Peter's Teacher Training College for men until 1938. The building is mainly listed for the 18th century doorway, brought from the London Guildhall following war damage. Nearby Tout Hill, the site of a castle bailey, is a scheduled monument. The city has a large Victorian park containing formal gardens, children's play areas, an aviary, bowling green, tennis courts, pitch and putt course and tea rooms. The Park has been awarded the Green Flag Award, the national standard for parks and green spaces, by the Civic Trust. A Cross of Sacrifice was erected in Broadway cemetery by the Imperial War Graves Commission in the early 1920s. The Lido, a striking building with elements of art deco design, was opened in 1936 and is one of the few survivors of its type still in use.
Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery, built in 1816, housed the city's first infirmary from 1857 to 1928. The museum has a collection of some 227,000 objects, including local archaeology and social history, from the products of the Roman pottery industry to Britain's oldest known murder victim; a collection of marine fossil remains from the Jurassic period of international importance; the manuscripts of John Clare, the "Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" as he was commonly known in his own time; and the Norman Cross collection of items made by French prisoners of war. These prisoners were kept at Norman Cross on the outskirts of Peterborough from 1797 to 1814, in what is believed to be the world's first purpose-built prisoner of war camp. The art collection contains an impressive variety of paintings, prints and drawings dating from the 1600s to the present day. Peterborough Museum also holds regular temporary exhibitions, weekend events and guided tours.
Burghley House to the north of Peterborough, near Stamford, was built and mostly designed by Sir William Cecil, later 1st Baron Burghley, who was Lord High Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth I for most of her reign. The country house, with a park laid out by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown in the 18th century, is one of the principal examples of 16th-century English architecture. The estate, still home to his descendants, hosts the Burghley Horse Trials, an annual three-day event. Another Grade I listed building, Milton Hall near Castor, ancestral home of the Barons and later Earls Fitzwilliam, also dates from the same period. For two centuries following the restoration the city was a pocket borough of this family.
The John Clare Cottage in the village of Helpston was purchased by the John Clare Trust in 2005. The cottage, home of John Clare from his birth in 1793 until 1832, has been restored using traditional building methods to create a resource where visitors can learn about the poet, his works and how rural people lived in the early 19th century. The John Clare Cottage and Thorney Heritage Museum form part of the Greater Fens Museum Partnership, along with Peterborough Museum and Flag Fen.
Longthorpe Tower, a 14th-century three-storey tower and fortified manor house in the care of English Heritage, is situated about west of the city centre. It is a scheduled monument, and contains the finest and most complete set of domestic paintings of their period in northern Europe. Nearby Thorpe Hall is one of the few mansions built in the Commonwealth period. A maternity hospital from 1943 to 1970, it was acquired by the Sue Ryder Foundation in 1986 and is currently in use as a hospice.
Flag Fen, the Bronze Age archaeological site, was discovered in 1982, when a team led by Dr Francis Pryor carried out a survey of dykes in the area. Probably religious, it comprises a large number of poles arranged in five long rows, connecting Whittlesey with Peterborough across the wet fenland. The museum exhibits many of the artefacts found, including what is believed to be the oldest wheel in Britain. An exposed section of the Roman road known as the Fen Causeway also crosses the site.
The Nene Valley Railway, which is now a heritage railway, was one of the last passenger lines to fall under the Beeching Axe in 1966, although it remained open for freight traffic until 1972. In 1974, the former development corporation bought the line, which runs from the city centre to Yarwell Junction just west of Wansford via Orton Mere and the Ferry Meadows country park, and leased it to the Peterborough Railway Society. Railworld is a railway museum located beside Peterborough Nene Valley railway station.
The Nene Park, which opened in 1978, covers a site long, from slightly west of Castor to the centre of Peterborough. The park has three lakes, one of which houses a watersports centre. Ferry Meadows, one of the major destinations and attractions signposted on the Green Wheel, occupies a large portion of Nene Park. Orton Mere provides access to the east of the park.
Southey Wood, once included in the Royal Forest of Rockingham, is a mixed woodland maintained by the Forestry Commission between the villages of Upton and Ufford. Nearby, Castor Hanglands, Barnack Hills and Holes and Bedford Purlieus national nature reserves are each sites of special scientific interest. In 2002, the Hills and Holes, one of Natural England's 35 spotlight reserves, was designated a special area of conservation as part of the Natura 2000 network of sites throughout the European Union.
Notable people
Peterborough is the birthplace of many notable people, the astronomer George Alcock, one of the most successful visual discoverers of novas and comets; John Clare, from Helpston, the nineteenth century poet; artist, Christopher Perkins – brother of Frank; and Sir Henry Royce, 1st Baronet of Seaton, engineer and co-founder of Rolls-Royce. Physician, actor and author, "Sir" John Hill, credited with 76 separate works in the Dictionary of National Biography, the most valuable of which dealing with botany, is also said to have been born here. The socialist writer and illustrator, Frank Horrabin, who was born in the city, and was elected as the Labour Member of Parliament in 1929.
The utilitarian philosopher, Dr Richard Cumberland, was 14th Lord Bishop of Peterborough from 1691 until his death in 1718; and Norfolk-born nurse and humanitarian, Edith Cavell, who received part of her education at Laurel Court in the Minster Precinct, is commemorated by a plaque in the cathedral and by the name of the hospital. A gravedigger called Old Scarlett, whose portrait can be seen above the west door of Peterborough Cathedral, is considered a folk hero. He died in 1594 at the age of 98, having spent much of his life as the sexton at Peterborough Cathedral; having buried two monarchs, he has also been suggested as the inspiration for the gravedigger in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Two prominent historical figures were born locally, Hereward the Wake, an outlaw who led resistance to the Norman Conquest and now lends his name to several places and businesses in the city; and St. John Payne, one of the group of prominent Catholics martyred between 1535 and 1679 and later designated the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, who was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886 and canonised with the other 39 by Pope Paul VI in 1970.
Musicians include Sir Thomas Armstrong, organist, conductor and former principal of the Royal Academy of Music; Andy Bell, lead vocalist of the electronic pop duo Erasure; Barrie Forgie, leader of the BBC Big Band; Don Lusher, trombonist and former professor of the Royal College of Music and the Royal Marines School of Music; Paul Nicholas, actor and singer; Maxim Reality and Gizz Butt of The Prodigy and Aston Merrygold of Brit Award-winning pop group JLS. Comedian Ernie Wise lived on Thorpe Avenue for many years, next door to Canadian baritone and actor Edmund Hockridge. Jimmy Savile also lived in the city in the early 1990s.
Other media personalities include actors Simon Bamford, known for the 'Hellraiser' franchise, Adrian Lyne, director of Fatal Attraction, Oscar Jacques, known for playing Tom Tupper in the CBBC Series M.I. High, Luke Pasqualino, known for his roles in Skins and The Musketeers; television presenter, Sarah Cawood, who grew up in Maxey; BBC Formula One presenter, Jake Humphrey; football journalist and Talksport radio presenter, Adrian Durham; and the biologist, author and broadcaster, Prof. Brian J. Ford, who attended the King's School and still lives in Eastrea near Whittlesey. Local businessman, Peter Boizot, founder of the Pizza Express restaurant chain and Deputy Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, has supported the cultural and sporting life of Peterborough and received its highest accolade, the freedom of the city. The thalidomide victim Terry Wiles, subject of the 1979 film On Giant's Shoulders, was born in the city.
In the sporting world, former Tottenham Hotspur and England footballer, David Bentley, was born in the city, as was Louis Smith, who at the 2008 games became Great Britain's first gymnast to win an individual Olympic medal in a century. Chelsea Football player, currently on loan at Luton Town footballer Isaiah Brown, was born in Peterborough, before joining Leicester City and later West Bromwich Albion, becoming the second youngest player to play in the Premier League. Harry Wells, a rugby union player for Leicester Tigers in Premiership Rugby, was born in Peterborough and attended The King's (The Cathedral) School.
Geography
Climate
According to the Köppen classification the British Isles experience a maritime climate characterised by relatively cool summers and mild winters. Compared with other parts of the country, East Anglia is slightly warmer and sunnier in the summer and colder and frostier in the winter. Owing to its inland position, furthest from the landfall of most Atlantic depressions, Cambridgeshire is one of the driest counties in the UK, receiving, on average, around of rain per year. The Met Office weather station at Wittering, within the unitary authority of Peterborough, recorded a maximum temperature of on 25 July 2019. The lowest temperature in recent years was during February 2012.
Topography
East Anglia is most notable for being almost flat (it is mainly on a floodplain). During the Ice Age much of the region was covered by ice sheets and this has influenced the topography and nature of the soils. Much of Cambridgeshire is low-lying, in some places below present-day mean sea level. The lowest point on land is supposedly just to the south of the city at Holme Fen, which is below sea level. The largest of the many settlements along the Fen edge, Peterborough has been called the Gateway to the Fens. Before they were drained the Fens were liable to periodic flooding so arable farming was limited to the higher areas of the Fen edge, with the rest of the Fenland dedicated to pastoral farming. In this way, the mediaeval and early modern Fens stood in contrast to the rest of southern England, which was primarily arable. Since the advent of modern drainage in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the Fens have been radically transformed such that arable farming has almost entirely replaced pastoral. The unitary authority extends north west to the settlements of Wothorpe and Wittering and east beyond Thorney into the historic Isle of Ely and includes the Ortons, south of the River Nene. It borders Northamptonshire to the west, Lincolnshire to the north, and the Cambridgeshire districts of Fenland and Huntingdonshire to the south and east. The city centre is located at 52°35'N latitude 0°15'W longitude or Ordnance Survey national grid reference TL 185 998.
Urban areas
Townships are in bold type. In addition to the surrounding villages, Bretton, Orton Longueville and Orton Waterville are parished. The city council also works closely with Werrington neighbourhood association which operates on a similar basis to a parish council.
Bretton – Dogsthorpe – Eastfield – Eastgate – Fengate – Fletton – Gunthorpe – The Hamptons – Longthorpe – Millfield – Netherton – Newark – New England – The Ortons – Parnwell – Paston – Ravensthorpe – Stanground – Walton – Werrington – West Town – Westwood – Woodston
Rural areas
Civil parishes do not cover the whole of England and mostly exist in rural hinterland. They are usually administered by parish councils which have various local responsibilities.
Ailsworth – Bainton – Barnack – Borough Fen – Castor – Deeping Gate – Etton – Eye – Eye Green – Glinton – Helpston – Marholm – Maxey – Newborough – Northborough – Peakirk – Southorpe – St. Martin's Without – Sutton – Thorney – Thornhaugh – Ufford – Upton – Wansford – Wittering – Wothorpe
These are further arranged into 24 electoral wards for the purposes of local government. 15 wards comprise the Peterborough constituency for elections to the House of Commons, while the remaining nine fall within the North West Cambridgeshire constituency.
Linguistics
Peterborough lies in the middle of several distinct regional accent groups and as such has a hybrid of Fenland East Anglian, East Midland and London Estuary English features. The city falls just north of the A vowel isogloss and as such most native speakers will use the flat A, as found in cat, in words such as last. Yod-dropping is often heard from Peterborians, as in the rest of East Anglia, for example new as . However, the large number of newcomers has impacted greatly on the English spoken by the younger generation. Common so-called Estuary English features such as L-vocalisation, T glottalisation and Th-fronting give today's Peterborough accent a definite south-eastern sound.
Affiliations
Town twinning started in Europe after the Second World War. Its purpose was to promote friendship and greater understanding between the people of different European cities. A twinning link is a formal, long-term friendship agreement involving co-operation between two communities in different countries and endorsed by both local authorities. The two communities organise projects and activities addressing a range of issues and develop an understanding of historical, cultural, lifestyle similarities and differences. Peterborough is twinned with the following municipalities:
Alcalá de Henares, Spain (birthplace of Queen Katherine, 1986)
Ballarat, Australia (1947)
Bourges, France (1957)
Forlì, Italy (1981)
Viersen, Germany (1981)
Vinnytsia, Ukraine (1991)
Bourges and Forlì are also twinned with each other. The city also has more informal friendship links with Foggia, Italy; Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe; Pécs, Hungary; and all Peterboroughs around the world. The county of Cambridgeshire has been twinned with Kreis Viersen, Germany since 1983.
Paleontology
Fossils of a hybodontiform fish Planohybodus were found in the Callovian (Middle Jurassic) deposits near Peterborough. The type species Planohybodus peterboroughensis was named after Peterborough in 2008.
Freedom of the City
The following People, Military Units and Organisations and Groups have received the Freedom of the City of Peterborough.
Individuals
Peter Boizot: 2007
Wyndham Thomas, British architect, 19 September 2015
Louis Smith: 21 March 2017
James Fox: 21 March 2017
Lee Manning: 21 March 2017
Tommy Robson: 12 March 2020.
Military units
RAF Wittering: 1983.
158 (Royal Anglian) Transport Regiment, Royal Logistic Corps (Volunteers): 25 July 2009.
115 (Peterborough) Squadron Air Training Corps: 28 April 2014.
Organisations and groups
The Salvation Army (Peterborough Branch): 4 March 2015.
The Royal British Legion (Peterborough Branch): 28 July 2021.
References
Notes
Footnotes
Bibliography
Banham, John Final Recommendations for the Future Local Government of Cambridgeshire HMSO, London, 1994.
Banham, John Final Recommendations on the Future Local Government of Basildon & Thurrock, Blackburn & Blackpool, Broxtowe, Gedling & Rushcliffe, Dartford & Gravesham, Gillingham & Rochester upon Medway, Exeter, Gloucester, Halton & Warrington, Huntingdonshire & Peterborough, Northampton, Norwich, Spelthorne and the Wrekin HMSO, London, 1995.
Bennett, Jack Arthur Walter Middle English Literature (ed. and completed by Douglas Gray) Oxford University Press, 1986 ().
Brandon, David and Knight, John Peterborough Past: The City and The Soke Phillimore & Co., Chichester, 2001 ().
Chisholm, Hugh (ed.) Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed., 28 vols.) Cambridge University Press, 1911 (text in the public domain).
Clark, Cecily (ed.) The Peterborough Chronicle 1070–1154 Oxford University Press, 1958 ().
Colpi, Terry The Italian Factor: The Italian Community in Great Britain Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh, 1991 ().
Davies, Elizabeth et al. Peterborough: A Story of City and Country, People and Places Peterborough City Council and Pitkin Unichrome, 2001 ().
Garmonsway, George Norman (trans.) The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle J. M. Dent & Sons, London, 1972 & 1975 ().
Grainger, Margaret A Descriptive Catalogue of the John Clare Collection Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery, 1973 ().
Hancock, Henry Drummond Report and Proposals for the East Midlands General Review Area (LGCE Report No.3) HMSO, London, 1961.
Hancock, Henry Drummond Report and Proposals for the Lincolnshire and East Anglia General Review Area (LGCE Report No.9) HMSO, London, 1965.
Hancock, Tom Greater Peterborough Master Plan Peterborough Development Corporation, 1971.
Ingram, James Henry (trans.) The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle J. M. Dent & Sons, London, 1823 (1847 Everyman's Library ed. with additional readings from the translation of John Allen Giles).
King, Richard John Handbook to the Cathedrals of England John Murray, London, 1862.
Labrum, Edward A. Civil Engineering Heritage: Eastern and Central England Thomas Telford, London, 1994 ().
Leatham, Victoria Burghley: The Life of a Great House The Herbert Press, London, 1992 ().
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray and Harrison, Brian Howard (eds.) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (60 vols.) Oxford University Press in association with the British Academy, 2004–2006 ().
Mellows, William Thomas (ed.) The Chronicle of Hugh Candidus a Monk of Peterborough, Oxford University Press, 1949 (scholarly ed. in Latin).
Mellows, William Thomas (ed.) The Peterborough Chronicle of Hugh Candidus (trans.) Peterborough Natural History, Scientific and Archæological Society, 1941 (popular ed. in English).
Newton, David Men of Mark: Makers of East Midland Allied Press Emap, Peterborough, 1977 ().
Parthey, Gustav and Pinder, Moritz (eds.) Itinerarivm Antonini Avgvsti et Hierosolymitanum: ex libris manu scriptis Friederich Nicolaus, Berlin, 1848.
Pryor, Francis Flag Fen: Life and Death of a Prehistoric Landscape Tempus Publishing, Stroud, 2005 ().
Rhodes, John The Nene Valley Railway Turntable Publications, Sheffield, 1976 ().
Salter, Mike The Castles of East Anglia Folly Publications, Malvern, 2001 ().
Skinner, Julia (with particular reference to the work of Robert Cook) Did You Know? Peterborough: A Miscellany The Francis Frith Collection, Salisbury, 2006 ().
Sweeting, Walter Debenham The Cathedral Church of Peterborough: A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See G. Bell & Sons, London, 1898 (1926 reprint of the 2nd ed. of Bell's Cathedrals).
Tebbs, Herbert F. Peterborough: A History The Oleander Press, Cambridge, 1979 ().
Turner, Roger Capability Brown and the Eighteenth Century English Landscape Phillimore & Co., Chichester, 1999 ().
Youngs, Frederic A. Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England (2 vols.) The Offices of the Royal Historical Society, University College London, 1991 ().
External links
Peterborough City Council
Opportunity Peterborough
Peterborough Today
Cities in the East of England
Towns in Cambridgeshire
Planned communities in England
New towns started in the 1960s
Unparished areas in Cambridgeshire
Former civil parishes in Cambridgeshire |
23907 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRC%20%28disambiguation%29 | PRC (disambiguation) | P.R.C. is the People's Republic of China.
PRC may also refer to:
Organizations
Political
Communist Refoundation Party, (Partito della Rifondazione Comunista), Italy
Regionalist Party of Cantabria
Popular Resistance Committees, Palestinian militant organizations
People's Redemption Council, Liberian early 1980s military regime
Pasadena Republican Club
People's Republic of the Congo, former country in Africa (until 1992)
Republic of the Congo, successor of the People's Republic of the Congo, ongoing UNDP code
Other organizations
Pew Research Center
Philippine Red Cross
Postal Regulatory Commission, an independent regulatory agency in the US
Presbyterian Reformed Church (Australia)
Producers Releasing Corporation, Hollywood film studio 1939–1947
Professional Regulation Commission, Philippines
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23914 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphemus | Polyphemus | Polyphemus (; , ; ) is the one-eyed giant son of Poseidon and Thoosa in Greek mythology, one of the Cyclopes described in Homer's Odyssey. His name means "abounding in songs and legends", "many-voiced" or "very famous". Polyphemus first appeared as a savage man-eating giant in the ninth book of the Odyssey. The satyr play of Euripides is dependent on this episode apart from one detail; Polyphemus is made a pederast in the play. Later Classical writers presented him in their poems as heterosexual and linked his name with the nymph Galatea. Often he was portrayed as unsuccessful in these, and as unaware of his disproportionate size and musical failings. In the work of even later authors, however, he is presented as both a successful lover and skilled musician. From the Renaissance on, art and literature reflect all of these interpretations of the giant.
Odysseus and Polyphemus
Ancient sources
In Homer's epic, Odysseus lands on the island of the Cyclopes during his journey home from the Trojan War and, together with some of his men, enters a cave filled with provisions. When the giant Polyphemus returns home with his flocks, he blocks the entrance with a great stone and, scorning the usual custom of hospitality, eats two of the men. Next morning, the giant kills and eats two more and leaves the cave to graze his sheep.
After the giant returns in the evening and eats two more of the men, Odysseus offers Polyphemus some strong and undiluted wine given to him earlier on his journey. Drunk and unwary, the giant asks Odysseus his name, promising him a guest-gift if he answers. Odysseus tells him "Οὖτις", which means "nobody" and Polyphemus promises to eat this "Nobody" last of all. With that, he falls into a drunken sleep. Odysseus had meanwhile hardened a wooden stake in the fire and drives it into Polyphemus' eye. When Polyphemus shouts for help from his fellow giants, saying that "Nobody" has hurt him, they think Polyphemus is being afflicted by divine power and recommend prayer as the answer.
In the morning, the blind Cyclops lets the sheep out to graze, feeling their backs to ensure that the men are not escaping. However, Odysseus and his men have tied themselves to the undersides of the animals and so get away. As he sails off with his men, Odysseus boastfully reveals his real name, an act of hubris that was to cause problems for him later. Polyphemus prays to his father, Poseidon, for revenge and casts huge rocks towards the ship, which Odysseus barely escapes.
The story reappears in later Classical literature. In Cyclops, the 5th-century BC play by Euripides, a chorus of satyrs offers comic relief from the grisly story of how Polyphemus is punished for his impious behaviour in not respecting the rites of hospitality. In this play, Polyphemus claims to be a pederast, revealing to Odysseus that he takes more pleasure in boys than in women, and tries to take the satyr Silenus, who he kept together with his sons as slaves on Mount Etna in Sicily, calling him "my Ganymede". The scene is infused with low comedy, specifically from the chorus, and Polyphemus is made to look silly: he is drunk when he explains his sexual desire, Silenus is too old to play the part of the young lover, and he himself will be subjected to penetration—with the wooden spike.
In his Latin epic, Virgil describes how Aeneas observes blind Polyphemus as he leads his flocks down to the sea. They have encountered Achaemenides, who re-tells the story of how Odysseus and his men escaped, leaving him behind. The giant is described as descending to the shore, using a "lopped pine tree" as a walking staff. Once Polyphemus reaches the sea, he washes his oozing, bloody eye socket and groans painfully. Achaemenides is taken aboard Aeneas' vessel and they cast off with Polyphemus in chase. His great roar of frustration brings the rest of the Cyclopes down to the shore as Aeneas draws away in fear.
Artistic representations
During the seventh century, the potters gave preference to scenes from both epics, The Odyssey and the Iliad, almost half being that of the blinding of the Cyclops and the ruse by which Odysseus and his men escape. One such episode, on a vase featuring the hero carried beneath a sheep, was used on a 27 drachma Greek postage stamp in 1983. This was a steep drop (to the point of being "insignificant") from the volume of pan-Hellenic pottery discovered from the fifth and sixth centuries, which largely depicted ancient Greek mythology: scenes from the Trojan War or deeds from Heracles or Perseus.
The blinding was depicted in life-size sculpture, including a giant Polyphemus, in the Sperlonga sculptures probably made for the Emperor Tiberius. This may be an interpretation of an existing composition, and was apparently repeated in variations in later Imperial palaces by Claudius, Nero and at Hadrian's Villa.
Of the European painters of the subject, the Flemish Jacob Jordaens depicted Odysseus escaping from the cave of Polyphemus in 1635 (see gallery below) and others chose the dramatic scene of the giant casting boulders at the escaping ship. In Guido Reni's painting of 1639/40 (see above), the furious giant is tugging a boulder from the cliff as Odysseus and his men row out to the ship far below. Polyphemus is portrayed, as it often happens, with two empty eye sockets and his damaged eye located in the middle on his forehead. This convention goes back to Greek statuary and painting, and is reproduced in Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein's 1802 head and shoulders portrait of the giant (see below).
Arnold Böcklin pictures the giant as standing on rocks onshore and swinging one of them back as the men row desperately over a surging wave (see below), while Polyphemus is standing at the top of a cliff in Jean-Léon Gérôme's painting of 1902. He stands poised, having already thrown one stone, which barely misses the ship. The reason for his rage is depicted in J. M. W. Turner's painting, Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus (1829). Here the ship sails forward as the sun breaks free of clouds low on the horizon. The giant himself is an indistinct shape barely distinguished from the woods and smoky atmosphere high above.
Possible origins
Folktales similar to that of Homer's Polyphemus are a widespread phenomenon throughout the ancient world. In 1857, Wilhelm Grimm collected versions in Serbian, Romanian, Estonian, Finnish, Russian, German, and others; versions in Basque, Sámi, Lithuanian, Gascon, Syriac, and Celtic are also known. More than two hundred different versions have been identified, from around twenty five nations, covering a geographic region extending from Iceland, Ireland, England, Portugal and Africa to Arabia, Turkey, Russia, and Korea. The consensus of current modern scholarship is that these "Polyphemus legends" preserve traditions predating Homer.
An example of such a story is one from Georgia, in the Caucasus, which describes several brothers held prisoner by a giant one-eyed shepherd called "One-eye". After all but two of the brothers are roasted on a spit and eaten, the remaining two take the spit, heat it red hot, and stab it into the giant's eye. As One-eye let his flock out of their pen, he felt each sheep as it passed between his legs, but the two brothers were able to escape by covering themselves with a sheepskin.
Polyphemus and Galatea
Ancient sources
Philoxenus of Cythera
Writing more than three centuries after the Odyssey is thought to have been composed, Philoxenus of Cythera took up the myth of Polyphemus in his poem Cyclops or Galatea. The poem was written to be performed as a dithyramb, of which only fragments have survived, and was perhaps the first to provide a female love interest for the Cyclops. The object of Polyphemus' romantic desire is a sea nymph named Galatea. In the poem, Polyphemus is not a cave dwelling, monstrous brute, as in the Odyssey, but instead he is rather like Odysseus himself in his vision of the world: He has weaknesses, he is adept at literary criticism, and he understands people.
The date of composition for the Cyclops is not precisely known, but it must be prior to 388 BC, when Aristophanes parodied it in his comedy Plutus (Wealth); and probably after 406 BC, when Dionysius I became tyrant of Syracuse. Philoxenus lived in that city and was the court poet of Dionysius I. According to ancient commentators, either because of his frankness regarding Dionysius' poetry, or because of a conflict with the tyrant over a female aulos player named Galatea, Philoxenus was imprisoned in the quarries and had there composed his Cyclops in the manner of a Roman à clef, where the poem's characters, Polyphemus, Odysseus and Galatea, were meant to represent Dionysius, Philoxenus, and the aulos-player. Philoxenus had his Polyphemus perform on the cithara, a professional lyre requiring great skill. The Cyclops playing such a sophisticated and fashionable instrument would have been quite a surprising juxtaposition for Philoxenus' audience.
Philoxenus' Cyclops is also referred to in Aristotle's Poetics in a section that discusses representations of people in tragedy and comedy, citing as comedic examples the Cyclops of both Timotheus and Philoxenus.
Aristophanes
The text of Aristophanes' last extant play Plutus (Wealth) has survived with almost all of its choral odes missing. What remains shows Aristophanes (as he does to some extent in all his plays) parodying a contemporary literary work — in this case Philoxenus' Cyclops. While making fun of literary aspects of Philoxenus' dithyramb, Aristophanes is at the same time commenting on musical developments occurring in the fourth century BC, developing themes that run through the whole play. It also contains lines and phrases taken directly from the Cyclops.
The slave Cario, tells the chorus that his master has brought home with him the god Wealth, and because of this they will all now be rich. The chorus wants to dance for joy, so Cario takes the lead by parodying Philoxenus' Cyclops. As a solo performer leading a chorus that sings and dances, Cario recreates the form of a dithyramb. He first casts himself in the role of Polyphemus while assigning to the chorus the roles of sheep and goats, at the same time imitating the sound of a lyre: "And now I wish — threttanello! — to imitate the Cyclops and, swinging my feet to and fro like this, to lead you in the dance. But come on, children, shout and shout again the songs of bleating sheep and smelly goats." The chorus, however, does not want to play sheep and goats, they would rather be Odysseus and his men, and they threaten to blind Cario (as had Odysseus the drunken Cyclops) with a wooden stake.
Hellenistic pastoral poets
The romantic element, originated by Philoxenus, was revived by later Hellenistic poets, including Theocritus, Callimachus, Hermesianax, and Bion of Smyrna.
Theocritus is credited with creating the genre of pastoral poetry. His works are titled Idylls and of these Idyll XI tells the story of the Cyclops' love for Galatea. Though the character of Polyphemus derives from Homer, there are notable differences. Where Homer's Cyclops was beastly and wicked, Theocritus' is absurd, lovesick and comic. Polyphemus loves the sea nymph Galatea, but she rejects him because of his ugliness. However, in a borrowing from Philoxenus' poem, Polyphemus has discovered that music will heal lovesickness, and so he plays the panpipes and sings of his woes, for "I am skilled in piping as no other Cyclops here". His longing is to overcome the antithetic elements that divide them, he of earth and she of water:
The love of the mismatched pair was later taken up by other pastoral poets. The same trope of music being the cure for love was introduced by Callimachus in his Epigram 47: "How excellent was the charm that Polyphemus discovered for the lover. By Earth, the Cyclops was no fool!" A fragment of a lost idyll by Bion also portrays Polyphemus declaring his undying love for Galatea. Referring back to this, an elegy on Bion's death that was once attributed to Moschus takes the theme further in a piece of hyperbole. Where Polyphemus had failed, the poet declares, Bion's greater artistry had won Galatea's heart, drawing her from the sea to tend his herds. This reflected the situation in Idyll VI of Theocritus. There two herdsmen engage in a musical competition, one of them playing the part of Polyphemus, who asserts that since he has adopted the ruse of ignoring Galatea, she has now become the one who pursues him.
Latin poets
The successful outcome of Polyphemus' love was also alluded to in the course of a 1st-century BC love elegy on the power of music by the Latin poet Propertius. Listed among the examples he mentions is that "Even Galatea, it's true, below wild Etna, wheeled her brine-wet horses, Polyphemus, to your songs." The division of contrary elements between the land-based monster and the sea nymph, lamented in Theocritus' Idyll 11, is brought into harmony by this means.
While Ovid's treatment of the story that he introduced into the Metamorphoses is reliant on the idylls of Theocritus, it is complicated by the introduction of Acis, who has now become the focus of Galatea's love.
There is also a reversion to the Homeric vision of the hulking monster, whose attempt to play the tender shepherd singing love songs is made a source of humour by Galatea:
In his own character, too, Polyphemus mentions the transgression of heavenly laws that once characterised his actions and is now overcome by Galatea: "I, who scorn Jove and his heaven and his piercing lightning bolt, submit to you alone."
Galatea listens to the love song of Polyphemus while she and Acis lie hidden by a rock. In his song, Polyphemus scolds her for not loving him in return, offers her rustic gifts and points out what he considers his best feature — the single eye that is, he boasts, the size of a great shield. But when Polyphemus discovers the hiding place of the lovers, he becomes enraged with jealousy. Galatea, terrified, dives into the ocean, while the Cyclops wrenches off a piece of the mountain and crushes Acis with it. But on her return, Galatea changes her dead lover into the spirit of the Sicilian river Acis.
First-century AD art
That the story sometimes had a more successful outcome for Polyphemus is also attested in the arts. In one of the murals rescued from the site of Pompeii, Polyphemus is pictured seated on a rock with a cithara (rather than a syrinx) by his side, holding out a hand to receive a love letter from Galatea, which is carried by a winged Cupid riding on a dolphin.
In another fresco, also dating from the 1st century AD, the two stand locked in a naked embrace (see below). From their union came the ancestors of various wild and war-like races. According to some accounts, the Celts (Galati in Latin, Γάλλοi in Greek) were descended from their son Galatos, while Appian credited them with three children, Celtus, Illyrius and Galas, from whom descend the Celts, the Illyrians and the Gauls respectively.
Lucian
There are indications that Polyphemus' courtship also had a more successful outcome in one of the dialogues of Lucian of Samosata. There Doris, one of Galatea's sisters, spitefully congratulates her on her love conquest and she defends Polyphemus. From the conversation, one understands that Doris is chiefly jealous that her sister has a lover. Galatea admits that she does not love Polyphemus but is pleased to have been chosen by him in preference to all her companions.
Nonnus
That their conjunction was fruitful is also implied in a later Greek epic from the turn of the 5th century AD. In the course of his Dionysiaca, Nonnus gives an account of the wedding of Poseidon and Beroe, at which the Nereid "Galatea twangled a marriage dance and restlessly twirled in capering step, and she sang the marriage verses, for she had learnt well how to sing, being taught by Polyphemos with a shepherd's syrinx."
Later European interpretations
Literature and music
During Renaissance and Baroque times Ovid's story emerged again as a popular theme. In Spain Luis de Góngora y Argote wrote the much admired narrative poem, Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea, published in 1627. It is particularly noted for its depiction of landscape and for the sensual description of the love of Acis and Galatea. It was written in homage to an earlier and rather shorter narrative with the same title by Luis Carillo y Sotomayor (1611). The story was also given operatic treatment in the very popular zarzuela of Antoni Lliteres Carrió (1708). The atmosphere here is lighter and enlivened by the inclusion of the clowns Momo and Tisbe.
In France the story was condensed to the fourteen lines of Tristan L'Hermite's sonnet Polyphème en furie (1641). In it the giant expresses his fury upon viewing the loving couple, ultimately throwing the huge rock that kills Acis and even injures Galatea. Later in the century, Jean-Baptiste Lully composed his opera Acis et Galatée (1686) on the theme.
In Italy Giovanni Bononcini composed the one-act opera Polifemo (1703). Shortly afterwards George Frideric Handel worked in that country and composed the cantata Aci, Galatea e Polifemo (1708), laying as much emphasis on the part of Polifemo as on the lovers. Written in Italian, Polifemo's deep bass solo Fra l'ombre e gl'orrori (From horrid shades) establishes his character from the start. After Handel's move to England, he gave the story a new treatment in his pastoral opera Acis and Galatea with an English libretto provided by John Gay. Initially composed in 1718, the work went through many revisions and was later to be given updated orchestrations by both Mozart and Mendelssohn.* As a pastoral work it is suffused with Theocritan atmosphere but largely centres on the two lovers. When Polyphemus declares his love in the lyric "O ruddier than the cherry", the effect is almost comic. Handel's rival for a while on the London scene, Nicola Porpora, also made the story the subject of his opera Polifemo (1735).
Later in the century Joseph Haydn composed Acide e Galatea (1763) as his first opera while in Vienna. Designed for an imperial wedding, it was given a happy ending centred on the transformation scene after the murder of Acis as the pair declare their undying love. Johann Gottlieb Naumann was to turn the story into a comic opera, Aci e Galatea, with the subtitle i ciclopi amanti (the amorous cyclops). The work was first performed in Dresden in 1801 and its plot was made more complicated by giving Polifemo a companion, Orgonte. There were also two other lovers, Dorinda and Lisia, with Orgonte Lisia's rival for Dorinda's love.
After John Gay's libretto in Britain, it was not until the 19th century that the subject was given further poetical treatment. In 1819 appeared "The Death of Acis" by Bryan Procter, writing under the name of Barry Cornwall. A blank verse narrative with lyric episodes, it celebrates the musicianship of Polyphemus, which draws the lovers to expose themselves from their hiding place in a cave and thus brings about the death of Acis. At the other end of the century, there was Alfred Austin's dramatic poem "Polyphemus", which is set after the murder and transformation of the herdsman. The giant is tortured by hearing the happy voices of Galatea and Acis as they pursue their love duet. Shortly afterwards Albert Samain wrote the 2-act verse drama Polyphème with the additional character of Lycas, Galatea's younger brother. In this the giant is humanised; sparing the lovers when he discovers them, he blinds himself and wades to his death in the sea. The play was first performed posthumously in 1904 with incidental music by Raymond Bonheur. On this the French composer Jean Cras based his operatic 'lyric tragedy', composed in 1914 and first performed in 1922. Cras took Samain's text almost unchanged, subdividing the play's two acts into four and cutting a few lines from Polyphemus' final speech.
There have also been two Spanish musical items that reference Polyphemus' name. Reginald Smith Brindle's four fragments for guitar, El Polifemo de Oro (1956), takes its title from Federico García Lorca's poem, "The riddle of the guitar". That speaks of six dancing maidens (the guitar strings) entranced by 'a golden Polyphemus' (the one-eyed sound-hole). The Spanish composer Andres Valero Castells takes the inspiration for his Polifemo i Galatea from Gongora's work. Originally written for brass band in 2001, he rescored it for orchestra in 2006.
Painting and sculpture
Paintings that include Polyphemus in the story of Acis and Galatea can be grouped according to their themes. Most notably the story takes place within a pastoral landscape in which the figures are almost incidental. This is particularly so in Nicolas Poussin's 1649 "Landscape with Polyphemus" (see gallery below) in which the lovers play a minor part in the foreground. To the right, Polyphemus merges with a distant mountain top on which he plays his pipes. In an earlier painting by Poussin from 1630 (now housed at the Dublin National Gallery) the couple are among several embracing figures in the foreground, shielded from view of Polyphemus, who is playing his flute higher up the slope. Another variation on the theme was painted by Pietro Dandini during this period.
An earlier fresco by Giulio Romano from 1528 seats Polyphemus against a rocky foreground with a lyre in his raised right hand. The lovers can just be viewed through a gap in the rock that gives onto the sea at the lower right. Corneille Van Clève (1681) represents a seated Polyphemus in his sculpture, except that in his version it is pipes that the giant holds in his lowered hand. Otherwise he has a massive club held across his body and turns to the left to look over his shoulder.
Other paintings take up the Theocritan theme of the pair divided by the elements with which they are identified, land and water. There are a series of paintings, often titled "The Triumph of Galatea", in which the nymph is carried through the sea by her Nereid sisters, while a minor figure of Polyphemus serenades her from the land. Typical examples of this were painted by François Perrier, Giovanni Lanfranco and Jean-Baptiste van Loo.
A whole series of paintings by Gustave Moreau make the same point in a variety of subtle ways. The giant spies on Galatea through the wall of a sea grotto or emerges from a cliff to adore her sleeping figure (see below). Again, Polyphemus merges with the cliff where he meditates in the same way that Galatea merges with her element within the grotto in the painting at Musée d'Orsay. The visionary interpretation of the story also finds its echo in Odilon Redon's 1913 painting The Cyclops in which the giant towers over the slope on which Galatea sleeps.
French sculptors have also been responsible for some memorable versions. Auguste Ottin's separate figures are brought together in an 1866 fountain in the Luxembourg Garden. Above is crouched the figure of Polyphemus in weathered bronze, peering down at the white marble group of Acis and Galatea embracing below (see above). A little later Auguste Rodin made a series of statues, centred on Polyphemus. Originally modelled in clay around 1888 and later cast in bronze, they may have been inspired by Ottin's work.
A final theme is the rage that succeeds the moment of discovery. That is portrayed in earlier paintings of Polyphemus casting a rock at the fleeing lovers, such as those by Annibale Carracci, Lucas Auger and Carle van Loo. Jean-François de Troy's 18th-century version combines discovery with aftermath as the giant perched above the lovers turns to wrench up a rock.
Artistic depictions of Polyphemus
Polyphemus and Odysseus
Polyphemus as lover
Other uses
Polyphemus is mentioned in the "Apprentice" chapter of Albert Pike's Morals and Dogma (1871), as, within Scottish Rite Freemasonry, Polyphemus is regarded as a symbol for a civilization that harms itself using ill directed blind force.
The Polyphemus moth is so named because of the large eyespots in the middle of the hind wings.
A species of burrowing tortoise, Gopherus polyphemus, is named after Polyphemus because of their both using subterranean retreats.
In folkloristics, the episode of the blinding of Polyphemus is also known as Polyphemsage and classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as ATU 1137, "The Ogre Blinded (Polyphemus)".
In popular culture
Polyphemus features in Rick Riordan's Greek mythology fantasy series Percy Jackson & the Olympians and serves as an antagonist in the second installment, The Sea of Monsters.
See also
Telemus
Cyclopean Isles
Notes
References
Citations
Works cited
General references
Aristotle, Poetics in Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 23, translated by W.H. Fyfe. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1932. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Hackman, O. Die Polyphemsage in der Volksüberlieferung. Herlsingfors: Frenckellska tryckeri-aktiebolaget, 1904. Retrieved 14 March 2022.
Further reading
Conrad, JoAnn. "Polyphem (AaTh 1135–1137)". In: Enzyklopädie des Märchens Online. Edited by Rolf Wilhelm Brednich, Heidrun Alzheimer, Hermann Bausinger, Wolfgang Brückner, Daniel Drascek, Helge Gerndt, Ines Köhler-Zülch, Klaus Roth and Hans-Jörg Uther. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2016 [2002]. https://www.degruyter.com/database/EMO/entry/emo.10.221/html (In German)
d'Huy, Julien. "Le conte-type de Polyphème: essai de reconstitution phylogénétique". In: Mythologie française, SMF, 2012, pp. 47–59. ffhalshs-00734458f
d'Huy, Julien (2015). "Polyphemus, a Palaeolithic Tale?" In: The Retrospective Methods Network Newsletter. Winter 2014–2015, 9: 43–64.
d'Huy, Julien (2017). "Polyphème en Amérique". In: Mythologie française 269: 9–11.
d'Huy, Julien (2019). "Du nouveau sur Polyphème". In: Mythologie française, 277: 15-18.
Montgomery, J. E. "Al-Sindibād and Polyphemus. Reflections on the Genesis of an Archetype". In: Myths, historical archetypes and symbolic figures in Arabic literature: towards a new hermeneutic approach. Proceedings of the International Symposium in Beirut, June 25–30, 1996. Edited by Angelika Neuwirth, Birgit Embaló, Sebastian Günther, Maher Jarrar. Stuttgart [u.a.]: Steiner [in Komm.], 1999. pp. 437–466.
Mundy, C. S. "Polyphemus and Tepegöz". In: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 18, no. 2 (1956): 279–302. http://www.jstor.org/stable/609984.
External links
Polyphemus and Galatea depicted in statues with a golden harpsichord by Michele Todini, Rome, 1675 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Specific artworks discussed above
Polyphemus standing at the top of a cliff, Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1902, at Wikipaintings
"Odysseus Deriding Polyphemus", J.M.W. Turner, 1829, at Wikipaintings
Galatea Acis e Polifemo, Pietro Dandini, c. 1630, at Art Value
fresco, Giulio Romano, 1528, at Webalice
Polyphemus with a massive club, Corneille Van Clève, 1681, at Web Gallery of Art
"The Triumph of Galatea", Francois Perrier, at Web Gallery of Art
"The Triumph of Galatea", Giovanni Lanfranco, Art Clon
The giant spies on Galatea, Gustave Moreau, at Muian
Polyphemus meditates, at French Government culture site
statue of Polyphemus, Auguste Rodin, 1888, at French Government culture site
A wrathful Polyphemus, Annibale Carracci, at Web Gallery of Art
A wrathful Polyphemus, Lucas Auger, at French Government culture site
A wrathful Polyphemus, Carle van Loo, at First Art Gallery
A wrathful Polyphemus, Jean-Francois de Troy, 18th-century, at Tribes
Characters in the Odyssey
Cyclopes
Children of Poseidon
LGBT themes in Greek mythology
Sicilian characters in Greek mythology
ATU 1000-1199
Mythological blind people |
23915 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese%20language | Portuguese language | Portuguese ( or, in full, ) is a Western Romance language of the Indo-European language family originating from the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It is the official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe, and has co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, and Macau. Portuguese-speaking people or nations are known as Lusophone (). As the result of expansion during colonial times, a cultural presence of Portuguese speakers is also found around the world. Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia and the County of Portugal, and has kept some Celtic phonology.
With approximately 260 million native speakers and 35 million second language speakers, Portuguese has approximately 300 million total speakers. It is usually listed as the fifth-most spoken native language, the third-most spoken European language in the world in terms of native speakers and the second-most spoken Romance language in the world, surpassed only by Spanish. Being the most widely spoken language in South America and the most-spoken language in the Southern Hemisphere, it is also the second-most spoken language, after Spanish, in Latin America, one of the 10 most spoken languages in Africa, and an official language of the European Union, Mercosul, the Organization of American States, the Economic Community of West African States, the African Union, and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, an international organization made up of all of the world's officially Lusophone nations. In 1997, a comprehensive academic study ranked Portuguese as one of the 10 most influential languages in the world.
History
When the Romans arrived in the Iberian Peninsula in 216 BC, they brought with them the Latin language, from which all Romance languages are descended. The language was spread by Roman soldiers, settlers, and merchants, who built Roman cities mostly near the settlements of previous Celtic civilizations established long before the Roman arrivals. For that reason, the language has kept a relevant substratum of much older, Atlantic European Megalithic Culture and Celtic culture, part of the Hispano-Celtic group of ancient languages. In Latin, the Portuguese language is known as lusitana or (latina) lusitanica, after the Lusitanians, a pre-Celtic tribe that lived in the territory of present-day Portugal and Spain that adopted the Latin language as Roman settlers moved in. This is also the origin of the luso- prefix, seen in terms like "Lusophone".
Between AD 409 and AD 711, as the Roman Empire collapsed in Western Europe, the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by Germanic peoples of the Migration Period. The occupiers, mainly Suebi, Visigoths and Buri who originally spoke Germanic languages, quickly adopted late Roman culture and the Vulgar Latin dialects of the peninsula and over the next 300 years totally integrated into the local populations. Some Germanic words from that period are part of the Portuguese lexicon, together with place names, surnames, and first names. With the Umayyad conquest beginning in 711, Arabic became the administrative and common language in the conquered regions, but most of the remaining Christian population continued to speak a form of Romance called Mozarabic which introduced a few hundred words from Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Berber. Like other Neo-Latin and European languages, Portuguese has adopted a significant number of loanwords from Greek, mainly in technical and scientific terminology. These borrowings occurred via Latin, and later during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Portuguese evolved from the medieval language, known today by linguists as Galician-Portuguese, Old Portuguese or Old Galician, of the northwestern medieval Kingdom of Galicia of which the County of Portugal was part. It is in Latin administrative documents of the 9th century that written Galician-Portuguese words and phrases are first recorded. This phase is known as Proto-Portuguese, which lasted from the 9th century until the 12th-century independence of the County of Portugal from the Kingdom of León, which had by then assumed reign over Galicia.
In the first part of the Galician-Portuguese period (from the 12th to the 14th century), the language was increasingly used for documents and other written forms. For some time, it was the language of preference for lyric poetry in Christian Hispania, much as Occitan was the language of the poetry of the troubadours in France. The Occitan digraphs lh and nh, used in its classical orthography, were adopted by the orthography of Portuguese, presumably by Gerald of Braga, a monk from Moissac, who became bishop of Braga in Portugal in 1047, playing a major role in modernizing written Portuguese using classical Occitan norms. Portugal became an independent kingdom in 1139, under King Afonso I of Portugal. In 1290, King Denis of Portugal created the first Portuguese university in Lisbon (the Estudos Gerais, which later moved to Coimbra) and decreed for Portuguese, then simply called the "common language", to be known as the Portuguese language and used officially.
In the second period of Old Portuguese, in the 15th and 16th centuries, with the Portuguese discoveries, the language was taken to many regions of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. By the mid-16th century, Portuguese had become a lingua franca in Asia and Africa, used not only for colonial administration and trade but also for communication between local officials and Europeans of all nationalities. The Portuguese expanded across South America, across Africa to the Pacific Ocean, taking their language with them.
Its spread was helped by mixed marriages between Portuguese and local people and by its association with Roman Catholic missionary efforts, which led to the formation of creole languages such as that called Kristang in many parts of Asia (from the word cristão, "Christian"). The language continued to be popular in parts of Asia until the 19th century. Some Portuguese-speaking Christian communities in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Indonesia preserved their language even after they were isolated from Portugal.
The end of the Old Portuguese period was marked by the publication of the Cancioneiro Geral by Garcia de Resende, in 1516. The early times of Modern Portuguese, which spans the period from the 16th century to the present day, were characterized by an increase in the number of learned words borrowed from Classical Latin and Classical Greek because of the Renaissance (learned words borrowed from Latin also came from Renaissance Latin, the form of Latin during that time), which greatly enriched the lexicon. Most literate Portuguese speakers were also literate in Latin; and thus they easily adopted Latin words into their writing, and eventually speech, in Portuguese.
Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes once called Portuguese "the sweet and gracious language", while the Brazilian poet Olavo Bilac described it as ("the last flower of Latium, naïve and beautiful"). Portuguese is also termed "the language of Camões", after Luís Vaz de Camões, one of the greatest literary figures in the Portuguese language and author of the Portuguese epic poem The Lusiads.
In March 2006, the Museum of the Portuguese Language, an interactive museum about the Portuguese language, was founded in São Paulo, Brazil, the city with the greatest number of Portuguese language speakers in the world. The museum is the first of its kind in the world. In 2015 the museum was partially destroyed in a fire, but restored and reopened in 2020.
Geographic distribution
Portuguese is spoken by approximately 200 million people in South America, 30 million in Africa, 15 million in Europe, 5 million in North America and 0.33 million in Asia and Oceania. It is the native language of the vast majority of the people in Portugal, Brazil and São Tomé and Príncipe (95%). Around 75% of the population of urban Angola speaks Portuguese natively, with approximately 85% fluent; these rates are lower in the countryside. Just over 50% (and rapidly increasing) of the population of Mozambique are native speakers of Portuguese, and 70% are fluent, according to the 2007 census. Portuguese is also spoken natively by 30% of the population in Guinea-Bissau, and a Portuguese-based creole is understood by all. Almost 50% of the East Timorese are fluent in Portuguese. No data is available for Cape Verde, but almost all the population is bilingual, and the monolingual population speaks the Portuguese-based Cape Verdean Creole. Portuguese is mentioned in the Constitution of South Africa as one of the languages spoken by communities within the country for which the Pan South African Language Board was charged with promoting and ensuring respect.
There are also significant Portuguese-speaking immigrant communities in many territories including Andorra (17.1%), Bermuda, Canada (400,275 people in the 2006 census), France (1,625,000 people), Japan (400,000 people), Jersey, Luxembourg (about 25% of the population as of 2021), Namibia (about 4–5% of the population, mainly refugees from Angola in the north of the country), Paraguay (10.7% or 636,000 people), Switzerland (550,000 in 2019, learning + mother tongue), Venezuela (554,000), and the United States (0.35% of the population or 1,228,126 speakers according to the 2007 American Community Survey).
In some parts of former Portuguese India, namely Goa and Daman and Diu, the language is still spoken by about 10,000 people. In 2014, an estimated 1,500 students were learning Portuguese in Goa. Approximately 2% of the people of Macau, China are fluent speakers of Portuguese. Additionally, the language is being very actively studied in the Chinese school system right up to the doctorate level. The Kristang people in Malaysia speak Kristang, a Portuguese-Malay creole; however, the Portuguese language itself is not widely spoken in the country.
Official status
The Community of Portuguese Language Countries
(in Portuguese Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa, with the Portuguese acronym CPLP) consists of the nine independent countries that have Portuguese as an official language: Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal and São Tomé and Príncipe.
Equatorial Guinea made a formal application for full membership to the CPLP in June 2010, a status given only to states with Portuguese as an official language. Portuguese became its third official language (besides Spanish and French) in 2011, and in July 2014, the country was accepted as a member of the CPLP.
Portuguese is also one of the official languages of the Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China of Macau (alongside Chinese) and of several international organizations, including Mercosul, the Organization of Ibero-American States, the Union of South American Nations, the Organization of American States, the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States, the Southern African Development Community and the European Union.
Lusophone countries
According to The World Factbooks country population estimates for 2018, the population of each of the ten jurisdictions is as follows (by descending order):
The combined population of the entire Lusophone area was estimated at 300 million in January 2022. This number does not include the Lusophone diaspora, estimated at 10 million people (including 4.5 million Portuguese, 3 million Brazilians, although it is hard to obtain official accurate numbers of diasporic Portuguese speakers because a significant portion of these citizens are naturalized citizens born outside of Lusophone territory or are children of immigrants, and may have only a basic command of the language. Additionally, a large part of the diaspora is a part of the already-counted population of the Portuguese-speaking countries and territories, such as the high number of Brazilian and PALOP emigrant citizens in Portugal or the high number of Portuguese emigrant citizens in the PALOP and Brazil.
The Portuguese language therefore serves more than 250 million people daily, who have direct or indirect legal, juridical and social contact with it, varying from the only language used in any contact, to only education, contact with local or international administration, commerce and services or the simple sight of road signs, public information and advertising in Portuguese.
Portuguese as a foreign language
Portuguese is a mandatory subject in the school curriculum in Uruguay. Other countries where Portuguese is commonly taught in schools or where it has been introduced as an option include Venezuela, Zambia, the Republic of the Congo, Senegal, Namibia, Eswatini, South Africa, Ivory Coast, and Mauritius. In 2017, a project was launched to introduce Portuguese as a school subject in Zimbabwe. Also, according to Portugal's Minister of Foreign Affairs, the language will be part of the school curriculum of a total of 32 countries by 2020. In such countries, Portuguese is spoken either as a native language by vast majorities due to their Portuguese colonial past or as a lingua franca in bordering and multilingual regions, such as on the Brazilian borders of Uruguay and Paraguay and in regions of Angola and Namibia. In many other countries, Portuguese is spoken by majorities as a second language. There remain communities of thousands of Portuguese (or Creole) first language speakers in Goa, Sri Lanka, Kuala Lumpur, Daman and Diu, and other areas due to Portuguese colonization. In East Timor, the number of Portuguese speakers is quickly increasing as Portuguese and Brazilian teachers are making great strides in teaching Portuguese in the schools all over the island. Additionally, there are many large Portuguese-speaking immigrant communities all over the world.
Future
According to estimates by UNESCO, Portuguese is the fastest-growing European language after English and the language has, according to the newspaper The Portugal News publishing data given from UNESCO, the highest potential for growth as an international language in southern Africa and South America. Portuguese is a globalized language spoken officially on five continents, and as a second language by millions worldwide.
Since 1991, when Brazil signed into the economic community of Mercosul with other South American nations, namely Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, Portuguese is either mandatory, or taught, in the schools of those South American countries.
Although early in the 21st century, after Macau was returned to China and immigration of Brazilians of Japanese descent to Japan slowed down, the use of Portuguese was in decline in Asia, it is once again becoming a language of opportunity there, mostly because of increased diplomatic and financial ties with economically powerful Portuguese-speaking countries in the world.
Current status and importance
Portuguese, being a language spread on all continents, has official status in several international organizations. It is one of twenty official languages of the European Union, an official language of NATO, the Organization of American States (alongside Spanish, French and English), and one of eighteen official languages of the European Space Agency.
Portuguese is a working language in nonprofit organisations such as the Red Cross (alongside English, German, Spanish, French, Arabic and Russian), Amnesty International (alongside 32 other languages of which English is the most used, followed by Spanish, French, German, and Italian), and Médecins sans Frontières (used alongside English, Spanish, French and Arabic), in addition to being the official legal language in the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights, also in Community of Portuguese Language Countries, an international organization formed essentially by lusophone countries.
Dialects, accents and varieties
Modern Standard European Portuguese ( or ) is based on the Portuguese spoken in the area including and surrounding the cities of Coimbra and Lisbon, in central Portugal. Standard European Portuguese is also the preferred standard by the Portuguese-speaking African countries. As such, and despite the fact that its speakers are dispersed around the world, Portuguese has only two dialects used for learning: the European and the Brazilian. Some aspects and sounds found in many dialects of Brazil are exclusive to South America, and cannot be found in Europe. The same occur with the Santomean, Mozambican, Bissau-Guinean, Angolan and Cape Verdean dialects, being exclusive to Africa. See Portuguese in Africa.
Audio samples of some dialects and accents of Portuguese are available below.[101] There are some differences between the areas but these are the best approximations possible. IPA transcriptions refer to the names in local pronunciation.
Portugal
Micaelense (Açores) (São Miguel) – Azores.
Alentejano – Alentejo (Alentejan Portuguese), with the Oliventine subdialect.
Algarvio – Algarve (there is a particular dialect in a small part of western Algarve).
Minhoto – Districts of Braga and Viana do Castelo (hinterland).
Beirão; Alto-Alentejano – Central Portugal (hinterland).
Beirão – Central Portugal.
Estremenho – Regions of Coimbra and Lisbon (this is a disputed denomination, as Coimbra and is not part of "Estremadura", and the Lisbon dialect has some peculiar features that are not only not shared with that of Coimbra, but also significantly distinct and recognizable to most native speakers from elsewhere in Portugal).
Madeirense (Madeiran) – Madeira.
Portuense – Regions of the district of Porto and parts of Aveiro.
Transmontano – Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro.
Audio samples of some dialects and accents of Portuguese are available below. There are some differences between the areas but these are the best approximations possible. IPA transcriptions refer to the names in local pronunciation.
Brazil
Caipira – Spoken in the states of São Paulo (most markedly on the countryside and rural areas); southern Minas Gerais, northern Paraná and southeastern Mato Grosso do Sul. Depending on the vision of what constitutes caipira, Triângulo Mineiro, border areas of Goiás and the remaining parts of Mato Grosso do Sul are included, and the frontier of caipira in Minas Gerais is expanded further northerly, though not reaching metropolitan Belo Horizonte. It is often said that caipira appeared by decreolization of the língua brasílica and the related língua geral paulista, then spoken in almost all of what is now São Paulo, a former lingua franca in most of the contemporary Centro-Sul of Brazil before the 18th century, brought by the bandeirantes, interior pioneers of Colonial Brazil, closely related to its northern counterpart Nheengatu, and that is why the dialect shows many general differences from other variants of the language. It has striking remarkable differences in comparison to other Brazilian dialects in phonology, prosody and grammar, often stigmatized as being strongly associated with a substandard variant, now mostly rural.
Cearense or Costa norte – is a dialect spoken more sharply in the states of Ceará and Piauí. The variant of Ceará includes fairly distinctive traits it shares with the one spoken in Piauí, though, such as distinctive regional phonology and vocabulary (for example, a debuccalization process stronger than that of Portuguese, a different system of the vowel harmony that spans Brazil from fluminense and mineiro to amazofonia but is especially prevalent in nordestino, a very coherent coda sibilant palatalization as those of Portugal and Rio de Janeiro but allowed in fewer environments than in other accents of nordestino, a greater presence of dental stop palatalization to palato-alveolar in comparison to other accents of nordestino, among others, as well as a great number of archaic Portuguese words).
Baiano – Found in Bahia and border regions with Goiás and Tocantins. Similar to nordestino, it has a very characteristic syllable-timed rhythm and the greatest tendency to pronounce unstressed vowels as open-mid and .
Fluminense – A broad dialect with many variants spoken in the states of Rio de Janeiro, Espírito Santo and neighboring eastern regions of Minas Gerais. Fluminense formed in these previously caipira-speaking areas due to the gradual influence of European migrants, causing many people to distance their speech from their original dialect and incorporate new terms. Fluminense is sometimes referred to as carioca, however carioca is a more specific term referring to the accent of the Greater Rio de Janeiro area by speakers with a fluminense dialect.
Gaúcho – in Rio Grande do Sul, similar to sulista. There are many distinct accents in Rio Grande do Sul, mainly due to the heavy influx of European immigrants of diverse origins who have settled in colonies throughout the state, and to the proximity to Spanish-speaking nations. The word gaúcho itself is a Spanish loanword into Portuguese, of obscure Indigenous Amerindian origins.
Mineiro – Minas Gerais (but not prevalent in the Triângulo Mineiro). As with the fluminense area, its associated region was formerly a sparsely populated land where caipira was spoken, but the discovery of gold and gems made it the most prosperous Brazilian region, attracting Portuguese colonists, commoners from other parts of Brazil, and their African slaves. The south-southwestern, southeastern, and northern areas of the state each have fairly distinctive speech, actually approximating to caipira, fluminense (popularly and often pejoratively called carioca do brejo, "marsh carioca"), and baiano respectively. Belo Horizonte and the area surrounding it have a distinctive accent.
Nordestino – more marked in the Sertão (7), where, in the 19th and 20th centuries and especially in the area including and surrounding the sertão (the dry land after Agreste) of Pernambuco and southern Ceará, it could sound less comprehensible to speakers of other Portuguese dialects than Galician or Rioplatense Spanish, and nowadays less distinctive from other variants in the metropolitan cities along the coasts. It can be divided in two regional variants, one that includes the northern Maranhão and southern of Piauí, and other that goes from Ceará to Alagoas.
Nortista or amazofonia – Most of Amazon Basin states, i.e. Northern Brazil. Before the 20th century, most people from the nordestino area fleeing the droughts and their associated poverty settled here, so it has some similarities with the Portuguese dialect there spoken. The speech in and around the cities of Belém and Manaus has a more European flavor in phonology, prosody and grammar.
Paulistano – Variants spoken around Greater São Paulo in its maximum definition and more easterly areas of São Paulo state, as well as perhaps "educated speech" from anywhere in the state of São Paulo (where it coexists with caipira). Caipira is the hinterland sociolect of much of the Central-Southern half of Brazil, nowadays conservative only in the rural areas and associated with them, that has a historically low prestige in cities as Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba, Belo Horizonte, and until some years ago, in São Paulo itself. Sociolinguistics, or what by times is described as "linguistic prejudice", often correlated with classism, is a polemic topic in the entirety of the country since the times of Adoniran Barbosa. Also, the "Paulistano" accent was heavily influenced by the presence of immigrants in the city of São Paulo, especially the Italians.
Sertanejo – Center-Western states, and also much of Tocantins and Rondônia. It is closer to mineiro, caipira, nordestino or nortista depending on the location.
Sulista – The variants spoken in the areas between the northern regions of Rio Grande do Sul and southern regions of São Paulo state, encompassing most of southern Brazil. The city of Curitiba does have a fairly distinct accent as well, and a relative majority of speakers around and in Florianópolis also speak this variant (many speak florianopolitano or manezinho da ilha instead, related to the European Portuguese dialects spoken in Azores and Madeira). Speech of northern Paraná is closer to that of inland São Paulo.
Florianopolitano – Variants heavily influenced by European Portuguese spoken in Florianópolis city (due to a heavy immigration movement from Portugal, mainly its insular regions) and much of its metropolitan area, Grande Florianópolis, said to be a continuum between those whose speech most resemble sulista dialects and those whose speech most resemble fluminense and European ones, called manezinho da ilha.
Carioca – Not a dialect, but sociolects of the fluminense variant spoken in an area roughly corresponding to Greater Rio de Janeiro. It appeared after locals came in contact with the Portuguese aristocracy amidst the Portuguese royal family fled in the early 19th century. There is actually a continuum between Vernacular countryside accents and the carioca sociolect, and the educated speech (in Portuguese norma culta, which most closely resembles other Brazilian Portuguese standards but with marked recent Portuguese influences, the nearest ones among the country's dialects along florianopolitano), so that not all people native to the state of Rio de Janeiro speak the said sociolect, but most carioca speakers will use the standard variant not influenced by it that is rather uniform around Brazil depending on context (emphasis or formality, for example).
Brasiliense – used in Brasília and its metropolitan area. It is not considered a dialect, but more of a regional variant – often deemed to be closer to fluminense than the dialect commonly spoken in most of Goiás, sertanejo.
Arco do desflorestamento or serra amazônica – Known in its region as the "accent of the migrants", it has similarities with caipira, sertanejo and often sulista that make it differing from amazofonia (in the opposite group of Brazilian dialects, in which it is placed along nordestino, baiano, mineiro and fluminense). It is the most recent dialect, which appeared by the settlement of families from various other Brazilian regions attracted by the cheap land offer in recently deforested areas.
Recifense – used in Recife and its metropolitan area.
Amazônico Ocidental — used in the extreme Western Amazon region, namely: Southwestern Amazonas, including the region of Boca do Acre and throughout the State of Acre, which share important historical-cultural aspects, such as, once belonging to Peru-Bolivian Confederation, the First Amazon rubber cycle and Acre Time Zone, sociologically, is considered a homogenous region. Differing from the traditional Northern dialect, in which the phonetic realization of the "s" always has the sound of ch, in the Brazilian Western Amazon region, there will only be the sound of ch whose words the "s" are in the middle of the word, as examples; costa, festa or destino, as well as the one observed in dialect of the north coast. Within the Brazilian countryside, it is one of the few areas where the phonetic realization of "r" resembles those observed in the Carioca dialect (open), other examples where this phenomenon is observed: Brasília dialect and Belo Horizonte dialect.
, a pronoun meaning "you", is used for educated, formal, and colloquial respectful speech in most Portuguese-speaking regions. In a few Brazilian states such as Rio Grande do Sul, Pará, among others, is virtually absent from the spoken language. Riograndense and European Portuguese normally distinguishes formal from informal speech by verbal conjugation. Informal speech employs followed by second person verbs, formal language retains the formal , followed by the third person conjugation.
Conjugation of verbs in has three different forms in Brazil (verb "to see": , in the traditional second person, , in the third person, and , in the innovative second person), the conjugation used in the Brazilian states of Pará, Santa Catarina and Maranhão being generally traditional second person, the kind that is used in other Portuguese-speaking countries and learned in Brazilian schools.
The predominance of Southeastern-based media products has established as the pronoun of choice for the second person singular in both writing and multimedia communications. However, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, the country's main cultural center, the usage of has been expanding ever since the end of the 20th century, being most frequent among youngsters, and a number of studies have also shown an increase in its use in a number of other Brazilian dialects.
Other countries and dependencies
– Angolano (Angolan Portuguese)
– Cabo-verdiano (Cape Verdean Portuguese)
– Timorense (East Timorese Portuguese)
– Damaense (Damanese Portuguese) and Goês (Goan Portuguese)
– Guineense (Guinean Portuguese)
– Macaense (Macanese Portuguese)
– Moçambicano (Mozambican Portuguese)
– Santomense (São Tomean Portuguese)
– Dialetos Portugueses do Uruguai (DPU)
Differences between dialects are mostly of accent and vocabulary, but between the Brazilian dialects and other dialects, especially in their most colloquial forms, there can also be some grammatical differences. The Portuguese-based creoles spoken in various parts of Africa, Asia, and the Americas are independent languages.
Characterization and peculiarities
Portuguese, like Catalan, preserves the stressed vowels of Vulgar Latin which became diphthongs in most other Romance languages; cf. Port., Cat., Sard. pedra ; Fr. , Sp. , It. , Ro. , from Lat. ("stone"); or Port. , Cat. , Sard. ; Sp. , It. , Fr. , Ro. , from Lat. ("fire"). Another characteristic of early Portuguese was the loss of intervocalic l and n, sometimes followed by the merger of the two surrounding vowels, or by the insertion of an epenthetic vowel between them: cf. Lat. ("to exit"), ("to have"), ("jail"), Port. , , .
When the elided consonant was n, it often nasalized the preceding vowel: cf. Lat. ("hand"), ("frog"), ("good"), Old Portuguese , , (Portuguese: , , ). This process was the source of most of the language's distinctive nasal diphthongs. In particular, the Latin endings -anem, and became in most cases, cf. Lat. ("dog"), ("brother"), ("reason") with Modern Port. , , , and their plurals -anes, -anos, -ones normally became -ães, -ãos, -ões, cf. cães, irmãos, razões. This also occurs in the minority Swiss Romansh language in many equivalent words such as maun ("hand"), bun ("good"), or chaun ("dog").
The Portuguese language is the only Romance language that preserves the clitic case mesoclisis: cf. (I'll give thee), (I'll love you), (I'll contact them). Like Galician, it also retains the Latin synthetic pluperfect tense: (I had been), (I had lived), (you had lived). Romanian also has this tense, but uses the -s- form.
Vocabulary
Most of the lexicon of Portuguese is derived, directly or through other Romance languages, from Latin. Nevertheless, because of its original Lusitanian and Celtic Gallaecian heritage, and the later participation of Portugal in the Age of Discovery, it has a relevant number of words from the ancient Hispano-Celtic group and adopted loanwords from other languages around the world.
A number of Portuguese words can still be traced to the pre-Roman inhabitants of Portugal, which included the Gallaeci, Lusitanians, Celtici and Cynetes. Most of these words derived from the Hispano-Celtic Gallaecian language of northwestern Iberia, and are very often shared with Galician since both languages have the same origin in the medieval language of Galician-Portuguese. A few of these words existed in Latin as loanwords from other Celtic sources, often Gaulish. Altogether these are over 3,000 words, verbs, toponymic names of towns, rivers, surnames, tools, lexicon linked to rural life and natural world.
In the 5th century, the Iberian Peninsula (the Roman Hispania) was conquered by the Germanic, Suebi and Visigoths. As they adopted the Roman civilization and language, however, these people contributed with some 500
Germanic words to the lexicon. Many of these words are related to:
warfare, such as 'spur', ('stake'), and ('war'), from Gothic *spaúra, *stakka, and *wirro respectively;
natural world, such as ('swine') from *sweina, ('hawk') from *gabilans, ('wave') from *vigan;
human emotions, such as or ('pride', 'proud') from Old Germanic *urguol, and
verbs like ('to craft, record, graft') from *graba or ('to squeeze, quash, grind') from Suebian *magōn or ('to shred') from *harpō.
The Germanic languages influence also exists in toponymic surnames and patronymic surnames borne by Visigoth sovereigns and their descendants, and it dwells on placenames such as Ermesinde, Esposende and Resende where sinde and sende are derived from the Germanic sinths ('military expedition') and in the case of Resende, the prefix re comes from Germanic reths ('council'). Other examples of Portuguese names, surnames and town names of Germanic toponymic origin include Henrique, Henriques, Vermoim, Mandim, Calquim, Baguim, Gemunde, Guetim, Sermonde and many more, are quite common mainly in the old Suebi and later Visigothic dominated regions, covering today's Northern half of Portugal and Galicia.
Between the 9th and early 13th centuries, Portuguese acquired some 400 to 600 words from Arabic by influence of Moorish Iberia. They are often recognizable by the initial Arabic article a(l)-, and include common words such as ('village') from الضيعة aḍ-ḍayʿa, ('lettuce') from الخسة al-khassa, ('warehouse') from المخزن al-makhzan, and ('olive oil') from الزيت az-zayt.
Starting in the 15th century, the Portuguese maritime explorations led to the introduction of many loanwords from Asian languages. For instance, ('cutlass') from Japanese katana, ('tea') from Chinese chá, and canja ('chicken-soup, piece of cake') from Malay.
From the 16th to the 19th centuries, because of the role of Portugal as intermediary in the Atlantic slave trade, and the establishment of large Portuguese colonies in Angola, Mozambique, and Brazil, Portuguese acquired several words of African and Amerind origin, especially names for most of the animals and plants found in those territories. While those terms are mostly used in the former colonies, many became current in European Portuguese as well. From Kimbundu, for example, came kifumate > ('head caress') (Brazil), kusula > ('youngest child') (Brazil), ('tropical wasp') (Brazil), and kubungula > ('to dance like a wizard') (Angola). From South America came ('potato'), from Taino; and , from Tupi–Guarani naná and Tupi ibá cati, respectively (two species of pineapple), and ('popcorn') from Tupi and ('toucan') from Guarani tucan.
Finally, it has received a steady influx of loanwords from other European languages, especially French and English. These are by far the most important languages when referring to loanwords. There are many examples such as: / ('bracket'/'crochet'), ('jacket'), ('lipstick'), and / ('steak'/'slice'), ('street'), respectively, from French , , , , ; and ('steak'), , , /, , from English "beef", "football", "revolver", "stock", "folklore."
Examples from other European languages: ('pasta'), ('pilot'), ('carriage'), and ('barrack'), from Italian , , , and ; ('hair lock'), ('wet-cured ham') (in Portugal, in contrast with presunto 'dry-cured ham' from Latin prae-exsuctus 'dehydrated') or ('canned ham') (in Brazil, in contrast with non-canned, wet-cured (presunto cozido) and dry-cured (presunto cru)), or castelhano ('Castilian'), from Spanish melena ('mane'), fiambre and castellano.
Classification and related languages
Portuguese belongs to the West Iberian branch of the Romance languages, and it has special ties with the following members of this group:
Galician, Fala and portunhol do pampa (the way riverense and its sibling dialects are referred to in Portuguese), its closest relatives.
Mirandese, Leonese, Asturian, Extremaduran and Cantabrian (Astur-Leonese languages). Mirandese is the only recognised regional language spoken in Portugal (beside Portuguese, the only official language in Portugal).
Spanish and calão (the way caló, language of the Iberian Romani, is referred to in Portuguese).
Portuguese and other Romance languages (namely French and Italian) share considerable similarities in both vocabulary and grammar. Portuguese speakers will usually need some formal study before attaining strong comprehension in those Romance languages, and vice versa. However, Portuguese and Galician are fully mutually intelligible, and Spanish is considerably intelligible for lusophones, owing to their genealogical proximity and shared genealogical history as West Iberian (Ibero-Romance languages), historical contact between speakers and mutual influence, shared areal features as well as modern lexical, structural, and grammatical similarity (89%) between them.
Portuñol/Portunhol, a form of code-switching, has a more lively use and is more readily mentioned in popular culture in South America. Said code-switching is not to be confused with the Portuñol spoken on the borders of Brazil with Uruguay () and Paraguay (), and of Portugal with Spain (), that are Portuguese dialects spoken natively by thousands of people, which have been heavily influenced by Spanish.
Portuguese and Spanish are the only Ibero-Romance languages, and perhaps the only Romance languages with such thriving inter-language forms, in which visible and lively bilingual contact dialects and code-switching have formed, in which functional bilingual communication is achieved through attempting an approximation to the target foreign language (known as 'Portuñol') without a learned acquisition process, but nevertheless facilitates communication. There is an emerging literature focused on such phenomena (including informal attempts of standardization of the linguistic continua and their usage).
Galician-Portuguese in Spain
The closest relative of Portuguese is Galician, which is spoken in the autonomous community and nationality of Galicia (Spanish Kingdom). The two were at one time a single language, known today as Galician-Portuguese, but they have diverged especially in pronunciation and vocabulary due to the political separation of Portugal from Galicia. There is, however, still a linguistic continuity consisting of the variant of Galician referred to as galego-português baixo-limiao, which is spoken in several Galician and Portuguese villages within the transboundary biosphere reserve of Gerês-Xurés. It is "considered a rarity, a living vestige of the medieval language that ranged from Cantabria to Mondego [...]".
As reported by UNESCO, due to the pressure of Spanish on the standard official version of Galician and centuries-old Hispanization, the Galician language was on the verge of disappearing. According to the UNESCO philologist Tapani Salminen, the proximity to Portuguese protects Galician. The core vocabulary and grammar of Galician are noticeably closer to Portuguese than to those of Spanish and within the EU context, Galician is often considered the same language as Portuguese. Galician like Portuguese, uses the future subjunctive, the personal infinitive, and the synthetic pluperfect. Mutual intelligibility estimated at 85% is excellent between Galicians and Portuguese. Despite political efforts in Spain to define them as separate languages, many linguists consider Galician to be a co-dialect of the Portuguese language with regional variations.
Another member of the Galician-Portuguese group, most commonly thought of as a Galician dialect, is spoken in the Eonavian region in a western strip in Asturias and the westernmost parts of the provinces of León and Zamora, along the frontier with Galicia, between the Eo and Navia rivers (or more exactly Eo and Frexulfe rivers). It is called eonaviego or gallego-asturiano by its speakers.
The Fala language, known by its speakers as xalimés, mañegu, a fala de Xálima and chapurráu and in Portuguese as a fala de Xálima, a fala da Estremadura, o galego da Estremadura, valego or galaico-estremenho, is another descendant of Galician-Portuguese, spoken by a small number of people in the Spanish towns of Valverde del Fresno (Valverdi du Fresnu), Eljas (As Ellas) and San Martín de Trevejo (Sa Martín de Trevellu) in the autonomous community of Extremadura, near the border with Portugal.
There are a number of other places in Spain in which the native language of the common people is a descendant of the Galician-Portuguese group, such as La Alamedilla, Cedillo (Cedilho), Herrera de Alcántara (Ferreira d'Alcântara) and Olivenza (Olivença), but in these municipalities, what is spoken is actually Portuguese, not disputed as such in the mainstream.
The diversity of dialects of the Portuguese language is known since the time of medieval Portuguese-Galician language when it coexisted with the Lusitanian-Mozarabic dialect, spoken in the south of Portugal. The dialectal diversity becomes more evident in the work of Fernão d'Oliveira, in the Grammatica da Lingoagem Portuguesa, (1536), where he remarks that the people of Portuguese regions of Beira, Alentejo, Estremadura, and Entre Douro e Minho, all speak differently from each other. Also Contador d'Argote (1725) distinguishes three main varieties of dialects: the local dialects, the dialects of time, and of profession (work jargon). Of local dialects he highlights five main dialects: the dialect of Estremadura, of Entre-Douro e Minho, of Beira, of Algarve and of Trás-os-Montes. He also makes reference to the overseas dialects, the rustic dialects, the poetic dialect and that of prose.
In the kingdom of Portugal, Ladinho (or Lingoagem Ladinha) was the name given to the pure Portuguese romance language, without any mixture of Aravia or Gerigonça Judenga. While the term língua vulgar was used to name the language before D. Dinis decided to call it "Portuguese language", the erudite version used and known as Galician-Portuguese (the language of the Portuguese court) and all other Portuguese dialects were spoken at the same time. In a historical perspective the Portuguese language was never just one dialect. Just like today there is a standard Portuguese (actually two) among the several dialects of Portuguese, in the past there was Galician-Portuguese as the "standard", coexisting with other dialects.
Influence on other languages
Portuguese has provided loanwords to many languages, such as Indonesian, Manado Malay, Malayalam, Sri Lankan Tamil and Sinhala, Malay, Bengali, English, Hindi, Swahili, Afrikaans, Konkani, Marathi, Punjabi, Tetum, Xitsonga, Japanese, Lanc-Patuá, Esan, Bandari (spoken in Iran) and Sranan Tongo (spoken in Suriname). It left a strong influence on the língua brasílica, a Tupi–Guarani language, which was the most widely spoken in Brazil until the 18th century, and on the language spoken around Sikka in Flores Island, Indonesia. In nearby Larantuka, Portuguese is used for prayers in Holy Week rituals.
The Japanese–Portuguese dictionary Nippo Jisho (1603) was the first dictionary of Japanese in a European language, a product of Jesuit missionary activity in Japan. Building on the work of earlier Portuguese missionaries, the Dictionarium Anamiticum, Lusitanum et Latinum (Annamite–Portuguese–Latin dictionary) of Alexandre de Rhodes (1651) introduced the modern orthography of Vietnamese, which is based on the orthography of 17th-century Portuguese. The Romanization of Chinese was also influenced by the Portuguese language (among others), particularly regarding Chinese surnames; one example is Mei. During 1583–88 Italian Jesuits Michele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci created a Portuguese–Chinese dictionary – the first ever European–Chinese dictionary.
For instance, as Portuguese merchants were presumably the first to introduce the sweet orange in Europe, in several modern Indo-European languages the fruit has been named after them. Some examples are Albanian portokall, Bosnian (archaic) portokal, prtokal, Bulgarian портокал (portokal), Greek πορτοκάλι (portokáli), Macedonian , Persian پرتقال (porteghal), and Romanian portocală. Related names can be found in other languages, such as Arabic البرتقال (burtuqāl), Georgian ფორთოხალი (p'ort'oxali), Turkish portakal and Amharic birtukan. Also, in southern Italian dialects (e.g. Neapolitan), an orange is portogallo or purtuallo, literally "(the) Portuguese (one)", in contrast to standard Italian arancia.
Derived languages
Beginning in the 16th century, the extensive contacts between Portuguese travelers and settlers, African and Asian slaves, and local populations led to the appearance of many pidgins with varying amounts of Portuguese influence.
As each of these pidgins became the mother tongue of succeeding generations, they evolved into fully fledged creole languages, which remained in use in many parts of Asia, Africa and South America until the 18th century.
Some Portuguese-based or Portuguese-influenced creoles are still spoken today, by over three million people worldwide, especially people of partial Portuguese ancestry.
Phonology
Portuguese phonology is similar to those of languages such as Franco-Provençal and Catalan, whereas that of Spanish is similar to those of Sardinian and the Southern Italian dialects. Some would describe the phonology of Portuguese as a blend of Spanish, Gallo-Romance (e.g. French) and the languages of northern Italy (especially Genoese).
Portuguese can have as many as 9 oral vowels, as many as 2 semivowels, and as many as 21 consonants; some varieties of the language have fewer phonemes. There are also five nasal vowels, which some linguists regard as allophones of oral vowels. Galician-Portuguese developed in the region of the former Roman province of Gallaecia, from the Vulgar Latin (common Latin) that had been introduced by Roman soldiers, colonists and magistrates during the time of the Roman Empire. Although the process may have been slower than in other regions, after a period of bilingualism, the centuries of contact with Vulgar Latin completely extinguished the native languages, and a variety of Latin with a few Gallaecian features evolved.
Gallaecian and Lusitanian influences were absorbed into the local dialect of Vulgar Latin; this can be detected in some Galician-Portuguese words, as well as in placenames of Celtic and Iberian origin.
An early form of Galician-Portuguese was already spoken in the Kingdom of the Suebi, and by the year 800 Galician-Portuguese had already become the vernacular of northwestern Iberia. The first known phonetic changes in Vulgar Latin, which began the evolution to Galician-Portuguese, took place during the rule of the Germanic groups, the Suebi (411–585) and Visigoths (585–711). The Galician-Portuguese "inflected infinitive" (or "personal infinitive") and the nasal vowels may have evolved under the influence of local Celtic (as in Old French). The nasal vowels would thus be a phonologic characteristic of the Vulgar Latin spoken in Roman Gallaecia, but they are not attested in writing until after the 6th and 7th centuries.
Vowels
Like Catalan and German, Portuguese uses vowel quality to contrast stressed syllables with unstressed syllables. Unstressed isolated vowels tend to be raised and sometimes centralized.
Consonants
Phonetic notes
Semivowels contrast with unstressed high vowels in verbal conjugation, as in (eu) rio and (ele) riu . Phonologists discuss whether their nature is vowel or consonant.
In most of Brazil and Angola, the consonant hereafter denoted as is realized as a nasal palatal approximant , which nasalizes the vowel that precedes it: .
proposes that Portuguese possesses labio-velar stops and as additional phonemes rather than sequences of a velar stop and .
The consonant hereafter denoted as has a variety of realizations depending on dialect. In Europe, it is typically a uvular trill ; however, a pronunciation as a voiced uvular fricative may be becoming dominant in urban areas. There is also a realization as a voiceless uvular fricative , and the original pronunciation as an alveolar trill also remains very common in various dialects. A common realization of the word-initial in the Lisbon accent is a voiced uvular fricative trill . In Brazil, can be velar, uvular, or glottal and may be voiceless unless between voiced sounds. It is usually pronounced as a voiceless velar fricative , a voiceless glottal fricative or voiceless uvular fricative . See also .
and are normally , as in English. However, a number of dialects in northern Portugal pronounce and as apico-alveolar sibilants (sounding somewhat like a soft or ), as in the Romance languages of northern Iberia. Some very few northeastern Portugal dialects still maintain the medieval distinction between apical and laminal sibilants (written s/ss and c/ç/z, respectively).
As a phoneme, occurs only in loanwords, names, and interjections, with a dialectal tendency for speakers to substitute in in most dialects outside of Brazil (as well as some conservative Brazilian dialects, to a variable extent.) However, is an allophone of before in a majority of Brazilian dialects. Similarly, is an allophone of in the same contexts.
In northern and central Portugal, the voiced stops (, , and ) are usually lenited to fricatives , , and , respectively, except at the beginning of words or after nasal vowels. At the end of a phrase, due to final-obstruent devoicing, they may even be devoiced to , , and (for example, verde at the end of a sentence may be pronounced ).
In Brazil, many speakers further shift to in closed syllables, especially outside the southern region.
Phonetically, Portuguese (and French) are quite different from the other major Romance languages. It has been suggested that this stems from the ancient link to Celtic languages such as Welsh or Breton, with which it also shares a substantial number of cognates: there are 37 sounds in Portuguese, including vowels, consonants and diphthongs, most of which exist in today's Celtic languages.
Orthography
Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement of 1990
Grammar
A notable aspect of the grammar of Portuguese is the verb. Morphologically, more verbal inflections from classical Latin have been preserved by Portuguese than by any other major Romance language. Portuguese and Spanish share very similar grammar, vocabulary and sentence structure. Portuguese also has some grammatical innovations not found in other Romance languages (except Galician and Fala):
The present perfect has an iterative sense unique to the Galician-Portuguese language group. It denotes an action or a series of actions that began in the past but expected to occur again in the future. For instance, the sentence Tenho tentado falar contigo would be translated to "I have been trying to talk to you", not "I have tried to talk to you." On the other hand, the correct translation of "Have you heard the latest news?" is not *Tens ouvido as últimas? but Ouviste as últimas? since no repetition is implied.
Portuguese makes use of the future subjunctive mood, which developed from medieval West Iberian Romance. In modern Spanish and Galician, it has almost entirely fallen into disuse. The future subjunctive appears in dependent clauses that denote a condition that must be fulfilled in the future so that the independent clause will occur. English normally employs the present tense under the same circumstances:
Se eu for eleito presidente, mudarei a lei.
If I am elected president, I will change the law.
Quando fores mais velho, vais entender.
When you grow older, you will understand.
The personal infinitive can inflect according to its subject in person and number. It often shows who is expected to perform a certain action. É melhor voltares "It is better [for you] to go back", É melhor voltarmos "It is better [for us] to go back." Perhaps for that reason, infinitive clauses replace subjunctive clauses more often in Portuguese than in other Romance languages.
Sample text
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Portuguese:
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
See also
Portuguese literature
Portuguese Africans
Angolan literature
Brazilian literature
Gallaecian language
Indo-Portuguese
Galician Reintegrationism
International Portuguese Language Institute
List of countries and territories where Portuguese is an official language
List of international organizations which have Portuguese as an official language
List of Portuguese-language poets
Lusitanian language
Mozambican Portuguese
Portuguese language in Asia
Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement of 1990
Portuguese poetry
References
Citations
Sources
História da Lingua Portuguesa – Instituto Camões website
A Língua Portuguesa in Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil
Carta de dotação e fundação da Igreja de S. Miguel de Lardosa, a.D. 882 (o mais antigo documento latino-português original conhecido)
Literature
Poesia e Prosa Medievais, by Maria Ema Tarracha Ferreira, Ulisseia 1998, 3rd ed., .
Bases Temáticas – Língua, Literatura e Cultura Portuguesa in Instituto Camões
Portuguese literature in The Catholic Encyclopedia
Phonology, orthography and grammar
Bergström, Magnus & Reis, Neves Prontuário Ortográfico Editorial Notícias, 2004.
A pronúncia do português europeu – European Portuguese Pronunciation - Instituto Camões website
Dialects of Portuguese – Instituto Camões website
Audio samples of the dialects of Portugal – Instituto Camões website
Audio samples of the dialects from outside Europe – Instituto Camões website
Portuguese Grammar – Learn101.org
Reference dictionaries
Antônio Houaiss (2000), Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa (228,500 entries).
Aurélio Buarque de Holanda Ferreira, Novo Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa (1809 pp.)
English–Portuguese–Chinese Dictionary (Freeware for Windows/Linux/Mac)
Linguistic studies
Cook, Manuela. Portuguese Pronouns and Other Forms of Address, from the Past into the Future – Structural, Semantic and Pragmatic Reflections, Ellipsis, vol. 11, APSA, www.portuguese-apsa.com/ellipsis, 2013
Cook, Manuela. On the Portuguese Forms of Address: From Vossa Mercê to Você, Portuguese Studies Review 3.2, Durham: University of New Hampshire, 1995
Lindley Cintra, Luís F. Nova Proposta de Classificação dos Dialectos Galego- Portugueses (PDF) Boletim de Filologia, Lisboa, Centro de Estudos Filológicos, 1971.
External links
Languages attested from the 9th century
Fusional languages
Community of Portuguese Language Countries
Languages of Angola
Languages of Brazil
Languages of Cape Verde
Languages of East Timor
Languages of Guinea-Bissau
Languages of Macau
Languages of Mozambique
Languages of Portugal
Languages of São Tomé and Príncipe
Languages of India
Languages of Paraguay
Languages of Uruguay
Lingua francas
Subject–verb–object languages
Articles containing video clips |
23916 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul%20Reubens | Paul Reubens | Paul Reubens (; ; August 27, 1952 – July 30, 2023) was an American actor and comedian, widely known for creating and portraying the character Pee-wee Herman.
Reubens joined the Los Angeles troupe the Groundlings in the 1970s, and started his career as an improvisational comedian and stage actor. It was with the Groundlings that Reubens developed the Pee-wee character. After a failed audition for Saturday Night Live, Reubens debuted a stage show starring Pee-wee, The Pee-wee Herman Show, in 1981. Pee-wee became an instant cult figure and, for the next decade, Reubens was completely committed to his character, doing all of his public appearances and interviews as Pee-wee. He produced and wrote a feature film, Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985), directed by Tim Burton, which was a financial and critical success. Its sequel, Big Top Pee-wee (1988), was less successful. Between 1986 and 1990, Reubens starred as Pee-wee in the CBS Saturday-morning children's program Pee-wee's Playhouse.
Reubens was arrested for indecent exposure in an adult theater in Sarasota, Florida, in 1991. The arrest set off a chain reaction of national media attention, though he received support from people in the entertainment industry. The arrest postponed Reubens's involvement in major projects until 1999, when he appeared in several big-budget projects including Mystery Men (1999) and Blow (2001). Reubens subsequently started giving interviews as himself rather than as Pee-wee.
Reubens acted in numerous shows such as Murphy Brown, 30 Rock, Portlandia, and The Blacklist. He revived The Pee-wee Herman Show, which he performed in Los Angeles and on Broadway, in 2010. He co-wrote and starred in the Netflix original film Pee-wee's Big Holiday, reprising his role as Pee-wee Herman, in 2016.
Reubens's Pee-wee character maintained an enduring popularity with both children and adults. Playhouse garnered 15 Emmy Awards during its initial run, and was aired again on late-night television in the 2000s, during which TV Guide dubbed it among the top ten cult classic television programs. Reubens died in July 2023 from cancer.
Early life and education
Reubens was born Paul Rubenfeld in Peekskill, New York, on August 27, 1952, and grew up in a Jewish family in Sarasota, Florida, where his parents, Judy (Rosen) and Milton Rubenfeld, owned a lamp store. His mother was a teacher. His father was an automobile salesperson who had flown for Britain's Royal Air Force and for the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II, and later became one of the founding pilots of the Israeli Air Force during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. An Orthodox Jew, he was one of five Jewish pilots to fly against Arab forces in smuggled fighter planes.
Reubens's two younger siblings are Luke (born 1958), who is a dog trainer, and Abby (born 1953), who is an attorney and a board member of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee.
Reubens spent much of his childhood in Oneonta, New York. As a child, he frequented the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, whose winter headquarters were in Sarasota. The circus atmosphere sparked Reubens's interest in entertainment, and influenced his later work. He also loved to watch reruns of I Love Lucy, which made him want to make people laugh. At age five, Reubens asked his father to build him a stage, where he and his siblings would act out plays.
Reubens attended Sarasota High School, where he was named president of the National Thespian Society. He was accepted into Northwestern University's summer program for gifted high-school students, joined the local Asolo Theater, Players of Sarasota Theater, and appeared in several plays.
After high school graduation, he attended Plymouth State University for one semester, before attending Boston University, after which he began auditioning for acting schools. He was turned down by several schools, including the Juilliard School and twice by Carnegie Mellon University, before being accepted to the California Institute of the Arts. Reubens moved to California, where he worked in restaurant kitchens and as a Fuller Brush salesman.
Career
1977–1979: Comedy beginnings
In the 1970s, Reubens began performing at local comedy clubs and, starting in 1977, made 14 guest appearances on The Gong Show, four of which as part of a boy–girl act he had developed with Charlotte McGinnis, called The Hilarious Betty and Eddie. He soon joined the Los Angeles–based improvisational comedy team the Groundlings. He remained a troupe member for six years, working with Bob McClurg, Edie McClurg, John Paragon, Susan Barnes, and Phil Hartman. Hartman and Reubens became friends, and often wrote and worked on material together. In 1980, Reubens had a small part as a waiter in The Blues Brothers.
The character of "Pee-wee Herman" originated during a 1978 improvisation exercise with the Groundlings, where Reubens came up with the idea of a man who wanted to be a comic but was so inept at telling jokes that it was obvious to the audience that he would never make it. Fellow Groundling Phil Hartman afterwards helped Reubens develop the character while another Groundling, John Paragon, helped write the show. Despite being compared to other famous characters, such as Hergé's Tintin and Collodi's Pinocchio, Reubens said that there was no specific source for "Pee-wee" other than a collection of ideas. Pee-wee's voice originated in 1970 when Reubens appeared in a production of Life with Father, where he was cast as one of the most obnoxious characters in the play. For this role, Reubens adopted a cartoon-like way of speaking, whose voice became Pee-wee's.
Pee-wee's first name came from a one-inch Pee Wee brand harmonica Reubens had as a child, and the surname Herman was the last name of an energetic boy Reubens knew from his youth. The first small gray suit Pee-wee always wore had been handmade for Groundlings Director and Founder Gary Austin, who passed it on to Reubens. The origin of the red tie is less clear, as Reubens claimed that "someone" handed him the "little kid bow tie" before a performance.
1981–1984: The Pee-wee Herman Show
Reubens auditioned for the Saturday Night Live 1980–1981 season on the same day as comedian Gilbert Gottfried. Reubens told Entertainment Weekly hiring both was not an option because they were "the same type of performer", and knew immediately Gottfried would get the job. He also told the San Francisco Chronicle he believed that "the fix was in" because Gottfried was friends with one of the producers. Reubens was so angry and bitter that he decided he would borrow money and start his own show in Los Angeles using the character he had been developing during the last few years, "Pee-wee Herman".
With the help of other Groundlings like John Paragon, Phil Hartman, and Lynne Marie Stewart, Pee-wee acquired a small group of followers and Reubens took his show to the Roxy Theatre where The Pee-wee Herman Show ran for five sellout months, doing midnight shows for adults and weekly matinees for children, moving into the mainstream when HBO aired The Pee-wee Herman Show in 1981 as part of their series On Location. Reubens also appeared as Pee-wee in the 1980 film Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. He again appeared in 1981's Cheech & Chong's Nice Dreams; the end credits of the film billed him as "Hamburger Dude". Reubens's act had mainly positive reactions and quickly acquired a group of fans, despite being described as "bizarre", and Reubens being described as "the weirdest comedian around". Pee-wee was both "corny" and "hip", "retrograde" and "avant-garde".
When Pee-wee's fame started growing, Reubens started to move away from the spotlight, keeping his name under wraps and making all his public appearance and interviews in character while billing Pee-wee as playing himself; Reubens was trying to "get the public to think that that was a real person". Later on he would even prefer his parents be known only as Honey Herman and Herman Herman. In the early and mid-1980s, Reubens made several guest appearances on Late Night with David Letterman as Pee-wee Herman which gave Pee-wee an even bigger following. During the mid-1980s, Reubens traveled the United States with a whole new The Pee-wee Herman Show, playing at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Caroline's in New York City and, in 1984, in front of a full Carnegie Hall.
1985: Pee-wee's Big Adventure
The success of The Pee-wee Herman Show prompted Warner Bros. to hire Reubens to write a script for a full-length Pee-wee Herman film. Reubens's original idea was to do a remake of Pollyanna, which Reubens claimed was his favorite film. Halfway through writing the script, Reubens noticed everyone at Warner Bros. had a bike with them, which inspired Reubens to start on a new script with Phil Hartman. When Reubens and the producers of Pee-wee's Big Adventure saw Tim Burton's work on Vincent (1982) and Frankenweenie (1984), they chose Burton to be the film's director. The film tells the story of Pee-wee Herman embarking on nationwide adventure in search of his stolen bicycle. The film went on to gross $40,940,662 domestically, recouping almost six times its $7 million budget. At the time of release in 1985, the film received mixed reviews, but Pee-wee's Big Adventure developed into a cult film.
1986–1991: Pee-wee's Playhouse
After seeing the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure, the CBS network approached Reubens with an ill-received cartoon series proposal. In 1986, CBS agreed to sign Reubens to act, produce, and direct his live-action children's program, Pee-wee's Playhouse, with a budget of $325,000 per episode, the same price as a prime-time sitcom, and no creative interference from CBS; although CBS did request a few minor changes throughout the years. After casting actors like Laurence Fishburne and S. Epatha Merkerson, production began in New York City. The opening credits of the show were sung by Cyndi Lauper (under the pseudonym Ellen Shaw).
Playhouse was designed as an educational yet entertaining and artistic show for children and, despite being greatly influenced by 1950s shows Reubens watched as a child like The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, The Mickey Mouse Club, Captain Kangaroo, and Howdy Doody, it quickly acquired a dual audience of kids and grownups. Reubens, always trying to make Pee-wee a positive role model, created a consciously moral show, one that would teach children the ethics of reciprocity. Reubens believed that children liked the Playhouse because it was fast-paced, colorful and "never talked down to them"; while parents liked the Playhouse because it reminded them of the past.
In 1986, Reubens (billed as Paul Mall) was the voice of the ship's computer in Flight of the Navigator. In 1987, Reubens provided the voice for the pilot droid RX-24 a.k.a. Captain "Rex" in Star Tours, a Star Wars-themed motion simulator attraction at Disneyland and Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World, and Disneyland Paris. He also reprised the role of Pee-wee Herman in cameo appearances in the film Back to the Beach and TV show Sesame Street, the latter of which made a cameo in Playhouse.
Right after the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Reubens began working with Paramount Pictures on a sequel entitled Big Top Pee-wee. Reubens and George McGrath's script was directed by Grease director Randal Kleiser. The film was not as successful as its predecessor, receiving mild reviews and doing just over one third as well in the box office, earning only $15 million.Reubens attended the 1988 Academy Awards with Big Top Pee-wee co-star Valeria Golino, which stirred rumors that the two were dating. The following year Reubens exchanged vows with Doris Duke's adopted daughter, Chandi Heffner, at a mock wedding over which Imelda Marcos presided, in Shangri-La, Doris Duke's mansion in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Pee-wee's Playhouse aired from September 13, 1986, until November 10, 1990. Reubens had originally agreed to do two more seasons after the third, and when CBS asked Reubens about the possibility of a sixth season he declined, wanting to take a sabbatical. Reubens had been suffering from burnout from playing Pee-wee full-time and had been warning that Pee-wee was temporary and that he had other ideas he would like to work on. The parties agreed to end the show after five seasons, which included 45 episodes and a Christmas Special. Playhouse garnered 22 Emmy Awards.
1992–2002: Public retreat and comeback
After his 1991 arrest (see below), Reubens kept a low profile, dedicating himself to writing and collecting a variety of things, "everything from fake food, to lamps", although he did do some dubbing and took small parts in films such as 1992's Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Tim Burton's Batman Returns (Reubens portrayed the Penguin's father) and 1996's Matilda and Dunston Checks In. In 1993, he voiced the character Lock in another one of Burton's productions, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Pee-wee's Playhouse had already ended by the time Reubens was arrested. He cited an overworked crew and a decline in the show's quality in his decision against making a sixth season. The show's popularity and quantity of episodes had allowed for rerun broadcasts, but CBS canceled the reruns on July 29, 1991.
Reubens dated actress Debi Mazar in 1993 after he started attending film premieres with her. Reubens credited Mazar with ending his depression from his arrest. According to Mazar, the relationship was never consummated.
During the mid-1990s, Reubens played a recurring role on the TV series Murphy Brown. The role earned him positive reviews and his only non-Pee-wee Emmy nomination, for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. He appeared six times on the show between 1995 and 1997. Afterward, Reubens began working on an NBC pilot entitled Meet the Muckles, a show that would be based on You Can't Take It with You. The project got stuck in development hell and was later dropped when Reubens's ideas grew too elaborate and expensive, although Philip Rosenthal blamed NBC's negative response on Reubens being on a "blacklist".
By 1999, Reubens had given several interviews as himself and made public appearances while promoting the film Mystery Men, the first being on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno that year. He also starred in Dwight Yoakam's Western South of Heaven, West of Hell, portraying a rapist and killer. In 2001, Reubens had his first extended television role since Playhouse, as the host of the short-lived ABC game show You Don't Know Jack, based on the video game series of the same name. It was cancelled after six episodes due to low ratings.
Reubens played a flamboyant hairdresser turned drug dealer in Ted Demme's 2001 drama Blow, which starred Penélope Cruz and Johnny Depp. His performance was praised and he began receiving scripts for potential film projects.
2004–2008: Cameos and guest appearances
Reubens made cameos and guest appearances in numerous projects. He played Rick of the citizen's patrol on the popular Comedy Central series Reno 911!, which gained him a small role in the 2007 film Reno 911!: Miami. In 2006, he appeared in the second music video of the Raconteurs' song "Steady, As She Goes". The video has the band engaging in a comical soapbox car race, with Reubens playing the bad guy who sabotages the race.
In 2007, Reubens attended his own tribute at the SF Sketchfest, where he talked about his career with Ben Fong-Torres. He also signed with NBC to make a pilot on a show called Area 57, a sitcom about a passive-aggressive alien, but it was not picked up for the 2007–2008 season. Reubens did, however, appear on the hit NBC series 30 Rock as an inbred Austrian prince, a character Tina Fey created for him. He also made three guest appearances on FX's series Dirt playing a washed-up, alcoholic reporter named Chuck Lafoon. This time he was recommended for the role by Dirt star and close friend Courteney Cox. Cox's husband, David Arquette, then cast Reubens for his directorial debut, the 2007 film The Tripper.
In June 2007, Reubens appeared as Pee-wee Herman at the Spike TV's Guys Choice Awards for the first time since 1992.
Reubens also had small parts dubbing or making cameos in a series of Cartoon Network projects such as the 2006 television film Re-Animated, the animated cartoon series Chowder, Tom Goes to the Mayor, and Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!.
In 2008, Reubens was slated to appear as homeopathic antidepressant salesman Alfredo Aldarisio in the third episode of Pushing Daisies, but the role was recast with Raúl Esparza. Reubens instead appeared in the role of Oscar Vibenius in the series' 7th and 9th episodes.
Also, during 2008, Reubens did a PSA for Unscrew America, a website that aims to get people to change regular light bulbs for more energy-efficient ones in the form of CFLs and LED. He also appeared in Todd Solondz's Life During Wartime.
In 2009, Reubens voiced Bat-Mite in the Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode "Legends of the Dark Mite".
2009–2023: Revival and later work
In January 2009, Reubens hinted that negotiations were under way for his stage show to come back, and in August the return of The Pee-wee Herman Show was announced. Reubens said he felt Pee-wee calling, "I just got up one day and felt like I'm gonna come back, that was it." The show is also a way to "introduce Pee-wee to the new generation that didn't know about it", preparing the way for Reubens's main project, the Playhouse film. Before this comeback, Reubens's present age and shape had been pointed out as a possible issue, since Pee-wee's slim figure and clean skin have been one of his trademarks. But after appearing for the first time since 1992 as Pee-wee at Spike TV's 2007 Guys Choice Awards, Reubens had remained optimistic and had jokingly said he's no longer nervous about being young Pee-wee again thanks to digital retouching.
The show was originally scheduled to begin November 8 and continue until the 29th at the Music Box Theatre in Hollywood. Due to high demand, the show moved to Club Nokia at LA Live and was scheduled to run between January 12 and February 7, 2010. To promote the show, Reubens once again gave interviews in character, appearing as a guest on The Jay Leno Show, The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien (as well as O'Brien's subsequent Legally Prohibited Tour), and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, among others. A Twitter account, a Facebook account, and a new website were made for Pee-wee after the show changed venues.
On November 11, 2010, the show relocated to New York City for a limited run at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, selling over $3 million in advance tickets. An extra performance was taped for the HBO network on January 6, 2011, and debuted March 19.
From 2012 to 2013, Reubens contributed his voice talents to the animated series Tron: Uprising as Pavel. In 2014, Reubens appeared in TV on the Radio's music video for "Happy Idiot".
In February 2015, Netflix acquired the rights to produce a new Pee-wee film entitled Pee-wee's Big Holiday with Reubens and Judd Apatow producing the film, John Lee directing, and Reubens and Paul Rust writing the screenplay. The film released on March 18, 2016, on Netflix to positive reception.
Reubens went on to reprise his role as pilot droid Rex in Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, a Star Wars-themed land that opened at Disneyland and Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World in 2019. Reubens previously portrayed the character in the original Star Tours attraction in 1987 and Star Wars Rebels in 2014. In Galaxy's Edge, the former Star Tours pilot droid RX-24 – "Rex" – has been reprogrammed into DJ R-3X, the house DJ of a bar and restaurant called Oga's Cantina.
During the release of the Telltale Games series Minecraft Story Mode Seasons 1 and 2, Reubens garnered new appreciation from Minecraft fans for his outstanding performance as the eccentric antihero Ivor, being one of his own favorite voice acting roles.
Undeveloped scripts
When Reubens started giving interviews again after his 2002 arrest, he talked about the two scripts he had written for future Pee-wee Herman films.
Reubens once called his first script The Pee-wee Herman Story, describing it as a black comedy. He also referred to the script as "dark Pee-wee" or "adult Pee-wee", with the plot involving Pee-wee becoming famous as a singer after making a hit single and moving to Hollywood, where "he does everything wrong and becomes a big jerk". Reubens further explained the film has many "Valley of the Dolls moments". Reubens thought this script would be the first one to start production, but in 2006 Reubens announced he was to start filming his second script in 2007.
The second film, a family-friendly adventure, is called Pee-wee's Playhouse: The Movie by Reubens, and follows Pee-wee and his Playhouse friends on a road-trip adventure, meaning that they would leave the house for the first time and go out into "Puppetland". All of the original characters of the show, live-action and puppets are included in Reubens's script. The story happens in a fantasy land that would be reminiscent of H.R. Pufnstuf and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. In January 2009, Reubens told Gary Panter that the rejected first script of Pee-wee's Big Adventure (which they co-wrote) could have a film deal very soon and that it would be "90 minutes of incredible beauty". In December 2009, while in character, Reubens said this film is "already done, the script is already fully written; It's ready to shoot." Most of the film will take place in Puppetland and claymation might be used.
Although he did not reveal much about the scripts, he said that one of the two films opens in prison. He also said that using CGI for "updating" the puppets' looks could be an option, but it all depended on the budget the films would have. Reubens once mentioned the possibility of doing one of the two as an animated film along the lines of The Polar Express (2004), which uses performance capture technology, incorporating the movements of live actors into animated characters.
Reubens approached Pee-wee's Big Adventure director Tim Burton with one of the scripts and talked to Johnny Depp about the possibility of having him portray Pee-wee, but Burton was too busy, and Depp said he would have to think about it.
In January 2010, Reubens reprised his role as Pee-wee and reused the set of Pee-wee's Playhouse (albeit slightly modified) for a short sketch on Funny or Die. In the sketch, Pee-wee comes home and shows off a brand-new iPad given to him by Steve Jobs. This leads to a long argument between him and his puppet friends, who point out all of the iPad's disadvantages – even Conky himself points out its flaws by stating that "it looks like a giant iPhone". In the end, Pee-wee uses the iPad as a serving tray to hold glasses of milk and lemonade during a party being held at the Playhouse hours later. All the voices of the puppet characters are dubbed in by different actors than the TV series, except for Globey whose voice is still done by George McGrath.
Legal issues
1991 arrest
In July 1991, Reubens was arrested in Sarasota, Florida, for indecent exposure while watching a film at a porno theater. During an unexpected police inspection, a detective detained Reubens, along with three others, as he was preparing to leave. When detectives examined his driver's license, Reubens told them "I'm Pee-wee Herman" and offered to perform a children's benefit for the sheriff's office "to take care of this". The next day, after a local reporter recognized Reubens's name, Reubens's attorney extended the same offer to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in exchange for withholding the story. This was Reubens's third arrest in the county. In 1971, Reubens had been arrested in the same county for loitering and prowling near an adult theater, though charges had been dropped. His second arrest occurred in 1983 when Reubens was placed on two years of probation for possession of marijuana, although adjudication was withheld. On the night of the arrest, Reubens traveled to Nashville, where his sister and lawyer lived, and then to New Jersey, where he stayed for the following months at his friend Doris Duke's estate.
The 1991 arrest was widely covered and Reubens became the subject of late-night talk show ridicule. Disney-MGM Studios suspended a video from its studio tour that had shown Pee-wee explaining how voiceover tracks are produced. Toys "R" Us removed Pee-wee toys from its stores.
Reubens released a statement denying the charges. On November 7, 1991, he pleaded no contest. The plea avoided a charge on Reubens's record but obligated him to 75 hours of community service. As part of his service, he created, produced, and financed two antidrug public service announcements.
Despite the negative publicity, many artists who knew Reubens, such as Cyndi Lauper, Annette Funicello, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Valeria Golino, voiced support. Others who knew Reubens, such as Pee-wee's Playhouse production designer Gary Panter, S. Epatha Merkerson, and Big Top Pee-wee director Randal Kleiser, also spoke in support. Reubens's fans organized support rallies after CBS canceled the reruns, picketing in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. The television news magazine A Current Affair received "tens of thousands" of responses to a Pee-wee telephone survey in which callers supported Reubens by a nine-to-one ratio.
Although Reubens did not offer interviews or appear on talk shows after his arrest, he did appear in character as Pee-wee Herman at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards on September 5, asking the audience, "Heard any good jokes lately?" He received a standing ovation. Reubens appeared as Pee-wee only once in 1992, when he participated in a Grand Ole Opry tribute to Minnie Pearl.
2002–2004: Subsequent charges
In November 2002, while filming David LaChapelle's video for Elton John's "This Train Don't Stop There Anymore", Reubens learned that police were at his home with a search warrant. Police were acting on a tip from a witness in the pornography case against actor Jeffrey Jones, finding among over 70,000 items of kitsch memorabilia, two grainy videotapes, and dozens of photographs that the city attorney's office characterized as a collection of "child pornography." Kelly Bush, Reubens's personal representative at the time, said the description of the items was inaccurate and stated the objects were "Rob Lowe's sex videotape", and a few 30- to 100-year-old kitsch collectible images."
Reubens turned himself in to the Hollywood division of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and was charged with misdemeanor possession of obscene material improperly depicting a child under the age of 18 in sexual conduct. The district attorney looked at Reubens's collection and computer and found no grounds for bringing any felony charges against him, while the city attorney, Rocky Delgadillo, formally charged Reubens on the last day allowed by statute. Reubens was represented by Hollywood criminal defense lawyer Blair Berk.
In December, he pleaded not guilty through Berk. In March 2004, child pornography charges were dropped in exchange for Reubens' guilty plea to a lesser misdemeanor obscenity charge. For the next three years, he was required to register his address with the sheriff's office, and he could not be in the company of minors without the permission of their parent or legal guardian.
Reubens later stated that he was a collector of erotica, including films, muscle magazines, and a sizable collection of mostly homosexual vintage erotica, such as photographic studies of teen nudes. Reubens said that what the city attorney's office viewed as pornography he considered to be innocent art, and whether the memorabilia were pornographic images ”depends on what one sees in those images.” Reubens described the nude images as people "one hundred percent not" performing sexual acts.
Being an avid collector, Reubens often purchased bulk lots, and one of his vintage magazine dealers declared that "there's no way" he could have known the content of each page in the publications he bought, and he recalled Reubens asking for "physique magazines, vintage [1960s] material, but not things featuring kids".
During this ongoing legal issue, Reubens spent two years in Sarasota, Florida, caring for his terminally ill father, who died in February 2004 of cancer.
Reception and legacy
Reubens had not always thought of his character as one for children prior to the mid-1980s, when he became more selective of what should and should not be associated with Pee-wee. He was a heavy smoker and hired security to make sure that children never saw him with a cigarette while in costume. He refused to endorse candy bars and other unhealthy food; he said in 1999 that he had proposed "Ralston Purina Pee-wee Chow cereal", but the sugar-free product was not released due to a negative reaction in a blind taste test.
Pee-wee was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame by 1989, and successfully built a Pee-wee franchise, with toys, clothes, and other items generating more than $25 million at its peak in 1988. Reubens also published a book as Pee-wee in 1989 called Travels with Pee-Wee. CBS aired reruns of Playhouse until July 1991, when Reubens was arrested, pulling from their schedule the last two remaining reruns. Fox Family Channel briefly aired reruns of the Playhouse in 1998. In early July 2006, Cartoon Network began running a teaser promo during its Adult Swim lineup. A later press release and many other promos confirmed that the show's 45 original episodes would air nightly from Monday to Thursday starting on that date. Playhouse attracted 1.5 million viewers nightly. In 2007, TV Guide named Playhouse one of the top 10 TV cult classics of all time. Several children's television personas cite Pee-wee Herman as an inspiration, including Steve Burns of Blue's Clues and Stephen Hillenburg of SpongeBob SquarePants.
In November 2004, all 45 episodes of the Playhouse, plus six episodes that had never before been released on home video, were released on DVD split between two box set collections. On July 3, 2013, Shout! Factory announced that they had acquired the rights to the entire series from Reubens, which was released on Blu-ray on October 21, 2014. In addition, the entire series was digitally remastered from the original 35mm film elements and original audio tracks.
Pee-wee's tight-fitting Glen plaid suits have made him a "style icon", with fashion houses and designers like Christopher Bailey, Ennio Capasa, Miuccia Prada, Viktor & Rolf, and Thom Browne creating tightly cut suits with high armholes and short trousers that have been compared to Pee-wee's.
Reubens discussed plans for a museum, which would contain many of the Playhouse sets and props he owned.
Death
Reubens died on July 30, 2023, at the age of 70, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The immediate cause of death was acute hypoxic respiratory failure. At the time of his death he was diagnosed with both myelogenous leukemia and metastatic lung cancer. He had been diagnosed six years earlier, but had not revealed his diagnosis to the public.
Following his death, a statement written by Reubens was released:
Reubens was cremated, and his remains were interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
References
External links
1952 births
2023 deaths
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American Jews
20th-century American male actors
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
21st-century American comedians
21st-century American Jews
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American screenwriters
Actors from Sarasota, Florida
American game show hosts
American film producers
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American male television writers
American male voice actors
American television directors
American television writers
California Institute of the Arts alumni
Comedians from Los Angeles
Comedians from Florida
Comedians from New York (state)
Daytime Emmy Award winners
Deaths from lung cancer in California
Deaths from leukemia in California
Jewish film people
Jewish American male actors
Jewish American comedians
Jewish American screenwriters
Jewish male comedians
Male actors from Los Angeles
Male actors from New York (state)
Pee-wee Herman
People from Peekskill, New York
People from Oneonta, New York
Sarasota High School alumni
Sex scandals in the United States
Screenwriters from California
Screenwriters from Florida
Screenwriters from New York (state)
Television producers from California
Television producers from Florida
Television producers from New York (state)
Burials at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
False allegations of sex crimes |
23917 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prismatoid | Prismatoid | In geometry, a prismatoid is a polyhedron whose vertices all lie in two parallel planes. Its lateral faces can be trapezoids or triangles. If both planes have the same number of vertices, and the lateral faces are either parallelograms or trapezoids, it is called a prismoid.
Volume
If the areas of the two parallel faces are and , the cross-sectional area of the intersection of the prismatoid with a plane midway between the two parallel faces is , and the height (the distance between the two parallel faces) is , then the volume of the prismatoid is given by
This formula follows immediately by integrating the area parallel to the two planes of vertices by Simpson's rule, since that rule is exact for integration of polynomials of degree up to 3, and in this case the area is at most a quadratic function in the height.
Prismatoid families
Families of prismatoids include:
Pyramids, in which one plane contains only a single point;
Wedges, in which one plane contains only two points;
Prisms, whose polygons in each plane are congruent and joined by rectangles or parallelograms;
Antiprisms, whose polygons in each plane are congruent and joined by an alternating strip of triangles;
Star antiprisms;
Cupolae, in which the polygon in one plane contains twice as many points as the other and is joined to it by alternating triangles and rectangles;
Frusta obtained by truncation of a pyramid or a cone;
Quadrilateral-faced hexahedral prismatoids:
Parallelepipeds – six parallelogram faces
Rhombohedrons – six rhombus faces
Trigonal trapezohedra – six congruent rhombus faces
Cuboids – six rectangular faces
Quadrilateral frusta – an apex-truncated square pyramid
Cube – six square faces
Higher dimensions
In general, a polytope is prismatoidal if its vertices exist in two hyperplanes. For example, in four dimensions, two polyhedra can be placed in two parallel 3-spaces, and connected with polyhedral sides.
References
External links |
23920 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom%20kangaroo | Phantom kangaroo | A phantom kangaroo is a report of kangaroos, wallabies, or their accompanying footprints in areas where there is no native population. Some explanations put forth are escaped zoo or circus animals (as in the UK), or publicity stunts by local businesses using photographs from Australia. Others suggest outbreaks of such sightings are a form of mass psychogenic illness.
France
A population of feral red-necked wallabies, often mis-identified as "kangourous", lives near the township of Émancé, about southwest of Paris. These wallabies are descended from a breeding population which escaped a zoological reserve in the 1970s.
Japan
Between 2002 and 2011, there was a series of phantom kangaroo sightings in the Mayama mountain district of Ōsaki, Miyagi city in Miyagi Prefecture.
New Zealand
In 1831, after arriving in Australia, two sailors from the Sydney Packet reported that they had seen a "giant kangaroo", 30 feet (nine metres) tall, at a small cove in Dusky Sound, South Island. From a small boat, they observed it standing near the treeline, and when they came too close the animal jumped into the water and swam away, leaving a wake extending from one end of the sound to the other.
Kawau Island in the Hauraki Gulf has a colony of three species of wallabies descending from a deliberate introduction by Sir George Grey, a 19th century Governor.
New Zealand also has a wild population of wallabies in the Waimate District of South Island that were introduced for hunting in the late 19th century.
United Kingdom
Documented colonies of red-necked wallabies exist in the United Kingdom. A breeding colony established itself after breaking loose from a private zoo in Leek, Staffordshire in the 1930s. Their population seems to have peaked in the 1970s, reaching numbers between 60 and 70. There were no confirmed sightings of the wallabies between 2000 and 2007, with some locals believing they must have died out. In 2009, newspapers reported wallaby sightings (including clear pictures) that made reference to sightings in 2008. In recent years, BBC News has documented numerous wallaby sightings across the UK.
Inchconnachan, an island in Loch Lomond in Scotland, also has a population of wallabies after they were introduced by Lady Arran Colquhoun in the 1920s.
Subsequent sightings have been made including a report of a Bennett’s wallaby filmed by zoologist Maurice Melzak in Highgate Cemetery, Hampstead, London in October 2013, and an albino wallaby in Northamptonshire in 2015.
United States
In 1934, near South Pittsburg, Tennessee, an atypical kangaroo or "kangaroo-like beast" was reported by several witnesses over a five-day period, and to have killed and partially devoured several animals, including ducks, geese, a German Shepherd and other dogs. Kangaroos are typically unaggressive and vegetarian. A witness described the animal as looking "like a large kangaroo, running and leaping across a field." A search party followed the animal's tracks to a mountainside cave where they stopped. The animal was never found, and national news coverage drew widespread ridicule.
In 1974, in Chicago, Illinois, two Chicago police officers were called to investigate a report that a kangaroo was standing in someone's porch. After a brief search, the officers located the animal in an alleyway, but were unable to capture it. Over the next month, numerous kangaroo sightings were reported in Illinois and the neighbouring states of Indiana and Wisconsin, with timing suggesting more than one animal if reports were accurate. A kangaroo was seen the next day by a paperboy, the next week in Schiller Woods, Illinois, and the week after that just outside Plano, Illinois, reported by a police officer who said it jumped eight feet from a field into the road. Thirty minutes later, a kangaroo was reported back in Chicago, then reported on the following three days in the surrounding countryside. A few days later, there were a rash of sightings in Indiana. Reports ceased about a month after the original story.
In 1978, in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, two men photographed a large kangaroo beside the highway. Author Loren Coleman, described as the "leading authority on North American kangaroo sightings", suggested the animal looked like a Bennett's wallaby.
In 2013, in Oklahoma, a kangaroo was reportedly recorded by hunters in a field. The video was published on the website YouTube, and prompted speculation that the animal may be a pet kangaroo who went missing in the state just over a year earlier.
Also in 2013, The Ridgefield Press reported that a motorist in North Salem, New York captured on video what he thought was a kangaroo, and published the video on their website. The newspaper noted that escaped wallabies, smaller than kangaroos, were known in Westchester County, which encompasses North Salem. Several people in the county had kept wallabies as pets.
See also
Forteana
Phantom cat
Vagrancy (biology)
References
Mythological marsupials
Macropods
Cryptid footprints |
23922 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton%20University | Princeton University | Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. The institution moved to Newark in 1747 and then to its current Mercer County campus in Princeton nine years later. It officially became a university in 1896 and was subsequently renamed Princeton University.
The university is governed by the Trustees of Princeton University and has an endowment of $37.7 billion, the largest endowment per student in the United States. Princeton provides undergraduate and graduate instruction in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering to approximately 8,500 students on its main campus spanning within the borough of Princeton. It offers postgraduate degrees through the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the School of Architecture and the Bendheim Center for Finance. The university also manages the Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and is home to the NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and has one of the largest university libraries in the world.
Princeton uses a residential college system and is known for its eating clubs for juniors and seniors. The university has over 500 student organizations. Princeton students embrace a wide variety of traditions from both the past and present. The university is a NCAA Division I school and competes in the Ivy League. The school's athletic team, the Princeton Tigers, has won the most titles in its conference and has sent many students and alumni to the Olympics.
As of October 2021, 75 Nobel laureates, 16 Fields Medalists and 16 Turing Award laureates have been affiliated with Princeton University as alumni, faculty members, or researchers. In addition, Princeton has been associated with 21 National Medal of Science awardees, 5 Abel Prize awardees, 11 National Humanities Medal recipients, 217 Rhodes Scholars, 137 Marshall Scholars, and
62 Gates Cambridge Scholars. Two U.S. presidents, twelve U.S. Supreme Court Justices (three of whom currently serve on the court) and numerous living industry and media tycoons and foreign heads of state are all counted among Princeton's alumni body. Princeton has graduated many members of the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Cabinet, including eight Secretaries of State, three Secretaries of Defense and two Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
History
Founding
Princeton University, founded as the College of New Jersey, was shaped much in its formative years by the "Log College", a seminary founded by the Reverend William Tennent at Neshaminy, Pennsylvania, in about 1726. While no legal connection ever existed, many of the pupils and adherents from the Log College would go on to financially support and become substantially involved in the early years of the university. While early writers considered it as the predecessor of the university, the idea has been rebuked by Princeton historians.
The founding of the university itself originated from a split in the Presbyterian church following the Great Awakening. In 1741, New Light Presbyterians were expelled from the Synod of Philadelphia in defense of how the Log College ordained ministers. The four founders of the College of New Jersey, who were New Lights, were either expelled or withdrew from the Synod and devised a plan to establish a new college, for they were disappointed with Harvard and Yale's opposition to the Great Awakening and dissatisfied with the limited instruction at the Log College. They convinced three other Presbyterians to join them and decided on New Jersey as the location for the college, as at the time, there was no institution between Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut, and the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia; it was also where some of the founders preached. Although their initial request was rejected by the Anglican governor Lewis Morrison, the acting governor after Morrison's death, John Hamilton, granted a charter for the College of New Jersey on October 22, 1746. In 1747, approximately five months after acquiring the charter, the trustees elected Jonathan Dickinson as president and opened in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where classes were held in Dickinson's parsonage. With its founding, it became the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. The founders aimed for the college to have an expansive curriculum to teach people of various professions, not solely ministerial work. Though the school was open to those of any religious denomination, with many of the founders being of Presbyterian faith, the college became the educational and religious capital of Scotch-Irish Presbyterian America.
Colonial and early years
In 1747, following the death of then President Jonathan Dickinson, the college moved from Elizabeth to Newark, New Jersey, as that was where presidential successor Aaron Burr Sr.'s parsonage was located. That same year, Princeton's first charter came under dispute by Anglicans, but on September 14, 1748, the recently appointed governor Jonathan Belcher granted a second charter. Belcher, a Congregationalist, had become alienated from his alma mater, Harvard, and decided to "adopt" the infant college. Belcher would go on to raise funds for the college and donate his 474-volume library, making it one of the largest libraries in the colonies.
In 1756, the college moved again to its present home in Princeton, New Jersey, because Newark was felt to be too close to New York. Princeton was chosen for its location in central New Jersey and by strong recommendation by Belcher. The college's home in Princeton was Nassau Hall, named for the royal William III of England, a member of the House of Orange-Nassau. The trustees of the College of New Jersey initially suggested that Nassau Hall be named in recognition of Belcher because of his interest in the institution; the governor vetoed the request.
Burr, who would die in 1757, devised a curriculum for the school and enlarged the student body. Following the untimely death of Burr and the college's next three presidents, John Witherspoon became president in 1768 and remained in that post until his death in 1794. With his presidency, Witherspoon focused the college on preparing a new generation of both educated clergy and secular leadership in the new American nation. To this end, he tightened academic standards, broadened the curriculum, solicited investment for the college, and grew its size.
A signatory of the Declaration of Independence, Witherspoon and his leadership led the college to becoming influential to the American Revolution. In 1777, the college became the site for the Battle of Princeton. During the battle, British soldiers briefly occupied Nassau Hall before eventually surrendering to American forces led by General George Washington. During the summer and fall of 1783, the Continental Congress and Washington met in Nassau Hall, making Princeton the country's capital for four months; Nassau Hall is where Congress learned of the peace treaty between the colonies and the British. The college did suffer from the revolution, with a depreciated endowment and hefty repair bills for Nassau Hall.
19th century
In 1795, President Samuel Stanhope Smith took office, the first alumnus to become president. Nassau Hall suffered a large fire that destroyed its interior in 1802, which Smith blamed on rebellious students. The college raised funds for reconstruction, as well as the construction of two new buildings. In 1807, a large student riot occurred at Nassau Hall, spurred by underlying distrust of educational reforms by Smith away from the Church. Following Smith's mishandling of the situation, falling enrollment, and faculty resignations, the trustees of the university offered resignation to Smith, which he accepted. In 1812, Ashbel Green was unanimously elected by the trustees of the college to become the eighth president. After the liberal tenure of Smith, Green represented the conservative "Old Side", in which he introduced rigorous disciplinary rules and heavily embraced religion. Even so, believing the college was not religious enough, he took a prominent role in establishing the Princeton Theological Seminary next door. While student riots were a frequent occurrence during Green's tenure, enrollment did increase under his administration.
In 1823, James Carnahan became president, arriving as an unprepared and timid leader. With the college riven by conflicting views between students, faculty, and trustees, and enrollment hitting its lowest in years, Carnahan considered closing the university. Carnahan's successor, John Maclean Jr., who was only a professor at the time, recommended saving the university with the help of alumni; as a result, Princeton's alumni association, led by James Madison, was created and began raising funds. With Carnahan and Maclean, now vice-president, working as partners, enrollment and faculty increased, tensions decreased, and the college campus expanded. Maclean took over the presidency in 1854, and led the university through the American Civil War. When Nassau Hall burned down again in 1855, Maclean raised funds and used the money to rebuild Nassau Hall and run the university on an austerity budget during the war years. With a third of students from the college being from the South, enrollment fell. Once many of the Southerners left, the campus became a sharp proponent for the Union, even bestowing an honorary degree to President Lincoln. James McCosh became the college's president in 1868, and lifted the institution out of a low period that had been brought about by the war. During his two decades of service, he overhauled the curriculum, oversaw an expansion of inquiry into the sciences, recruited distinguished faculty, and supervised the addition of a number of buildings in the High Victorian Gothic style to the campus. McCosh's tenure also saw the creation and rise of many extracurricular activities, like the Princeton Glee Club, the Triangle Club, the first intercollegiate football team, and the first permanent eating club, as well as the elimination of fraternities and sororities. In 1879, Princeton conferred its first doctorates on James F. Williamson and William Libby, both members of the Class of 1877.
Francis Patton took the presidency in 1888, and although his election was not met by unanimous enthusiasm, he was well received by undergraduates. Patton's administration was marked by great change, for Princeton's enrollment and faculty had doubled. At the same time, the college underwent large expansion and social life was changing in reflection of the rise in eating clubs and burgeoning interest in athletics. In 1893, the honor system was established, allowing for unproctored exams. In 1896, the college officially became a university, and as a result, it officially changed its name to Princeton University. In 1900, the Graduate School was formally established. Even with such accomplishments, Patton's administration remained lackluster with its administrative structure and towards its educational standards. Due to profile changes in the board of trustees and dissatisfaction with his administration, he was forced to resign in 1902.
20th century
Following Patton's resignation, Woodrow Wilson, an alumnus and popular professor, was elected the 13th president of the university. Noticing falling academic standards, Wilson orchestrated significant changes to the curriculum, where freshman and sophomores followed a unified curriculum while juniors and seniors concentrated study in one discipline. Ambitious seniors were allowed to undertake independent work, which would eventually shape Princeton's emphasis on the practice for the future. Wilson further reformed the educational system by introducing the preceptorial system in 1905, a then-unique concept in the United States that augmented the standard lecture method of teaching with a more personal form in which small groups of students, or precepts, could interact with a single instructor, or preceptor, in their field of interest. The changes brought about many new faculty and cemented Princeton's academics for the first half of the 20th century. Due to the tightening of academic standards, enrollment declined severely until 1907. In 1906, the reservoir Lake Carnegie was created by Andrew Carnegie, and the university officially became nonsectarian. Before leaving office, Wilson strengthened the science program to focus on "pure" research and broke the Presbyterian lock on the board of trustees. However, he did fail in winning support for the permanent location of the Graduate School and the elimination of the eating clubs, which he proposed replacing with quadrangles, a precursor to the residential college system. Wilson also continued to keep Princeton closed off from accepting Black students. When an aspiring Black student wrote a letter to Wilson, he got his secretary to reply telling him to attend a university where he would be more welcome.
John Grier Hibben became president in 1912, and would remain in the post for two decades. On October 2, 1913, the Princeton University Graduate College was dedicated. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Hibben allocated all available University resources to the government. As a result, military training schools opened on campus and laboratories and other facilities were used for research and operational programs. Overall, more than 6,000 students served in the armed forces, with 151 dying during the war. After the war, enrollment spiked and the trustees established the system of selective admission in 1922. From the 1920s to the 1930s, the student body featured many students from preparatory schools, zero Black students, and dwindling Jewish enrollment because of quotas. Aside from managing Princeton during WWI, Hibben introduced the senior thesis in 1923 as a part of The New Plan of Study. He also brought about great expansion to the university, with the creation of the School of Architecture in 1919, the School of Engineering in 1921, and the School of Public and International Affairs in 1930. By the end of his presidency, the endowment had increased by 374 percent, the total area of the campus doubled, the faculty experienced impressive growth, and the enrollment doubled.
Hibben's successor, Harold Willis Dodds would lead the university through the Great Depression, World War II, and the Korean Conflict. With the Great Depression, many students were forced to withdraw due to financial reasons. At the same time, Princeton's reputation in physics and mathematics surged as many European scientists left for the United States due to uneasy tension caused by Nazi Germany. In 1930, the Institute for Advanced Study was founded to provide a space for the influx of scientists, such as Albert Einstein. Many Princeton scientists would work on the Manhattan Project during the war, including the entire physics department. During World War II, Princeton offered an accelerated program for students to graduate early before entering the armed forces. Student enrollment fluctuated from month to month, and many faculty were forced to teach unfamiliar subjects. Still, Dodds maintained academic standards and would establish a program for servicemen, so they could resume their education once discharged.
1945 to present
The post-war years saw scholars renewing broken bonds through numerous conventions, expansion of the campus, and the introduction of distribution requirements. The period saw the desegregation of Princeton, which was stimulated by changes to the New Jersey constitution. Princeton began undertaking a sharper focus towards research in the years after the war, with the construction of Firestone Library in 1948 and the establishment of the Forrestal Research Center in the 1950s. Government sponsored research increased sharply, particularly in the physics and engineering departments, with much of it occurring at the new Forrestal campus. Though, as the years progressed, scientific research at the Forrestal campus declined, and in 1973, some of the land was converted to commercial and residential spaces.
Robert Goheen would succeed Dodds by unanimous vote and serve as president until 1972. Goheen's presidency was characterized as being more liberal than previous presidents, and his presidency would see a rise in Black applicants, as well as the eventual coeducation of the university in 1969. During this period of rising diversity, the Third World Center (now known as the Carl A. Fields Center) was dedicated in 1971. Goheen also oversaw great expansion for the university, with square footage increasing by 80 percentage.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Princeton experienced unprecedented activism, with most of it centered on the Vietnam War. While Princeton activism initially remained relatively timid compared to other institutions, protests began to grow with the founding of a local chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in 1965, which organized many of the later Princeton protests. In 1966, the SDS gained prominence on campus following picketing against a speech by President Lyndon B. Johnson, which gained frontpage coverage by the New York Times. A notable point of contention on campus was the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) and would feature multiple protests, some of which required police action. In 1967, SDS members and sympathizers beat the campus R.O.T.C. chapter in a game of touch football. As the years went on, the protests' agenda broadened to investments in South Africa, environmental issues, and women's rights. In response to these broadening protests, the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) was founded to serve as a method for greater student voice in governance. Activism culminated in 1970 with a student, faculty, and staff member strike, so the university could become an "institution against expansion of the war." Princeton's protests would taper off later that year, with The Daily Princetonian saying that, "Princeton 1970–71 was an emotionally burned out university."
In 1982, the residential college system was officially established under Goheen's successor William G. Bowen, who would serve until 1988. During his presidency, Princeton's endowment increased from $625 million to $2 billion, and a major fundraising drive known as "A Campaign for Princeton" was conducted. President Harold T. Shapiro would succeed Bowen and remain president until 2001. Shapiro would continue to increase the endowment, expand academic programs, raise student diversity, and oversee the most renovations in Princeton's history. One of Shapiro's initiatives was the formation of the multidisciplinary Princeton Environmental Institute in 1994, renamed the High Meadows Environmental Institute in 2020. In 2001, Princeton shifted the financial aid policy to a system that replaced all loans with grants. That same year, Princeton elected its first female president, Shirley M. Tilghman. Before retiring in 2012, Tilghman expanded financial aid offerings and conducted several major construction projects like the Lewis Center for the Arts and a sixth residential college. Tilghman also lead initiatives for more global programs, the creation of an office of sustainability, and investments into the sciences.
Princeton's 20th and current president, Christopher Eisgruber, was elected in 2013. In 2017, Princeton University unveiled a large-scale public history and digital humanities investigation into its historical involvement with slavery called the Princeton & Slavery Project. The project saw the publication of hundreds of primary sources, 80 scholarly essays, a scholarly conference, a series of short plays, and an art project. In April 2018, university trustees announced that they would name two public spaces for James Collins Johnson and Betsey Stockton, enslaved people who lived and worked on Princeton's campus and whose stories were publicized by the project. In 2019, large-scale student activism again entered the mainstream concerning the school's implementation of federal Title IX policy relating to campus sexual assault. The activism consisted of sit-ins in response to a student's disciplinary sentence.
Coeducation
Princeton explicitly prohibited the admission of women from its founding in 1746 until 1969. Since it lacked an affiliated women's college, it was often referred to as a "monastery", both lovingly and derisively, by members of the Princeton community.
For about a decade, from 1887 to 1897, nearby Evelyn College for Women was largely composed of daughters of professors and sisters of Princeton undergraduates. While no legal connection existed, many Princeton professors taught there and several Princeton administrators, such as Francis Patton, were on its board of trustees. It closed in 1897 following the death of its founder, Joshua McIlvaine.
In 1947, three female members of the library staff enrolled in beginning Russian courses to deal with an increase in Russian literature in the library. In 1961, Princeton admitted its first female graduate student, Sabra Follett Meservey, who would go on to be the first woman to earn a master's degree at Princeton. Meservey was, at the time of her admission, already a member of the faculty at Douglass College within Princeton. The dean of the graduate school issued a statement clarifying that Meservey's admission was an exception, and that "Princeton may permit other women in the future as special cases, but does not plan to make general admissions of women graduate students." The student-run Daily Princetonian ran four articles about Meservey in one issue, including an editorial lamenting the potential "far reaching implications" of Meservey's admission which concluded: "Princeton is unique as an undergraduate men's college and must remain so." Eight more women enrolled the following year in the Graduate School. In 1964, T'sai-ying Cheng became the first woman at Princeton to receive a Ph.D. In 1963, five women came to Princeton for one year to study "critical languages" as undergraduates, but were not candidates for a Princeton degree. Following abortive discussions with Sarah Lawrence College to relocate the women's college to Princeton and merge it with the university in 1967, the administration commissioned a report on admitting women. The final report was issued in January 1969, supporting the idea. That same month, Princeton's trustees voted 24–8 in favor of coeducation and began preparing the institution for the transition. The university finished these plans in April 1969 and announced there would be coeducation in September. Ultimately, 101 female freshman and 70 female transfer students enrolled at Princeton in September 1969. Those admitted were housed in Pyne Hall, a fairly isolated dormitory; a security system was added, although the women deliberately broke it within a day.
In 1971, Mary St. John Douglas and Susan Savage Speers became the first female trustees, and in 1974, quotas for men and women were eliminated. Following a 1979 lawsuit, the eating clubs were required to go coeducational in 1991, after an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was denied. In 2001, Princeton elected its first female president.
Campus
The main campus consists of more than 200 buildings on in Princeton, New Jersey. The James Forrestal Campus, a smaller location designed mainly as a research and instruction complex, is split between nearby Plainsboro and South Brunswick. The campuses are situated about one hour from both New York City and Philadelphia on the train. The university also owns more than of property in West Windsor Township, and is where Princeton is planning to construct a graduate student housing complex, which will be known as "Lake Campus North".
The first building on campus was Nassau Hall, completed in 1756, and situated on the northern edge of the campus facing Nassau Street. The campus expanded steadily around Nassau Hall during the early and middle 19th century. The McCosh presidency (1868–88) saw the construction of a number of buildings in the High Victorian Gothic and Romanesque Revival styles, although many of them are now gone, leaving the remaining few to appear out of place. At the end of the 19th century, much of Princeton's architecture was designed by the Cope and Stewardson firm (led by the same University of Pennsylvania professors of architecture who designed a large part of Washington University in St. Louis and University of Pennsylvania) resulting in the Collegiate Gothic style for which Princeton is known for today. Implemented initially by William Appleton Potter, and later enforced by the university's supervising architect, Ralph Adams Cram, the Collegiate Gothic style remained the standard for all new building on the Princeton campus until 1960. A flurry of construction projects in the 1960s produced a number of new buildings on the south side of the main campus, many of which have been poorly received. Several prominent architects have contributed some more recent additions, including Frank Gehry (Lewis Library), I. M. Pei (Spelman Halls), Demetri Porphyrios (Whitman College, a Collegiate Gothic project), Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown (Frist Campus Center, among several others), Minoru Yamasaki (Robertson Hall), and Rafael Viñoly (Carl Icahn Laboratory).
A group of 20th-century sculptures scattered throughout the campus forms the Putnam Collection of Sculpture. It includes works by Alexander Calder (Five Disks: One Empty), Jacob Epstein (Albert Einstein), Henry Moore (Oval with Points), Isamu Noguchi (White Sun), and Pablo Picasso (Head of a Woman). Richard Serra's The Hedgehog and The Fox is located between Peyton and Fine halls next to Princeton Stadium and the Lewis Library.
At the southern edge of the campus is Lake Carnegie, an artificial lake named for Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie financed the lake's construction in 1906 at the behest of a friend and his brother who were both Princeton alumni. Carnegie hoped the opportunity to take up rowing would inspire Princeton students to forsake football, which he considered "not gentlemanly." The Shea Rowing Center on the lake's shore continues to serve as the headquarters for Princeton rowing.
Princeton's grounds were designed by Beatrix Farrand between 1912 and 1943. Her contributions were most recently recognized with the naming of a courtyard for her. Subsequent changes to the landscape were introduced by Quennell Rothschild & Partners in 2000. In 2005, Michael Van Valkenburgh was hired as the new consulting landscape architect for Princeton's 2016 Campus Plan. Lynden B. Miller was invited to work with him as Princeton's consulting gardening architect, focusing on the 17 gardens that are distributed throughout the campus.
Buildings
Nassau Hall
Nassau Hall is the oldest building on campus. Begun in 1754 and completed in 1756, it was the first seat of the New Jersey Legislature in 1776, was involved in the Battle of Princeton in 1777, and was the seat of the Congress of the Confederation (and thus capitol of the United States) from June 30, 1783, to November 4, 1783. Since 1911, the front entrance has been flanked by two bronze tigers, a gift of the Princeton Class of 1879, which replaced two lions previously given in 1889. Starting in 1922, commencement has been held on the front lawn of Nassau Hall when there is good weather. In 1966, Nassau Hall was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Nowadays, it houses the office of the university president and other administrative offices.
To the south of Nassau Hall lies a courtyard that is known as Cannon Green. Buried in the ground at the center is the "Big Cannon", which was left in Princeton by British troops as they fled following the Battle of Princeton. It remained in Princeton until the War of 1812, when it was taken to New Brunswick. In 1836, the cannon was returned to Princeton and placed at the eastern end of town. Two years later, it was moved to the campus under cover of night by Princeton students, and in 1840, it was buried in its current location. A second "Little Cannon" is buried in the lawn in front of nearby Whig Hall. The cannon, which may also have been captured in the Battle of Princeton, was stolen by students of Rutgers University in 1875. The theft ignited the Rutgers-Princeton Cannon War. A compromise between the presidents of Princeton and Rutgers ended the war and forced the return of the Little Cannon to Princeton. The protruding cannons are occasionally painted scarlet by Rutgers students who continue the traditional dispute.
Art Museum
Though art collection at the university dates back to its very founding, the Princeton University Art Museum was not officially established until 1882 by President McCosh. Its establishment arose from a desire to provide direct access to works of art in a museum for a curriculum in the arts, an education system familiar to many European universities at the time. The museum took on the purposes of providing "exposure to original works of art and to teach the history of art through an encyclopedic collection of world art."
Numbering over 112,000 objects, the collections range from ancient to contemporary art and come from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The museum's art is divided into ten extensive curatorial areas. There is a collection of Greek and Roman antiquities, including ceramics, marbles, bronzes, and Roman mosaics from faculty excavations in Antioch, as well as other art from the ancient Egyptian, Byzantium, and Islamic worlds. The non-Islamic coins were catalogued by Dorothy B. Waage. Medieval Europe is represented by sculpture, metalwork, and stained glass. The collection of Western European paintings includes examples from the early Renaissance through the 19th century, with pieces by Monet, Cézanne, and Van Gogh, and features a growing collection of 20th-century and contemporary art, including paintings such as Andy Warhol's Blue Marilyn.
The museum features a collection of Chinese and Japanese art, with holdings in bronzes, tomb figurines, painting, and calligraphy, as well as collections of Korean, Southeast, and Central Asian art. Its collection of pre-Columbian art includes examples of Mayan and Olmec art, and its indigenous art ranges from Chile to Alaska to Greenland. The museum has collections of old master prints and drawings, and it has a comprehensive collection of over 20,000 photographs. Approximately 750 works of African art are represented. The Museum oversees the outside John B. Putnam, Jr., Memorial Collection of Sculpture.
University Chapel
The Princeton University Chapel is located on the north side of campus near Nassau Street. It was built between 1924 and 1928 at a cost of $2.3 million, approximately $ million adjusted for inflation in 2020. Ralph Adams Cram, the university's supervising architect, designed the chapel, which he viewed as the crown jewel for the Collegiate Gothic motif he had championed for the campus. At the time of its construction, it was the second largest university chapel in the world, after King's College Chapel, Cambridge. It underwent a two-year, $10 million restoration campaign between 2000 and 2002. The Chapel seats around 2,000 and serves as a site for religious services and local celebrations.
Measured on the exterior, the chapel is long, wide at its transepts, and high. The exterior is Pennsylvania sandstone, trimmed with Indiana limestone, and the interior is made of limestone and Aquia Creek sandstone. The design evokes characteristics of an English church of the Middle Ages. The extensive iconography, in stained glass, stonework, and wood carvings, has the common theme of connecting religion and scholarship.
Sustainability
Published in 2008, the Sustainability Action Plan was the first formal plan for sustainability enacted by the university. It focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, conservation of resources, and research, education, and civic engagement for sustainability through 10 year objectives. Since the 2008 plan, Princeton has aimed at reducing its carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels without the purchase of market offsets and predicts to meet the goal by 2026 (the former goal was by 2020 but COVID-19 requirements delayed this). Princeton released its second Sustainability Action Plan in 2019 on Earth Day with its main goal being reducing campus greenhouse gases to net zero by 2046 as well as other objectives building on those in the 2008 plan. In 2021, the university agreed to divest from thermal coal and tar sand segments of the fossil fuel industry and from companies that are involved in climate disinformation after student protest. Princeton is a member of the Ivy Plus Sustainability Consortium, through which it has committed to best-practice sharing and the ongoing exchange of campus sustainability solutions along with other member institutions.
Princeton's Sustainability Action Plan also aims to have zero waste through recycling programs, sustainable purchasing, and behavioral and operational strategies.
Organization and administration
Governance and structure
Princeton's 20th and current president is Christopher Eisgruber, who was appointed by the university's board of trustees in 2013. The board is responsible for the overall direction of the university. It consists of no fewer than 23 and no more than 40 members at any one time, with the president of the university and the Governor of New Jersey serving as ex officio members. It approves the operating and capital budgets, supervises the investment of the university's endowment, and oversees campus real estate and long-range physical planning. The trustees also exercise prior review and approval concerning changes in major policies such as those in instructional programs and admission as well as tuition and fees and the hiring of faculty members.
The university is composed of the Undergraduate College, the Graduate School, the School of Architecture, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and the School of Public and International Affairs. Additionally, the school's Bendheim Center for Finance provides education for the area of money and finance in lieu of a business school. Princeton did host a Princeton Law School for a short period, before eventually closing in 1852 due to poor income. Princeton's lack of other professional schools can be attributed to a university focus on undergraduates.
The university has ties with the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton Theological Seminary, Rutgers University, and the Westminster Choir College of Rider University. Princeton is a member of the Association of American Universities, the Universities Research Association, and the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. The university is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE), with its last reaffirmation in 2014.
Finances
Princeton University's endowment of $37 billion (per 2021 figures) was ranked as the fourth largest endowment in the United States, and it had the greatest per-student endowment in the world at over $4.4 million per student. The endowment is sustained through continued donations and is maintained by investment advisers. Princeton's operating budget is over $2 billion per year, with 50% going to academic departments and programs, 33% to administrative and student service departments, 10% to financial aid departments, and 7% to the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.
Academics
Undergraduate
Princeton follows a liberal arts curriculum, and offers two bachelor's degrees to students: a Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (B.S.E.). Typically, A.B. students choose a major (called a concentration) at the end of sophomore year, while B.S.E. students declare at the end of their freshman year. Students must complete distribution requirements, departmental requirements, and independent work to graduate with either degree. A.B. students must complete distribution requirements in literature and the arts, science and engineering, social analysis, cultural difference, epistemology and cognition, ethical thought and moral values, historical analysis, and quantitative and computational reasoning; they must also have satisfactory ability in a foreign language. Additionally, they must complete two papers of independent work during their junior year—known as the junior papers—and craft a senior thesis to graduate; both revolve around the concentration they are pursuing. B.S.E. majors complete fewer courses in the humanities and social sciences and instead fulfill requirements in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computer programming. They likewise must complete independent work, which typically involves a design project or senior thesis, but not the junior papers. A.B. majors must complete 31 courses, whereas B.S.E. majors must complete 36 courses.
Students can choose from either 36 concentrations or create their own. They can also participate in 55 interdisciplinary certificate programs; since Princeton does not offer an academic minor, the certificates effectively serve as one. Course structure is determined by the instructor and department. Classes vary in their format, ranging from small seminars to medium-sized lecture courses to large lecture courses. The latter two typically have precepts, which are extra weekly discussion sessions that are led by either the professor or a graduate student. The average class meeting time is 3–4 hours a week, although this can vary depending on the course. The student to faculty ratio is 5 to 1, and a majority of classes have fewer than 20 students. In the Fiske Guide to Colleges, academic culture is considered as "tight-knit, extremely hardworking, highly cooperative, and supportive."
Undergraduates agree to adhere to an academic integrity policy called the Honor Code. Under the Honor Code, faculty do not proctor examinations; instead, the students proctor one another and must report any suspected violation to an Honor Committee made up of undergraduates. The Committee investigates reported violations and holds a hearing if it is warranted. An acquittal at such a hearing results in the destruction of all records of the hearing; a conviction results in the student's suspension or expulsion. Violations pertaining to all other academic work fall under the jurisdiction of the Faculty-Student Committee on Discipline. Undergraduates are expected to sign a pledge on their written work affirming that they have not plagiarized the work.
Grade deflation policy
The first focus on issues of grade inflation by the Princeton administration began in 1998 when a university report was released showcasing a steady rise in undergraduate grades from 1973 to 1997. Subsequent reports and discussion from the report culminated to when in 2004, Nancy Weiss Malkiel, the dean of the college, implemented a grade deflation policy to address the findings. Malkiel's reason for the policy was that an A was becoming devalued as a larger percentage of the student body received one. Following its introduction, the number of A's and average GPA on campus dropped, although A's and B's were still the most frequent grades awarded. The policy received mixed approval from both faculty and students when first instituted. Criticism for grade deflation continued through the years, with students alleging negative effects like increased competition and lack of willingness to choose challenging classes. Other criticism included job market and graduate school prospects, although Malkiel responded by saying that she sent 3,000 letters to numerous institutions and employers informing them. In 2009, transcripts began including a statement about the policy.
In October 2013, Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber created a faculty committee to review the deflation policy. In August 2014, the committee released a report recommending the removal of the policy and instead develop consistent standards for grading across individual departments. In October 2014, following a faculty vote, the numerical targets were removed in response to the report. In a 2020 analysis of undergraduate grades following the removal of a policy, there were no long-lasting effects, with the percent of students receiving A's higher than in 1998.
Graduate
For the 2019–2020 academic year, the Graduate School enrolled 2,971 students. Approximately 40% of the students were female, 42% were international, and 35% of domestic students were a member of a U.S. minority group. The average time to complete a doctoral degree was 5.7 years. The university awarded 318 Ph.D. degrees and 174 final master's degrees for the 2019–2020 academic year.
The Graduate School offers degrees in 42 academic departments and programs, which span the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering. Doctoral education is available for all departments while master's degrees are only available in the architecture, engineering, finance, and public policy departments. Doctoral education focuses on original, independent scholarship whereas master's degrees focus more on career preparation in both public life and professional practice. Graduate students can also concentrate in an interdisciplinary program and be granted a certificate. Joint degrees are available for several disciplines, as are dual M.D./Ph.D. or M.P.A./J.D. programs.
Students in the graduate school can participate in regional cross-registration agreements, domestic exchanges with other Ivy League schools and similar institutions, and in international partnerships and exchanges.
Rankings
Princeton ranked first in the 2021 U.S. News rankings for the tenth consecutive year. Princeton ranked fourth for undergrad teaching for 2021, falling from first place in the 2020 rankings. In the 2022 Times Higher Education assessment of the world's best universities, Princeton was ranked 7th. In the 2022 QS World University Rankings, it was ranked 20th overall in the world.
In the 2021 U.S. News & World Report "Graduate School Rankings", 13 of Princeton's 14 graduate programs were ranked in their respective top 10 (with Engineering 22nd), 7 of them in the top 5, and two in the top spot (Economics and Mathematics).
The Wall Street Journal and College Pulse selected Princeton as its top university in its "2024 Best Colleges in the U.S." ranking.
Research
Princeton is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity." Based on data for the 2020 fiscal year, the university received approximately $250 million in sponsored research for its main campus, with 81.4% coming from the government, 12.1% from foundations, 5.5% from industry, and 1.0% from private and other. An additional $120 million in sponsored research was for the Plasma Physics Lab; the main campus and the lab combined totaled to $370 million for sponsored research. Based on 2017 data, the university ranked 72nd among 902 institutions for research expenditures.
Based on 2018 data, Princeton's National Academy Membership totaled to 126, ranking 9th in the nation. The university hosts 75 research institutes and centers and two national laboratories. Princeton is a member of the New Jersey Space Grant Consortium.
Library system
The Princeton University Library system houses over 13 million holdings through 11 buildings, including seven million bound volumes, making it one of the largest university libraries in the country. Built in 1948, the main campus library is Firestone Library and serves as the main repository for the humanities and social sciences. Its collections include the autographed manuscript of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and George F. Kennan's Long Telegram. In addition to Firestone library, specialized libraries exist for architecture, art and archaeology, East Asian studies, engineering, music, public and international affairs, public policy and university archives, and the sciences. The library system provides access to subscription-based electronic resources and databases to students.
National laboratories
The Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) stemmed from Project Matterhorn, a top secret cold war project created in 1951 aimed at achieving controlled nuclear fusion. Princeton astrophysics professor Lyman Spitzer became the first director of the project and remained director until the lab's declassification in 1961 when it received its current name. Today, it is an institute for fusion energy research and plasma physics research.
Founded in 1955 and located at Princeton's Forrestal Campus since 1968, the NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) conducts climate research and modeling. Princeton faculty, research scientists, and graduate scientists can participate in research with the lab.
Admissions and financial aid
Admissions
Princeton offers several methods to apply: the Common Application, the Coalition Application, and the QuestBridge Application. Princeton's application requires several writing supplements and submitting a graded written paper.
Princeton's undergraduate program is highly selective, admitting 5.8% of undergraduate applicants in the 2019–2020 admissions cycle (for the Class of 2024). The middle 50% range of SAT scores was 1470–1560, the middle 50% range of the ACT composite score was 33–35, and the average high school GPA was a 3.91. For graduate admissions, in the 2021–2022 academic year, Princeton received 12,553 applications for admission and accepted 1,322 applicants, with a yield rate of 51%.
In the 1950s, Princeton used an ABC system to function as a precursory early program, where admission officers would visit feeder schools and assign A, B, or C ratings to students. From 1977 to 1995, Princeton employed an early action program, and in 1996, transitioned to an early decision program. In September 2006, the university announced that all applicants for the Class of 2012 would be considered in a single pool, ending the school's early decision program. In February 2011, following decisions by the University of Virginia and Harvard University to reinstate their early admissions programs, Princeton announced it would institute a single-choice early action option for applicants, which it still uses.
Princeton reinstated its transfer students program in 2018 after a three decade moratorium; the program encourages applicants from low-income families, the military, and community colleges.
Costs and financial aid
As of the 2021–2022 academic year, the total cost of attendance is $77,690. 61% of all undergraduates receive financial aid, with the average financial aid grant being $57,251. Tuition, room, and board is free for families making up to $65,000, and financial aid is offered to families making up to $180,000. In 2001, expanding on earlier reforms, Princeton became the first university to eliminate the use of student loans in financial aid, replacing them with grants. In addition, all admissions are need-blind, and financial aid meets 100% of demonstrated financial need. The university does not use academic or athletic merit scholarships. In September 2022, Princeton announced that it would cover all costs for families earning $100,000 a year or less, with reduced costs for higher income families as well.
Kiplinger magazine in 2019 ranked Princeton as the fifth best value school in a combined list comparing private universities, private liberal arts colleges, and public colleges, noting that the average graduating debt was $9,005. For its 2021 rankings, the U.S. News & World Report ranked it second in its category for "Best Value Schools".
Student life and culture
Residential colleges
The university guarantees housing for students for all four years, with more than 98% of undergraduates living on campus. Freshman and sophomores are required to live on campus, specifically in one of the university's seven residential colleges. Once put into a residential college, students have an upperclassmen residential college adviser to adjust to college life and a faculty academic adviser for academic guidance. Upperclassmen are given the option to keep living in the college or decide to move into upperclassmen dorms; upperclassmen still remain affiliated with their college even if they live somewhere else.
Each residential college has its own distinct layout and architecture. Additionally, each college has its own faculty head, dean, director of studies, and director of student life. The colleges feature various amenities, such as dining halls, common rooms, laundry rooms, academic spaces, and arts and entertainment resources. Out of the seven undergraduate colleges (excluding the Graduate College) three of the colleges house students from all classes while the other four house only underclassmen. Present-day residential colleges are:
Princeton's residential college system dates back to when university president Woodrow Wilson's proposed the creation of quadrangles. While the plan was vetoed, it eventually made a resurgence with the creation of Wilson Lodge (now known as First College) in 1957 to provide an alternative to the eating clubs. Wilson Lodge was dedicated as Wilson College in 1968 and served as an experiment for the residential college system. In 2020, Princeton University elected to change the name of Wilson College to First College after the recent deaths involving police brutality of black individuals. When enrollment increased in the 1970s, a university report in 1979 recommended the establishment of five residential colleges. Funding was raised within a year, leading to the development of Rockefeller College (1982), Mathey College (1983), Butler College (1983), and Forbes College (1984). Whitman College was founded and constructed in 2007 at a cost of $100 million. Butler's dorms were demolished in 2007 and a new complex was built in 2009. Butler and Mathey previously acted as only underclassmen colleges, but transitioned to four-year colleges in fall 2009. Princeton completed and opened two new residential colleges—Yeh College and New College West—at the beginning of the academic year in September 2022. The university plans to construct a new residential college named Hobson College where First College currently stands.
Princeton has one graduate residential college, known as the Graduate College, located on a hill about half a mile from the main campus. The location of the Graduate College was the result of a dispute between Woodrow Wilson and then-Graduate School Dean Andrew Fleming West. Wilson preferred a central location for the college; West wanted the graduate students as far as possible from the campus, and ultimately, he prevailed. The Graduate College is composed of a large Collegiate Gothic section crowned by Cleveland Tower, a memorial tower for former Princeton trustee Grover Cleveland. The tower also has 67 carillon bells, making it one of the largest carillons in the world. The attached New Graduate College provides a modern contrast in architectural style to the gothic Old Graduate College. Graduate students also have the option of living in student apartments.
Eating clubs and dining
Each residential college has a dining hall for students in the college, and they vary in their environment and food served. Upperclassmen who no longer live in the college can choose from a variety of options: join an eating club and choose a shared meal plan; join a dining co-op, where groups of students eat, prepare, and cook food together; or organize their own dining. The university offers kosher dining through the Center for Jewish Life and halal dining options for Muslim students in the dining halls.
Social life takes place primarily on campus and is involved heavily with one's residential college or eating club. Residential colleges host a variety of social events and activities, ranging from Broadway show outings to regular barbecues. Eating clubs, while not affiliated with the university, are co-ed organizations that serve as social centers, host events, and invite guest speakers. Additionally, they serve as a place of community for upperclassmen. Five of the clubs have first-serve memberships called "sign-ins" and six clubs use a selective process, in which students must "bicker". This requires prospective members to undergo an interviewing process. Each eating club has a fee to join which ranges from around $9,000 to $10,000. As a result, Princeton increases financial aid for upperclassmen, and the eating clubs also offer financial assistance. Cumulatively, there are ten clubs located on Prospect Avenue—Cannon, Cap and Gown, Charter, Cloister, Colonial, Cottage, Ivy, Quadrangle, Tiger, and Tower—and one located on Washington Road—Terrace. Sixty-eight percent of upperclassmen are members of a club, with each one containing around 150 to 200 students
Campus organizations
Princeton hosts around 500 recognized student organizations and several campus centers. The Undergraduate Student Government (USG) serves as Princeton's student government. The USG funds student organization events, sponsors campus events, and represents the undergraduate student body when convening with faculty and administration.
Founded in about 1765, the American Whig-Cliosophic Society is the nation's oldest collegiate political, literary, and debate society, and is the largest and oldest student organization on campus. The Whig-Clio Society has several subsidiary organizations, each specialized to different areas of politics: the Princeton Debate Panel, International Relations Council, Princeton Mock Trial, and Princeton Model Congress. The International Relations Council manages two Model United Nations conferences: the Princeton Diplomatic Invitational (PDI) for collegiate competition and the Princeton Model United Nations Conference (PMUNC) for high school competition.
There are several publications on campus and a radio station. Founded in 1876, The Daily Princetonian, otherwise known as The Prince, is the second oldest college daily student newspaper in the United States. Other publications include The Nassau Literary Review, the Princeton Tory, a campus journal of conservative thought, The Princeton Diplomat, the only student-run magazine on global affairs, the Princeton Political Review, the only multi-partisan political publication on campus, and the recently revived Princeton Progressive, the only left-leaning political publication on campus, among others. Princeton's WPRB (103.3 FM) radio station is the oldest licensed college radio station in the nation.
Princeton is home to a variety of performing arts and music groups. Many of the groups are represented by the Performing Arts Council. Dating back to 1883, the Princeton Triangle Club is America's oldest touring musical-comedy theater group. It performs its annual Triangle Show every fall at the 1,000 seat McCarter Theatre, as well as original musical comedies, revues, and other shows throughout campus. Princeton's oldest choir is the Glee Club, which began in 1874. The comedic scramble Tiger Band was formed in 1919 and plays at halftime shows and other events. Other groups include the Princeton University Orchestra, the flagship symphony orchestra group founded in 1896, and the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, both of which perform at Alexander Hall.
A cappella groups are a staple of campus life, with many holding concerts, informal shows, and arch sings. Arch sings are where a cappella performances are held in one of Princeton's many gothic arches. The oldest a cappella ensemble is the Nassoons, which were formed in 1941. All-male groups include the Tigertones (1946) and Footnotes (1959); all-female groups include the Tigerlilies (1971), Tigressions (1981), Wildcats (1987); the oldest coed a cappella group in the Ivy League is the Princeton Katzenjammers (1973), which was followed by the Roaring 20 (1983) and Shere Khan (1994).
Princeton features several campus centers for students that provide resources and information for students with certain identities. These include the Center for Jewish Life, the Davis International Center, the Carl A. Fields Center for Equality and Cultural Understanding, the Women's Center, and the LGBT Center. The Frist Campus Center and the Campus Club are additional facilities for the entire campus community that hold various activities and events.
Princeton features 15 chaplaincies and multiple religious student groups. The following faiths are represented on campus: Baha'i, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, and Unitarian Universalism.
Traditions
Princeton students partake in a wide variety of campus traditions, both past and present. Current traditions Princeton students celebrate include the ceremonial bonfire, which takes place on the Cannon Green behind Nassau Hall. It is held only if Princeton beats both Harvard University and Yale University at football in the same season. Another tradition is the use of traditional college cheers at events and reunions, like the "Locomotive", which dates back to before 1894. Princeton students abide by the tradition of never exiting the campus through FitzRandolph Gates until one graduates. According to tradition, anyone who exits campus before their graduation will not graduate. A more controversial tradition is Newman's Day, where some students attempt to drink 24 beers in the 24 hours of April 24. According to The New York Times, "the day got its name from an apocryphal quote attributed to Paul Newman: '24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not. Newman has spoken out against the tradition. One of the biggest traditions celebrated annually are Reunions, which are massive annual gatherings of alumni. At Reunions, a traditional parade of alumni and their families, known as the "P-rade", process through the campus.
Princeton also has several traditions that have faded into the past. One of them was clapper theft, the act of climbing to the top of Nassau Hall to steal the bell clapper, which rings to signal the start of classes on the first day of the school year. For safety reasons, the clapper was permanently removed. Another was the Nude Olympics, an annual nude and partially nude frolic in Holder Courtyard that used to take place during the first snow of the winter. Started in the early 1970s, the Nude Olympics went co-educational in 1979 and gained much notoriety with the American press. Due to issues of sexual harassment and safety reasons, the administration banned the Olympics in 2000 to the disappointment of students.
Alma mater
"Old Nassau" has been Princeton University's school song since 1859, when it was written that year by freshman Harlan Page Peck. It was originally published in the Nassau Literary Magazine, where it won the magazine's prize for best college song. After an unsuccessful attempt at singing it to Auld Lang Syne'''s melody, Karl Langlotz, a Princeton professor, wrote the music for it. In 1987, the university changed the gendered lyrics of "Old Nassau" to reflect the school's co-educational student body.
Transportation
Tiger Transit is the bus system of the university, mostly open to the public and linking university campuses and areas around Princeton. NJ Transit provides bus service on the lines and rail service on the Dinky, a small commuter train that provides service to the Princeton Junction Station. Coach USA, through their subsidiary Suburban Transit, provides bus service to New York City and other destinations in New Jersey.
Student body
Princeton has made significant progress in expanding the diversity of its student body in recent years. The 2021 admitted freshman class was one of the most diverse in the school's history, with 68% of students identifying as students of color. The university has worked to increase its enrollment of first-generation and low-income students in recent years. The median family income of Princeton students is $186,100, with 72% of students coming from the top 20% highest-earning families. In 2017, 22% of freshman qualified for federal Pell Grants, above the 16% average for the top 150 schools ranked by the U.S. News & World Report; nationwide, the average was 44%. Based on data in a 2019 article in The Daily Princetonian, 10% of students hail from Bloomberg's 2018 list of "100 richest places", and that the top 20% of high schools send as many students to Princeton as the bottom 80%.
In 1999, 10% of the student body was Jewish, a percentage lower than those at other Ivy League schools. 16% of the student body was Jewish in 1985; the number decreased by 40% from 1985 to 1999. This decline prompted The Daily Princetonian to write a series of articles on the decline and its reasons. The New York Observer wrote that Princeton was "long dogged by a reputation for anti-Semitism" and that this history as well as Princeton's elite status caused the university and its community to feel sensitivity towards the decrease of Jewish students. In the Observer, several theories are proposed for the drop, ranging from campus culture to changing admission policies to national patterns. As of 2021, according to the Center for Jewish Life on campus, the university has approximately 700 Jewish students.
Starting in 1967, African American enrollment surged from 1.7% to 10% but has stagnated ever since. Bruce M. Wright was admitted into the university in 1936 as the first African American; however, his admission was a mistake and when he got to campus he was asked to leave. Three years later Wright asked the dean for an explanation on his dismissal and the dean suggested to him that "a member of your race might feel very much alone" at Princeton University. Princeton would not admit its first Black students until in 1945 when Princeton instituted the V-12 program on campus. In 1947, John L. Howard, one of the four naval cadets admitted to the program, would become the first Black student to graduate with a bachelor's degree.
Athletics
Princeton supports organized athletics at three levels: varsity intercollegiate, club intercollegiate, and intramural. It also provides "a variety of physical education and recreational programs" for members of the Princeton community. Most undergraduates participate in athletics at some level. Princeton's colors are orange and black. The school's athletes are known as the Tigers'', and the mascot is a tiger. The Princeton administration considered naming the mascot in 2007, but the effort was dropped in the face of alumni and student opposition.
Varsity
Princeton hosts 37 men's and women's varsity sports. Princeton is an NCAA Division I school, with its athletic conference being the Ivy League. Its rowing teams compete in the Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges, and its men's volleyball team competes in the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association. Princeton's sailing team, though a club sport, competes at the varsity level in the MAISA conference of the Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association.
Princeton's football team competes in the Football Championship Subdivision of NCAA Division I with the rest of the Ivy League. Princeton played against Rutgers University in the first intercollegiate football game in the U.S. on November 6, 1869; Rutgers won the game. From 1877 until at least 1903, Princeton played football using rugby rules.
As of 2021, Princeton claims 28 national football championships, which would make it the most of any school, although the NCAA only recognizes 15 of the wins. With its last win being in 2018, Princeton has won 12 Ivy League championships. In 1951, Dick Kazmaier won Princeton its only Heisman Trophy, the last to come from the Ivy League.
The men's basketball program is noted for its success under Pete Carril, the head coach from 1967 to 1996. During this time, Princeton won 13 Ivy League titles and made 11 NCAA tournament appearances. Carril introduced the Princeton offense, an offensive strategy that has since been adopted by a number of college and professional basketball teams. Carril's final victory at Princeton came when the Tigers beat UCLA, the defending national champion, in the opening round of the 1996 NCAA tournament. On December 14, 2005, Princeton tied the record for the fewest points in a Division I game since the institution of the three-point line in 1986–87, when the Tigers scored 21 points in a loss against Monmouth University.
Princeton women's soccer team advanced to the NCAA Division I Women's Soccer Championship semi-finals in 2004, becoming the first Ivy League team to do so in a 64 team setting. The men's soccer team was coached from 1984 to 1995 by Princeton alumnus and future United States men's national team manager Bob Bradley, who lead the Tigers to win two Ivy League titles and make an appearance at the NCAA Final Four in 1993. Princeton's men's lacrosse program undertook a period of notable success from 1992 to 2001, during which time it won six national championships. In 2012, its field hockey team became the first in the Ivy League to win a national championship.
Princeton has won at least one Ivy League title every year since 1957, and it became the first university in its conference to win over 500 Ivy League athletic championships. From 1896 to 2018, 113 athletes from Princeton have competed in the Olympics, winning 19 gold medals, 24 silver medals, and 23 bronze medals.
Club and intramural
In addition to varsity sports, Princeton hosts 37 club sports teams, which are open to all Princeton students of any skill level. Teams compete against other collegiate teams both in the Northeast and nationally. The intramural sports program is also available on campus, which schedules competitions between residential colleges, eating clubs, independent groups, students, and faculty and staff. Several leagues with differing levels of competitiveness are available.
In the fall, freshman and sophomores participate in the intramural athletic competition called Cane Spree. Although the event centers on cane wrestling, freshman and sophomores compete in other sports and competitions. This commemorates a time in the 1870s when sophomores, angry with the freshmen who strutted around with fancy canes, stole all of the canes from the freshmen, hitting them with their own canes in the process.
Notable people
Alumni
U.S. Presidents James Madison and Woodrow Wilson and Vice Presidents George M. Dallas, John Breckinridge, and Aaron Burr graduated from Princeton, as did Michelle Obama, the former First Lady of the United States. Former Chief Justice of the United States Oliver Ellsworth was an alumnus, as are current U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justices Samuel Alito, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor. Alumnus Jerome Powell was appointed as Chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board in 2018.
Princeton graduates played a major role in the American Revolution, including the first and last Colonels to die on the Patriot side Philip Johnston and Nathaniel Scudder, as well as the highest ranking civilian leader on the British side David Mathews.
Notable graduates of Princeton's School of Engineering and Applied Science include Apollo astronaut and commander of Apollo 12 Pete Conrad, Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos, former Chairman of Alphabet Inc. Eric Schmidt, and Lisa P. Jackson, former Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Actors Jimmy Stewart, Wentworth Miller, José Ferrer, David Duchovny, and Brooke Shields graduated from Princeton, as did composers Edward T. Cone and Milton Babbitt. Soccer-player alumna, Diana Matheson, scored the game-winning goal that earned Canada their Olympic bronze medal in 2012.
Writers Booth Tarkington, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Eugene O'Neill attended but did not graduate. Writer Selden Edwards and poet W. S. Merwin graduated from Princeton. American novelist Jodi Picoult and author David Remnick graduated. Pulitzer prize-winning journalists Barton Gellman and Lorraine Adams, as well as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa, are Princeton alumni. William P. Ross, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation and founding editor of the Cherokee Advocate, graduated in 1844.
Notable graduate alumni include Allen Shenstone, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, Thornton Wilder, Richard Feynman, Lee Iacocca, John Nash, Alonzo Church, Alan Turing, Terence Tao, Edward Witten, John Milnor, John Bardeen, Steven Weinberg, John Tate, and David Petraeus. Royals such as Prince Moulay Hicham of Morocco, Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, and Queen Noor of Jordan attended Princeton.
Faculty
As of 2021, notable current faculty members include Angus Deaton, Daniel Kahneman, Robert Keohane, Edward W. Felten, Anthony Grafton, Peter Singer, Jim Peebles, Manjul Bhargava, Brian Kernighan, Betsy Levy Paluck and Robert P. George. Notable former faculty members include John Witherspoon, Walter Kaufmann, John von Neumann, Ben Bernanke, Paul Krugman, Joseph Henry, Toni Morrison, Joyce Carol Oates, Michael Mullen, Andrew Wiles, Jhumpa Lahiri, Cornel West, and alumnus Woodrow Wilson.
Albert Einstein, though on the faculty at the Institute for Advanced Study rather than at Princeton, came to be associated with the university through frequent lectures and visits on the campus.
See also
Big Three (colleges)
Higher education in New Jersey
Princeton University Department of Physics
The Princeton University Summer Journalism Program
Notes
References
Works cited
Further reading
External links
Princeton Athletics website
Princeton, New Jersey
Educational institutions established in 1746
Universities and colleges established in the 18th century
1746 establishments in New Jersey
Colonial colleges
Eastern Pennsylvania Rugby Union
Universities and colleges in Mercer County, New Jersey
Environmental research institutes
Private universities and colleges in New Jersey
Need-blind educational institutions
Ivy Plus universities |
23923 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posthumous%20execution | Posthumous execution |
Posthumous execution is the ritual or ceremonial mutilation of an already dead body as a punishment.
Dissection as a punishment in England
Some Christians believed that the resurrection of the dead on Judgment Day requires that the body be buried whole facing east so that the body could rise facing God. If dismemberment stopped the possibility of the resurrection of an intact body, then a posthumous execution was an effective way of punishing a criminal.
Examples
When the Persian king Cambyses conquered Egypt in 525 BC and ended the 26th (Saite) Dynasty, Herodotus recorded the desecration of the mummy of Amasis II (who died the year before) by Cambyses:
In 897, Pope Stephen VI had the corpse of Pope Formosus disinterred and put on trial during the Cadaver Synod. Found guilty, the corpse had three of its fingers cut off and was later thrown into the Tiber.
Harold I Harefoot, king of the Anglo-Saxons (1035–1040), illegitimate son of Cnut, died in 1040 and his half-brother, Harthacanute, on succeeding him, had his body taken from its tomb and cast in a pen with animals.
Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, died of wounds suffered at the Battle of Evesham in 1265; his corpse was beheaded, castrated and quartered by the knights of Henry III of England.
Roger d'Amory (c. 1290 – before 14 March 1321/1322) died following the Battle of Burton Bridge and was then posthumously executed for treason by Edward II.
John Wycliffe (1328–1384) was burned as a heretic forty-five years after his death.
Sir Henry Percy (d. 1404) after he was killed in action while leading his troops at the Battle of Shrewsbury, King Henry IV of England ordered Percy's body posthumously beheaded, quartered, and attainted for high treason
Vlad the Impaler (1431–1476) was beheaded following his assassination.
Jacopo Bonfadio (1508–1550) was beheaded for sodomy and then his corpse was burned at the stake for heresy.
Nils Dacke, leader of a 16th-century peasant revolt in southern Sweden, was decapitated and dismembered after his death in combat.
In 1538, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries on orders from King Henry VIII. He had the bones of Thomas Becket (1119–1170) destroyed, his shrine destroyed, and ordered all mention of his name obliterated.
By order of Mary I, the body of Martin Bucer (1491–1551) was exhumed and burned at the Market Square in Cambridge, England.
In 1600, after the failure of the Gowrie conspiracy, the corpses of John, Earl of Gowrie and his brother Alexander Ruthven were hanged and quartered at the Mercat Cross, Edinburgh. Their heads were put on spikes at Edinburgh's Old Tolbooth and their limbs upon spikes at various locations around Perth, Scotland.
Gilles van Ledenberg, whose embalmed corpse was hanged from a gibbet in 1619, after his conviction of treason in the trial of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt.
A number of the 59 regicides of Charles I of England, including the most prominent of the regicides, the former Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, died before the Restoration of his son Charles II in 1660. Parliament passed an order of attainder for High Treason on the four most prominent deceased regicides: John Bradshaw the court president; Oliver Cromwell; Henry Ireton; and Thomas Pride. The bodies were exhumed and three were hanged for a day at Tyburn and then beheaded. The three bodies were then thrown into a pit close to the gallows, while the heads were placed, with Bradshaw's in the middle, at the end of Westminster Hall (the symbolism was lost on no one as that was the building where the trial of Charles I had taken place). Oliver Cromwell's head was finally buried in 1960. The body of Pride was not "punished", perhaps because it had decayed too much.
Edward Teach (1680–1718), better known as "Blackbeard", was killed by the sailors of HMS Pearl who boarded on his ship, the Adventure. British First Lieutenant Robert Maynard examined Edward Teach's body, decapitated and tied his head to the bowsprit of his ship for the trip back to Virginia. Upon returning to his home port of Hampton, the head was placed on a stake near the mouth of the Hampton River as a warning to other pirates.
Joseph Warren (1741–1775), a physician and major general of American colonial militias, was stripped of his clothing, bayoneted until unrecognizable, and then he was shoved into a shallow ditch, after he was killed at the Battle of Bunker and Breed's Hill. Days later, British Lieutenant James Drew had Joseph Warren's body exhumed again; his body was stomped on, beaten, decapitated and humiliated on the area, according to eyewitness testimonies.
In 1793, following the death sentence of 22 Girondin leaders, Charles Éléonor Dufriche de Valazé committed suicide, but his corpse was still guillotined along with his 21 fellows.
In 1917, the body of Rasputin, the Russian mystic, was exhumed from the ground by a mob and burned.
In 1918, the body of Lavr Kornilov, the Russian general, was exhumed by a pro-Bolshevik mob. It was then beaten, trampled and burned.
In 1966, during the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards stormed the Dingling Mausoleum, destroyed thousands of artifacts, and dragged the remains of the Wanli Emperor and his two empresses to the front of the tomb where they were posthumously denounced and burned after photographs were taken of their skulls.
The body of General Gracia Jacques, a supporter of François Duvalier ("Papa Doc") (1907–1971), the Haitian dictator, was exhumed and ritually beaten to "death" in 1986.
Notes
References
Capital punishment
Death customs
Last Judgment |
23924 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger%20pigeon | Passenger pigeon | The passenger pigeon or wild pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) is an extinct species of pigeon that was endemic to North America. Its common name is derived from the French word passager, meaning "passing by", due to the migratory habits of the species. The scientific name also refers to its migratory characteristics. The morphologically similar mourning dove (Zenaida macroura) was long thought to be its closest relative, and the two were at times confused, but genetic analysis has shown that the genus Patagioenas is more closely related to it than the Zenaida doves.
The passenger pigeon was sexually dimorphic in size and coloration. The male was in length, mainly gray on the upperparts, lighter on the underparts, with iridescent bronze feathers on the neck, and black spots on the wings. The female was , and was duller and browner than the male overall. The juvenile was similar to the female, but without iridescence. It mainly inhabited the deciduous forests of eastern North America and was also recorded elsewhere, but bred primarily around the Great Lakes. The pigeon migrated in enormous flocks, constantly searching for food, shelter, and breeding grounds, and was once the most abundant bird in North America, numbering around 3 billion, and possibly up to 5 billion. A very fast flyer, the passenger pigeon could reach a speed of . The bird fed mainly on mast, and also fruits and invertebrates. It practiced communal roosting and communal breeding, and its extreme gregariousness may have been linked with searching for food and predator satiation.
Passenger pigeons were hunted by Native Americans, but hunting intensified after the arrival of Europeans, particularly in the 19th century. Pigeon meat was commercialized as cheap food, resulting in hunting on a massive scale for many decades. There were several other factors contributing to the decline and subsequent extinction of the species, including shrinking of the large breeding populations necessary for preservation of the species and widespread deforestation, which destroyed its habitat. A slow decline between about 1800 and 1870 was followed by a rapid decline between 1870 and 1890. In 1900, the last confirmed wild bird was shot in southern Ohio. The last captive birds were divided in three groups around the turn of the 20th century, some of which were photographed alive. Martha, thought to be the last passenger pigeon, died on September 1, 1914, at the Cincinnati Zoo. The eradication of the species is a notable example of anthropogenic extinction.
Taxonomy
Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus coined the binomial name Columba macroura for both the mourning dove and the passenger pigeon in the 1758 edition of his work Systema Naturae (the starting point of biological nomenclature), wherein he appears to have considered the two identical. This composite description cited accounts of these birds in two pre-Linnean books. One of these was Mark Catesby's description of the passenger pigeon, which was published in his 1731 to 1743 work Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, which referred to this bird as Palumbus migratorius, and was accompanied by the earliest published illustration of the species. Catesby's description was combined with the 1743 description of the mourning dove by George Edwards, who used the name C. macroura for that bird. There is nothing to suggest Linnaeus ever saw specimens of these birds himself, and his description is thought to be fully derivative of these earlier accounts and their illustrations. In his 1766 edition of Systema Naturae, Linnaeus dropped the name C. macroura, and instead used the name C. migratoria for the passenger pigeon, and C. carolinensis for the mourning dove. In the same edition, Linnaeus also named C. canadensis, based on Turtur canadensis, as used by Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760. Brisson's description was later shown to have been based on a female passenger pigeon.
In 1827, William John Swainson moved the passenger pigeon from the genus Columba to the new monotypic genus Ectopistes, due in part to the length of the wings and the wedge shape of the tail. In 1906 Outram Bangs suggested that because Linnaeus had wholly copied Catesby's text when coining C. macroura, this name should apply to the passenger pigeon, as E. macroura. In 1918 Harry C. Oberholser suggested that C. canadensis should take precedence over C. migratoria (as E. canadensis), as it appeared on an earlier page in Linnaeus' book. In 1952 Francis Hemming proposed that the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) secure the specific name macroura for the mourning dove, and the name migratorius for the passenger pigeon, since this was the intended use by the authors on whose work Linnaeus had based his description. This was accepted by the ICZN, which used its plenary powers to designate the species for the respective names in 1955.
Evolution
The passenger pigeon was a member of the pigeon and dove family, Columbidae. The oldest known fossil of the genus is an isolated humerus (USNM 430960) known from the Lee Creek Mine in North Carolina in sediments belonging to the Yorktown Formation, dating to the Zanclean stage of the Pliocene, between 5.3 and 3.6 million years ago. Its closest living relatives were long thought to be the Zenaida doves, based on morphological grounds, particularly the physically similar mourning dove (now Z. macroura). It was even suggested that the mourning dove belonged to the genus Ectopistes and was listed as E. carolinensis by some authors, including Thomas Mayo Brewer. The passenger pigeon was supposedly descended from Zenaida pigeons that had adapted to the woodlands on the plains of central North America.
The passenger pigeon differed from the species in the genus Zenaida in being larger, lacking a facial stripe, being sexually dimorphic, and having iridescent neck feathers and a smaller clutch. In a 2002 study by American geneticist Beth Shapiro et al., museum specimens of the passenger pigeon were included in an ancient DNA analysis for the first time (in a paper focusing mainly on the dodo), and it was found to be the sister taxon of the cuckoo-dove genus Macropygia. The Zenaida doves were instead shown to be related to the quail-doves of the genus Geotrygon and the Leptotila doves.
A more extensive 2010 study instead showed that the passenger pigeon was most closely related to the New World Patagioenas pigeons, including the band-tailed pigeon (P. fasciata) of western North America, which are related to the Southeast Asian species in the genera Turacoena, Macropygia and Reinwardtoena. This clade is also related to the Columba and Streptopelia doves of the Old World (collectively termed the "typical pigeons and doves"). The authors of the study suggested that the ancestors of the passenger pigeon may have colonized the New World from South East Asia by flying across the Pacific Ocean, or perhaps across Beringia in the north.
In a 2012 study, the nuclear DNA of the passenger pigeon was analyzed for the first time, and its relationship with the Patagioenas pigeon was confirmed. In contrast to the 2010 study, these authors suggested that their results could indicate that the ancestors of the passenger pigeon and its Old World relatives may have originated in the Neotropical region of the New World.
The cladogram below follows the 2012 DNA study showing the position of the passenger pigeon among its closest relatives:
DNA in old museum specimens is often degraded and fragmentary, and passenger pigeon specimens have been used in various studies to discover improved methods of analyzing and assembling genomes from such material. DNA samples are often taken from the toe pads of bird skins in museums, as this can be done without causing significant damage to valuable specimens. The passenger pigeon had no known subspecies. Hybridization occurred between the passenger pigeon and the Barbary dove (Streptopelia risoria) in the aviary of Charles Otis Whitman (who owned many of the last captive birds around the turn of the 20th century, and kept them with other pigeon species) but the offspring were infertile.
Etymology
The genus name, Ectopistes, translates as "moving about" or "wandering", while the specific name, migratorius, indicates its migratory habits. The full binomial can thus be translated as "migratory wanderer". The English common name "passenger pigeon" derives from the French word , which means "to pass by" in a fleeting manner. While the pigeon was extant, the name "passenger pigeon" was used interchangeably with "wild pigeon". The bird also gained some less-frequently used names, including blue pigeon, merne rouck pigeon, wandering long-tailed dove, and wood pigeon. In the 18th century, the passenger pigeon was known as tourte in New France (in modern Canada), but to the French in Europe it was known as tourtre. In modern French, the bird is known as tourte voyageuse or pigeon migrateur, among other names.
In the Native American Algonquian languages, the pigeon was called amimi by the Lenape, by the Ojibwe, and by the Kaskaskia Illinois. Other names in indigenous American languages include in Mohawk, and , or "lost dove", in Choctaw. The Seneca people called the pigeon , meaning "big bread", as it was a source of food for their tribes. Chief Simon Pokagon of the Potawatomi stated that his people called the pigeon , and that the Europeans did not adopt native names for the bird, as it reminded them of their domesticated pigeons, instead calling them "wild" pigeons, as they called the native peoples "wild" men.
Description
The passenger pigeon was sexually dimorphic in size and coloration. It weighed between . The adult male was about in length. It had a bluish-gray head, nape, and hindneck. On the sides of the neck and the upper mantle were iridescent display feathers that have variously been described as being a bright bronze, violet or golden-green, depending on the angle of the light. The upper back and wings were a pale or slate gray tinged with olive brown, that turned into grayish-brown on the lower wings. The lower back and rump were a dark blue-gray that became grayish-brown on the upper tail-covert feathers. The greater and median wing-covert feathers were pale gray, with a small number of irregular black spots near the end. The primary and secondary feathers of the wing were a blackish-brown with a narrow white edge on the outer side of the secondaries. The two central tail feathers were brownish gray, and the rest were white.
The tail pattern was distinctive as it had white outer edges with blackish spots that were prominently displayed in flight. The lower throat and breast were richly pinkish-rufous, grading into a paler pink further down, and into white on the abdomen and undertail covert feathers. The undertail coverts also had a few black spots. The bill was black, while the feet and legs were a bright coral red. It had a carmine-red iris surrounded by a narrow purplish-red eye-ring. The wing of the male measured , the tail , the bill , and the tarsus was .
The adult female passenger pigeon was slightly smaller than the male at in length. It was duller than the male overall, and was a grayish-brown on the forehead, crown, and nape down to the scapulars, and the feathers on the sides of the neck had less iridescence than those of the male. The lower throat and breast were a buff-gray that developed into white on the belly and undertail-coverts. It was browner on the upperparts and paler buff brown and less rufous on the underparts than the male. The wings, back, and tail were similar in appearance to those of the male except that the outer edges of the primary feathers were edged in buff or rufous buff. The wings had more spotting than those of the male. The tail was shorter than that of the male, and the legs and feet were a paler red. The iris was orange red, with a grayish blue, naked orbital ring. The wing of the female was , the tail , the bill , and the tarsus was .
The juvenile passenger pigeon was similar in plumage to the adult female, but lacked the spotting on the wings, and was a darker brownish-gray on the head, neck, and breast. The feathers on the wings had pale gray fringes (also described as white tips), giving it a scaled look. The secondaries were brownish-black with pale edges, and the tertial feathers had a rufous wash. The primaries were also edged with a rufous-brown color. The neck feathers had no iridescence. The legs and feet were dull red, and the iris was brownish, and surrounded by a narrow carmine ring. The plumage of the sexes was similar during their first year.
Of the hundreds of surviving skins, only one appears to be aberrant in coloran adult female from the collection of Walter Rothschild, Natural History Museum at Tring. It is a washed brown on the upper parts, wing covert, secondary feathers, and tail (where it would otherwise have been gray), and white on the primary feathers and underparts. The normally black spots are brown, and it is pale gray on the head, lower back, and upper-tail covert feathers, yet the iridescence is unaffected. The brown mutation is a result of a reduction in eumelanin, due to incomplete synthesis (oxidation) of this pigment. This sex-linked mutation is common in female wild birds, but it is thought the white feathers of this specimen are instead the result of bleaching due to exposure to sunlight.
The passenger pigeon was physically adapted for speed, endurance, and maneuverability in flight, and has been described as having a streamlined version of the typical pigeon shape, such as that of the generalized rock dove (Columba livia). The wings were very long and pointed, and measured from the wing-chord to the primary feathers, and to the secondaries. The tail, which accounted for much of its overall length, was long and wedge-shaped (or graduated), with two central feathers longer than the rest. The body was slender and narrow, and the head and neck were small.
The internal anatomy of the passenger pigeon has rarely been described. Robert W. Shufeldt found little to differentiate the bird's osteology from that of other pigeons when examining a male skeleton in 1914, but Julian P. Hume noted several distinct features in a more detailed 2015 description. The pigeon's particularly large breast muscles indicated a powerful flight (musculus pectoralis major for downstroke and the smaller musculus supracoracoideus for upstroke). The coracoid bone (which connects the scapula, furcula, and sternum) was large relative to the size of the bird, , with straighter shafts and more robust articular ends than in other pigeons. The furcula had a sharper V-shape and was more robust, with expanded articular ends. The scapula was long, straight, and robust, and its distal end was enlarged. The sternum was very large and robust compared to that of other pigeons; its keel was deep. The overlapping uncinate processes, which stiffen the ribcage, were very well developed. The wing bones (humerus, radius, ulna, carpometacarpus) were short but robust compared to other pigeons. The leg bones were similar to those of other pigeons.
Vocalizations
The noise produced by flocks of passenger pigeons was described as deafening, audible for miles away, and the bird's voice as loud, harsh, and unmusical. It was also described by some as clucks, twittering, and cooing, and as a series of low notes, instead of an actual song. The birds apparently made croaking noises when building nests, and bell-like sounds when mating. During feeding, some individuals would give alarm calls when facing a threat, and the rest of the flock would join the sound while taking off.
In 1911, American behavioral scientist Wallace Craig published an account of the gestures and sounds of this species as a series of descriptions and musical notations, based on observation of C. O. Whitman's captive passenger pigeons in 1903. Craig compiled these records to assist in identifying potential survivors in the wild (as the physically similar mourning doves could otherwise be mistaken for passenger pigeons), while noting this "meager information" was likely all that would be left on the subject. According to Craig, one call was a simple harsh "keck" that could be given twice in succession with a pause in between. This was said to be used to attract the attention of another pigeon. Another call was a more frequent and variable scolding. This sound was described as "kee-kee-kee-kee" or "tete! tete! tete!", and was used to call either to its mate or towards other creatures it considered to be enemies. One variant of this call, described as a long, drawn-out "tweet", could be used to call down a flock of passenger pigeons passing overhead, which would then land in a nearby tree. "Keeho" was a soft cooing that, while followed by louder "keck" notes or scolding, was directed at the bird's mate. A nesting passenger pigeon would also give off a stream of at least eight mixed notes that were both high and low in tone and ended with "keeho". Overall, female passenger pigeons were quieter and called infrequently. Craig suggested that the loud, strident voice and "degenerated" musicality was the result of living in populous colonies where only the loudest sounds could be heard.
Distribution and habitat
The passenger pigeon was found across most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains, from the Great Plains to the Atlantic coast in the east, to the south of Canada in the north, and the north of Mississippi in the southern United States, coinciding with its primary habitat, the eastern deciduous forests. Within this range, it constantly migrated in search of food and shelter. It is unclear if the birds favored particular trees and terrain, but they were possibly not restricted to one type, as long as their numbers could be supported. It originally bred from the southern parts of eastern and central Canada south to eastern Kansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Georgia in the United States, but the primary breeding range was in southern Ontario and the Great Lakes states south through states north of the Appalachian Mountains. Though the western forests were ecologically similar to those in the east, these were occupied by band-tailed pigeons, which may have kept out the passenger pigeons through competitive exclusion.
The passenger pigeon wintered from Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina south to Texas, the Gulf Coast, and northern Florida, though flocks occasionally wintered as far north as southern Pennsylvania and Connecticut. It preferred to winter in large swamps, particularly those with alder trees; if swamps were not available, forested areas, particularly with pine trees, were favored roosting sites. There were also sightings of passenger pigeons outside of its normal range, including in several Western states, Bermuda, Cuba, and Mexico, particularly during severe winters. It has been suggested that some of these extralimital records may have been due to the paucity of observers rather than the actual extent of passenger pigeons; North America was then unsettled country, and the bird may have appeared anywhere on the continent except for the far west. There were also records of stragglers in Scotland, Ireland, and France, although these birds may have been escaped captives, or the records incorrect.
More than 130 passenger pigeon fossils have been found scattered across 25 US states, including in the La Brea Tar Pits of California. These records date as far back as 100,000 years ago in the Pleistocene era, during which the pigeon's range extended to several western states that were not a part of its modern range. The abundance of the species in these regions and during this time is unknown.
Ecology and behavior
The passenger pigeon was nomadic, constantly migrating in search of food, shelter, or nesting grounds. In his 1831 Ornithological Biography, American naturalist and artist John James Audubon described a migration he observed in 1813 as follows:
These flocks were frequently described as being so dense that they blackened the sky and as having no sign of subdivisions. The flocks ranged from only above the ground in windy conditions to as high as . These migrating flocks were typically in narrow columns that twisted and undulated, and they were reported as being in nearly every conceivable shape. A skilled flyer, the passenger pigeon is estimated to have averaged during migration. It flew with quick, repeated flaps that increased the bird's velocity the closer the wings got to the body. It was equally adept and quick flying through a forest as through open space. A flock was also adept at following the lead of the pigeon in front of it, and flocks swerved together to avoid a predator. When landing, the pigeon flapped its wings repeatedly before raising them at the moment of landing. The pigeon was awkward when on the ground, and moved around with jerky, alert steps.
The passenger pigeon was one of the most social of all land birds. Estimated to have numbered three to five billion at the height of its population, it may have been the most numerous bird on Earth; researcher Arlie W. Schorger believed that it accounted for between 25 and 40 percent of the total land bird population in the United States. The passenger pigeon's historic population is roughly the equivalent of the number of birds that overwinter in the United States every year in the early 21st century. Even within their range, the size of individual flocks could vary greatly. In November 1859, Henry David Thoreau, writing in Concord, Massachusetts, noted that "quite a little flock of [passenger] pigeons bred here last summer," while only seven years later, in 1866, one flock in southern Ontario was described as being wide and long, took 14 hours to pass, and held in excess of 3.5 billion birds. Such a number would likely represent a large fraction of the entire population at the time, or perhaps all of it. Most estimations of numbers were based on single migrating colonies, and it is unknown how many of these existed at a given time. American writer Christopher Cokinos has suggested that if the birds flew single file, they would have stretched around the Earth 22 times.
A 2014 genetic study (based on coalescent theory and on "sequences from most of the genome" of three individual passenger pigeons) suggested that the passenger pigeon population experienced dramatic fluctuations across the last million years, due to their dependence on availability of mast (which itself fluctuates). The study suggested the bird was not always abundant, mainly persisting at around 1/10,000 the amount of the several billions estimated in the 1800s, with vastly larger numbers present during outbreak phases. Some early accounts also suggest that the appearance of flocks in great numbers was an irregular occurrence. These large fluctuations in population may have been the result of a disrupted ecosystem and have consisted of outbreak populations much larger than those common in pre-European times. The authors of the 2014 genetic study note that a similar analysis of the human population size arrives at an "effective population size" of between 9,000 and 17,000 individuals (or approximately 1/550,000th of the peak total human population size of 7 billion cited in the study).
For a 2017 genetic study, the authors sequenced the genomes of two additional passenger pigeons, as well as analyzing the mitochondrial DNA of 41 individuals. This study found evidence that the passenger-pigeon population had been stable for at least the previous 20,000 years. The study also found that the size of the passenger pigeon population over that time period was larger than the found in the 2014 genetic study. However, the 2017 study's "conservative" estimate of an "effective population size" of 13 million birds is still only about 1/300th of the bird's estimated historic population of approximately 3–5 billion before their "19th century decline and eventual extinction." A similar study inferring human population size from genetics (published in 2008, and using human mitochondrial DNA and Bayesian coalescent inference methods) showed considerable accuracy in reflecting overall patterns of human population growth as compared to data deduced by other means—though the study arrived at a human effective population size (as of 1600 AD, for Africa, Eurasia, and the Americas combined) that was roughly 1/1000 of the census population estimate for the same time and area based on anthropological and historical evidence.
The 2017 passenger-pigeon genetic study also found that, in spite of its large population size, the genetic diversity was very low in the species. The authors suggested that this was a side-effect of natural selection, which theory and previous empirical studies suggested could have a particularly great impact on species with very large and cohesive populations. Natural selection can reduce genetic diversity over extended regions of a genome through 'selective sweeps' or 'background selection'. The authors found evidence of a faster rate of adaptive evolution and faster removal of harmful mutations in passenger pigeons compared to band-tailed pigeons, which are some of passenger pigeons' closest living relatives. They also found evidence of lower genetic diversity in regions of the passenger pigeon genome that have lower rates of genetic recombination. This is expected if natural selection, via selective sweeps or background selection, reduced their genetic diversity, but not if population instability did. The study concluded that earlier suggestion that population instability contributed to the extinction of the species was invalid. Evolutionary biologist A. Townsend Peterson said of the two passenger-pigeon genetic studies (published in 2014 and 2017) that, though the idea of extreme fluctuations in the passenger-pigeon population was "deeply entrenched," he was persuaded by the 2017 study's argument, due to its "in-depth analysis" and "massive data resources."
A communally roosting species, the passenger pigeon chose roosting sites that could provide shelter and enough food to sustain their large numbers for an indefinite period. The time spent at one roosting site may have depended on the extent of human persecution, weather conditions, or other, unknown factors. Roosts ranged in size and extent, from a few acres to or greater. Some roosting areas would be reused for subsequent years, others would only be used once. The passenger pigeon roosted in such numbers that even thick tree branches would break under the strain. The birds frequently piled on top of each other's backs to roost. They rested in a slumped position that hid their feet. They slept with their bills concealed by the feathers in the middle of the breast while holding their tail at a 45-degree angle. Dung could accumulate under a roosting site to a depth of over .
If the pigeon became alert, it would often stretch out its head and neck in line with its body and tail, then nod its head in a circular pattern. When aggravated by another pigeon, it raised its wings threateningly, but passenger pigeons almost never actually fought. The pigeon bathed in shallow water, and afterwards lay on each side in turn and raised the opposite wing to dry it.
The passenger pigeon drank at least once a day, typically at dawn, by fully inserting its bill into lakes, small ponds, and streams. Pigeons were seen perching on top of each other to access water, and if necessary, the species could alight on open water to drink. One of the primary causes of natural mortality was the weather, and every spring many individuals froze to death after migrating north too early. In captivity, a passenger pigeon was capable of living at least 15 years; Martha, the last known living passenger pigeon, was at least 17 and possibly as old as 29 when she died. It is undocumented how long a wild pigeon lived.
The bird is believed to have played a significant ecological role in the composition of pre-Columbian forests of eastern North America. For instance, while the passenger pigeon was extant, forests were dominated by white oaks. This species germinated in the fall, therefore making its seeds almost useless as a food source during the spring breeding season, while red oaks produced acorns during the spring, which were devoured by the pigeons. The absence of the passenger pigeon's seed consumption may have contributed to the modern dominance of red oaks. Due to the immense amount of dung present at roosting sites, few plants grew for years after the pigeons left. Also, the accumulation of flammable debris (such as limbs broken from trees and foliage killed by excrement) at these sites may have increased both the frequency and intensity of forest fires, which would have favored fire-tolerant species, such as bur oaks, black oaks, and white oaks over less fire-tolerant species, such as red oaks, thus helping to explain the change in the composition of eastern forests since the passenger pigeon's extinction (from white oaks, bur oaks, and black oaks predominating in presettlement forests, to the "dramatic expansion" of red oaks today).
A study released in 2018 concluded that the "vast numbers" of passenger pigeons present for "tens of thousands of years" would have influenced the evolution of the tree species whose seeds they ate. Those masting trees that produced seeds during the spring nesting season (such as red oaks) evolved so that some portion of their seeds would be too large for passenger pigeons to swallow (thus allowing some of their seeds to escape predation and grow new trees). White oak, in contrast, with its seeds sized consistently in the edible range, evolved an irregular masting pattern that took place in the fall, when fewer passenger pigeons would have been present. The study further concluded that this allowed white oaks to be the dominant tree species in regions where passenger pigeons were commonly present in the spring.
With the large numbers in passenger pigeon flocks, the excrement they produced was enough to destroy surface-level vegetation at long-term roosting sites, while adding high quantities of nutrients to the ecosystem. Because of this—along with the breaking of tree limbs under their collective weight and the great amount of mast they consumed—passenger pigeons are thought to have influenced both the structure of eastern forests and the composition of the species present there. Due to these influences, some ecologists have considered the passenger pigeon a keystone species, with the disappearance of their vast flocks leaving a major gap in the ecosystem. Their role in creating forest disturbances has been linked to greater vertebrate diversity in forests by creating more niches for animals to fill. To help fill that ecological gap, it has been proposed that modern land managers attempt to replicate some of their effects on the ecosystem by creating openings in forest canopies to provide more understory light.
The American chestnut trees that provided much of the mast on which the passenger pigeon fed was itself almost driven to extinction by an imported Asian fungus (chestnut blight) around 1905. As many as thirty billion trees are thought to have died as a result in the following decades, but this did not affect the passenger pigeon, which was already extinct in the wild at the time.
After the disappearance of the passenger pigeon, the population of another acorn feeding species, the white-footed mouse, grew exponentially because of the increased availability of the seeds of the oak, beech and chestnut trees. It has been speculated that the extinction of passenger pigeons may have increased the prevalence of tick-borne lyme disease in modern times as white-footed mice are the reservoir hosts of Borrelia burgdorferi.
Diet
Beeches and oaks produced the mast needed to support nesting and roosting flocks. The passenger pigeon changed its diet depending on the season. In the fall, winter, and spring, it mainly ate beechnuts, acorns, and chestnuts. During the summer, berries and softer fruits, such as blueberries, grapes, cherries, mulberries, pokeberries, and bunchberry, became the main objects of its consumption. It also ate worms, caterpillars, snails, and other invertebrates, particularly while breeding. It took advantage of cultivated grains, particularly buckwheat, when it found them. It was especially fond of salt, which it ingested either from brackish springs or salty soil.
Mast occurs in large quantities in different places at different times, and rarely in consecutive years, which is one of the reasons why the large flocks were constantly on the move. As mast is produced during autumn, there would have to be a large amount of it left by the summer, when the young were reared. It is unknown how they located this fluctuating food source, but their eyesight and flight powers helped them survey large areas for places that could provide food enough for a temporary stay.
The passenger pigeon foraged in flocks of tens or hundreds of thousands of individuals that overturned leaves, dirt, and snow with their bills in search of food. One observer described the motion of such a flock in search of mast as having a rolling appearance, as birds in the back of the flock flew overhead to the front of the flock, dropping leaves and grass in flight. The flocks had wide leading edges to better scan the landscape for food sources.
When nuts on a tree loosened from their caps, a pigeon would land on a branch and, while flapping vigorously to stay balanced, grab the nut, pull it loose from its cap, and swallow it whole. Collectively, a foraging flock was capable of removing nearly all fruits and nuts from their path. Birds in the back of the flock flew to the front in order to pick over unsearched ground; however, birds never ventured far from the flock and hurried back if they became isolated. It is believed that the pigeons used social cues to identify abundant sources of food, and a flock of pigeons that saw others feeding on the ground often joined them. During the day, the birds left the roosting forest to forage on more open land. They regularly flew away from their roost daily in search of food, and some pigeons reportedly traveled as far as , leaving the roosting area early and returning at night.
The passenger pigeon's very elastic mouth and throat and a joint in the lower bill enabled it to swallow acorns whole. It could store large quantities of food in its crop, which could expand to about the size of an orange, causing the neck to bulge and allowing a bird quickly to grab any food it discovered. The crop was described as being capable of holding at least 17 acorns or 28 beechnuts, 11 grains of corn, 100 maple seeds, plus other material; it was estimated that a passenger pigeon needed to eat about of food a day to survive. If shot, a pigeon with a crop full of nuts would fall to the ground with a sound described as like the rattle of a bag of marbles. After feeding, the pigeons perched on branches and digested the food stored in their crop overnight.
The pigeon could eat and digest of acorns per day. At the historic population of three billion passenger pigeons, this amounted to of food a day. The pigeon could regurgitate food from its crop when more desirable food became available. A 2018 study found that the dietary range of the passenger pigeon was restricted to certain sizes of seed, due to the size of its gape. This would have prevented it from eating some of the seeds of trees such as red oaks, the black oak, and the American chestnut. Specifically, the study found that between 13% and 69% of red oak seeds were too large for passenger pigeons to have swallowed, that only a "small proportion" of the seeds of black oaks and American chestnuts were too large for the birds to consume, and that all white oak seeds were sized within an edible range. They also found that seeds would be completely destroyed during digestion, which therefore hindered dispersal of seeds this way. Instead, passenger pigeons may have spread seeds by regurgitation, or after dying.
Reproduction
Other than finding roosting sites, the migrations of the passenger pigeon were connected with finding places appropriate for this communally breeding bird to nest and raise its young. It is not certain how many times a year the birds bred; once seems most likely, but some accounts suggest more. The nesting period lasted around four to six weeks. The flock arrived at a nesting ground around March in southern latitudes, and some time later in more northern areas. The pigeon had no site fidelity, often choosing to nest in a different location each year. The formation of a nesting colony did not necessarily take place until several months after the pigeons arrived on their breeding grounds, typically during late March, April, or May.
The colonies, which were known as "cities", were immense, ranging from to thousands of hectares in size, and were often long and narrow in shape (L-shaped), with a few areas untouched for unknown reasons. Due to the topography, they were rarely continuous. Since no accurate data was recorded, it is not possible to give more than estimates on the size and population of these nesting areas, but most accounts mention colonies containing millions of birds. The largest nesting area ever recorded was in central Wisconsin in 1871; it was reported as covering , with the number of birds nesting there estimated to be around 136,000,000. As well as these "cities", there were regular reports of much smaller flocks or even individual pairs setting up a nesting site. The birds do not seem to have formed as vast breeding colonies at the periphery of their range.
Courtship took place at the nesting colony. Unlike other pigeons, courtship took place on a branch or perch. The male, with a flourish of the wings, made a "keck" call while near a female. The male then gripped tightly to the branch and vigorously flapped his wings up and down. When the male was close to the female, he then pressed against her on the perch with his head held high and pointing at her. If receptive, the female pressed back against the male. When ready to mate, the pair preened each other. This was followed by the birds billing, in which the female inserted its bill into and clasped the male's bill, shook for a second, and separated quickly while standing next to each other. The male then scrambled onto the female's back and copulated, which was then followed by soft clucking and occasionally more preening. John James Audubon described the courtship of the passenger pigeon as follows:
After observing captive birds, Wallace Craig found that this species did less charging and strutting than other pigeons (as it was awkward on the ground), and thought it probable that no food was transferred during their brief billing (unlike in other pigeons), and he therefore considered Audubon's description partially based on analogy with other pigeons as well as imagination.
Nests were built immediately after pair formation and took two to four days to construct; this process was highly synchronized within a colony. The female chose the nesting site by sitting on it and flicking her wings. The male then carefully selected nesting materials, typically twigs, and handed them to the female over her back. The male then went in search of more nesting material while the female constructed the nest beneath herself. Nests were built between above the ground, though typically above , and were made of 70 to 110 twigs woven together to create a loose, shallow bowl through which the egg could easily be seen. This bowl was then typically lined with finer twigs. The nests were about wide, high, and deep. Though the nest has been described as crude and flimsy compared to those of many other birds, remains of nests could be found at sites where nesting had taken place several years prior. Nearly every tree capable of supporting nests had them, often more than 50 per tree; one hemlock was recorded as holding 317 nests. The nests were placed on strong branches close to the tree trunks. Some accounts state that ground under the nesting area looked as if it had been swept clean, due to all the twigs being collected at the same time, yet this area would also have been covered in dung. As both sexes took care of the nest, the pairs were monogamous for the duration of the nesting.
Generally, the eggs were laid during the first two weeks of April across the pigeon's range. Each female laid its egg immediately or almost immediately after the nest was completed; sometimes the pigeon was forced to lay it on the ground if the nest was not complete. The normal clutch size appears to have been a single egg, but there is some uncertainty about this, as two have also been reported from the same nests. Occasionally, a second female laid its egg in another female's nest, resulting in two eggs being present. The egg was white and oval shaped and averaged in size. If the egg was lost, it was possible for the pigeon to lay a replacement egg within a week. A whole colony was known to re-nest after a snowstorm forced them to abandon their original colony. The egg was incubated by both parents for 12 to 14 days, with the male incubating it from midmorning to midafternoon and the female incubating it for the rest of the time.
Upon hatching, the nestling (or squab) was blind and sparsely covered with yellow, hairlike down. The nestling developed quickly and within 14 days weighed as much as its parents. During this brooding period both parents took care of the nestling, with the male attending in the middle of the day and the female at other times. The nestlings were fed crop milk (a substance similar to curd, produced in the crops of the parent birds) exclusively for the first days after hatching. Adult food was gradually introduced after three to six days. After 13 to 15 days, the parents fed the nestling for a last time and then abandoned it, leaving the nesting area en masse. The nestling begged in the nest for a day or two, before climbing from the nest and fluttering to the ground, whereafter it moved around, avoided obstacles, and begged for food from nearby adults. It was another three or four days before it fledged. The entire nesting cycle lasted about 30 days. It is unknown whether colonies re-nested after a successful nesting. The passenger pigeon sexually matured during its first year and bred the following spring.
Alfred Russel Wallace, in his historic 1858 paper On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection, used the passenger pigeon as an example of an immensely successful species despite laying fewer eggs than most other birds:
Predators and parasites
Nesting colonies attracted large numbers of predators, including American minks (Neogale vison), long-tailed weasels (Neogale frenata), American martens (Martes americana), and raccoons (Procyon lotor) that preyed on eggs and nestlings, birds of prey, such as owls, hawks, and eagles that preyed on nestlings and adults, and wolves (Canis lupus), foxes (Urocyon cinereoargenteus and Vulpes vulpes), bobcats (Lynx rufus), American black bears (Ursus americanus), and cougars (Puma concolor) that preyed on injured adults and fallen nestlings. Hawks of the genus Accipiter and falcons pursued and preyed upon pigeons in flight, which in turn executed complex aerial maneuvers to avoid them; Cooper's hawk (Accipiter cooperii) was known as the "great pigeon hawk" due to its successes, and these hawks allegedly followed migrating passenger pigeons. While many predators were drawn to the flocks, individual pigeons were largely protected due to the sheer size of the flock, and overall little damage could be inflicted on the flock by predation. Despite the number of predators, nesting colonies were so large that they were estimated to have a 90% success rate if not disturbed. After being abandoned and leaving the nest, the very fat juveniles were vulnerable to predators until they were able to fly. The sheer number of juveniles on the ground meant that only a small percentage of them were killed; predator satiation may therefore be one of the reasons for the extremely social habits and communal breeding of the species.
Two parasites have been recorded on passenger pigeons. One species of phtilopterid louse, Columbicola extinctus, was originally thought to have lived on just passenger pigeons and to have become coextinct with them. This was proven inaccurate in 1999 when C. extinctus was rediscovered living on band-tailed pigeons. This, and the fact that the related louse C. angustus is mainly found on cuckoo-doves, further supports the relation between these pigeons, as the phylogeny of lice broadly mirrors that of their hosts. Another louse, Campanulotes defectus, was thought to have been unique to the passenger pigeon, but is now believed to have been a case of a contaminated specimen, as the species is considered to be the still-extant Campanulotes flavus of Australia. There is no record of a wild pigeon dying of either disease or parasites.
Relationship with humans
For fifteen thousand years or more before the arrival of Europeans in the Americas, passenger pigeons and Native Americans coexisted in the forests of what would later become the eastern part of the continental United States. A study published in 2008 found that, throughout most of the Holocene, Native American land-use practices greatly influenced forest composition. The regular use of prescribed burn, the girdling of unwanted trees, and the planting and tending of favored trees suppressed the populations of a number of tree species that did not produce nuts, acorns, or fruit, while increasing the populations of numerous tree species that did. In addition, the burning away of forest-floor litter made these foods easier to find, once they had fallen from the trees. Some have argued that such Native American land-use practices increased the populations of various animal species, including the passenger pigeon, by increasing the food available to them, while elsewhere it has been claimed that, by hunting passenger pigeons and competing with them for some kinds of nuts and acorns, Native Americans suppressed their population size. Genetic research may shed some light on this question. A 2017 study of passenger-pigeon DNA found that the passenger-pigeon population size was stable for 20,000 years prior to its 19th-century decline and subsequent extinction, while a 2016 study of ancient Native American DNA found that the Native American population went through a period of rapid expansion, increasing 60-fold, starting about 13–16 thousand years ago. If both of these studies are correct, then a great change in the size of the Native American population had no apparent impact on the size of the passenger-pigeon population. This suggests that the net effect of Native American activities on passenger-pigeon population size was neutral.
The passenger pigeon played a religious role for some northern Native American tribes. The Wyandot people (or Huron) believed that every twelve years during the Feast of the Dead, the souls of the dead changed into passenger pigeons, which were then hunted and eaten. Before hunting the juvenile pigeons, the Seneca people made an offering of wampum and brooches to the old passenger pigeons; these were placed in a small kettle or other receptacle by a smoky fire. The Ho-Chunk people considered the passenger pigeon to be the bird of the chief, as they were served whenever the chieftain gave a feast. The Seneca people believed that a white pigeon was the chief of the passenger pigeon colony, and that a Council of Birds decided that the pigeons had to give their bodies to the Seneca because they were the only birds that nested in colonies. The Seneca developed a pigeon dance as a way of showing their gratitude.
French explorer Jacques Cartier was the first European to report on passenger pigeons, during his voyage in 1534. The bird was subsequently observed and noted by historical figures such as Samuel de Champlain and Cotton Mather. Most early accounts dwell on the vast number of pigeons, the resulting darkened skies, and the enormous amount of hunted birds (50,000 birds were reportedly sold at a Boston market in 1771). The early colonists thought that large flights of pigeons would be followed by ill fortune or sickness. When the pigeons wintered outside of their normal range, some believed that they would have "a sickly summer and autumn." In the 18th and 19th centuries, various parts of the pigeon were thought to have medicinal properties. The blood was supposed to be good for eye disorders, the powdered stomach lining was used to treat dysentery, and the dung was used to treat a variety of ailments, including headaches, stomach pains, and lethargy. Though they did not last as long as the feathers of a goose, the feathers of the passenger pigeon were frequently used for bedding. Pigeon feather beds were so popular that for a time in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec, every dowry included a bed and pillows made of pigeon feathers. In 1822, one family in Chautauqua County, New York, killed 4,000 pigeons in a day solely for this purpose.
The passenger pigeon was featured in the writings of many significant early naturalists, as well as accompanying illustrations. Mark Catesby's 1731 illustration, the first published depiction of this bird, is somewhat crude, according to some later commentators. The original watercolor that the engraving is based on was bought by the British royal family in 1768, along with the rest of Catesby's watercolors. The naturalists Alexander Wilson and John James Audubon both witnessed large pigeon migrations first hand, and published detailed accounts wherein both attempted to deduce the total number of birds involved. The most famous and often reproduced depiction of the passenger pigeon is Audubon's illustration (handcolored aquatint) in his book The Birds of America, published between 1827 and 1838. Audubon's image has been praised for its artistic qualities, but criticized for its supposed scientific inaccuracies. As Wallace Craig and R. W. Shufeldt (among others) pointed out, the birds are shown perched and billing one above the other, whereas they would instead have done this side by side, the male would be the one passing food to the female, and the male's tail would not be spread. Craig and Shufeldt instead cited illustrations by American artist Louis Agassiz Fuertes and Japanese artist K. Hayashi as more accurate depictions of the bird. Illustrations of the passenger pigeon were often drawn after stuffed birds, and Charles R. Knight is the only "serious" artist known to have drawn the species from life. He did so on at least two occasions; in 1903 he drew a bird possibly in one of the three aviaries with surviving birds, and some time before 1914, he drew Martha, the last individual, in the Cincinnati Zoo.
The bird has been written about (including in poems, songs, and fiction) and illustrated by many notable writers and artists, and is depicted in art to this day, for example in Walton Ford's 2002 painting Falling Bough, and National Medal of Arts winner John A. Ruthven's 2014 mural in Cincinnati, which commemorates the 100th anniversary of Martha's death. The centennial of its extinction was used by the "Project Passenger Pigeon" outreach group to spread awareness about human-induced extinction, and to recognize its relevance in the 21st century. It has been suggested that the passenger pigeon could be used as a "flagship" species to spread awareness of other threatened, but less well-known North American birds.
Hunting
The passenger pigeon was an important source of food for the people of North America. Native Americans ate pigeons, and tribes near nesting colonies would sometimes move to live closer to them and eat the juveniles, killing them at night with long poles. Many Native Americans were careful not to disturb the adult pigeons, and instead ate only the juveniles as they were afraid that the adults might desert their nesting grounds; in some tribes, disturbing the adult pigeons was considered a crime. Away from the nests, large nets were used to capture adult pigeons, sometimes up to 800 at a time. Low-flying pigeons could be killed by throwing sticks or stones. At one site in Oklahoma, the pigeons leaving their roost every morning flew low enough that the Cherokee could throw clubs into their midst, which caused the lead pigeons to try to turn aside and in the process created a blockade that resulted in a large mass of flying, easily hit pigeons. Among the game birds, passenger pigeons were second only to the wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) in terms of importance for the Native Americans living in the southeastern United States. The bird's fat was stored, often in large quantities, and used as butter. Archaeological evidence supports the idea that Native Americans ate the pigeons frequently prior to colonization.
What may be the earliest account of Europeans hunting passenger pigeons dates to January 1565, when the French explorer René Laudonnière wrote of killing close to 10,000 of them around Fort Caroline in a matter of weeks: There came to us a manna of wood pigeons in such great numbers, that over a span of about seven weeks, each day we killed more than two hundred with arquebuses in the woods around our fort.
This amounted to about one passenger pigeon per day for each person in the fort.
After European colonization, the passenger pigeon was hunted with more intensive methods than the more sustainable methods practiced by the natives. Yet it has also been suggested that the species was rare prior to 1492, and that the subsequent increase in their numbers may be due to the decrease in the Native American population (who, as well as hunting the birds, competed with them for mast) caused by European immigration, and the supplementary food (agricultural crops) the immigrants imported (a theory for which Joel Greenberg offered a detailed rebuttal in his book, A Feathered River Across the Sky). The passenger pigeon was of particular value on the frontier, and some settlements counted on its meat to support their population. The flavor of the flesh of passenger pigeons varied depending on how they were prepared. In general, juveniles were thought to taste the best, followed by birds fattened in captivity and birds caught in September and October. It was common practice to fatten trapped pigeons before eating them or storing their bodies for winter. Dead pigeons were commonly stored by salting or pickling the bodies; other times, only the breasts of the pigeons were kept, in which case they were typically smoked. In the early 19th century, commercial hunters began netting and shooting the birds to sell as food in city markets, and even as pig fodder. Once pigeon meat became popular, commercial hunting started on a prodigious scale.
Passenger pigeons were shot with such ease that many did not consider them to be a game bird, as an amateur hunter could easily bring down six with one shotgun blast; a particularly good shot with both barrels of a shotgun at a roost could kill 61 birds. The birds were frequently shot either in flight during migration or immediately after, when they commonly perched in dead, exposed trees. Hunters only had to shoot toward the sky without aiming, and many pigeons would be brought down. The pigeons proved difficult to shoot head-on, so hunters typically waited for the flocks to pass overhead before shooting them. Trenches were sometimes dug and filled with grain so that a hunter could shoot the pigeons along this trench. Hunters largely outnumbered trappers, and hunting passenger pigeons was a popular sport for young boys. In 1871, a single seller of ammunition provided three tons of powder and 16 tons (32,000 lb) of shot during a nesting. In the latter half of the 19th century, thousands of passenger pigeons were captured for use in the sports shooting industry. The pigeons were used as living targets in shooting tournaments, such as "trap-shooting", the controlled release of birds from special traps. Competitions could also consist of people standing regularly spaced while trying to shoot down as many birds as possible in a passing flock. The pigeon was considered so numerous that 30,000 birds had to be killed to claim the prize in one competition.
There were a wide variety of other methods used to capture and kill passenger pigeons. Nets were propped up to allow passenger pigeons entry, then closed by knocking loose the stick that supported the opening, trapping twenty or more pigeons inside. Tunnel nets were also used to great effect, and one particularly large net was capable of catching 3,500 pigeons at a time. These nets were used by many farmers on their own property as well as by professional trappers. Food would be placed on the ground near the nets to attract the pigeons. Decoy or "stool pigeons" (sometimes blinded by having their eyelids sewn together) were tied to a stool. When a flock of pigeons passed by, a cord would be pulled that made the stool pigeon flutter to the ground, making it seem as if it had found food, and the flock would be lured into the trap. Salt was also frequently used as bait, and many trappers set up near salt springs. At least one trapper used alcohol-soaked grain as bait to intoxicate the birds and make them easier to kill. Another method of capture was to hunt at a nesting colony, particularly during the period of a few days after the adult pigeons abandoned their nestlings, but before the nestlings could fly. Some hunters used sticks to poke the nestlings out of the nest, while others shot the bottom of a nest with a blunt arrow to dislodge the pigeon. Others cut down a nesting tree in such a way that when it fell, it would also hit a second nesting tree and dislodge the pigeons within. In one case, of large trees were speedily cut down to get birds, and such methods were common. A severe method was to set fire to the base of a tree nested with pigeons; the adults would flee and the juveniles would fall to the ground. Sulfur was sometimes burned beneath the nesting tree to suffocate the birds, which fell out of the tree in a weakened state.
By the mid-19th century, railroads had opened new opportunities for pigeon hunters. While previously was too difficult to ship masses of pigeons to eastern cities, the access provided by the railroad permitted pigeon hunting to become commercialized. An extensive telegraph system was introduced in the 1860s, which improved communication across the United States, making it easier to spread information about the whereabouts of pigeon flocks. After being opened up to the railroads, the town of Plattsburgh, New York, is estimated to have shipped 1.8 million pigeons to larger cities in 1851 alone at a price of 31 to 56 cents a dozen. By the late 19th century, the trade of passenger pigeons had become commercialized. Large commission houses employed trappers (known as "pigeoners") to follow the flocks of pigeons year-round. A single hunter is reported to have sent three million birds to eastern cities during his career. In 1874, at least 600 people were employed as pigeon trappers, a number which grew to 1,200 by 1881. Pigeons were caught in such numbers that by 1876, shipments of dead pigeons were unable to recoup the costs of the barrels and ice needed to ship them. The price of a barrel full of pigeons dropped to below fifty cents, due to overstocked markets. Passenger pigeons were instead kept alive so their meat would be fresh when killed, and sold once their market value had increased. Thousands of birds were kept in large pens, though the bad conditions led many to die from lack of food and water, and by fretting (gnawing) themselves; many rotted away before they could be sold.
Hunting of passenger pigeons was documented and depicted in contemporaneous newspapers, wherein various trapping methods and uses were featured. The most often reproduced of these illustrations was captioned "Winter sports in northern Louisiana: shooting wild pigeons", and published in 1875. Passenger pigeons were also seen as agricultural pests, since entire crops could be destroyed by feeding flocks. The bird was described as a "perfect scourge" by some farming communities, and hunters were employed to "wage warfare" on the birds to save grain, as shown in another newspaper illustration from 1867 captioned as "Shooting wild pigeons in Iowa". When comparing these "pests" to the bison of the Great Plains, the valuable resource needed was not the species of animals but the agriculture which was consumed by said animal. The crops that were eaten were seen as marketable calories, proteins, and nutrients all grown for the wrong species.
Decline and conservation attempts
The notion that the species could be driven to extinction was alien to the early colonists, because the number of birds did not appear to diminish, and also because the concept of extinction was yet to be defined. The bird seems to have been slowly pushed westward after the arrival of Europeans, becoming scarce or absent in the east, though there were still millions of birds in the 1850s. The population must have been decreasing in numbers for many years, though this went unnoticed due to the apparent vast number of birds, which clouded their decline. In 1856 Bénédict Henry Révoil may have been one of the first writers to voice concern about the fate of the passenger pigeon, after witnessing a hunt in 1847:
By the 1870s, the decrease in birds was noticeable, especially after the last large-scale nestings and subsequent slaughters of millions of birds in 1874 and 1878. By this time, large nestings only took place in the north, around the Great Lakes. The last large nesting was in Petoskey, Michigan, in 1878 (following one in Pennsylvania a few days earlier), where 50,000 birds were killed each day for nearly five months. The surviving adults attempted a second nesting at new sites, but were killed by professional hunters before they had a chance to raise any young. Scattered nestings were reported into the 1880s, but the birds were now wary, and commonly abandoned their nests if persecuted.
By the time of these last nestings, laws had already been enacted to protect the passenger pigeon, but these proved ineffective, as they were unclearly framed and hard to enforce. H. B. Roney, who witnessed the Petoskey slaughter, led campaigns to protect the pigeon, but was met with resistance, and accusations that he was exaggerating the severity of the situation. Few offenders were prosecuted, mainly some poor trappers, but the large enterprises were not affected. In 1857, a bill was brought forth to the Ohio State Legislature seeking protection for the passenger pigeon, yet a Select Committee of the Senate filed a report stating that the bird did not need protection, being "wonderfully prolific", and dismissing the suggestion that the species could be destroyed. Public protests against trap-shooting erupted in the 1870s, as the birds were badly treated before and after such contests. Conservationists were ineffective in stopping the slaughter. A bill was passed in the Michigan legislature making it illegal to net pigeons within of a nesting area. In 1897, a bill was introduced in the Michigan legislature asking for a 10-year closed season on passenger pigeons. Similar legal measures were passed and then disregarded in Pennsylvania. The gestures proved futile, and by the mid-1890s, the passenger pigeon had almost completely disappeared, and was probably extinct as a breeding bird in the wild. Small flocks are known to have existed at this point, since large numbers of birds were still being sold at markets. Thereafter, only small groups or individual birds were reported, many of which were shot on sight.
Last survivors
The last recorded nest and egg in the wild were collected in 1895 near Minneapolis. The last wild individual in Louisiana was discovered among a flock of mourning doves in 1896, and subsequently shot. Many late sightings are thought to be false or due to confusion with mourning doves. The last fully authenticated record of a wild passenger pigeon was near Oakford, Illinois, on March 12, 1901, when a male bird was killed, stuffed, and placed in Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, where it remains today. This was not discovered until 2014, when writer Joel Greenberg found out the date of the bird's shooting while doing research for his book A Feathered River Across the Sky. Greenberg also pointed out a record of a male shot near Laurel, Indiana, on April 3, 1902, that was stuffed but later destroyed.
For many years, the last confirmed wild passenger pigeon was thought to have been shot near Sargents, Pike County, Ohio, on March 24, 1900, when a female bird was killed by a boy named Press Clay Southworth with a BB gun. The boy did not recognize the bird as a passenger pigeon, but his parents identified it, and sent it to a taxidermist. The specimen, nicknamed "Buttons" due to the buttons used instead of glass eyes, was donated to the Ohio Historical Society by the family in 1915. The reliability of accounts after the Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana birds are in question. Ornithologist Alexander Wetmore claimed that he saw a pair flying near Independence, Kansas, in April 1905. On May 18, 1907, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt claimed to have seen a "flock of about a dozen two or three times on the wing" while on retreat at his cabin in Pine Knot, Virginia, and that they lit on a dead tree "in such a characteristically pigeon-like attitude"; this sighting was corroborated by a local gentleman whom he had "rambled around with in the woods a good deal" and whom he found to be "a singularly close observer." In 1910, the American Ornithologists' Union offered a reward of $3,000 for discovering a nest— .
Most captive passenger pigeons were kept for exploitative purposes, but some were housed in zoos and aviaries. Audubon alone claimed to have brought 350 birds to England in 1830, distributing them among various noblemen, and the species is also known to have been kept at London Zoo. Being common birds, these attracted little interest, until the species became rare in the 1890s. By the turn of the 20th century, the last known captive passenger pigeons were divided in three groups; one in Milwaukee, one in Chicago, and one in Cincinnati. There are claims of a few further individuals having been kept in various places, but these accounts are not considered reliable today. The Milwaukee group was kept by David Whittaker, who began his collection in 1888, and possessed fifteen birds some years later, all descended from a single pair.
The Chicago group was kept by Charles Otis Whitman, whose collection began with passenger pigeons bought from Whittaker beginning in 1896. He had an interest in studying pigeons, and kept his passenger pigeons with other pigeon species. Whitman brought his pigeons with him from Chicago to Massachusetts by railcar each summer. By 1897, Whitman had bought all of Whittaker's birds, and upon reaching a maximum of 19 individuals, he gave seven back to Whittaker in 1898. Around this time, a series of photographs were taken of these birds; 24 of the photos survive. Some of these images have been reproduced in various media, copies of which are now kept at the Wisconsin Historical Society. It is unclear exactly where, when, and by whom these photos were taken, but some appear to have been taken in Chicago in 1896, others in Massachusetts in 1898, the latter by a J. G. Hubbard. By 1902, Whitman owned sixteen birds. Many eggs were laid by his pigeons, but few hatched, and many hatchlings died. A newspaper inquiry was published that requested "fresh blood" to the flock which had now ceased breeding. By 1907, he was down to two female passenger pigeons that died that winter, and was left with two infertile male hybrids, whose subsequent fate is unknown. By this time, only four (all males) of the birds Whitman returned to Whittaker were alive, and these died between November 1908 and February 1909.
The Cincinnati Zoo, one of the oldest zoos in the United States, kept passenger pigeons from its beginning in 1875. The zoo kept more than twenty individuals, in a ten-by-twelve-foot cage. Passenger pigeons do not appear to have been kept at the zoo due to their rarity, but to enable guests to have a closer look at a native species. Recognizing the decline of the wild populations, Whitman and the Cincinnati Zoo consistently strove to breed the surviving birds, including attempts at making a rock dove foster passenger pigeon eggs. In 1902, Whitman gave a female passenger pigeon to the zoo; this was possibly the individual later known as Martha, which would become the last living member of the species. Other sources argue that Martha was hatched at the Cincinnati Zoo, lived there for 25 years, and was the descendant of three pairs of passenger pigeons purchased by the zoo in 1877. It is thought this individual was named Martha because her last cage mate was named George, thereby honoring George Washington and his wife Martha, though it has also been claimed she was named after the mother of a zookeeper's friends.
In 1909, Martha and her two male companions at the Cincinnati Zoo became the only known surviving passenger pigeons. One of these males died around April that year, followed by George, the remaining male, on July 10, 1910. It is unknown whether the remains of George were preserved. Martha soon became a celebrity due to her status as an endling, and offers of a $1,000 reward for finding a mate for her brought even more visitors to see her. During her last four years in solitude (her cage was ), Martha became steadily slower and more immobile; visitors would throw sand at her to make her move, and her cage was roped off in response. Martha died of old age on September 1, 1914, and was found lifeless on the floor of her cage. It was claimed that she died at 1 p.m., but other sources suggest she died some hours later. Depending on the source, Martha was between 17 and 29 years old at the time of her death, although 29 is the generally accepted figure. At the time, it was suggested that Martha might have died from an apoplectic stroke, as she had suffered one a few weeks before dying. Her body was frozen into a block of ice and sent to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, where it was skinned, dissected, photographed, and mounted. As she was molting when she died, she proved difficult to stuff, and previously shed feathers were added to the skin. Martha was on display for many years, but after a period in the museum vaults, she was put back on display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in 2015. A memorial statue of Martha stands on the grounds of the Cincinnati Zoo, in front of the "Passenger Pigeon Memorial Hut", formerly the aviary wherein Martha lived, now a National Historic Landmark. Incidentally, the last specimen of the extinct Carolina parakeet, named "Incus," died in Martha's cage in 1918; the stuffed remains of that bird are exhibited in the "Memorial Hut".
Extinction causes
The main reasons for the extinction of the passenger pigeon were the massive scale of hunting, the rapid loss of habitat, and the extremely social lifestyle of the bird, which made it highly vulnerable to the former factors. Deforestation was driven by the need to free land for agriculture and expanding towns, but also due to the demand for lumber and fuel. About 728,000 km2 (180 million acres) were cleared for farming between 1850 and 1910. Though there are still large woodland areas in eastern North America, which support a variety of wildlife, it was not enough to support the vast number of passenger pigeons needed to sustain the population. In contrast, very small populations of nearly extinct birds, such as the kākāpō (Strigops habroptilus) and the takahē (Porphyrio hochstetteri), have been enough to keep those species extant to the present. The combined effects of intense hunting and deforestation has been referred to as a "Blitzkrieg" against the passenger pigeon, and it has been labeled one of the greatest and most senseless human-induced extinctions in history. As the flocks dwindled in size, the passenger pigeon population decreased below the threshold necessary to propagate the species, an example of the Allee effect.
The 2014 genetic study that found natural fluctuations in population numbers prior to human arrival also concluded that the species routinely recovered from lows in the population, and suggested that one of these lows may have coincided with the intensified hunting by humans in the 1800s, a combination which would have led to the rapid extinction of the species. A similar scenario may also explain the rapid extinction of the Rocky Mountain locust (Melanoplus spretus) during the same period. It has also been suggested that after the population was thinned out, it would be harder for few or solitary birds to locate suitable feeding areas. In addition to the birds killed or driven away by hunting during breeding seasons, many nestlings were also orphaned before being able to fend for themselves. Other, less convincing contributing factors have been suggested at times, including mass drownings, Newcastle disease, and migrations to areas outside their original range.
The extinction of the passenger pigeon aroused public interest in the conservation movement, and resulted in new laws and practices which prevented many other species from becoming extinct. The rapid decline of the passenger pigeon has influenced later assessment methods of the extinction risk of endangered animal populations. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has used the passenger pigeon as an example in cases where a species was declared "at risk" for extinction even though population numbers are high.
Naturalist Aldo Leopold paid tribute to the vanished species in a monument dedication held by the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology at Wyalusing State Park, Wisconsin, which had been one of the species' social roost sites. Speaking on May 11, 1947, Leopold remarked:
Potential resurrection of the species
Today, at least 1,532 passenger pigeon skins (along with 16 skeletons) are in existence, spread across many institutions all over the world. It has been suggested that the passenger pigeon should be revived when available technology allows it (a concept which has been termed "de-extinction"), using genetic material from such specimens. In 2003, the Pyrenean ibex (Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica, a subspecies of the Spanish ibex) was the first extinct animal to be cloned back to life; the clone lived for only seven minutes before dying of lung defects. A hindrance to cloning the passenger pigeon is the fact that the DNA of museum specimens has been contaminated and fragmented, due to exposure to heat and oxygen. American geneticist George M. Church has proposed that the passenger pigeon genome can be reconstructed by piecing together DNA fragments from different specimens. The next step would be to splice these genes into the stem cells of rock pigeons (or band-tailed pigeons), which would then be transformed into egg and sperm cells, and placed into the eggs of rock pigeons, resulting in rock pigeons bearing passenger pigeon sperm and eggs. The offspring of these would have passenger pigeon traits, and would be further bred to favor unique features of the extinct species. The idea is currently being pursued by the American non-profit organization Revive & Restore.
The general idea of re-creating extinct species has been criticized, since the large funds needed could be spent on conserving currently threatened species and habitats, and because conservation efforts might be viewed as less urgent. In the case of the passenger pigeon, since it was very social, it is unlikely that enough birds could be created for revival to be successful, and it is unclear whether there is enough appropriate habitat left for its reintroduction. Furthermore, the parent pigeons that would raise the cloned passenger pigeons would belong to a different species, with a different way of rearing young.
Bibliography
Notes
References
External links
Project Passenger Pigeon: Lessons from the Past for a Sustainable Future
The Demise of the Passenger Pigeon (as broadcast on National Public Radio's Day to Day)
360 Degree View of Martha, the Last Passenger Pigeon (Smithsonian Institution)
passenger pigeon
Extinct animals of Canada
Pleistocene first appearances
Native birds of the Eastern United States
Extinct birds of North America
Extinct animals of the United States
Species made extinct by human activities
Bird extinctions since 1500
Game birds
passenger pigeon
1914 in the environment
passenger pigeon
Articles containing video clips
Species endangered by deforestation
Species endangered by use as food |
23929 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHP-Nuke | PHP-Nuke | PHP-Nuke is a web-based automated news publishing and content management system based on PHP and MySQL originally written by Francisco Burzi. The system is controlled using a web-based user interface. PHP-Nuke was originally a fork of the Thatware news portal system by David Norman.
PHP-Nuke was originally released under the GNU General Public License as free software. Versions after 7.5 required a license fee; from version 8.3 it became free again. This is permitted under the GPL (providing the source code is included), and the purchaser of the software has the right to freely distribute the source code of the product. Burzi no longer owns the PHP-Nuke site.
As of version 5.6, the display of a copyright message on webpages is required in accordance with the GPL section 2(c).
PHP-Nuke requires a web server which supports the PHP extension, as well as an SQL database.
Features
PHP-Nuke is a content management system allowing webmasters to create community-based portals (websites), allowing users and editors to post news items (user-submitted news items are selected by editors) or other types of articles. Registered users can then comment on these articles.
Modules can be added to the PHP-Nuke system allowing additional features such as an Internet forum, Calendar, News Feed, FAQs, Private Messaging and others. The site is maintained through an administration interface.
PHP-Nuke includes the following standard modules:
Advertising—Manages ads on the page layout (theme). Supports images/links, JavaScript/HTML, and Flash
Avantgo—Provides mobile versions of the last 10 news articles
Content—Manages the main content "pages"
Downloads—Manages file downloads. There are no uploads—it stores links to files on other servers
Encyclopedia—Manages phrases/words and definitions
FAQ—Manages Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Feedback—Communicate to the webmaster. It is an online form, but provides feedback via email.
Forums—Manages discussion forums for the site. It is based on bb2nuke, which is a PHP-Nuke port of the popular open-source phpBB discussion board.
Journal—Maintain public and/or private notes
Members List—Displays site members
News—Manages news stories, including future-dated news to be released at a specific date and time. Each article can be assigned to a single category.
Private Messages—Allows members to send private messages to others on the site. Members can prevent messages from other members.
Recommend Us—Send an email message recommending the site to others.
Search—Allows users to search your site.
Statistics—Displays summary and detailed site statistics, including page views.
Stories (News) Archives—Provides access to older news articles.
Submit News—Allow visitors to submit news. Email notification is sent, but the submission is stored in the administrator control panel. Administrator can delete, edit, and/or post the article without re-keying.
Surveys (Polls)—Create visitor surveys
Top—Displays the most-visited articles, downloads, etc.
Topics—Displays news by topic. The administrator defines the topics and assigns topics to content.
Web Links—Manages a hierarchical directory of links to selected websites
Your Account—Manages members "profile" information, including their preferred theme, the number of news articles to display on their home page, etc.
PHP-Nuke supports many languages and its look and feel can be customized using the Themes system, but major changes requires knowledge of PHP, HTML and CSS.
Issues
Several security holes have been discovered in PHP-Nuke, including SQL injection via unchecked PHP code. PHP-Nuke may have issues with some search engine indexes. PHP-Nuke does not use simple URLs or unique titles for pages.
License
PHP-Nuke is distributed for free and licensed under the GNU/GPL license; however, current versions must be purchased and can then be distributed for free.
Questionable website ownership change
The PHP-Nuke website is now owned by Bibado Investments S.L. which is also a distributor of unwanted programs (adware).
Notes
Further reading
305 pages.
External links
Repository of Php Nuke
Content management systems
Free content management systems
Free software programmed in PHP
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23931 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace | Palace | A palace is a large residence, often serving as a royal residence or the home for a head of state or another high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which housed the Imperial residences.
Most European languages have a version of the term (palats, palais, palazzo, palacio, etc.), and many use it to describe a broader range of buildings than English. In many parts of Europe, the equivalent term is also applied to large private houses in cities, especially of the aristocracy, for example, the Italian palazzo; often, the term for a large country house is different. Many historic palaces such as parliaments, museums, hotels, or office buildings are now put to other uses. The word is also sometimes used to describe an elaborate building used for public entertainment or exhibitions such as a movie palace.
A palace is typically distinguished from a castle in that the latter is fortified or has the style of a fortification, whereas a palace does not.
Etymology
The word palace comes from Old French palais (imperial residence), from Latin Palātium, the name of one of the seven hills of Rome. The original "palaces" on the Palatine Hill was the seat of the imperial power. At the same time, the "capitol" on the Capitoline Hill was the religious nucleus of Rome. Long after the city grew to the seven hills, the Palatine remained a desirable residential area. Emperor Caesar Augustus lived there in a purposely modest house only set apart from his neighbours by the two laurel trees planted to flank the front door as a sign of triumph granted by the Senate. His descendants, especially Nero with his "Domus Aurea" (the Golden House), enlarged the building and its grounds over and over until it took up the hilltop. The word Palātium came to mean the residence of the emperor rather than the neighbourhood on top of the hill.
Palace meaning "government," can be recognized in a remark of Paul the Deacon, writing c. AD 790 and describing events of the 660s: "When Grimuald set out for Beneventum, he entrusted his palace to Lupus" (Historia Langobardorum, V.xvii). At the same time, Charlemagne was consciously reviving the Roman expression in his "palace" at Aachen, of which only his chapel remains. In the 9th century, the "palace" indicated the government's housing too, and Charlemagne constantly traveled, building fourteen. In the early Middle Ages, the palas was usually that part of an imperial palace (or Kaiserpfalz) that housed the Great Hall, where affairs of state were conducted; continued to be used as the seat of government in some German cities. In the Holy Roman Empire, the powerful independent Electors came to be housed in palaces (Paläste). This has been used as evidence that power was widely distributed in the Empire; as in more centralized monarchies, only the monarch's residence would be a palace.
In modern times, archaeologists and historians have applied the term to large structures that housed combined rulers, courts, and bureaucracy in "palace cultures." In informal usage, the term "palace" can be extended to a grand residence.
Ancient palaces
Early ancient palaces include the Assyrian palaces at Nimrud and Nineveh and the Persian palaces at Persepolis and Susa. The Minoans built complexes referred to in modern times as Minoan palaces, though they do not appear to have functioned as royal residences.
The best examples of the Bronze Age Greece palace are seen in the excavations at Mycenae, Tiryns and Pylos. The fact that these were administrative centers is shown by the records found there. They were ranged around a group of courtyards, each opening upon several rooms of different dimensions, such as storerooms and workshops, as well as reception halls and living quarters., each opening upon several rooms of different dimensions, such as storerooms and workshops, reception halls, The heart of the palace was the megaron. This was the throne room, laid around a circular hearth surrounded by four columns, the throne generally found on the right-hand side upon entering the room. The staircases in the palace of Pylos indicate palaces had two stories. Located on the top floor were the private quarters of the royal family and some storerooms. These palaces have yielded a wealth of artifacts and fragmentary frescoes.
The Palace of Domitian in Rome is the overall name given to the complex of palaces that were the primary residence in Rome of the Roman emperors from the late 1st century to the 5th. It is all ruined, but there are significant survivals of walls, and some sculptures and decorative elements have been excavated. The Domus Aurea was a different palace, begun by Nero, where excavations from the Renaissance onwards have discovered remarkably well-preserved paintings in levels now below ground.
Diocletian's Palace in Split, Croatia was ready for occupation in 305 AD and is much the most significant ancient survival, having been turned in the Middle Ages into a fortified town; it still houses many people and businesses.
Palaces in East Asia, such as the imperial palaces of Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia, and large wooden structures in China's Forbidden City, consist of many low pavilions surrounded by vast, walled gardens in contrast to the single building palaces of Medieval Western Europe. Palaces were also built by post-classical African kingdoms such as the Ashanti Empire. Before its destruction during the Third Anglo-Ashanti War, the Ashanti royal palace at Kumasi, Ghana was described by English explorers Thomas Edward Bowdich and Winwood Reade as "an immense building of a variety of oblong courts and regular squares".
Medieval palaces
European palaces belonging to rulers were often large and grand. Still, very few have survived to represent anything like their original medieval condition, with many having been abandoned, burned down, demolished, or rebuilt. The Palais des Papes in Avignon, France, is probably the best prominent example, essentially a creation of 1252 to 1379, and little has changed since 1433, which marked the end of the Avignon Papacy and subsequent schisms. In England, the Tower of London and Windsor Castle both contain many medieval parts, alongside later buildings designed to fit in.
Very little of the medieval Louvre Palace, one of the most magnificent, has survived above ground, and the same can be said of the main palaces of the Byzantine Empire in Constantinople: the Great Palace of Constantinople, Boukoleon Palace, and Palace of Blachernae. An annex of the last, the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus has significant remains, now housing a museum. But parts of smaller palaces survive in several places in Europe.
Americas
Brazil
The Brazilian new capital, Brasília, hosts modern palaces, most designed by the city's architect Oscar Niemeyer. The Alvorada Palace is the official residence of Brazil's president. The Planalto Palace is the official workplace. The Jaburu Palace is the official residence of Brazil's vice-president. Also Rio de Janeiro, the former capital of the Portuguese Empire and the Empire of Brazil, houses numerous royal and imperial palaces as the Imperial Palace of São Cristóvão, former official residence of the Brazil's emperors, the Paço Imperial, its official workplace and the Guanabara Palace, former residence of Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil besides palaces of the nobility and aristocracy. The city of Petropolis, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, is mainly known for its palaces of the imperial period, such as the Petrópolis Palace and the Grão-Pará Palace.
Canada
In Canada, Government House is a title given to the official residences of the Canadian monarchy and various viceroys (the governor generals and the lieutenant governors). Though not universal, in most cases, the title is also the building's sole name; for example, the sovereign's and governor general's principal residence in Ottawa is known as Government House only in formal contexts, being more generally referred to as Rideau Hall. Government House is an inherited custom from the British Empire, where there were and are many government houses.
Rideau Hall is, since 1867, the official residence in Ottawa of both the Canadian monarch and his or her representative, the governor-general of Canada, and has been described as "Canada's house". It stands in Canada's capital on a estate at 1 Sussex Drive, with the main building consisting of approximately 175 rooms across , and 27 outbuildings around the grounds. While the equivalent structure in many countries has a prominent, central place in the national capital, Rideau Hall's site is relatively unobtrusive within Ottawa, giving it more of the character of a private home.
Along with Rideau Hall, the Citadelle of Quebec, also known as La Citadelle, is an active military installation and official residence of the Canadian monarch and the governor-general. It is located atop Cap Diamant, adjoining the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City, Quebec. The citadel is the oldest military building in Canada and forms part of the fortifications of Quebec City, which is one of only two cities in North America still surrounded by fortifications. The fortress is located within the historic district of Old Québec, designated a World Heritage Site in 1985.
In addition to the federal residences, most provinces maintain a place for the Canadian monarch and their provincial viceroys and lieutenant governors. There is no government house for the lieutenant governors of Ontario (repurposed in 1937 and demolished in 1961), Quebec (destroyed by fire in 1966), or Alberta (closed in 1938 and repurchased and repurposed in 1964).
Mexico
The capital of Mexico, Mexico City, is traditionally nicknamed the "City of Palaces"; a nickname usually attributed to Alexander von Humboldt after he visited the city in the late 18th century and early 19th century, but initially coined by Charles Latrobe, an English traveler who visited Mexico City in 1834 and "got the feeling of living a dream".
In Central Mexico, the Aztec emperors built many palaces in the capital of their empire, Tenochtitlan (modern-day Mexico City), some of which may still be seen. On observing the great city Hernán Cortés wrote, "There are, in all districts of this great city, many temples or palaces... They are all magnificent buildings. Amongst these temples is one, the principal one, whose great size and magnificence no human tongue could describe,... All around this wall are exquisite quarters with huge rooms and corridors. There are as many as forty towers, all of which are so high that in the case of the largest, there are fifty steps leading up to the main part of it, and the most important of these towers is higher than that of the cathedral of Seville..."
In the Yucatan, a well-preserved Mayan palace with a unique four-storey observation tower stands at the Palenque site, from where Pakal reigned over the city-state.
The National Palace, or Palacio Nacional, located in Mexico City's main square, the Plaza de la Constitución (El Zócalo), first built in 1563, is in the heart of the Mexican capital. In 1821, the palace was given its current name, and the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government were housed in the palace; the latter two branches would eventually reside elsewhere. During the Second Mexican Empire, its name was changed, for a time, to the Imperial Palace. The National Palace continues to be the official seat of the executive authority, though it is no longer the president's official residence.
Also in Mexico City is the Castillo de Chapultepec, or Chapultepec Castle, located in the middle of Chapultepec Park, which currently houses the Mexican National Museum of History. It is the only castle, or palace, in North America that was occupied by sovereigns – Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico, a member of the House of Habsburg and his consort, Empress Carlota of Mexico, daughter of Leopold I of Belgium. The palace features many objets d'art ranging from gifts of Napoleon III to paintings by Franz Xaver Winterhalter and Mexican painter Santiago Rebull.
United States
Palaces in the United States include the White House, the official residence of the president, and the official residences of many governors and Roman Catholic bishops. Some palaces of former heads of state or their representatives, such as English and Spanish royal governors and the Hawaiian royal family, still exist.
Examples include: ʻIolani Palace and Hānaiakamalama, the former homes of the Hawaiian monarchs in Honolulu; Hulihee Palace in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii; The Governor's Palace in Williamsburg, a modern reconstruction of the official residence of the royal governors of the Colony of Virginia; Tryon Palace in New Bern, a modern reconstruction of the historical colonial governors' palace of the Province of North Carolina; and the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, New Mexico as well as the Spanish Governor's Palace in San Antonio, Texas, which were residences of both Spanish and Mexican governors.
There are many private buildings or mansions in the United States, which, though not called "palaces", have the grandeur typical of a palace, and have been used as residences. Hearst Castle and the Biltmore Estate are examples.
Uruguay
The Palacio Legislativo (Legislative Palace) is the house of the Uruguayan Parliament.
Venezuela
The Palacio de Miraflores is the setting for the offices of the president of the country.
Africa
Ethiopia
Located in Addis Ababa, the Menelik Palace is a palatial compound that is currently serving as the residence of the prime minister of Ethiopia. The compound, while containing palaces and residences also contains a few churches, tombs and monasteries. Previously, it served as the seat of the emperors of Ethiopia. After a 2018 renovation, the compound opened to the public in 2019 as a part of Unity Park.
Nigeria
The Palace of the Olowo, ruler of the Yoruba Owo clan of Nigeria, is acknowledged to be the largest palace in all of Africa. It consists of more than 100 courtyards, each with a unique traditional usage.
In the Kano State of Nigeria, the Gidan Rumfa acts as the seat of the Emir of Kano since the late 15th century when it was constructed.
In Benin City, the capital of the Edo State, lies the current Royal Palace of the Oba of Benin. It currently houses the Oba of Benin, who is the traditional ruler of the Edo people, alongside some other royals. The current palace is a reconstruction by Eweka II after the original was destroyed in 1897 by the British.
Rwanda
Rwanda is host to three palaces, although one of them is currently repurposed. In Nyanza, the former royal capital of the Kingdom of Rwanda, are two existing palaces. The first, the traditional King's Palace, is constructed in the vernacular style and housed the traditional ruler of Rwanda, the Mwami. A second palace for the king exists in Nyanza, although it is constructed in the Art Deco style as opposed to the local construction style. A third palace, the Rwesero Palace, was originally constructed for Mutara III, but he died before its completion, and the building was converted into the Rwesero Art Museum.
Uganda
The Kabakas Palace belonged to the Kingdom of Buganda and is a known landmark of the present capital Kampala.
Asia
Afghanistan
Afghanistan's capital Kabul is well known for its sheer number of palaces. Many had been built in the 19th century but perhaps the most famous is the Darul Aman Palace. Many palaces were damaged by the civil war, including Darul Aman, but others have survived or have been rebuilt.
Armenia
Armenia has many palaces from its various historical periods. The Erebuni fortress in Yerevan has a grand royal palace constructed in 782 B.C. by King Argisthi. The palace at Erebuni is one of the earliest examples of an Urartian palace.
During the Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity), many palaces were constructed for the successive kings. Ruins of a royal palace can be found in the early Armenian capital of Yervandashat, which was built to serve as the seat of Orontid Armenian Kings by Orontes IV. During the period of the Artaxiad dynasty of Armenia, emperor king Tigranes the great constructed a grand persianate palace in the newly built city of Tigranocerta. The purpose of the Armenian Temple of Garni is still up for debate, however, certain scholars attest that following the Christianization of Armenia in the 4th century BC, the temple was converted into a summer palace for Khosrovidukht (sister of Tiridates III of Armenia) by the Arsacid dynasty of Armenia.
After the fall of the Arsacids, Armenia was ruled by a succession of aristocratic families who held the title Nakharar. One of these Nakharar princes, Grigor Mamikonian, built a palace in the citadel of Aruch near the Aruchavank cathedral; some walls of this palace and a unique Armenian throne made of tufa still survive today.
The medieval capital of the Bagratid kingdom of Armenia, Ani, also hosted many palaces. The first palace of Ani, constructed by the princely Armenian Kamsarakan dynasty in the seventh century, served as the most important structure of the city. Located in the main citadel, the Kamsarakan palace was used by the successive Bagratid kingdom as their headquarters. In addition, Ani hosted several other palaces such as the Merchant's(Tigran Honents) Palace, one of the best surviving examples of secular Armenian architecture of that time, the Seljuk palace, and the Manuchir Mosque, which is said by some historians to have been a residence of Bagratid kings before being converted to a mosque.
After the Bagratid state was conquered by the Byzantines and then the Seljuks, Armenia was once again liberated by the royal Zakarian family under Georgian Queen Tamar. This period of Zakarid Armenia brought forth many palaces as well, the most notable of which being Amberd Fortress and the 12th-century palace in Dashtadem Fortress. The Zakarids became vassals of the Mongols, however, following their collapse, a succession of nomadic Turkic empires came to rule the region.
During the various periods of Ottoman and Iranian occupation following the Timurid Empire, Armenia was governed by several local principalities known as Melikdoms. Each Melik had their own princely palace. The most notable of which is the Palace of the Dizak Melikdom constructed by Melik Yeganyan in Togh (1737). Other notable melik palaces are the Melik Ahnazar palace in Khnatsakh (16th century), the Melik Haykaz Palace in Melikashen (15th century), the Melik Kasu palace, the palace of the Melik-Barkhudaryans in Tegh (1783) and Halidzor Fortress (17th century), which served as a palace for the Melik Parsadanian family.
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan has a number of palaces which belong to different ages. For example, there are palaces from the BC era and from the 12th century, like the "Goyalp" Palace of Eldiguzids Empire Atabeg— located in Nakhchivan city and built in the 1130s.
Baku Khans' Palace is a complex of several houses that belonged to members of ruling family of the Baku Khanate in the 17th century. The palace complex was in ruins but has now been reconstructed as of 2018. Official Administration of State Historical-Architectural Reserve Icheri Sheher has opened the complex as a palace-museum.
The Palace of Happiness (Azerbaijani: Səadət Sarayı), currently also called Palace of Marriage Registrations and previously called Mukhtarov Palace, is a historic building in the center of Baku, Azerbaijan, built in Neo-Gothic style in the early 19th century.
Shahbulag Castle Palace (Azerbaijani: Şahbulaq qalası "Spring of the Shah") is an 18th-century fortress near Aghdam. After the death of Turkic ruler Nadir Shah, the territory that is today Azerbaijan split into several Caucasian khanates, one of which was the Karabakh Khanate founded by Panah Ali Khan. The first capital of the khanate was the Bayat Castle, built in 1748
Haji Gayib's Palace is an ancient fortress construction near a coastal side of Icheri Sheher. It is located in the Baku quarter of Icheri Sheher, opposite the Maiden Tower. The history of the palace dates back to the 15th century. The Intake portal of the bathhouse is rectangular shaped
The Palace of Shaki Khans (Azerbaijani: Şəki xanlarının sarayı) in Shaki, Azerbaijan, was a summer residence of Shaki Khans. It was built in 1797 by Muhammed Hasan Khan. Along with its pool and plane trees, the summer residence is the only remaining structure from the larger palatial complex inside the Sheki Khans' Fortress, which once included a winter palace, residences for the khan's family and servants' quarters. It features decorative tiles, fountains and several stained-glass windows. The exterior was decorated with dark blue, turquoise and ochre tiles in geometric patterns and the murals were coloured with tempera and were inspired by the works of Nizami Ganjavi.
These are located in various regions and capital of Azerbaijan – the palace of government:
Residence of Zagulba (510s) is the world's oldest presidential house and full-time residence of the president of Azerbaijan in Baku.
Bika Khanum Saray (1390–1394) Full-time residence of the president of Azerbaijan in Baku.
Bullur Palace (1740) residence of the president of Azerbaijan, and chairmen of the Supreme Majlis of Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic in Sharur District.
Asena Palace (1804) Full-time residence of the president of Azerbaijan in Baku.
Göy Saray (Blue) (1810s) Rest residence of the president of Azerbaijan in Baku
Palace of White Horse (1933) was the old rest palace for members of Political Bureau in Shamkir
Government House (1936) is a government building palace housing various state ministries of Azerbaijan
Administrational Palace (1970s)
Gulustan Palace (1973) Full-time and feast residence of the president of Azerbaijan in Baku.
Ghazan Khan Palace (2006) Residence of the president of Azerbaijan in Baku.
Vahdat Presidential Summer Palace (2007) in Shamakhi
Presidential Mountain Palace (2013) Rest residence of the president of Azerbaijan in Qabala
Brunei
Istana Nurul Iman is the world's largest residential palace and is the official residence of the sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, and the seat of the Brunei government. The palace is located on a leafy sprawl of hills on the banks of the Brunei River, a few kilometres south of Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei's capital.
Bangladesh
Most of the palaces in Bangladesh were built by the Zamindars and Nawabs of British Bengal. Many magnificent palaces can be found across the country. Among the notable palaces are Ahsan Manzil (also known as Pink Palace), built by the Nawabs of Dhaka; Tajhat Palace of Rangpur; Natore Palace; Puthia Rajbari of Rajshahi; Rose Garden Palace of Old Dhaka; Baliati Palace of Manikganj; Shashi Lodge of Mymensingh; and Bangabhaban (Presidential Palace).
China
A famed example of Chinese palaces is the Forbidden City, the imperial palace of the Chinese Empire from the Ming dynasty (since the Yongle Emperor) to the end of the Qing dynasty. Located in Beijing, it is the largest palace complex currently in existence in the world. The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture. Another example is the Summer Palace located in the northern suburb of Beijing and the Mukden Palace in Shenyang. The Presidential Palace in Nanjing and Imperial Palace of Manchukuo in Changchun display European architectural influences.
The Weiyang Palace built during the Han dynasty was the largest palace complex ever built in the world, but it was destroyed during the Tang dynasty.
Chinese palaces are designed in regular square grids and arranged in a formal layout consisting of main buildings and a number of pavilions enclosed within walls. Unlike massive single-structured European palaces or castles, Chinese palaces are a multitude of complexes containing several larger and smaller structures with parks and courtyards.
India
India is home to many palaces and vast empires. Its history is full of numerous dynasties that have ruled over various parts of the country. While most monuments of the ancient period have been destroyed or lie in ruins, some medieval buildings have been maintained or restored to good condition. Several medieval forts and palaces still stand all over India. These are examples of the achievements of the architects and engineers of that age. The palaces of India offer an insight into the life of the royalty of the country. While some royal palaces have been maintained as museums or hotels over the last decades, some are still homes for the members of the erstwhile royal families. These forts and palaces are the largest illustrations and legacy of the princely states of India. They feature floats of flowers in grand fountains, shimmering blue water of magnificent baths and private pools, doric pillars, ornamental brackets, decorative staircases, and light streaming in through large windows. India possesses some of the most fascinating forts and palaces, a true royal retreat. It is not just a romantic longing for a royal experience, but also the search for the truly authentic Indian experience that brings thousands of heritage lovers to India's palaces.
Rajasthan has many forts and palaces that are major tourist destinations in North India. (See List of palaces in Rajasthan.) The Rajputs (collective term for the rulers of the region) were known as brave soldiers who preferred to die than be taken prisoners. They were also great connoisseurs of art and brilliant builders. The most famous forts and palaces in Rajasthan are located in Chittor, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Udaipur, Saphieree, Amber and Nahargarh. Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces manages some of the most iconic palaces of the region, Lake Palace, Udaipur; Umaid Bhawan Palace, Jodhpur; Fort Madhogarh, Jaipur and Rambagh Palace, Jaipur; and offer authentic royal retreats to the guests in all its grandeur, splendour and magnificence.
Kolkata is known as the City of Palaces within the Indian context, referring to the numerous grand residential buildings that dotted the city from the end of the 18th century onwards, as it grew to become one of the largest cities of the British Raj.
Karnataka is famous for the Amba Vilas Palace (commonly known as Mysore Palace) in Mysuru / Mysore, which was the palace of the Wodeyar kings. It was said to have been built of wood until it had to be rebuilt after a fire that burned down the entire palace complex.
Indonesia
In Indonesia, palaces are known as istana (Malay and Indonesian), or kraton (Javanese and Sundanese). In Bali the royal palace compound is called puri. The palaces reflect the long history and diverse culture of the Indonesian archipelago.
Although Indonesia is now a republic, some of its parts and provinces still retain and preserve their traditional royal heritage, for example the Sultanate of Yogyakarta, Surakarta, Mangkunegaran princedom, Kasepuhan palace in Cirebon, and Kutai in East Kalimantan. Remnants of palaces and royal houses still can be found in Banten, Medan, Ternate, Bima, Bali and Sumenep. The layout of traditional Balinese and Javanese kratons is similar to the Chinese concept of walled compounds of royal pavilions, squares and gardens. Most of these kratons took the form of wooden pavilions called pendopo, while the istana of Sumatra usually consist of a single large structure. Typical Minangkabau vernacular architecture can be found in Pagaruyung Palace, West Sumatra. An example of Malay palace is Istana Maimun in Medan.
During the VOC and colonial era of the Dutch East Indies, the colonial government built several European stately palaces as the residence of the governor-general. Most of these European palaces have now become the state palace of the Republic of Indonesia. Indonesian state palaces are the neoclassic Merdeka Palace and Bogor Palace.
Iran
The Niavarān Palace Complex is a historical complex situated in the northern part of Tehran, Iran. It consists of several buildings and a museum. The Sahebqraniyeh Palace, from the time of Naser al-Din Shah of the Qajar dynasty, is also inside this complex. The main Niavaran Palace, completed in 1968, was the primary residence of the last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and the imperial family, until the Iranian Revolution. The main palace was designed by the Iranian architect Mohsen Foroughi.
Israel/Palestine
The pre-Israelite Canaanite site of Tel Kabri, destroyed in c. 1600 BCE, was built around a palace core. A palace culture of ancient Israel and Judah can be inferred from the Hebrew Bible, and the Iron Age Omride palace at Samaria has been excavated by archaeologists; no palace of David has been securely identified, and the historicity of Solomon is yet to be proven.
From the Late Hellenistic or Hasmonean and the Early Roman or Herodian period, there are many historical palaces like the two at Masada. Palaces of Herod the Great and his line of client kings and rulers have been further identified at several sites, including Herod's royal palace at Jerusalem, the Hasmonean and Herodian winter palaces at Jericho, and Herod's fortified palace and second administrative seat at Herodium in the Judean desert. Herod's palace at Caesarea Maritima preserved its palatial function as the official residence of the Roman procurators and governors of In Judaea.
There are other much later palaces in the Old City of Jerusalem, such as the Mamluk Lady Tunshuk Palace.
There are a number of magnificent 19th-century buildings that are not considered "palaces", but have the grandeur of a typical palace, such as the Yehudayoff-Hefetz residence, and the Sergei Courtyard in Jerusalem.
Japan
Of the palaces in Japan, many are located in Tokyo, such as the Tokyo Imperial Palace, which houses Japan's royal family. The imperial palace was built on the site of Edo Castle. Other Japanese palaces are located in Kyoto, the former capital of Japan. Most Japanese palaces are built in a "castle" style formation, as a large pagoda. This helps reinforce the palace from earthquakes.
Korea
Korea has used many palaces since ancient times, although many have been destroyed. Palaces were built within, but not limited to Seoul, Kaeseong, Pyeongyang, Gyeongju, and Buyeo, as well as in various cities located outside of modern Korea. Today, only Joseon dynasty palaces are still intact, even then, very downsized due to years of colonialism, war, and neglect. The most emblematic of these surviving palaces is the Gyeongbokgung, the primary palace of the Joseon Dynasty. Other examples include the Changdeokgung, Changgyeonggung, Deoksugung, and Gyeonghuigung. All of these are from the Joseon dynasty and survive to this day, though many had to be reconstructed during the recent decades following their destruction during the colonial period. Other famous examples include the Manwoldae, the palace of the Goryeo dynasty located in Kaeseong, the Banwolseong, the palace of Silla located in Gyeongju, and Anhak Palace, the palace of Goguryeo located in Pyeongyang.
Lebanon
Palaces have existed in Lebanon since the time of the Phoenicians. Almost all of the palaces of ancient Phoenicia have been destroyed.
During the Renaissance palaces were built in Lebanon, especially in the Chouf region of Mount Lebanon. Lebanese palaces are very diverse architecturally, being influenced by Arabs, Italians, French, Persians, Turkish and East Asians. This is seen in the Beiteddine Palace, which is a mixture of traditional Lebanese, Italian, Arabic and Persian architecture.
Today in Lebanon there are at least ten buildings that can be classified as palaces, including the Beiteddine Palace, Grand Serail (one of the largest in the world), Baabda Palace, Sursock Museum, and Fakhreddine Palace.
Malaysia
Malaysia, a constituent of nine states, is ruled by hereditary sultans. Every five years, one sultan is elected as Yang di-Pertuan Agong (Supreme King), the head of state of Malaysia. The Yang di-Pertuan Agong has a palace, referred to as an istana. Each of the other sultans has their own istana, located in their state. Throughout the country they are sometimes called Istana Hinggap.
The Yang di-Pertuan Agong's official residences are the Istana Negara, Jalan Duta; the Royal Museum; and Istana Melawati, a palace and retreat, located in Putrajaya. Some of the other official palaces are the Istana Besar, Istana Anak Bukit, Istana Pekan, Istana Maziah, Istana Alam Shah, Istana Balai Besar, Istana Besar Seri Menanti, Istana Iskandariah and Istana Arau. Several appointed governors, or Yang di-Pertua Negeri, are also assigned to have their official seat and residence such as The Astana, Istana Negeri Sabah and Seri Mutiara.
Nepal
Singha Durbar (literally, Lion Palace) in Kathmandu is the official seat of government of Nepal.
Narayanhiti Palace Museum was a residence and principal workplace of the reigning monarch of the Kingdom of Nepal. It was built by King Mahendra in 1961 under the design of Californian architect Benjamin Polk. After the 2006 revolution that overthrew the monarchy, this royal palace was turned into a public museum.
Older palaces include the Durbar Squares, which are enlisted as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. They are located in Kathmandu Valley in districts of Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur. In Kathmandu is Kathmandu Durbar Square, Bhaktapur Durbar Square in Bhaktapur, Patan Durbar Square in Lalitpur.
Kathmandu Durbar Square (Basantapur Darbar Kshetra) in front of the old royal palace of the former Kathmandu Kingdom is one of three durbar (royal palace) squares in the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal, all of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Several buildings in the Square collapsed due to a major earthquake on 25 April 2015. Durbar Square was surrounded with spectacular architecture and vividly showcases the skills of the Newar artists and craftsmen over several centuries. The Royal Palace was originally at Dattaraya square and was later moved to Durbar square.
The Kathmandu Durbar Square held the palaces of the Malla and Shah kings who ruled over the city. Along with these palaces, the square surrounds quadrangles, revealing courtyards and temples. It is known as Hanuman Dhoka Durbar Square, a name derived from a statue of Hanuman, the monkey devotee of Lord Ram, at the entrance of the palace.
Bhaktapur Durbar Square is the plaza in front of the royal palace of the old Bhaktapur Kingdom. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Bhaktapur Durbar Square is located in the current town of Bhaktapur, also known as Bhadgaon, which lies 13 km east of Kathmandu. While the complex consists of at least four distinct squares (Durbar Square, Taumadhi Square, Dattatreya Square and Pottery Square), the whole area is informally known as the Bhakapur Durbar Square and is a highly visited site in the Kathmandu Valley. This palace consists of 55 windows so it is also known as '55 Windowed Palace'.
Patan Durbar Square is situated at the centre of the city of Lalitpur in Nepal. It is also one of the three durbar squares in the Kathmandu Valley, all of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. One of its attraction is the ancient royal palace where the Malla kings of Lalitpur resided.
The Durbar Square is a marvel of Newa architecture. The floor of the square is tiled with red bricks. There are many temples and idols in the area. The main temples are aligned opposite of the western face of the palace. The entrance of the temples faces east, towards the palace. There is also a bell situated in the alignment beside the main temples. The Square also holds old Newari residential houses. There are various other temples and structures in and around Patan Durbar Square built by the Newa People.
Philippines
In pre-Hispanic Philippines, Filipinos built large wooden residences for the ancient nobility and royalty (such as lakans, wangs, rajahs and datus) called torogan or bahay lakan ("king's house"). The windows of the torogan are slits and richly framed in wood panels with okir designs located in front of the house. The communal kitchen is half a meter lower than the main house and is both used for cooking and eating. The distinct high gable roof of the torogan, thin at the apex and gracefully flaring out to the eaves, sits on a huge structures enclosed by slabs of timber and lifted more than two meters above the ground by a huge trunk of a tree that was set on a rock. The end floor beams lengthen as panolongs the seemed to lift up the whole house. The torogan is suffused with decorations. There were diongal at the apex of the roof, also an intricately carved tinai a walai, okir designs in the floor, on windows and on panolongs.
The people in the southern part of Philippines built the same wooden palaces such as the langgal of the Tausug. In the Sultanate of Sulu, a palace was built for the sultans and was named Astana Darul Jambangan (white adobe), which was destroyed by a typhoon in 1912. A replica of the royal palace has been rebuilt as an attraction in Mt. Bayug Eco-Cultural Park in the town of Talipao, Sulu.
During the Spanish era, the government of the Spanish East Indies built a succession of palaces in and around Manila for high colonial officials and religious authorities. The most famous of these is the 18th-century Malacañang Palace, which originally housed Spanish and American governors-general and, since the Commonwealth, the president of the Philippines.
Former president and strongman Ferdinand Marcos had Coconut Palace constructed in 1978 to showcase the country's varied uses for the coconut. It serves as the home and office of the vice-president. In 2004, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo converted the former Aduana (customs house) in Cebu City into a small palace, called Malacañang sa Sugbo.
Thailand
Turkey
The enormous Topkapı Palace complex in Istanbul was begun in 1459, and with its many additions survived almost completely intact until it was turned into a museum in 1923. It was the centre of government as well as the residence of the Ottoman Caliphs. It combined aspects of the typical Asian form of a group of pavilions set in a large walled garden (part is now Gülhane Park) with the European style of a single massive building with courtyards. Visitors passed through a series of courtyards, originally lined with hundreds of soldiers along the arcades, with only the most important or favoured reaching the Fourth Courtyard and the imperial residential quarters.
By the 19th century Topkapı was largely abandoned as a residence in favour of the new Dolmabahçe Palace and Yıldız Palace, as well as smaller Ottoman palaces in Istanbul, some summer retreats and the like. These were in essentially European architectural styles.
Vietnam
Europe
Belgium
The city of Bruges:
The Gruuthusemuseum is a museum of applied arts in Bruges, located in the medieval Gruuthuse, the Palace of Louis de Gruuthuse. The collection ranges from the 15th to the 19th century.
Presumably in the 13th century, a rich family from Bruges received the monopoly to levy taxes on gruit, and built a storage for it. The building was changed in the early fifteenth century by Jan IV van der Aa to a luxury house for his family, which subsequently changes its name to "Van Gruuthuse" ("From the Gruit house"). His son Louis de Gruuthuse adds a second wing to the house, and in 1472 a chapel. This connects the house to the adjacent Church of Our Lady, Bruges.
The city of Mechelen houses several palaces:
"Hof van Kamerijk" or "Palace of Margaret of York", 15th-century building. Also called "Keizershof" (English; literally "Emperor's Court") because several royal children resided here and received education at this court, including Charles V (Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria, King of Spain and Duke of Burgundy)
"Hof van Savoye" or "Palace of Margaret of Austria", early 16th-century building and one of the first Renaissance buildings in northern Europe.
The "Hof van Busleyden", early 16th-century Renaissance palace of Hieronymus van Busleyden; The "Archbishop 's palace", 18th-century building and the official seat of the Archbishop of the Roman Catholic province Belgium; The "Hof van Palermo", 15th-century palace of Jan I Carondelet; The "Hof van Hoogstraten", 16th-century palace of Antoon I van Lalaing; The "Hof van Nassau", 15th-century building which served as temporary court of Margaret of York when she arrived in Mechelen after her marriage with Charles the Bold; The "Hof van Cortenbach", 16th-century building; The "Hof van Coloma", 18th-century palace of Jean Ernest Coloma, Baron of St-Pieters Leeuw and member of the Coloma family
The city of Brussels has also several remaining and notable palaces: "The Royal Palace of Brussels", the official palace of the King and Queen of the Belgians, The Egmont palace, The Palace of Prince Charles Alexander Emanuel of Lorraine and Hotel Errera.
France
In France there has been a clear distinction between a château and a palais. The palace has always been urban, like the Palais de la Cité in Paris, which was the royal palace of France and is now the supreme court of justice of France, or the palace of the Popes at Avignon.
The château, by contrast, has always been in rural settings, supported by its demesne, even when it was no longer actually fortified. Speakers of English think of the "Palace of Versailles" because it was the residence of the king of France, and the king was the source of power, though the building has always remained the Château de Versailles for the French, and the seat of government under the Ancien Régime remained the Palais du Louvre. The Louvre had begun as a fortified Château du Louvre on the edge of Paris, but as the seat of government and shorn of its fortified architecture and then completely surrounded by the city, it developed into the Palais du Louvre.
The hôtel particulier remains the term for an urban residence sited entre cour et jardin, behind a forecourt and opening onto a garden; when fronting directly on streets, they are maisons, "houses". Bishops always had a palais in the town of their diocese, an hôtel in other towns, though they might possess chateaux.
The usage is essentially the same in Italy, Spain and Portugal, as well as the former Austrian Empire. In Vienna, Austria, all large mansions belonging to aristocratic or very wealthy families were traditionally called palais, but this never applied to imperial palaces themselves which were called Burg within the city and Schloss when outside it. In Germany, the wider term was a relatively recent importation and was used rather more restrictively.
Germany
The German term for "palace" is Palast, which is used especially for large palatial complexes and gardens. Large country houses are typically called schloss (chateaux or castle in English).
Germany offers a variety of more than 25,000 castles and palaces and thousands of manor houses. The country is known for its fairy tale-like scenery palatial buildings, such as Sanssouci, Linderhof Palace, Herrenchiemsee, Schwetzingen, Nordkirchen and Schwerin Palace. Many of these buildings have a history of over 1000 years, ranging from fortifications to royal residences. Many German castles after the Middle Ages were mainly built as royal or ducal palaces rather than as a fortified building.
Hungary
In Hungary distinction is made between urban and rural residencies. Only the urban residencies of the higher aristocracy were called palota (palace); rural stately homes were named kastély (mansion), or in case of smaller country houses, kúria. Noble landowner families, like the House of Esterházy, often had several mansions in the countryside and palaces in towns. The office of the president of the Republic of Hungary, Sándor Palace, was the residence of the Sándor family in the 19th century. Royal residencies were also called palaces, for example, the Early Renaissance summer palace of King Matthias Corvinus in Visegrád or Buda Castle which was called Királyi-palota (Royal Palace). In the second half of the 19th century, splendid new townhouses of the bourgeoisie on Andrássy út and elsewhere in Budapest were named palaces. A typical example is the Art Nouveau Gresham Palace, which was built by an insurance company. Grand public buildings and even blocks of flats of higher standard were regularly called palaces (the contemporary term of the latter were bérpalota meaning rent palace). For contemporary buildings the term is seldom used with the notable exemption of the Palace of Arts.
Ireland
In Ireland, the term "palace" () is rarely used. The main royal residence in Ireland, Dublin Castle, was never called a palace, nor is Hillsborough Castle, the main royal residence of Northern Ireland.
The word "palace" is largely restricted to large official dwellings for Church of Ireland bishops:
Bishop's Palace at Achadh Úr (modern Freshford), home of the medieval Bishop of Freshford
Braganza, Carlow, home of the Bishops of Kildare and Leighlin
Archbishop's Palace, Cashel, County Tipperary, home of the Archbishop of Cashel and Emly; built in 1732, now the Cashel Palace Hotel.
Bishop's Palace, Cork, home of the Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross
The Palace, Cobh, former home of the Bishop of Cloyne
Palace of the Archbishop of Dublin at Saint Sepulchre's, former home of the Archbishop of Dublin
Bishop's Palace at Elphin, former home of the Bishop of Elphin
Bishop's Palace, Ennis, also called Westbourne, home of the Bishop of Killaloe.
Bishop's Palace of Kilkenny, a summer house for the Bishops of Ossory, built by Richard Pococke
Bishop's Palace, Killarney, former home of the Bishop of Ardfert and Aghadoe
Bishop's Palace, Kilmore, County Cavan, also called the "See House", home of the Bishop of Kilmore.
Bishop's Palace, Limerick, former home of the Bishop of Limerick
Church of Ireland Bishop's Palace, Raphoe
Archbishop's Palace, Tuam, built in 1678 and burnt in 1691; Grove House now stands on the site. Saint Jarlath's, built , later served as archbishop's palace.
Bishop's Palace Waterford, formerly home of the Bishop of Waterford and Lismore
Archbishop's Palace, Armagh, formerly home of Archbishop of Armagh
There are also some Catholic bishops' palaces:
Bishop's Palace, Ballina, County Mayo, home of the Catholic Bishop of Killala.
Bishop's Palace, Cork, on Redemption Road, home of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Cork and Ross.
Archbishop's Palace, Drumcondra, home of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin. It is today referred to as simply the Archbishop's House.
Bishop's Palace, Longford, home of the Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise.
Roman Catholic Bishop's Palace, Mullingar, dwelling of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Meath
Roman Catholic Bishop's Palace, Raphoe
Archbishop's Palace, Thurles, dwelling of the Catholic Archbishop of Cashel and Emly.
Italy
In Italy, any urban building built as a grand residence is a palazzo; these are often no larger than a Victorian townhouse. It was not necessary to be a nobleman for one's house to be considered a palazzo; the hundreds of palazzi in Venice nearly all belonged to the patrician class of the city. In the Middle Ages these also functioned as warehouses and places of business, as well as homes. Each family's palazzo was a hive that contained all the family members, though it might not always show a grand architectural public front. In the 20th century, palazzo in Italian came to apply by extension to any large fine apartment building, as many old palazzi were converted to this use.
Bishop's townhouses were always palazzi, and the seat of a localized regime would also be so called. Many former capitals display a Ducal Palace, the seat of the local duke or lord. In Florence (just as for other strong communal governments), the seat of government was known as Palazzo della Signoria. When the Medici were made Grand Dukes of Tuscany, however, the centre of power shifted to their new residence in Palazzo Pitti, and the old centre of power began to be referred to as the Palazzo Vecchio.
Shops on the ground floor and flats at the top of a modern palazzo are not at all incongruous: historically, the ground floors of even a great family's palazzo could be trade and domestic offices often open to servants, tradesmen, customers and the public, while the smartest and most prestigious floor (known as the piano nobile) was kept for the family along with the upper floors and apartments, all of which were considered cleaner and safer than those on the ground floor. There were (and are) often separate, sometimes external, stairs to the humblest attic rooms and roofs used by the staff.
The most important royal palazzi in Italy are those in Caserta, Milan, Naples, Palermo, Turin, as well as the Quirinale Palace in Rome.
Malta
Until the sixteenth century, Malta was part of the Kingdom of Sicily, and the capital Mdina housed many palaces for the nobility, such as Palazzo Falson and Palazzo Santa Sofia. After the arrival of the Order of Saint John in 1530, the knights settled in Birgu, where part of Fort St Angelo was used as a palace for the Grand Master. The knights themselves lived in auberges, but these were more large houses rather than palaces.
When the Order began to build a new capital Valletta in 1566, a new Grandmaster's Palace and a series of new auberges were built. The auberges in Valletta are much larger than their counterparts in Birgu, and can be considered as palaces. The most important auberge still standing is Auberge de Castille, which currently houses the Office of the Prime Minister of Malta. Over the years, the Grand Masters also built a number of large residences in the countryside, such as Verdala Palace and San Anton Palace. Both of these now serve as official residences of the president of Malta.
The Archbishop of Malta has a palace in Mdina. The inquisitor also had a palace in Birgu and another in Girgenti until the abolition of the inquisition in 1798. The nobility, upper classes and individual knights of the Order built a number of private palaces, especially in Valletta, but also in the countryside. There are other palaces built by the nobility, such as, most notably Palazzo Parisio in Valletta and Palazzo Dragonara in St Julians.
Poland
The former Kingdom of Poland, known as the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, once spanned over , which allowed the nobles to construct their residences anywhere from modern-day Poland to as far as southern Estonia. The Polish aristocracy (szlachta) greatly favoured Baroque and Rococo architecture of the period. Most notable architect specializing in those styles was Dutch-born Tylman van Gameren (also Tylman Gamerski), who designed several renowned palaces, for both kings and nobles, throughout the Commonwealth. Tylman also left behind a lifelong legacy of buildings that are regarded as gems of Polish Baroque architecture. His most famous works include Krasiński Palace and Łazienki Palace, both in Warsaw, and Branicki Palace in Białystok. Other palatial architects in Poland at the time were Chrystian Piotr Aigner, Szymon Bogumił Zug, Domenico Merlini and Johann Christian Schuch.
At present, Poland possesses hundreds of varied-style palaces and residences designed by architects from all over the world. Some best examples are Wilanów Palace, Presidential Palace, Oliwa Abbot's Palace, Copper-Roof Palace, Palace of the Ministry of Revenues and Treasury, Rogalin, Jabłonowski Palace, Zamoyski Palace in Kozłówka, Lanckoroński Palace in Kurozwęki, Nieborów Palace and the Palace in Otwock Wielki. There are also several palaces resembling castles or medieval Gothic residences, most notably Moszna Castle, Książ Castle and the Warsaw Royal Castle.
Portugal
Due to its relatively small geography, most of Portugal's palaces are former royal residences. Some examples of Portuguese palaces are Mafra National Palace, Pena National Palace, Belém Palace, Ajuda National Palace, Palácio das Necessidades, Mateus Palace, Palace Hotel of Bussaco, Palácio da Regaleira, and Palácio da Brejoeira.
Romania
Palaces in Romania, as elsewhere in Europe, were originally built for royalty, nobles and bishops. Three former royal palaces in Romania are the Cotroceni Palace (now the presidential residence); the Royal Palace in Bucharest, which now houses the National Museum of Art of Romania; and the Elisabeta Palace. Although Romania is no longer a constitutional monarchy, the current head of the former Romanian royal family, Princess Margareta of Romania, continues to reside at Elisabeta Palace in Bucharest.
Other palaces include the Crețulescu Palace in Bucharest, built for the Crețulescu family, and Peles palace, built by King Carol I of Romania as a royal residence.
The Palace of the Parliament (Casa Poporului) from Bucharest and the Palace of Culture in Iași (Palatul Culturii) are large government buildings, both purpose-built solely for government and public use.
Russia
The first palaces in Russia were built about a thousand years ago for the Grand Dukes of Kiev. These are not preserved, having been destroyed. Classical palaces were built during the reign of Tsar Peter the Great and his immediate successors. Examples of Russian palaces include:
the Winter Palace (1732–1917) in Saint Petersburg, was the official residence of the Russian monarchs
the Mariinsky Palace (1710–1727) in Saint Petersburg
the Grand Kremlin Palace (1837–1849) of the Moscow Kremlin in Moscow
the Peterhof Palace (1709–1755) in Petergof
the Catherine Palace (1857–1862) in Tsarskoye Selo
the Gatchina Palace (1766–1781) in Gatchina
Scandinavia
The three Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway and Sweden all have long monarchic histories and possess several palaces. In Denmark Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen was built as a royal palace, but is now only used for royal receptions; Amalienborg Palace has been the Danish royal residence since 1794. In Norway the Royal Palace in Oslo has been used as the royal residence since 1849. In Sweden the large Stockholm Palace was built in 1760, and remains the official royal residence, but at the current time is only used for official purposes while the Swedish royal family resides in the more modest Drottningholm Palace.
Serbia
The two dynasties of post-Ottoman Serbia, Karađorđević and Obrenović, built numerous royal residences throughout the country. The most prominent are to be found in the capital, Belgrade: the Stari Dvor and Novi Dvor (Old Palace and New Palace, respectively) in the downtown, and the Dedinje Royal Compound which includes the Kraljevski Dvor the Beli Dvor (Royal Palace and White Palace, respectively) in the suburb of Dedinje.
Spain
With over a thousand years of monarchic history, Spain has many palaces of its own that were built for different monarchs or nobles. Among these palaces is the Royal Palace of Madrid, also referred to as the Palacio Real. The palace is the largest palace in Europe with over 2,800 rooms but at the current time is of use for only governmental business while the royal family resides in the smaller Palacio de la Zarzuela.
In addition to the Royal Palace of Madrid, Alcázar of Seville (which mixes, with the delicate Moorish filigree, European Christian architectural styles), the Alhambra, the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial and the Royal Palace of Aranjuez, fine baroque palace is surrounded by gardens. Currently, the royal family and prime minister live in the more modest Palace of Zarzuela and Palace of Moncloa, respectively.
United Kingdom
Although many English country houses can be called "palatial" in size and the richness of their contents, in the United Kingdom, by tacit agreement, the word "palace" is reserved for official residences (present or former) of the royal family or bishops, regardless of whether located in town or country. However, not all palaces use the term in their name – see Windsor Castle. Thus the Palace of Beaulieu gained its name precisely when Thomas Boleyn sold it to Henry VIII in 1517. Previously, it had been known as Walkfares, but like several other palaces including Hampton Court Palace, the name stuck even once the royal connection ended.
Blenheim Palace was built, on a different site, in the grounds of the disused royal Palace of Woodstock, and the name was also part of the extraordinary honour when the house was given by a grateful nation to a great general, the Duke of Marlborough. Along with several royal and episcopal palaces in the countryside, Blenheim does demonstrate that "palace" has no specific urban connotation in English. On the use of the term "palace" in the UK, Buckingham Palace was known as Buckingham House before it was acquired by the monarchy.
Blenheim Palace (in England) and Hamilton Palace (in Scotland, demolished in 1927) are the only non-royal and non-episcopal residences to have the word "palace" in their name, other than Dalkeith Palace in Scotland, which used to be the seat of the Dukes of Buccleuch (who descend from Charles II of England).
Other
In continental Europe royal and episcopal palaces were not merely residences; the clerks who administered the realm or the diocese laboured there as well. (To this day many bishops' palaces house both their family apartments and their official offices.) However, unlike the "Palais du Justice" which is often encountered in the French-speaking world, modern British public administration buildings are never called "palaces"; although the formal name for the "Houses of Parliament" is the Palace of Westminster, this reflects Westminster's former role as a royal residence and centre of administration.
In more recent years, the word has been used in a more informal sense for other large, impressive buildings, such as The Crystal Palace of 1851 (an immensely large, glazed hall erected for The Great Exhibition) and modern arenas-convention centers like Alexandra Palace.
The largest in the world is the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, Romania. Built during the socialist regime, no effort or expense was spared to raise this colossal neo-classic building.
See also
Archbishop's Palace (disambiguation)
Castle
Great house
Imperial castle (Reichsburg)
Kaiserpfalz (or Königspfalz)
List of palaces
Manor house
Official residence
Palas
Palatine Hill
Real estate
World's largest palace
References
Royal residences |
23932 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick%20White | Patrick White | Patrick Victor Martindale White (28 May 1912 – 30 September 1990) was an Australian novelist and playwright who explored themes of religious experience, personal identity and the conflict between visionary individuals and a materialistic, conformist society. Influenced by the modernism of James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf, he developed a complex literary style and a body of work which challenged the dominant realist prose tradition of his home country, was satirical of Australian society, and sharply divided local critics. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973, the only Australian to have been awarded the literary prize.
Born in London to affluent Australian parents, White spent his childhood in Sydney and on his family's rural properties. He was sent to an English public school at age 13 and went on to read modern languages at Cambridge. On his graduation in 1935, he embarked on a literary career. His first published novel, Happy Valley (1939), was awarded the Gold Medal of the Australian Literature Society. In World War Two, he served as an intelligence officer in the Royal Air Force. While stationed in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1941, he met Manoly Lascaris who was to become his life companion and, as White later wrote, "the central mandala in my life's hitherto messy design."
White returned to Australia in 1948 where he bought a small farm on the outskirts of Sydney. There he wrote the two novels, The Tree of Man (1955) and Voss (1957), which brought him critical acclaim in the United States and the United Kingdom. In the 1960s, he wrote the novels Riders in the Chariot (1961) and The Solid Mandala (1966) and a series of plays including The Season at Sarsaparilla and A Cheery Soul which had a major impact on Australian theatre.
White and Lascaris moved to Sydney's Centennial Park in 1964. From the late 1960s, White became increasingly involved in public affairs, opposing the Vietnam war and supporting Aboriginal self-determination, nuclear disarmament and various environmental causes. His later work includes the novels The Eye of the Storm (1973) and The Twyborn Affair (1979) and the memoir Flaws in the Glass (1981).
Childhood and adolescence
White was born in Knightsbridge, London, on 28 May 1912. His Australian parents, Victor Martindale White, a wealthy sheep grazier, and Ruth (née Withycombe) were in England on an extended honeymoon. The family returned to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. As a child he lived in a flat with his sister, a nanny, and a maid while his parents lived in an adjoining flat. In 1916 they moved to a large house, "Lulworth", in Elizabeth Bay. At the age of four White developed asthma, a condition that had taken the life of his maternal grandfather, and his health was fragile throughout his childhood.
At the age of five he attended kindergarten at Sandtoft in Woollahra, close to their home. His mother often took him to plays and pantomimes and White developed a life long love of the theatre. Nevertheless, White felt closer to his nurse, Lizzie Clark, who taught him to tell the truth and "not blow his own trumpet".
In 1920, he attended Cranbrook School but his asthma worsened. Two years later he was sent to Tudor House School, a boarding school in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, where it was thought the climate would help his lungs. White enjoyed the freedom provided by the school where discipline was lax. He read widely from the school library, wrote a play and excelled at English. In 1924 the boarding school ran into financial trouble, and the headmaster suggested that White be sent to a public school in England.
In April 1925, his parents took White to England to enrol in Cheltenham College in Gloucestershire. In his first years at Cheltenham, he was withdrawn and had few friends. He found his housemaster to be sadistic and puritanical, and White's certitude of his own homosexuality increased his sense of isolation. He later wrote of Cheltenham, "When the gates of my expensive prison closed I lost confidence in my mother, and [I] never forgave."
One of White's few pleasures was the time spent at the Sommerset home of his cousin, the painter Jack Withycombe. Jack's daughter Elizabeth Withycombe became a mentor to him while he was completing his first, privately-published, volume of verse, Thirteen Poems, written between 1927 and 1929. White also became friends with Ronald Waterall who was two years his senior at Cheltenham and shared his passion for the theatre. He and White would spend their holidays in London seeing as many shows as they could.
White asked his parents if he could leave school to become an actor. His parents compromised and allowed him to leave school without taking his final examinations if he came home to Australia to try life on the land. But their son had already changed his mind on his future profession and was determined to become a writer.
In December 1929, White left Cheltenham and sailed to Sydney. He spent two years working as a jackaroo on sheep stations at Bolaro in the Monaro district of New South Wales and at Barwon Vale in northern New South Wales. The landscapes impressed White and he wrote two unpublished novels during this time: "The Immigrants" and "Sullen Moon".
White's uncle, who owned Barwon Vale, convinced White's parents that their son was not suited to the life of a grazier. White's mother was happy for him to become a writer but she wanted him to have a career as a diplomat as well. On this basis his parents agreed to send him to Cambridge. While studying for the entrance examinations, White completed a third unpublished novel, "Finding Heaven".
Europe, America and war
From 1932, White lived in England, studying French and German literature at King's College, Cambridge. There he began a love affair with a fellow student that lasted until White graduated. White wrote poems, some of which were published in the London Mercury. He spent his holidays in France and Germany to improve his languages and read Joyce, Lawrence, Proust, Flaubert, Stendhal and Thomas Mann with admiration. He made a pilgrimage to Zennor in Cornwall where Lawrence wrote Women in Love and the visit inspired further poems. A collection was published as The Ploughman and Other Poems in an edition of 300 in Sydney in 1935 but received little critical attention and was later suppressed by White. A play, Bread and Butter Women, was given an amateur production in Sydney the same year.
On White's graduation in 1935, his mother wanted him to embark on a diplomatic career but he was determined to stay in England and become a writer. His mother relented and his father granted him an allowance of £400 a year. He moved to London's Pimlico district where, in 1936, he met the Australian painter Roy de Maistre. De Maistre briefly became White's lover and remained a mentor and friend. White later said that de Maistre had encouraged him to break from naturalistic prose and write "from the inside out."
White began work on the novel Happy Valley, partly based on his experience working as a jackaroo. In 1937, his story "The Twitching Colonel" was published in the London Mercury. His father died in December, leaving him a legacy of £10,000 that enabled him to write full-time in relative comfort. He started work on a play, Return to Abyssinia, and wrote skits for revues which were produced with moderate success. He completed Happy Valley and the novel was accepted by the British publisher George G. Harrap and Company in 1938.
Happy Valley was published in early 1939 to generally favourable reviews which encouraged White to go to America to find a publisher there. White arrived in New York in April and travelled across the country. He visited Taos, New Mexico, where he viewed Lawrence's ashes and met Frieda Lawrence. He then moved to Cape Cod where he worked on a novel, The Living and the Dead, partly based on his life in London. When the Second World War broke out in September, White took the first available ship back to England where he continued to work on his new novel.
In early 1940, White heard that Ben Huebsch, the head of the American publisher Viking, has accepted Happy Valley. Huebsch had published Lawrence and Joyce in America and White was delighted with the connection to these writers. Huebsch was to become one of White's main literary supporters. White decided to travel back to New York for the publication of Happy Valley and to complete the new novel. Happy Valley was published in June to favourable reviews. Huebsch also accepted the now completed novel The Living and the Dead for publication.
White returned to London where, in November, he was called up to an intelligence unit of the Royal Air Force. He was stationed at Bentley Priory during the Blitz before being transferred to North Africa in April 1941. He subsequently served in Egypt, Palestine and Greece. While stationed near Alexandria in July 1941 he met Manoly Lascaris, who was waiting to be recruited to the Royal Greek Army. Lascaris was to become White's life partner.
Following the war, White was determined to leave England to avoid, "the prospect of ceasing to be an artist and turning instead into that most sterile of beings, a London intellectual." White's preference was to live in Greece but Lascaris wanted to start a new life in Australia. White relented because, "It was his illusion. I suppose I sensed it was better than mine."
Before leavng for Australia, White began work on a novel The Aunt's Story, inspired by a painting by Roy de Maistre. He sent the completed typescript to his American publisher in January 1947. In March, his play Return to Abyssinia opened in London to polite reviews. White missed its short season because he was in Australia making preparations for his permanent return. He returned to London and began a new play, The Ham Funeral, inspired by the William Dobell painting "The Dead Landlord".
White sailed back to Australia in December 1947, and during his voyage The Aunt's Story was published in the United States to very favourable reviews and strong sales. Critic James Stern's review in the New York Times Book Review was enthusiastic and Stern would go on to be one of White's major champions in America.
Return to Australia
White arrived back in Australia in February 1948. He and Lascaris moved to a small farm purchased by White at Castle Hill, now a Sydney suburb but then semi-rural. He named the house "Dogwoods", after trees he planted there. He and Lascaris worked the farm and sold flowers, vegetables, milk and cream as well as pedigree schnauzer puppies.
The reviews of The Aunt's Story in the British and Australian press were less enthusiastic than those in America, and White was unable to interest theatres in Australia or overseas in producing The Ham Funeral. He was making slow progress on the novel which was to become The Tree of Man and was discouraged at his prospects of success as a writer. He also questioned his decision to return to Australia.
In late 1951, White had a religious experience that gave him a belief in God and the inspiration to recommence work on The Tree of Man (published in 1955). He described the novel as an attempt to suggest "every possible aspect of life, through the lives of an ordinary man and woman." The Tree of Man and his following work Voss (1957) established White's favourable critical reputation in Britain and America. White, however, was embittered by what he considered a hostile critical response in Australia.
Following his international success, White continued to live and work on his farm in Castle Hill. He gave few interviews and usually declined requests for public appearances, promotion of his work, and invitations for his membership of literary and cultural organisations. He entertained a close circle of friends at his home but always felt himself to be an outsider: "first as a child with what kind of strange gift no one quite knew; then a despised colonial in an English public school; finally an artist in horrified Australia."
In 1961, his novel Riders in the Chariot was published, and was his first to receive almost universal critical praise in Australia. Meanwhile, White's interest had returned to the theatre. The Drama Committee of the Adelaide Festival had recommended The Ham Funeral as the festival's main theatrical production for 1962. The festival governors, however, rejected the play citing concerns about "a piece of work which quite fails to reconcile poetry with social realism" and a scene involving an aborted foetus in a dustbin. The controversy led to a successful amateur production of the play in Adelaide followed by a professional production in Sydney. White was inspired to write three further plays which were given professional productions: The Season at Sarsaparilla (1962), A Cheery Soul (1963) and Night on Bald Mountain (1964).
In 1963, White's mother died in London and his share of the estate allowed him to buy a house in Centennial Park, near the centre of Sydney, the following year. Before leaving Dogwoods, White had bought up every copy of his early published poems he could find and burnt them along with most of his manuscripts, papers, letters and journals.
White was working on The Solid Mandala, a novel about twins, Waldo and Arthur Brown, who represent contrary aspects of his own character. He was becoming interested in Tarot, astrology, the I Ching and Jungian psychology, and these interests are reflected in the novel. Following its publication in 1966, White declined the Encyclopaedia Brittanica Award and Miles Franklin Award for the novel and stated he no longer wanted his works considered for awards.
White had long had an interest in art and music, describing himself as "something of a frustrated painter, and a composer manqué." The core of his art collection was works by his friends Sidney Nolan and de Maistre but he collected works by emerging Australian artists such as James Clifford, Erica McGilchrist, and Lawrence Daws and some established artists like Brett Whiteley. In early 1967 he began work on The Vivisector, a novel about a painter, Hurtle Duffield, who exploits human relationships for his art. After the novel was published in 1970, Nolan believed Duffield was based on him, but White denied this, stating that Duffield was a composite of his own character and the working life of the artists John Passmore and Godfrey Miller.
White was becoming more politically engaged at this time. He was opposed to Australia's involvement in the Vietnam war, and in December 1969 he participated in his first political demonstration, breaking the law by publicly inciting young men not to register for military conscription. The following year, he campaigned against censorship and gave evidence in favour of the publication of Philip Roth's novel Portnoy's Complaint at obscenity trials in Melbourne and Sydney. In 1972, the New South Wales government announced a plan to build an Olympic stadium near Centennial Park. White participated in the anti-development protests, giving speeches at a rally in June.
White had been on the shortlist for the Nobel Prize in Literature since 1969. In 1971, after the prize was awarded to Pablo Neruda, he wrote to a friend: "That Nobel Prize! I hope I never hear it mentioned again. I certainly don't want it; the machinery behind it seems a bit dirty, when we thought that only applied to Australian awards. In my case to win the prize would upset my life far too much, and it would embarrass me to be held up to the world as an Australian writer when, apart from the accident of blood, I feel I am temperamentally a cosmopolitan Londoner".
Nobel laureate
In 1970, White had begun working on a new novel, The Eye of the Storm, about the meaning of his mother's death. He sent the completed work to his British publishers in December 1972. He delayed sending it to his American publishers, Viking, because The Vivisector had sold poorly in America and he hoped positive reviews of the new work in Britain would increase interest in the United States.
The novel was published in August 1973 and White was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in October. The Nobel citation praised him "for an epic and psychological narrative art, which has introduced a new continent into literature". White, pleading delicate health, declined to travel to Sweden to accept the award. Nolan attended the ceremony on his behalf.
The Nobel prize increased worldwide interest in White's work. Eye of the Storm was widely reviewed in the United States and sold 25,000 copies by March 1974. New editions of his previous novels were published and translation rights sold well. White, however, refused to have Happy Valley republished as he considered it an inferior early work and he was afraid that some of the people on whom characters were based might sue for defamation.
According to David Marr, White's biographer, "From the time of the prize his work became saturated with a late, relaxed sensuality." White himself was less relaxed about the effects of the award, telling a supporter: "the Nobel Prize is a terrifying and destructive experience."
White was made Australian of the Year for 1973. In his acceptance speech, he said that Australia Day should be "a day of self-searching rather than trumpet blowing" and that historian Manning Clark, comedian Barry Humphries and communist trade union leader Jack Mundey were more worthy of the award.
In May 1974, White gave a speech in support of the re-election of the Whitlam Labor government, stating that it was necessary for Australia to create: "an intellectual climate from which artists would no longer feel the need to flee." Following a trip to Fraser Island to do research for a new novel A Fringe of Leaves, he became a supporter of the campaign to stop sand mining on the island. He wrote to the re-elected prime minister Gough Whitlam on the issue and the campaign eventually forced the government to suspend its approval of mining and hold an inquiry on the matter.
White was among the first group of the Companions of the Order of Australia in 1975 but resigned in June 1976 in protest against the dismissal of the Whitlam government in November 1975 by the Governor-General Sir John Kerr and the subsequent reintroduction of knighthoods as part of the order. White later wrote that Kerr's behaviour "moved me farther to the Left and made me a convinced Republican." Over the following years, he would break with numerous long-term friends because he thought they supported the conservative establishment or had compromised their personal or artistic integrity.
In November 1975, the young theatre director Jim Sharman approached White to discuss a revival of The Season at Sarsaparilla. They also agreed to film his story "The Night the Prowler" and White began working on a script. The meeting sparked a revival in White's interest in theatre and a long-term working relationship between the two men.
In 1976, White was working on a new novel, TheTwyborn Affair, partly based on aspects of his own life and that of male Antarctic explorer Herbert Dyce-Murphy (18791971) who had lived as a woman for several years. In researching his novel, White revisited the regions of New South Wales where White had lived and worked as a youth, and significant locations in London, France and Greece. In October, A Fringe of Leaves was published to generally favourable reviews and sold well. Sharman's production of A Season at Sarsaparilla in Sydney was also a critical success and attracted good audiences.
In 1977, a project to film Voss with Joseph Losey as director collapsed when the promoter Harry Miller failed to gain finance. Miller eventually sold the film rights to Nolan. The success of The Season at Sarsaparilla had inspired White to write his first play in over 12 years, Big Toys, about plutocracy and corruption in Sydney. The play, directed by Sharman, premiered in Sydney in October but attracted generally unfavourable reviews and moderate audiences.The film of The Night the Prowler, directed by Sharman, premiered at the Sydney Film Festival in June 1978. Reviews were generally unfavourable and the film failed at the box office. However, Sharman's 1979 production of A Cheery Soul for the Sydney Theatre Company broke box office records for the drama theatre of the Opera House despite mixed reviews. The Twyborn Affair was published in Britain in November, 1979 to very positive reviews and became a best seller. The response from critics and the public in the United States was more subdued.
In October 1979, White started work on a memoir, Flaws in the Glass, in which he planned to write publicly for the first time about his homosexuality and his relationship with Manoly Lascaris. The book was published in Britain in October 1981 to great publicity and became his biggest seller in his life time. Much of the publicity stemmed from his scathing character portraits of Nolan, Kerr and Joan Sutherland. Nolan considered suing White for defamation and their friendship ended.
The 1982 Adelaide Festival was directed by Sharman who had commissioned a new play by White, Signal Driver. The festival also featured a short excerpt from an opera based on Voss. The opera had been commissioned by Opera Australia with Richard Meale as composer and David Malouf the librettist. Critics were generally lukewarm towards Signal Driver, but encouraging towards the fragment of Voss. White, in contrast, disliked Meade's approach to Voss but was enthusiastic about the production of Signal Driver. White was encouraged to write a new play for Sharman, Netherwood, "about the sanity in insanity and the insanity in sanity". The play premiered in Adelaide in May 1983 but attracted hostile reviews which White considered a deliberate media campaign to sabotage his work.
By 1984, White had become disillusioned with the Hawke Labor government and publicly and financially supported the new Nuclear Disarmament Party. White had been publicly campaigning for nuclear disarmament since 1981, calling it: "the most important moral issue in history."
Late work and declining health
In late 1984, White was hospitalised due to osteoporosis, crumbled vertebrae and glaucoma resulting from his long-term use of cortisone to treat his asthma and chest infections. Although he was still mentally agile, his physical health and mobility were declining.
He had recovered sufficiently by January 1985 to recommence work on a new novel, Memoirs of Many in One, which he described as a "religious" and "bawdy" novel about senility. Posing as the editor of the memoirs of Alex Xenophon Demirjian Gray, White felt free to explore various aspects of his own character. The novel was published in Britain on 1 April 1986 and sharply divided critics.
Salman Rushdie wrote to White in 1985, praising the novel Voss: "I cannot think when last a book so moved me." By this time, however, White was tired of praise for the novel as he rated several of his other works more highly. The completed opera Voss opened at the Adelaide Festival in March 1986 to general critical acclaim. White, however, boycotted the premiere because the festival had invited the Queen to attend. He attended the Sydney premiere later that year and judged it: "a stupendous occasion."
In April 1987, White's new play, Shepherd on the Rocks, opened at Adelaide in a production directed by Neil Armfield. White attended and deemed it a success. He had also written three short prose poems which were published as Three Uneasy Pieces in late 1987. White was determined that none of his works would be published or performed in 1988 which was the bicentenary of British settlement in Australia. He also urged a boycott of all official celebrations of the event, stating: "circuses don't solve serious problems."
White was hospitalised with pneumonia in August 1988. A nurse stayed at his home for the remainder of his life and he no longer had the strength to attend protest rallies. In June 1989, a selection of his public statements, speeches and interviews was published as Patrick White Speaks. In October, the Sydney Theatre Company staged a successful revival of The Ham Funeral directed by Neil Armfield. White attended the premiere in his last public appearance.
In July 1990, White contracted pleurisy and suffered a bronchial collapse. He refused to be hospitalised and died at home at dawn on 30 September.
Religious and political views
Religion
White was raised an Anglican but stated, "I… went through my youth believing in nothing but my own ego." In late 1951, he experienced a religious conversion:If I say I had no religious tendencies between adolescence and The Tree of Man, it’s because I was sufficiently vain and egotistical to feel one can ignore certain realities. (I think the turning point came during a season of unending rain at Castle Hill when I fell flat on my back one day in the mud and starting cursing a God I had convinced myself didn’t exist. My personal scheme of things until then at once seemed too foolish to continue holding.)As the 1950s progressed, White became disillusioned with the Anglican church and his religious beliefs became more eclectic. He once described himself as a "lapsed Anglican egotist agnostic pantheist occultist existentialist would-be though failed Christian Australian." White stated in 1981 that he didn't call himself a Christian because he couldn't follow Christ's injunction to forgive. In 1969, however, he had affirmed the importance of religion in his work: "Religion. Yes, that’s behind all my books. What I am interested in is the relationship between the blundering human being and God."
Politics
In the 1930s, White was not politically engaged, but was sympathetic to the Francoist cause in the Spanish Civil War and supported Britain's policy of appeasing Hitler. He later expressed regret over his complacency regarding European fascism. On his return to Australia after the Second World War he had little interest in politics but routinely voted for the conservative coalition in elections. He became involved in politics in 1969 when he joined protests against the Vietnam war and conscription of Austrians troops for the conflict. He also supported Trade Union Green Bans against development proposals which threatened the urban environment. He publicly supported the Australian Labor Party in the federal elections of 1972, 1974 and 1975 despite a falling out with the prime minister Gough Whitlam over sand mining on Fraser Island. Following the dismissal of the Whitlam government in November 1975, he became a prominent advocate for an Australian republic. He was a public supporter of Aboriginal self-determination and privately donated money towards Aboriginal education. From 1981, he became a leading public figure in campaigns for nuclear disarmament and continued his support for various environmental causes. Marr, states that a common thread running through his political interventions was his opposition to plutocracy. Academic Martin Thomas argues that White was acutely aware of his own privileged upbringing and this drove his later concern about social injustice.
Critical reception
White's first published novel, Happy Valley (1939), received favourable reviews in Britain and Australia, although some critics noted that it was too derivative of Joyce, Lawrence and Woolf. The novel was awarded the Gold Medal of the Australian Literature Society. The Living and the Dead (1941) and The Aunt's Story (1948) attracted little critical attention in Australia, although the latter was favourably reviewed in the New York Times Review of Books.
The Tree of Man (1955) was White's first major international success, attracting positive reviews in the United States and the United Kingdom. James Stern, writing in the New York Times Book Review, praised the novel as "a timeless work of art." Australian reviewers were more divided, poet A. D. Hope calling White's prose "pretentious and illiterate verbal sludge." The novel sold eight thousand copies in Australia in the first three months and was awarded the Gold Medal of the Australian Literature Society.
Voss (1957) was reviewed favourably in the United Kingdom but critics in the United States and Australia were more ambivalent. A significant body of Australian critics continued to fault White's prose style and some objected to his rejection of the realist prose tradition. The novel was a best seller in the United Kingdom and won the inaugural Australian Miles Franklin Award. Riders in the Chariot (1961) also achieved critical and commercial success in the United Kingdom, and won admiring reviews in Australia.
By 1963, White was widely accepted as the major Australian literary novelist. A. D. Hope called him "unquestionably the best known and most discussed novelist of the day" and thought his success was "indicative of a break with the naturalistic tradition which has dominated Australian fiction since the turn of the century, and may well be a portent of a more imaginative and a more intellectual sort of fiction." White was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973. Academic Elizabeth Webby states that many critics consider The Twyborn Affair the best of his subsequent work.
Katherine Brisbane states that the reception of White's plays has been ambivalent as they mix realism, expressionism and poetic and vernacular dialogue in a way which has challenged audiences and directors. The Ham Funeral (1947) was successfully produced in 1962 after it was rejected by the Adelaide Festival for obscenity. It was successfully revived in 1989. The Season at Sarsaparilla (1962) has been his most produced play.
Themes and style
Themes
According to critic Brian Kiernan, "the basic situation in his [White's] fiction is the attempt of individuals, most often individuals alienated from society, to grasp some higher, more essential reality that lies beyond or behind social existence." The search for a higher reality is most often presented as an exploration of various forms of religious or mystical experience and the "seers" are variously pioneer-settlers (The Tree of Man), explorers (Voss), artists (The Vivisector), the simple-minded (The Solid Mandala), those fleeing into the self (The Aunt's Story) or those on the margins of society. Sexual ambivalence and the search for personal identity are also recurrent themes that becomes more prominent in the later novels.
Society, in particular Australian society, is mostly portrayed as materialistic, conformist and life-inhibiting. White satirises what he called, in 1958, "The Great Australian Emptiness"in which the mind is the least of possessions, in which the rich man is the important man, in which the schoolmaster and the journalist rule what intellectual roost there is, in which beautiful youths and girls stare at life through blind blue eyes, in which human teeth fall like autumn leaves, the buttocks of cars grow hourly glassier, food means cake and steak, muscles prevail, and the march of material ugliness does not raise a quiver from the average nerves."The academic Mark Williams argues that White places the religious impulse at the centre of the human condition and his work, adding that "religion is one of the central values, along with art and love, which he considers to be denigrated in his homeland." Kiernan notes a division among critics over whether "he is essentially a simple and traditional writer who affirms a religious, even mystical view of life, or one who is distinctively modern, sophisticated and ironic, continually exploring transcendent possibilities but with detachment and even scepticism." Greg Clarke argues that Christian discourse is central to White's writing. Marr, Williams and Kiernan, however, state that White drew on various religious and mystical traditions in his work including Judaism, Jungian archetypes and gnosticism.
Style
White's early novels were heavily influenced by the modernism of Eliot, Joyce, Lawrence and Woolf. Kiernan has called his mature work "complex, ambiguous and ironic verbal structures". His narratives shift seamlessly between past and present, inner experience and outer awareness, and the point of view of different characters. According to Williams, "the point of view of the narrative in any White novel changes continually, rapidly and disconcertingly. The narrative voice ... is a voice composed of many voices, a slippery, complex, fluent medium."
White frequently shifts between tones, styles and linguistic registers. According to Kiernan, "A self-conscious play with conventions, a parodic playfulness, is apparent through White’s adoption of various modes in his work from the first." His transitions between realist, expressionist, symbolist and romantic modes were a conscious attempt to demonstrate that "the Australian novel is not necessarily the dreary, dun-coloured offspring of journalistic realism." Kiernan states that in Voss the theme of the outsider as visionary explorer of the human condition is undercut by ironic comedy and parodies of the "gothic excess" of romantic literature. Williams argues that White's tendency for parody and playfulness become more prominent in later works such as The Twyborn Affair and Memoirs of Many in One. The tone becomes less portentous and more relaxed, and the works more self-referential.
Influence and legacy
Critic Susan Lever considers White a pivotal figure in Australian literature, stating that he made the novel, rather than poetry, the pre-eminent literary form. He "transformed the possibilities of the Australian novel by demonstrating that it was a place to test ideas against complex spiritual, psychological and emotional experience, not only an avenue for national storytelling."
Australian novelists influenced by White include Thomas Keneally, Thea Astley, Randolph Stow and Christopher Koch. Lever argues that the following generations of novelists were more influenced by recent trends in world literature. Novelist David Malouf states that White's "High Modernism" is a literary form that has become unfashionable but that this could change. Writing in 2024, critic Martin Thomas noted that critical and public interest in White had declined.The Patrick White Award is an annual literary prize which White founded in 1975 with the prize money from his Nobel prize. It is awarded to writers who have made a significant contribution to Australian literature. The Patrick White Indigenous Writers Award is for Indigenous students in New South Wales from Kindergarten to year 12. It is run by the Aboriginal Education Council which was a beneficiary of Patrick White's estate. The Sydney Theatre Company sponsors the Patrick White Playwrights Award and Fellowship in honour of White's contribution to Australian theatre.
In 2006, the National Library of Australia acquired a large quantity of White's manuscripts. These included an unfinished novel, The Hanging Garden, which was published in 2012. The Art Gallery of New South Wales owns a 1940 portrait of White by de Maistre, and Parliament House, Sydney, owns a 1980 portrait by Brett Whiteley. A portrait of White by Louis Kahan won the 1962 Archibald Prize. White donated much of his own collection of Australian art to the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
As at 2024, there is no museum or institution dedicated to White's life and work. His former residence, "Dogwoods", at Castle Hill is privately owned but has a commemorative plaque and the surrounding streets are named after him. His former Sydney residence at Centennial Park is privately owned but is heritage listed. White is commemorated by the Patrick White Lawns adjacent to the National Library of Australia in Canberra.
In 2006 a hoaxer submitted a chapter of White's novel The Eye of the Storm to a dozen Australian publishers under the name Wraith Picket (an anagram of White's name). All of the publishers rejected the manuscript and none recognised it as White's work.
In 2010, White's novel The Vivisector was shortlisted for the Lost Man Booker Prize for 1970. In 2011, Fred Schepisi's film adaptation of the novel The Eye of the Storm won The Age Critics Award for the best Australian feature at the Melbourne International Film Festival.
List of works
Novels
Happy Valley (1939)
The Living and the Dead (1941)
The Aunt's Story (1948)
The Tree of Man (1955)
Voss (1957)
Riders in the Chariot (1961)
The Solid Mandala (1966)
The Vivisector (1970)
The Eye of the Storm (1973)
A Fringe of Leaves (1976)
The Twyborn Affair (1979)
Memoirs of Many in One (1986)
The Hanging Garden (2012) (Unfinished, posthumous)
Short story collections
The Burnt Ones (1964)
The Cockatoos (1974)
Three Uneasy Pieces (1987)
Poetry
Thirteen Poems / under the pseudonym Patrick Victor Martindale. – Sydney : Privately printed, (ca. 1929)
The Ploughman and Other Poems. – Sydney: Beacon Press, (1935)
Plays
Bread and Butter Women (1935) Unpublished.
The School for Friends (1935) Unpublished.
Return to Abyssinia (1948) Unpublished.
The Ham Funeral (1947) prem. Union Theatre, Adelaide, 1961.
The Season at Sarsaparilla (1962)
A Cheery Soul (1963)
Night on Bald Mountain (1964)
Big Toys (1977)
Signal Driver: a Morality Play for the Times (1982)
Netherwood (1983)
Shepherd on the Rocks (1987)
Screenplay
The Night the Prowler (1978)
Autobiography
Flaws in the Glass (1981)
Honours and awards
White's numerous honours and awards include:
1941: Gold Medal of the Australian Literature Society for Happy Valley
1955: Gold Medal of the Australian Literature Society for The Tree of Man
1957: Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss
1959: W. H. Smith Literary Award for Voss
1961: Miles Franklin Literary Award for Riders in the Chariot
1973: Nobel Prize in Literature
1973: Australian of the Year, National Australia Day Council
1975: Companion of the Order of Australia (AC, civil division). (Resigned in 1976)
In 1970, White was offered a knighthood but declined it.
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
A Conversation with Patrick White, Australian Writers in Profile, Southerly, No.3 1973
Barry Argyle, Patrick White, Writers and Critics Series, Oliver and Boyd, London, 1967
Peter Beatson, The Eye in the Mandala, Patrick White: A Vision of Man and God, Barnes & Noble, London, 1976
John Docker, Patrick White and Romanticism: The Vivisector, Southerly, No.1, 1973
Simon During, Patrick White, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, VIC, 1996.
Michael Wilding, Studies in Classic Australian Fiction, Sydney Studies in Society and Culture, 16, 1997
Ian Henderson and Anouk Lang (eds.) Patrick White Beyond the Grave, Anthem Press, 2015
Helen Verity Hewitt, Patrick White and the Influence of the Visual Arts in his Work, Doctoral Thesis, Dept. of English, University of Melbourne, 1995.
Clayton Joyce (ed.) Patrick White: A Tribute, Angus & Robertson, Harper Collins, North Ryde, 1991.
Alan Lawson (ed.) Patrick White: Selected Writings, University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, 1994
Irmtraud Petersson, New "Light" on Voss: The Significance of its Title, World Literature Written in English 28.2 (Autumn 1988) 245-59.
Laurence Steven, Dissociation and Wholeness in Patrick White's Fiction, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Ontario, 1989.
Elizabeth McMahon, Brigitta Olubas. Remembering Patrick White : contemporary critical essays, Rodopi, Amsterdam, New York, 2010.
Denise Varney, Patrick White's Theatre: Australian Modernism on Stage, Sydney University Press, Sydney, 2021.
Stephen Michael Sasse, Companion notes to the Aunt's story by Patrick White, WriteLight, 2012.
Cynthia Vanden Drissen, Writing the nation : Patrick White and the indigene, Rodopi, Amsterdam, New York, 2009.
William Yang, Patrick White: The Late Years, PanMacmillan Australia, 1995
External links
Patrick White – Existential Explorer—essay by Karin Hansson at the official Nobel Prize website.
Why Bother With Patrick White?—excerpts from White's novels, as well as a range of critical interpretations of his work and personal remembrances of White as a man, courtesy of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Patrick White reappraised from the Times Literary Supplement
Online catalogue of the documents and manuscripts acquired by the NLA.
Patrick White on Trove
1912 births
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23933 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope%20Martin%20I | Pope Martin I | Pope Martin I (, ; between 590 and 600 – 16 September 655), also known as Martin the Confessor, was the bishop of Rome from 21 July 649 to his death 16 September 655. He had served as Pope Theodore I's ambassador to Constantinople, and was elected to succeed him as Pope. He was the only pope when Constantinople controlled the papacy whose election had not awaited imperial mandate. For his strong opposition to Monothelitism, Pope Martin I was arrested by Emperor Constans II, carried off to Constantinople, and ultimately banished to Cherson. He is considered a saint by both the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. He is the last pope recognised as a martyr.
Early life and career
Martin was born near Todi, Umbria, in the place nowadays named after him: Pian di San Martino, close to Todi. According to his biographer Theodore, Martin was of noble birth, of commanding intelligence, and showed great charity to the poor.
Piazza states that Martin belonged to the order of St Basil. By 641, he was an abbot, and Pope John IV sent him to Dalmatia and Istria with large sums of money to alleviate the distress of the inhabitants, and redeem captives seized during the invasion of the Sclaveni. As the ruined churches could not be rebuilt, the relics of some of the more important Dalmatian saints were brought to Rome. John, himself from Dalmatia, then had them venerated by building the Chapel of St Venantius at the Lateran Baptistery. As Mackie suggests in her article, referenced above, the St Venantius Chapel remains an important early example of a martyrium: a shrine specifically commissioned to venerate relics brought from afar. With regard to the martyr cult, such structures represented the pinnacle of devotional building. They often became sites of pilgrimage.
Martin acted as apocrisiarius or legate ('nuncio') at Constantinople from the earliest years of Theodore I (642–49). He sent him as ambassador to Constantinople, seat of the empire in its eastern half. Albeit where the pope was based, Rome was by now second fiddle – economically, militarily and politically – to Constantinople. However, the eastern half of the Empire was suffering its own turbulence due to Arab expansion, Jerusalem's conquest in 637, and theological disputes having polarised Christians (the major religion of the empire).
Being placed, for so much of Theodore's papacy, in charge of diplomacy between the Lateran patriarchate and the Byzantine court speaks of Martin's preeminence. It was as a deacon that he was elected to the papal throne after the pope died (13 May 649).
Papacy (649–653)
When Martin I was elected pope, the capital of the erstwhile Roman Empire was Constantinople. It sat amidst the eastern domains, where the most influential Church leader was the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople who was also guardian of Christendom's holiest relics, such as the Crown of thorns and the True Cross. To bring teaching prevalent in Constantinople into line with that elsewhere, and hastening to heal fissures appearing within the Catholic Church, decisiveness distinguished Martin from the start. According to Piero Bargellini, he neither sought nor waited for the Byzantine emperor Constans II's consent to his election. To emphasise the point, it was without the customary imperial ratification that Martin had himself consecrated.
In the previous year, the emperor had published the Typos of Constans. This document defended the heretical Monothelite thesis, which watered down the Catholic faith by claiming that Christ had not in fact had a human will. To silence this, and the confusion it caused, Pope Martin convened, within his first three months, the Lateran Council of 649, to which all the bishops of the West were invited. The Council met in the basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome. It was attended by 105 bishops (chiefly from Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia, with some from Africa and other quarters). Over five sessions or secretarii from 5 to 31 October 649, resulting in twenty canons, the Council censured Monothelitism, its authors, and the writings via which Monothelitism had spread and caused rifts within the Catholic Church. This condemnation embraced not only the latest emperor's Typos but also the Ecthesis (the exposition of faith of Patriarch Sergius I of Constantinople, for which Emperor Heraclius had stood sponsor).
Imperial interference in matters theological had been soundly rejected. Condemnation of all Monothelite writings provoked an angry reaction from the Byzantine court. Martin, unabashed, hastened to publish the Lateran Council decrees in an encyclical. Constans responded by getting his exarch in Italy to arrest the pope should he persist, and to send him as a prisoner to Constantinople. Martin was also accused by Constans of unauthorised contact and collaboration with the Muslims of the Rashidun Caliphate—allegations which he remained unable to convince the infuriated imperial authorities to drop.
The arrest orders could not be carried out for more than three years. On 17 June 653, Martin was arrested in the Lateran, along with Maximus the Confessor. He was hurried out of Rome and conveyed first to Naxos, Greece, and subsequently to Constantinople, where he arrived on 17 September 653. He was saved from execution by the pleas of Patriarch Paul II of Constantinople, who was himself gravely ill. Martin hoped that a new pope would not be elected while he lived but the imperial Byzantine government forced the Romans to find a successor. Eugene I was elected on 10 August 654, and Martin apparently acquiesced. After suffering an exhausting imprisonment and reportedly many public indignities, Martin was banished to Cherson, where he arrived on 15 May 655. He died there on 16 September.
Legacy
A selection of documents recording the trial and exile of Pope Martin I was translated into Latin in Rome in the ninth century by Anastasius Bibliothecarius.
Since the 1969 revision of the General Roman Calendar, the memorial of Saint Martin I, which earlier versions of the calendar place on 12 November, is on 13 April, celebrated as the formal anniversary of his death. In the Byzantine-rite Churches, his feast day is 14 April (27 April New Style).
Pope Pius VII made an honourable reference to Martin in his 1800 encyclical Diu satis:
The breviary of the Byzantine Churches states: "Glorious definer of the Orthodox Faith... sacred chief of divine dogmas, unstained by error... true reprover of heresy... foundation of bishops, pillar of the Orthodox faith, teacher of religion.... Thou didst adorn the divine see of Peter, and since from this divine Rock, thou didst immovably defend the Church, so now thou art glorified with him.”
References
Bibliography
West, Charles (2019), '“And how, if you are a Christian, can you hate the emperor?” Reading a Seventh-Century Scandal in Carolingian Francia', ed. Karina Kellermann, Alheydis Plassmann and Christian Schwermann (Bonn, 2019), https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:27953
External links
Pope Saint Martin I in Patron Saints Index
Pope Martin I (Archived) in Prof Salvador Miranda, "The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church (604–701)"
Colonnade Saints in St Peter's Square
598 births
655 deaths
7th-century archbishops
7th-century Christian saints
7th-century popes
Diplomats of the Holy See
Italian popes
Papal Apocrisiarii to Constantinople
Papal saints
People from Todi
Popes of the Byzantine Papacy
Popes
Year of birth unknown
Prisoners and detainees of the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine exiles
Italian exiles |
23936 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope%20Martin%20IV | Pope Martin IV | Pope Martin IV (; c. 1210/1220 – 28 March 1285), born Simon de Brion, was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 22 February 1281 to his death on 28 March 1285. He was the last French pope to have held court in Rome; all subsequent French popes held court in Avignon (the Avignon Papacy).
Early life
Simon de Brion, son of Jean, sieur de Brion, was born at the château of Meinpincien, Île-de-France, France, in the decade following 1210. He had a brother named Gilo, who was a knight in the Diocese of Sens. The seigneurial family of Brion, who took their name from Brion near Joigny, flourished in the Brie français. He spent time at the University of Paris, and is said to have then studied law at Padua and Bologna. Through papal favour he received a canonry at Saint-Quentin in 1238 and spent the period 1248–1259 as a canon of the cathedral chapter in Rouen, finally as archdeacon. At the same time he was appointed treasurer of the church of St. Martin in Tours by King Louis IX of France, an office he held until he was elected pope in 1281. In 1255–1259, King Louis IX founded the French royal convent at Longchamps for the Poor Clares (Minoresses); the King's sister Isabelle was the patroness (though she never entered the cloister herself), and Simon de Brion was the Guardian. In 1259, he was appointed to the council of the king, who made him keeper of the great seal, chancellor of France, one of the great officers in the household of the king. He became Chancellor of Louis IX of France (1260–1261).
Cardinal Simon de Brion
On 17 December 1261, the new French Pope, Urban IV (Jacques Pantaléon), made Chancellor de Brion cardinal-priest, with the titulus of the church of St. Cecilia. This would have entailed Simon de Brion's residence in Rome, but the affairs of Pope Urban required that he send a representative of the highest level to France to deal personally with King Louis IX and his brother Charles of Anjou and Provence. Simon's previous experience at the French Court made him the perfect choice as Legate.
Cardinal Simon therefore returned to France as Papal Legate for Urban IV and also for his successor Pope Clement IV in 1264–1268. In 1264, on the eve of S. Bartholomew, he held a general synod at Paris. He was appointed again, by Pope Gregory X on 1 August 1274, and he served continuously in France until 1279. His first task was to raise support and money for a Crusade against Manfred, the Hohenstaufen candidate for the Imperial Crown. He immediately became deeply involved in the negotiations for papal support for the assumption of the crown of Sicily by Charles of Anjou. As Legate he presided over several synods on reform, and on the raising of funds for Pope Gregory's crusade. The most important of these was held at Bourges on 13 September 1276.
Signatures on papal bulls indicate that Cardinal Simon was back in Viterbo by 11 January 1268. In a letter of 14 or 15 January 1268, Pope Clement IV wrote to Cardinal Simon de Brion that he had heard that the Cardinal had fallen from his horse and in the accident had injured his leg. He also wrote that Conradin and Ludwig Duke of Bavaria were at Verona, and were pressing for Pavia. A general war was likely. Cardinal Simon's injury must not have been severe, since, on 3 April 1268, the Pope wrote to him with the request (not an order) that he undertake a legation to Germany (Teutonia), if he wished and if it were possible. The Pope needed a prudent and faithful man, who had clean hands and eyes wide open, who could stay centered on the business and let himself stray neither right nor left, who could preserve the Empire, keep the Apostolic See free from scandal, and the neighboring kingdoms free from danger. In vetting names, Simon seemed the most suitable.
Pope Clement IV (Guy Foulques) fell ill on the Feast of S. Cecilia (22 November), and died at Viterbo on 29 November 1268. He had governed the Church for three years, nine months, and twenty-four days. The See of Peter was vacant for two years and nine months. Cardinal Simon de Brion came from France to attend the Conclave, which took place in the Episcopal Palace, next to the Cathedral of S. Lorenzo in Viterbo. He was the senior cardinal-priest. Around Pentecost of 1270 (1 June), Cardinal Simon and Cardinal Riccardo Annibaldi of S. Angelo had to leave the Conclave and retire to their residences for the sake of their health. On 22 August 1270, he was one of the signatories to the letter of protest sent by the Cardinals to Raynerius Gatti, Captain of the City of Viterbo, to cease and desist from their harassment of the Cardinals and their suites. He was one of the cardinals who signed the electoral compact on September, 1270, to leave the election of a new pope to a committee of six, promising to accept the committee's decision. He was not, however, one of the six cardinals elected to the Compromise Committee that selected Archdeacon Teobaldo Visconti as pope on 1 September 1270. The newly elected pope was not present in Viterbo, but was serving on Crusade with King Edward I of England. He arrived in Italy on 1 January 1271, and travelled to Viterbo, where he arrived early in February. He accepted the election, and chose to be called Gregory X. He and the Curia travelled to Rome, arriving on 13 March. On 19 March he was ordained a priest, and on 27 March he was consecrated bishop, and then crowned by Cardinal Giovanni Gaetano Orsini.
Three Conclaves of 1276
Simon de Brion's appointment as Legate in France, made by Pope Gregory on 1 August 1274 continued throughout 1276. He was unable to be present for the Conclave of 1 January 1276, which elected Peter of Tarantaise as Pope Innocent V. Nor was he present for the Conclave of 2–11 July, which elected Ottobono Fieschi as Pope Adrian V. Nor was he present at the September Conclave, which, on 8 September, elected Peter Julian as Pope John XXI. In each case the election was completed before he could have been notified, and before he could have travelled from France to central Italy. This was one of the defects of Gregory X's regulations on the holding of a Conclave.
Election of Nicholas III
Pope John XXI was in contact with Cardinal Simon. He had written to him on 3 March 1277, ordering him to speak with the king of France about matters connected with Alfonso of Castile. But the Pope died rather suddenly, after a reign of only eight months. He was still living in the Episcopal Palace in Viterbo, where Adrian V (Fieschi) had died and where he had been elected. The palace was still under construction, when suddenly the roof of one of the chambers collapsed. The Pope was in the room at the time, and he was severely injured. He died three (or six) days later, on 20 May 1277. Cardinal Simon de Brion was still in France when the Conclave began, but he was unable to predict that the Conclave would last until 25 November, and therefore he was not present. There were only seven cardinals in Viterbo, since neither Innocent V, nor Adrian V, nor John XXI had named any new cardinals. They argued on and on, trying to choose a pope. There were three cardinals who favored the Angevin Charles I and his designs. There were three who opposed him. Cardinal Bertrand de Saint Martin, Bishop of Sabina, the only surviving Cardinal Bishop, held a middle course, or perhaps one should say he saw too clearly to be willing to commit to either party. Finally, they chose Cardinal Giovanni Gaetani (Orsini), a native Roman, the Deacon of S. Nicola in Carcere and senior Deacon, and Archpriest of the Vatican Basilica.
Nicholas III immediately set out for Rome, where he was ordained a priest on 18 December 1277, and consecrated Bishop of Rome on 19 December. He was crowned on the Feast of S. Stephen, 26 December 1277 at the Vatican Basilica. One person, at least, was deeply unhappy about the outcome of this Conclave, King Charles I of Sicily. The new Orsini pope was an enemy of the Angevins, and Charles knew he would have nothing but trouble from Nicholas III.
A week after the election of Nicholas III, the new pope wrote to Simon, who was still Legate in France, urging him to effect a reconciliation between the King of France, Philip III, and the King of Leon and Castile, Alfonso the Wise. Since the King of Aragon, Peter III (who was married to Constance of Sicily) was involved in the struggle over Sicily with Charles I, this peace initiative threatened King Charles directly. On 22 April 1279, Pope Nicholas wrote to Cardinal Simon about King Philip. The Pope had issued a prohibition on tournaments, and King Philip and his barons were flagrantly violating the prohibition. Cardinal Simon was ordered to excommunicate the King of France.
To ensure that his victory against the Angevins would stand, Nicholas III decided to go forward with a much needed addition to the Sacred College of Cardinals. At his first opportunity, on 12 March 1278, he created ten cardinals. Five cardinal bishops were named: Latino Frangipani Malabranca, OP, of Rome (Nicholas III's nephew by his sister Mabilia); Erhard de Lessines (Lesigny), of Langres, son of Guillaume, Marshal of Champagne; Bentivenga de Bentivengis, O.Min., of Aquasparta; Robert Kilwardby, OP, Archbishop of Canterbury; and Ordoño (Ordeonio) Álvarez, Bishop of Braga. Two cardinal-priests were named: Gerardo Bianchi of Parma, and Girolamo Masci d' Ascoli, O.Min., of Picenum. He also appointed three cardinal-deacons: Giordano Orsini, brother of Pope Nicholas III, of Rome; Giacomo Colonna of Rome; and Gerardo Cupalates, O.Min., of Piacenza. The effect of these creations was to seriously dilute the Angevin influence in the Sacred College, and to considerably increase the monastic element, especially the Franciscan one. It needs to be recalled that Nicholas III was the Governor, Corrector, and Protector of the Franciscans. The Roman influence was also strengthened. The inevitable consequence would be that the next pope too would not be a creature of Charles I of Sicily.
Eventually, though, by 19 October 1279, Pope Nicholas recalled Cardinal Simon de Brion.
Conclave of 1280–1281
Pope Nicholas III (Giovanni Caetano Orsini) died at Castro Soriano in the diocese of Viterbo on 22 August 1280 of an apoplectic stroke which had left him without speech. A story was circulated nonetheless that he had been poisoned. At the time of his death on 22 August 1280, there were thirteen cardinals. This would be the fifth Conclave in five years. King Charles had taken the trouble to make friends with the Annibaldi faction, led by Riccardo Annibaldi, who were enemies of the Orsini and who had been driven out of Rome in street fighting following the death of Nicholas III. They had taken refuge in Viterbo, and now, by coincidence, they were present and entrenched and ready to make trouble on behalf of Charles I and themselves. Annibaldi led a coup in Viterbo, which drove out the governor of the city, Orso Orsini, the dead pope's nephew. The Angevins thereupon dominated the Conclave, in which the regulations of Gregory X were still in abeyance. But the Conclave still required a two-thirds vote to elect a pope, in according with the Constitution of Alexander III, which was still in effect. Neither the Orsini faction nor the French faction had sufficient votes to elect, but each had sufficient votes to block an election. The stalemate continued throughout the winter. On 2 February 1281, the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a mob broke into the Episcopal palace, where the Conclave was in progress, and abducted two of the cardinals, Matteo Rosso Orsini and Giordano Orsini (the late pope's brother). Without their opposition, Simon de Brion was unanimously elected to the papacy on 22 February 1281, taking the name Martin IV,
For the third time in fifteen years Viterbo had hosted a papal conclave. And for the third time there were disorders which had threatened the validity of the election and the lives of the participants. Viterbo was placed under the ban of excommunication and of the interdict for the imprisonment of the cardinals. It was not possible, therefore, for the Coronation to take place in Viterbo. But Rome was not at all inclined to accept a hated Frenchman as Pope. Martin IV sent two cardinals, Latino Orsini and Goffredo da Alatri, to Rome with a letter, proposing that he be crowned in Rome on Quadragesima Sunday. The Romans positively refused to allow the Coronation to take place in Rome. But they did hold a public meeting, and elected Giovanni Caetani Orsini in his purely personal capacity as their Senator, and authorized him to appoint anyone he chose as his substitute. So Martin IV was crowned instead at Orvieto on 23 March 1281. He never visited Rome during his Pontificate. Instead he immediately sent his Vicar, Peter of Lavagna, to Rome. But on 30 April 1281, Pope Martin handed the senatorial power over to King Charles for the rest of his reign.
Papacy
Dependent on Charles of Anjou in nearly everything, the new Pope quickly appointed him to the position of Senator of Rome. At the insistence of Charles, Martin IV excommunicated the Eastern Roman Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus, who stood in the way of Charles's plans to restore the Latin Empire of the East that had been established in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade. He thus broke the tenuous union which had been reached between the Greek and the Latin Churches at the Second Council of Lyons in 1274 and further compromise was rendered impossible.
In 1282, Charles lost control of the island of Sicily in the violent massacre known as the Sicilian Vespers. The Sicilians had elected Peter III of Aragon as their king and sought papal confirmation, in vain, though they were willing to reconfirm Sicily as a vassal state of the papacy. Martin IV used all the spiritual and material resources at his command against the Aragonese in order to preserve Sicily for the House of Anjou. He excommunicated Peter III, declared his kingdom of Aragon forfeit, and ordered a crusade against him, but it was all in vain.
Due to the hostility of Raynerius, the Captain of Orvieto, in the repeated struggles between Guelphs and Ghibbelines, Pope Martin was unable to remain at Orvieto. He removed himself and the Papal Curia from Orvieto on 26 June 1284, and arrived in Perugia on 4 October. He died at Perugia on 28 March 1285.
Following the example of Nicholas III, Pope Martin IV created new cardinals at his first opportunity, on the Quattuor Tempora of Lent, 12 April 1281. His new cardinals included: Bernardus de Languissello of Nîmes, the Archbishop of Arles since 1273; Hugh of Evesham, Canon of York and Archdeacon of Worcester; Gervasius de Glincamp of Mans, Archdeacon of Paris; Comes Giusianus, Conte de Casate, of Milan, Auditor of the Rota; Gaufridus (Geoffroy) de Barro or Barbeau, of Burgundy, Dean of the Cathedral of Paris; Johannes Chauleti (Cholet), of the village of Nointre in the diocese of Beauvais, a personal friend of Philip III, Philip IV, and Pope Martin IV; and Benedetto Gaetano of Anagni, who was elected Pope Boniface VIII on 24 December 1295. The French influence is strongly in evidence, and only Cardinal Gaetano came from the neighborhood of Rome.
Death
Pope Martin IV celebrated a solemn Mass in the Cathedral of Perugia on Easter Sunday, 25 March 1285, which was also the Feast of the Annunciation. After his usual lunch with his chaplains, he was stricken with a sudden illness. On Easter Wednesday, 28 March, around the fifth hour of the night, he died. He was buried in the Cathedral of San Lorenzo in Perugia. He had reigned four years and one month. His successor was elected four days later, on 2 April.
In the Divine Comedy, Dante sees Martin IV in Purgatory, where the reader is reminded of the former pontiff's fondness for Lake Bolsena eels and Vernaccia wine.
See also
Cardinals created by Martin IV
List of popes
Notes
Bibliography
Chouiller, Ernest, "Recherches sur la vie du pape Martin IV," Revue de Champagne et de Brie 4 (1878) 15–30.
Picherit, Gilles, Documents pour l'histoire de Simon de Brion, pape Martin II dit IV., 1215–1285 (Les Herbiers: chez l'Auteur 1995).
Cerrini, Simonetta, "Martino IV," Enciclopedia dei papi (Roma 2000), I, 446–449.
Catholic Encyclopedia "Pope Martin IV"
13th-century births
1285 deaths
People from Seine-et-Marne
French popes
Cardinals created by Pope Urban IV
13th-century French Roman Catholic priests
Diplomats of the Holy See
Viterbo Papacy
People of the War of the Sicilian Vespers
Popes
13th-century popes |
23937 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope%20Martin%20V | Pope Martin V | Pope Martin V (; ; January/February 1369 – 20 February 1431), born Otto (or Oddone) Colonna, was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 11 November 1417 to his death in February 1431. His election effectively ended the Western Schism of 1378–1417. He is the last pope to date to take on the pontifical name "Martin".
Biography
Oddone Colonna was born at Genazzano, the son of Agapito Colonna and Caterina Conti, between 26 January and 20 February 1369. He belonged to one of the oldest and most distinguished families of Rome. His brother Giordano became Prince of Salerno and Duke of Venosa, while his sister Paola was Lady of Piombino between 1441 and 1445.
Oddone studied law at the University of Pavia. He became apostolic protonotary under Pope Urban VI (1378–1389), and was created Cardinal-Deacon of San Giorgio in Velabro by Pope Innocent VII in 1405.
In 1409 he took part in the Council of Pisa, and was one of the supporters of Antipope Alexander V. Later he confirmed his allegiance to Alexander's successor, John XXIII, by whom his family obtained several privileges, while Oddone obtained for himself the vicariate of Todi, Orvieto, Perugia and Umbria. He was excommunicated for this in 1411 by Pope Gregory XII. Oddone was with John XXIII's entourage at the Council of Constance and followed him in his escape at Schaffhausen on 21 March 1415. Later he returned to Constance and took part in the process leading to the deposition of John XXIII.
Papacy
Election
After deposing Antipope John XXIII in 1415, the Council of Constance was long divided by the conflicting claims of Pope Gregory XII (1406–15) and Antipope Benedict XIII (1394–1423). Martin was elected pope, at the age of 48, at the Council of Constance on St. Martin's Day, 11 November 1417. Participants in the conclave included 23 cardinals and 30 delegates of the council. He was ordained a priest on 13 November 1417, and consecrated bishop the next day.
Martin left Constance at the close of the council (May 1418), but travelled slowly through Italy and lingered at Florence. His authority in Rome was represented by his brother Giordano, who had fought under Muzio Attendolo against the condottiero Braccio da Montone. The Pope at the time ruled only Rome (when not rebellious) and its environs: Braccio held Umbria, Bologna as an independent commune, while much of Romagna and the Marche was held by local "vicars", who were in fact petty hereditary lords. In particular, Martin confirmed Giorgio Ordelaffi in Forlì, Ludovico Alidosi in Imola, Malatesta IV Malatesta in Rimini, and Guidantonio da Montefeltro in Spoleto, who would later marry the pope's niece Caterina Colonna.
In exchange for the recognition of Joan II of Naples, Martin obtained the restitution of Benevento, several fiefs in the Kingdom of Naples for his relatives and, most important of all, an agreement that Muzio Attendolo, then hired by the Neapolitans, should leave Rome.
After a long stay in Florence while these matters were arranged, Martin was able to enter Rome in September 1420. He at once set to work establishing order and restoring the dilapidated churches, palaces, bridges, and other public structures. For this reconstruction he engaged some famous masters of the Tuscan school and helped instigate the Roman Renaissance.
Faced with competing plans for general reform offered by various nations, Martin V submitted a counter-scheme and entered into negotiations for separate concordats, for the most part vague and illusory, with the Holy Roman Empire, England, France and Spain.
Hussite Wars
By 1415 Bohemia was in turmoil and the subject of much discussion at the Council of Constance. Adherents of Jan Hus, who had been previously burned at the stake as a heretic by the council, adopted the practice of Communion under both kinds. The Council sent letters to the civil and ecclesiastical authorities in Bohemia, insisting they deal with the heresy. Bohemian and Moravian nobles responded that the sentence on Hus was unjust and insulting to their country, and promised to protect priests against episcopal prosecutions for heresy. Prague was placed under interdict for sheltering the excommunicated Jan of Jesenice. Beghards arrived attracted by Bohemia's reputation for religious liberty.
In 1419 King Wenceslaus IV, who had resisted what he considered interference in his kingdom, commanded that all ejected Catholic beneficiaries should be reinstated in their offices and revenues. Prague prepared for armed resistance. Jan Želivský, an extreme anti-Catholic preacher of Prague, led a procession to the town hall, where under the leadership of Jan Žižka of Trocnov, a noble of southern Bohemia, the building was stormed and people found inside were thrown out of the windows on to the spears and swords of the processionists, and hacked to pieces. In Kuttenberg, hundreds of captured Hussites were thrown by the miners into the shafts of disused silver mines. King Wenceslaus swore death to all the rebels, but died of a stroke in August, 1419. The next months were marked by deeds of violence; many citizens, especially Germans, had to flee.
Wenceslaus was succeeded by his brother Sigismund, King of the Romans and King of Hungary, who prepared to restore order. On 1 March 1420, Pope Martin V issued a Bull inviting all Christians to unite in a crusade against the Wycliffites (Lollards), Hussites, and other heretics. In 1428, the pope commanded that the remains of Wycliffe, who was posthumously declared a heretic in 1415, be dug up and burned. The crusades against the Lollards, however, were ultimately unsuccessful.
Crusades
According to Burton, Pope Martin authorized a crusade against Africa in 1418 in relation to the slave trade.
In addition to the Hussite Crusades, Martin declared a Crusade against the Ottoman Empire in 1420 in response to the rising pressure from the Ottoman Turks. In 1419–1420 Martin had diplomatic contacts with the Byzantine emperor Manuel II, who was invoking a council in Constantinople. On 12 July 1420 the Pope conceded to attach an indulgence to anyone who would contribute to a crusade against the latter, which would be led by Sigismund, King of the Romans.
War against Braccio da Montone
The main concern of Martin's pontificate from 1423 was the resumed war against Braccio da Montone. The following year, the combined Papal-Neapolitan army, led by Giacomo Caldora and Francesco Sforza, defeated him at the Battle of L'Aquila (2 June 1424); Braccio died a few days later.
In the same year Martin obtained a reduction of the autonomy of the commune of Bologna, whose finances would be thenceforth under the authority of a papal treasurer. He also ended the war with Braccio da Montone in exchange for his recognition as vicar and reconciled with the deposed John XXIII, to whom he gave the title of Cardinal of Tusculum.
Annuity contracts
Canon law prohibited interest upon a loan. To avoid this, annuities were paid, interest in effect but not in name. The dispute as to the legality of annuity contracts was brought before Martin V in 1423. He held that purchased annuities, which were redeemable at the option of the seller, were lawful. When the lawfulness of annuities was established, they were widely used in commerce; it seems that city states used them to raise compulsory loans from their citizens.
Periodic ecumenical councils
A decree of the Council of Constance (Frequens) ordered that councils should be held every five years. Martin V summoned a council in 1423 that met first at Pavia and later at Siena (the "Council of Siena"). It was rather poorly attended, which gave the Pope a pretext for dissolving it, as soon as it had come to the resolution that "internal church union by reform ought to take precedence over external union". It was prorogued for seven years. The seventeenth council then met as the "Council of Basel" in February 1431 shortly before Martin's death.
Founding of the University of Louvain
On December 9, 1425, Martin founded the University of Louvain or Universitas Lovaniensis in Leuven (also known as "Louvain" in both English and French), a town in what was then the Duchy of Brabant, and what is modern day Belgium.
Death
Martin V died in Rome of a stroke on 20 February 1431 at the age of 62. He is buried at St. John Lateran Basilica.
Personal views
Position on Jews
The excitement of the Church during the Hussite movement rendered the Jews apprehensive, and through Emperor Sigismund, they obtained from Pope Martin V various bulls (1418 and 1422) in which their former privileges were confirmed and in which he exhorted the friars to use moderate language. In the last years of his pontificate, however, he repealed several of his ordinances. A gathering, convoked by the Jews in Forlì, sent a deputation asking Pope Martin V to abolish the oppressive laws promulgated by Antipope Benedict XIII. The deputation succeeded in its mission.
Position on slavery
During the Middle Ages, slavery had fallen out of usage in Europe. The Church denounced the enslavement of Christians. However, voyages and discoveries brought other continents, where slavery still existed, into European consciousness, raising the question of whether slavery of unbelievers and outside of Europe was permitted. According to Burton, Martin authorized a crusade against Africa in 1418, and this, coupled with a later bull of Pope Eugene IV (1441), sanctioned the Portuguese trade in African slaves. In March 1425 a bull was issued that threatened excommunication for any dealers in Christian slave and ordered Jews to wear a "badge of infamy" to deter, in part, the buying of Christians. In June 1425 Martin anathematized those who sold Christian slaves to Muslims. Traffic in Christian slaves was not banned, purely the sale to non-Christian owners. The papal bull of excommunication issued to the Genoese merchants of Caffa related to the buying and selling of Christians, but has been considered ineffectual as prior injunctions against the Viennese, including the Laws of Gazaria, made allowances for the sale of both Christian and Muslim slaves. Ten black African slaves were presented to Martin by Prince Henry of Portugal. According to Koschorke, Martin supported colonial expansion. Davidson (1961) argues that Martin's injunction against slavery was not a condemnation of slavery itself, but rather driven through fear of "infidel power".
Norman Housley finds it "...hard to avoid the conclusion that the pope was agreeing to whatever was asked of him by the king.... [P]olitical weakness compelled the Renaissance Papacy to adopt an acquiescent and unchallenging position when approached for requests for privileges in favour of these ventures."
Residences
During his permanence in Rome, Martin moved his residence from the Lateran to Santa Maria Maggiore and, from 1424, the Basilica of Santi Apostoli near the Palazzo Colonna. He also frequently sojourned in towns held by his family in the Latium (Tivoli, Vicovaro, Marino, Gallicano and others).
Numbering
When the second Pope to take the name Martin was elected in 1281, there was confusion over how many Popes had taken the name before. It was believed then that there were three, so the new Pope of 1281 became Martin IV. But, in reality, those believed to be Martin II and Martin III were actually named Marinus I and Marinus II, although they are sometimes still referred to as "Martin II" and "Martin III". This has advanced the numbering of all subsequent Popes Martin by two. Popes Martin IV–V were actually the second and third popes by that name.
See also
Cardinals created by Martin V
List of popes
Notes
References
Review
1369 births
1431 deaths
People from Genazzano
Popes
Italian popes
University of Pavia alumni
Cardinal-bishops of Palestrina
15th-century Italian Roman Catholic bishops
People of the Hussite Wars
Western Schism
Colonna family
Renaissance Papacy
People excommunicated by the Catholic Church
15th-century popes
15th-century Italian cardinals
Burials at the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran |
23939 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl | Perl | Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Though Perl is not officially an acronym, there are various backronyms in use, including "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language".
Perl was developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions. Perl originally was not capitalized and the name was changed to being capitalized by the time Perl 4 was released. The latest release is Perl 5, first released in 1994. From 2000 to October 2019 a sixth version of Perl was in development; the sixth version's name was changed to Raku. Both languages continue to be developed independently by different development teams which liberally borrow ideas from each other.
Perl borrows features from other programming languages including C, sh, AWK, and sed. It provides text processing facilities without the arbitrary data-length limits of many contemporary Unix command line tools. Perl is a highly expressive programming language: source code for a given algorithm can be short and highly compressible.
Perl gained widespread popularity in the mid-1990s as a CGI scripting language, in part due to its powerful regular expression and string parsing abilities. In addition to CGI, Perl 5 is used for system administration, network programming, finance, bioinformatics, and other applications, such as for graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It has been nicknamed "the Swiss Army chainsaw of scripting languages" because of its flexibility and power. In 1998, it was also referred to as the "duct tape that holds the Internet together", in reference to both its ubiquitous use as a glue language and its perceived inelegance.
Name and logos
Perl was originally named "Pearl". Wall wanted to give the language a short name with positive connotations. It is also a Christian reference to the Parable of the Pearl from the Gospel of Matthew. However, Wall discovered the existing PEARL language before Perl's official release and dropped the "a" from the name.
The name is occasionally expanded as a backronym: Practical Extraction and Report Language and Wall's own Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister, which is in the manual page for perl.
Programming Perl, published by O'Reilly Media, features a picture of a dromedary camel on the cover and is commonly called the "Camel Book". This image has become an unofficial symbol of Perl. O'Reilly owns the image as a trademark but licenses it for non-commercial use, requiring only an acknowledgement and a link to www.perl.com. Licensing for commercial use is decided on a case-by-case basis. O'Reilly also provides "Programming Republic of Perl" logos for non-commercial sites and "Powered by Perl" buttons for any site that uses Perl.
The Perl Foundation owns an alternative symbol, an onion, which it licenses to its subsidiaries, Perl Mongers, PerlMonks, Perl.org, and others. The symbol is a visual pun on pearl onion.
History
Early versions
Larry Wall began work on Perl in 1987, while employed as a programmer at Unisys; he released version 1.0 on December 18, 1987. Wall based early Perl on some methods existing languages used for text manipulation.
Perl 2, released in June 1988, featured a better regular expression engine. Perl 3, released in October 1989, added support for binary data streams.
1990s
Originally, the only documentation for Perl was a single lengthy man page. In 1991, Programming Perl, known to many Perl programmers as the "Camel Book" because of its cover, was published and became the de facto reference for the language. At the same time, the Perl version number was bumped to 4, not to mark a major change in the language but to identify the version that was well documented by the book. Perl 4 was released in March 1991.
Perl 4 went through a series of maintenance releases, culminating in Perl 4.036 in 1993, whereupon Wall abandoned Perl 4 to begin work on Perl 5. Initial design of Perl 5 continued into 1994. The perl5-porters mailing list was established in May 1994 to coordinate work on porting Perl 5 to different platforms. It remains the primary forum for development, maintenance, and porting of Perl 5.
Perl 5.000 was released on October 17, 1994. It was a nearly complete rewrite of the interpreter, and it added many new features to the language, including objects, references, lexical (my) variables, and modules. Importantly, modules provided a mechanism for extending the language without modifying the interpreter. This allowed the core interpreter to stabilize, even as it enabled ordinary Perl programmers to add new language features. Perl 5 has been in active development since then.
Perl 5.001 was released on March 13, 1995. Perl 5.002 was released on February 29, 1996 with the new prototypes feature. This allowed module authors to make subroutines that behaved like Perl builtins. Perl 5.003 was released June 25, 1996, as a security release.
One of the most important events in Perl 5 history took place outside of the language proper and was a consequence of its module support. On October 26, 1995, the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) was established as a repository for the Perl language and Perl modules; , it carries over 211,850 modules in 43,865 distributions, written by more than 14,324 authors, and is mirrored worldwide at more than 245 locations.
Perl 5.004 was released on May 15, 1997, and included, among other things, the UNIVERSAL package, giving Perl a base object from which all classes were automatically derived and the ability to require versions of modules. Another significant development was the inclusion of the CGI.pm module, which contributed to Perl's popularity as a CGI scripting language.
Perl 5.004 added support for Microsoft Windows, Plan 9, QNX, and AmigaOS.
Perl 5.005 was released on July 22, 1998. This release included several enhancements to the regex engine, new hooks into the backend through the B::* modules, the qr// regex quote operator, a large selection of other new core modules, and added support for several more operating systems, including BeOS.
2000–2020
Perl 5.6 was released on March 22, 2000. Major changes included 64-bit support, Unicode string representation, support for files over 2 GiB, and the "our" keyword. When developing Perl 5.6, the decision was made to switch the versioning scheme to one more similar to other open source projects; after 5.005_63, the next version became 5.5.640, with plans for development versions to have odd numbers and stable versions to have even numbers.
In 2000, Wall put forth a call for suggestions for a new version of Perl from the community. The process resulted in 361 RFC (Request for Comments) documents that were to be used in guiding development of Perl 6. In 2001, work began on the "Apocalypses" for Perl 6, a series of documents meant to summarize the change requests and present the design of the next generation of Perl. They were presented as a digest of the RFCs, rather than a formal document. At this time, Perl 6 existed only as a description of a language.
Perl 5.8 was first released on July 18, 2002, and further 5.X versions have been released approximately yearly since then. Perl 5.8 improved Unicode support, added a new I/O implementation, added a new thread implementation, improved numeric accuracy, and added several new modules. As of 2013, this version was still the most popular Perl version and was used by Red Hat Linux 5, SUSE Linux 10, Solaris 10, HP-UX 11.31, and AIX 5.
In 2004, work began on the "Synopses" – documents that originally summarized the Apocalypses, but which became the specification for the Perl 6 language. In February 2005, Audrey Tang began work on Pugs, a Perl 6 interpreter written in Haskell. This was the first concerted effort toward making Perl 6 a reality. This effort stalled in 2006.
The Perl On New Internal Engine (PONIE) project existed from 2003 until 2006. It was to be a bridge between Perl 5 and 6, and an effort to rewrite the Perl 5 interpreter to run on the Perl 6 Parrot virtual machine. The goal was to ensure the future of the millions of lines of Perl 5 code at thousands of companies around the world. The PONIE project ended in 2006 and is no longer being actively developed. Some of the improvements made to the Perl 5 interpreter as part of PONIE were folded into that project.
On December 18, 2007, the 20th anniversary of Perl 1.0, Perl 5.10.0 was released. Perl 5.10.0 included notable new features, which brought it closer to Perl 6. These included a switch statement (called "given"/"when"), regular expressions updates, and the smart match operator (~~).
Around this same time, development began in earnest on another implementation of Perl 6 known as Rakudo Perl, developed in tandem with the Parrot virtual machine. As of November 2009, Rakudo Perl has had regular monthly releases and now is the most complete implementation of Perl 6.
A major change in the development process of Perl 5 occurred with Perl 5.11; the development community has switched to a monthly release cycle of development releases, with a yearly schedule of stable releases. By that plan, bugfix point releases will follow the stable releases every three months.
On April 12, 2010, Perl 5.12.0 was released. Notable core enhancements include new package NAME VERSION syntax, the yada yada operator (intended to mark placeholder code that is not yet implemented), implicit , full Y2038 compliance, regex conversion overloading, DTrace support, and Unicode 5.2.
On May 14, 2011, Perl 5.14 was released with JSON support built-in.
On May 20, 2012, Perl 5.16 was released. Notable new features include the ability to specify a given version of Perl that one wishes to emulate, allowing users to upgrade their version of Perl, but still run old scripts that would normally be incompatible. Perl 5.16 also updates the core to support Unicode 6.1.
On May 18, 2013, Perl 5.18 was released. Notable new features include the new dtrace hooks, lexical subs, more CORE:: subs, overhaul of the hash for security reasons, support for Unicode 6.2.
On May 27, 2014, Perl 5.20 was released. Notable new features include subroutine signatures, hash slices/new slice syntax, postfix dereferencing (experimental), Unicode 6.3, and a function using a consistent random number generator.
Some observers credit the release of Perl 5.10 with the start of the Modern Perl movement. In particular, this phrase describes a style of development that embraces the use of the CPAN, takes advantage of recent developments in the language, and is rigorous about creating high quality code. While the book Modern Perl may be the most visible standard-bearer of this idea, other groups such as the Enlightened Perl Organization have taken up the cause.
In late 2012 and 2013, several projects for alternative implementations for Perl 5 started: Perl5 in Perl6 by the Rakudo Perl team, by Stevan Little and friends, by the Perl11 team under Reini Urban, by , and , a Kickstarter project led by Will Braswell and affiliated with the Perl11 project.
Perl 6 and Raku
At the 2000 Perl Conference, Jon Orwant made a case for a major new language initiative. This led to a decision to begin work on a redesign of the language, to be called Perl 6. Proposals for new language features were solicited from the Perl community at large, which submitted more than 300 RFCs.
Wall spent the next few years digesting the RFCs and synthesizing them into a coherent framework for Perl 6. He presented his design for Perl 6 in a series of documents called "apocalypses" – numbered to correspond to chapters in Programming Perl. , the developing specification of Perl 6 was encapsulated in design documents called Synopses – numbered to correspond to Apocalypses.
Thesis work by Bradley M. Kuhn, overseen by Wall, considered the possible use of the Java virtual machine as a runtime for Perl. Kuhn's thesis showed this approach to be problematic. In 2001, it was decided that Perl 6 would run on a cross-language virtual machine called Parrot.
In 2005, Audrey Tang created the Pugs project, an implementation of Perl 6 in Haskell. This acted as, and continues to act as, a test platform for the Perl 6 language (separate from the development of the actual implementation), allowing the language designers to explore. The Pugs project spawned an active Perl/Haskell cross-language community centered around the Libera Chat #raku IRC channel. Many functional programming influences were absorbed by the Perl 6 design team.
In 2012, Perl 6 development was centered primarily on two compilers:
Rakudo, an implementation running on the Parrot virtual machine and the Java virtual machine.
Niecza, which targets the Common Language Runtime.
In 2013, MoarVM ("Metamodel On A Runtime"), a C language-based virtual machine designed primarily for Rakudo was announced.
In October 2019, Perl 6 was renamed to Raku.
only the Rakudo implementation and MoarVM are under active development, and other virtual machines, such as the Java Virtual Machine and JavaScript, are supported.
Perl 7
In June 2020, Perl 7 was announced as the successor to Perl 5. Perl 7 was to initially be based on Perl 5.32 with a release expected in first half of 2021, and release candidates sooner.
This plan was revised in May 2021, without any release timeframe or version of Perl 5 for use as a baseline specified. When Perl 7 would be released, Perl 5 would have gone into long term maintenance. Supported Perl 5 versions however would continue to get important security and bug fixes.
Perl 7 was announced on 24 June 2020 at "The Perl Conference in the Cloud" as the successor to Perl 5. Based on Perl 5.32, Perl 7 was planned to be backward compatible with modern Perl 5 code; Perl 5 code, without boilerplate (pragma) header needs adding use compat::perl5; to stay compatible, but modern code can drop some of the boilerplate.
The plan to go to Perl 7 brought up more discussion, however, and the Perl Steering Committee canceled it to avoid issues with backward compatibility for scripts that were not written to the pragmas and modules that would become the default in Perl 7. Perl 7 will only come out when the developers add enough features to warrant a major release upgrade.
Design
Philosophy
According to Wall, Perl has two slogans. The first is "There's more than one way to do it," commonly known as TMTOWTDI, (pronounced Tim Toady). As proponents of this motto argue, this philosophy makes it easy to write concise statements.
The second slogan is "Easy things should be easy and hard things should be possible".
The design of Perl can be understood as a response to three broad trends in the computer industry: falling hardware costs, rising labor costs, and improvements in compiler technology. Many earlier computer languages, such as Fortran and C, aimed to make efficient use of expensive computer hardware. In contrast, Perl was designed so that computer programmers could write programs more quickly and easily.
Perl has many features that ease the task of the programmer at the expense of greater CPU and memory requirements. These include automatic memory management; dynamic typing; strings, lists, and hashes; regular expressions; introspection; and an eval() function. Perl follows the theory of "no built-in limits", an idea similar to the Zero One Infinity rule.
Wall was trained as a linguist, and the design of Perl is very much informed by linguistic principles. Examples include Huffman coding (common constructions should be short), good end-weighting (the important information should come first), and a large collection of language primitives. Perl favors language constructs that are concise and natural for humans to write, even where they complicate the Perl interpreter.
Perl's syntax reflects the idea that "things that are different should look different." For example, scalars, arrays, and hashes have different leading sigils. Array indices and hash keys use different kinds of braces. Strings and regular expressions have different standard delimiters.
There is a broad practical bent to both the Perl language and the community and culture that surround it. The preface to Programming Perl begins: "Perl is a language for getting your job done." One consequence of this is that Perl is not a tidy language. It includes many features, tolerates exceptions to its rules, and employs heuristics to resolve syntactical ambiguities. Because of the forgiving nature of the compiler, bugs can sometimes be hard to find. Perl's function documentation remarks on the variant behavior of built-in functions in list and scalar contexts by saying, "In general, they do what you want, unless you want consistency."
Features
The overall structure of Perl derives broadly from C. Perl is procedural in nature, with variables, expressions, assignment statements, brace-delimited blocks, control structures, and subroutines.
Perl also takes features from shell programming. All variables are marked with leading sigils, which allow variables to be interpolated directly into strings. However, unlike the shell, Perl uses sigils on all accesses to variables, and unlike most other programming languages that use sigils, the sigil doesn't denote the type of the variable but the type of the expression. So for example, while an array is denoted by the sigil "@" (for example @arrayname), an individual member of the array is denoted by the scalar sigil "$" (for example $arrayname[3]). Perl also has many built-in functions that provide tools often used in shell programming (although many of these tools are implemented by programs external to the shell) such as sorting, and calling operating system facilities.
Perl takes hashes ("associative arrays") from AWK and regular expressions from sed. These simplify many parsing, text-handling, and data-management tasks. Shared with Lisp is the implicit return of the last value in a block, and all statements are also expressions which can be used in larger expressions themselves.
Perl 5 added features that support complex data structures, first-class functions (that is, closures as values), and an object-oriented programming model. These include references, packages, class-based method dispatch, and lexically scoped variables, along with compiler directives (for example, the strict pragma). A major additional feature introduced with Perl 5 was the ability to package code as reusable modules. Wall later stated that "The whole intent of Perl 5's module system was to encourage the growth of Perl culture rather than the Perl core."
All versions of Perl do automatic data-typing and automatic memory management. The interpreter knows the type and storage requirements of every data object in the program; it allocates and frees storage for them as necessary using reference counting (so it cannot deallocate circular data structures without manual intervention). Legal type conversions – for example, conversions from number to string – are done automatically at run time; illegal type conversions are fatal errors.
Syntax
Perl has been referred to as "line noise" and a "write-only language" by its critics. Randal L. Schwartz in the first edition of the book Learning Perl, in the first chapter states: "Yes, sometimes Perl looks like line noise to the uninitiated, but to the seasoned Perl programmer, it looks like checksummed line noise with a mission in life." He also stated that the accusation that Perl is a write-only language could be avoided by coding with "proper care". The Perl overview document states that the names of built-in "magic" scalar variables "look like punctuation or line noise". However, the English module provides both long and short English alternatives. document states that line noise in regular expressions could be mitigated using the /x modifier to add whitespace.
According to the Perl 6 FAQ, Perl 6 was designed to mitigate "the usual suspects" that elicit the "line noise" claim from Perl 5 critics, including the removal of "the majority of the punctuation variables" and the sanitization of the regex syntax. The Perl 6 FAQ also states that what is sometimes referred to as Perl's line noise is "the actual syntax of the language" just as gerunds and prepositions are a part of the English language. In a December 2012 blog posting, despite claiming that "Rakudo Perl 6 has failed and will continue to fail unless it gets some adult supervision", chromatic stated that the design of Perl 6 has a "well-defined grammar", an "improved type system, a unified object system with an intelligent metamodel, metaoperators, and a clearer system of context that provides for such niceties as pervasive laziness". He also stated that "Perl 6 has a coherence and a consistency that Perl 5 lacks."
In Perl, one could write the "Hello, World!" program as:
print "Hello, World!\n";
Here is a more complex Perl program, that counts down seconds from a given starting value:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
my ( $remaining, $total );
$remaining=$total=shift(@ARGV);
STDOUT->autoflush(1);
while ( $remaining ) {
printf ( "Remaining %s/%s \r", $remaining--, $total );
sleep 1;
}
print "\n";
The Perl interpreter can also be used for one-off scripts on the command line. The following example (as invoked from an sh-compatible shell, such as Bash) translates the string "Bob" in all files ending with .txt in the current directory to "Robert":
$ perl -i.bak -lp -e 's/Bob/Robert/g' *.txt
Implementation
No written specification or standard for the Perl language exists for Perl versions through Perl 5, and there are no plans to create one for the current version of Perl. There has been only one implementation of the interpreter, and the language has evolved along with it. That interpreter, together with its functional tests, stands as a de facto specification of the language. Perl 6, however, started with a specification, and several projects aim to implement some or all of the specification.
Perl is implemented as a core interpreter, written in C, together with a large collection of modules, written in Perl and C. , the interpreter is 150,000 lines of C code and compiles to a 1 MB executable on typical machine architectures. Alternatively, the interpreter can be compiled to a link library and embedded in other programs. There are nearly 500 modules in the distribution, comprising 200,000 lines of Perl and an additional 350,000 lines of C code (much of the C code in the modules consists of character encoding tables).
The interpreter has an object-oriented architecture. All of the elements of the Perl language—scalars, arrays, hashes, coderefs, file handles—are represented in the interpreter by C structs. Operations on these structs are defined by a large collection of macros, typedefs, and functions; these constitute the Perl C API. The Perl API can be bewildering to the uninitiated, but its entry points follow a consistent naming scheme, which provides guidance to those who use it.
The life of a Perl interpreter divides broadly into a compile phase and a run phase. In Perl, the phases are the major stages in the interpreter's life-cycle. Each interpreter goes through each phase only once, and the phases follow in a fixed sequence.
Most of what happens in Perl's compile phase is compilation, and most of what happens in Perl's run phase is execution, but there are significant exceptions. Perl makes important use of its capability to execute Perl code during the compile phase. Perl will also delay compilation into the run phase. The terms that indicate the kind of processing that is actually occurring at any moment are compile time and run time. Perl is in compile time at most points during the compile phase, but compile time may also be entered during the run phase. The compile time for code in a string argument passed to the eval built-in occurs during the run phase. Perl is often in run time during the compile phase and spends most of the run phase in run time. Code in BEGIN blocks executes at run time but in the compile phase.
At compile time, the interpreter parses Perl code into a syntax tree. At run time, it executes the program by walking the tree. Text is parsed only once, and the syntax tree is subject to optimization before it is executed, so that execution is relatively efficient. Compile-time optimizations on the syntax tree include constant folding and context propagation, but peephole optimization is also performed.
Perl has a Turing-complete grammar because parsing can be affected by run-time code executed during the compile phase. Therefore, Perl cannot be parsed by a straight Lex/Yacc lexer/parser combination. Instead, the interpreter implements its own lexer, which coordinates with a modified GNU bison parser to resolve ambiguities in the language.
It is often said that "Only perl can parse Perl", meaning that only the Perl interpreter (perl) can parse the Perl language (Perl), but even this is not, in general, true. Because the Perl interpreter can simulate a Turing machine during its compile phase, it would need to decide the halting problem in order to complete parsing in every case. It is a longstanding result that the halting problem is undecidable, and therefore not even Perl can always parse Perl. Perl makes the unusual choice of giving the user access to its full programming power in its own compile phase. The cost in terms of theoretical purity is high, but practical inconvenience seems to be rare.
Other programs that undertake to parse Perl, such as source-code analyzers and auto-indenters, have to contend not only with ambiguous syntactic constructs but also with the undecidability of Perl parsing in the general case. Adam Kennedy's PPI project focused on parsing Perl code as a document (retaining its integrity as a document), instead of parsing Perl as executable code (that not even Perl itself can always do). It was Kennedy who first conjectured that "parsing Perl suffers from the 'halting problem'," which was later proved.
Perl is distributed with over 250,000 functional tests for core Perl language and over 250,000 functional tests for core modules. These run as part of the normal build process and extensively exercise the interpreter and its core modules. Perl developers rely on the functional tests to ensure that changes to the interpreter do not introduce software bugs; further, Perl users who see that the interpreter passes its functional tests on their system can have a high degree of confidence that it is working properly.
Ports
Perl is dual licensed under both the Artistic License 1.0 and the GNU General Public License. Distributions are available for most operating systems. It is particularly prevalent on Unix and Unix-like systems, but it has been ported to most modern (and many obsolete) platforms. With only six reported exceptions, Perl can be compiled from source code on all POSIX-compliant, or otherwise-Unix-compatible, platforms.
Because of unusual changes required for the classic Mac OS environment, a special port called MacPerl was shipped independently.
The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network carries a complete list of supported platforms with links to the distributions available on each. CPAN is also the source for publicly available Perl modules that are not part of the core Perl distribution.
ActivePerl is a closed-source distribution from ActiveState that has regular releases that track the core Perl releases. The distribution previously included the Perl package manager (PPM), a popular tool for installing, removing, upgrading, and managing the use of common Perl modules; however, this tool was discontinued as of ActivePerl 5.28. Included also is PerlScript, a Windows Script Host (WSH) engine implementing the Perl language. Visual Perl is an ActiveState tool that adds Perl to the Visual Studio .NET development suite. A VBScript-to-Perl converter, a Perl compiler for Windows, and converters of AWK and sed to Perl have also been produced by this company and included on the ActiveState CD for Windows, which includes all of their distributions plus the Komodo IDE and all but the first on the Unix–Linux–POSIX variant thereof in 2002 and afterward.
Performance
The Computer Language Benchmarks Game compares the performance of implementations of typical programming problems in several programming languages. The submitted Perl implementations typically perform toward the high end of the memory-usage spectrum and give varied speed results. Perl's performance in the benchmarks game is typical for interpreted languages.
Large Perl programs start more slowly than similar programs in compiled languages because Perl has to compile the source every time it runs. In a talk at the YAPC::Europe 2005 conference and subsequent article "A Timely Start", Jean-Louis Leroy found that his Perl programs took much longer to run than expected because the perl interpreter spent significant time finding modules within his over-large include path. Unlike Java, Python, and Ruby, Perl has only experimental support for pre-compiling. Therefore, Perl programs pay this overhead penalty on every execution. The run phase of typical programs is long enough that amortized startup time is not substantial, but benchmarks that measure very short execution times are likely to be skewed due to this overhead.
A number of tools have been introduced to improve this situation. The first such tool was Apache's mod_perl, which sought to address one of the most-common reasons that small Perl programs were invoked rapidly: CGI Web development. ActivePerl, via Microsoft ISAPI, provides similar performance improvements.
Once Perl code is compiled, there is additional overhead during the execution phase that typically isn't present for programs written in compiled languages such as C or C++. Examples of such overhead include bytecode interpretation, reference-counting memory management, and dynamic type-checking.
The most critical routines can be written in other languages (such as C), which can be connected to Perl via simple Inline modules or the more complex, but flexible, XS mechanism.
Applications
Perl has many and varied applications, compounded by the availability of many standard and third-party modules.
Perl has chiefly been used to write CGI scripts: large projects written in Perl include cPanel, Slash, Bugzilla, RT, TWiki, and Movable Type; high-traffic websites that use Perl extensively include Priceline.com, Craigslist, IMDb, LiveJournal, DuckDuckGo, Slashdot and Ticketmaster.
It is also an optional component of the popular LAMP technology stack for Web development, in lieu of PHP or Python. Perl is used extensively as a system programming language in the Debian Linux distribution.
Perl is often used as a glue language, tying together systems and interfaces that were not specifically designed to interoperate, and for "data munging", that is, converting or processing large amounts of data for tasks such as creating reports. These strengths are linked intimately. The combination makes Perl a popular all-purpose language for system administrators, particularly because short programs, often called "one-liner programs", can be entered and run on a single command line.
Perl code can be made portable across Windows and Unix; such code is often used by suppliers of software (both commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) and bespoke) to simplify packaging and maintenance of software build- and deployment-scripts.
Perl/Tk and wxPerl are commonly used to add graphical user interfaces to Perl scripts.
Perl's text-handling capabilities can be used for generating SQL queries; arrays, hashes, and automatic memory management make it easy to collect and process the returned data. For example, in Tim Bunce's Perl DBI application programming interface (API), the arguments to the API can be the text of SQL queries; thus it is possible to program in multiple languages at the same time (e.g., for generating a Web page using HTML, JavaScript, and SQL in a here document). The use of Perl variable interpolation to programmatically customize each of the SQL queries, and the specification of Perl arrays or hashes as the structures to programmatically hold the resulting data sets from each SQL query, allows a high-level mechanism for handling large amounts of data for post-processing by a Perl subprogram.
In early versions of Perl, database interfaces were created by relinking the interpreter with a client-side database library. This was sufficiently difficult that it was done for only a few of the most-important and most widely used databases, and it restricted the resulting perl executable to using just one database interface at a time.
In Perl 5, database interfaces are implemented by Perl DBI modules. The DBI (Database Interface) module presents a single, database-independent interface to Perl applications, while the DBD (Database Driver) modules handle the details of accessing some 50 different databases; there are DBD drivers for most ANSI SQL databases.
DBI provides caching for database handles and queries, which can greatly improve performance in long-lived execution environments such as mod_perl, helping high-volume systems avert load spikes as in the Slashdot effect.
In modern Perl applications, especially those written using web frameworks such as Catalyst, the DBI module is often used indirectly via object-relational mappers such as DBIx::Class, Class::DBI or Rose::DB::Object that generate SQL queries and handle data transparently to the application author.
Community
Perl's culture and community has developed alongside the language itself. Usenet was the first public venue in which Perl was introduced, but over the course of its evolution, Perl's community was shaped by the growth of broadening Internet-based services including the introduction of the World Wide Web. The community that surrounds Perl was, in fact, the topic of Wall's first "State of the Onion" talk.
State of the Onion is the name for Wall's yearly keynote-style summaries on the progress of Perl and its community. They are characterized by his hallmark humor, employing references to Perl's culture, the wider hacker culture, Wall's linguistic background, sometimes his family life, and occasionally even his Christian background. Each talk is first given at various Perl conferences and is eventually also published online.
In email, Usenet, and message board postings, "Just another Perl hacker" (JAPH) programs are a common trend, originated by Randal L. Schwartz, one of the earliest professional Perl trainers. In the parlance of Perl culture, Perl programmers are known as Perl hackers, and from this derives the practice of writing short programs to print out the phrase "Just another Perl hacker". In the spirit of the original concept, these programs are moderately obfuscated and short enough to fit into the signature of an email or Usenet message. The "canonical" JAPH as developed by Schwartz includes the comma at the end, although this is often omitted.
Perl "golf" is the pastime of reducing the number of characters (key "strokes") used in a Perl program to the bare minimum, much in the same way that golf players seek to take as few shots as possible in a round. The phrase's first use emphasized the difference between pedestrian code meant to teach a newcomer and terse hacks likely to amuse experienced Perl programmers, an example of the latter being JAPHs that were already used in signatures in Usenet postings and elsewhere. Similar stunts had been an unnamed pastime in the language APL in previous decades. The use of Perl to write a program that performed RSA encryption prompted a widespread and practical interest in this pastime. In subsequent years, the term "code golf" has been applied to the pastime in other languages. A Perl Golf Apocalypse was held at Perl Conference 4.0 in Monterey, California in July 2000.
As with C, obfuscated code competitions were a well known pastime in the late 1990s. The Obfuscated Perl Contest was a competition held by The Perl Journal from 1996 to 2000 that made an arch virtue of Perl's syntactic flexibility. Awards were given for categories such as "most powerful"—programs that made efficient use of space—and "best four-line signature" for programs that fit into four lines of 76 characters in the style of a Usenet signature block.
Perl poetry is the practice of writing poems that can be compiled as legal Perl code, for example the piece known as "Black Perl". Perl poetry is made possible by the large number of English words that are used in the Perl language. New poems are regularly submitted to the community at PerlMonks.
See also
Outline of Perl
Perl Data Language
Perl Object Environment
Plain Old Documentation
References
Further reading
Learning Perl 6th Edition (2011), O'Reilly. Beginner-level introduction to Perl.
Beginning Perl 1st Edition (2012), Wrox. A beginner's tutorial for those new to programming or just new to Perl.
Modern Perl 2nd Edition (2012), Onyx Neon. Describes Modern Perl programming techniques.
Programming Perl 4th Edition (2012), O'Reilly. The definitive Perl reference.
Effective Perl Programming 2nd Edition (2010), Addison-Wesley. Intermediate- to advanced-level guide to writing idiomatic Perl.
Perl Cookbook, . Practical Perl programming examples.
Functional programming techniques in Perl.
External links
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Programming languages
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Cross-platform software
Dynamic programming languages
Dynamically typed programming languages
Free compilers and interpreters
Free software programmed in C
High-level programming languages
Multi-paradigm programming languages
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Procedural programming languages
Programming languages created in 1987
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Software using the Artistic license
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Articles with example Perl code |
23940 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Human%20language | Proto-Human language | The Proto-Human language, also known as Proto-Sapiens or Proto-World, is the hypothetical direct genetic predecessor of all human languages.
The concept is speculative and not amenable to analysis in historical linguistics. It presupposes a monogenetic origin of language, i.e. the derivation of all natural languages from a single origin, presumably at some time in the Middle Paleolithic period. As the predecessor of all extant languages spoken by modern humans (Homo sapiens), Proto-Human as hypothesised would not necessarily be ancestral to any hypothetical Neanderthal language.
Terminology
There is no generally accepted term for this concept. Most treatments of the subject do not include a name for the language under consideration (e.g. Bengtson and Ruhlen). The terms Proto-World and Proto-Human are in occasional use. Merritt Ruhlen used the term Proto-Sapiens.
History of the idea
The first serious scientific attempt to establish the reality of monogenesis was that of Alfredo Trombetti, in his book L'unità d'origine del linguaggio, published in 1905. Trombetti estimated that the common ancestor of existing languages had been spoken between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago.
Monogenesis was dismissed by many linguists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when the doctrine of the polygenesis of the human races and their languages was popularised.
The best-known supporter of monogenesis in America in the mid-20th century was Morris Swadesh. He pioneered two important methods for investigating deep relationships between languages, lexicostatistics and glottochronology.
In the second half of the 20th century, Joseph Greenberg produced a series of large-scale classifications of the world's languages. These were and are controversial but widely discussed. Although Greenberg did not produce an explicit argument for monogenesis, all of his classification work was geared toward this end. As he stated: "The ultimate goal is a comprehensive classification of what is very likely a single language family."
Notable American advocates of linguistic monogenesis include Merritt Ruhlen, John Bengtson, and Harold Fleming.
Date and location
The first concrete attempt to estimate the date of the hypothetical ancestor language was that of Alfredo Trombetti, who concluded it was spoken between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago, or close to the first emergence of Homo sapiens.
It is uncertain or disputed whether the earliest members of Homo sapiens had fully developed language. Some scholars link the emergence of language proper (out of a proto-linguistic stage that may have lasted considerably longer) to the development of behavioral modernity toward the end of the Middle Paleolithic or at the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, roughly 50,000 years ago.
Thus, in the opinion of Richard Klein, the ability to produce complex speech only developed some 50,000 years ago (with the appearance of modern humans or Cro-Magnon).
Johanna Nichols (1998) argued that vocal languages must have begun diversifying in our species at least 100,000 years ago.
In 2011, an article in the journal Science proposed an African origin of modern human languages. It was suggested that human language predates the out-of-Africa migrations of 50,000 to 70,000 years ago and that language might have been the essential cultural and cognitive innovation that facilitated human colonization of the globe.
In Perreault and Mathew (2012), an estimate of the time of the first emergence of human language was based on phonemic diversity. This is based on the assumption that phonemic diversity evolves much more slowly than grammar or vocabulary, slowly increasing over time (but reduced among small founding populations).
The largest phoneme inventories are found among African languages, while the smallest inventories are found in South America and Oceania, some of the last regions of the globe to be settled.
The authors used data from the colonization of Southeast Asia to estimate the rate of increase in phonemic diversity.
Applying this rate to African languages, Perreault and Mathew (2012) arrived at an estimated age of 150,000 to 350,000 years, compatible with the emergence and early dispersal of H. sapiens.
The validity of this approach has been criticized as flawed.
Claimed characteristics
Speculation on the "characteristics" of Proto-World is limited to linguistic typology, i.e. the identification of universal features shared by all human languages, such as grammar (in the sense of "fixed or preferred sequences of linguistic elements"), and recursion, but beyond this, nothing is known of it.
Christopher Ehret has hypothesized that Proto-Human had a very complex consonant system, including clicks.
A few linguists, such as Merritt Ruhlen, have suggested the application of mass comparison and internal reconstruction (cf. Babaev 2008). Several linguists have attempted to reconstruct the language, while many others reject this as fringe science.
Vocabulary
Ruhlen tentatively traces several words back to the ancestral language, based on the occurrence of similar sound-and-meaning forms in languages across the globe. Bengtson and Ruhlen identify 27 "global etymologies". The following table lists a selection of these forms:
Based on these correspondences, Ruhlen lists these roots for the ancestor language:
*ku = 'who'
*ma = 'what'
*akʷa = 'water'
*sum = 'hair'
*čuna = 'nose, smell'
Selected items from Bengtson's and Ruhlen's (1994) list of 27 "global etymologies":
{| class="wikitable sortable"
! No. !! Root !! Gloss
|-
| 4 || *čun(g)a || 'nose; to smell'
|-
| 10 || *ku(n) || 'who?'
|-
| 26 || *tsuma || 'hair'
|-
| 27 || *ʔaq'wa || 'water'
|}
Syntax
There are competing theories about the basic word order of the hypothesized Proto-Human. These usually assume subject-initial ordering because it is the most common globally. Derek Bickerton proposes SVO (subject-verb-object) because this word order (like its mirror OVS) helps differentiate between the subject and object in the absence of evolved case markers by separating them with the verb.
By contrast, Talmy Givón hypothesizes that Proto-Human had SOV (subject-object-verb), based on the observation that many old languages (e.g., Sanskrit and Latin) had dominant SOV, but the proportion of SVO has increased over time. On such a basis, it is suggested that human languages are shifting globally from the original SOV to the modern SVO. Givón bases his theory on the empirical claim that word-order change mostly results in SVO and never in SOV.
Exploring Givón's idea in their 2011 paper, Murray Gell-Mann and Merritt Ruhlen stated that shifts to SOV are also attested. However, when these are excluded, the data indeed supported Givón's claim. The authors justified the exclusion by pointing out that the shift to SOV is unexceptionally a matter of borrowing the order from a neighboring language. Moreover, they argued that, since many languages have already changed to SVO, a new trend towards VSO and VOS ordering has arisen.
Harald Hammarström reanalysed the data. In contrast to such claims, he found that a shift to SOV is in every case the most common type, suggesting that there is, rather, an unchanged universal tendency towards SOV regardless of the way that languages change and that the relative increase of SVO is a historical effect of European colonialism.
Criticism
Many linguists reject the methods used to determine these forms. Several areas of criticism are raised with the methods Ruhlen and Gell-Mann employed. The essential basis of these criticisms is that the words being compared do not show common ancestry; the reasons for this vary. One is onomatopoeia: for example, the suggested root for smell listed above, *čuna, may simply be a result of many languages employing an onomatopoeic word that sounds like sniffing, snuffling, or smelling. Another is the taboo quality of certain words. Lyle Campbell points out that many established proto-languages do not contain an equivalent word for *putV 'vulva' because of how often such taboo words are replaced in the lexicon, and notes that it "strains credibility to imagine" that a Proto-World form of such a word would survive in many languages.
Using the criteria that Bengtson and Ruhlen employ to find cognates to their proposed roots, Campbell found seven possible matches to their root for woman *kuna in Spanish, including cónyuge 'wife, spouse', chica 'girl', and cana 'old (of a woman)' (adjective). He then goes on to show how what Bengtson and Ruhlen would identify as reflexes of *kuna cannot possibly be related to a Proto-World word for 'woman'. Cónyuge, for example, comes from the Latin root meaning 'to join', so its origin had nothing to do with the word 'woman'; chica is related to a Latin word meaning 'insignificant thing'; cana comes from the Latin word for 'white', and again shows a history unrelated to the word for 'woman'. Campbell asserts that these types of problems are endemic to the methods used by Ruhlen and others.
Some linguists question the very possibility of tracing language elements so far back into the past. Campbell notes that given the time elapsed since the origin of human language, every word from that time would have been replaced or changed beyond recognition in all languages today. Campbell harshly criticizes efforts to reconstruct a Proto-Human language, saying: "the search for global etymologies is at best a hopeless waste of time, at worst an embarrassment to linguistics as a discipline, unfortunately confusing and misleading to those who might look to linguistics for understanding in this area".
See also
Adamic language
Borean languages
Linguistic monogenesis and polygenesis
Linguistic universals
List of languages by first written accounts
List of proto-languages
Origin of language
Origin of speech
Recent African origin of modern humans
Universal grammar
References
Notes
Sources
Bengtson, John D. 2007. "On fossil dinosaurs and fossil words".
Campbell, Lyle, and William J. Poser. 2008. Language Classification: History and Method. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gell-Mann, Murray and Merritt Ruhlen. 2003. "The origin and evolution of syntax". (Also: HTML version.)
Givón, Talmy. 1979. On Understanding Grammar. New York: Academic Press.
Greenberg, Joseph. 1963. "Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements". In Universals of Language, edited by Joseph Greenberg, Cambridge: MIT Press, pp. 58–90. (In second edition of Universals of Language, 1966: pp. 73–113.)
Greenberg, Joseph H. 1966. The Languages of Africa, revised edition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. (Published simultaneously at The Hague by Mouton & Co.)
Greenberg, Joseph H. 1971. "The Indo-Pacific hypothesis". Reprinted in Joseph H. Greenberg, Genetic Linguistics: Essays on Theory and Method, edited by William Croft, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Greenberg, Joseph H. 2000–2002. Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family. Volume 1: Grammar. Volume 2: Lexicon. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Klein, Richard G. and Blake Edgar. 2002. The Dawn of Human Culture. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Nandi, Owi Ivar. 2012. Human Language Evolution, as Coframed by Behavioral and Psychological Universalisms, Bloomington: iUniverse Publishers.
Wells, Spencer. 2007. Deep Ancestry: Inside the Genographic Project. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic.
External links
"Genetic Distance and Language Affinities Between Autochthonous Human Populations"
Babaev, Kirill. 2008. "Critics of the Nostratic theory", in Nostratica: Resources on Distant Language Relationship.
Human
Middle Stone Age
Linguistic theories and hypotheses
Evolution of language
Linguistic universals
Long-range comparative linguistics |
23943 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine%20%28disambiguation%29 | Palestine (disambiguation) | Palestine (variously transliterated as Falastin, Felesteen, and Felestin) may refer to:
Geographic region
State of Palestine, a country in West Asia
Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip
Palestine (region), a geographic region in West Asia
Mandatory Palestine (1920–1948), a geopolitical entity under British administration
Syria Palaestina, a Roman province in the Palestine region between the early 2nd and late 4th centuries AD
Jund Filastin, a military district in the Umayyad and Abbasid province of Bilad al-Sham
Other places
Iraq
Palestine Hotel, building in Baghdad
Palestine Street, in Baghdad
United Kingdom
Palestine, Hampshire, England
Palestine Place, headquarters in London of the Church of England's organization Church's Ministry Among Jewish People
United States
Palestine, Arkansas
Palestine, a community of Newtown, Connecticut
Palestine, Illinois, in Crawford County
Palestine Township, Woodford County, Illinois
New Palestine, Illinois
Palestine, Indiana (disambiguation), several places
Palestine Township, Story County, Iowa
Palestine Township, Cooper County, Missouri
Palestine, Ohio
East Palestine, Ohio
New Palestine, Ohio
Palestine, Texas
Lake Palestine, in Texas
Palestine, Greenbrier County, West Virginia
Palestine, Wirt County, West Virginia
Arts, entertainment, and media
Falastin, a Palestinian newspaper published from 1911 to 1967
Felesteen (newspaper), a Palestinian newspaper published since 2006
New Palestine (magazine), an American magazine published in 1919
Palestine (graphic novel), a 2001 non-fiction graphic novel by Joe Sacco
Palestine from the Perspective of Ayatollah Khamenei, a 2011 compilation of statements by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Palestine (poem), an 1803 poem by Reginald Heber
Palestine, a 1912 American silent documentary film by Sidney Olcott
Charlemagne Palestine (born 1947), American composer
Other uses
Palestine (horse), a racehorse who won the 2,000 Guineas in 1950
See also
All-Palestine Government, a Palestinian Arab state proclaimed by the Arab League in 1948 and seated in Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip
Definitions of Palestinian
Holy Land (disambiguation)
Israel (disambiguation)
Palaestina (disambiguation)
Palestina (disambiguation)
Palestinian (disambiguation)
Palestinian territories (disambiguation)
Palestyna (disambiguation)
Philistines (disambiguation)
Palestinian National Authority |
23949 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian%20Christians | Palestinian Christians | Palestinian Christians ( ) are a religious community of the Palestinian people consisting of those who identify as Christians, including those who are cultural Christians in addition to those who actively adhere to Christianity. They are a religious minority within the State of Palestine and within Israel, as well as within the Palestinian diaspora. Applying the broader definition, which groups together individuals with full or partial Palestinian Christian ancestry, the term was applied to an estimated 500,000 people globally in the year 2000. As most Palestinians are Arabs, the overwhelming majority of Palestinian Christians also identify as Arab Christians.
Palestinian Christians belong to one of a number of Christian denominations, including Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, Catholicism (both the Latin Church and the Eastern-Rite Churches), and Protestantism (Anglicanism, Lutheranism, etc.), among others. In the 1990s, an estimate by Professor Bernard Sabella of Bethlehem University postulated that approximately 6.5% of the global Palestinian population was Christian, and that 56% of this figure was living outside of Palestine and Israel.
, Palestinian Christians comprise between 1% and 2.5% of the population of the West Bank, and less than 1% of the population of the Gaza Strip. According to official British Mandate statistics, Christians accounted for 9.5% of the total population (and 10.8% of Palestine's Arabs) in 1922 and 7.9% of the total population in 1946. Over the course of the 1947–1949 Palestine war between the Palestinian Arabs and the Palestinian Jews, a large number of these Christians—as part of the Arab community—fled or were expelled by Jewish militias from what would become recognized as Israeli territory following the 1949 Armistice Agreements. Since the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, which resulted in Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories (the Jordanian-annexed West Bank and the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip), the Palestinian Christian population has increased as a whole, but has decreased as a percentage of the total Palestinian population.
Many individuals of the Palestinian diaspora who identify as Christians are descendants of the post-1948 Palestinian Christian refugees who fled from the Arab–Israeli conflict and settled in Christian-majority countries.
Ethnic identity
Most Palestinian Christians nowadays see themselves as culturally and linguistically Arab Christians with ancestors dating back to the first followers of Christ. They claim descent from Romans, Ghassanid Arabs, Byzantines, and Crusaders.
That Christian Arabs in Palestine see themselves as Arab nationalistically reflects also the fact that, as of the beginning of the twentieth century, they shared many of the same customs as their Muslim neighbors. In some respects, this was a consequence of Christians adopting what were essentially Islamic practices, many of which were derived of sharî'ah. In others, it was more the case that the customs shared by both Muslims and Christians derived from neither faith, but rather were a result of a process of syncretization, whereby what had once been pagan practices were later redefined as Christian and subsequently adopted by Muslims. This was especially evident in the fact that Palestine's Muslims and Christians shared many of the same feast days, in honor of the same saints, even if they referred to them by different names. "Shrines dedicated to St. George, for instance, were transformed into shrines honoring Khidr-Ilyas, a conflation of the Prophet Elijah and the mythical sprite Khidr". Added to this, many Muslims viewed local Christian churches as saints' shrines. Thus, for instance, a "Muslim women having difficulties conceiving, for instance, might travel to Bethlehem to pray for a child before the Virgin Mary". It was even not uncommon for a Muslim to have his child baptized in a Christian church, in the name of Khaḍr.
Demographics and denominations
1922 census
In the 1922 census of Palestine there were approximately 73,000 Christian Palestinians: 46% Orthodox, 40% Catholic (20% Roman Catholic, and 20% Eastern Catholic).
The census recorded over 200 localities with a Christian population. The totals by denomination for all of Mandatory Palestine were: Greek Orthodox 33,369, Syriac Orthodox (Jacobite) 813, Latin Catholic 14,245, Greek Catholic (Melkite) 11,191, Syriac Catholic 323, Armenian Catholic 271, Maronite 2,382, Armenian Orthodox (Gregorian) 2,939, Coptic Church 297, Abyssinian Church 85, Church of England 4,553, Presbyterian Church 361, Protestants 826, Lutheran Church 437, Templars Community 724, others 208.
The census also listed 10,707 Palestinian Christians living abroad, making up the largest portion of the Palestinians living abroad at the time: 32 in Australia, 17 in Africa, 1 in Austria, 1 in Belgium, 1 in Bulgaria, 2 in Canada, 242 in Egypt, 34 in France, 59 in Germany, 1 in Greece, 7 in Italy, 4 in Morocco, 1 in Mesopotamia, 1 in Paraguay, 5 in Persia, 4 in Russia, 1 in South Africa, 11 in East Africa, 7 in Sudan, 6 in Sweden, 1 in Switzerland, 2 in Spain, 122 in Syria, 95 in Transjordan, 8,517 in South and Central American republics, 17 in Turkey, 6 in the United Kingdom, 1,352 in the United States, and 158 whose locations were unknown.
Modern day geographic distribution
In 2009, there were an estimated 50,000 Christians in the Palestinian territories, mostly in the West Bank, with about 3,000 in the Gaza Strip. In 2022, about 1,100 Christians lived in the Gaza Strip – down from over 1300 in 2014. About 80% of the Christian Palestinians live in an urban environment. In the West Bank, they are concentrated mostly in Jerusalem and its vicinity: Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Beit Sahour, Ramallah, Bir Zayt, Jifna, Ein Arik, Taybeh.
Of the total Christian population of 185,000 in Israel, about 80% are designated as Arabs, many of whom self-identify as Palestinian.
The majority (56%) of Palestinian Christians live in the Palestinian diaspora.
Denominations and Church Leadership
Around 50% of Palestinian Christians belong to the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, one of the 15 churches of Eastern Orthodoxy. This community has also been known as the Arab Orthodox Christians. There are also Maronites, Melkites, Jacobites, Chaldeans, Latin Catholics, Syriac Catholics, Orthodox Copts, Coptic Catholics, Armenian Orthodox, Armenian Catholics, Quakers (Society of Friends), Methodists, Presbyterians, Anglicans (Episcopal), Lutherans, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Nazarene, Assemblies of God, Baptists and other Protestants; in addition to small groups of Jehovah's Witnesses, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and others.
Patriarch Theophilos III is the leader of the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem since 2005. He replaced Irenaios (in office from 2001), who was deposed by the church synod after a term surrounded by controversy and scandal over a sale of property owned by the Greek Orthodox Church to Jewish investors. The Israel government initially refused to recognize Theophilos's appointment but finally granted full recognition in December 2007, despite a legal challenge by his predecessor Irenaios. Archbishop Theodosios (Hanna) of Sebastia the highest ranking Palestinian clergyman in the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem is the leader of the Latin Catholics in Jerusalem, Palestine, Jordan, Israel and Cyprus. The office has been held by Pierbattista Pizzaballa since his appointment by Pope Francis on 6 November 2020. George Bacouni, of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, is Archbishop of Akka, with jurisdiction over Haifa, Acre and the Galilee, and replaced Elias Chacour, a Palestinian refugee, in 2014. Moussa El-Hage, of the Maronite Church, is since 2012 simultaneously Archbishop of the Archeparchy of Haifa and the Holy Land and Patriarchal Exarch of Jerusalem and Palestine.
The Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem is Suheil Dawani, who replaced Bishop Riah Abou Al Assal. Bishop Dr. Munib Younan is the president of the Lutheran World Federation and the Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL).
List of Churches in Palestine
International Christian Organisations in Palestine
Various international Christian organisations provide services in Palestine to Palestinians of all religious backgrounds.
YMCA in Gaza and Jerusalem
The Anglican Church runs the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital
Christian development assistance
A study showed $416 million annual spending of Christian institutions on Palestinian society, in sectors such as health care, education, social services, vocational training and development assistance interventions in all Palestinian governorates.
History
Background and early history
The first Christian communities in Roman Judea originated from the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, who was put to death and crucified by order of Prefect Pontius Pilate in 30–33; they were Aramaic speaking Jewish Christian and, later, Latin and Greek-speaking Romans and Greeks, who were in part descendants from previous settlers of the regions, such as Syro-Phoenicians, Arameans, Greeks, Persians, and Arabs such as Nabataeans.
Contrary to other groups of oriental Christians such as the largely Assyrian Nestorians, the vast majority of Palestinian Christians went under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and Roman emperors after the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD (which would be part of the Eastern Orthodox Church after the Great Schism), and were known by other Syrian Christians as Melkites (followers of the king). The Melkites were heavily Hellenised in the following centuries, abandoning their distinct Western Aramaic languages in favour of Greek. By the 7th century, Jerusalem, Gaza and Byzantine Palestine became the epicentre of Greek culture in the Orient.
In the fourth century, the monk Hilarion introduced monasticism in the area around Gaza which became a flourishing monastic center (including the Saint Hilarion Monastery and the monastery of Seridus), second only to the cluster of monasteries in the Judaean desert (which include the Mar Saba monastery).
Following Muslim conquests, non-Arabic speaking Christians underwent a gradual process of Arabization in which they abandoned Aramaic and Greek in favor of Arabic. The Melkites began abandoning Greek for Arabic, a process which made them the most Arabicised Christians in the Levant. Most Arab Ghassanids remained Christian and joined Melkite and Syriac communities within what is now Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon.
The eleventh century Melkite bishop of Gaza Sulayman al-Ghazzi holds a unique place in the history of Arab Christian literature as author of the first diwan of Christian religious poetry in Arabic. His poems give insights into the life of Palestinian Christians and the persecution they suffered under Fatimid caliph al-Hakim.
In the late sixteenth century, Christianity in southern Bilad ash-Sham was primarily rural, with a significant portion of the population living in villages and tribes. Christians were dispersed among numerous towns and villages in the vicinity of Jerusalem, some had been inhabited by Christians since Byzantine and Frankish rule. Villages with Christian population included Taybeh, Beit Rima, Jifna an-Nasara, Ramallah, Yabrud, Aboud, Suba, Tuqu, Nahalin, and Artas. The Christians living in these villages were mainly of Greek Orthodox denomination, although exceptions existed, such as the Syrian Christian community in Aboud.
Modern history
During the Ottoman Empire, foreign powers enjoyed positions of guardianship towards minorities, including the French for the Christians of Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. Orthodox Christians more specifically came under the protections of the Russian Empire. This placed Palestinian Christians with protection privileges, and access to missionary schools, which enabled them to engage in commerce with European traders. In addition, Christian merchants had lower rates of duty to pay than their Muslim counterparts, and thus they established themselves as bankers and moneylenders for Muslim landowners, artisans and peasants. This growing middle class produced several newspaper owners and editors and played leading roles in Palestinian political life.
The category of 'Palestinian Arab Christian' came to assume a political dimension in the 19th century as international interest grew and foreign institutions were developed there. The urban elite began to undertake the construction of a modern multi-religious Arab civil society. When the British received from the League of Nations a mandate to administer Palestine after World War I, many British dignitaries in London were surprised to discover so many Christian leaders in the Palestinian Arab political movements. The British authorities in the Mandate of Palestine had difficulty understanding the commitment of the Palestinian Christians to Palestinian nationalism.Palestinian Christian-owned Falastin was founded in 1911 in the then Arab-majority city of Jaffa. The newspaper is often described as one of the most influential newspapers in historic Palestine, and probably the nation's fiercest and most consistent critic of the Zionist movement. It helped shape Palestinian identity and nationalism and was shut down several times by the Ottoman and British authorities, most of the time due to complaints made by Zionists. Following the British takeover of Palestine in 1918 during the final stages of the First World War, groups called "Muslim-Christian Associations" were formed across the new Mandatory Palestine in order to oppose the Zionist movement and implementation of the Balfour Declaration. In the 1920s, it was noted that the inhabitants of Beit Kahil, Dayr Aban and Taffuh were originally Christian.
The Nakba left the multi-denominational Christian Arab communities in disarray. They had little background in theology, their work being predominantly pastoral, and their immediate task was to assist the thousands of homeless refugees. But it also sowed the seeds for the development of a Liberation Theology among Palestinian Arab Christians. There was a differential policy of expulsion. More lenience was applied to the Christians of the Galilee where expulsion mostly affected Muslims: at Tarshiha, Me'eliya, Dayr al-Qassi, and Salaban, Christians were allowed to remain while Muslims were driven out. At Iqrit and Bir'im the IDF ordered Christians to evacuate for a brief spell, an order that was then confirmed as a permanent expulsion. Sometimes in a mixed Druze-Christian village like al-Rama, only the Christians were initially expelled towards Lebanon, but, thanks to the intervention of the local Druze, they were permitted to return. Important Christian figures were sometimes allowed to return, on condition they help Israel among their communities. Archbishop Hakim, with many hundreds of Christians, was allowed reentry on expressing a willingness to campaign against Communists in Israel and among his flock.
After the war of 1948, the Christian population in the West Bank, under Jordanian control, dropped slightly, largely due to economic problems. This contrasts with the process occurring in Israel where Christians left en masse after 1948. Constituting 21% of Israel's Arab population in 1950, they now make up just 9% of that group. These trends accelerated after the 1967 war in the aftermath of Israel's takeover of the West Bank and Gaza.
In the Palestinian Authority (from 1994)
Christians within the Palestinian Authority constituted around one in seventy-five residents. In 2009, Reuters reported that 47,000–50,000 Christians remained in the West Bank, with around 17,000 following the various Catholic traditions and most of the rest following the Orthodox church and other eastern denominations. Both Bethlehem and Nazareth, which were once overwhelmingly Christian, now have Muslim majorities. Today about three-quarters of all Bethlehem Christians live abroad, and more Jerusalem Christians live in Sydney, Australia, than in Jerusalem. Christians now comprise 2.5 percent of the population of Jerusalem. Those remaining include a few born in the Old City when Christians there constituted a majority.
In a 2007 letter from Congressman Henry Hyde to President George W. Bush, Hyde stated that "the Christian community is being crushed in the mill of the bitter Israeli-Palestinian conflict" and that expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, were "irreversibly damaging the dwindling Christian community".
In November 2009, Berlanty Azzam, a Palestinian Christian student from Gaza, was expelled from Bethlehem and was not allowed to continue her studying. She had two months left for the completion of her degree. Berlanty Azzam said the Israeli military handcuffed her, blindfolded her, and left her waiting for hours at a checkpoint on her way back from a job interview in Ramallah. She described the incident as "frightening" and claimed Israeli official treated her like a criminal and denied her an education because she is a Palestinian Christian from Gaza.
In Israel
In July 2014, during operation Protective Edge an Israeli-Arab Christian demonstration was held in Haifa in a protest against Muslim extremism in the Middle East (concerning the rise of the Islamic State) and in support of Israel and the IDF.
Christian Arabs are one of the most educated groups in Israel. Statistically, Christian Arabs in Israel have the highest rates of educational attainment among all religious communities, according to a data by Israel Central Bureau of Statistics in 2010, 63% of Israeli Christian Arabs have had college or postgraduate education, the highest of any religious and ethno-religious group. Despite the fact that Arab Christians only represent 2.1% of the total Israeli population, in 2014 they accounted for 17.0% of the country's university students, and for 14.4% of its college students. Christians are proportionally more likely to have attained a bachelor's or higher academic degrees than the Israeli national average. Christian Arabs additionally have one of the highest rates of success in the matriculation examinations, (73.9%) in 2017 both in comparison to the Muslims and the Druze and in comparison to all students in the Jewish education system as a group. Arab Christians were also the vanguard in terms of eligibility for higher education, and they have attained a bachelor's degree and academic degree more than the median Israeli population. Christians schools in Israel went on strike in 2015 at the beginning of the 2015 academic year in protest at budget cuts aimed at them. The strike affected 33,000 pupils, 40 percent of them Muslim. In 2013, Israel covered 65% of the budget of Palestinian Christian schools in Israel, a figure cut that year to 34%. Christians say they now received a third of what Jewish schools receive, with a shortfall of $53 million.
The rate of students studying in the field of medicine was also higher among the Christian Arab students, compared with all the students from other sectors. The percentage of Arab Christian women who are higher education students is higher than other sectors.
In September 2014, Israel's interior minister signed an order that the self-identified ''Aramean Christian'' minority in Israel could register as Arameans rather than Arabs. The order will affect about 200 families.
The first local woman cleric ordained in the Holy Land was Palestinian Sally Azar of the Lutheran church in 2023.
Israel-Hamas War
Since the start of the ongoing Israel–Hamas war in October 2023, there have been several incidents involving Palestinian Christians in the Gaza Strip, most notably the Church of Saint Porphyrius airstrike and the killing of two Catholic women by an Israeli sniper in the Holy Family Parish in northern Gaza.
Political and ecumenical issues
The mayors of Ramallah, Birzeit, Bethlehem, Zababdeh, Jifna, Ein 'Arik, Aboud, Taybeh, Beit Jala and Beit Sahour are Christians. The Governor of Tubas, Marwan Tubassi, is a Christian. The former Palestinian representative to the United States, Afif Saffieh, is a Christian, as is the ambassador of the Palestinian Authority in France, Hind Khoury. The Palestinian women's football team has a majority of Muslim girls, but the captain, Honey Thaljieh, is a Christian from Bethlehem. Many of the Palestinian officials such as ministers, advisers, ambassadors, consulates, heads of missions, PLC, PNA, PLO, Fateh leaders and others are Christians. Some Christians were part of the affluent segments of Palestinian society that left the country during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. In West Jerusalem, over 50% of Christian Palestinians lost their homes to the Israelis, according to the historian Sami Hadawi.
Involvement in Palestinian militancy
Palestinian Christians have played a role in the anti-Zionist movement and related political violence, both before and after the establishment of Israel in 1948.
During the 1936-1939 revolt in British Palestine, the Palestinian Arab rebels bore flags with a cross and crescent, symbolizing Christianity and Islam, respectively. At least 282 rebel leaders participated in the revolt, four of which were Christians.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was founded in 1967 by George Habash, a Christian. Habash once stated that he believed there was perfect harmony between his Christian religion, his Arab nationalism, his Islamic culture, and his Marxist politics. Wadie Haddad, the leader of the military wing of the PFLP, was also Christian. Reportedly, Eastern Orthodox priests would bless PFLP hijacking teams before they set out on attacks.
Sirhan Sirhan, who assassinated Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, came from a Christian family and later changed church denominations several times, joining Baptist and Seventh-day Adventist churches. However, in 1966, he joined the esoteric organization Ancient Mystical Order of the Rose Cross, one of the Rosicrucian Orders.
A Jordanian Christian, Nayef Hawatmeh, leads a Palestinian organization, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), which broke off from the PFLP in 1969.
The 1972 Munich massacre was perpetrated by the Black September Organization, which called its operation "Iqrit and Biram", after two Christian villages whose inhabitants were expelled by the IDF during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Luttif Afif, the commander of the unit that carried out the massacre, was reported to have a Christian father and used the alias "Jesus".
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades has had a Christian presence as well. Two of their militants, Chris Bandak and Daniel Abu Hamama, both Christians from Bethlehem, participated in anti-Zionist violence. Bandak was imprisoned by Israel for shooting at Israeli motorists during the Second Intifada, and was later released in 2011 as part of an exchange for the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Daniel Abu Hamama, who was also a senior Tanzim operative, was killed by Israel in 2006. An image was later taken of Hamama's Christian funeral in Bethlehem.
Arab Orthodox Movement
The Arab Orthodox Movement is a political and social movement aiming for the Arabization of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the church overseeing Orthodox communities in Palestine, Israel and Jordan; to which the majority of the Christian population there belongs to.
Within the context of rising Arab nationalism in the 19th century, the movement was inspired by the successful precedent of the Arabization of Syria and Lebanon's Antioch Patriarchate in 1899. The movement seeks the appointment of an Arab patriarch, Arab laity control over Jerusalem patriarchate's properties for social and educational purposes, and the use of Arabic as a liturgical language. Initially a church movement among Palestine and Transjordan's Orthodox Arab Christians in the late 19th century, it was later supported as a Palestinian and Arab nationalist cause and championed by some Arab Muslims, owing to the Greek-dominated patriarchate's early support to Zionism.
The Orthodox laity, which is mostly Arab, maintains that the patriarchate was forcibly Hellenized in 1543, while the Greek clergy says that the patriarchate was historically Greek. Opposition to the Greek clergy turned violent in the late 19th century, when they came under physical attack by the Arab laity in the streets. The movement was subsequently focused on holding Arab Orthodox conferences, the first of which was held in Jaffa in 1923, and most recently in Amman in 2014. One outcome of the 1923 conference was the laity's establishment of tens of Orthodox churches, clubs and schools in Palestine and Jordan over the decades. There were historically also several interventions to solve the conflict by the Ottoman, British (1920–1948), and Jordanian (1948–1967) authorities, owing to the patriarchate's headquarters being located in East Jerusalem.
Christian converts from Islam
Though numbering only a few hundred, there is a community of Christians who have converted from Islam. They are not centered in one particular city and mostly belong to various evangelical and charismatic communities. Due to the fact that official conversion from Islam to Christianity is illegal in accordance with Islamic sharia law in Palestine, these individuals tend to keep a low profile.
Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center: Sabeel
The Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center is a Christian non-governmental organization based in Jerusalem; was founded in 1990 as an outgrowth of a conference regarding "Palestinian Liberation Theology." According to its web site, "Sabeel is an ecumenical grassroots liberation theology movement among Palestinian Christians. Inspired by the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, this liberation theology seeks to deepen the faith of Palestinian Christians, to promote unity among them toward social action. Sabeel strives to develop a spirituality based on love, justice, peace, nonviolence, liberation and reconciliation for the different national and faith communities. The word "Sabeel" is Arabic for 'the way' and also a 'channel' or 'spring' of life-giving water."
Sabeel has been criticized for its belief that "Israel is solely culpable for the origin and continuation of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict," and for using "anti-Semitic deicide imagery against Israel, and of disparaging Judaism as 'tribal,' 'primitive,' and 'exclusionary,' in contrast to Christianity’s 'universalism' and 'inclusiveness. In addition, Daniel Fink, writing on behalf of NGO Monitor, shows that Sabeel leader Naim Ateek has described Zionism as a "step backward in the development of Judaism", and Zionists as "oppressors and war makers".
"Kairos Palestine" document (2009)
In December 2009, a number of prominent Palestinian Christian activists, both clergy and lay people, released the Kairos Palestine document, "A moment of truth." Among the authors of the document are Michel Sabbah, former Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Archbishop Attalah Hanna, Father Jamal Khader, Rev. Mitri Raheb, Rev. Naim Ateek and Rifat Kassis who is the coordinator and chief spokesperson of the group.
The document declares the Israeli occupation of Palestine a "sin against God" and against humanity. It calls on churches and Christians all over the world to consider it and adopt it and to call for the boycott of Israel. Section 7 calls for "the beginning of a system of economic sanctions and boycott to be applied against Israel." It states that isolation of Israel will cause pressure on Israel to abolish all of what it labels as "apartheid laws" that discriminate against Palestinians and non-Jews.
Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation
The Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation (HCEF) was founded in 1999 by an ecumenical group of American Christians to preserve the Christian presence in the Holy Land. HCEF stated goal is to attempt to continue the presence and well-being of Arab Christians in the Holy Land and to develop the bonds of solidarity between them and Christians elsewhere. HCEF offers material assistance to Palestinian Christians and to churches in the area. HCEF advocates for solidarity on the part of Western Christians with Christians in the Holy Land.
Christians of Gaza
In 2022, there were approximately 1,100 Christians in the Gaza Strip, down from 1,300 in 2013, and from 5,000 in the mid-1990s. Gaza's Christian community mostly lives within the city, especially in areas neighbouring the three main churches: Church of Saint Porphyrius, The Holy Family Catholic Parish in Zeitoun Street, and the Gaza Baptist Church, in addition to an Anglican chapel in the Al-Ahli Al-Arabi Arab Evangelical Hospital. Saint Porphyrius is an Orthodox Church that dates back to the 12th century. Gaza Baptist Church is the city's only Evangelical Church; it lies close to the Legislative Council (parliamentary building). While some reports claim that Christians in Gaza freely practice their religion and may observe all the religious holidays in accordance with the Christian calendars followed by their churches. other reports claim forceful conversion to Islam, public insults, kidnapping, fear of radical Islamist groups, and vandalism.
Those among them working as civil servants in the government and in the private sector are given an official holiday during the week, which some devote to communal prayer in churches. Christians are permitted to obtain any job, in addition to having their full rights and duties as their Muslim counterparts in accordance with the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, the regime, and all the systems prevailing over the territories. Moreover, seats have been allocated to Christian citizens in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) in accordance with a quota system that allocates based on a significant Christian presence.
A census revealed that 40 percent of the Christian community worked in the medical, educational, engineering and law sectors. Additionally, the churches in Gaza are renowned for the relief and educational services that they offer, and Muslim citizens participate in these services. Palestinian citizens as a whole benefit from these services. The Latin Patriarchate School, for example, offers relief in the form of medication and social and educational services. The school has been offering services for nearly 150 years.
In 1974, the idea of establishing a new school was proposed by Father Jalil Awad, a former parish priest in Gaza who recognized the need to expand the Latin Patriarchate School and build a new complex. In 2011, the Holy family school had 1,250 students and the Roman Catholic primary school, which is an extension of the Latin Patriarchate School, continues to enroll a rising number of young students. The primary school was established approximately 20 years ago. Aside from education, other services are offered to Muslims and Christians alike with no discrimination. Services include women's groups, students' groups and youth groups, such as those offered at the Baptist Church on weekdays. As of 2013, only 113 out of 968 of these Christian schools students were in fact Christians.
In October 2007, Rami Ayyad, the Baptist manager of The Teacher's Bookshop, the only Christian bookstore in the Gaza Strip, was murdered, following the firebombing of his bookstore and the receipt of death threats from Muslim extremists.
In 2008, the gate of the Rosary Sisters School was blown up, and the library of a Christian organization for youth was blown up with the guard being kidnapped.
From the 3,000 Christians in 2007 when Israel intensified its siege and drove them out of the poor area, estimates indicate that the number of Christians in Gaza has decreased since.
With a history stretching back to the first century, the 800–1,000 Christians who are thought to still be in Gaza represent the oldest Christian community in the world. At least eighteen people were killed when Israel bombed the Church of Saint Porphyrius, which is the oldest in Gaza, on 19 October 2023.
Christian emigration
In addition to neighboring countries, such as Lebanon and Jordan, many Palestinian Christians emigrated to countries in Latin America (notably Argentina and Chile), as well as to Australia, the United States and Canada. The Palestinian Authority is unable to keep exact tallies. The share of Christians in the population has also decreased due to the fact that Muslim Palestinians generally have much higher birth rates than the Christians.
The causes of this Christian exodus are hotly debated, with various possibilities put forth. Many of the Palestinian Christians in the diaspora are those who fled or were expelled during the 1948 war and their descendants. After discussion between Yosef Weitz and Moshe Sharett, Ben-Gurion authorized a project for the transference of the Christian communities of the Galilee to Argentina, but the proposal failed in the face of Christian opposition. Reuters has reported that the emigrants since then have left in pursuit of better living standards.
The BBC has also blamed the economic decline in the Palestinian Authority as well as pressure from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the exodus. A report on Bethlehem residents stated both Christians and Muslims wished to leave but the Christians possessed better contacts with people abroad and higher levels of education. The Vatican and the Catholic Church blamed the Israeli occupation and the conflict in the Holy Land for the Christian exodus from the Holy Land and the Middle East in general.
The Jerusalem Post (an Israeli newspaper) has stated that the "shrinking of the Palestinian Christian community in the Holy Land came as a direct result of its middle-class standards" and that Muslim pressure has not played a major role according to Christian residents themselves. It reported that the Christians have a public image of elitism and of class privilege as well as of non-violence and of open personalities, which leaves them more vulnerable to criminals than Muslims. Hanna Siniora, a prominent Christian Palestinian human rights activist, has attributed harassment against Christians to "little groups" of "hoodlums" rather than to the Hamas and Fatah governments. In his last novel, the Palestinian Christian writer Emile Habibi has a character affirm that: "There is no difference between Christian and Muslim: we are all Palestinian in our predicament."
According to a report in The Independent, thousands of Christian Palestinians "emigrated to Latin America in the 1920s, when Mandatory Palestine was hit by drought and a severe economic depression."
Today, Chile houses the largest Palestinian Christian community in the world outside of the Levant. As many as 350,000 Palestinian Christians reside in Chile, most of whom came from Beit Jala, Bethlehem, and Beit Sahur. Also, El Salvador, Honduras, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela, and other Latin American countries have significant Palestinian Christian communities, some of whom immigrated almost a century ago during the time of Ottoman Palestine.
In a 2006 poll of Christians in Bethlehem by the Palestinian Centre for Research and Cultural Dialogue, 90% reported having Muslim friends, 73% agreed that the Palestinian Authority treats Christian heritage in the city with respect, and 78% attributed the ongoing exodus of Christians from Bethlehem to the Israeli occupation and travel restrictions on the area. Daniel Rossing, the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs' chief liaison to Christians in the 1970s and 1980s, has stated that the situations for them in Gaza became much worse after the election of Hamas. He also stated that the Palestinian Authority, which counts on Christian westerners for financial support, treats the minority fairly. He blamed the Israeli West Bank barrier as the primary problem for the Christians.
The United States State Department's 2006 report on religious freedom criticized both Israel for its restrictions on travel to Christian holy sites and the Palestinian Authority for its failure to stamp out anti-Christian crime. It also reported that the former gives preferential treatment in basic civic services to Jews and the latter does so to Muslims. The report stated that, generally, ordinary Muslim and Christian citizens enjoy good relations in contrast to the "strained" Jewish and Arab relations. A 2005 BBC report also described Muslim and Christian relations as "peaceful".
The Arab Human Rights Association, an Arab NGO in Israel, has stated that Israeli authorities have denied Palestinian Christians in Israel access to holy places, prevented repairs needed to preserve historic holy sites, and carried out physical attacks on religious leaders.
Multiple factors, the internal dislocation of Palestinians in wars; the creation of three contiguous refugee camps for those displaced; emigration of Muslims from Hebron; hindrances to development under Israeli military occupation with its land confiscations, and a lax and corrupt judicial system under the PNA that is often incapable of enforcing laws, have all contributed to Christian emigration, which has been a tradition since the British Mandate period.
This has been contested, as the main cause of Christian emigration from Bethlehem, Kairos Palestine—an independent coalition Christian organisation, set up to help communicate to the Christian world what is happening in Palestine—sent a letter to The Wall Street Journal to explain that "In the case of Bethlehem, for instance, it is in fact the rampant construction of Israeli settlements, the chokehold imposed by the separation wall and the Israeli government's confiscation of Palestinian land that has driven many Christians to leave," the unprinted letter, quoted in Haaretz, states. "At present, a mere 13 percent of Bethlehem-area land is left to its Palestinian inhabitants".
Persecutions
Majority of Palestinian Christians are leaving the territories due to the Arab-Israeli conflict. There have been reports of attacks on Palestinian Christians in Gaza from Muslim extremist groups. Gaza Pastor Manuel Musallam has voiced doubts that those attacks were religiously motivated.
Fr Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Custodian of the Holy Land, a senior Catholic spokesman, has stated that police inaction and an educational culture that encourages Jewish children to treat Christians with "contempt" has made life increasingly "intolerable" for many Christians. Fr Pizzaballa's statement came after pro-settler extremists attacked a Trappist monastery in the town of Latroun, setting fire to its door, and covering walls with anti-Christian graffiti. The incident followed a series of acts of arson and vandalism, in 2012, targeting places of Christian worship, including Jerusalem's 11th century Monastery of the Cross, where slogans such as "Death to Christians" and other offensive graffiti were daubed on its walls. According to an article in the Telegraph, Christian leaders feel that the most important issue that Israel has failed to address is the practice of some ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools to teach children that it is a religious obligation to abuse anyone in Holy Orders they encounter in public, such that Ultra-Orthodox Jews, including children as young as eight, spit at members of the clergy on a daily basis.
After Pope Benedict XVI's comments on Islam in September 2006, five churches of various denominations were firebombed and shot at in the West Bank and Gaza. A Muslim extremist group called "Lions of Monotheism" claimed responsibility. Former Palestinian Prime Minister and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh condemned the attacks, and police presence was elevated in Bethlehem, which has a sizable Christian community.
Armenians in Jerusalem, identified as Palestinian Christians or Israeli-Armenians, have also been attacked and received threats from Jewish extremists; Christians and clergy have been spat at, and one Armenian Archbishop was beaten and his centuries-old cross broken. In September 2009, two Armenian Christian clergy were expelled after a brawl erupted with a Jewish extremist for spitting on holy Christian objects.
In February 2009, a group of Christian activists within the West Bank wrote an open letter asking Pope Benedict XVI to postpone his scheduled trip to Israel unless the government changed its treatment. They highlighted improved access to places of worship and ending the taxation of church properties as key concerns. The Pope began his five-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority on Sunday, 10 May, planning to express support for the region's Christians. In response to Palestinian public statements, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor criticized the political polarization of the papal visit, remarking that "[i]t will serve the cause of peace much better if this visit is taken for what it is, a pilgrimage, a visit for the cause of peace and unity".
Bethlehem
Christian families are the largest landowners in Bethlehem and have often been subject to theft of property. Bethlehem's core of traditional Christian and Muslim families speak of the rise of a 'foreign', more conservative, Islamic Hebronite class as changing the traditional regional identity of the town, as are the villages dominated by the Ta'amre Bedouin clans close to Bethlehem. Rising Muslim land purchase, said at times to be Saudi-financed, and incidents of land theft with forged documents, except in Beit Sahour where Christian and Muslims share a strong sense of local identity, are seen by Christians as making their demographic presence vulnerable. Christians are often described as of Yamani descent (as are some Muslim clans), vs the al-Qaysi Muslim clans, respectively from southern and northern Arabia. Christians are wary of the international media and of discussing these issues publicly, which involve criticism of fellow Palestinians, since there is a risk that their remarks may be manipulated by outsiders to undermine Palestinian claims to nationhood, distract attention from the crippling impact of Israel's occupation, and conjure up an image of a Muslim drive to oust Christians from Bethlehem.
The Christian Broadcasting Network (an American Protestant organization) claimed that Palestinian Christians suffer systematic discrimination and persecution at the hands of the predominantly Muslim population and Palestinian government aimed at driving their population out of their homeland. However, Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem and Beit Jala have claimed otherwise that it is the loss of agricultural land and expropriation from the Israeli military, the persecution of 1948 and violence from the military occupation that has led to a flight and major exodus of Christians.
On 26 September 2015, the Mar Charbel monastery in Bethlehem was set on fire, resulting in the burning of many rooms and damaging various parts of the building.
In September 2016, the Jerusalem-based Center for Jewish–Christian Understanding and Cooperation (CJCUC) established Blessing Bethlehem, a charity fundraising initiative with the purpose of helping the persecuted Christians living in the city of Bethlehem and its surrounding areas.
See also
List of Palestinian Christians
Arab Christians
Arab Orthodox Movement
Demographic history of Palestine (region)
Arab Christian citizens of Israel
Christianity in Israel
References
Further reading
Morris, Benny, 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War, (2009) Yale University Press.
Reiter, Yitzhak, National Minority, Regional Majority: Palestinian Arabs Versus Jews in Israel (Syracuse Studies on Peace and Conflict Resolution), (2009) Syracuse Univ Press (Sd).
External links
Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land and the Diaspora. Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, 21 October 2014
Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land. Institute for Middle East Understanding, 17 December 2012
Christian Presence in Palestine and the Diaspora: Statistics, Challenges and Opportunities . Global Ministries, 31 August 2012
Middle East Christians: Gaza pastor (Interview with Hanna Massad). BBC News. Published 21 December 2005.
at Al Jazeera English
at Al Jazeera English
Bethlehem University
"What is it like to be a Palestinian Christian?" at Beliefnet.com
Religion in the news – Israelis and Palestinians
Hard Time in the House of Bread
Al-Bushra (an Arab-American Catholic perspective)
Palestinian Christians: Challenges and Hopes by Bernard Sabella
Salt of the Earth: Palestinian Christians in the Northern West Bank, a documentary film series
Arab Christians in Israel threaten to close their churches. MEMO, 28 September 2015 |
23956 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope%20Marinus%20I | Pope Marinus I | Pope Marinus I (; died 15 May 884) was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 882 until his death. Controversially at the time, he was already a bishop when he became pope, and had served as papal legate to Constantinople. He was also erroneously called Martin II (Martinus II) leading to the second pope named Martin to take the name Martin IV.
Ecclesiastical career
Diplomat to the East
Born at Gallese, Marinus was the son of a priest. He would become an expert on relations with the Eastern church, starting this path when he assisted as subdeacon the welcome of ambassadors of emperor Michael III in 860. He was ordained as a deacon by Pope Nicholas I and then sent in 866 to Constantinople to discuss the religious leadership over the newly converted Bulgarians though the embassy was turned back at the Byzantine border. Marinus was sent again in 869 as one of pope Adrian II's legates who presided over the eight ecumenical council in Constantinople which deposed the Patriarch Photios I of Constantinople. His profile became popular after and some time afterwards he became bishop of Caere, possibly to prevent that he could become archbishop of Bulgaria as one of king Boris' favourite candidates.
On three separate occasions, he had been employed by the three popes who preceded him as legate to Constantinople, his mission in each case having reference to the controversy started by Patriarch Photios I of Constantinople. In 882, he was sent on behalf of Pope John VIII to Duke Athanasius of Naples to warn him not to trade with the Muslims of southern Italy. During that time, he also served as treasurer to the Holy See.
Papacy
Marinus I was elected to succeed John VIII as bishop of Rome from around the end of December 882. This papal election was controversial because Marinus had already been consecrated as bishop of Caere; at the time, a bishop was expected never to move to another see. Among his first acts as pope were the restitution of Formosus as cardinal bishop of Portus and the anathematizing of Photius I. Due to his respect for Alfred the Great (r. 871–899), he freed the Anglo-Saxons of the Schola Anglorum in Rome from tribute and taxation. He also is recorded to have sent a piece of the True Cross to Alfred as a gift. He died in May 884 and was buried in St. Peter's basilica in Rome, his successor being Adrian III.
Name error
Because of the similarity of the names, Marinus I and Marinus II were, in some sources, mistakenly called Martinus II and Martinus III.
References
Further reading
External links
Opera Omnia by Migne Patrologia Latina with analytical indexes
Popes
Italian popes
Diplomats of the Holy See
884 deaths
9th-century archbishops
Year of birth unknown
9th-century popes
830 births
Burials at St. Peter's Basilica |
23957 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope%20Marinus%20II | Pope Marinus II | Pope Marinus II (died May 946) was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 30 October 942 to his death. He ruled during the Saeculum obscurum. He was also erroneously called Martin III (Martinus III) leading to the second pope named Martin taking the name Martin IV.
Early career
Marinus was born in Rome, and prior to becoming pope he was attached to the Church of Saint Cyriacus in the Baths of Diocletian. He was said to have encountered Ulrich of Augsburg on his visit to Rome in 909, and reportedly predicted Ulrich's eventual appointment as bishop of Augsburg.
Pontificate
Marinus was elevated to the papacy on 30 October 942 through intervention of Alberic II of Spoleto. This period is known as Saeculum obscurum due to the power of Alberic and his relatives over the popes. Marinus concentrated on administrative aspects of the papacy, and sought to reform both the secular and regular clergy. He extended the appointment of Archbishop Frederick of Mainz as papal vicar and missus dominicus throughout Germany and Francia. Marinus later intervened when the bishop of Capua seized without authorization a church which had been given to the local Benedictine monks. In fact, throughout his pontificate, Marinus favoured various monasteries, issuing a number of bulls in their favour.
Marinus occupied the palace built by Pope John VII atop the Palatine Hill in the ruins of the Domus Gaiana. He died in May 946 and was succeeded by Agapetus II.
Name
Because of the similarity of the names Marinus and Martinus, Marinus I and Marinus II were, in some sources, mistakenly called Martinus II and Martinus III.
Notes
References
Mann, Horace K., The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages, Vol. IV: The Popes in the Days of Feudal Anarchy, 891-999 (1910)
External links
Opera Omnia by Migne Patrologia Latina with analytical indexes
Popes
Italian popes
946 deaths
Year of birth unknown
10th-century popes
Burials at St. Peter's Basilica |
23958 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope%20Marcellus%20I | Pope Marcellus I | Pope Marcellus I (6 January 255 – 16 January 309) was the bishop of Rome from May or June 308 to his death. He succeeded Marcellinus after a considerable interval. Under Maxentius, he was banished from Rome in 309, on account of the tumult caused by the severity of the penances he had imposed on Christians who had lapsed under the recent persecution. He died the same year, being succeeded by Eusebius. His relics are under the altar of San Marcello al Corso in Rome. Since 1969 his feast day, traditionally kept on 16 January by the Catholic Church, is left to local calendars and is no longer inscribed in the General Roman Calendar.
Election
For some time after the death of Marcellinus in 304, the Diocletian persecution continued with unabated severity. After the abdication of Diocletian in 305, and the accession in Rome of Maxentius to the throne of the Caesars in October of the following year, the Christians of the capital again enjoyed comparative peace. Nevertheless, nearly two years passed before a new bishop of Rome was elected. Then in 308, according to the Catalogus Liberianus, Marcellus first entered on his office: "He was bishop in the time of Maxentius, from the 4th consulship of Maxentius when Maximus was his colleague, until after the consulship." At Rome, Marcellus found the church in the greatest confusion. The meeting-places and some of the burial-places of the faithful had been confiscated, and the ordinary life and activity of the church was interrupted. Added to this were the dissensions within the church itself, caused by the large number of weaker members who had fallen away during the long period of active persecution and later, under the leadership of an apostate, violently demanded that they should be readmitted to communion without doing penance.
Pontificate
According to the Liber Pontificalis, Marcellus divided the territorial administration of the church into twenty-five districts (tituli), appointing over each a priest, who saw to the preparation of the catechumens for baptism and directed the performance of public penances. The priest was also made responsible for the burial of the dead and for the celebrations commemorating the deaths of the martyrs. The pope also had a new burial-place, the Cœmeterium Novellœ on the Via Salaria (opposite the Catacomb of St. Priscilla), laid out. The Liber Pontificalis says: "He established a cemetery on the Via Salaria, and he appointed 25 "title" churches as jurisdictions within the city of Rome to provide baptism and penance for the many who were converted among the pagans and burial for the martyrs." At the beginning of the 7th century, there were probably twenty-five "title" churches in Rome; even granting that, perhaps, the compiler of the Liber Pontificalis referred this number to the time of Marcellus, there is still a clear historical tradition in support of his declaration that the ecclesiastical administration in Rome was reorganized by this pope after the great persecution.
The work of the pope was, however, quickly interrupted by the controversies to which the question of the readmittance of the lapsi into the church gave rise. The poetic tribute composed by Pope Damasus I in memory of his predecessor and placed over his grave (De Rossi, "Inscr. christ. urbis Romæ", II, 62, 103, 138; cf. Idem, "Roma sotterranea", II, 204–5) relates that Marcellus was looked upon as a wicked enemy by all the lapsed, because he insisted that they should perform the prescribed penance for their guilt. As a result, violent conflicts broke out; Maxentius, who had apostatized before the beginning of the persecution, had the pope seized and sent into exile. This took place at the end of 308 or the beginning of 309 according to the passages cited above from the Catalogus Liberianus, which gives the length of the pontificate as no more than one year, six (or seven) months, and twenty days. Marcellus died shortly after leaving Rome, and was venerated as a saint.
Veneration
His feast day was 16 January, according to the Depositio episcoporum of the Chronography of 354 and every other Roman authority. Nevertheless, it is not known whether this is the date of his death or that of the burial of his remains, after these had been brought back from the unknown place to which he had been exiled. He was buried in the catacomb of St. Priscilla where his grave is mentioned by the itineraries to the graves of the Roman martyrs as existing in the basilica of St. Silvester (De Rossi, Roma sotterranea, I, 176).
A 5th-century "Passio Marcelli", which is included in the legendary account of the martyrdom of Cyriacus (cf. Acta Sanct., Jan., II, 10–14) and is followed by the Liber Pontificalis, gives a different account of the end of Marcellus. According to this version, the pope was required by Maxentius, who was enraged at his reorganization of the church, to lay aside his episcopal dignity and make an offering to the gods. On his refusal, he was condemned to work as a slave at a station on the public highway (catabulum). At the end of nine months he was set free by the clergy; but a matron named Lucina having had her house on the Via Lata consecrated by him as "titulus Marcelli" he was again condemned to the work of attending to the horses brought into the station, in which menial occupation he died.
All this is probably legendary, the reference to the restoration of ecclesiastical activity by Marcellus alone having an historical basis. The tradition related in the verses of Damasus seems much more worthy of belief. The feast of Saint Marcellus, whose name is to this day borne by the church at Rome mentioned in the above legend, is still celebrated on 16 January.
Theodor Mommsen theorizes that Marcellus was not really a bishop, but a simple Roman presbyter to whom was committed the ecclesiastical administration during the latter part of the period of vacancy of the papal chair. According to this view, 16 January was really the date of Marcellus' death, the next occupant of the chair being Eusebius (Neues Archiv, 1896, XXI, 350–3). The Catholic Encyclopedia dismisses this hypothesis as unsupported.
See also
List of Catholic saints
List of popes
Notes
References
Liber Pontificalis, ed. Louis Duchesne, I, 164–6; cf. Introduction, xcix–c; Acta SS., January, II, 369
Joseph Langen, Geschichte der Römischen Kirche I, 379 sqq.
Paul Allard, Histoire des persécutions, V, 122–4
Louis Duchesne, Histoire ancienne de l'Église, II, 95–7.
External links
Opera Omnia
Colonnade Statue in St Peter's Square
309 deaths
4th-century Christian saints
4th-century Romans
Papal saints
Popes
Year of birth unknown
4th-century popes
255 births
Ancient Roman exiles |
23959 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope%20Marcellus%20II | Pope Marcellus II | Pope Marcellus II (; 6 May 1501 – 1 May 1555), born Marcello Cervini degli Spannocchi, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 10 April 1555 to his death, 22 days later.
He succeeded Pope Julius III. Before his accession as pope he had been Cardinal-Priest of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. He is the most recent pope to choose to retain his birth name as his regnal name upon his accession, and the most recent pope to date with the regnal name "Marcellus".
Cervini was the maternal uncle of Robert Bellarmine. His father, Ricardo Cervini, and Pope Clement VII were personal friends. Cervini served in the household of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. When Farnese became Pope Paul III, Cervini served as his secretary and was employed on a number of diplomatic missions. On 10 April, 1555, he was elected to succeed Pope Julius III. He died of a stroke twenty-two days later.
Early life
A native of Montefano, a small village near Macerata and Loreto he was the son of Ricardo Cervini who was the Apostolic Treasurer in Ancona. The family originated in Tuscany, in the town of Montepulciano, which had once been subject to Siena, but later was under the control of Florence. Marcello had two half-brothers, Alexander and Romulus. One of his sisters, Cinzia Cervini, married Vincenzo Bellarmino, and was the mother of Robert Bellarmine.
Marcello was educated locally, and at Siena and Florence, where he became proficient in writing Latin, Greek, and Italian. He also received instruction in jurisprudence, philosophy, and mathematics. His father had an interest in astrology and upon discovering that his son's horoscope presaged high ecclesiastical honours, Riccardo set the young Cervini on a path to the priesthood.
Priesthood
After his period of study at Siena, Cervini traveled to Rome in the company of the delegation sent by Florence to congratulate the new Pope on his election. His father and Pope Clement VII were personal friends, and Marcello was made Scrittore Apostolico. He was set to work on astronomical and calendar studies, a project which was intended to bring the year back into synchronization with the seasons. In 1527, he fled home after the Sack of Rome, but eventually returned and was taken into the household of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese senior. Cervini was ordained a priest in 1535.
Cardinalate
In 1534, after Farnese had become Pope Paul III, Cervini was appointed a papal secretary (1534–49) and served as a close advisor to the pope's nephew Alessandro Farnese. He was made a papal protonotary. He travelled in the suite of the Pope during the papal visit to Nice, where Paul III was promoting a truce between Francis I and Charles V. He then accompanied the young Cardinal Farnese on a journey to Spain, France and the Habsburg Netherlands to help implement the terms of the truce. Paul III later appointed him Bishop of Nicastro in 1539. Cervini was not, however, consecrated bishop until the day he himself was elected pope. On 19 December 1539, while Cervini was still on the embassy to the Netherlands, Paul III created him Cardinal-Priest of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.
When, almost immediately afterwards, Cardinal Farnese was recalled to Rome, Cervini stayed on in Spain as nuncio. Over the course of the next decade Cervini also became the apostolic administrator of the dioceses of Reggio and Gubbio. His house in Rome became a center of Renaissance culture, and he himself corresponded with most of the leading humanists.
During the Council of Trent he was elected one of the council's three presidents, along with fellow cardinals Reginald Pole and Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte (the future Pope Julius III). He continued to serve in that role throughout the remainder of Paul III's papacy, after which he was replaced to placate the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1519–56). He was credited with defending not only orthodoxy and Church discipline, but also the universal claims of the Papacy in spiritual and temporal affairs, and with such vigor that the Emperor was affronted. In 1548 (or 1550) Cervini was placed in charge of the Vatican Library, with the title of Protettore della Biblioteca Apostolica.
The institutionalization of the printers of the Curia under Cervini is explored by Paolo Sachet in Publishing for the Popes: The Roman Curia and the Use of Printing (1527-1555).
The Apostolic Brief of his appointment, however, came from the new pope, Julius III, on 24 May 1550, and in it he was named not Vatican Librarian, but Bibliothecarius Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae because he was the first cardinal to be placed in charge of the library. During his administration, he employed the services of Guglielmo Sirleto, as well as Onofrio Panvinio (who was especially consulted in matters of Christian archaeology). He added more than 500 codices to the holdings of the Library, including 143 Greek codices, as his own entry book (which still survives as Vaticanus Latinus 3963) testifies.
In the conclave of 1549–50 held to elect a successor to Paul III, fifty-one cardinals, including Marcello Cervini, participated at the opening on 3 December 1549. The initial candidates included Cardinals Reginald Pole, Francesco Sfondrati, Rodolfo Pio da Carpi and Niccolò Ridolfi (who died on the night of 31 January). Pole, the favorite of the Emperor Charles V, came within two votes of being elected in the first scrutinies, but he failed to attract any additional votes. Juan Álvarez de Toledo, Bishop of Burgos, another Imperial favorite, was proposed, and he too failed, because of strong opposition from the faction of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, nephew of the late Pope Paul III and from the French.
On 12 December, five more French cardinals arrived, and though they could not advance the candidacy of their favorite, Ippolito d'Este, they did have Cardinal Cervini on their list of possible candidates. Farnese and his faction were also favorably disposed to him. Unfortunately, the Imperial faction was not. Worst of all, on 22 December, Cardinal Cervini left the Conclave, suffering from a quartan fever. Finally, on 7 February 1550, the cardinals chose Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte, who took the name Julius III.
Papal election
The first conclave of 1555, following the death of Julius III (1550–55), involved a struggle between French interests in Italy (which had been favored by Julius III) and Imperial interests, which were intent on Church reform through a Church council, but with the Emperor controlling the outcome. On 9 April 1555, on the evening of the fourth day of the papal conclave, Cervini was "adored" as pope, despite efforts by cardinals loyal to Emperor Charles V to block his election. Next morning, a formal vote was taken in the Capella Paolina, in which all of the votes cast were for Cardinal Cervini except his own, which he cast for the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Giampietro Carafa.
The new pope chose to retain his birth name, the most recent pope to do so, reigning as Marcellus II. He was both consecrated as a bishop and crowned pope on the next day in a ceremony that was subdued on account of it falling during the Lenten season.
Papacy
Though Marcellus II desired to reform many of the inner workings of the Church, his feeble constitution succumbed to the fatigues of the conclave, the exhausting ceremonies connected with his accession, the anxieties arising from his high office, and overexertion in his performance of the pontifical functions of the Holy Week and Easter. He quickly fell ill.
He was bled, and appeared to begin to recover. In an audience he gave to the cardinals, who wanted him to sign the Electoral Capitulations from the conclave and to guarantee that he would make no more cardinals than those agreements allowed, he refused to sign, stating that he would show his intent by deeds not words. In his first audience with the ambassadors of France and Spain, he warned the ambassadors that their monarchs should keep the peace that had been agreed upon, and that if they did not, not only would they be sent nuncios and legates, but that the pope himself would come and admonish them. He wrote letters to Emperor Charles V, to Queen Mary I of England, and to Cardinal Reginald Pole (in which he confirmed Pole as legate in England). When the Spanish ambassador asked for pardon for having killed a man, Marcellus replied that he did not want to start his reign with such auspices as absolution from homicide, and ordered the appropriate tribunals to observe the law.
He did not want his relatives descending on Rome, nor did he want them to be enriched beyond the station of a member of the nobility, and he did not allow his two nephews, Riccardo and Herennius (sons of his half-brother Alexander), who lived in Rome under his care, to have formal visits. He instituted immediate economies in the expenditure of the Holy See. On 28 April, he was able to receive Duke Guidobaldo II della Rovere of Urbino in audience, and on 29 April, Ercole II d'Este, duke of Ferrara. He also gave audience to four cardinals, Farnese, D'Este, Louis de Guise and Ascanio Sforza, the leaders of the French faction in the recent conclave. That night he had difficulty sleeping. On the morning of the 30th he suffered a stroke (hora XII apoplexi correptus) and slipped into a coma. That night he died, on the 22nd day after his election.
Legacy
Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli (dating from 1565 or before), one of the glories of polyphonic sacred choral music, is traditionally believed to have been composed in his memory, ca. 1562. Having reigned for just 22 calendar days, Pope Marcellus II ranks sixth on the list of 10 shortest-reigning popes. His successor was Giampietro Carafa, Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals, who reigned as Pope Paul IV (1555–59).
See also
List of popes
References
Marcellus 02
Marcellus 02
Marcellus 2
Participants in the Council of Trent
Marcellus 2
Marcellus 2
16th-century popes
Cervini family
Burials at St. Peter's Basilica |
23960 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope%20Miltiades | Pope Miltiades | Pope Miltiades (, Miltiádēs), also known as Melchiades the African ( Melkhiádēs ho Aphrikanós), was the bishop of Rome from 311 to his death on 10 or 11 January 314. It was during his pontificate that Emperor Constantine the Great issued the Edict of Milan (313), giving Christianity legal status within the Roman Empire. The pope also received the palace of Empress Fausta where the Lateran Palace, the papal seat and residence of the papal administration, would be built. At the Lateran Council, during the schism with the Church of Carthage, Miltiades condemned the rebaptism of apostatised bishops and priests, a teaching of Donatus Magnus.
Background
The year of Miltiades' birth is unknown. Still, it is known that he was of North African descent and, according to the Liber Pontificalis, compiled from the 5th century onwards, a Roman citizen. Miltiades and his successor, Sylvester I, were part of the clergy of Pope Marcellinus. It has been suggested that he was party to the alleged apostasy of Pope Marcellinus, which was repudiated by Augustine of Hippo. This view originated from letters, dated to between 400 and 410, written by Donatist Bishop Petilianus of Constantine, who claimed that Marcellinus, along with Miltiades and Sylvester, surrendered sacred texts and offered incense to Roman deities.
Pontificate
In April 311, the Edict of Toleration was issued in Serdica (modern-day Sofia, Bulgaria) by the Roman emperor Galerius, officially ending the Diocletianic Persecution of Christianity in the Eastern part of the Empire.
The election of Miltiades to the papacy on 2 July 311, according to the Liberian Catalogue, marked the end of a sede vacante, the vacancy of the papacy, following the death of Pope Eusebius on 17 August 310 or 309 according to Liber Pontificalis not long after his exile to Sicily by the Emperor Maxentius. After his election, Church property that was confiscated during the Diocletianic Persecution was restored by Maxentius. This order, however, probably did not extend to all of the parts of Maxentius' jurisdiction.
The Liber Pontificalis, attributed the introduction of several later customs to Miltiades, such as not fasting on Thursdays or Sundays. However, subsequent scholarship now believes the customs likely pre-dated Miltiades. Miltades prescribed the distribution of portions of the bread consecrated by the pope at all of the churches around Rome, the fermentum, as a sign of unity.
In October 312, Constantine defeated Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge to become emperor. He later presented the pope with the palace of Empress Fausta, where the Lateran Palace, the papal residence and seat of central Church administration, would be built.
Being the first pope under Constantine, his pontificate coincided with Constantine's peace to the Church. In February 313, Constantine and Licinius, emperor of the eastern part of the Roman Empire, agreed to extend tolerance of Christianity to Licinius' territory, proclaimed by the Edict of Milan. Consequently, Christians not only attained the freedom of worship but also restored all places of Christian worship and returned all confiscated property.
Lateran Council
During Miltiades' tenure as pontiff, a schism over the election of Bishop Caecilianus split the Church of Carthage. The opposing parties were those of Caecilianus, who was supported by Rome, and of Donatus, mainly clergymen from North Africa who demanded that schismatics and heretics be re-baptised and re-ordained before taking office, the central issue dividing Donatists and Catholics. The supporters of Donatus appealed to Constantine and requested that judges from Gaul be assigned to adjudicate. Constantine agreed and commissioned Miltiades with three Gallic bishops to resolve the dispute, the first time an emperor interfered in church affairs. Miltiades, unwilling to jeopardise his relationship with the Emperor but also unwilling to preside over a council with an uncertain outcome, changed the proceedings into a regular church synod and appointed an additional 15 Italian bishops.
The Lateran Council was held three days from 2–4 October 313. The process was modelled on Roman civil proceedings, with Miltiades insisting on strict rules of evidence and argument. This frustrated the Donatists, who left the council without presenting their case, which led Miltiades to rule in favour of Caecilianus by default. The council thus ended after only three sessions. The pope retained Caecilianus as bishop of Carthage and condemned Donatus' teachings of rebaptism of bishops and priests. The adverse rulings failed to stop the continuing spread of Donatism across North Africa.
The Donatists again appealed to the Emperor, who responded by convening the Council of Arles in 314, but it ruled against the Donatists too. By the time the council was convened, Miltiades had died on 10 or 11 January 314. He was succeeded by Sylvester I. He was buried in the Catacomb of Callixtus at the Appian Way and venerated as a saint. Licinius, who promulgated the Edict of Milan, violated the edict in 320 by persecuting Christians, sacking them from public offices, forbidding synods and condoning executions. A civil war broke out between him and Constantine, with Constantine eventually defeating him in 324.
Veneration
The feast of Miltiades in the 4th century, according to the Martyrologium Hieronymianum, was celebrated on 10 January. In the 13th century, the feast of Saint Melchiades (as he was then called) was included, with the mistaken qualification of "martyr", in the General Roman Calendar for celebration on 10 December. In 1969, the celebration was removed from that calendar of obligatory liturgical celebrations, and moved to the day of his death, 10 January, with his name given in the form "Miltiades" but without the indication "martyr".
See also
List of Catholic saints
List of popes
Footnotes
References
3rd-century births
314 deaths
4th-century Berber people
4th-century Christian saints
4th-century Romans
African popes
Roman saints from Africa (continent)
Papal saints
Popes
Year of birth unknown
4th-century popes
Berber Christians
Diocletianic Persecution |
23962 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylogenetics | Phylogenetics | In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups of organisms. These relationships are determined by phylogenetic inference, methods that focus on observed heritable traits, such as DNA sequences, protein amino acid sequences, or morphology. The result of such an analysis is a phylogenetic tree—a diagram containing a set of hypotheses about the relationships that reflect the evolutionary history of a group of organisms.
The tips of a phylogenetic tree can be living taxa or fossils, which represent the present time or "end" of an evolutionary lineage, respectively. A phylogenetic diagram can be rooted or unrooted. A rooted tree diagram indicates the hypothetical common ancestor of the tree. An unrooted tree diagram (a network) makes no assumption about the ancestral line, and does not show the origin or "root" of the taxa in question or the direction of inferred evolutionary transformations.
In addition to their use for inferring phylogenetic patterns among taxa, phylogenetic analyses are often employed to represent relationships among genes or individual organisms. Such uses have become central to understanding biodiversity, evolution, ecology, and genomes.
Phylogenetics is component of systematics that uses similarities and differences of the characteristics of species to interpret their evolutionary relationships and origins. Phylogenetics focuses on whether the characteristics of a species reinforce a phylogenetic inference that it diverged from the most recent common ancestor of a taxonomic group.
In the field of cancer research, phylogenetics can be used to study the clonal evolution of tumors and molecular chronology, predicting and showing how cell populations vary throughout the progression of the disease and during treatment, using whole genome sequencing techniques. The evolutionary processes behind cancer progression are quite different from those in most species and are important to phylogenetic inference; these differences manifest in several areas: the types of aberrations that occur, the rates of mutation, the high heterogeneity (variability) of tumor cell subclones, and the absence of genetic recombination.
Phylogenetics can also aid in drug design and discovery. Phylogenetics allows scientists to organize species and can show which species are likely to have inherited particular traits that are medically useful, such as producing biologically active compounds - those that have effects on the human body. For example, in drug discovery, venom-producing animals are particularly useful. Venoms from these animals produce several important drugs, e.g., ACE inhibitors and Prialt (Ziconotide). To find new venoms, scientists turn to phylogenetics to screen for closely related species that may have the same useful traits. The phylogenetic tree shows which species of fish have an origin of venom, and related fish they may contain the trait. Using this approach in studying venomous fish, biologists are able to identify the fish species that may be venomous. Biologist have used this approach in many species such as snakes and lizards.
In forensic science, phylogenetic tools are useful to assess DNA evidence for court cases. The simple phylogenetic tree of viruses A-E shows the relationships between viruses e.g., all viruses are descendants of Virus A.
HIV forensics uses phylogenetic analysis to track the differences in HIV genes and determine the relatedness of two samples. Phylogenetic analysis has been used in criminal trials to exonerate or hold individuals. HIV forensics does have its limitations, i.e., it cannot be the sole proof of transmission between individuals and phylogenetic analysis which shows transmission relatedness does not indicate direction of transmission.
Taxonomy and classification
Taxonomy is the identification, naming, and classification of organisms. Compared to systemization, classification emphasizes whether a species has characteristics of a taxonomic group. The Linnaean classification system developed in the 1700s by Carolus Linnaeus is the foundation for modern classification methods. Linnaean classification relies on an organism's phenotype or physical characteristics to group and organize species. With the emergence of biochemistry, organism classifications are now usually based on phylogenetic data, and many systematists contend that only monophyletic taxa should be recognized as named groups. The degree to which classification depends on inferred evolutionary history differs depending on the school of taxonomy: phenetics ignores phylogenetic speculation altogether, trying to represent the similarity between organisms instead; cladistics (phylogenetic systematics) tries to reflect phylogeny in its classifications by only recognizing groups based on shared, derived characters (synapomorphies); evolutionary taxonomy tries to take into account both the branching pattern and "degree of difference" to find a compromise between them.
Inference of a phylogenetic tree
Usual methods of phylogenetic inference involve computational approaches implementing the optimality criteria and methods of parsimony, maximum likelihood (ML), and MCMC-based Bayesian inference. All these depend upon an implicit or explicit mathematical model describing the evolution of characters observed.
Phenetics, popular in the mid-20th century but now largely obsolete, used distance matrix-based methods to construct trees based on overall similarity in morphology or similar observable traits (i.e. in the phenotype or the overall similarity of DNA, not the DNA sequence), which was often assumed to approximate phylogenetic relationships.
Prior to 1950, phylogenetic inferences were generally presented as narrative scenarios. Such methods are often ambiguous and lack explicit criteria for evaluating alternative hypotheses.
Impacts of taxon sampling
In phylogenetic analysis, taxon sampling selects a small group of taxa to represent the evolutionary history of its broader population. This process is also known as stratified sampling or clade-based sampling. The practice occurs given limited resources to compare and analyze every species within a target population. Based on the representative group selected, the construction and accuracy of phylogenetic trees vary, which impacts derived phylogenetic inferences.
Unavailable datasets, such as an organism's incomplete DNA and protein amino acid sequences in genomic databases, directly restrict taxonomic sampling. Consequently, a significant source of error within phylogenetic analysis occurs due to inadequate taxon samples. Accuracy may be improved by increasing the number of genetic samples within its monophyletic group. Conversely, increasing sampling from outgroups extraneous to the target stratified population may decrease accuracy. Long branch attraction is an attributed theory for this occurrence, where nonrelated branches are incorrectly classified together, insinuating a shared evolutionary history.
There are debates if increasing the number of taxa sampled improves phylogenetic accuracy more than increasing the number of genes sampled per taxon. Differences in each method's sampling impact the number of nucleotide sites utilized in a sequence alignment, which may contribute to disagreements. For example, phylogenetic trees constructed utilizing a more significant number of total nucleotides are generally more accurate, as supported by phylogenetic trees' bootstrapping replicability from random sampling.
The graphic presented in Taxon Sampling, Bioinformatics, and Phylogenomics, compares the correctness of phylogenetic trees generated using fewer taxa and more sites per taxon on the x-axis to more taxa and fewer sites per taxon on the y-axis. With fewer taxa, more genes are sampled amongst the taxonomic group; in comparison, with more taxa added to the taxonomic sampling group, fewer genes are sampled. Each method has the same total number of nucleotide sites sampled. Furthermore, the dotted line represents a 1:1 accuracy between the two sampling methods. As seen in the graphic, most of the plotted points are located below the dotted line, which indicates gravitation toward increased accuracy when sampling fewer taxa with more sites per taxon. The research performed utilizes four different phylogenetic tree construction models to verify the theory; neighbor-joining (NJ), minimum evolution (ME), unweighted maximum parsimony (MP), and maximum likelihood (ML). In the majority of models, sampling fewer taxon with more sites per taxon demonstrated higher accuracy.
Generally, with the alignment of a relatively equal number of total nucleotide sites, sampling more genes per taxon has higher bootstrapping replicability than sampling more taxa. However, unbalanced datasets within genomic databases make increasing the gene comparison per taxon in uncommonly sampled organisms increasingly difficult.
History
Overview
The term "phylogeny" derives from the German , introduced by Haeckel in 1866, and the Darwinian approach to classification became known as the "phyletic" approach. It can be traced back to Aristotle, who wrote in his Posterior Analytics, "We may assume the superiority ceteris paribus [other things being equal] of the demonstration which derives from fewer postulates or hypotheses."
Ernst Haeckel's recapitulation theory
The modern concept of phylogenetics evolved primarily as a disproof of a previously widely accepted theory. During the late 19th century, Ernst Haeckel's recapitulation theory, or "biogenetic fundamental law", was widely popular. It was often expressed as "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny", i.e. the development of a single organism during its lifetime, from germ to adult, successively mirrors the adult stages of successive ancestors of the species to which it belongs. But this theory has long been rejected. Instead, ontogeny evolves – the phylogenetic history of a species cannot be read directly from its ontogeny, as Haeckel thought would be possible, but characters from ontogeny can be (and have been) used as data for phylogenetic analyses; the more closely related two species are, the more apomorphies their embryos share.
Timeline of key points
14th century, lex parsimoniae (parsimony principle), William of Ockam, English philosopher, theologian, and Franciscan friar, but the idea actually goes back to Aristotle, as a precursor concept. He introduced the concept of Occam's razor, which is the problem solving principle that recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements. Though he did not use these exact words, the principle can be summarized as "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity." The principle advocates that when presented with competing hypotheses about the same prediction, one should prefer the one that requires fewest assumptions.
1763, Bayesian probability, Rev. Thomas Bayes, a precursor concept. Bayesian probability began a resurgence in the 1950s, allowing scientists in the computing field to pair traditional Bayesian statistics with other more modern techniques. It is now used as a blanket term for several related interpretations of probability as an amount of epistemic confidence.
18th century, Pierre Simon (Marquis de Laplace), perhaps first to use ML (maximum likelihood), precursor concept. His work gave way to the Laplace distribution, which can be directly linked to least absolute deviations.
1809, evolutionary theory, Philosophie Zoologique, Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck, precursor concept, foreshadowed in the 17th century and 18th century by Voltaire, Descartes, and Leibniz, with Leibniz even proposing evolutionary changes to account for observed gaps suggesting that many species had become extinct, others transformed, and different species that share common traits may have at one time been a single race, also foreshadowed by some early Greek philosophers such as Anaximander in the 6th century BC and the atomists of the 5th century BC, who proposed rudimentary theories of evolution
1837, Darwin's notebooks show an evolutionary tree
1840, American Geologist Edward Hitchcock published what is considered to be the first paleontological "Tree of Life". Many critiques, modifications, and explanations would follow.
1843, distinction between homology and analogy (the latter now referred to as homoplasy), Richard Owen, precursor concept. Homology is the term used to characterize the similarity of features that can be parsimoniously explained by common ancestry. Homoplasy is the term used to describe a feature that has been gained or lost independently in separate lineages over the course of evolution.
1858, Paleontologist Heinrich Georg Bronn (1800–1862) published a hypothetical tree to illustrating the paleontological "arrival" of new, similar species. following the extinction of an older species. Bronn did not propose a mechanism responsible for such phenomena, precursor concept.
1858, elaboration of evolutionary theory, Darwin and Wallace, also in Origin of Species by Darwin the following year, precursor concept.
1866, Ernst Haeckel, first publishes his phylogeny-based evolutionary tree, precursor concept. Haeckel introduces the now-disproved recapitulation theory.
1893, Dollo's Law of Character State Irreversibility, precursor concept. Dollo's Law of Irreversibility states that "an organism never comes back exactly to its previous state due to the indestructible nature of the past, it always retains some trace of the transitional stages through which it has passed."
1912, ML (maximum likelihood recommended, analyzed, and popularized by Ronald Fisher, precursor concept. Fisher is one of the main contributors to the early 20th-century revival of Darwinism, and has been called the "greatest of Darwin's successors" for his contributions to the revision of the theory of evolution and his use of mathematics to combine Mendelian genetics and natural selection in the 20th century "modern synthesis".
1921, Tillyard uses term "phylogenetic" and distinguishes between archaic and specialized characters in his classification system.
1940, term "clade" coined by Lucien Cuénot.
1949, Jackknife resampling, Maurice Quenouille (foreshadowed in '46 by Mahalanobis and extended in '58 by Tukey), precursor concept.
1950, Willi Hennig's classic formalization. Hennig is considered the founder of phylogenetic systematics, and published his first works in German of this year. He also asserted a version of the parsimony principle, stating that the presence of amorphous characters in different species 'is always reason for suspecting kinship, and that their origin by convergence should not be presumed a priori'. This has been considered a foundational view of phylogenetic inference.
1952, William Wagner's ground plan divergence method.
1953, "cladogenesis" coined.
1960, "cladistic" coined by Cain and Harrison.
1963, first attempt to use ML (maximum likelihood) for phylogenetics, Edwards and Cavalli-Sforza.
1965
Camin-Sokal parsimony, first parsimony (optimization) criterion and first computer program/algorithm for cladistic analysis both by Camin and Sokal.
Character compatibility method, also called clique analysis, introduced independently by Camin and Sokal (loc. cit.) and E. O. Wilson.
1966
English translation of Hennig.
"Cladistics" and "cladogram" coined (Webster's, loc. cit.)
1969
Dynamic and successive weighting, James Farris.
Wagner parsimony, Kluge and Farris.
CI (consistency index), Kluge and Farris.
Introduction of pairwise compatibility for clique analysis, Le Quesne.
1970, Wagner parsimony generalized by Farris.
1971
First successful application of ML (maximum likelihood) to phylogenetics (for protein sequences), Neyman.
Fitch parsimony, Walter M. Fitch. These gave way to the most basic ideas of maximum parsimony. Fitch is known for his work on reconstructing phylogenetic trees from protein and DNA sequences. His definition of orthologous sequences has been referenced in many research publications.
NNI (nearest neighbour interchange), first branch-swapping search strategy, developed independently by Robinson and Moore et al.
ME (minimum evolution), Kidd and Sgaramella-Zonta (it is unclear if this is the pairwise distance method or related to ML as Edwards and Cavalli-Sforza call ML "minimum evolution").
1972, Adams consensus, Adams.
1976, prefix system for ranks, Farris.
1977, Dollo parsimony, Farris.
1979
Nelson consensus, Nelson.
MAST (maximum agreement subtree)((GAS) greatest agreement subtree), a consensus method, Gordon.
Bootstrap, Bradley Efron, precursor concept.
1980, PHYLIP, first software package for phylogenetic analysis, Joseph Felsenstein. A free computational phylogenetics package of programs for inferring evolutionary trees (phylogenies). One such example tree created by PHYLIP, called a "drawgram", generates rooted trees. This image shown in the figure below shows the evolution of phylogenetic trees over time.
1981
Majority consensus, Margush and MacMorris.
Strict consensus, Sokal and Rohlffirst computationally efficient ML (maximum likelihood) algorithm. Felsenstein created the Felsenstein Maximum Likelihood method, used for the inference of phylogeny which evaluates a hypothesis about evolutionary history in terms of the probability that the proposed model and the hypothesized history would give rise to the observed data set.
1982
PHYSIS, Mikevich and Farris
Branch and bound, Hendy and Penny
1985
First cladistic analysis of eukaryotes based on combined phenotypic and genotypic evidence Diana Lipscomb.
First issue of Cladistics.
First phylogenetic application of bootstrap, Felsenstein.
First phylogenetic application of jackknife, Scott Lanyon.
1986, MacClade, Maddison and Maddison.
1987, neighbor-joining method Saitou and Nei
1988, Hennig86 (version 1.5), Farris
Bremer support (decay index), Bremer.
1989
RI (retention index), RCI (rescaled consistency index), Farris.
HER (homoplasy excess ratio), Archie.
1990
combinable components (semi-strict) consensus, Bremer.
SPR (subtree pruning and regrafting), TBR (tree bisection and reconnection), Swofford and Olsen.
1991
DDI (data decisiveness index), Goloboff.
First cladistic analysis of eukaryotes based only on phenotypic evidence, Lipscomb.
1993, implied weighting Goloboff.
1994, reduced consensus: RCC (reduced cladistic consensus) for rooted trees, Wilkinson.
1995, reduced consensus RPC (reduced partition consensus) for unrooted trees, Wilkinson.
1996, first working methods for BI (Bayesian Inference) independently developed by Li, Mau, and Rannala and Yang and all using MCMC (Markov chain-Monte Carlo).
1998, TNT (Tree Analysis Using New Technology), Goloboff, Farris, and Nixon.
1999, Winclada, Nixon.
2003, symmetrical resampling, Goloboff.
2004, 2005, similarity metric (using an approximation to Kolmogorov complexity) or NCD (normalized compression distance), Li et al., Cilibrasi and Vitanyi.
Outside biology
Phylogenetic tools and representations (trees and networks) can also be applied to philology, the study of the evolution of oral languages and written text and manuscripts, such as in the field of quantitative comparative linguistics.
Computational phylogenetics can be used to investigate a language as an evolutionary system. The evolution of human language closely corresponds with human's biological evolution which allows phylogenetic methods to be applied. The concept of a "tree" serves as an efficient way to represent relationships between languages and language splits. It also serves as a way of testing hypotheses about the connections and ages of language families. For example, relationships among languages can be shown by using cognates as characters. The phylogenetic tree of Indo-European languages shows the relationships between several of the languages in a timeline, as well as the similarity between words and word order.
There are three types of criticisms about using phylogenetics in philology, the first arguing that languages and species are different entities, therefore you can not use the same methods to study both. The second being how phylogenetic methods are being applied to linguistic data. And the third, discusses the types of data that is being used to construct the trees.
Bayesian phylogenetic methods, which are sensitive to how treelike the data is, allow for the reconstruction of relationships among languages, locally and globally. The main two reasons for the use of Bayesian phylogenetics are that (1) diverse scenarios can be included in calculations and (2) the output is a sample of trees and not a single tree with true claim.
The same process can be applied to texts and manuscripts. In Paleography, the study of historical writings and manuscripts, texts were replicated by scribes who copied from their source and alterations - i.e., 'mutations' - occurred when the scribe did not precisely copy the source.
Phylogenetic screens
Phylogenetic screens involve the pharmacological examination of closely related groups of organisms. Advances in cladistics analysis through faster computer programs and improved molecular techniques have increased the precision of phylogenetic determination, allowing for the identification of species with pharmacological potential.
Historically, phylogenetic screens were used in a basic manner, such as studying the Apocynaceae family of plants, which includes alkaloid-producing species like Catharanthus, known for producing vincristine, an antileukemia drug. Modern techniques now enable researchers to study close relatives of a species to uncover either a higher abundance of important bioactive compounds (e.g., species of Taxus for taxol) or natural variants of known pharmaceuticals (e.g., species of Catharanthus for different forms of vincristine or vinblastine).
Phylogenetic analysis has also been applied to biodiversity studies within the fungi family. Phylogenetic analysis helps understand the evolutionary history of various groups of organisms, identify relationships between different species, and predict future evolutionary changes. Emerging imagery systems and new analysis techniques allow for the discovery of more genetic relationships in biodiverse fields, which can aid in conservation efforts by identifying rare species that could benefit ecosystems globally.
Phylogenetic tree shapes
Whole-genome sequence data from outbreaks or epidemics of infectious diseases can provide important insights into transmission dynamics and inform public health strategies. Traditionally, studies have combined genomic and epidemiological data to reconstruct transmission events. However, recent research has explored deducing transmission patterns solely from genomic data using phylodynamics, which involves analyzing the properties of pathogen phylogenies. Phylodynamics uses theoretical models to compare predicted branch lengths with actual branch lengths in phylogenies to infer transmission patterns. Additionally, coalescent theory, which describes probability distributions on trees based on population size, has been adapted for epidemiological purposes. Another source of information within phylogenies that has been explored is "tree shape." These approaches, while computationally intensive, have the potential to provide valuable insights into pathogen transmission dynamics.
The structure of the host contact network significantly impacts the dynamics of outbreaks, and management strategies rely on understanding these transmission patterns. Pathogen genomes spreading through different contact network structures, such as chains, homogeneous networks, or networks with super-spreaders, accumulate mutations in distinct patterns, resulting in noticeable differences in the shape of phylogenetic trees, as illustrated in Fig. 1. Researchers have analyzed the structural characteristics of phylogenetic trees generated from simulated bacterial genome evolution across multiple types of contact networks. By examining simple topological properties of these trees, researchers can classify them into chain-like, homogeneous, or super-spreading dynamics, revealing transmission patterns. These properties form the basis of a computational classifier used to analyze real-world outbreaks. Computational predictions of transmission dynamics for each outbreak often align with known epidemiological data
Different transmission networks result in quantitatively different tree shapes. To determine whether tree shapes captured information about underlying disease transmission patterns, researchers simulated the evolution of a bacterial genome over three types of outbreak contact networks—homogeneous, super-spreading, and chain-like. They summarized the resulting phylogenies with five metrics describing tree shape. Figures 2 and 3 illustrate the distributions of these metrics across the three types of outbreaks, revealing clear differences in tree topology depending on the underlying host contact network.
Super-spreader networks give rise to phylogenies with higher Colless imbalance, longer ladder patterns, lower Δw, and deeper trees than those from homogeneous contact networks. Trees from chain-like networks are less variable, deeper, more imbalanced, and narrower than those from other networks.
Scatter plots can be used to visualize the relationship between two variables in pathogen transmission analysis, such as the number of infected individuals and the time since infection. These plots can help identify trends and patterns, such as whether the spread of the pathogen is increasing or decreasing over time, and can highlight potential transmission routes or super-spreader events.
The box plot imagery on the right displays the pathogen transformation data.
Box plots are useful in statistical analysis for comparing different groups or visualizing changes in a single group over time. They display the range, median, quartiles, and potential outliers of the data. Box plots are especially helpful with large datasets or when comparing multiple groups, as they can quickly identify differences or similarities in the data. This makes them valuable for analyzing pathogen transmission data, helping to identify important features in the data distribution.
See also
Angiosperm Phylogeny Group
Bauplan
Bioinformatics
Biomathematics
Coalescent theory
EDGE of Existence programme
Evolutionary taxonomy
Language family
Maximum parsimony
Microbial phylogenetics
Molecular phylogeny
Ontogeny
PhyloCode
Phylodynamics
Phylogenesis
Phylogenetic comparative methods
Phylogenetic network
Phylogenetic nomenclature
Phylogenetic tree viewers
Phylogenetics software
Phylogenomics
Phylogeny (psychoanalysis)
Phylogeography
Systematics
References
Bibliography
External links |
23963 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenetics | Phenetics | In biology, phenetics (; ), also known as taximetrics, is an attempt to classify organisms based on overall similarity, usually with respect to morphology or other observable traits, regardless of their phylogeny or evolutionary relation. It is related closely to numerical taxonomy which is concerned with the use of numerical methods for taxonomic classification. Many people contributed to the development of phenetics, but the most influential were Peter Sneath and Robert R. Sokal. Their books are still primary references for this sub-discipline, although now out of print.
Phenetics has been largely superseded by cladistics for research into evolutionary relationships among species. However, certain phenetic methods, such as neighbor-joining, are used for phylogenetics, as a reasonable approximation of phylogeny when more advanced methods (such as Bayesian inference) are too expensive computationally.
Phenetic techniques include various forms of clustering and ordination. These are sophisticated methods of reducing the variation displayed by organisms to a manageable degree. In practice this means measuring dozens of variables, and then presenting them as two- or three-dimensional graphs. Much of the technical challenge of phenetics concerns balancing the loss of information due to such a reduction against the ease of interpreting the resulting graphs.
The method can be traced back to 1763 and Michel Adanson (in his Familles des plantes) because of two shared basic principles – overall similarity and equal weighting – and modern pheneticists are sometimes termed neo-Adansonians.
Difference from cladistics
Phenetic analyses are "unrooted", that is, they do not distinguish between plesiomorphies, traits that are inherited from an ancestor, and apomorphies, traits that evolved anew in one or several lineages. A common problem with phenetic analysis is that basal evolutionary grades, which retain many plesiomorphies compared to more advanced lineages, seem to be monophyletic. Phenetic analyses are also liable to be rendered inaccurate by convergent evolution and adaptive radiation. Cladistic methods attempt to solve those problems.
Consider for example songbirds. These can be divided into two groups – Corvida, which retains ancient characteristics of phenotype and genotype, and Passerida, which has more modern traits. But only the latter are a group of closest relatives; the former are numerous independent and ancient lineages which are related about as distantly to each other as each single one of them is to the Passerida. For a phenetic analysis, the large degree of overall similarity found among the Corvida will make them seem to be monophyletic too, but their shared traits were present in the ancestors of all songbirds already. It is the loss of these ancestral traits rather than their presence that signifies which songbirds are more closely related to each other than to other songbirds. However, the requirement that taxa be monophyletic – rather than paraphyletic as for the case of the Corvida – is itself part of the cladistic method of taxonomy, not necessarily obeyed absolutely by other methods.
The two methods are not mutually exclusive. There is no reason why, e.g., species identified using phenetics cannot subsequently be subjected to cladistic analysis, to determine their evolutionary relationships. Phenetic methods can also be superior to cladistics when only the distinctness of related taxa is important, as the computational requirements are less.
The history of pheneticism and cladism as rival taxonomic systems is analysed in David Hull's 1988 book Science as a Process.
Current usage
Traditionally there was much debate between pheneticists and cladists, as both methods were proposed initially to resolve evolutionary relationships. One of the most noteworthy applications of phenetics were the DNA-DNA hybridization studies by Charles G. Sibley, Jon E. Ahlquist and Burt L. Monroe Jr., from which resulted the 1990 Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy for birds. Controversial at its time, some of its findings (e.g. the Galloanserae) have been vindicated, while others (e.g. the all-inclusive "Ciconiiformes" or the "Corvida") have been rejected. However, with computers growing increasingly powerful and widespread, more refined cladistic algorithms became available which could test the suggestions of Willi Hennig. The results of cladistic analyses were proven superior to those of phenetic methods, at least for resolving phylogenies.
Many systematists continue to use phenetic methods, particularly to address species-level questions. While a major goal of taxonomy remains describing the 'tree of life' – the evolutionary relationships of all species – for fieldwork one needs to be able to separate one taxon from another. Classifying diverse groups of closely related organisms that differ very subtly is difficult using a cladistic method. Phenetics provides numerical methods for examining patterns of variation, allowing researchers to identify discrete groups that can be classified as species.
Modern applications of phenetics are common for botany, and some examples can be found in most issues of the journal Systematic Botany. Indeed, due to the effects of horizontal gene transfer, polyploid complexes and other peculiarities of plant genomics, phenetic techniques of botany – though less informative altogether – may, for these special cases, be less prone to errors compared with cladistic analysis of DNA sequences.
In addition, many of the techniques developed by phenetic taxonomists have been adopted and extended by community ecologists, due to a similar need to deal with large amounts of data.
See also
Distance matrices in phylogeny
Folk taxonomy
Form classification
Linnaean taxonomy
Phenomics
Taxonomy
Dendrogram
Operational taxonomic unit
References
Biological classification |
23964 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation%20%28console%29 | PlayStation (console) | The (abbreviated as PS, commonly known as the PS1/PS one or its codename PSX) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was released in Japan on 3 December 1994, in North America on 9 September 1995, in Europe on 29 September 1995, and in Australia on 15 November 1995. As a fifth-generation console, the PlayStation primarily competed with the Nintendo 64 and the Sega Saturn.
Sony began developing the PlayStation after a failed venture with Nintendo to create a CD-ROM peripheral for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in the early 1990s. The console was primarily designed by Ken Kutaragi and Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan, while additional development was outsourced in the United Kingdom. An emphasis on 3D polygon graphics was placed at the forefront of the console's design. PlayStation game production was designed to be streamlined and inclusive, enticing the support of many third-party developers.
The console proved popular for its extensive game library, popular franchises, low retail price, and aggressive youth marketing which advertised it as the preferable console for adolescents and adults. Premier PlayStation franchises included Gran Turismo, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Metal Gear, Tekken, and Final Fantasy, all of which spawned numerous sequels. PlayStation games continued to sell until Sony ceased production of the PlayStation and its games on 23 March 2006—over eleven years after it had been released, and less than a year before the debut of the PlayStation 3. More than 4,000 PlayStation games were released, with cumulative sales of 967 million units.
The PlayStation signalled Sony's rise to power in the video game industry. It received acclaim and sold strongly; in less than a decade, it became the first computer entertainment platform to ship over 100 million units. Its use of compact discs heralded the game industry's transition from cartridges. The PlayStation's success led to a line of successors, beginning with the PlayStation 2 in 2000. In the same year, Sony released a smaller and cheaper model, the PS one.
History
Background
The PlayStation was conceived by Ken Kutaragi, a Sony executive who managed a hardware engineering division and was later dubbed "the Father of the PlayStation". Kutaragi's interest in working with video games stemmed from seeing his daughter play games on Nintendo's Famicom. Kutaragi convinced Nintendo to use his SPC-700 sound processor in the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) through a demonstration of the processor's capabilities. His willingness to work with Nintendo derived from both his admiration of the Famicom and conviction in video game consoles becoming the main home-use entertainment systems. Although Kutaragi was nearly fired because he worked with Nintendo without Sony's knowledge, president Norio Ohga recognised the potential in Kutaragi's chip and decided to keep him as a protégé.
The inception of the PlayStation dates back to a 1988 joint venture between Nintendo and Sony. Nintendo had produced floppy disk technology to complement cartridges in the form of the Family Computer Disk System, and wanted to continue this complementary storage strategy for the SNES. Since Sony was already contracted to produce the SPC-700 sound processor for the SNES, Nintendo contracted Sony to develop a CD-ROM add-on, tentatively titled the "Play Station" or "SNES-CD". The PlayStation name had already been trademarked by Yamaha, but Nobuyuki Idei liked it so much that he agreed to acquire it for an undisclosed sum rather than search for an alternative.
Sony was keen to obtain a foothold in the rapidly expanding video game market. Having been the primary manufacturer of the ill-fated MSX home computer format, Sony had wanted to use their experience in consumer electronics to produce their own video game hardware. Although the initial agreement between Nintendo and Sony was about producing a CD-ROM drive add-on, Sony had also planned to develop a SNES-compatible Sony-branded console. This iteration was intended to be more of a home entertainment system, playing both SNES cartridges and a new CD format named the "Super Disc", which Sony would design. Under the agreement, Sony would retain sole international rights to every Super Disc game, giving them a large degree of control despite Nintendo's leading position in the video game market. Furthermore, Sony would also be the sole benefactor of licensing related to music and film software that it had been aggressively pursuing as a secondary application.
The Play Station was to be announced at the 1991 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. However, Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi was wary of Sony's increasing leverage at this point and deemed the original 1988 contract unacceptable upon realising it essentially handed Sony control over all games written on the SNES CD-ROM format. Although Nintendo was dominant in the video game market, Sony possessed a superior research and development department. Wanting to protect Nintendo's existing licensing structure, Yamauchi cancelled all plans for the joint Nintendo–Sony SNES CD attachment without telling Sony. He sent Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa (his son-in-law) and chairman Howard Lincoln to Amsterdam to form a more favourable contract with Dutch conglomerate Philips, Sony's rival. This contract would give Nintendo total control over their licences on all Philips-produced machines.
Kutaragi and Nobuyuki Idei, Sony's director of public relations at the time, learned of Nintendo's actions two days before the CES was due to begin. Kutaragi telephoned numerous contacts, including Philips, to no avail. On the first day of the CES, Sony announced their partnership with Nintendo and their new console, the Play Station. At 9 am on the next day, in what has been called "the greatest ever betrayal" in the industry, Howard Lincoln stepped onto the stage and revealed that Nintendo was now allied with Philips and would abandon their work with Sony.
Inception
Incensed by Nintendo's renouncement, Ohga and Kutaragi decided that Sony would develop their own console. Nintendo's contract-breaking was met with consternation in the Japanese business community, as they had broken an "unwritten law" of native companies not turning against each other in favour of foreign ones. Sony's American branch considered allying with Sega to produce a CD-ROM-based machine called the Sega Multimedia Entertainment System, but their board of directors in Tokyo vetoed the idea when American CEO Tom Kalinske presented them the proposal. Kalinske recalled them saying: "That's a stupid idea, Sony doesn't know how to make hardware. They don't know how to make software either. Why would we want to do this?" Sony halted their research, but decided to develop what it had developed with Nintendo and Sega into a console based on the SNES.
Despite the tumultuous events at the 1991 CES, negotiations between Nintendo and Sony were still ongoing. A deal was proposed: the Play Station would still have a port for SNES games, on the condition that it would still use Kutaragi's audio chip and that Nintendo would own the rights and receive the bulk of the profits. Roughly two hundred prototype machines were created, and some software entered development. Many within Sony were still opposed to their involvement in the video game industry, with some resenting Kutaragi for jeopardising the company. Kutaragi remained adamant that Sony not retreat from the growing industry and that a deal with Nintendo would never work. Knowing that it had to take decisive action, Sony severed all ties with Nintendo on 4 May 1992.
To determine the fate of the PlayStation project, Ohga chaired a meeting in June 1992, consisting of Kutaragi and several senior Sony board members. Kutaragi unveiled a proprietary CD-ROM-based system he had been secretly working on which played games with immersive 3D graphics. Kutaragi was confident that his LSI chip could accommodate one million logic gates, which exceeded the capabilities of Sony's semiconductor division at the time. Despite gaining Ohga's enthusiasm, there remained opposition from a majority present at the meeting. Older Sony executives also opposed it, who saw Nintendo and Sega as "toy" manufacturers. The opposers felt the game industry was too culturally offbeat and asserted that Sony should remain a central player in the audiovisual industry, where companies were familiar with one another and could conduct "civili[s]ed" business negotiations. After Kutaragi reminded him of the humiliation he suffered from Nintendo, Ohga retained the project and became one of Kutaragi's most staunch supporters.
Ohga shifted Kutaragi and nine of his team from Sony's main headquarters to Sony Music Entertainment Japan (SMEJ), a subsidiary of the main Sony group, so as to retain the project and maintain relationships with Philips for the MMCD development project. The involvement of SMEJ proved crucial to the PlayStation's early development as the process of manufacturing games on CD-ROM format was similar to that used for audio CDs, with which Sony's music division had considerable experience. While at SMEJ, Kutaragi worked with Epic/Sony Records founder Shigeo Maruyama and Akira Sato; both later became vice presidents of the division that ran the PlayStation business. Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) was jointly established by Sony and SMEJ to handle the company's ventures into the video game industry. On 27 October 1993, Sony publicly announced that it was entering the game console market with the PlayStation. According to Maruyama, there was uncertainty over whether the console should primarily focus on 2D, sprite-based graphics or 3D polygon graphics. After Sony witnessed the success of Sega's Virtua Fighter (1993) in Japanese arcades, the direction of the PlayStation became "instantly clear" and 3D polygon graphics became the console's primary focus. SCE president Teruhisa Tokunaka expressed gratitude for Sega's timely release of Virtua Fighter as it proved "just at the right time" that making games with 3D imagery was possible. Maruyama claimed that Sony further wanted to emphasize the new console's ability to utilize redbook audio from the CD-ROM format in its games alongside high quality visuals and gameplay.
Wishing to distance the project from the failed enterprise with Nintendo, Sony initially branded the PlayStation the "PlayStation X" (PSX). Sony formed their European division and North American division, known as Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) and Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), in January and May 1995. The divisions planned to market the new console under the alternative branding "PSX" following the negative feedback regarding "PlayStation" in focus group studies. Early advertising prior to the console's launch in North America referenced PSX, but the term was scrapped before launch. The console was not marketed with Sony's name in contrast to Nintendo's consoles. According to Phil Harrison, much of Sony's upper management feared that the Sony brand would be tarnished if associated with the console, which they considered a "toy".
Development
Since Sony had no experience in game development, it had to rely on the support of third-party game developers. This was in contrast to Sega and Nintendo, which had versatile and well-equipped in-house software divisions for their arcade games and could easily port successful games to their home consoles. Recent consoles like the Atari Jaguar and 3DO suffered low sales due to a lack of developer support, prompting Sony to redouble their efforts in gaining the endorsement of arcade-savvy developers. A team from Epic Sony visited more than a hundred companies throughout Japan in May 1993 in hopes of attracting game creators with the PlayStation's technological appeal. Sony found that many disliked Nintendo's practices, such as favoring its own games over others. Through a series of negotiations, Sony acquired initial support from Namco, Konami, and Williams Entertainment, as well as 250 other development teams in Japan alone. Namco in particular was interested in developing for PlayStation since Namco rivalled Sega in the arcade market. Attaining these companies secured influential games such as Ridge Racer (1993) and Mortal Kombat 3 (1995), Ridge Racer being one of the most popular arcade games at the time, and it was already confirmed behind closed doors that it would be the PlayStation's first game by December 1993, despite Namco being a longstanding Nintendo developer. Namco's research managing director Shegeichi Nakamura met with Kutaragi in 1993 to discuss the preliminary PlayStation specifications, with Namco subsequently basing the Namco System 11 arcade board on PlayStation hardware and developing Tekken to compete with Virtua Fighter. The System 11 launched in arcades several months before the PlayStation's release, with the arcade release of Tekken in September 1994.
Despite securing the support of various Japanese studios, Sony had no developers of their own by the time the PlayStation was in development. This changed in 1993 when Sony acquired the Liverpudlian company Psygnosis (later renamed SCE Liverpool) for million, securing their first in-house development team. The acquisition meant that Sony could have more launch games ready for the PlayStation's release in Europe and North America. Ian Hetherington, Psygnosis' co-founder, was disappointed after receiving early builds of the PlayStation and recalled that the console "was not fit for purpose" until his team got involved with it. Hetherington frequently clashed with Sony executives over broader ideas; at one point it was suggested that a television with a built-in PlayStation be produced. In the months leading up to the PlayStation's launch, Psygnosis had around 500 full-time staff working on games and assisting with software development.
The purchase of Psygnosis marked another turning point for the PlayStation as it played a vital role in creating the console's development kits. While Sony had provided MIPS R4000-based Sony NEWS workstations for PlayStation development, Psygnosis employees disliked the thought of developing on these expensive workstations and asked Bristol-based SN Systems to create an alternative PC-based development system. Andy Beveridge and Martin Day, owners of SN Systems, had previously supplied development hardware for other consoles such as the Mega Drive, Atari ST, and the SNES. When Psygnosis arranged an audience for SN Systems with Sony's Japanese executives at the January 1994 CES in Las Vegas, Beveridge and Day presented their prototype of the condensed development kit, which could run on an ordinary personal computer with two extension boards. Impressed, Sony decided to abandon their plans for a workstation-based development system in favour of SN Systems's, thus securing a cheaper and more efficient method for designing software. An order of over 600 systems followed, and SN Systems supplied Sony with additional software such as an assembler, linker, and a debugger. SN Systems produced development kits for future PlayStation systems, including the PlayStation 2 and was bought out by Sony in 2005.
Sony strived to make game production as streamlined and inclusive as possible, in contrast to the relatively isolated approach of Sega and Nintendo. Phil Harrison, representative director of SCEE, believed that Sony's emphasis on developer assistance reduced most time-consuming aspects of development. As well as providing programming libraries, SCE headquarters in London, California, and Tokyo housed technical support teams that could work closely with third-party developers if needed. Sony did not favor its own over non-Sony products, unlike Nintendo; Peter Molyneux of Bullfrog Productions admired Sony's open-handed approach to software developers and lauded their decision to use PCs as a development platform, remarking that "[it was] like being released from jail in terms of the freedom you have". Another strategy that helped attract software developers was the PlayStation's use of the CD-ROM format instead of traditional cartridges. In contrast to other disc-reading consoles such as the 3DO, the PlayStation could quickly generate and synthesise data from the CD since it was an image-generation system, rather than a data-replay system. Nintendo cartridges were expensive to manufacture, and the company controlled all production, prioritizing its own games, while inexpensive compact disc manufacturing occurred at dozens of locations around the world.
The PlayStation's architecture and interconnectability with PCs was beneficial to many software developers. The use of the programming language C proved useful during the early stages of development as it safeguarded future compatibility of the machine should developers decide to make further hardware revisions. Sony used the free software GNU C compiler, also known as GCC, to guarantee short debugging times as it was already familiar to many programmers. Despite the inherent flexibility, some developers found themselves restricted due to the console's lack of RAM. While working on beta builds of the PlayStation, Molyneux observed that its MIPS processor was not "quite as bullish" compared to that of a fast PC and said that it took his team two weeks to port their PC code to the PlayStation development kits and another fortnight to achieve a four-fold speed increase. An engineer from Ocean Software, one of Europe's largest game developers at the time, thought that allocating RAM was a challenging aspect given the 3.5 megabyte restriction. Kutaragi said that while it would have been easy to double the amount of RAM for the PlayStation, the development team refrained from doing so to keep the retail cost down. Kutaragi saw the biggest challenge in developing the system to be balancing the conflicting goals of high performance, low cost, and being easy to program for, and felt he and his team were successful in this regard.
Its technical specifications were finalised in 1993 and its design during 1994. The PlayStation name and its final design were confirmed during a press conference on May 10, 1994, although the price and release dates had not been disclosed yet.
Launch
Sony released the PlayStation in Japan on 3 December 1994, a week after the release of the Sega Saturn, at a price of . Sales in Japan began with a "stunning" success with long queues in shops. Ohga later recalled that he realized how important PlayStation had become for Sony when friends and relatives begged for consoles for their children. PlayStation sold 100,000 units on the first day and two million units within six months, although the Saturn outsold the PlayStation in the first few weeks due to the success of Virtua Fighter. By the end of 1994, 300,000 PlayStation units were sold in Japan compared to 500,000 Saturn units. A grey market emerged for PlayStations shipped from Japan to North America and Europe, with buyers of such consoles paying up to £700.
Before the release in North America, Sega and Sony presented their consoles at the first Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles on 11 May 1995. At their keynote presentation, Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske revealed that its Saturn console would be released immediately to select retailers at a price of $399. Next came Sony's turn: Olaf Olafsson, the head of SCEA, summoned Steve Race, the head of development, to the conference stage, who said "$299" and left the audience with a round of applause. The attention to the Sony conference was further bolstered by the surprise appearance of Michael Jackson and the showcase of highly anticipated games, including Wipeout (1995), Ridge Racer and Tekken (1994). In addition, Sony announced that no games would be bundled with the console.
Although the Saturn had released early in the United States to gain an advantage over the PlayStation, the surprise launch upset many retailers who were not informed in time, harming sales. Some retailers such as KB Toys responded by dropping the Saturn entirely. The PlayStation went on sale in North America on 9 September 1995. It sold more units within two days than the Saturn had in five months, with almost all of the initial shipment of 100,000 units sold in advance and shops across the country running out of consoles and accessories. The well-received Ridge Racer contributed to the PlayStation's early success, with some critics considering it superior to Sega's arcade counterpart Daytona USA (1994). There were over 100,000 pre-orders placed and 17 games available on the market by the time of the PlayStation's American launch, in comparison to the Saturn's six launch games.
The PlayStation released in Europe on 29 September 1995 and in Australia on 15 November 1995. By November it had already outsold the Saturn by three to one in the United Kingdom, where Sony had allocated a £20 million marketing budget during the Christmas season compared to Sega's £4 million. Sony found early success in the United Kingdom by securing listings with independent shop owners as well as prominent High Street chains such as Comet and Argos. Within its first year, the PlayStation secured over 20% of the entire American video game market. From September to the end of 1995, sales in the United States amounted to 800,000 units, giving the PlayStation a commanding lead over the other fifth-generation consoles, though the SNES and Mega Drive from the fourth generation still outsold it. Sony reported that the attach rate of sold games and consoles was four to one. To meet increasing demand, Sony chartered jumbo jets and ramped up production in Europe and North America. By early 1996, the PlayStation had grossed $2 billion (equivalent to $ billion ) from worldwide hardware and software sales. By late 1996, sales in Europe totalled units, including 700,000 in the UK. Approximately 400 PlayStation games were in development, compared to around 200 games being developed for the Saturn and 60 for the Nintendo 64.
In India, the PlayStation was launched in test market during 1999–2000 across Sony showrooms, selling 100 units. Sony finally launched the console (PS One model) countrywide on 24 January 2002 with the price of Rs 7,990 and 26 games available from start.
Marketing success and later years
The PlayStation was backed by a successful marketing campaign, allowing Sony to gain an early foothold in Europe and North America. Initially, PlayStation demographics were skewed towards adults, but the audience broadened after the first price drop. While the Saturn was positioned towards 18- to 34-year-olds, the PlayStation was initially marketed exclusively towards teenagers. Executives from both Sony and Sega reasoned that because younger players typically looked up to older, more experienced players, advertising targeted at teens and adults would draw them in too. Additionally, Sony found that adults reacted best to advertising aimed at teenagers; Lee Clow surmised that people who started to grow into adulthood regressed and became "17 again" when they played video games. The console was marketed with advertising slogans stylised as "LIVE IN YUR WRLD. PLY IN URS" (Live in Your World. Play in Ours.) and "U R NOT " (red E). The four geometric shapes were derived from the symbols for the four buttons on the controller. Clow thought that by invoking such provocative statements, gamers would respond to the contrary and say Bullshit. Let me show you how ready I am. As the console's appeal enlarged, Sony's marketing efforts broadened from their earlier focus on mature players to specifically target younger children as well.
Shortly after the PlayStation's release in Europe, Sony tasked marketing manager Geoff Glendenning with assessing the desires of a new target audience. Sceptical over Nintendo and Sega's reliance on television campaigns, Glendenning theorised that young adults transitioning from fourth-generation consoles would feel neglected by marketing directed at children and teenagers. Recognising the influence early 1990s underground clubbing and rave culture had on young people, especially in the United Kingdom, Glendenning felt that the culture had become mainstream enough to help cultivate PlayStation's emerging identity. Sony partnered with prominent nightclub owners such as Ministry of Sound and festival promoters to organise dedicated PlayStation areas where demonstrations of select games could be tested. Sheffield-based graphic design studio The Designers Republic was contracted by Sony to produce promotional materials aimed at a fashionable, club-going audience. Psygnosis' Wipeout in particular became associated with nightclub culture as it was widely featured in venues. By 1997, there were 52 nightclubs in the United Kingdom with dedicated PlayStation rooms. Glendenning recalled that he had discreetly used at least £100,000 a year in slush fund money to invest in impromptu marketing.
In 1996, Sony expanded their CD production facilities in the United States due to the high demand for PlayStation games, increasing their monthly output from 4 million discs to 6.5 million discs. This was necessary because PlayStation sales were running at twice the rate of Saturn sales, and its lead dramatically increased when both consoles dropped in price to $199 that year. The PlayStation also outsold the Saturn at a similar ratio in Europe during 1996, with 2.2 million consoles sold in the region by the end of the year. Sales figures for PlayStation hardware and software only increased following the launch of the Nintendo 64. Tokunaka speculated that the Nintendo 64 launch had actually helped PlayStation sales by raising public awareness of the gaming market through Nintendo's added marketing efforts. Despite this, the PlayStation took longer to achieve dominance in Japan. Tokunaka said that, even after the PlayStation and Saturn had been on the market for nearly two years, the competition between them was still "very close", and neither console had led in sales for any meaningful length of time.
By 1998, Sega, encouraged by their declining market share and significant financial losses, launched the Dreamcast as a last-ditch attempt to stay in the industry. Although its launch was successful, the technically superior 128-bit console was unable to subdue Sony's dominance in the industry. Sony still held 60% of the overall video game market share in North America at the end of 1999. Sega's initial confidence in their new console was undermined when Japanese sales were lower than expected, with disgruntled Japanese consumers reportedly returning their Dreamcasts in exchange for PlayStation software. On 2 March 1999, Sony officially revealed details of the PlayStation 2, which Kutaragi announced would feature a graphics processor designed to push more raw polygons than any console in history, effectively rivalling most supercomputers. The PlayStation continued to sell strongly at the turn of the new millennium: in June 2000, Sony released the PSOne, a smaller, redesigned variant which went on to outsell all other consoles in that year, including the PlayStation 2. The combined successes of both PlayStation consoles led to Sega retiring the Dreamcast in 2001, and abandoning the console business entirely. The PlayStation was eventually discontinued on 23 March 2006—over eleven years after its release, and less than a year before the debut of the PlayStation 3.
Hardware
Technical specifications
The main microprocessor is a 32-bit LSI R3000 CPU with a clock rate of 33.86 MHz and 30 MIPS. Its CPU relies heavily on the "cop2" 3D and matrix math coprocessor on the same die to provide the necessary speed to render complex 3D graphics. The role of the separate GPU chip is to draw 2D polygons and apply shading and textures to them: the rasterisation stage of the graphics pipeline. Sony's custom 16-bit sound chip supports ADPCM sources with up to 24 sound channels and offers a sampling rate of up to 44.1 kHz and MIDI sequencing. It features 2 MB of main RAM, with an additional 1 MB being allocated to video memory. The PlayStation has a maximum colour depth of 16.7 million true colours with 32 levels of transparency and unlimited colour look-up tables. The PlayStation can output composite, S-Video or RGB video signals through its AV Multi connector (with older models also having RCA connectors for composite), displaying resolutions from 256×224 to 640×480 pixels. Different games can use different resolutions. Earlier models also had proprietary parallel and serial ports that could be used to connect accessories or multiple consoles together; these were later removed due to a lack of usage.
The PlayStation uses a proprietary video compression unit, MDEC, which is integrated into the CPU and allows for the presentation of full motion video at a higher quality than other consoles of its generation. Unusual for the time, the PlayStation lacks a dedicated 2D graphics processor; 2D elements are instead calculated as polygons by the Geometry Transfer Engine (GTE) so that they can be processed and displayed on screen by the GPU. Whilst running, the GPU can also generate a total of 4,000 sprites and 180,000 polygons per second, in addition to 360,000 per second flat-shaded.
Models
The PlayStation went through a number of variants during its production run. Externally, the most notable change was the gradual reduction in the number of external connectors from the rear of the unit. This started with the original Japanese launch units; the SCPH-1000, released on 3 December 1994, was the only model that had an S-Video port, as it was removed from the next model. Subsequent models saw a reduction in number of parallel ports, with the final version only retaining one serial port.
Sony marketed a development kit for amateur developers known as the Net Yaroze (meaning "Let's do it together" in Japanese). It was launched in June 1996 in Japan, and following public interest, was released the next year in other countries. The Net Yaroze allowed hobbyists to create their own games and upload them via an online forum run by Sony. The console was only available to buy through an ordering service and with the necessary documentation and software to program PlayStation games and applications through C programming compilers.
PS one
On 7 July 2000, Sony released the PS One (stylised as PS one), a smaller, redesigned version of the original PlayStation. It was the highest-selling console through the end of the year, outselling all other consoles—including the PlayStation 2. In 2002, Sony released a LCD screen add-on for the PS One, referred to as the "Combo pack". It also included a car cigarette lighter adaptor adding an extra layer of portability. Production of the LCD "Combo Pack" ceased in 2004, when the popularity of the PlayStation began to wane in markets outside Japan. A total of 28.15 million PS One units had been sold by the time it was discontinued in March 2006.
Controllers
Three iterations of the PlayStation's controller were released over the console's lifespan. The first controller, the PlayStation controller, was released alongside the PlayStation in December 1994. It features four individual directional buttons (as opposed to a conventional D-pad), a pair of shoulder buttons on both sides, Start and Select buttons in the centre, and four face buttons consisting of simple geometric shapes: a green triangle, red circle, blue cross, and a pink square (, , , ). Rather than depicting traditionally used letters or numbers onto its buttons, the PlayStation controller established a trademark which would be incorporated heavily into the PlayStation brand. Teiyu Goto, the designer of the original PlayStation controller, said that the circle and cross represent "yes" and "no", respectively (though this layout is reversed in Western versions); the triangle symbolises a point of view and the square is equated to a sheet of paper to be used to access menus. The European and North American models of the original PlayStation controllers are roughly 10% larger than its Japanese variant, to account for the fact the average person in those regions has larger hands than the average Japanese person.
Sony's first analogue gamepad, the PlayStation Analog Joystick (often erroneously referred to as the "Sony Flightstick"), was first released in Japan in April 1996. Featuring two parallel joysticks, it uses potentiometer technology previously used on consoles such as the Vectrex; instead of relying on binary eight-way switches, the controller detects minute angular changes through the entire range of motion. The stick also features a thumb-operated digital hat switch on the right joystick, corresponding to the traditional D-pad, and used for instances when simple digital movements were necessary. The Analog Joystick sold poorly in Japan due to its high cost and cumbersome size.
The increasing popularity of 3D games prompted Sony to add analogue sticks to its controller design to give users more freedom over their movements in virtual 3D environments. The first official analogue controller, the Dual Analog Controller, was revealed to the public in a small glass booth at the 1996 PlayStation Expo in Japan, and released in April 1997 to coincide with the Japanese releases of analogue-capable games Tobal 2 and Bushido Blade. In addition to the two analogue sticks (which also introduced two new buttons mapped to clicking in the analogue sticks), the Dual Analog controller features an "Analog" button and LED beneath the "Start" and "Select" buttons which toggles analogue functionality on or off. The controller also features rumble support, though Sony decided that haptic feedback would be removed from all overseas iterations before the United States release. A Sony spokesman stated that the feature was removed for "manufacturing reasons", although rumours circulated that Nintendo had attempted to legally block the release of the controller outside Japan due to similarities with the Nintendo 64 controller's Rumble Pak. However, a Nintendo spokesman denied that Nintendo took legal action. Next Generation Chris Charla theorized that Sony dropped vibration feedback to keep the price of the controller down.
In November 1997, Sony introduced the DualShock controller. Its name derives from its use of two (dual) vibration motors (shock). Unlike its predecessor, its analogue sticks feature textured rubber grips, longer handles, slightly different shoulder buttons and has rumble feedback included as standard on all versions. The DualShock later replaced its predecessors as the default controller.
Peripherals
Sony released a series of peripherals to add extra layers of functionality to the PlayStation. Such peripherals include memory cards, the PlayStation Mouse, the PlayStation Link Cable, the Multiplayer Adapter (a four-player multitap), the Memory Drive (a disk drive for 3.5-inch floppy disks), the GunCon (a light gun), and the Glasstron (a monoscopic head-mounted display).
Released exclusively in Japan, the PocketStation is a memory card peripheral which acts as a miniature personal digital assistant. The device features a monochrome liquid crystal display (LCD), infrared communication capability, a real-time clock, built-in flash memory, and sound capability. Sharing similarities with the Dreamcast's VMU peripheral, the PocketStation was typically distributed with certain PlayStation games, enhancing them with added features. The PocketStation proved popular in Japan, selling over five million units. Sony planned to release the peripheral outside Japan but the release was cancelled, despite receiving promotion in Europe and North America.
Functionality
In addition to playing games, most PlayStation models are equipped to play audio CDs; the Asian model SCPH-5903 can also play Video CDs. Like most CD players, the PlayStation can play songs in a programmed order, shuffle the playback order of the disc and repeat one song or the entire disc. Later PlayStation models use a music visualisation function called SoundScope. This function, as well as a memory card manager, is accessed by starting the console without either inserting a game or closing the CD tray, thereby accessing a graphical user interface (GUI) for the PlayStation BIOS. The GUI for the PS One and PlayStation differ depending on the firmware version: the original PlayStation GUI had a dark blue background with rainbow graffiti used as buttons, while the early PAL PlayStation and PS One GUI had a grey blocked background with two icons in the middle.
PlayStation emulation is versatile and can be run on numerous modern devices. Bleem! was a commercial emulator which was released for IBM-compatible PCs and the Dreamcast in 1999. It was notable for being aggressively marketed during the PlayStation's lifetime, and was the centre of multiple controversial lawsuits filed by Sony. Bleem! was programmed in assembly language, which allowed it to emulate PlayStation games with improved visual fidelity, enhanced resolutions, and filtered textures that was not possible on original hardware. Sony sued Bleem! two days after its release, citing copyright infringement and accusing the company of engaging in unfair competition and patent infringement by allowing use of PlayStation BIOSs on a Sega console. Bleem! were subsequently forced to shut down in November 2001.
Copy protection system
Sony was aware that using CDs for game distribution could have left games vulnerable to piracy, due to the growing popularity of CD-R and optical disc drives with burning capability. To preclude illegal copying, a proprietary process for PlayStation disc manufacturing was developed that, in conjunction with an augmented optical drive in Tiger H/E assembly, prevented burned copies of games from booting on an unmodified console. Specifically, all genuine PlayStation discs were printed with a small section of deliberate irregular data, which the PlayStation's optical pick-up was capable of detecting and decoding. Consoles would not boot game discs without a specific wobble frequency contained in the data of the disc pregap sector (the same system was also used to encode discs' regional lock-outs). This signal was within Red Book CD tolerances, so PlayStation discs' actual content could still be read by a conventional disc drive; however, the disc drive could not detect the wobble frequency (therefore duplicating the discs omitting it), since the laser pickup system of any optical disc drive would interpret this wobble as an oscillation of the disc surface and compensate for it in the reading process.
As the disc authenticity was only verified during booting, this copy protection system could be circumvented by swapping any genuine disc with the copied disc, while modchips could remove the protection system altogether by tricking the console into thinking the wobble is there on the pirated disc. Sony untruthfully suggested in advertisements that discs' unique black undersides played a role in copy protection. In reality, the black plastic used was transparent to any infrared laser and did not itself pose an obstacle to duplicators or computer CD drives, although it may have helped customers distinguish between unofficial and genuine copies.
Hardware problems
Early PlayStations, particularly early 1000 models, experience skipping full-motion video or physical "ticking" noises from the unit. The problems stem from poorly placed vents leading to overheating in some environments, causing the plastic mouldings inside the console to warp slightly and create knock-on effects with the laser assembly. The solution is to sit the console on a surface which dissipates heat efficiently in a well vented area or raise the unit up slightly from its resting surface. Sony representatives also recommended unplugging the PlayStation when it is not in use, as the system draws in a small amount of power (and therefore heat) even when turned off.
The first batch of PlayStations use a KSM-440AAM laser unit, whose case and movable parts are all built out of plastic. Over time, the plastic lens sled rail wears out—usually unevenly—due to friction. The placement of the laser unit close to the power supply accelerates wear, due to the additional heat, which makes the plastic more vulnerable to friction. Eventually, one side of the lens sled will become so worn that the laser can tilt, no longer pointing directly at the CD; after this, games will no longer load due to data read errors. Sony fixed the problem by making the sled out of die-cast metal and placing the laser unit further away from the power supply on later PlayStation models.
Due to an engineering oversight, the PlayStation does not produce a proper signal on several older models of televisions, causing the display to flicker or bounce around the screen. Sony decided not to change the console design, since only a small percentage of PlayStation owners used such televisions, and instead gave consumers the option of sending their PlayStation unit to a Sony service centre to have an official modchip installed, allowing play on older televisions.
Game library
The PlayStation featured a diverse game library which grew to appeal to all types of players. The first two games available at launch were Jumping Flash! (1995) and Ridge Racer, with Jumping Flash! heralded as an ancestor for 3D graphics in console gaming. Critically acclaimed PlayStation games included Final Fantasy VII (1997), Crash Bandicoot (1996), Spyro the Dragon (1998), Metal Gear Solid (1998), all of which became established franchises. Final Fantasy VII is credited with allowing role-playing games to gain mass-market appeal outside Japan, and is considered one of the most influential and greatest video games ever made. The PlayStation's bestselling game is Gran Turismo (1997), which sold 10.85 million units. After the PlayStation's discontinuation in 2006, the cumulative software shipment was 962 million units.
At the time of the PlayStation's first Christmas season, Psygnosis had produced around 70% of its launch catalogue; its breakthrough racing game Wipeout was acclaimed for its techno soundtrack and helped raise awareness of Britain's underground music community. Eidos Interactive's action-adventure game Tomb Raider contributed substantially to the success of the console in 1996, with its main protagonist Lara Croft becoming an early gaming icon and garnering unprecedented media promotion. Licensed tie-in video games of popular films were also prevalent; Argonaut Games' 2001 adaptation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone went on to sell over eight million copies late in the console's lifespan. Third-party developers committed largely to the console's wide-ranging game catalogue even after the launch of the PlayStation 2.
Initially, in the United States, PlayStation games were packaged in long cardboard boxes, similar to non-Japanese 3DO and Saturn games. Sony later switched to the jewel case format typically used for audio CDs and Japanese video games, as this format took up less retailer shelf space (which was at a premium due to the large number of PlayStation games being released), and focus testing showed that most consumers preferred this format.
Reception
The PlayStation was mostly well received upon release. Critics in the west generally welcomed the new console; the staff of Next Generation reviewed the PlayStation a few weeks after its North American launch, where they commented that, while the CPU is "fairly average", the supplementary custom hardware, such as the GPU and sound processor, is stunningly powerful. They praised the PlayStation's focus on 3D, and complemented the comfort of its controller and the convenience of its memory cards. Giving the system 4 out of 5 stars, they concluded, "To succeed in this extremely cut-throat market, you need a combination of great hardware, great games, and great marketing. Whether by skill, luck, or just deep pockets, Sony has scored three out of three in the first salvo of this war". Albert Kim from Entertainment Weekly praised the PlayStation as a technological marvel, rivalling that of Sega and Nintendo. Famicom Tsūshin scored the console a 19 out of 40, lower than the Saturn's 24 out of 40, in May 1995.
In a 1997 year-end review, a team of five Electronic Gaming Monthly editors gave the PlayStation scores of 9.5, 8.5, 9.0, 9.0, and 9.5—for all five editors, the highest score they gave to any of the five consoles reviewed in the issue. They lauded the breadth and quality of the games library, saying it had vastly improved over previous years due to developers mastering the system's capabilities in addition to Sony revising its stance on 2D and role playing games. They also complimented the low price point of the games compared to the Nintendo 64's, and noted that it was the only console on the market that could be relied upon to deliver a solid stream of games for the coming year, primarily due to third party developers almost unanimously favouring it over its competitors.
Legacy
SCE was an upstart in the video game industry in late 1994, as the video game market in the early 1990s was dominated by Nintendo and Sega. Nintendo had been the clear leader in the industry since the introduction of the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985 and the Nintendo 64 was initially expected to maintain this position. The PlayStation's target audience included the generation which was the first to grow up with mainstream video games, along with 18- to 29-year-olds who were not the primary focus of Nintendo. By the late 1990s, Sony became a highly regarded console brand due to the PlayStation, with a significant lead over second-place Nintendo, while Sega was relegated to a distant third.
The PlayStation became the first "computer entertainment platform" to ship over 100 million units worldwide, with many critics attributing the console's success to third-party developers. It remains the fifth best-selling console of all time as of , with a total of 102.49 million units sold. Around 7,900 individual games were published for the console during its 11-year life span, the second-most games ever produced for a console. Its success resulted in a significant financial boon for Sony as profits from its video game division contributed to 23%.
Sony's next-generation PlayStation 2, which is backward compatible with the PlayStation's DualShock controller and games, was announced in 1999 and launched in 2000. The PlayStation's lead in installed base and developer support paved the way for the success of its successor, which overcame the earlier launch of the Sega's Dreamcast and then fended off competition from Microsoft's newcomer Xbox and Nintendo's GameCube. The PlayStation 2's immense success and failure of the Dreamcast were among the main factors which led to Sega abandoning the console market. To date, five PlayStation home consoles have been released, which have continued the same numbering scheme, as well as two portable systems. The PlayStation 3 also maintained backward compatibility with original PlayStation discs. Hundreds of PlayStation games have been digitally re-released on the PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.
The PlayStation has often ranked among the best video game consoles. In 2018, Retro Gamer named it the third best console, crediting its sophisticated 3D capabilities as one of its key factors in gaining mass success, and lauding it as a "game-changer in every sense possible". In 2009, IGN ranked the PlayStation the seventh best console in their list, noting its appeal towards older audiences to be a crucial factor in propelling the video game industry, as well as its assistance in transitioning game industry to use the CD-ROM format. Keith Stuart from The Guardian likewise named it as the seventh best console in 2020, declaring that its success was so profound it "ruled the 1990s".
CD format
The success of the PlayStation contributed to the demise of cartridge-based home consoles. While not the first system to use an optical disc format, it was the first highly successful one, and ended up going head-to-head with the proprietary cartridge-relying Nintendo 64, which the industry had expected to use CDs like PlayStation. After the demise of the Sega Saturn, Nintendo was left as Sony's main competitor in Western markets. Nintendo chose not to use CDs for the Nintendo 64; it was likely concerned with the proprietary cartridge format's ability to help enforce copy protection, given its substantial reliance on licensing and exclusive games for its revenue.
Besides their larger capacity, CD-ROMs could be produced in bulk quantities at a much faster rate than ROM cartridges, a week compared to two to three months. Further, the cost of production per unit was far cheaper, allowing Sony to offer games about 40% lower cost to the user compared to ROM cartridges while still making the same amount of net revenue. In Japan, Sony published fewer copies of a wide variety of games for the PlayStation as a risk-limiting step, a model that had been used by Sony Music for CD audio discs. The production flexibility of CD-ROMs meant that Sony could produce larger volumes of popular games to get onto the market quickly, something that could not be done with cartridges due to their manufacturing lead time. The lower production costs of CD-ROMs also allowed publishers an additional source of profit: budget-priced reissues of games which had already recouped their development costs.
Tokunaka remarked in 1996:
The increasing complexity of developing games pushed cartridges to their storage limits and gradually discouraged some third-party developers. Part of the CD format's appeal to publishers was that they could be produced at a significantly lower cost and offered more production flexibility to meet demand. As a result, some third-party developers switched to the PlayStation, including Square and Enix, whose Final Fantasy VII and Dragon Quest VII respectively had been planned for the Nintendo 64 (both companies later merged to form Square Enix). Other developers released fewer games for the Nintendo 64 (Konami, releasing only thirteen N64 games but over fifty on the PlayStation). Nintendo 64 game releases were less frequent than the PlayStation's, with many being developed by either Nintendo itself or second-parties such as Rare.
PlayStation Classic
The PlayStation Classic is a dedicated video game console made by Sony Interactive Entertainment that emulates PlayStation games. It was announced in September 2018 at the Tokyo Game Show, and released on 3 December 2018, the 24th anniversary of the release of the original console.
As a dedicated console, the PlayStation Classic features 20 pre-installed games; the games run off the open source emulator PCSX. The console is bundled with two replica wired PlayStation controllers (those without analogue sticks), an HDMI cable, and a USB-Type A cable. Internally, the console uses a MediaTek MT8167a Quad A35 system on a chip with four central processing cores clocked at @ 1.5 GHz and a Power VR GE8300 graphics processing unit. It includes 16 GB of eMMC flash storage and 1 Gigabyte of DDR3 SDRAM. The PlayStation Classic is 45% smaller than the original console.
The PlayStation Classic received negative reviews from critics and was compared unfavorably to Nintendo's rival Nintendo Entertainment System Classic Edition and Super Nintendo Entertainment System Classic Edition. Criticism was directed at its meager game library, user interface, emulation quality, use of PAL versions for certain games, use of the original controller, and high retail price, though the console's design received praise. The console sold poorly.
See also
PlayStation: The Official Magazine (PSM)
Portable Sound Format (PSF)
System 573
Notes
References
Citations
Sources
1990s toys
2000s toys
CD-ROM-based consoles
Discontinued video game consoles
Fifth-generation video game consoles
Home video game consoles
Japanese brands
PlayStation (brand)
Products introduced in 1994
Products and services discontinued in 2006
Sony consoles |
23965 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-1 | PDP-1 | The PDP-1 (Programmed Data Processor-1) is the first computer in Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP series and was first produced in 1959. It is famous for being the most important computer in the creation of hacker culture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bolt, Beranek and Newman and elsewhere. The PDP-1 is the original hardware for playing history's first game on a minicomputer, Steve Russell's Spacewar!
Description
The PDP-1 uses an 18-bit word size and has 4096 words as standard main memory (equivalent in bit size to 9,216 eight-bit bytes, but in character size to 12,388 bytes since the system actually divides an 18-bit word into three six-bit characters), upgradable to 65,536 words. The magnetic-core memory's cycle time is 5.35 microseconds (corresponding roughly to a clock speed of 187 kilohertz); consequently most arithmetic instructions take 10.7 microseconds (93,458 operations per second) because they use two memory cycles: the first to fetch the instruction, the second to fetch or store the data word. Signed numbers are represented in ones' complement. The PDP-1 has computing power roughly equivalent to a 1996 pocket organizer and a little less memory.
The PDP-1 uses 2,700 transistors and 3,000 diodes. It is built mostly of DEC 1000-series System Building Blocks, using micro-alloy and micro-alloy diffused transistors with a rated switching speed of 5MHz. The System Building Blocks are packaged into several 19-inch racks. The racks are themselves packaged into a single large mainframe case, with a hexagonal control panel containing switches and lights mounted to lie at table-top height at one end of the mainframe. Above the control panel is the system's standard input/output solution, a punched tape reader and writer.
The PDP-1 weighs about .
History
The design of the PDP-1 is based on the pioneering TX-0 and TX-2 computers, designed and built at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Benjamin Gurley was the lead engineer on the project. After showing a prototype at the Eastern Joint Computer Conference in December 1959, DEC delivered the first PDP-1 to Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN) in November 1960, and it was formally accepted in early 1961. In September 1961, DEC donated the PDP-1 to MIT, where it was placed in the room next to its ancestor, the TX-0 computer, which was by then on indefinite loan from Lincoln Laboratory.
In this setting, the PDP-1 quickly replaced the TX-0 as the favorite machine among the budding hacker culture, and served as the platform for a long list of computing innovations. This list includes one of the earliest digital video games, Spacewar!, the first text editor, the first word processor, the first interactive debugger, the first credible computer chess program, one of the very earliest time-sharing systems (BBN Time-Sharing System), and some of the earliest computerized music. At the Computer History Museum TX-0 alumni reunion in 1984, Gordon Bell said DEC's products developed directly from the TX-2, the successor to the TX-0 which had been developed at what Bell thought was a bargain price at the time, about . At the same meeting, Jack Dennis said Ben Gurley's design for the PDP-1 was influenced by his work on the TX-0 display.
The PDP-1 sold in basic form for (equivalent to in ). BBN's system was quickly followed by orders from Lawrence Livermore and Atomic Energy of Canada (AECL), and eventually 53 PDP-1s were delivered until production ended in 1969. All of these machines were still being actively used in 1970, and several were eventually saved. MIT's example was donated to The Computer Museum, Boston, and from there ended up at the Computer History Museum (CHM). A late version of Spacewar! on paper tape was still tucked into the case. PDP-1 #44 was found in a barn in Wichita, Kansas in 1988, apparently formerly owned by one of the many aviation companies in the area, and rescued for the Digital Historical Collection, also eventually ending up at the CHM. AECL's computer was sent to Science North, but was later scrapped.
The launch of the PDP-1 marked a radical shift in the philosophy of computer design: it is the first commercial computer that focuses on interaction with the user rather than just the efficient use of computer cycles.
The first ever reference to malicious hacking is 'telephone hackers' in MIT's student newspaper, The Tech, of hackers tying up the lines with Harvard, configuring the PDP-1 to make free calls, war dialing and accumulating large phone bills.
Peripherals
The PDP-1 uses fanfold punched paper tape as its primary storage medium. Unlike punched card decks, which could be sorted and re-ordered, paper tape is tedious to physically edit. This inspired the creation of text-editing programs such as Expensive Typewriter and TECO. Because it is equipped with online and offline printers that were based on IBM electric typewriter mechanisms, it is capable of what, in 1980s terminology, would be called "letter-quality printing" and therefore inspired TJ-2, arguably the first word processor.
The console typewriter, known as the Computeriter, was provided by Soroban Engineering. It is an adapted IBM Model B Electric typewriter mechanism, modified by the addition of switches to detect key presses, and solenoids to activate the typebars. It uses a traditional typebar mechanism, not the "golfball" IBM Selectric typewriter mechanism, which was not introduced until the next year. Lettercase is selected by raising and lowering the massive type basket. The Soroban is equipped with a two-color inked ribbon (red and black), and the interface allows color selection. Programs commonly use color-coding to distinguish user input from machine responses. The Soroban mechanism is unreliable and prone to jamming, particularly when shifting case or changing ribbon color.
Offline devices are typically Friden Flexowriters that have been specially built to operate with the FIO-DEC character coding used by the PDP-1. Like the console typewriter, these are built around a typing mechanism that is mechanically the same as an IBM Electric typewriter. However, Flexowriters are highly reliable and were often used for long unattended printing sessions. Flexowriters have electromechanical paper tape punches and readers which operate synchronously with the typewriter mechanism. Typing rates are about ten characters per second. A typical PDP-1 operating procedure is to output text to punched paper tape using the PDP-1's "high speed" (60-character-per-second) Teletype model BRPE punch, then to hand carry the tape to a Flexowriter for offline printing.
In later years, DECtape drives were added to some PDP-1 systems, as a more convenient method of backing up programs and data, and to enable early time-sharing. This latter application usually requires a secondary storage medium for swapping programs and data in and out of core memory, without requiring manual intervention. For this purpose, DECtapes are far superior to paper tapes, in terms of reliability, durability, and speed. Early hard disks were expensive and notoriously unreliable; if available and working, they are used primarily for speed of swapping, and not for permanent file storage.
Graphics display
The Type 30 Precision CRT display is a point plotting display device capable of addressing 1024 by 1024 addressable locations at a rate of 20,000 points per second. A special "Display One Point On CRT" instruction is used to build up images, which have to be refreshed many times per second. The CRT, which was originally developed for use in radar, is in diameter and uses a long-persistence P7 phosphor. A light pen can be used with the Type 30 to pick points on the display. An optional character generator and hardware for line and curve generation are available.
Computer music
MIT hackers also used the PDP-1 for playing music in four-part harmony, using some special hardware – four flip-flops directly controlled by the processor (the audio signal is filtered with simple RC filters). Music was prepared via Peter Samson's Harmony Compiler, a sophisticated text-based program with some features specifically oriented toward the efficient coding of baroque music. Several hours of music were prepared for it, including Bach fugues, all of Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik, the Ode to Joy movement concluding Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, Christmas carols, and numerous popular songs.
Current status
Only three PDP-1 computers are still known to exist, and all three are in the collection of the Computer History Museum (CHM). One is the prototype formerly used at MIT, and the other two are production PDP-1C machines. One of the latter, serial number 55 (the last PDP-1 made) has been restored to working order, is on exhibit, and is demonstrated on two Saturdays every month. The demonstrations include:
the game Spacewar!
graphics demonstrations such as Snowflake
playing music
Software simulations of the PDP-1 exist in SIMH and MESS, hardware recreation through FPGA exists for the MiSTer project as well, and binary image of paper tapes of the software exist in the bitsavers.org archives.
See also
History of computers
History of computer science
Spacewar!
Tech Model Railroad Club
Timeline of computing
Notes
External links
DEC minicomputers
Transistorized computers
18-bit computers
Computer-related introductions in 1959
Computer-related introductions in 1960 |
23968 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCR | PCR | PCR or pcr may refer to:
Science and medicine
Pathologic complete response (pCR), in neoadjuvant therapy
Polymerase chain reaction
COVID-19 testing, often performed using the polymerase chain reaction method
Phosphocreatine, a phosphorylated creatine molecule
Principal component regression, a statistical technique
Protein/creatinine ratio, in urine
Technology
Passport Carrier Release, telecommunications software
Peak cell rate, on ATM networks
Platform Configuration Register, a Trusted Execution Technology implemented using a TPM
Processor Control Region, a Windows data structure
Program clock reference, in MPEG transport streams
XM PCR, a satellite receiver
Political parties
Parti Communiste Réunionnais or Communist Party of Réunion
Partido Comunista Revolucionário or Revolutionary Communist Party
Partido Cívico Renovador or Civic Renovation Party, Dominican Republic
Partidul Comunist Român or Romanian Communist Party
Other uses
Put/call ratio, in finance
Amdo Tibetan (ISO 639 code pcr), a language
Germán Olano Airport (IATA code PCR), Colombia
Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between Peoples, Palestine
Pancritical rationalism, a development of critical rationalism and panrationalism
Paul Cruickshank Racing, an Australian motor racing team
Police control room, an emergency control centre
Practical Chinese Reader, a textbook
Production control room, of a television studio
Princess Connect! Re:Dive, a video game
Police of the Czech Republic
See also
Partido Comunista Revolucionario (disambiguation) |
23970 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pico | Pico | Pico may refer to:
Places
The Moon
Mons Pico, a lunar mountain in the northern part of the Mare Imbrium basin
Portugal
Pico, a civil parish in the municipality of Vila Verde
Pico da Pedra, a civil parish in the municipality of Ribeira Grande, São Miguel, Azores
Pico Island, the largest island in the Central Group of the Azores archipelago
Mount Pico (Montanha do Pico), the distinctive stratovolcano that stands on the island of Pico
Pico da Vara, the highest mountain on the island of São Miguel, Azores
United States
M. Pico Building, a building in Lafayette County, Florida
PICO Building (Sanford, Florida)
Camp Pico Blanco, a summer camp in Monterey County, California
Pico Mountain, a ski resort in Rutland County, Vermont
Pico Boulevard, a major street in Los Angeles, California
Pico-Union, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in Los Angeles
Pico, California, an unincorporated community now part of Pico Rivera, California
Elsewhere
General Pico, a city in the Province of La Pampa, Argentina
Pico da Neblina, a mountain in the State of Amazonas, Brazil
Pico de Orizaba, a volcano on the borders of Puebla State and Veracruz State, Mexico
Pico do Fogo, a volcano on the island of Fogo, Cape Verde
Pico, Lazio, a comune in the Province of Frosinone, Italy
Pico Paraná, a mountain in the State of Paraná, Brazil
Río Pico, Chubut, a village in the Province of Chubut, Argentina
People
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494), Italian philosopher
Pío Pico (1801–1894), Mexican politician
Andrés Pico (1810–1876), Mexican general
Salomon Pico (1821–1860), Mexican soldier, Californio Bandit
Pico Iyer (born 1957), British writer
Jeff Pico (born 1966), American baseball player
Sol Picó (born 1967), Spanish dancer and choreographer
Anderson Pico (born 1988), Brazilian football player
Pico (footballer) (born 1988), Spanish footballer
Aaron Pico (born 1996), mixed martial artist, wrestler
Andres G. Pico, American politician
Fictional characters
Pico, a character created by Tom Fulp that debuted in the Newgrounds Flash game Pico's School, also featured in Friday Night Funkin'
Pico, a character created by American comedy duo The Jerky Boys
Pico de Paperis, an Italian name for Ludwig Von Drake, a character in the American Walt Disney cartoon series
Pico, the eponymous character of the hentai anime Boku no Pico
Science and medicine
pico-, a metric prefix denoting a factor of 10−12
PICO dark matter experiment
PICO process, a medical technique to frame and answer a clinical question
Computing and electronics
Pico (text editor), a simple text editor
Pico (programming language), developed at Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Pico (supercomputer), an IBM supercomputer
Sega Pico, a video game system designed for young children
Pico-8, a fantasy console and friendly game-making software
Pico projector, a handheld projector
Raspberry Pi Pico, a microcontroller
Pico 4, a virtual reality headset developed by ByteDance
Other uses
Beretta Pico, a small, semi-automatic pistol manufactured in the United States by Beretta
Laser Pico, a small sailing dinghy
Pico de gallo, a salsa made from fresh vegetables, especially tomatoes, onions, and peppers
PICO National Network, a U.S. religious training organization
Island Trees School District v. Pico, a U.S. legal case
Pico (mango), a mango cultivar from the Philippines
See also
Pica (disambiguation)
Pico Agudo (disambiguation)
Picco (disambiguation)
Picus (disambiguation)
Piko (disambiguation) |
23971 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilus | Pilus | A pilus (Latin for 'hair'; : pili) is a hair-like appendage found on the surface of many bacteria and archaea. The terms pilus and fimbria (Latin for 'fringe'; plural: fimbriae) can be used interchangeably, although some researchers reserve the term pilus for the appendage required for bacterial conjugation. All conjugative pili are primarily composed of pilin – fibrous proteins, which are oligomeric.
Dozens of these structures can exist on the bacterial and archaeal surface. Some bacteria, viruses or bacteriophages attach to receptors on pili at the start of their reproductive cycle.
Pili are antigenic. They are also fragile and constantly replaced, sometimes with pili of different composition, resulting in altered antigenicity. Specific host responses to old pili structures are not effective on the new structure. Recombination between genes of some (but not all) pili code for variable (V) and constant (C) regions of the pili (similar to immunoglobulin diversity). As the primary antigenic determinants, virulence factors and impunity factors on the cell surface of a number of species of Gram negative and some Gram positive bacteria, including Enterobacteriaceae, Pseudomonadaceae, and Neisseriaceae, there has been much interest in the study of pili as organelle of adhesion and as vaccine components. The first detailed study of pili was done by Brinton and co-workers who demonstrated the existence of two distinct phases within one bacterial strain: pileated (p+) and non-pileated)
Types by function
A few names are given to different types of pili by their function. The classification does not always overlap with the structural or evolutionary-based types, as convergent evolution occurs.
Conjugative pili
Conjugative pili allow for the transfer of DNA between bacteria, in the process of bacterial conjugation. They are sometimes called "sex pili", in analogy to sexual reproduction, because they allow for the exchange of genes via the formation of "mating pairs". Perhaps the most well-studied is the F-pilus of Escherichia coli, encoded by the F sex factor.
A sex pilus is typically 6 to 7 nm in diameter. During conjugation, a pilus emerging from the donor bacterium ensnares the recipient bacterium, draws it in close, and eventually triggers the formation of a mating bridge, which establishes direct contact and the formation of a controlled pore that allows transfer of DNA from the donor to the recipient. Typically, the DNA transferred consists of the genes required to make and transfer pili (often encoded on a plasmid), and so is a kind of selfish DNA; however, other pieces of DNA are often co-transferred and this can result in dissemination of genetic traits throughout a bacterial population, such as antibiotic resistance. The connection established by the F-pilus is extremely mechanically and thermochemically resistant thanks to the robust properties of the F-pilus, which ensures successful gene transfer in a variety of environments. Not all bacteria can make conjugative pili, but conjugation can occur between bacteria of different species.
Hyperthermophilic archaea encode pili structurally similar to the bacterial conjugative pili. However, unlike in bacteria, where conjugation apparatus typically mediates the transfer of mobile genetic elements, such as plasmids or transposons, the conjugative machinery of hyperthermophilic archaea, called Ced (Crenarchaeal system for exchange of DNA) and Ted (Thermoproteales system for exchange of DNA), appears to be responsible for the transfer of cellular DNA between members of the same species. It has been suggested that in these archaea the conjugation machinery has been fully domesticated for promoting DNA repair through homologous recombination rather than spread of mobile genetic elements.
Fimbriae
Fimbria (Latin for 'fringe', : fimbriae) is a term used for a short pilus that is used to attach the bacterium to a surface, sometimes also called an "attachment pilus" or adhesive pilus. The term "fimbria" can refer to many different (structural) types of pilus. Indeed, many different types of pili have been used for adhesion, a case of convergent evolution. The Gene Ontology system does not treat fimbriae as a distinct type of appendage, using the generic pilus (GO:0009289) type instead.
This appendage ranges from 3–10 nanometers in diameter and can be as much as several micrometers long. Fimbriae are used by bacteria to adhere to one another and to adhere to animal cells and some inanimate objects. A bacterium can have as many as 1,000 fimbriae. Fimbriae are only visible with the use of an electron microscope. They may be straight or flexible.
Fimbriae possess adhesins which attach them to some sort of substratum so that the bacteria can withstand shear forces and obtain nutrients. For example, E. coli uses them to attach to mannose receptors.
Some aerobic bacteria form a very thin layer at the surface of a broth culture. This layer, called a pellicle, consists of many aerobic bacteria that adhere to the surface by their fimbriae. Thus, fimbriae allow the aerobic bacteria to remain both on the broth, from which they take nutrients, and near the air.
Fimbriae are required for the formation of biofilm, as they attach bacteria to host surfaces for colonization during infection. Fimbriae are either located at the poles of a cell or are evenly spread over its entire surface.
This term was also used in a lax sense to refer to all pili, by those who use "pilus" to specifically refer to sex pili.
Types by assembling system or structure
Transfer
The Tra (transfer) family includes all known sex pili (as of 2010). They are related to the type IV secretion system (T4SS). They can be classified into the F-like type (after the F-pilus) and the P-like type. Like their secretion counterparts, the pilus injects material, DNA in this case, into another cell.
Type IV pili
Some pili, called type IV pili (T4P), generate motile forces. The external ends of the pili adhere to a solid substrate, either the surface to which the bacterium is attached or to other bacteria. Then, when the pili contract, they pull the bacterium forward like a grappling hook. Movement produced by type IV pili is typically jerky, so it is called twitching motility, as opposed to other forms of bacterial motility such as that produced by flagella. However, some bacteria, for example Myxococcus xanthus, exhibit gliding motility. Bacterial type IV pili are similar in structure to the component proteins of archaella (archaeal flagella), and both are related to the Type II secretion system (T2SS); they are unified by the group of Type IV filament systems. Besides archaella, many archaea produce adhesive type 4 pili, which enable archaeal cells to adhere to different substrates. The N-terminal alpha-helical portions of the archaeal type 4 pilins and archaellins are homologous to the corresponding regions of bacterial T4P; however, the C-terminal beta-strand-rich domains appear to be unrelated in bacterial and archaeal pilins.
Genetic transformation is the process by which a recipient bacterial cell takes up DNA from a neighboring cell and integrates this DNA into its genome by homologous recombination. In Neisseria meningitidis (also called meningococcus), DNA transformation requires the presence of short DNA uptake sequences (DUSs) which are 9-10 monomers residing in coding regions of the donor DNA. Specific recognition of DUSs is mediated by a type IV pilin. Menningococcal type IV pili bind DNA through the minor pilin ComP via an electropositive stripe that is predicted to be exposed on the filament's surface. ComP displays an exquisite binding preference for selective DUSs. The distribution of DUSs within the N. meningitides genome favors certain genes, suggesting that there is a bias for genes involved in genomic maintenance and repair.
This family was originally identified as "type IV fimbriae" by their appearance under the microscope. This classification survived as it happens to correspond to a clade. It has been shown that some archaeal type IV pilins can exist in 4 different conformations, yielding two pili with dramatically different structures. Remarkably, the two pili were produced by the same secretion machinery. However, which of the two pili is formed appears to depend on the growth conditions, suggesting that the two pili are functionally distinct.
Type 1 fimbriae
Another type are called type 1 fimbriae. They contain FimH adhesins at the "tips". The chaperone-usher pathway is responsible for moving many types of fimbriae out of the cell, including type 1 fimbriae and the P fimbriae.
Curli
"Gram-negative bacteria assemble functional amyloid surface fibers called curli." Curli are a type of fimbriae. Curli are composed of proteins called curlins. Some of the genes involved are CsgA, CsgB, CsgC, CsgD, CsgE, CsgF, and CsgG.
Virulence
Pili are responsible for virulence in the pathogenic strains of many bacteria, including E. coli, Vibrio cholerae, and many strains of Streptococcus. This is because the presence of pili greatly enhances bacteria's ability to bind to body tissues, which then increases replication rates and ability to interact with the host organism. If a species of bacteria has multiple strains but only some are pathogenic, it is likely that the pathogenic strains will have pili while the nonpathogenic strains do not.
The development of attachment pili may then result in the development of further virulence traits. Fimbriae are one of the primary mechanisms of virulence for E. coli, Bordetella pertussis, Staphylococcus and Streptococcus bacteria. Their presence greatly enhances the bacteria's ability to attach to the host and cause disease. Nonpathogenic strains of V. cholerae first evolved pili, allowing them to bind to human tissues and form microcolonies. These pili then served as binding sites for the lysogenic bacteriophage that carries the disease-causing toxin. The gene for this toxin, once incorporated into the bacterium's genome, is expressed when the gene coding for the pilus is expressed (hence the name "toxin mediated pilus").
See also
Bacterial nanowires
Flagellum
Sortase
P fimbriae
PilZ domain
References
External links
Organelles
Bacteria
Prokaryotic cell anatomy |
23972 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche%20928 | Porsche 928 | The Porsche 928 is a grand touring car with a 2+2 seating layout manufactured by Porsche AG of Germany from 1978 to 1995. Initially conceived to address changes in the automotive market, it represented Porsche's first fully in-house design for a production vehicle and was intended to potentially replace the Porsche 911 as the company's flagship model. The 928 aimed to blend the performance and handling characteristics of a sports car with the comfort, spaciousness, and ride quality of a luxury car. Porsche executives believed that the 928 would have broader appeal compared to the compact, somewhat outdated, and slow-selling air-cooled 911. Notably, it was Porsche's inaugural production model powered by a V8 engine located at the front, and it achieved remarkable top speeds, earning recognition upon its 1978 release by winning the European Car of the Year award. The Autocar described it as a "super car" in 1980.
Conception
In the late 1960s, Porsche had solidified its reputation as a manufacturer of high-performance sports cars. Amidst the 1970s oil crisis, there were discussions among executives, including owner Ferdinand Porsche, regarding the potential addition of a more fuel-efficient luxury touring car to the company's lineup. Managing director Ernst Fuhrmann advocated for the development of this new model, expressing concerns about the 911, Porsche's flagship model at the time, nearing its performance limits. Fuhrmann believed that expanding into grand touring cars with conventional engines could be essential for the company's future, contrasting with the unconventional sports cars like the 911. The declining sales of the 911 in the mid-1970s suggested a possible downturn in its market appeal. Fuhrmann envisioned the new range-topping grand tourer as a blend of sports coupé and luxury sedan, distinguishing it from the 911 with its more utilitarian interior and pure sports car performance. In the view to please the very important USA market, it switched to front-engined, V8 power and a more spacious interior that included two real child seats (rather than the dog seats in the 911). The goal was to create a model that could compete with offerings from Mercedes-Benz and BMW while also appealing to the American market, which was Porsche's primary market at the time.
Ordered by Ferdinand Porsche to develop a production-feasible concept for the new model, Fuhrmann commenced a design study in 1971, resulting in the creation of the 928. This model marked Porsche's first clean-sheet design for its own model. Previous Porsche models had been iterations or collaborations: the 356 bore similarities to the Volkswagen Beetle, the 911 evolved from the 356, the 914 was a joint venture aimed at replacing the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia and 912, and the 924 stemmed from a discontinued Volkswagen and Audi project.
Various drivetrain layouts were considered during early development, including rear- and mid-engine configurations, but many were dismissed due to technical and regulatory challenges. Issues with emissions and noise control, similar to those experienced with the 911, arose from cramming the engine, transmission, catalytic converter(s), and exhaust into a small rear engine bay. After determining that the mid-engine layout lacked sufficient space in the passenger compartment, Porsche opted for a front-engine, rear-wheel drive configuration.
Porsche engineers sought a large-displacement engine for the 928, and prototype units were initially equipped with a 5-liter V8 engine producing 300 PS (220 kW; 300 hp). There were discussions about utilizing a 4.6-liter 90-degree V10 engine with 88 mm bore spacing, which was a derivative of the Audi 5-cylinder engine (also used in the Lamborghini Gallardo) and based on the Volkswagen EA827 unit. However, this proposal faced objections from the Porsche board due to concerns that it might lead to rumors of a new 911 model with a front-mounted Volkswagen-based engine. Additionally, it is speculated that the board aimed to maintain some separation from the Volkswagen Group.
The resulting all-alloy M28 engine incorporated several distinctive features. Its bore spacing was 122 mm, indicating the use of thick, all-aluminum cylinder barrels without steel liners. The water jackets were notably large, hinting at the engine's potential for racing applications. To maintain a low hood line, the engine prioritized airflow, resulting in the placement of spark plugs at the top of the head. The four-bolt bearings were substantial and received oil via grooves in the block's bottom surface. They were supported by a large one-piece structure forming a lower block, with the cast aluminum oil pan bolted onto this component.
The oil and water pumps were driven by a timing belt. In 1985, DOHC engines introduced a hybrid timing system where the timing belt operated only the exhaust camshafts, while the intake camshafts were driven via an internally-mounted simplex roller chain from the exhaust camshaft. This approach simplified the timing belt layout, requiring fewer components and leading to easier and less costly maintenance. This timing system was later adopted by Porsche 944 and also by Audi and Volkswagen in their belt-driven DOHC engines.
The first two running prototypes of Porsche's M28 V8 initially utilized a single four-barrel carburetor for initial testing. However, the production cars ultimately employed the planned Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection system. As concerns over fuel prices and availability during the 1970s oil crisis grew within the company, discussions emerged regarding the feasibility of smaller engines to improve fuel economy. There was a proposal for the development of a 3.3 L 182 PS (134 kW; 180 hp) powerplant, suggested by Fuhrmann, but this was met with resistance from company engineers. Eventually, both sides reached a consensus on a 4.5 L, SOHC per bank 16-valve V8 engine producing 240 PS (180 kW; 240 hp) (219 hp (163 kW) in North America). This engine was considered to strike an acceptable balance between performance and fuel efficiency.
By 1973, essential development was finished and a prototype was built and under testing. At this moment, Arab-Israeli war broke out and brought the threat of energy crisis. Sales of large and thirsty cars plunged. It was a big hit to both 928 and Porsche. The project was put into low gear and production postponed until 1977.
The finished car made its debut at the 1977 Geneva Motor Show and was subsequently released for sale later that year as a 1978 model. Despite earning early acclaim for its comfort, power, and futuristic design, sales were initially sluggish. The base prices of the 928 were considerably higher than the previous range-topping 911 model, and the shift to a front-engined, water-cooled design unsettled some traditional Porsche enthusiasts.
Following the departure of Fuhrmann, Peter Schutz, his successor, opted to continue selling both models concurrently, believing that the 911 still had a place in the company's lineup. However, legislative restrictions against rear-engined vehicles never materialized. Although the 928 didn't achieve the sales targets envisioned by Fuhrmann, it garnered a devoted following and enjoyed an 18-year production run.
Design and specifications
During its 18-year production run, the fundamentals of the 928's design remained the same, though the engine and styling underwent several changes, with a distinct ‘facelift’ separating the first generation and second generation cars.
The original 928 design was seen in both 1978 and 1979, with the body lacking both front and rear spoilers. From 1980 (1983 in North America) through 1986, front and rear spoilers were present on "S" and "S2" models, being integrated into the fastback. The first generation cars, which terminated in 1986 with the "S"/"S2" models, all featured a sharper, more angular front end with a distinct 'Shark Nose' profile. From 1987 the overall exterior design was revised and it was this shape that followed the 928 through to final production in 1995. The 1987 redesign integrated the front spoiler into the nose, smoothing out the overall nose profile to fit in with the tastes of contemporary car design & ditching the more angular, shark-nose wedge of the original cars. The rear spoiler became a separate wing rather than an integrated piece and side skirts were also added. The rear tail-light configuration was also different from previous models, with more modern light covers that brought the rear light cluster away from the inset design of the original. GTS models featured flared rear wheel arches to give more room for wider 9-inch wide wheels. Another easily noticeable visual difference between versions is the style of the wheels. Early 928s had 15-inch or 16-inch "phone dial"-style wheels, while most 1980s 928s had 16-inch slotted "flat disc" wheels, with other wheels available as an option. CSs, SEs and 1989 GTs had 16-inch "Club Sport" wheels, later GTs had 16-inch "Design 90" style wheels which were also option on same period S4s (shared with the 944 as well), the GTS used two variations of the 17-inch "CUP" wheels.
The 928 featured a front-mounted and water-cooled V8 engine driving the rear wheels. Power was transmitted according to the transaxle principle. Originally displacing 4.5 L and featuring a single overhead camshaft design, it was rated at in Europe, while smog equipment reduced the output to for cars sold in the North American market. The car would first see an increase in both displacement and output for the 1980 model year, with the introduction of the 4.7 L 928 S. The original 16v engine would continue to be developed until its final iteration in the 1985 model year with the S/S2 model, which produced a in European specification, thanks to higher compression, twin distributors with EZK ignition and Bosch LH-Jetronic fuel injection. After 1986 the 16v engine was replaced by the Porsche 32v 5.0 L V8, which Porsche used until the 928 ceased produced in 1995.
In combination with the water-cooled V8 engine, Porsche utilised a transaxle in the 928 to help achieve 50/50 front/rear weight distribution. Performance of early cars were similar to the contemporary 911, despite being heavier. By the time the S/S2 specification was in production, the 928 was outperforming even the 911 Turbo in top speed tests. Early cars came with either a five-speed dog leg manual transmission, or a 3 speed Mercedes-Benz-derived automatic transmission. A four-speed automatic transmission replaced the three-speed option from 1983 in North America and 1984 in other markets. Of cars produced in 1978 and 1979, the majority were fitted with the 5 speed manual gearbox while the optional 3 speed automatic was specified less regularly. This trend quickly reversed as the model continued and final estimates suggest that in excess of 80% of all 928s produced, featured an automatic transmission.
The body, styled by Wolfgang Möbius under the guidance of Anatole Lapine used aluminium for the doors, front wing, front fenders, and bonnet to save weight, while the underlying chassis was made from galvanised steel. It had a substantial luggage area accessed via a large hatchback. Newly developed polyurethane elastic bumpers were integrated into the nose and tail and covered in body-coloured plastic; an advanced feature for the time that aided the car visually and reduced its drag. The distinctive pop-up headlamps, which remained visible in the wings even when they were retracted, completed the 928's shark-like appearance and were based on the units found on the Lamborghini Miura.
The Porsche 928 was classified as a 2+2, featuring two small rear seats. Both rear seats were designed to fold down, providing additional space in the luggage area. Sun visors were available for both front and rear occupants. However, the rear seats were limited in size due to the transmission hump, resulting in minimal legroom. They were generally suitable for short trips or for accommodating children rather than adults.
One notable feature of the 928 was its innovative instrument cluster, which moved along with the adjustable steering wheel to ensure maximum visibility for the driver.
The 928 also incorporated the "Weissach Axle", a passive rear-wheel steering system aimed at enhancing stability while braking and during turns. The engine was distinguished by its unsleeved, silicon alloy engine block made of aluminum, contributing to reduced weight and durable cylinder bore.
Porsche's design and development efforts were recognized when the 928 won the European Car of the Year, award in 1978, surpassing competitors like the BMW 7 Series and the Ford Granada. It remains the only sports car to have received this accolade.
Later variants
Porsche introduced a refreshed 928 S into the European market in the 1980 model year, although it was the summer of 1982 and MY 1983 before the model reached North America. Externally, the S wore new front and rear spoilers and sported wider wheels and tires than the older variant, but the main change for the 928 S was under the hood, where a revised 4.7 L engine was used. European versions debuted with , and were upgraded to for the 1984 model year. From 1984 to 1986, the S model was called S2 in United Kingdom. These cars used Bosch LH-Jetronic fuel injection system and purely electronic Bosch ignition, the same systems used on the later 32-valve cars. North American-spec 1983 and 1984 S models used among other differences, smaller valves, milder camshafts, smaller diameter intake manifolds, and additional pollution equipment in order to meet emissions regulations, and were limited to as a result. Due to low-grade fuel, the 16-valve low compression S engine was made for the Australian market in the 1985 model year. It had a 9.3:1 compression ratio pistons as opposed to the normal 10.4:1 but used the same large intake, high lift cams, large valves, etc. of other S engines.
During the initial three years of its production, the faster European variant of the Porsche 928 was not available in the United States and Canada. To address this, Porsche introduced a "Competition Group" option for North American customers, offering them a package that mimicked the appearance of the S model. This package included front and rear spoilers, 16-inch flat disc wheels, sport seats, sport springs, and Bilstein Shock Absorbers. Customers had the flexibility to choose paint and interior colors just like with a standard 928. Only two cars were produced with this option in the late 1980 model year for the U.S. market. The package officially became available for the 1981 and 1982 model years but was discontinued in 1983 with the introduction of the S model in these markets. Over time, many cars have been modified by subsequent owners to include S model features, making original "Competition Group" cars difficult to identify without checking option codes.
In the 1982 model year, two special models were introduced for different markets. North America received 202 "Weissach Edition" cars, featuring champagne gold metallic paint, matching brushed gold flat disc wheels, two-tone leather interior, a production number plaque on the dashboard, and a three-piece Porsche luggage set. It's worth noting that these cars were believed not to be equipped with S spoilers, despite the availability of S spoilers in the U.S. during this period as part of the "Competition Group" option. The "Weissach Edition" option was also offered for the US market 911 for the 1980 model year and the 924 for the 1981 model year.
141 special "50th Jubilee" 928 S models were available outside the U.S. and Canada to celebrate the company's 50-year existence as a car manufacturer. This model is also sometimes referred to as the "Ferry Porsche Edition" because his signature was embroidered into the front seats. It featured meteor metallic paint and was fitted with flat disc wheels, wine red leather and special striped fabric seat centers. Similar 911 and 924 specials were also made for world markets.
Porsche updated the North American 928 S for 1985, replacing the 4.7 L SOHC engine with a new 5.0 L DOHC unit sporting four valves per cylinder and producing . Seats were also updated to a new style, these cars are sometimes unofficially called S3 to distinguish them from 16-valve "S" models. European models kept a 4.7 L engine, which was somewhat more powerful as standard, though lower 9.3:1 compression 32-valve engine together with catalytic converters became an option in some European countries and Australia for 1986. In 1986, revised suspension settings, larger brakes with 4-piston callipers, and a modified exhaust system was available on the 928S, marking the final changes to old body style cars. These were straight from the 928S4, which was to debut a few months later. These changes came starting from VIN 1001, which means that the first thousand 1986 cars had the old brakes, but later cars had this equipment available. This later 1986 model is sometimes referred to as a 1986 or 1986.5 because of these changes. The name is a little misleading as more than 3/4 of the 1986 production had these updates.
The 928 S4 variant debuted in the second half of 1986 as a 1987 model, an updated version of the 5.0 L V8 for all markets producing , sporting a new single-disc clutch in manual transmission cars, a larger torque converter in automatic transmission cars and fairly significant styling updates which gave the car a cleaner, sleeker look. The 928 S4 had a rounded front end with air intakes. The rear had a slope between the wide, flush-fitting rear lights and a Black rear spoiler standing up from the body. S4 was much closer to being a true world car than previous models as the only major differences for North American models were instrumentation in either kilometers or miles, lighting, front and rear bumper shocks, and the availability of catalytic converters in many other markets. The Australian market version was the only one with different horsepower rating at due to preparation for possible low grade fuel. Even this was achieved without engine changes.
A Club Sport variant which was up to lighter became available to continental Europe and U.S. in 1988. This model was the toned down version of the 1987 factory prototype which had a lightened body. Also in 1987, the factory made five white lightweight S4 models with a manual transmission for racecar drivers who were on their payroll at the time (Derek Bell, Jochen Mass, Hans Stuck, Bob Wollek and Jacky Ickx). These were close to same as later actual Club Sport models and can also be considered prototypes for it. An SE (sometimes called the S4 Sport due to model designation on rear bumper), a sort of halfway point between a normally equipped S4 and the more race-oriented Club Sport, became available for the UK market. It's generally believed that these cars have more power than the usual S4. They utilize parts which later became known as GT pistons, cams and engine ECU programs. Some of them had stronger, short ratio manual transmission. The automatic transmission was not available for this model.
For the 1989 model year, a visible change inside was digital trip computer in the dashboard. At the same time Australian models received the same engine management setup as other markets. Porsche debuted the 928 GT in the late winter 1988/89 after dropping the slow-selling CS and SE. In terms of equipment, the GT was like the 928 SE, having more equipment than a Club Sport model but less than a 928 S4 to keep the weight down somewhat. It had the ZF 40% limited-slip differential as standard like the Club Sport and SE before it. Also, like the CS and SE, the GT was only available with a manual gearbox. European 1989 CS and GT wheels had an RDK tire pressure monitoring system as standard, which was also optional for the same year S4. For the 1990 model year Porsche made RDK and a 0-100% variable ratio limited-slip called PSD (Porsche Sperr Differential) standard in both GT and S4 models for all markets. This system is much like the one from the flagship 959 and gives the vehicle even more grip on the track. In 1990, the S4 was no longer available with a manual transmission.
The S4 and GT variants halted production at the end of the 1991 model year, making way for the final version of the 928. The 928 GTS was available for sale in late 1991 as a 1992 model in Europe and in spring of 1992 as an early 1993 model in North America. Changed bodywork, larger front brakes and a new, more powerful 5.4 L, 350 PS (257 kW/345 hp) engine were the big advertised changes; what Porsche wasn't advertising was the price. Loaded GTS models could eclipse US$100,000 in 1995, making them among the most expensive cars on the road at the time. This severely hampered sales despite the model's high competency and long standard equipment list. Porsche discontinued the GTS model that year after shipping only 77 of them to the United States. Total worldwide production for all years was a little over 61,000 cars.
Second-hand models' value decreased as a result of high maintenance costs due to spare parts that are expensive to manufacture. Many parts suppliers and enthusiast networks exist, especially in the United States, Germany and the UK.
Road & Track magazine published a speculative piece in their April 2006 issue regarding the possibility of a new, 928-esque coupé that may debut on a shortened version of the Panamera's platform sometime around 2011 or 2012 model year but this speculation remained uncredible as Porsche denied the possibility of any such model reaching production stage.
Evolution
The evolution of the 928 during its 18 years of production was quite subtle. The list below show the major differences, which were made to the nose, tail, interior, engine, and wheels.
1978
Model designation: 928
Engine displacement:
Valves: 16
Fuel feed: Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection
Max. Power (DIN): / (North America)
Max. Torque:
1979
Model designation: 928
Power: 240 PS (177 kW) / 219 hp (163 kW) (North America)
Changes:
Battery box integrated as part of the body, was previously mounted to gearbox.
Gearbox shocks deleted.
1980
Model designation: 928 / 928 S (928 in North America)
Engine displacement: 4.5 L / 4.7 L (S model only)
Valves: 16
Power: 240 PS (177 kW) (4.5) / 300 PS (221 kW) (4.7 S) / 229 HP (167 kW) for North America only.
Changes:
Higher 10.0:1 compression ratio engine (except North America) 4.5 L model. Same power, i.e. 240 PS (177 kW) but more torque, 380 Nm instead of 350 Nm.
Bosch L-Jetronic injection in North America.
Addition of "S" model, shown at Frankfurt in September 1979. The 928 S was not available in North America until 1983. Front & rear spoilers. Larger brakes.
Manual gearbox changed during model year requiring shorter torque tube and different rear subframe.
"S" brakes installed during model year except North America.
1981
Model designation: 928 / 928 S (928 in North America)
Engine displacement: 4.5 L / 4.7 L (S model only)
Valves: 16
Power: 240 PS (177 kW) (4.5) / 300 PS (221 kW) (4.7 S) / 229 HP (167 kW) for North America only.
Changes:
"Competition Package" option available to US market.
1982
Model designation: 928 / 928 S (928 in North America)
Engine displacement: 4.5 L / 4.7 L (S model only)
Valves: 16
Power: 240 PS (177 kW) (4.5) / 300 PS (221 kW) (4.7 S) / 229 HP (167 kW) for North America only.
Changes:
Vibration damper added to torque tube between 2nd and 3rd support bearing on manual gearbox cars and behind 2nd bearing on automatic gearbox cars.
Reverse gear lock added to manual gearbox.
141 "50th Jubilee" 928 S produced for worldwide markets except North America.
"S" brakes used in US models.
202 "Weissach Edition" model produced for the US market.
4.5 L model dropped from production at the end of the model year.
US "Competition Package" option dropped from production at the end of the model year.
1983
Model designation: 928 S
Weight: 1500 kg (3300 lb)
Engine displacement: 4.7 L
Power: 300 PS (221 kW) / 234 hp (174 kW) (for North America)
Changes:
North American introduction of "S" model. Standard 928 (4.5 L) model dropped.
New style hydraulic motor mounts.
Engine shocks deleted at the same time.
4-speed automatic transmission made available for North America.
Car body and torque tube changed to accommodate longer gearbox.
1984
Model designation: 928 S (928 S2 in United Kingdom)
Weight: 1500 kg (3300 lb)
Engine displacement: 4.7 L
Valves: Two per cylinder
Power: 310 PS (228 kW) / 234 hp (174 kW) for North America.
Changes:
"S" model renamed "S2" in the UK market.
Bosch LH-Jetronic injection and 4-speed automatic transmission made available for worldwide markets (previously available in North America only)
Torque tube shortened like on U.S. model in the previous year.
Bosch EZF ignition system using dual distributors makes debut. This allows higher 10.4:1 compression and increased torque.
Compression change done in the middle of model year once 10.0:1 compression ratio resulting piston stock were used up in production.
Bosch ABS brakes optional for the first time in a Porsche.
At 146 mph (235 km/h) US model top speed, Porsche boldly claims the 928S to be "the fastest street legal production car sold in the US".
Important safety related change to front suspension lower ball joints on all cars in September 1983.
1985
Model designation: 928 S / 928 S2 (UK)
Weight: 1500 kg (3300 lb)
Engine displacement: 4.7 L (286 cubic inch)/ 5.0 litre (302 cubic inch) for North America.
Valves: Two per cylinder (four per cylinder in North America)
Power: 310 PS (306 hp, 228 kW) (worldwide) / 292 PS (288 hp, 215 kW) (for North America) / 275 PS (272 hp, 202 kW) (4.7 L) for (Australia)
Changes:
New 5.0-litre 288 hp 32-valve engine equipped with Bosch LH-Jetronic injection and Bosch EZF ignition made available for the US market.
Top speed (for the US model) is now in excess of 250 km/h (155 mph).
Special two-valve 4.7 L engine (9.3:1 c/r) option M151 for Australia. Compression change was done with different shape piston tops. Coupled only with automatic transmission. Engine number is same M28/22 as the high-compression 2-valve engines.
LH-Jetronic control box design changed in international markets.
New style front seats. Redesigned more modern looking door panels installed when multi speaker stereo was ordered.
Gearbox synchromesh changed to BorgWarner design and shorter gear lever, improving driveability on manual transmission cars.
Shims left out from front end of torque tube drive plate in automatic transmission cars, this sometimes cause engine thrust bearing failures.
Radio antenna moved to embedded windshield wire.
1986
Model designation: 928 S / 928 S2 (UK)
Engine displacement: 4.7 L (286 cubic inches) / 5.0 L (302 cubic inches) (North America, optional elsewhere)
Valves: Two per cylinder (four for North America, optional elsewhere)
Power: 310 PS (306 hp, 228 kW) (worldwide) / 292 PS (288 hp, 215 kW) (for North America) / 288 PS (284 hp, 212 kW) (for Australia, optional for Germany, Austria, Japan)
Changes:
Lowered 9.3:1 compression ratio four-valve engine optional for some markets along with catalytic converter, standard in Australia. Compression change was done with different shape piston tops.
"S4" suspension package and Brembo brakes for 1986 models (from VIN 1001 and November 1985 onwards in North America). No U.S. models made with VINs ending between 0938 and 1000 due to parts change.
ABS brakes became standard for all markets during model year production.
1987
Model designation: 928 S4
Weight: 1590 kg (3500 lb)
Engine displacement: 5.0 L
Valves: Four per cylinder
Power: 320 PS (316 hp, 236 kW) / 300 PS (296 hp, 221 kW) for Australia.
Changes:
Different style pistons, cylinder heads, camshafts, intake and larger intake valves compared to earlier 5.0 L engines.
Nominal static compression ratio 10.0:1 (True ratio between 9.4:1 and 10.0:1, depending on parts used).
Cylinder head studs used in all earlier engines replaced with bolts making it easier to remove heads while engine is in engine bay.
Updated LH-Jetronic injection and ignition changed to EZK system, two knock sensors added to engine. Single disk clutch on manual transmission cars, larger torque converter on automatics.
Modified front brake calipers used with 2 mm diameter increase for larger pistons. Cars sold to U.S., Canada, Australia and Arab countries got new parts once remaining old design calliper stock was used up.
New style front & rear bumpers and rear wing spoiler.
Older style S wing still available as option M471. This is the same option number as 1980-82 Competition Group. Porsche has used same numbers several times in different model years and models. In different years they can mean different things.
Redesigned front and rear bumper light assemblies.
Body changed compared to earlier models to accommodate larger rear lamps, rear seat area modified to give room for new torque converter.
Upwards folding rear spoiler and piston oil squirters in engine block on early cars only.
Different horsepower rating for Australia due to different ignition map used because of possible low grade fuel.
1988
Model designation: 928 S4 / 928 CS / 928 SE (UK)
Engine displacement: 5.0 L
Valves: Four per cylinder
Power: 320 PS (316 hp, 236 kW) (S4, CS and SE) / 300 PS (296 hp, 221 kW) (S4) for Australia
Changes:
Lighter 928 CS "Club Sport" version available in Continental Europe and USA, 928 SE (S4 Sport) in UK.
Only model year for "CS" (USA) and "SE" (UK). "CS" uses different VIN sequence than normal "S4".
Stronger torque tube with 3 mm thicker center shaft for automatic transmission.
Pistons with strengthened skirt installed in February 1988.
Oil drainage improved in piston skirts.
1989
Model designation: 928 S4 / 928 CS / 928 GT ("CS" model discontinued in USA)
Engine displacement: 5.0 L
Valves: Four per cylinder
Power: 320 PS (316 hp, 235 kW) (S4 and CS) / 330 PS (326 hp, 243 kW) (GT)
Changes:
February 1989, manual transmission-only "928 GT" debuts as a better-equipped version (all markets).
Digital trip computer/warning system added to dashboard, ignition circuit monitor system added.
For Australian cars same ignition maps resulting the same horsepower rating as in other markets.
North America manual transmission model now uses same shorter final drive ratio as used elsewhere, to simplify production.
RDK tire pressure monitoring system optional on S4, standard on CS and GT.
Thicker cylinder head casting taken into use early in model year to strengthen head against cracking. Longer head bolts needed because of the change.
Modified front brake calipers with improved seals taken into use early in model year.
928 CS now had the same VIN sequence as 928 S4. Model dropped from production during the model year at the end of 1988.
1990
Model designation: 928 S4 / 928 GT
Engine displacement: 5.0 L
Valves: Four per cylinder
Power: 320 PS (316 hp, 235 kW) (S4) / 330 PS (326 hp, 243 kW) (GT)
Changes:
GT pistons into use in S4 also resulting true 10.0:1 compression ratio for all engines.
RDK tire pressure monitoring system standard on all cars. Computer controlled 0-100% PSD locking differential added to both models.
S4 no longer available with manual gearbox.
Dual airbags now standard across all Porsche models in U.S. Driver's and front passenger airbag optional elsewhere, only driver's side bag available in RHD markets.
1991
Model designation: 928 S4 / 928 GT
Engine displacement: 5.0 L
Valves: Four per cylinder
Power: 320 PS (316 hp, 235 kW) (S4) / 330 PS (326 hp, 243 kW) (GT)
Changes:
Improvements to cooling in exhaust side at cylinder heads, steering rack, power steering pump, soundproofing, front cooling flaps deleted, new style shift knob with integrated leather booth in manual gearbox cars, etc.
Temperature sensors for ignition circuit monitor system moved from #4 and #8 cylinders to #3 and #7 cylinders to improve their efficiency.
Check engine warning light added to all US models due to California regulatory demands.
Two airbags as standard in LHD models during model year production for most markets.
1992
Model designation: 928 GTS
Engine displacement: 5.4 L
Valves: Four per cylinder
Power: 350 PS (345 hp, 257 kW)
Changes:
Engine displacement increases to 5.4 L due to increased crankshaft stroke. Piston compression height adjusted to matched new stroke.
10.4:1 compression ratio pistons
Milder camshafts for emission purposes
Bodywork updated with flared rear fenders and so-called "cup" style wing mirrors.
"Big Black" front brakes, significantly larger than the "S4" version.
Stronger manual gearbox with differential driven oil pump and front-mounted oil cooler.
GTS became available in North America at January 1992 as early 1993 model with later model year VIN. These cars use the same parts as 1992 models and can be differentiated from true 1993 US models with separate VIN sequences and option code M718.
1993
Model designation: 928 GTS
Engine displacement: 5.4 L
Valves: Four per cylinder
Power: 350 PS (345 hp, 257 kW)
Changes:
Cylinder block lower half studs replaced with bolts.
Engine piston rings changed to limit oil consumption and pistons changed to strengthen skirt area.
Minor update to gearbox clutch.
Air conditioner refrigerant changed to R-134a.
Driver-side airbag standard in RHD cars, passenger-side airbag not available in them.
1994
Model designation: 928 GTS
Engine displacement: 5.4 L
Valves: Four per cylinder
Power: 350 PS (345 hp, 257 kW)
Changes:
Cabin pollen filter added.
Dynamic kickdown for automatic transmission models.
Wheel design changed to "Cup II", RDK deleted at same time.
First 19 US models were made already in spring of 1993, months before when normal model year change occurs in July/August. These M718 option cars still used previous model year parts like Cup I wheels and do not have 1994 model year updates despite using the same 1994 VIN sequence.
Connecting rods changed to stronger design part in middle of model year.
1995
Model designation: 928 GTS
Engine displacement: 5.4 L
Valves: Four per cylinder
Power: 350 PS (345 hp, 257 kW)
Torque: 500 N·m (369 lb·ft)
Changes:
Special model available in some markets containing 8" wide front wheels.
Special colours (only available with automatic gearbox): "Iris blue" metallic and "Aventurine green" metallic colour with Classic grey or Cedar green leather interior.
Timeline
Worldwide production numbers
All production numbers are approximate figures collected from several sources. Porsche hasn't published actual numbers.
1) Count contains 2 1980, 458 1981 and 1,084 1982 US "Competition Group" models made.
2) Count contains 202 US "Weissach edition" models made in 1982 model year. 205 is official number which don't seem to be correct. Cars with higher production number than 202 or 205 exist. 217 is known existing plaque number but there were only 202 cars made with M462 option code.
3) Count contains 141 European "50th Jubilee" models made in 1982 model year.
4) Count contains 44 M151 low compression 16V 4.7L S engine models made in 1985 model year for Australian market.
5) Count contains 2,219 so-called S3 US models made in 1985 model year and 877 1986 models made in early part of 1986 model year up to November 1985.
6) Count contains 517 1986 European 32-valve S models. Most were Australian and Japanese models. 266 were optional M298/M299 catalytic converter models sold in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
7) Count contains 2,071 so-called S3.5 US models made in later part of 1986 model year starting from November 1985.
8) Count contains 6 Club Sport prototypes made in the 1987 model year.
9) Count contains 10 European models and 2 US models made in 1988 model year and 7 European models made in early part of 1989 model year. Last Club Sport cars were made in early winter 1988/89.
10) Count contains 358 European and 115 US/CDN model made in 1989 model year, 808 European and 142 US made in 1990, 516 European and 145 US made in 1991 resulting 1682 European and 396 US model made over two and half year time period. GT production started in around February 1989.
11) Count contains 955 1992, 621 1993, 523 1994 and 399 1995 European models resulting 2,498 cars made. Count contains 88 early VIN 1993, 102 late VIN 1993, 19 + 120 1994 and 77 1995 US models resulting 406 cars made.
Special versions
Porsche 942
The Porsche 942 was a special edition 928 presented by the company as a gift to Ferry Porsche on his 75th birthday in 1984. It's also known as the 928–4. It featured a longer wheelbase than the normal 928 production model, including an extended roof above the rear seats to better accommodate tall passengers, and what were at the time very advanced projector headlights. The weight increased marginally, by . It also received the new front and rear bumpers two years before they entered production on the S4 and the 5.0-litre 32-valve engine before it was introduced in the US market. This early model of the engine was slightly less powerful, producing and of torque at 2700 rpm.
"Study H50" Four-door 928 based prototype
Three years later, in 1987, the lengthened 928 that had been presented to the company's founder on his 75th birthday turned up as a "Feasibility Study", now with a second (rather narrow) set of doors, apparently opening in the same way as the suicide doors seen on the later Mazda RX-8. At the time "Study H50" appeared to sink with little trace, but two decades later, with the launch of the larger four-door Porsche Panamera saloon, the 928 based four-door saloon prototype from 1987 acquired greater significance.
928 long wheelbase specials
In 1986 Porsche together with tuning company AMG made a few long-wheelbase 928 specials. Unlike the 942, these had normal 928 headlights. One was presented to American Sunroof Corporation (ASC) founder and CEO Heinz Prechter. ASC was later partly responsible for manufacturing Porsche 944 S2 cabriolets.
Racing
The Max Moritz 'Semi Works' 928 GTR
Porsche's Racing Department never officially entered or prepared a racing 928 for a pure works entry. Porsche did arrange for the creation of a 928 GTR, to compete against the then-dominant 911 (993 GTR) on the race track. In order not to offend the sensibilities of their traditional 911 customers by openly challenging them with a works offering, Porsche asked Max Moritz Racing, their longtime private racing partner from nearby Reutlingen to enter a 928GTR Cup as a 'semi-works' car.
All-aluminium 928
For the 1984 24 hours of Daytona, Porsche sent one of its experimental "All-aluminium" 928S to the Brumos Racing Team to be prepared with specific instruction not to modify the car in any way. Porsche wanted to promote the performance of the 928 to North America. The drivers Richard Attwood (GB), Vic Elford (GB), Howard Meister (USA) and Bob Hagestad (USA) were told to just "drive the car". During practice for the 24-hour race the drivers found the car to be somewhat unstable on the high banks of Daytona and wanted to add a rear wing to the car; Porsche denied the request. The Brumos team tinkered with the suspension set up to make the car more stable. The car finished in 15th overall and 4th in the GTO class. One driver stated in an interview later on, that were it not for a lengthy pit stop to fix some body damage, they would have finished in the top 5 overall. The car was then returned to Porsche and is now in the Porsche Museum. A 928S from Raymond Boutinaud also competed at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1983 & 1984 with a 22nd-place finish in 1984. The same car also competed in 1000k races at Spa, Brands Hatch and Silverstone in 1984, but with little success.
Closed Course Speed Record
A new closed course speed record was set for the Porsche 928 at the Transportation Research Center (TRC) Proving Grounds. TRC. in Ohio on October 5, 2020. Race car builder and driver Carl Fausett reached 234.434 MPH on the high-banked paved oval. The vehicle was the same car he took to Bonneville (above) with further enhancements. At the time of this race, it had 1134 BHP from a specially constructed and supercharged Porsche 928 V8 and had been named The Meg in reference to the Megalodon. Speeds were measured by Tag/Heuer laser traps and certified by TRC staff. The 234.434 MPH top speed eclipsed the previous record of 216.635 MPH and made the Meg the worlds' fastest 928, and set a new Porsche closed-course record.
References
Notes
Bibliography
General
Bowler, M & Wood, J (1997). The Fastest Cars From Around the World. Parragon. ISBN.
Hogsten, Dag E. "Jättetest Alla modeller Porsche". Teknikens Värld issue #13, June 17, 1981.
Porsche Scene - Germany (12/2006) "Frisch aufgelegt: Stroseks Design Klassiker"
911&PORSCHE WORLD - GB (May/June 1994) "928 Cup Racer"
Workshop manuals
External links
Porsche Classic Road Vehicles
928
1980s cars
1990s cars
Grand tourers
Coupés
2+2 coupés
Hatchbacks
Rear-wheel-drive vehicles
Cars introduced in 1977
Cars discontinued in 1995 |
23974 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasmid | Plasmid | A plasmid is a small, extrachromosomal DNA molecule within a cell that is physically separated from chromosomal DNA and can replicate independently. They are most commonly found as small circular, double-stranded DNA molecules in bacteria; however, plasmids are sometimes present in archaea and eukaryotic organisms. Plasmids often carry useful genes, such as for antibiotic resistance. While chromosomes are large and contain all the essential genetic information for living under normal conditions, plasmids are usually very small and contain additional genes for special circumstances.
Artificial plasmids are widely used as vectors in molecular cloning, serving to drive the replication of recombinant DNA sequences within host organisms. In the laboratory, plasmids may be introduced into a cell via transformation. Synthetic plasmids are available for procurement over the internet.
Plasmids are considered replicons, units of DNA capable of replicating autonomously within a suitable host. However, plasmids, like viruses, are not generally classified as life. Plasmids are transmitted from one bacterium to another (even of another species) mostly through conjugation. This host-to-host transfer of genetic material is one mechanism of horizontal gene transfer, and plasmids are considered part of the mobilome. Unlike viruses, which encase their genetic material in a protective protein coat called a capsid, plasmids are "naked" DNA and do not encode genes necessary to encase the genetic material for transfer to a new host; however, some classes of plasmids encode the conjugative "sex" pilus necessary for their own transfer. Plasmids vary in size from 1 to over 400 kbp, and the number of identical plasmids in a single cell can range from one up to thousands.
History
The term plasmid was introduced in 1952 by the American molecular biologist Joshua Lederberg to refer to "any extrachromosomal hereditary determinant." The term's early usage included any bacterial genetic material that exists extrachromosomally for at least part of its replication cycle, but because that description includes bacterial viruses, the notion of plasmid was refined over time to refer to genetic elements that reproduce autonomously.
Later in 1968, it was decided that the term plasmid should be adopted as the term for extrachromosomal genetic element, and to distinguish it from viruses, the definition was narrowed to genetic elements that exist exclusively or predominantly outside of the chromosome and can replicate autonomously.
Properties and characteristics
In order for plasmids to replicate independently within a cell, they must possess a stretch of DNA that can act as an origin of replication. The self-replicating unit, in this case, the plasmid, is called a replicon. A typical bacterial replicon may consist of a number of elements, such as the gene for plasmid-specific replication initiation protein (Rep), repeating units called iterons, DnaA boxes, and an adjacent AT-rich region. Smaller plasmids make use of the host replicative enzymes to make copies of themselves, while larger plasmids may carry genes specific for the replication of those plasmids. A few types of plasmids can also insert into the host chromosome, and these integrative plasmids are sometimes referred to as episomes in prokaryotes.
Plasmids almost always carry at least one gene. Many of the genes carried by a plasmid are beneficial for the host cells, for example: enabling the host cell to survive in an environment that would otherwise be lethal or restrictive for growth. Some of these genes encode traits for antibiotic resistance or resistance to heavy metal, while others may produce virulence factors that enable a bacterium to colonize a host and overcome its defences or have specific metabolic functions that allow the bacterium to utilize a particular nutrient, including the ability to degrade recalcitrant or toxic organic compounds. Plasmids can also provide bacteria with the ability to fix nitrogen. Some plasmids, however, have no observable effect on the phenotype of the host cell or its benefit to the host cells cannot be determined, and these plasmids are called cryptic plasmids.
Naturally occurring plasmids vary greatly in their physical properties. Their size can range from very small mini-plasmids of less than 1-kilobase pairs (kbp) to very large megaplasmids of several megabase pairs (Mbp). At the upper end, little differs between a megaplasmid and a minichromosome. Plasmids are generally circular, but examples of linear plasmids are also known. These linear plasmids require specialized mechanisms to replicate their ends.
Plasmids may be present in an individual cell in varying number, ranging from one to several hundreds. The normal number of copies of plasmid that may be found in a single cell is called the plasmid copy number, and is determined by how the replication initiation is regulated and the size of the molecule. Larger plasmids tend to have lower copy numbers. Low-copy-number plasmids that exist only as one or a few copies in each bacterium are, upon cell division, in danger of being lost in one of the segregating bacteria. Such single-copy plasmids have systems that attempt to actively distribute a copy to both daughter cells. These systems, which include the parABS system and parMRC system, are often referred to as the partition system or partition function of a plasmid.
Plasmids of linear form are unknown among phytopathogens with one exception, Rhodococcus fascians.
Classifications and types
Plasmids may be classified in a number of ways. Plasmids can be broadly classified into conjugative plasmids and non-conjugative plasmids. Conjugative plasmids contain a set of transfer genes which promote sexual conjugation between different cells. In the complex process of conjugation, plasmids may be transferred from one bacterium to another via sex pili encoded by some of the transfer genes (see figure). Non-conjugative plasmids are incapable of initiating conjugation, hence they can be transferred only with the assistance of conjugative plasmids. An intermediate class of plasmids are mobilizable, and carry only a subset of the genes required for transfer. They can parasitize a conjugative plasmid, transferring at high frequency only in its presence.
Plasmids can also be classified into incompatibility groups. A microbe can harbour different types of plasmids, but different plasmids can only exist in a single bacterial cell if they are compatible. If two plasmids are not compatible, one or the other will be rapidly lost from the cell. Different plasmids may therefore be assigned to different incompatibility groups depending on whether they can coexist together. Incompatible plasmids (belonging to the same incompatibility group) normally share the same replication or partition mechanisms and can thus not be kept together in a single cell.
Another way to classify plasmids is by function. There are five main classes:
Fertility F-plasmids, which contain tra genes. They are capable of conjugation and result in the expression of sex pili.
Resistance (R) plasmids, which contain genes that provide resistance against antibiotics or antibacterial agents. Historically known as R-factors, before the nature of plasmids was understood.
Col plasmids, which contain genes that code for bacteriocins, proteins that can kill other bacteria.
Degradative plasmids, which enable the digestion of unusual substances, e.g. toluene and salicylic acid.
Virulence plasmids, which turn the bacterium into a pathogen. e.g. Ti plasmid in Agrobacterium tumefaciens
Plasmids can belong to more than one of these functional groups.
RNA plasmids
Although most plasmids are double-stranded DNA molecules, some consist of single-stranded DNA, or predominantly double-stranded RNA. RNA plasmids are non-infectious extrachromosomal linear RNA replicons, both encapsidated and unencapsidated, which have been found in fungi and various plants, from algae to land plants. In many cases, however, it may be difficult or impossible to clearly distinguish RNA plasmids from RNA viruses and other infectious RNAs.
Chromids
Chromids are elements that exist at the boundary between a chromosome and a plasmid, found in about 10% of bacterial species sequenced by 2009. These elements carry core genes and have codon usage similar to the chromosome, yet use a plasmid-type replication mechanism such as the low copy number RepABC. As a result, they have been variously classified as minichromosomes or megaplasmids in the past. In Vibrio, the bacterium synchronizes the replication of the chromosome and chromid by a conserved genome size ratio.
Vectors
Artificially constructed plasmids may be used as vectors in genetic engineering. These plasmids serve as important tools in genetics and biotechnology labs, where they are commonly used to clone and amplify (make many copies of) or express particular genes. A wide variety of plasmids are commercially available for such uses. The gene to be replicated is normally inserted into a plasmid that typically contains a number of features for their use. These include a gene that confers resistance to particular antibiotics (ampicillin is most frequently used for bacterial strains), an origin of replication to allow the bacterial cells to replicate the plasmid DNA, and a suitable site for cloning (referred to as a multiple cloning site).
DNA structural instability can be defined as a series of spontaneous events that culminate in an unforeseen rearrangement, loss, or gain of genetic material. Such events are frequently triggered by the transposition of mobile elements or by the presence of unstable elements such as non-canonical (non-B) structures. Accessory regions pertaining to the bacterial backbone may engage in a wide range of structural instability phenomena. Well-known catalysts of genetic instability include direct, inverted, and tandem repeats, which are known to be conspicuous in a large number of commercially available cloning and expression vectors. Insertion sequences can also severely impact plasmid function and yield, by leading to deletions and rearrangements, activation, down-regulation or inactivation of neighboring gene expression. Therefore, the reduction or complete elimination of extraneous noncoding backbone sequences would pointedly reduce the propensity for such events to take place, and consequently, the overall recombinogenic potential of the plasmid.
Cloning
Plasmids are the most-commonly used bacterial cloning vectors. These cloning vectors contain a site that allows DNA fragments to be inserted, for example a multiple cloning site or polylinker which has several commonly used restriction sites to which DNA fragments may be ligated. After the gene of interest is inserted, the plasmids are introduced into bacteria by a process called transformation. These plasmids contain a selectable marker, usually an antibiotic resistance gene, which confers on the bacteria an ability to survive and proliferate in a selective growth medium containing the particular antibiotics. The cells after transformation are exposed to the selective media, and only cells containing the plasmid may survive. In this way, the antibiotics act as a filter to select only the bacteria containing the plasmid DNA. The vector may also contain other marker genes or reporter genes to facilitate selection of plasmids with cloned inserts. Bacteria containing the plasmid can then be grown in large amounts, harvested, and the plasmid of interest may then be isolated using various methods of plasmid preparation.
A plasmid cloning vector is typically used to clone DNA fragments of up to 15 kbp. To clone longer lengths of DNA, lambda phage with lysogeny genes deleted, cosmids, bacterial artificial chromosomes, or yeast artificial chromosomes are used.
Protein production
Another major use of plasmids is to make large amounts of proteins. In this case, researchers grow bacteria containing a plasmid harboring the gene of interest. Just as the bacterium produces proteins to confer its antibiotic resistance, it can also be induced to produce large amounts of proteins from the inserted gene. This is a cheap and easy way of mass-producing the protein the gene codes for, for example, insulin.
Gene therapy
Plasmids may also be used for gene transfer as a potential treatment in gene therapy so that it may express the protein that is lacking in the cells. Some forms of gene therapy require the insertion of therapeutic genes at pre-selected chromosomal target sites within the human genome. Plasmid vectors are one of many approaches that could be used for this purpose. Zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) offer a way to cause a site-specific double-strand break to the DNA genome and cause homologous recombination. Plasmids encoding ZFN could help deliver a therapeutic gene to a specific site so that cell damage, cancer-causing mutations, or an immune response is avoided.
Disease models
Plasmids were historically used to genetically engineer the embryonic stem cells of rats to create rat genetic disease models. The limited efficiency of plasmid-based techniques precluded their use in the creation of more accurate human cell models. However, developments in adeno-associated virus recombination techniques, and zinc finger nucleases, have enabled the creation of a new generation of isogenic human disease models.
Episomes
The term episome was introduced by François Jacob and Élie Wollman in 1958 to refer to extra-chromosomal genetic material that may replicate autonomously or become integrated into the chromosome. Since the term was introduced, however, its use has changed, as plasmid has become the preferred term for autonomously replicating extrachromosomal DNA. At a 1968 symposium in London some participants suggested that the term episome be abandoned, although others continued to use the term with a shift in meaning.
Today, some authors use episome in the context of prokaryotes to refer to a plasmid that is capable of integrating into the chromosome. The integrative plasmids may be replicated and stably maintained in a cell through multiple generations, but at some stage, they will exist as an independent plasmid molecule. In the context of eukaryotes, the term episome is used to mean a non-integrated extrachromosomal closed circular DNA molecule that may be replicated in the nucleus. Viruses are the most common examples of this, such as herpesviruses, adenoviruses, and polyomaviruses, but some are plasmids. Other examples include aberrant chromosomal fragments, such as double minute chromosomes, that can arise during artificial gene amplifications or in pathologic processes (e.g., cancer cell transformation). Episomes in eukaryotes behave similarly to plasmids in prokaryotes in that the DNA is stably maintained and replicated with the host cell. Cytoplasmic viral episomes (as in poxvirus infections) can also occur. Some episomes, such as herpesviruses, replicate in a rolling circle mechanism, similar to bacteriophages (bacterial phage viruses). Others replicate through a bidirectional replication mechanism (Theta type plasmids). In either case, episomes remain physically separate from host cell chromosomes. Several cancer viruses, including Epstein-Barr virus and Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus, are maintained as latent, chromosomally distinct episomes in cancer cells, where the viruses express oncogenes that promote cancer cell proliferation. In cancers, these episomes passively replicate together with host chromosomes when the cell divides. When these viral episomes initiate lytic replication to generate multiple virus particles, they generally activate cellular innate immunity defense mechanisms that kill the host cell.
Plasmid maintenance
Some plasmids or microbial hosts include an addiction system or postsegregational killing system (PSK), such as the hok/sok (host killing/suppressor of killing) system of plasmid R1 in Escherichia coli. This variant produces both a long-lived poison and a short-lived antidote. Several types of plasmid addiction systems (toxin/ antitoxin, metabolism-based, ORT systems) were described in the literature and used in biotechnical (fermentation) or biomedical (vaccine therapy) applications. Daughter cells that retain a copy of the plasmid survive, while a daughter cell that fails to inherit the plasmid dies or suffers a reduced growth-rate because of the lingering poison from the parent cell. Finally, the overall productivity could be enhanced.
In contrast, plasmids used in biotechnology, such as pUC18, pBR322 and derived vectors, hardly ever contain toxin-antitoxin addiction systems, and therefore need to be kept under antibiotic pressure to avoid plasmid loss.
Plasmids in nature
Yeast plasmids
Yeasts naturally harbour various plasmids. Notable among them are 2 μm plasmids—small circular plasmids often used for genetic engineering of yeast—and linear pGKL plasmids from Kluyveromyces lactis, that are responsible for killer phenotypes.
Other types of plasmids are often related to yeast cloning vectors that include:
Yeast integrative plasmid (YIp), yeast vectors that rely on integration into the host chromosome for survival and replication, and are usually used when studying the functionality of a solo gene or when the gene is toxic. Also connected with the gene URA3, that codes an enzyme related to the biosynthesis of pyrimidine nucleotides (T, C);
Yeast Replicative Plasmid (YRp), which transport a sequence of chromosomal DNA that includes an origin of replication. These plasmids are less stable, as they can be lost during budding.
Plant mitochondrial plasmids
The mitochondria of many higher plants contain self-replicating, extra-chromosomal linear or circular DNA molecules which have been considered to be plasmids. These can range from 0.7 kb to 20 kb in size. The plasmids have been generally classified into two categories- circular and linear. Circular plasmids have been isolated and found in many different plants, with those in Vicia faba and Chenopodium album being the most studied and whose mechanism of replication is known. The circular plasmids can replicate using the θ model of replication (as in Vicia faba) and through rolling circle replication (as in C.album). Linear plasmids have been identified in some plant species such as Beta vulgaris, Brassica napus, Zea mays, etc. but are rarer than their circular counterparts.
The function and origin of these plasmids remains largely unknown. It has been suggested that the circular plasmids share a common ancestor, some genes in the mitochondrial plasmid have counterparts in the nuclear DNA suggesting inter-compartment exchange. Meanwhile, the linear plasmids share structural similarities such as invertrons with viral DNA and fungal plasmids, like fungal plasmids they also have low GC content, these observations have led to some hypothesizing that these linear plasmids have viral origins, or have ended up in plant mitochondria through horizontal gene transfer from pathogenic fungi.
Study of plasmids
Plasmid DNA extraction
Plasmids are often used to purify a specific sequence, since they can easily be purified away from the rest of the genome. For their use as vectors, and for molecular cloning, plasmids often need to be isolated.
There are several methods to isolate plasmid DNA from bacteria, ranging from the miniprep to the maxiprep or bulkprep. The former can be used to quickly find out whether the plasmid is correct in any of several bacterial clones. The yield is a small amount of impure plasmid DNA, which is sufficient for analysis by restriction digest and for some cloning techniques.
In the latter, much larger volumes of bacterial suspension are grown from which a maxi-prep can be performed. In essence, this is a scaled-up miniprep followed by additional purification. This results in relatively large amounts (several hundred micrograms) of very pure plasmid DNA.
Many commercial kits have been created to perform plasmid extraction at various scales, purity, and levels of automation.
Conformations
Plasmid DNA may appear in one of five conformations, which (for a given size) run at different speeds in a gel during electrophoresis. The conformations are listed below in order of electrophoretic mobility (speed for a given applied voltage) from slowest to fastest:
Nicked open-circular DNA has one strand cut.
Relaxed circular DNA is fully intact with both strands uncut but has been enzymatically relaxed (supercoils removed). This can be modeled by letting a twisted extension cord unwind and relax and then plugging it into itself.
Linear DNA has free ends, either because both strands have been cut or because the DNA was linear in vivo. This can be modeled with an electrical extension cord that is not plugged into itself.
Supercoiled (or covalently closed-circular) DNA is fully intact with both strands uncut, and with an integral twist, resulting in a compact form. This can be modeled by twisting an extension cord and then plugging it into itself.
Supercoiled denatured DNA is similar to supercoiled DNA, but has unpaired regions that make it slightly less compact; this can result from excessive alkalinity during plasmid preparation.
The rate of migration for small linear fragments is directly proportional to the voltage applied at low voltages. At higher voltages, larger fragments migrate at continuously increasing yet different rates. Thus, the resolution of a gel decreases with increased voltage.
At a specified, low voltage, the migration rate of small linear DNA fragments is a function of their length. Large linear fragments (over 20 kb or so) migrate at a certain fixed rate regardless of length. This is because the molecules 'respirate', with the bulk of the molecule following the leading end through the gel matrix. Restriction digests are frequently used to analyse purified plasmids. These enzymes specifically break the DNA at certain short sequences. The resulting linear fragments form 'bands' after gel electrophoresis. It is possible to purify certain fragments by cutting the bands out of the gel and dissolving the gel to release the DNA fragments.
Because of its tight conformation, supercoiled DNA migrates faster through a gel than linear or open-circular DNA.
Software for bioinformatics and design
The use of plasmids as a technique in molecular biology is supported by bioinformatics software. These programs record the DNA sequence of plasmid vectors, help to predict cut sites of restriction enzymes, and to plan manipulations. Examples of software packages that handle plasmid maps are ApE, Clone Manager, GeneConstructionKit, Geneious, Genome Compiler, LabGenius, Lasergene, MacVector, pDraw32, Serial Cloner, VectorFriends, Vector NTI, and WebDSV. These pieces of software help conduct entire experiments in silico before doing wet experiments.
Plasmid collections
Many plasmids have been created over the years and researchers have given out plasmids to plasmid databases such as the non-profit organisations Addgene and BCCM/LMBP. One can find and request plasmids from those databases for research.
Researchers also often upload plasmid sequences to the NCBI database, from which sequences of specific plasmids can be retrieved.
See also
References
Further reading
General works
Episomes
External links
International Society for Plasmid Biology and other Mobile Genetic Elements
What is Biotechnology
History of Plasmids with timeline
Gene delivery
Mobile genetic elements
Molecular biology
Molecular biology techniques
Prokaryotic cell anatomy |
23975 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallelepiped | Parallelepiped | In geometry, a parallelepiped is a three-dimensional figure formed by six parallelograms (the term rhomboid is also sometimes used with this meaning). By analogy, it relates to a parallelogram just as a cube relates to a square.
Three equivalent definitions of parallelepiped are
a hexahedron with three pairs of parallel faces,
a polyhedron with six faces (hexahedron), each of which is a parallelogram, and
a prism of which the base is a parallelogram.
The rectangular cuboid (six rectangular faces), cube (six square faces), and the rhombohedron (six rhombus faces) are all specific cases of parallelepiped.
"Parallelepiped" is now usually pronounced or ; traditionally it was despite its etymology in Greek παραλληλεπίπεδον parallelepipedon, a body "having parallel planes".
Parallelepipeds are a subclass of the prismatoids.
Properties
Any of the three pairs of parallel faces can be viewed as the base planes of the prism. A parallelepiped has three sets of four parallel edges; the edges within each set are of equal length.
Parallelepipeds result from linear transformations of a cube (for the non-degenerate cases: the bijective linear transformations).
Since each face has point symmetry, a parallelepiped is a zonohedron. Also the whole parallelepiped has point symmetry (see also triclinic). Each face is, seen from the outside, the mirror image of the opposite face. The faces are in general chiral, but the parallelepiped is not.
A space-filling tessellation is possible with congruent copies of any parallelepiped.
Volume
A parallelepiped is a prism with a parallelogram as base.
Hence the volume of a parallelepiped is the product of the base area and the height (see diagram). With
(where is the angle between vectors and ), and
(where is the angle between vector and the normal to the base), one gets:
The mixed product of three vectors is called triple product. It can be described by a determinant. Hence for the volume is:
Another way to prove () is to use the scalar component in the direction of of vector :
The result follows.
An alternative representation of the volume uses geometric properties (angles and edge lengths) only:
where , , , and are the edge lengths.
Corresponding tetrahedron
The volume of any tetrahedron that shares three converging edges of a parallelepiped is equal to one sixth of the volume of that parallelepiped (see proof).
Surface area
The surface area of a parallelepiped is the sum of the areas of the bounding parallelograms:
(For labeling: see previous section.)
Special cases by symmetry
The parallelepiped with Oh symmetry is known as a cube, which has six congruent square faces.
The parallelepiped with D4h symmetry is known as a square cuboid, which has two square faces and four congruent rectangular faces.
The parallelepiped with D3d symmetry is known as a trigonal trapezohedron, which has six congruent rhombic faces (also called an isohedral rhombohedron).
For parallelepipeds with D2h symmetry, there are two cases:
Rectangular cuboid: it has six rectangular faces (also called a rectangular parallelepiped, or sometimes simply a cuboid).
Right rhombic prism: it has two rhombic faces and four congruent rectangular faces.
Note: the fully rhombic special case, with two rhombic faces and four congruent square faces , has the same name, and the same symmetry group (D2h , order 8).
For parallelepipeds with C2h symmetry, there are two cases:
Right parallelogrammic prism: it has four rectangular faces and two parallelogrammic faces.
Oblique rhombic prism: it has two rhombic faces, while of the other faces, two adjacent ones are equal and the other two also (the two pairs are each other's mirror image).
Perfect parallelepiped
A perfect parallelepiped is a parallelepiped with integer-length edges, face diagonals, and space diagonals. In 2009, dozens of perfect parallelepipeds were shown to exist, answering an open question of Richard Guy. One example has edges 271, 106, and 103, minor face diagonals 101, 266, and 255, major face diagonals 183, 312, and 323, and space diagonals 374, 300, 278, and 272.
Some perfect parallelepipeds having two rectangular faces are known. But it is not known whether there exist any with all faces rectangular; such a case would be called a perfect cuboid.
Parallelotope
Coxeter called the generalization of a parallelepiped in higher dimensions a parallelotope. In modern literature, the term parallelepiped is often used in higher (or arbitrary finite) dimensions as well.
Specifically in n-dimensional space it is called n-dimensional parallelotope, or simply -parallelotope (or -parallelepiped). Thus a parallelogram is a 2-parallelotope and a parallelepiped is a 3-parallelotope.
The diagonals of an n-parallelotope intersect at one point and are bisected by this point. Inversion in this point leaves the n-parallelotope unchanged. See also Fixed points of isometry groups in Euclidean space.
The edges radiating from one vertex of a k-parallelotope form a k-frame of the vector space, and the parallelotope can be recovered from these vectors, by taking linear combinations of the vectors, with weights between 0 and 1.
The n-volume of an n-parallelotope embedded in where can be computed by means of the Gram determinant. Alternatively, the volume is the norm of the exterior product of the vectors:
If , this amounts to the absolute value of the determinant of matrix formed by the components of the vectors.
A formula to compute the volume of an -parallelotope in , whose vertices are , is
where is the row vector formed by the concatenation of the components of and 1.
Similarly, the volume of any n-simplex that shares n converging edges of a parallelotope has a volume equal to one 1/n! of the volume of that parallelotope.
Etymology
The term parallelepiped stems from Ancient Greek (parallēlepípedon, "body with parallel plane surfaces"), from parallēl ("parallel") + epípedon ("plane surface"), from epí- ("on") + pedon ("ground"). Thus the faces of a parallelepiped are planar, with opposite faces being parallel.
In English, the term parallelipipedon is attested in a 1570 translation of Euclid's Elements by Henry Billingsley. The spelling parallelepipedum is used in the 1644 edition of Pierre Hérigone's Cursus mathematicus. In 1663, the present-day parallelepiped is attested in Walter Charleton's Chorea gigantum.
Charles Hutton's Dictionary (1795) shows parallelopiped and parallelopipedon, showing the influence of the combining form parallelo-, as if the second element were pipedon rather than epipedon. Noah Webster (1806) includes the spelling parallelopiped. The 1989 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary describes parallelopiped (and parallelipiped) explicitly as incorrect forms, but these are listed without comment in the 2004 edition, and only pronunciations with the emphasis on the fifth syllable pi () are given.
See also
Lists of shapes
Notes
References
Coxeter, H. S. M. Regular Polytopes, 3rd ed. New York: Dover, p. 122, 1973. (He defines parallelotope as a generalization of a parallelogram and parallelepiped in n-dimensions.)
External links
Paper model parallelepiped (net)
Prismatoid polyhedra
Space-filling polyhedra
Zonohedra
Articles containing proofs |
23977 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant%20cell | Plant cell | Plant cells are the cells present in green plants, photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Their distinctive features include primary cell walls containing cellulose, hemicelluloses and pectin, the presence of plastids with the capability to perform photosynthesis and store starch, a large vacuole that regulates turgor pressure, the absence of flagella or centrioles, except in the gametes, and a unique method of cell division involving the formation of a cell plate or phragmoplast that separates the new daughter cells.
Characteristics of plant cells
Plant cells have cell walls composed of cellulose, hemicelluloses, and pectin and constructed outside the cell membrane. Their composition contrasts with the cell walls of fungi, which are made of chitin, of bacteria, which are made of peptidoglycan and of archaea, which are made of pseudopeptidoglycan. In many cases lignin or suberin are secreted by the protoplast as secondary wall layers inside the primary cell wall. Cutin is secreted outside the primary cell wall and into the outer layers of the secondary cell wall of the epidermal cells of leaves, stems and other above-ground organs to form the plant cuticle. Cell walls perform many essential functions. They provide shape to form the tissue and organs of the plant, and play an important role in intercellular communication and plant-microbe interactions. The cell wall is flexible during growth and has small pores called plasmodesmata that allow the exchange of nutrients and hormones between cells.
Many types of plant cells contain a large central vacuole, a water-filled volume enclosed by a membrane known as the tonoplast that maintains the cell's turgor, controls movement of molecules between the cytosol and sap, stores useful material such as phosphorus and nitrogen and digests waste proteins and organelles.
Specialized cell-to-cell communication pathways known as plasmodesmata, occur in the form of pores in the primary cell wall through which the plasmalemma and endoplasmic reticulum of adjacent cells are continuous.
Plant cells contain plastids, the most notable being chloroplasts, which contain the green-colored pigment chlorophyll that converts the energy of sunlight into chemical energy that the plant uses to make its own food from water and carbon dioxide in the process known as photosynthesis. Other types of plastids are the amyloplasts, specialized for starch storage, elaioplasts specialized for fat storage, and chromoplasts specialized for synthesis and storage of pigments. As in mitochondria, which have a genome encoding 37 genes, plastids have their own genomes of about 100–120 unique genes and are interpreted as having arisen as prokaryotic endosymbionts living in the cells of an early eukaryotic ancestor of the land plants and algae.
Cell division in land plants and a few groups of algae, notably the Charophytes and the Chlorophyte Order Trentepohliales, takes place by construction of a phragmoplast as a template for building a cell plate late in cytokinesis.
The motile, free-swimming sperm of bryophytes and pteridophytes, cycads and Ginkgo are the only cells of land plants to have flagella similar to those in animal cells. The conifers and flowering plants do not have motile sperm and lack both flagella and centrioles.
Types of plant cells and tissues
Plant cells differentiate from undifferentiated meristematic cells (analogous to the stem cells of animals) to form the major classes of cells and tissues of roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and reproductive structures, each of which may be composed of several cell types.
Parenchyma
Parenchyma cells are living cells that have functions ranging from storage and support to photosynthesis (mesophyll cells) and phloem loading (transfer cells). Apart from the xylem and phloem in their vascular bundles, leaves are composed mainly of parenchyma cells. Some parenchyma cells, as in the epidermis, are specialized for light penetration and focusing or regulation of gas exchange, but others are among the least specialized cells in plant tissue, and may remain totipotent, capable of dividing to produce new populations of undifferentiated cells, throughout their lives. Parenchyma cells have thin, permeable primary walls enabling the transport of small molecules between them, and their cytoplasm is responsible for a wide range of biochemical functions such as nectar secretion, or the manufacture of secondary products that discourage herbivory. Parenchyma cells that contain many chloroplasts and are concerned primarily with photosynthesis are called chlorenchyma cells. Chlorenchyma cells are parenchyma cells involved in photosynthesis. Others, such as the majority of the parenchyma cells in potato tubers and the seed cotyledons of legumes, have a storage function.
Collenchyma
Collenchyma cells are alive at maturity and have thickened cellulose cell walls. These cells mature from meristem derivatives that initially resemble parenchyma, but differences quickly become apparent. Plastids do not develop, and the secretory apparatus (ER and Golgi) proliferates to secrete additional primary wall. The wall is most commonly thickest at the corners, where three or more cells come in contact, and thinnest where only two cells come in contact, though other arrangements of the wall thickening are possible. Pectin and hemicellulose are the dominant constituents of collenchyma cell walls of dicotyledon angiosperms, which may contain as little as 20% of cellulose in Petasites. Collenchyma cells are typically quite elongated, and may divide transversely to give a septate appearance. The role of this cell type is to support the plant in axes still growing in length, and to confer flexibility and tensile strength on tissues. The primary wall lacks lignin that would make it tough and rigid, so this cell type provides what could be called plastic support – support that can hold a young stem or petiole into the air, but in cells that can be stretched as the cells around them elongate. Stretchable support (without elastic snap-back) is a good way to describe what collenchyma does. Parts of the strings in celery are collenchyma.
Sclerenchyma
Sclerenchyma is a tissue composed of two types of cells, sclereids and fibres that have thickened, lignified secondary walls laid down inside of the primary cell wall. The secondary walls harden the cells and make them impermeable to water. Consequently, sclereids and fibres are typically dead at functional maturity, and the cytoplasm is missing, leaving an empty central cavity. Sclereids or stone cells, (from the Greek skleros, hard) are hard, tough cells that give leaves or fruits a gritty texture. They may discourage herbivory by damaging digestive passages in small insect larval stages. Sclereids form the hard pit wall of peaches and many other fruits, providing physical protection to the developing kernel. Fibres are elongated cells with lignified secondary walls that provide load-bearing support and tensile strength to the leaves and stems of herbaceous plants. Sclerenchyma fibres are not involved in conduction, either of water and nutrients (as in the xylem) or of carbon compounds (as in the phloem), but it is likely that they evolved as modifications of xylem and phloem initials in early land plants.
Xylem
Xylem is a complex vascular tissue composed of water-conducting tracheids or vessel elements, together with fibres and parenchyma cells. Tracheids are elongated cells with lignified secondary thickening of the cell walls, specialised for conduction of water, and first appeared in plants during their transition to land in the Silurian period more than 425 million years ago (see Cooksonia). The possession of xylem tracheids defines the vascular plants or Tracheophytes. Tracheids are pointed, elongated xylem cells, the simplest of which have continuous primary cell walls and lignified secondary wall thickenings in the form of rings, hoops, or reticulate networks. More complex tracheids with valve-like perforations called bordered pits characterise the gymnosperms. The ferns and other pteridophytes and the gymnosperms have only xylem tracheids, while the flowering plants also have xylem vessels. Vessel elements are hollow xylem cells without end walls that are aligned end-to-end so as to form long continuous tubes. The bryophytes lack true xylem tissue, but their sporophytes have a water-conducting tissue known as the hydrome that is composed of elongated cells of simpler construction.
Phloem
Phloem is a specialised tissue for food transport in higher plants, mainly transporting sucrose along pressure gradients generated by osmosis, a process called translocation. Phloem is a complex tissue, consisting of two main cell types, the sieve tubes and the intimately associated companion cells, together with parenchyma cells, phloem fibres and sclereids. Sieve tubes are joined end-to-end with perforated end-plates between known as sieve plates, which allow transport of photosynthate between the sieve elements. The sieve tube elements lack nuclei and ribosomes, and their metabolism and functions are regulated by the adjacent nucleate companion cells. The companion cells, connected to the sieve tubes via plasmodesmata, are responsible for loading the phloem with sugars. The bryophytes lack phloem, but moss sporophytes have a simpler tissue with analogous function known as the leptome.
Epidermis
The plant epidermis is specialised tissue, composed of parenchyma cells, that covers the external surfaces of leaves, stems and roots. Several cell types may be present in the epidermis. Notable among these are the stomatal guard cells that control the rate of gas exchange between the plant and the atmosphere, glandular and clothing hairs or trichomes, and the root hairs of primary roots. In the shoot epidermis of most plants, only the guard cells have chloroplasts. Chloroplasts contain the green pigment chlorophyll which is needed for photosynthesis. The epidermal cells of aerial organs arise from the superficial layer of cells known as the tunica (L1 and L2 layers) that covers the plant shoot apex, whereas the cortex and vascular tissues arise from innermost layer of the shoot apex known as the corpus (L3 layer). The epidermis of roots originates from the layer of cells immediately beneath the root cap. The epidermis of all aerial organs, but not roots, is covered with a cuticle made of polyester cutin or polymer cutan (or both), with a superficial layer of epicuticular waxes. The epidermal cells of the primary shoot are thought to be the only plant cells with the biochemical capacity to synthesize cutin.
See also
Animal cell
Chromatin
Cytoplasm
Chloroplast
Cytoskeleton
Nuclear membrane
Leucoplast
Golgi Bodies
Nucleus
Nucleolus
Mitochondrion
Wall-associated kinase
Paul Nurse
References
Plant anatomy
Eukaryotic cells |