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15,451,565	Elderly Instruments	1,167,073,301	American musical instrument retailer	[ "1972 establishments in Michigan", "American companies established in 1972", "Companies based in Lansing, Michigan", "Musical instrument retailers of the United States", "Privately held companies based in Michigan", "Retail companies established in 1972" ]	Elderly Instruments is a musical instrument retailer in Lansing, Michigan, United States, with a reputation as a "megastore", a repair shop and a locus for folk music including bluegrass and "twang". Specializing in fretted instruments, including acoustic and electric guitars, banjos, mandolins, and ukuleles, Elderly maintains a selection of odd or rare instruments. Elderly is known as a premier repair shop for fretted instruments, as one of the larger vintage instrument dealers in the United States, and as a major dealer of Martin guitars in particular. Industry publications, music retail trade, and bluegrass music journals have featured articles about the Elderly repair staff. The company also provides consignment services for rare and vintage instruments. Since its founding in 1972, Elderly has undergone two major expansions: into mail order in 1975 and then into Internet sales in the 1990s. In 2005 it was the subject of a lawsuit by Gibson Guitar Corporation concerning trademark infringement. Today it is recognized internationally for its services and products; its mail order and Internet business account for 65–70 percent of its total revenue. Elderly grossed \$12 million in 1999, and by 2007 was grossing \$17 million annually. In addition to retail and repair services, Elderly Instruments is noted as a center of local music culture for bluegrass and "twang" music. Elderly Instruments operates a wholesale record distribution business, Sidestreet Distributing, in the lower level of its complex, serving more than 300 small retail businesses. ## History In 1969, New York City native Stan Werbin moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan to attend graduate school. He took his banjo and guitar with him and immediately developed his interest in folk music. Werbin participated in a lively local music scene that included collaborations and "open mic nights" at local venues. It was through those experiences that Werbin developed his appreciation for the variety of instruments the musicians were playing, as well as the various types of music that fall under the folk music genre. When Werbin finished graduate school, he looked for business opportunities and decided to use his knowledge of used guitars. He searched for vintage instruments to buy at low prices, particularly those made before World War II; Werbin then sold the instruments after repairing and restoring them. Although he initially tried to open his business in Ann Arbor, Werbin eventually decided to avoid operating there due to the high number of other musical instrument dealers. In 1972, Werbin and Sharon McInturff, his college friend and business partner, leased retail space in East Lansing, Michigan for \$60 a month in a building that also housed the Michigan Youth Politics Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging young adults to vote. With \$500 of capital, the two began advertising locally. Werbin and McInturff took the "Elderly" name from a 1971 classified ad they saw, in which the seller marketed his Gibson Les Paul as a "nice, elderly instrument". Elderly Instruments expanded during the following years. Shortly after the 1972 United States Presidential election, the Michigan Youth Politics Institute moved out of the space across the hall, and Elderly took over the entire basement of the building. In 1975, it expanded into the mail order business. By 1982, Elderly Instruments had about 25 employees but little available space, and so in the following year the owners bought an Independent Order of Odd Fellows building in Lansing, Michigan. After it was renovated for retail use, the company moved into it in January 1984, and in 1986 Werbin bought out McInturff to become the sole owner. In 1994, Elderly expanded again by buying adjacent building space that had once been a post office and a National Cash Register Company building. Around the same time, it began taking merchandise orders over its new web site. The company does not, however, sell merchandise through online auction sites such as eBay, unlike many other independent musical instrument retailers. Werbin notes that entering the Internet business was not much of a challenge for Elderly, as the staff was already experienced at taking and shipping orders for customers throughout the world. He also notes that, with its mail order and Internet business accounting for 65–70 percent of its total revenue, Elderly would have experienced limited growth in Lansing had it not expanded into those markets. The company operates in around 35,000 ft2 (3,300 m2) of space, and is one of the largest vintage instruments dealers in the United States. Elderly Instruments has become known due to its attention to folk music niche markets (Eddie Collins of Bluegrass Now remarked "The roots of what today has become perhaps the world's most well known music store for acoustic instruments can be traced directly to the folk music boom of the 1960s."), its reputation as a repair shop, its selection of vintage instruments, and its position as a major Martin guitar dealer. In May 2010, an Elderly manager told the publication TWICE that economic recession had affected the business and forced layoffs of part-time employees, and that Elderly's being in Michigan worsened the effects. He noted that as the consumer electronics business began to recover, the musical instrument business followed. ## Gibson Guitar Corporation lawsuit In June 2005, Gibson Guitar Corporation filed a cease and desist order and an accompanying lawsuit against Elderly Instruments. The complaint alleged that Elderly was selling a banjo on its web site marketed as a "Gibson copy" and that the phrase constituted a trademark infringement. Despite Elderly's claim of having addressed the issue by changing the phrase first to "Famous Maker Copy" and then to "Classic Bluegrass Banjo Copy", Gibson persisted with the complaint and asked for unspecified damages. Gibson later issued a press release stating that the lawsuit had been settled. In the same year, Gibson severed its contract with Elderly as a retailer of Gibson products, citing a contract stipulation that retailers should not carry any competing brands of banjos and mandolins. Elderly had been one of nine retailers selling the specialized Gibson Bluegrass line of banjos and mandolins, although it also carried other brands. Werbin attempted to rectify the situation by offering a dedicated area of the store for Gibson products, but Gibson proceeded with the action. As a result, Elderly does not offer new Gibson products for sale. The incident was well-publicized in the media and discussed at length in consumer forums. ## Instrument sales In 2007, Elderly sold more than 16,000 instruments. The company is a dealer of Martin guitars, as well as other mainstream brands such as Guild and Fender. It sells used Gibson instruments, but not new models as a result of the Gibson lawsuit. Although the bulk of its business comes from guitar sales, the company carries a range of other instruments, such as banjos, ukuleles, mandolins, accordions, concertinas, bouzoukis, sitars, musical saws, and African thumb pianos. Some of the rarer instruments are purchased as collectibles. Elderly is an exclusive retailer of "LunchBox-A-LeLes", ukuleles made from various tin lunch box designs. The journal Bluegrass Unlimited has noted Elderly Instruments for carrying "elite" brands of instruments, such as Paul Duff mandolins, Huss & Dalton acoustic guitars, Stelling banjos, and Nash electric guitars. Elderly was once one of only two American retailers for Apitius Mandolins, now only sold directly. As part of its consignment business, Elderly sells "collections" of instruments that sometimes have rich histories. In September 2006, it placed the Dopyera family's personal collection of resonator instruments up for sale, including some of the Dobro and National brands. The Dopyera family was responsible for founding those companies and innovating the resonator instrument trade. Elderly Instruments carries a number of Martin guitars, including valuable vintage models. In interviews, Werbin frequently mentions Martins made before World War II as especially desirable and "memorable" pieces of the Elderly Instruments inventory. The guitars are sought after by musicians from the bluegrass and other genres. Werbin purchases some of the more valuable or interesting instruments for his personal collection, and has lent them to museums as temporary exhibits. Periodicals for the bluegrass genre such as Bluegrass Canada and Bluegrass Now have featured stories about Elderly and its selection of bluegrass instruments and repair services. Elderly employees maintain connections with the bluegrass industry by attending trade shows such as the International Bluegrass Association Trade Show in Louisville, Kentucky. At these shows, Elderly showcases typical bluegrass instruments, such as banjos, guitars, mandolins, fiddles and resophonic guitars, to musicians and businesspeople. Elderly Instruments staff members have set up organizations such as the "Friends of Bluegrass" to support local bluegrass musicians. Michigan Living magazine noted Elderly's liberal policy regarding the handling of instruments, something Werbin attributes to his difficulty shopping for Martin guitars in New York City in the 1960s. The magazine also notes that customers are encouraged to pick up and play any instrument, an unusual policy for a high-end instrument retailer. Impromptu "jam sessions" are frequent in the store, as customers try out guitars. ## Repair and appraisals The repair shop occupies about 3,000 ft2 (280 m2) of space in the Elderly building. A number of notable guitarists have sent their instruments to Elderly for complete restoration or other major work such as refinishing and refretting. Elderly's repair department services other fretted instruments such as banjos, ukuleles, and balalaikas. In February 1996, a feature article in Guitar Shop Magazine documented the company's restoration of a severely damaged Martin J40-M acoustic guitar. The Martin had been in the trunk of an automobile when a semi-trailer truck struck the automobile. Almost every part of the guitar was damaged: the top, back, sides, fingerboard, and neck block. The worst damage, and the most challenging to repair, was caused by the neck block having punched through the back of the guitar. The owner brought the Martin to Elderly after other repair shops had rejected it as being beyond repair. The technicians at Elderly successfully restored the Martin after a labor-intensive process that included a new Adirondack spruce top. Elderly provides an appraisal service for vintage instruments. It employs five full-time appraisers who use a detailed scale to rate the quality of instruments. Their appraisal services have been noted in media, such as The Music and Sound Retailer, as being among the best in the industry. Customers may either bring instruments directly into the store or send them by mail. Elderly owner Werbin attributes some of the company's success and reputation to the quality of the appraisals. ## Marketing and business model In addition to a printed catalog, Elderly sends lists of available vintage instruments to subscribers in the U.S. and several other countries by mail and e-mail. Elderly purchases some of its used instruments from customers and then offers them for sale, while others are offered on consignment. Although larger retailers dominate the Internet market share (Elderly grossed \$12 million in 1999, larger retail outlets such as Guitar Center grossed \$297 million), Elderly attempts to serve vertical markets by offering specialized or rare items on its web site, such as left-handed guitars and instrument-specific books. Werbin notes that while discounting products by 40 percent set his business apart from the local competition in the 1970s, outlets such as Guitar Center now also offer discounts. In response to questions about his strategy for competing with larger retailers such as Guitar Center and American Musical Supply, which also operate mail order and Internet businesses, Werbin states that he has learned to operate on small margins to stay competitive: "The mom-and-pop businesses that have survived have learned to operate on narrow margins." ## Other enterprises After opening its first retail space, Elderly began selling records supplied by Rounder Records, a small distributor that later grew into an independent record label specializing in roots music. After trying other distributors, Werbin started his own distribution company in 1979, named Old Fogey Distributing. By 1987, Old Fogey was servicing about 300 small retail operations, operating from the basement of Elderly's Lansing showroom. In 1997, the operation was renamed Sidestreet Distributing. Elderly dedicates a section of its retail space to record sales. A full-time purchasing manager maintains a comprehensive selection of both mainstream and rare music, much of it in the folk and bluegrass genres; this is due to the belief that customers will become more interested in the music after making an audio purchase and then in turn buy a musical instrument. Elderly also sells instructional books and other material, much of which focuses on folk music and bluegrass genres. The store also offers a music school focused on folk music and related instruments. ## Twang and other folk music Noise, a periodical published by the local newspaper Lansing State Journal, has written that Elderly Instruments is the focus of an emerging form of American folk music, named "twang", sometimes referred to as "alternative country". Several twang bands perform and record in Lansing, many including at least one Elderly employee. Current and former Elderly employees attribute the twang influence at the store to the proliferation of associated instruments, educational materials, and musicians. East Lansing radio station WDBM has been hosting a twang music show since 1995. Lawrence B. Johnson, music critic for The Detroit News, called Elderly a "folk music mecca" and a megastore that is a haven for folk musicians. In the past it has been one of the chief sponsors of the annual National Folk Festival. ## Recognition - 2008 - Best Guitar Store - Player's Choice Awards, Acoustic Guitar magazine
9,625,474	Grevillea juniperina	1,170,570,262	Plant in family Proteaceae native in Australia	[ "Endemic flora of Australia", "Flora of New South Wales", "Flora of Queensland", "Garden plants of Australia", "Grevillea", "Plants described in 1810", "Proteales of Australia", "Taxa named by Robert Brown (botanist, born 1773)" ]	Grevillea juniperina, commonly known as juniper- or juniper-leaf grevillea or prickly spider-flower, is a plant of the family Proteaceae native to eastern New South Wales and southeastern Queensland in Australia. Scottish botanist Robert Brown described the species in 1810, and seven subspecies are recognised. One subspecies, G. j. juniperina, is restricted to Western Sydney and environs and is threatened by loss of habitat and housing development. A small, prickly-leaved shrub between 0.2–3 m (0.66–9.84 ft) high, G. juniperina generally grows on clay-based or alluvial soils in eucalypt woodland. The flower heads, known as inflorescences, appear from winter to early summer and are red, orange or yellow. Birds visit and pollinate the flowers. Grevillea juniperina plants are killed by bushfire, regenerating afterwards from seed. Grevillea juniperina adapts readily to cultivation and has been important in horticulture as it is the parent of many popular garden hybrids. ## Description Grevillea juniperina has a spreading or erect habit (growth form) and it grows to between 0.2–3 m (0.66–9.84 ft) in height. The branchlets are thick and sturdy. The prickly leaves are generally stiff and are 0.5–3.5 cm (1⁄4–1+3⁄8 in) long and 0.5–6 mm (1⁄32–1⁄4 in) wide. They are crowded along the stems. Flowering occurs throughout the year, peaking between midwinter and early summer, though it varies between the different subspecies. Subspecies allojohnsonii flowers from September to February, subspecies trinervis flowers from August to December, and subspecies juniperina, amphitricha, sulphurea, villosa and fortis flower in August and September. The spider-flower arrangement of the inflorescence has several individual flowers emerging from a central rounded flower head—reminiscent of the legs of a spider. The flowers are red, pink, orange, yellow or greenish, and are mostly terminal—arising on the ends of stems—though they occasionally arise from axillary buds. They are 2.5–3.5 cm (1–1+3⁄8 in) long. The perianth is finely furred on the outside, while the pistil is smooth; it is 1.5–2.7 cm (5⁄8–1+1⁄8 in) long. Flowering is followed by the development of seed pods, each capsule is 10–18 mm (3⁄8–3⁄4 in) long, and releases one or two seeds when ripe. The narrow oval seed is 7.5–12 mm (1⁄4–1⁄2 in) and 2.2–3.3 mm (1⁄16–1⁄8 in) wide, with a swelling at the apex and a short wing. Both surfaces are covered with tiny hairs. Similar species include the Wingello grevillea (Grevillea molyneuxii), which can be distinguished by its prominent midvein on the leaf undersurface, and the red spider-flower (G. speciosa), which has wider leaves with lateral veins and longer pistil. ## Taxonomy The type specimen for this species was collected from the Port Jackson area (Sydney district) and was described by botanist Robert Brown in 1810, who gave it the specific epithet juniperina that alludes to its juniper-like foliage. Likewise, it is commonly known as juniper- or juniper-leaf grevillea, as well as prickly spider-flower. The lectotype was selected by Don MacGillivray in 1993 from a collection by George Caley in 1803 11 km (6.8 mi) northwest of Prospect in what is now Sydney's outer western suburbs. Brown placed it in the series Lissostylis in his 1810 work Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen. English botanist and explorer Allan Cunningham collected what he called Grevillea sulphurea in 1822 near Coxs River in the Bathurst area, where it grew alongside G. rosmarinifolia and G. arenaria subspecies canescens. This was later synonymised with G. juniperina, before being recognised as a distinct subspecies. George Bentham placed G. juniperina in Section Lissostylis in his 1870 Flora Australiensis. This section has become the Linearifolia group of 45 species of shrub in southeastern Australia. Within this group, G. juniperina is classified in the Speciosa subgroup, five species of bird-pollinated grevilleas found in eastern Australia. The others are G. molyneuxii, G. dimorpha, G. oleoides and G. speciosa. In 2000, Robert Owen Makinson described seven subspecies of G. juniperina in the Flora of Australia, and the names are accepted by the Australian Plant Census: - G. juniperina subsp. allojohnsonii Makinson is a prostrate shrub to 30 cm (12 in) high with red flowers; - G. juniperina subsp. amphitricha Makinson is a prostrate or spreading shrub with yellow or orange flowers that grows to 0.2–1.2 m (5⁄8–3+7⁄8 ft) tall and 3 m (9.8 ft) wide; - G. juniperina subsp. fortis Makinson is a vigorous red-flowered shrub growing to 1–3 m (3.3–9.8 ft) tall; - G. juniperina R.Br. subsp. juniperina is a spreading shrub that is 0.5–1.5 m (1.6–4.9 ft) high; - G. juniperina subsp. sulphurea (A.Cunn.) Makinson is a shrub up to 2 m (6.6 ft) high; - G. juniperina subsp. trinervis (R.Br.) Makinson (formerly Grevillea trinervis) is a prickly shrub with a spreading or prostrate habit ranging from 0.5–1.2 m (1 ft 8 in – 3 ft 11 in), or rarely 2 m (6 ft 7 in) and has yellow, orange or red flowers; - G. juniperina subsp. villosa Makinson is an upright red- or yellow-flowered shrub up to 2 m (6.6 ft) high. Subspecies sulphurea hybridises with G. juniperina subsp. trinervis in the southern and western Blue Mountains. ## Distribution and habitat - Subspecies allojohnsonii is found on the Northern Tablelands and North West Slopes in northern New South Wales, from Walcha north to Tenterfield and Stanhope and Girraween National Park in southern Queensland. - Subspecies amphitricha grows in woodland and grassland on slopes and ridges between Braidwood and Nerriga in the Shoalhaven River catchment on the Southern Tablelands. - Subspecies fortis grows in forest, woodland and shrubland and is found on rocky hills and slopes near watercourses, specifically along Ginninderra Creek, the lower reaches of the Molonglo and Cotter Rivers, and the Murrumbidgee River from Pine Island downstream to where it is joined by the Molonglo River—mostly within the Australian Capital Territory. - Subspecies juniperina grows in forest or woodland and is found in Cumberland Plain and Castlereagh Woodland communities on clay-loam soils, growing alongside such species as forest redgum (Eucalyptus tereticornis), mugga ironbark (E. sideroxylon), thin-leaved stringybark (E. eugenioides), broad-leaved red ironbark (E. fibrosa), grey box (E. moluccana), white feather honeymyrtle (Melaleuca decora), boxthorn (Bursaria spinosa), sickle wattle (Acacia falcata) and Dillwynia tenuifolia. The annual rainfall in regions where G. juniperina grows is 600 to 800 mm (24 to 31 in). - Subspecies sulphurea grows on alluvial soils, often with Leptospermum species, along riverbanks and is found in the catchments of the Coxs, Kowmung, Wollondilly and Shoalhaven Rivers in the Central and Southern Tablelands, from Tallong to Berrima, as well as Lidsdale to Jenolan State Forest in the southwestern Blue Mountains. - Subspecies trinervis is found in the western Blue Mountains where it grows on alluvial soil with poor drainage in woodland or along riverbanks in association with snow gum (Eucalyptus pauciflora), mountain gum (E. dalrympleana), Dillwynia retorta and river lomatia (Lomatia myricoides). - Subspecies villosa is found along watercourses in eucalypt forest east and northeast of Braidwood, as well as near Currockbilly in southeastern New South Wales. ## Ecology Killed by bushfire, Grevillea juniperina regenerates afterwards by seeds that germinate after lying dormant in the soil, stimulated by exposure to heat and smoke. Plants over 1 m (3.3 ft) high produce more seed. Intervals of 10 to 15 years between fires are thought to be most beneficial for the species' survival, as this allows seed numbers to build up in the soil over time. Grevillea juniperina can also colonise disturbed areas, though overgrowth of Bursaria spinosa can negatively impact its spread. Grevillea juniperina is pollinated by birds, with bees also recorded visiting flowers. The leaves are food for caterpillars of the cyprotus blue butterfly (Candalides cyprotus). A springtail species of Australian origin—Calvatomina superba—was found on Grevillea juniperina cultivated at the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall. ## Conservation status Subspecies juniperina is listed as a vulnerable species on Schedule 2 of the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 in New South Wales. Its habitat is threatened by housing development, road upgrading, inappropriate fire regimes, weed invasion, rubbish dumping and trampling either by people or cars. ## Use in horticulture Allan Cunningham sent seed of G. juniperina to England in 1820; it was grown there the following year. Baron Charles von Hügel grew the species in Vienna in 1831. It has been grown outdoors in southern England, particularly G. juniperina subspecies sulphurea. Grevillea juniperina adapts easily to cultivation and grows in a wide range of soils and aspects in locations with good drainage. Long-flowering, it attracts birds such as honeyeaters with its nectar. The prickly dense foliage is also a good nesting site and shelter, particularly for smaller birds, such as finches. Many forms and hybrids have been commercially propagated and sold, some having more horticultural appeal than others. Low winter temperatures promote more prolific flowering and pruning promotes dense foliage. Plants are readily propagated by cuttings or seed, although propagation by cuttings is required to ensure the new plants have the same characteristics of the parent. Direct contact with the plant may cause a skin rash. Many cultivars have been selected for horticultural use, either selected forms or hybrids with other Grevillea species. One prominent early breeder was Leo Hodge of W Tree, Victoria. Hodge became interested in breeding grevilleas after finding seedlings in his garden. His first trials involved crossing G. juniperina with G. victoriae, producing G. 'Poorinda Queen', which was the first to flower, followed by G. 'Poorinda Constance', G. 'Poorinda Leane' and G. 'Poorinda Pink Coral' respectively, all in 1952. Cultivars include: - 'Allyn Radiance' – derived from a prostrate orange and prostrate red forms of G. juniperina. - 'Audrey' – G. juniperina crossed with G. victoriae. Bred in 1957 by George Althofer, who named it after his wife. It grows to 2 m (6.6 ft) high and wide and produces orange-red flowers over many months. It is popular in South Africa and the USA. - 'Canberra Gem' – G. juniperina crossed with G. rosmarinifolia. Registered with the Australian Cultivar Registration Authority in 1976. - 'Canterbury Gold' – prostrate yellow form of G. juniperina crossed with Grevillea parvula. - 'Goldfever' – G. juniperina crossed with Grevillea rhyolitica. - 'H22' (Gold Cluster) – a dense growing prostrate selection with yellow flowers. - 'Lunar Light' – a low-growing form with variegated leaves and orange-pink flowers. It is suitable for rockeries. - 'Molonglo' – a form with a low–spreading habit and larger orange flowers with red styles. It was bred by Rudolph Willing of Australian National University in 1964, from two disparate forms of juniperina, an erect red-flowered form from around Canberra and a yellow-flowered spreading prostrate form from the western slopes of the Budawang Range in 1964. It is named after the Molonglo River. - 'New Blood' – a compact red-flowered shrub resulting from a cross of 'Molonglo' cultivar with G. rhyolitica. - 'Old Gold' – a low spreading shrub with yellow new growth, lobed leaves and greyish-yellow flowers with pink styles. It is derived from G. juniperina crossed with Grevillea ilicifolia. - 'Orange Box' – G. juniperina crossed with G. victoriae. - 'Pink Lady' – G. juniperina crossed with G. rosmarinifolia. Bred by Stan Kirby of Queanbeyan, it was grown widely in the early 1970s. A shrub to 60 cm (2.0 ft) high and 3 m (9.8 ft) wide with pale pink flowers. - 'Poorinda Adorning' – a seedling that grew in Hodge's garden, registered in 1978. The original plant grew in 1965. - 'Poorinda Annette' – a cross with the small-flowered form of Grevillea alpina. - 'Poorinda Beauty' – a cross with Grevillea alpina. - 'Poorinda Belinda' – a cross with a hybrid of the yellow flower form of Grevillea obtusiflora and Grevillea alpina. - 'Poorinda Constance' – a cross with Grevillea victoriae. - 'Poorinda Jeanie' – a red-flowering shrub that grows up to 2 m (6.6 ft) high. It is derived from a cross with Grevillea alpina. - 'Poorinda Leane' – a cross with G. victoriae. It is a spreading shrub to 4 m (13 ft) high with buff or apricot flowers. - 'Poorinda Pink Coral' – a cross with G. victoriae, named for the colour of its flowers. - 'Poorinda Queen' – derived from a cross with a yellow-flowered form of Grevillea victoriae. It has apricot-pink flowers.[^1] - 'Poorinda Refrain' – a cross with Grevillea floribunda. - 'Poorinda Rachel' – a 1 m (3.3 ft) high hybrid cross with Grevillea alpina, which has buff-cerise flowers, and was developed in 1965–66. - 'Poorinda Rosalie' – a taller rose-red flowered hybrid with G. victoriae, developed in 1967–68. - 'Poorinda Signet' – a cross with Grevillea lanigera. - × semperflorens – a hybrid of English origin derived from a cross of Grevillea juniperina var. sulphurea with Grevillea thelemanniana''. [^1]:
962,397	Australasian gannet	1,170,266,312	Species of bird (seabird)	[ "Articles containing video clips", "Birds described in 1843", "Birds of Australia", "Birds of New Zealand", "Birds of Norfolk Island", "Gannets", "Taxa named by George Robert Gray" ]	The Australasian gannet (Morus serrator), also known as the Australian gannet or tākapu, is a large seabird of the booby and gannet family, Sulidae. Adults are mostly white, with black flight feathers at the wingtips and lining the trailing edge of the wing. The central tail feathers are also black. The head is tinged buff-yellow, with a pearly grey bill edged in dark grey or black, and blue-rimmed eyes. Young birds have mottled plumage in their first year, dark above and light below. The head is an intermediate mottled grey, with a dark bill. The birds gradually acquire more white in subsequent seasons until they reach maturity after five years. The species range over water above the continental shelf along the southern and eastern Australian coastline, from Steep Point in Western Australia to Rockhampton, Queensland, as well as the North and South Islands of New Zealand, Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands. Nesting takes place in colonies along the coastlines of New Zealand, Victoria and Tasmania—mostly on offshore islands, although there are several mainland colonies in both countries. Highly territorial when breeding, the Australasian gannet performs agonistic displays to defend its nest. Potential and mated pairs engage in courtship and greeting displays. The nest is a cup-shaped mound composed of seaweed, earth, and other debris, built by the female from material mainly gathered by the male. A single pale blue egg is laid yearly, though lost eggs may be replaced. The chick is born featherless but is soon covered in white down. Fed regurgitated fish by its parents, it grows rapidly and outweighs the average adult when it fledges. These birds are plunge divers and spectacular fishers, plunging into the ocean at high speed. They eat mainly squid and forage fish that school near the surface. The species faces few natural or man-made threats, and since its population is growing it is considered to be a least-concern species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). ## Taxonomy Sir Joseph Banks shot three Australasian gannets in New Zealand waters on 24 December 1769 off Three Kings Islands. The birds were cooked in a goose pie, which was enjoyed by the sailors, for Christmas the next day. Daniel Solander wrote a formal description, noting its differences from the familiar northern gannet, initially giving it the name Pelecanus chrysocephalus before crossing it out and changing it to Pelecanus sectator. Sydney Parkinson illustrated the bird as P. sectator, which was misread as P. serrator by later authorities. The species name has been translated as "sawyer", from serra "saw", and linked to the serrated bill. John Gould described specimens from the Derwent River and Actaeon Island in Tasmania as Sula australis in 1841. The binomial name Sula australis had already been used by J. F. Stephens for the red-footed booby. English zoologist George Robert Gray wrote of the species in 1843, initially using Gould's name but soon switching to Sula serrator, based on Parkinson's drawing. Although Gould stuck with S. australis, S. serrator became the preferred term over time. "Australasian gannet" has been designated as the official common name for the species by the International Ornithologists' Union (IOC). It is also known as Pacific gannet and, in Australia, as Australian gannet, diver (from its plunge-diving), booby, or solan goose. In New Zealand it is also known by the Māori name tākapu or tākupu, a word of wider Polynesian origin for a gannet or booby. The Sulidae, the gannets and boobies, appeared about 30 million years ago. Early Sulidae fossils most resembled the boobies, although they were more aquatic, the gannets splitting off later, about 16 million years ago. The gannets evolved in the northern hemisphere, later colonising the southern oceans. The most ancient extant species may be the Abbott's booby, possibly the sole survivor of an otherwise extinct separate lineage. A 2011 genetic study of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA suggests that the ancestor of the gannets arose around 2.5 million years ago before splitting into northern and southern lineages. The latter then split into the Cape and Australasian gannets around 0.5 million years ago. The three gannets are generally considered to be separate species forming a superspecies, though they have also formerly been classified as subspecies of the northern gannet (Sula bassanus). ## Description An adult Australasian gannet is 84–91 cm (33–36 in) long, weighs 2.3 kg (5.1 lb), and has a 170–200 cm (67–79 in) wingspan. The two sexes are generally of a similar size and appearance, though a 2015 field study at Pope's Eye and Point Danger colonies found females to be 3.1% and 7.3% heavier respectively. Females also had a slightly larger ulna and smaller bill. The plumage is white with black flight feathers on the wings, and central rectrices of the tail. Some individuals have more extensive black plumage of their tail feathers. There is a sharp demarcation between light and dark plumage. Black primary feathers are more resilient to wear, which may explain the dark plumage of the wings. The head and hindneck are tinged buff-yellow. The colour is more pronounced on the head and during breeding season. The eyes have a light grey iris surrounded by a pale blue eye ring, and bare black skin on the face which merges into the bill. In adults, the bill is pearly grey with dark grey or black edges, and a black groove running down the length of the upper mandible. The four-toed feet are dark grey and joined by a membrane of similar colour. There are light green lines running along the ridges of the toes that continue along up the front of the legs. Fledglings are brownish-grey speckled with white overall. They have dark brown bills, bare facial skin and eyes, and dark grey legs and feet. Australasian gannets take 2–5 years to gain adult plumage. Over this period, the upperparts and underparts gradually whiten and the crown and nape become buff-coloured, but there is great variation in the age that mature plumage is seen. This species is distinctive and only likely to be confused with species that do not generally share its range. The Cape gannet is a rare vagrant to Australasian waters and has an all-black tail, while the masked and red-footed boobies are generally restricted to tropical waters. Although both have mostly white plumage, they lack the buff colouring of the head and have white tails. The masked booby has a blue-black face and less black on the wing, while the red-footed booby has red feet. ### Call The Australasian gannet is generally silent at sea and loud and vocal at the colony in the day and at times overnight during the breeding season. Its typical call is a harsh arrah-arrah or urrah-urrah, which is emitted upon approaching or arriving at the colony or as a threat. The calls can vary between individuals, and the female's call is lower pitched than the male's. ## Distribution and habitat The Australasian gannet is found from Steep Point in Western Australia, along the southern and eastern Australian coastline to the vicinity of Rockhampton in Queensland, as well as the North and South Islands of New Zealand, Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands. At sea, it is generally restricted to waters over the continental shelf, and may enter harbours, bays and estuaries, particularly in stormy weather. Over May and June, young gannets from New Zealand colonies disperse to the north and west, mainly flying north around the North Island and (to a lesser extent) via the Cook Strait. They generally reach as far as southeastern Queensland and Rottnest Island in Western Australia. Far-wandering gannets are occasional visitors to Marion Island and the Crozet Islands in the southern Indian Ocean, and have even reached South Africa where they have interbred with Cape gannets. Some immature gannets spend 3 to 4 years in Australian waters before returning to New Zealand, while others remain in New Zealand waters. ### Breeding colonies Breeding colonies are mostly on offshore islands, though several mainland colonies exist in Australia and New Zealand. Numbers of Australasian gannet have been increasing since 1950, although some colonies have disappeared and others have decreased in size. Between 1980 and 2000, the population in Australian waters increased from approximately 6,600 to 20,000 breeding pairs. The most recent comprehensive New Zealand census was in 1981, yielding an estimate of 46,600 pairs, estimated to have increased to around 55,000 pairs in 2006. Colony location is related to sea temperature, which in turn dictates the presence of fish. Many colonies have limited space and birds seek new locations once the nest sites in a colony are full, at this point often spilling over onto the mainland. In Victoria, there are colonies at Lawrence Rocks near Portland, and Pope's Eye and Wedge Light in Port Phillip near Melbourne. The colony on Lawrence Rocks increased from 200 pairs in 1873 to around 3,100 pairs in 1996–97, by which time all available space on the island had been filled. Gannets began roosting at Point Danger—the closest point on the mainland itself—in 1995, and began nesting the following year after a fox-proof fence was erected around the site. The only nesting locale on mainland Australia itself, the Point Danger colony, has increased steadily, reaching 660 pairs in 1999–2000. Located 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) northeast of Portsea, Pope's Eye is a low artificial semicircular stone breakwater. Gannets began breeding on manmade structures in Port Phillip in 1966, with three pairs at Wedge Light. By the 1999–2000 season, there were 507 pairs there, and on seven other artificial structures around the bay. In Tasmania, there are colonies at Eddystone Rock and Pedra Branca off the south coast, and in Bass Strait at Cat Island off Flinders Island, and Black Pyramid Rock off the northwest coast. The colony on Black Pyramid grew from 500 pairs in 1961 to 12,300 pairs in 1998. Eddystone Rock increased from 20 pairs in 1947 to 189 pairs in 1998, and Pedra Branca grew from 1000 pairs in 1939 to 3,300 pairs by 1995, but both these sites have little or no room for expansion. Conversely, the colony at Cat Island fell from an estimated 5–10,000 pairs in 1908 to negligible numbers by the turn of the millennium due to predation. In New Zealand, almost all breeding colonies are on or around the North Island. Kārewa / Gannet Island, 19 kilometres (12 mi) offshore from Kawhia, was named as 'Gannet Island' by Captain James Cook in January 1770 for the gannets seen there and 8,003 pairs were counted in a 1981 census. Manawatāwhi / Three Kings Islands, 55 kilometres (34 mi) north-west of Cape Reinga, contained New Zealand's largest offshore gannet colonies, with 9,855 pairs across five smaller colonies in 1981; an aerial survey in 2014–15 found that it had shrunk to 6,402 pairs. Whakaari / White Island, 48 kilometres (30 mi) offshore in the Bay of Plenty and comprising five smaller colonies, also saw a reduction in numbers, from 6,662 pairs in 1980–81 to 5,306 pairs in 2014–15. The colony at Cape Kidnappers in Hawke's Bay is thought to have been settled around 1850, with 100 pairs reported in 1885. It had 5,186 pairs counted in a 1981 census, and has steadily grown to over 6500 pairs, making it the largest and most accessible mainland colony in the world. Muriwai, near Auckland, comprises a mainland colony on Okatamiro Point, estimated at 1,385 pairs in 2016, while nearby Motutara (Pillar Rock) had 187 pairs. Gannets established a colony on Tikitiki Rock (Nine Pin Rock) in the outer Bay of Islands in 2007, which had around 70 pairs by 2017. A small colony was established at Young Nick's Head in 2008. On the South Island, gannets began breeding at the end of Farewell Spit in 1983, in an area known as Shellbanks—a 2 m (7 ft) high area of shells and driftwood interspersed with low vegetation: marram (Ammophila arenaria), sea rocket (Cakile edentula), velvety nightshade (Solanum chenopodioides) and sowthistle (Sonchus oleraceus). Strong winds allow gannets to take off vertically most of the time, and the decline in commercial fishing in nearby Golden Bay and Tasman Bay is thought to have increased food supply. The breeding area is cut off from the mainland by high tides, but can be badly impacted by storms. It grew by around 11% per year, reaching an estimated 3,900 pairs in 2011. Little Solander Island in Foveaux Strait hosts the southernmost gannet colony, around 20 pairs recorded on most visits between 1948 and 1986, with one count of 62 pairs in 1984 possibly anomalous. ## Behaviour `The Australasian gannet is generally solitary when out at sea, though once a bird has found fish to hunt, other gannets may notice and join it. It is gregarious on land, nesting in colonies. Non-breeding gannets often form groups on the outskirts of the colony. Small numbers of gannets may remain around the colony site outside of the breeding season, using it as a roosting site.` ### Breeding and courtship Gannet pairs form monogamous and long term bonds, and pairs may remain together over several seasons until one member dies, although they have been known to separate. The Australasian gannet is highly territorial when nesting, engaging in agonistic displays to mark their ground against neighbours and interlopers. In the bowing display, the male's head and beak point down, and its wings are held up and away from the body, yet folded backwards. He moves his head from side to side before bowing forwards. The male may escalate by lunging at an interloper, either with a closed or open bill, or proceed to locking bills and wrestling for an extended period. Fights can be fatal on occasion. A bird may engage in an appeasement display to calm an attacker by lowering its head and tucking its bill in its chest. Mated pairs engage in a fencing display when the male arrives back at the nest. The two birds stand breast to breast with wings spread and bills extended vertically. They fence and scissor with their bills rapidly, calling loudly at the same time. Fencing is interspersed with bill bowing. The birds generally follow this exchange with allopreening. Mated pairs also engage in sky-pointing, where a bird paces slowly with its neck and bill vertical and its wings partly raised. Copulation takes place after allopreening, the female shaking her head vigorously and the male biting her neck and climbing on her back and waving his wings before joining their cloacae. Afterwards the female preens the male, who slides off his partner and reciprocates preening. The breeding season is generally from July to February, with marked differences between locations. On Motukaramarama Island, the gannets return in mid-June, laying eggs between 20 July and 7 August. The chicks hatch from 10 October to 2 November and fledge from late December. At Cape Kidnappers, the gannets return in late July, laying eggs from early September to the end of October. The chicks fledge from early February. At Pope's Eye, gannets lay eggs between early August and December, the median and mean being laid in September. Younger parents tend to lay eggs later in the year than older parents. Within colonies, there is a wider variation in breeding dates compared to the northern gannet, thought to be due to the absence of a tight breeding 'window' from strongly seasonal weather. The preferred nesting sites are on flat or gently sloping ground or broad, flat ledges, on offshore islands, stacks or elevated areas on the mainland such as cliff-tops, generally between 15 and 90 metres (49 and 295 ft) above sea level. The ground may be bare or bear low shrubs such as Coprosma, Mesembryanthemum, Bulbine or grasses. The nests themselves are cup-shaped mounds 10–20 centimetres (3.9–7.9 in) high with a 30 cm (12 in) deep basin, made from seaweed, plants, earth and debris from the sea. The males usually collect the materials and give them to the females, who construct the nests. One egg is laid that can weigh anywhere from 84 to 125 g (3.0 to 4.4 oz), with an average of 99.8 g (3.52 oz). Matt pale blue and with an elongated egg shape, it measures 65–89 millimetres (2.6–3.5 in) long by 35–53 millimetres (1.4–2.1 in) wide. The egg surface fades to a white when dry and it has a chalky coating. Generally, only one brood takes place each season, though eggs and chicks up to eight days old will be replaced if lost. Incubation takes 37–50 days and is done mainly by the female, keeping the eggs warm on top of her webbed feet. Newly hatched chicks are featherless and have black skin, their eyes opening at 2–3 days of age. They are covered with white down by two weeks old. The first proper feathers to appear are flight feathers, which appear between days 43 and 47. The chick becomes half-covered by feathers by 9 weeks of age. Young chicks are fed regurgitated semi-digested fish by their parents, who open their mouths wide for their young to fetch the food from the back of their throats. The young birds fledge 95–109 days after hatching, heading to a nearby clifftop and remaining there for anywhere from 6 hours to 3 days before flying. Weighing on average 73.2 grams (2.58 oz) when born, they reach 2,350 grams (83 oz)—exceeding that of adult birds—by day 50 and 3,132 grams (110.5 oz) by day 90. Unlike young northern gannets, juvenile Australasian gannets are able to fly by the time they fledge and have fully grown primary flight feathers. They have smaller fat reserves, which may reflect a poorer food supply. Young individuals return to the colonies when they are three years old, and begin breeding between four and seven years of age. The typical lifespan is estimated to be around 20 years. The maximum age recorded from banding has been 30 years 8.2 months; a bird tagged at Cape Kidnappers in January 1955 was found dead some 2,587 km (1,607 mi) away at Tangalooma in Moreton Bay, Queensland in September 1985. The longest distance travelled is 8,128 km (5,051 mi); a bird tagged at Lawrence Rocks was found washed ashore dead on the southeast coast of Mauritius. ### Feeding These birds are plunge divers and spectacular fishers, plunging from heights of up to 20 m (65 ft) into the ocean at high speed. They may dive from as low as 1–2 m (3–7 ft) above the surface at an angle to forage in water less than 3 m (10 ft) deep or in rough weather. They mainly eat forage fish which school near the surface, as well as cephalopods. Some local differences have been recorded: Australasian gannets at Farewell Spit mainly forage on coastal fish in water depths of less than 50 metres (160 ft), while those at Cape Kidnappers hunt more oceanic fish at water depths exceeding that. Birds also follow fishing vessels and trawlers to pick up discarded fish. Its bulk prevents it from hovering for a sustained period, but it can pause to examine the sea surface for fish. The pilchard (Sardinops sagax) is a preferred prey item as it is an energy-rich source of food; after pilchard mass mortality events, Australasian gannets were able to adjust by switching to anchovy (Engraulis australis) at Farewell Spit in 1996 and barracouta (Thyrsites atun) in Port Phillip Bay in 1998. They also consumed correspondingly larger numbers of anchovies to maintain their caloric intake as this species has fewer calories than the pilchard. The increased expenditure for poorer return could feasibly impact on breeding success. In 1995, patrollers recovered 648 dead gannets along beaches in Auckland West and Northland West. The cause was unknown, but the 1995 pilchard mortality event and unusually strong westerly and southwesterly winds in July and August 1995 were implicated. Other fish species reported eaten include kahawai (Arripis trutta), yellow-eye mullet (Aldrichetta forsteri), western Australian salmon (Arripis truttaceus), cape bonnetmouth (Emmelichthys nitidus), greenback horse mackerel (Trachurus declivis), yellowtail horse mackerel (Trachurus novaezelandiae), striped trumpeter (Latris lineata), New Zealand blueback sprat (Sprattus antipodum) and flyingfish of the genera Cheilopogon and Hirundichthys. Squid of the genus Nototodarus are among cephalopods eaten. ## Predators and parasites The southern giant petrel (Macronectes giganteus) has been recorded preying on an adult Australasian gannet by holding it underwater and drowning it. Eggs and chicks can fall victim to the kelp gull (Larus dominicanus) and Pacific gull (Larus pacificus), particularly if parent birds have been disturbed. External parasites include the feather mite species Morinyssus simplex—collected from a museum skin of Australasian gannet—the bird louse species Pectinopygus bassani, and the tick species Ixodes eudyptidis, the widespread Ixodes uriae and Carios capensis. ## Conservation status The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists the Australasian gannet as a species of least concern, as the population is large and appears to be growing. There are possible impacts from commercial fishing, though this is probably low compared with other seabirds. Survival rates each breeding season can vary dramatically, most likely due to food availability and weather. More frequent El Niño–Southern Oscillation events lead to warmer water in Bass Strait, which gives rise to more fish and hence accounting for the increase in Australian waters. Gannets established a mainland colony on Young Nick's Head near Gisborne, after decoys of nesting birds and pre-recorded calls were broadcast to passing gannets in September 2008. Successful breeding was recorded at the site from the 2010–11 breeding season onwards. A similar effort to establish a colony on Mana Island led to the arrival of a single gannet, dubbed Nigel "no mates", who lived alone among the 80 decoys for several years until he was found dead in February 2018; in summer 2018, three more gannets arrived at the site. Gannets have been enticed to established breeding colonies by decoys at reserves on Motuora Island. ## Relationship with humans The Māori were reported to have harvested young gannets for food, visiting Kārewa in March. The white feathers of adult gannets were used to adorn canoes, and were worn by important members of the community. The bones were made into tools to apply facial moko (tattoos). Some mainland colonies have become tourist attractions, such as those at Cape Kidnappers / Te Kauwae-a-Māui, and Muriwai in New Zealand, and Point Danger in Australia. The gannets of Cape Kidnappers have featured on New Zealand stamps issued in 1958 and 2009.
3,206,680	Hurricane Juan (1985)	1,171,664,937	Category 1 Atlantic hurricane in 1985	[ "1985 Atlantic hurricane season", "1985 natural disasters in the United States", "Category 1 Atlantic hurricanes", "Hurricanes in Tennessee", "Hurricanes in West Virginia", "Tropical cyclones in 1985" ]	Hurricane Juan was a large and erratic tropical cyclone that looped twice near the Louisiana coast, causing widespread flooding. It was the tenth named storm of the 1985 Atlantic hurricane season, forming in the central Gulf of Mexico in late October. Juan moved northward after its formation, and was subtropical in nature with its large size. On October 27, the storm became a hurricane, reaching maximum sustained winds of 85 mph (140 km/h). Due to the influence of an upper-level low, Juan looped just off southern Louisiana before making landfall near Morgan City on October 29. Weakening to tropical storm status over land, Juan turned back to the southeast over open waters, crossing the Mississippi River Delta. After turning to the northeast, the storm made its final landfall just west of Pensacola, Florida, late on October 31. Juan continued quickly to the north and was absorbed by an approaching cold front, although its moisture contributed to a deadly flood event in the Mid-Atlantic states. Juan was the last of three hurricanes to move over Louisiana during the season, after Danny in August and Elena in early September. It formed rapidly over the northern Gulf of Mexico, allowing little time for thorough preparations or the evacuation of offshore oil rigs. As a result, nine people died in maritime accidents off Louisiana. Onshore, the hurricane dropped torrential rain totaling 17.78 in (452 mm) in Galliano, Louisiana. The combination of the rainfall and a high storm surge flooded 50,000 houses and many communities in southern Louisiana, causing extensive agriculture losses. Damage in Louisiana alone approached \$1 billion (1985 USD). Elsewhere, flooding in Texas forced the closure of roadways, while heavy rains damaged crops and houses in southern Mississippi. The outer rainbands of Juan spawned 15 tornadoes along the Florida Panhandle, causing over \$1 million in damage. Overall, Juan directly inflicted about \$1.5 billion in damage, making it among the costliest United States hurricanes, and caused 12 deaths. This excludes the effects from the subsequent flooding in the Mid-Atlantic. ## Meteorological history The interaction between a tropical wave and an upper-level low moving southeastward from Texas spawned a broad trough over the central Gulf of Mexico on October 24. That day, there was a marked increase in convection, or thunderstorms. At the same time, the pressure gradient between the trough and a high pressure area over the southeastern United States produced winds of near gale force across the northern Gulf of Mexico. Early on October 26, a tropical depression developed about 380 mi (610 km) south-southwest of New Orleans. Within 12 hours, the depression intensified into Tropical Storm Juan, based on satellite imagery and reports from the Hurricane Hunters. Initially, the structure was akin to that of a subtropical cyclone, with light winds near the center. Juan moved erratically at first, eventually tracking more steadily to the north-northeast on October 27. After turning to the northwest late on October 27, Juan intensified into a hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph (120 km/h), based on reports from the Hurricane Hunters. Under the effects of a larger upper-level low, Juan slowed on October 28 while approaching the Louisiana coastline. At 1200 UTC that day, the hurricane attained peak winds of 85 mph (140 km/h). After executing a loop just offshore southern Louisiana, Juan turned back to the east, making landfall at peak intensity near Morgan City at 1100 UTC on October 29. Subsequently, Juan turned sharply to the northwest, executing another loop over southern Louisiana near Lafayette. Late on October 29, the hurricane weakened to tropical storm status, emerging into Vermilion Bay early the next day with winds of 65 mph (100 km/h). Juan turned to the east, moving along the southern Louisiana coast and re-organizing slightly. On October 31, the storm moved across the Mississippi Delta near Burrwood, Louisiana, and accelerated to the northeast, influenced by an approaching upper-level trough. At 1200 UTC that day, Juan attained a secondary peak of 70 mph (110 km/h). In the subsequent six hours, the storm weakened slightly, making its final landfall just west of Pensacola, Florida with winds of 65 mph (100 km/h) late on October 31. After striking Florida, Juan turned to the north and weakened over land. After moving through Alabama, the storm became extratropical over Tennessee on November 1. Although the Atlantic hurricane best track ceased tracking the circulation at 1800 UTC that day, Juan continued generally northward through the Ohio Valley, and the center eventually crossed into Canada. The energy from Juan helped spawn an occluded low in the Tennessee Valley, which produced more rainfall throughout the region. An approaching cold front absorbed the remnants of Juan on November 3. ## Preparations Before Juan made landfall, about 100 people evacuated from the area around Port Arthur, Texas. In Louisiana, about 6,550 people evacuated, including only 700 of the 1,900 residents on Grand Isle; many of those who stayed behind there were trapped after the onslaught of the storm surge. About 6,000 people evacuated in Mississippi due to the threat for flooding. Many schools were closed along the coast in Louisiana and Mississippi, and two beaches were closed both sides of the Brownsville, Texas shipping channel. On October 28, governor Edwin Edwards declared a state of emergency for 13 Louisiana parishes, while officials issued flash flood watches for 42 of Louisiana's 64 parishes. Governor George Wallace also declared a state of emergency for Alabama, and shelters were opened along the coast. Due to the erratic motion and large size of Juan, tropical cyclone warnings and watches were issued for large portions of the northern Gulf Coast. Around the time of landfall, hurricane warnings were issued from Port Arthur, Texas to Mobile, Alabama, with gale warnings farther to the east to Apalachicola, Florida and extending to the west to Port O'Connor, Texas. The storm's quick development left people generally unprepared. National Hurricane Center forecaster Neil Frank likened Juan to "a spinning top [that] will spin around unpredictably and do whatever it wants." ## Impact While on its erratic path off the northern Gulf Coast, Juan killed 12 people, nine of whom offshore due to overturned oil rigs or boats. The hurricane directly caused about \$1.5 billion in damage, making it the fourth costliest United States hurricane at the time without adjusting for inflation; it was behind only Hurricane Frederic of 1979, Hurricane Agnes of 1972, and Hurricane Alicia of 1983. The damage total included losses to the oil industry, wrecked crops, and overall flooding damage, mostly in Louisiana. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Juan injured 1,357 people, mostly to a minor extent. Juan struck less than two months after Hurricane Elena hit the northern Gulf Coast, resulting in further damage to already ravaged areas. For about five days, Juan and its precursor produced gale-force winds along the northern Gulf of Mexico. The strongest winds in relation to Juan were on offshore oil rigs, with one rig recording peak sustained winds of 92 mph (148 km/h) and gusts to 110 mph (176 km/h). Juan also produced high waves that damaged several rigs, of which two were overturned. One of the rigs collapsed and fell onto an adjacent rig about 35 mi (56 km) south of Golden Meadow, Louisiana amid hurricane-force winds and high seas. The collapsed rigs, built in 1956 and 1961, were designed to withstand 45 ft (14 m) waves that would accompany a 25 year storm at the time, though Juan produced waves approaching 70 ft (21 m). The combination of the waves and strong winds in advance of the storm prevented early evacuation of the oil rigs. A boat of evacuees overturned in the midst of the storm, killing one and hospitalizing two others; the remaining workers were rescued by the United States Coast Guard, and overall the agency rescued at least 160 people. While conducting a search and rescue mission, a boat named Miss Agnes capsized about 60 mi (97 km) south of Grand Isle, Louisiana; two members of the crew went missing and were presumed killed, and two other occupants were rescued. A jackup rig capsized near the mouth of the Mississippi River, killing three. A rescue helicopter off the coast of Louisiana caused three severe injuries when the rescue basket blew onto the evacuated oil rig amid strong winds. Because it looped twice near the coastline, Hurricane Juan brought extensive rainfall from eastern Texas to the western Florida Panhandle. In Texas, the highest precipitation total was 12.84 in (326 mm) at a station southwest of Alto. The highest rainfall related to Juan in the United States was 17.78 in (452 mm), recorded in Galliano, Louisiana. Farther east, there were more reports of high rainfall, measured at 10.52 in (267 mm) and 12.23 in (311 mm) in Biloxi, Mississippi and Fairhope, Alabama, respectively. In Florida, the highest rainfall was 11.71 in (297 mm) near Pensacola. As well as the heavy rainfall, Juan produced heightened tides along the Gulf Coast, peaking at 8.2 ft (2.5 m) in Bayou Bienvenue in Louisiana. Tides peaked at around 3.3 ft (1 m) in the other coastal states, although offshore winds caused below-normal tides in western Louisiana and Texas after Juan exited the area. The storm also spawned a few tornadoes, most of them weak. Two were in Mississippi, each damaging a mobile home and downing several trees, and at least three occurred in Alabama, causing isolated building and tree damage. Hurricane Juan was one of the latest tropical cyclones in the year to affect Texas. The heavy rainfall from the storm caused flooding in the southeastern portion of the state, primarily in low-lying areas and along bayous. The flooding forced several roads to close, but there was minimal housing damage. Tides reached about 4 ft (1.2 m) above normal near Galveston, causing coastal flooding and closing a portion of Texas State Highway 87, but little beach erosion. Due to Juan's structure being closer to a subtropical cyclone than a typical hurricane, it produced strong winds well away from its center, with gusts of 58 mph (93 km/h) reported along the Texas coast. The winds were strong enough to knock down trees and power lines, causing power outages. One person drowned in a boating accident off the Texas coast. In Mississippi, heavy rain from Juan flooded about 340 homes and businesses, mainly in the southern portion of the state. High winds and waves damaged ports in Pass Christian and Long Beach. Several boats were damaged along the coast, and the seafood industry suffered losses. Beach erosion damaged coastal roads, leaving debris and marsh grass behind when the storm passed. The total storm cost in the state was estimated at \$776,000. In neighboring Alabama, Juan only produced wind gusts of 40 mph (64 km/h), which caused little damage, but the storm's rainfall contributed to Mobile recording its wettest October on record. The rains caused flooding along streets and low-lying areas, but property generally escaped unscathed. The flooding did cause locally heavy crop damage; some farmers lost 50% of their soybean crop, and the pecan crop was damaged after earlier being affected by Hurricane Elena. Damage in the state was minor, estimated at over \$65,000. Farther east in Florida, high waves caused flooding, beach erosion, and the loss of seawalls previously damaged by Elena. The rough surf washed away a house on Captiva Island. The outskirts of Juan also spawned 15 tornadoes along the Florida Panhandle, causing \$1 million in damage. The tornadoes injured six people, destroyed 19 buildings, and damaged about 40 others. One of the tornadoes struck Okaloosa Island and Fort Walton Beach, killing a dog and damaging two hotels along U.S. Route 98. ### Louisiana Due to the cyclone's slow movement over Louisiana, it dropped over 10 in (250 mm) of rainfall across much of the southern portion of the state. The intense rainfall increased levels along rivers in southwestern Louisiana. High waves and a storm surge of 5 to 8 ft (1.5 to 2.4 m) flooded low-lying and coastal areas of southeastern Louisiana. The hurricane's erratic path prevented farmers from harvesting crops for three days. The combination of flooding from rainfall and storm surge covered widespread areas of crop fields, mostly affecting soybean and sugar. Other crops in the state had previously been harvested. About 200 cattle drowned in Terrebonne Parish, and thousands were stranded. Crop damage was estimated at over \$304 million, including \$100 million to the soybean industry, with overall damage near \$1 billion across the state. As well as its impact on crops, Juan severely affected the shrimp industry by washing many shrimp offshore and killing others. The storm left about \$2.9 million in damage to oil facilities in the state, including the cost of damaged pipelines. Overall, Juan flooded about 50,000 houses in Louisiana, causing \$250 million in property damage. Near Port Fourchon in Lafourche Parish, the storm surge damaged portions of Louisiana Highways 1 and 3090 and flooded about 1,200 homes, some to their roofs. Two levees in the parish were washed out and one was overtopped, inundating 100 houses near Lockport. In Terrebonne Parish, the powerful storm surge swept away parked cars, knocked a home off its foundation, and damaged a 300 ft (91 m) portion of a levee. In the parish, 800 homes were flooded, and 15,000 people were left homeless. The storm surge also washed out a 6,000 ft (1,800 m) portion of the levee protecting Grand Isle, and damaged another 14,000 ft (4,300 m). The levee, built in 1984, sustained \$500,000 in damages, which flooded the island with 4 ft (1.2 m) of ocean water. Most of the island lost power, and the city hall and high school, set up as shelters, utilized generators during the storm. In Jefferson Parish, which contains Grand Isle, the storm surge entered 2,233 homes and inundated about 3,100 cars. In Violet, a man drowned when he fell from his boat into a flooded canal, and another fisherman drowned in Atchafalaya Bay. The surge flooded a 3 mi (4.8 km) section of Louisiana Route 23 in Plaquemines Parish, entering several homes, as well as a portion of Route 22. Between Livingston and Ascension parishes, about 800 homes were flooded, and another 53 homes were flooded in Tangipahoa Parish. Waters from Lake Pontchartrain swept over Airline Highway and portions of a 4 ft (1.2 m) high levee, flooding 250 nearby homes. The storm surge washed out three bridges and flooded 800 homes in St. Tammany Parish, while high waters killed a man in Slidell. One man was electrocuted and killed in Arnaudville when stepping on a downed wire. While approaching its final landfall as a weak tropical storm, Juan created a storm surge of 6.5 ft (2.0 m) along the Chandeleur Islands to its west, resulting in extensive beach erosion. The island chain is an important buffer to parts of mainland Louisiana against storms, but is frequently physically manipulated by intense hurricanes. Hurricanes Danny and Elena also impacted the islands in 1985. Large portions of the Louisiana coastline lost 40 to 100 ft (12 to 30 m) of beach due to the storm, with several new temporary inlets created along barrier islands. ### Inland and Mid-Atlantic In the states inland from the Gulf Coast, Juan produced lighter rainfall than where its track moved across, but there were totals as high as 6.65 in (169 mm) in Arkansas. Rains directly from Juan extended into the southeastern United States, reaching 11.17 in (284 mm) on Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina, and through the Mid-Atlantic with totals as high as 2.82 in (72 mm) in Bakerstown, Pennsylvania. Through the Midwestern United States, Juan dropped over 4 in (100 mm) of rainfall in portions of Kentucky, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The rains from Juan and the low it spawned in the Mid-Atlantic moistened grounds across the region. The hurricane's track helped bring a plume of moisture into the Mid-Atlantic, which set the stage for a major flooding event when a low pressure area stalled on November 5 west of Washington, D.C. Major flooding occurred in Virginia and West Virginia, causing \$1.4 billion in damage and 62 deaths. ## Aftermath On October 29, Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards requested that the state's congressional delegation ask President Ronald Reagan for a disaster declaration. President Reagan responded and issued a disaster declaration on November 1, which included the parishes of Ascension, Jefferson, Lafourche, Livingston, Plaquemines, Saint Bernard, Saint Charles, Saint John the Baptist, Saint Tammany, Tangipahoa, and Terrebonne, as well as the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development estimated that highways in the state would require \$3 million in repairs from damage brought by the hurricane. Oil companies lost two to three days of production due to being closed by the hurricane. The Louisiana National Guard assisted farmers by dropping hay to stranded cattle over a two-week period. The American Red Cross ran out of funds while responding to the effects of Juan and the mid-Atlantic flooding, following the previous responses to hurricanes Elena and Gloria, as well as flooding in Puerto Rico; this prompted an emergency fundraising appeal. The agency had provided about \$8 million worth of assistance to families in southern Louisiana. Along the Apalachicola Bay, the series of hurricane strikes severely damaged the local oyster industry, leaving hundreds of oystermen out of work. The high waves caused by Juan prompted the United States Minerals Management Service to recommend increased inspections on older rigs and improve evacuation plans. Hurricane Juan was one in a series of hurricanes that struck Louisiana coast over many years that contributed to the loss of the coastal wetlands. Despite the dramatic damage caused by the storm, the name Juan was not retired (although it was eventually retired following a storm in 2003). ## See also - Other storms of the same name - Tropical Storm Allison (2001) – weak, slow-moving tropical storm that also caused damaging floods in Texas and Louisiana - Hurricane Isaac (2012) – slow-moving hurricane that struck Louisiana, causing widespread flooding
39,658,557	An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory	1,107,641,633	2010 textbook by Alasdair Cochrane	[ "2010 non-fiction books", "Books about animal rights", "Books by Alasdair Cochrane", "Books in political philosophy", "English-language books", "Palgrave Macmillan books", "Political textbooks" ]	An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory is a 2010 textbook by the British political theorist Alasdair Cochrane. It is the first book in the publisher Palgrave Macmillan's Animal Ethics Series, edited by Andrew Linzey and Priscilla Cohn. Cochrane's book examines five schools of political theory—utilitarianism, liberalism, communitarianism, Marxism and feminism—and their respective relationships with questions concerning animal rights and the political status of (non-human) animals. Cochrane concludes that each tradition has something to offer to these issues, but ultimately presents his own account of interest-based animal rights as preferable to any. His account, though drawing from all examined traditions, builds primarily upon liberalism and utilitarianism. An Introduction was reviewed positively in several academic publications. The political philosopher Steve Cooke said that Cochrane's own approach showed promise, and that the book would have benefited from devoting more space to it. Robert Garner, a political theorist, praised Cochrane's synthesis of such a broad range of literature, but argued that the work was too uncritical of the concept of justice as it might apply to animals. Cochrane's account of interest-based rights for animals was subsequently considered at greater length in his 2012 book Animal Rights Without Liberation, published by Columbia University Press. An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory was one of the first books to explore animals from the perspective of political theory, and became an established part of a literature critical of the topic's traditional neglect. ## Background and publication In the 1990s and 2000s, Alasdair Cochrane studied politics at the University of Sheffield and the London School of Economics (LSE). His doctoral thesis, supervised by Cécile Fabre with Paul Kelly acting as an adviser, was entitled Moral obligations to non-humans. He subsequently became a fellow and lecturer at the LSE. During this time, Cochrane published articles in Res Publica, Utilitas and Political Studies presenting aspects of his interest-based theory of animal rights, which is defended in the final chapter of An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory. The book was Cochrane's first, and the political theorist Robert Garner acted as an important discussant during the writing process. An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory was first published in the UK on 13 October 2010 by Palgrave Macmillan in paperback, hardback and eBook formats. It was the first book to appear as part of the Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series, a partnership between Palgrave Macmillan and the Ferrata Mora Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. The series's general editors are Andrew Linzey and Priscilla N. Cohn. Interdisciplinary in focus, the Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series aims to explore the practical and conceptual challenges posed by animal ethics. ## Synopsis An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory begins by discussing the history of animals in political theory before considering the approaches taken to the status of animals by five schools of political theory: utilitarianism, liberalism, communitarianism, Marxism and feminism. The final chapter outlines Cochrane's own approach, which he situates between liberalism and utilitarianism. ### Opening chapters Cochrane establishes the book as a work of normative political theory asking to what extent animals should be included in the domain of justice. States can and do regulate human-animal relationships, whether the animals in question are used in agriculture, as companions, or in some other way. Cochrane's focus is not on why laws are passed or on comparing laws, but in exploring what kind of laws should be passed. As his focus is on political theory, he is less concerned with questions about individual moral obligations than he is with institutional arrangements. He notes, however, that questions about animals have been neglected in political theory. In the second chapter, Cochrane considers the history of thinking on the relationship between justice and animals. He argues that within ancient philosophy there was disagreement about the inclusion of animals within accounts of justice, in medieval Christian philosophy there was a consensus that they should be excluded, and in modern philosophy there has been a return to disagreement. ### Utilitarianism Chapter three considers utilitarianism, according to which the rightness or wrongness of an action is determined by the extent to which it promotes utility—a concept equated, by classical utilitarians, with pleasure. As a political theory, then, classical utilitarianism entails that "it is the obligation of political communities to formulate policies and institutions which promote pleasure". Utilitarianism as a whole, Cochrane argues, posed a challenge to the medieval and early modern assumption that animals are owed nothing. Its focus on welfare and sentience, and its egalitarian nature, allow the extension of justice to animals. The ideas of Peter Singer are outlined. Cochrane then defends Singer's account both against those presenting arguments in defence of speciesism, and against critics (such as R. G. Frey) who maintain that animals do not have interests. He then considers utilitarian critics of Singer, who argue that meat-eating maximises utility, even when animal interests are taken into account. This leads to the criticism that judging the best consequences is an extremely difficult task for political communities, but Cochrane concludes that a utilitarian consensus does at least support the abolition of factory farming. Finally, he addresses critics who argue that Singer's position offers insufficient protection for animals. Martha Nussbaum's argument that animals can suffer unfelt harms is considered, as is Tom Regan's criticism that, under Singer's account, animals are protected only insofar as their protection maximises welfare, rather than in their own right. ### Liberalism Chapter four considers liberalism, a political theory which, according to Cochrane, has as its defining feature a valuation of "the free and equal individual person". Cochrane focuses primarily upon John Rawls, whose social contract account offers two reasons for the rejection of animals from issues of basic justice: questions of reciprocity, for which animals are ill-suited, and questions of personhood, as all parties to the contract must be moral persons. Cochrane criticises Rawls's exclusion of animals, before identifying the risks to animals inherent within liberal pluralism. The possibility of a Rawlsian account including animals, such as those offered by Donald VanDeVeer and Mark Rowlands, is considered and rejected; Cochrane outlines problems with placing questions of species membership behind the veil of ignorance and outlines Garner's fundamental criticisms of Rawls. Modified versions of personhood that include animals are discussed. Cochrane closes the chapter by arguing that personhood and welfare should both be considered important; in so doing, he points towards his own conception of justice for animals. ### Communitarianism Chapter five assesses the relationship between animals and communitarianism. Communitarians criticise liberalism's focus on a state which does not interfere with individuals, instead favouring a political order which takes a stand on moral concerns, drawing from the shared moral values of a given society. Cochrane initially argues that communitarianism, using British society as an example, can be used to expand justice to animals. He devotes the remainder of the chapter to four arguments against this line of thought. First, communitarianism is particularist; that is, the principles it expounds are wholly contingent on the values in the particular society. Second, there are difficulties inherent in finding "authentic" values within a given society. Third, societies often favour some animals over others, leaving unfavoured animals vulnerable. Fourth, there is the question of whose values within a society matter: states often contain multiple communities with very different attitudes to animals. Consideration of this fourth question involves analysis of multiculturalism. ### Marxism Cochrane goes on, in chapter six, to consider Marxism. Unlike the other political theories explored in An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory, Marxism is purportedly not a normative account but a scientific theory which predicts and explains the end of the state and the beginning of communism. This is understood as the inevitable conclusion of the history of the changing forms of economic relationships. Cochrane outlines the discontinuities between humans and animals that exist for Karl Marx and considers the extent to which animal-rights thinking is an example of bourgeois morality. These analyses serve to illustrate how Marxist thinking can be used to exclude animals, but counterarguments are offered. Cochrane then draws upon the work of Catherine Perlow and Barbara Noske, who have argued that animals may represent an exploited group in a Marxist sense, but he is critical of the argument that this exploitation is caused by capitalism and that overthrowing capitalism would be a necessary step for achieving justice. He next considers the work of David Sztybel and Ted Benton, who have drawn upon the adage of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" in relation to animals; Cochrane is wary about the use of the phrase for three reasons. First, it is unclear how central the idea is to Marxist thought; second, it is a principle only for societies in advanced stages of communism; and third, even if we assume we can know the needs of animals, the principle would entail the extension of justice beyond sentient animals, which is an idea that Cochrane rejects. Finally, Cochrane considers Benton's proposal that liberal rights-based approaches to animal justice cannot achieve their goal, and that Marxism can be used as a resource for political achievement. This is, for Cochrane, Marxism's most important contribution in the area. ### Feminism Cochrane considers feminism, the final tradition he examines, in chapter seven. As with Marxism, there are historical links between feminism and animal liberation. Cochrane considers the putative interrelatedness, posited by some feminist theorists, of the oppression of animals and women, but denies that the liberation of animals and women are necessarily interdependent. He suggests that there are four ways that this relationship could be grounded. The first is an idea taken from theorists drawing upon ecofeminism, like Josephine Donovan. This is the claim that the domination of women and animals are both due to a patriarchal elevation of the "rational" over the "natural". The second is Carol J. Adams's argument that the connection of meat-eating and masculinity serves to oppress both women and animals, meaning that the liberation of both depends upon the end of meat-eating. The third is that, as identified by Adams and Catharine MacKinnon, women and animals are linked and oppressed by linguistic norms. For example, women might be called cow, bitch or dog, which serves to denigrate both woman and animals. The fourth is the way that both animals and women are objectified, treated as mere things to be used towards the ends of others. Cochrane argues that women are not irrational, though animals are less rational than humans, meaning that the oppression and liberation of the two groups may differ. He challenges Adams's claims about meat by envisioning a vegetarian but misogynistic society on the one hand and a society where the genders are equal but meat continues to be eaten on the other. He challenges the claims about language by observing that some animal-based insults are gender-neutral (for example, rat, pig, sheep), and some slurs to women (for example, witch, jezebel, whore) are unrelated to animals. Concerning objectification, Cochrane notes that women are not considered property under the law, though animals are. This makes their respective objectification importantly different. Next, the author rebuts five criticisms of reason-based approaches—epitomised, for Cochrane, by Singer and Regan—to animal liberation from thinkers supportive of feminist care-based approaches, before outlining and rejecting an emotionally driven, care-based approach to animal justice. ### Conclusion In the final chapter Cochrane argues that each school has an important contribution to make to animal justice, particularly liberalism and utilitarianism. He then outlines his own approach. He writes that, while talk of our political and moral obligations to animals is today more prominent than ever, it remains on the periphery of mainstream dialogue in political theory. He closes by arguing that this neglect is a problem for political theory, and that animals are owed justice. If the book's claims are correct, Cochrane concludes, questions concerning the treatment of animals should be considered some of the most pressing political issues today. ## Central argument Cochrane argues that while each of the schools of thought he has considered has problems, they all have something important to contribute to the debate. Utilitarianism's most important contribution is its focus on sentience, but its major failing is its lack of respect for individuals. Liberalism, on the other hand, asserts the centrality of the individual. Communitarianism, though it is too ready to attribute cohesion to the values of a given society, observes that individuals can flourish only within appropriate communities, and stresses the importance of changing the views of society at large. This latter idea is shared by Marxism, which points out that legal change does not necessarily equate to effective change. While Cochrane does not agree that capitalism must be overthrown, he recognises that "fundamental shifts in the organisation, norms and institutions of society" are needed for justice to be extended to animals. Care-based feminist approaches, despite Cochrane's criticism, remind us that emotions and sympathy should not be ignored. Cochrane's own sympathies lie most strongly with utilitarianism and liberalism; his own account is most influenced by them. He argues that rights derived from considerations of interests can protect individual animals and place limits on what can be done to them. These rights cannot be violated, even in the name of the greater good, which means that the cultural and economic practices of human beings will be affected. Anticipating criticism, Cochrane explains that not every interest leads to a right. A full consideration of this argument is outside the scope of the book. The argument was expanded in Cochrane's Animal Rights Without Liberation (2012) which, though published after An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory, was based on his doctoral thesis. ## Academic reception An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory was reviewed by Garner for the Journal of Animal Ethics, the political philosopher Steve Cooke for the Political Studies Review and the sociologist Richard Seymour for the LSE Review of Books. In addition, it was reviewed by C. E. Rasmussen for Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. All four reviewers were broadly positive towards the work. Cooke recommended it for "readers interested both in the moral and political standing of animals and in political theory in general", the latter group because the work's methodological approach allows it to serve as a good introduction to political theory generally. Seymour considered the book a "refreshing and comprehensive overview of a highly interesting issue". Garner said that the work came "highly recommended"; he considered it "a very fine book", in which "Cochrane expertly simplifies and synthesizes a huge and complex literature in the limited space available to him, while retaining high scholarly standards". Garner also praised the fact that the book remained interesting, unlike many textbooks. Rasmussen said that the book came "highly recommended" for undergraduate and graduate students as well as non-specialist audiences. Palgrave Macmillan advertised the book with quotes taken from Cooke and Garner's respective reviews, as well as with quotes from Daniel A. Dombrowski and Siobhan O'Sullivan. Dombrowski was quoted as saying that the "book will be welcomed by all who are interested in the relationship between non-human animals and political theory, a relationship that has been underexplored by scholars. Highly recommended!" Meanwhile, O'Sullivan wrote: > If only Cochrane had been writing when I was an undergraduate political science student! But this book's appeal will not be limited to students. This is one of the first comprehensive articulations of what mainstream political values might mean for animals—something the academic community has desperately needed for far too long. It's a great read and an important contribution. Cooke considered Cochrane's own account to be "interesting and worthy of further consideration" and found his supporting arguments to be "convincing", but he worried that the account was not considered in the depth it warranted. He wrote that An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory would have benefited if more space had been given to the interest-based account. Further, Cooke noted that, in covering such a wide array of positions, Cochrane had to sacrifice depth of argument; Cooke considered this unproblematic, as readers could easily follow up the thinkers cited. Seymour was particularly critical of Cochrane's coverage of feminism, which was, for him, "an unfortunate lapse in an otherwise fascinating review". Seymour argued that Cochrane's critique was superficial or "[missed] the point entirely". Instead, he suggested, feminist approaches provide a potentially highly productive approach to the subject. Similarly, though Rasmussen praised the book's first five chapters as "providing an invaluable resource for undergraduates or scholars new to political theory", he felt that Cochrane's coverage of Marxism and feminism was somewhat less thorough. In response to An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory, Garner raised two themes, the first of which was the use of the concept of justice. Agreeing with Cochrane that the concept is the defining feature of a political account, as opposed to more general accounts of animal ethics, Garner nevertheless found Cochrane's account of justice to be "too broad and loose". In the book, Cochrane considers justice for animals to be "about recognising that the treatment of animals is a matter for political communities to enforce" and "recognising that the treatment of animals is something that political communities ought to enforce for the sake of animals themselves". For Garner, > The problem with this is that it arguably includes too much—for it implies that once the state recognizes that we have direct duties to animals, that what we do to them matters to them, then the demands of justice are met. This means that, with the exception of those who hold that we have only indirect duties to animals, all the traditions that Cochrane discusses can lay claim to offering a theory of justice for animals. Further, Garner suggests that Cochrane is "perhaps unduly uncritical of the utility of employing justice as a means to protect the interests of animals". He outlines two ways that animals might be protected without being the recipients of justice; first, they may be owed direct duties outside of justice, or, second, they might be protected by means of indirect duties, meaning that they are protected because of what humans owe to one another. Despite raising these themes in his review of An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory, Garner later rejected both possibilities in his own work, arguing that animals should be considered recipients of justice. Rasmussen felt that Cochrane utilised a narrow account of the political, meaning that a range of feminist, post-colonial and post-humanist perspectives were ignored in the book. The second theme Garner identified was the divide between ideal and nonideal theory, which he understands as a way political theory may be used to contextualise animal ethics and further the debate. Ultimately, for Garner, Cochrane's theory serves as a challenge to abolitionism, which, Garner fears, both polarises the debate and is unrealistic. The themes of this review were built upon in Garner's 2013 book A Theory of Justice for Animals. In the course of his review of the book, Garner looked forward to the release of Cochrane's second book, Animal Rights Without Liberation, which offers a lengthier defence of the interest-based rights theory. ## Legacy The Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics described An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory as "the first introductory level text to offer an accessible overview on the status of animals in contemporary political theory", while commentators noted that it was one of the first works—previous books on the subject having been written by Garner and Nussbaum—to link the question of animal rights to the concept of justice in political philosophy. Since the book's publication, a number of works exploring animals in political theory have been published; these works have been collectively referred to as belonging to the "political turn" in animal ethics/animal rights, or the disciplines of "animal political philosophy" and "Animal Politics". Both An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory and Animal Rights Without Liberation have become an established part of this literature. ## Formats The book has been published in paperback, hardback and eBook formats. - Hardback: - Paperback: - eBook:
525,496	Tintin in the Land of the Soviets	1,170,631,137	Comic album by Belgian cartoonist Hergé	[ "1930 debut novels", "1930 graphic novels", "Anti-communism in Belgium", "Books about the Soviet Union", "Comics controversies", "Comics set in Russia", "Comics set in the Soviet Union", "Literature first published in serial form", "Tintin books", "Works originally published in Le Petit Vingtième" ]	Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (French: Tintin au pays des Soviets) is the first volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Commissioned by the conservative Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle as anti-communist satire for its children's supplement Le Petit Vingtième, it was serialised weekly from January 1929 to May 1930 before being published in a collected volume by Éditions du Petit Vingtième in 1930. The story tells of young Belgian reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy, who are sent to the Soviet Union to report on the policies of Joseph Stalin's Bolshevik government. Tintin's intent to expose the regime's secrets prompts agents from the Soviet secret police, the OGPU, to hunt him down with the intent to kill. Bolstered by publicity stunts, Land of the Soviets was a commercial success in Belgium, and also witnessed serialisation in France and Switzerland. Hergé continued The Adventures of Tintin with Tintin in the Congo, and the series became a defining part of the Franco-Belgian comics tradition. Damage to the original plates prevented republication of the book for several decades, while Hergé later expressed embarrassment at the crudeness of the work. As he began to redraw his earlier Adventures in second, colour versions from 1942 onward, he decided against doing so for Land of the Soviets; it was the only completed Tintin story that Hergé did not reproduce in colour. Growing demand among fans of the series resulted in the production of unauthorised copies of the book in the 1960s, with the first officially sanctioned republication appearing in 1969, after which it was translated into several other languages, including English. Critical reception of the work has been largely negative, and several commentators on The Adventures of Tintin have described Land of the Soviets as one of Hergé's weakest works. ## Synopsis Tintin, a reporter for Le Petit Vingtième, is sent with his dog Snowy on an assignment to the Soviet Union, departing from Brussels. On the route to Moscow, an agent of the OGPU—the Soviet secret police—sabotages the train and declares the reporter to be a "dirty little bourgeois". The Berlin Police indirectly blame Tintin for the bombing but he escapes to the border of the Soviet Union. Following closely, the OGPU agent finds Tintin and brings him before the local Commissar's office, instructing the Commissar to make the reporter "disappear ... accidentally". Escaping again, Tintin finds "how the Soviets fool the poor idiots who still believe in a Red Paradise" by burning bundles of straw and clanging metal in order to trick visiting English Marxists into believing that non-operational Soviet factories are productive. Tintin witnesses a local election, where the Bolsheviks threaten the voters to ensure their own victory; when they try to arrest him, he dresses as a ghost to scare them away. Tintin attempts to make his way out of the Soviet Union, but the Bolsheviks pursue and arrest him, then threaten him with torture. Escaping his captors, Tintin reaches Moscow, remarking that the Bolsheviks have turned it into "a stinking slum". He and Snowy observe a government official handing out bread to homeless Marxists but denying it to their opponents; Snowy steals a loaf and gives it to a starving boy. Spying on a secret Bolshevik meeting, Tintin learns that all the Soviet grain is being exported abroad for propaganda purposes, leaving the people starving, and that the government plans to "organise an expedition against the kulaks, the rich peasants, and force them at gunpoint to give us their corn". Tintin infiltrates the Red Army and warns some of the kulaks to hide their grain, but the army catches him and sentences him to death by firing squad. By planting blanks in the soldiers' rifles, Tintin fakes his death and is able to make his way into the snowy wilderness, where he discovers an underground Bolshevik hideaway in a haunted house. A Bolshevik then captures him and informs him, "You're in the hideout where Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin have collected together wealth stolen from the people!" With Snowy's help, Tintin escapes, commandeers a plane, and flies into the night. The plane crashes, but Tintin fashions a new propeller from a tree using a penknife, and continues to Berlin. The OGPU agents appear and lock Tintin in a dungeon, but he escapes with the aid of Snowy, who has dressed himself in a tiger costume. The last OGPU agent attempts to kidnap Tintin, but this attempt is foiled, leaving the agent threatening, "We'll blow up all the capitals of Europe with dynamite!" Tintin returns to Brussels amidst a huge popular reception. ## History ### Background Georges Remi—best known under the pen name Hergé—had been employed as an illustrator at Le Vingtième Siècle ("The Twentieth Century"), a staunchly Roman Catholic and conservative Belgian newspaper based in Hergé's native Brussels. Run by the Abbé Norbert Wallez, the paper described itself as a "Catholic Newspaper for Doctrine and Information" and disseminated a far-right and fascist viewpoint; Wallez was an admirer of Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini and kept a signed picture of him on his desktop, while Léon Degrelle, who later became the leader of the fascist Rexists, worked as a foreign correspondent for the paper. According to Harry Thompson, such political ideas were common in Belgium at the time, and Hergé's milieu was permeated with conservative ideas revolving around "patriotism, Catholicism, strict morality, discipline, and naivety". Anti-communist sentiment was strong, and a Soviet exhibition held in Brussels in January 1928 was vandalised amid demonstrations by the fascist National Youth Movement (Jeunesses nationales) in which Degrelle took part. Wallez appointed Hergé editor of a children's supplement for the Thursday issues of Le Vingtième Siècle, titled Le Petit Vingtième ("The Little Twentieth"). Propagating Wallez's socio-political views to its young readership, it contained explicitly pro-fascist and anti-Semitic sentiment. In addition to editing the supplement, Hergé illustrated L'extraordinaire aventure de Flup, Nénesse, Poussette et Cochonnet ("The Extraordinary Adventures of Flup, Nénesse, Poussette and Cochonnet"), a comic strip authored by a member of the newspaper's sport staff, which told the adventures of two boys, one of their little sisters, and her inflatable rubber pig. Hergé became dissatisfied with mere illustration work, and wanted to write and draw his own cartoon strip. Hergé already had experience creating comic strips. From July 1926 he had written a strip about a boy scout patrol leader titled Les Aventures de Totor C.P. des Hannetons ("The Adventures of Totor, Scout Leader of the Cockchafers") for the Scouting newspaper Le Boy Scout Belge ("The Belgian Boy Scout"). The character of Totor was a strong influence on Tintin; Hergé described the latter as being like Totor's younger brother. Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier stated that graphically, Totor and Tintin were "virtually identical" except for the scout uniform, also noting many similarities between their respective adventures, particularly in the illustration style, the fast pace of the story, and the use of humour. Hergé also had experience creating anti-communist propaganda, having produced a number of satirical sketches for Le Sifflet in October 1928 titled "70 per cent of Communist chefs are odd ducks". ### Influences Hergé wanted to set Tintin's first adventure in the United States in order to involve Native Americans—a people who had fascinated him since boyhood—in the story. Wallez rejected this idea, which later saw realisation as the series' third instalment, Tintin in America (1932). Instead, Wallez wanted Hergé to send Tintin to the Soviet Union, founded in 1922 by the Marxist–Leninist Bolshevik Party after seizing power from the Russian Empire during the 1917 October Revolution. The Bolsheviks greatly changed the country's feudal society by nationalising industry and replacing a capitalist economy with a socialist one. By the early 1920s, the Soviet Union's first leader, Vladimir Lenin, had died and been succeeded by Joseph Stalin. Being both Roman Catholic and politically right-wing, Wallez was opposed to the atheist, anti-sectarian, anti-theocratic and left-wing Soviet policies, and wanted Tintin's first adventure to reflect this, to persuade its young readers with anti-Marxist and anti-communist ideas. Later commenting on why he produced a work of propaganda, Hergé said that he had been "inspired by the atmosphere of the paper", which taught him that being a Catholic meant being anti-Marxist, and since childhood he had been horrified by the Bolshevik shooting of the Romanov family in July 1918. Hergé did not have the time to visit the Soviet Union or to analyse any available published information about it. Instead, he obtained an overview from a single book, Moscou sans Voiles: Neuf ans de travail au pays des Soviets ("Moscow Unmasked: A Record of Nine Years Work in Soviet Russia") by Joseph Douillet (1878–1954), a former Belgian consul to Rostov-on-Don who had spent nine years in Russia following the 1917 revolution. Published in both Belgium and France in 1928, Moscou sans voiles sold well to a public eager to believe Douillet's anti-Bolshevik claims, many of which were of doubtful accuracy. As Michael Farr noted, "Hergé freely, though selectively, lifted whole scenes from Douillet's account", including "the chilling election episode", which was "almost identical" to Douillet's description in Moscou sans voiles. Hergé's lack of knowledge about the Soviet Union led to many factual errors; the story contains references to bananas, Shell petrol and Huntley & Palmers biscuits, none of which existed in the Soviet Union at the time. He also made errors in Russian names, typically adding the Polish ending "-ski" to them, rather than the Russian equivalent "-vitch". In creating Land of the Soviets, Hergé was influenced by innovations within the comic strip medium. He claimed a strong influence from French cartoonist Alain Saint-Ogan, producer of the Zig et Puce series. The two met the following year, becoming lifelong friends. He was also influenced by the contemporary American comics that reporter Léon Degrelle had sent back to Belgium from Mexico, where he was stationed to report on the Cristero War. These American comics included George McManus's Bringing Up Father, George Herriman's Krazy Kat and Rudolph Dirks's Katzenjammer Kids. Farr believed that contemporary cinema influenced Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, indicating similarities between scenes in the book with the police chases of the Keystone Cops films, the train chase in Buster Keaton's The General and with the expressionist images found in the works of directors such as Fritz Lang. Farr summarised this influence by commenting: "As a pioneer of the strip cartoon, Hergé was not afraid to draw on one modern medium to develop another". ### Publication Prior to serialisation, an announcement ran in the 4 January 1929 edition of Le Petit Vingtième, proclaiming: "e are always eager to satisfy our readers and keep them up to date on foreign affairs. We have therefore sent Tintin, one of our top reporters, to Soviet Russia". The illusion of Tintin as a real reporter for the paper, and not a fictional character, was emphasised by the claim that the comic strip was not a series of drawings, but composed of photographs taken of Tintin's adventure. Biographer Benoît Peeters thought this a private joke between staff at Le Petit Vingtième; alluding to the fact that Hergé had originally been employed as a reporter-photographer, a job that he never fulfilled. Literary critic Tom McCarthy later compared this approach to that of 18th-century European literature, which often presented fictional narratives as non-fiction. The first instalment of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets appeared in the 10 January 1929 edition of Le Petit Vingtième, and ran weekly until 8 May 1930. Hergé did not plot out the storyline in advance; he improvised new situations on a weekly basis, leaving Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier to observe that both "Story-wise and graphically, Hergé was learning his craft before our eyes." Hergé admitted that the work was rushed, saying: "The Petit Vingtième came out on Wednesday evening, and I often didn't have a clue on Wednesday morning how I was going to get Tintin out of the predicament I had put him in the previous week". Michael Farr considered this evident, remarking that many drawings were "crude, rudimentary, rushed", lacking the "polish and refinement" that Hergé would later develop. Contrastingly, he thought that certain plates were of the "highest quality" and exhibited Hergé's "outstanding ability as a draughtsman". The story was an immediate success among its young readers. As Harry Thompson remarked, the plotline would have been popular with the average Belgian parent, exploiting their anti-communist sentiment and feeding their fears regarding the Russians. The series' popularity led Wallez to organise publicity stunts to boost interest. The first of these was the April Fools' Day publication of a faked letter purporting to be from the OGPU (Soviet secret police) confirming Tintin's existence, and warning that if the paper did not cease publication of "these attacks against the Soviets and the revolutionary proletariat of Russia, you will meet death very shortly". The second was a staged publicity event, suggested by the reporter Charles Lesne, which took place on Thursday 8 May 1930. During the stunt, the 15-year-old Lucien Pepermans, a friend of Hergé's who had Tintin's features, arrived at Brussels' Gare du Nord railway station aboard the incoming Liège express from Moscow, dressed in Russian garb as Tintin and accompanied by a white dog; in later life Hergé erroneously claimed that he had accompanied Pepermans, whereas it had been Julien De Proft. A crowd of fans greeted Pepermans and De Proft and pulled the Tintin impersonator into their midst. Proceeding by limousine to the offices of Le Vingtième Siècle, they were greeted by further crowds, largely of Catholic Boy Scouts; Pepermans gave a speech on the building's balcony, before gifts were distributed to fans. From 26 October 1930, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets was syndicated to French Catholic magazine Cœurs Vaillants ("Brave Hearts"), recently founded by the Abbé Gaston Courtois. Courtois had travelled to Brussels to meet Wallez and Hergé, but upon publication thought that his readers would not understand the speech bubble system, adding explanatory sentences below each image. This angered Hergé, who unsuccessfully "intervened passionately" to stop the additions. The publication was highly significant for initiating Hergé's international career. The story was also reprinted in its original form in L'écho illustré, a Swiss weekly magazine, from 1932 onward. Recognising the continued commercial viability of the story, Wallez published it in book form in September 1930 through the Brussels-based Éditions du Petit Vingtième at a print run of 10,000, each sold at twenty francs. The first 500 copies were numbered and signed by Hergé using Tintin's signature, with Snowy's paw print drawn on by Wallez's secretary, Germaine Kieckens, who later became Hergé's first wife. For reasons unknown, the original book version omitted the page originally published in the 26 December 1929 edition of Le Petit Vingtième; since the story's republication in Archives Hergé, it has appeared in modern editions as page 97A. In April 2012 an original copy of the first album was sold for a record price of €37,820 by specialised auctioneers Banque Dessinée of Elsene, with another copy being sold for €9,515. In October the same year a copy was sold at the same auction house for €17,690. ### Later publications By 1936 there was already a demand for reprints of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, with Lesne sending a letter to Hergé enquiring if this was possible. The cartoonist was reluctant, stating that the original plates for the story were now in a poor condition and that as a result he would have to redraw the entire story were it to be re-published. Several years later, amid the German occupation of Belgium during World War II, a German-run publishing company asked Hergé for permission to republish Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, with the intent of using it as anti-Soviet propaganda, but again Hergé declined the offer. From 1942 onwards, Hergé began redrawing and colouring his earlier Tintin adventures for Casterman, but chose not to do so for Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, considering its story too crude. Embarrassed by it, he labeled it a "transgression of [his] youth". Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier believed that another factor in his decision might have been the story's virulently anti-Marxist theme, which would have been unpopular amidst growing West European sympathies for Marxism following the Second World War. In an article discussing Hergé's work which was published in the magazine Jeune Afrique ("Young Africa") in 1962, it was noted that despite the fact that fans of his work visited the Bibliothèque Nationale to read the copy of Land of the Soviets that was held there, it "will never (and with good cause) be republished". In 1961, Hergé wrote a letter to Casterman suggesting that the original version of the story be republished in a volume containing a publisher's warning about its content. Louis-Robert Casterman replied with a letter in which he stated that while the subject had been discussed within the company: "There are more hesitant or decidedly negative opinions than there are enthusiastic ones. Whatever the case, you can rest assured that the matter is being actively considered". As The Adventures of Tintin became more popular in Western Europe, and some of the rarer books became collectors' items, the original printed edition of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets became highly valued and unauthorized editions began to be produced. As a result, Studios Hergé published 500 numbered copies to mark the series' 40th birthday in 1969. This encouraged further demand, leading to the production of further "mediocre-quality" unlicensed editions, which were sold at "very high prices". To stem this illegal trade, Hergé agreed to a 1973 republication as part of the Archives Hergé collection, where it appeared in a collected volume alongside Tintin in the Congo and Tintin in America. With unofficial copies continuing to be sold, Casterman produced a facsimile edition of the original in 1981. Over the next decade, it was translated into nine languages, with an English-language edition translated by Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper and Michael Turner published by Sundancer in 1989. This edition was republished in 1999 for the 70th anniversary of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets. Sociologist John Theobald noted that by the 1980s, the book's plot had become "socially and politically acceptable" in the western world as part of the Reaganite intensification of the Cold War and increased hostility towards Marxism and socialism. This cultural climate allowed it to appear "on hypermarket shelves as suitable children's literature for the new millennium". That same theme prevented its publication in Communist Party-governed China, where it was the only completed adventure not translated by Wang Bingdong and officially published in the early 21st century. In 2017, two French colour versions were created by Casterman and Moulinsart. ## Critical reception In his study of the cultural and literary legacy of Brussels, André De Vries remarked that Tintin in the Land of the Soviets was "crude by Hergé's later standards, in every sense of the word". Simon Kuper of the Financial Times criticised both Land of the Soviets and Tintin in the Congo as the "worst" of the Adventures, being "poorly drawn" and "largely plot-free". Sociologist John Theobald of the Southampton Institute argued that Hergé had no interest in providing factual information about the Soviet Union, but only wanted to inculcate his readers against Marxism, hence depicting the Bolsheviks rigging elections, killing opponents and stealing the grain from the people. According to literary critic Jean-Marie Apostolidès of Stanford University, Hergé cast the Bolsheviks as "absolute evil" but was unable to understand how they had risen to power, or what their political views were. This meant that Tintin did not know this either, thereby observing the Soviet "world of misery" and fighting Bolsheviks without being able to foment an effective counter-revolution. Literary critic Tom McCarthy described the plot as "fairly straightforward" and criticised the depiction of Bolsheviks as "pantomime cut-outs". Hergé biographer Benoît Peeters was critical of the opening pages to the story, believing that the illustrations in it were among Hergé's worst and stating: "One couldn't have imagined a less remarkable debut for a work destined for such greatness". He believed that Tintin was an existentialist "Sartre-esque character" who existed only through his actions, operating simply as a narrative vehicle throughout the book. Where Hergé showed his talent, Peeters thought, was in conveying movement, and in utilising language in a "constantly imaginative" way. He considered the story's "absurdity" to be its best feature, rejecting plausible scenarios in favour of the "joyously bizarre", such as Tintin being frozen solid and then thawing, or Snowy dressing in a tiger skin to scare away a real tiger. Hergé biographer Pierre Assouline described the comic writer's image of the Soviet Union as being "a Dantesque vision of poverty, famine, terror, and repression". Marking the release of Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn film in 2011, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) commissioned a documentary devoted to Tintin in the Land of the Soviets in which journalist Frank Gardner—who considered Tintin to be his boyhood hero—visited Russia, investigating and defending the accuracy of Hergé's account of Soviet human rights abuses. First airing on Sunday 30 October on BBC Two, the documentary was produced by Graham Strong, with Luned Tonderai as producer and Tim Green as executive producer. David Butcher reviewed the documentary for the Radio Times, opining that Gardner's trip was dull compared to the comic's adventure, but praising a few "great moments", such as the scene in which Gardner tested an open-topped 1929 Amilcar, just as Tintin did in the adventure.
49,123	Phoenix (constellation)	1,173,353,230	Minor constellation in the southern sky	[ "1590s in the Dutch Republic", "Astronomy in the Dutch Republic", "Constellations listed by Petrus Plancius", "Dutch celestial cartography in the Age of Discovery", "Phoenix (constellation)", "Phoenixes in popular culture", "Southern constellations" ]	Phoenix is a minor constellation in the southern sky. Named after the mythical phoenix, it was first depicted on a celestial atlas by Johann Bayer in his 1603 Uranometria. The French explorer and astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille charted the brighter stars and gave their Bayer designations in 1756. The constellation stretches from roughly −39° to −57° declination, and from 23.5h to 2.5h of right ascension. The constellations Phoenix, Grus, Pavo and Tucana, are known as the Southern Birds. The brightest star, Alpha Phoenicis, is named Ankaa, an Arabic word meaning 'the Phoenix'. It is an orange giant of apparent magnitude 2.4. Next is Beta Phoenicis, actually a binary system composed of two yellow giants with a combined apparent magnitude of 3.3. Nu Phoenicis has a dust disk, while the constellation has ten star systems with known planets and the recently discovered galaxy clusters El Gordo and the Phoenix Cluster—located 7.2 and 5.7 billion light years away respectively, two of the largest objects in the visible universe. Phoenix is the radiant of two annual meteor showers: the Phoenicids in December, and the July Phoenicids. ## History Phoenix was the largest of the 12 constellations established by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. It first appeared on a 35-cm diameter celestial globe published in 1597 (or 1598) in Amsterdam by Plancius with Jodocus Hondius. The first depiction of this constellation in a celestial atlas was in Johann Bayer's Uranometria of 1603. De Houtman included it in his southern star catalog the same year under the Dutch name Den voghel Fenicx, "The Bird Phoenix", symbolising the phoenix of classical mythology. One name of the brightest star Alpha Phoenicis—Ankaa—is derived from the Arabic: العنقاء, romanized: al-‘anqā’, lit. 'the phoenix', and was coined sometime after 1800 in relation to the constellation. Celestial historian Richard Allen noted that unlike the other constellations introduced by Plancius and La Caille, Phoenix has actual precedent in ancient astronomy, as the Arabs saw this formation as representing young ostriches, Al Ri'āl, or as a griffin or eagle. In addition, the same group of stars was sometimes imagined by the Arabs as a boat, Al Zaurak, on the nearby river Eridanus. He observed, "the introduction of a Phoenix into modern astronomy was, in a measure, by adoption rather than by invention." The Chinese incorporated Phoenix's brightest star, Ankaa (Alpha Phoenicis), and stars from the adjacent constellation Sculptor to depict Bakui, a net for catching birds. Phoenix and the neighbouring constellation of Grus together were seen by Julius Schiller as portraying Aaron the High Priest. These two constellations, along with nearby Pavo and Tucana, are called the Southern Birds. ## Characteristics Phoenix is a small constellation bordered by Fornax and Sculptor to the north, Grus to the west, Tucana to the south, touching on the corner of Hydrus to the south, and Eridanus to the east and southeast. The bright star Achernar is nearby. The three-letter abbreviation for the constellation, as adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1922, is "Phe". The official constellation boundaries, as set by Belgian astronomer Eugène Delporte in 1930, are defined by a polygon of 10 segments. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of these borders lie between and , while the declination coordinates are between −39.31° and −57.84°. This means it remains below the horizon to anyone living north of the 40th parallel in the Northern Hemisphere, and remains low in the sky for anyone living north of the equator. It is most visible from locations such as Australia and South Africa during late Southern Hemisphere spring. Most of the constellation lies within, and can be located by, forming a triangle of the bright stars Achernar, Fomalhaut and Beta Ceti—Ankaa lies roughly in the centre of this. ## Features ### Stars A curved line of stars comprising Alpha, Kappa, Mu, Beta, Nu and Gamma Phoenicis was seen as a boat by the ancient Arabs. French explorer and astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille charted and designated 27 stars with the Bayer designations Alpha through to Omega in 1756. Of these, he labelled two stars close together Lambda, and assigned Omicron, Psi and Omega to three stars, which subsequent astronomers such as Benjamin Gould felt were too dim to warrant their letters. A different star was subsequently labelled Psi Phoenicis, while the other two designations fell out of use. Ankaa is the brightest star in the constellation. It is an orange giant of apparent visual magnitude 2.37 and spectral type K0.5IIIb, 77 light years distant from Earth and orbited by a secondary object about which little is known. Lying close by Ankaa is Kappa Phoenicis, a main sequence star of spectral type A5IVn and apparent magnitude 3.90. Located centrally in the asterism, Beta Phoenicis is the second brightest star in the constellation and another binary star. Together the stars, both yellow giants of spectral type G8, shine with an apparent magnitude of 3.31, though the components are of individual apparent magnitudes of 4.0 and 4.1 and orbit each other every 168 years. Zeta Phoenicis or Wurren is an Algol-type eclipsing binary, with an apparent magnitude fluctuating between 3.9 and 4.4 with a period of around 1.7 days (40 hours); its dimming results from the component two blue-white B-type stars, which orbit and block out each other from Earth. The two stars are 0.05 AU from each other, while a third star is around 600 AU away from the pair, and has an orbital period exceeding 5000 years. The system is around 300 light years distant. In 1976, researchers Clausen, Gyldenkerne, and Grønbech calculated that a nearby 8th magnitude star is a fourth member of the system. AI Phe is an eclipsing binary star identified in 1972. Its long mutual eclipses and combination of spectroscopic and astrometric data allows precise measurement of the masses and radii of the stars which is viewed as a potential cross-check on stellar properties and distances independent on Ceiphid Variables and such techniques. The long eclipse events require space-based observations to avoid Solar interference. Gamma Phoenicis is a red giant of spectral type M0IIIa and varies between magnitudes 3.39 and 3.49. It lies 235 light years away. Psi Phoenicis is another red giant, this time of spectral type M4III, and has an apparent magnitude that ranges between 4.3 and 4.5 over a period of around 30 days. Lying 340 light years away, it has around 85 times the diameter, but only 85% of the mass, of the Sun. W Phoenicis is a Mira variable, ranging from magnitude 8.1 to 14.4 over 333.95 days. A red giant, its spectrum ranges between M5e and M6e. Located 6.5 degrees west of Ankaa is SX Phoenicis, a variable star which ranges from magnitude 7.1 to 7.5 over a period of a mere 79 minutes. Its spectral type varies between A2 and F4. It gives its name to a group of stars known as SX Phoenicis variables. Rho and BD Phoenicis are Delta Scuti variables—short period (six hours at most) pulsating stars that have been used as standard candles and as subjects to study astroseismology. Rho is spectral type F2III, and ranges between magnitudes 5.20 and 5.26 over a period of 2.85 hours. BD is of spectral type A1V, and ranges between magnitudes 5.90 and 5.94. Nu Phoenicis is a yellow-white main sequence star of spectral type F9V and magnitude 4.96. Lying some 49 light years distant, it is around 1.2 times as massive as the Sun, and likely to be surrounded by a disk of dust. It is the closest star in the constellation that is visible with the unaided eye. Gliese 915 is a white dwarf only 26 light years away. It is of magnitude 13.05, too faint to be seen with the naked eye. White dwarfs are extremely dense stars compacted into a volume the size of the Earth. With around 85% of the mass of the Sun, Gliese 915 has a surface gravity of 10<sup>8.39 ± 0.01</sup> (2.45 · 10<sup>8</sup>) cm·s<sup>−2</sup>, or approximately 250,000 of Earth's. Ten stars have been found to have planets to date, and four planetary systems have been discovered with the SuperWASP project. HD 142 is a yellow giant that has an apparent magnitude of 5.7, and has a planet (HD 142 b) 1.36 times the mass of Jupiter which orbits every 328 days. HD 2039 is a yellow subgiant with an apparent magnitude of 9.0 around 330 light years away which has a planet (HD 2039 b) six times the mass of Jupiter. WASP-18 is a star of magnitude 9.29 which was discovered to have a hot Jupiter-like planet (WASP-18b) taking less than a day to orbit the star. The planet is suspected to be causing WASP-18 to appear older than it really is. WASP-4 and WASP-5 are solar-type yellow stars around 1000 light years distant and of 13th magnitude, each with a single planet larger than Jupiter. WASP-29 is an orange dwarf of spectral type K4V and visual magnitude 11.3, which has a planetary companion of similar size and mass to Saturn. The planet completes an orbit every 3.9 days. WISE J003231.09-494651.4 and WISE J001505.87-461517.6 are two brown dwarfs discovered by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, and are 63 and 49 light years away respectively. Initially hypothesised before they were belatedly discovered, brown dwarfs are objects more massive than planets, but which are of insufficient mass for hydrogen fusion characteristic of stars to occur. Many are being found by sky surveys. Phoenix contains HE0107-5240, possibly one of the oldest stars yet discovered. It has around 1/200,000 the metallicity that the Sun has and hence must have formed very early in the history of the universe. With a visual magnitude of 15.17, it is around 10,000 times dimmer than the faintest stars visible to the naked eye and is 36,000 light years distant. ### Deep-sky objects The constellation does not lie on the galactic plane of the Milky Way, and there are no prominent star clusters. NGC 625 is a dwarf irregular galaxy of apparent magnitude 11.0 and lying some 12.7 million light years distant. Only 24000 light years in diameter, it is an outlying member of the Sculptor Group. NGC 625 is thought to have been involved in a collision and is experiencing a burst of active star formation. NGC 37 is a lenticular galaxy of apparent magnitude 14.66. It is approximately 42 kiloparsecs (137,000 light-years) in diameter and about 12.9 billion years old. Robert's Quartet (composed of the irregular galaxy NGC 87, and three spiral galaxies NGC 88, NGC 89 and NGC 92) is a group of four galaxies located around 160 million light-years away which are in the process of colliding and merging. They are within a circle of radius of 1.6 arcmin, corresponding to about 75,000 light-years. Located in the galaxy ESO 243-49 is HLX-1, an intermediate-mass black hole—the first one of its kind identified. It is thought to be a remnant of a dwarf galaxy that was absorbed in a collision with ESO 243-49. Before its discovery, this class of black hole was only hypothesized. Lying within the bounds of the constellation is the gigantic Phoenix cluster, which is around 7.3 million light years wide and 5.7 billion light years away, making it one of the most massive galaxy clusters. It was first discovered in 2010, and the central galaxy is producing an estimated 740 new stars a year. Larger still is El Gordo, or officially ACT-CL J0102-4915, whose discovery was announced in 2012. Located around 7.2 billion light years away, it is composed of two subclusters in the process of colliding, resulting in the spewing out of hot gas, seen in X-rays and infrared images. ### Meteor showers Phoenix is the radiant of two annual meteor showers. The Phoenicids, also known as the December Phoenicids, were first observed on 3 December 1887. The shower was particularly intense in December 1956, and is thought related to the breakup of the short-period comet 289P/Blanpain. It peaks around 4–5 December, though is not seen every year. A very minor meteor shower peaks around July 14 with around one meteor an hour, though meteors can be seen anytime from July 3 to 18; this shower is referred to as the July Phoenicids. ## See also - IAU-recognized constellations - Phoenix (Chinese astronomy)
693,018	Æthelwold ætheling	1,139,880,784	Son of King of Wessex (died 902)	[ "10th-century English monarchs", "900s deaths", "9th-century English monarchs", "9th-century births", "Anglo-Saxon monarchs", "Anglo-Saxon warriors", "Anglo-Saxons killed in battle", "History of Northumberland", "House of Wessex", "Monarchs killed in action", "Monarchs of Jorvik", "Year of birth unknown", "Year of death uncertain" ]	Æthelwold (/ˈæθəlwoʊld/) or Æthelwald (died 13 December 902) was the younger of two known sons of Æthelred I, King of Wessex from 865 to 871. Æthelwold and his brother Æthelhelm were still infants when their father the king died while fighting a Danish Viking invasion. The throne passed to the king's younger brother (Æthelwold's uncle) Alfred the Great, who carried on the war against the Vikings and won a crucial victory at the Battle of Edington in 878. After Alfred's death in 899, Æthelwold disputed the throne with Alfred's son, Edward the Elder. As senior ætheling (prince of the royal dynasty eligible for kingship), Æthelwold had a strong claim to the throne. He attempted to raise an army to support his claim, but was unable to get sufficient support to meet Edward in battle and fled to Viking-controlled Northumbria, where he was accepted as king. In 901 or 902 he sailed with a fleet to Essex, where he was also accepted as king. The following year Æthelwold persuaded the East Anglian Danes to attack Edward's territory in Wessex and Mercia. Edward retaliated with a raid on East Anglia, and when he withdrew the men of Kent lingered and met the East Anglian Danes at an unknown location in the Battle of the Holme on 13 December 902. The Danes were victorious but suffered heavy losses, including the death of Æthelwold, which ended the challenge to Edward's rule. ## Background In the eighth century, Mercia was the most powerful kingdom in southern England, but in the early ninth century Wessex became dominant. In the 820s King Egbert of Wessex conquered south-east England (Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Essex). His reign saw the beginning of Viking attacks, but Egbert and his son Æthelwulf, who succeeded in 839, were able to resist them. Æthelwulf died in 858, and he was followed by four sons in succession. King Æthelbald died in 860, and King Æthelberht in 865; Æthelwold's father, Æthelred, then succeeded to the throne. In the same year the Viking Great Heathen Army invaded England. Within five years they had conquered Northumbria and East Anglia, and forced Mercia to buy them off. In late 870 the Vikings invaded Wessex, and in early 871 they fought armies under Æthelred and Alfred in four battles in quick succession, the last two of which Wessex lost. Æthelred died shortly after Easter that year, leaving young sons. Primogeniture was not established in this period, and it was believed that kings should be adults, so he was succeeded by his younger brother Alfred. By 878 the Vikings had seized eastern Mercia and nearly conquered Wessex, and Alfred was reduced to being a fugitive in the Somerset marshes, but he fought back and won the Battle of Edington. This was followed by a period of peace, and in the late 880s Alfred concluded a treaty with Guthrum, king of the East Anglian Vikings, setting the boundary between Wessex and English Mercia on the one hand, and the Danelaw on the other. Further Viking assaults in the mid 890s were unsuccessful. ## Early life Very little is known of Æthelwold's immediate family. His father, Æthelred, was born in about 848 and died in 871, so his sons must have been young children when he died. Æthelred's wife was probably the Wulfthryth who witnessed a charter as regina in 868. Æthelwold and his older brother Æthelhelm are first recorded in King Alfred's will in the 880s. Æthelhelm is not heard of again, and he probably died soon afterwards. The only other record of Æthelwold before Alfred's death is as a witness to a charter that probably dates to the 890s. After King Æthelred's death in 871, his sons' supporters complained about Alfred keeping property that should have belonged to his nephews. Alfred justified his conduct in a preamble to his will, which probably dates to the 880s. One of Alfred's biographers, Richard Abels, describes the text as "rather tendentious", and another, Alfred P. Smyth, as "ambiguous and vague – and deliberately so". Patrick Wormald views the will as "one of the seminal documents of pre-Conquest history, and like many such not easily understood." The dispute concerned property bequeathed in the will of Alfred's father, Æthelwulf. This does not survive, but Alfred described some of its provisions in a preamble to his own will. Æthelwulf had left property jointly to three of his four surviving sons, Æthelbald, Æthelred and Alfred, stipulating that all of it was to be inherited by the brother who lived the longest. When Æthelred inherited the throne in 865, Alfred asked for the property to be divided between them. Æthelred refused, offering instead to leave it to Alfred on his death, together with any further property he acquired, and Alfred agreed. The Viking invasion of Wessex, and the need to provide for their children, led to a revision of the terms. Under an agreement in late 870 or early 871, the survivor was still to keep the property bequeathed jointly to the three brothers, but he would give his brother's children any lands which he had received separately from his father, and any he had acquired later. In the preamble to his will, Alfred stated: When we now heard many disputes about the inheritance, I brought King Æthelwulf's will to our assembly at Langandene, and it was read before all the councillors of the West Saxons. When it had been read, I urged them all for love of me – and gave them my pledge that I would never bear a grudge against any one of them because they declared what was right – that none of them would hesitate, either for love or fear of me, to expound the common law, lest any man should say that I had treated my young kinsmen wrongfully, the older or the younger. And then they all pronounced what was right, and said that they could not conceive any juster title, nor could they find one in the will. "Now everything has come into your possession, and you may bequeath it or give it into the hand of kinsman or stranger, whichever you prefer." Historians have taken differing views of Æthelwulf's will. The historians Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge suggest that Æthelwulf's other surviving son, Æthelberht, was excluded from the arrangement because he was provided for separately in the eastern kingdom (the recently conquered south-east England), where he acted as king in 855 and 856; it was probably intended that he should establish a separate dynasty there. The bequest to the three brothers would only have covered part of Æthelwulf's property. The transmission of folkland was governed by customary law, and another portion was reserved for the holder of the office of king. Keynes and Lapidge argue that Æthelwulf clearly intended that his personal property should be preserved intact, and it seems to have been considered desirable that this should be held by the reigning king, so it is likely that he intended the kingship of western Wessex to be inherited by the survivor of the three brothers. This plan was abandoned when Æthelbald died in 860 and the kingdom was reunited under Æthelberht, and Æthelred's confirmation of the arrangement when he acceded in 865 recognised Alfred as heir apparent. Ann Williams comments: "Æthelred virtually disinherits his children in favour of Alfred's in the event of his own previous death, at least in respect of the lion's share of the inheritance and therefore the kingship. This is in fact exactly what happened, and Æthelred's sons were not pleased at the outcome." In his Life of Alfred, written in 893, Asser states three times that Alfred was Æthelred's secundarius (heir apparent), an emphasis that in Ryan Lavelle's view "reflects sensitivity on the subject of Alfred's succession". Smyth argues, however, that it is unlikely that Æthelwulf intended to divide his kingdom, or that the kingship of Wessex should be inherited by the surviving brother; the joint property was probably provision for his youngest sons at a time when they appeared very unlikely to succeed to the kingship, with Æthelbald included as a residual beneficiary in case both of them died young. D. P. Kirby argues that it cannot be assumed that the disputed lands represented the greater part of the royal estates; he believes that Æthelwulf did intend to divide his kingdom, but also that it is unlikely he intended the surviving son to inherit the kingship: "Such an arrangement would have led to fratricidal strife. With three older brothers, Alfred's chances of reaching adulthood would, one feels, have been minimal." In his own will, Alfred left the bulk of his property to Edward, while Æthelhelm was left eight estates, and Æthelwold only three (at Godalming and Guildford in Surrey, and Steyning in Sussex), all in the less important eastern part of the kingdom. The largest of these was Steyning, Æthelwulf's original burial place; in Patrick Wormald's view, Alfred may have moved the body to Winchester because he was required to give the estate to Æthelwold under his agreement with Æthelred, and he did not want his nephew to have the prestige of owning his grandfather's grave. Keynes and Lapidge comment: "If only to judge from the relatively small number of estates he received, Æthelwold in particular would have had cause to be aggrieved by this allocation of property, and his resentment is shown by his rebellion against Edward soon after Alfred's death." Smyth argues that the meeting of the king's council, the witan, was bound to support him: Alfred, by [c.885] in full control of Wessex and at the height of his power, was clearly bent on trying to settle the kingship on his son, Edward, to the exclusion of his brother Æthelred's heirs. That kingship was never in Alfred's gift, but clearly the greater amount of landed wealth he could entail on Edward, the stronger he made that son's position in any future contest for the kingship. We must, therefore, treat anything he tells us of the terms of the disputed inheritance of his rival nephews with the utmost caution, if not scepticism. The support which Alfred tells us he received from the witan counts for little. As king, Alfred controlled immense patronage in relation to his thegns, who stood to benefit from backing their lord against claims which his nephews made on his property. It is significant that the case ever came before the witan at all. That it did, suggests that Æthelhelm and Æthelwold were by then young men who commanded some independent support and sympathy in Wessex. In Abels' view, Æthelred's sons attempted to shame Alfred into handing over the lands they claimed so as to strengthen their position in the inevitable battle that would break out over the succession when Alfred died, and the Langandene assembly was Alfred's riposte. Alfred also assisted his own son by promoting men who could be relied on to support him, and by giving him opportunities for command in battle once he was old enough. In the view of Barbara Yorke, the compilation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which magnified Alfred's achievements, may have been partly intended to strengthen the case for the succession of his own descendants. However, Yorke also argues that Æthelwold's position was not fatally undermined by Alfred's will. His mother had witnessed a charter as regina, whereas Alfred followed West Saxon tradition in refusing to have his wife consecrated as queen, and Æthelwold's status as the son of a queen may have given him an advantage over Edward. Æthelwold was still the senior ætheling, and the only surviving charter he witnessed shows both him and Edward as filius regis (son of a king), but lists Æthelwold above Edward, implying that he ranked above him. ## Æthelwold's Revolt After Alfred's death in 899, Æthelwold made a bid for the throne. Janet Nelson comments that "in the eyes of many Englishmen as well as Scandinavians this ætheling had claims stronger than Edward's own." According to the 'A' version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Æthelwold abducted a nun from her convent without the permission of King Edward and against the command of the bishop. Her identity is not known, but it must have been intended to strengthen his claim, and in the view of the historian Pauline Stafford, the Chronicle's account is biased in favour of Edward and might have been intended to delegitimise a politically important marriage. Æthelwold took her to the royal manors of Twynham (now Christchurch) and then Wimborne Minster, symbolically important as his father's burial place, and declared that "he would live or die there". Lavelle sees Wimborne as strategically significant, close to Roman roads to Dorchester and Salisbury, and at a crossing point of the rivers Allen and Stour; it was the southernmost point for control of access to western Wessex and Æthelwold may have intended a division of the kingdom. However, when Edward's army approached and camped at Badbury Rings, an Iron Age hill fort four miles west of Wimborne, Æthelwold was unable to gain sufficient support to meet them in battle. Leaving behind his consort, he fled to the Danes of Northumbria, who accepted him as king. Northumbrian coins were issued at this time in the name of a king called 'Alwaldus', who is thought to have been Æthelwold. Norse sagas record traditions of a Danish king Knútr, who briefly ruled Northumbria around 900. He is said to have been at first repulsed by an English king called Adalbrigt north of Cleveland, but then to have defeated him at Scarborough. In 1987, Smyth suggested that Adalbrigt could have been Æthelwold, but in 1995 Smyth put forward the alternative idea that the Northumbrian Danes accepted Æthelwold's claim to be king of the West Saxons rather than taking him as their own king. Æthelwold's reign in Northumbria was short, in David Rollason's view because Æthelwold saw it only as a base for gaining power in Wessex. In 901 or 902 he sailed with a fleet to Essex, where Rollason states that he was accepted as king by the local Vikings. However, David Dumville points out that in the next year Æthelwold persuaded the Danes in East Anglia to wage war against Edward, and Dumville argues that it is unlikely that there was an unknown separate Viking army in Essex. In his view Æthelwold was aiming to secure recognition in part of the kingdom of Wessex in order to strengthen his claim to the throne, and he succeeded in gaining the submission of the English rulers of Essex. The East Anglian Danes joined Æthelwold in a raid on Mercia, reaching as far as the fortified burh at Cricklade on the border with Wessex. He then crossed the Thames into Wessex itself to raid Braydon. Edward retaliated by ravaging Danish East Anglia, but he withdrew without engaging Æthelwold in battle. The men of Kent lingered, although according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Edward sent seven messengers to recall them. The Danes caught up with the men of Kent to fight the Battle of the Holme. Its location is unknown but may be Holme in Cambridgeshire. The Danes were victorious but suffered heavy losses. Æthelwold was among the leaders on the Danish side who were killed, together with Eohric, the Viking king of East Anglia, two holds (Danish noblemen), Ysopa and Oscetel, and Beorhtsige, son of the ætheling Beornoth, who was probably a kinsman of the former king of Mercia, Burgred. Kentish losses included their two ealdormen, Sigewulf and Sigehelm, and an Abbot Cenwulf. The achievement of the Kentish contingent put Edward's failure to engage the Danes with his whole army in a poor light. In Cyril Hart's view: "Undoubtedly there were recriminations, which appear to have continued to threaten Edward's authority for some considerable period, especially in Kent; witness the Wessex chronicler's anxiety to find excuses for Edward's failure to support the Kentish contingent." Edward was later to marry Sigehelm's daughter, Eadgifu, and Hart thinks that this may have been designed to placate his Kentish subjects. The various texts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle give different versions of the revolt. Hart states: "The oldest and more authoritative is preserved in the 'B' text of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (supported in its essentials by the Latin East Anglian Chronicle); the official version in the 'A' text is clearly a late revision, intended to justify King Edward's position and to reinforce his authority." 'B' describes Æthelwold as an ætheling, indicating the legitimacy of his claim for the kingship, a description omitted in 'A'. 'A' says that he took possession of Wimborne and Twinham without the permission of the king and his councillors, 'B' against their will. 'B' says that Æthelwold "rode away by night" from Wimborne; 'A' reads "stole away". According to 'B', the Northumbrian Danes accepted Æthelwold as their king, and gave allegiance to him, but this is omitted in 'A'. However, none of the texts describe him as an ætheling after his flight to Northumbria, showing that his actions were no longer thought to have a claim to legitimacy. In the view of Scott Thompson Smith, the dispute was over property as well as kingship, and the Chronicle presents Edward as the successful protector of family property against outside interests. ## Legacy According to the historian Martin Ryan: What is striking about Æthelwold's "rebellion" is the level and range of support he was able to draw on: he could call on allies from Wessex, Northumbria, East Anglia and, probably, Mercia and Essex. For a time Æthelwold had a claim to be the most powerful ruler in England. Edward's apparent reluctance to engage him in battle may have been well founded. In the view of James Campbell, the bias in the sources has led historians to see Æthelwold's rebellion as a "somewhat odd episode", but he had a justifiable claim to the kingship, and he was nearly successful; if he had not been killed at the Holme, he might have united England with much less warfare than ultimately proved to be necessary. "Had it not been for the chances of battle and war Æthelwold might very well have been regarded as one of the greatest figures in our island's story". Lavelle argues that "it is important to acknowledge the audacity of Æthelwold's actions" and that he "well deserves to be ranked amongst the 'Nearly Men' of early Medieval Europe". The twelfth-century Annals of St Neots called him "king of the pagans". It is not known whether he had any descendants, but the chronicler Æthelweard was a great-great-grandson of King Æthelred, and this may have been through Æthelwold. Shashi Jayakumar suggests the rivalry between King Eadwig and his younger brother Edgar in the 950s dates back to the conflict which resulted in the Battle of the Holme. Eadwig's wife, Ælfgifu, was probably Æthelweard's sister, and one of Eadwig's supporters, Byrhtnoth, may have been descended from the Mercian royal family through the ætheling Beorhtnoth, whose son Byrhtsige died fighting on Æthelwold's side at the Holme. Opponents of Eadwig included his grandmother, Eadgifu, and Eadwig confiscated her property. In Jayakumar's view: "The emergence of Ælfgifu, descendant of the ætheling Æthelwold, did not just threaten Edgar's position, it represented a revanche to a line and lineage with royal claims of its own ... The ancestors of Byrhtnoth and Æthelweard had in all likelihood fought together with Æthelwold on the Danish side at the Battle of the Holme, the opposite side to that which Eadgifu's father Sigehelm had fought for." The marriage between Eadwig and Ælfgifu was dissolved on the grounds of consanguinity, and Edgar succeeded to the throne when Eadwig died without leaving children. In the view of Nick Higham, Æthelweard shows a "lack of empathy" for Edward in his chronicle, which Higham attributes to Edward's victory over Æthelweard's ancestor. Æthelweard was Ealdorman of the Western Provinces in the late tenth century, showing that Æthelred's descendants held on to land and power in the century after his death. Æthelweard's grandson, Æthelnoth, was an eleventh-century archbishop of Canterbury.
51,121,477	HMS Aigle (1801)	1,158,897,726	British Aigle-class fifth-rate frigate	[ "1801 ships", "Aigle-class frigates", "Fifth-rate frigates of the Royal Navy", "Maritime incidents in 1804", "Maritime incidents in October 1870", "Ships built on the Beaulieu River", "Sixth-rate frigates of the Royal Navy" ]	HMS Aigle was a 36-gun, fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. Ordered on 15 September 1799 and built at Bucklers Hard shipyard, she was launched 23 September 1801. More than fifty of her crew were involved in the Easton Massacre when she visited Portland in April 1803 to press recruits. Her captain and three other officers stood trial for murder but were acquitted. Much of Aigle's career as a frigate was spent trying to keep the English Channel free of enemy warships and merchant vessels. On 22 March 1808, she was first into the action against two large French frigates, compelling one to seek the shelter of the Île de Groix batteries and forcing the other onto the shore. Aigle saw action at the Battle of Basque Roads in April 1809, when Captain Thomas Cochrane's partially successful action began with an attacking force of fireships against a French fleet, anchored off the Île-d'Aix. Initially providing support to the fireships' crews, Aigle went on to help force the surrender of the stranded French vessels Ville de Varsovie and Aquilon. In July 1809, Aigle took part in the Walcheren Campaign, an amphibious operation against the Kingdom of Holland, carrying out a two-day long bombardment of Flushing that led to its capitulation on 15 August. The campaign was ultimately a failure and the British forces withdrew in September. In October 1811, Aigle was sent to the Mediterranean, where she and her crew raided the island of Elba before being asked to provide naval support during the invasion and occupation of the city of Genoa. Refitted in January 1820, her square stern was replaced with a circular one, giving her a wider angle of fire and improved protection at the rear. Converted to a corvette in 1831, she returned to the Mediterranean under Lord Clarence Paget. In 1852, she became a coal hulk and receiving ship before being used as a target for torpedoes and sold for breaking in 1870. ## Construction and armament HMS Aigle was the first of two Aigle-class frigates designed by Surveyor of the Navy, Sir John Henslow; her sister, HMS Resistance, was ordered later in 1800. Frigates of the period were three-masted, full-rigged ships that carried their main battery on a single, continuous gun deck. They were smaller and faster than ships of the line and primarily intended for raiding, reconnaissance and messaging. Since late 1778, those of 36 or 38 guns with a main armament of 18-pounder long guns, had become the standard in the Royal Navy and by 1793, when the French Revolutionary War began, it was not unusual for them to be close to 1000 tons burthen (bm). Henslow's designs tended towards small modifications on established frigate classes; his alterations being primarily to the size and, in particular, length of ships. British frigate designs were frequently lengthened during this period so that they could reach sailing speeds comparable to French frigates and the Aigle class followed this trend, being close in dimensions and armament to Henslow's 1797 design, the Penelope class. Built under contract by Balthazar and Edward Adams, Aigle was ordered on 15 September 1798 and her keel was laid down in November at Bucklers Hard shipyard in Hampshire. Launched on 23 September 1801, her dimensions were: 146 feet 2 inches (44.6 metres) along the gun deck, 122 ft 1 in (37.2 m) at the keel, with a beam of 38 ft 8 in (11.8 m) and a depth in the hold of 13 ft (4.0 m). This made her 970 84⁄94 tons (bm). She would carry a complement of 264 men when fully manned. Although classed as a 36-gun fifth rate, Aigle was armed with a main battery of twenty-six 18 pounders (8.2 kilograms) on her gun deck, four 9 pdr (4.1 kg) on the quarter deck and four on the forecastle. She also carried ten 32 pdr (14.5 kg) carronades, short lightweight guns with a large bore. They were cheaper to produce and much easier to handle than the equivalent long gun but lacked the accuracy and range. Eight were carried on Aigle's quarter deck and two on her forecastle. Aigle's first build cost to the Admiralty was £14,335 when she was completed for ordinary on 6 October 1801. This would have been higher but a £1000 fine had been imposed for an unacceptable delay of 16 months. Aigle drew between 17 ft (5.18 m) at the bow and 19 ft 4 in (5.89 m) at the stern. A sailing report from 15 August 1815, noted that she was "...similar to Apollo, being fast and weatherly, manoeuvrable and a good sea-boat". It also recorded her as making 10 knots (12 mph; 19 km/h) close-hauled under topgallants but with her best performance of 12 knots (14 mph; 22 km/h) with the wind coming over the stern quarter. ## Service Aigle was first commissioned for the English Channel, under Captain George Wolfe in December 1802 and completed for sea service on 24 March 1803. A large press gang from Aigle, of more than 50 marines and sailors, led by Wolfe, put ashore at Portland on 2 April to capture men to supplement the crew. In what became known as the Easton Massacre, a scuffle broke out between the inhabitants and Wolfe's forces. Several civilians were shot and four were killed; sixteen members of the press gang received injuries. Nine were wounded so seriously they had to be discharged. Wolfe and three officers later stood trial for murder but were acquitted. Continuing to patrol in home waters with the Channel Fleet, Aigle shared in the prize money for a 40-gun French frigate, Franchise, taken on 28 May and six merchant vessels during the first week of June. Then, while off Vigo on 27 September, she captured a French privateer of 14 guns. Aigle was part of a squadron blockading Brest when, on the morning of 25 March 1804, the 74-gun HMS Magnificent struck a reef. Aigle and other ships of the squadron closed in and removed most of the crew, and the remainder took to boats as the ship began to rapidly sink. Magnificent's entire crew survived, although one of the boats landed on the French coast where the 86 men aboard were taken prisoner. Not far from the Cordouan Lighthouse, on 12 July, Aigle encountered two French naval vessels, the ship-rigged Charente of 20 guns and the 8-gun brig Joie, out of Rochefort. At 17:00 Aigle caught up with them. The French ships shortened sail and looked as if they were about to do battle but after discharging their guns, both ran aground. Many of the French sailors were drowned when the boats they were attempting to escape in were engulfed by the large waves. Unable to re-float the stranded ships due to the heavy swell; Wolfe ordered them destroyed, after taking off the survivors. Boats from Aigle were sent after some small craft, seen in the early hours of 27 November in the Bay of Gibraltar. The resulting small-arms fire was heard by Captain Thomas Dundas in the nearby 36-gun HMS Naiad, who set off in the direction of the noise and discovered Aigle's boats battling a flotilla of Spanish gun-boats. Naiad managed to capture two enemy vessels and recover the boats and crew of Aigle intact and without loss of life. On 15 December, Aigle accidentally ran down and sank the 12-gun HM hired armed schooner Gertrude off Ushant. Aigle picked up Gertrude′s crew. In January 1805, Aigle was rescuing sailors again after encountering the Danish vessel Frederica Dorothea, which had foundered while travelling from Bourdeaux to London. Temporary command of Aigle was given to Commander Henry Sturt in February but Wolfe was back in charge by 21 August, when Aigle encountered a small British squadron, under Captain John Tremayne Rodd, comprising the 44 and 38-gun frigates HMS Indefatigable and Niobe and three smaller vessels. Rodd had been shadowing the French fleet at Brest under Vice-Admiral Ganteaume, which had left the port the day before and was now at anchor between Camaret and Bertheaume. Shortly after her arrival, Rodd dispatched Aigle to update the commander-in-chief of the Channel Fleet, Admiral William Cornwallis of the situation. Nine Spanish gun-boats attacked Aigle in Vigo Bay on 28 September. For an hour she had to endure their fire before the wind got up and the previously becalmed Aigle was able to launch a counter-offensive; capturing one gun-boat and driving the others away. Two chasse-marées were taken by the crew of Aigle, in a cutting-out expedition when they boarded the vessels from boats on 15 October 1807 and while cruising with the 32-gun HMS Pallas and 74-gun Gibraltar in December, she assisted with the capture of a Spanish schooner, Bueno Vista. A few days later, the same three ships took a French lugger and had more success in the first quarter of the following year, when four more chasse-marées were seized and a former British brig, Margaret was recaptured. ### Action off Groix Aigle was in action again on 22 March 1808 against two large, French frigates; Italienne of 40 guns and the 38-gun Sirene. A squadron comprising Aigle, the 32-gun frigate HMS Narcissus, the two seventy-fours HMS Impétueux and Saturn, and two or three smaller vessels were anchored between the Glénan islands, while being resupplied by a transport convoy. At 15:45, the two French frigates were simultaneously seen to the south-east from Aigle's masthead and by the 4-gun British schooner HMS Cuckoo, which was stationed midway between the squadron and the island of Groix. Aigle immediately gave chase, and coming within hailing distance at 19:30, Wolfe directed Cuckoo to relay to Impétueux and Narcissus, now following two miles behind, his intention to cut off the French ships by sailing between Groix and the mainland. An hour later, having endured the fire of the guns on both shores, Aigle was in a position to attack the rear-most frigate of the pair as they emerged from the western side of the island. This frigate sought the shelter of Groix' batteries, so Aigle set off in pursuit of the other which was now making for Lorient. As it was now dark, Aigle displayed a blue light to indicate her position to the closing Impétueux, and at 21:00, coming within 50 yards, exchanged fire with the Frenchman. To prevent a boarding, which Wolfe was determined upon, the frigate came about and, shortly after the British had broken off their attack for lack of sea room, ran aground on the Pointe de Chats on the eastern edge of Groix. Saturn, Narcissus and Cuckoo joined Aigle and Impétueux during the night and the following morning at dawn, the five British ships returned to the island but no further attempt was made on either of the French frigates. Six days later the stranded ship was re-floated and both vessels arrived safely in Lorient. ### Battle of Basque Roads In 1809, Aigle was part of the Channel Fleet under Admiral James Gambier and back chasing merchantmen; securing five in January and February. In April she fought at the Battle of the Basque Roads. The French ships were anchored under the protection of the powerful batteries on the Isle d'Aix when on 11 April Captain Thomas Cochrane led an attacking force of fireships and explosive vessels. Just before the attack, Aigle took up a position just north-east of the Boyart Shoal; anchored behind the 38-gun HMS Imperieuse, and ahead of the 32-gun HMS Unicorn and Pallas. It was the job of these four frigates to take on board the returning fireship crews and give assistance to the escorting boats, if required. The fireships had a partial success; the French, having anticipated such an attack, had rigged a boom across the channel. One of the explosive vessels breached the boom, leading the French to cut their cables and drift on to the shoals. The following day, after much delay, Gambier took the rest of his fleet into the Basque Roads. To present their broadsides, the British ships anchored with springs, around the stranded French, and exchanged fire. Aigle took up a position, second in line behind Unicorn, and just ahead of the 36-gun frigate HMS Emerald and Indefatigable. These ships directed their fire mainly towards the French ships of the line Ville de Varsovie of 80 guns and 74-gun Aquilon, both of which struck their colours at around 17:30. On 14 April Cochrane was called to Gambier's flagship and was replaced in command of the attack by Wolfe aboard Aigle. By this time, a portion of the French fleet had made its way up the Charente, where it had become stranded. A fresh attack was ordered, utilising the bomb-ketch HMS Aetna and four gun-brigs partly armed with the 18 pounders from Aigle, there being insufficient depth of water for the British frigates. Attacks continued on the French fleet until 29 April when the last assailable enemy ship, the 74-gun Regulus got free and escaped upriver. The crew of Aigle would later receive a share of the prize money for the enemy vessels captured or destroyed during the battle. ### Walcheren Campaign In the latter half of 1809, Aigle was part of a large force sent against the French-controlled Kingdom of Holland. Comprising more than 600 vessels and nearly 40,000 troops, the expedition left The Downs on 28 July, intent on destroying the dockyards and arsenals at Antwerp, Terneuse and Flushing, and capturing the French fleet stationed in the river Scheldt. Troops were landed on the Island of Walcheren at 16:30 on 30 July, while bomb-vessels and gun-boats began a bombardment of Veere. The town surrendered immediately but it took several days of fighting before the fort was captured on 1 August. The British then mounted an attack on Flushing, and the island of Zuid-Beveland that was taken unopposed, the forts there having been deserted. The British neglected Cadzand on the south-west side of the Scheldt, where more than 5,700 French troops crossed the river to reinforce Flushing. The capitulation of Fort Rammekens [nl] allowed the British to besiege the town on 3 August and to prevent further aid being sent, a flotilla of gun-boats was dispatched to the western arm of the Scheldt, to cut it off on the seaward side. The British then began locating and marking a channel for larger ships on 6 August. Poor weather delayed operations and it was not until 11 August that a large squadron under Captain Lord William Stuart, of ten frigates, including Aigle, was eventually able to make its way up the western passage. The British ships endured fire from batteries on both sides of the river for more than two hours and Aigle, in the centre, had her stern frame shattered when a shell fell through the deck and exploded, killing a marine and wounding four other members of the crew. She was the only ship to suffer any damage and her casualties amounted to almost half the total of two killed and nine wounded. A two-day long bombardment of Flushing from both land and sea forced its capitulation on 15 August. Ratified the following day, it left the British in control of Walcheren, which they garrisoned with 10,000 troops. Schouwen and Duiveland on the Eastern branch of the Scheldt, were occupied peacefully on 17 August. The French fleet had already withdrawn to Antwerp, having been informed on 29 July when the British were still at sea. Between the British and their objective were now more than 35,000 French soldiers, garrisoned in heavily armed forts at Lillo, Liefkenshoech, and Antwerp. The deliberate destruction of dykes by the French had led to widespread flooding, and with disease spreading through the British army, it was decided to abandon the expedition in early September. Aigle's crew received a share of the prize money for its part in the campaign. On 12 September 1810, while on an independent cruise some 400 miles north of the Azores, Aigle encountered a strange sail heading towards her. When 9 nmi (17 km) away, the vessel suddenly changed course. Aigle gave chase, following her for 13 hours over 134 nmi (248 km) of open water, averaging just over 10 knots (12 mph; 19 km/h). The quarry sailed on every point of the wind in her attempt to shake off her pursuer, and might have succeeded if it were not for a sudden gale which gave Aigle the wind she needed to catch up. The vessel turned out to be Phoenix, a French brig armed with eighteen 18 pdr (8.2 kg) carronades, sailing under a letter of marque with an experienced crew of 129 and a decorated captain. She had set out from Bordeaux 50 days previous and had been successfully preying on British and American shipping. ### Mediterranean service Captain Sir John Louis was appointed to Aigle in October 1811 and took her to the Mediterranean in November. Aigle and the 36-gun frigate, HMS Curacoa, used boats to land marines and seamen near the harbour of Campo del Porto, Elba, on 20 June 1813. When the batteries protecting the town were over-run and the troops there routed, the French scuttled three of their own ships to prevent them from becoming prizes. The following morning, having returned to the boats, the marines captured a small convoy of three settees and drove the brig protecting them into Portoferraio. Two large feluccas were taken from the town of Mesca in the Gulf of Spezia, on 28 June. Prevented by the wind from using the ships, the British once more took to boats but only succeeded in driving their quarry inshore. Later that evening the wind changed direction and Aigle and Curacoa were able to bombard the town while marines took the feluccas from the beach. Aigle returned home in the latter half of 1813 and paid off but returned in time to assist in the capture of four merchant vessels and the cargoes of 15 others with the 74-gun HMS Pembroke and the 44-gun HMS Alcmene, in the Gulf of Genoa, on 11 April 1814. After driving the 20-strong convoy ashore, the British three-ship squadron, under the command of Captain Sir James Brisbane, was obliged to fire on Fort Maurizio until its guns were silenced before the prizes could be collected. The remaining vessels could not be taken off, having been scuttled by their crews, and so were destroyed. When a joint British and Sicilian army under Lord William Bentinck occupied the city of Genoa eight days later, Aigle was sent to provide naval support as part of the Mediterranean fleet under Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Pellew. ## Post-war service and fate Aigle was re-rated as a 42-gun frigate in February 1817 and underwent repairs and alterations at Woolwich from March. This was a substantial amount of work that cost £36,427 and took until May 1819, after which she was laid up. In accordance with Surveyor of the Navy Sir Robert Seppings' designs, in January 1820, Aigle had her square transom removed and a circular stern fitted. This gave her improved protection in the rear and allowed a better field of fire. She was subsequently laid up once more, then repaired and converted to a sixth-rate 24-gun corvette of 990 tons burthen, at Chatham Dockyard between March and July 1831. Recommissioned on 23 August 1841 under Captain Lord Clarence Paget, she was fitted out for sea then sent to the Mediterranean in November. Aigle returned home under Paget in the latter half of 1845 and paid off on 30 August. Aigle was taken to Woolwich in October 1852 where she was converted to a dual-purpose coal hulk and receiving ship. She moved to Sheerness in September 1869. On 15 August 1870, the Admiralty designated her as a target for torpedoes and on 8 October, she was sunk off the Isle of Grain, Kent by HMS Oberon. Aigle was sold for £925 in November and later, salvaged and broken up. ## Prizes
37,513,917	Music for a Time of War	1,161,245,110	2011 concert program and album by the Oregon Symphony	[ "2010s in Portland, Oregon", "2011 classical albums", "2011 in New York City", "2011 in Oregon", "2011 in music", "Albums produced by Blanton Alspaugh", "Albums recorded at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall", "Concerts in the United States", "Oregon Symphony albums", "PentaTone Classics albums", "War in popular culture" ]	Music for a Time of War is a 2011 concert program and subsequent album by the Oregon Symphony under the artistic direction of Carlos Kalmar. The program consists of four compositions inspired by war: Charles Ives' The Unanswered Question (1906), John Adams' The Wound-Dresser (1989), Benjamin Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem (1940) and Ralph Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 4 (1935). The program was performed on May 7, 2011, at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland, Oregon, and again the following day. Both concerts were recorded for album release. On May 12, the Oregon Symphony repeated the program at the inaugural Spring for Music Festival, at Carnegie Hall. The performance was broadcast live by KQAC and WQXR-FM, the classical radio stations serving Portland and the New York City metropolitan area, respectively. The concerts marked the Oregon Symphony's first performances of The Wound-Dresser as well as guest baritone Sanford Sylvan's debut with the company. In October 2011 the recording of the Portland performances was released on CD by PentaTone Classics. The recording debuted at number 31 on Billboard's Classical Albums chart. The album earned three recognitions from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences for the 2013 Grammy Awards. Producer Blanton Alspaugh received the award for Producer of the Year, Classical for his contributions to Music for a Time of War and other recordings. ## Program Music for a Time of War contains four 20th-century classical compositions based on the theme of war. Kalmar stated that the program was not inspired by current events and that not every composition was written specifically because of war. He also warned that audiences should not attend the performances anticipating an optimistic conclusion: > There is redemption in our concert, but not at the end. I think that is an important point. I don't think that anybody who goes to this concert will come out and think everything is alright. I think the pacing is good because nothing is alright. If we humans have to live with war, that is pretty much what the message should be. The program began with Charles Ives' The Unanswered Question, originally the first of Two Contemplations, composed in 1906 (along with its counterpart Central Park in the Dark). Theodore Bloomfield, who served as music director of the Oregon Symphony from 1955 to 1959, conducted its world premiere at the Juilliard School in New York in 1946. The second composition was The Wound-Dresser, American minimalist composer John Adams' portrayal of Walt Whitman's experience as a medic during the American Civil War. The program continued with Benjamin Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem (1940), commissioned by the Japanese government to commemorate the 2,600th anniversary of the Japanese Empire. The performance ended with Ralph Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 4, composed during 1931–1934. ## Performances and broadcasts The Oregon Symphony presented the program at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland the evening of May 7 and the afternoon of May 8, 2011. Both performances were recorded for album release by the Boston-based company Soundmirror. On May 12, the Oregon Symphony repeated the program at the inaugural Spring for Music Festival, marking the orchestra's Carnegie Hall debut. The Symphony raised \$300,000 to fund travel and hotel expenses for the concert series. In addition to the Oregon Symphony, the inaugural festival presented seven ensembles within nine days, including the Albany Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and Toledo Symphony Orchestra. Orchestras were invited based on their submitted program proposals. No other ensemble presented a program themed by a single topic. In February 2011, three months before the Carnegie Hall performance, The Oregonian reported that nearly half of the 1,000 tickets reserved for distribution by the Oregon Symphony had been sold. Kalmar later confirmed that 450 Oregonians traveled to New York City to witness the performance. The Carnegie Hall performance was broadcast live across the United States. Portland's classical radio station, KQAC, broadcast the concert live throughout the Pacific Northwest as part of an ongoing partnership with the Symphony. WQXR-FM, the classical radio station licensed to Newark, New Jersey and serving the New York City metropolitan area, broadcast the performance live in 3D sound in collaboration with the design and engineering consulting company Arup. WQXR also hosted a live chat on their website. Prior to the live broadcast, WQXR's Q2 Music provided their own take on the Oregon Symphony's war-themed concert by airing a program with works by Lowell Liebermann, Seppo Pohjola, Steve Reich, Frederic Rzewski, Dmitri Shostakovich and John Adams. KQAC rebroadcast the program in November. In April 2012, the station broadcast the album recording and has since aired individual works. ### Reception (concert) The concert program received a positive reception. The Oregonian's David Stabler wrote that during the May 7 performance the orchestra displayed peak condition and "played with a precision and intensity that would have been unattainable a decade ago". He complimented Sylvan's diction and "emotional engagement", but noted that some words were difficult to make out. Stabler called the timpanist's performance during Britten's symphony "fierce" and the orchestra's playing "clear and intentional". In his review of the Carnegie Hall performance, Stabler opined that the Oregon Symphony's program (which he described as one of "rage, brutality and fleeting beauty that required the utmost precision and ferocity from the musicians") focused more on playing, while the programs by other orchestras drew attention to the music. Stabler wrote: "Everyone knows orchestras are fighting to survive, but on this night, the Oregon Symphony breathed long and deep of triumph." In a separate article summarizing reviews by New York critics, Stabler called the Symphony a "virtuosos band" that "now plays with more acute rhythmic precision, more clarity, more informed style ... and more extreme dynamics and tempos". James Bash of Oregon Music News wrote a positive review of the New York performance, describing it as more enhanced, dramatic and intense than the Portland concerts, partly because of the venue's superior acoustics. Bash described the orchestra's performance of The Unanswered Question as "compelling and auspicious" and wrote that Sylvan's vocals during The Wound-Dresser "conveyed the sensitive text superbly". In addition to complimenting the Symphony overall, Bash singled out solo performers by name. After noting the audience's enthusiastic response to the performance, including multiple bravos and particular recognition for Kalmar, Bash quipped "the Oregon Symphony may be regional in terms of size and budget, but they are world-class when they play". Following the New York concert, music critic Alex Ross tweeted: "Triumphant Carnegie debut for the Oregon Symphony -- best of Spring for Music so far. Eloquent Sylvan, explosive Vaughan Williams." On his blog, "The Rest Is Noise", Ross called the Symphony's performance "extraordinary", one of the "most gripping events of the current season". In his two-page review of Spring for Music for The New Yorker, Ross devoted more coverage to the Oregon Symphony than the other featured ensembles and considered Music for a Time of War the festival's highpoint. He complimented the orchestra for playing with "controlled intensity" and said of Symphony No. 4: "The Oregonians' furious rendition of that symphony would have been impressive in any context, but as the capstone to a brilliantly worked-out program it had shattering force." The review contained an illustration of Kalmar, "hair flying and all". Sedgwick Clark of Musical America called the orchestra's performance of the Williams' piece "positively searing ... with fearless edge-of-seat tempos ... breathtakingly negotiated by all." After Clark's review was published, Ross posted on his blog that he and Clark concurred: the Symphony's performance was the most "remarkable" of the season. Ross included the Symphony's concert on his list of the most memorable classical performances of 2011. Allan Kozinn, music critic for The New York Times, considered the program "pained" and "thought-provoking", and wrote that Sylvan performed with his "characteristic acuity". He called the woodwind and brass playing in Sinfonia da Requiem "superb", specifically highlighting the "pointed" percussion in "Dies Irae" and the "haunting" string tone in "Requiem Aeternam". Like Ross, Kozinn thought Symphony No. 4 was performed "with a furious, incendiary energy" that made an ideal ending to the program. In September 2011, the Symphony confirmed that Kalmar's contract, previously set to expire in 2013, had been extended until 2015. According to the organization, his contract was renewed "in recognition of his significant accomplishments", specifically acknowledging the Carnegie Hall performance. The orchestra was invited to perform again at the 2013 Spring for Music Festival as one of two returning ensembles. Kalmar said of the return invitation, "To be invited once is a thrill. To be invited twice is clear proof that we are in the artistic big leagues." However, in October 2012 the Symphony announced it would not accept the invitation for financial reasons. ## Album Music for a Time of War was released on CD by PentaTone Classics on October 25, 2011. It was recorded in hybrid multichannel (surround sound) Super Audio CD format. Blanton Alspaugh served as producer. John Newton and Jesse Lewis were the recording engineers; mastering and authoring was conducted by Jesse Brayman. In addition to recording the performances, Soundmirror edited, mixed and mastered the audio. The album contains nine tracks (Sinfonia da Requiem and Symphony No. 4 are divided into separate tracks for each movement) and totals just over 78 minutes in length. Program notes for the recording were written by Steven Kruger. The album's cover art photo is credited to orchestra member Martha Warrington. Music for a Time of War marked the orchestra's first recording in eight years as well as Kalmar's first with the Oregon Symphony. The recording is the first of four albums to be produced by the Symphony and PentaTone through the end of the 2014–2015 season, all under Kalmar's artistic leadership. ### Reception (album) The album performed well commercially and received favorable reviews. Music for a Time of War debuted and peaked at number 31 on Billboard's Classical Albums chart the week of November 19, 2011. On November 19, BBC Radio 3 reviewed the album on its program "CD Review", which discusses and recommends new classical music recordings. AllMusic's Mike Brownell awarded the album 4.5 out of 5 stars and wrote that the Symphony "prove[d] they can easily stand alongside the world's great orchestras". Audiophile Audition's John Sunier thought the program was "well-chosen to offer great variety in sound and compositional techniques". Michael Miller of The Berkshire Review appreciated the "precision and sensitivity" of the playing and Karlmar's "lucid, straightforward, and ... virile" approach to the program. Miller also complimented Sylvan's performance and called the recording "memorable" and "thrilling", recommending it for any classical music library. Brian Horay, a classical music critic for The Huffington Post, questioned Kalmar's claim that his selections should not be interpreted as political, writing that listeners "[encounter] a more difficult and nuanced 20th-century musical landscape of existential questions, gruesome descriptions, defiant submissions and cold dissonance." Horay continued, "Music for a Time of War serves as a powerful acoustic journey of peaceful resistance and questioning of power". Barry Forshaw of the Islington Gazette thought the war theme was "tendentious" but called the collection "enterprising". James Bash of Oregon Music News called the album a "brilliant stunner", mirroring his positive review of the Carnegie Hall performance. Soundmirror also received compliments. Andrew Quint of The Absolute Sound described the sound as "vivid, highly detailed, and dynamic" as well as avoiding "digital steeliness". Quint called the front-to-back layering outstanding. John Sunier said the recording's "rich surround sonics" bring together excellent performances and "first-rate fidelity". He also noted the lack of audience interference, suggesting either good behavior by attendees or subtle work by audio engineers. Michael Miller complimented the quality of the recording for having "no problems of intonation or ensemble" and said the album "belongs in the reference collection of any audiophile, whether they are inclined to multichannel playback or not". Miller specifically appreciated Alspaugh and the engineers for capturing the loudness and subtleties of Sinfonia da Requiem. International Record Review's Nigel Simeone recommended the recording, calling it "impressive" and writing that the live sound is "exceptionally vibrant". Kalman Rubinson of Stereophile commended the ensemble, PentaTone and Soundmirror for providing "spacious, transparent, powerful sound". Rubinson, who designated the recording as the year's best concept album, praised the program for being "thought-provoking and restorative" and appreciated the range of emotions it summoned. Several publications included Music for a Time of War on their lists of the best classical recordings of 2011. Eugene Weekly recommended the album as a "stocking stuffer" on their list of the best Oregon classical music recordings of the year. Contributor Brett Campbell called the recording one of the year's "most compelling", with "blistering, committed, sharply etched performances" that illustrate the orchestra's quality under Kalmar's leadership. Similarly, Portland Monthly included Music for a Time of War on its list of fifteen "giftable" Portland albums. Alex Ross of The New Yorker included the album on his list of the ten most "exceptional" classical music recordings of the year. New York City's Time Out included the album as number seven on their list of the ten "Best Classical Albums of 2011". The publication's Steve Smith called the collection "greater than the sum of its parts". James Manishen of the Winnipeg Free Press included Music for a Time of War as number three on his list of the ten best classical recordings of the year, calling the performances "superbly prepared". The album received its second pressing in February 2012. Producer Alspaugh received a Grammy award for Producer of the Year, Classical for his contributions to the album and other recordings. ### Track listing Adapted from AllMusic and the album's liner notes. 1. The Unanswered Question (Charles Ives) – 5:44 2. The Wound-Dresser (John Adams) – 20:18 Sinfonia da Requiem, Op. 20 (Benjamin Britten) 1. <li value=3> "Lacrymosa (Andante ben misurato)" – 8:34 2. "Dies Irae (Allegro con fuoco)" – 4:53 3. "Requiem Aeternam (Andante molto tranquillo)" – 5:36 Symphony No. 4 in F minor (Ralph Vaughan Williams) 1. <li value=6> "Allegro" – 8:57 2. "Andante moderato" – 10:01 3. "Scherzo: Allegro molto" – 5:22 4. "Finale con epilogo fugato: Allegro molto – con anima" – 8:33 ## Personnel Credits adapted from AllMusic and the album's liner notes. - Blanton Alspaugh – producer - Carlos Kalmar – conductor, primary artist - Steven Kruger – liner notes - Jesse Lewis – engineer - Jesse Brayman – authoring, mastering - John Newton – engineer - Oregon Symphony – orchestra, primary artist - Franz Steiger – liner note translation - Sanford Sylvan – baritone - Walt Whitman – text ## See also - 2011 in American music - 2011 in classical music - List of compositions by Benjamin Britten - List of compositions by Charles Ives
318,600	Hurricane Isabel	1,163,921,579	Category 5 Atlantic hurricane in 2003	[ "2003 Atlantic hurricane season", "2003 natural disasters in the United States", "Cape Verde hurricanes", "Category 5 Atlantic hurricanes", "Hurricane Isabel", "Hurricanes in Delaware", "Hurricanes in Florida", "Hurricanes in Maryland", "Hurricanes in Michigan", "Hurricanes in New England", "Hurricanes in New Jersey", "Hurricanes in New York (state)", "Hurricanes in North Carolina", "Hurricanes in Ohio", "Hurricanes in Pennsylvania", "Hurricanes in Rhode Island", "Hurricanes in South Carolina", "Hurricanes in Virginia", "Hurricanes in Washington, D.C.", "Hurricanes in West Virginia", "Hurricanes in the Bahamas", "Retired Atlantic hurricanes", "September 2003 events in the United States", "Tropical cyclones in 2003" ]	Hurricane Isabel was the strongest Atlantic hurricane since Mitch, and the deadliest, costliest, and most intense hurricane in the 2003 Atlantic hurricane season. Hurricane Isabel was also the strongest hurricane in the open waters of the Atlantic, both by wind speed and central pressure, before being surpassed by hurricanes Irma and Dorian in 2017 and 2019, respectively. The ninth named storm, fifth hurricane, and second major hurricane of the season, Isabel formed near the Cape Verde Islands from a tropical wave on September 6, in the tropical Atlantic Ocean. It moved northwestward, and within an environment of light wind shear and warm waters, it steadily strengthened to reach peak winds of 165 mph (266 km/h) on September 11. After fluctuating in intensity for four days, during which it displayed annular characteristics, Isabel gradually weakened and made landfall on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, with winds of 105 mph (169 km/h) on September 18. Isabel quickly weakened over land and became extratropical over western Pennsylvania on the next day. On September 20, the extratropical remnants of Isabel were absorbed into another system over Eastern Canada. In North Carolina, the storm surge from Isabel washed out a portion of Hatteras Island to form what was unofficially known as Isabel Inlet. Damage was greatest along the Outer Banks, where thousands of homes were damaged or even destroyed. The worst of the effects of Isabel occurred in Virginia, especially in the Hampton Roads area and along the shores of rivers as far west and north as Richmond and Baltimore. Virginia reported the most deaths and damage from the hurricane. About 64% of the damage and 69% of the deaths occurred in North Carolina and Virginia. Electric service was disrupted in areas of Virginia for several days, some more rural areas were without electricity for weeks, and local flooding caused thousands of dollars in damage. Moderate to severe damage extended up the Atlantic coastline and as far inland as West Virginia. Roughly six million people were left without electric service in the eastern United States from the strong winds of Isabel. Rainfall from the storm extended from South Carolina to Maine, and westward to Michigan. Throughout the path of Isabel, damage totalled about \$5.5 billion (2003 USD). 16 deaths in seven U.S. states were directly related to the hurricane, with 35 deaths in six states and one Canadian province indirectly related to the hurricane. ## Meteorological history A tropical wave moved off the western coast of Africa on September 1. An area of low pressure associated with the wave moved slowly westward, and its convection initially appeared to become better organized. On September 3, as it passed to the south of the Cape Verde islands, organization within the system degraded, though convection increased the next day. The system gradually became better organized, and Dvorak classifications began early on September 5. Based on the development of a closed surface circulation, it is estimated the system developed into Tropical Depression Thirteen early on September 6. Hours later, it intensified into Tropical Storm Isabel, though operationally the National Hurricane Center did not begin issuing advisories until 13 hours after it first developed. Located within an area of light wind shear and warm waters, Isabel gradually organized as curved bands developed around a circular area of deep convection near the center. It steadily strengthened as it moved to the west-northwest, and Isabel strengthened to a hurricane on September 7 subsequent to the development of a large, yet ragged eye located near the deepest convection. The eye, overall convective pattern, and outflow steadily improved in organization, and deep convection quickly surrounded the 40-mile (60 km)-wide eye. Isabel intensified on September 8 to reach major hurricane status while located 1,300 miles (2,100 km) east-northeast of Barbuda. On September 9, Isabel reached an initial peak intensity of 130 mph (210 km/h) for around 24 hours, a minimal Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Scale. Early on September 10, the eyewall became less defined, the convection near the eye became eroded, and northeasterly outflow became slightly restricted. As a result, Isabel weakened slightly to a Category 3 hurricane. The hurricane turned more to the west due to the influence of the Bermuda-Azores High. Later on September 10, Isabel restrengthened to a Category 4 hurricane after convection deepened near the increasingly organizing eyewall. The hurricane continued to intensify, and Isabel reached its peak intensity of 165 mph (266 km/h) and a minimum central pressure of 915 mbar (hPa; 27.02 inHg) on September 11, a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Scale. Due to an eyewall replacement cycle, Isabel weakened slightly, though it retained Category 5 status for 24 hours. As Isabel underwent another eyewall replacement cycle, outflow degraded in appearance and convection around the eye weakened, and early on September 13, Isabel weakened to a strong Category 4 hurricane. A weakness in the ridge to its north allowed the hurricane to turn to the west-northwest. After completing the replacement cycle, the hurricane's large 40 miles (64 km) wide eye became better defined, and late on September 13, Isabel re-attained Category 5 status. During this time, Isabel attained annular characteristics, becoming highly symmetrical in shape and sporting a wide eye. Hurricane Isabel also displayed a "pinwheel" eye, a rare feature that is found in some annular tropical cyclones. A NOAA Hurricane Hunter Reconnaissance Aircraft flying into the hurricane launched a dropsonde which measured an instantaneous wind speed of 233 mph (375 km/h), the strongest instantaneous wind speed recorded in an Atlantic hurricane. Cloud tops warmed again shortly thereafter, and Isabel weakened to a strong Category 4 hurricane early on September 14. Later that day, it re-organized, and for the third time, Isabel attained Category 5 status while located 400 miles (640 km) north of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Cloud tops around the center warmed again early on September 15, and Isabel weakened to a Category 4 hurricane. Later that day, the inner core of deep convection began to deteriorate, while the eye decayed in appearance. As a ridge to its northwest built southeastward, it resulted in Isabel decelerating as it turned to the north-northwest. Increasing vertical wind shear contributed in weakening the hurricane further, and Isabel weakened to a Category 2 hurricane on September 16, while located 645 miles (1,038 km) southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Convection remained minimal, though outflow retained excellent organization, and Isabel remained a Category 2 hurricane for two days, until it made landfall between Cape Lookout and Ocracoke Island on September 18, with winds of 105 mph (169 km/h). Isabel was a large hurricane at landfall, with a windfield of 460 miles (740 kilometres). The system weakened after it made landfall, though due to its fast forward motion, Isabel remained a hurricane until it reached western Virginia, early on September 19. After passing through West Virginia as a tropical storm, Isabel became extratropical over Western Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. The system continued turned northward, and crossed Lake Erie into Canada. Early on September 20, the extratropical remnant of Isabel was absorbed by a larger extratropical storm, over the Cochrane District of Ontario. ## Preparations Two days before Isabel made landfall, the National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane watch from Little River, South Carolina to Chincoteague, Virginia, including the Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds and the lower Chesapeake Bay. The NHC also issued a tropical storm watch south of Little River, South Carolina to the mouth of the Santee River, as well as from Chincoteague, Virginia northward to Little Egg Inlet, New Jersey. Hurricane and tropical storm warnings were gradually issued for portions of the East Coast of the United States. By the time Isabel made landfall, a tropical storm warning existed from Chincoteague, Virginia to Fire Island, New York and from Cape Fear, North Carolina to the mouth of the Santee River in South Carolina, and a hurricane warning existed from Chincoteague, Virginia to Cape Fear. Landfall forecasts were very accurate; from three days prior, the average track forecast error for its landfall was only 36 miles (58 km), and for 48 hours in advance the average track error was 18 miles (29 km). Officials declared mandatory evacuations for 24 counties in North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland, though in general not many left. According to a survey conducted by the United States Department of Commerce, evacuation rates were estimated as follows; 45% in the Outer Banks, 23% in the area around the Pamlico Sound, 23% in Virginia, and about 15% in Maryland. The threat of Isabel resulted in the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of residents, primarily in North Carolina and Virginia, and included more than 12,000 residents staying in emergency shelters. 19 major airports along the East Coast of the United States were closed, with more than 1,500 flights canceled. The Washington Metro and Metrobus system closed prior to the arrival of the storm, and Amtrak canceled nearly all trains south of the nation's capital. Schools and businesses throughout its path closed prior to Isabel's arrival to allow time to prepare; hardware and home improvement stores reported brisk business of plywood, flashlights, batteries, and portable generators, as residents prepared for the storm's potential impact. The federal government was closed excluding emergency staff members. The United States Navy ordered the removal of 40 ships and submarines and dozens of aircraft from naval sites near Norfolk, Virginia. A contingency plan was established at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery that, should the winds exceed 120 mph (190 km/h), the guards could take positions in the trophy room (above the Tomb Plaza and providing continual sight of the Tomb) but the plan was never implemented. However, it spawned an urban legend that the Third Infantry sent orders to seek shelter, orders that were deliberately disobeyed. On September 18, the Canadian Hurricane Centre issued heavy rainfall and wind warnings for portions of southern Ontario. A gale warning was also issued for Lake Ontario, eastern Lake Erie, the Saint Lawrence River and Georgian Bay. A news report on September 14 warned conditions could be similar to the disaster caused by Hurricane Hazel 49 years prior, resulting in widespread media coverage on the hurricane. Researchers on a Convair 580 flight studied the structure of Isabel transitioning into an extratropical storm, after two similar studies for Hurricane Michael in 2000 and Tropical Storm Karen in 2001. While flying in a thunderstorm, ice accumulation forced the plane to descend. ## Impact Strong winds from Isabel extended from North Carolina to New England and westward to West Virginia. The winds, combined with previous rainfall which moistened the soil, downed many trees and power lines across its path, leaving about 6 million electricity customers without power at some point. Parts of coastal Virginia, especially in the Hampton Roads and Northeast North Carolina areas, were without electricity for almost a month. Coastal areas suffered from waves and its powerful storm surge, with areas in eastern North Carolina and southeast Virginia reporting severe damage from both winds and the storm surge. Throughout its path, Isabel resulted in \$5.5 billion in damage (2003 USD) and 51 deaths, of which 16 were directly related to the storm's effects. The governors of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and Delaware declared states of emergency. Isabel was the first major hurricane to threaten the Mid-Atlantic States and the Upper South since Hurricane Floyd in September 1999. Isabel's greatest effect was due to flood damage, the worst in some areas of Virginia since 1972's Hurricane Agnes. More than 60 million people were affected to some degree—a similar number to Floyd but more than any other hurricane in recent memory. ### Caribbean and Southeast United States Powerful surf affected the northern coastlines of the islands in the Greater Antilles. Strong swells also lashed the Bahamas. During most hurricanes, the location of the Bahamas prevents powerful swells of Atlantic hurricanes from striking southeast Florida. However, the combination of the location, forward speed, and strength of Isabel produced strong swells through the Providence Channel onto a narrow 10 miles (16 km) stretch of the southeastern Florida coastline; wave heights peaked at 14 feet (4.3 m) at Delray Beach. The swells capsized a watercraft and injured its two passengers at Boynton Beach, and a swimmer required assistance to be rescued near Juno Beach. Minor beach erosion was reported in Palm Beach County. In the northern portion of the state, waves reached up to 15 feet (4.6 m) in height at Flagler Beach, causing the Flagler Beach Pier to be closed due to damaged boards from the waves. Rip currents from Isabel killed a surfer at an unguarded beach in Nassau County, with an additional six people requiring rescue from the currents. The beaches were later closed during the worst of the rough surf. In northeastern South Carolina, the outer rainbands produced moderate winds reaching 45 mph (72 km/h) at Myrtle Beach. Rainfall was light, peaking at 1.34 inches (34 mm) in Loris. ### North Carolina Isabel produced moderate to heavy damage across eastern North Carolina, totaling \$450 million (2003 USD). Damage was heaviest in Dare County, where storm surge flooding and strong winds damaged thousands of houses. The storm surge produced a 2,000 feet (610 m) wide inlet on Hatteras Island, unofficially known as Isabel Inlet, isolating Hatteras by road for two months. Strong winds downed hundreds of trees of across the state, leaving up to 700,000 residents without power. Most areas with power outages had power restored within a few days. The hurricane directly killed one person and indirectly killed two in the state. ### Virginia The storm surge assailed much of southeastern Virginia causing the worst flooding seen in the area since the 1933 Chesapeake–Potomac hurricane, peaking at an estimated 9 feet (2.7 m) in Richmond along the James River. The surge caused significant damage to homes along river ways, especially along the middle reaches of the James River basin. The strong storm surge surpassed the floodgate to the Midtown Tunnel while workers attempted to close the gate; about 44 million US gallons (170,000 m<sup>3</sup>) of water flooded the tunnel entirely in just 40 minutes, with the workers barely able to escape. The damage to the electrical grid and flooding kept Old Dominion University, Norfolk State University, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Richmond, The College of William & Mary and many of the region's other major educational institutions closed for almost a week. Further inland, heavy rainfall was reported, peaking at 20.2 inches (510 mm) in Sherando, Virginia, causing damage and severe flash flooding. Winds from the hurricane destroyed over 1,000 houses and damaged 9,000 more; damage in the state totaled over \$1.85 billion (2003 USD), among the costliest tropical cyclones in Virginia history. The passage of Isabel also resulted in 32 deaths in the state, 10 directly from the storm's effects and 22 indirectly related. ### Mid-Atlantic About 1.24 million people lost power throughout Maryland and Washington, D.C. The worst of Isabel's effects came from its storm surge, which inundated areas along the coast and resulted in severe beach erosion. In Eastern Maryland, hundreds of buildings were damaged or destroyed by the storm surge and related tidal flooding. The most severe flooding occurred in the southern portions of Dorchester and Somerset counties and on Kent Island in Queen Anne's County. Thousands of houses were affected in Central Maryland, with severe storm surge flooding reported in Baltimore and Annapolis. Washington, D.C. sustained moderate damage, primarily from the winds. Throughout Maryland and Washington, damage totaled about \$945 million (2003 USD), with only one direct fatality due to flooding. The effects of the hurricane in Delaware were compounded by flooding caused by the remnants of Tropical Storm Henri days before. Moderate winds of up to 62 mph (100 km/h) in Lewes downed numerous trees, tree limbs, and power lines across the state, leaving at least 15,300 without power. Numerous low-lying areas were flooded due to high surf, strong storm surge, or run-off from flooding further inland. The passage of Hurricane Isabel resulted in \$40 million in damage (2003 USD) and no casualties in the state. ### Northeast United States The winds from Isabel downed hundreds of trees and power lines across New Jersey, leaving hundreds of thousands without power; a falling tree killed one person. Rough waves and a moderate storm surge along the coastline caused moderate to severe beach erosion, and one person was killed from the rough waves. Damage in the state totaled \$50 million (2003 USD). The passage of Hurricane Isabel in Pennsylvania resulted in \$160 million in damage (2003 USD) and 2 indirect deaths in Pennsylvania. One person suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning, believed to be caused due to improperly ventilated generators in an area affected by the power outages. Moderate winds left about 1.4 million customers without power across the state as a result of trees falling into power lines, with dozens of houses and cars damaged by the trees. Damage in New York totaled \$90 million (2003 USD), with Vermont reporting about \$100,000 in damage (2003 USD). Falling trees from moderate winds downed power lines across the region, causing sporadic power outages. Two people died in the region as a result of the hurricane, both due to the rough surf from Isabel. ### Elsewhere In West Virginia, the storm produced moderate rainfall across the state that peaked at 6.88 in (175 mm) near Sugar Grove. The rainfall resulted in mudslides and flash flooding, covering several roads and washing away two bridges. The South Branch Potomac River crested at 24.7 feet (7.5 m), 9.3 feet (2.8 m) above flood state near Springfield. The flooding broke a levee at Michael Field, and in Mineral County one school and 14 basements were flooded. In Jefferson County, two people required rescue after a car drove into floodwaters. Although sustained winds were weak in the state, wind gusts reached 46 mph (74 km/h) at Martinsburg. With the wet grounds, the wind gusts toppled thousands of trees, which fell onto homes, roads, and power lines. About 1.4 million residents across the state were left without power. Damage in the state totaled \$20 million (2003 USD). No deaths were reported, and three were injured from the hurricane. Isabel dropped light to moderate precipitation across the eastern half of Ohio, with isolated locations reporting over 3 in (76 mm). Moisture from Isabel dropped light rainfall across eastern Michigan and peaked at 1.55 inches (39 mm) at Mount Clemens. Additionally, Doppler weather radar estimated rainfall approached 2.5 inches (64 mm) in St. Clair County. No damage was reported from Isabel in the region. Swells from Isabel produced moderate surf along the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, particularly in the Gulf of Maine. Isabel also produced rough surf in Lake Ontario, with waves reaching 4 m (13 ft) along the western portion. At Hamilton, the waves surpassed seawalls and produced spray onto coastal streets. Rainfall peaked at 59 mm (2.3 in), which caused minor flooding and led to one traffic fatality. About 27,000 people lost power, mostly near Toronto. The strong pressure gradient between Isabel and a high pressure system over eastern Canada produced strong easterly winds across lakes Ontario and Erie. A buoy in Lake Ontario reported a peak gust of 78 km/h (48 mph), and gusts reached as strong as 81 km/h (50 mph) at Port Colborne, Ontario. ## Aftermath By about a week after the passage of the hurricane, President George W. Bush declared disaster areas for 36 North Carolina counties, 77 counties and independent cities in Virginia, the entire state of Maryland, all three counties in Delaware and six West Virginia counties. The disaster declaration allocated the use of federal funds for rebuilding and providing aid in the aftermath of hurricane Isabel. By about four months after the passage of the hurricane, disaster aid totaled about \$516 million (2003 USD), primarily in North Carolina and Virginia. Over 166,000 residents applied for individual assistance, with about \$117 million (2003 USD) approved for residents to assist with temporary housing and home repairs. About 50,000 business owners applied for Small Business Administration loans, with about \$178 million (2003 USD) approved for the assistance loans. About 40,000 people visited local disaster recovery centers, designed to provide additional information regarding the aftermath of the hurricane. In North Carolina, hundreds of residents were stranded in Hatteras following the formation of Isabel Inlet. People who were not residents were not allowed to be on the Outer Banks for two weeks after the hurricane due to damaged road conditions. When visitors were allowed to return, many ventured to see the new inlet, despite a 1-mile (1.6-km) walk from the nearest road. Initially, long-term solutions to the Isabel Inlet such as building a bridge or a ferry system were considered, though they were ultimately canceled in favor of pumping sand and filling the inlet. Coastal geologists were opposed to the solution, stating the evolution of the Outer Banks is dependent on inlets from hurricanes. Dredging operations began on October 17, about a month after the hurricane struck. The United States Geological Survey used sand from the ferry channel to the southwest of Hatteras Island, a choice made to minimize the impact to submerged aquatic vegetation and due to the channel being filled somewhat during the hurricane. On November 22, about two months after the hurricane struck, North Carolina Highway 12 and Hatteras Island were reopened to public access. On the same day, the ferry between Hatteras and Ocracoke was reopened. In West Virginia, the power outages were restored within a week. Power workers throughout Canada assisted the severely affected power companies from Maryland to North Carolina. Hydro-Québec sent 25 teams to the New York City area to assist in power outages. ### Retirement Because of widespread property damage and extensive death tolls the name Isabel was retired after the 2003 season, and will not be used for future Atlantic hurricanes. It was replaced by Ida for the naming list for the 2009 season. The names Ina and Ivy were also suggested as possible replacement names. ## See also - 1933 Chesapeake–Potomac hurricane - Annular hurricane - Hurricane Fran - Hurricane Ernesto (2006) - Hurricane Hazel - Hurricane Hugo - Hurricane Irene - Hurricane Irma - Hurricane Isaias - Hurricane Sandy - Hurricane Florence - Tropical Storm Josephine (2020), a 2020 tropical storm that took a similar path north of the Lesser Antilles - List of Category 5 Atlantic hurricanes - List of North Carolina hurricanes (2000–present) - Timeline of the 2003 Atlantic hurricane season
13,655,028	Super Smash Bros. Melee	1,169,985,653	2001 video game	[ "2.5D fighting games", "2001 video games", "Crossover fighting games", "Crossover video games", "Esports games", "Fighting games", "Fighting games used at the Evolution Championship Series tournament", "GameCube games", "GameCube-only games", "HAL Laboratory games", "Multiplayer and single-player video games", "Platform fighters", "Super Smash Bros.", "Video games developed in Japan", "Video games directed by Masahiro Sakurai", "Video games scored by Hirokazu Ando", "Video games scored by Shogo Sakai", "Video games scored by Tadashi Ikegami", "Video games with 2.5D graphics", "Video games with AI-versus-AI modes" ]	Super Smash Bros. Melee is a 2001 crossover fighting video game developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the GameCube. It is the second installment in the Super Smash Bros. series. It features characters from Nintendo video game franchises such as Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox and Pokémon, and Donkey Kong among others. The stages and gameplay modes reference or take designs from these franchises as well. Melee includes all playable characters from the first game and also adds characters from additional franchises such as Fire Emblem, of which no games had been released outside Japan at the time, in addition to new stages and gameplay modes. Like other games in the Smash Bros. series, Melee's gameplay system offers an unorthodox approach to the fighting game genre, with a counter that measures damage with increasing percentages, representing the knockback the character will experience, rather than a depleting health bar seen in most fighting games. Melee was first released in Japan in November 2001, in the Americas in December 2001, and in Europe and Australia in May 2002. The game received widespread acclaim from critics, earning praise for its visuals, simple controls, gameplay, and orchestrated soundtrack, as well as several awards and acknowledgments from various publications; it is now considered one of the greatest video games ever made. It achieved strong sales upon its release, becoming the GameCube's best-selling title, with over seven million copies sold by 2008. Considered one of the most competitively viable Smash Bros. games due to its fast-paced and aggressive gameplay, Melee has been featured in many competitive gaming tournaments, boasting a dedicated grassroots fan community which has kept its competitive scene alive well beyond the game's original lifespan. It was followed by Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii in 2008. ## Gameplay Like its predecessor, Super Smash Bros. Melee is a platform fighter that differs from traditional fighting games as the objective is to force their opponents beyond the boundaries of the stage. Most attacks inflict damage and can, if enough damage is dealt, knock back the enemy. Each character's health is measured by a meter that represents damage as a percentage. The higher the percentage value, the farther the player gets knocked back, and the easier they are to knock off the stage, which will result in the character's death and the loss of a stock, or life. Unlike other games of the same genre, in which moves are entered by button-input combinations, most moves in Super Smash Bros. Melee can be accessed via one-button presses and a joystick direction. For example, by tilting the joystick to the side and pressing the "B" button, the character will use their "side special" attack. Tilting the joystick up, down, or not tilting it at all while pressing B will use the up, down, or neutral special, respectively. During battles, items related to Nintendo games or merchandise fall onto the game field. These items have purposes ranging from inflicting damage on the opponent to restoring health to the player. Some items are throwable (ranged items), some do melee damage (battering items), and some have an instant effect on the player (transforming items). Most stages have a theme relating to a Nintendo franchise or a specific Nintendo game and are interactive to the player. For example, the Mushroom Kingdom stage is from Super Mario Bros, and the Temple stage is from The Legend of Zelda. Although the stages are rendered in three dimensions, players can only move on a two-dimensional plane. Not all stages are available immediately; some stages must be "unlocked" by achieving particular requirements. Some stages feature moving elements and platforms and hazards that harm players, while others lack these elements. ### Single-player Single-player mode provides the player with a variety of side-scrolling fighting challenges. The applicable modes range from "Classic Mode", which involves the player battling multiple opponents and a boss character, to the "Home Run Contest", a minigame involving the player trying to launch a sandbag as far as possible with a Home Run Bat for ten seconds. Some of these modes are personalized for the character; for example, the "Target Test" sets out a specialized area for a character in which they aim to destroy ten targets in the least amount of time they can. These areas may include references to that particular character's past and legacy. The "Board the Platforms" minigame from the first game was not included in Melee. Melee introduced "Adventure Mode", which takes the player to several predefined universes of characters in the Nintendo franchise. "All-Star Mode" is an unlockable feature that requires the player to defeat every character in the game while having only one stock and three health supplements between battles. ### Multiplayer In the multiplayer mode, up to four players or computer-controlled characters may fight in a free-for-all or on separate teams. The central processing unit (CPU) characters' artificial intelligence (AI) difficulty is ranked from one to nine in ascending order of difficulty. Individual players can also be handicapped; the higher the handicap, the stronger the player. Victory is determined in five ways, depending on the game type. The two most common multiplayer modes are “Time mode”, where the player or team with the most KOs and least falls wins after a predetermined amount of time, and "Stock mode", a battle in which the last player or team with lives remaining wins. This can be changed to less conventional modes like "Coin mode", which rewards the richest player as the victor. Players must collect coins created by hitting enemies and try not to lose them by falling off the stage; harder hits release higher quantities of coins. Other options are available, updating from Super Smash Bros., such as determining the number and type of items that appear during the battle. ### Trophies Trophies (known as "Figures" in the Japanese version) of various Nintendo characters and objects can be collected throughout the game. These trophies include figures of playable characters, accessories, and items associated with them as well as series and characters not otherwise playable in the game. The trophies range from the well-known to the obscure, and even characters or elements only released in Japan. Super Smash Bros. had a similar system of plush dolls; however, it only included the 12 playable characters. One trophy is exclusive to the Japanese version of the game. ## Playable characters Super Smash Bros. Melee features 25 (26 if Zelda and Sheik are considered separate) characters, 13 (14 with Zelda and Sheik separate) more than its predecessor. Fourteen are available initially, while the other 11 characters require completing specific tasks to become available. Every character featured in the game is derived from a popular Nintendo franchise. All characters have a symbol that appears behind their damage meter which represents their series, such as a Triforce symbol behind Link's damage meter and a Poké Ball behind a Pokémon species. Some characters represent popular franchises, while others were less-known at the time of the release; Marth and Roy represent the Fire Emblem series, which was not released outside Japan at the time. The characters' appearance in Super Smash Bros. Melee led to a rise in the popularity of the series, including releasing it outside of Japan. References are made throughout the game to the relationship between characters of the same universe; in one of the events from "Event mode", Mario must defeat his enemy Bowser to rescue Princess Peach. Furthermore, each character has recognizable moves from their original series, such as Samus's firearms from the Metroid series and Link's arsenal of weapons. ## Development and release Super Smash Bros. Melee was developed by HAL Laboratory, with Masahiro Sakurai as the head of production. Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto served as co-producer. The game was one of the first games released on the GameCube and highlighted the advancement in graphics over the Nintendo 64. The project proposal/initial design document for the game was completed on July 5, 1999. Sakurai wanted to make an opening FMV sequence to pay homage to the debut of the GameCube. HAL and Sakurai worked with three separate graphic houses in Tokyo to make the opening sequence. On their official website, the developers posted screenshots and information highlighting and explaining the attention to physics and detail in the game, with references to changes from its predecessor. The game was in development for 13 months, beginning around autumn 2000, and Sakurai called his lifestyle during this period "destructive" with no holidays and short weekends. Unlike the experimental first Super Smash Bros., he felt great pressure to deliver a quality sequel, claiming it was the "biggest project I had ever led up to that point". Despite the stressful development cycle, in a 2010 interview, Sakurai proudly called Melee "the sharpest game in the series... it just felt really good to play", even compared to its successor, Super Smash Bros. Brawl. On the game's official Japanese website, Sakurai and the developers explained reasons for making particular characters playable and why some characters were not added. Initially, the development team wanted to replace Ness with Lucas, the main character of Mother 3, but retained Ness in consideration of delays. Video game developer Hideo Kojima originally requested the inclusion of Solid Snake to Sakurai, and according to Yuji Naka of Sonic Team, Miyamoto requested the inclusion of Sonic the Hedgehog to Sakurai, but neither characters were added as the game was too far in development. Additional development time later enabled all three characters to be included in Brawl. Marth and Roy were initially intended to be playable exclusively in the Japanese version of Super Smash Bros. Melee. However, they received favorable attention during the game's North American localization, leading to the decision for the developers to include them in the Western version. Sakurai stated that the development team had suggested characters from four other games to represent the Famicom/NES era, until the developers eventually chose the Ice Climbers to fulfill this role. Additionally, Ayumi Tachibana from Famicom Detective Club was considered as a playable character, but was ultimately relegated to a cameo role as a trophy. The developers have noted characters that have very similar moves to each other on the website; such characters have been referred to as "clones" in the media. Nintendo presented the game at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2001 as a playable demonstration. The next major exposition of the game came in August 2001 at Space World, when Nintendo displayed a playable demo that updated from the previous demo displayed at E3. Nintendo offered a playable tournament of the games for fans in which a GameCube and Super Smash Bros. Melee were prizes for the winner. Before the game's release, the Japanese official website included weekly updates, including screenshots and character profiles. Nintendo followed this trend with Super Smash Bros. Brawl, in which there were daily updates by the game's developer, Masahiro Sakurai. Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu reported that Nintendo advertised the game in between showings of Pokémon 4Ever across movie theaters in Japan. In January 2003, Melee was re-released as part of the Player's Choice program, a marketing label used by Nintendo to promote video games that have sold more than a million copies. In August 2005, Nintendo bundled the game with the GameCube for \$99.99. ### Music Super Smash Bros. Melee features both new and re-arranged music from many of Nintendo's popular gaming franchises. In 2002, Enterbrain released a soundtrack in Japan titled Dairantou Smash Brothers DX Orchestra Concert. The same soundtrack was released in 2003 as Smashing... Live! as a bonus for subscribing to Nintendo Power magazine in North America, and also as a free gift in an issue of the British Official Nintendo Magazine. The soundtrack does not include music taken directly from the game, but features many live orchestral arrangements performed by the New Japan Philharmonic. The game contains a number of unlockable tracks that can be obtained after making certain in-game accomplishments. On the same website, the developers have posted discussions about the game's music and voice acting between Masahiro Sakurai and the game's composers. Shogo Sakai took over as the game's composer in place of Hirokazu Ando on February 14, 2001. Dean Harrington is the game's in-game narrator, and also voices Master Hand and Crazy Hand. ## Reception Super Smash Bros. Melee received critical acclaim from reviewers, most of whom credited Melee's expansion of gameplay features from Super Smash Bros. Focusing on the additional features, GameSpy commented that "Melee really scores big in the 'we've added tons of great extra stuff' department". Reviewers compared the game favorably to Super Smash Bros. IGN's Fran Mirabella III stated that it was "in an entirely different league than the N64 version"; GameSpot's Miguel Lopez praised the game for offering a more advanced "classic-mode" compared to its predecessor, while detailing the Adventure Mode as "really a hit-or-miss experience". Despite a mixed response to the single-player modes, many reviewers expressed the game's multiplayer mode as a strong component of the game. In their review of the game, GameSpy stated that "you'll have a pretty hard time finding a more enjoyable multiplayer experience on any other console". Melee's visuals garnered a positive reaction. GameSpot lauded the game's character and background models, stating that "the character models are pleasantly full-bodied, and the quality of their textures is amazing". IGN's Fran Mirabella III praised the game's use of physics, animation and graphics, although his colleague Matt Casamassina thought that "some of the backgrounds lack the visual polish endowed upon the characters" when giving a second opinion about the game. Critics praised the game's orchestrated soundtrack; while GameSpot's Greg Kasavin commented that "it all sounds brilliant". GameSpy praised the music for its nostalgic effect, with soundtracks ranging from multiple Nintendo series. Reviewers have welcomed the simplistic controls, but its "hyper-responsiveness", with the characters easily dashing and precise movements being difficult to perform, was expressed as a serious flaw of the game by GameSpot. With a milder criticism of controls, Bryn Williams of GameSpy commented that "movement and navigation seems slightly too sensitive". The basis of Melee's gameplay system is the battles between Nintendo characters, which has been suggested as being overly hectic; N-Europe questioned whether the gameplay is "too Frantic?", even though they enjoyed the variety of modes on offer. Similarly, Nintendo Spin's Clark Nielsen stated that "Melee was too fast for its own good", and "skill was more about just being able to wrap your head around what was happening as opposed to really getting into the combat". In regards to the pace of the game, Edge commented that it even made gameplay features such as "blocking" redundant, as the player is not given enough time to react to an attack. Despite the new features added to the game, some reviews criticized Melee for a lack of originality and for being too similar to its predecessor, Super Smash Bros. Caleb Hale from GameCritics.com noted that while it was "every bit as good as its Nintendo 64 predecessor" he also felt "the game doesn't expand much past that point". On a similar note, Edge stated that "it's not evolution; it's reproduction", in reference to a perceived lack of innovation. The nostalgic nature of the game received a positive reaction, as well as the accompanying stages and items that allude to past Nintendo games. Gaming journalists have welcomed the roster of 26 Nintendo characters, as well as the trophy system, which Nintendo Spin labeled as "a great addition to this game". ### Sales When released in Japan, it became the fastest selling GameCube game with 358,525 units sold in the week ending November 25, 2001. This success continued as the game sold more than a million units only two months after its release, making it the first GameCube title to reach a million copies. The game also sold well in North America, where it sold 250,000-copies in nine days. In the United States, Super Smash Bros. Melee was the 19th best-selling video game in 2001 according to the NPD Group. By July 2006, it had sold 3.2 million copies and earned \$125 million in the United States alone. Next Generation ranked it as the fifth highest-selling game launched for the PlayStation 2, Xbox or GameCube between January 2000 and July 2006 in that country. Approximately 4.06 million units have been sold in the country as of December 27, 2007. With a software-to-hardware ratio of 3:4 at one time, some have attributed the increasing sales of the GameCube near the launch date to Melee. As of March 10, 2008, Super Smash Bros. Melee is the best-selling GameCube game, with more than seven million copies sold worldwide. It has been estimated that at one point in time 70% of all GameCube owners also owned Melee. ### Awards and accolades Several publications have acknowledged Super Smash Bros. Melee in competitions and awards. In their "Best of 2001" awards, GameSpy chose it as Best Fighting GameCube Game, IGN's reader choice chose it as Game of the Year, Electronic Gaming Monthly chose it as Best Multiplayer and Best GameCube Game, and GameSpot chose it as the Best GameCube Game and tenth best game of the year. During the 5th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated Super Smash Bros. Melee for "Console Fighting Game of the Year" and "Outstanding Achievement in Animation", which were ultimately awarded to Dead or Alive 3 and Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee, respectively. It also received a nomination in GameSpot's "Best Music" and "Best Fighting Game" categories. GameFAQs placed it sixth in a poll of the 100 best games ever and was in the final four of the "Best. Game. Ever." contest. In the 200th issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, the editors selected Melee as the 92nd most influential game in their "Top 200 Games of Their Time" list, defining Melee as "Billions of things to unlock, plus Yoshi pummeling Pikachu with a bat". In a similar competition, Nintendo Power named Super Smash Bros. Melee the 16th best game ever to appear on a Nintendo console, and selected it as the 2001 "Game of the Year". IGN named it the third best GameCube game of all-time in 2007 as a part of a feature reflecting on the GameCube's long lifespan, citing it as "the grand stage of fighters, much like Mario Kart is for racing fans". GameSpy chose it as fourth in a similar list, citing that it had "better graphics, better music, more characters, more gameplay modes, more secrets to discover" in comparison to its predecessor. The game was ranked 58th in Official Nintendo Magazine's "100 Greatest Nintendo Games Ever" feature. In 2019, Game Informer ranked it as the 2nd best fighting game of all time. Edge magazine ranked the game 91st on their 100 best Video Games in 2007. ## Professional competition, metagame and legacy ### Competitive history Super Smash Bros. Melee is a widely played competitive video game and has been featured in several high-profile tournaments. Many consider it to be the most competitively viable game in the series. Melee version NTSC was first released on the GameCube in 2001 in Japan and later North America, Nintendo ran the first ever Melee tournament named Premium Fight most likely from August 25 to August 27, 2001. That circuit launched tournaments and competitive Melee on the local level. For competitive "smashers," as they were soon to be called, tournaments at houses, video game stores and internet cafes would become the norm. The tournaments increased in popularity, and an echelon of competitively successful top players emerged in each region of the United States and Japan. Professional gaming organizations began to take more notice of Melee and started sponsoring players professionally. Several professional Melee players including Christopher "KillaOR" McKenzie, Isai Alvarado, and Ken were seen in the 2005 "I'm a Professional Gamer" episode of the MTV reality series True Life. Tournaments became larger, more televised and more professional. Increases in audience and competitor counts, as well as prize pools, were also seen. From 2004 to 2007, Major League Gaming sponsored Melee on its Pro Circuit. Ken Hoang, also known as "The King of Smash" was considered to be the game's best player from 2003 to 2006, and has won over \$50,000 from Smash tournaments. Although dropping Melee from its 2007 Pro Circuit, MLG still sponsored a number of tournaments as part of the Underground Smash Series. Melee was also included in the Evolution Championship Series (Evo) in 2007, a fighting game tournament held in Las Vegas. Melee was hosted at Evo 2013 after a charity vote to decide the final game to be featured in its tournament lineup. Due to the large turnout and popularity that year, Evo again included Melee at their 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 events. In 2014 Melee was played at MLG Anaheim. Evo 2016 is the largest Melee tournament to date with 2,350 entrants. The competitive Smash community was featured in a 2013 crowd-funded documentary called The Smash Brothers. The film detailed the history of the professional scene and profiled seven prominent Melee players including Hoang, Azen, Jason "Mew2King" Zimmerman, Isai, PC Chris, KoreanDJ, and Evo 2013 and Evo 2014 champion, Joseph "Mang0" Marquez. Commentary footage from a Melee tournament is the origin of the Wombo combo internet meme. In 2020, Project Slippi, a fork of the Dolphin emulator for Melee designed to introduce quality-of-life features such as replays and online play, was updated to support rollback netcode and integrated matchmaking, allowing netplay across large distances with little latency. In the same year, an e-sports competition known as "The Big House" was sent a cease and desist by Nintendo, due to the usage of Slippi.
62,656,235	Australiformis	1,168,474,775	Genus of parasitic worms	[ "Archiacanthocephala" ]	Australiformis is a monotypic genus of acanthocephalans (thorny-headed or spiny-headed parasitic worms) that infest marsupials in Australia and New Guinea. Its body consists of a proboscis armed with hooks which it uses to pierce and hold the gut wall of its host, and a long trunk. It contains a single species, Australiformis semoni. This genus resembles species in the genus Moniliformis but is characterized by a lack of spiral muscles in the outer wall of the proboscis receptacle. The proboscis is armed with 12 rows of 13 to 15 hooks which are used to attach themselves to the small or large intestines of the host. The female worms range from 95 to 197 millimetres long, virtually all of which is the trunk, and 1.75 to 3.5 millimetres wide. There is pronounced sexual dimorphism in this species as females are around twice the size of the males whose trunks range from 46 to 80 millimetres long and 2 millimetres wide. Infestation of marsupials by A. semoni may cause debilitating inflammation of the stomach (gastritis) with granulomatous ulcers. ## Taxonomy Australiformis is a genus of acanthocephalans which are thorny-headed or spiny-headed parasitic worms. The taxonomic history of A. semoni is complex. It was originally named Echinorhynchus semoni by Linstow in 1898, and then moved to Gigantorhynchus by Porta in 1908 and Johnston in 1909, later moved to Prosthenorchis by Travassos in 1917, then renamed Moniliformis semoni by Johnston and Edmonds in 1952 before taking the present name and genus by Schmidt and Edmonds in 1989. The genus is monotypic, the only species, Australiformis semoni (Linstow, 1898), being necessarily the type species. Linstow named the species semoni after the German zoologist who discovered it, Richard Semon. The morphological traits of a simple, double-walled proboscis receptacle, eight cement glands (which are used to temporarily close the posterior end of the female after copulation) each with a giant nucleus, the brain at the posterior end of proboscis receptacle, and dorsal and ventral lacunar canals place this genus confidently in the order Moniliformida. The genus Australiformis Schmidt and Edmonds, 1989 was created for Moniliformis semoni as this species differed from other species in Moniliformis and the other genera of the family Moniliformidae, Promoniliformis, because it lacked spiral muscles in the outer wall of the proboscis receptacle. The parasitizing of marsupials is also a unique trait of this genus among Acanthocephala. No genetic testing has been conducted on this species to confirm this classification. ## Description A. semoni consists of a proboscis covered in hooks, a proboscis receptacle, and a long trunk. There is pronounced sexual dimorphism in this species; the females are around twice as long as the males (up to approximately 20 cm in females and 8 cm in males). The proboscis is long and swollen at the anterior end and tapers rapidly to a narrow base. The proboscis is armed with 12 rows of 13 to 15 hooks. The first three to four hooks in each row are large, aligned in straight rows, and have bifid roots whereas the other 10 to 12 posterior hooks are small rootless spines arranged in spirals down the proboscis. The first hook of each row is 40 to 56 μm long, the second is 50 to 60 μm long, the third is 42 to 50 μm long, the fourth is 42 to 54 μm long and the remaining spines are 30 to 60 μm long. At the base of the proboscis is a double-walled proboscis receptacle with a smooth outer wall, lacking spirally arranged muscle fibers, and a large space between the walls. The brain is located near the posterior end of the proboscis receptacle with retinacula (a band of thickened deep fascia around tendons that holds them in place) piercing the proboscis receptacle wall laterally. Proboscis retractor muscles pierce the posterior end of the proboscis receptacle. The trunk is not pseudosegmented, is very thin at the anterior end and thickest at the posterior end averaging only a few millimeters in width. The main longitudinal lacunar canals are dorsal and ventral, with the dorsal canal being conspicuous and the ventral canal being very narrow. The transverse commissural canals are evenly spaced and connect to the main longitudinal canals. The lemnisci (bundles of sensory nerve fibers) are long, slender, twisted, and coiled in the body cavity (not attached distally to the body wall), and contain 10 to 15 giant nuclei each. They extend between one quarter to one third the length of the body. The eggs are oval with three apparent membranes. The outer membrane is thick with the exception of the anterior end where it is thin. The outer membrane is often indented and the posterior end is usually covered in small dots on the outer surface with a knob on the inner surface. The second membrane is very thin and the third membrane is thick. The males have a sensory pore on each side of the neck. Males have eight oval cement glands, each with a single giant nucleus, and possess a Saefftigen's pouch just behind the testes. The testes are oval in tandem and found near the posterior end of the trunk. The genital pore is located at the terminal end of the trunk in both sexes. ## Distribution The distribution of A. semoni is determined by that of its hosts. A. semoni has been found in several provinces of Australia including Queensland, New South Wales, and Tasmania. This parasite has also been found in Boroko, Papua New Guinea. The type locality is the Upper Burnett River region in south-eastern Queensland, Australia. ## Hosts The life cycle of an acanthocephalan consists of three stages beginning when an infective acanthor (development of an egg) is released from the intestines of the definitive host and then ingested by an arthropod, the intermediate host. Although the intermediate hosts of Australiformis are not known, without exception for the order Moniliformida, this intermediate host is an insect. When the acanthor molts, the second stage called the acanthella begins. This stage involves penetrating the wall of the mesenteron or the intestine of the intermediate host and growing. The final stage is the infective cystacanth which is the larval or juvenile state of an Acanthocephalan, differing from the adult only in size and stage of sexual development. The cystacanths within the intermediate hosts are consumed by the definitive host, usually attaching to the walls of the intestines, and as adults they reproduce sexually in the intestines. The acanthor are passed in the feces of the definitive host and the cycle repeats. There are no known paratenic hosts (hosts where parasites infest but do not undergo larval development or sexual reproduction) for Australiformis. A. semoni parasitizes Australian and New Guinean marsupials including the type host, southern brown bandicoot (Isoodon obesulus) and related species such as the northern brown bandicoot, (Isoodon macrourus), long-nosed bandicoot (Perameles nasuta), striped bandicoot (Perameles gunnii), common echymipera (Echymipera kalubu), and brush-tailed phascogale (Phascogale tapoatafa). A. semoni infests these hosts by using hooks on their proboscis to pierce and hold the wall of the small and large intestines. A. semoni has also been found with the anterior end embedded in the mucosa of the stomach in the striped bandicoot. This infestation, which all observed cases contained 5 or fewer individual worms, may cause debilitating ulcerative granulomatous gastritis, a form of gastritis (inflammation of the stomach) characterised by ulcers and granuloma (an aggregation of macrophages that forms in response to chronic inflammation). Juvenile worms were found in the accidental host (an organism that generally does not allow transmission to the definitive host) brown antechinus (Antechinus stuartii).
2,001,345	Operation Charnwood	1,164,972,925	Second World War Anglo-Canadian offensive	[ "1944 in France", "Airstrikes", "Battle for Caen", "Battles of World War II involving Canada", "Conflicts in 1944", "July 1944 events", "Land battles of World War II involving the United Kingdom", "Military history of Canada during World War II", "Military operations of World War II involving Germany" ]	Operation Charnwood was an Anglo-Canadian offensive that took place from 8 to 9 July 1944, during the Battle for Caen, part of the larger Operation Overlord (code-name for the Battle of Normandy) in the Second World War. The operation was intended to capture the German-occupied city of Caen (), which was an important objective for the Allies during the opening stages of Overlord. It was also hoped that the attack would forestall the transfer of German armoured units from the Anglo-Canadian sector to the American sector to the west, where an offensive was being prepared. The British and Canadians advanced on a broad front and by the evening of the second day had taken Caen up to the Orne and Odon rivers. Preceded by a controversial bombing raid that destroyed much of the historic Old City of Caen, Operation Charnwood began at dawn on 8 July, with three infantry divisions attacking German positions north of Caen, behind a creeping barrage. Supported by three armoured brigades, the British I Corps made gradual progress against the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend and the 16th Luftwaffe Field Division. By the end of the day the 3rd Canadian Division and the British 3rd Infantry Division and 59th (Staffordshire) Infantry Division had cleared the villages in their path and reached the outskirts of the city. Moving into Caen at dawn the following morning, the Allies encountered resistance from remnants of German units who were beginning a withdrawal across the Orne. Carpiquet airfield fell to the Canadians during the early morning and by 18:00, the British and Canadians had linked up along the north bank of the Orne. The remaining bridges were defended or impassable and with German reserves positioned to oppose their crossing, I Corps ended the operation. Operation Charnwood was mutually costly and a tactical success for the Allies. The Germans retired from north of the Orne River but did not stop sending formations to the American front. The Germans established another defensive line along two ridges to the south of the city. The Allies maintained the initiative and began Operation Jupiter the next day and Operation Goodwood and Operation Atlantic a week later, in which the rest of Caen was secured. ## Background The Norman city of Caen was one of the D-Day objectives for the British 3rd Infantry Division which landed on Sword Beach on 6 June 1944. The capture of Caen, while "ambitious", was the most important D-Day objective assigned to the British I Corps (Lieutenant-General Sir John Crocker). > The quick capture of that key city [Caen] and the neighbourhood of Carpiquet was the most ambitious, the most difficult and the most important task of Lieutenant-General J. T. Crocker's I Corps. The initial Overlord plan called for the British Second Army to secure the city and then form a front line from Caumont-l'Éventé to the south-east of Caen, to acquire space for airfields and to protect the left flank of the United States First Army while it moved on Cherbourg. Possession of Caen and its environs would give the Second Army a suitable staging area for a push south to capture Falaise, which could then be used as the pivot for a swing left to advance on Argentan and then towards the Touques River. The terrain between Caen and Vimont was especially attractive to Allied planners, being open, dry and conducive to swift offensive operations. Since the Allies greatly outnumbered the Germans in tanks and mobile units, creating the conditions for a fluid, fast moving battle was to their advantage. The 3rd Infantry Division came ashore as planned but was hampered by congestion in its beachhead, diversions en route and the late arrival of much of its armoured support. The division was unable to assault Caen in force and its lead elements were brought to a halt short of the outskirts. Later attacks failed as the German defenders were reinforced by the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend. On 7 June the British began Operation Perch, a pincer attack by I Corps and XXX Corps, to encircle Caen from the east and west flanks. The I Corps attack south of the Orne River was halted by the 21st Panzer Division and the XXX Corps attack to the west of Caen was contained near Tilly-sur-Seulles by the Panzer-Lehr Division. To force the Panzer-Lehr Division to withdraw the British 7th Armoured Division attacked the western flank of the division on 13 June, through a gap created by the 1st US Infantry Division, to reach high ground near Villers-Bocage. In the Battle of Villers-Bocage, the 7th Armoured Division vanguard was ordered to retire and the Panzer-Lehr Division held its positions until XXX Corps captured Tilly-sur-Seulles on 19 June. The next British offensive, codenamed Operation Epsom, was launched by VIII Corps on 26 June, after Operation Martlet (also known as Operation Dauntless) a preliminary attack on 25 June, to secure the right flank of VIII Corps. VIII Corps advanced to the west of Caen on a 4-mile (6.4 km) front from Rauray to Carpiquet. Once across the Odon and Orne rivers, VIII Corps was to make for high ground near Bretteville-sur-Laize and encircle Caen. The Germans managed to contain the offensive by committing all their strength, including the 9th SS-Panzer Division Hohenstaufen and 10th SS-Panzer Division Frundsberg of the II SS Panzer Corps, which had been sent from the Eastern Front soon after the D-Day and had been intended for a counter-offensive against Bayeux. On 27 June, the 8th Infantry Brigade (1st Suffolk Regiment, 2nd East Yorkshire Regiment, 1st South Lancashire Regiment) of the 3rd Infantry Division, supported by the Staffordshire Yeomanry, of the 27th Armoured Brigade, and specialist armour from the 79th Armoured Division, began Operation Mitten. The objective was to seize the German-occupied Château la Londe and Château le Landel. The initial evening assault, led by the 1st Battalion, South Lancashire Regiment was repulsed but the following morning further attacks gained the objectives and destroyed several German tanks. Operation Mitten cost at least three British tanks and 268 men. Had it succeeded quicker, the 9th Brigade, supported by the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade, would have launched Operation Aberlour, to capture the villages of la Bijude, Épron, Galmache, St. Contest, Authie and Cussy but this follow-up operation was cancelled by Crocker. The area of the Châteaux was later called the "bloodiest square mile in Normandy". Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt, supreme commander of the German forces in the west (OB West), directed on 1 July that Caen should be gradually abandoned and the bulk of the German armoured divisions be shifted to the west end of the beachhead against the US First Army but the city and its surroundings were considered by Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW, Armed Forces High Command) to be fundamental to the defence of Normandy. OKW wanted an arc of defensible terrain from the English Channel to the western banks of the Orne to be held and Adolf Hitler sacked Rundstedt and replaced him with Generalfeldmarschall Günther von Kluge. Learning of this through Ultra, the Allied ground forces commander, General Bernard Montgomery, planned an offensive to capture Caen and to prevent a large redeployment of German forces from the Anglo-Canadian sector to the American front. On 4 July, the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division conducted Operation Windsor, to seize Carpiquet and the adjacent airfield from the 12th SS-Panzer Division. Carpiquet fell on 5 July, the airfield remained in German hands. ## Prelude ### Allies Having failed to take Caen through successive flanking manoeuvres, Montgomery decided the next attack would be a frontal assault. Although Caen's strategic importance had vastly diminished since D-Day, he sought control of Bourguébus and the commanding high ground to the south. On 5 July the orders for Operation Charnwood were issued; it was to be launched at 04:20, an hour and a half before dawn on 8 July. The objective of Charnwood was to clear Caen of its defenders up to the Orne river and if possible to secure bridgeheads in southern Caen. To achieve the latter it was planned to send an armoured column through the city to rush the bridges; it was hoped that I Corps could exploit the situation to sweep on through southern Caen towards the Verrières and Bourguébus ridges, paving the way for the British Second Army to advance towards Falaise. Historian Roger Cirillo argued the operation was designed to only clear the city of German forces; due to it being cut by both a river and a canal any attempts to make rapid progress through and beyond, were "in all probability, impossible." Crocker's 115,000-strong I Corps was assigned the task of penetrating to the Orne and Odon rivers. The 3rd Infantry Division would attack on a one brigade front from the north-east, supported by the 33rd Armoured Brigade; the 59th (Staffordshire) Infantry Division would attack on a two brigade front from the north, supported by the 27th Armoured Brigade; and the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division would attack on a one brigade front from the northwest, supported by the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade. To maintain the maximum possible pressure on German forces in the sector, VIII Corps was placed on 24 hours notice to launch further attacks to the west of Caen. In the light of lessons learned from the partial Canadian success during Operation Windsor, Charnwood was to be launched on a broad front to increase the pressure on the German defences and disperse their defensive fire. SHAEF planners had advised, on 10 June, that the best way to break a stalemate was to use air power to support an attack; this method was to be used for Charnwood as Montgomery enlisted the aid of RAF Bomber Command. Heavy bombers would attack Caen on the night preceding the assault, with 15% of the total bomb load being delayed action bombs set to explode when the ground attack was launched. A second wave of light bombers would follow the heavies and a third wave of American bombers would attack on the morning of the operation. Additional support would be provided by rocket firing Typhoon fighter-bombers, the monitor HMS Roberts, the light cruisers HMS Belfast and HMS Emerald and the 16-inch guns of the battleship Rodney. Five divisions would contribute 656 guns for bombarding German positions to the south. In all, it was planned that 2,000 tons of bombs would be dropped on Caen before the infantry assault began. Due to the proximity of the target area to the Allied lines and the resulting risk of friendly casualties, the aiming point for the bombers was shifted 6,000 yards (5,500 m) to the south—beyond most of the main German defences screening the city. Following a long saturation bombardment, the three infantry divisions were to push through the fortified villages in their path and advance directly into Caen's northern suburbs. ### Germans Caen's defence fell to two divisions; the 12th SS Panzer Division of I SS Panzer Corps, and the 16th Luftwaffe Field Division of LXXXVI Corps. An assault on the city was expected, and it was assumed that further attacks in the Odon valley towards the Orne river would quickly follow suit. The 12th SS Panzer Division, commanded by Kurt Meyer, consisted of three panzergrenadier regiments including one—the 1st SS Panzergrenadier Regiment—borrowed from the 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (1st SS Panzer Division). With its 61 surviving tanks 12th SS Panzer was holding the northwest approaches to Caen, defending the city and Carpiquet airfield from the 3rd Canadian and 59th British Infantry Divisions. The main German defensive line, a 9-kilometre (5.6 mi) arc of villages from the northeast to the west, was held by the 25th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment and elements of the 12th SS Panzer Regiment. Troops from the 26th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment were holding the western flank, concentrating their strength, which included mortar batteries and a few tanks, in the area around Carpiquet airfield. The 1st SS Panzergrenadier Regiment was occupying a line from Franqueville to the western end of Éterville; the villages formed mutually-supporting strongpoints with dug-in tanks and assault guns, and the defensive line was 2–3 miles (3.2–4.8 km) in depth, supplemented by anti-tank ditches, weapons pits, minefields and other obstacles. The rest of the division, with 35 tanks of the 12th SS Panzer Regiment, were held in reserve, with elements located north, west and south of the city. Most of the division's artillery had been moved back across the Orne, and the divisional command centre had been relocated from the Ardenne Abbey to Abbaye-aux-Dames in the centre of Caen. The 16th Luftwaffe Field Division was an inexperienced infantry division that had only recently arrived in Normandy to relieve the 21st Panzer Division of its defence of Caen and its positions east of the Caen canal. The division was under-trained and lacked sufficient anti-tank weapons; to remedy the latter it was reinforced with a tank battalion from 21st Panzer. The Luftwaffe division was deployed on both sides of the Orne, with three battalions holding the villages to the immediate north of the city. The 1st SS Panzer Division was roughly 5 miles (8.0 km) south of Caen with a regiment of dual purpose 88 mm guns from the III Flak Corps. The II SS Panzer Corps was to the west, with the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg around 2 miles (3.2 km) south-west of the city. ### Air attack, 7 July On the night of 7 July, 467 Lancaster and Halifax aircraft of RAF Bomber Command attacked Caen, dropping over 2,000 long tons (2,000 t) of bombs on the city. Although intended mainly to facilitate the Anglo-Canadian advance and to prevent German reinforcements from reaching the battle or retreating through Caen, a secondary consideration was the suppression of the German defences. In this the bombing largely failed, the main German armour and infantry positions to the north of Caen remained intact. Several tanks were hit and temporarily disabled but only two Panzer IV of the 12th SS Panzer Division were destroyed. General Miles Dempsey, in command of the British Second Army, was more concerned with the morale-boosting effect of the bombing on his troops, than any material losses it might inflict on the Germans. The pathfinders of 625 Squadron, dropping the target markers for the bombers, were instructed not to allow the target zone to "drift back" towards the Allied lines as had been the tendency in earlier operations. Together with the cautious shifting of the target zone during the planning stage, many of the markers were dropped too far forward, pushing the bombed zone well into Caen, further away from the German defences. By 22:00 on 7 July, the bombers had departed, leaving 80 percent of the north of Caen destroyed. Caen University was particularly hard hit, starting chemical fires that soon spread. At 22:50, six squadrons of de Havilland Mosquito bombers attacked individual targets and ten minutes later the 636 guns of the assaulting divisions opened fire, with the battleship HMS Rodney and other ships adding their support. The bombardment was intensified by the artillery of VIII Corps against the villages north of Caen, to eliminate German strong points before the infantry assault began. ## Battle ### 8 July At 04:30 on 8 July, the artillery of I and VIII Corps shifted their fire deeper into the German defensive belt, along the axes of advance of the 3rd Canadian Division and the 59th (Staffordshire) Infantry Division. As the infantry and armour moved off their start-lines, the barrage slowly crept forward, concentrating its fire on positions in front of the Anglo-Canadian troops; four battalions and two armoured regiments advancing on a two brigade front. At 07:00, 192 B-26 Marauder medium bombers arrived over the battlefield but finding it obscured by cloud only 87 aircraft were able to drop their bombs, totalling 133 long tons (135 t). Some bombs landed on the 12th SS Headquarters at Abbaye-aux-Dames. Crocker launched the second phase of Operation Charnwood at 07:30, although neither division had yet reached its objectives. The 26th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment was still in control of high ground around the Carpiquet airfield on the right flank of the advance. On the left, facing the relatively weak defences of the 16th Luftwaffe Field Division, the 3rd Infantry Division made good progress. They attacked Lébisey and rapidly pushed through the village, although fighting intensified as the division reached Hérouville. Concerned about the state of the Luftwaffe division, General Heinrich Eberbach, in command of Panzer Group West ordered the 21st Panzer Division to redeploy north-east of Caen in support. The manoeuvre was spotted and when 21st Panzer attempted to cross the Caen Canal, a naval bombardment was directed against them. Facing the possibility of heavy losses, the move was abandoned. In the centre, the 176th Brigade of the 59th Division was encountering much stiffer resistance from the 12th SS Panzer Regiment in Galmanche and la Bijude. The 197th Brigade bypassed Galmanche and by noon had reached St-Contest. Further to the west, the 9th Infantry Brigade of the 3rd Canadian Division had been involved in heavy fighting in Buron, which was defended by 200 men from the 12th SS. With support from the 10th Armoured Regiment (The Fort Garry Horse), by noon Buron had been taken, although the Canadian assault companies suffered 60% casualties. South of Buron, a counter-attack by Panzer IV and Panther tanks of the 12th SS Panzer Regiment was defeated by 17pdr SP Achilles self-propelled anti-tank guns and 17-pounder anti tank guns of the 245th Battery, 62nd Antitank Regiment. Thirteen German tanks were destroyed in one of the most successful antitank engagements of the campaign, for the loss of four tank destroyers and a further four damaged. Gruchy was captured with relatively less difficulty, with the 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade encountering only mortar and artillery fire in their drive to Authie. The capture of Authie facilitated the 59th Infantry Division assault on St-Contest and that village fell too, clearing the way for an advance on Caen. In Phase 3 of the operation, the 7th Brigade pushed towards the former headquarters of the 12th SS Panzer Division at Ardenne Abbey, securing the position before midnight. The British 3rd Division brushed aside 16th Luftwaffe and approached the outskirts of Caen from the north-east. At 19:15, Meyer and Eberbach authorised the withdrawal of the 12th SS Panzer Division heavy weapons and the remnants of the Luftwaffe division across the Orne to the southern side of Caen. In the early evening, the 12th SS fought a rearguard action against elements of the 59th and 3rd Canadian divisions, as it pulled back from positions no longer considered tenable. Reports of this withdrawal came into the Anglo-Canadian command but patrols probing German positions, created a false perception that no withdrawal was taking place. ### 9 July British and Canadian patrols began to infiltrate the city at dawn on 9 July. The airfield at Carpiquet finally fell into Allied hands during the early morning, when the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division discovered that the 26th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment had withdrawn during the night. With the German situation north of the river becoming increasingly precarious, 21st Panzer Division battle groups and the remaining regiments of the 12th SS Panzer Division conducted a slow withdrawal across the Orne, making for the Verrières and Bourguébus Ridges. By noon the 3rd British Infantry Division had reached the Orne's north bank, virtually destroying the elements of the 16th Luftwaffe Field Division, positioned west of the Orne, in the process. A few hours later the British and Canadians met in the centre of the city and by 18:00 the northern half of Caen was firmly under Allied control; all I Corps's objectives had been achieved. A few of Caen's bridges were intact but these were either blocked by rubble or defended by German troops on the south bank and the 1st SS Panzer Division had by now positioned itself to oppose any further advance. The 12th SS Panzer Division (by the end of the battle the division's infantry strength had been reduced to that of a battalion)—claimed over the course of two days to have destroyed 103 British and Canadian tanks for the loss of 20. On entering Caen the Anglo-Canadian troops found it in ruins, with four-fifths of the Old City reduced to rubble by the 7 July bombings. The debris that choked the streets made it almost impossible for British armour to manoeuvre through the northern half of the city, preventing Second Army from exploiting I Corps's success. Without possession of the terrain flanking the south of the city, no further gains could be made within Caen so by mid-afternoon on 9 July, Operation Charnwood was over. ## Aftermath ### Analysis The Germans were forced to withdraw to the south of the Orne but Allied forces were unable to push beyond the river. German forces were dug-in on the opposite bank in position to block a move south. Montgomery called off an advance beyond the Orne as further attacks would be too costly for the gains made, which had inflicted much attrition on the defenders. For French public opinion the operation was a coup; civilians now believed the liberation of France had begun. Antony Beevor called Operation Charnwood a partial success, because although much of Caen was taken, the British and Canadians failed to secure enough ground to expand the Allied build-up; the bulk of the First Canadian Army was still waiting in the United Kingdom for transfer to Normandy. Carlo D'Este wrote that Charnwood did improve the Second Army's position but without the high ground to the south, Caen was useless, the capture of the city was too little too late a hollow victory. Chester Wilmot wrote that for Montgomery to maintain a threat to German-occupied Paris, Caen's southern suburbs with their factories and communications network would have been a more significant prize. Buckley and Copp note that by the time the city was captured, the Germans—weakened by the battles of late June and early July—had already established defensive positions on the high ground to the south of the Orne, which blocked the route to the Falaise plain Copp also wrote that the British Second Army won an important operational victory during Charnwood and the Society for Army Historical Research recorded that the attacks were a tactical and operational success. The Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower expressed concern that a breakout was unlikely. Montgomery differed; the tenacity of the German defence was no barometer of its longevity. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel mentioned to Lieutenant-Colonel Caesar von Hofacker that the front-line in France could only be held for another three weeks. Hofacker was a member of the German resistance and linked with the Hitler assassination plot and according to Trew, Rommel's comment led to the plot timetable being decided. The serious losses sustained in maintaining a static defence during June led to fractures in the German high command. On 1 July, Panzer Group West commander Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg had been replaced by Heinrich Eberbach, following disagreements with Hitler over how the campaign should be conducted. Gerd von Rundstedt soon followed; that evening, in a telephone conversation with Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel, head of OKW, Rundstedt said "Make peace, you fools". Taken to task over his endorsement of Schweppenburg's recommendation for a withdrawal, he replied "If you doubt what we're doing, get up here and take over this shambles yourself". The following morning, informed that perhaps his health was "no longer up to the task", Rundstedt resigned and was succeeded as OB West by Günther von Kluge. The costly battles in and around Caen and Saint-Lô convinced both Eberbach and Kluge that their predecessors had been correct. The Germans had suffered heavily, leading Hitler to order Army Group B temporarily to abandon big counter-attacks and stay on the defensive until more reinforcements could arrive to bolster the front. Trew contends that the capture of northern Caen had a psychological impact on the French population, convincing them the Allies were there to stay and that the liberation of France could not be far off. By the end of Charnwood, Allied losses since 6 June had amounted to over 30,000 men, excluding those who had been evacuated due to sickness and from battle exhaustion. Buckley believes Charnwood to have been a good idea but one that proved better in concept than in execution, influenced as it was by the mounting political pressure on 21st Army Group to produce results. Copp wrote that the broad front attack had worked, preventing the Germans bringing to bear superior firepower on any one formation. Copp wrote that Charnwood should have produced a rapid breakthrough but concedes that the battle was one of the most difficult of the campaign. Buckley singles out poor cooperation between armoured and infantry units as one of the reasons for such high Allied losses; he is critical of the habit of tanks standing off from German positions and firing the infantry onto the objective like artillery, instead of moving forward to give close support. He further notes that from the German perspective, the Anglo-Canadian forces apparently lacked the desire or ability to press home their advantages, citing Kurt Meyer's opinion that during the battle the Allies allowed the opportunity to destroy his 12th SS Panzer Division to elude them. Buckley comments on the defensive power of the British and Canadian formations. The German practice of conducting immediate local counter-attacks to retake lost ground cost them many of their best troops, losses they could ill-afford. He illustrates this with a typical action during which the Germans lost 13 tanks to British self-propelled anti-tank guns. With Caen north of the River Orne in Allied hands, mine-clearance operations were launched, bulldozers were set to work to clear the streets and a convoy of trucks carrying supplies for the civilian population was brought in. On 10 July, the French flag was raised over the city and three days later a parade was held in the Place Saint-Martin during which a second flag was raised to the strains of Scottish bagpipers playing La Marseillaise. Rommel and Eberbach consolidated defensive positions in and around southern Caen, the 1st, 9th and 12th SS Panzer Divisions turning the Bourguébus and Verrières Ridges into formidable barriers. Having committed all of his armoured reserves, Rommel transferred the remainder of his infantry divisions—the 708th, 276th, 277th and 272nd—to the Anglo-Canadian front. On 8 July, he released the remnants of the Panzer Lehr Division and the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich to the American sector. At the start of the campaign, Panzer-Lehr was one of the most powerful armoured formations in the German army, by this stage it had been reduced to a number of battlegroups and was no longer operational as a division. On 17 July, Rommel's staff car was strafed by British fighters, severely injuring the Field Marshal and confining him to hospital. Two days later he was replaced as Army Group B commander by Field Marshal Günther von Kluge. Rommel never returned to Normandy; implicated in the 20 July plot against Hitler, on 14 October he was forced to commit suicide. Caen's partial capture allowed General Omar Bradley, commander of the First US Army, to accelerate his plans for a breakout. Shortly after Charnwood the US VII Corps attacked German positions in Saint-Lô, which the 2nd SS Panzer Division had been ordered to "hold at all costs". On 18 July, after eight days of fighting during which 95 percent of the town was destroyed and VII Corps had more than 5,000 casualties, Saint-Lô fell to the Americans. The same day, the Second Army began Operation Goodwood with from 1,100 to 1,300 tanks in the largest armoured battle in British military history. VIII Corps (Lieutenant-General Richard O'Connor) spearheaded the drive towards the Bourguébus Ridge with three armoured divisions, supported by I Corps. After a preliminary attack by 1,056 heavy bombers, elements of the 11th, Guards and 7th Armoured Division assaulted the positions of LXXXVI Corps north of Bourguébus but despite early gains of around 12,000 yards (6.8 mi; 11 km), strong resistance prevented VIII Corps taking the ridge. Simultaneously, Lieutenant General Guy Simonds's newly activated II Canadian Corps launched an offensive on the Verrières Ridge, codenamed Operation Atlantic. II Corps ran into fierce opposition; during the Battle of Verrières Ridge that followed the Canadians sustained 2,800 casualties. Verrières Ridge would remain in German hands until 8 August. ### Battle honours The British and Commonwealth system of battle honours recognises the battle by the award to 55 units of the honour Caen, for participation in the capture of Caen between 4–18 July 1944. Awarded from 1956 to 1959, the recognition was accompanied by honours for taking part in Operation Charnwood. For participating in the capture of Caen between 8–9 July three units were awarded the honour Orne, nine the honour The Orne, and two the honour The Orne (Buron). ### Bombing Hastings wrote that the bombing came to be seen by many as "one of the most futile air attacks of the war" and Beevor called the attack a "disaster". Reynolds judged the results of the bombing as "pathetic" and D'Este wrote that the bombing hindered the Allied push into the city. Air Commodore E. J. Kingston-McCloughry and Solly Zuckerman conducted a survey and concluded that no targets of military value had been attacked, nor were there any gun positions, tanks or German dead in the target zone. They interviewed men of the 3rd Infantry Division, who were reportedly bewildered as to why the bombers had been employed. The 3rd Division historian, wrote that in the wake of the air-raid the men > ... for the first time for weeks breathed freely. The full support of the Air Force gave them full hearts ... and the men were encouraged. The Canadian Official Historian, C. P. Stacey wrote that several Canadian formations reported an increase in morale. Wilmot wrote that the bombing was essential because it raised the morale of the Second Army and depressed that of the German defenders. A 21st Army Group intelligence report, based on the interrogation of German prisoners recorded that the raid was "decisive" and had apparently destroyed the headquarters of the Luftwaffe infantry regiment based north of Caen and deprived the German troops north of the city of ammunition and rations the following morning. Gray wrote that the bombing had an effect on the morale of both sides but that this was temporary. L. F. Ellis, the British Official Historian, Trew and Badsey all wrote that the raid was intended to cut off German reinforcements from the battlefield and hinder an attempt to withdraw south of the Orne river. Stacey wrote that it was "obvious and desirable" that for maximum advantage, the Allied ground forces should have advanced on the heels of the attack. Gray concluded that no-one "can[not] satisfactorily answer the question 'why'" the city was bombed. Analysis by Operational Research Section Number 2 (ORS2) concluded that the bombing of the first aiming point north-west of Caen was accurate, finding that the centre of the 90 percent zone (the area where 90 percent of the bombs fell) was 200–300 yards (180–270 m) east of the aiming point, with some spillage to the south and west. Examination of the area after its capture, indicated some destruction of German equipment, including the wreckage of ten of the forty trucks believed to be in the area at the time of the raid. The 48 hours that elapsed between the bombing and the Allied occupation of the area, allowed the Germans time to recover from any shock and disorientation and to salvage some damaged equipment. Examination of the second aiming point, "Northern Caen", failed to reveal a 90 percent zone but it was noted that the obstructive effect of bombing a suburb was significant and had caused substantial delays to vehicles of both sides, by cratering and blocking roads. ORS2 concluded that the success of Charnwood owed little to the bombing and made recommendations including changing to instantly fused bombs, dropping larger numbers of smaller anti-personnel bombs and rapidly following-up a bombardment with ground forces to take advantage of its main effect, which was the temporary suppression of German will to resist. In Operation Goodwood, Operation Bluecoat, Operation Cobra, Operation Totalize and Operation Tractable the 21st Army Group exploited better the effect of preparatory attacks by strategic bombers by following-up the attacks immediately. The British initially announced that around 6,000 civilians had been killed during the air-raid and a Soviet war correspondent attached to the 21st Army Group, Lieutenant-Colonel Kraminov, put the figure as high as 22,000, a claim that was used by French communists in post-war anti-British propaganda. It was later found that 300–400 civilians were killed in the raid. Caen citizens were relieved and provided their liberators with a welcome that the troops found very moving; French accounts of the time claim that "All [of] Caen was in the streets to greet them". Although Ellis called the French welcome "pathetic", no Allied unit recorded any complaints about the reception they were given. Stacey wrote that the populace were "particularly delighted to find their city freed in part by men from Canada". Beevor wrote that most of the population were numb from the shock and quoted a British soldier who recalled that "most ... women were crying, grief-stricken and anguished". As early as 12 June, the French Resistance had sent messengers to the British, informing them that refugees were gathering in the areas around the Abbaye-aux-Hommes and the Hôpital du Bon Sauveur and requested that these locations not to be bombed; British assurances were given and these locations were nearly untouched. Gray wrote that after the war, the city population regarded itself as being martyred, which could be seen on the war memorial. ## Subsequent operations ### Operation Jupiter On 10 July, the 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division attacked the positions of the 10th SS Panzer Division to the southwest of Caen on Hill 112. Preceded by a two-day bombardment that included support from naval vessels and Hawker Typhoons, the assault was designed to threaten Caen from the west and push back the 10th SS Panzer Division, securing an avenue for future offensives. The 43rd Wessex began their assault at dawn on 10 July, supported by two armoured brigades. By 08:00, British tanks and infantry were engaged with the 10th SS Panzer and "well up" the slopes of Hill 112. Eterville was taken around mid-morning; as the 4th Armoured Brigade and 43rd Wessex pressed their attack, Panzer Group West commander General Eberbach insisted that "Hill 112 is the pivotal point of the whole position West of Caen, and must therefore be held". The 102nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion and the 1st SS Panzer Division were committed to its defence. The 4th Armoured Brigade reached the summit but in the evening were counter-attacked by remnants of the 1st and 12th SS Panzer Divisions. The British offensive resumed the following day with the support of anti-tank regiments from the Second Army; these had heavy losses in a counter-attack by the 102nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion. Hill 112 was briefly taken by a battalion of the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, only to be lost to further German counter-attacks in the late afternoon. By the evening of 11 July, with both sides exhausted and having suffered heavily the offensive had reached a stalemate. The 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division and its supporting armour had suffered two thousand casualties in the two days of fighting.
18,990,526	Science Fiction Monthly	1,150,651,276	British science fiction magazine	[ "1974 establishments in the United Kingdom", "1976 disestablishments in the United Kingdom", "Defunct science fiction magazines published in the United Kingdom", "Magazines disestablished in 1976", "Magazines established in 1974", "Monthly magazines published in the United Kingdom", "Science fiction magazines disestablished in the 1970s", "Science fiction magazines established in the 1970s" ]	Science Fiction Monthly was a British science fiction magazine published from 1974 to 1976 by New English Library. Launched in response to demand from readers for posters of the cover art of New English Library's science fiction paperbacks, it was initially very successful—its circulation had reached 150,000 by the third issue. It reprinted artwork by Chris Foss, Jim Burns, Bruce Pennington, Roger Dean, and many others. Well-known writers who appeared in its pages included Brian Aldiss, Bob Shaw, Christopher Priest, and Harlan Ellison. High production costs meant that a large circulation was necessary to sustain profitability, and when circulation fell to about 20,000 after two years NEL ceased publication. A new magazine, S.F. Digest, was launched in its stead but lasted only one issue. ## Publication history In the early 1970s, the London-based publisher New English Library (NEL) published a successful line of science fiction paperbacks that included well-known authors such as Frank Herbert and Robert A. Heinlein. The covers were popular with readers, and NEL frequently received requests for copies of the paperback cover art, without the overprinted material such as the title. They decided to produce a magazine to make the artwork available in poster form, hoping that the magazine would attract a young audience who might then become readers of NEL's books. By the middle of 1973 the decision was taken to add fiction and non-fiction features, though NEL still considered it primarily a vehicle for their art. The title was at first planned to be Sci-Fi Monthly, but this was abandoned when NEL found out that the abbreviation "sci-fi" was widely disliked by science fiction readers. The first issue appeared at the end of January 1974; the issues were always numbered and never dated. The editorial team included Michael Osborn as art editor, with responsibility for the magazine's layout, and, initially, Aune Butt and Penny Grant, who acquired non-fiction and fiction. From the eighth issue, Julie Davis took over Butt and Grant's editorial duties. Interest in science fiction and fantastic art was growing at the time Science Fiction Monthly was launched, and sales were initially strong, with circulation reportedly at 150,000 by the third issue. This could not be sustained: Mike Ashley, a science fiction historian, suggests that poor economic conditions in the UK in the 1970s contributed to falling readership. Inflation, along with an increase in the cost of paper, meant that the price rose rapidly from 30p in late 1974 to 50p only eighteen months later, by which time circulation had fallen to under 20,000. Ashley also suggests that the readership was in "two factions: those who wanted the art did not want the fiction, and vice versa". The magazine was expensive to produce, because of the costs associated with colour reproduction, so it required a higher circulation than a typical digest magazine, and it was cancelled in early 1976. NEL replaced it with S.F. Digest, a smaller magazine with less emphasis on artwork, but this only lasted one issue before NEL's magazine department was cut. ## Contents and reception The magazine was published in tabloid format (40 by 28 centimetres (16 by 11 in)), with high-quality colour reproduction; it was not stapled, so that it could be disassembled and the artwork used as posters. The first issue included four full-page reproductions, and another five double-page spreads, at 40 by 56 centimetres (16 by 22 in). One such double-page image was Bruce Pennington's depiction of the spaceship Discovery from Arthur C. Clarke's The Lost Worlds of 2001, which was also used as the cover art for the issue. As well as the art, the first issue included stories by Christopher Priest and Brian Aldiss, an excerpt from Pirates of the Asteroids by Isaac Asimov, and columns covering films, art, and news items. The first news column, by Penny Grant, mentioned the UK's annual Easter science fiction convention and the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA). Both saw a surge in inquiries about membership as a result, and over 400 people attended the next Easter convention—a significant increase over the previous year's attendance of 250–300. Artists featured in subsequent issues included Tim White, David Hardy, Roger Dean, Jim Burns and Josh Kirby; the artwork depicted was not limited to works originally published by NEL. Chris Foss contributed the cover for the second issue; the science fiction historian David Kyle describes it as "a cross between the technologically reasoned, deep-space vehicle of 2001 and the inspired gimcrackery of artist Richard Powers", adding that it illustrated a trend in the 1970s towards "heavily pseudo-technological" artwork for science fiction paperback covers. The tabloid format was larger than the paperback book covers where much of the artwork had first appeared, and David Hardy commented that as a result "every brush-stroke and blemish became visible". There were no other science fiction magazines in the UK in the mid-1970s, so the volume of fiction submissions was very high—about 400–500 stories a month. Terry Greenhough and Chris Morgan both made their first fiction sales to Science Fiction Monthly, and Garry Kilworth and David S. Garnett also had early sales, but it was a difficult market to break into: as well as the intense competition, the magazine only published two or three stories per issue, and usually at least one would be by a well-known writer. None of the winners of a short-story competition, run in 1974 with categories such as best foreign story and best Commonwealth story, went on to do any substantial work in the genre. Well-known British writers who appeared in the magazine's pages included Brian Aldiss, Christopher Priest, Ian Watson, Robert Holdstock, and Bob Shaw. Stories by American writers included both reprints and some original material, such as Harlan Ellison's "Shatterday" and Jack Williamson's "The Highest Dive". Despite the competitiveness of the market, the Encyclopedia of SF describes the fiction as having been initially weak, though improving once Davis became editor. The non-fiction features included a series of articles by Mike Ashley on the history of science fiction magazines, later expanded into an anthology series. A series of interviews with authors appeared, each accompanied by one of their stories, including profiles of Samuel Delany, Harlan Ellison, J. G. Ballard, and Harry Harrison. Walter Gillings provided articles about established figures in the field such as Arthur C. Clarke, John Wyndham, A.E. van Vogt, and Olaf Stapledon, and under the pseudonym "Thomas Sheridan" ran a column called "The Query Box" in which he answered questions about science fiction. ## Bibliographic details The publisher was New English Library, based in London. The magazine never carried cover dates: the first issue appeared on 30 January 1974, and is usually indexed as either January or February as a result. The monthly schedule was completely regular. There were two volumes of twelve issues and a final volume of four issues. Each issue was tabloid-sized and had 28 pages; the price began at 25p, and went up to 30p with the October 1974 issue; to 35p in April 1975; to 40p in January 1976, and to 50p for the last two issues. Patricia Hornsey was editorial director. Fiction and non-fiction acquisitions were initially the responsibility of Aune Butt and Penny Grant; Julie Davis took over with the eighth issue. The team responsible for the look of the magazine was art editor Michael Osborn, art director Cecil Smith, and designer Jeremy Dixon. New English Library also sold binders for the magazine; these were dark purple and could hold 12 issues. An anthology of stories from the first year of the magazine, The Best of Science Fiction Monthly, appeared in 1975, edited by Janet Sacks and published by NEL.
27,531,665	Triaenops menamena	1,147,192,245	Bat species found in Madagascar	[ "Mammals described in 2009", "Mammals of Madagascar", "Triaenops" ]	Triaenops menamena is a bat in the genus Triaenops found on Madagascar, mainly in the drier regions. It was known as Triaenops rufus until 2009, when it was discovered that that name had been incorrectly applied to the species. Triaenops rufus is a synonym of Triaenops persicus, a Middle Eastern species closely related to T. menamena— the Malagasy species had previously been placed as a subspecies of T. persicus by some authors. Triaenops menamena is mostly found in forests, but also occurs in other habitats. It often roosts in large colonies and eats insects such as butterflies and moths. Because of its wide range, common occurrence, and tolerance of habitat degradation, it is not considered to be threatened. With a forearm length of 50 to 56 mm (2.0 to 2.2 in) in males and 46 to 53 mm (1.8 to 2.1 in) in females, this is a medium-sized bat. Its fur color is variable, ranging from reddish brown to gray, but it is generally darker than the species in the closely related genus Paratriaenops which also occur on Madagascar. The skull contains a pronounced swelling around the nose and the second upper premolar is displaced outside the toothrow. The maximum frequency of the echolocation call averages 94.2 kHz and the species can easily be recognized on the basis of its call. ## Taxonomy In 1881, Alphonse Milne-Edwards described two new species in the genus Triaenops on the basis of specimens supposedly collected by Léon Humblot on Madagascar: the reddish Triaenops rufus and the larger, gray T. humbloti. Jean Dorst, who reviewed Madagascan Triaenops in 1947, retained both as separate species; in another review, published in 1982, John Edwards Hill considered the two to represent the same species. In 1994, Karl Koopman considered rufus itself to be part of the Middle Eastern and mainland African species Triaenops persicus, a possibility Hill had discussed, but most authors regarded the two as distinct species. In 2006, Julie Ranivo and Steven Goodman revised Madagascan Triaenops and found little variation among specimens of T. rufus from throughout the dry parts of the island. Three years later, they published another paper which showed that the original material of T. rufus and T. humbloti was distinct from Madagascan specimens identified as "Triaenops rufus" and more similar to T. persicus. On his journey to Madagascar, Humblot had stayed in Somalia and Yemen, and Goodman and Ranivo concluded that he had probably collected the Triaenops there, after which their provenance was incorrectly recorded. Thus, rufus and humbloti cannot be used for the Madagascan species, and Goodman and Ranivo proposed the new name Triaenops menamena for the species formerly known as T. rufus. The specific name menamena is Malagasy for "reddish", referring to the animal's coloration. "Rufous trident bat" has been used as a common name for Triaenops rufus. Triaenops menamena is currently one of four living species in the genus Triaenops; a 2009 revision by Petr Benda and Peter Vallo split off the African T. afer and the Yemeni T. parvus from T. persicus and removed three other species, including two from Madagascar, to the separate genus Paratriaenops. An extinct species, Triaenops goodmani, is known from northwestern Madagascar. In 2007 and 2008, Amy Russell and colleagues used phylogenetic and coalescent methodologies to investigate the history of the Triaenops group. They found that T. menamena (as T. rufus) was closest to mainland African Triaenops (but did not study Middle Eastern bats) and concluded that T. menamena and the species of Paratriaenops (then still placed in Triaenops) independently reached Madagascar from Africa; the colonization of the island by T. menamena was dated to about 660,000 years ago. Benda and Vallo also studied phylogenetic relationships in Triaenops and included Middle Eastern T. persicus and T. parvus in their analysis. They found little resolution of relationships within Triaenops, but some evidence suggested that T. menamena is more closely related to the Middle Eastern species than to T. afer in mainland Africa; therefore, T. menamena may have reached Madagascar from the Middle East or northeastern Africa. They also placed the split between T. menamena and the other species much further back, at around 4 million years ago. ## Description Triaenops menamena is a medium-sized species with variable fur coloration, ranging from reddish brown to gray. It is larger and darker than Paratriaenops auritus and P. furculus. Among living Triaenops species, it is smaller than T. persicus and T. afer, but somewhat larger than T. parvus. The extinct Triaenops goodmani, which is known only from three mandibles (lower jaws), is also larger. In the complexly shaped noseleaf (a group of fleshy structures around the nose and mouth), T. menamena has the trident structure characteristic of Triaenops and Paratriaenops: three adjacent lancets (projecting structures) on the posterior leaf. In T. menamena, the two outer lancets are shorter than the middle one and curved, whereas the three lancets are more equal in Paratriaenops. The anterior leaf contains a broad, flat, horizontal process and the intermediate leaf contains a pointed process. The ears are small and broad and contain notches on the inner side. The fur is silky and the hairs on the body are about 5 to 6 mm long. The wing membrane is dark and translucent and the end of the tail usually projects from the uropatagium (tail membrane). Males average slightly larger than females. Wingspan is 270 to 305 mm (10.6 to 12.0 in). The skull is similar to that of Madagascan Paratriaenops, but the premaxilla is longer. The rostrum (front part of the skull) is well-developed and contains a pronounced nasal swelling, which is less pronounced than in Paratriaenops; the depression behind the swelling is relatively shallow. Compared to other species of Triaenops, the rostrum is relatively narrow and short, similar to T. parvus; T. afer and T. persicus have a broader rostrum. The front margin of the rostrum is cast back between the left and right corners. A transverse line passes over the roof of the rostrum. The infraorbital foramen, an opening in the skull, is oblong in shape. The zygomatic arches (cheekbones) are not broadened towards the sides, are connected to the maxillaries by broad bones, and contain clear crests on their upper sides. In T. menamena, these crests are rectangular in form and larger than in Paratriaenops. The braincase is lower than in other species of Triaenops. The sagittal crest, which is on the roof of the braincase, is poorly developed. In the mandible, the coronoid process is blunt and rounded, but the angular process (both processes at the back of the bone) is small. The upper incisors have two cusps and the upper canine has three—a large central one, a small but well-developed one at the back, and a small cuspule at the front. The front upper premolar is projected outside the toothrow, so that the canine before it and back premolar behind it touch. The first lower incisor has two cusps and the second has three. On the second lower molar, the protoconid cusp is notably taller than the hypoconid; these cusps are about as high in T. goodmani. The species can easily be identified from recordings of its echolocation call. The call consists of a component with constant frequency followed by a short one with changing frequency. The call takes 6.5 to 13.5 ms, averaging 10.1 ms, and the period between two calls is 22.7 to 86.3 ms, averaging 42.7 ms. The maximum frequency averages 94.2 kHz, the minimum frequency averages 82.0 kHz, and the call emits the most energy at a frequency of 93.2 kHz. ## Distribution and ecology Triaenops menamena mainly occurs in the dry regions of western Madagascar, but has also been recorded in humid areas in the far southeast and northeast, and is found up to 1300 m (4300 ft) above sea level. It mainly occurs in forests, but has also been recorded outside forest and is not dependent on it. An obligate cave dweller, it is known to roost in large colonies, with one cave colony estimated to contain over 40,000 bats; this cave also contained an estimated 10,000 Paratriaenops furculus. The effective population size of the species is estimated to be about 121,000. Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) form the main component of its diet, but it also eats Coleoptera (beetles) and Hemiptera (bugs) and fewer members of some other insect orders. It is unclear how the ecological niches of Triaenops and the less frequently captured Paratriaenops furculus are separated, as both eat lepidopterans and occur in the same regions. ## Conservation status Under Triaenops rufus, the IUCN Red List lists this species as being of "Least Concern", citing its common occurrence over a wide distribution and tolerance of human modifications of its habitat, even though its forest habitat is being destroyed in places. It has been recorded in numerous protected areas. Bats, mainly the large Hipposideros commersoni, are sometimes hunted for food in southwestern Madagascar, and T. menamena is also taken incidentally.
1,971	Apollo 17	1,172,544,151	Sixth and latest crewed Moon landing	[ "1972 in the United States", "1972 on the Moon", "Apollo 17", "Apollo program missions", "Articles containing video clips", "Crewed missions to the Moon", "December 1972 events", "Extravehicular activity", "Gene Cernan", "Harrison Schmitt", "Last events", "Lunar rovers", "Ronald Evans (astronaut)", "Sample return missions", "Soft landings on the Moon", "Spacecraft launched by Saturn rockets", "Spacecraft launched in 1972", "Spacecraft which reentered in 1972" ]	Apollo 17 (December 7–19, 1972) was the eleventh and final mission of NASA's Apollo program, the sixth and most recent time humans have set foot on the Moon or traveled beyond low Earth orbit. Commander Gene Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt walked on the Moon, while Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans orbited above. Schmitt was the only professional geologist to land on the Moon; he was selected in place of Joe Engle, as NASA had been under pressure to send a scientist to the Moon. The mission's heavy emphasis on science meant the inclusion of a number of new experiments, including a biological experiment containing five mice that was carried in the command module. Mission planners had two primary goals in deciding on the landing site: to sample lunar highland material older than that at Mare Imbrium and to investigate the possibility of relatively recent volcanic activity. They therefore selected Taurus–Littrow, where formations that had been viewed and pictured from orbit were thought to be volcanic in nature. Since all three crew members had backed up previous Apollo lunar missions, they were familiar with the Apollo spacecraft and had more time for geology training. Launched at 12:33 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) on December 7, 1972, following the only launch-pad delay in the course of the whole Apollo program that was caused by a hardware problem, Apollo 17 was a "J-type" mission that included three days on the lunar surface, expanded scientific capability, and the use of the third Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV). Cernan and Schmitt landed in the Taurus–Littrow valley, completed three moonwalks, took lunar samples and deployed scientific instruments. Orange soil was discovered at Shorty crater; it proved to be volcanic in origin, although from early in the Moon's history. Evans remained in lunar orbit in the command and service module (CSM), taking scientific measurements and photographs. The spacecraft returned to Earth on December 19. The mission broke several records for crewed spaceflight, including the longest crewed lunar landing mission (12 days, 14 hours), greatest distance from a spacecraft during an extravehicular activity of any type (7.6 kilometers or 4.7 miles), longest total duration of lunar-surface extravehicular activities (22 hours, 4 minutes), largest lunar-sample return (approximately 115 kg or 254 lb), longest time in lunar orbit (6 days, 4 hours), and greatest number of lunar orbits (75). ## Crew and key Mission Control personnel In 1969, NASA announced that the backup crew of Apollo 14 would be Gene Cernan, Ronald Evans, and former X-15 pilot Joe Engle. This put them in line to be the prime crew of Apollo 17, because the Apollo program's crew rotation generally meant that a backup crew would fly as prime crew three missions later. Harrison Schmitt, who was a professional geologist as well as an astronaut, had served on the backup crew of Apollo 15, and thus, because of the rotation, would have been due to fly as lunar module pilot on Apollo 18. In September 1970, the plan to launch Apollo 18 was cancelled. The scientific community pressed NASA to assign a geologist, rather than a pilot with non-professional geological training, to an Apollo landing. NASA subsequently assigned Schmitt to Apollo 17 as the lunar module pilot. After that, NASA’s director of flight crew operations, Deke Slayton, was left with the question of who would fill the two other Apollo 17 slots: the rest of the Apollo 15 backup crew (Dick Gordon and Vance Brand), or Cernan and Evans from the Apollo 14 backup crew. Slayton ultimately chose Cernan and Evans. Support at NASA for assigning Cernan was not unanimous. Cernan had crashed a Bell 47G helicopter into the Indian River near Cape Kennedy during a training exercise in January 1971; the accident was later attributed to pilot error, as Cernan had misjudged his altitude before crashing into the water. Jim McDivitt, who was manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office at the time, objected to Cernan's selection because of this accident, but Slayton dismissed the concern. After Cernan was offered command of the mission, he advocated for Engle to fly with him on the mission, but it was made clear to him that Schmitt would be assigned instead, with or without Cernan, so he acquiesced. The prime crew of Apollo 17 was publicly announced on August 13, 1971. When assigned to Apollo 17, Cernan was a 38-year-old captain in the United States Navy; he had been selected in the third group of astronauts in 1963, and flown as pilot of Gemini 9A in 1966 and as lunar module pilot of Apollo 10 in 1969 before he served on Apollo 14's backup crew. Evans, 39 years old when assigned to Apollo 17, had been selected as part of the fifth group of astronauts in 1966, and had been a lieutenant commander in the United States Navy. Schmitt, a civilian, was 37 years old when assigned Apollo 17, had a doctorate in geology from Harvard University, and had been selected in the fourth group of astronauts in 1965. Both Evans and Schmitt were making their first spaceflights. For the backup crews of Apollo 16 and 17, the final Apollo lunar missions, NASA selected astronauts who had already flown Apollo lunar missions, to take advantage of their experience, and avoid investing time and money in training rookies who would be unlikely to ever fly an Apollo mission. The original backup crew for Apollo 17, announced at the same time as the prime crew, was the crew of Apollo 15: David Scott as commander, Alfred Worden as CMP and James Irwin as LMP, but in May 1972 they were removed from the backup crew because of their roles in the Apollo 15 postal covers incident. They were replaced with the landing crew of Apollo 16: John W. Young as backup crew commander, Charles Duke as LMP, and Apollo 14's CMP, Stuart Roosa. Originally, Apollo 16's CMP, Ken Mattingly, was to be assigned along with his crewmates, but he declined so he could spend more time with his family, his son having just been born, and instead took an assignment to the Space Shuttle program. Roosa had also served as backup CMP for Apollo 16. For the Apollo program, in addition to the prime and backup crews that had been used in the Mercury and Gemini programs, NASA assigned a third crew of astronauts, known as the support crew. Their role was to provide any assistance in preparing for the missions that the missions director assigned then. Preparations took place in meetings at facilities across the US and sometimes needed a member of the flight crew to attend them. Because McDivitt was concerned that problems could be created if a prime or backup crew member was unable to attend a meeting, Slayton created the support crews to ensure that someone would be able to attend in their stead. Usually low in seniority, they also assembled the mission's rules, flight plan and checklists, and kept them updated; for Apollo 17, they were Robert F. Overmyer, Robert A. Parker and C. Gordon Fullerton. Flight directors were Gerry Griffin, first shift, Gene Kranz and Neil B. Hutchinson, second shift, and Pete Frank and Charles R. Lewis, third shift. According to Kranz, flight directors during the program Apollo had a one-sentence job description, "The flight director may take any actions necessary for crew safety and mission success." Capsule communicators (CAPCOMs) were Fullerton, Parker, Young, Duke, Mattingly, Roosa, Alan Shepard and Joseph P. Allen. ## Mission insignia and call signs The insignia's most prominent feature is an image of the Greek sun god Apollo backdropped by a rendering of an American eagle, the red bars on the eagle mirroring those on the U.S. flag. Three white stars above the red bars represent the three crewmembers of the mission. The background includes the Moon, the planet Saturn, and a galaxy or nebula. The wing of the eagle partially overlays the Moon, suggesting humanity's established presence there. The insignia includes, along with the colors of the U.S. flag (red, white, and blue), the color gold, representative of a "golden age" of spaceflight that was to begin with Apollo 17. The image of Apollo in the mission insignia is a rendering of the Apollo Belvedere sculpture in the Vatican Museums. It looks forward into the future, towards the celestial objects shown in the insignia beyond the Moon. These represent humanity's goals, and the image symbolizes human intelligence, wisdom and ambition. The insignia was designed by artist Robert McCall, based on ideas from the crew. In deciding the call signs for the command module (CM) and lunar module (LM), the crew wished to pay tribute to the American public for their support of the Apollo program, and to the mission, and wanted names with a tradition within American history. The CM was given the call sign "America". According to Cernan, this evoked the 19th century sailing ships which were given that name, and was a thank-you to the people of the United States. The crew selected the name "Challenger" for the LM in lieu of an alternative, "Heritage". Cernan stated that the selected name "just seemed to describe more of what the future for America really held, and that was a challenge". After Schmitt stepped onto the Moon from Challenger, he stated, "I think the next generation ought to accept this as a challenge. Let's see them leave footprints like these." ## Planning and training ### Scheduling and landing site selection Prior to the cancellation of Apollo 18 through 20, Apollo 17 was slated to launch in September 1971 as part of NASA's tentative launch schedule set forth in 1969. The in-flight abort of Apollo 13 and the resulting modifications to the Apollo spacecraft delayed subsequent missions. Following the cancellation of Apollo 20 in early 1970, NASA decided there would be no more than two Apollo missions per year. Part of the reason Apollo 17 was scheduled for December 1972 was to make it fall after the presidential election in November, ensuring that if there was a disaster, it would have no effect on President Richard Nixon's re-election campaign. Nixon had been deeply concerned about the Apollo 13 astronauts, and, fearing another mission in crisis as he ran for re-election, initially decided to omit the funds for Apollo 17 from the budget; he was persuaded to accept a December 1972 date for the mission. Like Apollo 15 and 16, Apollo 17 was slated to be a "J-mission", an Apollo mission type that featured lunar surface stays of three days, higher scientific capability, and the usage of the Lunar Roving Vehicle. Since Apollo 17 was to be the final lunar landing of the Apollo program, high-priority landing sites that had not been visited previously were given consideration for potential exploration. Some sites were rejected at earlier stages. For instance, a landing in the crater Copernicus was rejected because Apollo 12 had already obtained samples from that impact, and three other Apollo expeditions had already visited the vicinity of Mare Imbrium, near the rim of which Copernicus is located. The lunar highlands near the crater Tycho were rejected because of the rough terrain that the astronauts would encounter there. A site on the lunar far side in the crater Tsiolkovskiy was rejected due to technical considerations and the operational costs of maintaining communication with Earth during surface operations. Lastly, a landing in a region southwest of Mare Crisium was rejected on the grounds that a Soviet spacecraft could easily access the site and retrieve samples; Luna 20 ultimately did so shortly after the Apollo 17 site selection was made. Schmitt advocated for a landing on the far side of the Moon until told by Director of Flight Operations Christopher C. Kraft that it would not happen as NASA lacked the funds for the necessary communications satellites. The three sites that made the final consideration for Apollo 17 were Alphonsus crater, Gassendi crater, and the Taurus–Littrow valley. In making the final landing site decision, mission planners considered the primary objectives for Apollo 17: obtaining old highlands material a substantial distance from Mare Imbrium, sampling material from young volcanic activity (i.e., less than three billion years), and having minimal ground overlap with the orbital ground tracks of Apollo 15 and Apollo 16 to maximize the amount of new data obtained. A significant reason for the selection of Taurus–Littrow was that Apollo 15's CMP, Al Worden, had overflown the site and observed features he described as likely volcanic in nature. Gassendi was eliminated because NASA felt that its central peak would be difficult to reach due to the roughness of the local terrain, and, though Alphonsus might be easier operationally than Taurus–Littrow, it was of lesser scientific interest. At Taurus–Littrow, it was believed that the crew would be able to obtain samples of old highland material from the remnants of a landslide event that occurred on the south wall of the valley and the possibility of relatively young, explosive volcanic activity in the area. Although the valley is similar to the landing site of Apollo 15 in that it is on the border of a lunar mare, the advantages of Taurus–Littrow were believed to outweigh the drawbacks. The Apollo Site Selection Board, a committee of NASA personnel and scientists charged with setting out scientific objectives of the Apollo landing missions and selecting landing sites for them, unanimously recommended Taurus–Littrow at its final meeting in February 1972. Upon that recommendation, NASA selected Taurus–Littrow as the landing site for Apollo 17. ### Training As with previous lunar landings, the Apollo 17 astronauts undertook an extensive training program that included learning to collect samples on the surface, usage of the spacesuits, navigation in the Lunar Roving Vehicle, field geology training, survival training, splashdown and recovery training, and equipment training. The geology field trips were conducted as much as possible as if the astronauts were on the Moon: they would be provided with aerial images and maps, and briefed on features of the site and a suggested routing. The following day, they would follow the route, and have tasks and observations to be done at each of the stops. The geology field trips began with one to Big Bend National Park in Texas in October 1971. The early ones were not specifically tailored to prepare the astronauts for Taurus–Littrow, which was not selected until February 1972, but by June, the astronauts were going on field trips to sites specifically selected to prepare for Apollo 17's landing site. Both Cernan and Schmitt had served on backup crews for Apollo landing missions, and were familiar with many of the procedures. Their trainers, such as Gordon Swann, feared that Cernan would defer to Schmitt as a professional geologist on matters within his field. Cernan also had to adjust for the loss of Engle, with whom he had trained for Apollo 14. In spite of these issues, Cernan and Schmitt worked well together as a team, and Cernan became adept at describing what he was seeing on geology field trips, and working independently of Schmitt when necessary. The landing crew aimed for a division of labor so that, when they arrived in a new area, Cernan would perform tasks such as adjusting the antenna on the Lunar Roving Vehicle so as to transmit to Earth while Schmitt gave a report on the geological aspects of the site. The scientists in the geology "backroom" relied on Schmitt's reports to adjust the tasks planned for that site, which would be transmitted to the CapCom and then to Cernan and Schmitt. According to William R. Muehlberger, one of the scientists who trained the astronauts, "In effect [Schmitt] was running the mission from the Moon. But we set it up this way. All of those within the geological world certainly knew it, and I had a sneaking hunch that the top brass knew it too, but this is a practical way out, and they didn't object." Also participating in some of the geology field trips were the commander and lunar module pilot of the backup crew. The initial field trips took place before the Apollo 15 astronauts were assigned as the backup crew for Apollo 17 in February 1972. Either one or both of Scott and Irwin of Apollo 15 took part in four field trips, though both were present together for only two of them. After they were removed from the backup crew, the new backup commander and LMP, Young and Duke, took part in the final four field trips. On field trips, the backup crew would follow half an hour after the prime crew, performing identical tasks, and have their own simulated CapCom and Mission Control guiding them. The Apollo 17 astronauts had fourteen field trips—the Apollo 11 crew had only one. Evans did not go on the geology field trips, having his own set of trainers—by this time, geology training for the CMP was well-established. He would fly with a NASA geologist/pilot, Dick Laidley, over geologic features, with part of the exercise conducted at 40,000 feet (12,000 m), and part at 1,000 feet (300 m) to 5,000 feet (1,500 m). The higher altitude was equivalent to what could be seen from the planned lunar orbit of about 60 nmi with binoculars. Evans would be briefed for several hours before each exercise, and given study guides; afterwards, there would be debriefing and evaluation. Evans was trained in lunar geology by Farouk El-Baz late in the training cycle; this continued until close to launch. The CMP was given information regarding the lunar features he would overfly in the CSM and which he was expected to photograph. ## Mission hardware and experiments ### Spacecraft and launch vehicle The Apollo 17 spacecraft comprised CSM-114 (consisting of Command Module 114 (CM-114) and Service Module 114 (SM-114)); Lunar Module 12 (LM-12); a Spacecraft-Lunar Module Adapter (SLA) numbered SLA-21; and a Launch Escape System (LES). The LES contained a rocket motor that would propel the CM to safety in the event of an aborted mission in the moments after launch, while the SLA housed the LM during the launch and early part of the flight. The LES was jettisoned after the launch vehicle ascended to the point that it was not needed, while the SLA was left atop the S-IVB third stage of the rocket after the CSM and LM separated from it. The launch vehicle, SA-512, was one of fifteen Saturn V rockets built, and was the twelfth to fly. With a weight at launch of 6,529,784 pounds (2,961,860 kg) (116,269 pounds (52,739 kg) of which was attributable to the spacecraft), Apollo 17's vehicle was slightly lighter than Apollo 16, but heavier than every other crewed Apollo mission. #### Preparation and assembly The first piece of the launch vehicle to arrive at Kennedy Space Center was the S-II second stage, on October 27, 1970; it was followed by the S-IVB on December 21; the S-IC first stage did not arrive until May 11, 1972, followed by the Instrument Unit on June 7. By then, LM-12 had arrived, the ascent stage on June 16, 1971, and the descent stage the following day; they were not mated until May 18, 1972. CM-114, SM-114 and SLA-21 all arrived on March 24, 1972. The rover reached Kennedy Space Center on June 2, 1972. The CM and the service module (SM) were mated on March 28, 1972, and the testing of the spacecraft began that month. The CSM was placed in a vacuum chamber at Kennedy Space Center, and the testing was conducted under those conditions. The LM was also placed in a vacuum chamber; both the prime and the backup crews participated in testing the CSM and LM. During the testing, it was discovered that the LM's rendezvous radar assembly had received too much voltage during earlier tests; it was replaced by the manufacturer, Grumman. The LM's landing radar also malfunctioned intermittently and was also replaced. The front and rear steering motors of the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) also had to be replaced, and it required several modifications. Following the July 1972 removal from the vacuum chamber, the LM's landing gear was installed, and it, the CSM and the SLA were mated to each other. The combined craft was moved into the Vehicle Assembly Building in August for further testing, after which it was mounted on the launch vehicle. After completing testing, including a simulated mission, the LRV was placed in the LM on August 13. Erection of the stages of the launch vehicle began on May 15, 1972, in High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building, and was completed on June 27. Since the launch vehicles for Skylab 1 and Skylab 2 were being processed in that building at the same time, this marked the first time NASA had three launch vehicles there since the height of the Apollo program in 1969. After the spacecraft was mounted on the launch vehicle on August 24, it was rolled out to Pad 39-A on August 28. Although this was not the final time a Saturn V would fly (another would lift Skylab to orbit), area residents reacted as though it was, and 5,000 of them watched the rollout, during which the prime crew joined the operating crew from Bendix atop the crawler. At Pad 39-A, testing continued, and the CSM was electrically mated to the launch vehicle on October 11, 1972. Testing concluded with the countdown demonstration tests, accomplished on November 20 and 21. The countdown to launch began at 7:53 a.m. (12:53 UTC) on December 5, 1972. ### Lunar surface science #### ALSEP The Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package was a suite of nuclear-powered experiments, flown on each landing mission after Apollo 11. This equipment was to be emplaced by the astronauts to continue functioning after the astronauts returned to Earth. For Apollo 17, the ALSEP experiments were a Heat Flow Experiment (HFE), to measure the rate of heat flow from the interior of the Moon, a Lunar Surface Gravimeter (LSG), to measure alterations in the lunar gravity field at the site, a Lunar Atmospheric Composition Experiment (LACE), to investigate what the lunar atmosphere is made up of, a Lunar Seismic Profiling Experiment (LSPE), to detect nearby seismic activity, and a Lunar Ejecta and Meteorites Experiment (LEME), to measure the velocity and energy of dust particles. Of these, only the HFE had been flown before; the others were new. The HFE had been flown on the aborted Apollo 13 mission, as well as on Apollo 15 and 16, but placed successfully only on Apollo 15, and unexpected results from that device made scientists anxious for a second successful emplacement. It was successfully deployed on Apollo 17. The lunar gravimeter was intended to detect wavers in gravity, which would provide support for Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity; it ultimately failed to function as intended. The LACE was a surface-deployed module that used a mass spectrometer to analyze the Moon's atmosphere. On previous missions, the Code Cathode Gauge experiment had measured the quantity of atmospheric particles, but the LACE determined which gases were present: principally neon, helium and hydrogen. The LSPE was a seismic-detecting device that used geophones, which would detect explosives to be set off by ground command once the astronauts left the Moon. When operating, it could only send useful data to Earth in high bit rate, meaning that no other ALSEP experiment could send data then, and limiting its operating time. It was turned on to detect the liftoff of the ascent stage, as well as use of the explosives packages, and the ascent stage's impact, and thereafter about once a week, as well as for some 100 hour periods. The LEME had a set of detectors to measure the characteristics of the dust particles it sought. It was hoped that the LEME would detect dust impacting the Moon from elsewhere, such as from comets or interstellar space, but analysis showed that it primarily detected dust moving at slow speeds across the lunar surface. All powered ALSEP experiments that remained active were deactivated on September 30, 1977, principally because of budgetary constraints. #### Other lunar-surface science Like Apollo 15 and 16, Apollo 17 carried a Lunar Roving Vehicle. In addition to being used by the astronauts for transport from station to station on the mission's three moonwalks, the LRV was used to transport the astronauts' tools, communications equipment, and the lunar samples they gathered. The Apollo 17 LRV was also used to carry some of the scientific instruments, such as the Traverse Gravimeter Experiment (TGE) and Surface Electrical Properties (SEP) experiment. The Apollo 17 LRV traveled a cumulative distance of approximately 35.7 km (22.2 mi) in a total drive time of about four hours and twenty-six minutes; the greatest distance Cernan and Schmitt traveled from the lunar module was about 7.6 km (4.7 mi). This was the only mission to carry the TGE, which was built by Draper Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As gravimeters had been useful in studying the Earth's internal structure, the objective of this experiment was to do the same on the Moon. The gravimeter was used to obtain relative gravity measurements at the landing site in the immediate vicinity of the lunar module, as well as various locations on the mission's traverse routes. Scientists would then use this data to help determine the geological substructure of the landing site and the surrounding vicinity. Measurements were taken while the TGE was mounted on the LRV, and also while the device was placed on the lunar surface. A total of 26 measurements were taken with the TGE during the mission's three moonwalks, with productive results. The SEP was also unique to Apollo 17, and included two major components: a transmitting antenna deployed near the lunar module and a receiver mounted on the LRV. At different stops during the mission's traverses, electrical signals traveled from the transmitting device, through the ground, and were received at the LRV. The electrical properties of the lunar regolith could be determined by comparison of the transmitted and received electrical signals. The results of this experiment, which are consistent with lunar rock composition, show that there is almost no water in the area of the Moon in which Apollo 17 landed, to a depth of 2 km (1.2 mi). A 2.4 m (7.9 ft) long, 2 cm (0.79 in) diameter device, the Lunar Neutron Probe was inserted into one of the holes drilled into the surface to collect core samples. It was designed to measure the quantity of neutrons which penetrated to the detectors it bore along its length. This was intended to measure the rate of the "gardening" process on the lunar surface, whereby the regolith on the surface is slowly mixed or buried due to micrometeorites and other events. Placed during the first EVA, it was retrieved during the third and final EVA. The astronauts brought it with them back to Earth, and the measurements from it were compared with the evidence of neutron flux in the core that had been removed from the hole it had been placed in. Results from the probe and from the cores were instrumental in current theories that the top centimeter of lunar regolith turns over every million years, whereas "gardening" to a depth of one meter takes about a billion years. ### Orbital science #### Biological experiments Apollo 17's CM carried a biological cosmic ray experiment (BIOCORE), containing five mice that had been implanted with radiation monitors under their scalps to see whether they suffered damage from cosmic rays. These animals were placed in individual metal tubes inside a sealed container that had its own oxygen supply, and flown on the mission. All five were pocket mice (Perognathus longimembris); this species was chosen because it was well-documented, small, easy to maintain in an isolated state (not requiring drinking water during the mission and with highly concentrated waste), and for its ability to withstand environmental stress. Officially, the mice—four male and one female—were assigned the identification numbers A3326, A3400, A3305, A3356 and A3352. Unofficially, according to Cernan, the Apollo 17 crew dubbed them Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, and Phooey. Four of the five mice survived the flight, though only two of them appeared healthy and active; the cause of death of the fifth mouse was not determined. Of those that survived, the study found lesions in the scalp itself and, in one case, the liver. The scalp lesions and liver lesions appeared to be unrelated to one another; nothing was found that could be attributed to cosmic rays. The Biostack experiment was similar to one carried on Apollo 16, and was designed to test the effects of the cosmic rays encountered in space travel on microorganisms that were included, on seeds, and on the eggs of simple animals (brine shrimp and beetles), which were carried in a sealed container. After the mission, the microorganisms and seeds showed little effect, but many of the eggs of all species failed to hatch, or to mature normally; many died or displayed abnormalities. #### Scientific Instrument Module The Apollo 17 SM contained the scientific instrument module (SIM) bay. The SIM bay housed three new experiments for use in lunar orbit: a lunar sounder, an infrared scanning radiometer, and a far-ultraviolet spectrometer. A mapping camera, panoramic camera, and a laser altimeter, which had been carried previously, were also included in the SIM bay. The lunar sounder was to beam electromagnetic impulses toward the lunar surface, which were designed with the objective of obtaining data to assist in developing a geological model of the interior of the Moon to an approximate depth of 1.3 km (0.81 mi). The infrared scanning radiometer was designed with the objective of generating a temperature map of the lunar surface to aid in locating surface features such as rock fields, structural differences in the lunar crust, and volcanic activity. The far-ultraviolet spectrometer was to be used to obtain information on the composition, density, and constituency of the lunar atmosphere. The spectrometer was also designed to detect far-UV radiation emitted by the Sun that had been reflected off the lunar surface. The laser altimeter was designed to measure the altitude of the spacecraft above the lunar surface within approximately 2 meters (6.6 feet), providing altitude information to the panoramic and mapping cameras, which were also in the SIM bay. #### Light-flash phenomenon and other experiments Beginning with Apollo 11, crew members observed light flashes that penetrated their closed eyelids. These flashes, described by the astronauts as "streaks" or "specks" of light, were usually observed while the spacecraft was darkened during a sleep period. These flashes, while not observed on the lunar surface, would average about two per minute and were observed by the crew members during the trip out to the Moon, back to Earth, and in lunar orbit. The Apollo 17 crew repeated an experiment, also conducted on Apollo 16, with the objective of linking these light flashes with cosmic rays. Evans wore a device over his eyes that recorded the time, strength, and path of high-energy atomic particles that penetrated the device, while the other two wore blindfolds to keep out light. Investigators concluded that the available evidence supports the hypothesis that these flashes occur when charged particles travel through the retina in the eye. Apollo 17 carried a sodium-iodide crystal identical to the ones in the gamma-ray spectrometer flown on Apollo 15 and 16. Data from this, once it was examined on Earth, was to be used to help form a baseline, allowing for subtraction of rays from the CM or from cosmic radiation to gain better data from the earlier results. In addition, the S-band transponders in the CSM and LM were pointed at the Moon to gain data on its gravitational field. Results from the Lunar Orbiter probes had revealed that lunar gravity varies slightly due to the presence of mass concentrations, or "mascons". Data from the missions, and from the lunar subsatellites left by Apollo 15 and 16, were used to map such variations in lunar gravity. ## Mission events ### Launch and outbound trip Originally planned to launch on December 6, 1972, at 9:53 p.m. EST (2:53 a.m. on December 7 UTC), Apollo 17 was the final crewed Saturn V launch, and the only one to occur at night. The launch was delayed by two hours and forty minutes due to an automatic cutoff in the launch sequencer at the T-30 second mark in the countdown. The cause of the problem was quickly determined to be the launch sequencer's failure to automatically pressurize the liquid oxygen tank in the third stage of the rocket; although launch control noticed this and manually caused the tank to pressurize, the sequencer did not recognize the fix and therefore paused the countdown. The clock was reset and held at the T-22 minute mark while technicians worked around the malfunction in order to continue with the launch. This pause was the only launch delay in the Apollo program caused by a hardware problem. The countdown then resumed, and the liftoff occurred at 12:33 a.m. EST on December 7, 1972. The launch window, which had begun at the originally planned launch time of 9:53 p.m. on December 6, remained open until 1:31 a.m., the latest time at which a launch could have occurred during the December 6–7 window. Approximately 500,000 people observed the launch in the immediate vicinity of Kennedy Space Center, despite the early-morning hour. The launch was visible as far away as 800 km (500 mi), and observers in Miami, Florida, reported a "red streak" crossing the northern sky. Among those in attendance at the program's final launch were astronauts Neil Armstrong and Dick Gordon, as well as centenarian Charlie Smith, who alleged he was 130 years old at the time of Apollo 17. The ascent resulted in an orbit with an altitude and velocity almost exactly that which had been planned. In the hours following the launch, Apollo 17 orbited the Earth while the crew spent time monitoring and checking the spacecraft to ensure its readiness to depart Earth orbit. At 3:46 a.m. EST, the S-IVB third stage was reignited for the 351-second trans-lunar injection burn to propel the spacecraft towards the Moon. Ground controllers chose a faster trajectory for Apollo 17 than originally planned to allow the vehicle to reach lunar orbit at the planned time, despite the launch delay. The Command and Service Module separated from the S-IVB approximately half an hour following the S-IVB trans-lunar injection burn, after which Evans turned the spacecraft to face the LM, still attached to the S-IVB. The CSM then docked with the LM and extracted it from the S-IVB. Following the LM extraction, Mission Control programmed the S-IVB, no longer needed to propel the spacecraft, to impact the Moon and trip the seismometers left by prior Apollo crews. It struck the Moon just under 87 hours into the mission, triggering the seismometers from Apollo 12, 14, 15 and 16. Approximately nine hours after launch, the crew concluded the mission's first day with a sleep period, until waking up to begin the second day. Mission Control and the crew decided to shorten the mission's second day, the first full day in space, in order to adjust the crew's wake-up times for the subsequent days in preparation for an early morning (EST) wake-up time on the day of the lunar landing, then scheduled for early afternoon (EST). This was done since the first day of the mission had been extended because of the launch delay. Following the second rest period, and on the third day of the mission, the crew executed the first mid-course correction, a two-second burn of the CSM's service propulsion engine to adjust the spacecraft's Moon-bound trajectory. Following the burn, the crew opened the hatch separating the CSM and LM in order to check the LM's systems and concluded that they were nominal. So that events would take place at the time indicated in the flight plan, the mission clocks were moved ahead by 2 hours and 40 minutes, the amount of the launch delay, with one hour of it at 45:00:00 into the mission and the remainder at 65:00:00. Among their other activities during the outbound trip, the crew photographed the Earth from the spacecraft as it travelled towards the Moon. One of these photographs is now known as The Blue Marble. The crew found that one of the latches holding the CSM and LM together was unlatched. While Schmitt and Cernan were engaged in a second period of LM housekeeping beginning just before sixty hours into the Mission, Evans worked on the balky latch. He was successful, and left it in the position it would need to be in for the CSM-LM docking that would occur upon return from the lunar surface. Also during the outward journey, the crew performed a heat flow and convection demonstration, as well as the Apollo light-flash experiment. A few hours before entry into lunar orbit, the SIM door on the SM was jettisoned. At approximately 2:47 p.m. EST on December 10, the service propulsion system engine on the CSM ignited to slow down the CSM/LM stack into lunar orbit. Following orbit insertion and orbital stabilization, the crew began preparations for the landing at Taurus–Littrow. ### Lunar landing The day of the landing began with a checkout of the Lunar Module's systems, which revealed no problems preventing continuation of the mission. Cernan, Evans, and Schmitt each donned their spacesuits, and Cernan and Schmitt entered the LM in preparation for separating from the CSM and landing. The LM undocked from the CSM, and the two spacecraft orbited close together for about an hour and a half while the astronauts made visual inspections and conducted their final pre-landing checks. After finally separating from the CSM, the LM Challenger and its crew of two adjusted their orbit, such that its lowest point would pass about 10.5 mi (16.9 km) above the landing site, and began preparations for the descent to Taurus–Littrow. While Cernan and Schmitt prepared for landing, Evans remained in orbit to take observations, perform experiments and await the return of his crewmates a few days later. Soon after completing their preparations for landing and just over two hours following the LM's undocking from the CSM, Cernan and Schmitt began their descent to the Taurus–Littrow valley on the lunar surface with the ignition of the Lunar Module's descent propulsion system (DPS) engine. Approximately ten minutes later, as planned, the LM pitched over, giving Cernan and Schmitt their first look at the landing site during the descent phase and allowing Cernan to guide the spacecraft to a desirable landing target while Schmitt provided data from the flight computer essential for landing. The LM touched down on the lunar surface at 2:55 p.m. EST on December 11, just over twelve minutes after DPS ignition. Challenger landed about 656 feet (200 m) east of the planned landing point. Shortly thereafter, the two astronauts began re-configuring the LM for their stay on the surface and began preparations for the first moonwalk of the mission, or EVA-1. ### Lunar surface #### First EVA During their approximately 75-hour stay on the lunar surface, Cernan and Schmitt performed three moonwalks (EVAs). The astronauts deployed the LRV, then emplaced the ALSEP and the seismic explosive charges. They drove the rover to nine planned geological-survey stations to collect samples and make observations. Additionally, twelve short sampling stops were made at Schmitt's discretion while riding the rover, during which the astronauts used a handled scoop to get a sample, without dismounting. During lunar-surface operations, Commander Cernan always drove the rover, while Lunar Module Pilot Schmitt was a passenger who assisted with navigation. This division of responsibilities between the two crew positions was used consistently throughout Apollo's J-missions. The first lunar excursion began four hours after landing, at 6:54 p.m. EST on December 11. After exiting through the hatch of the LM and descending the ladder to the footpad, Cernan took the first step on the lunar surface of the mission. Just before doing so, Cernan remarked, "I'm on the footpad. And, Houston, as I step off at the surface at Taurus–Littrow, we'd like to dedicate the first step of Apollo 17 to all those who made it possible." After Cernan surveyed the exterior of the LM and commented on the immediate landing site, Schmitt joined Cernan on the surface. The first task was to offload the rover and other equipment from the LM. While working near the rover, Cernan caught his hammer under the right-rear fender extension, accidentally breaking it off. A similar incident occurred on Apollo 16 as John Young maneuvered around the rover. Although this was not a mission-critical issue, the loss of the part caused Cernan and Schmitt to be covered with dust stirred up when the rover was in motion. The crew made a short-lived fix using duct tape at the beginning of the second EVA, attaching a paper map to the damaged fender. Lunar dust stuck to the tape's surface, however, preventing it from adhering properly. Following deployment and testing the maneuverability of the rover, the crew deployed the ALSEP just west of the landing site. The ALSEP deployment took longer than had been planned, with the drilling of core holes presenting some difficulty, meaning the geological portion of the first EVA would need to be shortened, cancelling a planned visit to Emory crater. Instead, following the deployment of the ALSEP, Cernan and Schmitt drove to Steno crater, to the south of the landing site. The objective at Steno was to sample the subsurface material excavated by the impact that formed the crater. The astronauts gathered 14 kilograms (31 lb) of samples, took seven gravimeter measurements, and deployed two explosive packages. The explosive packages were later detonated remotely; the resulting explosions detected by geophones placed by the astronauts and also by seismometers left during previous missions. The first EVA ended after seven hours and twelve minutes. and the astronauts remained in the pressurized LM for the next 17 hours. #### Second EVA On December 12, awakened by a recording of "Ride of the Valkyries" played from Mission Control, Cernan and Schmitt began their second lunar excursion. The first order of business was to provide the rover's fender a better fix. Overnight, the flight controllers devised a procedure communicated by John Young: taping together four stiff paper maps to form a "replacement fender extension" and then clamping it onto the fender. The astronauts carried out the new fix which did its job without failing until near the end of the third excursion. Cernan and Schmitt then departed for station 2—Nansen Crater, at the foot of the South Massif. When they arrived, their range from the Challenger was 7.6 kilometers (4.7 miles, 25,029 feet). This remains the furthest distance any spacefarers have ever traveled away from the safety of a pressurizable spacecraft while on a planetary body, and also during an EVA of any type. The astronauts were at the extremity of their "walkback limit", a safety constraint meant to ensure that they could walk back to the LM if the rover failed. They began a return trip, traveling northeast in the rover. At station 3, Schmitt fell to the ground while working, looking so awkward that Parker jokingly told him that NASA's switchboard had lit up seeking Schmitt's services for Houston's ballet group, and the site of station 3 was in 2019 renamed Ballet Crater. Cernan took a sample at Station 3 that was to be maintained in vacuum until better analytical techniques became available, joking with the CAPCOM, Parker, about placing a note inside. The container remained unopened until 2022. Stopping at station 4—Shorty crater—the astronauts discovered orange soil, which proved to be very small beads of volcanic glass formed over 3.5 billion years ago. This discovery caused great excitement among the scientists at Mission Control, who felt that the astronauts may have discovered a volcanic vent. However, post-mission sample analysis revealed that Shorty is not a volcanic vent, but rather an impact crater. Analysis also found the orange soil to be a remnant of a fire fountain. This fire fountain sprayed molten lava high into the lunar sky in the Moon's early days, some 3.5 billion years ago and long before Shorty's creation. The orange volcanic beads were droplets of molten lava from the fountain that solidified and were buried by lava deposits until exposed by the impact that formed Shorty, less than 20 million years ago. The final stop before returning to the LM was Camelot crater; throughout the sojourn, the astronauts collected 34 kilograms (75 lb) of samples, took another seven gravimeter measurements, and deployed three more explosive packages. Concluding the EVA at seven hours and thirty-seven minutes, Cernan and Schmitt had completed the longest-duration EVA in history to-date, traveling further away from a spacecraft and covering more ground on a planetary body during a single EVA than any other spacefarers. The improvised fender had remained intact throughout, causing the president of the "Auto Body Association of America" to award them honorary lifetime membership. #### Third EVA The third moonwalk, the last of the Apollo program, began at 5:25 p.m. EST on December 13. Cernan and Schmitt rode the rover northeast of the landing site, exploring the base of the North Massif and the Sculptured Hills. Stopping at station 6, they examined a house-sized split boulder dubbed Tracy's Rock (or Split Rock), after Cernan's daughter. The ninth and final planned station was conducted at Van Serg crater. The crew collected 66 kilograms (146 lb) of lunar samples and took another nine gravimeter measurements. Schmitt had seen a fine-grained rock, unusual for that vicinity, earlier in the mission and had stood it on its edge; before closing out the EVA, he went and got it. Subsequently, designated Sample 70215, it was, at 17.7 pounds (8.0 kg), the largest rock brought back by Apollo 17. A small piece of it is on exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution, one of the few rocks from the Moon that the public may touch. Schmitt also collected a sample, designated as Sample 76535, at geology station 6 near the base of the North Massif; the sample, a troctolite, was later identified as the oldest known "unshocked" lunar rock, meaning it has not been damaged by high-impact geological events. Scientists have therefore used Sample 76535 in thermochronological studies to determine if the Moon formed a metallic core or, as study results suggest, a core dynamo. Before concluding the moonwalk, the crew collected a breccia rock, dedicating it to the nations of Earth, 70 of which were represented by students touring the U.S. and present in Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas, at the time. Portions of this sample, known as the Friendship Rock, were subsequently distributed to the nations represented by the students. A plaque located on the LM, commemorating the achievements made during the Apollo program, was then unveiled. Before reentering the LM for the final time, Cernan remarked, > ... I'm on the surface; and, as I take man's last step from the surface, back home for some time to come – but we believe not too long into the future – I'd like to just [say] what I believe history will record. That America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus–Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. "Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17." Cernan then followed Schmitt into the LM; the final lunar excursion had a duration of seven hours and fifteen minutes. Following closing of the LM hatch and repressurization of the LM cabin, Cernan and Schmitt removed their spacesuits and reconfigured the cabin for a final rest period on the lunar surface. As they did following each of the previous two EVAs, Cernan and Schmitt discussed their geological observations from the day's excursion with mission control while preparing to rest. ### Solo activities While Cernan and Schmitt were on the lunar surface, Evans remained alone in the CSM in lunar orbit and was assigned a number of observational and scientific tasks to perform while awaiting the return of his crewmates. In addition to the operation of the various orbital science equipment contained in the CSM's SIM bay, Evans conducted both visual and photographic observation of surface features from his aerial vantage point. The orbit of the CSM having been modified to an elliptical orbit in preparation for the LM's departure and eventual descent, one of Evans' solo tasks in the CSM was to circularize its orbit such that the CSM would remain at approximately the same distance above the surface throughout its orbit. Evans observed geological features visible to him and used handheld cameras to record certain visual targets. Evans also observed and sketched the solar corona at "sunrise," or the period of time during which the CSM would pass from the darkened portion of the Moon to the illuminated portion when the Moon itself mostly obscured the sun. To photograph portions of the surface that were not illuminated by the sun while Evans passed over them, Evans relied in conjunction on exposure and Earthlight. Evans photographed such features as the craters Eratosthenes and Copernicus, as well as the vicinity of Mare Orientale, using this technique. According to the Apollo 17 Mission Report, Evans was able to capture all scientific photographic targets, as well as some other targets of interest. Similarly to the crew of Apollo 16, Evans (as well as Schmitt, while in lunar orbit) reported seeing light "flashes" apparently originating from the lunar surface, known as transient lunar phenomena (TLP); Evans reported seeing these "flashes" in the vicinity of Grimaldi crater and Mare Orientale. The causes of TLP are not well-understood and, though inconclusive as an explanation, both of the sites in which Evans reported seeing TLP are the general locations of outgassing from the Moon's interior. Meteorite impacts are another possible explanation. The flight plan kept Evans busy, making him so tired he overslept one morning by an hour, despite the efforts of Mission Control to awaken him. Before the LM departed for the lunar surface, Evans had discovered that he had misplaced his pair of scissors, necessary to open food packets. Cernan and Schmitt lent him one of theirs. The instruments in the SIM bay functioned without significant hindrance during the orbital portion of the mission, though the lunar sounder and the mapping camera encountered minor problems. Evans spent approximately 148 total hours in lunar orbit, including solo time and time spent together with Cernan and Schmitt, which is more time than any other individual has spent orbiting the Moon. Evans was also responsible for piloting the CSM during the orbital phase of the mission, maneuvering the spacecraft to alter and maintain its orbital trajectory. In addition to the initial orbital recircularization maneuver shortly after the LM's departure, one of the solo activities Evans performed in the CSM in preparation for the return of his crewmates from the lunar surface was the plane change maneuver. This maneuver was meant to align the CSM's trajectory to the eventual trajectory of the LM to facilitate rendezvous in orbit. Evans fired the SPS engine of the CSM for about 20 seconds in successfully adjusting the CSM's orbital plane. ### Return to Earth Cernan and Schmitt successfully lifted off from the lunar surface in the ascent stage of the LM on December 14, at 5:54 p.m. EST. The return to lunar orbit took just over seven minutes. The LM, piloted by Cernan, and the CSM, piloted by Evans, maneuvered, and redocked about two hours after liftoff from the surface. Once the docking had taken place, the crew transferred equipment and lunar samples from the LM to the CSM for return to Earth. The crew sealed the hatches between the CSM and the LM ascent stage following completion of the transfer and the LM was jettisoned at 11:51 p.m. EST on December 14. The unoccupied ascent stage was then remotely deorbited, crashing it into the Moon with an impact recorded by the seismometers left by Apollo 17 and previous missions. At 6:35 p.m. EST on December 16, the CSM's SPS engine was ignited once more to propel the spacecraft away from the Moon on a trajectory back towards Earth. The successful trans-Earth injection SPS burn lasted just over two minutes. During the return to Earth, Evans performed a 65-minute EVA to retrieve film cassettes from the service module's SIM bay, with assistance from Schmitt who remained at the command module's hatch. At approximately 160,000 nautical miles (184,000 mi; 296,000 km) from Earth, it was the third "deep space" EVA in history, performed at great distance from any planetary body. As of 2023, it remains one of only three such EVAs, all performed during Apollo's J-missions under similar circumstances. It was the last EVA of the Apollo program. During the trip back to Earth, the crew operated the infrared radiometer in the SM, as well as the ultraviolet spectrometer. One midcourse correction was performed, lasting 9 seconds. On December 19, the crew jettisoned the no-longer-needed SM, leaving only the CM for return to Earth. The Apollo 17 spacecraft reentered Earth's atmosphere and splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean at 2:25 p.m. EST, 6.4 kilometers (4.0 mi) from the recovery ship, USS Ticonderoga. Cernan, Evans, and Schmitt were then retrieved by a recovery helicopter piloted by Commander Edward E. Dahill, III and were safe aboard the recovery ship 52 minutes after splashdown. As the final Apollo mission concluded successfully, Mission Control in Houston was filled with many former flight controllers and astronauts, who applauded as America returned to Earth. ## Aftermath and spacecraft locations Following their mission, the crew undertook both domestic and international tours, visiting 29 states and 11 countries. The tour kicked off at Super Bowl VII, with the crew leading the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance; the CM America was also displayed during the pregame activities. None of the Apollo 17 astronauts flew in space again. Cernan retired from NASA and the Navy in 1976. He died in 2017. Evans retired from the Navy in 1976 and from NASA in 1977, entering the private sector. He died in 1990. Schmitt resigned from NASA in 1975 prior to his successful run for a United States Senate seat from New Mexico in 1976. There, he served one six-year term. The Command Module America is currently on display at Space Center Houston at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The ascent stage of Lunar Module Challenger impacted the Moon on December 15, 1972, at 06:50:20.8 UTC (1:50 a.m. EST), at . The descent stage remains on the Moon at the landing site, . Eugene Cernan's flown Apollo 17 spacesuit is in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum (NASM), where it was transferred in 1974, and Harrison Schmitt's is in storage at NASM's Paul E. Garber Facility. Amanda Young of NASM indicated in 2004 that Schmitt's suit is in the best condition of the flown Apollo lunar spacesuits, and therefore is not on public display. Ron Evans' spacesuit was also transferred from NASA in 1974 to the collection of the NASM; it remains in storage. Since Apollo 17's return, there have been attempts to photograph the landing site, where the LM's descent stage, LRV and some other mission hardware, remain. In 2009 and again in 2011, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photographed the landing site from increasingly low orbits. At least one group has indicated an intention to visit the site as well; in 2018, the German space company PTScientists said that it planned to land two lunar rovers nearby. ## See also - List of Apollo missions - List of astronauts by year of selection - List of human spaceflights - List of human spaceflight programs - List of landings on extraterrestrial bodies - List of crewed spacecraft - List of NASA missions - List of spacewalks and moonwalks 1965–1999 - Moon landing - The Case of the Missing Moon Rocks - Apollo in Real Time
216,717	Ferugliotherium	1,170,979,234	Genus of extinct mammals from the Late Cretaceous from Argentina	[ "Campanian life", "Cretaceous Argentina", "Cretaceous mammals of South America", "Fossil taxa described in 1986", "Fossils of Argentina", "Gondwanatheres", "Late Cretaceous mammals", "Late Cretaceous tetrapods of South America", "Los Alamitos Formation", "Maastrichtian life", "Mammals described in 1986", "Taxa named by José Bonaparte" ]	Ferugliotherium is a genus of fossil mammals in the family Ferugliotheriidae from the Campanian and/or Maastrichtian period (Late Cretaceous; around 70 million years ago) of Argentina. It contains a single species, Ferugliotherium windhauseni, which was first described in 1986. Although originally interpreted on the basis of a single brachydont (low-crowned) molar as a member of Multituberculata, an extinct group of small, rodent-like mammals, it was recognized as related to the hypsodont (high-crowned) Sudamericidae following the discovery of additional material in the early 1990s. After a jaw of the sudamericid Sudamerica was described in 1999, these animals (collectively known as Gondwanatheria) were no longer considered to be multituberculates and a few fossils that were previously considered to be Ferugliotherium were assigned to unspecified multituberculates instead. Since 2005, a relationship between gondwanatheres and multituberculates has again received support. A closely related animal, Trapalcotherium, was described in 2009 on the basis of a single tooth. About twenty teeth and a jaw fragment have been referred to Ferugliotherium, but the assignment of many of these is controversial or has been superseded. The upper and lower incisors are long and rodent-like and have enamel on only one side of the crown. A fragment of the lower jaw shows that the tooth socket of the lower incisor was very long, extending below the fourth premolar (p4). The p4 is preserved in this fragment. It is blade-shaped and resembles multituberculate p4s. However, the determination of this fossil as Ferugliotherium is in question. The identity of a few additional isolated premolars assigned to Ferugliotherium, some resembling multituberculates, is also uncertain. The first lower molariform (molar-like tooth; mf1) is known from four examples, of which two were originally identified as upper molars of a different species (Vucetichia gracilis), which is now considered a synonym of Ferugliotherium. They bear two longitudinal rows of three or four cusps and transverse crests and furrows. A single example each of the second lower (mf2) and first upper molariform (MF1) show that these teeth also had longitudinal cusp rows and transverse furrows and crests, but the mf2 had only two or perhaps three cusps per row and the MF1 had three longitudinal rows. Although Ferugliotherium teeth are much lower-crowned than those of the Sudamericidae, they share an essentially similar pattern on the occlusal (chewing) surface of mf1 and mf2, similar incisors, backward jaw movement during chewing, and enamel with small prisms. Ferugliotherium is thought to have been a small animal, with a body mass of about 70 g (2.5 oz), and may have eaten insects and plant material. Its remains have been found in two geological formations of southern Argentina, where it is part of a mammal fauna that also includes the sudamericid Gondwanatherium and a variety of dryolestoids. ## Taxonomy Ferugliotherium windhauseni was named in 1986 by Argentinean paleontologist José Bonaparte on the basis of a single second lower molar (m2) from the Late Cretaceous Los Alamitos Formation of Argentina. Both the generic name, Ferugliotherium, and the specific name, windhauseni, honor geologists who studied the geology of Patagonia: Egidio Feruglio and Anselmo Windhausen, respectively. Bonaparte created a new family, Ferugliotheriidae, for the new species and tentatively assigned it to Multituberculata, an extinct group of mammals that was diverse during the late Cretaceous, mostly in the northern continents (Laurasia). In subsequent years, other finds permitted a more confident assignment to Multituberculata. In 1990, Bonaparte described Vucetichia gracilis on the basis of what he interpreted as two upper molars of a relative of Gondwanatherium within the order Gondwanatheria, a small mammalian group that was at the time known only from Argentinean fossils and thought to be related to xenarthrans as part of a now-discarded group called Paratheria. The generic name, Vucetichia, commemorates Argentinean paleontologist Guiomar Vucetich, and the specific name, gracilis (Latin for "slender"), refers to the animal's small size. However, in 1990 David W. Krause and Bonaparte argued that Gondwanatheria, including Ferugliotherium (family Ferugliotheriidae), Gondwanatherium, and Sudamerica (family Sudamericidae), should be placed within Multituberculata. Two years later, Krause, Bonaparte, and Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska described additional material of Ferugliotherium (which they tentatively placed in the multituberculate suborder Plagiaulacoidea) and suggested that the supposed upper molars of Vucetichia were in fact heavily worn first lower molariforms (mf1) of Ferugliotherium. In 1993, Krause described an unworn mf1 of Ferugliotherium and confirmed that Vucetichia was based on worn specimens of Ferugliotherium and therefore a synonym of the latter. In the same year, he and Bonaparte argued once again that Ferugliotherium, Gondwanatherium, and Sudamerica formed a closely related group of multituberculates, which they called the superfamily Gondwanatherioidea. Kielan-Jaworowska and Bonaparte described a lower jaw fragment with a multituberculate-like lower fourth premolar (p4) from Los Alamitos in 1996 and tentatively identified it as Ferugliotherium. On the basis of the morphological features of the jaw fragment, they argued that gondwanatherians were not closely related to any other multituberculate group, and consequently placed them in a suborder of their own, Gondwanatheria. In 1999, Rosendo Pascual and colleagues described a jaw of Sudamerica. Because some of this jaw's features were thought to be incompatible with a multituberculate identity, they regarded gondwanatheres (including Ferugliotherium) as Mammalia incertae sedis. However, in 2009 Yamila Gurovich and Robin Beck argued in favor of a close relationship between gondwanatheres (including Ferugliotherium) and multituberculates. The controversy is partially due to disagreement over the assignment of two upper premolars and the jaw fragment described by Kielan-Jaworowska and Bonaparte in 1996; Gurovich and Beck identify these as Ferugliotherium, while Kielan-Jaworowska and others regard them as indeterminate multituberculates. In the 2000s, some possible close relatives of Ferugliotherium were discovered. An enigmatic tooth from the Paleogene of Peru, LACM 149371, was described in 2004 as possibly related to the family Ferugliotheriidae. Kielan-Jaworowska and colleagues described a p4 from the La Colonia Formation (Late Cretaceous of Argentina) as a new multituberculate genus, Argentodites, in 2007, but Gurovich and Beck noted close similarities between this p4 and the p4 in the possible jaw fragment of Ferugliotherium and suggested that it represented Ferugliotherium or a closely related species. A single mf1 from the Allen Formation (Late Cretaceous of Argentina) was described as another ferugliotheriid genus, Trapalcotherium, in 2009. ## Description Ferugliotherium is known from isolated teeth, the assignment of some of which is controversial. The material from the Los Alamitos Formation, which is mostly in the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales Bernardino Rivadavia (MACN) in Buenos Aires, with one tooth in the Museo de La Plata (MLP) in La Plata, Argentina, has been thoroughly described; while there are additional Ferugliotherium fossils from the La Colonia Formation, they have not been described in detail. Although the fragmentary nature of the known fossils of Ferugliotherium makes it impossible to determine its dental formula with certainty, Gurovich suggested that it had one incisor (possibly two in the upper jaw), no canines, one or two premolars, and two molars on each side of the lower and upper jaws. However, on the basis of comparisons with Sudamerica, which is known to have had four lower molariforms (molar-like teeth, either premolars or molars) in its lower jaw, Pascual and Ortiz-Jaureguizar suggested in 2007 that Ferugliotherium may also have had four lower molars. Ferugliotherium was much smaller than the sudamericids Gondwanatherium and Sudamerica, and its body mass is estimated to have been about 70 g (2.5 oz). Unlike the hypsodont (high-crowned) sudamericids, Ferugliotherium has brachydont (low-crowned) molariform teeth that are supported by at least two roots, not a single massive root. The direction of wear on the teeth indicates that Ferugliotherium, Gondwanatherium, and Sudamerica all had palinal jaw movement (i.e., the lower jaw moved backwards during the power stroke of chewing)—a feature otherwise only seen in multituberculates among mammals. ### Incisors Three fragmentary Ferugliotherium lower incisors (MACN Pv-RN 701A, 701B, and 701C) are known from the Los Alamitos Formation. Another incisor, MACN Pv-RN 970, was assigned to Ferugliotherium by Bonaparte in 1990, but it is much larger than the other three incisors, which are otherwise similar, and probably represents Gondwanatherium instead. Only the tips of the three incisors are preserved. They are laterally compressed, with an estimated width of 1.3 mm and height of 2.4 mm in 701A. The medial side (towards the middle of the mouth) is flat, but the lateral side (towards the sides) is convex. There is enamel only on the lower (ventral) side. A large wear facet is present at the tip, forming an angle of about 35° with the ventral margin in 701A. The three incisor fragments are identified as Ferugliotherium because of their size and provenance and the presence of a restricted enamel band. They show features, such as lateral compression, an acute angle at the tip, small curvature, and an irregular cross section, that are usually seen in lower, not upper incisors in mammals with procumbent incisors, such as rodents and taeniolabidoid multituberculates. Four specimens (MACN Pv-RN 702A through 702D) are thought to represent second upper incisors (I2) of Ferugliotherium. 702A (height 1.5 mm; width 1.1 mm) and 702B are slightly larger than 702C (height 1.2 mm; width 0.9 mm) and 702D. The smaller incisors cannot be lateral incisors (I3), because 702C's wear facet is stronger than would be expected in an I3; therefore, all four upper incisors are identified as central incisors (I2). To explain the size difference, Krause and colleagues suggested that Ferugliotherium was variable in size or that the smaller incisors were deciduous precursors of the larger permanent tooth. They considered it less likely that multiple species with similar incisors were present. The upper incisors have enamel only on the dorsal side. The wear facet at the tip is preserved only in 702C, forming an angle of 52° with the dorsal side, and is more concave than the facet in the lower incisors. 702A–D are recognizable as upper incisors because they have a less acute angle at the tip and are less laterally compressed, more curved, and elliptical in cross section. Incisors of Ferugliotherium and Gondwanatherium are similar in overall shape and share a restricted band of enamel—a feature otherwise seen only in multituberculates among Mesozoic mammals. The incisors of Sudamerica are also similar. ### Mandible with lower premolar MACN Pv-RN 975, a fragment of the mandible (lower jaw) preserving one premolar, was discovered in 1991 and tentatively identified as Ferugliotherium by Kielan-Jaworowska and Bonaparte in 1996, but this assignment remains controversial. The poorly preserved and worn premolar is a bladelike tooth, resembling multituberculate fourth lower premolars (p4). The premolar is 4.8 mm long and bears eight faint ridges on both the labial (towards the lips) and lingual (towards the tongue) sides. On the labial side, the four ridges at the back are more widely separated than the four in front of them. The back and front margins of the tooth are parallel and there is no small cusp on the labial side. There are two roots; the one at the front is larger than the one at the back and bears a furrow. The lower border of the enamel cover is marked by two semicircular extensions of the enamel on the front side, but there is only one such extension at the back. By its size, the number of ridges, and apparently greater length than height, it differs from all known multituberculate first, second, and third lower premolars, indicating that it is a p4. The dentary (lower jaw bone) itself is robust and short. The length axis of the p4 makes an angle of about 58° with the length axis of the jawbone. The bone is concave on the lingual, but convex on the labial side. There is a diastema (gap) between the p4 and the incisor that would have been in front of it, as in the jaw of Sudamerica. Gurovich estimated the length of the diastema as 2.5 mm. There is a rounded mental foramen (an opening in the labial side of the jawbone), with a diameter of 0.7 mm, located about 0.8 mm below the dorsal margin of the bone and 1.5 mm in front of the p4. Although the incisor itself is not preserved, its alveolus (the housing of the root) is in part. As in Sudamerica, it extends far into the dentary, passing below p4. The alveolus is 1.5 mm wide below the front root of p4 and 1.4 mm at the back of the jaw fragment. Although the height of the alveolus cannot be determined because the lower side is broken away, the incisor must have been quite deep. When it was discovered that Sudamerica had four molariform teeth and no bladelike premolar in its lower jaw, Pascual, Kielan-Jaworowska, and colleagues removed MACN Pv-RN 975 from Ferugliotherium, which they expected to have the same dental formula as its fellow gondwanathere Sudamerica, and identified it as an indeterminate multituberculate instead. Pascual and colleagues argued that molariform teeth as seen in Sudamerica could not have evolved from the bladelike p4 of Ferugliotherium, and that it was unlikely that additional molars had been added in Sudamerica. In 2004 and 2007, Kielan-Jaworowska and colleagues aligned the dentary with the multituberculate suborder "Plagiaulacida" because the p4 is rectangular in labial view, not curved as in the suborder Cimolodonta. This feature was also used to distinguish MACN Pv-RN 975 from the single p4 assigned to Argentodites, which was tentatively placed in Cimolodonta. Gurovich, Guillermo Rougier, and colleagues, on the other hand, maintain that the dentary is referable to Ferugliotherium and that the p4s of Argentodites and MACN Pv-RN 975 are very similar. The alveolus of MACN Pv-RN 975 fits the lower incisors attributed to Ferugliotherium in size and the blade-like premolar is of the size expected for an animal with molariforms the size of Ferugliotherium teeth. If the dentary and premolars (whose identification has been similarly controversial; see below) do not belong to Ferugliotherium, then, Gurovich and Beck argue, the Los Alamitos Formation would contain two mammals (Ferugliotherium and a multituberculate) similar in size and morphology, and therefore presumably occupying similar ecological niches—and one of those would be represented only by molariforms and incisors and the other only by premolars and a jaw fragment among the available fossils. Furthermore, they noted that the transition from blade-like to molariform premolars had actually been observed in the fossil record of the extinct sthenurine kangaroos, and that the first molariform in Sudamerica and Gondwanatherium is laterally compressed, suggesting that it may have derived from a blade-like tooth. Gurovich and Beck attributed the difference in shape between the MACN Pv-RN 975 and Argentodites p4s to the extensive wear of the former, and suggested that the two are similar enough that they probably represent at least closely related species. ### Other premolars Krause and colleagues identified a single tooth, MACN Pv-RN 251, as a possible deciduous anterior (i.e., not p4 or dp4, the deciduous version of p4) lower premolar of Ferugliotherium. It is minuscule, with a length of 0.85 mm and width of 0.5 mm (assuming the tooth is oriented correctly). It bears two serrations (small projections) at the tip of the crown—one around the middle of the crown and the other at what may be the back of the crown, where it is highest. Two prominent ridges descend from each serration towards the front down the sides of the tooth. No roots are preserved, but the rounded surface of the lower side of the tooth suggests they may have been resorbed, which would indicate that the tooth is deciduous. Krause and colleagues suggested that the tooth may have been the frontmost premolar, whether deciduous or permanent. However, Kielan-Jaworowska and Bonaparte wrote that this tooth does not match the partial jaw MACN Pv-RN 975, which has no alveoli in front of p4, and Pascual and colleagues agreed in 1999 that the tooth probably does not belong to Ferugliotherium. Bonaparte had identified another tooth, MACN Pv-RN 252, as a possible Ferugliotherium lower premolar in 1990, but this fossil is very fragmentary and according to Krause and colleagues, it cannot even be proven to be a mammalian tooth. Krause and colleagues identified two teeth, MACN Pv-RN 249 and 250, as anterior upper premolars. 249 bears two longitudinal rows of cusps. One row (row A; possibly the lingual one) includes four cusps, the other (row B) includes at least two, but is damaged. In row A, there are three ridges (at the front, middle, and back) extending from the tip of the base of each cusp. The second and third cusps are largest and most widely separated from each other. In row B, one cusp bears three ridges, of which one extends towards the other cusp in the row and the two others towards row A) and the other cusp is damaged. 250 is more fragmentary, but bears at least five cusps and may represent the same tooth position as 249, though it would come from the opposite side of the mouth. The microstructure of the enamel of this tooth has been studied. With a width of about 55 μm near the tip of a cusp, the enamel is thin. The enamel prisms are straight, small, and rounded and there is little material between the prisms. Small, rounded prisms are also seen in Gondwanatherium, Sudamerica, and other gondwanatheres, but in few multituberculates. Even in those multituberculates that do have small prisms, the prism sheath is closed, but the sheath is incomplete in Gondwanatherium and possibly Ferugliotherium. Krause and colleagues wrote that these two teeth resemble multituberculate deciduous anterior upper premolars, particularly second and third premolars (P2 and P3), and used this as one of their arguments for identifying Ferugliotherium as a multituberculate. However, as with the dentary MACN Pv-RN 975, the two upper premolars were excluded from Ferugliotherium and identified as multituberculates by Kielan-Jaworowska and colleagues after the discovery of the jaw of Sudamerica. Gurovich continues to identify them as Ferugliotherium on the basis of their size and provenance and other similarities between Ferugliotherium and multituberculates. ### Lower molariforms Five putative lower molariforms of Ferugliotherium are known from the Los Alamitos Formation (MACN Pv-RN 20, 174, 175, and 253 and MLP 88-III-28-1). These teeth include the holotypes of Ferugliotherium windhauseni (MACN Pv-RN 20, the only second lower molariform, or m2) and Vucetichia gracilis (MACN Pv-RN 174). The best-preserved mf1 is MLP 88-III-28-1. The crown is unworn and complete and there are no roots, suggesting that the tooth had not yet erupted when its owner died. Krause, who first described the tooth in 1993, identified it as a right molar, but the subsequent discovery of the jaw of Sudamerica made it clear that Ferugliotherium molariforms had been reversed, and MLP 88-III-28-1 is actually from the left side of the jaw. The tooth is 2.2 mm long and 1.5 mm wide. The crown is roughly rectangular, with rounded corners, and bears two longitudinal rows of cusps. The lingual row consists of four cusps, which are smaller and lower than the three labial ones. The cusps in this row become smaller and lower from the front to the back. Two ridges descend from the tip of each cusp to the lingual and labial sides. The labial ridges on the first and fourth cusp only reach the base of the cusp, but those on the second and third cusps join ridges descending from the first and second labial cusp. In the first three cusps, the lingual ridge extends to near the lingual margin of the tooth and then turns backward; the end of the ridge is lingual to the next cusp. In the fourth cusp, the ridge hardly extends posteriorly, but rather labially, forming the posterior margin of the tooth and joining a ridge descending from the last labial cusp. The labial cusp row includes three, larger cusps, each of which bears two ridges that descend lingually into the valley between the two cusp rows. The front ridge of each pair ends in the central valley, and the back ridge joins a ridge from a lingual cusp. The ridge pattern results in the presence of three transverse furrows between the main cusps. Another mf1, MACN Pv-RN 253, is almost unworn, but damaged: only the front two lingual cusps and the first two cusps and part of the third in the labial row are preserved. This tooth is similar to MLP 88-III-28-1 in all respects. However, Gurovich suggests that it may also be an m2. MACN Pv-RN 174, which is heavily worn, and MACN Pv-RN 175, which is not only heavily worn but has also undergone severe abrasion, were originally identified as upper molars of Vucetichia gracilis by Bonaparte in 1990. The roots of MACN Pv-RN 174 are preserved; at the front and back of the tooth, there is a pair of roots, which are fused near their bases. It has small enamel prisms. Krause and colleagues suggested in 1992 that 174 and 175 were mf1s of Ferugliotherium on the basis of similarities with 253, and Krause confirmed this in 1993 by describing the complete mf1 MLP 88-III-28-1. The related ferugliotheriid genus Trapalcotherium is known from a single mf1, which is similar to Ferugliotherium mf1s but different in some morphological details (see Trapalcotherium: Relationships). The holotype, MACN Pv-RN 20, is a right mf2 according to both Krause and colleagues (1992) and Gurovich (2005), but Gurovich considered the side that Krause and colleagues thought was lingual to be labial, and vice versa. The latter interpretation is used in the following description. It is almost square, but at the front it is slightly narrower than at the back. The labial side of the tooth is taller and less worn than the lingual side. There are two rows of cusps, and each lingual cusp is connected to each labial cusp by a broad crest, with one or more fossas in the middle. One of the two labial cusps may have been divided into two smaller cusps. The two crests are separated by a deep furrow. The enamel prisms of this tooth are small, like those of the premolar MACN Pv-RN 250. Transverse ridges between the cusps, as seen in Ferugliotherium, are known in only one multituberculate, Essonodon, but the ridge pattern in Essonodon is more complicated and the animal lacks the prominent furrows of Ferugliotherium and differs in numerous other features. On the other hand, overall patterns of cusps and ridges are essentially similar among Ferugliotherium, Gondwanatherium, and Sudamerica, indicating that the three are closely related. ### Upper molariforms A single tooth, MACN Pv-RN 248, is currently identified as a Ferugliotherium upper molariform. In 1992, Krause and colleagues labeled it as a right MF1, but Gurovich identifies it as a left MF1 or possibly even a right mf1. LACM 149371, an enigmatic tooth from the Paleogene of Santa Rosa, Peru, may represent an upper molar of an animal related to Ferugliotherium. Like the latter, it has cusps that are compressed from front to back and that are connected to the center of the crown by low crests. MACN Pv-RN 248 is somewhat damaged and almost rectangular, but slightly narrower at the back than at the front. The tooth bears three longitudinal rows of cusps. The middle row consists of five cusps, the labial row (assuming it is a left M1; if it is from the right, "lingual" and "labial" should be reversed) includes two or perhaps three cusps, and the lingual row includes probably four cusps. The lingual and middle rows extend across the entire length of the tooth, but the labial row is shorter, extending across about 70% of the length. The middle row is oriented obliquely with respect to the length axis of the tooth, so that it converges with the lingual row towards the back of the tooth. The front lingual corner of the tooth is missing, but it appears that the first cusps in the lingual and middle rows are connected by two ridges, one at the front margin of the tooth and one at the back of the cusps. A deep fossa (basin) lies between the two cusps and their connecting ridges. Behind these two cusps, a transverse furrow extends across the width of the tooth. The second lingual and middle cusps are also connected by a crest, which is somewhat weaker than those connecting the first cusps. Another transverse furrow extends behind the second cusps and also separates the second middle cusp from the labial row. A third furrow, behind the third lingual and middle cusps, also separates the first from the second labial cusp. Three ridges descend from the fourth lingual cusp: one connects to the fourth middle cusp, one ends blindly between the fourth lingual and middle cusps, and one connects to the fifth middle cusp. The second labial cusp, which is larger than the first one, is superficially divided into two smaller cusps by an indentation on its lingual side. There are vertical grooves at the bases of the cusps. ## Range and ecology Remains of Ferugliotherium come from two formations in the Late Cretaceous of southern Argentina, the Los Alamitos and La Colonia Formations. These and the Allen Formation (which has yielded Trapalcotherium) are all dated to the Campanian (84–71 million years ago) and/or Maastrichtian (71–66 million years ago), the penultimate and ultimate stages of the Cretaceous. The La Colonia Formation may be somewhat younger than the other two, while the Los Alamitos Formation has been considered Campanian, and can be dated to the Campanian or Maastrichtian on the basis of palynology. The Allen Formation is likely Maastrichtian, but not latest Maastrichtian. The Los Alamitos Formation is located in southeastern Río Negro Province, in the vicinity of the town of Cona Niyeu and was probably deposited in a marshy environment. In 1983, it yielded the first Mesozoic mammal to be found in Argentina, Mesungulatum houssayi, and since then, the mammalian fauna has expanded to 14 species. Most of those belong to the archaic mammalian group Dryolestoidea, but the fauna also includes the gondwanatheres Ferugliotherium and Gondwanatherium. The dryolestoids Mesungulatum houssayi and Groebertherium novasi and the two gondwanatheres are the most common mammals. Other fossils found in the Los Alamitos Formation include fish, frogs, turtles, madtsoiid snakes, dinosaurs such as Secernosaurus, gastropods, and other invertebrates. The La Colonia Formation outcrops in north-central Chubut Province, and the mammalian fossils come from the Mirasol Chico valley. The formation includes fluvial (river), deep-sea, and near-shore deposits, and the mammalian fauna probably comes from an estuary, tidal flat, or coastal plain. The La Colonia Formation also contains dryolestoids, such as Coloniatherium and Reigitherium, as well as a ferugliotheriid and the putative multituberculate Argentodites. In addition, the La Colonia Formation has yielded fossils of a wide array of other animals, including crocodiles, plesiosaurs, lungfish (Ceratodus), and dinosaurs (including Carnotaurus). The high-crowned sudamericids were probably herbivores, but the lower-crowned Ferugliotherium was more probably an insectivore or omnivore, like similar multituberculates such as Mesodma, which is thought to have eaten insects, other arthropods, seeds, and/or nuts. It may have used its incisors for gnawing or slicing, and the blade-like p4 may also have been used for slicing hard plant parts, such as seeds. The wear patterns on Ferugliotherium teeth independently suggest that the animal may have eaten some plant material.
71,792	Daniel Boone	1,173,419,691	American pioneer and frontiersman (1734–1820)	[ "1734 births", "1820 deaths", "American Freemasons", "American explorers of North America", "American folklore", "American hunters", "American people of English descent", "American people of Welsh descent", "American slave owners", "American surveyors", "Appalachian people", "Boone County, Missouri", "Boone family (pioneers)", "Burials at Frankfort Cemetery", "Captives of Native Americans", "Daniel Boone", "Hall of Fame for Great Americans inductees", "Kentucky militiamen in the American Revolution", "Kentucky pioneers", "Members of the Virginia House of Delegates", "Mountain men", "People from Berks County, Pennsylvania", "People from Kentucky", "People from St. Charles County, Missouri", "People of Kentucky in the American Revolution", "People of Pennsylvania in the French and Indian War", "People of colonial Pennsylvania", "People who were court-martialed" ]	Daniel Boone ( – September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyond the western borders of the Thirteen Colonies. In 1775, Boone blazed the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap and into Kentucky, in the face of resistance from American Indians, for whom the area was a traditional hunting ground. He founded Boonesborough, one of the first English-speaking settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains. By the end of the 18th century, more than 200,000 people had entered Kentucky by following the route marked by Boone. Boone served as a militia officer during the Revolutionary War (1775–1783), which was fought in Kentucky primarily between American settlers and British-allied Indians. Boone was taken in by Shawnees in 1778 and adopted into the tribe, but he resigned and continued to help protect the Kentucky settlements. He also left due to the Shawnee Indians torturing and killing one of his sons. He was elected to the first of his three terms in the Virginia General Assembly during the war and fought in the Battle of Blue Licks in 1782, one of the last battles of the American Revolution. He worked as a surveyor and merchant after the war, but he went deep into debt as a Kentucky land speculator. He resettled in Missouri in 1799, where he spent most of the last two decades of his life, frustrated with legal problems resulting from his land claims. Boone remains an iconic, if imperfectly remembered, figure in American history. He was a legend in his own lifetime, especially after an account of his adventures was published in 1784, making him famous in America and Europe. After his death, he became the subject of many heroic tall tales and works of fiction. His adventures—real and legendary—helped create the archetypal frontier hero of American folklore. In American popular culture, Boone is remembered as one of the foremost early frontiersmen, even though mythology often overshadows the historical details of his life. ## Early life Boone was born on October 22, 1734 ("New Style" November 2), the sixth of eleven children in a family of Quakers. His father, Squire Boone (1696–1765), immigrated to colonial Pennsylvania from the small town of Bradninch, England, sometime around 1712. Squire, a weaver and blacksmith, married Sarah Morgan (1700–1777), whose family were Quakers from Wales. In 1731, the Boones built a one-room log cabin in the Oley Valley in what is now Berks County, Pennsylvania, near present Reading, where Daniel was born. Boone spent his early years on the Pennsylvania frontier, often interacting with American Indians. Boone learned to hunt from local settlers and Indians; by the age of fifteen, he had a reputation as one of the region’s best hunters. Many stories about Boone emphasize his hunting skills. In one tale, the young Boone was hunting in the woods with some other boys when the howl of a panther scattered all but Boone. He calmly cocked his rifle and shot the panther through the heart just as it leaped at him. The story may be a folktale, one of many that became part of Boone’s popular image. In Boone's youth, his family became a source of controversy in the local Quaker community. In 1742, Boone's parents were compelled to publicly apologize after their eldest child Sarah married a "worldling", or non-Quaker, while she was visibly pregnant. When Boone's oldest brother Israel also married a "worldling" in 1747, Squire Boone stood by his son and was therefore expelled from the Quakers, although his wife continued to attend monthly meetings with her children. Perhaps as a result of this controversy, in 1750 Squire sold his land and moved the family to North Carolina. Daniel Boone did not attend church again, although he always considered himself a Christian and had all of his children baptized. The Boones eventually settled on the Yadkin River, in what is now Davie County, North Carolina, about two miles (3 km) west of Mocksville. Boone received little formal education, since he preferred to spend his time hunting, apparently with his parents’ blessing. According to a family tradition, when a schoolteacher expressed concern over Boone's education, Boone's father said, "Let the girls do the spelling and Dan will do the shooting." Boone was tutored by family members, though his spelling remained unorthodox. Historian John Mack Faragher cautions that the folk image of Boone as semiliterate is misleading, arguing that Boone "acquired a level of literacy that was the equal of most men of his times." Boone regularly took reading material with him on his hunting expeditions—the Bible and Gulliver's Travels were favorites. He was often the only literate person in groups of frontiersmen, and would sometimes entertain his hunting companions by reading to them around the campfire. Boone was a Freemason. ## Hunter, husband, and soldier The French and Indian War (1754–1763) broke out between the French and the British, along with their respective Indian allies, and Boone joined a North Carolina militia company as a teamster and blacksmith. In 1755, his unit accompanied General Edward Braddock’s attempt to drive the French out of the Ohio Country, which ended in disaster at the Battle of the Monongahela. Boone, in the rear with the wagons, took no part in the battle, and fled with the retreating soldiers. He returned home after the defeat, and he married Rebecca Bryan, a neighbor in the Yadkin Valley, on August 14, 1756. The couple initially lived in a cabin on his father's farm, and eventually had ten children, in addition to raising eight children of deceased relatives. In 1758, conflict erupted between British colonists and the Cherokees, their former allies in the French and Indian War. After the Yadkin Valley was raided by Cherokees, the Boones and many other families fled north to Culpeper County, Virginia. Boone saw action as a member of the North Carolina militia during this "Cherokee Uprising," periodically serving under Captain Hugh Waddell on the North Carolina frontier until 1760. Boone supported his growing family in these years as a market hunter and trapper, collecting pelts for the fur trade. Almost every autumn, despite the unrest on the frontier, he would go on "long hunts", extended expeditions into the wilderness lasting weeks or months. Boone went alone or with a small group of men, accumulating hundreds of deer skins in the autumn, and trapping beaver and otter over the winter. When the long hunters returned in the spring, they sold their take to commercial fur traders. On their journeys, frontiersmen often carved messages on trees or wrote their names on cave walls, and Boone's name or initials have been found in many places. A tree in Washington County, Tennessee reads "D. Boon Cilled a. Bar on tree in the year 1760". A similar carving is preserved in the museum of the Filson Historical Society in Louisville, Kentucky which reads "D. Boon Kilt a Bar, 1803." The inscriptions may be genuine, or part of a long tradition of phony Boone relics. According to a popular story, Boone returned home after a long absence to find that Rebecca had given birth to a daughter. Rebecca confessed that she had thought that Daniel was dead, and that his brother had fathered the child. Boone did not blame Rebecca, and raised the girl as his own child. Boone's early biographers knew the story but did not publish it. Modern biographers regard the tale as possibly folklore, since the identity of the brother and the daughter vary in different versions of the tale. In the mid-1760s, Boone began to look for a new place to settle. The population was growing in the Yadkin Valley, which reduced the amount of game available for hunting. He had difficulty making ends meet, and he was often taken to court for nonpayment of debts. He sold what land he owned to pay off creditors. After his father's death in 1765, Boone traveled with a group of men to Florida, which had become British territory after the end of the war, to look into the possibility of settling there. According to a family story, he purchased land in Pensacola, but Rebecca refused to move so far away from friends and family. The Boones instead moved to a more remote area of the Yadkin Valley, and he began to hunt westward into the Blue Ridge Mountains. ## Into Kentucky > It was the first of May, in the year 1769, that I resigned my domestic happiness for a time, and left my family ... to wander through the wilderness of America, in quest of the country of Kentucky. Years before entering Kentucky, Boone had heard about the region’s fertile land and abundant game. In 1767, Boone and his brother Squire first crossed into what would become the state of Kentucky, but they failed to reach the rich hunting grounds. In May 1769, Boone set out again with a party of five othersincluding John Findley, who first told Boone of the Cumberland Gapon a two-year hunting and trapping expedition. His first sighting of the Bluegrass region from atop Pilot Knob became "an icon of American history," and was the frequent subject of paintings. On December 22, 1769, Boone and fellow hunter John Stuart were captured by a party of Shawnee, who confiscated all of their skins and told them to leave and never return. The Shawnee had not signed the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, in which the Iroquois had ceded their claim to Kentucky to the British. The Shawnee regarded Kentucky as their hunting ground; they considered American hunters there to be poachers. Boone, undeterred, continued hunting and exploring in Kentucky. On one occasion, he shot a man to avoid capture, which historian John Mack Faragher says "was one of the few Indians that Boone acknowledged killing." Boone returned to North Carolina in 1771, but came back to hunt in Kentucky in the autumn of 1772. In 1773, Boone packed up his family and, with his brother Squire and a group of about 50 others, began the first attempt by British colonists to establish a settlement. Boone was still an obscure figure at the time; the most prominent member of the expedition was William Russell, a well-known Virginian and future brother-in-law of Patrick Henry. Another member of this expedition was Boone's friend and fellow long-hunter, Michael Stoner. Included in this group were an unknown number of enslaved Blacks, including Charles and Adam. On October 9, Boone's oldest son, James, several whites and Charles and Adam left the main party to seek provisions in a nearby settlement. They were attacked by a band of Delawares, Shawnee, and Cherokees. Following the Fort Stanwix treaty, American Indians in the region had been debating what do to about the influx of settlers. This group had decided, in the words of Faragher, "to send a message of their opposition to settlement". James Boone and William Russell's son, Henry, were tortured and killed. Charles was captured. Adam witnessed the horror concealed in riverbank driftwood. After wandering in the woods for 11 days, Adam located the group and informed Boone of the circumstances of their deaths. Charles's body was found by the pioneers 40 miles from the abduction site, dead from a blow to the head. The brutality of the killings sent shockwaves along the frontier, and Boone's party abandoned their expedition. The attack was one of the first events in what became known as Dunmore's War, a struggle between Virginia and American Indians for control of what is now West Virginia and Kentucky. In the summer of 1774, Boone traveled with a companion to Kentucky to notify surveyors there of the outbreak of war. They journeyed more than 800 miles (1,300 km) in two months to warn those who had not already fled the region. Upon his return to Virginia, Boone helped defend colonial settlements along the Clinch River, earning a promotion to captain in the militia, as well as acclaim from fellow citizens. After the brief war, which ended soon after Virginia's victory in the Battle of Point Pleasant in October 1774, the Shawnee relinquished their claims to Kentucky. Following Dunmore's War, Richard Henderson, a prominent judge from North Carolina, hired Boone to help establish a colony to be called Transylvania. Boone traveled to several Cherokee towns and invited them to a meeting, held at Sycamore Shoals in March 1775, where Henderson purchased the Cherokee claim to Kentucky. Boone then blazed "Boone's Trace," later known as the Wilderness Road, through the Cumberland Gap and into central Kentucky. Sam, an enslaved Black "body servant," and other enslaved laborers were among this group of settlers. When this group camped near the location of present-day Richmond, Kentucky, Indians attacked, killing Sam and his owner. After driving off the attackers, the party buried the two men side by side. He founded Boonesborough along the Kentucky River; other settlements, notably Harrodsburg, were also established at this time. Despite occasional Indian attacks, Boone brought his family and other settlers to Boonesborough on September 8, 1775. ## American Revolution American Indians who were unhappy about the loss of Kentucky by treaties, saw the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) as a chance to drive out the colonists. Isolated settlers and hunters became the frequent target of attacks, convincing many to abandon Kentucky. By late spring of 1776, Boone and his family were among the fewer than 200 colonists who remained, primarily at the fortified settlements of Boonesborough, Harrodsburg, and Logan's Station. On July 14, 1776, Boone's daughter Jemima and two other girls were captured outside Boonesborough by an Indian war party, who carried the girls north toward the Shawnee towns in the Ohio country. Boone and a group of men from Boonesborough set out in pursuit, finally catching up with them two days later. Boone and his men ambushed the Indians, rescuing the girls and driving off their captors. The incident became the most celebrated event of Boone's life. James Fenimore Cooper created a version of this episode in his classic novel The Last of the Mohicans (1826). In 1777, Henry Hamilton, British Lieutenant Governor of Quebec, began to recruit American Indian war parties to raid the Kentucky settlements. That same year in March, the newly formed militia of Kentucky County, Virginia, mustered in Boonesborough, whose population included ten to 15 enslaved people. On April 24, 1778, the British-allied Shawnee led by Chief Blackfish mounted the siege of Boonesborough. Armed enslaved men fought alongside their owners at the fort's walls. After going beyond the fort walls to engage the attackers, London, one of the enslaved, was killed. Boone was shot in the ankle while outside the fort. Amid a flurry of bullets, he was carried back inside by Simon Kenton, a recent arrival at Boonesborough. Kenton became Boone's close friend, as well as a legendary frontiersman in his own right. ### Capture and court-martial While Boone recovered, the Shawnee kept up their attacks outside Boonesborough, killing cattle and destroying crops. With food running low, the settlers needed salt to preserve what meat they had, so in January 1778, Boone led a party of 30 men to the salt springs on the Licking River. On February 7, when Boone was hunting for meat for the expedition, he was captured by Blackfish's warriors. Because Boone's party was greatly outnumbered, Boone returned to camp the next day with Blackfish and persuaded his men to surrender rather than put up a fight. Blackfish intended to move on to Boonesborough and capture it, but Boone argued the women and children would not survive a winter trek as prisoners back to the Shawnee villages. Instead, Boone promised that Boonesborough would surrender willingly the following spring. Boone did not have an opportunity to tell his men that he was bluffing to prevent an immediate attack on Boonesborough. Boone pursued this strategy so convincingly some of his men concluded he had switched sides, an impression that led to his court-martial (see below). Many of the Shawnee wanted to execute the prisoners in retaliation for the recent murder of Shawnee Chief Cornstalk by Virginia militiamen. Because Shawnee chiefs led by seeking consensus, Blackfish held a council. After an impassioned speech by Boone, the warriors voted to spare the prisoners. Although Boone had saved his men, Blackfish pointed out that Boone had not included himself in the agreement, so Boone was forced to run the gauntlet through the warriors, which he survived with minor injuries. Boone and his men were taken to Blackfish's town of Chillicothe. As was their custom, the Shawnee adopted some of the prisoners to replace fallen warriors. Boone was adopted into a Shawnee family at Chillicothe, perhaps into Blackfish's family, and given the name Sheltowee (Big Turtle). In March 1778, the Shawnee took the unadopted prisoners to Governor Hamilton in Detroit. Blackfish brought Boone along, though he refused Hamilton's offers to release Boone to the British. Hamilton gave Boone gifts, attempting to win his loyalty, while Boone continued to pretend that he intended to surrender Boonesborough. Boone returned with Blackfish to Chillicothe. On June 16, 1778, when he learned Blackfish was about to return to Boonesborough with a large force, Boone eluded his captors and raced home, covering the 160 miles (260 km) to Boonesborough in five days on horseback and, after his horse gave out, on foot. Biographer Robert Morgan calls Boone's escape and return "one of the great legends of frontier history." Upon Boone's return to Boonesborough, some of the men expressed doubts about Boone's loyalty, since he had apparently lived happily among the Shawnee for months. Boone responded by leading a preemptive raid against the Shawnee across the Ohio River, and then by helping to successfully defend Boonesborough against a 10-day siege led by Blackfish, which began on September 7, 1778. After the siege, Captain Benjamin Logan and Colonel Richard Callaway—both of whom had nephews who were still captives surrendered by Boone—brought charges against Boone for his recent activities. In the court-martial that followed, Boone was found "not guilty," and was even promoted after the court heard his testimony. Despite this vindication, Boone was humiliated by the court-martial, and he rarely spoke of it. ### Final years of the Revolution After the trial, Boone returned to North Carolina to take his family back to Kentucky. In the autumn of 1779, a large party of emigrants came with him, including the family of Captain Abraham Lincoln, grandfather of the future president. Rather than remain in Boonesborough, Boone founded the nearby settlement of Boone's Station. He began earning money by locating good land for other settlers. Transylvania land claims had been invalidated after Virginia created Kentucky County, so settlers needed to file new land claims with Virginia. In 1780, Boone collected about \$20,000 in cash from various settlers and traveled to Williamsburg to purchase their land warrants. While he was sleeping in a tavern during the trip, the cash was stolen from his room. Some of the settlers forgave Boone the loss; others insisted he repay the stolen money, which took him several years to do. In contrast to the later folk image of Boone as a backwoodsman who had little affinity for "civilized" society, Boone was a leading citizen of Kentucky at this time. When Kentucky was divided into three Virginia counties in November 1780, Boone was promoted to lieutenant colonel in the Fayette County militia. In April 1781, he was elected as a representative to the Virginia General Assembly, which was held in Richmond. In 1782, he was elected sheriff of Fayette County. Meanwhile, the American Revolutionary War continued. Boone joined General George Rogers Clark's invasion of the Ohio country in 1780, fighting in the Battle of Piqua against the Shawnee on August 7. On the way home from the campaign, Boone was hunting with his brother Ned when Shawnee shot and killed Ned, who resembled Daniel. The Shawnee beheaded Ned, believing him to be Daniel, and took the head as evidence that Daniel Boone had finally been slain. In 1781, Boone traveled to Richmond to take his seat in the legislature, but British dragoons under Banastre Tarleton captured Boone and several other legislators near Charlottesville. The British released Boone on parole several days later. During Boone's term, Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown in October 1781, but the fighting continued in Kentucky. Boone returned to Kentucky and in August 1782 fought in the Battle of Blue Licks, a disastrous defeat for the Kentuckians in which Boone's son Israel was killed. In November 1782, Boone took part in another Clark-led expedition into Ohio, the last major campaign of the war. ## Businessman and politician After the Revolutionary War ended, Boone resettled in Limestone (later renamed Maysville, Kentucky), then a booming Ohio River port. He kept a tavern and worked as a surveyor, horse trader, and land speculator. In 1784, on Boone’s 50th birthday, frontier historian John Filson published The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucke. The popular book included a chronicle of Boone's adventures, which made Boone a celebrity. As settlers poured into Kentucky, the border war with American Indians north of the Ohio River resumed. In September 1786, Boone took part in a military expedition into the Ohio Country led by Benjamin Logan. Returning to Limestone, Boone housed and fed Shawnee who had been captured during the raid, and helped to negotiate a truce and prisoner exchange. Although the war would not end until the American victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers eight years later, the 1786 expedition was the last time Boone saw military action. Boone was initially prosperous in Limestone, owning seven slaves, a relatively large number for Kentucky at the time. In 1786, he purchased a Pennsylvania enslaved woman, age of about 20, for “Ninety poundes Current Lawfull (sic) money.”. A leader, he served as militia colonel, sheriff, and county coroner. In 1787, he was again elected to the Virginia state assembly, this time from Bourbon County. He began to have financial troubles after engaging in land speculation, buying and selling claims to tens of thousands of acres. These ventures ultimately failed because of the chaotic nature of land speculation in frontier Kentucky and Boone’s poor business instincts. Frustrated with the legal hassles that went with land speculation, in 1789 Boone moved upriver to Point Pleasant, Virginia (now West Virginia). There he operated a trading post and occasionally worked as a surveyor's assistant. That same year, when Virginia created Kanawha County, Boone became the lieutenant colonel of the county militia. In 1791, he was elected to the Virginia legislature for the third time. He contracted to provide supplies for the Kanawha militia, but his debts prevented him from buying goods on credit, so he closed his store and returned to hunting and trapping, though he was often hampered by rheumatism. In 1795, Boone and his wife moved back to Kentucky, living on land owned by their son Daniel Morgan Boone in what became Nicholas County. The next year, Boone applied to Isaac Shelby, the first governor of the new state of Kentucky, for a contract to widen the Wilderness Road into a wagon route, but the contract was awarded to someone else. Meanwhile, lawsuits over conflicting land claims continued to make their way through the Kentucky courts. Boone's remaining land claims were sold off to pay legal fees and taxes, but he no longer paid attention to the process. In 1798, a warrant was issued for Boone's arrest after he ignored a summons to testify in a court case, although the sheriff never found him. That same year, the Kentucky assembly named Boone County in his honor. ## Into Missouri Having endured legal and financial setbacks, Boone sought to make a fresh start by leaving the United States. In 1799, he moved his extended family to what is now St. Charles County, Missouri, but was then part of Spanish Louisiana. The Spanish, eager to promote settlement in the sparsely populated region, did not enforce the official requirement that all immigrants be Catholic. The Spanish governor appointed Boone "syndic" (judge and jury) and commandant (military leader) of the Femme Osage district. Anecdotes of Boone's tenure as syndic suggest he sought to render fair judgments rather than strictly observe the letter of the law. Boone served as syndic and commandant until 1804, when Missouri became part of the United States following the Louisiana Purchase. He was appointed captain of the local militia. Because Boone's land grants from the Spanish government had been largely based on oral agreements, he again lost his land claims. In 1809, he petitioned Congress to restore his Spanish land claims, which was finally done in 1814. Boone sold most of this land to repay old Kentucky debts. When the War of 1812 came to Missouri, Boone's sons Daniel Morgan Boone and Nathan Boone took part, but by that time Boone was much too old for militia duty. Although Boone reportedly vowed never to return to Kentucky after moving to Missouri, stories (possibly folk tales) were told of him making one last visit to Kentucky to pay off his creditors. American painter John James Audubon claimed to have gone hunting with Boone in Kentucky around 1810. Years later, Audubon painted a portrait of Boone, supposedly from memory, although skeptics noted the similarity of his painting to the well-known portraits by Chester Harding. Some historians believe Boone visited his brother Squire near Kentucky in 1810 and have accepted the veracity of Audubon's account.Boone spent his final years in Missouri, often in the company of children and grandchildren. He continued to hunt and trap as much as his health and energy levels permitted, intruding upon the territory of the Osage tribe, who once captured him and confiscated his furs. In 1810, at the age of 76, he went with a group on a six-month hunt up the Missouri River, reportedly as far as the Yellowstone River, a round trip of more than 2,000 miles. He began one of his final trapping expeditions in 1815, in the company of a Shawnee and Derry Coburn, a slave who was frequently with Boone in his final years. They reached Fort Osage in 1816, where an officer wrote, "We have been honored by a visit from Col. Boone... He has taken part in all the wars of America, from Braddock's war to the present hour," but "he prefers the woods, where you see him in the dress of the roughest, poorest hunter." ## Death and burial Boone died on September 26, 1820, at his son Nathan Boone's home on Femme Osage Creek, Missouri. He was buried next to Rebecca, who had died on March 18, 1813. The graves, which were unmarked until the mid-1830s, were near Jemima (Boone) Callaway's home on Tuque Creek, about two miles (3 km) from present-day Marthasville, Missouri. In 1845, the Boones' remains were disinterred and reburied in a new cemetery in Frankfort, Kentucky. Resentment in Missouri about the disinterment grew over the years, and a legend arose that Boone's remains never left Missouri. According to this story, Boone's tombstone in Missouri had been inadvertently placed over the wrong grave, but no one had corrected the error. Boone's Missouri relatives, displeased with the Kentuckians who came to exhume Boone, kept quiet about the mistake and allowed the Kentuckians to dig up the wrong remains. No contemporary evidence indicates this actually happened, but in 1983, a forensic anthropologist examined a crude plaster cast of Boone's skull made before the Kentucky reburial and announced it might be the skull of an African American. Black slaves were also buried at Tuque Creek, so it is possible that the wrong remains were mistakenly removed from the crowded graveyard. Both the Frankfort Cemetery in Kentucky and the Old Bryan Farm graveyard in Missouri claim to have Boone's remains. ## Legacy > Many heroic actions and chivalrous adventures are related of me which exist only in the regions of fancy. With me the world has taken great liberties, and yet I have been but a common man. Daniel Boone remains an iconic figure in American history, although his status as an early American folk hero and later as a subject of fiction has tended to obscure the actual details of his life. He emerged as a legend in large part because of John Filson's "The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boon", part of his book The Discovery, Settlement and present State of Kentucke. First published in 1784, Filson's book was primarily intended to popularize Kentucky to immigrants. It was translated into French and German, and made Boone famous in America and Europe. Based on interviews with Boone, Filson's book contained a mostly factual account of Boone's adventures from the exploration of Kentucky through the American Revolution, although many have doubted if the florid, philosophical dialogue attributed to Boone was authentic. Often reprinted, Filson's book established Boone as one of the first popular heroes of the United States. Timothy Flint also interviewed Boone, and his Biographical Memoir of Daniel Boone, the First Settler of Kentucky (1833) became one of the best-selling biographies of the 19th century. Flint embellished Boone's adventures, doing for Boone what Parson Weems did for George Washington. In Flint's book, Boone fought with a bear, escaped from Indians by swinging on vines (as Tarzan would later do), and so on. Although Boone's family thought the book was absurd, Flint greatly influenced the popular conception of Boone, since these tall tales were recycled in countless dime novels and books aimed at young boys. ### Symbol and stereotype Thanks to Filson's book, Boone became a symbol of the "natural man" who lives a virtuous, uncomplicated existence in the wilderness. This was famously expressed in Lord Byron's epic poem Don Juan (1822), which devoted a number of stanzas to Boone, including this one: > > Of the great names which in our faces stare, > > > > > > The General Boon, back-woodsman of Kentucky, > > > > Was happiest amongst mortals any where; > > > > > > For killing nothing but a bear or buck, he > > > > Enjoyed the lonely vigorous, harmless days Of his old age in wilds of deepest maze. Byron's poem celebrated Boone as someone who found happiness by turning his back on civilization. In a similar vein, many folk tales depicted Boone as a man who migrated to more remote areas whenever civilization crowded in on him. In a typical anecdote, when asked why he was moving to Missouri, Boone supposedly replied, "I want more elbow room!" Boone rejected this interpretation. "Nothing embitters my old age," he said late in life, like "the circulation of absurd stories that I retire as civilization advances." Existing simultaneously with the image of Boone as a refugee from society was, paradoxically, the popular portrayal of him as civilization's trailblazer. Boone was celebrated as an agent of Manifest Destiny, a pathfinder who tamed the wilderness, paving the way for the extension of American civilization. In 1852, critic Henry Tuckerman dubbed Boone "the Columbus of the woods," comparing Boone's passage through the Cumberland Gap to Christopher Columbus's voyage to the New World. In popular mythology, Boone became the first to explore and settle Kentucky, opening the way for countless others to follow. In fact, other Americans had explored Kentucky before Boone, as debunkers in the 20th century often pointed out, but Boone came to symbolize them all, making him what historian Michael Lofaro called "the founding father of westward expansion." In the 19th century, when Native Americans were being displaced from their lands and confined on reservations, Boone's image was often reshaped into the stereotype of the belligerent, Indian-hating frontiersman which was then popular. In John A. McClung's Sketches of Western Adventure (1832), for example, Boone was portrayed as longing for the "thrilling excitement of savage warfare." Boone was transformed in the popular imagination into someone who regarded Indians with contempt and had killed scores of the "savages." The real Boone disliked bloodshed. According to historian John Bakeless, there is no record that Boone ever scalped Indians, unlike other frontiersmen of the era. Boone once told his son Nathan that he was certain of having killed only one Indian, during the battle at Blue Licks, although on another occasion he said, "I never killed but three." He expressed regret over the killings, saying the Indians "have always been kinder to me than the whites." Even though Boone had lost two sons and a brother in wars with Indians, he respected Indians and was respected by them. In Missouri, Boone went hunting with the Shawnees who had captured and adopted him decades earlier. Some 19th-century writers regarded Boone's sympathy for Indians as a character flaw and altered his words to conform to contemporary attitudes. The character John Boone in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy is inspired by Daniel Boone. In the story, John Boone is an American astronaut, the first human to walk on Mars in the year 2020. John Boone is one of the "First Hundred" colonists sent to permanently colonize Mars. His accomplishments and natural charm yield him an informal leadership role. His larger-than-life persona plays a legendary role in the culture of colonized Mars. ### Commemoration and portrayals Many places in the United States are named for Boone, including the Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky and the Sheltowee Trace Trail in Tennessee. His name has long been synonymous with the American outdoors. The Boone and Crockett Club is a conservationist organization founded by Theodore Roosevelt in 1887, and the Sons of Daniel Boone was the precursor of the Boy Scouts of America. A half-dollar coin was minted in 1934 to mark the bicentennial of Boone’s birth; a commemorative stamp was issued in 1968. In 1961, the US Navy ordered ten James Madison-class ballistic missile submarines to be made at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard. One would be named the USS Daniel Boone (SSBN-629), commissioning on 23 April 1964 and remaining in service until decommissioning in 1994. The submarine's motto "New Trails to Blaze" was an homage to Boone's life and his great legacy of exploration on the frontier. Boone's adventures, real and mythical, formed the basis of the archetypal hero of the American West, popular in 19th-century novels and 20th-century films. The main character of James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, the first of which was published in 1823, bore striking similarities to Boone; even his name, Nathaniel Bumppo, echoed Daniel Boone's name. As mentioned above, The Last of the Mohicans (1826), Cooper's second Leatherstocking novel, featured a fictionalized version of Boone's rescue of his daughter. After Cooper, other writers developed the Western hero, an iconic figure which began as a variation of Daniel Boone. In the 20th century, Boone was featured in numerous comic strips, radio programs, novels, and films, such as the 1936 film Daniel Boone. Boone was the subject of a TV series that ran from 1964 to 1970. In the theme song for the series, Boone was described as a "big man" in a "coonskin cap," and the "rippin'est, roarin'est, fightin'est man the frontier ever knew!" This did not describe the real Boone, who was not a big man and did not wear a coonskin cap, which he thought uncouth and uncomfortable. Boone was portrayed this way in the TV series because Fess Parker, the tall actor who played him, was essentially reprising his role as Davy Crockett from an earlier TV series. That Boone could be portrayed the same way as Crockett, another American frontiersman with a very different personality, was another example of how Boone's image was reshaped to suit popular tastes. He was also the subject matter for the song sung by Ed Ames called "Daniel Boone". It was released in 1966. Arthur Guiterman in a four stanza poem recounts the life of Boone, ending with his ghost happily tracking animals, both ancient and mythical, across the Milky Way. In Blood and Treasure, released in 2021, authors Tom Clavin and Bob Drury painted a much broader historical portrait of Boone than has been commonly described. The Taking of Jemima Boone by Matthew Pearl, published in 2021, is an account of the abduction of the daughter of Daniel Boone and, after her rescue by Boone, then shifts to the conflicts between Boone, his political rival Richard Callaway, and Shawnee leader Blackfish, with resulting impacts to the Western theater of the American Revolutionary War. Boone was the basis and inspiration for the 2022 independent film Boone: The Vengeance Trail, written, directed by, and starring Jake C. Young. The film follows Daniel, a widowed conservation officer, who sets out to find his daughter when she is abducted by his wife’s murderer. The film was also produced by frequent Young collaborators, Rajiim A. Gross and Kenny Scott Guffey. ## See also - Edward Morgan Log House - Daniel Boone Homestead - Daniel Boone School - Daniel Boone High School - Thomas S. Hinde, close friend of the Boone Family, neighbor in Kentucky, and interviewer of Boone - Boone's Cave Park - Daniel Boone National Forest - Boone Trail, between Virginia Beach, Virginia and San Francisco, California
46,913,718	The Wrestlers (Etty)	1,160,883,804	c. 1840 painting of two wrestlers by William Etty	[ "1840s paintings", "Black people in art", "Majority–minority relations", "Nude art", "Paintings by William Etty", "Paintings in York Art Gallery", "Sports paintings", "Wrestling culture" ]	The Wrestlers is an oil painting on millboard by English artist William Etty, painted around 1840 and currently in the York Art Gallery, in York, England. It depicts a wrestling match between a black man and a white man, both glistening with sweat and under an intense light emphasising their curves and musculature. While little documentation of the painting exists prior to 1947, it is likely that it was painted over a period of three evenings at the life class of the Royal Academy. The Royal Academy had moved to new premises in Trafalgar Square in 1837, and the studio used by the life class was cramped and hot, a fact thought to account for the sweatiness of the central figures. Etty was best known for his painting of nude or near-nude women in historical and mythological settings but had also painted men involved in various forms of combat. In the period in which The Wrestlers was painted, sports were becoming increasingly popular, and the painting is both a reflection of this trend and a part of the English tradition of copying poses from classical Hellenistic works. It was also a time of change in the British attitude to race relations. Etty in this period was generally making a conscious effort to illustrate moral lessons in his work, and it is not clear whether he chose the topic as a form of social commentary or simply because the contrast between the black and white flesh tones was visually striking. Although The Wrestlers was probably exhibited as part of a major retrospective of Etty's work in 1849, it then went into a private collection and was not publicly exhibited again for almost a century. In 1947 it was put on sale; with little interest from commercial galleries owing to its subject, it was bought for the bargain price of 30 guineas by the York Art Gallery, where it remains. The painting formed a part of major exhibitions in 2002 and 2011–12. ## Background William Etty (1787–1849), the seventh son of a York baker and miller, had originally been an apprentice printer in Hull, but on completing his seven-year apprenticeship in 1805 moved to London to become an artist. In January 1807 he was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools as a probationer, and in July of that year became a student of renowned portrait painter Thomas Lawrence, studying under him for a year. Strongly influenced by the works of Titian and Rubens, Etty became famous for painting nude figures in biblical, literary and mythological settings. He became well-respected for his ability to capture flesh tones accurately in painting, and for his fascination with contrasts in skin tones. Many of his peers greatly admired his work, and in February 1828 he defeated John Constable by 18 votes to five to become a full Royal Academician, at the time the highest honour available to an artist. Between 1820 and 1829 Etty exhibited 15 paintings, of which 14 depicted nude figures. While some nude paintings by foreign artists existed in private collections in England, the country had no tradition of nude painting and the display and distribution of nude material to the public had been suppressed since the 1787 Proclamation for the Discouragement of Vice. Etty was the first British artist to specialise in the nude, and the prurient reaction of the lower classes to these paintings caused concern throughout the 19th century. Although his portraits of male nudes were generally well received, many critics condemned his recurrent depictions of female nudity as indecent. ## Composition The Wrestlers is an oil study from life, depicting a black and a white wrestler grappling. Although at first glance the white wrestler appears to be dominant, the figures are in fact equally matched; this was unusual for the time, as it was a common belief in Britain in this period that black people were physically weaker than whites. Showing the subjects under bright light, the painting is a combination of intense juxtapositions between intimacy and violence, dark and light skin, and hard and soft surfaces. The black wrestler is naked; the white wrestler wears a loincloth, although it is possible that this was added after Etty's death. The intense light casts deep shadows, emphasising the curves and musculature of the wrestlers' bodies, as the skin of the two combatants is stretched and distorted under the pressure of the grapple. The figures are set against a dark green curtain and a brown wall, rather than in a wrestling ring. The identity of the wrestlers is not known. Alison Smith, Lead Curator of British Art to 1900 at Tate, speculates that the white figure may have been John Wilton of Somerset, who had possibly been the model for Little John in Daniel Maclise's 1839 Robin Hood and His Merry Men Entertaining Richard the Lionheart in Sherwood Forest. The figures glisten with sweat. Art historian Sarah Victoria Turner speculates that this is not simply for dramatic effect, but reflects the fact that after the Royal Academy's 1837 move to its new building in Trafalgar Square the studio used by the life class was a cramped and poorly ventilated room lit by gaslight, which when crowded with students and with the lights on could become extremely hot. The Wrestlers is thought to have been painted in around 1840. It is likely that it was executed at the Royal Academy's life class; despite his senior status, Etty continued to attend there throughout his life. While students at the class usually worked from a single model, Etty would occasionally arrange for "a Treat", in which a group of models would be used to create an entire composition for the students to sketch (often arranged in poses derived from Old Master paintings). Painted on millboard, The Wrestlers was probably executed over the course of three evenings. On the first evening Etty would have drawn the models in chalk or charcoal and inked the outline; on the second evening the figures would have been painted in oil paint, and on the third evening a thin glaze would have been applied to the painting to which colour would then have been added. ### Subject Although best known for his paintings of women, Etty had also produced paintings of nude or semi-nude men engaged in combat, such as 1829's Benaiah. There was a tendency among British artists in this period to attempt to illustrate the physiques of strong and well-proportioned living men, as an indication that the best of British manhood had reached or surpassed the Hellenistic ideal which at that time was considered the model of perfection. Almost all artists, as part of their training, would be expected to draw from reproductions of classical statues in British museums, or to visit Italy and Greece to view the originals in situ. Etty, and other British artists of the day, would have been familiar with the technical issues of drawing men wrestling, as the Uffizi Wrestlers (the Pancrastinae) was one of the subjects new entrants to the Royal Academy Schools were required to draw. Etty had also made lengthy visits to France and Italy in 1816, 1822–24 and 1830 to view and sketch the paintings and statuary of those countries, with additional visits to Belgium in 1840 and 1841 to view the works of Rubens, whom he greatly admired. Moreover, as the industrial revolution took hold and the prevalence of manual labour declined, there were increasing concerns that British men would become unfit and undisciplined; images of sport and combat were thought to motivate the viewer to aspire to an ideal of physical strength which people were worried was becoming lost. Wrestling and boxing thus were popular subjects for artworks, and Etty had produced other paintings and sketches of men engaged in fights of one kind or another. It had become common for artists to use boxers and soldiers as models, as they had the strength and bearing considered desirable, and the discipline to hold a pose for long periods in the studio. The motivation behind Etty's choice to pair a black and a white wrestler is not clear. Etty had painted black and Indian subjects in the past, and it was not unusual in that period for artists to use non-white models, but it was rare to show a black and a white figure embracing. It is possible that he was simply interested in the contrast between the flesh tones; it is documented that he would sometimes arrange models of different skin colours for that reason. It is also possible that he saw "primitive" black men as closer in spirit or physique to the wrestlers of the classical civilisations. Sarah Victoria Turner argues that combat was the only subject in which it would have been felt appropriate at the time to depict naked black and white figures in intimate closeness. 1840, the year in which The Wrestlers is likely to have been painted, saw the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London and the London exhibition of The Slave Ship and The Slave Trade, and race relations had become a major social and political issue. While black wrestlers and boxers—often former slaves from the United States or their descendants—were not unusual in England in the period, and the former slave Tom Molineaux had twice challenged for the boxing world championship in 1811, they were still treated with suspicion by many members of the public. ## Sale and exhibition Virtually no contemporary records or reviews of The Wrestlers exist, and it was probably sold to a private collector either on its completion or in the sale of over 800 works found in Etty's studio following his death; Dennis Farr's 1958 biography of Etty lists the painting exhibited in 1849 as "lent by C. W. Wass". The Wrestlers was probably exhibited at the June 1849 Royal Society of Arts retrospective of over 130 works by Etty, shortly before his death on 13 November of that year. (Etty produced three paintings entitled The Wrestlers, and it is not certain which was the one exhibited in 1849, although it is thought likely to be this one.) Etty died in 1849, and his work enjoyed a brief boom in popularity. Interest in him declined over time, and by the end of the 19th century the value of all his paintings had fallen below their original levels. Following his death, nude paintings went out of fashion very rapidly in Britain. > An old man, semi-nude, is stepping forward while another man, seen from the back and of dark complexion, embraces his legs. The picture is in my opinion not only a genuine Etty, but very well painted indeed, and as the subject is quite unsuitable for the art trade, it may go at a very cheap figure. The Wrestlers was sold by a private collector on 31 October 1947. Owing to its subject matter there was little interest from commercial galleries, and it was bought by York Civic Trust for the bargain price of 30 guineas (£31.50; about £ in 2023 terms). It was immediately presented to the York Art Gallery, where it remains. The painting was one of five works by Etty exhibited in Tate Britain's 2002 exhibition Exposed: The Victorian Nude, and was a central component of a major retrospective of Etty's work at the York Art Gallery in 2011–12.
15,824,196	Imaginative Tales	1,160,065,120	American science fiction magazine	[ "Defunct science fiction magazines published in the United States", "Magazines disestablished in 1958", "Magazines established in 1954", "Science fiction magazines established in the 1950s" ]	Imaginative Tales was an American fantasy and science fiction magazine launched in September 1954 by William Hamling's Greenleaf Publishing Company. It was created as a sister magazine to Imagination, which Hamling had acquired from Raymond A. Palmer's Clark Publishing. Imaginative Tales began as a vehicle for novel-length humorous fantasy, early issues featuring stories by Charles F. Myers and Robert Bloch. After a year, Hamling switched the focus to science fiction and it became similar in content to Imagination, publishing routine space operas. In 1958, with public interest in space high, Hamling changed the title to Space Travel, but there was little effect on sales. Magazine circulation was suffering because of the rise of the paperback, and the liquidation in 1957 of American News Company, a major magazine distributor, made it even harder for small magazines to survive. Hamling eventually ceased publication of both Imaginative Tales and Imagination in 1958, preferring to invest the money in Rogue, a men's magazine he had started in imitation of Playboy in 1955. ## Publication history American science fiction (sf) magazines first appeared in the 1920s with the launch of Amazing Stories, a pulp magazine published by Hugo Gernsback. World War II and its attendant paper shortages interrupted the expanding market for the genre, but by the late 1940s, the market had begun to recover again. From a low of eight active magazines in 1946, the field expanded to 20 in 1950, and a further 22 had commenced publication by 1954. One of these new titles was Imagination, launched at the end of 1950 by Raymond Palmer, who had recently left Ziff-Davis, where he had edited Amazing Stories. In September 1950, Ziff-Davis made the decision to move to New York from Chicago, and Palmer quickly sold Imagination to William Hamling, a Ziff-Davis editor who did not want to relocate and who, like Palmer, chose instead to become an independent publisher. In 1954, Hamling started a fantasy magazine as a companion to Imagination. He titled it Imaginative Tales; science fiction historian Mike Ashley comments that this was surprisingly late for Hamling to start a second title since it might have been more profitable earlier in the sf magazine boom, which was fading by late 1954. When Hamling announced the magazine, in an editorial in Imagination, he said "We actually don't know whether it's a magazine or paperback in magazine form", adding that it would usually carry book-length works. The format of the magazine was initially similar to that of Galaxy Science Fiction Novels, a series of digest-sized novels started in 1950 as a companion to Galaxy Science Fiction. Frank M. Robinson, a science fiction writer who was friends with Hamling, suggested changing the title from Imaginative Tales to Caravan and printing men's adventure fiction. Hamling knew Hugh Hefner, the publisher of Playboy, and Hefner set up a lunch with Playboy's distributor to talk over the idea. The distributor was unimpressed, and Hamling instead pitched the idea of a magazine that would compete with Playboy. The result was Rogue, which was more profitable than either of Hamling's science fiction titles. By the late 1950s, paperbacks were displacing magazines on newsstands, and there was widespread resistance among dealers to stocking new magazines. A further blow came in 1957 with the collapse of American News Company, the most important US magazine distributor. The resulting disruption spelled the end for many sf titles. Hamling retitled Imaginative Tales to Space Travel with the July 1958 issue, hoping to cash in on public interest in the early years of the space program. There was no impact on sales, though Ashley attributes this to the lack of interest among book dealers in new magazines. At the end of 1958, both the science fiction titles were axed, and Hamling invested the money in Rogue instead. ## Contents and reception While at Ziff-Davis, Hamling had become familiar with Fantastic Adventures, the fantasy companion to Ziff-Davis's Amazing Stories, and he was a fan of Charles F. Myers' "Toffee" stories, which had appeared in Fantastic Adventures from the late 1940s. These were humorous stories about a man and his beautiful imaginary girlfriend, Toffee, with what sf historian Joe Sanders calls an "exaggerated pose of naughtiness": nakedness was implied but never directly described, and sex was only hinted at. Hamling printed several "Toffee" stories in Imagination, and when he launched Imaginative Tales, he reprinted Shades of Toffee, a book-length story that had appeared in the June 1950 Fantastic Adventures, in the first issue. The first six issues included novels in the same vein by either Charles Myers or Robert Bloch, and short fiction soon began to appear. With the seventh issue, dated September 1955, Hamling converted Imaginative Tales to more closely resemble Imagination, printing science fiction rather than fantasy. Mike Ashley describes the contents from this point on as "unremarkable space opera"; regular contributors included some of the same writers who wrote for Imagination, including Geoff St. Reynard and Dwight V. Swain. Hamling obtained stories from Edmond Hamilton, who Sanders considers "the most readable of the novelists", but he also printed Raymond Palmer's "The Metal Emperor"—"a dreadful Shaveristic adventure" according to Ashley, and "possibly the worst story published in either of Hamling's magazines", according to Sanders. Henry Slesar's first sale, "The Brat", appeared in the November 1955 issue. Other writers included many authors who had been regular contributors to Amazing Stories—Hamling was familiar with these writers from his time at Ziff-Davis. Non-fiction features appeared once Hamling gave up on the novels-only format: a letter column, editorials, and an sf movie news column, "Scientifilm Marquee", contributed by Forrest Ackerman. With the title change to Space Travel, science articles by Henry Bott and Guenther Schmidt were added. ## Bibliographic details All 26 issues were digest-sized, edited by William Hamling and published by Hamling's Greenleaf Publishing Company, based in Evanston, Illinois. The schedule was bimonthly and was completely regular. Issues were initially labelled with a number only, and no volume; from the sixth issue this changed to a volume/number format. There were five volumes, all with six issues except the second volume, which had two. The first issue was 160 pages, and all remaining issues were 128 pages. The price was 35 cents throughout the run.
9,712,540	2001 UEFA Cup final	1,167,246,036	Football match between Liverpool and Alavés	[ "2000s in North Rhine-Westphalia", "2000–01 UEFA Cup", "2000–01 in English football", "2000–01 in European football", "2000–01 in Spanish football", "21st century in Dortmund", "Deportivo Alavés matches", "International club association football competitions hosted by Germany", "Liverpool F.C. matches", "Sports competitions in Dortmund", "UEFA Cup finals" ]	The 2001 UEFA Cup final was a football match between Liverpool of England and Alavés of Spain on 16 May 2001 at the Westfalenstadion in Dortmund, Germany. The showpiece event was the final match of the 2000–01 edition of Europe's secondary cup competition, the UEFA Cup. Liverpool were appearing in their third UEFA Cup final, after their appearances in 1973 and 1976. It was the first European final they had reached since being banned from European competition following the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985. Alavés were appearing in their first European final. Each team had to progress through six knockout rounds with matches played over two legs. Both teams played 12 matches to reach the final. Liverpool's matches were mainly close affairs; none of their ties were won by more than two goals. The semi-final tie against Barcelona was won 1–0. In contrast, Alavés ties ranged from close to comfortable victories. They won their first round tie against Gaziantepspor by one goal, whereas they beat Kaiserslautern 9–2 in the semi-final. Watched by a crowd of 48,050, Liverpool took an early lead when Markus Babbel scored in the fourth minute. They extended their lead in the 16th minute when Steven Gerrard scored. Midway through the first half, Iván Alonso scored to bring Alavés within a goal of levelling the match. A few minutes before the end of the first half, Liverpool went 3–1 up when Gary McAllister scored from the penalty spot. Minutes after the start of the second half, Javi Moreno scored twice to level the match at 3–3. Liverpool went in front again in the 73rd minute when Robbie Fowler scored. With a minute remaining in the match, Alavés equalised thanks to Jordi Cruyff. The match went into extra time, the first half goalless. With the match heading for a penalty shoot-out, Delfí Geli headed into his own net; as a result, Liverpool won on the golden goal rule. The victory meant Liverpool completed a treble consisting of the Football League Cup, FA Cup and UEFA Cup. ## Route to the final ### Liverpool Liverpool qualified for the UEFA Cup by finishing fourth in the 1999–2000 FA Premier League. Their opposition in the first round was Rapid București of Romania. The first leg was held at Rapid's home ground Stadionul Giuleşti-Valentin Stănescu, where Nick Barmby gave Liverpool a 1–0 win with a goal in the 28th minute. The second leg at Liverpool's home ground, Anfield, finished 0–0, which meant that Liverpool won the tie 1–0 on aggregate to progress to the second round. Liverpool faced Slovan Liberec of the Czech Republic in the second round. The first leg at Anfield was heading for a 0–0 draw, until the 87th minute when Emile Heskey scored to give Liverpool a 1–0 victory. The second leg was at Liberec's home ground, the Stadion u Nisy. Liberec took the lead in the first half to level the tie at 1–1. Midway through the first half, Liverpool equalised to make it 1–1 on the night and 2–1 in their favour on aggregate. Two further goals in the second half by Barmby and Michael Owen, before a late Liberec goal, ensured Liverpool won the match 3–2 to progress to the third round after a 4–2 aggregate victory. Olympiacos of Greece were their opponents in the third round. The first leg was held at Olympiacos' home ground, the Karaiskakis Stadium. Liverpool were heading for a 2–1 victory courtesy of goals from Barmby and Steven Gerrard, until Olympiacos equalised in the last minute to earn a 2–2 draw. The second leg at Anfield was won 2–0 by Liverpool, with a goal scored in each half by Barmby and Heskey respectively. The victory ensured Liverpool won the tie 4–2 on aggregate to progress to the fourth round. Liverpool faced the Italian side Roma in the fourth round. The first leg was held at Roma's home ground the Stadio Olimpico, where Liverpool had won the European Cup twice in 1977 and 1984. Incidentally, Roma were the team Liverpool beat to win the European Cup in 1984. Liverpool were once again successful at the Stadio Olimpico, as they won 2–0 courtesy of two Owen goals in the second-half. The second leg at Anfield was a close affair. Roma scored in the 70th minute to take the lead, and needed to score another goal to take the match into extra-time. They looked like they had the opportunity to do so when the referee awarded a penalty towards the end of the match after he had adjudged that Markus Babbel had handled the ball. Moments later, he reversed his decision and instead awarded Roma a corner-kick. Roma were unable to score the necessary goal following the incident and Liverpool progressed to the quarter-finals courtesy of a 2–1 aggregate victory. Portuguese side Porto were the opposition in the quarter-finals. The first leg in Portugal ended 0–0. Liverpool won the second leg at Anfield 2–0. Danny Murphy and Owen scored in the first half to progress to the semi-finals courtesy of a 2–0 aggregate victory. Liverpool were drawn against Spanish side Barcelona in the semi-finals. Liverpool defended resolutely during the first leg at Barcelona's ground the Camp Nou to earn a 0–0 draw. Houllier defended his tactics after the match, stating: "If I'd gone out and attacked and lost by three goals, you would be calling me naive. What's the point in being naive? That would be a betrayal to our supporters." The second leg at Anfield was equally close, until the 44th minute when Liverpool were awarded a penalty. Gary McAllister scored the subsequent penalty to put Liverpool 1–0 up in the match and the tie; a Barcelona goal would see them progress as a result of the away goals rule. Liverpool managed to see out the 90 minutes without conceding a goal to progress to their first European final since they were banned from participating in Europe following the Heysel Stadium disaster at the 1985 European Cup Final. ### Alavés Alavés qualified for the UEFA Cup by finishing sixth during the 1999–2000 La Liga. They were drawn against Turkish team Gaziantepspor in the first round. The first leg at Alavés' home ground the Estadio Mendizorroza finished 0–0. After a goalless first leg, seven were scored between the two teams in the second leg. Alavés won the match 4–3 to progress to the second round. Alavés' opposition in the second round were Lillestrøm of Norway. The first leg was at Lillestrøm's home ground the Åråsen Stadion. Alavés won the match 3–1 with goals from Ibon Begoña, Óscar Téllez and Cosmin Contra. The second leg in Spain was a 2–2 draw, which ensured that Alavés won the tie 5–3 on aggregate to progress to the third round. Another Norwegian team, Rosenborg were their opposition. The first leg in Spain was a 1–1 draw. The second leg was held at Rosenborg's ground the Lerkendal Stadion. Alavés took an early lead when Rosenborg player Bent Inge Johnsen scored an own goal. Alavés scored a further two goals in the second half, and Rosenborg also scored one. Alavés won the match 3–1 to progress to the fourth round courtesy of a 4–2 aggregate victory. The opposition in the fourth round was Italian team Inter Milan, who had won the competition three times. The first leg in Spain saw Internazionale go ahead 3–1 midway through the second half after Álvaro Recoba scored twice and Christian Vieri once. Alavés fought back to equalise in the 73rd minute after goals from Óscar Téllez and Iván Alonso secured a 3–3 draw. The second leg at Internazionale's home ground the San Siro appeared to heading for a 0–0 draw until the 78th minute when Jordi Cruyff scored. A further goal from Ivan Tomić ensured a 2–0 victory for Alavés. This meant that they progressed to the quarter-finals at the expense of the three-time winners due to a 5–3 aggregate victory. Fellow Spanish side Rayo Vallecano were the opposition in the quarter-finals. Alavés won the first leg at home 3–0. Rayo took a 2–0 lead in the second leg at their ground the Estadio Teresa Rivero, but a late Cruyff goal ensured that Alavés would progress to the semi-finals. Their opposition in the semi-finals was German team Kaiserslautern, the first leg in Spain saw four penalties awarded. Three were awarded to Alavés and one to Kaiserslautern, all were scored and a further two goals for Alavés ensured the match finished 5–1 to Alavés. Kaiserslautern needed to score four goals in the second leg to stand a chance of reaching the final. Instead, Alavés scored four goals. Kaiserslautern scored a consolation goal, but Alavés won the match 4–1 to progress to the final in their first season in European competition courtesy of a 9–2 aggregate victory. ## Match ### Background Liverpool had already won two trophies during the 2000–01 season before the final. Their first trophy was the Football League Cup which they had won in February, defeating Birmingham City 5–4 in a penalty shoot-out after the match had finished 1–1. The second trophy was the FA Cup, which they won four days before the final defeating Arsenal 2–1. They entered the match with the opportunity to win a treble. The final was held at the Westfalenstadion in Dortmund, Germany. Liverpool were appearing in their third UEFA Cup final, both their previous appearances in the final in 1973 and 1976 had resulted in victory. They were also making their first appearance in a European final since their ban from European competition following the Heysel Stadium disaster. Alavés, on the other hand, were appearing in their first European final in their first season in European competition. They had been a semi-professional team six years previous. As it was their first season in Europe, Alavés had commissioned a special shirt that was pink and bore the names of all their 'socios' (members) as a memento of their qualification for Europe. The Liverpool manager, Gérard Houllier, was wary of the threat posed by Alavés, despite their lack of experience in European competition. He stated: "I have heard it suggested that Alavés are just there to make up the numbers, and someone actually said this was the easiest tie we could have had,' Houllier said. 'That is not the case at all. We will not be making that mistake. If they are in the final it means they must be a good side, but unlike some people we were expecting them to reach the final. We set great store by what our scouts tell us." Despite playing in their first European final, Alavés were confident. Striker Jordi Cruyff believed being the underdogs would suit them: "We haven't been favourites in any of the rounds up to this stage, which means our opponents have felt that they really have to have a go and attack us as much as possible. That gives us time to counter and we are comfortable with that style. But we also have some really good players. At this stage of the competition it's not a question of confidence; it's a question of being realistic. I have a positive feeling about this game." Alavés captain, Antonio Karmona stated he had wanted to face Liverpool at some point in the competition: "The funny thing is that as we've been going through this UEFA Cup campaign we've been coming back into the dressing room each time hoping to draw Liverpool in the next round. This is the match that we've wanted all season." ### First half Liverpool won the toss and kicked off. Within the first three minutes Liverpool had scored. Babbel headed in a McAllister free-kick to put Liverpool 1–0 up. They nearly added to their lead minutes later when Heskey was put through on goal from a McAllister pass, but Alavés goalkeeper Martín Herrera cleared the ball with his feet. Two minutes later, Astudillo was shown a yellow card for a challenge on Heskey. Liverpool player McAllister also received a yellow card after he confronted the Alavés player over his challenge. Alavés' first opportunity to score was in the 12th minute. They were awarded a free-kick on the edge of the Liverpool penalty area following a challenge by Stéphane Henchoz. Oscar Téllez curled a shot towards Liverpool's goal, but Liverpool goalkeeper Sander Westerveld pushed the ball away. Three minutes later, Owen collected a Dietmar Hamann pass and played a diagonal pass to Gerrard, whose shot beat the Alavés keeper Herrera to put Liverpool 2–0 ahead. Minutes later Alavés made the first substitution of the match when Alonso replaced defender Eggen. The change had the desired effect as four minutes later, Alavés scored. Right wing-back Contra put the ball into the area from the right side of the pitch and Alonso rose above Babbel to head the ball into the net to make the scoreline 2–1. Immediately afterwards, Alavés were almost level when Contra put another ball into the penalty area, but Henchoz cleared the ball before an Alavés player could reach it. In the 35th minute, Alavés were again nearly level. Alonso's header fell to Moreno, who went past Henchoz, but his shot was saved by Westerveld after it hit his chest. The rebound fell to Tomić, but Westerveld again saved his shot. Five minutes later, Liverpool were awarded a penalty. Owen had run into the penalty area past the Alavés defence, where he was brought down by Herrera, who was booked for the foul. McAllister took the penalty and scored to put Liverpool 3–1 ahead. ### Second half In contrast to the first half, it was Alavés who started the half the better of the two sides. Contra put a cross from the right side of the pitch into the penalty area, which was met by Moreno, whose header beat Westerveld to make the scoreline 3–2. Four minutes later Alavés had equalised. They were awarded a free-kick 25 yards away from goal and Moreno's shot went straight through the Liverpool wall and into the goal past Westerveld. Liverpool reacted to the scoreline being levelled at 3–3 by substituting Henchoz with Vladimír Šmicer. Gerrard was placed in the right-back position as a result of the change. Three minutes later, Owen was brought down by defender Karmona, who was subsequently booked. Liverpool were awarded a free-kick, which McAllister hit into the Alavés wall. In the 64th minute, both sides made substitutions. Liverpool replaced Heskey with Robbie Fowler, while Alavés substituted one of their goalscorers, Moreno, for Pablo. Eight minutes later, McAllister passed the ball to Fowler who moved towards the centre of the pitch from the left-hand side and hit his shot into the corner of the Alavés goal to give Liverpool a 4–3 lead with 18 minutes of the match remaining. Two minutes later, Liverpool substituted Owen for Patrik Berger. In the 82nd minute, Alavés had an appeal for a penalty after a tackle by Hamann brought Magno down, but the Brazilian was subsequently booked for diving. With two minutes remaining, Liverpool goalkeeper Westerveld conceded a corner, which was headed into the goal by Cruyff to make the scoreline 4–4. Two minutes into injury-time, Contra went down under pressure from Gerrard in the Liverpool penalty area. Again, the referee deemed that there was no penalty. Following this, the referee blew his whistle to signal the end of 90 minutes of play. The match would now go into a 30-minute extra-time period. ### Extra time The golden goal rule was used during extra-time, which meant that whichever team scored first would win. Liverpool kicked off the first half of extra-time and within three minutes, Alonso had put the ball in the Liverpool goal, but was ruled offside. A minute later, Téllez was booked for fouling Fowler. Within four minutes, Alavés had been reduced to 10 men. Magno was shown a second yellow card for a two-footed challenge on Babbel. With a minute of the first half of extra-time remaining, Fowler thought he had scored the winning goal but it was disallowed as he was offside. Alavés kicked off the second half and within seconds, Babbel was booked for bringing down Alavés defender Geli 30 yards from goal. The resulting free-kick was put wide by Hermes Desio. Three minutes later, Liverpool had a chance to score, but Fowler could not reach Gerrard's cross and the ball was subsequently cleared from the Alavés penalty area. In the 115th minute of the match, Alavés were reduced to nine men, when Karmona received a second yellow card for fouling Šmicer. McAllister took the resulting free-kick, which was headed into his own goal by Geli. As a result of the golden goal, Liverpool had won the match 5–4 to win their third UEFA Cup and complete a treble. ### Details ## Post-match Liverpool's victory was their third UEFA Cup success, putting them level with Internazionale and Juventus as the teams with the most success in the competition. Their victory also meant they completed a treble of cup victories, as they had won the Football League Cup and the FA Cup earlier in the season. The match was hailed as one of the most exciting finals in modern times, which BBC Sport pundit, Alan Hansen, declared as "the best final ever." The Liverpool manager Gérard Houllier hailed his players after the match: "When you play in a European final, you are looking for immortality. People remember who was playing and when you look at programmes from finals you just recall the facts of the game. These boys have produced a game which will be remembered for a long time – and that is thanks to Alavés too." Houllier hit back at critics who had labelled Liverpool as boring before the match: "Maybe we are a boring side – as I seem to keep reading – but I will put up with that. We must have scored 122 of our 123 goals on the counter-attack, but all I know is that our total this season is the third highest in Liverpool's history." The performance of McAllister was lauded after the match. BBC Sport commentator, Trevor Brooking, stated: "Gary McAllister was outstanding." Alan Hansen also praised McAllister's performance: "Gary McAllister was outstanding. At 36, to keep going the way he did, keep taking those free-kicks and producing it when it counted, was sensational. He fully deserved his man of the match award." McAllister was optimistic about the future of Liverpool: "This is an amazing game for all the young guys at the club to be playing in so early in their career, hopefully they will go and make Liverpool great again." The Alavés manager Mané praised his players despite their loss: "Dortmund has seen a great final, and it was possibly the smallest team in the competition that made it great." Esnal saluted his players for their character especially for equalising twice in the match: "We played with pride and class to get the score back to 4–4 at the end of normal time, the result of that, however, was that we were half dead going into extra-time. But we're the same team as we were two hours ago. One side always has to lose a final, just as one wins." Despite their success, Liverpool were not celebrating immediately after the match, as they had an important match in the Premier League on the Saturday following the final. The match against Charlton Athletic was a must-win match for Liverpool if they wanted to finish in third place in the league and claim the final UEFA Champions League qualification place. Liverpool won 4–0 to secure their place in the 2001–02 UEFA Champions League. Winning the UEFA Cup entitled Liverpool to compete in the 2001 UEFA Super Cup against Champions League winners Bayern Munich. Liverpool won the match 3–2 to secure their second Super Cup victory. Following the final, Alavés had four matches remaining in the 2000–01 La Liga. They lost all four matches and finished the season in 10th place, outside of the qualification spots for European competition. ## See also - Liverpool F.C. in European football
5,653,238	PowerBook 100	1,169,843,232	Laptop by Apple	[ "68k Macintosh computers", "Computer-related introductions in 1991", "PowerBook" ]	The PowerBook 100 is a portable subnotebook personal computer designed and manufactured by Sony for Apple Computer and introduced on October 21, 1991, at the COMDEX computer expo in Las Vegas, Nevada. Priced at US\$2,500 with external floppy drive, the PowerBook 100 was the low-end model of the first three simultaneously released PowerBooks. Its CPU and overall speed closely resembled those of its predecessor, the Macintosh Portable. It had a Motorola 68000 processor at 16 MHz, 2-8 megabytes (MB) of RAM, a 9-inch (23 cm) monochrome backlit liquid crystal display (LCD) with 640 × 400 pixel resolution, and the System 7.0.1 operating system. It did not have a built-in floppy disk drive and was noted for its unique compact design that placed a trackball pointing device in front of the keyboard for ease of use. Apple's then-chief executive officer (CEO) John Sculley started the PowerBook project in 1990, allocating \$1 million for marketing. Despite the small marketing budget, the new PowerBook line was a success, generating over \$1 billion in revenue for Apple in its first year. Sony designed and manufactured the PowerBook 100 in collaboration with the Apple Industrial Design Group, Apple's internal design team. It was discontinued on September 3, 1992, and superseded by the PowerBook 145 and PowerBook Duo series. Since then, it has been praised several times for its design; PC World named the PowerBook 100 the tenth-greatest PC of all time in 2006, and US magazine Mobile PC chose the PowerBook 100 as the greatest gadget of all time in 2005. ## History From 1990, John Sculley, then CEO of Apple, oversaw product development personally to ensure that Apple released new computers to market more quickly. His new strategy was to increase market share by lowering prices and releasing more "hit" products. This strategy contributed to the commercial success of the low-end Macintosh Classic and Macintosh LC, desktop computers released by Apple in 1990. Sculley wanted to replicate the success of these products with Apple's new PowerBook line. Sculley began the project in 1990 and wanted the PowerBook to be released within one year. The project had three managers: John Medica, who managed engineering for the new laptop; Randy Battat, who was the vice president for product marketing; and Neil Selvin, who headed the marketing effort. In 1991, the two leaders in the laptop computer industry were Toshiba and Compaq, both of which had introduced models weighing less than 8 lb (3.63 kg). Medica, Battat, and Selvin deliberately designed the PowerBook to weigh less than its competitors. Sculley allocated a \$1 million marketing budget to the PowerBook product line, in contrast to the \$25 million used to market the Macintosh Classic. Medica, Battat, and Selvin used most of the money to produce and air a television commercial that viewers would remember. Advertising agency Chiat/Day filmed retired Los Angeles Lakers basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sitting uncomfortably in a small airline coach seat yet typing comfortably on his PowerBook. The ad caption read: "At least his hands are comfortable." Apple unveiled the PowerBook 100 on October 21, 1991, at the Comdex computer expo in Las Vegas, alongside two other models: the PowerBook 140 and PowerBook 170. Both the promotional campaign and the product itself achieved significant success. Apple set an ambitious target of selling over 200,000 units of the PowerBook within the first year, with peak demand anticipated in the initial three months following its release. Impressively, by January 1992, Apple had already sold more than 100,000 PowerBooks, a milestone that was reached despite the product facing shortages in supply. Apple soon solved the supply problems, and the proceeds from PowerBook sales reached \$1 billion in the first year after launch. Apple surpassed Toshiba and Compaq as the market leader in worldwide share of portable computer shipments. The PowerBook 100, 140, and 170 contributed greatly to Apple's financial success in 1992. At the end of the financial year, Apple announced its highest figures yet, \$7.1 billion in revenues and an increase in global market share from 8% to 8.5%, the highest it had been in four years. However, the initial popularity of the PowerBook 100 did not last. Sales decreased, and by December 1991 the 140 and 170 models had become more popular because customers were willing to pay more for a built-in floppy disk drive and second serial port, which the PowerBook 100 lacked. In early 1992, the PowerBook 100 was offered at \$2,300 without the external floppy drive. By August 10, 1992, Apple quietly dropped the PowerBook 100 from its price list but continued to sell existing stock through its own dealers and alternative discount consumer-oriented stores such as Price Club. In these outlets, a configuration featuring 4 MB of RAM, a 40 MB hard drive, and a floppy drive was sold for less than \$1,000, marking a substantial discount from the original list price of the equivalent 2 MB/20 MB configuration. On September 17, 1992, Apple recalled 60,000 PowerBook 100s because of a potential safety problem. It was discovered that an electrical short could lead to the melting of a small hole in the casing. This issue affected three out of the 60,000 notebooks manufactured between October 1991 and March 1992. On the day of the recall, Apple shares closed at \$47, down \$1.25, but some analysts discounted the recall's importance. In addition, the original power supplies had problems with insulation cracks that could cause a short in a fuse on the motherboard; and the computer was prone to cracks in the power adapter socket on the motherboard, which required a \$400 replacement motherboard if the warranty had expired. ## Features Most of the PowerBook 100's internal components were based on its predecessor, the Macintosh Portable. It included a Motorola 68HC000 16 MHz processor, had 2 MB memory, no floppy disk drive, and cost approximately \$2,500 with external floppy drive. Later the PowerBook 100 was offered without the external floppy drive for \$2,300. The dimensions of the PowerBook 100 were an improvement over the Portable. It was 8.5 inches (22 cm) deep, 11 inches (28 cm) wide, and 1.8 inches (4.6 cm) high, compared to the Portable, which was 14.83 inches (37.7 cm) deep, 15.25 inches (38.7 cm) wide and 4.05 inches (10.3 cm) high. Another significant difference was the less expensive passive matrix display used instead of the sharper active matrix used on the Portable (and the 170). The PowerBook 100 included the System 7.0.1 operating system as standard, with support for all versions up to System 7.5.5. Apple, however, released System 6.0.8L, which allowed the PowerBook 100 to run System 6. It could also be used with some earlier System 6 versions, although Apple did not officially support this. The PowerBook 100 had one external serial port, designed for use with a printer or any compatible RS-422 device. It was the first Macintosh to omit an external modem port, instead offering an optional built-in 2400 baud modem for communications. As a result, for the first time a user could not print directly and access AppleTalk or a faster external modem simultaneously, and devices such as advanced MIDI interfaces could not be used because they required the dedicated use of both ports. A third-party serial modem port could, however, be installed in the internal modem slot for consumers who needed traditional functions. When the computer was not in use, contents of the memory were preserved as long as the main lead-acid battery remained charged. The PowerBook 100 Power Manager was an integrated circuit, usually placed on the logic board of a PowerBook, and was responsible for the power management of the computer. Identical to that of the Macintosh Portable, it controlled the display's backlight, hard drive spin-down, sleep and wake, battery charging, trackball control, and input/output (I/O). The 100 did add a new feature: 3.5 V batteries backed up permanent and expansion random access memory (RAM) when the PowerBook 100's battery was being replaced or when the 100 was otherwise temporarily removed from all power sources. This made it a perfect candidate for use with Apple's RAM disk to help increase battery life by accessing the hard disk less frequently, since the 100 was the only PowerBook that maintained the contents of RAM on shutdown in order to reduce startup time. The PowerBook 100 was the first PowerBook to incorporate SCSI Disk Mode, which allowed it to be used as an external hard disk on a desktop Macintosh. This provided a convenient method for software to be installed onto the PowerBook or transferred to the desktop, without the need for the 100's optional floppy disk drive. A specialized SCSI cable with a unique connector was required, however, to use any SCSI device on the PowerBook series. A second dedicated cable was required for SCSI Disk Mode. This feature was unique to the 100 until Apple introduced new PowerBooks more than a year later. There are two versions of the PowerBook 100's QWERTY layout keyboard: a domestic US version with 63 keys and an international ISO version with 64 keys. The caps lock key on the PowerBook 100 did not have a locking position or a lighted indicator of its status, and to compensate, the System 7 operating system software includes an extension file that causes an icon of the international caps lock symbol (⇪) to appear in the upper right-hand corner of the menu bar when Caps Lock is active. The internals of the PowerBook 100 were the basis of the Apple Wizzy Active Lifestyle Telephone prototype. ## Design Both the PowerBook 140 and 170 were designed before the 100 by the Apple Industrial Design Group, from March 1990-February 1991. The 100's styling was based on those computers and represents the first improvements to the PowerBook line as Apple benefited from the lessons learned in developing the more powerful models' enclosure. The 100 was designed between September and December 1990, and retained the same design elements, which were a variation on the Snow White design language Apple had been using since 1984. Specifically, 2 mm (0.079 in) raised ridges spaced 10 mm (0.39 in) apart intended to tie it into the existing product line. Apple approached Sony in late 1989 because it did not have enough engineers to handle the number of new products that were planned for delivery in 1991. Using a basic blueprint from Apple, including a list of chips and other components, and the Portable's architecture, the 100 was miniaturized and manufactured by Sony in San Diego, California, and Japan. Sony engineers had little experience building personal computers but nonetheless completed Apple's smallest and lightest machine in under 13 months, cancelling other projects and giving the PowerBook 100 top priority. Sony president Norio Ohga gave project manager Kihey Yamamoto permission to recruit engineers from any Sony division. Robert Brunner, Apple's head of industrial design at the time, led the design team that developed the laptop, including its trackball and granite color. Brunner said he designed the PowerBook "so it would be as easy to use and carry as a regular book". The dark granite grey color set it apart from other notebook computers of the time and also from Apple's other products, which traditionally were beige or platinum grey. The trackball, another new design element, was placed in the middle of the computer, allowing the PowerBook to be easily operated by both left- and right-handed users. The designers were trying to create a fashion statement with the overall design of the laptop, which they felt made it a more personal accessory, like a wallet or briefcase. Brunner said: "It says something about the identity of the person who is carrying it". ## Reception Crystal Waters of Home Office Computing praised the PowerBook 100's "unique, effective design" but was disappointed because the internal modem did not receive faxes, and the 100 had no monitor port. The low-capacity 20 MB hard drive was also criticized. Once a user's core applications had been installed, little room was left for optional programs and documents. Waters concluded: "Having used the 100 constantly in the past few weeks, I know I wouldn't feel cheated by buying it - if only it had a 40MB hard-disk drive option." PC Week benchmarked the PowerBook 100, measuring it against its predecessor, the Macintosh Portable. The PowerBook 100 took 5.3 seconds to open a Microsoft Word document and 2.5 seconds to save it, while the Portable took 5.4 and 2.6 seconds respectively. PC Week tested the battery life, which delivered 3 hours 47 minutes of use. Byte magazine's review concluded, "The PowerBook 100 is recommended for word processing and communications tasks; the higher-end products offer enough power for complex reports, large spreadsheets and professional graphics." MacWEEK described it as "ideal for writers and others on a tight budget." The PowerBook 100 continues to receive recognition from the press. PC World named the PowerBook 100 the 10th-greatest PC of all time in 2006, and in 2005, US magazine Mobile PC chose the PowerBook 100 as the greatest gadget of all time, ahead of the Sony Walkman and Atari 2600. The PowerBook 100 received multiple awards for its design, including the 1999 IDSA Silver Design of the Decade Award, Form magazine's 1993 Designer's Design Awards, the 1992 ISDA Gold Industrial Design Excellence Award, the 1992 Appliance Manufacturer Excellence in Design award, and the Industry Forum Design 10 Best - Hannover Fair award. ## Technical specifications ## Timeline ## See also - Macintosh Portable - List of Macintosh models grouped by CPU type
1,615,890	Battle of Byram's Ford	1,162,553,958	Battle of the American Civil War	[ "1864 in Missouri", "1864 in the American Civil War", "Battles of the American Civil War in Missouri", "Battles of the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War", "Conflicts in 1864", "Jackson County, Missouri", "October 1864 events", "Price's Missouri Expedition", "Union victories of the American Civil War" ]	The Battle of Byram's Ford (also known as the Battle of Big Blue River and the Battle of the Blue) was fought on October 22 and 23, 1864, in Missouri during Price's Raid, a campaign of the American Civil War. With the Confederate States of America collapsing, Major General Sterling Price of the Confederate States Army conducted an invasion of the state of Missouri in late 1864. Union forces led Price to abandon goals of capturing the cities of St. Louis and Jefferson City, and he turned west with his army towards Kansas City. On October 22, Price's army found itself caught between two Union forces, commanded by Major Generals James G. Blunt and Alfred Pleasonton. Part of Price's force conducted a delaying action against Pleasonton in the Second Battle of Independence, while the division of Brigadier General Joseph O. Shelby broke Blunt's line at Byram's Ford on the Big Blue River by crossing at an unguarded ford above the Union defenses. The Union defenders were forced to retreat to the Kansas state line, and the 2nd Kansas State Militia Infantry Regiment was caught at the Mockbee Farm and overwhelmed. Meanwhile, Pleasonton's men pushed Price's rear guard across the Big Blue in the Second Battle of Independence. On October 23, Pleasonton attacked Confederate forces under Major General John S. Marmaduke at Byram's Ford and forced them back to a height known as Potato Hill. Pleasonton broke through Marmaduke's position, and the rest of the Confederate army was defeated at the concurrent Battle of Westport. While Price's wagon train escaped from Union Brigadier General John McNeil and his brigade, the Confederate army withdrew southwards in disorder. After suffering further defeats along the way, Price's army reached Texas by December, having lost over two-thirds of its men. The Confederates also lost equipment and supplies, while the Union war effort was only minimally hampered; the campaign was the last major operation west of the Mississippi River. Part of the battlefield is preserved in the Big Blue Battlefield Park, and a portion is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Byram's Ford Historic District. ## Background When the American Civil War began in April 1861, the state of Missouri did not secede – despite allowing slavery – as it was politically divided. Governor of Missouri Claiborne Fox Jackson supported secession and the Confederate States of America, both of which were opposed by Union Army elements under the command of Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon. A combination of Confederate and allied pro-secession Missouri State Guard forces defeated Lyon at the Battle of Wilson's Creek in August, but were confined to southwestern Missouri by the end of the year. The state also developed two competing governments, one supporting the Union and the other the Confederacy. Control of Missouri passed to the Union in March 1862 after the Battle of Pea Ridge in Arkansas, and Confederate activity in Missouri was largely restricted to raids and guerrilla warfare through the rest of 1862 and into 1863. By September 1864, the Confederacy had essentially no chance of a military victory, and incumbent President of the United States Abraham Lincoln had an edge over George B. McClellan – who supported ending the war– in the 1864 United States presidential election. With the situation east of the Mississippi River collapsing, General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department, was ordered to send his infantry across the river to more important areas of the war. This movement proved to be impossible, as a large-scale crossing of the Mississippi was prevented by Union Navy control of the river. Instead, Smith decided to attack the Union forces within his area of responsibility, despite having limited resources. Confederate Major General Sterling Price and Thomas Caute Reynolds, who had replaced Jackson as the head of the Confederate government of Missouri in February 1863 after the latter's death, proposed an invasion of Missouri. Smith approved of the plan and placed Price in command of the offensive. It was hoped that the invasion would start a popular uprising against Union control of the state, draw Union troops away from more important theaters of the war, and improve McClellan's chance of defeating Lincoln. ## Prelude After entering Missouri on September 19, Price's column advanced north, only to suffer a bloody repulse at the Battle of Pilot Knob on September 27. Having suffered hundreds of casualties at Pilot Knob, Price decided not to attack the city of St. Louis, which was defended by 9,000 Union infantrymen. Instead, he aimed his command west, towards the state capital of Jefferson City. Encumbered by a slow-moving wagon train, Price's army took so long to reach Jefferson City that the Union was able to reinforce the garrison from 1,000 men to 7,000. Once Price reached Jefferson City in early October, he decided that it was too strong to attack, and continued moving west along the Missouri River. During this movement, the Confederates gathered recruits and supplies, as well as winning the Battle of Glasgow and capturing Sedalia. ### Opposing forces #### Confederate Price's force, named the Army of Missouri, contained about 12,000 or 13,000 cavalrymen and 14 cannons. Several thousand of these men were either not armed or poorly armed, and all of Price's cannons were of light caliber. The Army of Missouri was organized into three divisions, commanded by Major General James F. Fagan and Brigadier Generals Joseph O. Shelby and John S. Marmaduke. Fagan's division contained four brigades commanded by Brigadier General William L. Cabell and Colonels William F. Slemons, Archibald S. Dobbins, and Thomas H. McCray; Shelby's division had three brigades under Colonels David Shanks (replaced by Brigadier General M. Jeff Thompson after Shanks was killed in action), Sidney D. Jackman, and Charles H. Tyler; and Marmaduke's division contained two brigades, commanded by Brigadier General John B. Clark Jr. and Colonel Thomas R. Freeman. #### Union Missouri was defended by the Union Department of the Missouri, under the command of Major General William S. Rosecrans. The department initially consisted of about 10,000 men, many of whom were militia and were scattered across the state in a system of districts and subdistricts. In September, part of the XVI Corps under the command of Major General Andrew Jackson Smith arrived in St. Louis to reinforce Rosecrans. Smith's troops were initially tasked with railroad repair, rather than active military operations. On October 6, in Jefferson City, a Union cavalry division was organized and placed under the command of Major General Alfred Pleasonton. Of the division's four brigades, one was part of Smith's command and had not yet reached Jefferson City. Composed of a mixture of Union Army troops and Missouri militia and supported by four cannons, Pleasonton's brigades were commanded by Brigadier Generals Egbert Brown, John McNeil and John B. Sanborn, and Colonel Edward F. Winslow. Sanborn temporarily commanded the formation until Pleasonton took full command on October 20. Union troops in Kansas under the command of Major General Samuel R. Curtis were withdrawn from fighting the Cheyenne and the Kansas State Militia was mobilized. One of the officers withdrawn from the Cheyenne conflict was Major General James G. Blunt, who was appointed commander of the District of South Kansas on October 10 and ordered to collect available cavalry and move towards Kansas City. Within a week, Blunt had reached Hickman Mills, Missouri, where he reorganized his force into a division of three brigades. Two of the brigades were formed of Union Army troops, and the third contained Kansas militiamen. Colonels Charles R. "Doc" Jennison and Thomas Moonlight commanded the two brigades of Union Army troops, while Colonel Charles W. Blair commanded the brigade containing the militia (a single Union Army unit was included in Blair's brigade). Jennison's brigade was supported by five cannons, Moonlight's by four, and Blair's by eight. The inclusion of the militia proved problematic for Blunt, as the militiamen attempted to adhere to their former command structure, including viewing militia officer William Fishback as their proper commander instead of Blair. Curtis was hampered by state politics in his attempts to mobilize the Kansas State Militia, but a total of 15,000 men were eventually mustered. While the Kansas State Militia remained under Curtis's authority, George W. Dietzler, a major general in the organization, served as its general-in-chief. The Kansas State Militia used a brigade organization, but little detail about the exact breakdown is provided in the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion. ### To the Big Blue River Late on October 16, Curtis made the decision to move his forces into Missouri and ordered Blunt to move east to Warrensburg; if Blunt did not find Price, he had the option to continue on to Lexington. Blair's brigade was sent to Kansas City. The lead portion of Blunt's column reached Lexington on October 18, with hopes of cooperating with Sanborn. Instead, Sanborn's men were too far away for cooperation, and Price was only 20 miles (32 km) east at Waverly. Blunt also learned that he could not expect reinforcements from Curtis, as political authorities in Kansas would not permit the Kansas State Militia to move further east than the Big Blue River. Price attacked Blunt with Shelby's division at Lexington on October 19, bringing on the Second Battle of Lexington. The Union soldiers put up a strong enough defense that Price was forced to commit more troops, and Blunt fell back in the evening. The day after the fight at Lexington, Blunt fell back to the Little Blue River. He wanted to make a stand there, but Curtis ordered his troops back to Independence due to the restrictions on the movement of the Kansas State Militia. A single regiment and four cannons were left at the Little Blue as a rear guard. Confederate troops attacked the rear guard on October 21, bringing on the Battle of Little Blue River. Eventually, Confederate pressure on the Union center led these Union troops to retreat back to Independence. Late that evening, the Union troops abandoned Independence and took up positions behind the Big Blue 6 miles (9.7 km) to the west, while the Confederates occupied Independence. Pleasonton's division, which had converged on Price's army as it moved along the Missouri, was encamped 6 miles (10 km) to the east of the Little Blue. Price was now caught between the positions of Curtis and Pleasonton. He formed a plan to conduct a feint attack on the northern part of the Union line at the Big Blue, while forcing his way across the river with a stronger attack further to the south. Delaying actions would hold off Pleasonton's men while the Confederate wagon train crossed the Big Blue. Curtis, who was hampered by significantly inaccurate maps, had divided his army into two wings. Deitzler commanded the left wing, which consisted of detached brigade, but his control was only nominal, and Blair made most of the decisions. Despite being detached, Blair's men served as more of a brigade under Blunt's command than a separate wing of the army. Blunt commanded the right wing, which included the brigades of Ford, Moonlight, and Jennison. The 2nd Colorado Cavalry Regiment was sent across the river to act as skirmishers. As not all of the Kansas State Militia was fully mobilized, and the strength of those units that had arrived at Kansas City had been reduced greatly due to men lagging behind on the march, Curtis had around 5,000 men in his force, which was known as the Army of the Border. Aside from a ford at the extreme end of the Union line near the Missouri River which Curtis did not expect Price to use due to the depth of water there, the Union line was much stronger on its north end. Twelve cannons supported the position. Curtis relied on the rough terrain around the Big Blue to limit Price to crossing at the fords. The Union line stretched 15 miles (24 km) from the Missouri to Hickman Mills. ## Battle ### October 22: Shelby crosses the Big Blue #### Fight for Byram's Ford At around 08:00, fighting began when Shelby drove Union skirmishers back across the Big Blue. About an hour later, Jackman's brigade of about 1,500 men feinted against the north portion of the Union line, although Curtis did not fall for the ruse, as he believed the fighting was too dilatory to represent a primary attack. When Union officers on the north part of the line reported seeing minimal Confederate activity on the road to Kansas City, Curtis became move convinced that the northern Confederate threat was not a primary attack, and concerned about a potential flanking attack to the south. He then gave Blunt, along with Melvin S. Grant – who commanded two Kansas State Militia regiments positioned to the south near Hickman Mills – orders to watch for Confederate movements and to send reports back every half hour. At 11:00, men of the 2nd Colorado Cavalry reported that Confederate forces were moving for the southern fords, and the dust clouds kicked up by the moving troops were sighted by the occupants of a Union signal tower further north. Also at around 11:00, Shelby decided to attempt to force a crossing of the Big Blue at Byram's Ford, which was in the southern portion of the Union line. Byram's Ford had been occupied by Jennison's brigade since around 09:00, defensive works being prepared by one of Grant's militia regiments the night before. Felled trees and other obstructions blocked the ford, but only the brush on the Union side of the river had been cleared, meaning that the Confederates had cover, but not that element of Jennison's brigade which was in the immediate vicinity of the ford. Jennison's approximately 1,200 men were largely positioned on high ground to the west of the ford, with only a strong skirmish line and five mountain howitzers defending the ford itself. The first sizable Confederate force to reach Byram's Ford was Thompson's brigade, which numbered about 1,445 men. Thompson's attacks were not successful, but his men kept pressure on Jennison's position, resulting in the 16th Kansas Cavalry Regiment and possibly a Missouri militia unit being sent to reinforce Jennison. The fighting between Thompson and Jennison continued for three hours, during which time Jackman sent two units from his brigade – Nichols's Missouri Cavalry Regiment and Schnable's Missouri Cavalry Battalion – to reinforce Thompson. Around 14:00, Thompson and Shelby decided to seek alternate fords to outflank Jennison's stubborn defense. Colonel B. Frank Gordon and his 5th Missouri Cavalry Regiment were sent to the south, with orders to cross the river, turn north, and cut Jennison off from any reinforcements; Gordon's men found a ford and crossed without incident. Slayback's Missouri Cavalry Battalion was sent north, where it quickly found Hinkle's Ford – a crossing used by local farmers – that had been left unguarded. The crossings both above and below Byram's Ford led to a general breakthrough. Participants in the battle provided times ranging from 14:00 to 15:00 for when the Confederates crossed the river; the modern historian Mark A. Lause believes that the variation in these estimates is due to the breakthrough occurring in stages. Outflanked, Jennison was forced to fall back, which opened the crossing at Byram's Ford. The Union soldiers had abandoned several axes at the ford, which allowed the Confederates to clear the obstructions within about an hour. Jennison's brigade attempted to retreat to the northwest in the direction of Westport, but were prevented from moving north by the Confederates who had crossed at Hinkle's Ford. The Union brigade wound up retreating 4 miles (6 km), eventually crossing the state line and entering Kansas. Blunt had ordered Moonlight's brigade to support Jennison around 13:00, but Moonlight did not receive the order. After Moonlight learned from his scouts that Jennison had been driven back, he sent his brigade to support Jennison, but arrived at Hinkle's Ford after the Confederates had crossed. He then withdrew towards Westport. #### The Mockbee Farm Moonlight's brigade eventually reached the state line, where it deployed next to Jennison's brigade. Jennison, who was the senior officer, did not take overall command of the two-brigade force, and Thompson's Confederates pressed the leaderless Union line. Curtis had sent his escort to reinforce Jennison at Byram's Ford, placing the escort under the command of his chief of artillery, Major Robert H. Hunt. Hunt's party found that Jennison had withdrawn, and followed Moonlight's men to the state line. With the Confederates threatening the Union line, Hunt formed a strong skirmish line, counterattacked Thompson's men, and disorganized the Confederate ranks. Curtis ordered a complete withdrawal, leading to the retreat of Ford's brigade and Deitzler's militia, although the 19th Kansas State Militia Infantry Regiment, which was part of Blair's brigade, was forced to fight off a Confederate attack. Meanwhile, Grant and his Kansas State Militia units south of Byram's Ford had become aware that they were in danger of being cut off from the rest of the Union army. Grant ordered his units to move towards Westport independently, but the force was in a state of disorganization. Shelby did not know that Grant's force was disordered, and believed that the Union units constituted a threat, so he sent Jackman's brigade to the south to cover that part of the Confederate line. Grant's withdrawing men encountered Gordon and the 5th Missouri Cavalry Regiment, who had crossed at the southern ford, and were quickly scattered, isolating a 24-pounder howitzer attached to the 2nd Kansas State Militia Infantry Regiment; the regiment was under the command of Colonel George W. Veale. The 21-man gun crew received support from the rest of its regiment, and the unit deployed at Thomas Mockbee's farm. As well as the gun crew, about 250 to 300 men from the 2nd Kansas State Militia Infantry Regiment were on the field. The gunners opened fire on the Confederates, who were positioned in a grove of locust trees on a nearby hill. While the first several rounds were ineffective, the Union artillerists eventually found the range and forced the Confederates down into a ravine. This fighting led to two decisions: Grant elected to attempt to hold at the Mockbee Farm, believing he would receive reinforcements from Hickman Mills and have the ability to fight his way to Westport; Shelby began pulling troops from the pursuit of Jennison to enter the fighting at the Mockbee Farm. Before the reinforcements from Shelby arrived, Gordon attacked the Union position, but was repulsed. Jackman's brigade had been the first unit pulled towards the Mockbee Farm, but the stout resistance led Shelby to believe he was facing Pleasonton's division, causing him to order all but a single regiment of Thompson's brigade to the farm, as well. A second attack by Gordon, with some of Jackman's men involved, was also repulsed. For the third attack, Jackman added the new recruits and unarmed men associated with his brigade to the attacking column. This time, the Confederate numerical advantage was too much for the 2nd Kansas State Militia Infantry Regiment, and the unit and cannon were overrun. Union reinforcements arrived in the form of the 21st Kansas State Militia Infantry Regiment and part of the 15th Kansas Cavalry Regiment, but the 15th Kansas Cavalry withdrew towards the state line before the Confederate attack reached them, leaving the militiamen on their own. The 21st Kansas State Militia Infantry Regiment withdrew about 1 mile (1.6 km) after fighting the Confederate attackers, but the unit was overrun. ### Independence and interlude Pleasonton had been active on the 22nd as well. McNeil's brigade reached the Little Blue before sunrise, and pushed the Confederate rear guard at the river back after about half an hour. Pleasonton's division finished crossing the river at around 11:00, and pushed Slemons's Confederate brigade back towards Independence, in the Second Battle of Independence. By 13:30, the Union troops were almost halfway to Independence. Once Pleasonton's men reached the city, the Confederates had broken Curtis's line on the Big Blue, but Price's wagon train was still on the west side of the river. The brigades of Clark, Cabell, and Freeman made a stand at Independence to buy time for the wagon train to cross. McNeil's and Sanborn's brigades successfully attacked the Independence position, but became too disorganized during the assault to continue the pursuit. Pleasonton brought up the brigades of Brown and Winslow, which attacked Marmaduke's division. While the Confederates were driven back, they held long enough to allow the wagon train to cross. The Union advance ended at 22:30, within a few miles of the Big Blue. That evening, Price established his headquarters at a house west of Byram's Ford; Shelby regrouped his men near the structure. One regiment was left near Brush Creek to observe the Union position near Westport. Curtis had sent Blunt's troops to Westport, while the Kansas State Militia was sent to Kansas City to be resupplied. By 03:00 on October 23, Curtis and Blunt had developed a battle plan for the day: Ford, Jennison, and Moonlight would cross Brush Creek with their brigades and attack the Confederates, while Blair remained in reserve. On the Confederate side, Price also planned an attack in the Brush Creek area, about 3 miles (4.8 km) to the west, using Fagan and Shelby's divisions. Pleasonton's men were also on the move at this time: McNeil's brigade moved south from Independence towards Hickman Mills beginning at 01:00 on the 23rd, while Sanborn left Independence to rejoin Brown and Winslow at 05:00. Smith's XVI Corps began a movement towards Independence that morning from an encampment 16 miles (26 km) to the east, as well. Price assigned two brigades to escort his wagon train and sent it south towards Little Santa Fe via Hickman Mills. ### October 23: Pleasonton crosses the river #### Fight at the ford Pleasonton planned an assault on Byram's Ford, which was to be led by Brown's brigade, which Pleasonton's orders stated "[had] as yet done no fighting". This movement required Brown's men to pass through Winslow's brigade. Also, one of Brown's regiments, the 1st Missouri State Militia Cavalry Regiment, had lost contact with the rest of the brigade, and could not be immediately found. Brown ran at least 90 minutes late, and when Pleasonton arrived, he placed Brown and Colonel James McFerran, the commander of the 1st Missouri State Militia Cavalry, under arrest for being late and allowing units to become disorganized. (Brown was later acquitted at a court martial.) Colonel John F. Philips replaced Brown as brigade commander and Winslow was given general command of the attack. While the Confederates had worked on clearing the ford the previous day, obstructions still remained, and the Confederates had strengthened the defenses. Marmaduke's men defended the ford, with Freeman's brigade at the ford itself and Clark's brigade further to the west on a height known as Potato Hill. About 200 yards (180 m) west of the ford was a rock ledge, with Potato Hill several hundreds yards further from the river. Skirmishers from the 3rd Missouri Cavalry Regiment and the 4th Missouri Cavalry Regiment were with Freeman's brigade, and Harris's Missouri Battery and Hynson's Texas Battery were positioned on Potato Hill. While Winslow made his attack, Sanborn's brigade and Pleasonton's divisional artillery remained in reserve, with three Rodman guns from Battery H, 2nd Missouri Light Artillery Regiment, firing on the Confederate lines. Between the brigades of Philips and Winslow, there were about 2,700 Union soldiers present, against about 2,500 Confederates. At either around 08:00 or 09:00, the Union attack began. The 7th Missouri State Militia Cavalry Regiment attacked, but was quickly forced to halt. A battalion of the 4th Iowa Cavalry Regiment crossed the river at a ravine 300 yards (270 m) to the north and began firing into the Confederate flank. Winslow led another charge, and the Confederates fell back. Some took up positions along the rock ledge, while most fell back even further west to the main Confederate line on the hilltop. Winslow paused for about 30 minutes to bring up more troops before making an assault against the Confederate lines. #### Potato Hill The path the Union soldiers would have to take to attack Potato Hill sloped upwards and was covered with tree stumps. Both the rock ledge and a log house on top of the hill provided cover for the Confederates, who also placed sharpshooters in the tops of trees. Wanting to quickly capture the Confederate position, Winslow ordered Phillips to make a charge. The path from the ford was narrow, so Phillips only sent a single unit, the 1st Missouri State Militia Cavalry, down the road, which was in the field of fire of Hynson's battery. The 7th Missouri State Militia Cavalry and the 4th Missouri State Militia Cavalry Regiment advanced on the left side of the road in support. The 1st Missouri State Militia Cavalry advanced mounted in a column of fours. Attacking twice, the unit was repulsed both times. Winslow's response was to form a line to the right of the road with the 4th Iowa Cavalry, 3rd Iowa Cavalry Regiment, and the 10th Missouri Cavalry Regiment; men from the 2nd New Jersey Cavalry Regiment served as sharpshooters strengthening the center of the line. Phillip's brigade was positioned on the left (southern) side of the road. Almost all of the Union troops dismounted for the attack, and many were armed with repeating rifles, which provided a significant firepower advantage. The Confederate line was held by Clark's brigade, with Freeman's men in reserve. At about 11:00, the Union cavalry attacked. As the Union troops charged towards the rock ledge, Winslow was shot in the leg; Lieutenant Colonel Frederick W. Benteen took over command of his brigade. Heavy Confederate fire blunted the attack, and Sanborn's brigade was brought up in support. The Union troops rallied and charged again, driving the Confederates back from the ledge. In response, Marmaduke pulled his artillery back from Clark's line to Freeman's. A general Union assault followed, and the crest of Potato Hill was carried. Pleasonton brought Sanborn's brigade forward into the action, while Marmaduke attempted to make a stand with Freeman's men. That stand did not last long, as Marmaduke quickly withdrew, having seen Sanborn's fresh troops enter the fray. Benteen and Phillips halted their brigades to rest and resupply while Sanborn chased the Confederates 1 mile (1.6 km) to the Harrisonville Road. By noon, a path had been opened for Pleasonton to join forces with Curtis. #### Confederate collapse Shelby had not officially heard from Marmaduke, but was aware of the sounds of fighting and had heard rumors from stragglers. As his division was currently stalled in the Battle of Westport, Shelby sent Jackman's brigade to Fagan at the Mockbee Farm. The unit was soon redirected to the Harrisonville Road, where it encountered Sanborn's brigade. Supported by one cannon from Collins's Missouri Battery, Jackman's men repulsed an attack from Sanborn. Meanwhile, at Westport, an attack by Jennison's brigade broke Thompson's brigade, and Shelby's men fled to the rear. The collapse occurred at about 14:00. Seeing Shelby's command disintegrate, Jackman withdrew in the face of Sanborn's brigade. Sanborn pursued Jackman, who conducted a fighting withdrawal. Shelby attempted to make another stand, but was struck by the brigades of Benteen and Phillips while Blunt's division from Curtis's force pushed southwards. A Confederate attack by Elliot's Missouri Cavalry Regiment was repulsed, and the Confederate retreat became a southbound stampede. #### McNeil and the wagon train Price's wagon train was to make its way south via the Harrisonville Road and recross the Big Blue to the south side, before continuing south for 3 miles (4.8 km). The train then moved onto an unnamed road, which it followed southwest and across the Big Blue to the west side, after which it reached the Fort Scott Road south of Little Santa Fe. McNeil's brigade, which was supposed to intercept the wagon train, started on its movement late, and halted at 04:00. McNeil observed Confederate campfires at that time, but thought he was both further north than he actually was and that he was possibly isolated from the main Union force and in danger. He then paused for about 90 minutes to send out scouts, who reported that the Confederates were leaving their position. Continuing their movement south, the Union troops sighted the Confederate train at about 09:00 or 10:00. At 10:00, Price arrived on the scene and made tactical dispositions to protect the train. Tyler's brigade, which largely consisted of unarmed men, was deployed to the north of a road intersection, Cabell's brigade to the east of the intersection, and McCray's brigade on Cabell's right. Two hundred men, either the few armed men from Tyler's brigade, or a mixture of men from Tyler's brigade and Price's personal escort, served as skirmishers. Overall, about 4,000 or 5,000 Confederate soldiers guarded the train, although only about half of them were armed. The Confederates also had artillery present from at least Hughey's Arkansas Battery. McNeil advanced against the train at around either 13:00 or 14:00. With a battery of mountain howitzers and three Rodman guns from Battery L, 2nd Missouri Light Artillery Regiment, firing, McNeil moved his brigade into the dry bed of Hart Grove Creek. Two companies from the 17th Illinois Cavalry Regiment and the 2nd Missouri Cavalry Regiment advanced against the Confederates, who had a numerical advantage. The Union 7th Kansas Cavalry Regiment was also engaged at this time. The 5th Missouri State Militia Cavalry Regiment guarded the Union left against McCray's brigade. The 5th Missouri State Militia Cavalry was forced to extend its line to meet a threat from McCray's Confederates, and with artillery fire striking his line, McNeil, who was under the impression that he was facing the entire Confederate army, withdrew. The Union cavalrymen watched the Confederates retreat until nightfall. Price's men did not stop their retreat until 21:00, in southern Cass County. Most of the Union forces halted for the night near Little Santa Fe, except for Jennison's brigade, which continued 4 miles (6 km) further south. ## Aftermath Total casualties suffered during the battle are unknown. According to the historian Kyle Sinisi in The Last Hurrah: Sterling Price's Missouri Expedition of 1864, the fight at the Mockbee Farm resulted in 43 Confederate casualties, and about 50 Union soldiers killed or wounded, as well as 68 prisoners. Confederates from Jackman's brigade executed some of the Union prisoners, although Shelby acted to stop this. The historian Howard Monnett places Union casualties for the Mockbee Farm fighting as over 100 killed, more wounded than killed, and 102 taken prisoner. Casualty reporting for both sides for the October 23 action at Byram's Ford and Potato Hill was incomplete. Only three of Marmaduke's regiments reported losses, totaling 25 men killed or wounded; Sinisi uses this figure to estimate that Marmaduke probably lost about 50 men during that stage of the fighting. On the Union side, the 1st Missouri State Militia Cavalry reported a total loss of 12 men, while the 4th Missouri State Militia Cavalry reported 51 men killed or wounded. Winslow estimated that 25 men from his brigade were killed or wounded, but that figure included the brigade's fighting on October 22 and in later stages of the October 23 action. A 1912 newspaper report stated that 300 Confederates fell on Potato Hill, and the historian Mark A. Lause states that 122 Union soldiers were killed during the October 23 fighting for Potato Hill and the ford. Monnett places Union losses in capturing Potato Hill at about 200. When figuring total October 23 losses (including both Byram's Ford and Westport), Lause estimates about 475 to 650 Union casualties and 700 to 1,000 for the Confederates. Unpublished research by Bryce Suderow estimates losses of 510 Confederates and 361 Union soldiers for all fighting on the 23rd. Sinisi considers Lause's figures to be too high, and prefers Suderow's numbers. Following the defeats at Byram's Ford and Westport, Price's Confederates withdrew to the south. On October 25, they suffered three defeats on the same day. One of the three was a disastrous rout at the Battle of Mine Creek in Kansas, in which Marmaduke was captured and the Confederates lost heavily in men and cannons. Following a further defeat on October 28 in Missouri at the Second Battle of Newtonia, Price's army retreated to the Arkansas River via Cane Hill, Arkansas. Union pursuit halted at the Arkansas on November 8, and the Confederates retreated through the Indian Territory into Texas, arriving by December. The campaign had cost Price over two-thirds of his men, along with equipment and supplies; the Union war effort was only minimally affected. No further large-scale operations occurred in the Trans-Mississippi. Part of the battlefield is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Byram's Ford Historic District. The Big Blue Battlefield Park preserves 86.22 acres (34.89 ha) of the battlefield, including traces of original earthworks. A 2011 report by the American Battlefield Protection Program noted that much of the Byram's Ford battlefield, especially the western portions, had been covered over by the expansion of Kansas City. The same study noted that while 18.37 acres (7.43 ha) of the battlefield were on the National Register of Historic Places, a further 167.29 acres (67.70 ha) may be eligible for listing. The site is within Freedom's Frontier National Heritage Area. The American Battlefield Trust has contributed to the preservation of 39 acres (16 ha) of the Byram's Ford battlefield. The battle has also been known as the Battle of Big Blue River and the Battle of the Blue.
875,984	Morningside Park (Manhattan)	1,171,895,179	Public park in Manhattan, New York	[ "Calvert Vaux designs", "Harlem", "Morningside Heights, Manhattan", "New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan", "New York City scenic landmarks", "Parks in Manhattan", "Urban public parks" ]	Morningside Park is a 30-acre (12-hectare) public park in Upper Manhattan, New York City. The park is bounded by 110th Street to the south, 123rd Street to the north, Morningside Avenue to the east, and Morningside Drive to the west. A cliff made of Manhattan schist runs through the park and separates Morningside Heights, above the cliff to the west, from Harlem. The park includes other rock outcroppings; a man-made ornamental pond and waterfall; three sculptures; several athletic fields; playgrounds; and an arboretum. Morningside Park is operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, although the group Friends of Morningside Park helps maintain it. The area near Morningside Park was originally known as Muscota by the Lenape Native Americans in the Delaware languages. A park in this location was first proposed by the Central Park commissioners in 1867, and the city commissioned Central Park's designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux to produce a design for the park in 1873. Jacob Wrey Mould was hired to design new plans in 1880, but little progress occurred until Olmsted and Vaux were asked to modify the plans following Mould's death in 1886. The Lafayette and Washington, Carl Schurz Monument, and Seligman Fountain sculptures were installed after the park was completed in 1895. After a period of neglect in the early 20th century, the park received sporting fields and playgrounds between the 1930s and the 1950s. Columbia University proposed constructing a gym in the southern end of the park in the early 1960s; the plan was abandoned after students organized protests against the gym in 1968, citing concerns over racial segregation. In the late 20th century, Morningside Park gained a reputation for high crime rates, and several groups devised plans to renovate the park. The site of the unbuilt Columbia gym was turned into a waterfall and pond in 1990, and the park's arboretum was added in 1998. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated Morningside Park as a city landmark in 2008. ## History ### Site Morningside Park straddles the more-than-100-foot (30 m) cliff between the high terrain of Morningside Heights to the west and the lowlands of Harlem to the east. The cliff was created through fault movement and smoothed during several glacial periods in the last several million years. Before the 17th century, when modern-day Manhattan was settled by Europeans, the region had been occupied by the Lenape Native Americans for several thousand years. The Lenape referred to the area near the park as Muscota or Muscoota, meaning 'place of rushes'. Dutch settlers occupied Manhattan in the early 17th century and called the area around Morningside Park Vredendal, meaning 'peaceful dale'. The lowlands to the east were called Flacken by the Dutch, and were later translated to "Flats" in English. The land to the east was not settled initially because of its marshy topography. The area became known as Montagne's (or Montayne's) Flat after Johannes de la Montagne, who was among the first European settlers of New Harlem in 1658; he owned about 200 acres (81 ha) between what is now 109th and 124th Streets. The western boundary of the area was the cliff, while the eastern boundary was a creek that emptied east into the East River. Montagne's Flat was subdivided into lots in 1662, and four years later a new charter for New Harlem was given to the English, who had seized New Netherland, renaming it New York. Through the 17th and 18th centuries, the cliff formed a geopolitical boundary between Harlem to the east and the heights to the west. The western boundary of New Harlem was drawn through the present-day Morningside Park in 1666, running from 74th Street at the East River to 124th Street at the North River (now the Hudson River). To the west of the line were the common lands of the Province of New York, which were sold to Jacob De Key in 1701. Following Harman Vandewater's acquisition of part of the De Key farm by 1735, it was called Vandewater Heights by 1738. Vandewater Heights would then be sold by 1785 to James W. De Peyster. There were disputes over the De Key farm throughout the 18th century, disputes which eventually resulted in the cliffside's being named as the farm's eastern boundary. Meanwhile, Montagne's Flat was owned by several families in the 17th and 18th centuries, some of whom were slaveholders, according to censuses taken in 1790, 1800, and 1810. British Army colonial forces used a road on the farm to retreat during the September 16, 1776, Battle of Harlem Heights, one of the battles of the American Revolutionary War. In the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which laid out a grid system for Manhattan island, little regard was given to the topography of the area. Shortly afterward, during the War of 1812, several blockhouse fortifications were built in the area. The first such fort was built in what is now Central Park, and three other blockhouses numbered 2, 3, and 4 were erected within present-day Morningside Park. The blockhouses at Morningside Park were along the cliff and were numbered from north to south: No. 2 at 113th–114th Streets, No. 3 at 121st Street, and No. 4 at 123rd Street. These would not be used in battle and were left to deteriorate. Morningside Heights would remain sparsely developed for the next half-century except for the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum and the Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum. ### Design and construction #### Initial plans By 1866, the state legislature had given the Central Park commissioners the authority to construct streets on Manhattan's west side from 67th to 155th Streets. In 1867, lead Central Park commissioner Andrew Haswell Green proposed that a park be built in Morningside Heights to avoid the expense of expanding the Manhattan street grid across extremely steep terrain. Green enclosed a map by John J. Serrell that modified the Commissioners' Plan to this extent. The Central Park commissioners passed an act on March 26, 1868, allowing the acquisition of lands for parks. Under this act, the commissioners purchased 31.238 acres (12.642 ha), and seized another 0.018 acres (73 m<sup>2</sup>) through eminent domain, at a total cost of US\$1.33 million. In April 1870, the Central Park commission was dissolved and the City of New York obtained jurisdiction over the property. That September, Department of Public Parks (DPP) chief engineer Montgomery A. Kellogg was asked to create a plan for Morningside Park. Over the next year, the city would spend \$5,500 to conduct surveys of the proposed parkland. Kellogg presented a design for the park in October 1871. The New York Times said that the park's name was apt for it would "[possess] a sunny exposure in the early morning hours," and described the planned park as having "handsome walks, flower-beds, jetting fountains, [and] a play-ground" among other things. The Times predicted that the planned Morningside Park "will doubtless be a favorite resort for children and invalids." Kellogg's plan was rejected by the Board of Commissioners for Public Parks. In April 1872, the DPP created a committee to discuss possible upgrades to the street to the park's west side, and Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, who had designed Central Park's Greensward Plan, were commissioned to produce a design for the park. In a September 1872 article, the Times predicted that the construction of Morningside Park and its proximity to Broadway and Central Park would raise property values nearby. Talk of a preliminary study and map began circulating in March 1873. By that September, Olmsted was assigned to work exclusively on Morningside Park, and he was dropped from his position as superintendent of other parks. Olmsted and Vaux presented their plan, "A Preliminary Report on the Improvement of Morningside Park", to the DPP on October 11, 1873. Because of the limitations of the terrain, the proposed design would emphasize scenery, with balconies, a planted lagoon, a lawn at the north end of the park, and a retaining wall with stairways. The design also took into consideration the site's proximity to Central Park, one block away from the southern end of the proposed Morningside Park. The work would cost about \$816,000. Five days after the plan was presented, the DPP approved it "in principle". #### Beginning of construction Owing to several factors, including work stoppages following the economic depression after the Panic of 1873, construction on Morningside Park stagnated for 14 years. Nevertheless, work began in 1873, construction progressing on the walks and perimeter walls, as well as on the sewers and lagoon. When work was halted in October 1874, the sewer, pond, walks, and embankments were under construction. A Times article in April 1875 noted that the city's Department of Public Works was laying roads and sidewalks west and east of the park. Little work was performed in the next five years, except for the construction of roads. On June 16, 1880, the Legislature passed a law allowing the city's Department of Public Works to finish the roads, sidewalks, and retaining walls near Morningside Park. That September, the Legislature appointed Jacob Wrey Mould, who had previously been involved in Central Park's design, as the new architect of Morningside Park. Mould submitted a plan for the streets in April 1881. The proposal, which was to cost \$234,000, called for eleven entrances; granite stairs; a retaining wall at Morningside Drive, made of gneiss and ashlar; overlook balconies; and railings of granite and cast-and wrought-iron. The plans were approved in August 1881. Mould's final plans for the western side of the park were submitted in September 1882 and plans for the northern, eastern, and southern sides were approved the next month. In January 1883, Julius Munckwitz was asked to create plans for Morningside Park, and Mould was named as his assistant. After Munckwitz's plans were submitted that March, Montgomery A. Kellogg – the DPP chief engineer who had been promoted to engineer of construction – worked on completing the measurements. Contracts for the foundations were awarded in April, while contracts for the western side's entrances and overlooks were awarded to Charles Jones that July. Jones began work on the western border in November 1883 and completed his contract nearly a year later. Meanwhile, in January 1884, Munckwitz began preparing plans for the western steps and entrances, which were approved that October. The Times reported in December 1884 that over \$71,000 was needed for the park. Though Munckwitz quit the DPP in mid-1885, he continued working with the project as a consultant. By February 1885, the stairways on the western border at 110th, 116th, and 120th Streets were being built. That May, Michael McGrath won a contract to build granite steps, brick arches, and other ornamentation at the 110th and 116th Street entrances on the western border and at four intermediate overlook bays. The park was still in a rural state, as indicated in the Times that same year, which reported that police were capturing cows for illegally grazing in the park and fining local dairymen for pasturing their herds. Following this, the DPP ordered that all signs and other "defacements" be removed from the park site. By mid-1886, several local entities were expressing frustration at the lack of progress at Morningside Park. For instance, the Morningside Park Association twice requested that action be taken to complete the park. After Mould died in 1886, the DPP needed to hire a new architect for Morningside Park. Kellogg submitted new plans for \$250,000 worth of park improvements in February 1887, at which point the Times reported that only the 116th Street staircase and part of the retaining wall had been completed over the previous fourteen years. These plans were ultimately approved. #### Final plans and completion In June 1887, the DPP asked Olmsted to create informal plans for Central, Morningside, and Riverside Parks. In response, Olmsted said he would do so only if Vaux was also hired. Ultimately, Olmsted's proposal was voted down, and Kellogg and city parks superintendent Samuel Parsons were asked to report on Olmsted and Vaux's original plan instead. In July, a group of Civil War veterans stayed in the park during the Independence Day weekend, hosting a historical reenactment in which they fired cannons and pretended to storm the blockhouse walls. Though Parsons and Kellogg presented their proposed changes in August 1887, which they believed were feasible with the available \$250,000 appropriation, local property owners asked that the original plan be used instead. Later that month, the board voted to let Olmsted and Vaux work on the plan. The plan was modified to accommodate changed conditions, like the construction of an elevated railway station at 116th Street and Eighth Avenue. Among other changes, the modified design included a broad path and a thin path traversing the lower portion of the park. Initially, Olmsted and Vaux had proposed a southeastern entrance plaza, a lagoon, and an exhibition hall; the modified design eliminated these, while adding a lawn and a "Restawhile" recreation structure. Olmsted and Vaux had differing visions for Morningside Park: Olmsted believed the area should be kept naturalistic, and advocated the removal of all except one east–west path, while Vaux did not believe that paths would negatively affect the park's purpose. The "General Plan for the Improvement of Morningside Park" was approved by the DPP in October 1887, and a request for \$250,000 in bonds was approved by the Board of Estimate the following month. In mid-1888, contracts were awarded for earth and rock filling, and for the construction of basins, walls, and stairs in the southern portion of the park. Vaux suggested widening the roadbed and narrowing the eastern sidewalk of Morningside Drive, on the western side of the park. Further appropriations of \$50,000 each were requested in September 1888 and March 1889. Subsequently, Vaux's suggestion to modify Morningside Drive was approved in July 1889, as was Kellogg's request for asphalt, concrete, and gravel for pavings. That September, the DPP voted to proceed with the completion of stairs and overlooks at Morningside Avenue north of 117th Street, in the same design as those built previously. Stairs and walls were finished that December. Further plans, approved in early 1890, called for the completion of the western entrances and overlooks, and the installation of railings and ornamentation. By December 1890, the Real Estate Record and Builders Guide reported that the work was almost done. The Guide said of the park, "It is not very wide, but it is some three-quarters of a mile in length. It has hills and dales and green swards, which, with its imposing terraces, make it peculiarly attractive." Morningside Park was even considered briefly for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, which ultimately occurred in Chicago. Plans for walls and railings at 110th Street (the southern border) and Morningside Drive (the western border) were approved in October 1890, followed by the awarding of a contract for them in February 1892. Because of delays in constructing the steps, two time extensions were awarded in August and October 1891. Meanwhile, pavings were completed in May 1891 and the parapets were finished the following December. By June 1894, parks superintendent Parsons had noted that parts of the park were nearly completed. That October, contracts were awarded for the paving of sidewalks. The park's construction was completed in 1895. Vaux, who had remained with the project throughout that time as a consultant, drowned that year in Gravesend Bay. Parsons later wrote that "...perhaps Morningside Park was the most consummate piece of art that [Vaux] had ever created." The completion of Morningside Park was concurrent with the development of nearby Morningside Heights; the park's construction had necessarily resulted in the creation of the neighborhood's street grid, and several institutions relocated to the area. The first of these included the Cathedral of St. John the Divine whose construction began in 1892 on the site of the Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum. The Bloomingside Asylum moved out of the area in 1888 after protests over the asylum's presence, and three colleges moved to the site: Columbia College (now part of Columbia University), Teachers College, and Barnard College. Other institutions that moved to Morningside Heights following the park's completion included: St. Luke's Hospital, the former Home for Old Men and Aged Couples; St. Luke's Home for Indigent Christian Females; the former Woman's Hospital; Union Theological Seminary; and the Church of Notre Dame (L'Eglise de Notre Dame). ### Early and mid-20th centuries Several sculptures and structures were installed in Morningside Park after it was completed. In 1900, the statue Lafayette and Washington by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi was installed at the park's eastern border, within the triangle bounded by Manhattan Avenue, Morningside Avenue and 114th Street. At the time, only one structure had been built in the park, a wooden shanty for tool storage. In 1901, a "women's cottage and refreshment room" was approved along with a \$8,250 appropriation for it, and the following year Barney and Chapman proposed an ornate outhouse in the French Gothic style containing a tower with space for tool storage. Ultimately, a simpler one-story restroom structure was erected in 1904, at a site on 114th Street that had been the original location proposed for the "Restawhile". Many residents and neighborhood organizations strongly opposed an oval stadium, proposed between 118th and 120th Streets in 1909, and the idea was eventually scrapped. In 1913, the Carl Schurz Memorial by Karl Bitter and Henry Bacon was placed in the park, followed the next year by Edgar Walter's Seligman (Bear and Faun) Fountain. Morningside Park quickly began to deteriorate, and complaints of vandalism were recorded as early as 1905. The sidewalks around the park were paved in 1911. When the city proposed to "popularize" Central Park in 1911, local residents complained that Morningside Park had been neglected, was crime-ridden, and had declined because of its use as a playground as opposed to a passive-recreation space. New York City parks commissioner Charles B. Stover stated that the park's issues, which included hillside erosion and lawn damage, were because the southern area had not been outfitted with proper drainage. Further erosion and deterioration was caused by a large Independence Day celebration in 1912, the erosion of the cliff near Blockhouse No. 4 in 1913, and the destruction of part of the overhanging cliff rock in 1915. A request for \$94,500 toward Morningside Park's renovation was made in 1914, and by 1916, protests had resulted in the reported completion of the renovation. Also in 1914, a fence was installed around part of the park. Further controversy developed in the mid-1910s because of the proposed construction of a Catskill Aqueduct pumping station within the park. While a temporary structure had existed in the park since at least the early 1910s, the New York Board of Water Supply began construction of a steel-frame pumping station in January 1916. The plans were not public, and had not been authorized by either the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC Parks), the New York City Board of Aldermen, or the Municipal Art Commission. Once the public learned of plans for the structure, several civil engineers and associations organized opposition to the project. The sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, filed a lawsuit to stop construction of the pump building that February. Shortly afterward, New York Supreme Court justice Edward R. Finch issued an injunction to stop the project temporarily, citing the project's status as an "illegal encroachment". Ultimately, the Board of Water Supply applied for a permanent pumping station, though in July 1916 the Board of Aldermen voted instead to build an underground pump structure. Improvements to Morningside Park were also conducted from the 1920s through the 1960s. In its annual report of 1929, NYC Parks reported that much of the vegetation had to be replanted because of neglect or vandalism. By the mid-20th century, Morningside Park was perceived as dangerous. Because of its proximity to Harlem, a largely Black neighborhood, crime in the park was perceived as signs of a racial conflict. In 1935 The New York Times reported that the Teachers College of Columbia University had posted a sign in a dormitory informing students "it is not safe to enter Morningside Park at any time of the day or night." The Times also reported residents were concerned that "unemployed destitute" individuals posed a danger to the park's safety. A playground and comfort station was added between 113th and 114th Streets on the east side of Morningside Park in November 1935; the 113th–114th Streets comfort station was replaced by 1945. A polygonal comfort station was proposed for the southeastern corner of the park in 1936 but was not built. A playground at the northeastern corner of Morningside Park was also constructed in 1935; it was expanded with extra equipment in 1941, including athletic courts, a wading pool, exercise structure, swings, slides, and a children's play area. Also, by 1941, rock outcroppings on the south lawn were removed to make way for softball fields. During this era, a proposal to rename Morningside Park to "Franz Boas Park" was rejected by parks commissioner Robert Moses. The 1904 restroom structure was demolished in 1952, except for its western wall, at which point jagged-topped stone barriers were erected next to paths in the park. Two years later, the bronze railings on the western and southern borders were replaced with iron picket fences. A playground on Morningside Avenue between 116th and 119th Streets was finished in 1956, while sandboxes were installed on the Morningside Drive overlook balconies the next year. The wrought-iron fence on the eastern border was replaced, and the park's hillside restored, in 1962. ### 1950s and 1960s controversies #### Columbia athletic complex In a 1955 piece in the Times, one observer noted, "the park was virtually off-bounds to [Columbia University] students and faculty as "too dangerous". At the time, parks commissioner Moses and Columbia president Grayson L. Kirk were discussing allowing Columbia to use part of Morningside Park. The plan was approved by the New York City Board of Estimate in December 1955, and soon after, Moses and Manhattan borough president Hulan Jack announced that Columbia would build a comfort station/field house, storage building, and athletic complex on a 3.5-acre (1.4 ha) section of the park. The athletic complex contained two fields for softball, three for football, and one for soccer and was opened in May 1957. The arrangement between Columbia and the city stipulated that the university would be the sole user of the complex during weekdays between June and October, while it would be open to the public at other times. The fields soon became popular with neighborhood residents. In 1961, new lighting was installed in the southern section of Morningside Park to deter crime. More controversial was Columbia's proposal in January 1960 to erect a building to the north of the athletic fields. The structure, on a 2-acre (0.81 ha) plot, would have an upper level to be used as a Columbia gym and a lower level community center. The complex was supported by Moses, Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr., and the New York City Council. A 50-year lease was approved in March 1960, signed in August, and accepted by the Board of Estimate. The structure was to cost \$9 million, of which \$1 million was donated in May 1962 by alumnus Francis S. Levien. The project faced some opposition by 1964 because of Columbia's rapid expansion. Some residents denounced the proposed Morningside Park construction as a "land grab", while others protested the proposed gentrification that would accompany such expansion. Subsequently, in March 1964, neighborhood associations and officials toured the park to demonstrate its deteriorated conditions and need for funding, and to show that it was safe. Thomas Hoving, one of the parks commissioners who succeeded Moses, said in January 1966 that he was "pretty damned upset" about the deal because it would perpetuate segregation. The planned separate east and west entrances were seen as an attempt to circumvent the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned racially segregated facilities, as Morningside Heights' population was largely white while Harlem's was largely Black. The University's administration under Grayson Kirk denied that this reflected racial bias and stressed that greater park services would benefit the Harlem community. In March 1966, the University's student council passed a resolution asking the University to reconsider the gym plans, and two months later, bills to ban its construction were introduced in the State Senate and Assembly. That October, Columbia announced it would suspend groundbreaking for the gym until the following year, and by May 1967, university officials were considering changing the plans. Unsatisfied, protesters picketed outside Kirk's home that July, while Harlem officials decried a proposed compromise to build a community swimming pool instead. Undeterred, the Board of Estimate voted to approve the plans in October 1967, and despite further protests that November, construction began in February 1968. At the time, The New York Times architecture writer Ada Louise Huxtable said, "the real tragedy of the whole Columbia gym affair is that this dubious and even harmful project has been carried out in good faith." Columbia students and faculty amplified their opposition to the gym project in mid-1968, resulting in major student protests. That April, the faculty of the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation called on Kirk and the trustees to reconsider the gym. Student organizations such as Students for a Democratic Society and the Student Afro-American Society held "sit-ins", and Mayor John Lindsay requested that work be suspended while the protests were ongoing. Students occupied administration and classroom buildings and shut down the university for several weeks. The Columbia faculty formed a committee to intervene after a large 2,500-person protest on April 30, which involved a New York City Police Department raid at several buildings. Meanwhile, parks commissioner August Heckscher II said that if Columbia was to drop its plans, he would have a community recreation center built at the site. The same month, \$500,000 was allocated for restorations to the park, and the new Morningside Park Preservation Committee filed a lawsuit alleging the misuse of parkland. Kirk resigned in August 1968 because of the protests and was replaced as Columbia president by Andrew W. Cordier. Under his leadership, Columbia's trustees studied possible new sites for the gym before voting in March 1969 to cancel the project altogether. #### Elementary school At the same time as the Columbia controversy, another dispute arose after the New York State Legislature designated the northwestern corner of Morningside Park as the site of a public elementary school in 1963. Both Mayor Wagner and borough president Edward R. Dudley supported this initiative; Dudley said the site was "rubbish-strewn and a danger spot for children", even though the Municipal Art Commission argued it was atop the ruins of Blockhouse No. 4. After the City Planning Commission proposed another site several blocks to the east, neighborhood groups alleged the plan would further segregation since the mostly minority population of Harlem would be unable to reach the school. Other neighborhood groups opposed the use of Morningside Park for anything other than recreational use. The City Planning Commission's chairman recommended that the proposed school site at Morningside Park be disapproved, but in February 1964, the Board of Estimate approved the plan anyway and rezoned 1.35 acres (0.55 ha) from parkland to educational use. Frederick G. Frost, Jr. & Associates designed the structure, known as PS 36 Margaret Douglas Elementary School, as a concrete-and-brick educational complex atop a stone base and rock outcroppings. The school was built between 1965 and 1966 and was the first in the city designed solely for early elementary grades, serving kindergarten through second grade. ### Cleanup and renovations #### Late 20th century Even by the 1960s, Morningside Park had a reputation for being unsafe and unsanitary. After the Columbia protests ended, Morningside Park was the site of several murders, muggings, and other crimes, furthering its notoriety. Litter lined the park, and it became a frequent homeless hangout. So common were crimes there that Morningside Heights residents nicknamed it "Muggingside Park". In 1971, after the controversy over the now-canceled Columbia site had subsided, NYC Parks published its "Proposed Rehabilitation of Columbia Gym Site", which called for a playground on the site's eastern edge and new paths on the western side. It was reported that Columbia had agreed to pay compensation for the demolition that had occurred in the park. This resulted in the formation of the West Harlem Coalition for Morningside Park. Advocates started focusing on Morningside Park and Olmsted's other parks in 1972, the 150th anniversary of his birth. The West Harlem Coalition hired Lawrence Halprin Associates in 1973, but plans for renovating Morningside Park were postponed after the 1975 New York City fiscal crisis. Huxtable wrote in the Times, "Morningside Park may now be the city’s most crime-ridden, underutilized and dangerous spot." More than a decade after the Columbia gym plan was canceled, the construction fencing remained on the site. The state's department of parks was in talks with Bond, Ryder and Associates for a “redevelopment design” of Morningside Park by 1978 with the West Harlem Community Organization and Morningside Park Coalition participating in the redesign process. In 1981, as part of the "Olmsted Project", the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) held two shows that depicted Morningside Park, including a Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibit. At that time, Morningside Park was being considered by the LPC for "scenic landmark" status, but this was opposed by residents and activists wanted to redesign the park. The same year, Thomas Kiel and other Columbia undergraduates founded the Friends of Morningside Park, which supported returning the park to its original design. NYC Parks drew up plans for a \$12 million restoration of the park between 1987 and 1989. At that point, Columbia had given \$250,000 toward the renovation, half of what it had pledged toward the restoration of the site. A \$5 million first phase began in early 1989 and was conducted by a partnership of Quennell Rothschild Associates and Bond Ryder James. It entailed converting the excavated crater left by the abandoned gymnasium project into a waterfall and ornamental pond, which was the first part of the renovation to be completed in 1989. The pond, part of Olmsted and Vaux's original plan, cost \$950,000, about three times as much as "standard landscaping". Contractors installed wells to feed the waterfall and the pond. The reconstruction, which focused on the park between 110th and 114th Streets, also included installing new playground equipment, planting trees, creating a picnic area and renovating the sports fields. The 1957 fieldhouse was also redesigned, and a new entrance was installed at 113th Street and Morningside Drive. This renovation was completed in 1993. There was little funding to perform further renovations at the northern part of Morningside Park then, and there was just one maintenance worker for the entire park. As a result, the northern part of the park was still overgrown with weeds and frequented by drug addicts. NYC Parks began a renovation of the 116th Street stairs in July 1996 and completed it two years later at a cost of \$650,000. After the statues were refurbished, the bluestone steps at 116th Street were renovated in 1998. The same year, construction began on the Dr. Thomas Kiel Arboretum in the northern part of the park, named after a founder and former chairman of the Friends of Morningside Park who had died in 1996. In 1998 and 1999, the Morningside Area Alliance (MAA), a neighborhood community group, received \$35,000 in grant funding from the Kaplan Foundation to work on the park. A portion was used to assess what the park needed done most urgently, while a second portion went to restructure the largely disorganized Friends volunteer group. The resulting "revitalization plan" suggested further maintenance and capital improvements and enhancements to its character and appearance. The study also found there was still a widespread perception of danger, and that the park needed additional security measures and better management. #### 21st century By 2001, Morningside Park's condition had improved because of ongoing reconstruction projects, and it was no longer considered as dangerous an area as it had been in the 1970s. That year, a master plan for the park was approved. Several stairs and entrances were rebuilt, including at or near 114th, 116th, 120th, and 122nd Streets, and playgrounds to the south of the ball fields and at the park's northeast corner were renovated. The ball fields and northern section's scenery were restored in 2006, and construction began on a playground north of 116th Street in 2007. This playground was completed in late 2008. Morningside Park was designated a New York City landmark in 2008, decades after similar statuses had been conferred upon Central and Riverside Parks. The next year, more trees were planted within the park, including a sequoia tree. NYC Parks presented a plan to restore the northern section, including the 123rd Street Playground there, in 2011. The playground was renovated in two phases: in 2013 and in 2019. The 118th Street Playground was rebuilt between December 2019 and March 2021 for \$3.3 million. During 2023, neighborhood residents also began advocating for the waterfall to be repaired; at the time, the waterfall had not flowed for four years. The LPC also approved plans for the construction of a food kiosk at the southern edge of the park, along West 110th Street, the same year. The area around Morningside Park, once a desolate area with a reputation for being crime-ridden, had become gentrified by the 2010s. Fears of crime remained, especially after 18-year-old Barnard College student Tessa Majors was fatally stabbed in a late-2019 mugging within the park. Columbia University student Davide Giri was fatally stabbed nearby in 2021 in what The New York Times called "an eerie reprise" of Majors's death. ## Features ### Recreational features Morningside Park contains several sporting fields. Two baseball fields and a basketball court are at the southern end of the park. Three other basketball courts are near the central portion of Morningside Park. To the north are two basketball courts and four handball courts. There are also children's play structures at 110th, 113th, 116th, 118th, and 123rd Streets at the bottom of the cliff, and a restroom at 123rd Street. In addition, New York Road Runners hosts a weekly 3-mile (4.8 km) Open Run along the park's paths. Morningside Dog Run is an enclosed space for dog owners to bring their dogs to play. Consisting primarily of wood chips over dirt, there are two fenced-in areas. The larger section has multiple levels, separated by a step. The dog run is most easily accessible from the east at 114th Street and from the west at either 114th or 116th Streets. There is also a barbecue area at 121st Street. The Kiel Arboretum is in the northern section of the park from 116th to 121st Streets. The design of the arboretum was based on original plans for Central Park sketched by Olmsted and Vaux in 1858. While later abandoned, these arboretum plans involved paths leading through several hundred species of trees and shrubs. The plans re-emerged when the Kiel Arboretum was built in 1998. Plantings of trees from the Magnoliaceae (magnolia) family and shrubs from the Ranunculaceae (buttercup) and Berberidaceae (barberry) families were used to start the tree collection. Over the years, several playgrounds have been constructed at Morningside Park; as of 2019 there are four playgrounds within the park. The first one, at the bottom of the stairs at 114th Street, was built in 1903–1904 and demolished in 1952. A playground in the northeast corner was constructed in 1935 and renovated in 1941; it was restored several more times, including in 1992 and 2000. Another playground, built in 1955–1956 at Morningside Avenue between 116th and 119th Streets, contains facilities such as shuffleboard and basketball courts, and a playground with a wading pool, swings, slides, and a sandbox. A third play area at 113th Street contains play equipment, while a fourth facility is at 110th Street. In 2008, a new playground opened within the park at 116th Street, replacing part of the playground between 116th and 119th Streets. ### Geology and topography Morningside Park's distinctive natural geography is a rugged cliff of Manhattan schist rock. The geology is similar to that of Central Park and contains, from top to bottom: Manhattan schist, metamorphosed sedimentary rock; Lowerre quartzite, a metamorphosed rock; Inwood marble, metamorphosed limestone which overlays the gneiss; and Fordham gneiss, an older deeper layer. A large rock formation of Manhattan schist in the park is a visible sign of the bedrock below much of lower and northern Manhattan. Rock outcroppings are prevalent in Morningside Park and nearby Central Park, Marcus Garvey Park, and Riverside Park. Besides the cliff, one large geological feature that remains is a glacial groove at 121st Street, which had been noted as early as 1916. The western border of the park between 122nd and 123rd Streets is taken up by PS 36, on a rock drop off; this occupies the former site of the ruins of Blockhouse No. 4, which was used as a source of stone until the park's creation. A tablet was placed on the site by the Women's Auxiliary of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society in 1904. Furthermore, part of the cliff was destroyed in 1915. A plateau, on the eastern side of the park, was mostly demolished during the failed Columbia University gym construction project. Today, the site includes a waterfall and a pond, built between 1989 and 1993. The waterfall is artificial and uses water pumped using motors from the city's water system. The pond has been frequented by several species of birds, including great blue herons, night herons, red-winged blackbirds, painted turtles, and mallard ducks. The park also contained meadows when it was constructed. These were at the south end from 110th to 114th Streets; in the central section from 116th to 120th Streets; and at the northeast corner. They were developed as playgrounds and playing fields in the mid-20th century and the rock outcroppings were destroyed. The central and northern meadows were redeveloped as playgrounds while the southern meadow was converted to sports fields. ### Paths and plantings Morningside Park was designed with many paths and plantings. The paths usually followed the topography, though there are several locations where stone steps connect paths at different locations. There are stone stairs connecting the two portions of 120th Street, and between 116th Street on the west side of the park and 114th Street on the east side. The paths were made originally of gravel, concrete, and asphalt, while the stairs were made of bluestone with rockwork edging on the outer portions. Benches, lights, railings, fences, and stone walls were added over the years; the rockwork edging was replaced. The northern meadow's paths were rebuilt in 1940–1941, while the paths around PS 36 and the unbuilt Columbia gym were reconfigured or removed in the late 1960s. With the waterfall's construction, the paths at the unbuilt gym site were rebuilt from 1989 to 1993. Some of the stairs have been renovated over the years. The plantings in Morningside Park were designed at several stages of the park's development. Accounts vary on whether plantings were present before the park was built; in 1871, park engineer Montgomery A. Kellogg called the area a "barren piece of ground", Samuel Parsons described the site as having "a considerable amount of native growth", albeit limited mainly to vines, herbs, and shrubs. Parsons also stated that because of the poor soil in the original plan of the park, "fine trees" could not grow there. By the 1910s, vandalism, erosion, and crowds had caused damage to many of the plantings. Major landscaping projects took place in 1929, 1941, 1962, and 2006. ## Art There are three sculptures in Morningside Park. The first is the Lafayette and Washington statue (1900) by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, at the triangle between Manhattan Avenue, Morningside Avenue and 114th Street. Though dedicated in 1890, it was not brought to the triangle until 1900. The statue commemorates the alliance between the U.S. and France during the American Revolutionary War and consists of a bronze sculptural group depicting General George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette, both in uniform and shaking hands. The pair is atop a white marble pedestal and contains an associated bronze plaque on a gray granite base. It is an exact replica of a statue in the Place des États-Unis, Paris. The second is the Carl Schurz Monument (1913), with a statue by Karl Bitter and setting by architect Henry Bacon. It stands on a brick plaza at Morningside Drive and West 116th Street, overlooking the park from the west, though it is officially part of the park. The statue consists of a bronze depiction of politician Carl Schurz, standing in the middle of an exedra (or semicircular recess) made of granite. The "arms" of the exedra contain reliefs depicting Schurz's stature as a person who fought against slavery and for better treatment of Native Americans. Beneath the figure are carved stone reliefs flanked by bronze luminaires. The monument's side and central relief carvings, made in stone, may have been created by Bitter's associates and assistants, while the low granite relief carvings may have been made by the Piccirilli Brothers. The sculpture combines elements of the Archaic Greek and Austrian/Viennese Secessionist styles. The monument was unveiled to the city in 1913 and restored in the 1930s. The third is the Seligman (Bear and Faun) fountain (1914) by Edgar Walter. It was dedicated in memory of Alfred L. Seligman, the National Highways Protective Association's vice president. Plans for the fountain's dedication in Morningside Park were revealed in 1911, predating Seligman's death in a traffic accident in 1912. The 7-foot-tall (2.1 m) fountain contains a depiction of a grotto, above which a bear hangs. Below the grotto, a faun is depicted playing the pipes. The fountain includes a drinking fountain and a dogs' drinking basin. It was restored in 1997. ## Bordering streets Morningside Park is irregularly shaped and follows a largely north–south alignment, though the northern portion of the park curves westward. All of the sidewalks were asphalt until 1911, and as of 2008, they consist of Belgian blocks and concrete and contain trees. There are at least seventeen entrances to the park. The park's western border is formed by Morningside Drive, which is on top of a large retaining wall that drops sharply to the east. The retaining wall contains gneiss piers topped with granite, and as a parapet fence consisting of granite posts and an iron picket fence. Originally, this section also contained bronze railings, though these were replaced in 1954. At each of the intersections with Morningside Drive, except for those at 113th and 114th Streets, there are "overlook bays" – balconies that slightly overhang the park below. The bays at 111th and 119th Street contain openings, originally used as rain shelters. All the bays are polygonal shaped, except for the one at 116th Street, which is round and contains the Carl Schurz Monument. From this side, there are entrances at 112th, 113th, 114th, 116th, 118th, 120th, and 122nd Streets, with granite and gneiss stairways leading from the bays at the 116th through 120th Street entrances. A security booth at the 116th Street entrance was installed in 2006. The southern border of the park is formed by West 110th Street, also known as Cathedral Parkway. There is an entrance to the park from the intersection of 110th Street and Morningside Drive, within an overlook bay that contains asphalt paving; this leads to a stone stairway. Another entrance exists at the intersection with Manhattan Avenue, on the east made of Belgian blocks and hexagonal asphalt tiles. The eastern border of the park is formed by Manhattan Avenue, between 110th and 113th Streets, and by Morningside Avenue, between 113th and 123rd Streets. It contains entrances at 112th, 113th, 114th, 116th, 120th, and 123rd Streets, as well as between 117th and 118th Streets. Along the sidewalk is a wrought-iron picket fence with stone piers, which was originally installed in 1915 and replaced in 1962. A group of seventeen London plane trees are next to the Lafayette and Washington statue. The northern border of the park is formed by West 123rd Street. There is an entrance plaza from the northwestern corner of the park, which is paved with concrete and flanked with stone posts. Along the sidewalk is a wrought-iron picket fence with stone piers, which was originally installed in 1915 and replaced in 1962. ## Management Morningside Park is owned, operated, and managed by NYC Parks. Friends of Morningside Park, a nonprofit organization founded in 1981 to support returning the park to its original design, is the park's primary advocacy and community stewardship organization. Since its founding, the group has rehabilitated the park through volunteer work, as well as donations for staffing and equipment. The organization fell apart between 1996 and 1998 following the death of founder Thomas Kiel. In 2001, around fourteen major public events were organized by volunteers in the park, including festivals, concerts, and holiday celebrations. By 2005, Friends of Morningside Park had approximately 1,000 volunteers. The organization receives a moderate amount of money compared to similar nonprofits that maintain New York City public parks. As of 2013, it received about \$50,000 a year in private donations, and the largest-ever single donation was \$10,000. The Central Park Conservancy, which maintains nearby Central Park, also provides maintenance support and staff training programs for other public parks in New York City, including Morningside Park. In 2005, the Conservancy created the Historic Harlem Parks initiative, providing horticultural and maintenance support and mentoring in Morningside Park, St. Nicholas Park, Jackie Robinson Park, and Marcus Garvey Park. ## See also - List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan above 110th Street - List of New York City parks
40,911,743	Capture of Wakefield	1,159,055,565	1643 engagement of the First English Civil War	[ "1643 in England", "17th century in Yorkshire", "Battles of the English Civil Wars", "Conflicts in 1643", "History of Wakefield", "Military history of Yorkshire" ]	The capture of Wakefield occurred during the First English Civil War when a Parliamentarian force attacked the Royalist garrison of Wakefield, Yorkshire. The Parliamentarians were outnumbered, having around 1,500 men under the command of Sir Thomas Fairfax, compared to the 3,000 led by George Goring in Wakefield. Despite being outnumbered, Parliamentarians successfully stormed the town, taking roughly 1,400 prisoners. Around 800 Parliamentarians had been taken prisoner after being defeated at Seacroft Moor, and Fairfax plotted the capture of Wakefield to take prisoners of his own to exchange for his men. He marched his force from Leeds and split it in two to attack from different directions. After around two hours of fighting early in the morning of 21 May, 1643, Fairfax broke through into Wakefield. Goring, who had been in bed suffering from either illness or a hangover, rose and led a counterattack in his nightshirt, but to no avail and the town was captured. Fairfax gained the prisoners he needed and much ammunition. According to his own account, the Parliamentarians lost no more than seven men. ## Background In March 1643, the First English Civil War had been running for seven months, since King Charles I had raised his royal standard in Nottingham and declared the Earl of Essex, and by extension Parliament, to be traitors. That action had been the culmination of religious, fiscal and legislative tensions going back over fifty years. Even before the formal start of the war, Yorkshire became a key area in the conflict. After King Charles I attempted to arrest five members of parliament in January 1642, members of the gentry started openly taking sides and preparing for battle. Sir John Hotham seized Hull for parliament the same month, and after fleeing London, the King established himself at York in March. The King twice attempted to take Hull in 1642 without success. Although Charles subsequently returned south, his wife, Henrietta Maria (formally known as Queen Mary) had travelled to the Low Countries to obtain weapons and the Earl of Newcastle was charged with ensuring her safe travel through the northeast when she returned. On the other side, Ferdinando Fairfax, 2nd Lord Fairfax of Cameron, was appointed as the commander of parliament's forces in Yorkshire. Newcastle's army of 6,000 reinforced York and gave the Royalists the advantage in the county; the main Parliamentarian army had less than 1,000 men at the time, and was forced to retreat. They first withdrew to Tadcaster and then were forced back to Selby in the north of the county, cutting them off from their main support to the west. Sir Thomas Fairfax, Lord Fairfax's son, successfully stormed Leeds in January 1643 and regained the West Riding of Yorkshire for the Parliamentary side establishing strong garrisons at Bradford and Leeds. ## Prelude While acting as the rearguard to the army under the command of his father, Sir Thomas Fairfax had been defeated by George Goring at the Battle of Seacroft Moor on 30 March 1643, and 800 of his men had been captured. Under pressure from the families of those captured, Fairfax planned to surprise Royalist-held Wakefield, which he thought was held by no more than 900 men, to capture sufficient men to trade for his own. When the Earl of Newcastle went on the attack to attempt and take all of south Yorkshire for the Royalists, he stationed Goring at Wakefield to protect against the Parliamentarian garrison at Leeds, held by the Fairfaxes. On 20 May, the day before the attack, Goring and other senior Royalist officers in Wakefield were hosted by Dame Mary Bolles at her home, Heath Hall, to the east of the town. While playing bowls and other games, the Royalists "drank so freely ... as to be incapable of properly attending to the defence of the town." Goring was well known for being a heavy drinker, something Sir Richard Bulstrode, his adjutant, substantiated. ## Battle After an evening march on 20 May 1643, Parliamentarian forces from Bradford, Leeds and Halifax met at Howley Hall, to the northeast of Wakefield, at midnight. Reinforced with troops from Howley Hall, the Parliamentarians had around 1,500 men for the attack; 1,000 infantry and 500 horse. The horse were split into eight troops of cavalry and three troops of dragoons. Sir Thomas Fairfax had overall command of the force, while also leading four troops of the cavalry; the other four troops being under the command of Sir Henry Foulis. William Fairfax (Thomas's cousin) and George Gifford split the infantry, which comprised both pikemen and musketeers, between them. At 2 am, the Parliamentarians surprised and overcame a Royalist outpost consisting of two troops of cavalry at Stanley, roughly 2.5 miles (4 km) from Wakefield. Fairfax's army arrived at Wakefield around two hours later, just before dawn. Wakefield was not a walled, fortified town; the defences were made up of the hedges surrounding each property on the edge of town and barricades in the streets. The hedges provided a sufficient barrier against the attackers, and so the barricades became the focus of the fighting. As they were only the width of the road, this evened the battle, as although the garrison held more men, they could place only as many defenders as could fit at the barricade. The defenders had been alerted to the enemy approach by the cavalry that had fled from Stanley, and had stationed between 500 and 800 musketeers in the surrounding hedges as well as sending a cavalry unit out to meet them. The Parliamentarian infantry was able to displace the musketeers, and their larger force of horse drove the Royalist cavalry back into Wakefield. Fairfax realised that the enemy garrison was far larger than he expected; in fact, the defending garrison numbered around 3,000 Royalists, split into six infantry regiments and seven cavalry troops, more than three times what Fairfax had expected. Despite this, after a short meeting with his fellow commanders, Fairfax opted to continue with the assault. Fairfax split his force to attack from two directions: Foulis and William Fairfax attacked Northgate, while Thomas Fairfax and Gifford attacked Warrengate, the eastern entrance to the town. Writing years later, Newcastle's wife accused Goring and the Wakefield garrison of "inviligancy and carelessness" due to a belief that their numbers made them "master of the field in those parts". After around two hours of fighting, Gifford's infantry battled their way through Warrengate, and were then able to capture a cannon and turn it on the barricade to clear enough room for the cavalry to break through. Thomas Fairfax then led three troops of cavalry into the town, routing the Royalist infantry along Warrengate. Goring was in bed ill: Royalist reports claimed that he had a fever. Modern historians vary in their accounts of his condition: in her 2007 biography of Goring, Florene S. Memegalos described him as being "sick in bed with a fever, attended by his father that weekend"; but others such as John Barratt (2005) and Richard Brooks (2004) suggest that he was hungover from the previous day's drinking. Whatever his incapacity, he led a counterattack on horseback, "in his nightshirt" according to Brooks. Despite his resistance, he and his guard were defeated, and Goring was taken prisoner by Lieutenant Alrud, though both his father, Lord Goring, and his deputy, Francis Mackworth, were able to escape. Fairfax continued to press the attack, and was nearly captured when he found himself isolated from his men, and seemingly trapped in a side street by a Royalist infantry regiment. Fairfax was holding two prisoners, but the infantry commander ignored him and asked one of his prisoners for instructions. The prisoner gave no answer, holding to the terms of his capture, and Fairfax decided to abandon his prisoners and escaped down a narrow lane back to his men. Gifford, after opening the barricade, had the captured cannon moved to the churchyard of All Saints Church (now Wakefield Cathedral), where he turned it on the Royalists holding the marketplace. After offering the defenders a chance of surrender, which they rejected, his musketeers and the cannon opened fire, before the cavalry charged them. The remaining soldiers in the garrison gave up their resistance, either escaping or surrendering, and by 9 am, the Parliamentarians held the town. They captured roughly 1,400 prisoners, including Goring, 28 Royalist colours and a large amount of much-needed ammunition. According to Fairfax's account of the siege, his force lost "not above seven men", but did admit that "many of our men were shot and wounded." ## Aftermath As was typical during the Civil War, the Parliamentarians published an array of propaganda after the capture, claiming that their victory was the "work of God", while casting the Royalists as deceitful and ruinous. Accordingly, parliament declared 28 May a day of thanksgiving for the victory. After capturing Wakefield, Fairfax was wary of an attack from the larger Royalist army that Newcastle commanded, and he immediately retreated back to Leeds with his prisoners. Instead of the expected retaliation, Newcastle withdrew his own forces to York. Goring was imprisoned in the Tower of London, and despite attempts by the Royalists to secure his immediate exchange, he remained incarcerated until April 1644, when he was swapped for the Earl of Lothian. The primary objective of the attack was successful; an exchange was set up to recover the men Fairfax had lost at Seacroft Moor, and the victory temporarily changed the balance of power in Yorkshire. The effect of the capture was negated just over a month later, when a Parliamentarian army under the command of Fairfax was defeated at Aldwalton Moor on 30 June 1643, which gave the Royalists control of much of Yorkshire. By the end of 1644, aided by Fairfax's decisive victory at Marston Moor, most of the north of England had been captured by Parliamentarian forces. The following year, Fairfax was appointed as the commander-in-chief of parliament's forces, and established the so-called "New Model Army". The army's victories, particularly at Naseby and Langport, gained parliament control of most of the rest of England. Near Wakefield, Sandal Castle on the edge of the town had remained a Royalist garrison throughout the war despite the town's capture. The castle was in a state of disrepair, but had been reinforced with earthworks. The castle was twice besieged in 1645, surrendering to the Parliamentarians in October, and was subsequently slighted. In May 1646, King Charles I surrendered, and the First English Civil War ended.
3,623,170	Kaiser-class battleship	1,173,766,588	Battleship class of the German Imperial Navy	[ "Battleship classes", "Kaiser-class battleships", "World War I battleships of Germany" ]	The Kaiser class was a class of five dreadnought battleships that were built in Germany prior to World War I and served in the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) during the war. They were the third class of German dreadnoughts, and the first to feature turbine engines and superfiring turrets. The five ships were Kaiser, Friedrich der Grosse, Kaiserin, Prinzregent Luitpold, and König Albert. As was usual for German battleships of the period, the Kaiser class mounted main guns that were smaller than those of their British rivals: 30.5 cm (12 in), compared to the 34.3 cm (13.5 in) guns of the British Orion class. All five ships saw action in the North Sea during the war; they served together as VI Division of III Battle Squadron. Four were present during the Battle of Jutland; König Albert was in dock at the time. Of the four ships that took part in the battle, only Kaiser was damaged, being struck by two heavy-caliber shells. The ships also took part in Operation Albion in the Baltic Sea; during the operation they were reorganized as IV Battle Squadron, under the command of Vice Admiral Wilhelm Souchon. At the end of the war, all five ships were interned at the British naval base in Scapa Flow. On 21 June 1919, they were scuttled to prevent their seizure by the Royal Navy. The ships were subsequently raised and broken up for scrap between 1929 and 1937. ## Design The Kaiser-class ships were ordered under the same Second Naval Law as the preceding Helgoland-class battleships. The law provided that the life expectancy of capital ships was to be reduced from 25 to 20 years, a measure designed to necessitate construction of newer battleships. This meant the six Siegfried-class coastal defense ships, the two Odin-class coastal defense ships, as well as the four Brandenburg-class battleships would have to be replaced. The five Kaisers were to replace the remaining three Siegfried-class ships: Hildebrand, Heimdall, and Hagen, as well as the two Odin-class ships: Odin and Ägir. ### General characteristics The ships of the Kaiser class were 171.8 m (563 ft 8 in) long at the waterline, and 172.4 m (565 ft 7 in) long overall. The ships had a beam of 29 m (95 ft 2 in), a draft of 9.1 m (29 ft 10 in) forward and 8.8 m (28 ft 10 in) aft. They displaced 24,724 metric tons (24,334 long tons; 27,254 short tons) as designed and up to 27,000 t (26,570 long tons; 29,760 short tons) at full load. The ships had a double bottom for 88 percent of the length of the hull and 17 watertight compartments. The ships had a crew of 41 officers and 1,043 seamen. While serving as squadron flagship, the ships had an additional 14 officers and 80 men, and as the second command flagship, the ships' usual complement was augmented by another 2 officers and 23 men. The Kaiser-class ships were excellent sea boats, but were very stiff, suffering a slight loss of speed in heavy swells. They were responsive to commands from the helm; they turned quickly initially, but suffered from severe torque at a hard rudder. With the rudder hard over, the ships would lose up to 66 percent of their speed and heel over as much as 8 degrees. The Kaiser-class ships had a transverse metacentric height of 2.59 m (8.5 ft). ### Propulsion The Kaiser-class ships were the first German battleships to be powered by turbines. They used turbines from several different manufacturers as the Reichsmarineamt (RMA) and German shipyards attempted to find an alternative to a Parsons turbine monopoly. Nevertheless, Kaiser and Kaiserin were both equipped with three sets of Parsons turbines. Friedrich der Grosse had three sets of AEG-Curtis turbines, while König Albert was powered by Schichau turbines. The turbines drove three-bladed screws that were 3.75 m (12.3 ft) in diameter, providing a design speed of 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph). The ships had two rudders. Prinzregent Luitpold was equipped with two sets of Parsons turbines on the outer shafts. It was intended that a single 12,000 bhp Germania 6-cylinder 2-stroke diesel engine would drive the center shaft. However, the diesel power plant was not ready in time to be installed in Prinzregent Luitpold, so the ship sailed with only two shafts. On trials, Prinzregent Luitpold was approximately one half knot slower than her sisters. Steam was provided by 16 Schulz-Thornycroft water-tube boilers, except in Prinzregent Luitpold, which had only 14 boilers. Hollow grates were fitted to the boilers between 1916 and 1917. The three-shaft ships carried 3,600 metric tons of coal, which enabled a maximum range of 7,900 nautical miles (14,600 km; 9,100 mi) at a cruising speed of 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph). Prinzregent Luitpold carried a reduced bunkerage—3,200 metric tons—but was designed to carry 400 tons of oil for the diesel engine. On diesel power alone, Prinzregent Luitpold would have had a range of 2,000 nautical miles at 12 knots. Electrical power was provided by four double turbo-generators and two diesel generators. They produced a total output of 1,800 kilowatts at 225 volts. ### Armament The Kaiser-class ships each carried ten 30.5 cm (12 in) SK L/50 guns mounted in five twin turrets. One turret was mounted fore, two were mounted en echelon amidships, and the fourth and fifth turrets were mounted in a superfiring pair aft. The guns were supplied with a total of 860 shells, for 86 rounds per gun. The shells were 894 lb (406 kg), and were fired at a muzzle velocity of 854 meters per second (2,805 feet per second). The guns were placed in Drh LC/1909 mountings, which were very similar to the older LC/1908 gun mounts used in the preceding Helgoland-class ships. The mountings were initially capable of depression to −8 degrees and elevation to 13.5 degrees. At maximum elevation, the guns had a range of up to 16,299 m (17,825 yd). The mountings were later modified to depress to −5.5 degrees and elevate to 16 degrees. This extended the maximum range of 20,400 m (22,300 yd). The ships had a secondary battery of fourteen 15 cm (5.9 in) SK L/45 quick-firing guns, each mounted in casemates. The guns each had a supply of one hundred and sixty 99.9 lb (45.3 kg) shells, for a total of 2240. Firing at a muzzle velocity of 835 m/s (2,740 ft/s), the guns could hit targets at a distance 13,500 m (14,800 yd), and after modifications in 1915, the range was extended to 16,800 m (18,400 yd). The ships were also equipped with eight 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/45 guns. They were eventually rearmed with four 8.8 cm L/45 Flak guns, two of which were later removed. As was customary for capital ships of the period, the Kaiser-class ships were armed with five 50 cm (19.7 in) submerged torpedo tubes. One was mounted in the bow, while the other four were placed on the broadside, two on each flank of the ship. ### Armor As with all major contemporary German warships, the Kaiser-class ships were protected by Krupp cemented steel armor. The deck armor ranged in thickness, from 10 cm (3.9 in) in more critical areas of the ship, down to 6 cm (2.4 in) in less important areas. The armored belt was 35 cm (13.8 in) thick in the central citadel, and tapered down to 18 cm (7.1 in) forward and 12 cm (4.7 in) aft. Behind the armored belt, the ships had a torpedo bulkhead 4 cm (1.6 in) thick. The forward conning tower had a roof that was 15 cm (5.9 in) thick; the sides were 35 cm thick. Atop the conning tower was the smaller gunnery control tower, which had a curved face that was 40 cm (15.7 in) thick. The aft conning tower was significantly less well-armored; the sides were 20 cm (7.9 in) thick, and the roof was only 5 cm (2 in) thick. The main battery turrets were protected by 30 cm of armor on the sides and 22 cm (8.7 in) of armor on the roofs. The 15 cm guns had 17 cm (6.7 in) of armor plating on their mounts, and 8 cm (3.1 in) on their gun shields. ## Construction Kaiser, the name ship of the class, was laid down at the Kaiserliche Werft Kiel in December 1909 under construction number 35. The ship was launched on 22 March 1911, and commissioned into the High Seas Fleet on 1 August 1912. Friedrich der Grosse followed on 26 January 1910, at the AG Vulcan shipyard in Hamburg. She was launched on 10 June 1911 and commissioned as the flagship of the High Seas Fleet on 15 October 1912. Kaiserin, the third ship of the class, was laid down in the Howaldtswerke in Kiel in November 1910. She was launched on 11 November 1911, and commissioned on 14 May 1913. König Albert was laid down at Schichau in Danzig on 17 July 1910, and launched on 27 April 1912. She was commissioned into the fleet on 31 July 1913. Prinzregent Luitpold, the last ship of the class, was laid down in January 1911 at the Germaniawerft shipyard in Kiel. The ship was launched on 17 February 1912 and commissioned on 19 August 1913. ### Ships ## Service history ### Pre-war In 1913–1914 two Kaiser-class ships, Kaiser and 'König Albert took part in a major overseas tour to South America and South Africa. The cruise was designed to demonstrate German power projection, as well as to test the reliability of the new turbine engines on long-range operations. Both ships had returned to the German bases in the North Sea by the outbreak of World War I. ### World War I #### Raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby The first major operation of the war in which the Kaiser-class ships participated was the raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby on 15–16 December 1914. The raid was primarily conducted by the battlecruisers of the I Scouting Group. The Kaiser-class ships, along with the Nassau, Helgoland, and König classes steamed in distant support of Franz von Hipper's battlecruisers. Friedrich von Ingenohl, the commander of the High Seas Fleet, decided to take up station approximately in the center of the North Sea, about 130 miles east of Scarborough. The Royal Navy, which had recently received the German code books captured from the beached cruiser Magdeburg, was aware that an operation was taking place, but uncertain as to where the Germans would strike. Therefore, the Admiralty ordered David Beatty's 1st Battlecruiser Squadron, the six battleships of the 2nd Battle Squadron, and a number of cruisers and destroyers to attempt to intercept the German battlecruisers. However, Beatty's task force nearly ran headlong into the entire High Seas Fleet. At 6:20, Beatty's destroyer screen came into contact with the German torpedo boat V155. This began a confused 2-hour battle between the British destroyers and the German cruiser and destroyer screen, frequently at very close range. At the time of the first encounter, the Kaiser-class battleships were less than 10 miles away from the 6 British dreadnoughts; this was well within firing range, but in the darkness, neither British nor German admiral were aware of the composition of their opponents' fleets. Admiral Ingenohl, loathe to disobey the Kaiser's order to not risk the battlefleet without his express approval, concluded that his forces were engaging the screen of the entire Grand Fleet, and so 10 minutes after the first contact, he ordered a turn to port on a south-east course. Continued attacks delayed the turn, but by 6:42, it had been carried out. For about 40 minutes, the two fleets were steaming on a parallel course. At 7:20, Ingenohl ordered a further turn to port, which put his ships on a course for German waters. #### Bombardment of Yarmouth and Lowestoft The Kaiser-class ships took part in another raid on the English coast, again as support for the German battlecruiser force in I Scouting Group. The battlecruisers left the Jade Estuary at 10:55 on 24 April 1916, and the rest of the High Seas Fleet followed at 13:40. The battlecruiser Seydlitz struck a mine while en route to the target, and had to withdraw. The other battlecruisers bombarded the town of Lowestoft largely without incident, but during the approach to Yarmouth, they encountered the British cruisers of the Harwich Force. A short artillery duel ensued before the Harwich Force withdrew. Reports of British submarines in the area prompted the retreat of I Scouting Group. At this point, Admiral Reinhard Scheer, who had been warned of the sortie of the Grand Fleet from its base in Scapa Flow, also withdrew to safer German waters. #### Battle of Jutland Four of the ships participated in the fleet sortie that resulted in the battle of Jutland on 31 May–1 June 1916. The operation was a repeat of earlier plans that intended to draw out a portion of the Grand Fleet and destroy it. Kaiser, Kaiserin, Prinzregent Luitpold, and Friedrich der Grosse, Scheer's flagship, made up VI Division of III Battle Squadron. III Battle Squadron was the first of three battleship units; however, the König-class battleships of V Division, III Battle Squadron were the vanguard of the fleet. Directly astern of the Kaiser-class ships were the Helgoland and Nassau-class battleships of I Battle Squadron; in the rear guard were the elderly Deutschland-class pre-dreadnoughts of II Battle Squadron. Shortly before 16:00 CET, the battlecruisers of I Scouting Group encountered the British 1st Battlecruiser Squadron, under the command of David Beatty. The opposing ships began an artillery duel that saw the destruction of Indefatigable, shortly after 17:00, and Queen Mary, less than a half an hour later. By this time, the German battlecruisers were steaming south in order to draw the British ships towards the main body of the High Seas Fleet. At 17:30, König, the leading German battleship, spotted both I Scouting Group and the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron approaching. The German battlecruisers were steaming down to starboard, while the British ships steamed to port. At 17:45, Scheer ordered a two-point turn to port to bring his ships closer to the British battlecruisers. Shortly thereafter the order was given to commence firing; the Kaiser-class ships, with the exception of Prinzregent Luitpold, were not yet within range to engage the British battlecruisers. Prinzregent Luitpold managed to fire eight salvos at 22,300–21,300 yards (20,400–19,500 m) before the range again widened sufficiently to prevent further firing. In the meantime, Kaiser and Friedrich der Grosse, along with the battleships of II Battle Squadron, were within range of the British 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron. However, the massed fire from the ten battleships interfered with accurate spotting, and after only a few salvos fire was largely ceased. At around 19:00, the cruiser Wiesbaden, which had earlier been disabled, was coming under attack from British light forces, and so Scheer ordered his ships to turn in order to cover an attempt to bring the ship under tow. At 19:05, the British armored cruisers Defence and Warrior began firing on the crippled Wiesbaden. However, by 19:15, Hipper's battlecruisers and the battleships of III Battle Squadron appeared on the scene, and began to hammer the British ships at a range of less than 8,000 yards. Kaiser and three König-class battleships concentrated their fire on the two cruisers until one of Defence's magazines was detonated, which caused a massive explosion that destroyed the ship. Warrior, badly damaged and afire, managed to limp northward towards the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships of the 5th Battle Squadron. While Warrior was retreating northward under the cover of her own smoke, the battleship Warspite came too close to her sister Valiant, and had to turn to starboard in order to avoid collision. At that moment, a shell from Kaiser struck Warspite's steering gear and jammed them, temporarily leaving the ship only able to steam in a large circle. Friedrich der Grosse, König, two Nassau and three Helgoland-class battleships fired on Warspite for a period of about 20 minutes; Warspite was hit 11 times before the Germans lost sight of her. Because her steering gear could not be adequately repaired, Warspite was forced to withdraw from the battle; her absence prompted the Germans to believe they had sunk her. Upon returning to the Jade estuary, the Nassau-class battleships Nassau, Westfalen, and Posen and the Helgoland-class battleships Helgoland and Thüringen took up guard duties in the outer roadstead. Kaiser, Kaiserin, and Prinzregent Luitpold, largely undamaged during the battle, took up defensive positions outside the Wilhelmshaven locks. The other capital ships—those that were still in fighting condition—had their fuel and ammunition stocks replenished. During the battle, Kaiser had fired 224 heavy battery and 41 secondary battery shells; Kaiserin fired 160 and 135 respectively, Prinzregent Luitpold fired 169 and 106 respectively, and Friedrich der Grosse fired 72 and 151 shells, respectively. Kaiser was hit twice by heavy-caliber shells during the battle, the only ship of the class to have been hit; however the ship suffered only a single wounded casualty. #### Operation Albion In early September 1917, following the German conquest of the Russian port of Riga, the German navy decided to expunge the Russian naval forces that still held the Gulf of Riga. To this end, the Admiralstab (the Navy High Command) planned an operation in the Moonsund archipelago, particularly targeting the Russian gun batteries on the Sworbe peninsula of Ösel. On 18 September, the order was issued for a joint Army-Navy operation to capture Ösel and Moon islands; the primary naval component was to comprise the flagship, Moltke, along with III Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet. V Division included the four Königs, and was by this time augmented with the new battleship Bayern. VI Division consisted of the five Kaiser-class battleships. Along with nine light cruisers, three torpedo boat flotillas, and dozens of mine warfare ships, the entire force numbered some 300 ships, and was supported by over 100 aircraft and six zeppelins. The invasion force amounted to approximately 24,600 officers and enlisted men. Opposing the Germans were the old Russian pre-dreadnoughts Slava and Tsesarevich, the armored cruisers Bayan and Admiral Makarov, the protected cruiser Diana, 26 destroyers, several torpedo boats and gunboats, and a garrison on Ösel of some 14,000 men with shore batteries. The operation began on 12 October, when the Kaiser-class battleships engaged the batteries on the Sworbe peninsula. Simultaneously, Moltke, Bayern, and the Königs began firing on the Russian shore batteries at Tagga Bay. Stiff Russian resistance in the Kassar Wick, the entrance to Moon Sound, slowed the German advance. On 14 October, Kaiser was detached from the bombardment force to deal with the Russian destroyers holding up the German minesweepers. Under the cover of Kaiser's 30.5 cm guns, the German torpedo boats dashed into the Sound. During the ensuing clash, the Russian destroyer Grom was disabled and eventually sunk. The Russian 30.5 cm shore batteries at Zerel remained a significant problem, and so while Kaiser was disrupting the Russian destroyers, Kaiserin, König Albert, and Friedrich der Grosse bombarded Zerel at ranges of between 7.5 and 12.5 miles. Russian counter-fire proved accurate, and so the German dreadnoughts were forced to continually alter course to avoid being hit. The attack lasted only about an hour, due to fears of mines and submarines. The following morning, two König-class battleships were sent into Moon Sound to destroy the Russian ships stationed there. König sank the pre-dreadnought Slava, while Kronprinz forced the withdrawal of the remaining warships. By 20 October, the naval operations were effectively over; the Russian ships had been destroyed or forced to withdraw, and the German army attained its objectives. ### Fate Following the capitulation of Germany in November 1918, the High Seas Fleet, under the command of Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, was interned in the British naval base in Scapa Flow. The fleet remained in captivity during the negotiations that ultimately produced the Versailles Treaty. It became apparent to Reuter that the British intended to seize the German ships on 21 June, which was the deadline for Germany to have signed the peace treaty. Unaware that the deadline had been extended to the 23rd, Reuter ordered his ships be sunk. On the morning of 21 June, the British fleet left Scapa Flow to conduct training maneuvers; at 10:00 Reuter transmitted the order to his ships. Friedrich der Grosse was the first ship of the fleet to be scuttled, sinking at 12:16. She was raised on 29 April 1937 and towed to Rosyth for scrapping. The ship's bell was returned to Germany in 1965, and is currently in the Fleet Headquarters in Glücksburg. König Albert followed at 12:54, the second ship of the fleet to sink. The ship was later raised on 31 July 1935 and broken up in Rosyth over the following year. Kaiser sank at 13:25, and was raised for scrapping on 20 March 1929; breaking work was conducted in Rosyth by 1930. Prinzregent Luitpold sank five minutes later, at 13:30. She too was raised, on 9 July 1931, and broken up in Rosyth. Kaiserin, the last ship of the class to be sunk, slipped beneath the surface at 14:00. She was raised on 14 May 1936, and broken up that year in Rosyth.
11,486,170	Roy Dowling	1,135,142,062	Royal Australian Navy chief	[ "1901 births", "1969 deaths", "Australian Companions of the Distinguished Service Order", "Australian Companions of the Order of the Bath", "Australian Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire", "Australian Knights Commander of the Royal Victorian Order", "Chairmen, Chiefs of Staff Committee (Australia)", "Deputy Chiefs of Naval Staff (Australia)", "Graduates of the Royal Australian Naval College", "Graduates of the Royal College of Defence Studies", "Military personnel from New South Wales", "People from the Northern Rivers", "Royal Australian Navy admirals", "Royal Australian Navy personnel of World War II" ]	Vice Admiral Sir Roy Russell Dowling, KCVO, KBE, CB, DSO (28 May 1901 – 15 April 1969) was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). He served as Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), the RAN's highest-ranking position, from 1955 until 1959, and as Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC), forerunner of the role of Australia's Chief of the Defence Force, from 1959 until 1961. Born in northern New South Wales, Dowling entered the Royal Australian Naval College in 1915. After graduating in 1919 he went to sea aboard several Royal Navy and RAN vessels, and later specialised in gunnery. In 1937, he was given command of the sloop . Following the outbreak of World War II, he saw action in the Mediterranean theatre as executive officer of the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Naiad, and survived her sinking by a German U-boat in March 1942. Returning to Australia, he served as Director of Plans and later Deputy Chief of Naval Staff before taking command of the light cruiser in November 1944. His achievements in the South West Pacific earned him the Distinguished Service Order. Dowling took command of the RAN's first aircraft carrier, , in 1948. He became Chief of Naval Personnel in 1950, and Flag Officer Commanding HM Australian Fleet in 1953. Soon after taking up the position of CNS in February 1955, he was promoted to vice admiral and appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath. As CNS he had to deal with shortages of money, manpower and equipment, and with the increasing role of the United States in Australia's defence planning, at the expense of traditional ties with Britain. Knighted in 1957, Dowling was Chairman of COSC from March 1959 until May 1961, when he retired from the military. In 1963 he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order and became Australian Secretary to Queen Elizabeth II, serving until his death in 1969. ## Pre-war career Roy Russell Dowling was born on 28 May 1901 in Condong, a township on the Tweed River in northern New South Wales. His parents were sugar cane inspector Russell Dowling and his wife Lily. The youth entered the Royal Australian Naval College (RANC) at Jervis Bay, Federal Capital Territory, in 1915. An underachiever academically, he excelled at sports, and became chief cadet captain before graduating in 1918 with the King's Medal, awarded for "gentlemanly bearing, character, good influence among his fellows and officer-like qualities". The following year he was posted to Britain as a midshipman, undergoing training with the Royal Navy and seeing service on HMS Ramillies and HMS Venturous. He was promoted to sub-lieutenant on 15 April 1921. By January 1923 he was back in Australia, serving aboard the cruiser . He was promoted to lieutenant on 15 March. In April 1924, Adelaide joined the Royal Navy's Special Service Squadron on its worldwide cruise, taking in New Zealand, Canada, the United States, Panama, and the West Indies, before docking in September at Portsmouth, England. There Dowling left the ship for his next appointment, training as a gunnery officer and serving in that capacity at HMS Excellent. After returning to Australia in December 1926, Dowling spent eighteen months on and , continuing to specialise in gunnery. In July 1928, he began instructing at the gunnery school in Flinders Naval Depot on Western Port Bay, Victoria. He married Jessie Blanch in Melbourne on 8 May 1930; they had two sons and three daughters. Jessie accompanied him on his next posting to Britain commencing in January 1931. Dowling was promoted to lieutenant commander on 15 March, and was appointed gunnery officer on the light cruiser HMS Colombo in May. He returned to Australia in January 1933, and was appointed squadron gunnery officer aboard the heavy cruiser that April. The ship operated mainly within Australian waters over the next two years. In July 1935, Dowling took charge of the gunnery school at Flinders Naval Depot. He was promoted to commander on 31 December 1936. The following month, he assumed command of the newly commissioned Grimsby-class sloop , carrying out duties in the South West Pacific. Completing his tenure on Swan in January 1939, he was briefly assigned to the Navy Office, Melbourne, before returning to Britain in March for duty at HMS Pembroke, awaiting posting aboard the yet-to-be-commissioned anti-aircraft cruiser, HMS Naiad. ## World War II Dowling became executive officer on HMS Naiad when the ship was commissioned in 1940. Following service with the British Home Fleet, the cruiser transferred to the Mediterranean Station in May 1941, where she took part in the Battle of Crete. She was involved in action against German torpedo boats on the night of 20/21 May. On 22 May, after engaging a German destroyer with , Naiad was severely damaged by air attack. Following repairs, she became flagship of the 15th Cruiser Squadron and conducted shore bombardments in support of Allied troops during the Syrian campaign in June and July. She also escorted convoys resupplying Malta. In December, Naiad participated in the First Battle of Sirte against Italian naval forces. On 11 March 1942, she was torpedoed by a German U-boat off the Egyptian coast, and sank in just over twenty minutes. Dowling remained in the water for an hour and a half before being rescued by a destroyer. Having survived Naiad's sinking, Dowling returned to Australia and was appointed Director of Plans at the Navy Office in July 1942. In September the following year he was made Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff (DCNS) and raised to acting captain; his rank became substantive on 30 June 1944. As DCNS, he was involved in planning the post-war Navy's composition, which for the first time was to include aircraft carriers. He defined the functions of maritime power in October 1943 as: > $i$ Maintenance of our lines of sea communications, > (ii) Destruction of the enemy's lines of sea communications, > (iii) Attack on the enemy's strategic positions in combined operations with Army and Air Force, > (iv) Defence of our bases. In November 1944, Dowling was given command of the light cruiser , which had been undergoing repair and refit in Sydney since being torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in the Solomons on 20 July 1943. Dowling took her on her shakedown cruise to Melbourne on 30 December, before embarking for the South West Pacific Area in February 1945. The following month, Hobart supported the US forces that recaptured Cebu during the liberation of the Philippines. She bombarded Tarakan Island prior to the Allied invasion on 1 May and, later that month, covered the Australian 6th Division's operations at Wewak. The cruiser supported the Allied landings on Brunei in June, and on Balikpapan in July. For his "outstanding courage, skill and initiative" during these operations, Dowling was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO), gazetted on 6 November 1945. ## Post-war career Dowling joined the Australian contingent at the surrender of Japan in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945. Following the cessation of hostilities, Hobart became flagship of HM Australian Squadron, and Dowling flag captain and chief of staff to Commodore John Collins, the squadron commander. The war had taken a toll on Dowling's health, and he required leave before commencing his next appointment in May 1946 as Director of Ordnance, Torpedoes and Mines at the Navy Office. Rear Admiral James Goldrick, in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, observed that Dowling "was thrust into the highest positions of the RAN largely as a result of the heavy casualties of World War II". When John Armstrong—the only similarly qualified and more senior Navy captain—was pronounced unfit for seagoing duty, Dowling was given the chance to command Australia's first aircraft carrier, , commissioned in England on 16 December 1948. In April the following year, two months after the ship's belated acceptance into service due to teething troubles, Dowling embarked Sydney for Australia with two squadrons of fighters aboard. In June 1950, Dowling was promoted to commodore and appointed Second Naval Member and Chief of Naval Personnel, serving in this capacity until the end of 1952. His term coincided with the outbreak of the Korean War, and resultant increased demands on manpower. Dowling was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1953 New Year Honours, before travelling to London to attend the Imperial Defence College. Raised to rear admiral in July 1953, he returned home to take up the post of Flag Officer Commanding HM Australian Fleet that December, serving through the following year. He had to preside over cutbacks to operations brought on by government stringency after the Korean War. On 24 February 1955, Dowling succeeded Vice Admiral Sir John Collins as First Naval Member, Australian Commonwealth Naval Board, and Chief of Naval Staff (CNS). He was promoted to vice admiral on 7 June, and appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in the Queen's Birthday Honours two days later. On 15 June, he joined fellow chiefs of staff Lieutenant General Henry Wells and Air Marshal John McCauley, Prime Minister Robert Menzies, and senior government members in approving a draft directive for the role of the Far East Strategic Reserve (FESR); this made Commonwealth forces available for the fight against communist insurgents in Malaya, as well as for the security of Malaya and Singapore against external aggression. The Navy's contribution to the FESR was to be at least two destroyers or frigates on an ongoing basis, as well as a yearly visit by an aircraft carrier. The destroyers and , already in the region on an exercise, were immediately committed, and Dowling flew to Singapore to personally announce the plan and the reasons for it to the ships' crews. Dowling was an early advocate for the establishment of an Australian submarine fleet; in 1963, after several false starts, the first of six Oberon-class submarines was ordered. As part of a general Western trend that viewed with alarm the increasing capability of the Soviet Navy's surface fleet, Dowling also worked to improve the offensive power of the Fleet Air Arm. In March 1956, he went so far as proposing purchase of nuclear weaponry for the RAN's De Havilland Sea Venoms. During much of Dowling's remaining time as CNS, faced with the obsolescence of HMAS Sydney and in accordance with its two-carrier policy, the Navy tried unsuccessfully to acquire a new and larger aircraft carrier to augment . Believing in the maintenance of traditionally close ties between the RAN and the Royal Navy, he worked to coordinate his policies as CNS with those of Britain's First Sea Lord, Earl Mountbatten. Taking into account the provisions of the ANZUS treaty and the absence of suitable supplies from Britain, the RAN began to turn reluctantly towards the United States in terms of strategy and equipment, as Dowling explained to Mountbatten: > We now find ourselves at the crossroads because we very much doubt whether the United Kingdom can provide us with what we want in the future. We have no wish to become Americans but there is a strong belief in this country that the sensible course of action for Australians is to acquire war equipment from the United States now. Our very telling reason is of course that, certainly in a global war, our salvation in the Pacific will depend chiefly on the aid of that country. For that we are not less loyal members of the Empire. Other issues facing the RAN during Dowling's term as CNS were its relegation—since the beginning of the 1950s—to third place behind the other armed forces in terms of Federal budget allocations, its replacement by the RAAF as the country's first line of defence, and a shortage of manpower. Dowling himself considered "separation from families, lack of houses, over employment, high wages and overtime payment in civvie street" as the causes for the Navy's inability to attract and retain personnel; the Allison Report in 1958 led to improvements to service conditions, which helped reduce wastage. The RANC had moved to Flinders Naval Depot in 1930, and Dowling was pleased to be able to oversee its return to Jervis Bay in 1958, the year before he relocated the office of the CNS to Canberra. Dowling was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in the 1957 New Year Honours, and completed his term as CNS on 23 February 1959. On 23 March he took over from Sir Henry Wells as Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC), a role foreshadowing that of the Chief of the Defence Force. He was succeeded as CNS by Vice Admiral Henry Burrell. Happily surprised by his appointment as Chairman of COSC, Dowling hoped to transform the position such that it would exercise command authority over the service chiefs, but in this he was to be disappointed. The position's rank remained the same as the heads of the Army, Navy and Air Force, and was only responsible for putting their views on military matters to the Minister for Defence. Other setbacks during his tenure included the Defence Department's decision—rescinded after his term—to disband the Fleet Air Arm, and the Federal government's failure to back him when he announced at a SEATO press conference in March 1961 that Australia was prepared to intervene militarily in the second Laotian crisis if it became necessary. In September 1959, during the first Laotian crisis, the Australian government had authorised Dowling to commit "an infantry battalion, a squadron of RAAF fighters, air transport, and two RAN destroyers" to support US and SEATO forces, but no intervention took place. ## Later life Dowling retired from the military on 27 May 1961 and was succeeded as Chairman of COSC by Air Marshal Sir Frederick Scherger. Though keen to secure a diplomatic appointment, nothing was offered to him and, as a practising Anglican, he instead busied himself with church affairs in Canberra. In July 1962, the government gave him responsibility for organising Queen Elizabeth II's upcoming royal tour. In this role he was required to liaise with the state governments to plan the Queen's itinerary, and to become a member of the royal household for the duration of the tour, the first time an Australian tour planner had been given such close access to a visiting monarch. He was rewarded with appointment as a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO) as of 27 March 1963, and became Australian Secretary to the Queen on 1 November the same year. Dowling was also the Australian Red Cross Society's Canberra chairman from 1962 to 1967; at the time he took over the chairmanship, Lady Dowling was acting president of the organisation, in the absence of Lady William Oliver. Roy Dowling died of a heart attack on 15 April 1969 in Canberra Hospital. He was given a naval funeral at St John's Church, and cremated. His wife and five children survived him.
498,075	Ode on Indolence	1,105,736,755	1819 poem by John Keats	[ "1819 poems", "British poems", "Poetry by John Keats" ]	The "Ode on Indolence" is one of five odes composed by English poet John Keats in the spring of 1819. The others were "Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Ode on Melancholy", "Ode to a Nightingale" and "Ode to Psyche". The poem describes the state of indolence, a word which is synonymous with "avoidance" or "laziness". The work was written during a time when Keats was presumably more than usually occupied with his material prospects. After finishing the spring poems, Keats wrote in June 1819 that its composition brought him more pleasure than anything else he had written that year. Unlike the other odes he wrote that year, "Ode on Indolence" was not published until 1848, 27 years after his death. The poem is an example of Keats's break from the structure of the classical form. It follows the poet's contemplation of a morning spent in idleness. Three figures are presented—Ambition, Love and Poesy—dressed in "placid sandals" and "white robes". The narrator examines each using a series of questions and statements on life and art. The poem concludes with the narrator giving up on having all three of the figures as part of his life. Some critics regard "Ode on Indolence" as inferior to the other four 1819 odes. Others suggest that the poem exemplifies a continuity of themes and imagery characteristic of his more widely read works, and provides valuable biographical insight into his poetic career. ## Background By the spring of 1819, Keats had left his poorly paid position as a surgeon at Guy's Hospital, Southwark, London, to devote himself to poetry. On 12 May 1819, he abandoned this plan after receiving a request for financial assistance from his brother, George. Unable to help, Keats was torn by guilt and despair and sought projects more lucrative than poetry. It was under these circumstances that he wrote "Ode on Indolence". In a letter to his brother dated 19 March 1819, Keats discussed indolence as a subject. He may have written the ode as early as March, but the themes and stanza forms suggest May or June 1819; when it is known he was working on "Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Ode on Melancholy", "Ode to a Nightingale" and "Ode to Psyche". During this period, Keats's friend Charles Armitage Brown transcribed copies of the spring odes and submitted them to publisher Richard Woodhouse. Keats wrote to his friend Sarah Jeffrey: "[T]he thing I have most enjoyed this year has been writing an ode to Indolence." Despite this enjoyment, however, he was not entirely satisfied with "Ode on Indolence", and it remained unpublished until 1848. Keats's notes and papers do not reveal the precise dating of the 1819 odes. Literary scholars have proposed several different orders of composition, arguing that the poems form a sequence within their structures. In The Consecrated Urn, Bernard Blackstone observes that "Indolence" has been variously thought the first, second, and final of the five 1819 odes. Biographer Robert Gittings suggests "Ode on Indolence" was written on 4 May 1819, based upon Keats's report about the weather during the ode's creation; Douglas Bush insists it was written after "Nightingale", "Grecian Urn", and "Melancholy". Based on his examination of the stanza forms, Keats biographer Andrew Motion thinks "Ode on Indolence" was written after "Ode to Psyche" and "Ode to a Nightingale", although he admits there is no way to be precise about the dates. Nevertheless, he argues that "Ode on Indolence" was probably composed last. ## Structure "Ode on Indolence" relies on ten line stanzas with a rhyme scheme that begins with a Shakespearian quatrain (ABAB) and ends with a Miltonic sestet (CDECDE). This pattern is used in "Ode on Melancholy", "Ode to a Nightingale" and "Ode on a Grecian Urn", which further unifies the poems in their structure in addition to their themes. The poem contains a complicated use of assonance (the repetition of vowel sounds), as evident in line 19, "O why did ye not melt, and leave my sense", where the pairs ye/leave and melt/sense share vowel sounds. A more disorganized use of assonance appears in line 31, "A third time pass'd they by, and, passing, turn'd", in which the pairs third/turn'd, time/by, and pass'd/passing share vowel sounds. The third line exemplifies the poem's consistent iambic pentameter scansion: × / × / × / × / × / And one behind the other stepp'd serene Keats occasionally inverts the accent of the first two syllables of each line or a set of syllables within the middle of a line. 2.3% of the internal syllables are inverted in the "Ode on Indolence", whereas only 0.4% of the internal syllables of his other poems contain such inversions. ## Poem The poem relies on a first-person narration style similar to "Ode to Psyche". It begins with a classical scene from an urn in a similar manner to "Ode on a Grecian Urn", but the scene in "Indolence" is allegorical. The opening describes three figures that operate as three fates: > > One morn before me were three figures seen, > > > > ` With bowed necks, and joined hands, side-faced;` > > > > And one behind the other stepp'd serene, > > > > ` In placid sandals, and in white robes graced;` > > ` They pass'd, like figures on a marble urn,` > > ` When shifted round to see the other side;` > > > > They came again; as when the urn once more > > > > ` Is shifted round, the first seen shades return;` > > ` And they were strange to me, as may betide` > > > > With vases, to one deep in Phidian lore. The figures remain mysterious as they circle around the narrator. Eventually they turn towards him and it is revealed that they are Ambition, Love, and Poesy, the themes of the poem: > > A third time pass'd they by, and, passing, turn'd > > > > ` Each one the face a moment whiles to me;` > > > > Then faded, and to follow them I burn'd > > > > ` And ached for wings, because I knew the three;` > > ` The first was a fair Maid, and Love her name;` > > ` The second was Ambition, pale of cheek,` > > > > And ever watchful with fatigued eye; > > > > ` The last, whom I love more, the more of blame` > > ` Is heap'd upon her, maiden most unmeek,—` > > > > I knew to be my demon Poesy. The poet wishes to be with the three figures, but he is unable to join them. The poem transitions into the narrator providing reasons why he would not need the three figures and does so with ambition and love, but he cannot find a reason to dismiss poesy: > > They faded, and, forsooth! I wanted wings: > > > > ` O folly! What is Love? and where is it?` > > > > And for that poor Ambition! it springs > > > > ` From a man's little heart's short fever-fit;` > > ` For Poesy!—no,—she has not a joy,—` > > ` At least for me,—so sweet as drowsy noons,` > > > > And evenings steep'd in honied indolence; > > > > ` O, for an age so shelter'd from annoy,` > > ` That I may never know how change the moons,` > > > > Or hear the voice of busy common-sense! Concluding the poem, the narrator argues that the figures should be treated as figures, and that he would not be misled by them: > > So, ye three Ghosts, adieu! Ye cannot raise > > > > ` My head cool-bedded in the flowery grass;` > > > > For I would not be dieted with praise, > > > > ` A pet-lamb in a sentimental farce!` > > ` Fade softly from my eyes, and be once more` > > ` In masque-like figures on the dreary urn;` > > > > Farewell! I yet have visions for the night, > > > > ` And for the day faint visions there is store;` > > ` Vanish, ye Phantoms! from my idle spright,` > > > > Into the clouds, and never more return! ## Themes The poem centres on humanity and human nature. When the poet sees the figures, he wants to know their names and laments his ignorance. Eventually, he realizes that they are representative of Love, Ambition, and Poetry. While he longs, he fears they are out of reach and therefore tries to reject them. He argues that love is what he needs least and dismisses it by questioning what "love" actually means ("What is Love? and where is it?"). He rejects ambition, but it requires more work ("And for that poor Ambition—it springs / From a man's little heart's short fever-fit;"). Unlike the personas of Love and Ambition, the narrator is unable to find a reason to banish Poesy (Poetry), which reflects the poets' inner conflict: should he abandon poetry to focus on a career in which he can earn a decent living? Keats sought to write great poetry but feared his pursuit of literary prominence was based on a delusional view of his own merit as a poet. Further, he was incapable of completing his epic, "Hyperion". As Walter Jackson Bate explains, to Keats "Neither a finished 'grand Poem' nor even the semblance of a modest financial return seemed nearer." Keats realized that he could never have Love, could not fulfil his Ambition, and could not spend his time with Poesy. The conclusion of "Ode to Indolence" is a dismissal of both the images and his poetry as figures that would only mislead him. Even indolence itself seems unattainable; Andrew Motion writes that the figures force Keats to regard indolence as "the privilege of the leisured class to which he did not belong." If the poem is read as the final poem in the 1819 ode series, "Ode on Indolence" suggests that Keats is resigned to giving up his career as a poet because poetry cannot give him the immortality he wanted from it. Ironically, the poem provided Keats with such immortality. Besides the biographical component, the poem also describes Keats's belief that his works should capture the beauty of art while acknowledging the harshness of life. In this way, the poems as a group capture Keats's philosophy of negative capability, the concept of living with unreconciled contradictory views, by trying to reconcile Keats's desire to write poetry and his inability to do so by abandoning poetry altogether and accepting life as it is. Within the many poems that explore this idea—among them Keats's and the works by his contemporaries—Keats begins by questioning suffering, breaks it down to its most basic elements of cause and effect, and draws conclusions about the world. His own process is filled with doubt, but his poems end with a hopeful message that the narrator (himself) is finally free of desires for Love, Ambition, and Poesy. The hope contained within "Ode on Indolence" is found within the vision he expresses in the last stanza: "I yet have visions for the night/And for the day faint visions there is store." Consequently, in her analysis of Keats' Odes, Helen Vendler suggests that "Ode on Indolence" is a seminal poem constructed with themes and images that appeared more influential in his other, sometimes later, poems. The ode is an early and entirely original work that establishes the basis of Keats's notion of soul making, a method by which the individual builds his or her soul through a form of education consisting of suffering and personal experience. This is a fundamental preoccupation of the Romantics, who believed the way to reconcile man and nature was through this soul development, education—the combination of experience and contemplation—and that only this process, not the rationality of the previous century, would bring about true Enlightenment. The classical influences Keats invoked affected other Romantic poets, but his odes contain a higher degree of allusion than most of his contemporaries' works. As for the main theme, indolence and poetry, the poem reflects the emotional state of being Keats describes in an early 1819 letter to his brother George: > [I]ndolent and supremely careless ... from my having slumbered till nearly eleven ... please has no show of enticement and pain no unbearable frown. Neither Poetry, nor Ambition, nor Love have any alertness of countenance as they pass by me: they seem rather like three figures on a greek vase—a Man and two women—whom no one but myself could distinguish in their disguisement. Willard Spiegelman, in his study of Romantic poetry, suggests that the indolence of the poem arises from the narrator's reluctance to apply himself to the labour associated with poetic creation. Some critics provide other explanations, and William Ober claims that Keats's description of indolence may have arisen from the use of opium. ## Critical response Literary critics regard "Ode on Indolence" as inferior to Keats's other 1819 odes. Walter Evert wrote that "it is unlikely that the 'Ode on Indolence' has ever been anyone's favorite poem, and it is certain that it was not Keats's. Why he excluded it from the 1820 volume we do not know, but it is repetitious and declamatory and structurally infirm, and these would be reasons enough." Bate indicated that the poem's value is "primarily biographical and not poetic". "Ode on Indolence" is sometimes called upon as a point of comparison when discussing Keats's other poems. Charles Wentworth Dilke observed that while the poem can be read as a supplemental text to assist the study of "Grecian Urn", it remains a much inferior work. In 2000, Thomas McFarland wrote in consideration of Dilke's comparison: "Far more important than the similarity, which might seem to arise from the urns in Keats's purview in both Ode on Indolence and Ode on a Grecian Urn ... is the enormous dissimilarity in the two poems. Ode on Indolence ... is a flaccid enterprise that hardly bears mention alongside that other achievement." Sidney Colvin, in his 1917 biography on Keats, grouped "Indolence" with the other 1819 odes in categorizing Keats's "class of achievements". In 1948, Lord Gorell described the fifth stanza as, "lacking the magic of what the world agrees are the great Odes" but describes the language as "[d]elicate, charming even". Later, in a 1968 biography of Keats, Gittings describes the importance of the poem: "The whole ode, in fact, has a borrowed air, and he acknowledged its lack of success by not printing it with the others ... Yet with its acceptance of the numb, dull and indolent mood as something creative, it set the scene for all the odes that followed." In 1973, Stuart Sperry described it as "a rich and nourishing immersion in the rush of pure sensation and its flow of stirring shadows and 'dim dreams'. In many ways the ode marks both a beginning and an end. It is both the feeblest and potentially the most ambitious of the sequence. Yet its failure, if we choose to consider it that, is more the result of deliberate disinclination than any inability of means." Andrew Motion, in 1997, argued, "Like 'Melancholy', the poem is too articulate for its own poetic good ... In two of his May odes, 'Melancholy' and 'Indolence', Keats defined themes common to the whole group with such fierce candour that he restricted their imaginative power. His identity had prevailed."
13,711,492	Hellingly Hospital Railway	1,143,928,763	Light railway owned and operated by East Sussex County Council	[ "Closed railway lines in South East England", "Electric railways in the United Kingdom", "History of mental health in the United Kingdom", "Hospital railways in the United Kingdom", "Rail trails in England", "Rail transport in East Sussex", "Railway lines closed in 1959", "Railway lines opened in 1903", "Standard gauge railways in England" ]	The Hellingly Hospital Railway was a light railway owned and operated by East Sussex County Council, used for transporting coal and passengers to Hellingly Hospital, a psychiatric hospital near Hailsham, from the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway's Cuckoo Line at Hellingly railway station. The railway was constructed in 1899 and opened to passengers on 20 July 1903, following its electrification in 1902. After the railway grouping of 1923, passenger numbers declined so significantly that the hospital authorities no longer considered passenger usage of the line to be economical, and that service was withdrawn in 1931. The railway closed to freight in 1959, following the hospital's decision to convert its coal boilers to oil, which rendered the railway unnecessary. The route took a mostly direct path from a junction immediately south of Hellingly Station, past Farm and Park House Sidings, stopping places to load and unload produce and supplies from outbuildings of the hospital. Much of the railway has been converted to footpath, and many of the buildings formerly served by the line are now abandoned. ## Construction and opening In 1897, East Sussex County Council purchased 400 acres (160 ha) of land at Park Farm, about three miles (5 km) north of Hailsham, from the Earl of Chichester, to be the site of a new county lunatic asylum that became Hellingly Hospital. Construction work on the hospital began in 1900, to the design of George Thomas Hine, who had designed the nearby Haywards Heath Asylum. Building materials were transported to the site by a 1+1⁄4 mile (2 km) standard gauge private siding from the goods yard at Hellingly railway station on the Cuckoo Line. The connection was built by the asylum's builders, Joseph Howe & Company, and was authorised by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LBSCR) on condition that East Sussex Council paid the cost, estimated at £1,700. A small wooden platform was built at Hellingly railway station, opposite the main line platform. This had no connection to the station buildings and was used only for the transfer of passengers between main-line and hospital trains, and kept chained off when not in use. Coal yards and sidings were also built at Hellingly station. The hospital opened to patients, and the railway to passengers, on 20 July 1903. ## Route The railway left the Cuckoo Line at Hellingly Station. Although the railway joined the Cuckoo Line at both the northern and southern ends of the platform, virtually no through trains ran. Due to the arrangement of the lines at the junction with the Cuckoo Line, passenger trains to and from the hospital reversed south of Hellingly station. After leaving the main line immediately south of Hellingly, the railway passed over gated level crossings at Park Road and New Road. Farm Siding, a single siding on the west of the line beyond the crossings, was a collection point for the farm's agricultural produce in the early years of the railway, but later fell out of use. The line climbed most of the way from here to the hospital at 1 in 50. About halfway between Hellingly and the hospital the line entered the hospital grounds, passing to the west of Park House Siding, which served the hospital's Park House annexe. As it approached the hospital, the line split; the southern fork led to a siding to the north-west of the hospital, while the other turned sharply east and south through almost 180° before splitting again. One fork ran into a large workshop and the other led to a short platform, which was initially used for passengers. Following the suspension of passenger services it was converted into a coal dock. The line had no signals or automatic points to control the switching between lines at junctions with the main line and with the sidings. On the approach to a level crossing the fireman ran ahead with a red flag, to stop the traffic; he also manually operated the points. ## Motive power Joseph Howe & Company used an 0-4-0 saddle tank locomotive to transport building materials during the hospital's construction. The locomotive was purchased new in 1900, and sold in 1903 following the completion of the hospital and electrification of the line. In 1902, the decision was taken to electrify the railway using power generated from the hospital's own power plant, the line was electrified at 500 V DC using a single overhead line. The power plant (to generate the electricity for the hospital and railway) was the creation of Messrs Spagnoletti & Co (of London). James E. Spagnoletti was the son of Charles Spagnoletti who was a consulting electrical engineer to both electric railways and the London Electric Omnibus Company. James was first employed on the railways, but created his own company building electricity generation plant. Messrs Spagnoletti had, therefore, the combination of experience to integrate power generation for the electric railway with the domestic generating capacity for the mental hospital. The hospital was also connected to the local 11 kV electricity distribution system. Engineers Robert W. Blackwell & Co provided a small 0-4-0 electric locomotive capable of pulling two loaded coal wagons. It is not known where the locomotive was manufactured, as the company has no record, but the design of the controls suggests that it may have been imported from Germany. A small railcar/tramcar made by Brush Engineering Company with space for 12 passengers was also provided. The locomotive and the railcar were each fitted with a single trolley pole to collect electricity from the overhead wire. The passenger car was used for the duration of passenger services on the line, and the locomotive from the electrification of the line until closure in 1959. At that time, it was the oldest operational electric locomotive in the British Isles. ## Operations At the railway grouping of 1923, the LBSCR became part of the Southern Railway and the agreements between the hospital (renamed the East Sussex Mental Hospital in 1919) and the LBSCR were updated. The wooden platform at Hellingly station was drastically shortened in 1922. Because service levels depended on patient numbers and the hospital's coal and food requirements, the line never operated to a timetable. By 1931, passenger numbers had fallen to such an extent that the hospital authorities no longer considered passenger usage of the line to be economical, and the passenger service was withdrawn. The passenger car was moved to the hospital grounds, fitted with an awning, and became the hospital's sports pavilion. surviving into the mid-1990s before being destroyed in a fire started by vandals. The wooden platform at Hellingly station was removed in 1932, and the platform at the hospital was converted into a coal bay. There were only two minor accidents: a car that collided with the locomotive whilst driving through the hospital grounds, and a wagon whose brakes failed whilst stabled at Farm Siding, which rolled down the line to Hellingly station. On 22 November 1939, plans were put in place for the restoration of passenger services to allow ambulance trains to reach the hospital, and authorisation was given for their operation. However, the line was never used to transport patients, as although Park House was used as a hospital by the Canadian Army during the Second World War, patients left ambulance trains at Hellingly station and were transferred to Park House by road. ## Closure In the late 1950s, the hospital, under the control of the Hailsham Hospitals Management Committee since the 1948 establishment of the National Health Service, decided to convert its boilers from coal to oil. The railway was therefore no longer needed to transport coal; the last load was delivered on 10 March 1959, and the empty coal wagon returned to Hellingly on 25 March 1959. Under the terms of the agreement between the hospital authorities, the LBSCR, and its successors, the hospital authorities were obliged to keep the railway in good repair to allow its use by main-line wagons. With a greatly reduced need for goods traffic to the hospital following the conversion of the boilers, it was decided that the railway was not worth the expense of continued maintenance and necessary upgrading, and the line was officially closed on 25 March 1959 following the departure of the last coal wagon. The line was used for occasional excursions by railway enthusiasts for a short period after official closure, using the electric locomotive and a brake van borrowed from British Railways. The exact date of the last run is not recorded; the last recorded use of the line was an excursion organised by the Norbury Transport and Model Railway Club on 4 April 1959, but it is known that later excursions ran. In the early 1960s a railway society in Yorkshire proposed to buy the track as a preserved railway. However, as the psychiatric hospital was still open the request was not considered practical, and the track was lifted in the early 1960s. The fittings and locomotive were disposed of by H.Ripley and Sons of Hailsham. ## Present day The Cuckoo Line closed shortly after the Hospital Railway. Hellingly station closed to passengers on 14 June 1965, and the line closed for goods traffic on 26 April 1968. The station building complete with platform is now a private residence, and the Cuckoo Line trackbed was converted to the Cuckoo Trail long-distance footpath in 1990. Much of the route of the Hospital Railway is also now a footpath. Traces of the railway can still be seen, including a cast iron pole that supported the overhead wire, the remains of the engine shed (burnt down in 2004), and a short section of track. Hellingly Hospital is now closed Approval for redevelopment as a housing complex was obtained in 2009. ## See also - High Royds Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in West Yorkshire that had railway spur from the Wharfedale Line. - Park Prewett Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Hampshire that had a spur line from Basingstoke. - Whittingham Hospital Railway, a branch line that served the Whittingham psychiatric hospital in Lancashire. - Horton Light Railway, a freight only railway serving the cluster of psychiatric hospitals near Epsom, Surrey.
12,024,784	Barbara L	1,078,436,848	Quarter Horse race mare	[ "1947 racehorse births", "1977 racehorse deaths", "AQHA Hall of Fame (horses)", "American Quarter Horse broodmares", "American Quarter Horse racehorses", "Individual mares", "Racehorses bred in the United States", "Racehorses trained in the United States" ]	Barbara L (1947–1977) was an American Quarter Horse that raced during the early 1950s and often defeated some of the best racehorses of the time. She earned \$32,836 () on the race track in 81 starts and 21 wins, including six wins in stakes races. She set two track records during her racing career. After retiring from racing in 1955, she went on to become a broodmare and had 14 foals, including 11 who earned their Race Register of Merit with the American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA). Her offspring earned more than \$200,000 in race money. She died in 1977 and was inducted into the AQHA's American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2007. ## Early life Barbara L was foaled in 1947, a bay daughter of a Thoroughbred stallion named Patriotic and a Quarter Horse broodmare named Big Bess. She was registered with the AQHA as number 146,954. Her sire, or father, was a grandson of Man o' War, while her dam, or mother, descended from the Quarter Horse Peter McCue. Barbara L was registered as bred by James Hunt of Sonora, Texas, and her owner at the time of registration was A. B. Green, of Purcell, Oklahoma. As a yearling, Barbara L was sold at auction for \$140 () to a Mr. Lumpkin, who sold horse trailers for a living. She spent the next period of her life demonstrating trailers across Texas before someone suggested that Lumpkin race her. Lumpkin changed her name from "Anthem" to "Barbara L" in honor of his daughter Barbara, who was the filly's first trainer. ## Racing career Barbara L's first race was in 1949 at Del Rio, Texas, where she came in fourth and only rated a B speed index (a measure of how fast a horse ran in a race). She did not win a race until her third start that year, completing a 440 yards (400 m) course in 23.4 seconds. In the following years, she raced at Centennial Race Track in Colorado; at Raton in New Mexico; at Albuquerque, New Mexico; at Phoenix, Arizona; at Los Alamitos Race Track in California; and at Bay Meadows Race Track. She raced for Lumpkin until 1952, when she was sold to A. B. Green. Green raced her until May 1955, when her last start was recorded with the AQHA. Barbara L raced for seven years, starting 81 times. She ended her career on the track with 21 victories, 23 seconds and nine third-place finishes. During her racing career, she beat a number of the top racehorses of her time: Stella Moore, Blob Jr, Bart BS, Johnny Dial, and Monita. She won six stakes races, placed second in four, and came in third in three. Her earnings on the racetrack were \$32,836 (). The stakes wins were the Speedwell Handicap, the Del Rio Feature, the Bart BS Stakes, the Miss Princess Invitational Handicap, Maddon's Bright Eyes Handicap, and the Pima County Fair Premier Stakes. She set two track records—one at Centennial for 400 yards (370 m) with 20.2 seconds, the other at Los Alamitos for 400 yards (370 m) with 20.5 seconds—and equaled the 350-yard (320 m) track record at Los Alamitos with an 18.5 second run. The AQHA awarded her a Race Register of Merit and a Superior Race Horse award. ## Broodmare career As a broodmare, Barbara L produced eleven foals who earned their Race Register of Merit with the AQHA. Four of her foals earned speed ratings of AAAT, which would translate to speed indexes of 100 or better in current usage. She had 14 foals; collectively, they started 230 times on the racetrack, winning 52 races and earning \$262,042 () in races. Two of her foals won Superior Race Horse Awards: Cuter Yet, and Mr Walt. Her leading money earner was Barbara 3, who earned more than \$100,000. Barbara L's first foal was Mr. Bruce, a chestnut stallion foaled in 1956 and sired by the Thoroughbred stallion Three Bars. He started 25 races, of which he won six, earning \$8,283 () on the track. He earned an AAA speed index and placed second once and third once in stakes races. Barbara L's next foal was Miss Olene, a bay mare sired by Leo and foaled in 1957. She started 33 races and won 11 times, including one stakes race. She earned an AAAT speed index and finished third in the 1959 All American Futurity while earning \$31,022 () in total racing earnings. Polly Jane, a bay mare sired by Go Man Go, was Barbara L's 1958 foal. Polly Jane started 21 times, winning four races, achieving an AAA speed index, and earning \$3,961 (). In 1959, Barbara L's foal was Mr. Walt, a bay stallion by Vandy. Mr. Walt started 55 times and had a AAAT speed index. He won nine races, including one stakes race, earning him \$9,417 (). In 1960, Barbara L produced Barbara 2, a sorrel mare by Leo. Barbara 2 raced 11 times, winning 2 races with \$2,847 () in earnings and a AAAT speed index. Barbara L's next two foals, Go Doctor and Barbara 1, did not race, but the foal born in 1963, Barbara L's Boy, started 12 times and won twice. He was sired by Depth Bars and won \$1,312 () and earned a AAA speed index. In 1964, Barbara L had Barbara 3, a sorrel mare sired by the Thoroughbred Top Deck. Barbara 3 started 19 races and won seven times, including one stakes race. Her best speed index was AAAT and she earned \$100,692 (). Barbara L's next foal, in 1965, was Top Decker, a brown stallion also by Top Deck. He started five times and earned a AAA speed index and \$98 (). Barbara L did not have a foal in 1966, but in 1967 she had a bay mare named Cuter Yet by Jet Deck. Cuter Yet started 27 races and won 5 times, including 2 stakes races. Cuter Yet's race earnings were \$98,806 (), and her highest speed index was 98. In 1968, Barbara L had Barbara Meyers, a bay mare by Kid Meyers. Barbara Meyers started six times and earned an 89 speed index and \$1,082 (). Barbara L's 1969 foal, Peggy Rollins, did not race, but her last foal, Barbara El, a bay mare also by Kid Meyers, started 16 times and won 3 races. Barbara El won \$4,522 () and an 80 speed index. ## Death and legacy Barbara L died in 1977. A stakes race was named in her honor and run at Ruidoso Downs, New Mexico, in 1956. In 2006, she earned a Dam of Distinction award from the AQHA; she was inducted into the AQHA Hall of Fame in 2007. ## Pedigree
10,137,443	Rock martin	1,126,265,781	Small passerine bird in the swallow family in central and southern Africa	[ "Birds described in 1842", "Birds of Sub-Saharan Africa", "Ptyonoprogne", "Taxa named by Hinrich Lichtenstein" ]	The rock martin (Ptyonoprogne fuligula) is a small passerine bird in the swallow family that is resident in central and southern Africa. It breeds mainly in the mountains, but also at lower altitudes, especially in rocky areas and around towns, and, unlike most swallows, it is often found far from water. It is 12–15 cm (4.7–5.9 in) long, with mainly brown plumage, paler-toned on the upper breast and underwing coverts, and with white "windows" on the spread tail in flight. The sexes are similar in appearance, but juveniles have pale fringes to the upperparts and flight feathers. The former northern subspecies are smaller, paler, and whiter-throated than southern African forms, and are now usually split as a separate species, the pale crag martin. The rock martin hunts along cliff faces for flying insects using a slow flight with much gliding. Its call is a soft twitter. The rock martin builds a deep bowl nest on a sheltered horizontal surface, or a neat quarter-sphere against a vertical rock face or wall. The nest is constructed with mud pellets and lined with grass or feathers, and may be built on natural sites under cliff overhangs or on man-made structures such as buildings, dam walls, culverts and bridges. It is often reused for subsequent broods or in later years. The rock martin is a solitary breeder, and is not gregarious, but small groups may breed close together in suitable locations. The two or three eggs of a typical clutch are white with brown and grey blotches, and are incubated by both adults for 16–19 days prior to hatching. Both parents then feed the chicks. Fledging takes another 22–24 days, but the young birds will return to the nest to roost for a few days after the first flight. The rock martin is often predated on by several fast and agile species of falcon, such as the hobby, and it sometimes carries parasites. Because it is common within its large range with an apparently stable population, it is assessed as a least-concern species on the IUCN Red List. ## Taxonomy The rock martin was formally described in 1842 as Hirundo fuligula by German physician, explorer and zoologist Martin Lichtenstein and was moved to the new genus Ptyonoprogne by German ornithologist Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach in 1850. Its nearest relatives are the three other members of the genus, the pale crag martin (P. obsoleta) of north Africa, the dusky crag martin (P. concolor) of southern Asia and the Eurasian crag martin (P. rupestris). The genus name is derived from the Ancient Greek ptuon (πτύον), "a fan", referring to the shape of the opened tail, and Procne (Πρόκνη), a mythological girl who was turned into a swallow. The specific name fuligula means "sooty-throated", from the Latin fuligo, "soot", and gula, "throat". The four Ptyonoprogne species are members of the swallow family, and are placed in the subfamily Hirundininae, which comprises all swallows and martins except the very distinctive river martins. DNA sequence studies suggest that there are three major groupings within the Hirundininae, broadly correlating with the type of nest built. The groups are the "core martins" including burrowing species like the sand martin, the "nest-adopters", which are birds like the tree swallow that utilise natural cavities, and the "mud nest builders". The Ptyonoprogne species construct open mud nests and therefore belong to the last group. Hirundo species also build open nests, Delichon house martins have a closed nest, and the Cecropis and Petrochelidon swallows have retort-like closed nests with an entrance tunnel. The genus Ptyonoprogne is closely related to the larger swallow genus, Hirundo, but a DNA analysis published in 2005 showed that a coherent enlarged Hirundo should contain all mud-builder genera. Although the nests of the Ptyonoprogne crag martins resemble those of typical Hirundo species like the barn swallow, the DNA research suggested that if the Delichon house martins are considered to be a separate genus, as is normally the case, Cecropis, Petrochelidon and Ptyonoprogne should also be split off. ### Subspecies There are several subspecies differing in plumage shade or size, although the differences are clinal, and races interbreed where their ranges meet. The small, pale former subspecies (obsoleta, peroplasta, perpallida, presaharica, spatzi, arabica and buchanani) found in the mountains of North Africa, the Arabian peninsula and southwest Asia are now normally split as a separate species, the pale crag martin, following German ornithologist Jean Cabanis, who first formally described these birds, but the changes in size and colour are continuous, and the forms often intergrade where they meet, so the evidence for separate species is not strong. The southern forms of the rock martin can weigh more than twice as much as the smallest northern subspecies of pale crag martin. The average weight for P. f. fusciventris is 22.4 g (0.79 oz) against 10 g (0.35 oz) for P. o. obsoleta. The robust, large-billed southernmost forms (P. f. fuligula, P. f. pretoriae, and P. f. anderssoni) are sufficiently different from dark, fine-billed P. f. fusciventris that the latter could also be regarded as a potentially different species. However, Rhodesian ornithologist Michael Irwin collected specimens from southern Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) which were dark above like P. f. fusciventris and rich reddish below like P. f. fuligula. This led him to suggest that the two groups had previously been isolated, but were probably hybridising following secondary contact. ## Description The rock martin of the nominate subspecies P. f. fuligula is 12–15 cm (4.7–5.9 in) long, with earth-brown upperparts and a short square tail that has small white patches near the tips of all but the central and outermost pairs of feathers. It has a cinnamon chin, throat, upper breast and underwing coverts, with the rest of the underparts being a similar brown to the upperparts. The eyes are brown, the small bill is mainly black, and the legs are brownish-pink. The sexes are similar in appearance, but juveniles have pale edges to the upperparts and flight feathers. The other subspecies differ from the nominate form as detailed above. The rock martin's flight is slow, with rapid wing beats interspersed with flat-winged glides, and it is more acrobatic than the larger Eurasian crag martin. It is a quiet bird; the song is a muffled twitter, and other calls include a 'trrt' resembling the call of the common house martin, a nasal 'vick', and a high-pitched 'twee' contact call. The rock martin is much drabber than most African swallows, and confusion is unlikely except with other crag martins or with sand martins of the genus Riparia. The pale crag martin is smaller, paler and greyer than its southern relative. Although only slightly larger than the sand martin and brown-throated sand martin, the rock martin is more robust, has white tail spots, and lacks a breast band. It is paler on the throat, breast and underwings than the all-dark form of the brown-throated sand martin. ## Distribution and habitat The rock martin breeds in suitable habitat in Africa north to Nigeria, Chad and Ethiopia. It is largely resident apart from local movements or a descent to lower altitudes after breeding. This species has been recorded as a vagrant in Gabon, and its status in Congo is uncertain. The natural breeding habitat is hilly or mountainous country with cliffs, gorges and caves up to 3,700 m (12,100 ft) above sea level, but this martin also breeds in lowlands, especially if rocks or buildings are available, and may be found far from water. It readily uses man-made structures as a substitute for natural precipices. ## Behaviour ### Breeding Rock martin pairs often nest alone, although where suitable sites are available small loose colonies may form with up to 40 pairs. These martins aggressively defend their nesting territory against conspecifics and other species. Breeding dates vary geographically and with local weather conditions. Two broods are common, and three have been raised in a season. Breeding occurs mainly through August and September. The nest, built by both adults over several weeks, is made from several hundred mud pellets and lined with soft dry grass or sometimes feathers. It may be a half-cup when constructed under an overhang on a vertical wall or cliff, or bowl-shaped like that of the barn swallow when placed on a sheltered ledge. The nest may be built on a rock cliff face, in a crevice or on a man-made structure, and is often re-used for the second brood and in subsequent years. The clutch is usually two or three buff-white eggs blotched with sepia or grey-brown particularly at the wide end. The average egg size in South Africa was 20.8 mm × 14.1 mm (0.82 in × 0.56 in) with a weight of 2.17 g (0.077 oz). Both adults incubate the eggs for 16–19 days prior to hatching and feed the chicks about ten times an hour until they fledge and for several days after they can fly. The fledging time can vary from 22–24 days to 25–30 days, though the latter estimates probably take into account fledged young returning to the nest for food. ### Feeding The rock martin feeds mainly on insects caught in flight, although it will occasionally feed on the ground. When breeding, birds often fly back and forth along a rock face catching insects in their bills and feed close to the nesting territory. At other times, they may hunt low over open ground. The insects caught depend on what is locally available, but may include mosquitoes and other flies, Hymenoptera, ants and beetles. This martin often feeds alone, but sizeable groups may gather at grass fires to feast on the fleeing insects, and outside the breeding season flocks of up to 300 may form where food is abundant. Cliff faces generate standing waves in the airflow which concentrate insects near vertical areas. Crag martins exploit the area close to the cliff when they hunt, relying on their high manoeuvrability and ability to perform tight turns. A study of nine bird species including four hirundines showed that the more young there are in a nest, the more frequent are the parents' feeding visits, but the visits do not increase in proportion to the number of young. On average a solitary nestling therefore gets more food than a member of a pair or of a trio. Since the nestling period is not prolonged in proportion to the drop in feeding rate, an individual fledgling from a larger brood is likely to weigh less when it leaves the nest. However, a subspecies of the rock martin (P. f. fusciventris) was an anomaly in respect of both feeding rate and nestling time. There was no difference in parental feeding rate for members of a pair and members of a trio, but the nestling period averaged 1.5 days longer for trios than pairs. ## Predators and parasites Some falcons have the speed and agility to catch swallows and martins in flight, and rock martins may be hunted by species such as the peregrine falcon, Taita falcon, African hobby and wintering Eurasian hobby. Rock martins often share their nesting sites with little swifts, which sometimes forcibly take over the martin's nests. In 1975, one of the first findings of the tick Argas (A.) africolumbae was in a nest of Ptyonoprogne f. fusciventris in Kenya, at that time the martin was described under its synonym Ptyonoprogne fuligula rufigula (Fischer & Reichenow). ## Status The rock martin has a very large range of 4,160,000 km<sup>2</sup> (1,610,000 sq mi). The total global population is unknown, but the bird is described as generally common, although scarce in Botswana and Namibia. The population is thought to be stable, mainly due to the absence of evidence of any declines or substantial threats. Its large range and presumably high numbers mean that the rock martin is not considered to be threatened, and it is classed as least concern on the IUCN Red List. ## Cited texts
409,190	Stella Gibbons	1,155,900,676	20th-century British writer	[ "1902 births", "1989 deaths", "20th-century English novelists", "20th-century English poets", "20th-century English women writers", "Alumni of University College London", "British parodists", "Burials at Highgate Cemetery", "English satirists", "English women novelists", "English women poets", "Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature", "Parody novelists", "People educated at North London Collegiate School", "Women satirists", "Women science fiction and fantasy writers" ]	Stella Dorothea Gibbons (5 January 1902 – 19 December 1989) was an English author, journalist, and poet. She established her reputation with her first novel, Cold Comfort Farm (1932) which has been reprinted many times. Although she was active as a writer for half a century, none of her later 22 novels or other literary works—which included a sequel to Cold Comfort Farm—achieved the same critical or popular success. Much of her work was long out of print before a modest revival in the 21st century. The daughter of a London doctor, Gibbons had a turbulent and often unhappy childhood. After an indifferent school career she trained as a journalist, and worked as a reporter and features writer, mainly for the Evening Standard and The Lady. Her first book, published in 1930, was a collection of poems which was well received, and through her life she considered herself primarily a poet rather than a novelist. After Cold Comfort Farm, a satire on the genre of rural-themed "loam and lovechild" novels popular in the late 1920s, most of Gibbons's novels were based within the middle-class suburban world with which she was familiar. Gibbons became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1950. Her style has been praised by critics for its charm, barbed humour and descriptive skill, and has led to comparison with Jane Austen. The impact of Cold Comfort Farm dominated her career, and she grew to resent her identification with the book to the exclusion of the rest of her output. Widely regarded as a one-work novelist, she and her works have not been accepted into the canon of English literature—partly, other writers have suggested, because of her detachment from the literary world and her tendency to mock it. ## Life ### Family background and childhood The Gibbons family originated from Ireland. Stella's grandfather, Charles Preston Gibbons, was a civil engineer who spent long periods in South Africa building bridges. He and his wife Alice had six children, the second of whom—the eldest of four sons—was born in 1869 and was known by his fourth Christian name of "Telford". The Gibbons household was a turbulent one, with tensions arising from Charles Gibbons's frequent adulteries. Telford Gibbons trained as a doctor, and qualified as a physician and surgeon at the London Hospital in 1897. On 29 September 1900 he married Maude Williams, the daughter of a stockbroker. The couple bought a house in Malden Crescent, Kentish Town, a working-class district of North London, where Telford established the medical practice in which he continued for the remainder of his life. Stella, the couple's first child, was born on 5 January 1902; two brothers, Gerald and Lewis, followed in 1905 and 1909 respectively. The atmosphere in the Kentish Town house echoed that of the elder Gibbons's household, and was dominated by Telford's frequent bouts of ill-temper, drinking, womanising and occasional acts of violence. Stella later described her father as "a bad man, but a good doctor". He was charitable to his poorer patients and imaginative in finding cures, but made life miserable for his family. Initially Stella was his favourite, but by the time she reached puberty he frequently mocked her looks and size. Fortunately, her mother was a calm and stabilising influence. Until Stella reached the age of 13 she was educated at home by a succession of governesses, who never stayed long. The family's bookshelves provided reading material, and she developed a talent for storytelling with which she amused her young brothers. In 1915 Stella became a pupil at the North London Collegiate School, then situated in Camden Town. The school, founded in 1850 by Frances Buss, was among the first in England to offer girls an academic education, and by 1915 was widely recognised as a model girls' school. After the haphazard teaching methods of her governesses, Stella initially had difficulty in adjusting to the strict discipline of the school, and found many of its rules and practices oppressive. She shared this attitude with her contemporary Stevie Smith, the future Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry winner, who joined the school in 1917. Although a moderate performer in school subjects, Stella found outlets for her talents by writing stories for her fellow-pupils, becoming vice president of the Senior Dramatic Club, and featuring prominently in the school's Debating Society, of which she became the honorary secretary. ### Student years While at school, Gibbons formed an ambition to be a writer, and on leaving in 1921 began a two-year Diploma in Journalism at University College, London (UCL). The course had been established for ex-servicemen returning from the First World War, but attracted several women, among them the future novelist Elizabeth Bowen. As well as English Literature, the curriculum covered economics, politics, history, science and languages; practical skills such as shorthand and typing were not included. After the stifling experience of school, Gibbons found university exhilarating and made numerous friendships, particularly with Ida Affleck Graves, an aspiring poet who, although on a different course, attended some of the same lectures. The two shared a love of literature and a taste for subversive humour. Graves lived until 1999, and recalled in an interview late in life that many of the jokes they shared found their way into Cold Comfort Farm, as did some of their common acquaintances. Soon after Gibbons began the course she contributed a poem, "The Marshes of My Soul", to the December 1921 issue of University College Magazine. This parody, in the newly fashionable vers libre style, was her first published literary work. During the next two years she contributed further poems and prose to the magazine, including "The Doer, a Story in the Russian Manner", which foreshadows her later novels in both theme and style. Gibbons completed her course in the summer of 1923, and was awarded her diploma. ### Journalism and early writings Gibbons's first job was with the British United Press (BUP) news agency, where she decoded overseas cables which she rewrote in presentable English. During slack periods she practised at writing articles, stories and poems. She made her first trips abroad, travelling to France in 1924 and Switzerland in 1925. Swiss Alpine scenery inspired several poems, some of which were later published. In 1924 she met Walter Beck, a naturalised German employed by his family's cosmetics firm. The couple became engaged, and enjoyed regular weekends together, signing hotel registers as a married couple using false names. In May 1926 Gibbons's mother, Maude, died suddenly at the age of 48. With little reason to remain with her father in the Kentish Town surgery, Gibbons took lodgings in Willow Road, near Hampstead Heath. Five months later, on 15 October, her father died from heart disease aggravated by heavy drinking. Gibbons was now the family's principal breadwinner; her youngest brother Lewis was still at school, while the elder, Gerald, was intermittently employed as an actor. The three set up home in a cottage on the Vale of Health, a small settlement in the middle of Hampstead Heath, with literary connections to Keats (whom Gibbons revered), Leigh Hunt and D. H. Lawrence. Later that year, as a result of an error involving the calculation and reporting of foreign exchange rates, Gibbons was sacked from the BUP, but quickly found a new position as secretary to the editor of the London Evening Standard. Within a short time she was promoted, and became a reporter and features writer at the then substantial salary of just under £500 a year, although she was not given a by-line until 1928. During her Evening Standard years, Gibbons persevered with poetry, and in September 1927 her poem "The Giraffes" appeared in The Criterion, a literary magazine edited by T. S. Eliot. This work was read and admired by Virginia Woolf, who enquired if Gibbons would write poems for the Woolf publishing house, the Hogarth Press. In January 1928 J. C. Squire, a leading voice in the "Georgian" poetry movement, began to publish Gibbons's poems in his magazine, The London Mercury. Squire also persuaded Longmans to publish the first collection of Gibbons's verses, entitled The Mountain Beast, which appeared in 1930 to critical approval. By this time her by-line was appearing with increasing frequency in the Standard. As part of a series on "Unusual Women" she interviewed, among others, the former royal mistress Lillie Langtry. The paper also published several of Gibbons's short stories. Despite this evident industry, Gibbons was dismissed from the Standard in August 1930. This was ostensibly an economy measure although Gibbons, in later life, suspected other reasons, particularly the increasing distraction from work that arose from her relationship with Walter Beck. The engagement had ended painfully in 1928, primarily because Gibbons was looking for a fully committed relationship whereas he wanted something more open. Oliver believes Gibbons never entirely got over Beck, even after 1929 when she met Allan Webb, her future husband. She was not unemployed for long; she quickly accepted a job offer as an editorial assistant at the women's magazine, The Lady. Here, according to The Observer writer Rachel Cooke, "she applied her versatility as a writer to every subject under the sun bar cookery, which was the province of a certain Mrs Peel." At the same time she began work on the novel that would become Cold Comfort Farm; her colleague and friend Elizabeth Coxhead recorded that Gibbons "neglected her duties disgracefully" to work on this project. ### Cold Comfort Farm In her time with The Lady, Gibbons established a reputation as a caustic book reviewer, and was particularly critical of the then fashionable "loam and lovechild" rural novels. Novelists such as Mary Webb and Sheila Kaye-Smith had achieved considerable popularity through their depictions of country life; Webb was a favourite of the British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. Gibbons had first become familiar with the genre when she provided summaries of Webb's The Golden Arrow for the Evening Standard's 1928 serialisation. She found the writing overblown and the plotting ridiculous, and decided that her own first novel would be a comic parody of the genre. By February 1932 she had completed the manuscript and delivered it to her publishers, Longmans. Gibbons's chosen title for her novel had been "Curse God Farm", before her friend Elizabeth Coxhead, who had connections in the Hinckley district of Leicestershire, suggested "Cold Comfort" as an alternative, using the name of a farm in the Hinckley area. Gibbons was delighted with the suggestion, and the work was published as Cold Comfort Farm in September 1932. The plot concerns the efforts of "a rational, bossy London heroine" to bring order and serenity to her rustic relations, the Starkadders, on their run-down Sussex farm. According to the Feminist Companion to Literature in English, Gibbons's parody "[demolishes] ... the stock-in-trade of earthy regionalists such as Thomas Hardy, Mary Webb, Sheila Kaye-Smith and D. H. Lawrence". The literary scholar Faye Hammill describes the work as "an extremely sophisticated and intricate parody whose meaning is produced through its relationship with the literary culture of its day and with the work of such canonical authors as D. H. Lawrence, Thomas Hardy, and Emily Brontë". In her history of the 1930s, Juliet Gardiner ascribes a socio-economic dimension to the book: "a picture of rural gloom caused by government lassitude and urban indifference". The work was an immediate critical and popular success. The satire was heightened by Gibbons's mockery of purple prose, whereby she marked the most florid and overwritten passages of the book with asterisks, "for the reader's delectation and mirth". One critic found it hard to accept that so well-developed a parody was the work of a scarcely known woman writer, and speculated that "Stella Gibbons" was a pen-name for Evelyn Waugh. Gibbons suddenly found herself in demand in literary circles and from fellow writers, raised to a celebrity status that she found distasteful. She acquired an agent, who advised her that she could confidently expect a regular and comfortable income as a novelist. This assurance prompted her, at the end of 1932, to resign her position with The Lady and to embark on a full-time writing career. In March 1931 Gibbons had become engaged to Allan Webb, a budding actor and opera singer five years her junior. He was the son of a cricketing parson, and the grandson of Allan Becher Webb, a former Bishop of Bloemfontein who served as Dean of Salisbury Cathedral. On 1 April 1933 the couple were married at St Matthew's, Bayswater. Later in 1933 she learned that Cold Comfort Farm had been awarded the Prix Étranger, the foreign novel category of the prestigious French literary prize, the Prix Femina. It had won against works by two more experienced writers, Bowen and Rosamond Lehmann. This outcome irritated Virginia Woolf, herself a former Prix Étranger winner, who wrote to Bowen: "I was enraged to see they gave the £40 (the cash value of the prize) to Gibbons; still, now you and Rosamond can join in blaming her". Cooke observes that of all the Prix Étranger winners from the inter-war years, only Cold Comfort Farm and Woolf's To the Lighthouse are remembered today, and that only the former has bequeathed a phrase that has passed into common usage: "something nasty in the woodshed". ### Established author #### 1930s During the remainder of the 1930s Gibbons produced five more novels, as well as two poetry collections, a children's book, and a number of short stories. From November 1936 the family home was in Oakshott Avenue, on the Holly Lodge Estate off Highgate West Hill, where Gibbons regularly worked in the mornings from ten until lunchtime. Her novels were generally well received by critics and the public, though none earned the accolades or attention that had been given to Cold Comfort Farm; readers of The Times were specifically warned not to expect Gibbons's second novel, Bassett (1934), to be a repetition of the earlier masterpiece. Enbury Heath (1935) is a relatively faithful account of her childhood and early adult life with, according to Oliver, "only the thinnest veil of fictional gauze cover[ing] raw experience". Miss Linsey and Pa (1936) was thought by Nicola Beauman, in her analysis of women writers from 1914 to 1939, to parody Radclyffe Hall's 1928 lesbian novel The Well of Loneliness. Gibbons's final prewar novels were Nightingale Wood (1935)—"Cinderella brought right up to date"—and My American (1939), which Oliver considers her most escapist novel, "a variant of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen." Gibbons always considered herself a serious poet rather than a comic writer. She published two collections of poetry in the 1930s, the latter of which, The Lowland Verses (1938) contains "The Marriage of the Machine", an early lament on the effects of industrial pollution: "What oil, what poison lulls/Your wings and webs, my cormorants and gulls?" Gibbons's single children's book was the fairy tale collection The Untidy Gnome, published in 1935 and dedicated to her only child Laura, who was born that year. #### War years, 1939–1945 The advent of war in September 1939 did not diminish Gibbons's creative energy. In November she began a series of articles, "A Woman's Diary of the War", for St Martin's Review, the journal of the London church of St Martin-in-the-Fields. The series ran until November 1943, and includes many of Gibbons's private reflections on the conflict. In October 1941 she wrote: "[T]he war has done me good ... I get a dour satisfaction out of managing the rations, salvaging, fire watching, and feeling that I am trying to work for a better world". In July 1940 her husband Allan Webb enlisted in the Middlesex Regiment, and the following year was commissioned into the King's Royal Rifle Corps. He later served overseas, mostly in Cairo. The title story in Gibbons's 1940 collection, Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm, failed to equal the impact of the original. When the collection was reissued many years later it was described as "oddly comforting and amusing ... and possibly a truer depiction of the times than we might think". Gibbons published three novels during the war: The Rich House (1941), Ticky (1942) and The Bachelor (1944). Ticky, a satire on mid-nineteenth century army life, was Gibbons's favourite of all her novels, although she acknowledged that hardly anyone liked it. It failed commercially, despite a favourable review in The Times Literary Supplement. Oliver surmises that "the middle of the Second World War was perhaps the wrong time to satirise ... the ridiculous and dangerous rituals that surround the male aggressive instinct". The Bachelor won critical praise for its revealing account of life in war-torn Britain—as did several of Gibbons's postwar novels. ### Postwar years Gibbons's first postwar novel was Westwood (1946). The book incorporates a comic depiction of the novelist Charles Morgan, whose novel The Fountain Gibbons had reviewed before the war and found "offensive as well as wearisome". In Westwood, Morgan appears in the guise of the playwright "Gerard Challis", a pompous, humourless bore. Oliver considers this characterisation to be one of Gibbons's "most enjoyable and vicious" satirical portraits. In her introduction to the book's 2011 reprint, Lynne Truss describes it as "a rich, mature novel, romantic and wistful, full of rounded characters and terrific dialogue" that deserved more commercial success than it received. The public's expectations were still prejudiced by Cold Comfort Farm, which by 1949 had sold 28,000 copies in hardback and 315,000 in paperback. Anticipating that a sequel would be popular, that year Gibbons produced Conference at Cold Comfort Farm, her shortest novel, in which the farm has become a conference centre and tourist attraction. There is much mockery of contemporary and indeed future artistic and intellectual trends, before the male Starkadders return from overseas, wreck the centre and restore the farm to its original primitive state. The book was moderately successful but, Oliver remarks, does not compare with the original. In 1950 Gibbons published her Collected Poems, and in the same year was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Throughout the 1950s she continued, at roughly two-year intervals, to produce politely received novels, none of which created any particular stir. Among these was Fort of the Bear (1953), in which she departed from her familiar London milieu by setting the story largely in the wilder regions of Canada. This was the last of her books handled by Longmans; thereafter her work was published by Hodder and Stoughton. A journey to Austria and Venice in 1953 provided material for her novel The Shadow of a Sorcerer (1955). From 1954, having accepted an invitation from Malcolm Muggeridge, the editor of Punch, Gibbons provided frequent contributions to the magazine for the following 15 years. Among these was a science fiction story, "Jane in Space", written in the style of Jane Austen. Gibbons, who wrote the introduction to the 1957 Heritage edition of Sense and Sensibility, was a long-time admirer of Austen, and had described her in a Lady article as "one of the most exquisite" of woman artists. After the war, Allan Webb resumed his stage career with the role of Count Almaviva in the 1946 Sadler's Wells production of The Marriage of Figaro. In 1947 he appeared in the original run of the Vivian Ellis musical Bless the Bride, and made several further stage appearances in the following two years. During this time he had a brief affair with the actress Sydney Malcolm, for which Gibbons quickly forgave him. He left the theatre in 1949 to become a director of a book club specialising in special editions, and later bought a bookshop in the Archway district of London. His health failed in the late 1950s and in 1958 he was diagnosed with cancer of the liver. He died in July 1959 at Oakshott Avenue. ### Late career After Webb's death, Gibbons remained at Oakshott Avenue and continued to write novels. From 1961 she rented a summer house at Trevone in Cornwall, which became the setting for her 1962 novel The Weather at Tregulla. She returned to literary criticism after many years, when in 1965 she contributed an essay to Light on C.S. Lewis, a review of that writer's work edited by Jocelyn Gibb. In 1966 she wrote an essay for Punch, "Genesis of a Novel", in which she mused on the detrimental effect of Cold Comfort Farm on her long-term career. She likened the book to "some unignorable old uncle, to whom you have to be grateful because he makes you a handsome allowance, but is often an embarrassment and a bore". Gibbons made her last overseas trip in 1966, to Grenoble in France where she visited her old friend Elizabeth Coxhead. This visit provided material for her 1968 novel The Snow Woman in which Gibbons overcame her habitual distaste for emotional excess by opening the book with a melodramatic birth on a sofa. The Woods in Winter (1970) was her last published novel; she decided at that point that she was no longer prepared to subject her work to editorial control. In the 1980s she wrote two more novels for private circulation among friends, The Yellow Houses and An Alpha. These books – An Alpha retitled Pure Juliet – were published by Vintage Classics in 2016, after the manuscripts were released by Gibbons's family. ### Final years The last two decades of Gibbons's life were uneventful and lived almost entirely beyond the public eye. She kept her health and looks until almost the end of her life—in a biographical sketch, Jill Neville recorded that "her beauty endured, as did her upright carriage, typical of Edwardian ladies who were forced as girls to walk around with a book balanced on their heads." As well as her unpublished novels she wrote occasional short stories, two of which were rejected by the BBC, and contributed three new poems to Richard Adams's 1986 anthology Occasional Poets, a work which included verses from part-time poets such as Iris Murdoch, William Golding, Alan Ayckbourn and Quentin Crisp. These were Gibbons's last published works. One of Gibbons's poems in the anthology was "Writ in Water", inspired by her love for the poetry of Keats. In 2013 the manuscript of this poem was presented to the Keats-Shelley Memorial House museum in Rome. Gibbons maintained a wide circle of friends, who in her later years included Adams, the entertainer Barry Humphries and the novelist John Braine. From the mid-1970s she established a pattern of monthly literary tea parties in Oakshott Avenue at which, according to Neville, "she was known to expel guests if they were shrill, dramatic, or wrote tragic novels." As her own productivity dwindled and finally ceased altogether, she kept a commonplace book in which she was recording her thoughts and opinions on literature as late as 1988. From the mid-1980s Gibbons experienced recurrent health problems, not helped when she resumed smoking. In her last months she was looked after at home by her grandson and his girlfriend. She died there on 19 December 1989, after collapsing the previous day, and was buried in Highgate Cemetery, alongside her husband. At her funeral, her nephew and future biographer Reggie Oliver read two of her poems, the latter of which, "Fairford Church", concludes with the words: "Little is sure. Life is hard./We love, we suffer and die./But the beauty of the earth is real/And the Spirit is nigh." ## Writing ### Style Gibbons's writing has been praised by critics for its perspicacity, sense of fun, charm, wit and descriptive skill—the last a product of her journalistic training—which she used to convey both atmosphere and character. Although Beauman refers to "malicious wit", Truss sees no cruelty in the often barbed humour, which reflected Gibbons's detestation of pomposity and pretence. Truss has described Gibbons as "the Jane Austen of the 20th century", a parallel which the novelist Malcolm Bradbury thought apt; Flora Poste in Cold Comfort Farm, with her "higher common sense", is "a Jane-ite heroine transformed into a clear-eyed modern woman". Bradbury also observed that many of Gibbons's novels end in Austen-like nuptials. Truss highlights the importance that Gibbons places on detachment as a necessary adjunct to effective writing: "Like many a good doctor, she seems to have considered sympathy a peculiar and redundant emotion, and a terrible waste of time." This matter-of-fact quality in her prose might, according to Gibbons's Guardian obituarist Richard Boston, be a reaction against the turbulent and sometimes violent emotions that she witnessed within her own family who, she said, "were all madly highly-sexed, like the Starkadders". It is, observed Neville, an irony that the overheated melodrama that Gibbons most disliked was at the heart of her one great success; Gibbons's writings on everyday life brought her restrained approval, but no noticeable literary recognition. Nevertheless, her straightforward, style, unadorned except in parody, is admired by Rachel Cooke, who praises her as "a sworn enemy of the flatulent, the pompous and the excessively sentimental." While short of sentimentality, Gibbons's writing, in prose or verse, did not lack sensitivity. She had what one analyst described as "a rare ability to enter into the feelings of the uncommunicative and to bring to life the emotions of the unremarkable". Some of Gibbons's poetry expressed her love of nature and a prophetic awareness for environmental issues such as sea pollution, decades before such concerns became fashionable. In a critical summary of Gibbons's poems, Loralee MacPike has described them as "slight lyrics ... [which] tend toward classic, even archaic, diction, and only occasionally ... show flashes of the novels' wit". Such lines as "my thoughts, like purple parrots / Brood / In the sick light" come dangerously close indeed to the overblown rhetoric she satirized in Cold Comfort Farm: "How like yaks were your drowsy thoughts". ### Reception and reputation The immediate and enduring success of Cold Comfort Farm dominated the rest of Gibbons's career. Neville thought that after so singular a success at the start of her career, the rest was something of an anticlimax, despite her considerable industry and undoubted skills. The 1985 edition of The Oxford Companion to English Literature defines Gibbons solely in terms of Cold Comfort Farm; it mentions none of her other works—while providing her bêtes noires Morgan and Mary Webb with full entries. To Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm became "That Book" or "You-Know-What", its title never mentioned. Despite her growing irritation and expressed distaste for it, the book continued to be lauded by successive generations of critics, Boston described it as "one of those rare books of comic genius that imprints itself on the brain and can never afterwards be eradicated". A more negative view of the book has been expressed by the literary critic Mary Beard, who considers it "a rather controlling victory of modern order, cleanliness, contraception and medicine over these messy, different, rural types ... I found myself screaming for the rights of these poor country folk NOT to fall into the hands of people like Flora". Although Boston suggested that Gibbons's rating in the academic English Literature world ought to be high, her literary status is indeterminate. She did not promote herself, and was indifferent to the attractions of public life: "I'm not shy", she told Oliver, "I'm just unsociable". Truss records that Gibbons had "overtly rejected the literary world ... she didn't move in literary circles, or even visit literary squares, or love in literary triangles". Truss posits further reasons why Gibbons did not become a literary canon. Because she was a woman who wrote amusingly, she was classified as "middlebrow"; furthermore, she was published by Longmans, a non-literary publisher. Her lampooning of the literary establishment in the spoof dedication of Cold Comfort Farm to one "Anthony Pookworthy" did not amuse that establishment, who were further offended by the book's mockery of the writing of such canonical figures as Lawrence and Hardy—hence Virginia Woolf's reaction to the Prix Étranger award. Her belief in what she called "the gentle powers (Pity, Affection, Time, Beauty, Laughter)" also flew in the face of a disillusioned modernism. The literary critic John Carey suggests that the abandonment by intellectuals of "the clerks and the suburbs" as subjects of literary interest provided an opening for writers prepared to exploit this underexplored area. He considers John Betjeman and Stevie Smith as two writers who successfully achieved this. Hammill believes that Gibbons should be named alongside these two, since in her writings she rejects the stereotypical view of suburbia as unexciting, conventional and limited. Instead, says Hammill, "Gibbons's fictional suburbs are socially and architecturally diverse, and her characters—who range from experimental writers to shopkeepers—read and interpret suburban styles and values in varying and incompatible ways". Hammill adds that Gibbons's strong identification with her own suburban home, in which she lived for 53 years, may have influenced her preference to stay outside the mainstream of metropolitan literary life, and from time to time mock it. After many years in which almost all of Gibbons's output has been out of print, in 2011 the publishers Vintage Classics reissued paperback versions of Westwood, Starlight, and Conference at Cold Comfort Farm. They also announced plans to publish 11 of the other novels, on a print-on-demand basis. ### List of works Publisher information relates to first publication only. Many of the books have been reissued, usually by different publishers. #### Novels #### Short stories #### Children's books #### Poetry
89,260	Boeing 777	1,173,765,033	Wide-body, long-range, twin-engine jet airliner family	[ "1990s United States airliners", "Aircraft first flown in 1994", "Boeing 777" ]	The Boeing 777, commonly referred to as the Triple Seven, is an American long range wide-body airliner developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The 777 is the world's largest twinjet and the most built wide body airliner. The jetliner was designed to bridge the gap between Boeing's other wide body airplanes, the twin-engined 767 and quad-engined 747, and to replace aging DC-10s and L-1011 trijets. Developed in consultation with eight major airlines, the 777 program was launched in October 1990, with an order from United Airlines. The prototype was rolled out in April 1994, and first flew in June. The 777 entered service with the launch operator United Airlines in June 1995. Longer range variants were launched in 2000, and were first delivered in 2004. The Triple Seven can accommodate a ten–abreast seating layout and has a typical 3-class capacity of 301 to 368 passengers, with a range of 5,240 to 8,555 nautical miles [nmi] (9,700 to 15,840 km; 6,030 to 9,840 mi). The jetliner is recognizable for its large-diameter turbofan engines, six wheels on each main landing gear, fully circular fuselage cross-section, and a blade-shaped tail cone. The 777 became the first Boeing airliner to use fly-by-wire controls and to apply a composite structure in the talplanes. The original 777 with a maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) of 545,000–660,000 lb (247–299 t) was produced in two fuselage lengths: the initial 777-200 was followed by the extended-range -200ER in 1997; and the 33.25 ft (10.13 m) longer 777-300 in 1998. These 777 Classics were powered by 77,200–98,000 lbf (343–436 kN) General Electric GE90, Pratt & Whitney PW4000, or Rolls-Royce Trent 800 engines. The extended-range 777-300ER, with a MTOW of 700,000–775,000 lb (318–352 t), entered service in 2004, the longer-range 777-200LR in 2006, and the 777F freighter in 2009. These longer haul variants use 110,000–115,300 lbf (489–513 kN) GE90 engines and have extended raked wingtips. In November 2013, Boeing announced the 777X development with the -8 and -9 variants, both featuring composite wings with folding wingtips and General Electric GE9X engines. As of 2018, Emirates was the largest operator with a fleet of 163 aircraft. More 777s have been ordered and delivered than any other wide-body airliner; as of July 2023, more than 60 customers had placed orders for 2,150 aircraft of all variants, with 1,713 delivered. The most common and successful variant is the 777-300ER with 837 aircraft ordered and 832 delivered. The 777 initially competed with the Airbus A340 as well as McDonnell Douglas MD-11, since 2015 it has mainly competed with the Airbus A350 and later also with the A330-900. As of August 2023, the Triple Seven has been involved in 35 aviation accidents and incidents, including 8 hull losses (three ground casualties) with 541 fatalities (one ground casualty). ## Development ### Background In the early 1970s, the Boeing 747, McDonnell Douglas DC-10, and the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar became the first generation of wide-body passenger airliners to enter service. In 1978, Boeing unveiled three new models: the twin-engine or twinjet Boeing 757 to replace its 727, the twinjet 767 to challenge the Airbus A300, and a trijet 777 concept to compete with the DC-10 and L-1011. The mid-size 757 and 767 launched to market success, due in part to 1980s' extended-range twin-engine operational performance standards (ETOPS) regulations governing transoceanic twinjet operations. These regulations allowed twin-engine airliners to make ocean crossings at up to three hours' distance from emergency diversionary airports. Under ETOPS rules, airlines began operating the 767 on long-distance overseas routes that did not require the capacity of larger airliners. The trijet 777 was later dropped, following marketing studies that favored the 757 and 767 variants. Boeing was left with a size and range gap in its product line between the 767-300ER and the 747-400. By the late 1980s, DC-10 and L-1011 models were approaching retirement age, prompting manufacturers to develop replacement designs. McDonnell Douglas was working on the MD-11, a stretched successor of the DC-10, while Airbus was developing its A330 and A340 series. In 1986, Boeing unveiled proposals for an enlarged 767, tentatively named 767-X, to target the replacement market for first-generation wide-bodies such as the DC-10, and to complement existing 767 and 747 models in the company lineup. The initial proposal featured a longer fuselage and larger wings than the existing 767, along with winglets. Later plans expanded the fuselage cross-section but retained the existing 767 flight deck, nose, and other elements. However, airline customers were uninterested in the 767-X proposals, and instead wanted an even wider fuselage cross-section, fully flexible interior configurations, short- to intercontinental-range capability, and an operating cost lower than that of any 767 stretch. Airline planners' requirements for larger aircraft had become increasingly specific, adding to the heightened competition among aircraft manufacturers. By 1988, Boeing realized that the only answer was a clean-sheet design, which became the twinjet 777. The company opted for the twin-engine configuration given past design successes, projected engine developments, and reduced-cost benefits. On December 8, 1989, Boeing began issuing offers to airlines for the 777. ### Design effort Alan Mulally served as the Boeing 777 program's director of engineering, and then was promoted in September 1992 to lead it as vice-president and general manager. The design phase for the all-new twinjet was different from Boeing's previous jetliners, in which eight major airlines (All Nippon Airways, American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Delta Air Lines, Japan Airlines, Qantas, and United Airlines) played a role in the development. This was a departure from industry practice, where manufacturers typically designed aircraft with minimal customer input. The eight airlines that contributed to the design process became known within Boeing as the "Working Together" group. At the group's first meeting in January 1990, a 23-page questionnaire was distributed to the airlines, asking what each wanted in the design. By March 1990, the group had decided upon a baseline configuration: a cabin cross-section close to the 747's, capacity up to 325 passengers, flexible interiors, a glass cockpit, fly-by-wire controls, and 10 percent better seat-mile costs than the A330 and MD-11. The development phase of the 777 coincided with United Airlines's replacement program for its aging DC-10s. On October 14, 1990, United became the launch customer with an order for 34 Pratt & Whitney-powered 777s valued at US\$11 billion and options for 34 more. The airline required that the new aircraft be capable of flying three different routes: Chicago to Hawaii, Chicago to Europe, and non-stop from Denver, a hot and high airport, to Hawaii. ETOPS certification was also a priority for United, given the overwater portion of United's Hawaii routes. In late 1991, Boeing selected its Everett factory in Washington, home of 747 production, as the 777's final assembly line (FAL). In January 1993, a team of United developers joined other airline teams and Boeing designers at the Everett factory. The 240 design teams, with up to 40 members each, addressed almost 1,500 design issues with individual aircraft components. The fuselage diameter was increased to suit Cathay Pacific, the baseline model grew longer for All Nippon Airways, and British Airways' input led to added built-in testing and interior flexibility, along with higher operating weight options. The 777 was the first commercial aircraft to be developed using an entirely computer-aided design (CAD) process. Each design drawing was created on a three-dimensional CAD software system known as CATIA, sourced from Dassault Systemes and IBM. This allowed engineers to virtually assemble the 777 aircraft on a computer system to check for interference and verify that the thousands of parts fit properly before the actual assembly process—thus reducing costly rework. Boeing developed its high-performance visualization system, FlyThru, later called IVT (Integrated Visualization Tool) to support large-scale collaborative engineering design reviews, production illustrations, and other uses of the CAD data outside of engineering. Boeing was initially not convinced of CATIA's abilities and built a physical mock-up of the nose section to verify its results. The test was so successful that additional mock-ups were canceled. The 777 was completed with such precision that it was the first Boeing jetliner that didn't require the details to be worked out on an expensive physical aircraft mock-up, helping the program cost just US\$5 billion. ### Testing and certification Major assembly of the first aircraft began on January 4, 1993. On April 9, 1994, the first 777, number WA001, was rolled out in a series of 15 ceremonies held during the day to accommodate the 100,000 invited guests. The first flight took place on June 12, 1994, under the command of chief test pilot John E. Cashman. This marked the start of an 11-month flight test program that was more extensive than testing for any previous Boeing model. Nine aircraft fitted with General Electric, Pratt & Whitney, and Rolls-Royce engines were flight tested at locations ranging from the desert airfield at Edwards Air Force Base in California to frigid conditions in Alaska, mainly Fairbanks International Airport. To satisfy ETOPS requirements, eight 180-minute single-engine test flights were performed. The first aircraft built was used by Boeing's nondestructive testing campaign from 1994 to 1996, and provided data for the -200ER and -300 programs. At the successful conclusion of flight testing, the 777 was awarded simultaneous airworthiness certification by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and European Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) on April 19, 1995. ### Entry into service Boeing delivered the first 777 to United Airlines on May 15, 1995. The FAA awarded 180-minute ETOPS clearance ("ETOPS-180") for the Pratt & Whitney PW4084-engined aircraft on May 30, 1995, making it the first airliner to carry an ETOPS-180 rating at its entry into service. The first commercial flight took place on June 7, 1995, from London Heathrow Airport to Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C. Longer ETOPS clearance of 207 minutes was approved in October 1996. On November 12, 1995, Boeing delivered the first model with General Electric GE90-77B engines to British Airways, which entered service five days later. Initial service was affected by gearbox bearing wear issues, which caused British Airways to temporarily withdraw its 777 fleet from transatlantic service in 1997, returning to full service later that year. General Electric subsequently announced engine upgrades. The first Rolls-Royce Trent 877-powered aircraft was delivered to Thai Airways International on March 31, 1996, completing the introduction of the three powerplants initially developed for the airliner. Each engine-aircraft combination had secured ETOPS-180 certification from the point of entry into service. By June 1997, orders for the 777 numbered 323 from 25 airlines, including satisfied launch customers that had ordered additional aircraft. Operations performance data established the consistent capabilities of the twinjet over long-haul transoceanic routes, leading to additional sales. By 1998, the 777 fleet had approached 900,000 flight hours. Boeing states that the 777 fleet has a dispatch reliability (rate of departure from the gate with no more than 15 minutes delay due to technical issues) above 99 percent. ### Improvement and stretching: -200ER/-300 After the baseline model, the 777-200, Boeing developed an increased gross weight variant with greater range and payload capability. Initially named 777-200IGW, the 777-200ER first flew on October 7, 1996, received FAA and JAA certification on January 17, 1997, and entered service with British Airways on February 9, 1997. Offering greater long-haul performance, the variant became the most widely ordered version of the aircraft through the early 2000s. On April 2, 1997, a Malaysia Airlines -200ER named "Super Ranger" broke the great circle "distance without landing" record for an airliner by flying eastward from Boeing Field, Seattle to Kuala Lumpur, a distance of 10,823 nautical miles (20,044 km; 12,455 mi), in 21 hours and 23 minutes. Following the introduction of the -200ER, Boeing turned its attention to a stretched version of the baseline model. On October 16, 1997, the 777-300 made its first flight. At 242.4 ft (73.9 m) in length, the -300 became the longest airliner yet produced (until the A340-600), and had a 20 percent greater overall capacity than the standard length model. The -300 was awarded type certification simultaneously from the FAA and JAA on May 4, 1998, and entered service with launch customer Cathay Pacific on May 27, 1998. The first generation of Boeing 777 models, the -200, -200ER, and -300 have since been known collectively as Boeing 777 Classics. Tthese three early 777 variants had three engine options ranging from 77,200 to 98,000 lbf (343 to 436 kN): General Electric GE90, Pratt & Whitney PW4000, or Rolls-Royce Trent 800. ### Production The production process included substantial international content, an unprecedented level of global subcontracting for a Boeing jetliner, later exceeded by the 787. International contributors included Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Heavy Industries (fuselage panels), Fuji Heavy Industries, Ltd. (center wing section), Hawker de Havilland (elevators), and Aerospace Technologies of Australia (rudder). An agreement between Boeing and the Japan Aircraft Development Corporation, representing Japanese aerospace contractors, made the latter risk-sharing partners for 20 percent of the entire development program. To accommodate production of its new airliner, Boeing doubled the size of the Everett factory at the cost of nearly US\$1.5 billion to provide space for two new assembly lines. New production methods were developed, including a turn machine that could rotate fuselage subassemblies 180 degrees, giving workers access to upper body sections. By the start of production 1993, the program had amassed 118 firm orders, with options for 95 more from 10 airlines. Total investment in the program was estimated at over US\$4 billion from Boeing, with an additional US\$2 billion from suppliers. Initially second to the 747 as Boeing's most profitable jetliner, the 777 became the company's most lucrative model in the 2000s. Program sales accounted for an estimated US\$400 million of Boeing's pretax earnings in 2000, US\$50 million more than the 747. By 2004, the airliner accounted for the bulk of wide-body revenues for Boeing Commercial Airplanes. In 2007, orders for second-generation 777 models approached 350 aircraft, and in November of that year, Boeing announced that all production slots were sold out to 2012. The program backlog of 356 orders was valued at US\$95 billion at list prices in 2008. In 2010, Boeing announced plans to increase production from 5 aircraft per month to 7 aircraft per month by mid-2011, and 8.3 per month by early 2013. In November 2011, assembly of the 1,000th 777, a -300ER, began when it took 49 days to fully assemble each of these variants. The aircraft in question was built for Emirates airline, and rolled out of the production facility in March 2012. In August 2017, Boeing was scheduled to drop 777 production to five per month. In March 2018, the Triple Seven overtook the 747 as the world's most produced wide body aircraft. Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on aviation, demand for new jets fell in 2020 and Boeing further reduced monthly 777 production from five to two aircraft. ### Second generation: -300ER/-200LR/F From the program's start, Boeing had considered building ultra-long-range variants. Early plans centered on a 777-100X proposal, a shortened variant of the -200 with reduced weight and increased range, similar to the 747SP. However, the -100X would have carried fewer passengers than the -200 while having similar operating costs, leading to a higher cost per seat. By the late 1990s, design plans shifted to longer-range versions of existing models. In March 1997, the Boeing board approved the 777-200X/300X specifications: 298 passengers in three classes over 8,600 nmi (15,900 km; 9,900 mi) for the 200X and 6,600 nmi (12,200 km; 7,600 mi) with 355 passengers in a tri-class layout for the 300X, with design freeze planned in May 1998, 200X certification in August 2000, and introduction in September and in January 2001 for the 300X. The 1.37 m (4 ft 6 in) wider wing was to be strengthened and the fuel capacity enlarged, and it was to be powered by simple derivatives with similar fans. GE was proposing a 454 kN (102,000 lbf) GE90-102B, while P&W offered its 436 kN (98,000 lbf) PW4098 and R-R was proposing a 437 kN (98,000 lbf) Trent 8100. Rolls-Royce was also studying a Trent 8102 over 445 kN (100,000 lbf). Boeing was studying a semi-levered, articulated main gear to help the take-off rotation of the proposed -300X, with its higher 324,600 kg (715,600 lb) MTOW. By January 1999, its MTOW grew to 340,500 kg (750,000 lb), and thrust requirements increased to 110,000–114,000 lbf (490–510 kN). A more powerful engine in the thrust class of 100,000 lbf (440 kN) was required, leading to talks between Boeing and engine manufacturers. General Electric offered to develop the GE90-115B engine, while Rolls-Royce proposed developing the Trent 8104 engine. In 1999, Boeing announced an agreement with General Electric, beating out rival proposals. Under the deal with General Electric, Boeing agreed to only offer GE90 engines on new 777 versions. On February 29, 2000, Boeing launched its next-generation twinjet program, initially called 777-X, and began issuing offers to airlines. Development was slowed by an industry downturn during the early 2000s. The first model to emerge from the program, the 777-300ER, was launched with an order for ten aircraft from Air France, along with additional commitments. On February 24, 2003, the -300ER made its first flight, and the FAA and EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency, successor to the JAA) certified the model on March 16, 2004. The first delivery to Air France took place on April 29, 2004. The -300ER, which combined the -300's added capacity with the -200ER's range, became the top-selling 777 variant in the late 2000s, benefitting as airlines replaced comparable four-engine models with twinjets for their lower operating costs. The second long-range model, the 777-200LR, rolled out on February 15, 2005, and completed its first flight on March 8, 2005. The -200LR was certified by both the FAA and EASA on February 2, 2006, and the first delivery to Pakistan International Airlines occurred on February 26, 2006. On November 10, 2005, the first -200LR set a record for the longest non-stop flight of a passenger airliner by flying 11,664 nautical miles (21,602 km; 13,423 mi) eastward from Hong Kong to London. Lasting 22 hours and 42 minutes, the flight surpassed the -200LR's standard design range and was logged in the Guinness World Records. The production freighter model, the 777F, rolled out on May 23, 2008. The maiden flight of the 777F, which used the structural design and engine specifications of the -200LR along with fuel tanks derived from the -300ER, occurred on July 14, 2008. FAA and EASA type certification for the freighter was received on February 6, 2009, and the first delivery to launch customer Air France took place on February 19, 2009. By the late 2000s, the 777 was facing increased potential competition from Airbus' planned A350 XWB and internally from proposed 787 series, both airliners that offer fuel efficiency improvements. As a consequence, the 777-300ER received engine and aerodynamics improvement packages for reduced drag and weight. In 2010, the variant further received a 5,000 lb (2,300 kg) maximum zero-fuel weight increase, equivalent to a higher payload of 20–25 passengers; its GE90-115B1 engines received a 1–2.5 percent thrust enhancement for increased takeoff weights at higher-altitude airports. Through these improvements, the 777 remains the largest twin-engine jetliner in the world, In 2011, the 787 Dreamliner entered service, the completed first stage a.k.a. the Yellowstone-2 (Y2) of a replacement aircraft initiative called the Boeing Yellowstone Project, which would replace large variants of the 767 (300/300ER/400) but also small variants of the 777 (-200/200ER/200LR). While the larger variants of the 777 (-300/300ER) as well as the 747 could eventually be replaced by a new generation aircraft, the Yellowstone-3 (Y3), which would draw upon technologies from the 787 Dreamliner (Y2). More changes were targeted for late 2012, including possible extension of the wingspan, along with other major changes, including a composite wing, a new generation engine, and different fuselage lengths. Emirates was reportedly working closely with Boeing on the project, in conjunction with being a potential launch customer for the new 777 generation. Among customers for the aircraft during this period, China Airlines ordered ten 777-300ER aircraft to replace 747-400s on long-haul transpacific routes (with the first of those aircraft entering service in 2015), noting that the 777-300ER's per seat cost is about 20% lower than the 747's costs (varying due to fuel prices). ### Improvement packages In tandem with the development of the third generation Boeing 777X, Boeing worked with General Electric to offer a 2% improvement in fuel efficiency to in-production 777-300ER aircraft. General Electric improved the fan module and the high-pressure compressor stage-1 blisk in the GE-90-115 turbofan, as well as reduced clearances between the tips of the turbine blades and the shroud during cruise. These improvements, of which the latter is the most important and was derived from work to develop the 787, were stated by GE to lower fuel burn by 0.5%. Boeing's wing modifications were intended to deliver the remainder. Boeing stated that every 1% improvement in the 777-300ER's fuel burn translates into being able to fly the aircraft another 75 nmi (139 km; 86 mi) on the same load of fuel, or add ten passengers or 2,400 lb (1,100 kg) of cargo to a "load limited" flight. In March 2015, additional details of the improvement package were unveiled. The 777-300ER was to shed 1,800 lb (820 kg) by replacing the fuselage crown with tie rods and composite integration panels, similar to those used on the 787. The new flight control software was to eliminate the need for the tail skid by keeping the tail off the runway surface regardless of the extent to which pilots command the elevators. Boeing was also redesigning the inboard flap fairings to reduce drag by reducing pressure on the underside of the wing. The outboard raked wingtip was to have a divergent trailing edge, described as a "poor man's airfoil" by Boeing; this was originally developed for the McDonnell Douglas MD-12 project. Another change involved elevator trim bias. These changes were to increase fuel efficiency and allow airlines to add 14 additional seats to the airplane, increasing per seat fuel efficiency by 5%. Mindful of the long time required to bring the 777X to the market, Boeing continued to develop improvement packages which improve fuel efficiency, as well as lower prices for the existing product. In January 2015, United Airlines ordered ten 777-300ERs, normally costing around US\$150 million each but paid around US\$130 million, a discount to bridge the production gap to the 777X. In 2019, the -200ER unit cost was US\$306.6 million, the -200LR: US\$346.9 million, the -300ER: US\$375.5 million and the 777F US\$352.3 million. The -200ER is the only Classic variant listed. ### Third generation: 777X In November 2013, with orders and commitments totaling 259 aircraft from Lufthansa, Emirates, Qatar Airways, and Etihad Airways, Boeing formally launched the 777X program, the third generation of the 777 (not to be confused with the 777-X variants, the -200LR and -300ER, which are the second generation of the aircraft), with two models: the 777-8 and 777-9. The 777-9 is a further stretched variant with a capacity of over 400 passengers and a range of over 8,200 nmi (15,200 km; 9,400 mi), whereas the 777-8 is slated to seat approximately 350 passengers and have a range of over 9,300 nmi (17,200 km; 10,700 mi). Both models are to be equipped with new generation GE9X engines and feature new composite wings with folding wingtips. The first member of the 777X family, the 777-9, was projected to enter service in 2020 at the time of the program announcement. By the mid-2010s, the 777 had become prevalent on the longest flights internationally and had become the most widely used airliner for transpacific routes, with variants of the type operating over half of all scheduled flights and with the majority of transpacific carriers. By April 2014, with cumulative sales surpassing those of the 747, the 777 became the best-selling wide-body airliner; at existing production rates, the aircraft was on track to become the most-delivered wide-body airliner by mid-2016. By February 2015, the backlog of undelivered 777s totaled 278 aircraft, representing just under three years of current production at 8.3 aircraft per month, causing Boeing to ponder the 2018–2020 time frame. In January 2016, Boeing confirmed plans to reduce the production rate of the 777 family from 8.3 per month to 7 per month in 2017 to help close the production gap between the 777 and 777X created by a lack of new orders. In 2018, assembling test 777-9 aircraft was expected to lower output to an effective rate of 5.5 per month. The roll-out of the prototype 777X, a 777-9 model, occurred on March 13, 2019. ## Design Boeing introduced a number of advanced technologies with the 777 design, including fully digital fly-by-wire controls, fully software-configurable avionics, Honeywell LCD glass cockpit flight displays, and the first use of a fiber optic avionics network on a commercial airliner. Boeing made use of work done on the cancelled Boeing 7J7 regional jet, which utilized similar versions of the chosen technologies. In 2003, Boeing began offering the option of cockpit electronic flight bag computer displays. In 2013, Boeing announced that the upgraded 777X models would incorporate airframe, systems, and interior technologies from the 787. ### Fly-by-wire In designing the 777 as its first fly-by-wire commercial aircraft, Boeing decided to retain conventional control yokes rather than change to sidestick controllers as used in many fly-by-wire fighter aircraft and in many Airbus airliners. Along with traditional yoke and rudder controls, the cockpit features a simplified layout that retains similarities to previous Boeing models. The fly-by-wire system also incorporates flight envelope protection, a system that guides pilot inputs within a computer-calculated framework of operating parameters, acting to prevent stalls, overspeeds, and excessively stressful maneuvers. This system can be overridden by the pilot if deemed necessary. The fly-by-wire system is supplemented by mechanical backup. ### Airframe and systems The airframe incorporates the use of composite materials, accounting for nine percent of the original structural weight, while the third-generation models, the 777-8 and 777-9, feature more composite parts. Composite components include the cabin floor and rudder, with the 777 being the first Boeing airliner to use composite materials for both the horizontal and vertical stabilizers (empennage). The main fuselage cross-section is fully circular, and tapers rearward into a blade-shaped tail cone with a port-facing auxiliary power unit. The wings on the 777 feature a supercritical airfoil design that is swept back at 31.6 degrees and optimized for cruising at Mach 0.83 (revised after flight tests up to Mach 0.84). The wings are designed with increased thickness and a longer span than previous airliners, resulting in greater payload and range, improved takeoff performance, and a higher cruising altitude. The wings also serve as fuel storage, with longer-range models able to carry up to 47,890 US gallons (181,300 L) of fuel. This capacity allows the 777-200LR to operate ultra-long-distance, trans-polar routes such as Toronto to Hong Kong. In 2013, a new wing made of composite materials was introduced for the upgraded 777X, with a wider span and design features based on the 787's wings. Folding wingtips, 21 feet (6.40 m) long, were offered when the 777 was first launched, to appeal to airlines who might use gates made to accommodate smaller aircraft, but no airline purchased this option. Folding wingtips reemerged as a design feature at the announcement of the upgraded 777X in 2013. Smaller folding wingtips of 11 feet (3.35 m) in length will allow 777X models to use the same airport gates and taxiways as earlier 777s. These smaller folding wingtips are less complex than those proposed for earlier 777s, and internally only affect the wiring needed for wingtip lights. The aircraft features the largest landing gear and the biggest tires ever used in a commercial jetliner. The six-wheel bogies are designed to spread the load of the aircraft over a wide area without requiring an additional centerline gear. This helps reduce weight and simplifies the aircraft's braking and hydraulic systems. Each tire of a 777-300ER six-wheel main landing gear can carry a load of 59,490 lb (26,980 kg), which is heavier than other wide-bodies such as the 747-400. The aircraft has triple redundant hydraulic systems with only one system required for landing. A ram air turbine—a small retractable device which can provide emergency power—is also fitted in the wing root fairing. ### Interior The original 777 interior, also known as the Boeing Signature Interior, features curved panels, larger overhead bins, and indirect lighting. Seating options range from four to six–abreast in first class up to ten–abreast in economy. The 777's windows were the largest of any current commercial airliner until the 787, and measure 15-inch (380 mm) by 10-inch (250 mm) in size (all models outside the 777-8 and -9). The cabin also features "Flexibility Zones", which entails deliberate placement of water, electrical, pneumatic, and other connection points throughout the interior space, allowing airlines to move seats, galleys, and lavatories quickly and more easily when adjusting cabin arrangements. Several aircraft have also been fitted with VIP interiors for non-airline use. Boeing designed a hydraulically damped toilet seat cover hinge that closes slowly. In 2003, Boeing introduced overhead crew rests as an option on the 777. Located above the main cabin and connected via staircases, the forward flight crew rest contains two seats and two bunks, while the aft cabin crew rest features multiple bunks. The Signature Interior has since been adapted for other Boeing wide-body and narrow-body aircraft, including 737NG, 747-400, 757-300, and newer 767 models, including all 767-400ER models. The 747-8 and 767-400ER have also adopted the larger, more rounded windows of the original 777. In 2011, Flight International reported that Boeing is considering replacing the Signature Interior on the 777 with a new interior similar to that on the 787, as part of a move towards a "common cabin experience" across all Boeing platforms. With the launch of the 777X in 2013, Boeing confirmed that the aircraft would be receiving a new interior featuring 787 cabin elements and larger windows. Further details released in 2014 included re-sculpted cabin sidewalls for greater interior room, noise-damping technology, and higher cabin humidity. Air France has a 777-300ER sub-fleet with 472 seats each, more than any other international 777, to achieve a cost per available seat kilometer (CASK) around €.05, similar to Level's 314-seat Airbus A330-200, its benchmark for low-cost, long-haul. Competing on similar French overseas departments destinations, Air Caraïbes has 389 seats on the A350-900 and 429 on the -1000. French Bee's is even more dense with its 411 seats A350-900, due to 10-abreast economy seating, reaching a €.04 CASK according to Air France, and lower again with its 480 seats on the -1000. ### Engines The initial 777-200 model was launched with propulsion options from three manufacturers, General Electric, Pratt & Whitney, and Rolls-Royce, giving the airlines their choice of engines from competing firms. Each manufacturer agreed to develop an engine in the 77,000 lbf (340 kN) and higher thrust class (a measure of jet engine output) for the world's largest twinjet. ## Variants Boeing uses two characteristics – fuselage length and range – to define its 777 models. Passengers and cargo capacity varies by fuselage length: the 777-300 has a stretched fuselage compared to the base 777-200. Three range categories were defined: the A-market would cover domestic and regional operations, the B-market would cover routes from Europe to the US West coast and the C-market the longest transpacific routes. The A-market would be covered by a 4,200 nmi (7,800 km; 4,800 mi) range, 234 t (516,000 lb) MTOW aircraft for 353 to 374 passengers powered by 316 kN (71,000 lbf) engines, followed by a 6,600 nmi (12,200 km; 7,600 mi) B-market range for 286 passengers in three-class, with 365 kN (82,000 lbf) unit thrust and 263 t (580,000 lb) of MTOW, an A340 competitor, basis of an A-market 409 to 434 passengers stretch, and eventually a 7,600 nmi (14,000 km; 8,700 mi) C-market with 400 kN (90,000 lbf) engines. When referring to different variants, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) code collapses the 777 model designator and the -200 or -300 variant designator to "772" or "773". The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) aircraft type designator system adds a preceding manufacturer letter, in this case "B" for Boeing, hence "B772" or "B773". Designations may append a range identifier like "B77W" for the 777-300ER by the ICAO, "77W" for the IATA, though the -200ER is a company marketing designation and not certificated as such. Other notations include "773ER" and "773B" for the -300ER. ### 777-200 The initial 777-200 made its maiden flight on June 12, 1994, and was first delivered to United Airlines on May 15, 1995. With a 545,000 lb (247 t) MTOW and 77,000 lbf (340 kN) engines, it has a range of 5,240 nautical miles (9,700 km; 6,030 mi) with 305 passengers in a three-class configuration. The -200 was primarily aimed at U.S. domestic airlines, although several Asian carriers and British Airways have also operated the type. Nine different -200 customers have taken delivery of 88 aircraft, with 55 in airline service as of 2018. The competing Airbus aircraft was the A330-300. In 2016, United Airlines shifted operations with all 19 of its -200s to exclusively domestic U.S. routes, including flights to and from Hawaii, and added more economy class seats by shifting to a ten-abreast configuration (a pattern that matched American Airlines' reconfiguration of the type). As of 2019, Boeing no longer markets the -200, as indicated by its removal from the manufacturer's price listings for 777 variants. ### 777-200ER The B-market 777-200ER ("ER" for Extended Range), originally known as the 777-200IGW (increased gross weight), has additional fuel capacity and an increased MTOW enabling transoceanic routes. With a 658,000 lb (298 t) MTOW and 93,700 lbf (417 kN) engines, it has a 7,065 nmi (13,084 km; 8,130 mi) range. It was delivered first to British Airways on February 6, 1997. Thirty-three customers received 422 deliveries, with no unfilled orders as of 2019. As of 2018, 338 examples of the -200ER are in airline service. It competed with the A340-300. Boeing proposes the 787-10 to replace it. The value of a new -200ER rose from US\$110 million at service entry to US\$130 million in 2007; a 2007 model 777 was selling for US\$30 million ten years later, while the oldest ones had a value around US\$5–6 million, depending on the remaining engine time. The engine can be delivered de-rated with reduced engine thrust for shorter routes to lower the MTOW, reduce purchase price and landing fees (as 777-200 specifications) but can be re-rated to full standard. Singapore Airlines ordered over half of its -200ERs de-rated. ### 777-200LR The 777-200LR ("LR" for Long Range), the C-market model, entered service in 2006 as one of the longest-range commercial airliners. Boeing nicknamed it Worldliner as it can connect almost any two airports in the world, although it is still subject to ETOPS restrictions. It holds the world record for the longest nonstop flight by a commercial airliner. It has a maximum design range of 8,555 nautical miles (15,844 km; 9,845 mi) as of 2017. The -200LR was intended for ultra long-haul routes such as Los Angeles to Singapore. Developed alongside the -300ER, the -200LR features an increased MTOW and three optional auxiliary fuel tanks in the rear cargo hold. Other new features include extended raked wingtips, redesigned main landing gear, and additional structural strengthening. As with the -300ER and 777F, the -200LR is equipped with wingtip extensions of 12.8 ft (3.90 m). The -200LR is powered by GE90-110B1 or GE90-115B turbofans. The first -200LR was delivered to Pakistan International Airlines on February 26, 2006. Twelve different -200LR customers took delivery of 61 aircraft. Airlines operated 50 of the -200LR variant as of 2018. Emirates is the largest operator of the LR variant with 10 aircraft. The closest competing aircraft from Airbus are the discontinued A340-500HGW and the current A350-900ULR. ### 777-300 Launched at the Paris Air Show on June 26, 1995, its major assembly started in March 1997 and its body was joined on July 21, it was rolled-out on September 8 and made its first flight on October 16. The 777 was designed to be stretched by 20%: 60 extra seats to almost 370 in tri-class, 75 more to 451 in two classes, or up to 550 in all-economy like the 747SR. The 33 ft (10.1 m) stretch is done with 17 ft (5.3 m) in ten frames forward and 16 ft (4.8 m) in nine frames aft for a 242 ft (73.8 m) length, 11 ft (3.4 m) longer than the 747-400. It uses the -200ER 45,200 US gal (171,200 L) fuel capacity and 84,000–98,000 lbf (374–436 kN) engines with a 580,000 to 661,000 lb (263.3 to 299.6 t) MTOW. It has ground maneuvering cameras for taxiing and a tailskid to rotate, while the proposed 716,000 lb (324.6 t) MTOW -300X would have needed a semi-levered main gear. Its overwing fuselage section 44 was strengthened, with its skin thickness going from the -200's 6.3 to 11.4 mm (0.25 to 0.45 in), and received a new evacuation door pair. Its operating empty weight with Rolls-Royce engines in typical tri-class layout is 343,300 lb (155.72 t) compared to 307,300 lb (139.38 t) for a similarly configured -200. Boeing wanted to deliver 170 -300s by 2006 and to produce 28 per year by 2002, to replace early Boeing 747s, burning one-third less fuel with 40% lower maintenance costs. With a 660,000 lb (299 t) MTOW and 90,000 lbf (400 kN) engines, it has a range of 6,005 nautical miles (11,121 km; 6,910 mi) with 368 passengers in three-class. Eight different customers have taken delivery of 60 aircraft of the variant, of which 18 were powered by the PW4000 and 42 by the RR Trent 800 (none were ordered with the GE90, which was never certified on this variant), with 48 in airline service as of 2018. The last -300 was delivered in 2006 while the longer-range -300ER started deliveries in 2004. ### 777-300ER The 777-300ER ("ER" for Extended Range) is the B-market version of the -300. Its higher MTOW and increased fuel capacity permits a maximum range of 7,370 nautical miles (13,650 km; 8,480 mi) with 396 passengers in a two-class seating arrangement. The 777-300ER features raked and extended wingtips, a strengthened fuselage and wings and a modified main landing gear. Its wings have an aspect ratio of 9.0. It is powered by the GE90-115B turbofan, the world's most powerful jet engine with a maximum thrust of 115,300 lbf (513 kN). Following flight testing, aerodynamic refinements have reduced fuel burn by an additional 1.4%. At Mach 0.839 (495 kn; 916 km/h), FL300, -59 °C and at a 513,400 lb (232.9 t) weight, it burns 17,300 lb (7.8 t) of fuel per hour. Its operating empty weight is 371,600 lb (168.6 t). The projected operational empty weight is 168,560 kg (371,610 lb) in airline configuration, at a weight of 216,370 kg (477,010 lb) and FL350, total fuel flow is 6,790 kg/h (14,960 lb/h) at M0.84/472 kn (874 km/h), rising to 8,890 kg (19,600 lb)/h at M0.87/506 kn (937 km/h). Since its launch, the -300ER has been a primary driver of the twinjet's sales past the rival A330/340 series. Its direct competitors have included the Airbus A340-600 and the A350-1000. Using two engines produces a typical operating cost advantage of around 8–9% for the -300ER over the A340-600. Several airlines have acquired the -300ER as a 747-400 replacement amid rising fuel prices given its 20% fuel burn advantage. The -300ER has an operating cost of US\$44 per seat hour, compared to an Airbus A380's roughly US\$50 per seat hour (hourly cost is about US\$26,000), and US\$90 per seat hour for a Boeing 747-400 as of 2015. At its peak, a new 777-300ER was valued US\$150 million, falling to US\$17 million in 2019. The first 777-300ER was delivered to Air France on April 29, 2004. The -300ER is the best-selling 777 variant, having surpassed the -200ER in orders in 2010 and deliveries in 2013. As of 2018, 784 units of the -300ER variant were in service, and as of 2020, the best-seller had a total of 837 orders and 832 deliveries. ### 777 Freighter The 777 Freighter (777F) is an all-cargo version of the twinjet, and shares features with the -200LR; these include its airframe, engines, and fuel capacity. With a maximum payload of 228,700 lb (103,700 kg) (similar to the 243,000 lb (110,000 kg) of the Boeing 747-200F), it has a maximum range of 9,750 nmi (18,057 km; 11,220 mi)) or 4,970 nmi (9,200 km; 5,720 mi)) at its max structural payload. The 777F also features a new supernumerary area, which includes four business-class seats forward of the rigid cargo barrier, full main deck access, bunks, and a galley. As the aircraft promises improved operating economics compared to older freighters, airlines have viewed the 777F as a replacement for freighters such as the Boeing 747-200F, McDonnell Douglas DC-10, and McDonnell Douglas MD-11F. The first 777F was delivered to Air France on February 19, 2009. As of April 2021, 247 freighters have been ordered by 25 different customers with 45 unfilled orders. Operators had 202 of the 777F in service as of 2018. In the 2000s, Boeing began studying the conversion of 777-200ER and -200 passenger airliners into freighters, under the name 777 BCF (Boeing Converted Freighter). The company has been in discussion with several airline customers, including FedEx Express, UPS Airlines, and GE Capital Aviation Services, to provide launch orders for a 777 BCF program. ### 777-300ER Special Freighter (SF) In July 2018, Boeing was studying a 777-300ER freighter conversion, targeted for the volumetric market instead of the density market served by the 777F. After having considered a -200ER P2F program, Boeing was hoping to conclude its study by the Fall as the 777X replacing aging -300ERs from 2020 will generate feedstock. New-build 777-300ER may maintain the delivery rate at five per month, to bridge the production gap until the 777X is delivered. Within the 811 777-300ERs delivered and 33 to be delivered by October 2019, GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS) anticipates up to 150-175 orders through 2030, the four to five months conversion costing around \$35m. In October 2019, Boeing and Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) launched the 777-300ERSF passenger to freighter conversion program with GECAS ordering 15 aircraft and 15 options, the first aftermarket 777 freighter conversion program. In June 2020, IAI received the first 777-300ER to be converted, from GECAS. In October 2020, GECAS announced the launch operator from 2023: Michigan-based Kalitta Air, already operating 24 747-400Fs, nine 767-300ERFs and three 777-200LRFs. IAI should receive the first aircraft in December 2020 while certification and service entry was scheduled for late 2022. The converted aircraft has a maximum payload of 224,000 lb (101.6 t), a range of 4,500 nmi (8,300 km; 5,200 mi) and shares the door aperture and aft position of the 777F. It has a cargo volume capacity of 28,900 cu ft (819 m<sup>3</sup>), 5,800 cb ft (164 m3) greater than the 777F (or 25% more) and can hold 47 standard 96 x 125 in pallet (P6P) positions, 10 more positions than a 777-200LRF or eight more than a 747-400F. With windows plugged, passenger doors deactivated, fuselage and floor reinforced, and a main-deck cargo door installed, the 777-300ERSF has 15% more volume than a 747-400BCF. By March 2023, IAI had completed the 777-300ER first flight, converted for AerCap, as it had a backlog over 60 orders. ### 777X The 777X is to feature new GE9X engines and new composite wings with folding wingtips. It was launched in November 2013 with two variants: the 777-8 and the 777-9. The 777-8 provides seating for 384 passengers and has a range of 8,730 nmi (16,168 km; 10,046 mi), while the 777-9 has seating for 426 passengers and a range of over 7,285 nmi (13,492 km; 8,383 mi). The 777-9 first flew on January 25, 2020, with deliveries initially forecast for 2022 or 2023 and later delayed to 2025. A longer 777-10X, 777X Freighter, and 777X BBJ variants have also been proposed. ### Government and corporate Versions of the 777 have been acquired by government and private customers. The main purpose has been for VIP transport, including as an air transport for heads of state, although the aircraft has also been proposed for other military applications. - 777 Business Jet (777 VIP) – the Boeing Business Jet version of the 777 that is sold to corporate customers. Boeing has received orders for 777 VIP aircraft based on the 777-200LR and 777-300ER passenger models. The aircraft are fitted with private jet cabins by third party contractors, and completion may take 3 years. - KC-777 – this was a proposed tanker version of the 777. In September 2006, Boeing announced that it would produce the KC-777 if the United States Air Force (USAF) required a larger tanker than the KC-767, able to transport more cargo or personnel. In April 2007, Boeing offered its 767-based KC-767 Advanced Tanker instead of the KC-777 to replace the smaller Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker under the USAF's KC-X program. Boeing officials have described the KC-777 as suitable for the related KC-Z program to replace the wide-body McDonnell Douglas KC-10 Extender. - In 2014, the Japanese government chose to procure two 777-300ERs to serve as the official air transport for the Emperor of Japan and Prime Minister of Japan. The aircraft, operated by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force under the callsign Japanese Air Force One, entered service in 2019 and replaced two 747-400s - the 777-300ER was specifically selected by the Ministry of Defense owing to its similar capabilities to the preceding 747 pair. Besides VIP transport, the 777s are also intended for use in emergency relief missions. - 777s are serving or have served as official government transports for nations including Gabon (VIP-configured 777-200ER), Turkmenistan (VIP-configured 777-200LR) and the United Arab Emirates (VIP-configured 777-200ER and 777-300ER operated by Abu Dhabi Amiri Flight). Prior to returning to power as Prime Minister of Lebanon, Rafic Hariri acquired a 777-200ER as an official transport. The Indian government purchased two Air India 777-300ERs and converted them for VVIP transport operated by the Indian Air Force under the callsign Air India One; they entered service in 2021 replacing the Air India-owned 747s. - In 2014, the USAF examined the possibility of adopting modified 777-300ERs or 777-9Xs to replace the Boeing 747-200 aircraft used as Air Force One. Although the USAF had preferred a four-engine aircraft, this was mainly due to precedent (existing aircraft were purchased when the 767 was just beginning to prove itself with ETOPS; decades later, the 777 and other twin jets established a comparable level of performance to quad-jet aircraft). Ultimately, the air force decided against the 777, and selected the Boeing 747-8 to become the next presidential aircraft. ### Experimental Boeing has used 777 aircraft in two research and development programs. The first program, the Quiet Technology Demonstrator (QTD) was run in collaboration with Rolls-Royce and General Electric to develop and validate engine intake and exhaust modifications, including the chevrons subsequently used in the 737 MAX, 747-8 and 787 series. The tests were flown in 2001 and 2005. A further program, the ecoDemonstrator series, is intended to test and develop technologies and techniques to reduce aviation's environmental impact. The program started in 2011, with the first ecoDemonstrator aircraft flying in 2012. Various airframes have been used since to test a wide variety of technologies in collaboration with a range of industrial partners. 777s have been used on three occasions as of 2022. The first of these, a 777F in 2018, performed the world's first commercial airliner flights using 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). In 2022, the testbed is a 777-200ER which is to operate in the role until 2024. ## Operators Boeing customers that have received the most 777s are Emirates, Singapore Airlines, United Airlines, ILFC, and American Airlines. Emirates is the largest airline operator as of 2018, and is the only customer to have operated all 777 variants produced, including the -200, -200ER, -200LR, -300, -300ER, and 777F. The 1,000th 777 off the production line, a -300ER set to be Emirates' 102nd 777, was unveiled at a factory ceremony in March 2012. A total of 1,416 aircraft (all variants) were in airline service as of 2018, with Emirates (163), United Airlines (91), Air France (70), Cathay Pacific (69), American Airlines (67), Qatar Airways (67), British Airways (58), Korean Air (53), All Nippon Airways (50), Singapore Airlines (46), and other operators with fewer aircraft of the type. In 2017, 777 Classics are reaching the end of their mainline service: with a -200 age ranging from three to 22 years, 43 Classic 777s or 7.5% of the fleet have been retired. Values of 777-200ERs have declined by 45% since January 2014, faster than Airbus A330s and Boeing 767s with 30%, due to the lack of a major secondary market but only a few budget, air charters and ACMI operators. In 2015, Richard H. Anderson, then Delta Air Lines' chairman and chief executive, said he had been offered 777-200s for less than US\$10 million. To keep them cost-efficient, operators densify their 777s for about US\$10 million each, like Scoot with 402 seats in its dual-class -200s, or Cathay Pacific which switched the 3–3–3 economy layout of 777-300s to 3–4–3 to seat 396 on regional services. ### Orders and deliveries The 777 surpassed 2,000 orders by the end of 2018. ## Aircraft on display - The first prototype Boeing 777-200, B-HNL (ex. N7771), was retired in mid-2018 amid press reports that it was to be displayed at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, although the museum subsequently denied the reports. On September 18, 2018, Cathay Pacific and Boeing announced that B-HNL would be donated to the Pima Air & Space Museum near Tucson, Arizona, where it would be placed on permanent display. This aircraft, which had previously been in regular use by Cathay Pacific between 2000 and 2018, was manufactured in 1994 and was delivered to the airline after spending six years with Boeing. - The forward fuselage section and cockpit of a former Korean Air Boeing 777-200ER, HL7531, has been installed at the Dongwon Institute of Science and Technology as an educational facility for students that are training in aerospace fields. The flight deck and portions of the first class and economy class cabins have been retained, whereas the forward cargo hold has been converted into a meeting area. The installation was completed in October 2022. ## Accidents and incidents As of August 2023, the 777 had been involved in 35 aviation accidents and incidents, including a total of eight hull losses (five in-flight and three on-ground incidents), resulting in 541(including one fatality due to ground casualties) fatalities along with three hijackings. The first fatality involving the twinjet occurred in a fire while an aircraft was being refueled at Denver International Airport in the United States on September 5, 2001, during which a ground worker sustained fatal burns. The aircraft, operated by British Airways, sustained fire damage to the lower wing panels and engine housing; it was later repaired and returned to service. The first hull loss occurred on January 17, 2008, when a 777-200ER with Rolls-Royce Trent 895 engines, flying from Beijing to London as British Airways Flight 38, crash-landed approximately 1,000 feet (300 m) short of Heathrow Airport's runway 27L and slid onto the runway's threshold. There were 47 injuries and no fatalities. The impact severely damaged the landing gear, wing roots and engines. The accident was attributed to ice crystals suspended in the aircraft's fuel clogging the fuel-oil heat exchanger (FOHE). Two other minor momentary losses of thrust with Trent 895 engines occurred later in 2008. Investigators found these were also caused by ice in the fuel clogging the FOHE. As a result, the heat exchanger was redesigned. The second hull loss occurred on July 29, 2011, when a 777-200ER scheduled to operate as EgyptAir Flight 667 suffered a cockpit fire while parked at the gate at Cairo International Airport before its departure. The aircraft was evacuated with no injuries, and airport fire teams extinguished the fire. The aircraft sustained structural, heat and smoke damage, and was written off. Investigators focused on a possible short circuit between an electrical cable and a supply hose in the cockpit crew oxygen system. The third hull loss occurred on July 6, 2013, when a 777-200ER, operating as Asiana Airlines Flight 214, crashed while landing at San Francisco International Airport after touching down short of the runway. The 307 surviving passengers and crew on board evacuated before fire destroyed the aircraft. Two passengers, who had not been wearing their seatbelts, were ejected from the aircraft during the crash and were killed. A third passenger died six days later as a result of injuries sustained during the crash. These were the first fatalities in a crash involving a 777 since its entry into service in 1995. The official accident investigation concluded in June 2014 that the pilots committed 20 to 30 minor to significant errors in their final approach. Deficiencies in Asiana Airlines' pilot training and in Boeing's documentation of complex flight control systems were also cited as contributory factors. The fourth hull loss occurred on March 8, 2014, when a 777-200ER carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing as Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, was reported missing. Air Traffic Control's last reported coordinates for the aircraft were over the South China Sea. After the search for the aircraft began, Malaysia's prime minister announced on March 24, 2014, that after analysis of new satellite data it was now to be assumed "beyond reasonable doubt" that the aircraft had crashed in the Indian Ocean and there were no survivors. The cause remains unknown, but the Malaysian Government in January 2015, declared it an accident. US officials believe the most likely explanation to be that someone in the cockpit of Flight 370 re-programmed the aircraft's autopilot to travel south across the Indian Ocean. On July 29, 2015, an item later identified as a flaperon from the still missing aircraft was found on the island of Réunion in the western Indian Ocean, consistent with having drifted from the main search area. The fifth hull loss occurred on July 17, 2014, when a 777-200ER, bound for Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam as Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17), broke up in mid-air and crashed after being hit by an anti-aircraft missile while flying over eastern Ukraine. All 298 people (283 passengers and 15 crew) on board were killed, making this the deadliest crash involving the Boeing 777. The incident was linked to the ongoing Donbass insurgency in the region. On the basis of the Dutch Safety Board and the Joint Investigation Team official conclusions of May 2018, the governments of the Netherlands and Australia hold Russia responsible for the deployment of the Buk missile system used in shooting down the airliner from territory held by pro-Russian separatists. The sixth hull loss occurred on August 3, 2016, when a 777-300 crashed while landing and caught fire at Dubai Airport at the end of its flight as Emirates Flight 521. The preliminary investigation indicated that the aircraft was attempting a landing during active wind shear conditions. The pilots initiated a go-around procedure shortly after the wheels touched-down onto the runway, however, the aircraft settled back onto the ground apparently due to late throttle application. As the undercarriage was in the process of being retracted, the aircraft landed on its rear underbody and engine nacelles, resulting in the separation of one engine, loss of control and subsequent crash. There were no passenger casualties of the 300 people on board, however, one airport fireman was killed fighting the fire. The aircraft's fuselage and right wing were irreparably damaged by the fire. The seventh hull loss occurred on November 29, 2017, when a Singapore Airlines 777-200ER experienced a fire while being towed at Singapore Changi Airport. An aircraft technician was the only occupant on board and evacuated safely. The aircraft sustained heat damage and was written off. Another fire occurred on July 22, 2020 to an Ethiopian Airlines 777F while at the cargo area of Shanghai Pudong International Airport. The aircraft sustained heat damage and was written off as the eighth hull loss. On February 20, 2021, a 777-200 operating as United Airlines Flight 328 suffered a failure of its starboard engine. The cowling and other engine parts fell over a Denver suburb. The captain declared an emergency and returned to land at the Denver airport. An immediate examination, before any formal investigation, found that two fan blades had broken off. One blade had suffered metal fatigue and may have chipped another blade, which also broke off. Boeing recommended suspending flights of all 128 operational 777s equipped with Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines until they had been inspected. Several countries also restricted flights of PW4000-equipped 777s in their territory. In 2018, there had been a similar issue on United Airlines Flight 1175 from San Francisco to Hawaii, involving another 777-200 equipped with the same engine type. ## Specifications ## See also
1,136,575	Hurricane John (1994)	1,171,929,242	Category 5 Pacific hurricane and typhoon in 1994	[ "1994 Pacific hurricane season", "1994 Pacific typhoon season", "1994 in Alaska", "1994 in Hawaii", "August 1994 events in the United States", "Category 5 Pacific hurricanes", "Hurricanes in Hawaii", "September 1994 events in the United States", "Tropical cyclones in Alaska", "Typhoons" ]	Hurricane John, also known as Typhoon John, was the farthest-traveling tropical cyclone ever observed worldwide. It was also the longest-lasting tropical cyclone on record globally at the time, until it was surpassed by Cyclone Freddy in 2023. John formed during the 1994 Pacific hurricane season, which had above-average activity due to the El Niño of 1994–1995, and peaked as a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson scale, the highest categorization for hurricanes. Over the course of its existence, John followed a 13,180 km (8,190 mi) path from the eastern Pacific to the western Pacific and back to the central Pacific, lasting 31 days in total. Because it existed in both the eastern and western Pacific, John was one of a small number of tropical cyclones to be designated as both a hurricane and a typhoon. Despite lasting for a full month, John barely affected land at all, bringing only minimal effects to the Hawaiian Islands and the United States military base on Johnston Atoll. Its remnants later affected Alaska. ## Meteorological history The origins of Hurricane John were thought by the United States National Hurricane Center (NHC) to be from a tropical wave that moved off the coast of Africa on July 25, 1994. The wave subsequently moved across the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean without distinction, before it crossed Central America and moved into the Eastern Pacific Ocean on or around August 8. Upon entering the Eastern Pacific the wave gradually developed, before the NHC initiated advisories on the system and designated it as Tropical Depression Ten-E on August 11. The system was at this time moving westwards and located around 345 miles (555 km) to the south-southeast of Acapulco, Mexico. Quickly developing banding features and well-defined outflow, it was upgraded to a tropical storm and named John later that day. A strong ridge of high pressure over the northeastern Pacific Ocean forced John westward, where upper level wind shear kept John a tropical storm. Intensity fluctuated considerably, however, as shear levels varied. More than once, shear cleared away most of the clouds above John and nearly caused it to weaken to a tropical depression. However, after eight days of slow westward movement across the Pacific Ocean, shear lessened greatly on August 19, and John intensified significantly and was designated as a hurricane at 17:00 PDT. During an eighteen-hour period between August 19 and 20, John further strengthened from a weak Category 1 hurricane to a Category 3 major hurricane. Around 1100 PDT on August 20, John crossed into the central Pacific, the first of three basin crosses John would make. After entering the central Pacific, John left the area monitored by the NHC and was instead monitored by the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC). As the storm moved slowly westward, Hurricane John continued to strengthen considerably in an increasingly favorable environment well south of the Hawaiian Islands; on August 22, John was designated a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane scale (the highest classification for hurricanes) and later that day (by Hawaii Standard Time) reached its peak intensity, with 1-minute sustained winds of 175 miles per hour (282 km/h) and a minimum central pressure of 929 millibars (27.4 inHg). Also, on August 22 (by Hawaii Standard Time), John made its closest approach to the Hawaiian Islands, 345 miles (555 km) to the south. John had threatened to turn north and affect the islands days before, but the ridge of high pressure that typically shields the islands from hurricanes kept John on its southerly path. Nonetheless, heavy rains and wind from the outer bands of John affected the islands. With the Hawaiian Islands behind it, John began a slow turn to the north, taking near-direct aim at Johnston Atoll, a small group of islands populated only by a United States military base. The storm slowly weakened from its peak as a Category 5 hurricane in the face of increasing shear, dropping down to a Category 1 hurricane with 90 miles per hour (140 km/h) maximum winds. On August 25 local time, John made its closest approach to the Johnston Atoll only 15 miles (24 km) to the north. On Johnston Atoll, sustained winds were reported up to 60 miles per hour (97 km/h), the equivalent of a strong tropical storm, and gusts up to 75 miles per hour (121 km/h) were recorded. Clearing Johnston Atoll, John turned to the northwest and began strengthening again as shear decreased. On August 27 local time, John reached a secondary peak strength of 135 miles per hour (217 km/h), and shortly thereafter it crossed the International Date Line at approximately 22° N and came under the surveillance of the Guam branch of the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC). By crossing into the western Pacific, John also became a typhoon and was referred to as Typhoon John during its time in the western Pacific. Immediately after crossing the Date Line, John again weakened and its forward motion stalled. By September 1, John had weakened to a tropical storm and was nearly motionless just west of the Date Line. There, John lingered for six days while performing a multi-day counterclockwise loop. On September 7, a trough moved into the area and quickly moved John to the northeast. John crossed the Date Line again on September 8 and reentered the central Pacific. After reentering the central Pacific, John briefly reached a tertiary peak strength of 90 miles per hour (140 km/h), a strong Category 1 hurricane, well to the north of Midway Island. However, the trough was rapidly pulling apart John's structure, and the cold waters of the northern central Pacific were not conducive to a tropical cyclone. On September 10, the 120th advisory was released on the system, finally declaring John to have become extratropical approximately 1,000 miles (1,600 km) south of Unalaska Island. ## Records John's 31-day existence made it the longest-lasting tropical cyclone recorded in the Pacific Ocean, surpassing Hurricane Tina's previous record of 24 days in the 1992 season, and the longest-lived globally on record, surpassing the San Ciriaco hurricane's duration of 28 days in the 1899 Atlantic season. John's global record stood until 2023, when it was broken by Cyclone Freddy, which traversed the Indian Ocean in the Southern Hemisphere for 37 days. Additionally, despite its slow movement throughout much of its path, John was also the farthest-traveling tropical cyclone in both the Pacific Ocean and globally, with a distance traveled of 13,180 km (8,190 mi), out-distancing the previous record of 4,700 miles (7,600 km) set by Hurricane Fico in the 1978 season. In addition, John was the first tropical cyclone on record to become a hurricane in the Eastern Pacific (east of 140°W), traverse the entire Central Pacific at hurricane strength, and then cross into the Western Pacific at the International Date Line (180°W) thus becoming a typhoon; a feat matched only by Hurricane Dora in 2023. Pressure readings from John's peak are not consistently available as the CPHC did not monitor pressures at the time, but Air Force Reserve aircraft did measure a surface pressure of 929 mbar (hPa), making John one of the most intense hurricanes recorded in the central Pacific; both hurricanes Emilia and Gilma of 1994, as well as hurricanes Ioke of 2006 and Lane and Walaka of 2018 all recorded lower pressures in the central Pacific. However, all five had lower wind speeds than John. (Intensity is measured by minimum central pressure, which correlates with but is not directly linked to wind speeds.) John was also only the fourth Category 5 hurricane recorded in the central Pacific (the first was Hurricane Patsy in 1959, the second was Hurricane Emilia and the third one was Hurricane Gilma, both earlier in 1994). John also possessed the highest recorded wind speed in a central Pacific hurricane, 175 mph (282 km/h), a record shared with the aforementioned Patsy of 1959. Since 1994, only three Category 5 hurricanes, Ioke in 2006, and hurricanes Lane and Walaka in 2018 have formed in or entered into the Central Pacific. Despite this however, John's pressure record is incomplete; the 929 mbar reading was only measured when the winds were 160 mph; there is no pressure reading when it had winds of 175 mph, so it could have been stronger than Emilia, Gilma, Ioke, Lane, or Walaka. ## Impact John affected both the Hawaiian Islands and Johnston Atoll, but only lightly. While John passed over 345 miles (555 km) to the south of Hawaii, the islands did experience strengthened trade winds and rough surf along the southeast- and south-facing shores, and, while moving westward, on west-facing shores as well. The waves, ranging from 6 to 10 ft (1.8 to 3.0 m) in height, flooded beach parks in Kailua-Kona. Additionally, heavy rains on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi caused minor, localized flooding and some short-term road closures. No deaths, injuries or significant damages were reported in Hawaiʻi. Although John passed within 25 km (16 mi) of Johnston Atoll, it had weakened greatly to a Category 1 system by closest approach. Prior to the storm's arrival, waves between 20 and 30 ft (6.1 and 9.1 m) were reported on the island. Additionally, in the Northern Hemisphere, the strongest winds and heaviest rain lie to the north of a tropical cyclone, so the atoll, which lay to the south of the storm's path, was spared the brunt of the storm. Nonetheless, the 1,100-man personnel for the United States military base on Johnston Atoll had been evacuated to Honolulu as a precaution while John approached. Damage to structures was considerable, but the size of the island and relative functionality of the base led to low damage; monetary losses were estimated at close to \$15 million (1994 US\$). The remnants of John moved through the Aleutian Islands, producing a wind gust of 46 mph (74 km/h) in Unalaska. The storm brought a plume of warm air, and two stations recorded a high temperature of 66 °F (19 °C). ## See also - Other tropical cyclones named John - Other powerful hurricanes that crossed the International Date Line - Hurricane Dora (1999) - Hurricane Ioke (2006) - Hurricane Genevieve (2014) - Hurricane Hector (2018) - 1899 San Ciriaco hurricane – The longest-lived tropical cyclone recorded in the Atlantic Ocean - Cyclone Leon–Eline (2000) – The second longest-lived tropical cyclone recorded in the Indian Ocean - Cyclone Freddy (2023) – The longest-lived tropical cyclone recorded worldwide
3,635,561	Maxinquaye	1,141,679,710	null	[ "1995 debut albums", "4th & B'way Records albums", "Albums produced by Howie B", "Albums produced by Mark Saunders (record producer)", "Experimental music albums by English artists", "Tricky (musician) albums" ]	Maxinquaye is the debut album by English rapper and producer Tricky, released on 20 February 1995 by 4th & B'way Records, a subsidiary of Island Records. In the years leading up to the album, Tricky had grown frustrated with his limited role in the musical group Massive Attack and wanted to pursue an independent project. Shortly after, he met with vocalist Martina Topley-Bird, who he felt would offer a wider vision to his music, and signed a solo contract with 4th & B'way in 1993. Tricky recorded Maxinquaye the following year primarily at his home studio in London, with Topley-Bird serving as the album's main vocalist, while Alison Goldfrapp, Ragga and Mark Stewart performed additional vocals. With assistance from fellow producer Mark Saunders, Tricky used dub music techniques and heavily altered samples taken from a variety of sources to produce Maxinquaye. Its resulting groove-oriented downbeat, hazy and fragmented sound incorporates elements from hip hop, soul, rock, ambient techno, reggae and experimental music. Tricky's lyrics throughout the album explore themes of cultural decline, dysfunctional sexual relationships, fear of intimacy and recreational drug use, as he drew on his experiences in British drug culture and the influence of his late mother Maxine Quaye, after whom the album is titled. Maxinquaye reached the number three position on the United Kingdom's albums chart and sold over 100,000 copies in its first few months of release. 4th & B'way marketed the album by relying on independent record promoters and Tricky's appearances in media, including publicity photographs and music videos that portrayed him and Topley-Bird in gender-bending fashion. Maxinquaye was cited by many journalists as the year's best record and the key release of the burgeoning trip hop genre. Since then, it has sold more than 500,000 copies worldwide and ranks frequently on lists of the greatest albums, while regarded as a significant influence on electronica, underground hip hop and British hip hop. ## Background Following a troubled upbringing in the Knowle West neighbourhood of Bristol, Tricky joined the multimedia collective The Wild Bunch during the late 1980s. As part of the collective, he helped arrange sound systems around Bristol's club scene, and performed under a stage name derived from "Tricky Kid", the nickname given to him in a street gang as a youth. The Wild Bunch signed a record deal with 4th & B'way Records and released two singles, but their slow, experimental sound failed to make a commercial impact. The collective dissolved in 1989, which led to a few of its members forming the group Massive Attack. Tricky became a frequent collaborator who rapped over their productions, but quit after finding his role in the group to be limited; he later reworked material he had written for Massive Attack on Maxinquaye. In 1993, Tricky met with Martina Topley-Bird, then a teenager at Clifton College, after he saw her sitting against a wall near his house singing to herself. "That's really how it happened", she recalled. "A few weeks later, I went around to his house with some friends. We'd been drinking cider after our GCSEs. We were banging on his door, but he wasn't in. Then Mark Stewart, who lived there, came up to us and said: 'Yeah, this is Tricky's house, jump in through the window.'" Tricky's lyricism had matured from raps about street violence and sex to more personal and introspective writing, but Topley-Bird described his material for Maxinquaye as "quite depressing", which he believed was because of her more privileged background: "It's just reality. She's been a student all her life, grew up in Somerset, and I don't think she's ever faced the real world. She finds it all a bit weird. But she's my best mate." They formed a musical and romantic partnership over subsequent years, and they produced "Aftermath", which subsequently appears on Maxinquaye. After offering the song to Massive Attack, who were not interested in including it on their 1991 album Blue Lines, Tricky released "Aftermath" independently to local record stores in September 1993 before he signed a record deal with 4th & B'way. ## Recording and production Tricky asked Mark Saunders to co-produce Maxinquaye after being impressed by his previous work with the rock band The Cure on their albums Mixed Up (1990) and Wish (1992). They recorded Maxinquaye in the first half of 1994 at Tricky's home studio in Kilburn; further recording later took place at the Loveshack and Eastcote studios in Notting Hill. Island Records, 4th & B'Way's parent label, set up equipment in the home studio at Tricky's request, including an Akai S1000 sampler, an Atari 1040 computer with Logic software, an Alesis ADAT recorder, an AKG C3000 microphone, a Behringer Composer compressor and a Mackie 1604 mixing desk. The recording sessions were somewhat chaotic, and Saunders, who had the impression he would only perform engineering duties, often found himself serving as a DJ and programmer. Tricky instructed him on what to sample, regardless of different tempos and pitches, and asked him to piece the results together, something Saunders achieved by pitch-shifting the respective samples until the combination sounded satisfactory. The samples they experimented with were taken from the many vinyl records that Saunders recalled were "littered" all over Tricky's floor. Influenced by dub music's production techniques, Tricky exhaustively altered borrowed sounds on his sampler, mixed tracks as they were being recorded live in the studio, and preserved sounds that otherwise would have been unwanted in the final mix, including glitches and crackles. Tricky had no concept of pitch and no regard for notational conventions or time signatures, nor any previous experience with sampling. Consequently, his approach to Maxinquaye challenged Saunders to rethink his ideas about music production and experiment in ways he had never tried before. Saunders was asked to combine samples of two songs that were 30 beats per minute apart and composed in entirely different keys. "[Tricky] thought differently to anybody I've ever known", he recalled. "It didn't occur to me that by de-tuning one to slow it down, both might then gel musically at that point. I always think of it like going into a scrapyard and building a car out of all the bits you can find. You could probably build a car that would work, and although it might be the ugliest you've ever seen, it would have loads of character." According to the American critic Robert Christgau, Maxinquaye's groove-oriented and low-tempo music drew not only on dub but also on lo-fi, ambient techno and hip hop, while James Hunter from Rolling Stone said Tricky subsumed American hip hop, soul, reggae and 1980s English rock sounds into "a mercurial style of dance music". Entertainment Weekly's resident critic David Browne classified the music as an intellectual form of R&B. Ben Walsh of The Independent called it an experimental album featuring a "heady blend" of soul, rock, punk, hip hop, dub and electronica. In Tricky's own words, he composed his songs based on a particular sound he liked rather than having a definite song structure in mind: "I couldn't write you a blues track or a hip-hop track if you asked. I just make what I hear and then me and Martina sing all the words on paper, putting the emphasis on the things that perhaps shouldn't be sung." Almost all of Topley-Bird's vocals on Maxinquaye were recorded in a single take, a process she later said was "totally instinctive. There was no time to drum up an alter ego." Topley-Bird, a soft-spoken singer, found herself backed on most tracks by Tricky's rapped vocals. According to the journalist Sean O'Hagan, she sang with a "broken voice" that acted as "the perfect foil to Tricky's whispered and drawled raps". The liner notes credited Tricky and Topley-Bird for vocals on all songs except "Pumpkin" and "You Don't", which Tricky performed with Alison Goldfrapp and Ragga, respectively. A printing error mistakenly credited the then-unknown Topley-Bird as "Martine" on the record. Other musicians were recruited to play instruments for some tracks, including James Stevenson on guitar and Pete Briquette on bass. The band FTV performed on "Black Steel", which was a rock version of Public Enemy's "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" (1988) and one of two remakes on Maxinquaye; Tricky also remade one of his contributions for Massive Attack, "Karmacoma" (1994), retitling it as "Overcome". Saunders contributed guitar himself, with the resulting improvisations treated as samples. ## Themes Much of the thematic content on Maxinquaye is informed by Tricky's late mother. He explained the title's connection to his mother in an interview with Simon Reynolds, saying that "Quaye, that's this race of people in Africa, and 'Maxin,' that's my mum's name, Maxine, and I've just taken the E off"; Reynolds interpreted this as a "place name" similar to the Rastafarian idea of Zion. In another source, Tricky was reported as saying Quaye had also been his mother's surname. According to Greg Kot, his mother's name provided the album its title while her suicide, along with his father abandoning him and Tricky's lack of moral sense as a youth, helped inform his "unsentimental grasp on reality", which was reflected in Maxinquaye's "collision of beauty and violence". In the opinion of Stylus Magazine's Kenan Hebert, who called it "a document of obsession, mistrust, misconduct, solipsism and sociopathy", the songs dealing with dysfunctional sexual relationships and fear of intimacy were given a Freudian angle by his mother's influence on the album, including Tricky's reference to her on "Aftermath". In an interview for The Wire, Tricky explained his mother's influence and his use of female vocalists like Topley-Bird: > My first lyric ever on a song was "your eyes resemble mine, you'll see as no others can". I didn't have any kids then ... so what am I talking about? Who am I talking about? My mother ... used to write poetry but in her time she couldn't have done anything with that, there wasn't any opportunity. It's almost like she killed herself to give me the opportunity, my lyrics. I can never understand why I write as a female, I think I've got my mum's talent, I'm her vehicle. So I need a woman to sing that. While songs such as "Overcome" and "Suffocated Love" deal with themes of "sexual paranoia and male dread of intimacy", the rest of Maxinquaye explores the psychological tolls of British recreational drug culture, which Reynolds said once served as a "temporary utopia" for a generation of drug users who otherwise lacked a "constructive outlet for its idealism". He also felt that the album's cover art, featuring rusting metal surfaces, represented the cultural decline explored in the music's themes. Tricky drew on eschatological Rastafarian ideas of end times for the record, although unlike adherents to that movement, he did not disassociate himself from "Babylon" or the decadence of Western society; with lyrics such as "my brain thinks bomb-like/beware of our appetite" on "Hell Is Round the Corner", he said to Reynolds that "I'm part of this fuckin' psychic pollution ... It's like, I can be as greedy as you. The conditioned part of me says 'yeah, I'm gonna go out and make money, I'm going to rule my own little kingdom.'" Christgau deemed the album's songs "audioramas of someone who's signed on to work for the wages of sin and lived to cash the check", while O'Hagan said Tricky's "impressionistic prose poems" were written from the deviant perspective of the urban hedonist: "Maxinquaye is the sound of blunted Britain, paranoid and obsessive ... This was the inner-city blues, Bristol style". The songs "Ponderosa", "Strugglin'" and "Hell Is Round the Corner" were inspired by Tricky's experiences with marijuana, alcohol, cocaine and ecstasy, particularly a two-year binge and consequent state of despondency while on Massive Attack's payroll after the completion of Blue Lines. His stream-of-consciousness lyrics on Maxinquaye explore the delirious, despondent and emotionally unstable state associated with drug use while offering a pessimistic view of the drug culture, as Tricky viewed the high of cocaine as undeserved and the depth of thought achieved through ecstasy as unsubstantial. In Reynolds' opinion, Tricky's experiences with drug-induced paranoia, anxiety and visions of spectres and demons were represented in the production of songs such as "Aftermath", "Hell Is Round the Corner" and "Strugglin'". On the latter track, he sampled sounds of creaking doors, the click of a gun being loaded, distant sirens and vinyl crackles, with Tricky's lyrics making explicit reference to visions of "mystical shadows, fraught with no meaning". For "Hell Is Round the Corner", he altered and slowed down a vibrato vocal sample, creating a disorienting effect resembling a basso profondo singer, over a loop of an orchestral Isaac Hayes recording, "Ike's Rap II". ## Marketing and sales After Tricky signed to 4th & B'way, the label reissued "Aftermath" in January 1994 and released "Ponderosa" in April to promote Maxinquaye. The following year, three more singles were released—"Overcome" in January, "Black Steel" in March and "Pumpkin" in November. The label also released a four-track EP entitled The Hell E.P. in July, which was a collaboration with the American rap group Gravediggaz and featured "Hell Is Round the Corner"; the song reached number 12 on the British singles chart. 4th & B'way relied on independent record promoters and Tricky's cover story in NME to promote Maxinquaye, even though hip hop records in the United Kingdom generally received exposure through dance music dealers and press. According to 4th & B'way's director Julian Palmer, the UK's demographic of young music buyers such as students was more progressive than in the United States, where he said the record would have to be marketed differently because of his race. He believed that much like Portishead, a contemporary Bristol act, Tricky would have received airplay in the US on alternative or college rock radio if the label focused their efforts to promote him there: "Some people I've met were confused because he's black, and it's not easy to break through those barriers there." According to Rupert Howe from Q, the album's music tested stylistic barriers and "sounded as alien to hip hop" as it did to the Britpop sound popular in the UK at the time. Publicity photos and music videos promoting Maxinquaye featured Tricky and Topley-Bird utilising androgynous imagery. They were photographed on one occasion wearing gender-bending clothing such as a mufti. Other promotional shots based on a wedding concept captured Topley-Bird dressed as the groom. As The Independent's Phil Johnson recalled, the very thin Tricky was dressed in drag as the bride and his sickly looking face "painted and preened", with smeared lipstick and a false eyelash in the style of Alex from the 1971 film A Clockwork Orange. In Johnson's opinion, the record's gender-bending promotional efforts were canny in how they "maximized Maxinquaye's cross-genre potential". According to Reynolds and Joy Press, while "most post-rock 'n' roll forms of popular music ideologically rest on rebellions against the feminine", Tricky "utilized the feminine to construct his rebellion against the strict categories of black identity and music". The musician later explained that he simply believed feminine men were much more interesting than masculine men. Maxinquaye was released on 20 February 1995 and sold over 100,000 copies in its first few months in the UK, despite no significant radio airplay. The record charted for 35 weeks on the British albums chart, peaking at number three. After it was released in the US on 18 April, Tricky toured the country as a supporting act for the alternative rock singer-songwriter PJ Harvey. According to Nielsen SoundScan, the album had sold 222,000 copies in the US by 2003. By 2012, it had sold over 500,000 copies worldwide. That same year, Tricky performed the entire album with Topley-Bird on 27 April at the Sundance London festival, which was their first onstage appearance together in 15 years. ## Critical reception and legacy Maxinquaye received widespread acclaim from contemporary critics. Reviewing in March 1995 for Mojo, Jon Savage called it a very ambitious and musically audacious work that brilliantly explored the disparities in Britain's social structure, with Topley-Bird as the "dominant voice" articulating Tricky's vision of uncertainty in an ever-changing world. Dele Fadele from NME said the record was unprecedented, spellbinding and revealed something new with every listen. He found Tricky's production innovative and his fusion of various sounds so seamless, "you can't label the results under any existing genre". David Bennun of Melody Maker deemed the album almost perfect and Tricky's music highly "gripping, original, sublime, his lyrics so abstruse and woven into the sound, that they become inseparable". Maxinquaye's combination of "dreamlike ambient music and hip-hop bite" was praised by the Los Angeles Times critic Robert Hilburn for giving Tricky's "soundscapes about contemporary life such a seductive and provocative edge". In Q magazine, Tom Doyle credited Topley-Bird's singing for making Maxinquaye "a highly inventive and intoxicating collection" while declaring that "with this debut, Tricky proves himself to be more challenging and eclectic than his peers". At the end of 1995, Maxinquaye was named the year's best record in critics polls conducted by several English publications, including NME, Melody Maker and The Wire. It also finished second in the voting for the Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of American critics. The record received a nomination for the 1995 Mercury Prize, an annual music award given to the best album from the UK and Ireland, losing out to Portishead's 1994 debut Dummy. Along with Massive Attack's Blue Lines, Maxinquaye was hailed by journalists as the pivotal release in what they were calling "trip hop" music; Jon Pareles, the chief critic at The New York Times, called it the genre's "first album-length masterpiece". Tricky disliked the term, saying "I was supposed to have invented trip hop, and I will fucking deny having anything to do with it". Writing years later for Stylus Magazine, Hebert argued that "there's too much here to be sequestered to any genre, let alone that one ... Calling Tricky 'trip-hop' is a bit like calling Prince 'pop'. It's partially accurate, but the music is so much better than that." In Mojo, Victoria Segal later called Maxinquaye "an exotic, erotic alien that nobody (not least its creator) has managed to clone". It was also dubbed "the British postmodern album of the 90s" by Jason Draper of Record Collector and "a visionary post-rock statement" by The Philadelphia Inquirer's Tom Moon, while AllMusic's senior editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine said it remains "a bracing sonic adventure that gains richness and resonance with each listen" because of the songs' imaginative structures and exceptional use of "noise and experimental music". By the end of the 1990s, Christgau had come to view Maxinquaye as among the decade's most essential albums. In The Village Voice, he wrote that its enduring significance lies in an aesthetic of cool derived from the blues and African-American culture, which valued a self-possessed resolve in the face of oppression: > What stands out isn't the dolor pop generalists noticed at the time, but the listenability that induced them to bother: Martina's pervasive lyricism, beats that are buoyant at any speed, a profusion of sweet-tempered [keyboard] effects that signify melody, harmony, strings. It's still pretty morose, sure. But nothing in its bitter passivity and contained rage comes off as a defeat or a sham ... Maxinquaye had that kind of cool. With blues replications per se having worn out their formal gris-gris, it voiced and embraced a grim new resignation about freedom, power, race and human connection in the postwelfare state – and simultaneously counteracted it. Maxinquaye has frequently appeared on authoritative lists of the greatest albums, including NME's 2013 list of the 500 greatest albums, which ranked it 202nd best. Uncut named it 156th best on a similar list in 2016. It was ranked high in a Q-published poll determining the 100 greatest British albums, Mojo's "100 Modern Classics" and Rolling Stone's "Essential Recordings of the 90s", among other lists. The record was also ranked 66th on Pitchfork's list of the 100 best albums from the 1990s, with the site's guest writer Rollie Pemberton crediting the record for helping shape "the landscapes of modern electronica and underground hip-hop". Slant Magazine named it the 21st greatest electronic album of the 20th century and wrote that along with Blue Lines and Dummy, it was also "one of the most influential trip-hop albums of the '90s". In 2015, it was placed at number one on Fact magazine's list of the 50 best trip hop albums, with an accompanying essay saying it contains "some of the most tortured and original electronic music cut to wax" which "left an indelible mark on British music, electronic and otherwise". It was included in the music reference book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die; the journalist Alex Rayner wrote in an accompanying chapter that the "innovative, thought provoking and intricately arranged" album played a significant role in popularising British hip hop and spoken word music in the UK. Based on such listings, Acclaimed Music ranks Maxinquaye as the 172rd most acclaimed album in history. ## Track listing Notes - All songs were written and composed by Tricky, except "Ponderosa" (Tricky and Howie B) and "Black Steel" (Carlton Ridenhour, Eric Sadler, and Hank Shocklee). - All vocals were performed by Tricky and Martina Topley-Bird, except on "Pumpkin" (Tricky and Alison Goldfrapp) and "You Don't" (Tricky and Ragga). ## Personnel Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes. - Ali Staton – mixing ("Suffocated Love") - Alison Goldfrapp – vocals - Andy Earl – photography - Cally Callomon – art direction, design - David Alvarez – art direction, design - FTV – guitar, drums ("Black Steel") - Howie B – composition, production - James Stevenson – guitar ("Brand New, You're Retro") - Kevin Petrie – production - Mark Stewart – vocals - Mark Saunders – keyboards ("Overcome"), guitar, production - Martina Topley-Bird (erroneously credited as "Martine") – vocals - Paul Rider – photography - Pete Briquette – bass ("Suffocated Love") - Ragga – vocals - Richard Baker – artwork - Rob Crane – artwork - Tony Wrafter – flute ("Aftermath") - Tricky – composition, production, vocals - Valerie Philips – photography ## Charts ### Weekly charts ### Year-end charts ## Certifications ## See also - NME Album of the Year - Protection (Massive Attack album)
28,876	Surtsey	1,169,020,261	Volcanic island off the coast of Iceland	[ "1963 in Iceland", "1963 natural disasters", "20th-century volcanic events", "Active volcanoes", "Islands of Iceland", "Uninhabited islands of Iceland", "Vestmannaeyjar", "Volcanic eruptions in Iceland", "Volcanoes of Iceland", "World Heritage Sites in Iceland" ]	Surtsey ("Surtr's island" in Icelandic, ) is a volcanic island located in the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago off the southern coast of Iceland. At Surtsey is the southernmost point of Iceland. It was formed in a volcanic eruption which began 130 metres (430 feet) below sea level, and reached the surface on 14 November 1963. The eruption lasted until 5 June 1967, when the island reached its maximum size of 2.7 km<sup>2</sup> (1.0 sq mi). Since then, wave erosion has caused the island to steadily diminish in size: as of 2012, its surface area was 1.3 km<sup>2</sup> (0.50 sq mi). The most recent survey (2007) shows the island's maximum elevation at 155 m (509 ft) above sea level. The new island was named after Surtr, a fire jötunn or giant from Norse mythology. It was intensively studied by volcanologists during its eruption, and afterwards by botanists and other biologists as life forms gradually colonised the originally barren island. The undersea vents that produced Surtsey are part of the Vestmannaeyjar submarine volcanic system, part of the fissure of the sea floor called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Vestmannaeyjar also produced the famous eruption of Eldfell on the island of Heimaey in 1973. The eruption that created Surtsey also created a few other small islands along this volcanic chain, such as Jólnir and other, unnamed peaks. Most of these eroded away fairly quickly. It is estimated that Surtsey will remain above sea level until at least the year 2100. ## Geology ### Formation The eruption was unexpected, and almost certainly began some days before it became apparent at the surface. The sea floor at the eruption site is 130 metres (430 feet) below sea level, and at this depth volcanic emissions and explosions would be suppressed, quenched and dissipated by the water pressure and density. Gradually, as repeated flows built up a mound of material that approached sea level, the explosions could no longer be contained, and activity broke the surface. The first noticeable indications of volcanic activity were recorded at the seismic station in Kirkjubæjarklaustur, Iceland from 6 to 8 November 1963, which detected weak tremors emanating from an epicentre approximately west-south-west at a distance of 140 km (87 mi), the location of Surtsey. Another station in Reykjavík recorded even weaker tremors for ten hours on 12 November at an undetermined location, when seismic activity ceased until 21 November. That same day, people in the coastal town of Vík 80 km (50 mi) away noticed a smell of hydrogen sulphide. On 13 November, a fishing vessel in search of herring, equipped with sensitive thermometers, noted sea temperatures 3.2 km (2.0 mi) SW of the eruption center were 2.4 °C (4.3 °F) higher than surrounding waters. #### Eruption at the surface At 07:15 UTC on 14 November 1963, the cook of Ísleifur II, a trawler sailing these same waters, spotted a rising column of dark smoke southwest of the boat. The captain thought it might have been a boat on fire, and ordered his crew to investigate. Instead, they encountered explosive eruptions giving off black columns of ash, indicating that a volcanic eruption had begun to breach the surface of the sea. By 11:00 the same day, the eruption column had reached several kilometres in height. At first the eruptions took place at three separate vents along a northeast by southwest trending fissure, but by the afternoon the separate eruption columns had merged into one along the erupting fissure. Over the next week, explosions were continuous, and after just a few days the new island, formed mainly of scoria, measured over 500 metres (1,640 feet) in length and had reached a height of 45 metres (148 feet). As the eruptions continued, they became concentrated at one vent along the fissure and began to build the island into a more circular shape. By 24 November, the island measured about 900 by 650 metres (2,950 by 2,130 ft). The violent explosions caused by the meeting of lava and sea water meant that the island consisted of a loose pile of volcanic rock (scoria), which was eroded rapidly by North Atlantic storms during the winter. However, eruptions more than kept pace with wave erosion, and by February 1964, the island had a maximum diameter of over 1,300 metres (4,265 feet). The explosive phreatomagmatic eruptions caused by the easy access of water to the erupting vents threw rocks up to a kilometre (0.6 mi) away from the island, and sent ash clouds as high as 10 km (6.2 mi) up into the atmosphere. The loose pile of unconsolidated tephra would quickly have been washed away had the supply of fresh magma dwindled, and large clouds of dust were often seen blowing away from the island during this stage of the eruption. The new island was named after the fire jötunn Surtur from Norse mythology (Surts is the genitive case of Surtur, plus -ey, island). Three French journalists representing the magazine Paris Match notably landed there on 6 December 1963, staying for about 15 minutes before violent explosions encouraged them to leave. The journalists jokingly claimed French sovereignty over the island, but Iceland quickly asserted that the new island belonged to it. #### Permanent island By early 1964, though, the continuing eruptions had built the island to such a size that sea water could no longer easily reach the vents, and the volcanic activity became much less explosive. Instead, lava fountains and flows became the main form of activity. These resulted in a hard cap of extremely erosion-resistant rock being laid down on top of much of the loose volcanic pile, which prevented the island from being washed away rapidly. Effusive eruptions continued until 1965, by which time the island had a surface area of 2.5 km<sup>2</sup> (0.97 sq mi). On 28 December 1963, submarine activity to the northeast of Surtsey began, causing the formation of a ridge 100 m (330 ft) high on the sea floor. This seamount was named Surtla , but never reached sea level. Eruptions at Surtla ended on 6 January 1964, and it has since been eroded from its minimum depth of 23 to 47 m (75 to 154 ft) below sea level. #### Subsequent volcanic activity In 1965, the activity on the main island diminished, but at the end of May that year an eruption began at a vent 0.6 km (0.37 mi) off the northern shore. By 28 May, an island had appeared, and was named Syrtlingur ( Little Surtsey). The new island was washed away during early June, but reappeared on 14 June. Eruptions at Syrtlingur were much smaller in scale than those that had built Surtsey, with the average rate of emission of volcanic materials being about a tenth of the rate at the main vent. Activity was short-lived, continuing until the beginning of October 1965, by which time the islet had an area of 0.15 km<sup>2</sup> (0.058 sq mi). Once the eruptions had ceased, wave erosion rapidly wore the island away, and it disappeared beneath the waves on 24 October. During December 1965, more submarine activity occurred 0.9 km (0.56 mi) southwest of Surtsey, and another island was formed. It was named Jólnir, and over the following eight months it appeared and disappeared several times, as wave erosion and volcanic activity alternated in dominance. Activity at Jólnir was much weaker than the activity at the main vent, and even weaker than that seen at Syrtlingur, but the island eventually grew to a maximum size of 70 m (230 ft) in height, covering an area of 0.3 km<sup>2</sup> (0.12 sq mi), during July and early August 1966. Like Syrtlingur, though, after activity ceased on 8 August 1966, it was rapidly eroded, and dropped below sea level during October 1966. Effusive eruptions on the main island returned on 19 August 1966, with fresh lava flows giving it further resistance to erosion. The eruption rate diminished steadily, though, and on 5 June 1967, the eruption ended. The volcano has been dormant ever since. The total volume of lava emitted during the three-and-a-half-year eruption was about one cubic kilometre (0.24 cu mi), and the island's highest point was 174 metres (571 feet) above sea level at that time. Since the end of the eruption, erosion has seen the island diminish in size. A large area on the southeast side has been eroded away completely, while a sand spit called Norðurtangi (north point) has grown on the north side of the island. It is estimated that about 0.024 km<sup>3</sup> (0.0058 cu mi) of material has been lost due to erosion—this represents about a quarter of the original above-sea-level volume of the island. Its maximum elevation has diminished to 155 m (509 ft). ## Recent development Following the end of the eruption, scientists established a grid of benchmarks against which they measured the change in the shape of the island. In the 20 years following the end of the eruption, measurements revealed that the island was steadily subsiding and had lost about one metre in height. The rate of subsidence was initially about 20 cm (8 in) per year but slowed to 1–2 cm (0.39–0.79 in) a year by the 1990s. It had several causes: settling of the loose tephra forming the bulk of the volcano, compaction of sea floor sediments underlying the island, and downward warping of the lithosphere due to the weight of the volcano. Volcanoes in the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago are typically monogenetic, and so the island is unlikely to be enlarged in the future by further eruptions. The heavy seas around the island have been eroding it ever since the island appeared, and since the end of the eruption almost half of its original area has been lost. The island currently loses about 1.0 hectare (2.5 acres) of its surface area each year. ### Future As a suspected part of the Iceland plume, this island is unlikely to disappear entirely in the near future. The eroded area consisted mostly of loose tephra, easily washed away. Most of the remaining area is capped by hard lava flows, which are much more resistant to erosion. In addition, complex chemical reactions within the loose tephra within the island have gradually formed highly erosion-resistant tuff material, in a process known as palagonitization. On Surtsey, this process has happened quite rapidly, due to high temperatures not far below the surface. Estimates of how long Surtsey will survive are based on the rate of erosion seen up to the present day. Assuming that the current rate does not change, the island will be mostly at or below sea level by 2100. However, the rate of erosion is likely to slow as the tougher core of the island is exposed: an assessment assuming that the rate of erosion will slow exponentially suggests that the island will survive for many centuries. An idea of what it will look like in the future is given by the other small islands in the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago, which formed in the same way as Surtsey several thousand years ago, and have eroded away substantially since they were formed. ## Biology ### Settlement of life A classic site for the study of biocolonisation from founder populations, Surtsey was declared a nature reserve in 1965, while the eruption was still in progress. Today only a few scientists are permitted to land on Surtsey; the only way anyone else can see it closely is from a small plane. This allows the natural ecological succession for the island to proceed without outside interference. In 2008, UNESCO declared the island a World Heritage Site, in recognition of its great scientific value. #### Plant life In the spring of 1965, the first vascular plant was found growing on the northern shore of Surtsey, mosses became visible in 1967, and lichens were first found on the Surtsey lava in 1970. Plant colonisation on Surtsey has been closely studied, the vascular plants in particular as they have been of far greater significance than mosses, lichens and fungi in the development of vegetation. Mosses and lichens now cover much of the island. During the island's first 20 years, 20 species of plants were observed at one time or another, but only 10 became established in the nutrient-poor sandy soil. As birds began nesting on the island, soil conditions improved, and more vascular plant species were able to survive. In 1998, the first bush was found on the island—a tea-leaved willow (Salix phylicifolia), which can grow to heights of up to 4 metres (13 feet). By 2008, 69 species of plant had been found on Surtsey, of which about 30 had become established. This compares to the approximately 490 species found on mainland Iceland. More species continue to arrive, at a typical rate of roughly 2–5 new species per year. #### Bird life The expansion of bird life on the island has both relied on and helped to advance the spread of plant life. Birds use the plants for nesting material, but also continue to assist in the spreading of seeds, and fertilize the soil with their guano. Birds first began nesting on Surtsey three years after the eruptions ended, with fulmar and guillemot the first species to set up home. Twelve species are now regularly found on the island. A gull colony has been present since 1984, although gulls were seen briefly on the shores of the new island weeks after it first appeared. The gull colony has been particularly important in developing the plant life on Surtsey, and the gulls have had much more of an impact on plant colonisation than other breeding species due to their abundance. An expedition in 2004 found the first evidence of nesting Atlantic puffins, which are abundant in the rest of the archipelago. As well as providing a home for some species of birds, Surtsey has also been used as a stopping-off point for migrating birds, particularly those en route between Europe and Iceland. Species that have been seen briefly on the island include whooper swans, various species of geese, and common ravens. Although Surtsey lies to the west of the main migration routes to Iceland, it has become a more common stopping point as its vegetation has improved. In 2008, the 14th breeding bird species was detected with the discovery of a common raven's nest. According to a 30 May 2009 report, a golden plover was nesting on the island, with four eggs. #### Marine life Soon after the island's formation, seals were seen around the island. They soon began basking there, particularly on the northern spit, which grew as the waves eroded the island. Seals were found to be breeding on the island in 1983, and a group of up to 70 made the island their breeding spot. Grey seals are more common on the island than harbour seals, but both are now well established. The presence of seals attracts orcas, which are frequently seen in the waters around the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago and now frequent the waters around Surtsey. On the submarine portion of the island, many marine species are found. Starfish are abundant, as are sea urchins and limpets. The rocks are covered in algae, and seaweed covers much of the submarine slopes of the volcano, with its densest cover between 10 and 20 metres (33 and 66 ft) below sea level. #### Other life Insects arrived on Surtsey soon after its formation, and were first detected in 1964. The original arrivals were flying insects, carried to the island by winds and their own power. Some were believed to have been blown across from as far away as mainland Europe. Later insect life arrived on floating driftwood, and both live animals and carcasses washed up on the island. When a large, grass-covered tussock washed ashore in 1974, scientists took half of it for analysis and discovered 663 land invertebrates, mostly mites and springtails, the great majority of which had survived the crossing. The establishment of insect life provided some food for birds, and birds in turn helped many species to become established on the island. The bodies of dead birds provide sustenance for carnivorous insects, while the fertilisation of the soil and resulting promotion of plant life provides a viable habitat for herbivorous insects. The first earthworm was found in a soil sample in 1993, probably carried over from Heimaey by a bird. However, the next year no earthworms were found. Slugs were found in 1998, and appeared to be similar to varieties found in the southern Icelandic mainland. Spiders and beetles have also become established. ## Human impact The only significant human impact is a small prefabricated hut which is used by researchers while staying on the island. The hut includes a few bunk beds and a solar power source to drive an emergency radio and other key electronics. There is also an abandoned lighthouse foundation. All visitors check themselves and belongings to ensure no seeds are accidentally introduced by humans to this ecosystem. It is believed that some boys who sneaked over from Heimaey by rowboat planted potatoes, which were promptly dug up once discovered. An improperly managed human defecation resulted in a tomato plant taking root, which was also destroyed. In 2009, a weather station for weather observations and a webcam were installed on Surtsey. ## See also - Geography of Iceland - List of islands of Iceland - List of new islands - Volcanism of Iceland - List of volcanic eruptions in Iceland - List of volcanoes in Iceland
21,703,763	Portrait of Monsieur Bertin	1,156,759,985	Famous portrait of 1832 by Ingres in the Louvre	[ "1832 paintings", "19th-century portraits", "Paintings in the Louvre by French artists", "Portrait paintings in the Louvre", "Portraits by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres" ]	Portrait of Monsieur Bertin is an 1832 oil on canvas painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. It depicts Louis-François Bertin (1766–1841), the French writer, art collector and director of the pro-royalist Journal des débats. Ingres completed the portrait during his first period of success; having achieved acclaim as a history painter, he accepted portrait commissions with reluctance, regarding them as a distraction from more important work. Bertin was a friend and a politically active member of the French upper-middle class. Ingres presents him as a personification of the commercially minded leaders of the liberal reign of Louis Philippe I. He is physically imposing and self-assured, but his real-life personality shines through – warm, wry and engaging to those who had earned his trust. The painting had a prolonged genesis. Ingres agonised over the pose and made several preparatory sketches. The final work faithfully captures the sitter's character, conveying both a restless energy and imposing bulk. It is an unflinchingly realistic depiction of ageing and emphasises the furrowed skin and thinning hair of an overweight man who yet maintains his resolve and determination. He sits in three-quarter profile against a brown ground lit from the right, his fingers are pronounced and highly detailed, while the polish of his chair reflects light from an unseen window. Ingres' portrait of Bertin was a critical and popular success, but the sitter was a private person. Although his family worried about caricature and disapproved, it became widely known and sealed the artist's reputation. It was praised at the Paris Salon of 1833, and has been influential to both academic painters such as Léon Bonnat and later modernists including Pablo Picasso and Félix Vallotton. Today art critics regard it as Ingres' finest male portrait. It has been on permanent display at the Musée du Louvre since 1897. ## Background Louis-François Bertin was 66 in 1832, the year of the portrait. He befriended Ingres either through his son Édouard Bertin, a student of the painter, or via Étienne-Jean Delécluze, Ingres' friend and the Journal'''s art critic. In either case the genesis of the commission is unknown. Bertin was a leader of the French upper class and a supporter of Louis Philippe and the Bourbon Restoration. He was a director of the Le Moniteur Universel until 1823, when the Journal des débats became the recognised voice of the liberal-constitutional opposition after he had come to criticize absolutism. He eventually gave his support to the July Monarchy. The Journal supported contemporary art, and Bertin was a patron, collector and cultivator of writers, painters and other artists. Ingres was sufficiently intrigued by Bertin's personality to accept the commission. It was completed within a month, during Ingres' frequent visits to Bertin's estate of retreat, Le Château des Roches, in Bièvres, Essonne. Ingres made daily visits, as Bertin entertained guests such as Victor Hugo, his mistress Juliette Drouet, Hector Berlioz, and later Franz Liszt and Charles Gounod. Ingres later made drawings of the Bertin family, including a depiction of his host's wife and sketches of their son Armand and daughter-in-law, Cécile. The portrait of Armand evidences his physical resemblance to his father. Ingres' early career coincided with the Romantic movement, which reacted against the prevailing neoclassical style. Neoclassicism in French art had developed as artists saw themselves as part of the cultural center of Europe, and France as the successor to Rome. Romantic painting was freer and more expressive, preoccupied more with colour than with line or form, and more focused on style than on subject matter. Paintings based on classical themes fell out of fashion, replaced by contemporary rather than historical subject matter, especially in portraiture. Ingres resisted this trend, and wrote, "The history painter shows the species in general; while the portrait painter represents only the specific individual—a model often ordinary and full of shortcomings." From his early career, Ingres' main source of income was commissioned portraits, a genre he dismissed as lacking in grandeur. The success of his The Vow of Louis XIII at the 1824 Salon marked an abrupt change in his fortunes: he received a series of commissions for large history paintings, and for the next decade he painted few portraits. His financial difficulties behind him, Ingres could afford to concentrate on historical subjects, although he was highly sought-after as a portraitist. He wrote in 1847, "Damned portraits, they are so difficult to do that they prevent me getting on with greater things that I could do more quickly." Ingres was more successful with female than male portraits. His 1814 Portrait of Madame de Senonnes was described as "to the feminine what the Louvre's Bertin is to the masculine". The sitter for his 1848 Portrait of Baronne de Rothschild looks out at the viewer with the same directness as Bertin, but is softened by her attractive dress and relaxed pose; she is engaging and sympathetic rather than tough and imposing. ## The portrait ### Preparation and execution Ingres was self-critical and consumed by self-doubt. He often took months to complete a portrait, leaving large periods of inactivity between sittings. With Bertin, he agonised in finding a pose to best convey both the man's restless energy and his age. At least seven studies survive, three are signed and dated. Ingres was a master draftsman and the sketches, if not fully realised, are highly regarded in their own right. The sketches are exemplary in their handling of line and form, and similar in size. The earliest study has Bertin standing and leaning on a table in an almost Napoleonic pose. His hard, level stare is already established, but the focus seems to be on his groin rather than his face. Ingres struggled with the sketch; the head is on a square of attached paper which must have replaced an earlier cut-out version, and other areas have been rubbed over and heavily reworked. The next extant drawing shows Bertin seated, but the chair is missing. The last extant sketch is the closest to the eventual painting, with a chair, though his bulk has not yet been filled out. Frustrated by his inability to capture his subject, Ingres broke down in tears in his studio, in company. Bertin recalled "consoling him: 'my dear Ingres, don't bother about me; and above all don't torment yourself like that. You want to start my portrait over again? Take your own time for it. You will never tire me, and just as long as you want me to come, I am at your orders.'" After agreeing to a breathing spell Ingres finally settled on a design. Early biographers provide differing anecdotes regarding the inspiration for the distinctive seated pose. Henri Delaborde said Ingres observed Bertin in this posture while arguing politics after dinner with his sons. According to Eugène Emmanuel Amaury Duval (who said he had heard the story from Bertin), Ingres noticed a pose Bertin took while seated outside with Ingres and a third man at a café. Bertin said that Ingres, confident that he had finally established the pose for the portrait, "came close and speaking almost in my ear said: 'Come sit tomorrow, your portrait is [as good as] done.'" Bertin's final pose reverses the usual relationship between the two men. The artist becomes the cool, detached observer; Bertin, usually calm and reasoned, is now restless and impatient, mirroring Ingres' irritation at spending time on portraiture. ### Description Bertin is presented as strong, energetic and warm-hearted. His hair is grey verging on white, his fingers spread across his knees. Bertin's fingers were described in 1959 by artist Henry de Waroquier as "crab-like claws ... emerging from the tenebrous caverns that are the sleeves of his coat." The bulk of his body is compacted in a tight black jacket, black trousers and brown satin waistcoat, with a starched white shirt and cravat revealing his open neck. He wears a gold watch and a pair of glasses in his right pocket. In the view of art historian Robert Rosenblum, his "nearly ferocious presence" is accentuated by the tightly constrained space. The chair and clothes appear too small to contain him. His coiled, stubby fingers rest on his thighs, barely protruding from the sleeves of his jacket, while his neck cannot be seen above his narrow starched white collar. The painting is composed in monochrome, muted colours; predominately blacks, greys and browns. The exceptions are the whites of his collar and sleeves, the reds in the cushion and the light reflecting on the leather of the arm-chair. In 19th-century art, vivid colour was associated with femininity and emotion; male portraiture tended towards muted shades and monochrome. Bertin leans slightly forward, boldly staring at the viewer in a manner that is both imposing and paternal. He seems engaged, and poised to speak, his body fully towards the viewer and his expression etched with certainty. Influenced by Nicolas Poussin's 1650 Self-Portrait with Allegory of Painting, Ingres minutely details the veins and wrinkles of his face. Bertin is in three-quarter profile, against a gold–brown background lit from the right. He rests on a curved-back mahogany chair, the arms of which reflect light falling from the upper left of the pictorial space. Ingres seems to have adapted elements of the approach and technique of Hans Holbein's 1527 Portrait of William Warham, now in the Louvre. Neither artist placed much emphasis on colour, preferring dark or cool tones. The Warham portrait seems to have informed the indicators of Bertin's aging and the emphasis on his fingers. Jacques-Louis David also explored hyper-realism in his depictions of Cooper Penrose (1802) and Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (1817). In the later painting, David shows tiny glints of light reflecting on the sitter's chair and painstakingly details "every wayward curl of [Sieyès'] closely cropped auburn hair." The Greek meander pattern at the foot of the wall is unusually close to the picture plane, confining the sitter. The wall is painted in gold, adding to the sense of a monumental portrait of a modern icon. The details of Bertin's face are highly symmetrical. His eyes are heavily lidded, circled by oppositely positioned twists of his white collar, the winds of his hair, eyebrows and eyelids. His mouth turns downwards at the left and upwards to the right. This dual expression is intended to show his duality and complex personality: he is a hard-nosed businessman, and a patron of the arts. The reflection of a window can be seen in the rim of Bertin's chair. It is barely discernible, but adds spatial depth. The Portrait of Pope Leo X (c. 1519) by Raphael, a source for the Bertin portrait, also features a window reflection of the pommel on the pope's chair. The painting is signed J.Ingres Pinxit 1832 in capitals at the top left, and L.F. Bertin, also in capitals, at the upper right. The frame is the original, and thought to have been designed by Ingres himself. It shows animals around a sinuous and richly carved grapevine. Art historians Paul Mitchell and Lynn Roberts note that the design follows an old French tradition of placing austere male portraits within "exuberantly carved" frames. The frame closely resembles that of Raphael's c. 1514–15 Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, a painting that influenced Ingres, especially in colour and tone. A similar frame was used for Ingres's 1854 painting of Joan of Arc at the Coronation of Charles VII. ## Reception Monsieur Bertin was exhibited at the 1833 Salon alongside his 1807 Portrait of Madame Duvaucey. It met with near universal praise to become his most successful artwork to that point. It sealed his reputation as a portraitist, reaching far enough into public consciousness to become a standard for newspaper political satires. Today it is considered his greatest portrait. Ingres viewed all this as a mixed blessing, remarking that "since my portraits of Bertin and Molé, everybody wants portraits. There are six that I've turned down, or am avoiding, because I can't stand them." Before the official exhibition, Ingres displayed the painting in his studio for friends and pupils. Most were lavish in their praise, although Louis Lacuria confided to a friend that he feared people might "find the colouring a bit dreary". He proved correct; at the Salon, critics praised the draftsmanship, but some felt the portrait exemplified Ingres' weakness as a colourist. It was routinely faulted for its "purplish tone"—which the ageing of the oil medium has transformed over time to warm greys and browns. Bertin's wife Louis-Marie reportedly did not like the painting; his daughter, Louise, thought it transformed her father from a "great lord" to a "fat farmer". Given the standings of the two men, the painting was received in both social and political terms. A number of writers mentioned Bertin's eventful career, in tones that were, according to art historian Andrew Carrington Shelton, either "bitingly sarcastic [or] fawningly reverential". There were many satirical reproductions and pointed editorials in the following years. Aware of Bertin's support of the July Monarchy, writers at the La Gazette de France viewed the portrait as the epitome of the "opportunism and cynicism" of the new regime. Their anonymous critic excitedly wondered "what bitter irony it expresses, what hardened skepticism, sarcasm and ... pronounced cynicism". Several critics mentioned Bertin's hands. Twentieth-century art historian Albert Boime described them as "powerful, vulturine ... grasping his thighs in a gesture ... projecting ... enormous strength controlled". Some contemporary critics were not so kind. The photographer and critic Félix Tournachon was harshly critical, and disparaged what he saw as a "fantastical bundle of flesh ... under which, instead of bones and muscles, there can only be intestines – this flatulent hand, the rumbling of which I can hear!" Bertin's hands made a different impression on the critic F. de Lagenevais, who remarked: "A mediocre artist would have modified them, he would have replaced those swollen joints with the cylindrical fingers of the first handy model; but by this single alteration he would have changed the expression of the whole personality ... the energetic and mighty nature". The work's realism attracted a large amount of commentary when it was first exhibited. Some saw it as an affront to Romanticism, others said that its small details not only showed an acute likeness, but built a psychological profile of the sitter. Art historian Geraldine Pelles sees Bertin as "at once intense, suspicious, and aggressive". She notes that there is a certain amount of projection of the artist's personality and recalls Théophile Silvestre's description of Ingres; "There he was squarely seated in an armchair, motionless as an Egyptian god carved of granite, his hands stretched wide over parallel knees, his torso stiff, his head haughty". Some compared it to Balthasar Denner, a German realist painter influenced by Jan van Eyck. Denner, in the words of Ingres scholar Robert Rosenblum, "specialised in recording every last line on the faces of aged men and women, and even reflections of windows in their eyes." The comparison was made by Ingres' admirers and detractors alike. In 1833, Louis de Maynard of the Collège-lycée Ampère, writing in the influential L'Europe littéraire, dismissed Denner as a weak painter concerned with hyperrealistic "curiosities", and said that both he and Ingres fell short of the "sublime productions of Ingres' self-proclaimed hero, Raphael." The following year Ingres sought to capitalise on the success of his Bertin portrait. He showed his ambitious history painting The Martyrdom of Saint Symphorian at the 1834 Salon, but it was harshly criticised; even Ingres' admirers offered only faint praise. Offended and frustrated, Ingres declared he would disown the Salon, abandon his residence in Paris for Rome, and relinquish all current positions, ending his role in public life. This petulance was not to last. Bertin bequeathed the portrait to his daughter Louise (1805–1877) on his death. She passed it to her niece Marie-Louise-Sophie Bertin (1836–1893) wife of Jules Bapst, a later director of the Journal des débats. They bequeathed it to their niece Cécile Bapst, its last private owner. In 1897 Cécile sold it to the Musée du Louvre for 80,000 francs. ## Legacy The Bertin portrait has been hugely influential. At first it served as a model for depictions of energetic and intellectual 19th-century men, and later as a more universal type. Several 1890s works closely echo its form and motifs. Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant's monochrome and severe 1896 Portrait of Alfred Chauchard is heavily indebted, while Léon Bonnat's stern 1892 portrait of the aging Ernest Renan has been described as a "direct citation" of Ingres' portrait. Its influence can be seen in the dismissive stare and overwhelming physical presence of the sitter in Pablo Picasso's 1906 Portrait of Gertrude Stein''. Picasso admired Ingres and referred to him throughout his career. His invoking of Bertin can be read as a humorous reference to, according to Robert Rosenblum, "Stein's ponderous bulk and sexual preference". Stein does not possess Bertin's ironic stare, but is similarly dressed in black, and leans forward in an imposing manner, the painting emphasising her "massive, monumental presence". In 1907 the Swiss artist Félix Vallotton depicted Stein, in response to Picasso, making an even more direct reference to Ingres' portrait, prompting Édouard Vuillard to exclaim, "That's Madame Bertin!" The influence continued through the 20th century. Gerald Kelly recalled Bertin when painting his restless and confined series of portraits of Ralph Vaughan Williams between 1952 and 1961. In 1975 Marcel Broodthaers produced a series of nine black and white photographs on board based on Ingres' portraits of Bertin and Mademoiselle Caroline Rivière. ## See also - List of paintings by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
6,814,366	Black Moshannon State Park	1,168,696,963	State park in Pennsylvania, United States	[ "1937 establishments in Pennsylvania", "Allegheny Plateau", "Campgrounds in Pennsylvania", "Civilian Conservation Corps in Pennsylvania", "Important Bird Areas of Pennsylvania", "National Register of Historic Places in Centre County, Pennsylvania", "Parks in Centre County, Pennsylvania", "Protected areas established in 1937", "Protected areas of Centre County, Pennsylvania", "State parks of Pennsylvania" ]	Black Moshannon State Park is a 3,480-acre (1,410 ha) Pennsylvania state park in Rush Township, Centre County, Pennsylvania, United States. It surrounds Black Moshannon Lake, formed by a dam on Black Moshannon Creek, which has given its name to the lake and park. The park is just west of the Allegheny Front, 9 miles (14 km) east of Philipsburg on Pennsylvania Route 504, and is largely surrounded by Moshannon State Forest. A bog in the park provides a habitat for diverse wildlife not common in other areas of the state, such as carnivorous plants, orchids, and species normally found farther north. As home to the "largest reconstituted bog in Pennsylvania", it was chosen by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources for its "25 Must-see Pennsylvania State Parks" list. Humans have long used the Black Moshannon area for recreational, industrial, and subsistence purposes. The Seneca tribe used it as hunting and fishing grounds. European settlers cleared some land for farming, then clear-cut the vast stands of old-growth white pine and eastern hemlock. Black Moshannon State Park rose from the ashes of a depleted forest which had been largely destroyed by wildfire in the years following the lumber era. The forests were rehabilitated by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression in the 1930s. Many of the buildings built by the Civilian Conservation Corps stand in the park today and are protected on the list of National Register of Historic Places in three historic districts. Black Moshannon State Park is open year-round for recreation and has an extensive network of trails which allow hiking, biking, and viewing the bog habitat at the Black Moshannon State Natural Area. The park is in a Pennsylvania Important Bird Area, where bird watchers have recorded 175 species. It is also home to many rare and unusual plants and animals due to its location atop the Allegheny Plateau; the lake is at an elevation of about 1,900 feet (580 m). Much of the park is open for hunting and the lake and creek are open for fishing, boating, and swimming. In winter it is a popular destination for cross-country skiing, and was home to a small downhill skiing area from 1965 to 1982. Picnics and camping are also popular, and the "Friends of Black Moshannon State Park" group promotes the park and all the recreational activities associated with it. ## History ### Native Americans Humans have lived in what is now Pennsylvania since at least 10,000 BC. The first settlers were Paleo-Indian nomadic hunters known from their stone tools. The hunter-gatherers of the Archaic period, which lasted locally from 7000 to 1000 BC, used a greater variety of more sophisticated stone artefacts. The Woodland period marked the gradual transition to semi-permanent villages and horticulture, between 1000 BC and 1500 AD. Archeological evidence found in the state from this time includes a range of pottery types and styles, burial mounds, pipes, bows and arrow, and ornaments. Black Moshannon Creek is in the West Branch Susquehanna River drainage basin, whose earliest recorded Native American inhabitants were the Iroquoian-speaking Susquehannocks. They were a matriarchial society that lived in large long houses in stockaded villages. Decimated by disease brought by European settlers and warfare with the Five Nations of the Iroquois, by 1675 they had died out, moved away, or been assimilated into other tribes. After this, the lands of the West Branch Susquehanna River valley were under the nominal control of the Iroquois. The Iroquois lived in long houses, primarily in what is now New York, and had a strong confederacy which gave them power beyond their numbers. To fill the void left by the demise of the Susquehannocks, the Iroquois encouraged displaced tribes from the east to settle in the West Branch watershed, including the Lenape (or Delaware). The Seneca, members of the Iroquois Confederacy, became inhabitants in the area of Black Moshannon Lake, which was a series of beaver ponds at the time. They and other tribes, including the Lenape, hunted, fished, and traded in the region. The Great Shamokin Path, the major native east–west path connecting the Susquehanna and Allegheny River basins, crossed Black Moshannon Creek at a ford a few miles downstream from the park; however, no trails of the indigenous peoples are recorded as having passed through the park itself. The park's 1-mile (1.6 km) Indian Trail for hiking and cross-country skiing recalls such native paths as it runs through an open forest of oak and pine trees, with occasional clearings and a grove of hawthorns. The French and Indian War (1754–1763) led to the migration of many Native Americans westward to the Ohio River basin. On November 5, 1768, the British acquired the "New Purchase" from the Iroquois in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, including what is now Black Moshannon State Park. After the American Revolutionary War, Native Americans almost entirely left Pennsylvania. While there are no known archeological sites within Black Moshannon State Park, the name Moshannon /moʊˈʃænən/ is derived from a Lenape (Delaware) term for Moshannon and Black Moshannon Creeks: Mos'hanna'unk, which means "elk river place". The name "Black Moshannon" refers to the dark color of the water, a result of plant tannins from the local vegetation and bog. ### Lumber era Prior to the arrival of William Penn and his Quaker colonists in 1682, an estimated 90 percent of what is now Pennsylvania was covered with old-growth forest: over 31,000 square miles (80,000 km<sup>2</sup>) of white pine, eastern hemlock, and a mix of hardwoods. The forests near the three original counties, Philadelphia, Bucks, and Chester, were the first to be harvested, as the early settlers used the readily available timber to build homes, barns, and ships, and cleared the land for agriculture. The demand for lumber slowly increased and by the time of the American Revolution the lumber industry had reached the interior and mountainous regions of Pennsylvania. Lumber became one of the leading industries in Pennsylvania. Trees were used for fuel, tannin for the many tanneries that were spread throughout the state, and wood for construction, furniture, and barrel making. Large areas of forest were harvested by colliers to fire iron furnaces. Rifle stocks and shingles were made from Pennsylvania timber, as were a wide variety of household utensils, and the first Conestoga wagons. The Philadelphia–Erie Pike (present day Pennsylvania Route 504) opened the Black Moshannon area to settlers by 1821. The first settlers opened the Antes Tavern along the Pike, trapped fur-bearing animals, and cleared land for farming. By the mid-19th century, the demand for lumber reached the area, where eastern white pine and eastern hemlock covered the surrounding mountainsides. Lumbermen harvested the trees and sent the logs down Black Moshannon and Moshannon Creeks to the West Branch Susquehanna River, then to the Susquehanna Boom and sawmills at Williamsport. Lumber was also transported by sled and wagon over the ridges and through the valleys to Philipsburg, Julian, and Unionville. The Beaver Mill Lumber Company became one of the largest single lumber operations in all of Pennsylvania, and four lumber boomtowns, Beaver Mills, Star Mill, Underwood Mills, and Antes, altered the landscape in the Black Moshannon area. A dam was built at the site of an old beaver dam, and the mill ponds for the lumber mills flooded the old beaver ponds. The communities featured general stores, blacksmith shops, liveries, taverns, schools, and even a ten-pin bowling alley. The area helped to meet the nation's need for timber in mining operations, construction, and railroads. A number of trails in the park today recall this time. The 1.1-mile (1.8 km) Hay Road Trail was used by farmers who collected hay at the wetlands, and connects the cabin area with the lake. The 0.8-mile (1.3 km) Seneca Trail for cross-country skiing and hiking passes through a second growth forest of oak and cherry trees that shade the stumps of the old growth pines harvested during the lumber era. The Shingle Mill Trail is a 3.67-mile (5.91 km) path that begins at the main parking area near the dam on Black Moshannon Lake and follows the banks of Black Moshannon Creek to the Allegheny Front Trail and back. The remains of Star Mill, a sawmill built in 1879 that operated until the end of the lumber era, are on the 2.1-mile (3.4 km) Star Mill Trail. This loop trail for hiking and cross-country skiing is nearly flat, with a view of Black Moshannon Lake. This boom era was not to last; before long the lumber was gone, leaving a barren landscape devastated by erosion and wildfires. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania bought thousands of acres of deforested and burned land, then began the project of reforestation. By the 1930s, the land that became Black Moshannon State Park was already a place for picnics and camping, on the aptly named "Tent Hill", and people swam and fished in the old mill pond. The 0.2-mile (320 m) Tent Hill Trail still runs from the campsites to the Black Moshannon Lake beach. ### Civilian Conservation Corps The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a work relief program for young men from unemployed families, established in 1933. As part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal legislation, it was designed to combat unemployment during the Great Depression. The CCC operated in every U.S. state. The original facilities at Black Moshannon State Park were constructed by the CCC from 1933 to 1937, one of many projects it undertook throughout central Pennsylvania. Beaver Meadow CCC Camp S-71 was built in May 1933 near the abandoned village of Beaver Mills, and was one of the first to expand recreational facilities in Pennsylvania. More than 200 young men moved in and began the work of conserving soil, water, and timber in the area. They cut roads through the growing forest to aid in fighting the wildfires that sprang up, and planted many acres of red pines as part of the reforestation effort. Most of the CCC-built park facilities are still in use today, including log cabins, picnic pavilions, a food concession stand, and miles of trails. Early on, the CCC constructed a dam at Black Moshannon Lake, on the site of the former mill pond dam. CCC Camp S-71 closed in January 1937 and Black Moshannon State Park officially opened that same year. #### Historic districts In 1987, three separate historic districts incorporating the existing CCC structures in Black Moshannon State Park were placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The structures in all three districts were built between 1933 and 1937 and are designated as part of either the Beach and Day Use, Family Cabin, or Maintenance Historic Districts. Eighteen structures in the Beach and Day Use Historic District are protected as contributing properties, including seven "standard" pavilions, a larger picnic shelter, and three water pump shelters. These last were built of native stone and covered with pebbles, and have since been converted to small picnic pavilions. The concession building, beach bathhouse, and museum are also protected. Four open pit latrines with wane edge siding and hipped roofs were also contributing structures to the Beach and Day Use district. The Family Cabin Historic District consists of 16 contributing properties: 13 log cabins, one lodge, and two latrines. Cabins 1–12, half with one room and half with two, are in a line along a road, similar to 1930s motor courts. The cabin layout at Black Moshannon State Park is unique compared to CCC-built cabins at other Pennsylvania state parks. The cabins at the other parks reflect the "rustic" style of cabin layout promoted by the National Park Service. The Lodge, also known as Cabin 13, is a large rectangular clapboard-sided building with a stone fireplace, while Cabin 14 is L-shaped with an open porch. Two pit latrines built by the CCC were also contributing structures. The Maintenance Historic District includes four CCC-built structures. The storage building is a wood-frame structure with a gable roof, similar to military storage buildings built in the 1930s and 1940s. A three-bay garage of standard military design is included in this historic district, as was the gas pump house with an extended eave to protect the gas pumps. The Park Ranger's residence is a 1+1⁄2-story gable-roofed house, with modern vinyl siding. ### Modern era Since its establishment in 1937, Black Moshannon State Park has undergone many changes. In 1941, Governor Arthur James announced plans to expand the park to 1,000 acres (400 ha) by annexing surrounding state forest land. "Black Moshannon Airport" was built on land taken from the state park and Moshannon State Forest just prior to the Second World War, was operational by 1942, and renamed "Mid-State Airport" in 1962. As of 2023, it is officially known as "Mid-State Regional Airport" and covers 500 acres (200 ha). While the airport was designated a Keystone Opportunity Zone to encourage business growth, there are limitations in state law that prohibit any further development on park or forest lands. The park was the site of a ski resort from the 1960s until 1982. The state legislature authorized "construction of ski facilities" at the park in 1961, which were operational by 1965. Although managed by the state, a commercial operator was sought as early as 1969, and in 1980 it was leased to a private contractor, before being closed in 1982. The ski area was primitive by modern standards: skiers were lifted to the top of the slope by one of two tow ropes or Poma lifts, and the slopes had about 250 feet (76 m) of vertical drop. As of 2020, the ski lodge, renamed Cabin 20, can be rented out by park visitors, while the Ski Slope Trail is a 2-mile (3.2 km) hiking trail that passes near the former ski slope. It begins at the beach parking lot, climbs Rattlesnake Mountain, and crosses Pennsylvania Route 504 near a historical marker for the Philadelphia–Erie Turnpike. On November 11, 1954, the park was officially named "Black Moshannon State Park" by the Pennsylvania Geographic Board. The CCC-built dam forming Black Moshannon Lake was replaced in the 1950s, and the current Kephart Dam was built in 1974. The park experienced major developments between 1971 and 1980. Time has brought changes to the park's CCC-built structures: the original picnic pavilion 6 collapsed under snow in 1994, the museum became the Environmental Learning Center, most of the latrines are gone, and six modern cabins and two deluxe cottages have been built in the Cabin Historic District. As of 2020, other post-war facilities include the park office, boat launches, showerhouses, electric vehicle charging stations, and modern restroom and shower facilities. There is a wastewater treatment plant near the dam for effluent from the park and some private homes. In 2019, the state paid \$299,000 to the Philipsburg Rod and Gun Club, which had leased 23 acres (9.3 ha) near the Organized Group Tenting area in the park for over 60 years. The state terminated the lease over environmental contamination from lead shot. By the 1980s, the park started to receive official recognition for its unique resources. The three Historic Districts were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987 in recognition of their CCC-built structures. That same year the state celebrated Black Moshannon State Park's "50th Anniversary". In 1994, the DCNR established the "Black Moshannon Bog Natural Area" as part of a program to recognize areas of "unique scenic, geologic or ecological value". In 1997 the park's Important Bird Area (IBA) was one of the first 73 IBAs established in Pennsylvania. By 2001 yearly attendance at Black Moshannon State Park was over 350,000. As of 2020, the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) Bureau of Parks, which administers all 121 Pennsylvania state parks, had chosen Black Moshannon as one of its "25 Must-see Pennsylvania State Parks", citing it as home to the "largest reconstituted bog in Pennsylvania". ## Geology and climate The rocks underlying the Black Moshannon Creek drainage basin are primarily shale, sandstone, and coal. Three major rock formations are present in Black Moshannon State Park, all from the Carboniferous period. These sedimentary rocks formed in or near shallow seas roughly 300 to 350 million years ago. The Mississippian Burgoon Formation is composed of buff-colored sandstone and conglomerate. The late Mississippian Mauch Chunk Formation is formed with grayish-red shale, siltstone, sandstone, and conglomerate. The third is the early Pennsylvanian Pottsville Formation, which is a gray conglomerate that may contain sandstone, siltstone, and shale, as well as anthracite coal. The park is at an elevation of 1,919 feet (585 m) atop the Allegheny Plateau, just west of the Allegheny Front, a steep escarpment which rises 1,300 feet (400 m) in 4 miles (6.4 km), and marks the transition between the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians to the east and the Allegheny Plateau to the west. The Allegheny Plateau and Appalachian mountains were all formed in the Alleghenian orogeny some 300 million years ago, when Gondwana (specifically what became Africa) and what became North America collided, forming Pangaea. The lake within the park is at an elevation of about 1,900 feet (580 m), and the park itself sits in a natural basin. The basin and the underlying sandstone trap water and thus form the lake and surrounding bogs. The higher elevation leads to a cooler climate, and the basin helps trap denser, cooler air, leading to longer winters and milder summers. The cooler climate also means the park is home to animals and plants typically found much further north. The Allegheny Plateau has a continental climate, with occasional severe low temperatures in winter and average daily temperature ranges of 20 °F (11 °C) in winter and 26 °F (14 °C) in summer. In 1972, long-term average monthly temperatures ranged from a high of 66.8 °F (19.3 °C) in July to a low of 26.2 °F (−3.2 °C) in January. The mean annual precipitation for the Black Moshannon Creek watershed is 40 to 42 inches (1016 to 1067 mm). The soil in the park is mostly derived from sandstone and as such does not have much capacity to neutralize acid rain. The highest recorded temperature at the park was 97 °F (36 °C) in 1988, and the record low was −25 °F (−32 °C) in 1994. ## Ecology Within Black Moshannon State Park there is a State Park Natural Area protecting the bogs. The park itself is part of a much larger Important Bird Area, which includes most of the surrounding state forest, airport, and private properties. ### Bog Natural Area The bogs at the park contain large amounts of sphagnum moss; this decomposes very slowly, causing layers of dead moss to build up at the bottom of the bog, creating peat. In 1994, 1,592 acres (644 ha) of bog at the state park were protected as the "Black Moshannon Bog Natural Area"; this was originally conceived as part of the State Parks 2000 strategic plan of the DCNR, and fourteen years later the total area of bog protected as a Natural Area had increased to 1,992 acres (806 ha). Most bogs exist in glaciated areas, but Black Moshannon State Park is on the Allegheny Plateau. This area was not covered by glaciers during the last ice age. The bogs formed here because of the beds of sandstone that lie flat, a short distance below the surface of the earth. The sandstone formations in the park do not absorb water very well, so any depression in them will collect water, as has happened here. The bogs extend the shores of the lake. Migratory shorebirds that visit here include greater and lesser yellowlegs, least sandpiper, solitary sandpiper, and the spotted sandpiper, which has been confirmed as using the IBA as a breeding grounds. The water in the bog is low in nutrients and high in acidity, which makes it difficult for most plants to live there. Only specialized plants can thrive in the park bogs: there are three species of carnivorous plants and seventeen varieties of orchid. Wild cranberries and blueberries grow in the bog along with sedges, leatherleaf shrubs, Arctic cotton grass, and viburnums. The bogs are all protected by the state of Pennsylvania. ### Wildlife White-tailed deer, wild turkey, ruffed grouse, opossum, raccoon, hawks, chipmunks, porcupine, woodpeckers, and flying, red, and eastern gray squirrels are all fairly common in the park. Black bears also inhabit Black Moshannon State Park. Many of these animals were decimated due to the effects of deforestation, pollution and unregulated hunting and trapping during the late 19th century. Hunting controls established by the Pennsylvania Game Commission and the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps and Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources in re-establishing the second growth forest have led to the strong comeback of game species at Black Moshannon State Park and throughout the forests of Pennsylvania. The lake is home to American beavers, as well as great blue heron, swans, snow geese, common loons, and many other types of waterfowl, with Canada goose, ring-necked duck, mallard, and wood duck the most commonly seen. The bogs, marshes, and swamps contain frogs and salamanders, and provide a habitat for carnivorous plants like the pitcher plant and sundew. Black Moshannon State Park is home to many common species of songbirds, including ovenbirds. The conifer and mixed-forests of the park and its surroundings provide habitats for northern saw-whet owl, blue-headed vireo, hermit thrush, dark-eyed junco, and magnolia, pine, yellow-rumped, Blackburnian, and black-throated green warblers. The deciduous forests provide habitats for songbirds, such as scarlet tanager and red-eyed vireo. An outbreak of the non-native gypsy moth in the mid-1980s nearly devastated the woods in a small valley. Selective timber cuts harvested the trees that were affected by species of moth. Today the 1.2-mile (1.9 km) Sleepy Hollow Trail for hiking, biking, and cross-country skiing loops through the new growth in the area, which provides an ideal habitat for populations of white-tailed deer and wild turkey. #### Important Bird Area Pennsylvania's "Black Moshannon State Park & State Forest" Important Bird Area (IBA) encompasses 45,667 acres (18,481 ha). The land includes parts of the state park and surrounding Moshannon State Forest, as well as Pennsylvania State Game Lands No. 33, Mid-State Regional Airport (which borders both the park and the forest), and some other nearby parcels of private land. The Pennsylvania Audubon Society has designated 3,374 acres (1,365 ha) of Black Moshannon State Park as an IBA, which is an area designated as a globally important habitat for the conservation of bird populations. Ornithologists and bird watchers have recorded a total of 175 species at the IBA. Several factors contribute to the high total of bird species observed: there is a large area of forest in the IBA, as well as great habitat diversity. The location of the IBA along the Allegheny Front also contributes to the diverse bird populations. Black Moshannon Lake and the bogs of the Natural Area are especially important to the IBA. They serve as a stopover for migratory waterfowl and shorebirds. Waterfowl observed at the park include pied-billed and Slavonian grebes, common loon, American black duck, ruddy duck, blue-winged and green-winged teal, tundra swan, long-tailed duck, hooded and red-breasted merganser, greater and lesser scaup, northern pintail, bufflehead, American wigeon, and northern shoveler. Pennsylvania IBA \#33 is on the Allegheny Front, which is along a prime migratory path for a variety of birds of prey. The golden eagle, bald eagle, osprey, and northern harrier pass through the area during their annual migration periods. It is possible that the bald eagle may nest within the IBA, but this has not been confirmed. Raptors which do nest in the forests of the IBA include the northern goshawk, red-shouldered, broad-winged, red-tailed, sharp-shinned, and Cooper's hawks. The cool, damp habitat provided by the bogs at Black Moshannon State Park provides a home for some birds that are at the southern limit of their habitat in central Pennsylvania. The Canada warbler and northern waterthrush nest in the bogs, as do the alder flycatcher, common yellowthroat, swamp sparrow, red-winged blackbird, and gray catbird. The olive-sided flycatcher, which is designated as locally extinct in Pennsylvania, has been seen during the breeding season at Black Moshannon State Natural Area. Bird watchers have observed nesting barred owls in the IBA, as well as Virginia rail and sora. ## Recreation ### Cabins, camping, swimming, and picnics Twenty-one cabins can be used by visitors at Black Moshannon State Park. Thirteen are rustic cabins, built by the CCC, with electric lights, a kitchen stove and a wood-burning stove, refrigerator, and bunk beds. Six are modern cabins, including the former ski lodge, with electric heat, a bedroom, living room, kitchen, and bath. There are also two deluxe camping cottages with electric heat and similar amenities as the rustic cabins. All cabin renters need to bring their own household items such as linens and cookware. There are seventy-two campsites at Black Moshannon State Park. Each campsite has access to washhouses with flush toilets, showers, and laundry tubs. The campsites also have fire rings and picnic tables. There is also an organized group tenting area, which can accommodate up to 60 persons. Some sites allow pets; there are also twelve full hook-up sites available. These have electric service, water and sewer hook-ups as well. Nine sites are tent-only. The sandy beach on Black Moshannon Lake is open from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend, and the beach bathhouse was built by the CCC. Beginning in 2008, lifeguards will not be posted at the beach. There are eight picnic pavilions built by the CCC in the park, which can be reserved for a fee. In addition to the pavilions, Black Moshannon State Park has 250 picnic tables in four large picnic areas. The use of these picnic tables and unreserved pavilions is first come, first served, and they are free of charge. Some modern activities are prohibited in Black Moshannon State Park. The operation of drones and similar radio controlled devices is prohibited. All-terrain vehicle usage is also prohibited and closely monitored by DCNR. Further, removing any natural items is illegal as is firewood cutting without a permit. ### Boating, fishing, and hunting Boating is a popular use of the waters of Black Moshannon Lake, which covers 250 acres (100 ha). Canoes, sailboats, and electric motor boats are all permitted on Black Moshannon Lake, provided they are properly registered with the state. Edward Gertler, author of a series of canoeing books, calls Black Moshannon Creek "about the best whitewater run in the West Branch Susquehanna Watershed" in Keystone Canoeing, and the first 13.2-mile (21.2 km) stretch of Class 2+ whitewater for canoeing and kayaking begins in the park, just downstream of the dam. Cold water fishing is available in Black Moshannon Creek and several of its tributaries, where anglers will find rainbow and brown trout which have been stocked there for sport fishing by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission. Black Moshannon Lake's waters are warmer than those of the creek, and so hold many different species of fish, including largemouth bass, yellow perch, chain pickerel, bullhead catfish, northern pike, bluegill, and crappie. Hunting is permitted in most of Black Moshannon State Park. It helps to prevent an overpopulation of animals and the resulting overbrowsing of the understory. The most common game species are ruffed grouse, eastern gray squirrel, wild turkey, and white-tailed deer. However, the hunting of groundhogs is prohibited. ### Trails There are 21 miles (34 km) of trails at Black Moshannon State Park; all are open to hiking, most are open to cross-country skiing during the winter months, and select trails are open to snowmobiles and mountain bikes. The park is especially popular among cross-country skiing enthusiasts due to its high elevation. Skiers will find trails that are largely free of rocks, with a layer of grass beneath the snow. Sleepy Hollow, Seneca, Indian, and Hay Road Trails are most frequently used. Eight of the park's fourteen trails are described above, the remaining six follow. - Allegheny Front Trail is a 41.8-mile (67.3 km) hiking trail that passes through Black Moshannon State Park and Moshannon State Forest. It was built in the late 1990s and offers several vistas looking out from atop the Allegheny Front. - Blueberry Trail is a 1-mile (1,600 m) loop between the airport and bog with "abundant berries". - Bog Trail is a 0.5-mile (800 m) boardwalk hiking trail that was built by the Pennsylvania Conservation Corps and has received awards for its handicapped accessibility. Bog Trail loops through the bog at the park passing by lilies, sedges, rushes, Leatherleaf, and various carnivorous plants. Visitors may observe waterfowl and wildlife in the bogs. Access for the handicapped is provided at the boating area. - Lake Loop Trail is a 0.7-mile (1,100 m) loop which crosses the Pennsylvania Route 504 bridge over the lake and the bridge over Black Moshannon Creek just below the dam. - Moss-Hanne Trail is an 7.7-mile (12.4 km) trail through the Black Moshannon Bog Natural Area. It is open to hiking and cross-country skiing. The trail passes through pine plantations, hardwood forests, spruce groves, hemlock-filled bottomlands, patches of wild blueberries, and by beaver ponds. The area is marshy; waterproof footwear is recommended and parts of the trail are boardwalks. Bikes are prohibited on the Moss-Hanne trail. - Snowmobile Trail is a 1.1-mile (1.8 km) trail that departs the park area behind Pavilion 6. It provides access to the many miles of trails in Moshannon State Forest that are open to recreational snowmobiling. It is open during summer months for hiking and mountain biking. ### Friends of Black Moshannon State Park The Friends of Black Moshannon State Park is a volunteer organization that promotes the recreational use of the park through a summer festival. The group also works with the park staff to maintain the park lands, serve as campground hosts, survey the eastern bluebird population, and organize conservation projects. The Summer Festival usually takes place over the fourth weekend of July. Events at the festival recall the lumbering history of the park. Log rolling, axe throwing, and cross-cut sawing events are held, as are horseshoe and seed spitting contests. Black Moshannon Lake is open to canoe races and fishing. A Saturday night bonfire party is held at the beach, with music and refreshments. ## Nearby state parks The following state parks are within 30 miles (48 km) of Black Moshannon State Park:
340,167	Giant anteater	1,172,034,334	A large insectivorous mammal native to Central and South America	[ "Anteaters", "Extant Zanclean first appearances", "Fauna of the Amazon", "Fauna of the Caatinga", "Fauna of the Cerrado", "Fauna of the Pantanal", "Mammals described in 1758", "Mammals of Central America", "Mammals of South America", "Pleistocene mammals of South America", "Pliocene mammals of South America", "Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus", "Vulnerable animals", "Vulnerable biota of South America" ]	The giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) is an insectivorous mammal native to Central and South America. It is one of four living species of anteaters, of which it is the largest member. The only extant member of the genus Myrmecophaga, it is classified with sloths in the order Pilosa. This species is mostly terrestrial, in contrast to other living anteaters and sloths, which are arboreal or semiarboreal. The giant anteater is 182 to 217 cm (5 ft 11+1⁄2 in to 7 ft 1+1⁄2 in) in length, with weights of 33 to 50 kg (73 to 110 lb) for males and 27 to 47 kg (60 to 104 lb) for females. It is recognizable by its elongated snout, bushy tail, long fore claws, and distinctively colored pelage. The giant anteater is found in multiple habitats, including grassland and rainforest. It forages in open areas and rests in more forested habitats. It feeds primarily on ants and termites, using its fore claws to dig them up and its long, sticky tongue to collect them. Though giant anteaters live in overlapping home ranges, they are mostly solitary except during mother-offspring relationships, aggressive interactions between males, and when mating. Mother anteaters carry their offspring on their backs until weaning them. The giant anteater is listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It has been extirpated from many parts of its former range. Threats to its survival include habitat destruction, fire, and poaching for fur and bushmeat, although some anteaters inhabit protected areas. With its distinctive appearance and habits, the anteater has been featured in pre-Columbian myths and folktales, as well as modern popular culture. ## Taxonomy The giant anteater got its binomial name from Carl Linnaeus in 1758. Its generic name, Myrmecophaga, and specific name, tridactyla, are both Greek, meaning "anteater" and "three fingers", respectively. Myrmecophaga jubata was used as a synonym. Three subspecies have been suggested: M. t. tridactyla (Venezuela and the Guianas south to northern Argentina), M. t. centralis (Central America to northwestern Colombia and northern Ecuador), and M. t. artata (northeastern Colombia and northwestern Venezuela). The giant anteater is grouped with the semiarboreal northern and southern tamanduas in the family Myrmecophagidae. Together with the family Cyclopedidae, whose only extant member is the arboreal silky anteater, the two families comprise the suborder Vermilingua. Anteaters and sloths belong to order Pilosa and share superorder Xenarthra (cladogram below) with the Cingulata (whose only extant members are armadillos). The two orders of Xenarthra split 66 million years ago (Mya) during the Late Cretaceous epoch. Anteaters and sloths diverged around 55 Mya, between the Paleocene and Eocene epochs. The lineages of Cyclopes and other extant anteaters split around 40 Mya in the Oligocene epoch, while the last common ancestor of Myrmecophaga and Tamandua existed 10 Mya in the Late Miocene subepoch. Though most of their evolutionary history, anteaters were confined to South America, which was formerly an island continent. Following the formation of the Isthmus of Panama about 3 Mya, anteaters of all three extant genera invaded Central America as part of the Great American Interchange. The fossil record for anteaters is generally sparse. Known fossils include the Pliocene genus Palaeomyrmidon, a close relative to the silky anteater, Protamandua, which is closer to the giant anteater and the tamanduas from the Miocene, and Neotamandua, which is believed have close affinities to Myrmecophaga. Protamandua was larger than the silky anteater, but smaller than a tamandua, while Neotamandua was larger, falling somewhere between a tamandua and a giant anteater. Protamandua did not appear to be specialized for walking or climbing, but it may have had a prehensile tail. Neotamandua, though, is unlikely to have had a prehensile tail and its feet were similar in form to both the tamanduas and the giant anteater. The species Neotamandua borealis was suggested to be an ancestor of the latter. Another member of the genus Myrmecophaga has been recovered from the Montehermosan Monte Hermoso Formation in Argentina and was described by Kraglievitch in 1934 as Nunezia caroloameghinoi. The species was reclassified as Myrmecophaga caroloameghinoi by S. E. Hirschfeld in 1976. The giant anteater is the most terrestrial of the living anteater species; specialization for life on the ground appears to be a new trait in anteater evolution. The transition to life on the ground could have been aided by the expansion of open habitats such as savanna in South America and the availability there of colonial insects, such as termites, that provided a larger potential food source. Both the giant anteater and the southern tamandua are well represented in the fossil record of the late Pleistocene and early Holocene. ## Characteristics The giant anteater can be identified by its large size, long, narrow muzzle, and long bushy tail. It has a total body length of 182 to 217 cm (5 ft 11+1⁄2 in to 7 ft 1+1⁄2 in). Males weigh 33 to 50 kg (73 to 110 lb) and females weigh 27 to 47 kg (60 to 104 lb), making the giant anteater the biggest extant species in its suborder. The head of the giant anteater, at 30 cm (12 in) long, is particularly elongated, even when compared to other anteaters. Its cylindrical snout takes up most of its head. Its eyes, ears and mouth are relatively small. It has poor eyesight, but has a powerful sense of smell; 40 times that of a human. While there is some difference in size and shape between the sexes, males being larger and more robust, telling them apart from a distance can be difficult. The male's genitals are located within its body and upon closer examination, its uno-genital opening is smaller and farther from the anus. The female's two mammary glands are located between the front legs. Even for an anteater, the neck is especially thick compared to the back of the head, and a small hump is protrudes behind the neck. The coat is mostly greyish, brown or black with mottled white. They have white front legs, with black ringed wrists and hands, and dark hind legs. From the throat to the shoulders is a thick black mark with white outlines and sharp tips. The body ends in a brown tail. The coat hairs are long, especially on the tail, which makes the tail look larger than it actually is. An erect mane stretches along the back. The bold pattern was thought to be disruptive camouflage, but a 2009 study suggests it is warning coloration. The giant anteater has broad ribs. It has five toes on each foot. Three toes on the front feet have claws, which are particularly large on the third digits. It walks on its front knuckles similar to gorillas and chimpanzees. This allows the giant anteater to walking without scraping its claws on the ground. The middle digits, which support most of its weight, have long metacarpophalangeal joints and bent interphalangeal joints. Unlike the front feet, the hind feet have short claws on all five toes and walk plantigrade. As a "hook-and-pull" digger, the giant anteater has a large supraspinous fossa which gives the teres major more leverage—increasing the front limbs' pulling power—and the triceps muscle helps control the thickened middle digit. The giant anteater has a low body temperature for a mammal, about 33 °C (91 °F), a few degrees lower than a typical mammalian temperature of 36 to 38 °C (97 to 100 °F). Xenarthrans in general tend to have lower metabolic rates than most other mammals, a trend thought to correlate with their dietary specializations and low mobility. ### Feeding anatomy The giant anteater has no teeth and is capable of only very limited jaw movement. It relies on the rotation of the two halves of its lower jaw, held together by a ligament connecting the rami, to open and close its mouth. This is accomplished by its chewing muscles, which are relatively underdeveloped. Jaw depression creates an oral opening large enough for the slender tongue to flick out. It has a length of around 60 cm (24 in) and is more triangular in the back but becomes more rounded towards the front and ends in a rounded tip. The tongue has backward-curving papillae and is extremely moist due to the large salivary glands. The tongue can only move forwards and backwards, due the tiny mouth and shape of the snout. During feeding, the animal relies on the direction of its head for aim. When fully extended, the tongue reaches 45 cm (18 in), and can move in and out around 160 times per minute (nearly three times per second). A unique sternoglossus muscle, a combination of the sternohyoid and the hyoglossus, anchors the tongue directly to the sternum. The hyoid apparatus is large, V-shaped and flexible and supports the tongue as it goes in and out of the mouth. The buccinators loosen and tighten as the tongue goes in and out, preventing food from falling out. When retracted, the tongue is held in the oropharynx, preventing it from blocking respiration. The anteater rubs its tongue against its palate to smash the insects for swallowing. Unlike other mammals, giant anteaters swallow almost constantly when feeding. The giant anteater's stomach, similar to a bird's gizzard, has hardened folds to crash food, assisted by some sand and soil that was consumed. The giant anteater cannot produce stomach acid of its own, but digests using the formic acid of its prey. ## Distribution and status The giant anteater is native to Central and South America; its known range stretches from Honduras to Bolivia and northern Argentina, and fossil remains have been found as far north as northwestern Sonora, Mexico. It is largely absent from the Andes and has been fully extirpated in Uruguay, Belize, El Salvador, and Guatemala, as well as in parts of Costa Rica, Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. The species can live in both tropical rainforests and arid shrublands, provided enough prey is present to sustain it. The species is listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, due to the number of regional extirpations, and under Appendix II by CITES, tightly restricting international trade in specimens. By 2014, the total population declined more than 30 percent "over the last three generations". In 1994, some 340 giant anteaters died due to wildfires at Emas National Park in Brazil. The animal is particularly vulnerable to fires as its coat can easily catch ablaze and it is too slow to escape. Human-induced threats include collision with vehicles, attacks by dogs, and destruction of habitat. One study of anteater mortality along roads found that they are likely to be struck on linear roads near native plants. A 2018 study in Brazil found that: (1) roads were more likely to be detrimental to anteaters through habitat fragmentation than vehicle accidents, (2) 18–20% of satisfactory anteater habitat did not reach minimum patch size (3) 0.1–1% of its range was had dangerously high road density, (4) 32–36% of the anteater's distribution represented critical areas for its survival and (5) more conservation opportunities existed in the north of the country. A 2020 study in the Brazilian Cerrado found that road mortality can cut population growth by 50 percent at the local level. The giant anteater is commonly hunted in Bolivia, both as a trophy and food. The animal's thick, leathery hide is used to make horse-riding equipment in the Chaco. In Venezuela, it is slain for its claws. Giant anteaters are also killed for their perceived danger, particularly during threat displays. The biggest ecological strengths of the species is its wide range and adaptability. The Amazon, Pantanal and the Cerrado have various protected areas were the anteater finds refuge. In Argentina, some local governments list it as national heritage species, affording it official protection. ## Behaviour and ecology Despite its iconic status, the giant anteater is little studied in the wild and research has taken place in a small number of areas. The species may use multiple habitats. A 2007 study of giant anteaters in the Brazilian Pantanal found the animals move and forage in open areas and rest in forest; the latter provide shade when the temperature rises and retain heat when the temperature drops. Anteater may travel an average of 3,700 m (12,100 ft) per day. Giant anteaters can be either diurnal or nocturnal. A 2006 study in the Pantanal found those anteaters to be mostly nocturnal when it is warm, but became more active in daylight hours as the temperature dropped. Diurnal giant anteaters have been observed at Serra da Canastra. Nocturnality in anteaters may be a response to human disturbances. Giant anteaters prefer dense brush to sleep in, but when it gets cooler, they may use tall grass. When they need to rest, they carve a shallow cavity in the ground. The animal sleeps curled up with its bushy tail over its body; both to keep it warm and camouflage it from predators. One anteater was recorded sleeping flat on its side with the tail unfolded on a 17 °C (63 °F) morning; possibly it was positioned this way to allow its body to absorb the sun's rays for warmth. Giant anteaters sometimes enter water; to bathe. and even swim across wide rivers. They are also able to climb and have been recorded ascending both termite mounds and trees while foraging. One individual was observed attempting to climb a tree by rearing up and grabbing onto a branch above it. ### Spacing Giant anteaters' home ranges vary in size depending on the location, ranging from as small as 2.7 km<sup>2</sup> (667 acres) in Serra da Canastra National Park, Brazil, to as large as 32.5 km<sup>2</sup> (8,031 acres) in Iberá Natural Reserve, Argentina. Individuals mostly live alone, aside from young who stay with their mothers. Anteaters keep in contact with secretions from their anal glands and tree markings. They appear to be able to recognize each other's saliva by scent. Females are more tolerant of each other than males are, and thus are more likely to be found closer together. Males are more likely to engage in agonistic behaviors, with many start the combatants approaching and circling each other, while uttering a "harrr" noise. This can escalate into chasing and actual fighting. Combat includes wrestling and slashing with the claws. Fighting anteaters may emit roars or bellows. Males are possibly territorial. ### Foraging This animal is an insectivore, feeding mostly on ants or termites. In areas that experience regular flooding, like the Pantanal and the Venezuelan-Colombian Llanos, anteaters mainly feed on ants, because termites are less available. Conversely, anteaters at Emas National Park eat mainly termites, which are numerous in the grassland habitat. At Serra da Canastra, during the wet season (October to March) anteaters eat mainly ants, while during the dry season (May to September) they switch to termites. Anteaters track prey by their scent. After finding a nest, the animal tears it open with its claws and inserts its long, sticky tongue to collect its prey (which includes eggs, larvae and adult insects). An anteater attacks up to 200 nests in one day, for as long as a minute each, and consumes a total of around 35,000 insects. The anteater may be driven away from a nest by the chemical or biting attacks of soldiers. Some termite species rely on their fortified mounds for protection or they have underground or wide spreading tunnels that they use to escape. Other prey include the larvae of beetles and western honey bees. Anteaters may target termite mounds with bee hives. Captive anteaters are fed mixtures of milk and eggs as well as mealworms and ground beef. To drink, an anteater may dig for water when no surface water is available, creating waterholes for other animals. ### Reproduction and parenting Giant anteaters mate all year. A male trails with an estrous female, who partially raises her tail. Courting pairs are known to share the same insect nest during feeding. Mating involves the female lays sideways and the male hunching over. A couple may stay together for up to three days and mate multiple times during that period. Giant anteater have a 170–190 gestation period which ends with the birth of a single pup. There is some evidence that the species can experience delayed implantation. Females give birth standing upright. Pups are born weighing 1–2 kg (2.2–4.4 lb) with eyes closed for the first six days. The mother carries its dependent young on its back. The pup camouflages against its mouther by aligning black and white band with hers. The mother and nurses her young, which communicate with her using sharp whistles. After three months, grooming declines and the young starts to eat more solid food. Both grooming and nursing bouts end at 10 months, which is also when the young leaves its mother. They are sexually mature in 2.5–4 years. ### Mortality Giant anteaters can live around 15 years in the wild but can live twice that in captivity. They are preyed on by jaguars and pumas and typically flee from danger by galloping, but if cornered, will rear up on their hind legs and attack with the claws. The front claws of the giant anteater are formidable weapons, capable of scaring off a jaguar. The giant anteater is a host of the Acanthocephalan intestinal parasites Gigantorhynchus echinodiscus and Moniliformis monoechinus. ## Interactions with humans ### Attacks Although they are usually not a threat to humans, giant anteaters can inflict severe wounds with their front claws. Between 2010 and 2012, two hunters were killed by giant anteaters in Brazil; in both cases, the attacks appeared to be defensive behaviors. In April 2007, an anteater at the Florencio Varela Zoo slashed and killed a zookeeper with its front claws. ### In culture In the mythology and folklore of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon Basin, the giant anteater is depicted as both a trickster and a comical figure due to its appearance. In one Shipib tale, an anteater stole a jaguar's coat after challenging them to a diving contest and left the jaguar with its own pelt. In a Yarabara myth, the evil ogre Ucara is punished by the sun and turned into an anteater so he will have be unable to speak with his long snout and small mouth. The Kayapo people wear masks of various animals and spirits, including the anteater, during naming and initiation ceremonies. They believe women who touched anteater masks or men who fall while wearing them would die or be disabled. During the Spanish colonization of the Americas, the giant anteater among the native fauna taken to Europe for display. It was popularly thought that there were only female anteaters and they reproduced with their noses, a misconception corrected by naturalist Félix de Azara. In the 20th century, Salvador Dalí wrote imaginatively that the giant anteater "reaches sizes bigger than the horse, possesses enormous ferocity, has exceptional muscle power, is a terrifying animal." Dalí depicted an anteater in the style of The Great Masturbator. It was used as a bookplate for André Breton, who compared the temptations a man experiences in life to what "the tongue of the anteater must offer to the ant." The 1940 Max Fleischer cartoon Ants in the Plants features a colony of ants fighting off a villainous anteater. It may have been a commentary on France's Maginot Line during the Phoney War. An anteater is also a character in the comic strip B.C. This character was the inspiration for Peter the Anteater, the University of California, Irvine team mascot. In the Stephen King miniseries Kingdom Hospital, the character Antubis appears in the form of an anteater-like creature with razor-sharp teeth.
211,869	1956 Winter Olympics	1,167,755,523	Multi-sport event in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy	[ "1956 Winter Olympics", "1956 in Italian sport", "1956 in multi-sport events", "Cortina d'Ampezzo", "February 1956 sports events in Europe", "January 1956 sports events in Europe", "Olympic Games in Italy", "Sport in Cortina d'Ampezzo", "Winter Olympics by year", "Winter sports competitions in Italy" ]	The 1956 Winter Olympics, officially known as the VII Olympic Winter Games (Italian: VII Giochi Olimpici invernali) and commonly known as Cortina d'Ampezzo 1956 (Ladin: Anpezo 1956 or Ampëz 1956), was a multi-sport event held in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, from 26 January to 5 February 1956. Cortina, which had originally been awarded the 1944 Winter Olympics, beat out Montreal, Colorado Springs and Lake Placid for the right to host the 1956 Games. The Cortina Games were unique in that many of the venues were within walking distance of each other. The organising committee received financial support from the Italian government for infrastructure improvements, but the rest of the costs for the Games had to be privately financed. Consequently, the organising committee was the first to rely heavily on corporate sponsorship for funding. Thirty-two nations—the largest number of countries participating in the Winter Olympics until then—competed in the four sports and twenty-four events. Austrian Toni Sailer became the first person to sweep all three alpine skiing events in a single Olympics. The figure skating competition was held outdoors for the last time at these Games. Logistically, the only problem encountered was a lack of snow at the alpine skiing events. To remedy this, the Italian army transported large amounts of snow to ensure the courses were adequately covered. Politics did not affect the 1956 Winter Games – unlike the Summer Games in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia later in the year which many nations boycotted after the Soviet repression of the Hungarian Revolution, and the Suez War. The Cortina Olympics were the first Winter Olympics televised to a multi-national audience. Cortina is scheduled to co-host the 2026 Winter Olympics with Milan, Lombardy, 70 years after the 1956 Games. ## Host city selection Cortina d'Ampezzo is a ski resort village situated in the Dolomite Alps in the north-eastern corner of Italy. In 1956, it had a population of 6,500 people. Count Alberto Bonacossa, an accomplished alpine skier, figure skater and a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since 1925, spearheaded the effort to bring the Olympic Games to Cortina d'Ampezzo. He persuaded the city council of Cortina to bid for the 1944 Games. During the 38th IOC Congress held in London in 1939, Cortina d'Ampezzo was awarded the 1944 Winter Olympics, but the Games were canceled due to the outbreak of World War II. In 1946 the Italian Winter Sports Federation convened in Milan and decided to support a new attempt from Cortina to host the Winter Games. A delegation, led by Count Bonacossa, presented Cortina's bid to host the 1952 Winter Olympics at the 40th IOC Session in Stockholm, Sweden. They were backed by the city's council and the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI, Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano). A rival bid from Oslo, Norway, soundly defeated Cortina. Count Bonacossa's and CONI prepared a third bid, this time for the 1956 Winter Games. The host city selection took place in Rome, during the 43rd IOC Session. On 28 April 1949, Cortina d'Ampezzo was selected with 75% of the votes, over bids from Montreal, Colorado Springs and Lake Placid. Unfortunately, Bonacossa died on 30 January 1953, three years before he could witness Cortina host the Games. ## Participating nations A total of 32 nations sent athletes to Cortina d'Ampezzo. Along with the Soviet Union, Bolivia and Iran competed at the Winter Games for the first time, making Bolivia the first completely tropical nation to participate in a Winter Olympics. Korea, Liechtenstein, and Turkey returned after having missed the 1952 Winter Olympics, while Argentina, Denmark, New Zealand, and Portugal did not compete at these Games, after having participated in the previous edition. Athletes from West Germany (FRG) and East Germany (GDR) competed together as the United Team of Germany, an arrangement that would continue for the following two Olympiads. Below is the list of participating nations, with the number of competitors indicated in brackets: ### Number of athletes by National Olympic Committees ## Medal count These are the top ten nations that won medals at the 1956 Winter Olympics: - Two gold medals were awarded when Soviet skaters tied for first in the 1,500 metre speed skating competition. ### Podium sweeps ## Organization The 1956 Winter Olympics was organised by a committee composed of members of the Italian National Olympic Committee and the Italian government. Observers were sent to the Oslo Games in 1952 to collect information regarding the sports programme, infrastructure, and accommodation requirements. The intelligence gathered there indicated that Cortina's facilities were not up to Olympic standards. The town did not have an ice stadium, or a speed skating rink; the alpine ski runs, ski jump and bobsleigh run were in poor condition. Cortina was a small village, and its infrastructure would be overwhelmed by the crowds expected for the Games. To accommodate the influx of people, new roads and rail lines had to be built, and the city's power grid and telephone lines expanded. Enhancements also had to be made to sewer and water capacity. The Italian government supplied Italian lira 460 million for infrastructure improvements. The Italian Olympic Committee was responsible for funding the rest of the costs of hosting the Games. They did this by setting aside monies from their own budget, ticket sales, and even culling funds from local football betting pools. The organising committee also took the unprecedented step of selling corporate sponsorship. For example, Fiat was designated the official car of the 1956 Winter Olympics, and Olivetti supplied typewriters for the 400 journalists attending the Games. ## Politics The Cold War began after the allied victory in World War II. Until 1952, many of the Communist countries of Eastern Europe had participated in Worker's Olympics or Spartakiads. The Soviet Union emerged from international isolation by eschewing the Spartakiad and participating in the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki; they made their Winter Olympics debut at the Cortina Games. Soviet general secretary Nikita Khrushchev's aim was to use international sports competitions, such as the Olympics, to demonstrate the superiority of communism, strengthen political ties with other communist countries, and project the Soviet Union as a peace-loving nation actively engaged in the world. The Soviets' participation at the Olympics raised the level of competition as they won the most medals and more gold medals than any other nation. Soviet Olympic team was also notorious for skirting the edge of amateur rules. All Soviet athletes held some nominal jobs, but were in fact state-sponsored and trained full-time. According to many experts, that gave the Soviet Union a huge advantage over the United States and other Western countries, whose athletes were students or real amateurs. The Cortina Games were held before the Hungarian Revolution and subsequent Soviet invasion, and the Suez War, which occurred in the autumn of 1956; the Winter Games escaped the boycotts that plagued the Melbourne Olympics, which were celebrated in November and December of that year. ### Television The Cortina Games were the first Winter Olympics to be broadcast to a multi-national audience. Television as a mass communication technology was expanding rapidly in the 1950s. In the midst of the Cold War, Europe was a propaganda battlefield as countries relayed television signals across the Iron Curtain. By 1956, countries in the Soviet sphere of influence had achieved a technological advantage and were able to broadcast communist television programmes into Finland, the eastern border regions and more isolated geographic areas of West Germany and Austria, where residents had coverage from an East German broadcast with a pro-communist point-of-view. Most West Germans watched the 1956 Winter Olympics via Eurovision broadcasts which were relayed all over western Europe including all major West German stations (Eurovision connectivity in 1956) The political ramifications were not the only impact television had these Olympics. The Cortina Games did not generate revenue from television – the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley were the first to do so – but were an experiment in the feasibility of televising a large multi-sport event. For the first time at an Olympic Games, the venues were built with television in mind. For example, the grand stand at the cross-country ski venue (Lo Stadio della neve) was built facing south so that the television cameras would not be adversely affected by the rising or setting sun. ## Events Medals were awarded in 24 events contested in 4 sports (8 disciplines). The programme for the 1956 Winter Games saw two new events added to the four sports and twenty-two events from the 1952 Olympics, namely the men's 30 kilometre cross-country ski race and the women's 3x5 kilometre cross-country relay race. - Skating - - - Skiing - - - - - ### Opening ceremonies The opening ceremonies took place on Thursday, 26 January 1956 in the Olympic Ice Stadium. Temporary seating was added to boost the stadium's capacity to 14,000 people. Athletes representing 32 nations marched in the ceremony and Mr Giovanni Gronchi, President of the Italian Republic, declared the Games open. At this point, speed skater Guido Caroli skated into the stadium with the Olympic flame. While he was entered on a circuit of the Ice Stadium he tripped and fell over a television cable; he regained his feet and lit the cauldron. The Olympic oath was delivered by Giuliana Chenal-Minuzzo; this was the first time a female athlete gave the oath at an Olympic Games. Michał Spisak's Olympic Hymn, officially recognised as such at the IOC congress in Paris on 13 June 1955 (declined in 1958 in favor of the Olympic Hymn by Spyridon Samaras), was played for the first time at the Cortina Games. ### Bobsleigh There were two bobsleigh events, the two-man and four-man competitions. Every participating nation was limited to two sleighs in each event. The sleighs made four runs, with the total time summed. The Italians won gold and silver in the two-man event. Switzerland took third place when they passed Spain on the fourth run. In the four-man event held a week later, the Swiss won the gold medal, Italy picked up the silver, and the United States won the bronze. Italy had participated in all six previous Olympic bobsleigh competitions but had never reached the podium. Italians Renzo Alverà and Eugenio Monti won the silver in the two-man competition and were also on the silver-winning four-man sleigh. Monti's silver medals at the 1956 Games were the first of six Olympic medals he would win in his bobsleigh career. The bobsleigh run at Cortina was eventually renamed the Eugenio Monti track to honour his bobsleigh career. The medals won in bobsleigh would be the host nation's only medals at these Games. One complaint of the bobsleigh events was that the track surface suffered extensive damage due to overuse. This hampered the performance of teams drawn late in the competition. ### Ice hockey The eighth Olympic ice hockey tournament also served as both the European and World Championships. Split into three pools before the tournament, the ten participating nations began by playing each team in their pool in a round robin format. The top two teams from each pool advanced to the final round, with the remaining teams played in a consolation group for 7th through 10th places. Canada, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union took first place in their preliminary pools with undefeated records. Germany, the United States, and Sweden took second place in their pools. An important early matchup of the final round was the game between Canada and the United States. The Canadians had never lost to the US in Olympic play prior to that game. In what was considered a tremendous upset, the United States defeated Canada 4–1. The Americans, who placed fourth at the 1955 World Ice Hockey Championships and were not expected to medal, then faced the USSR, who won the tournament in 1954 and took silver in 1955 behind Canada, in a game that would eventually make the difference in the gold medal. The Soviets overwhelmed the underdogs and won the match 4–0. The USSR then played Canada, who still had a chance to win the gold if they defeated the Soviets, and won 2–0 despite being dramatically outshot in the first and second periods. The USSR won gold, the United States surprisingly took silver and Canada, with their two losses, earned bronze, their worst result to date in Olympic play. ### Figure skating The Cortina Games were the last Olympics to feature figure skating outdoors. Skaters from the United States won five medals, sweeping the men's event and taking the top two spots in the ladies' event. Tenley Albright was the women's Olympic champion despite sustaining a serious injury in practice. Less than two weeks before the Olympics she was practicing her skating routine when she hit a rut in the ice and fell. Her skate cut through several layers of clothing, and sliced her right leg at the ankle. Her teammate Carol Heiss won the silver, and Austrian Ingrid Wendl earned the bronze medal. Americans Hayes Jenkins, Ronald Robertson, and Jenkins' brother David Jenkins were the men's medallists. The Austrian pair of Sissy Schwarz and Kurt Oppelt took the gold medal in the pairs event. Canadians Frances Dafoe and Norris Bowden won the silver and the Hungarian siblings Marianna Nagy and László Nagy defended their bronze medal from the 1952 Games. ### Speed skating The Soviet Union dominated the speed skating events by winning seven of the twelve medals, including four golds. Soviet skaters set two world records, an Olympic record, and had at least one medallist in each of the four events. Yevgeny Grishin was the top individual performer, with two gold medals and two world records. Grishin and Soviet teammate Yuri Mikhaylov tied in the 1,500 metre race. It was decided to award both of the athletes gold medals and leave the silver medal position vacant. Sigvard Ericsson of Sweden earned gold and silver medals and set an Olympic record in the 10,000 metre event. ### Alpine skiing Six alpine skiing events were held, three for men and three for women. The races were the downhill, slalom and giant slalom. Toni Sailer of Austria swept the men's gold medals, becoming the first person to win three alpine skiing golds in a single Olympics. Led by Sailer, the Austrians dominated the alpine skiing events for both men and women, winning nine out of a possible eighteen medals. The Austrians were particularly successful in the giant slalom; the men swept the medals and the women took silver and bronze. Chiharu Igaya won the first Winter Olympics medal for Japan when he placed second in the slalom. Swiss teammates, Madeleine Berthod and Renée Colliard won the women's downhill and slalom races. Germany earned its only gold medal of the Games when Ossi Reichert took first in the giant slalom. ### Cross-country skiing Two women's events were added to the cross-country skiing programme for the first time. The Soviet women took the top two spots in the individual 10 kilometre race but lost to Finland in the new 3x5 kilometre relay. The men had a new event as well, the 30 kilometre race, which was won by Veikko Hakulinen from Finland. The other three men's events were won by three different nations: Norway took the 15 kilometre race, Sweden the 50 kilometre event, and the Soviet Union won the relay. Overall the Soviet Union won seven out of a possible eighteen medals in cross-country skiing. Sweden, behind the strong skiing of Sixten Jernberg, won six medals. Jernberg won a gold, two silvers, and a bronze, which were the first of nine Olympic medals he would earn in his cross-country career. ### Nordic combined There were significant changes to the Nordic combined event at the 1956 Games. The event had always been a cross-country race followed by a ski jump. Originally the competitors in the Nordic combined were entered into the open 18 kilometre cross-country race, which meant that they competed alongside athletes who were dedicated cross-country skiers. Their times were combined with their score from two ski jumps to determine the winner. At the Cortina Games, the format was altered to allow the Nordic combined athletes to compete in a dedicated 15 kilometre cross-country race. Two days later they had three jumps on the ski jump hill. Their best two scores were combined with their cross-country time to determine a winner. This format would become the standard for Nordic combined competitions going forward. Norway continued its dominance of Nordic combined when Sverre Stenersen won the gold medal. Since its inception at the 1924 Games, the country had only lost the Nordic combined event once. Stenersen was followed by Bengt Eriksson of Sweden and Poland's Franciszek Gąsienica Groń. ### Ski jumping In the ski jumping event, the Swiss jumper, Andreas Däscher introduced a new style of jumping, which would soon come to be known as the Däscher technique. Before these Games, the athletes would hold their arms forward over their heads. Däscher reasoned that if the athlete held his arms at his side he would fly farther. Adherents to this new style dominated the competition. Finnish jumpers Antti Hyvärinen and Aulis Källakorpi took first and second place; Harry Glass of Germany won the bronze medal. This competition marked the end of Norwegian dominance in the sport. Since the first winter Games in 1924, the Norwegians had won the gold medal at each Olympics until 1956. The poor performance of the Norwegian jumpers was attributed to their refusal to use the new jumping technique. ### Closing ceremonies The closing ceremonies took place on Sunday, 5 February in the Olympic Ice Stadium. They were preceded by a figure skating exhibition performed by the men's, women's, and pairs figure skating champions. The flag bearers of each nation then entered the stadium followed by the flags of Greece, Italy, and the United States. These three flags were raised to honor the nation that founded the Olympics, the host nation, and the next country to host the Winter Games. Avery Brundage, President of the International Olympic Committee, declared the Olympics closed, and a fireworks display concluded the Games. ## Calendar All dates are in Central European Time (UTC+1) The opening ceremony was held on 26 January, along with the first games of the hockey tournament. From 27 January until 5 February, the day of the closing ceremony, at least one event final was held each day. † The numeral indicates the number of event finals for each sport held that day. ## Venues A unique feature of the Cortina Olympics was the proximity of many event locations which were in walking distance of each other within the town of Cortina. The speed skating events were held at Lake Misurina, roughly 13 km (8.1 mi) from Cortina. The venues featured grandstands heated by silica coils built into the seats. Silica coil heating was a technology that had only recently become economical. The competitions were held without incident except for the skiing events, which suffered from a lack of snow. A notable venue not found at the 1956 Games was an Olympic Village, where the athletes would be housed. The town of Cortina d'Ampezzo had a population of less than 7,000 people in 1956. Local hotels were concerned that after the Olympics an Olympic Village would so significantly increase the hotel capacity it would put many of them out of business. Athletes were billeted by local families or stayed in hotels during the Games. The Olympic Ice Stadium (Stadio Olimpico Del Ghiaccio) was intended to be the focal point of the Games. It was built on the banks of the Boite river just north of Cortina. After new roads and a bridge had been constructed, the stadium was an eight-minute walk from the center of town. The stadium was built to accommodate 6,000–7,000 people. Due to space limitations the grandstands were constructed vertically, with tiers built directly on top of each other. There were two artificial ice rinks of 30 by 60 m (98 by 197 ft), with a total ice surface of 4,320 m<sup>2</sup> (46,500 sq ft). A special cooling plant was built under the stadium, which froze the ice through the evaporation of ammonia. The construction cost totaled ITL 1.3 billion (US\$2.1 million in 1956), making it the most expensive venue of these Games. The stadium was used for the opening and closing ceremonies, all of the figure skating competitions and main ice hockey games. After the Games, the organising committee made the Ice Stadium a gift to the city of Cortina and turned it on a permanent installation. It was used as an ice skating rink in the winter and an outdoor gymnasium for judo and gymnastics in the summer and will host the curling events at the 2026 Winter Olympics. The Apollonio Stadium was used for select games of the ice hockey tournament. Considerable work had to be done to bring the stadium up to date. A second rink was added to allow for two games to be held simultaneously. The stadium was outfitted with electric lights and the seating capacity was enlarged to accommodate 2,000 people. The bobsleigh run (Pista Olimpica di Bob – Eugenio Monti), was originally constructed in 1928. The track was rebuilt and expanded several times during the years leading up to the Olympics. A state-of-the-art signal board was installed displaying a diagram of the run with the position of each sleigh on the run shown with lights, this track will host again the bobsleigh along the skeleton and the luge again during the 2026 Winter Olympics. Situated around 2.5 km (2 mi) from Cortina, near Zuel, the "Italia" Jump (Trampolino Olimpico Italia) was originally built in 1923 as the "Franchetti" Jump. After modifications in 1926, the first structure was demolished in 1939 and rebuilt in 1940. With the 1956 Games coming to Cortina, the jump had to be updated again to comply with the technical demands of the Olympics. On 15 April 1955, the "Franchetti" Jump was finally demolished and the new "Italia Jump" was completed in the same year at a cost of nearly ITL 310 million (\$500,000). The reinforced concrete platform was 54 m (177 ft) high, and possessed a 87.5 m (287 ft) long, 35° steep in-run. Two grandstands, each with a capacity for 3,000 people, were placed on either side of the landing slope; a natural amphitheatre at the bottom of the hill could hold up to 40,000 standing spectators. A special road was built between Cortina and the venue for the transport of athletes, officials and authorities. The Snow Stadium (Stadio della neve) was constructed 2 km (1.2 mi) from Cortina, and hosted all of the cross-country events. Two grandstands were constructed to accommodate 6,000 people. Three types of cross-country courses were constructed: one of 15 km (9 mi), three of 5 km (3 mi), and four of 10 km (6 mi). Some of these courses went through the bobsleigh run. As a result, a bridge had to be constructed so events occurring in the two venues would not interfere with each other. The alpine runs (Le piste alpine) were built on the slopes of Monte Tofana and Monte Faloria in the nearby Dolomite alps. The men's and women's downhill and slalom races were held on Tofana. Faloria was the site of the two giant slalom events. It took nearly two years to complete construction of the runs. In previous years, lack of snow was never an issue, but in the winter of 1956 there was insufficient snowfall for skiers to safely navigate the runs. As a consequence, snow had to be transported from other parts of the mountains by the Italian army. The Misurina rink (La pista di Misurina) was the location of the speed skating events. This was the last time that speed skating at the Olympics was held on natural ice. It was 13 km (8.1 mi) from Cortina. The rink was established at the northern end of the lake with a mountain backdrop. Stands were constructed to accommodate 8,500 people. Despite the event being held outdoors on lake ice, two world records and two Olympic records were broken during the competition. Three of the venues for these games (the bobsleigh run, indoor arena, and ski jump) would serve as film location for the 1981 James Bond film For Your Eyes Only. ## See also
149,875	John Barbirolli	1,167,560,753	British conductor and cellist (1899–1970)	[ "1899 births", "1970 deaths", "20th-century British conductors (music)", "20th-century British male musicians", "Academics of the Royal Academy of Music", "Alumni of Trinity College of Music", "Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music", "British Army personnel of World War I", "British male conductors (music)", "Burials at St Mary's Catholic Cemetery, Kensal Green", "Conductors (music) awarded knighthoods", "English conductors (music)", "English people of French descent", "English people of Italian descent", "Families of classical musicians", "Italian British musicians", "Knights Bachelor", "Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour", "Military personnel from London", "Music directors of the New York Philharmonic", "Order of the White Rose of Finland", "People educated at St. Clement Danes School", "People from Holborn", "Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medallists", "Suffolk Regiment soldiers", "Texas classical music" ]	Sir John Barbirolli ( Giovanni Battista Barbirolli; 2 December 1899 – 29 July 1970) was a British conductor and cellist. He is remembered above all as conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, which he helped save from dissolution in 1943 and conducted for the rest of his life. Earlier in his career he was Arturo Toscanini's successor as music director of the New York Philharmonic, serving from 1936 to 1943. He was also chief conductor of the Houston Symphony from 1961 to 1967, and was a guest conductor of many other orchestras, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic, with all of which he made recordings. Born in London of Italian and French parentage, Barbirolli grew up in a family of professional musicians. After starting out as a cellist, he was given the chance to conduct, from 1926 with the British National Opera Company, and then with Covent Garden's touring company. On taking up the conductorship of the Hallé he had less opportunity to work in the opera house, but in the 1950s he conducted productions of works by Verdi, Wagner, Gluck, and Puccini at Covent Garden with such success that he was invited to become the company's permanent musical director, an invitation he declined. Late in his career he made several recordings of operas, of which his 1967 set of Puccini's Madama Butterfly for EMI is probably the best known. Both in the concert hall and on record, Barbirolli was particularly associated with the music of English composers such as Elgar, Delius and Vaughan Williams. His interpretations of other late Romantic composers, such as Mahler and Sibelius, as well as of earlier classical composers, including Schubert, are also still admired. ## Biography ### Early years Giovanni Battista Barbirolli was born on 2 December 1899 in Southampton Row, Holborn, London, the second child and eldest son of an Italian father and a French mother. He was a British national from birth, and as Southampton Row is within the sound of Bow Bells, Barbirolli always regarded himself as a Cockney. His father, Lorenzo Barbirolli (1864–1929), was a Venetian violinist who had settled in London with his wife, Louise Marie, née Ribeyrol (1870–1962). Lorenzo and his father had played in the orchestra at La Scala, Milan, where they had taken part in the première of Otello in 1887. In London they played in West End theatre orchestras, principally that of the Empire, Leicester Square. The young Barbirolli began to play the violin when he was four, but soon changed to the cello. He later said that this was at the instigation of his grandfather who, exasperated at the child's habit of wandering around while practising the violin, bought him a small cello to stop him from "getting in everybody's way". His education at St. Clement Danes Grammar School overlapped, from 1910, with a scholarship at Trinity College of Music. As a Trinity student, he made his concert debut in a cello concerto in the Queen's Hall in 1911. The following year he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, which he attended from 1912 to 1916, studying harmony, counterpoint and theory under J. B. McEwen and the cello with Herbert Walenn. In 1914 he was joint winner of the academy's Charles Rube Prize for ensemble playing, and in 1916 The Musical Times singled him out as "that excellent young 'cello player, Mr Giovanni Barbirolli." The principal of the Academy, Sir Alexander Mackenzie, had forbidden students to play the chamber music of Ravel, which he regarded as "a pernicious influence". Barbirolli was keenly interested in modern music, and he and three colleagues secretly rehearsed Ravel's String Quartet in the privacy of a men's lavatory in the Academy. From 1916 to 1918 Barbirolli was a freelance cellist in London. He recalled, "My first orchestral engagement was with the Queen's Hall Orchestra – I was probably the youngest orchestral musician ever, joining them in 1916. We had an enormous repertory – six concerts a week, three hours or more rehearsal a day. In those days we were happy if we began and finished together". While playing in the Queen's Hall Orchestra, Barbirolli also played in the opera pit for the Beecham and Carl Rosa opera companies, in recitals with the pianist Ethel Bartlett, with orchestras in theatres, cinemas, hotels and dance-halls, and, as he said, "everywhere except the street". During the last year of the First World War, Barbirolli enlisted in the army and became a lance-corporal in the Suffolk Regiment. Here he had his first opportunity to conduct, when an orchestra of volunteers was formed. He later described the experience: > I was stationed on the Isle of Grain – a ghastly place but the first line of defence against invasion – and in our battalion of the Suffolks we had a number of professional musicians. So we formed an orchestra and played in the equivalent of the NAAFI during our spare time. I was the principal cello and we were conducted by the bandmaster, one Lieutenant Bonham. The other boys knew that I was longing to conduct and one day when Bonham fell ill with 'flu, they thought "old Barby" – as I was known – should have a go. It was really rather romantic – I was scrubbing the floor in the Officers' Mess when they came and invited me to take over. We did the Light Cavalry overture and Coleridge-Taylor's Petite Suite de Concert but I can't say I recall the rest of the programme. While in the army, Barbirolli adopted the anglicised form of his first name for the sake of simplicity: "The sergeant-major had great difficulty in reading my name on the roll-call. 'Who is this Guy Vanni?' he used to ask. So I chose John." After demobilisation he reverted to the original form of his name, using it until 1922. On re-entering civilian life, Barbirolli resumed his career as a cellist. His association with Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto began with its première in 1919, when he played as a rank and file member of the London Symphony Orchestra. He was the soloist at another performance of the concerto just over a year later. The Musical Times commented, "Signor Giovanni Barbirolli was not entirely equal to the demands of the solo music, but his playing unquestionably gave a considerable amount of pleasure." At the Three Choirs Festival of 1920 he took part in his first Dream of Gerontius, under Elgar's baton, in the LSO cellos. He joined two newly founded string quartets as cellist: the Kutcher Quartet, led by his former fellow student at Trinity, Samuel Kutcher, and the Music Society Quartet (later called the International Quartet) led by André Mangeot. He also made several early broadcasts with Mangeot's quartet. ### First conducting posts Barbirolli's ambition was to conduct. He was the prime mover in establishing the Guild of Singers and Players Chamber Orchestra in 1924, and in 1926 he was invited to conduct a new ensemble at the Chenil Gallery in Chelsea, initially called the "Chenil Chamber Orchestra" but later renamed "John Barbirolli's Chamber Orchestra". Barbirolli's concerts impressed Frederic Austin, director of the British National Opera Company (BNOC), who in the same year invited him to conduct some performances with the company. Barbirolli had never conducted a chorus or a large orchestra, but had the confidence to accept. He made his operatic debut directing Gounod's Roméo et Juliette at Newcastle, followed within days by performances of Aida and Madama Butterfly. He conducted the BNOC frequently over the next two years, and made his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, with Madama Butterfly in 1928. The following year he was invited to conduct the opening work in Covent Garden's international season, Don Giovanni, with a cast that included Mariano Stabile, Elisabeth Schumann and Heddle Nash. In 1929, after financial problems had forced the BNOC to disband, the Covent Garden management set up a touring company to fill the gap, and appointed Barbirolli as its musical director and conductor. The operas in the company's first provincial tour included Die Meistersinger, Lohengrin, La bohème, Madama Butterfly, The Barber of Seville, Tosca, Falstaff, Faust, Cavalleria rusticana, Pagliacci, Il trovatore, and the first performances in English of Turandot. In later tours with the company Barbirolli had the chance to conduct more of the German opera repertory, including Der Rosenkavalier, Tristan und Isolde, and Die Walküre. During his years with the touring opera companies Barbirolli did not neglect the concert hall. In 1927, deputising at short notice for Sir Thomas Beecham, he conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Elgar's Symphony No. 2, winning the thanks of the composer. Barbirolli also won warm praise from Pablo Casals, whom he had accompanied in Haydn's D major cello concerto at the same concert. He conducted a Royal Philharmonic Society concert at which Ralph Vaughan Williams was presented with the society's Gold Medal, and another RPS concert at which Gustav Mahler's music, rarely heard at that time, was given – Kindertotenlieder, with Elena Gerhardt as soloist. Although Barbirolli later came to love Mahler's music, in the 1930s he thought it sounded thin. When the Hallé Orchestra announced in 1932 that its regular conductor, Hamilton Harty, was to spend some time conducting overseas, Barbirolli was one of four guest conductors named to direct the orchestra in Harty's absence: the other three were Elgar, Beecham and Pierre Monteux. Barbirolli's programmes included works by composers as diverse as Purcell, Delius, Mozart and Franck. In June 1932, Barbirolli married the singer Marjorie Parry, a member of the BNOC. In 1933 he was invited to become conductor of the Scottish Orchestra. It was not then, as its successor the Scottish National Orchestra was later to be, a permanent ensemble, but gave a season lasting about six months of each year. Barbirolli remained with the Scottish Orchestra for three seasons, "rejuvenating the playing and programmes and winning most favourable opinions". Notwithstanding his growing reputation in Britain, Barbirolli's name was little known internationally, and most of the musical world was taken by surprise in 1936 when he was invited to conduct the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in succession to Arturo Toscanini. ### New York Philharmonic By the spring of 1936, the management of the New York Philharmonic was confronted with a problem. Toscanini had left in search of higher fees with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Wilhelm Furtwängler had accepted the orchestra's invitation to fill the post, but he was politically unacceptable to a section of the Philharmonic's audience because he continued to live and work in Germany under the Nazi government. Following a campaign of protest in New York he felt unable to take up the appointment. For want of any available conductor of comparable fame the management of the orchestra invited five guest conductors to divide the season among them. Barbirolli was allotted the first ten weeks of the season, comprising 26 concerts. He was followed by the composer-conductors Igor Stravinsky, Georges Enescu and Carlos Chávez, each conducting for two weeks, and finally by Artur Rodziński of the Cleveland Orchestra, for eight weeks. Barbirolli's first concert in New York was on 5 November 1936. The programme consisted of short pieces by Berlioz and Arnold Bax, and symphonies by Mozart (the Linz) and Brahms (the Fourth). During his ten weeks, he programmed several American novelties including Charles Martin Loeffler's tone-poem Memories of My Childhood, a symphony by Anis Fuleihan, and Philip James's Bret Harte overture. He also conducted Serge Koussevitzky's Double Bass Concerto. The players told the Philharmonic management that they would be happy for Barbirolli to be appointed to a permanent position. The outcome of this was an invitation to him to become Music Director and Permanent Conductor for three years starting with the 1937–38 season. At the same time as this great change in his professional life, Barbirolli's personal life was also transformed. His marriage had not lasted; within four years he and Marjorie Barbirolli had been living apart. In 1938 she sued for divorce on the grounds of his desertion. The suit was undefended, and the divorce was granted in December 1938. In 1939, Barbirolli married the British oboist Evelyn Rothwell. The marriage lasted for the rest of Barbirolli's life. One of the features of Barbirolli's time in New York was his regular programming of modern works. He gave the world premières of Walton's second Façade Suite, and Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem and Violin Concerto; he also introduced pieces by Jacques Ibert, Eugene Goossens, and Arthur Bliss and by many American composers including Samuel Barber, Deems Taylor and Daniel Gregory Mason. The new works he presented were not avant-garde, but they nevertheless alienated the conservative subscription audience, and after an initial increase in ticket sales in his early years sales declined. Barbirolli also had to cope with what The Gramophone described as "a rough press campaign in New York from interested parties who wished to evict him from his post". The influential critic Olin Downes had opposed Barbirolli's appointment from the outset, insisting that, though "we abhor chauvinism", preference should have been given to "native conductors". Downes had a grudge against the Philharmonic: shortly before Barbirolli's appointment Downes was sacked as the commentator for the orchestra's prestigious Sunday broadcasts. He and the composer Virgil Thomson continually wrote disparagingly about Barbirolli, comparing him unfavourably with Toscanini. The management of the orchestra nevertheless renewed Barbirolli's appointment in 1940. In 1942, when his second contract was reaching its expiry, he was offered 18 concerts for the 1943–44 season, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic invited him to become its conductor, but he accepted neither offer as he had decided to return to England. Barbirolli's first reason for leaving was local musical politics. He later said, "The Musicians Union there ... brought out a new regulation saying that everyone, even soloists and conductors, must become members. Horowitz, Heifetz and the rest were shocked by this but there was little they could do about it. They also said that conductors must become American citizens. I couldn't do that during the war, or at any time for that matter." His second reason for leaving was that he felt strongly that he was needed in England. In the spring of 1942 he made a hazardous Atlantic crossing: > I was in America when the war broke out, as conductor of the New York Philharmonic. A. V. Alexander, who was First Sea Lord, wrote to me to say that, contrary to expectations, music was flourishing and would I come back as I was missed. I was longing to return and it was just a question of how it was to be managed. A.V. went to Churchill, who apparently said, "If he's fool enough to come, let him come". It took us 23 days to cross on a fruit trader and, of our convoy of 75, only 32 ships arrived in Liverpool. I played here for ten weeks with the LSO and LPO for the benefit of the musicians, and then went back on a Fyffe banana boat of 5,000 tons. We were spotted by U-boats the moment we left Northern Ireland but that kind of thing never worries me as I'm something of a fatalist. It had been wonderful anyhow to be back, to see England at its greatest, and to visit my old mother. Barbirolli returned to New York to complete his contractual obligations to the Philharmonic. Shortly after his return he received an appeal from the Hallé Orchestra to become its conductor. The orchestra was in danger of extinction for lack of players, and Barbirolli seized the opportunity to help it. ### Hallé Orchestra In 1943 Barbirolli made another Atlantic crossing, avoiding death by a fluke: he changed flights from Lisbon with the actor Leslie Howard when the latter wished to postpone his own flight for a few days. Barbirolli's plane landed safely; Howard's was shot down. In Manchester, Barbirolli immediately set about reviving the Hallé. The number of players in the orchestra was down to about 30. Most younger players were serving in the armed forces, and to compound the shortage the management of the orchestra had ended the arrangement by which many of its players were also members of the BBC Northern Orchestra. The Hallé board resolved that its orchestra must follow the example of the Liverpool Philharmonic, which the Hallé's former conductor Malcolm Sargent had transformed into a full-time, permanent orchestra. Only four of the players shared with the BBC chose to join the Hallé. The Times later wrote of Barbirolli's first actions for the orchestra: "In a couple of months of endless auditions, he rebuilt the Hallé, accepting any good player, whatever his musical background – he found himself with a schoolboy first flute, a schoolmistress hornist, and various brass players recruited from brass and military bands in the Manchester area ... The reborn Hallé's first concert somehow lived up to the Hallé's great reputation." The Musical Times also noted, "From his earliest days with the orchestra it was the string tone that commanded immediate attention and respect. There was a fiery intensity and glowing warmth that proclaimed the born string coach". Barbirolli retained his reputation for training orchestras: after his death, one of his former players commented, "If you wanted orchestral experience you'd be set for life, starting in the Hallé with John Barbirolli." Further afield, critics, audiences and players in Europe and the United States commented on the improvement in the playing of their orchestras when Barbirolli was in charge. Later he extended his teaching skills to the Royal Academy of Music, where he took charge of the student orchestra from 1961. Barbirolli refused invitations to take up more prestigious and lucrative conductorships. Shortly after he took over the Hallé he received an offer from the sponsors of an ambitious scheme that would have put him in charge of the London Symphony Orchestra, and in the early 1950s the BBC sought to recruit him for the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Also in the early 1950s the head of the Royal Opera House, David Webster, wanted him to become the musical director there. Barbirolli conducted six operas for Webster, Turandot, Aida, Orfeo ed Euridice, Tristan und Isolde, La bohème and Madama Butterfly, 1951–53, but he declined to be wooed away from the Hallé. His biographer Charles Reid wrote, "His Manchester kingdom is a kingdom indeed. He is not manacled or chivied in his choice of programmes. Broadly speaking he conducts only what he loves ... His kingdom approximates to a conductor's paradise." Nevertheless, in 1958, after building the orchestra up and touring continually, conducting up to 75 concerts a year, he arranged a less onerous schedule, allowing him more time to appear as a guest conductor with other orchestras. He also appeared at the Vienna State Opera, and Rome Opera House, where he conducted Aida in 1969. In 1960 he accepted an invitation to succeed Leopold Stokowski as chief conductor of the Houston Symphony in Texas, a post he held until 1967, conducting an annual total of 12 weeks there in early spring and late autumn between Hallé engagements. In 1961 he began a regular association with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, which lasted for the rest of his life. From 1953 onwards, Barbirolli and the Hallé appeared regularly at the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London. As well as major works from the mainstream repertory they gave an annual concert of music by Viennese composers, including Franz Lehár and Johann Strauss, which, like Sir Malcolm Sargent's annual Gilbert and Sullivan nights, rapidly became a firm favourite with the promenaders. At one 1958 promenade concert Barbirolli and the Hallé played a replica of Charles Hallé's first concert with the orchestra in 1858. Barbirolli's interest in new music waned in post-war years, but he and the Hallé appeared regularly at the Cheltenham Festival, where he premiered new works of a mostly traditional style by William Alwyn, Richard Arnell, Arthur Benjamin, Peter Racine Fricker, Gordon Jacob, Alan Rawsthorne, Kenneth Leighton and others. For its hundredth anniversary in 1958 the Hallé commissioned several new works, and gave the British premiere of Walton's virtuosic divertimento Partita. Increasingly, Barbirolli concentrated on his core repertory of the standard symphonic classics, the works of English composers, and late-romantic music, particularly that of Mahler. In the 1960s he made a series of international tours with the Philharmonia (Latin America, 1963), BBC Symphony Orchestra (Czechoslovakia, Poland and the USSR, 1967) and the Hallé (Latin America and West Indies, 1968). It was a lasting disappointment to him that it never proved possible to take the Hallé on a tour of the United States. In 1968, after 25 years with the Hallé, Barbirolli retired from the principal conductorship; no successor was appointed in his lifetime. He was appointed the orchestra's Conductor Laureate. He reduced the number of his appearances with the Hallé, but nevertheless took it on another European tour in 1968, this time to Switzerland, Austria and Germany. In his last years a propensity to concentrate on detail at the expense of the whole of a piece became marked. His loyal friend and admirer the critic Neville Cardus wrote privately in 1969, "he seems so much to love a single phrase that he lingers over it, caressing it; meanwhile the general momentum is lost." His final year, 1970, was dogged by heart trouble; he suffered collapses in April, May, June and July. His last two concerts were with the Hallé at the 1970 King's Lynn Festival. He produced "inspired" renderings of Elgar's Symphony No. 1 and Sea Pictures. The last work he conducted in public was Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 on the Saturday before his death. On the day he died, 29 July 1970, he spent several hours rehearsing the New Philharmonia Orchestra for a forthcoming tour of Japan that he was scheduled to lead. Barbirolli died at his London home of a heart attack, aged 70. Among planned engagements forestalled by his death were a production of Otello at the Royal Opera House, which would have been his first appearance there for nearly 20 years, and opera recordings for EMI, including Puccini's Manon Lescaut and Verdi's Falstaff. ## Honours, awards and memorials Among Barbirolli's state awards were a British knighthood in 1949 and Companion of Honour in 1969; the Finnish Grand Star and Collar of Commander 1st Class of the Order of the White Rose in 1963; from Italy the Order of Merit in 1964; and from France, Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, 1966, and Officier de l'Ordre national du Mérite, 1968. Awards from musical institutions included the Freedom of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, 1966; Honorary Academician of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, 1960; Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society, 1950; Bruckner Medal, Bruckner Society of America, 1959; and the Mahler Medal, Mahler-Bruckner Society of America, 1965. He was also awarded the title of Doctor of Music honoris causa (DMus h.c.) from the National University of Ireland in 1952. There are memorials to Barbirolli in Manchester and London. Barbirolli Square in Manchester is named in his honour and features a sculpture of him by Byron Howard (2000). The square includes the present base of the Hallé Orchestra, the Bridgewater Hall, in which the Barbirolli Room commemorates the conductor. At his old school, St Clement Danes, now relocated in Chorleywood, the main hall is named in his honour. A commemorative blue plaque was placed on the wall of the Bloomsbury Park Hotel in Southampton Row in May 1993 to mark Barbirolli's birthplace. The Sir John Barbirolli Memorial Foundation of the Royal Philharmonic Society was instituted after his death to assist young musicians with the purchase of instruments. In 1972 the Barbirolli Society was set up with the principal aim of promoting the continued release of Barbirolli's recorded performances. Its honorary officers have included Evelyn Barbirolli, Daniel Barenboim and Michael Kennedy. In April 2012, he was voted into the inaugural Gramophone "Hall of Fame". ## Repertoire and recordings Barbirolli is remembered as an interpreter of Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Mahler, as well as Schubert, Beethoven, Sibelius, Verdi and Puccini, and as a staunch supporter of new works by British composers. Vaughan Williams dedicated his Eighth Symphony to Barbirolli, whose nickname, "Glorious John", comes from the inscription Vaughan Williams wrote at the head of the score: "For glorious John, with love and admiration from Ralph." Barbirolli did not disdain lighter repertoire. The music critic Richard Osborne wrote that, if all Barbirolli's recordings were to be lost except that of Lehár's Gold and Silver Waltz, "there would be reason enough to say, 'Now, there was a conductor!'" Barbirolli's repertoire was not as wide as that of many of his colleagues because he insisted on exhaustive preparation for any work he conducted. His colleague Sir Adrian Boult liked and admired Barbirolli but teased him for his meticulousness: "We can't all be like you and spend months studying these things and then have days of rehearsals before we conduct them. For some of us they're only sporting events." Barbirolli was shocked by such levity. His approach was illustrated by the care he took with Mahler's symphonies. His biographer Michael Kennedy commented, "it is ironical that the effort of composing the symphonies shortened Mahler's life; interpreting them certainly put an enormous strain on Barbirolli in his last decade." He found that mastering a Mahler symphony took between 18 months and two years, and he would spend hours meticulously bowing all the string parts in preparation for his performances. His first performance of Mahler's Ninth took nearly 50 hours of rehearsal. ### Pre-war From almost the start of his career Barbirolli was a frequent recording artist. As a young cellist he made four records for Edison Bell in 1911, with piano accompaniment by his sister Rosa, and as part of the Kutcher and the Music Society string quartets he recorded music by Mozart, Purcell, Vaughan Williams and others in 1925 and 1926. As a conductor he began recording in 1927 for the National Gramophonic Society (an offshoot of The Gramophone). Among his records from that period was the first to be made of Elgar's Introduction and Allegro for Strings. On hearing it, the composer said, "I'd never realised it was such a big work." Elgar, despite an extensive discography as a conductor, never recorded the work himself, and some have speculated that "the breadth, nobility and lyrical poetry" of Barbirolli's interpretation left the composer disinclined to compete. In 1928 Barbirolli made some recordings for the Edison Bell label. The same year, he began his long association with the His Master's Voice (HMV) label. Immediately after the LSO concert at which he had stood in for Beecham, he was approached by Fred Gaisberg, the chief recording producer for HMV who signed him for his company shortly afterwards. An HMV colleague of Gaisberg described Barbirolli as "a treasure", because he "could accompany Chaliapin without provoking an uproar, win golden opinions from Jascha Heifetz, Artur Rubinstein, Fritz Kreisler and Pablo Casals, and conduct one of the finest recorded performances of the Quintet from Meistersinger". Many of Barbirolli's pre-war recordings for HMV were of concertos. His reputation as an accompanist tended to obscure his talents as a symphonic conductor, and later, his detractors in New York "damned him with faint praise by exalting his powers as an accompanist and then implying that that was where it all stopped." Barbirolli became very sensitive on this point, and for many years after the war he was reluctant to accompany anyone in the recording studio. Among his early HMV records are works, mainly concertos, by Brahms, Bruch, Chopin, Dvořák, Glazunov, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Schumann, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky and Vieuxtemps. From the 1990s onwards, archive recordings of Barbirolli's early concerts in New York have been issued on CD. Kennedy wrote in 2004 that they "prove that the orchestra played superbly for him and that the criticism of him was largely unjustified." Recordings from this period include symphonies by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Sibelius and Tchaikovsky, and other orchestral music by Berlioz, Debussy, Menotti, Purcell, Ravel, Respighi, and Rimsky-Korsakov. ### 1943 and later Within six months of his return to Britain in 1943, Barbirolli resumed his contract with HMV, conducting the Hallé in the Third Symphony of Bax and the Fifth of Vaughan Williams, followed by works by a wide range of composers from Corelli to Stravinsky. In 1955 he signed a contract with Pye Records, with whom he and the Hallé recorded a wide repertoire, and made their first stereophonic recordings. These records were distributed in the US by Vanguard Records. A company was formed, named Pye-Barbirolli, of which he was a director: the arrangement was designed to ensure an equal partnership between the company and the musicians. They made many recordings, including symphonies by Beethoven, Dvořák, Elgar, Mozart, Nielsen, Sibelius, Mahler, Tchaikovsky and Vaughan Williams, as well as a few concertos, short orchestral pieces and operatic excerpts. In 1962, HMV persuaded Barbirolli to return. With the Hallé he recorded a Sibelius symphony cycle, Elgar's Second Symphony, Falstaff and The Dream of Gerontius, Schubert's Ninth Symphony, Vaughan Williams's A London Symphony, and works by Grieg and Delius. With other orchestras, Barbirolli recorded a wide range of his repertoire, including many recordings still in the catalogues in 2022. Of these, his Elgar recordings include the Cello Concerto with Jacqueline du Pré, Sea Pictures with Janet Baker, and orchestral music including the First Symphony, Enigma Variations and many of the shorter works. His Mahler recordings include the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies (with the New Philharmonia) and Ninth Symphony (with the Berlin Philharmonic). With the Vienna Philharmonic, he recorded a Brahms symphony cycle, and with Daniel Barenboim, the two Brahms Piano Concertos. He made three operatic sets for HMV: Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with Victoria de los Ángeles (1966), Verdi's Otello with James McCracken, Gwyneth Jones and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (1969), and a set of Madama Butterfly with Renata Scotto, Carlo Bergonzi and Rome Opera forces that has remained in the catalogues since its first issue in 1967. The impact of the last was such that the head of the Rome Opera invited him to come and conduct "any opera you care to name with as much rehearsal as you wish." HMV planned to record Die Meistersinger with Barbirolli in Dresden in 1970, but following the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 he refused to conduct in the Soviet bloc, and his place was taken by Herbert von Karajan.
5,727,275	Banksia blechnifolia	1,101,590,657	Species of shrub in the family Proteaceae from Western Australia	[ "Banksia taxa by scientific name", "Endemic flora of Western Australia", "Eudicots of Western Australia", "Plants described in 1864", "Taxa named by Ferdinand von Mueller" ]	Banksia blechnifolia is a species of flowering plant in the genus Banksia found in Western Australia. It was first described by Victorian state botanist Ferdinand von Mueller in 1864, and no subspecies are recognised. It gained its specific name as its leaves are reminiscent of a fern (Blechnum). B. blechnifolia is one of several closely related species that grow as prostrate shrubs, with horizontal stems and leathery, upright leaves. The red-brown flower spikes, known as inflorescences, are up to 20 centimetres (8 in) high and appear from September to November in the Australian spring. As the spikes age, each turns grey and develops as many as 25 woody seed pods, known as follicles. Insects such as bees, wasps, ants and flies pollinate the flowers. Found in sandy soils in the south coastal region of Western Australia in the vicinity of Lake King, B. blechnifolia is non-lignotuberous, regenerating by seed after bushfire. The plant adapts readily to cultivation, growing in well-drained sandy soils in sunny locations. It is suitable for rockeries and as a groundcover. ## Description Banksia blechnifolia is a prostrate shrub that grows to about 50 cm (19+1⁄2 in) high and spreads to 2–4 m (6+1⁄2–13 ft) across. It has thick horizontal stems up to 70 cm (27+1⁄2 in) long and 0.7–1.0 cm (1⁄4–3⁄8 in) thick that lie on top of the ground. They are covered in fine rusty-brown fur, which turns grey with age. The leathery herringbone leaves rise vertically from the stems on thick 5–18 cm (2–7 in) long petioles, which have two narrow ribs on the undersurface. The leaves themselves are 25–45 cm (10–17+1⁄2 in) long, with 8–22 deep lobes on each leaf edge. Narrowly triangular to roughly linear in shape and 2–5 cm (3⁄4–2 in) long, these lobes are either oppositely or alternately arranged along the leaf midline, and arise at 60–80 degrees. The leaf blade narrows for the top third of its length to a pointed apex. Flowering occurs from mid September to late November, with the flower spikes, known as inflorescences, arising at the ends of the stems. Up to 20 centimetres (7.9 in) high and 9 centimetres (3.5 in) wide, they are overall red-brown to salmon-coloured. The individual flowers are reddish pink with a cream base, fading to light brown and then grey as they age. The perianth is 2.8–3.2 cm (1+1⁄8–1+1⁄4 in) long, includes a 3.5–5 mm limb and is covered in fine fur. Old flowers remain on the spike, obscuring the developing seed pods known as follicles. Up to 25 in number, these are covered in fur and oval, measuring 2.0–3.0 cm (3⁄4–1+1⁄8 in) long, by 0.5–1.0 cm (1⁄4–3⁄8 in) high, and 1.0–1.5 cm (3⁄8–5⁄8 in) wide. The obovate (egg-shaped) to cuneate (wedge-shaped) seed is 2.0–2.5 cm (3⁄4–1 in) long. It is composed of the wedge-shaped seed body (containing the embryonic plant), measuring 0.9–1.2 cm (3⁄8–1⁄2 in) long by 1.2–1.7 cm (1⁄2–5⁄8 in) wide, and a papery wing. One side, termed the outer surface, is convex and pale greyish brown with irregular pits and the inner surface is dark brown and smooth. The seeds are separated by a sturdy dark brown seed separator roughly the same shape as the seeds with a depression where the seed body sits adjacent to it in the follicle. The first pair of leaves produced by seedlings, known as cotyledons, are wedge-shaped with a convex apical side and measure 1.0–1.1 cm (3⁄8–3⁄8 in) long by 1.4–1.5 cm (1⁄2–5⁄8 in) wide. Dark green in colour, they are faintly reticulated. The auricle at the base of the cotyledon leaf is pointed and measures 0.2 cm (1⁄8 in) long. The cotyledons sit on a short thick hypocotyl. ## Taxonomy Victorian state botanist Ferdinand von Mueller first recounted Banksia blechnifolia in 1864, from material collected in 1861 by a G. Maxwell. The species name is derived from Blechnum, a genus of fern, and folium "leaf", hence "fern-leaved". Von Mueller held it to be close to , but in his 1870 arrangement, English botanist George Bentham regarded it as synonymous with that species. Von Mueller wrote of it again in 1869 as a variety of B. repens, giving it the name Banksia pinnatisecta. The species was then mostly forgotten until 1931, when it was collected again by Western Australian botanists William Blackall and Charles Gardner near Middle Mount Barren. As the region was opened up to agriculture, the species was collected more often during the following decades. It was informally known as Banksia sp. "Lake King" during this time and was brought into cultivation. No subspecies are recognized. In his 1981 monograph The genus Banksia L.f. (Proteaceae), Australian botanist Alex George resurrected B. blechnifolia as a valid species, placing it in B. subgenus Banksia because its inflorescence is a typical Banksia flower spike shape, in B. section Banksia because of its straight styles, and Banksia series Prostratae, because of its prostrate habit, along with five other closely related species. George, like von Mueller, held it to be related to B. repens and . In 1996, botanists Kevin Thiele and Pauline Ladiges published an arrangement informed by a cladistic analysis of morphological characteristics. This arrangement maintained the species' placement in ser. Prostratae but found the most closely related taxon to be , based on their common narrow-lobed leaves, and the next closest relative to be B. repens. George later published an updated version of his 1981 arrangement in his 1999 treatment of Banksia for the Flora of Australia series of monographs. In all three arrangements, section Prostratae is circumscribed with little to no differences, though its placement within the broader system differs. The placement of B. blechnifolia in George's 1999 arrangement may be summarised as follows: Banksia : B. subg. Banksia : : B. sect. Banksia : : : B. ser. Salicinae (11 species, 7 subspecies) : : : B. ser. Grandes (2 species) : : : B. ser. Banksia (8 species) : : : B. ser. Crocinae : : : B. ser. Prostratae (6 species, 3 varieties) : : : : B. goodii : : : : B. gardneri : : : : : B. gardneri var. gardneri : : : : : B. gardneri var. brevidentata : : : : : B. gardneri var. hiemalis : : : : B. chamaephyton : : : : B. repens : : : : B. blechnifolia : : : : B. petiolaris : : : B. ser. Cyrtostylis (13 species) : : : B. ser. Tetragonae (3 species) : : : B. ser. Bauerinae (1 species) : : : B. ser. Quercinae (2 species) : : B. sect. Coccinea (1 species) : : B. sect. Oncostylis (4 series, 22 species, 4 subspecies, 11 varieties) : B. subg. Isostylis (3 species) Since 1998, American botanist Austin Mast has been publishing results of ongoing cladistic analyses of DNA sequence data for the subtribe Banksiinae, which includes Banksia. With respect to B. blechnifolia, Mast's results have some semblance to George and Thiele's, as B. repens, B. chamaephyton and B. blechnifolia form a closely knit group within this group, although the overall inferred phylogeny is very different from George's arrangement. Early in 2007, Mast and Thiele initiated a rearrangement of Banksiinae by publishing several new names, including subgenus Spathulatae for the species of Banksia that have spoon-shaped cotyledons; in this way they also redefined the autonym B. subgenus Banksia. They have not yet published a full arrangement, but if their nomenclatural changes are taken as an interim arrangement, then B. blechnifolia is placed in subgenus Banksia. In a 2013 cladistics study, evolutionary scientists Marcell Cardillo and Renae Pratt found that B. blechnifolia diverged from a lineage that gave rise to B. goodii, B. gardneri and B. repens. ## Distribution and habitat Endemic to Western Australia, B. blechnifolia is found in the state's south between Jerramungup and Gibson, and north towards the vicinity of Lake King. It grows in flat areas, on white sands in kwongan or mallee kwongan communities. It is not found within 10 km (6.2 mi) of the coast. ## Ecology Like many plants in Australia's southwest, Banksia blechnifolia is adapted to an environment in which bushfire events are relatively frequent. Most Banksia species can be placed in one of two broad groups according to their response to fire: reseeders are killed by fire, but fire also triggers the release of their canopy seed bank, thus promoting recruitment of the next generation; resprouters survive fire, resprouting from a lignotuber or, more rarely, epicormic buds protected by thick bark. B. blechnifolia and the related B. petiolaris are in the former category—rapid growing plants killed by bushfire and regenerating by seed—while the other prostrate species are slow growing resprouters. Like other banksias, B. blechnifolia plays host to a variety of pollinators—insects such as bees, wasps, ants and flies were all recorded in the 1988 The Banksia Atlas survey. ## Cultivation Inoculation experiments found that B. blechnifolia is resistant to dieback. It is one of the Western Australian banksia species that adapts best to cultivation, having been readily grown in eastern states. Rusty new growth and fern-like leaves are its main horticultural features. It requires well-drained soil, preferably fairly sandy, although it can tolerate some clay. Extra water in warm weather can result in vigorous growth. Some specimens reach 4 m (13 ft) diameter in cultivation. It makes an attractive prostrate groundcover, especially in rockeries, though its growth is not dense enough to suppress weeds arising within it. Ample mulching minimises weed growth. It is hardy to moderate frosts. Seeds do not require any treatment, and take 14 to 49 days to germinate. B. blechnifolia takes 4–5 years to flower from seed in cultivation.
327,575	David Scott	1,170,378,766	American astronaut and lunar explorer (born 1932)	[ "1932 births", "1966 in spaceflight", "1969 in spaceflight", "1971 in spaceflight", "20th-century American businesspeople", "20th-century American engineers", "21st-century American businesspeople", "21st-century American engineers", "Apollo 15", "Apollo 9", "Apollo program astronauts", "Articles containing video clips", "Aviators from Texas", "Collier Trophy recipients", "David Scott", "Living people", "MIT School of Engineering alumni", "Military personnel from San Antonio", "NASA people", "People who have walked on the Moon", "Project Gemini astronauts", "Recipients of the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal", "Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United States)", "Recipients of the NASA Distinguished Service Medal", "Recipients of the NASA Exceptional Service Medal", "San Antonio Academy alumni", "TMI Episcopal alumni", "U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School alumni", "United States Air Force astronauts", "United States Air Force colonels", "United States Astronaut Hall of Fame inductees", "United States Military Academy alumni", "University of Michigan College of Engineering alumni" ]	David Randolph Scott (born June 6, 1932) is an American retired test pilot and NASA astronaut who was the seventh person to walk on the Moon. Selected as part of the third group of astronauts in 1963, Scott flew to space three times and commanded Apollo 15, the fourth lunar landing; he is one of four surviving Moon walkers and the only living commander of a spacecraft that landed on the Moon. Before becoming an astronaut, Scott graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and joined the Air Force. After serving as a fighter pilot in Europe, he graduated from the Air Force Experimental Test Pilot School (Class 62C) and the Aerospace Research Pilot School (Class IV). Scott retired from the Air Force in 1975 with the rank of colonel, and more than 5,600 hours of logged flying time. As an astronaut, Scott made his first flight into space as a pilot of the Gemini 8 mission, along with Neil Armstrong, in March 1966, spending just under eleven hours in low Earth orbit. He would have been the second American astronaut to walk in space had Gemini 8 not made an emergency abort. Scott then spent ten days in orbit in March 1969 as Command Module Pilot of Apollo 9, a mission that extensively tested the Apollo spacecraft, along with Commander James McDivitt and Lunar Module Pilot Rusty Schweickart. After backing up Apollo 12, Scott made his third and final flight into space as commander of the Apollo 15 mission, the fourth crewed lunar landing and the first J mission. Scott and James Irwin remained on the Moon for three days. Following their return to Earth, Scott and his crewmates fell from favor with NASA after it was disclosed that they had carried four hundred unauthorized postal covers to the Moon. After serving as director of NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in California, Scott retired from the agency in 1977. Since then, he has worked on a number of space-related projects and served as a consultant for several films about the space program, including Apollo 13. ## Early life and education Scott was born June 6, 1932, at Randolph Field (for which he received his middle name) near San Antonio, Texas. His father was Tom William Scott (1902–1988), a fighter pilot in the United States Army Air Corps who would rise to the rank of brigadier general; his mother was Marian Scott (née Davis; 1906–1998). Scott lived his earliest years at Randolph Field, where his father was stationed, before moving to an air base in Indiana, and then in 1936 to Manila in the Philippines, then under U.S. rule. David remembered his father as a strict disciplinarian. The family returned to the United States in December 1939. By the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the family was living in San Antonio again; shortly thereafter Tom Scott was deployed overseas. As it was felt that he needed more discipline than he would receive with his father gone for three years, David was sent to Texas Military Institute, spending his summers at Hermosa Beach in California with his father's college friend, David Shattuck, after whom he had been named. Determined to become a pilot like his father, David built many model airplanes and watched with fascination war films about flying. By the time of Tom Scott's return, David was old enough to be allowed to go up in a military aircraft with him, and in David Scott's autobiography remembered it as "the most exciting thing I had ever experienced". David Scott was active in the Boy Scouts of America, achieving its second-highest rank, Life Scout. With Tom Scott assigned to March Air Force Base near Riverside, California, David attended Riverside Polytechnic High School, where he joined the swimming team and set several state and local records. Before David could finish high school, Tom Scott was transferred to Washington, D.C., and after some discussion as to whether he should remain in California to graduate, David attended Western High School in Washington, graduating in June 1949. David Scott wanted an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point but lacked connections to secure one. He took a government civil service examination for competitive appointments and accepted a swimming scholarship to the University of Michigan where he was an honor student in the engineering school. In the spring of 1950, he received and accepted an invitation to attend West Point. Scott attended Michigan on a swimming scholarship, set a freshman record in the 440-yard freestyle, and the team captain during Scott's year there, Jack Craigie, recalled that the West Point swimming coach, Gordon Chalmers, was happy to get Scott from Michigan, one of the dominant programs of the time. Scott still wanted to fly and wanted to be commissioned in the newly established United States Air Force (USAF). The Air Force Academy was founded in 1954, the year Scott graduated from West Point; an interim arrangement had been made whereby a quarter of West Point and United States Naval Academy graduates could volunteer to be commissioned as Air Force officers. Earning a Bachelor of Science degree in military science, Scott graduated 5th in his class of 633 and was commissioned in the Air Force. ## Air Force pilot Scott did six months of primary pilot training at Marana Air Base in Arizona, beginning there in July 1954. He completed Undergraduate Pilot Training at Webb Air Force Base, Texas, in 1955, then went through gunnery training at Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas, and Luke Air Force Base, Arizona. From April 1956 to July 1960, Scott flew with the 32d Tactical Fighter Squadron at Soesterberg Air Base, Netherlands, flying F-86 Sabres and F-100 Super Sabres. The weather there was often poor, and Scott's piloting skills were tested. Once, he had to land his plane on a golf course after a flameout. On another, he barely made it to a Dutch base on the edge of the North Sea. Scott served in Europe during the Cold War and tensions were often high between the U.S. and Soviet Union. During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, his squadron was placed on the highest alert for weeks but was stood down without going into combat. Scott hoped to advance his career by becoming a test pilot, to be trained at Edwards Air Force Base. He was counseled that the best way to get into test pilot school was to gain a graduate degree in aeronautics. Accordingly, he applied to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and was accepted. He received both a Master of Science degree in Aeronautics/Astronautics and the degree of Engineer in Aeronautics/Astronautics (the E.A.A. degree) from MIT in 1962. After receiving these degrees, Scott was stunned to receive orders from the Air Force to report to the new Air Force Academy as a professor, rather than to test pilot school. Although challenging orders was strongly discouraged, Scott went to the Pentagon and found a sympathetic ear from a colonel. Scott received changed orders to report to Edwards. Scott reported to the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards in July 1962. The commandant of the school was Chuck Yeager, the first person to break the sound barrier, whom Scott idolized; Scott got to fly several times with him. Scott graduated top pilot in his class. He was selected for the Aerospace Research Pilot School, also at Edwards, where those intended as Air Force astronauts were trained. There he learned how to control aircraft, such as the Lockheed NF-104A, at altitudes of up to 100,000 feet (30,000 m). ## NASA career In applying to be part of the third group of astronauts in 1963, Scott intended only a temporary detour from a mainstream military career; he expected to fly in space a couple of times and then return to the Air Force. He was accepted as one of the fourteen Group 3 astronauts later that year. Scott's initial assignment was as an astronaut representative at MIT supervising the development of the Apollo Guidance Computer. He spent most of 1964 and 1965 in residence in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He served as backup CAPCOM during Gemini 4 and as a CAPCOM during Gemini 5. ### Gemini 8 After the conclusion of Gemini 5, Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton informed Scott that he would fly with Neil Armstrong on Gemini 8. This made Scott the first Group 3 astronaut to become a member of a prime crew, and this without having served on a backup crew. Scott was highly regarded by his colleagues for his piloting credentials; another Group 3 astronaut, Michael Collins, wrote later that Scott's selection to fly with Armstrong helped convince him that NASA knew what it was doing. Scott found Armstrong something of a taskmaster, but the two men greatly respected each other and worked well together. They spent most of the seven months before launch in each other's company. One part of the training that Scott undertook without Armstrong was riding the Vomit Comet, where he practiced in preparation for a planned spacewalk. On March 16, 1966, Armstrong and Scott were launched into space, a flight originally planned to last three days. The Agena rocket with which they were to dock had been launched an hour and forty minutes earlier. They carefully approached and docked with the Agena, the first docking ever accomplished in space. However, after the docking, there was unexpected movement by the joined craft. Mission Control was out of touch during this portion of the orbit, and the astronauts' belief that the Agena was causing the problem proved incorrect, for once they performed an emergency undocking, the spin only got worse. With the spacecraft spinning, there was a risk of the astronauts blacking out or the Gemini vehicle disintegrating. The problem was one of the craft's Orbit Attitude and Maneuvering System (OAMS) thrusters firing unexpectedly; the crew shut down those thrusters, and Armstrong activated the Reaction Control System (RCS) thrusters to negate the spin. The RCS thrusters were to be used for reentry, and the mission rules said if they were activated early, Gemini 8 had to return to Earth. Gemini 8 splashed down in the Western Pacific on the day of launch; the mission lasted only ten hours, and the early termination meant that Scott's spacewalk was scrubbed. According to Francis French and Colin Burgess in their book on NASA and the Space Race, "Scott, in particular, had shown incredible presence of mind during the unexpected events of the Gemini 8 mission. Even in the middle of an emergency, out of contact with Mission Control, he had thought to reenable ground control command of the Agena before the two vehicles separated." This allowed NASA to check the Agena from the ground, and use it for a subsequent Gemini mission. Scott's competence was recognized by NASA when, five days after the brief flight, he was assigned to an Apollo crew. Along with Armstrong, Scott received the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, and the Air Force awarded him the Distinguished Flying Cross as well. He was also promoted to lieutenant colonel. ### Apollo 9 Scott's Apollo assignment was as backup senior pilot/navigator for what would become known as Apollo 1, scheduled for launch in February 1967, with Jim McDivitt as backup commander and Russell Schweickart as pilot. In that capacity, they spent much of their time at North American Rockwell's plant in Downey, California, where the command and service module (CSM) for that mission was under construction. By January 1967, Scott's crew had been assigned as prime crew for a subsequent Apollo mission and were at Downey on January 27 when a fire took the lives of the Apollo 1 prime crew during a pre-launch test. During the fire, the inward-opening hatch had proved impossible for the astronauts to open, and Scott's post-fire assignment, with all flights put on hold amid a complete review of the Apollo program, was to serve on the team designing a simpler, outward-opening hatch. After the pause, Scott's crew was assigned to Apollo 8, intended to be an Earth-orbit test of the full Apollo spacecraft, including the Lunar Module (LM). There were delays in the development of the lunar module and in August 1968, NASA official George Low proposed that if Apollo 7 in October went well, Apollo 8 should go to lunar orbit without a Lunar Module, so as not to hold up the program. The Earth-orbit test would become Apollo 9. McDivitt was offered Apollo 8 by Slayton, but turned it down on behalf of his crew (who fully agreed), preferring to wait for Apollo 9, which would involve extensive testing of the spacecraft and was dubbed "a test pilot's dream". As command module pilot for Apollo 9 Scott's responsibilities were heavy. The LM was to separate from the CSM during the mission; if it failed to return, Scott would have to run the entire spacecraft for reentry, normally a three-man job. He would also have to go rescue the LM if it could not perform the rendezvous, and if it could not dock, would have to assist McDivitt and Schweickart in performing an extravehicular activity (EVA) or spacewalk, back to the CSM. Scott was somewhat unhappy, though, that CSM-103, which he had worked on extensively, would stay with Apollo 8, with Apollo 9 given CSM-104. The planned February 28, 1969, launch date was postponed as all three astronauts had head colds, and NASA was wary of medical issues in space after problems on Apollo 7 and Apollo 8. The launch took place on March 3, 1969. Within hours of launch, Scott had performed a maneuver essential to the lunar landing by piloting the CSM Gumdrop away from the S-IVB rocket stage, then turned Gumdrop around and docked with the LM Spider still attached to the S-IVB, before the combined spacecraft separated from the rocket. Schweickart vomited twice on the third day in space, suffering from space adaptation syndrome. He was supposed to do a spacewalk from the LM's hatch to that of the CM the following day, proving that this could be done under emergency conditions, but because of concerns about his condition, simply exited the LM while Scott stood in the CM's hatch, bringing in experiments and photographing Schweickart. On the fifth day in space, March 7, McDivitt and Schweickart in the LM Spider flew away from the CSM while Scott remained in Gumdrop, making him the first American astronaut to be alone in space since the Mercury program. After the redocking, Spider was jettisoned. The LM had gone over 100 miles (160 km) from the CSM during the test. The remainder of the mission was devoted to tests of the command module, mostly performed by Scott; Schweickart called these days "Dave Scott's mission"; McDivitt and Schweickart had much time to observe the Earth as Scott worked. The mission stayed in space one orbit longer than planned due to rough seas in the Atlantic Ocean recovery zone. Apollo 9 splashed down on March 13, 1969, less than four nautical miles (7 km) from the helicopter carrier USS Guadalcanal, 180 miles (290 km) east of the Bahamas. ### Apollo 15 Scott was deemed to have performed his duties well, and on April 10, 1969, was named backup commander of Apollo 12, with Al Worden as command module pilot and James Irwin as lunar module pilot. McDivitt had chosen to go into NASA management, and Slayton had seen Scott as a potential crew commander; Worden and Irwin were working on the support crews for Apollo 9 and Apollo 10, respectively. Schweickart was ruled out due to the space sickness episode. This put the three in line to be the prime crew for Apollo 15. Scott's status as backup commander of the next flight allowed him to sit in the Mission Control room as Apollo 11, with his old crewmate Armstrong in command, landed on the Moon. That Scott, Worden, and Irwin would be the crew of Apollo 15 was announced on March 26, 1970. Apollo 15 would be the first J Mission, which emphasized scientific research, with longer stays on the Moon's surface and the use of the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV). Already having an interest in geology, Scott made time during the training for his crew to go on field trips with Caltech geologist Lee Silver. The scientists were divided over where Apollo 15 should land; Scott's argument for the area of Hadley Rille won the day. As time dwindled towards the launch date, Scott pushed to make the field trips more like what they would encounter on the lunar surface, with mock backpacks simulating what they would wear on the Moon, and from November 1970 onwards, the training version of the LRV. Apollo 15 launched from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A on July 26, 1971. The outward flight to the Moon's orbit saw only minor difficulties, and the mission entered lunar orbit without incident. The descent to the Moon by the LM Falcon, with Scott and Irwin aboard, took place on the late afternoon of July 30, with Scott as commander attempting the landing. Despite difficulties caused by the computer-controlled flight path being to the south of what was planned, Scott assumed manual control for the final descent, and successfully landed the Falcon within the designated landing zone. After landing, Scott and Irwin donned the helmets and gloves of their pressure suits and Scott performed the first and only stand-up EVA on the lunar surface, by poking his head and upper body out of the docking port on top of the LM. He took panoramic photographs of the surrounding area from an elevated position and scouted the terrain they would be driving across the next day. After deploying the LRV from its folded-up position on the side of the LM's descent stage, Scott drove with Irwin in the direction of Hadley Rille. Once there, Scott marveled at the beauty of the scene. While their exploits were followed by a television camera mounted on the Rover and controlled from Earth, Scott and Irwin took samples of the lunar surface, including the rock Great Scott named after the astronaut, before returning to the LM to set up the ALSEP, the experiments that were to continue to run after their departure. The second traverse, the following day (August 1) was to the slope of Mount Hadley Delta. At Spur Crater, they discovered one of the most famous lunar samples, a plagioclase-rich anorthosite from the early lunar crust, that was later dubbed the Genesis Rock by the press. On the third day, August 2, they went on their final moonwalk, an excursion cut short by problems with retrieving a core sample. On their return to the LM, Scott, before the television camera, dropped a hammer and a feather to demonstrate Galileo's theory that objects in a vacuum will drop at the same rate. After driving the LRV to a position where the camera could view Falcon's takeoff, Scott left a memorial to the astronauts and cosmonauts who had died to advance space exploration. This consisted of a plaque bearing their names, and a small aluminum sculpture, Fallen Astronaut, by Paul Van Hoeydonck. Once this was done, Scott re-entered the LM, and soon thereafter, Falcon lifted off from the Moon. Apollo 15 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean north of Honolulu on August 7, 1971. The first crew to land on the Moon and not be quarantined on return, the astronauts were flown to Houston, and after debriefing, were sent off on the usual circuit of addresses to Congress, celebrations, and foreign trips that met returning Apollo astronauts. Scott regretted the lack of quarantine, which he felt would have given them time to recover from the flight, as the demands on their time were heavy. ### Postal covers incident The crew had arranged with a friend named Horst Eiermann to carry postal covers to the Moon in exchange for about \$7,000 for each astronaut. Slayton had issued regulations that personal items taken in spacecraft must be listed for his approval; which was not done for the covers. Scott carried the covers into the CM in his spacesuit; they were transferred to the LM en route to the Moon and landed there with the astronauts. Scott sent 100 of them to Eiermann, and in late 1971, against the astronauts' wishes, the covers were offered for sale by West German stamp dealer Hermann Sieger. The astronauts returned the money, but in April 1972, Slayton learned of the unauthorized covers and had Scott, Worden, and Irwin removed as backup crew members for Apollo 17. The matter became public in June 1972, and the astronauts were reprimanded for poor judgment by NASA and the Air Force the following month. The covers that the crew still had were initially impounded by NASA but were in 1983 returned to the astronauts in an out-of-court settlement, as the government felt it could not successfully defend the lawsuit, and that NASA either authorized the covers to be flown or was aware of them. The press release that announced the reprimands, dated July 11, 1972, stated that the astronauts' "actions will be given due consideration in their selection for future assignment", something that made it extremely unlikely that they would be selected to fly in space again. Newsweek reported that "there are no forthcoming missions for which he [Scott] is being considered". Scott related in his autobiography that Alan Shepard, then head of the Astronaut Office, had offered him the choice between backing up Apollo 17 or serving as a special assistant on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the first joint mission with the Soviet Union; Scott had chosen the latter. Although a NASA spokesman had stated that Scott had no choice but to leave the Astronaut Corps, and this was reproduced in the press, Slayton's supervisor, Christopher C. Kraft, stated that the Public Affairs Office at NASA had erred, and the transfer was not a further rebuke. ### NASA management In his role with Apollo-Soyuz, Scott traveled to Moscow, leading a team of technical experts. There he met the commander of the Soviet part of the mission, Alexei Leonov, with whom he would later write a joint autobiography. In 1973 Scott was offered the job of deputy director of NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, located at Edwards, a place Scott had long loved. This allowed Scott to fly aircraft that reached the edge of space, and let him renew his acquaintance with the retired Chuck Yeager who was there as a consulting test pilot, and to whom Scott granted flying privileges. On April 18, 1975, at age 42, Scott became the Center Director at Dryden. This was a civilian appointment, and to accept it, Scott retired from the Air Force in March 1975 with the rank of colonel. Kraft wrote in his memoirs that Scott's appointment "pissed off Deke to his eyebrows". Scott found the work interesting and exciting, but with budget cuts and the forthcoming end of Approach and Landing Tests for the Space Shuttle, in 1977 he decided it was time to leave NASA and retired from the agency on September 30, 1977. ## Post-NASA career Entering the private sector, Scott founded Scott Science and Technology, Inc. In the late 1970s and the 1980s, Scott worked on several government projects, including designing the astronaut training for a proposed Air Force version of the Space Shuttle. One of Scott's firms went out of business after the 1986 Challenger disaster; though the company played no part in the disaster, subsequent redesign of parts of the shuttle eliminated Scott's firm's role. After Challenger, Scott served four years on the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee, formed to advise the Secretary of Transportation on the possible conversion of ICBMs to launch vehicles. In 1992 Scott was found by a Prescott, Arizona, court to have defrauded nine investors in a partnership organized by him. He was ordered to pay roughly \$400,000 to investors in the partnership, which was to create technology to prevent aircraft mechanical breakdowns, but which was never developed. Scott was a commentator for British television on the first Space Shuttle flight (STS-1) in April 1981. He also was a consultant on the film Apollo 13 and for the 1998 HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, in which he was portrayed by Brett Cullen. Scott consulted on the 3D IMAX film, Magnificent Desolation (2005), showing Apollo astronauts on the Moon, and produced by Tom Hanks and the IMAX Corporation. He is one of the astronauts featured in the 2007 book and documentary In the Shadow of the Moon. From 2003 to 2004, Scott was a consultant on the BBC TV series Space Odyssey: Voyage To The Planets. In 2004, he and Leonov began work on a dual biography/history of the "Space Race" between the United States and the Soviet Union. The book, Two Sides of the Moon: Our Story of the Cold War Space Race, was published in 2006. Armstrong and Hanks both wrote introductions to the book. Scott has worked on the Brown University science teams for the Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter. For NASA, he has worked on the 500-Day Lunar Exploration Study and as a collaborator on the research investigation entitled "Advanced Visualization in Solar System Exploration and Research (ADVISER): Optimizing the Science Return from the Moon and Mars". Scott had taken two Bulova timepieces, a wristwatch and a stopwatch, with him to the Moon without advance authorization from Slayton. Scott wore the wristwatch on the third EVA, after his NASA-issued Omega Speedmaster lost its crystal. He sold the Bulova watch in 2015 for \$1.625 million, after which the company marketed similar timepieces, whose accompanying material mentioned Scott and Apollo 15. Scott sued in federal court in 2017, alleging Bulova and Kay Jewelers were wrongfully using his name and image for commercial purposes, and in April 2018, a federal magistrate ruled he could proceed on some of his claims. The case was dismissed by agreement of the parties in August 2018, and in 2021, Bulova marked the fiftieth anniversary of Apollo 15 with the issuance of a commemorative watch. ## Personal life In 1959 Scott married his first wife, Ann Lurton Ott. He had two children with her: Tracy (born 1961) and Douglas (born 1963). In 2000, it was reported that he was engaged to British TV presenter Anna Ford; at the time he was still married to Ann Scott, although separated. His relationship with Ford had begun in 1999. By 2001, Scott and Ford had separated. He subsequently married Margaret Black, former vice-chairman of Morgan Stanley. David Scott and Margaret Black-Scott reside in Los Angeles. ## Awards, honors, and organizations Deputy Administrator Robert Seamans presented Scott and Armstrong the NASA Exceptional Service Medal in 1966 for their Gemini flight. Scott was also awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for the Gemini 8 flight. Vice President Spiro Agnew presented the Apollo 9 crew with the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. At the ceremony, Agnew said, "I am proud that America has forged to the forefront and established the leadership in space to match our new leadership on Earth." Scott received the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal for the Apollo 9 mission. Agnew also gave the Apollo 15 crew the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. Scott earned his second Air Force Distinguished Service Medal for Apollo 15. On September 15, 1971, the city of Chicago hosted the Apollo 15 crew in a parade attended by more than 200,000 people. Mayor Daley presented the crew with honorary citizenship medals. On August 25, 1971, the Apollo 15 crew were honored with a ticker-tape parade in New York City. The city bestowed them with gold medals. Later that day, U.N. Secretary General Thant awarded the trio the first United Nations Peace Medal. At the Air Force Association's annual dinner dance in September 1971, the Apollo 15 crew were presented with the David C. Schilling Trophy, the association's top flight award. Scott presented the Air Force and Air Force Association with items they flew to the Moon: sheet music of "Into the Wild Blue Yonder" and a U.S. Air Force flag. The Apollo 15 crew and Robert Gilruth (director of the Manned Spacecraft Center) were awarded the 1971 Robert J. Collier Trophy, an annual award for the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics. Scott received the De la Vaulx Medal, the Gold Space Medal, and the V.M. Komorav Diploma from Fédération Aéronautique Internationale for 1971 for his role in the Apollo 15 flight. Scott was awarded his third NASA Distinguished Service Medal in 1978. Scott, Worden, and Irwin were granted honorary Doctorates of Astronautical Science from the University of Michigan in 1971. Scott was awarded an honorary doctor of science and technology degree from Jacksonville University in 2013. It was the first honorary degree bestowed by the university. Scott is a fellow of the American Astronautical Society, an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi, and Sigma Gamma Tau. In 1982 Scott was inducted with nine other Gemini astronauts into the International Space Hall of Fame in the New Mexico Museum of Space History. Along with twelve other Gemini astronauts, Scott was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1993. ## See also - List of spaceflight records
475,191	Mark Satin	1,173,793,560	American political theorist, author, and newsletter publisher	[ "1946 births", "American alternative journalists", "American anti–Vietnam War activists", "American emigrants to Canada", "American legal writers", "American male journalists", "American memoirists", "American political philosophers", "American political writers", "California Greens", "Living people", "Members of Students for a Democratic Society", "Memoirists from Minnesota", "Memoirists from Texas", "New Age writers", "New York University School of Law alumni", "Newsletter publishers (people)", "Nonviolence advocates", "People from Moorhead, Minnesota", "People from Wichita Falls, Texas", "Radical centrist writers", "Sustainability advocates", "University of British Columbia alumni", "Vietnam War draft evaders" ]	Mark Ivor Satin (born November 16, 1946) is an American political theorist, author, and newsletter publisher. He is best known for contributing to the development and dissemination of three political perspectives – neopacifism in the 1960s, New Age politics in the 1970s and 1980s, and radical centrism in the 1990s and 2000s. Satin's work is sometimes seen as building toward a new political ideology, and then it is often labeled "transformational", "post-liberal", or "post-Marxist". One historian calls Satin's writing "post-hip". After emigrating to Canada at the age of 20 to avoid serving in the Vietnam War, Satin co-founded the Toronto Anti-Draft Programme, which helped bring American war resisters to Canada. He also wrote the Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada (1968), which sold nearly 100,000 copies. After a period that author Marilyn Ferguson describes as Satin's "anti-ambition experiment", Satin wrote New Age Politics (1978), which identifies an emergent "third force" in North America pursuing such goals as simple living, decentralism, and global responsibility. Satin spread his ideas by co-founding an American political organization, the New World Alliance, and by publishing an international political newsletter, New Options. He also co-drafted the foundational statement of the U.S. Green Party, "Ten Key Values". Following a period of political disillusion, spent mainly in law school and practicing business law, Satin launched a new political newsletter and wrote a book, Radical Middle (2004). Both projects criticized political partisanship and sought to promote mutual learning and innovative policy syntheses across social and cultural divides. In an interview, Satin contrasts the old radical slogan "Dare to struggle, dare to win" with his radical-middle version, "Dare to synthesize, dare to take it all in". Satin has been described as "colorful" and "intense", and all his initiatives have been controversial. Bringing war resisters to Canada was opposed by many in the anti-Vietnam War movement. New Age Politics was not welcomed by many on the traditional left or right, and Radical Middle dismayed an even broader segment of the American political community. Even Satin's personal life has generated controversy. ## Early years Many mid-1960s American radicals came from small cities in the Midwest and Southwest, as did Satin: he grew up in Moorhead, Minnesota, and Wichita Falls, Texas. His father, who saw combat in World War II, was a college professor and author of a Cold War-era textbook on Western civilization. His mother was a homemaker. As a youth, Satin was restless and rebellious, and his behavior did not change after leaving for university. In early 1965, at age 18, he dropped out of the University of Illinois to work with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Later that year, he was told to leave Midwestern State University, in Texas, for refusing to sign a loyalty oath to the United States Constitution. In 1966 he became president of a Students for a Democratic Society chapter at the State University of New York at Binghamton, and helped recruit nearly 20% of the student body to join. One term later he dropped out, then emigrated to Canada to avoid serving in the Vietnam War. Just before Satin left for Canada, his father told him he was trying to destroy himself. His mother told the Ladies' Home Journal she could not condone her son's actions. Satin says he arrived in Canada feeling bewildered and unsupported. According to press accounts, many Vietnam War resisters arrived feeling much the same way. ## Neopacifism, 1960s ### Toronto Anti-Draft Programme As 1967 began, many American pacifists and radicals did not look favorably on emigration to Canada as a means of resisting the Vietnam War. For some this reflected a core conviction that effective war resistance requires self-sacrifice. For others it was a matter of strategy – emigration was said to be less useful than going to jail or deserting the military, or was said to abet the war by siphoning off the opposition. At first, Students for a Democratic Society and many Quaker draft counselors opposed promoting the Canadian alternative, and Canada's largest counseling group, the Anti-Draft Programme of the Student Union for Peace Action (SUPA) – whose board consisted largely of Quakers and radicals – was sympathetic to such calls for prudence. In January 1967 its spokesman warned an American audience that immigration was difficult and that the Programme was not willing to act as "baby sitters" for Americans after they arrived. He added that he was tired of talking to the press. When Mark Satin was hired as director of the Programme in April 1967, he attempted to change its culture. He also tried to change the attitude of the war resistance movement toward emigration. His efforts continued after SUPA collapsed and he co-founded the Toronto Anti-Draft Programme, with largely the same board of directors, in October 1967. Instead of praising self-sacrifice, he emphasized the importance of self-preservation and self-development to social change. Rather than sympathizing with pacifists' and radicals' strategic concerns, he rebutted them, telling The New York Times that massive emigration of draft-age Americans could help end the war, and telling another reporter that going to jail was bad public relations. Where the Programme once publicized the difficulties of immigration, Satin emphasized the competence of his draft counseling operation, and even told of giving cash to immigrants who were without funds. Instead of refusing to "baby sit" Americans after they arrived, Satin made post-emigration assistance a top priority. The office soon sported comfortable furniture, a hot plate, and free food; within a few months, 200 Torontonians had opened their homes to war resisters and a job-finding service had been established. Finally, rather than expressing indifference to reporters, Satin courted them, and many responded, beginning with a May 1967 article in The New York Times Magazine that included a large picture of Satin counseling Vietnam War resisters in the refurbished office. Some of the publicity focused on Satin as much as on his cause. According to historian Pierre Berton, Satin was so visible that he became the unofficial spokesman for war resisters in Canada. Satin defined himself as a neopacifist or quasi-pacifist – flexible, media-savvy, and entrepreneurial. He told one journalist he might have fought against Hitler. He was not necessarily opposed to the draft, telling reporters he would support it for a defensive army or to help eliminate poverty, illiteracy, and racial discrimination. He avoided the intellectual framework of traditional pacifism and socialism. Sometimes he spoke with emotion, as when he described the United States to The New York Times Magazine as "[t]hat godawful sick, foul country; could anything be worse?" Sometimes he spoke poetically, as when he told author Jules Witcover, "It's colder here, but you feel warm because you know you're not trying to kill people." Instead of identifying with older pacifists, he identified with a 17-year-old character from the pen of J. D. Salinger: "I was Holden Caulfield", he said in 2008, "just standing and catching in the rye." The results of Satin's approach were noticeable: the Programme went from averaging fewer than three visitors, letters, and phone calls per day just before he arrived, to averaging 50 per day nine months later. In addition, the American anti-war movement became more accepting of emigration to Canada – for example, author Myra MacPherson reports that Satin's Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada could be obtained at every draft counseling office in the U.S. However, Satin's approach was distressing to the traditional pacifists and socialists on the Programme's board. The board clashed with Satin over at least 10 political, strategic, and performance issues. The most intractable may have been over the extent of the publicity. There were also concerns about Satin's personal issues; for example, one war resister claims to have heard him say, "Anonymity would kill me". In May 1968, the board finally fired him. ### Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada Before Satin was fired, he conceived and wrote, and edited guest chapters for, the Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada, published in January 1968 by the House of Anansi Press in partnership with the Toronto Anti-Draft Programme. The Programme had issued brochures on emigration before – including a 12-page version under Satin's watch – but the Manual was different, a comprehensive, 45,000-word book, and it quickly turned into an "underground bestseller". Many years later, Toronto newspapers reported that nearly 100,000 copies of the Manual had been sold. One journalist calls it the "first entirely Canadian-published bestseller in the United States". The Programme was initially hesitant about producing the Manual, which promised to draw even more war resisters and publicity to it. "The [board] didn't even want me to write it", Satin says. "I wrote it at night, in the SUPA office, three or four nights a week after counseling guys and gals 8 to 10 hours a day – pounded it out in several drafts over several months on SUPA's ancient Underwood typewriter." When it finally appeared, some leading periodicals helped put it on the map. For example, The New York Review of Books called it "useful", and The New York Times said it contains advice about everything from how to qualify as an immigrant to jobs, housing, schools, politics, culture, and even the snow. After the war, sociologist John Hagan found that more than a third of young American emigrants to Canada had read the Manual while still in the United States, and nearly another quarter obtained it after they arrived. The Manual reflected Satin's neopacifist politics. Commentators routinely characterized it as caustic, responsible, and supportive. The first part of the Manual, on emigration, suggests that self-preservation is more important than sacrifice to a dubious cause. The second half, on Canada, spotlights opportunities for self-development and social innovation. According to Canadian social historian David Churchill, the Manual helped some Canadians begin to see Toronto as socially inclusive, politically progressive, and counter-cultural. Inevitably, the Manual became a lightning rod for controversy. Some observers took issue with its perspective on Canada; most notably, The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature criticizes its "condescending tone" in describing Canada's resources. Elements in the U.S. and Canadian governments may have been upset by the Manual. According to journalist Lynn Coady, the FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) attempted to wiretap the House of Anansi Press's offices. In addition, Anansi co-founder Dave Godfrey is convinced a 10-day government audit of the press was generated by FBI–RCMP concerns. Many people did not want the Programme to encourage draft-eligible Americans to emigrate to Canada, and Satin routinely denied that the Manual encouraged emigration. But few observers believed him, then or later. The first sentence of an article in The New York Times from 1968 describes the Manual as "a major bid to encourage Americans to evade military conscription". Canadian essayist Robert Fulford remembers the Manual as offering an enthusiastic welcome to draft dodgers. Even a House of Anansi Press anthology from 2007 concedes that the Manual is "coyly titled". Satin was fired from the Programme soon after the appearance of the second edition of the Manual, which had a print run of 20,000. His name was removed from the title page of most subsequent editions. According to a study of the Manual by critic Joseph Jones in Canadian Notes & Queries, a literary journal, some later editions experienced a falloff in quality. Nevertheless, Jones says the Manual stands as an icon of its age. It made significant appearances in at least five 20th-century novels, including John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany, and it continues to be pored over by journalists, historians, social scientists, creative writers, social movement strategists, and graduate students. In 2017 the Manual was re-issued as a Canadian "classic" by the original publisher, with an introduction by Canadian historian James Laxer and a politically charged afterword by Satin, then in his 70th year. ### Confessions of a Young Exile Until the 1990s, literary critic William Zinsser says, memoir writers tended to conceal their most personal and embarrassing memories. In the 1970s Satin wrote a book revealing many such memories as a neopacifist activist during the years 1964–66, Confessions of a Young Exile, published by Gage, a Toronto publishing house soon to merge with Macmillan of Canada. Confessions is "a remarkable exercise in self-exposure", playwright John Lazarus says in a review. "The insights into the hero's motives and fears are so honest, and so mortifyingly true, that it soon becomes evident that the [naive] tone is deliberate." To some reviewers, Satin appears to have had a political goal – encouraging activists to establish common ground with ordinary North Americans on the basis of their shared confusion and humanity. For example, Jackie Hooper, writing in The Province, argues that the purity of motives projected by many pacifist activists is unconvincing, and recommends Satin's more complex view: "Satin's emigration wasn't dictated totally by his idealism. More often than not, he talked himself into radical positions ... as a result of trying to impress his peers or his girlfriend, or rebelling against middle-class parental authority". Roy MacSkimming, book editor of the Toronto Star, says Satin portrayed himself as "idealistic" but also troubled and uncertain, wanting to fit in yet also longing to be unique. Some reviewers were unenthusiastic. For example, Dennis Duffy, writing in The Globe and Mail, describes Satin's memoir as a "story about a young man who doesn't grow up". In addition, Satin's publisher began having reservations about him. Many years later, the Toronto Star reported that the publisher decided not to let Satin do any publicity for the book, because of his potentially offensive views. In the 21st century, Confessions was discussed at length by literary critics Rachel Adams in the Yale Journal of Criticism and Robert McGill in his book War Is Here. Both had been drawn to Satin's text because of their interest in the figure of the "draft dodger" in literature, and both depict Satin's journey from Moorhead to Canada as politically complex and sexually charged. ## New Age politics, 1970s – 1980s ### New Age Politics, the book As the 1970s began, the New Left faded away, and many movements arose in its wake – among them the feminist, men's liberation, spiritual, human potential, ecology, appropriate technology, intentional community, and holistic health movements. After graduating from the University of British Columbia in 1972, Satin immersed himself in all these movements, either directly or as a reporter for Canada's underground press. He also took up residence in a free-love commune. "One fierce winter's day", he says, "... it dawned on me that the ideas and energies from the various 'fringe' movements [were] beginning to generate a coherent new politics. But I looked in vain for the people and groups that were expressing that new politics (instead of merely bits and pieces of it)". Satin set out to write a book that would express the new politics in all its dimensions. He wrote, designed, typeset, and printed the first edition of New Age Politics himself, in 1976. A 240-page edition was published by Vancouver's Whitecap Books in 1978, and a 349-page edition by Dell Publishing Company in New York in 1979. It is now widely regarded as the "first", "most ambitious", or "most adequate" attempt to offer a systemic overview of the new post-socialist politics arising in the wake of the New Left. Some academics say it offers a new ideology. At the heart of New Age Politics is a critique of the consciousness we all supposedly share, a "six-sided prison" that has kept us all trapped for hundreds of years. The six sides of the "prison" are said to be: patriarchal attitudes, egocentricity, scientific single vision, the bureaucratic mentality, nationalism (xenophobia), and the "big city outlook" (fear of nature). Since consciousness, according to Satin, ultimately determines our institutions, prison consciousness is said to be ultimately responsible for "monolithic" institutions that offer us little in the way of freedom of choice or connection with others. Some representative monolithic institutions are: bureaucratic government, automobile-centered transportation systems, attorney-centered law, doctor-centered health care, and church-centered spirituality. To explain how to break free of the prison and its institutions, Satin develops a "psychocultural" class analysis that reveals the existence of "life-", "thing-", and "death-oriented" classes. According to Satin, life-oriented individuals constitute an emerging "third force" in post-industrial nations. The third force is generating a "prison-free" consciousness consisting of androgynous attitudes, spirituality, multiple perspectives, a cooperative mentality, local-and-global identities, and an ecological outlook. To transform prison society, Satin argues, the third force is going to have to launch an "evolutionary movement" to replace – or at least supplement – monolithic institutions with life-affirming, "biolithic" ones. Some representative biolithic institutions are: deliberative democracy as an alternative to bureaucratic government, bicycles and mass transit as an alternative to the private automobile, and mediation as an alternative to attorney-centered law. According to Satin, the third force will not have to overthrow capitalism, since Western civilization – not capitalism – is said to be responsible for the prison. But the third force will want to foster a prison-free New Age capitalism through intelligent regulation and elimination of all subsidies. The reaction to New Age Politics was, and continues to be, highly polarized. Many of the movements Satin drew upon to construct his synthesis received it favorably, though some took exception to the title. Some maverick liberals and libertarians are drawn to the book. It was eventually published in Sweden and Germany, and European New Age political thinkers came to see it as a precursor of their own work. Others see it as proto-Green. Ever since its first appearance, though, and continuing into the 21st century, New Age Politics has been a target of criticism for two groups in the United States: conservative Christians and left-wing intellectuals. Among conservative Christians, there are cultural, political, and moral objections. Attorney Constance Cumbey warns that the book can be "seductive" to those who lack an adequate Biblical education. Theologians Tim LaHaye and Ron Rhodes are convinced Satin wants a centralized and coercive world government. Moral philosopher Douglas Groothuis says Satin's vision is unsound because it lacks an absolute standard of good and evil. Among left-leaning academics, criticism focuses on Satin's theoretical underpinnings. Political scientist Michael Cummings takes issue with the idea that consciousness is ultimately determining. Science-and-society professor David Hess rejects the idea that economic class analysis should give way to psychocultural class analysis. A lengthy, systemic critique of New Age Politics, by communication studies professor Dana L. Cloud, accuses it of employing a "therapeutic rhetoric[] generated to console activists after the failure of post-1968 revolutionary movements and to legitimate participation in liberal politics". ### Organizing the New World Alliance After U.S. President Jimmy Carter pardoned Vietnam War resisters in 1977, Satin began giving talks on New Age Politics in the United States. His first talk received a standing ovation, and he wept. Every talk seemed to lead to two or three more, and "the response at New Age gatherings, community events, fairs, bookstores, living rooms, and college campuses" kept Satin going for two years. By the second year he began laying the groundwork for the New World Alliance, a national political organization based in Washington, D.C. "I went systematically to 24 cities and regions from coast to coast", he told the authors of the book Networking. "I stopped when I found 500 [accomplished] people who said they'd answer a questionnaire ... on what a New Age-oriented political organization should be like – what its politics should be, what its projects should be, and how its first directors should be chosen.". The New World Alliance convened its first "governing council" meeting in New York City in 1979. The 39-member council was chosen by the questionnaire-answerers themselves, out of 89 who volunteered to be on the ballot. Political scientist Arthur Stein describes the council as an eclectic collection of educators, feminists, businesspeople, futurists, think-tank fellows, and activists. One of the council's announced goals was to break down the division between left and right. Another was to help facilitate a thorough transformation of society. Satin was named staff member of the Alliance. Expectations ran high among supporters of a post-liberal, post-Marxist politics, and the governing council did initiate several projects. For example, a series of "Political Awareness Seminars" attempted to help participants understand and learn to work with their political opponents. In addition, a "Transformation Platform" attempted to synthesize left- and right-wing approaches to dozens of public policy issues. But within three years the Alliance fell apart, unable to establish stable chapters in any major cities. Author Jerome Clark suggests the cause was the Alliance's commitment to consensus-building in all its groups and projects; within months, he notes, one member was complaining that the Alliance had turned into a "diddler's cult". Another explanation focuses on the failure – or inability – of the hyper-democratic questionnaire process to select an appropriate governing council. Satin was devastated by the decline of the Alliance, and engaged in unhappy bouts of public criticism and self-criticism. "We would rather be good than do good", he told editor Kevin Kelly. "We would rather be pure than mature. We are the Beautiful Losers." As time went on, though, the Alliance came to be regarded positively by many observers. For example, author Corinne McLaughlin sees it as one of the first groups to offer an agenda for the new transformational politics. In an academic text, political scientist Stephen Woolpert acknowledges it as a precursor of North American Green parties. ### New Options Newsletter After four or five New World Alliance governing council meetings, Satin became tired of what he saw as empty rhetoric, and decided to do something practical – start a political newsletter. He raised \$91,000 to launch the venture, from 517 people he had met on his travels, and within a few years had built it into what think-tank scholar George Weigel described as "one of the hottest political newsletters in Washington[, D.C.]. ... [It] has gotten a fair amount of [national] attention, and perhaps even some influence, because it self-consciously styles itself 'post-liberal'." Satin published 75 issues of New Options from 1984 to 1992, virtually half a million words. He wrote nearly all the articles. In 1989 New Options received Utne Reader'''s first "Alternative Press Award for General Excellence: Best Publication from 10,000 to 30,000 Circulation". In 1990 The Washington Post identified New Options as one of 10 periodicals spearheading "The Ideology Shuffle". Twenty-five of its articles were published as a book by a university press. Satin wanted New Options to make the visionary perspective of New Age Politics seem pragmatic and realizable. He also wanted New Options to spread the New Age political ideology more effectively than the New World Alliance had done. To those ends, he challenged traditional views across the political spectrum, and he expanded the scope of politics to include subjects like love and relationships. In her book Do You Believe in Magic?, culture critic Annie Gottlieb says New Options offered: > an explosive short course in political possibility. ... What are the best books and groups in the consumer empowerment (not "protection") and neighborhood self-reliance movements? Who is working on practical, compassionate, populist alternatives to the welfare state and the big-business state? What is the best way to cut the budget deficit? What can we learn from the Sri Lankan Sarvodaya (local self-help) and Polish Solidarity movements? Each issue presents ideas, names and addresses, and a crossfire of reader debate. "I think the reason New Options works is it has a particular tone", Satin told one reporter. "It's as idealistic as many of us were in the 1960s, but ... without the childishness". New Options owed its rise to more than just content and tone, however. Positioning was also a factor. The New Age political movement was cresting in the 1980s, and it needed a political periodical. Satin's book New Age Politics had helped define the movement, and the New Options advisory board – a collection of prominent post-liberal thinkers – gave the newsletter further credibility. At the outset it included Lester R. Brown, Ernest Callenbach, Fritjof Capra, Vincent Harding, Willis Harman, Hazel Henderson, Petra Kelly, Amory Lovins, Joanna Macy, Robin Morgan, John Naisbitt, Jeremy Rifkin, Carl Rogers, Theodore Roszak, Kirkpatrick Sale, Charlene Spretnak, and Robert Theobald, and over the years it added such figures as Herman Daly, Marilyn Ferguson, Jane Jacobs, Winona LaDuke, and Robert Rodale. New Options did not succeed in all quarters. Jules Feiffer, for example, often seen as being on the liberal-left, called it "irritating" and "neo-yuppie". Jason McQuinn, often seen as a radical, objected to what he perceived as its relentless American optimism. George Weigel, often seen as a conservative, said it consisted largely of a cleverly repackaged leftism. Satin himself turned out to be one of the newsletter's critics. "I could have edited New Options forever", he wrote in 2004. "But, increasingly, I was becoming dissatisfied with my hyper-idealistic politics". His experiences in the U.S. Green politics movement contributed to that dissatisfaction. ### "Ten Key Values" of the U.S. Green Party By the mid-1980s, Green parties were making inroads all over the world. A slogan of the West German Greens was, "We are neither left nor right; we are in front". Some observers, notably British Green Party liaison Sara Parkin, saw the New World Alliance and New Options Newsletter as Green entities. Others saw the early Greens as one expression of New Age politics. In 1984, Satin was invited to the founding meeting of the U.S. Green politics movement, and he became a founding member. The meeting chose him, along with political theorist Charlene Spretnak, to draft its foundational political statement, "Ten Key Values". Some accounts recognize futurist and activist Eleanor LeCain as a co-equal drafter. The drafters drew on suggestions recorded on a flip chart during a marathon plenary brainstorming session, as well as on suggestions received by Satin and Spretnak during the meeting and for many weeks afterward. The original "Ten Key Values" statement was approved by the Greens' national steering committee and released in late 1984. The values in the original statement are: Ecological Wisdom, Grassroots Democracy, Personal and Social Responsibility, Nonviolence, Decentralization, Community-based Economics, Postpatriarchal Values, Respect for Diversity, Global Responsibility, and Future Focus. One unusual aspect, say many observers, is the way the values are described; instead of declaratory statements full of "shoulds" and "musts", each value is followed by a series of open-ended questions. "That idea ... came from Mark Satin", Spretnak told scholar Greta Gaard in 1997. Its effect, says sociologist Paul Lichterman, was to promote dialogue and creative thinking in local Green groups across the U.S. The original values statement was, and remains, controversial. U.S. Green Party co-founder John Rensenbrink credits it with helping to unify the often contentious Greens. However, party co-founder Howie Hawkins sees it as just a watered-down, "spiritual", and "New Age" version of the German Greens' Four Pillars statement. Greta Gaard says it fails to call for the elimination of capitalism or racism. Looking back after 20 years, Green activist Brian Tokar said that "the voice of the original [values] questions is distinctly personal ... and aims to avoid fundamental conflicts with elite social and cultural norms." A "modified" list of the Ten Key Values became part of the U.S. Greens' political platform. However, all the open-ended questions were replaced by declaratory sentences, and the U.S. Greens have come to be regarded as a party of the left, rather than one seeking to be neither left nor right. Satin himself became increasingly critical of the Greens. He gave a featured speech at the U.S. Green gathering in 1987 urging them to avoid hyper-detailed platform writing and other projects and specialize in one thing – running people for office who endorse the Ten Key Values. But the speech failed to persuade. After the Green gathering in 1989, he urged them to abandon hippie-era fears of money, authority, and leadership. After the 1990 gathering he complained "I've been Pure before," an allusion to his time in the New World Alliance. According to Greta Gaard, he then bid farewell to the Greens, but recognized it as a loss: "Whatever I may think of their internal battles and political prospects, the Greens are My People. Their life choices are my life choices; their failings mirror my own." Within a year of voicing those words, he stopped New Options Newsletter and applied to law school. ## Radical centrist politics, 1990s – 2000s ### Radical Middle Newsletter The 1990s are remembered, by many in the West, as a time of relative prosperity and satisfaction. According to some historians, visionary politics appeared to be on the decline. However, even after Satin entered New York University School of Law in 1992, he expressed no desire to abandon his project of helping to construct a post-liberal, post-Marxist ideology. He did admit to being disillusioned with his approach. "I knew my views (and I personally) would benefit from engagement with the real world of commerce and professional ambition", he wrote. After graduating in 1995, Satin worked for a Manhattan law firm focusing on complex business litigation. He also wrote about financial and legal issues. He did not dislike his work, but felt he was "sleepwalking" because he was not doing what he loved, writing about visionary politics. With six former law school classmates, he began planning a political newsletter that could accommodate all he was learning about business and law. In 1998 he returned to Washington, D.C., to launch Radical Middle Newsletter. As the title indicates, it sought to distance itself from New Age politics. If the term "New Age" suggests utopianism, the term "radical middle" suggests, for Satin and others, keeping at least one foot firmly on the ground. Satin attempted to embrace the promise but also the balance implied by the term. One feature story is entitled "Tough on Terrorism, and Tough on the Causes of Terrorism". Another feature story attempts to go beyond polarized positions on biotechnology. Another argues that corporate activity abroad can best be seen as neither inherently moral nor inherently imperialistic, but as a "chance for mutual learning". The board of advisors of Radical Middle Newsletter signaled Satin's new direction. It was politically diverse, and many of its members sought to promote dialogue or collaboration across ideological divides. By the end of 2004 it included John Avlon, Don Edward Beck, Jerry H. Bentley, Esther Dyson, Mark P. Painter, Shelley Alpern of the Social Investment Forum, James Fallows of the New America Foundation, Jane Mansbridge of the Harvard Kennedy School, John D. Marks and Susan Collin Marks of Search for Common Ground, and William Ury, co-author of Getting to Yes. Radical Middle Newsletter proved controversial. Many responded positively to Satin's new direction. A professor of management, for example, wrote that unlike Satin's former newsletter, Radical Middle spoke about "reality". Scholarly books began citing articles from the newsletter. In a book on globalization, Walter Truett Anderson said Radical Middle "carries the encouraging news of an emerging group with a different voice, one that is 'nuanced, hopeful, adult'. ... It is essentially a willingness to listen to both sides of the argument." But three objections were often heard. Some critics accused Satin of misguided policy proposals, as when peace studies scholar Michael N. Nagler wrote that the article "praising humanitarian military intervention as the 'peace movement' of our time, is nothing short of an insult ... to the real peace movement" [emphasis in original]. Other critics accused Satin of abandoning his old constituency, as when author and former New Options advisor David Korten chided him for consciously choosing pragmatism over idealism. There were also accusations of elitism, as when the executive editor of Yes! magazine said Satin favored globalization because it appealed to his interests and those of his "law school buddies". New Options Newsletter was based on the theories set forth in New Age Politics. But Satin's approach to his radical middle project was eclectic and experimental. His contribution to radical centrist political theory, the book Radical Middle, was not published until 2004, the newsletter's sixth year. Until then, the only glimpse Satin gave of his larger vision appeared in an article he wrote for an academic journal. ### Radical Middle, the book Satin's book Radical Middle: The Politics We Need Now, published by Westview Press and Basic Books in 2004, attempts to present radical centrism as a political ideology. It is considered one of the two or three "most persuasive" or most representative books on the subject, and it received the "Best Book Award" for 2003 and 2004 from the Section on Ecological and Transformational Politics of the American Political Science Association. It also generated – like all of Satin's works – criticism and controversy. Satin presents Radical Middle as a revised and evolved version of his New Age Politics book, rather than as a rejection of it. Some observers had always seen him as a radical centrist. As early as 1980, author Marilyn Ferguson identified him as part of what she called the "Radical Center". In 1987, culture critic Annie Gottlieb said Satin was trying to prompt the New Age and New Left to evolve into a "New Center". But the revisions Satin introduces are substantial. Instead of defining politics as a means for creating the ideal society, as he did in New Age Politics, he defines radical middle politics as "idealism without illusions" – more creative and future-oriented than politics-as-usual, but willing to face "the hard facts on the ground". Rather than arguing that change will be brought about by a third force, he says most Americans are already radical middle – "we're very practical folks, and we're very idealistic and visionary as well." Although Satin argues in New Age Politics that Americans need to change their consciousness and decentralize their institutions, in Radical Middle he says they can build a good society if they adopt and live by Four Key Values: maximize choices for all Americans, give every American a fair start, maximize every American's human potential, and help the peoples of the developing world. Instead of finding those values in the writings of contemporary theorists, Satin says they are just new versions of the values that inspired 18th-century American revolutionaries: liberty, equality, pursuit-of-happiness, and fraternity, respectively. He calls Benjamin Franklin the radical middle's favorite Founding Father, and says Franklin "wanted us to invent a uniquely American politics that served ordinary people by creatively borrowing from all points of view." In New Age Politics, Satin chooses not to focus on the details of public policy. In Radical Middle, however, Satin develops a raft of policy proposals rooted in the Four Key Values. (Among them: universal access to private, preventive health insurance, class-based rather than race-based affirmative action, mandatory national service, and opening U.S. markets to more products from poor nations.) In New Age Politics, Satin calls on "life-oriented" people to become radical activists for a New Age society. In Radical Middle, Satin calls on people of every political stripe to work from within for social change congruent with the Four Key Values. Satin's mandatory national service proposal drew significant media coverage, in part because of his status as a draft refuser. Satin argues that a draft could work in the United States if it applied to all young people, without exception, and if it gave everyone a choice in how they would serve. He proposes three service options: military (with generous benefits), homeland security (at prevailing wages), and community care (at subsistence wages). On Voice of America radio, Satin presented his proposal as one drawing equally from the best of the left and the right. On National Public Radio, he emphasized its fairness. Radical Middle provokes three kinds of responses: skeptical, pragmatic, and visionary. Skeptical respondents tend to find Satin's beyond-left-and-right policy proposals to be unrealistic and arrogant. For example, political writer Charles R. Morris says "Satin's nostrums" echo the "glibness and overweening self-confidence ... in Roosevelt's brain trust, or in John F. Kennedy's." Similarly, the policy director of the Democratic Leadership Council says Satin's book "ultimately places him in the sturdy tradition of 'idealistic' American reformers who think smart and principled people unencumbered by political constraints can change everything." Pragmatic observers tend to applaud Satin's willingness to borrow good ideas from the left and the right. But these respondents are typically more drawn to Satin as a policy advocate – or as a counterweight to partisan militants like Ann Coulter – than they are to him as a political theorist. For example, Robert Olson of the World Future Society warns Satin against presenting the radical middle as a new ideology. Visionary respondents typically appreciate Satin's work as a policy advocate. But they also see him as attempting something rarer and, according to spiritual writer Carter Phipps, richer – raising politics to a higher level by synthesizing truths from all the political ideologies. Author Corinne McLaughlin identifies Satin as one of those creating an ideology about ideologies. She quotes him: > Coming up with a solution is not a matter of adopting correct political beliefs. It is, rather, a matter of learning to listen – really, listen – to everyone in the circle of humanity, and to take their insights into account. For everyone has a true and unique perspective on the whole. [Many] years ago the burning question was, How radical are you? Hopefully someday soon the question will be, How much can you synthesize? How much do you dare to take in? ## Later life Life changed for Satin after writing and publicizing his Radical Middle book. In 2006, at the age of 60, he moved from Washington, D.C., to the San Francisco Bay Area to reconcile with his father, from whom he had been estranged for 40 years. "With the perspective of time and experience," Satin told one reporter, "I can see [my father] was not altogether out to lunch." Later that year Satin discovered his only life partner. He describes it as "no accident". In 2009 Satin revealed he was losing his eyesight as a result of macular edema and diabetic retinopathy. He stopped producing Radical Middle Newsletter but expressed a desire to write a final political book. From 2009 to 2011 he presented occasional guest lectures on "life and political ideologies" in peace studies classes at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2015 he helped produce a "40th Anniversary Edition" of his book New Age Politics, and in 2017 he helped produce a 50th anniversary edition of his Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada. ## Assessment Mark Satin has been a controversial public figure since the age of 20. Assessments of his significance vary widely. Some observers see him as an exemplary figure. David Armstrong, for example, in his study of independent American journalism, presents Satin as an embodiment of the "do-it-yourself spirit" that makes an independent press possible. Futurists Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps portray Satin as a pioneer "networker" who spent two years riding the bus across the U.S. in an attempt to connect like-minded thinkers and activists. Marilyn Ferguson, author of The Aquarian Conspiracy, says that by engaging in a lifelong series of personal and political experiments with few resources, Satin is playing the role of the holy "Fool" for his time. Other observers stress the freshness of Satin's political vision. Social scientists Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson, for example, argue that Satin anticipated the perspectives of 21st century social movements better than nearly anyone. Humanistic psychologist John Amodeo says Satin is one of the few political theorists to grasp the connection between personal growth and constructive political change. Ecofeminist Greta Gaard claims that Satin "played a significant role in facilitating the articulation of Green political thought". Policy analyst Michael Edwards sees Satin as a pioneering trans-partisan thinker. Peace researcher Hanna Newcombe finds a spiritual dimension in Satin's politics. Political scientist Christa Slaton's short list of "nonacademic" transformationalists consists of Alvin and Heidi Toffler, Fritjof Capra, Marilyn Ferguson, Hazel Henderson, Betty Friedan, E. F. Schumacher, John Naisbitt, and Mark Satin. Some see Satin as a classic example of the perpetual rebel and trace the cause back to his early years. For example, author Roger Neville Williams focuses on the harshness and "paternalistic rectitude" of Satin's parents. Novelist Dan Wakefield, writing in The Atlantic, says Satin grew up in a small city in northern Minnesota like Bob Dylan but did not have a guitar to express himself with. According to historian Frank Kusch, the seeds for rebellion were planted when Satin's parents moved him at age 16 from liberal Minnesota to still-segregated Texas. Although many observers praise or are intrigued by Satin, many find him dismaying. Memoirist George Fetherling, for example, remembers him as a publicity hound. Literary critic Dennis Duffy calls him incapable of learning from his experiences. Green Party activist Howie Hawkins sees him as "virulently anti-left". The Washington Monthly portrayed him in his 50s as a former New Age "guru", and Commonweal compares reading him to listening to glass shards grate against a blackboard. Other observers see Satin as an emotionally wounded figure. For example, historian Pierre Berton calls him a "footloose wanderer" and says he hitchhiked across Canada 16 times. Culture critic Annie Gottlieb, who attributes Satin's wounds to his struggle against the Vietnam War, points out that even as a successful newsletter publisher in Washington, DC, he paid himself the salary of a monk. The major substantive criticisms of Satin's work have remained constant over time. His ideas are sometimes said to be superficial; they were characterized as childish in the 1960s, naive in the 1970s, poorly reasoned in the 1980s and 1990s, and overly simple in the 2000s. His ideas have also occasionally been seen as not politically serious, or as non-political in the sense of not being capable of challenging existing power structures. His work is sometimes said to be largely borrowed from others, a charge that first surfaced with regard to his draft dodger manual, and was repeated to varying degree by critics of his books on New Age politics and radical centrism. Satin has long been faulted for mixing views from different parts of his political odyssey. In the 1970s, for example, Toronto Star editor Robert Nielsen argued that Satin's leftist pacifism warps his New Age vision. Three decades later, public-policy analyst Gadi Dechter argued that Satin's New Age emotionalism and impracticality blunt his radical-centrist message. At 58, Satin suggested his message could not be understood without appreciating all the strands of his personal and political journey: > From my New Left years I took a love of political struggle. From my New Age years I took a conviction that politics needs to be about more than endless struggle – that responsible human beings need to search for reconciliation and healing and mutually acceptable solutions. From my time in the legal profession I took an understanding (and it is no small understanding) that sincerity and passion are not enough – that to be truly effective in the world one needs to be credible and expert. ... > > Many Americans are living complicated lives now – few of us have moved through life in a straight line. I think many of us would benefit from trying to gather and synthesize the difficult political lessons we've learned over the course of our lives. ## Publications ### Books - Radical Middle: The Politics We Need Now, Basic Books, 2004, orig. Westview Press, 2004. . Radical-centrist ideas presented as an integrated political ideology. - New Options for America: The Second American Experiment Has Begun, foreword by Marilyn Ferguson, The Press at California State University / Southern Illinois University Press, 1991. . Twenty-five cover stories from Satin's New Options Newsletter. - New Age Politics: Healing Self and Society, Delta Books / Dell Publishing Co., 1979. . New Age political ideas presented as an integrated political ideology. - Confessions of a Young Exile, Gage Publishing Co. / Macmillan of Canada, 1976. . Memoir covering the years 1964–66. - Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada, House of Anansi Press, 1968. . . Preserve oneself and change the world. Satin wrote Part One ("Applying") and solicited and edited the materials in Part Two ("Canada"). OCLC retrieved December 13, 2013. ### Newsletters - Radical Middle Newsletter, 120 issues, 1999–2009. . Originally hard-copy only, now largely online. Newsletter retrieved April 17, 2011, ISSN retrieved September 28, 2011. - New Options Newsletter, 75 issues, 1984–1992. . Originally hard-copy only, now partially online. Newsletter retrieved October 18, 2014, ISSN retrieved September 28, 2011. ### Selected articles and interviews - " Godfrey and Me", House of Anansi Press website, June 14, 2017. How Satin convinced Anansi to publish his Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada. Retrieved April 4, 2019. - "The New Age 40 Years Later", The Huffington Post, April 25, 2016. Interview by Rick Heller of the Humanist Community at Harvard. Retrieved July 16, 2016. - "The Three Committees", Civil Rights Movement Archive website, "Movement Veterans" section, "Our Stories" sub-section, 2015. Website hosted by Tougaloo College. Semi-autobiographical short story about being an estranged Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee volunteer in Mississippi in 1965. Retrieved December 30, 2016. - "Mark Satin on the Politics of the Radical Middle", National Public Radio audiotape, July 9, 2004. Interview by Tony Cox for The Tavis Smiley Show. Retrieved April 17, 2011. - "Where's the Juice?", The Responsive Community, vol. 12, no. 4 (2002), pp. 70–75. Critical review of Ted Halstead and Michael Lind's book The Radical Center. Retrieved April 17, 2011 - "Law and Psychology: A Movement Whose Time Has Come", Annual Survey of American Law, vol. 51, no. 4 (1994), pp. 583–631. Early argument for what is now called "therapeutic jurisprudence". - "20th Anniversary Rendezvous: Mark Satin", Whole Earth Review, issue no. 61, winter 1988, p. 107. Interview by Kevin Kelly. - "Do-It-Yourself Government", Esquire'', April 1983, pp. 126–28. Early attempt to present New Age political ideas as pragmatic and centrist. ## See also - Canada and the Vietnam War - List of futurologists - List of peace activists - S. H. Rider High School - Transformative social change
345,426	Flag of Singapore	1,172,719,987	National flag	[ "1959 establishments in Singapore", "Flags introduced in 1959", "Flags of Singapore", "Flags with star and crescent", "National flags", "National symbols of Singapore", "Red and white flags" ]	The Flag of Singapore was adopted in 1959, the year Singapore became self-governing within the British Empire. It remained the national flag upon the country's independence from Malaysia on 9 August 1965. The design is a horizontal bicolour of red above white, overlaid in the canton (upper-left quadrant) by a white crescent moon facing a pentagon of five small white five-pointed stars. The elements of the flag denote a young nation on the ascendant, universal brotherhood and equality, and national ideals. Vessels at sea do not use the national flag as an ensign. Merchant vessels and pleasure craft fly a civil ensign of red charged in white with a variant of the crescent and stars emblem in the centre. Non-military government vessels such as coast guard ships fly a state ensign of blue with the national flag in the canton, charged with an eight-pointed red and white compass rose in the lower fly. Naval ships patrol a naval ensign similar to the state ensign, but in white with a red compass rose emblem. The usage and exhibition of the national flag in Singapore are regulated by the rules set forth in the National Symbols Act. Under the Act, which took effect on 1 August 2023 and superseded the former Singapore Arms and Flag and National Anthem Act, private citizens may include the flag in designs for other objects, and the national flag or its image can be used on attire above the torso for non-commercial purposes year-round as long as it is not done in a disrespectful manner. Regulations are relaxed during National Day celebrations from 1 July to 30 September. ## History Singapore was under British rule in the 19th century, having been amalgamated into the Straits Settlements together with Malacca and Penang. The flag that was used to represent the Settlements was a British Blue Ensign defaced with a red diamond containing three gold crowns—one for each settlement—separated by a white inverted pall, which resembles an inverted Y. The Settlement of Singapore had no separate flag, although the city was granted a coat of arms which featured a lion in 1911. During the occupation of Singapore by the Japanese during the Second World War, the Japanese national flag was used on land by the military and during public events. Soon after the Second World War, Singapore became an independent Crown colony and adopted its own flag. It was modified from the Straits Settlements flag to reduce the number of crowns from three to one. Upon Queen Elizabeth II's accession to the throne, the crown within the pall was changed to the crown of St. Edward. Singapore became self-governing within the British Empire on 3 June 1959. Six months later, upon the installation of the new Yang di-Pertuan Negara (head of state) on 3 December 1959, the national flag was officially adopted, along with the state coat of arms and the national anthem Majulah Singapura ("Onward Singapore"). Then-deputy prime minister Toh Chin Chye discussed the creation of the national flag in a 1989 interview: > Although we were self governing it was necessary right from the beginning that we should rally enough different races together as a Singapore nation... Apart from the anthem we have to produce the flag and the crest, we insisted that it was a Singapore state flag and should be flown side by side with the Union Jack. The design of the flag was completed in two months by a committee headed by Toh. He initially wanted the flag's entire background to be red, but the Cabinet decided against this, as red was regarded as a rallying point for communism. Toh had opposed a red-and-white design as he considered it too similar to the flags of Indonesia and Poland, but the proposals for all-red, all-blue or blue-and-white designs were rejected. The flag, according to Toh, originally had only three stars (representing democracy, justice, and equality), but two more stars and a crescent were added later to distance it from the Malayan Communist Party emblem and to assure the Malay-Muslim community that Singapore was "not a Chinese state". According to an account given by Lee Kuan Yew, the Chinese majority wanted stars based on the flag of the People's Republic of China while the Malay minority wanted a crescent moon to represent Islam. Both of these symbols were combined to create the national flag of Singapore. On 30 November 1959, the Singapore State Arms and Flag and National Anthem Ordinance 1959 was passed to regulate the use and display of the State Arms and State Flag and the performance of the National Anthem. When presenting the motion to the Legislative Assembly of Singapore on 11 November 1959, Sinnathamby Rajaratnam, the Minister for Culture, stated: "National flags, crest and anthem express symbolically the hopes and ideals of a people... The possession of a national flag and crest is, for a people, symbolic of self-respect." In September 1962, the people of Singapore voted for merger with Malaya, Sarawak, and North Borneo to form Malaysia. The process was completed on 16 September 1963, when the Malaysian flag was hoisted on Singapore by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. The Singapore flag was reconfirmed as the national flag when Singapore became fully independent from Malaysia on 9 August 1965. ## Design The National Symbols Act defines the flag's composition and the symbolism of its elements: red symbolises "universal fellowship and equality", and white symbolises "pervading and everlasting purity and virtue". The crescent moon represents a "young nation on the ascendant". The five stars stand for the nation's ideals of "democracy, peace, progress, justice and equality". The crescent symbol is also seen by the nation's Muslim activists to represent Islam. The ratio of the flag is two units high by three units wide. For the manufacturing of flags, the Government of Singapore stated that the shade of red used on the flag is Pantone 032. According to guidelines published by the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA), the flag may be reproduced in any size and displayed at all times, but it must be in its specified proportions and colours. MICA recommends the sizes 915 by 1,370 mm (36 by 54 in), 1,220 by 1,830 mm (48 by 72 in) and 1,830 by 2,740 mm (72 by 110 in). The material that is recommended for the national flag is bunting wool. ## Regulations and guidelines The Singaporean government dictates that no person may treat the national flag with disrespect, such as allowing the flag to touch the ground. The flag must not be displayed below any other flag, emblem or object; dipped in salute to any person or thing; or displayed or carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free. The use and display of the flag is governed by the National Symbols Act (until 2023 governed by Part III of the Singapore Arms and Flag and National Anthem Rules made under the Singapore Arms and Flag and National Anthem Act). It was an offence to knowingly contravene specified provisions of the Singapore Arms and Flag and National Anthem Rules; the penalty was a fine not exceeding S\$1,000. Within Singapore, the national flag takes precedence over all other flags, subject to international practice. As such, when it is displayed or flown with other flags, it must be in a position of honour; that is, it should be positioned, where practical, either above all other flags or, if displayed side by side with other flags on the same level, to the left of the other flags (as seen by a person facing the flags). When the flag is raised or carried in a procession with other flags, it must be done so in front of the other flags in a single file, or on the right as seen by the standard bearers if the flags are carried side by side (i.e., on the left as seen by the viewer). The standard bearer must carry the flag high on his or her right shoulder. When the flag is displayed on a platform or stage, it must be above all decorations and be behind and above any person speaking from the platform or stage. If it is displayed from a staff standing on the platform or stage, it must be on the right side of the person speaking from the platform or stage. Finally, when the flag is hung, it must be hung against a vertical wall or other vertical flat surface, with the crescent and stars on the top left position as seen by any spectator facing the flag and the wall or surface. When the flag is displayed outside a building, it shall be displayed on or in front of the building only from a flagpole. If the flag is flown at night, it should be properly illuminated. Permission must be sought for the flag to be displayed on any motor vehicle except on one in which the President of Singapore or any Government minister is travelling on official business, and for display on any private vessel or aircraft. Permission must be sought for use or application of the flag or any image of it for any commercial purposes or as part of any furnishing, decoration, covering or receptacle, except in such circumstances as may be approved (by MICA) in which there is no disrespect for the flag. Further, it is not permitted to use the flag as part of any trademark, or to produce or display any flag which bears any graphics or word superimposed on the design of the national flag. The government may ask for the flag to be lowered to half-mast in the event of the death of an important person or for national mourning. No person is permitted to use the flag at any private funeral ceremony. However, the national flag can be draped on a coffin during a military or state funeral. No person may display any flag that is damaged or dirty. Any worn out or damaged flag should be packed into a sealed black trash bag before being disposed of and not left visible in dustbins. ### Relaxations on its usage The flag was originally exclusively used on or in front of buildings owned by the government, ministries, statutory boards and educational institutions on a year-round basis. The flag could only be flown by individuals and non-governmental organisations during the month of August to mark the country's national day on 9 August. These restrictions on individuals and non-governmental organisations were relaxed in 2004 to allow the flag to be flown year-round under certain conditions. No rationale was provided for the changes, although BBC News correspondents noted that the government had recently been trying to rally patriotic sentiment dampened by economic issues. Following requests by Singaporeans, guidelines for the use of the flag were further broadened in 2006. MICA permitted the display of the flag on vehicles and on themselves or belongings with minimal restrictions, from the middle of July to the end of August for a trial period. The period was extended in 2007 to three months from July to September. Rules were further relaxed in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic to allow the flag to be flown from April to September, though this was not extended. In 2022, the National Symbols Bill was passed, which replaces the Singapore Arms and Flag and National Anthem Act, and defines new national symbols while allowing greater flexibility in the use of the national symbols. Under the new Bill, the President can make regulations on the use of national and presidential symbols while a prescribed person such as the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth can permit or prohibit the use of national symbols in appropriate situations. The Act took effect 1 August 2023. ## Use of the national flag ### National Day celebrations Singaporeans are encouraged to display the national flag outside their homes during National Day celebrations, and residents' committees, particularly those of public housing estates, often arrange co-ordinated displays. However, some Singaporeans decline to do so as they associate it with the ruling People's Action Party, rather than with the nation. During the period beginning 1 July and ending on 30 September of each year, any person may, without the need for the approval of the Minister under paragraph (4), "incorporate the Flag or an image thereof as part of any costume or attire except that he shall do so in a manner that does not give rise to any disrespect to the Flag". On National Day in 2007 at the Padang, 8,667 volunteers holding up red and white umbrellas formed the largest-ever representation of Singapore's flag at an event organised by Young NTUC, a youth movement associated with the National Trades Union Congress. ### At other times Outside the National Day celebrations period, the national flag of Singapore is flown from all buildings housing government and government-related departments, such as armed forces installations, court houses, offices, and educational institutions. A picture of the flag is commonly found in each classroom, and schools conduct ceremonies at the beginning of the school day at which the national flag is raised, the national anthem is sung and the national pledge is taken. The national flag is sometimes flown by Singapore-registered vessels, although this is considered incorrect, as such vessels are required to hoist proper national colours either when entering or leaving port. The ensign is red and charged with a circle enclosing a crescent surmounted by five stars in a circle, all in white. The national flag is not used by coast guard ships and military warships; both classes of ships have their own specific ensigns. The Singapore Government makes announcements regarding the lowering of the flag to half-mast in the event of a death of an important personage or mourning affecting the nation. The flag has been flown at half-mast during the funerals of former presidents and senior politicians, and on 9 January 2005 as a mark of respect for those who perished in the 2004 Asian tsunami disaster. ### In popular culture Singaporean composer Lim Su Chong composed a song in 1969 entitled Five Stars Arising which took the elements of the national flag as its theme. The lyrics of the song speak of a new moon, five stars and a new flag "arising out of the stormy sea". The moon is "youthful and bright and bearing hope, and tranquil as can be", each of the stars is "a lamp to guide our way; a lamp for all to see" and the flag is "crimson as the blood of all mankind, yet white and pure and free". The song is one of Singapore's patriotic songs and often sung during National Day celebrations. There have been several notable cases on the misuse of the flag. In January 2003, Singaporean artist Justin Lee Chee Kong was prevented by the Media Development Authority (MDA) from exhibiting a painting entitled Double Happiness— A Fantasy in Red, which consisted of the flag with red Chinese characters for double happiness on it. The MDA cited the move on the grounds that "the National Flag is a national symbol and no words or graphics should be superimposed on it". Lee reported that the work was simply a display of one's love for their country and an expression of joy at Singapore's success, and in a press statement, he asked that the piece be "treated as an artistic and complimentary interpretation of a national icon". When interviewed by The New Paper, he said "I know as a citizen that we are not allowed to do it, but this is art and I am an artist." He also complained about double standards as a Chinese artist, Gu Wen Da, had recently exhibited a national flag made of hair at the Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay. Lee felt the use of hair to create the nation's flag meant that the flag was in the wrong colours, and was distasteful. The Rolling Stones performed in Singapore as part of their 2002/2003 Licks World Tour. At the first performance, there were two inflatable dolls on stage. Both of the dolls had flags placed in their crotch area; one had the Rolling Stones logo and the other had a Singapore flag. The dolls and the flags were removed from the second concert by the organiser. In August 2007, a Singaporean pub, Loof, sent an email to at least 1,500 members on its mailing list featuring a close-up shot of the crotch of a female model wearing a red swimsuit or pair of underpants bearing the crescent and five stars. This was done as part of the pub's publicity campaign for its National Day events. According to Loof's marketing manager, "[T]he ad was definitely not meant as an insult to the country or anyone. I hope that the ad will be taken in the spirit of humour and fun." A majority of people polled by The New Paper felt the advertisement was disrespectful and in bad taste. MICA eventually stated that the advertisement did not breach the law as it did not fully incorporate the flag's design, with the red and white background being left out. However, director of MICA's National Resilience Division K.U. Menon said: "MICA does not encourage such ads which treat the national flag with disrespect. [...] Symbols should be treated with some measure of dignity and we hope Loof will withdraw the ad on its own initiative." During the 2010 Asian Games held in China, the Singaporean men's water polo team's swim trunks came under controversy for inappropriately displaying the crescent moon positioned in the centre of the brief, directly over the crotch area. Critics deemed the garment insulting and an embarrassment to the country. The team was unable to modify the design further as competition rules did not permit the changing of a uniform midway through the Games. The team was apologetic over the blunder and promised to tweak the design after the competition. The garment had been designed by the team without prior approval from the authorities. ## Variant flags In addition to the national flag and ensigns, there are other flags used for official purposes. ## See also - List of Singaporean flags - Armorial of Singapore
1,849,799	0.999...	1,173,073,967	Alternative decimal expansion of 1	[ "1 (number)", "Articles containing proofs", "Mathematical paradoxes", "Real numbers" ]	In mathematics, 0.999... (also written as 0. or 0.) denotes the repeating decimal consisting of an unending sequence of 9s after the decimal point. This repeating decimal represents the smallest number no less than every decimal number in the sequence (0.9, 0.99, 0.999, ...); that is, the supremum of this sequence. This number is equal to 1. In other words, "0.999..." is not "almost exactly" or "very, very nearly but not quite" 1 – rather, "0.999..." and "1" represent exactly the same number. There are many ways of showing this equality, from intuitive arguments to mathematically rigorous proofs. The technique used depends on the target audience, background assumptions, historical context, and preferred development of the real numbers, the system within which 0.999... is commonly defined. In other systems, 0.999... can have the same meaning, a different definition, or be undefined. More generally, every nonzero terminating decimal has two equal representations (for example, 8.32 and 8.31999...), which is a property of all positional numeral system representations regardless of base. The utilitarian preference for the terminating decimal representation contributes to the misconception that it is the only representation. For this and other reasons—such as rigorous proofs relying on non-elementary techniques, properties, or disciplines—some people can find the equality sufficiently counterintuitive that they question or reject it. This has been the subject of several studies in mathematics education. ## Elementary proof There is an elementary proof of the equation 0.999... = 1, which uses just the mathematical tools of comparison and addition of (finite) decimal numbers, without any reference to more advanced topics such as series, limits, formal construction of real numbers, etc. The proof, an exercise given by , is a direct formalization of the intuitive fact that, if one draws 0.9, 0.99, 0.999, etc. on the number line there is no room left for placing a number between them and 1. The meaning of the notation 0.999... is the least point on the number line lying to the right of all of the numbers 0.9, 0.99, 0.999, etc. Because there is ultimately no room between 1 and these numbers, the point 1 must be this least point, and so 0.999... = 1. ### Intuitive explanation If one places 0.9, 0.99, 0.999, etc. on the number line, one sees immediately that all these points are to the left of 1, and that they get closer and closer to 1. More precisely, the distance from 0.9 to 1 is 0.1 = 1/10, the distance from 0.99 to 1 is 0.01 = 1/10<sup>2</sup>, and so on. The distance to 1 from the nth point (the one with n 9s after the decimal point) is 1/10<sup>n</sup>. Therefore, if 1 were not the smallest number greater than 0.9, 0.99, 0.999, etc., then there would be a point on the number line that lies between 1 and all these points. This point would be at a positive distance from 1 that is less than 1/10<sup>n</sup> for every integer n. In the standard number systems (the rational numbers and the real numbers), there is no positive number that is less than 1/10<sup>n</sup> for all n. This is (one version of) the Archimedean property, which can be proven to hold in the system of rational numbers. Therefore, 1 is the smallest number that is greater than all 0.9, 0.99, 0.999, etc., and so 1 = 0.999.... ### Discussion on completeness Part of what this argument shows is that there is a least upper bound of the sequence 0.9, 0.99, 0.999, etc.: a smallest number that is greater than all of the terms of the sequence. One of the axioms of the real number system is the completeness axiom, which states that every bounded sequence has a least upper bound. This least upper bound is one way to define infinite decimal expansions: the real number represented by an infinite decimal is the least upper bound of its finite truncations. The argument here does not need to assume completeness to be valid, because it shows that this particular sequence of rational numbers in fact has a least upper bound, and that this least upper bound is equal to one. ### Rigorous proof The previous explanation is not a proof, as one cannot define properly the relationship between a number and its representation as a point on the number line. For the accuracy of the proof, the number 0.999...9, with n nines after the decimal point, is denoted 0.(9)<sub>n</sub>. Thus 0.(9)<sub>1</sub> = 0.9, 0.(9)<sub>2</sub> = 0.99, 0.(9)<sub>3</sub> = 0.999, and so on. As 1/10<sup>n</sup> = 0.0...01, with n digits after the decimal point, the addition rule for decimal numbers implies and for every positive integer n. One has to show that 1 is the smallest number that is no less than all 0.(9)<sub>n</sub>. For this, it suffices to prove that, if a number x is not larger than 1 and no less than all 0.(9)<sub>n</sub>, then x = 1. So let x such that for every positive integer n. Therefore, which, using basic arithmetic and the first equality established above, simplifies to This implies that the difference between 1 and x is less than the inverse of any positive integer. Thus this difference must be zero, and, thus x = 1; that is This proof relies on the fact that zero is the only nonnegative number that is less than all inverses of integers, or equivalently that there is no number that is larger than every integer. This is the Archimedean property, that is verified for rational numbers and real numbers. Real numbers may be enlarged into number systems, such as hyperreal numbers, with infinitely small numbers (infinitesimals) and infinitely large numbers (infinite numbers). When using such systems, notation 0.999... is generally not used, as there is no smallest number that is no less than all 0.(9)<sub>n</sub>. (This is implied by the fact that 0.(9)<sub>n</sub> ≤ x \< 1 implies 0.(9)<sub>n–1</sub> ≤ 2x – 1 \< x \< 1). ## Algebraic arguments Many algebraic arguments have been provided, which suggest that $1=0.999\ldots$ They are not mathematical proofs since they are typically based on the fact that the rules for adding and multiplying finite decimals extend to infinite decimals. This is true, but the proof is essentially the same as the proof of $1=0.999\ldots$ So, all these arguments are essentially circular reasoning. Nevertheless, the matter of overly simplified illustrations of the equality is a subject of pedagogical discussion and critique. discusses the argument that, in elementary school, one is taught that 1⁄3=0.333..., so, ignoring all essential subtleties, "multiplying" this identity by 3 gives 1=0.999.... He further says that this argument is unconvincing, because of an unresolved ambiguity over the meaning of the equals sign; a student might think, "It surely does not mean that the number 1 is identical to that which is meant by the notation 0.999...." Most undergraduate mathematics majors encountered by Byers feel that while 0.999... is "very close" to 1 on the strength of this argument, with some even saying that it is "infinitely close", they are not ready to say that it is equal to 1. discusses how "this argument gets its force from the fact that most people have been indoctrinated to accept the first equation without thinking", but also suggests that the argument may lead skeptics to question this assumption. Byers also presents the following argument. Students who did not accept the first argument sometimes accept the second argument, but, in Byers's opinion, still have not resolved the ambiguity, and therefore do not understand the representation for infinite decimals. , presenting the same argument, also state that it does not explain the equality, indicating that such an explanation would likely involve concepts of infinity and completeness. , citing , also conclude that the treatment of the identity based on such arguments as these, without the formal concept of a limit, is premature. The same argument is also given by , who notes that skeptics may question whether x is cancellable – that is, whether it makes sense to subtract x from both sides. ## Analytic proofs Since the question of 0.999... does not affect the formal development of mathematics, it can be postponed until one proves the standard theorems of real analysis. One requirement is to characterize real numbers that can be written in decimal notation, consisting of an optional sign, a finite sequence of one or more digits forming an integer part, a decimal separator, and a sequence of digits forming a fractional part. For the purpose of discussing 0.999..., the integer part can be summarized as b<sub>0</sub> and one can neglect negatives, so a decimal expansion has the form The fraction part, unlike the integer part, is not limited to finitely many digits. This is a positional notation, so for example the digit 5 in 500 contributes ten times as much as the 5 in 50, and the 5 in 0.05 contributes one tenth as much as the 5 in 0.5. ### Infinite series and sequences A common development of decimal expansions is to define them as sums of infinite series. In general: For 0.999... one can apply the convergence theorem concerning geometric series: Since 0.999... is such a sum with a = 9 and common ratio r = 1⁄10, the theorem makes short work of the question: This proof appears as early as 1770 in Leonhard Euler's Elements of Algebra. The sum of a geometric series is itself a result even older than Euler. A typical 18th-century derivation used a term-by-term manipulation similar to the algebraic proof given above, and as late as 1811, Bonnycastle's textbook An Introduction to Algebra uses such an argument for geometric series to justify the same maneuver on 0.999... A 19th-century reaction against such liberal summation methods resulted in the definition that still dominates today: the sum of a series is defined to be the limit of the sequence of its partial sums. A corresponding proof of the theorem explicitly computes that sequence; it can be found in any proof-based introduction to calculus or analysis. A sequence (x<sub>0</sub>, x<sub>1</sub>, x<sub>2</sub>, ...) has a limit x if the distance \\|x − x<sub>n</sub>\\| becomes arbitrarily small as n increases. The statement that 0.999... = 1 can itself be interpreted and proven as a limit: The first two equalities can be interpreted as symbol shorthand definitions. The remaining equalities can be proven. The last step, that 1⁄10<sup>n</sup> → 0 as n → ∞, is often justified by the Archimedean property of the real numbers. This limit-based attitude towards 0.999... is often put in more evocative but less precise terms. For example, the 1846 textbook The University Arithmetic explains, ".999 +, continued to infinity = 1, because every annexation of a 9 brings the value closer to 1"; the 1895 Arithmetic for Schools says, "when a large number of 9s is taken, the difference between 1 and .99999... becomes inconceivably small". Such heuristics are often incorrectly interpreted by students as implying that 0.999... itself is less than 1. ### Nested intervals and least upper bounds The series definition above is a simple way to define the real number named by a decimal expansion. A complementary approach is tailored to the opposite process: for a given real number, define the decimal expansion(s) to name it. If a real number x is known to lie in the closed interval [0, 10] (i.e., it is greater than or equal to 0 and less than or equal to 10), one can imagine dividing that interval into ten pieces that overlap only at their endpoints: [0, 1], [1, 2], [2, 3], and so on up to [9, 10]. The number x must belong to one of these; if it belongs to [2, 3] then one records the digit "2" and subdivides that interval into [2, 2.1], [2.1, 2.2], ..., [2.8, 2.9], [2.9, 3]. Continuing this process yields an infinite sequence of nested intervals, labeled by an infinite sequence of digits b<sub>0</sub>, b<sub>1</sub>, b<sub>2</sub>, b<sub>3</sub>, ..., and one writes In this formalism, the identities 1 = 0.999... and 1 = 1.000... reflect, respectively, the fact that 1 lies in both [0, 1] and [1, 2], so one can choose either subinterval when finding its digits. To ensure that this notation does not abuse the "=" sign, one needs a way to reconstruct a unique real number for each decimal. This can be done with limits, but other constructions continue with the ordering theme. One straightforward choice is the nested intervals theorem, which guarantees that given a sequence of nested, closed intervals whose lengths become arbitrarily small, the intervals contain exactly one real number in their intersection. So b<sub>0</sub>.b<sub>1</sub>b<sub>2</sub>b<sub>3</sub>... is defined to be the unique number contained within all the intervals [b<sub>0</sub>, b<sub>0</sub> + 1], [b<sub>0</sub>.b<sub>1</sub>, b<sub>0</sub>.b<sub>1</sub> + 0.1], and so on. 0.999... is then the unique real number that lies in all of the intervals [0, 1], [0.9, 1], [0.99, 1], and [0.99...9, 1] for every finite string of 9s. Since 1 is an element of each of these intervals, 0.999... = 1. The Nested Intervals Theorem is usually founded upon a more fundamental characteristic of the real numbers: the existence of least upper bounds or suprema. To directly exploit these objects, one may define b<sub>0</sub>.b<sub>1</sub>b<sub>2</sub>b<sub>3</sub>... to be the least upper bound of the set of approximants {b<sub>0</sub>, b<sub>0</sub>.b<sub>1</sub>, b<sub>0</sub>.b<sub>1</sub>b<sub>2</sub>, ...}. One can then show that this definition (or the nested intervals definition) is consistent with the subdivision procedure, implying 0.999... = 1 again. Tom Apostol concludes, > The fact that a real number might have two different decimal representations is merely a reflection of the fact that two different sets of real numbers can have the same supremum. ## Proofs from the construction of the real numbers Some approaches explicitly define real numbers to be certain structures built upon the rational numbers, using axiomatic set theory. The natural numbers – 0, 1, 2, 3, and so on – begin with 0 and continue upwards, so that every number has a successor. One can extend the natural numbers with their negatives to give all the integers, and to further extend to ratios, giving the rational numbers. These number systems are accompanied by the arithmetic of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. More subtly, they include ordering, so that one number can be compared to another and found to be less than, greater than, or equal to another number. The step from rationals to reals is a major extension. There are at least two popular ways to achieve this step, both published in 1872: Dedekind cuts and Cauchy sequences. Proofs that 0.999... = 1 which directly use these constructions are not found in textbooks on real analysis, where the modern trend for the last few decades has been to use an axiomatic analysis. Even when a construction is offered, it is usually applied towards proving the axioms of the real numbers, which then support the above proofs. However, several authors express the idea that starting with a construction is more logically appropriate, and the resulting proofs are more self-contained. ### Dedekind cuts In the Dedekind cut approach, each real number x is defined as the infinite set of all rational numbers less than x. In particular, the real number 1 is the set of all rational numbers that are less than 1. Every positive decimal expansion easily determines a Dedekind cut: the set of rational numbers which are less than some stage of the expansion. So the real number 0.999... is the set of rational numbers r such that r \< 0, or r \< 0.9, or r \< 0.99, or r is less than some other number of the form Every element of 0.999... is less than 1, so it is an element of the real number 1. Conversely, all elements of 1 are rational numbers that can be written as with b \> 0 and b \> a. This implies and thus and since by the definition above, every element of 1 is also an element of 0.999..., and, combined with the proof above that every element of 0.999... is also an element of 1, the sets 0.999... and 1 contain the same rational numbers, and are therefore the same set, that is, 0.999... = 1. The definition of real numbers as Dedekind cuts was first published by Richard Dedekind in 1872. The above approach to assigning a real number to each decimal expansion is due to an expository paper titled "Is 0.999 ... = 1?" by Fred Richman in Mathematics Magazine, which is targeted at teachers of collegiate mathematics, especially at the junior/senior level, and their students. Richman notes that taking Dedekind cuts in any dense subset of the rational numbers yields the same results; in particular, he uses decimal fractions, for which the proof is more immediate. He also notes that typically the definitions allow { x : x \< 1 } to be a cut but not { x : x ≤ 1 } (or vice versa) "Why do that? Precisely to rule out the existence of distinct numbers 0.9\* and 1. [...] So we see that in the traditional definition of the real numbers, the equation 0.9\* = 1 is built in at the beginning." A further modification of the procedure leads to a different structure where the two are not equal. Although it is consistent, many of the common rules of decimal arithmetic no longer hold, for example the fraction 1⁄3 has no representation; see "Alternative number systems" below. ### Cauchy sequences Another approach is to define a real number as the limit of a Cauchy sequence of rational numbers. This construction of the real numbers uses the ordering of rationals less directly. First, the distance between x and y is defined as the absolute value \\|x − y\\|, where the absolute value \\|z\\| is defined as the maximum of z and −z, thus never negative. Then the reals are defined to be the sequences of rationals that have the Cauchy sequence property using this distance. That is, in the sequence (x<sub>0</sub>, x<sub>1</sub>, x<sub>2</sub>, ...), a mapping from natural numbers to rationals, for any positive rational δ there is an N such that \\|x<sub>m</sub> − x<sub>n</sub>\\| ≤ δ for all m, n \> N. (The distance between terms becomes smaller than any positive rational.) If (x<sub>n</sub>) and (y<sub>n</sub>) are two Cauchy sequences, then they are defined to be equal as real numbers if the sequence (x<sub>n</sub> − y<sub>n</sub>) has the limit 0. Truncations of the decimal number b<sub>0</sub>.b<sub>1</sub>b<sub>2</sub>b<sub>3</sub>... generate a sequence of rationals which is Cauchy; this is taken to define the real value of the number. Thus in this formalism the task is to show that the sequence of rational numbers has the limit 0. Considering the nth term of the sequence, for n ∈ $\mathbb{N}$, it must therefore be shown that This limit is plain if one understands the definition of limit. So again 0.999... = 1. The definition of real numbers as Cauchy sequences was first published separately by Eduard Heine and Georg Cantor, also in 1872. The above approach to decimal expansions, including the proof that 0.999... = 1, closely follows Griffiths & Hilton's 1970 work A comprehensive textbook of classical mathematics: A contemporary interpretation. The book is written specifically to offer a second look at familiar concepts in a contemporary light. ### Infinite decimal representation Commonly in secondary schools' mathematics education, the real numbers are constructed by defining a number using an integer followed by a radix point and an infinite sequence written out as a string to represent the fractional part of any given real number. In this construction, the set of any combination of an integer and digits after the decimal point (or radix point in non-base 10 systems) is the set of real numbers. This construction can be rigorously shown to satisfy all of the real axioms after defining an equivalence relation over the set that defines 1 =<sub>eq</sub> 0.999... as well as for any other nonzero decimals with only finitely many nonzero terms in the decimal string with its trailing 9s version. With this construction of the reals, all proofs of the statement "1 = 0.999..." can be viewed as implicitly assuming the equality when any operations are performed on the real numbers. ### Dense order One of the notions that can resolve the issue is the requirement that real numbers are densely ordered. Students are taking for granted that $0.99999...$ is before $1$ while this kind of intuitive ordering is better defined as purely lexicographical. "... the ordering of the real numbers is recognized as a dense order. However, depending on the context, students can reconcile this property with the existence of numbers just before or after a given number (0.999... is thus often seen as the predecessor of 1)." Dense order requires that there is a third real value strictly between $0.99999...$ and $1$, but there is none: we cannot change a single digit in either of the two to obtain such a number. If $0.99999...$ and $1$ are to represent real numbers they have to be equal. Dense ordering implies that if there is no new element strictly between two elements of the set, the two elements must be considered equal. ## Generalizations The result that 0.999... = 1 generalizes readily in two ways. First, every nonzero number with a finite decimal notation (equivalently, endless trailing 0s) has a counterpart with trailing 9s. For example, 0.24999... equals 0.25, exactly as in the special case considered. These numbers are exactly the decimal fractions, and they are dense. Second, a comparable theorem applies in each radix or base. For example, in base 2 (the binary numeral system) 0.111... equals 1, and in base 3 (the ternary numeral system) 0.222... equals 1. In general, any terminating base b expression has a counterpart with repeated trailing digits equal to b − 1. Textbooks of real analysis are likely to skip the example of 0.999... and present one or both of these generalizations from the start. Alternative representations of 1 also occur in non-integer bases. For example, in the golden ratio base, the two standard representations are 1.000... and 0.101010..., and there are infinitely many more representations that include adjacent 1s. Generally, for almost all q between 1 and 2, there are uncountably many base-q expansions of 1. On the other hand, there are still uncountably many q (including all natural numbers greater than 1) for which there is only one base-q expansion of 1, other than the trivial 1.000.... This result was first obtained by Paul Erdős, Miklos Horváth, and István Joó around 1990. In 1998 Vilmos Komornik and Paola Loreti determined the smallest such base, the Komornik–Loreti constant q = 1.787231650.... In this base, 1 = 0.11010011001011010010110011010011...; the digits are given by the Thue–Morse sequence, which does not repeat. A more far-reaching generalization addresses the most general positional numeral systems. They too have multiple representations, and in some sense the difficulties are even worse. For example: - In the balanced ternary system, 1⁄2 = 0.111... = 1.111.... - In the reverse factorial number system (using bases 2!,3!,4!,... for positions after the decimal point), 1 = 1.000... = 0.1234.... ### Impossibility of unique representation That all these different number systems suffer from multiple representations for some real numbers can be attributed to a fundamental difference between the real numbers as an ordered set and collections of infinite strings of symbols, ordered lexicographically. Indeed, the following two properties account for the difficulty: - If an interval of the real numbers is partitioned into two non-empty parts L, R, such that every element of L is (strictly) less than every element of R, then either L contains a largest element or R contains a smallest element, but not both. - The collection of infinite strings of symbols taken from any finite "alphabet", lexicographically ordered, can be partitioned into two non-empty parts L, R, such that every element of L is less than every element of R, while L contains a largest element and R contains a smallest element. Indeed, it suffices to take two finite prefixes (initial substrings) p<sub>1</sub>, p<sub>2</sub> of elements from the collection such that they differ only in their final symbol, for which symbol they have successive values, and take for L the set of all strings in the collection whose corresponding prefix is at most p<sub>1</sub>, and for R the remainder, the strings in the collection whose corresponding prefix is at least p<sub>2</sub>. Then L has a largest element, starting with p<sub>1</sub> and choosing the largest available symbol in all following positions, while R has a smallest element obtained by following p<sub>2</sub> by the smallest symbol in all positions. The first point follows from basic properties of the real numbers: L has a supremum and R has an infimum, which are easily seen to be equal; being a real number it either lies in R or in L, but not both since L and R are supposed to be disjoint. The second point generalizes the 0.999.../1.000... pair obtained for p<sub>1</sub> = "0", p<sub>2</sub> = "1". In fact one need not use the same alphabet for all positions (so that for instance mixed radix systems can be included) or consider the full collection of possible strings; the only important points are that at each position a finite set of symbols (which may even depend on the previous symbols) can be chosen from (this is needed to ensure maximal and minimal choices), and that making a valid choice for any position should result in a valid infinite string (so one should not allow "9" in each position while forbidding an infinite succession of "9"s). Under these assumptions, the above argument shows that an order preserving map from the collection of strings to an interval of the real numbers cannot be a bijection: either some numbers do not correspond to any string, or some of them correspond to more than one string. Marko Petkovšek has proven that for any positional system that names all the real numbers, the set of reals with multiple representations is always dense. He calls the proof "an instructive exercise in elementary point-set topology"; it involves viewing sets of positional values as Stone spaces and noticing that their real representations are given by continuous functions. ## Applications One application of 0.999... as a representation of 1 occurs in elementary number theory. In 1802, H. Goodwin published an observation on the appearance of 9s in the repeating-decimal representations of fractions whose denominators are certain prime numbers. Examples include: - 1⁄7 = 0. and 142 + 857 = 999. - 1⁄73 = 0. and 0136 + 9863 = 9999. E. Midy proved a general result about such fractions, now called Midy's theorem, in 1836. The publication was obscure, and it is unclear if his proof directly involved 0.999..., but at least one modern proof by W. G. Leavitt does. If it can be proved that if a decimal of the form 0.b<sub>1</sub>b<sub>2</sub>b<sub>3</sub>... is a positive integer, then it must be 0.999..., which is then the source of the 9s in the theorem. Investigations in this direction can motivate such concepts as greatest common divisors, modular arithmetic, Fermat primes, order of group elements, and quadratic reciprocity. Returning to real analysis, the base-3 analogue 0.222... = 1 plays a key role in a characterization of one of the simplest fractals, the middle-thirds Cantor set: - A point in the unit interval lies in the Cantor set if and only if it can be represented in ternary using only the digits 0 and 2. The nth digit of the representation reflects the position of the point in the nth stage of the construction. For example, the point 2⁄3 is given the usual representation of 0.2 or 0.2000..., since it lies to the right of the first deletion and to the left of every deletion thereafter. The point 1⁄3 is represented not as 0.1 but as 0.0222..., since it lies to the left of the first deletion and to the right of every deletion thereafter. Repeating nines also turn up in yet another of Georg Cantor's works. They must be taken into account to construct a valid proof, applying his 1891 diagonal argument to decimal expansions, of the uncountability of the unit interval. Such a proof needs to be able to declare certain pairs of real numbers to be different based on their decimal expansions, so one needs to avoid pairs like 0.2 and 0.1999... A simple method represents all numbers with nonterminating expansions; the opposite method rules out repeating nines. A variant that may be closer to Cantor's original argument actually uses base 2, and by turning base-3 expansions into base-2 expansions, one can prove the uncountability of the Cantor set as well. ## Skepticism in education Students of mathematics often reject the equality of 0.999... and 1, for reasons ranging from their disparate appearance to deep misgivings over the limit concept and disagreements over the nature of infinitesimals. There are many common contributing factors to the confusion: - Students are often "mentally committed to the notion that a number can be represented in one and only one way by a decimal." Seeing two manifestly different decimals representing the same number appears to be a paradox, which is amplified by the appearance of the seemingly well-understood number 1. - Some students interpret "0.999..." (or similar notation) as a large but finite string of 9s, possibly with a variable, unspecified length. If they accept an infinite string of nines, they may still expect a last 9 "at infinity". - Intuition and ambiguous teaching lead students to think of the limit of a sequence as a kind of infinite process rather than a fixed value, since a sequence need not reach its limit. Where students accept the difference between a sequence of numbers and its limit, they might read "0.999..." as meaning the sequence rather than its limit. These ideas are mistaken in the context of the standard real numbers, although some may be valid in other number systems, either invented for their general mathematical utility or as instructive counterexamples to better understand 0.999... Many of these explanations were found by David Tall, who has studied characteristics of teaching and cognition that lead to some of the misunderstandings he has encountered in his college students. Interviewing his students to determine why the vast majority initially rejected the equality, he found that "students continued to conceive of 0.999... as a sequence of numbers getting closer and closer to 1 and not a fixed value, because 'you haven't specified how many places there are' or 'it is the nearest possible decimal below 1'". The elementary argument of multiplying 0.333... = 1⁄3 by 3 can convince reluctant students that 0.999... = 1. Still, when confronted with the conflict between their belief of the first equation and their disbelief of the second, some students either begin to disbelieve the first equation or simply become frustrated. Nor are more sophisticated methods foolproof: students who are fully capable of applying rigorous definitions may still fall back on intuitive images when they are surprised by a result in advanced mathematics, including 0.999.... For example, one real analysis student was able to prove that 0.333... = 1⁄3 using a supremum definition, but then insisted that 0.999... \< 1 based on her earlier understanding of long division. Others still are able to prove that 1⁄3 = 0.333..., but, upon being confronted by the fractional proof, insist that "logic" supersedes the mathematical calculations. Joseph Mazur tells the tale of an otherwise brilliant calculus student of his who "challenged almost everything I said in class but never questioned his calculator," and who had come to believe that nine digits are all one needs to do mathematics, including calculating the square root of 23. The student remained uncomfortable with a limiting argument that 9.99... = 10, calling it a "wildly imagined infinite growing process." As part of Ed Dubinsky's APOS theory of mathematical learning, he and his collaborators (2005) propose that students who conceive of 0.999... as a finite, indeterminate string with an infinitely small distance from 1 have "not yet constructed a complete process conception of the infinite decimal". Other students who have a complete process conception of 0.999... may not yet be able to "encapsulate" that process into an "object conception", like the object conception they have of 1, and so they view the process 0.999... and the object 1 as incompatible. Dubinsky et al. also link this mental ability of encapsulation to viewing 1⁄3 as a number in its own right and to dealing with the set of natural numbers as a whole. ## Cultural phenomenon With the rise of the Internet, debates about 0.999... have become commonplace on newsgroups and message boards, including many that nominally have little to do with mathematics. In the newsgroup sci.math, arguing over 0.999... is described as a "popular sport", and it is one of the questions answered in its FAQ. The FAQ briefly covers 1⁄3, multiplication by 10, and limits, and it alludes to Cauchy sequences as well. A 2003 edition of the general-interest newspaper column The Straight Dope discusses 0.999... via 1⁄3 and limits, saying of misconceptions, > The lower primate in us still resists, saying: .999\~ doesn't really represent a number, then, but a process. To find a number we have to halt the process, at which point the .999\~ = 1 thing falls apart. > > Nonsense. A Slate article reports that the concept of 0.999... is "hotly disputed on websites ranging from World of Warcraft message boards to Ayn Rand forums". In the same vein, the question of 0.999... proved such a popular topic in the first seven years of Blizzard Entertainment's Battle.net forums that the company issued a "press release" on April Fools' Day 2004 that it is 1: > We are very excited to close the book on this subject once and for all. We've witnessed the heartache and concern over whether .999\~ does or does not equal 1, and we're proud that the following proof finally and conclusively addresses the issue for our customers. Two proofs are then offered, based on limits and multiplication by 10. 0.999... features also in mathematical jokes, such as: > Q: How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a lightbulb? > > A: 0.999999.... ## In alternative number systems Although the real numbers form an extremely useful number system, the decision to interpret the notation "0.999..." as naming a real number is ultimately a convention, and Timothy Gowers argues in Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction that the resulting identity 0.999... = 1 is a convention as well: > However, it is by no means an arbitrary convention, because not adopting it forces one either to invent strange new objects or to abandon some of the familiar rules of arithmetic. ### Infinitesimals Some proofs that 0.999... = 1 rely on the Archimedean property of the real numbers: that there are no nonzero infinitesimals. Specifically, the difference 1 − 0.999... must be smaller than any positive rational number, so it must be an infinitesimal; but since the reals do not contain nonzero infinitesimals, the difference is therefore zero, and therefore the two values are the same. However, there are mathematically coherent ordered algebraic structures, including various alternatives to the real numbers, which are non-Archimedean. Non-standard analysis provides a number system with a full array of infinitesimals (and their inverses). A. H. Lightstone developed a decimal expansion for hyperreal numbers in (0, 1)<sup>∗</sup>. Lightstone shows how to associate to each number a sequence of digits, indexed by the hypernatural numbers. While he does not directly discuss 0.999..., he shows the real number 1⁄3 is represented by 0.333...;...333... which is a consequence of the transfer principle. As a consequence the number 0.999...;...999... = 1. With this type of decimal representation, not every expansion represents a number. In particular "0.333...;...000..." and "0.999...;...000..." do not correspond to any number. The standard definition of the number 0.999... is the limit of the sequence 0.9, 0.99, 0.999, ... A different definition involves what Terry Tao refers to as ultralimit, i.e., the equivalence class [(0.9, 0.99, 0.999, ...)] of this sequence in the ultrapower construction, which is a number that falls short of 1 by an infinitesimal amount. More generally, the hyperreal number u<sub>H</sub>=0.999...;...999000..., with last digit 9 at infinite hypernatural rank H, satisfies a strict inequality u<sub>H</sub> \< 1. Accordingly, an alternative interpretation for "zero followed by infinitely many 9s" could be All such interpretations of "0.999..." are infinitely close to 1. Ian Stewart characterizes this interpretation as an "entirely reasonable" way to rigorously justify the intuition that "there's a little bit missing" from 1 in 0.999.... Along with Katz & Katz, Robert Ely also questions the assumption that students' ideas about 0.999... \< 1 are erroneous intuitions about the real numbers, interpreting them rather as nonstandard intuitions that could be valuable in the learning of calculus. ### Hackenbush Combinatorial game theory provides alternative reals as well, with infinite Blue-Red Hackenbush as one particularly relevant example. In 1974, Elwyn Berlekamp described a correspondence between Hackenbush strings and binary expansions of real numbers, motivated by the idea of data compression. For example, the value of the Hackenbush string LRRLRLRL... is 0.010101<sub>2</sub>... = 1⁄3. However, the value of LRLLL... (corresponding to 0.111...<sub>2</sub>) is infinitesimally less than 1. The difference between the two is the surreal number 1⁄ω, where ω is the first infinite ordinal; the relevant game is LRRRR... or 0.000...<sub>2</sub>. This is in fact true of the binary expansions of many rational numbers, where the values of the numbers are equal but the corresponding binary tree paths are different. For example, 0.10111...<sub>2</sub> = 0.11000...<sub>2</sub>, which are both equal to 3/4, but the first representation corresponds to the binary tree path LRLRLLL... while the second corresponds to the different path LRLLRRR.... ### Revisiting subtraction Another manner in which the proofs might be undermined is if 1 − 0.999... simply does not exist, because subtraction is not always possible. Mathematical structures with an addition operation but not a subtraction operation include commutative semigroups, commutative monoids and semirings. Richman considers two such systems, designed so that 0.999... \< 1. First, Richman defines a nonnegative decimal number to be a literal decimal expansion. He defines the lexicographical order and an addition operation, noting that 0.999... \< 1 simply because 0 \< 1 in the ones place, but for any nonterminating x, one has 0.999... + x = 1 + x. So one peculiarity of the decimal numbers is that addition cannot always be cancelled; another is that no decimal number corresponds to 1⁄3. After defining multiplication, the decimal numbers form a positive, totally ordered, commutative semiring. In the process of defining multiplication, Richman also defines another system he calls "cut D", which is the set of Dedekind cuts of decimal fractions. Ordinarily this definition leads to the real numbers, but for a decimal fraction d he allows both the cut (−∞, d) and the "principal cut" (−∞, d]. The result is that the real numbers are "living uneasily together with" the decimal fractions. Again 0.999... \< 1. There are no positive infinitesimals in cut D, but there is "a sort of negative infinitesimal," 0<sup>−</sup>, which has no decimal expansion. He concludes that 0.999... = 1 + 0<sup>−</sup>, while the equation "0.999... + x = 1" has no solution. ### p-adic numbers When asked about 0.999..., novices often believe there should be a "final 9", believing 1 − 0.999... to be a positive number which they write as "0.000...1". Whether or not that makes sense, the intuitive goal is clear: adding a 1 to the final 9 in 0.999... would carry all the 9s into 0s and leave a 1 in the ones place. Among other reasons, this idea fails because there is no "final 9" in 0.999.... However, there is a system that contains an infinite string of 9s including a last 9. The p-adic numbers are an alternative number system of interest in number theory. Like the real numbers, the p-adic numbers can be built from the rational numbers via Cauchy sequences; the construction uses a different metric in which 0 is closer to p, and much closer to p<sup>n</sup>, than it is to 1. The p-adic numbers form a field for prime p and a ring for other p, including 10. So arithmetic can be performed in the p-adics, and there are no infinitesimals. In the 10-adic numbers, the analogues of decimal expansions run to the left. The 10-adic expansion ...999 does have a last 9, and it does not have a first 9. One can add 1 to the ones place, and it leaves behind only 0s after carrying through: 1 + ...999 = ...000 = 0, and so ...999 = −1. Another derivation uses a geometric series. The infinite series implied by "...999" does not converge in the real numbers, but it converges in the 10-adics, and so one can re-use the familiar formula: (Compare with the series above.) A third derivation was invented by a seventh-grader who was doubtful over her teacher's limiting argument that 0.999... = 1 but was inspired to take the multiply-by-10 proof above in the opposite direction: if x = ...999 then 10x = ...990, so 10x = x − 9, hence x = −1 again. As a final extension, since 0.999... = 1 (in the reals) and ...999 = −1 (in the 10-adics), then by "blind faith and unabashed juggling of symbols" one may add the two equations and arrive at ...999.999... = 0. This equation does not make sense either as a 10-adic expansion or an ordinary decimal expansion, but it turns out to be meaningful and true in the doubly infinite decimal expansion of the 10-adic solenoid, with eventually repeating left ends to represent the real numbers and eventually repeating right ends to represent the 10-adic numbers. ## Related questions - Zeno's paradoxes, particularly the paradox of the runner, are reminiscent of the apparent paradox that 0.999... and 1 are equal. The runner paradox can be mathematically modelled and then, like 0.999..., resolved using a geometric series. However, it is not clear if this mathematical treatment addresses the underlying metaphysical issues Zeno was exploring. - Division by zero occurs in some popular discussions of 0.999..., and it also stirs up contention. While most authors choose to define 0.999..., almost all modern treatments leave division by zero undefined, as it can be given no meaning in the standard real numbers. However, division by zero is defined in some other systems, such as complex analysis, where the extended complex plane, i.e. the Riemann sphere, has a "point at infinity". Here, it makes sense to define 1⁄0 to be infinity; and, in fact, the results are profound and applicable to many problems in engineering and physics. Some prominent mathematicians argued for such a definition long before either number system was developed. - Negative zero is another redundant feature of many ways of writing numbers. In number systems, such as the real numbers, where "0" denotes the additive identity and is neither positive nor negative, the usual interpretation of "−0" is that it should denote the additive inverse of 0, which forces −0 = 0. Nonetheless, some scientific applications use separate positive and negative zeroes, as do some computing binary number systems (for example integers stored in the sign and magnitude or ones' complement formats, or floating point numbers as specified by the IEEE floating-point standard). ## See also - Finitism - Informal mathematics - Limit (mathematics) - Series (mathematics)
4,421,383	Banksia brownii	1,164,578,788	Species of shrub in the family Proteaceae found in Australia	[ "Banksia taxa by scientific name", "Endangered flora of Australia", "Endemic flora of Southwest Australia", "Eudicots of Western Australia", "Nature conservation in Western Australia", "Plants described in 1830", "Taxa named by Robert Brown (botanist, born 1773)" ]	Banksia brownii, commonly known as feather-leaved banksia or Brown's banksia, is a species of shrub that grows in southwest Western Australia. A plant with fine feathery leaves and large red-brown flower spikes, it usually grows as an upright bush around two metres (6.6 ft) high, but can also occur as a small tree or a low spreading shrub. First collected in 1829 and published the following year, it is placed in Banksia subgenus Banksia, section Oncostylis, series Spicigerae. There are two genetically distinct forms. Banksia brownii occurs naturally only in two population clusters between Albany and the Stirling Range in southwest Western Australia. In the Stirling Range it occurs among heath on rocky mountain slopes; further south it occurs among jarrah woodland in shallow nutrient-poor sand. It has been evaluated as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN); all major populations are threatened by Phytophthora cinnamomi dieback, a disease to which the species is highly susceptible. Other threats include loss of habitat, commercial exploitation and changes to the fire regime. Highly valued by Australia's horticultural and cut flower industries, B. brownii is widely cultivated in areas not exposed to dieback. It prefers a sheltered position in soil with good drainage, and must be provided with some moisture over summer. ## Description Banksia brownii usually grows as an upright bush between one and three metres (3–10 ft) high, but it can also grow as an openly branched small tree to six metres (20 ft) in sheltered gullies, or as a low, spreading shrub in exposed locations such as the peaks of the Stirling Range. The bark is a grey-brown colour, smooth and thin, with lenticels. The leaves are long and thin, from three to ten centimetres (1–5 in) long, and five to ten millimetres (3⁄16–3⁄8 in) wide. Dark green and hairless above but with a hairy white underside, they are easily recognised by their feather-like appearance, caused by the fact that they are finely divided almost back to the midrib, into as many as 70 thin tapered lobes. Flowers occur in typical Banksia "flower spikes", inflorescences made up of hundreds of pairs of flowers densely packed in a spiral around a woody axis. B. brownii's flower spike is a metallic red-brown colour, roughly cylindrical, 6 to 19 centimetres (2–71⁄2 in) high and eight to ten centimetres (3–4 in) wide. Each flower consists of a tubular perianth made up of four united tepals, and one long wiry style. Perianths are cream at the base and grey-brown at the end. Styles are rusty red-brown with a cream tip, and downwardly hooked rather than straight. The style end is initially trapped inside the upper perianth parts, but breaks free at anthesis. Flower spikes are held erect and are typically terminal on a branch; often other branchlets grow up and around a spike from below. The fruiting structure is a stout woody "cone", around five centimetres (2 inches) in diameter, with a hairy appearance caused by the persistence of old withered flower parts. A "cone" may be embedded with up to 60 follicles, although usually there are very few or even none at all. Unusually for Banksia, each follicle contains just one seed. This is shiny black, oval in shape, about 20 millimetres (3⁄4 in) long, with a brown papery wing. ## Taxonomy Banksia brownii was first collected near King George Sound in 1829 by William Baxter, who named it in honour of botanist Robert Brown. A formal description was published by Brown in his 1830 Supplementum Primum Prodromi Florae Novae Hollandiae; thus the full botanic name of the species is Banksia brownii Baxter ex R.Br. Under Brown's taxonomic arrangement, B. brownii was placed in subgenus Banksia verae, the "true banksias", because its inflorescence is a typical Banksia flower spike. Banksia verae was renamed Eubanksia by Stephan Endlicher in 1847. Carl Meissner demoted Eubanksia to sectional rank in his 1856 classification, and divided it into four series, with B. brownii placed in series Dryandroideae. When George Bentham published his 1870 arrangement in Flora Australiensis, he discarded Meissner's series, placing all the species with hooked styles together in a section that he named Oncostylis. This arrangement would stand for over a century. In 1891, Otto Kuntze, in his Revisio Generum Plantarum, rejected the generic name Banksia L.f., on the grounds that the name Banksia had previously been published in 1776 as Banksia J.R.Forst & G.Forst, referring to the genus now known as Pimelea. Kuntze proposed Sirmuellera as an alternative, referring to this species as Sirmuellera brownii. This application of the principle of priority was largely ignored by Kuntze's contemporaries, and Banksia L.f. was formally conserved and Sirmuellera rejected in 1940. Alex George published a new taxonomic arrangement of Banksia in his landmark 1981 monograph The genus Banksia L.f. (Proteaceae). Endlicher's Eubanksia became B. subg. Banksia, and was divided into three sections, one of which was Oncostylis. Oncostylis was further divided into four series, with B. brownii placed in series Spicigerae because its inflorescences are cylindrical. In 1996, Kevin Thiele and Pauline Ladiges published a new arrangement for the genus, after cladistic analyses yielded a cladogram significantly different from George's arrangement. Thiele and Ladiges' arrangement retained B. brownii in series Spicigerae, placing it in B. subser. Occidentales along with B. occidentalis (red swamp banksia), B. seminuda (river banksia), B. verticillata (granite banksia) and B. littoralis (swamp banksia). This arrangement stood until 1999, when George effectively reverted to his 1981 arrangement in his monograph for the Flora of Australia series. Under George's taxonomic arrangement of Banksia, B. brownii's taxonomic placement may be summarised as follows: Genus Banksia : Subgenus Banksia : : Section Banksia : : Section Coccinea : : Section Oncostylis : : : Series Spicigerae : : : : B. spinulosa - B. ericifolia - B. verticillata - B. seminuda - B. littoralis - B. occidentalis - B. brownii : : : Series Tricuspidae : : : Series Dryandroidae : : : Series Abietinae : Subgenus Isostylis The closest relative to B. brownii is held to be B. occidentalis, which differs in having smaller, deep red flowers and narrow, sparsely serrate leaves. Since 1998, Austin Mast has been publishing results of ongoing cladistic analyses of DNA sequence data for the subtribe Banksiinae, which comprises Banksia and Dryandra. With respect to B. brownii, Mast's results are somewhat at odds with those of both George and Thiele and Ladiges, finding it to be more closely related to B. nutans (nodding banksia) and B. quercifolia (oak-leaved banksia) than to many of the Spicigerae. Overall, the inferred phylogeny is very greatly different from George's arrangement, and provides compelling evidence for the paraphyly of Banksia with respect to Dryandra. Early in 2007, Mast and Thiele initiated a rearrangement of Banksia by transferring Dryandra into it, and publishing B. subg. Spathulatae for the species having spoon-shaped cotyledons. They foreshadowed publishing a full arrangement once DNA sampling of Dryandra was complete; in the meantime, if Mast and Thiele's nomenclatural changes are taken as an interim arrangement, then B. brownii is placed in B. subg. Spathulatae. Three genetically distinct forms of B. brownii are recognised: the better known forms are a "mountain form" with a shrubby habit, short thin hard leaves, and a squat inflorescence; and a "Millbrook Road form", with a tree habit and longer, wider, soft leaves. Some horticulturists also recognise an intermediate form. Recent genetic testing has confirmed the existence of three distinct forms, but as of 2005 these have no taxonomic status. ## Distribution and habitat Banksia brownii occurs between Albany (35°S) and the Stirling Range (34°24'S) in the southwest of Western Australia, at the juncture of the Esperance Plains, Warren and Jarrah Forest biogeographic regions. This is the taxonomically richest area for Banksia, with 19 species, of which six are endemic, including B. brownii itself. It is cool and wet, with temperatures between four and 30 °C (39–86 °F) and rainfall of around 800 millimetres (31 in). The species occurs there in two distinct population clusters: southern populations occur among low woodland of Eucalyptus marginata (jarrah) in shallow, nutrient-poor white or grey sand over laterite; Stirling Range populations occur at altitudes of between 500 and 1100 metres (1640–3960 ft), among heath on rocky mountain slopes and tops, and in shale in gullies. There are 27 known populations within this region, but only nine of these populations contain more than 10 individual plants, and only five populations have more than 100. Ten populations are now presumed extinct. The total number of plants is estimated at around 1000. ## Ecology Coastal plants begin to flower at around five years from seed, but plants in the Stirling Range take much longer to mature. In one Stirling Range population, only 15% of plants had flowered after eight years. Flowering time is highly variable, but in general it occurs between March and August, with a peak around June. More flowers open during the day than at night. As with other Banksia species, B. brownii is a heavy producer of nectar, and serves as a food source for a range of nectariferous birds, mammals and insects. Honeyeaters such as Phylidonyris novaehollandiae (New Holland honeyeater), Acanthorhynchus superciliosus (western spinebill) and Anthochaera carunculata (red wattlebird) are frequent visitors that often carry heavy pollen loads, making them important pollinators. Nocturnal mammals such as Rattus fuscipes (bush rat) and Tarsipes rostratus (honey possum) also carry heavy pollen loads, but the foraging behaviour of bush rats suggests that these may transfer pollen only over very short distances. Invertebrate visitors include the introduced Apis mellifera (western honeybee), native bees, flies and ants; bees appear to be effective pollinators, but ants and flies forage only at the base of flowers and do not come in contact with plant pollen. The species is partly self-compatible, as some seed is set when pollinators are excluded. Selection against self-pollinated seed has been observed, but the species has nonetheless been shown to have one of the lowest outcrossing rates of any Banksia. This is probably caused by the small population sizes, which increase the probability of self-fertilisation, and may discourage visits by pollinators. It has a low rate of fruiting, with less than 1% of flowers developing into follicles, and more than half of the inflorescences failing to form any follicles at all. Seed survival rates are similarly low. More than half of a plant's seed crop may be lost to the larvae of moths and weevils, which burrow into the cobs to eat the seeds and pupate in the follicles; and further seed losses are caused by granivorous birds such as cockatoos, which break off the cobs to eat both the seeds and the insect larvae. A small proportion of follicles open and release their seed spontaneously, but most remain closed until stimulated to open by bushfire. Bushfire kills the maternal plant, which has neither thick bark nor lignotubers, but the subsequent shedding of seed allows the population to regenerate. Seed predation continues after its release: in one study, B. brownii seeds were placed on the ground in both burnt and unburnt sides; almost all were eaten by parrots within four weeks. ## Conservation Threats to B. brownii include loss of habitat due to land clearing, commercial exploitation, disease, and changes to the fire regime. The fragmentation of populations is also of concern, as it causes the genetic diversity of the species to decline, potentially reducing vigour. Climate change is also of concern: depending on the severity of change, the range of this species is predicted to contract by 30% to 50% by 2080. Microsatellite markers for assessing population genetic structure were developed for B. brownii in 2009. A subsequent study by these authors, published in 2015, estimated that B. brownii has lost between 35–40% of its historical genetic diversity due to P. cinnamomi dieback. B. brownii has been assessed as having a high risk of extinction, and that this would be "not only a tragedy in itself but may have unforeseen, and potentially disastrous, consequences for the functioning of the vegetation communities of which feather-leaved banksia is an integral part." The species has been formally assessed for the IUCN Red List as "Critically Endangered (CR)"; populations are projected to decline by more than 80% within the next three generations. It is listed as "Endangered" under Australia's Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), and "Rare" under Western Australia's Wildlife Conservation Act 1950. These acts provide legislative protection against a range of potential threats, including commercial harvesting of flowers and land clearing. Further statutory protection is afforded by the fact that populations occur within the Eastern Stirling Range Montane Heath and Thicket threatened ecological community, which is listed as "Endangered" under the EPBC Act, and the Montane Mallee Thicket of the Stirling Range threatened ecology community, which has been assessed as "Endangered" by the Western Australian government; and by the presence of northern population within the Stirling Range National Park. A five-year interim management plan was put in place by the Western Australia's Department of Environment and Conservation in October 2005. Actions under that plan include regular monitoring of populations, management of the threats of fire and P. cinnamomi, and the cold storage of seed. This was followed by a national recovery plan. A translocation project was begun in 2008. This has met with some success as one of three original sites established appears to have a viable reproducing population. ### Disease The main threat to B. brownii is dieback caused by the introduced plant pathogen P. cinnamomi, a soil-borne water mould that causes root rot. Studies of the effect of P. cinnamomi on B. brownii have found it to be "highly susceptible" to dieback, with specimens "frequently and consistently killed in the wild". As of 2007, all major populations of B. brownii, and all but one minor population, are suffering from dieback. Moreover, all populations are in an area vulnerable to dieback, so even the uninfected population is considered under threat. According to Western Australian botanist Byron Lamont, "the demise of this species in the wild appears imminent." A number of protective measures have been implemented, including site access restrictions, the collection and cold-storage of seed, and the treatment of plants with phosphite. Phosphite boosts the resistance of both infected and uninfected plants, and also acts as a direct fungicide. Aerial spraying of phosphite boosts plant survival and slows the spread of infection, but must be carefully managed as studies have shown that foliar spraying of phosphite adversely affects root and shoot growth. Direct injection of phosphite into the stem of each tree appears to lack this disadvantage, but is costly to administer and restricted to known plants. Other diseases to which B. brownii is vulnerable include the parasitic fungus Armillaria luteobubalina and the aerial canker fungus Zythiostroma. ### Fire regime Because B. brownii releases its seed in response to bushfire, it is important that fires occur at intervals that allow the plants to generate plenty of viable seed. The optimum fire interval is around 18 years. If fire occurs too frequently, plants are burned before reaching maturity or before they have produced sufficient seed to ensure regeneration of the population. This may cause populations to decline, or even local extinction. Too-infrequent fire also causes population decline, as more plants die of natural attrition without releasing their seed, resulting in seed wastage. ### Ex situ conservation measures Because of the difficulty of conserving B. brownii in its present disease-exposed locations, it is an especially suitable candidate for ex situ conservation measures, such as the cold-storage of seed, and the translocation of plants to disease-free locations. Seed of B. brownii has been collected by Western Australia's Threatened Flora Seed Centre, and placed in cold-storage both in Perth and at Kew's Millennium Seed Bank. This includes seed collected from populations that have since become extinct. In 2008, some of this seed was germinated, and seedlings were planted at a location near Albany. Genetic analysis of the seedlings revealed some genetic diversity that was not present in any extant population. The conservation of these seeds had thus preserved some of the species' genetic diversity that would otherwise have been lost through population extinction, providing a powerful example of the importance of seed banking to conservation efforts. A seed orchard was planted in 2007, and by 2010 this had yielded over 400 disease-free, healthy plants, some of which had grown more than three times the rate of those in the wild. A 2007 seedling flowered for the first time at Wakehurst Place in February 2011. ## Cultivation With large metallic red inflorescences and attractive feathery leaves that are perhaps the softest of all Banksia species, B. brownii is highly valued by Australia's horticultural and cut flower industries. Seeds and plants are readily available in Australian nurseries, and it is widely cultivated in areas not exposed to dieback. Seeds do not require any treatment, and take 20 to 50 days to germinate. The plant prefers a sheltered position in soil with good drainage, and must be provided with moisture over summer. It grows quickly, but takes several years to flower. Once established, it is frost-tolerant and tolerates light pruning not below the green foliage. The flowers are attractive in late bud, but lose their colour as soon as they open. Because they are usually surrounded by branchlets, they may be partly hidden by foliage. The main obstacle to cultivation is the species' extreme sensitivity to dieback, which is widespread in suburban gardens. However, the species has been successfully grafted onto a rootstock of B. integrifolia (coast banksia), which renders it hardy on a range of soils.
9,494,388	H-58 (Michigan county highway)	1,138,073,924	County highway in Alger and Luce counties in Michigan, United States	[ "County-designated highways in Michigan", "Transportation in Alger County, Michigan", "Transportation in Luce County, Michigan" ]	H-58 is a county-designated highway in the US state of Michigan that runs east–west for approximately 69 miles (111 km) between the communities of Munising and Deer Park in the Upper Peninsula. The western section is routed through Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, along the southern shore of Lake Superior, and the adjacent Lake Superior State Forest in Alger County while connecting Munising to the communities of Van Meer and Melstrand. At Grand Marais, H-58 exits the national lakeshore area and runs through town. The segment running east of Grand Marais to Deer Park in Luce County is a gravel road that connects to H-37 in Muskallonge Lake State Park. A roadway was present along parts of today's H-58 by the late 1920s; initially, this county road was gravel or earth between Munising and Kingston Corners and connected with other roads to Grand Marais. In the 1930s, another segment was built to connect to Deer Park and to fill in the gap between Kingston Corners and Grand Marais. The southwestern segment between Munising and Van Meer formed part of M-94 from 1929 until it was transferred back to county control in the early 1960s. The H-58 designation was created after the county-designated highway system itself was formed in 1970. Initially, only the section from Grand Marais to Deer Park was given the number; the remainder was added in 1972. The last sections to be paved in the 20th century were completed in 1974. The National Park Service was required to build their own access road for the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in the initial legislation that created the park. This requirement was rescinded by the United States Congress in 1998, and the park service was authorized to fund improvements to H-58 instead. Paving projects were completed between 2006 and 2010 so that the entire length of H-58 in Alger County is now paved; the section in Luce County is still a gravel road. ## Route description H-58 starts in Munising at an intersection with M-28. The highway follows the eastern end of Munising Street through the eastern side of the city by the Neenah Paper Mill, then turns northeasterly. The roadway runs outside of, and parallel to, the southern boundary of the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. The park visitors center, which is open year-round, is located off H-58 on Sand Point Road at the west end of the park. The highway turns due east and runs through an intersection with H-13 (Connors Road). Leaving town, H-58 becomes Munising–Van Meer–Shingleton Road and enters the national park. East of the intersection with Carmody Road, the county road passes to the south of the Pictured Rocks Golf and Country Club before meeting the intersection with H-11 (Miners Castle Road). This latter road provides access to Miner's Castle, a natural rock formation located on the shores of Lake Superior, and the Miners Falls. Further east, H-58 meets H-15 in Van Meer, site of the Bear Trap Inn and Bar. Munising–Van Meer–Shingleton Road turns south along H-15, and H-58 turns northeast along Melstrand Road to the community of Melstrand. Melstrand is located outside the national lakeshore in the Lake Superior State Forest. H-58 continues through "burned and cut areas, meadows, maturing second growth, and the haunting sounds of silence" in the state forest. H-58 reenters the national lakeshore and approaches more Pictured Rocks facilities like the Hurricane River Campground. The road then travels northward towards Buck Hill, which is near the intersection with the Adams Truck Trail; at that intersection, there is a parking lot for snowmobiles. Past this point, the road is closed to vehicles during the winter months each year; snow plows do not clear the snow from the roadway, allowing it to be used as a snowmobile trail. The area on each end of the park averages around 140–144 inches (360–370 cm) of snowfall annually, while the National Park Service says that this central section is higher. The road meanders through forest lands and fields as it continues northwesterly toward the Log Slide. This location gives motorists a chance to hike down to the lakeshore to see the Au Sable Point Lighthouse peeking above the trees to the east and the Grand Sable Dunes to the west. The American Motorcyclist Association said of this segment of the roadway that it is "so close to the beach and lake that [one] can smell it when [he] rides." The lighthouse is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and can be accessed from the Hurricane River Campground. The roadway crosses the Hurricane River and turns southerly away from Lake Superior. H-58 turns back eastward near Grand Sable Lake, running between the north shore of the lake and the Grand Sable Dunes on the south shore of Lake Superior. At the intersection with William Hill and Newburg roads, H-58 makes a 90° curve and travels northward for about three-quarters of a mile (1.2 km). The road turns back eastward next to the Sable Falls parking lot. This lot also marks the eastern end of the segment of H-58 that road crews do not plow. The roadway exits the national park and runs to the community of Grand Marais. On the edge of town is the Woodland Township Park where hikers can walk along the beach to the base of the Grand Sable Dunes that form the east end of the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. These dunes reach heights of up to 275 feet (84 m) at a 35° incline. Hikers are advised to use the access points along H-58 to get to the dunes instead of attempting the climb up the face. H-58 meets M-77 in Grand Marais. This town is the location of a small harbor that was once the home of a lumber shipping port. H-58 turns south to run concurrently along M-77 for about two blocks before turning back eastward. The county road runs along the southern edge of the harbor past the township's school and out of town. The pavement ends when the road leaves Alger County for Luce County. H-58 follows a gravel roadway through the forested northwestern corner of Luce County. The roadway turns northeasterly and runs closer to Lake Superior as it approaches Deer Park. The road also carries the County Road 407 (CR 407) designation and the name Grand Marais Truck Trail. Near the Blind Sucker Flooding, a man-made reservoir, the truck trail turns south to intersect Deer Park Road. H-58 turns east on Deer Park Road and runs between Rainy and Reedy lakes to the south and Lake Superior to the north. The east end of H-58 is at an intersection with H-37 near Muskallonge Lake State Park in Deer Park, north of Newberry. Deer Park is the location of a trio of resorts and remnants of a community that once included a sawmill, hotel and store. The state park is located on the shore of Muskallonge Lake and is visited by about 71,000 people each year. ## History ### Road origins A county road along part of the route of H-58 was present at by at least 1927; the road ran east and northeasterly from Munising to Kingston Corners where it followed what is now Adams Trail east to M-77. A second county road ran westward from Grand Marais. By 1929, M-94 was rerouted through Alger County to follow Munising–Van Meer–Shingleton Road east from Munising to Van Meer and then south to Shingleton; that routing followed what is now H-58 and H-15. The section of county road between Van Meer and Melstrand was surfaced in gravel by 1936 with the remainder only an earthen road. By the end of the year, an earthen road was constructed east of Grand Marais to Deer Park. After the end of World War II, the gravel segment was extended north of Melstrand to the Buck Hill area, and the earthen road was extended between the Adams Trail and Grand Marais by way of Au Sable Point. East of Grand Marais, the roadway was improved with gravel to the county line. In late 1946 or early 1947, the first two miles (3.2 km) east of Grand Marais were paved; additional sections in Luce County were improved to gravel. All of the earthen road segments of what is now H-58 were improved to gravel road by the middle of 1958; the section between Van Meer and Melstrand as well as a section east of Grand Marais were paved. In the early 1960s, M-94 was moved to follow M-28 between Munising and Shingleton. The section of Munising–Van Meer–Shingleton Road east of the junction with Connors Road was returned to county control by the middle of 1960, and the remainder westward into Munising was turned over on November 7, 1963. In late 1961, about three miles (4.8 km) was paved to the west of Grand Marais. The county-designated highway system was created around October 5, 1970, and the section of H-58 was shown on state maps for the first time in 1971. Initially, only the section between Grand Marais and Deer Park was marked as part of H-58. Within two years, the remainder was marked as H-58 from Munising northeasterly to Grand Marais; between Connors and Miners Castle roads, it was also marked as a section of H-13 where the two designations ran concurrently together. In 1974, the road was paved from Melstrand north to the Buck Hill area. The H-13 concurrency was removed in 2004 when the northern segment of H-13 along Miners Castle Road was redesignated H-11. ### Park service gets involved The Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore was authorized on October 15, 1966, when President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the enabling legislation. The park was inaugurated on October 6, 1972, in ceremonies in Munising. The original legislation that created the park included a mandate to build an access road along Lake Superior. When the National Park Service (NPS) conducted environmental studies on such a road in the mid-1990s, they decided on a 13-mile-long (21 km) road called the Beaver Basin Rim Road between Twelvemile Beach and Legion Lake. Area residents opposed the plan, preferring that the federal government instead improve the existing H-58. Representative Bart Stupak lobbied his colleagues in Congress in 1996, saying that building the new road would cost twice as much as improving the existing H-58; Stupak also introduced legislation to remove the construction mandate from the park. In 1997, the Alger County Road Commission (ACRC) initially decided to close an eight-mile (13 km) section of H-58 to tourist traffic and only allow local residents and logging trucks access to the roadway. Then it decided to completely close the section to all traffic. This decision was rescinded in August of that year. Instead, the commission wanted the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) or another agency to take control of H-58 from Munising to Grand Marais. In a letter that October, Stupak and Senator Carl Levin urged the ACRC to deed over 18 miles (29 km) of the roadway within the park boundaries to the NPS. The NPS agreed to pay \$5.6 million of the estimated \$9.2 million (equivalent to \$ of \$ in ) to rebuild the roadway. The commission rejected this proposal in October citing distrust that the NPS would carry through with paving the roadway if they received ownership of it. Because H-58 was under the jurisdiction of the county, and not the park, it was ineligible for park service funding. Appropriations legislation passed by Congress in 1998 allowed the NPS to fund road improvements in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore for county-maintained roads. Additional legislation reintroduced and sponsored by Stupak was also passed, removing the original road construction mandate from the park. On November 12, 1998, President Bill Clinton signed the legislation which cleared the last hurdles; the NPS was prohibited from building that road and instead authorized to help the ACRC improve H-58. In 2005, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users budgeted \$13.3 million (equivalent to \$ in ) for the paving and reconstruction project. The ACRC implemented a five-stage plan to pave the remaining sections of the road between the Melstrand area and Grand Marais utilizing NPS funding. Plans were put into place by July 2006 to straighten some tight curves and realign the roadway in places. The commission designed the updated road for travel speeds of 40 mph (64 km/h) "to maintain the nature of the road and the park setting." One phase was divided into subsections to accommodate the bridge across the Hurricane River. Funding on the paving project between Buck Hill and the boundary of the national lakeshore was held up, pending passage of a technical corrections bill by the US Senate. The original funding authorization specified that sections were being repaved; instead they were being paved for the first time or realigned. A technical corrections bill solved the legal hurdles involved. The road commission used state matching grants from MDOT to complete the financing needed to pave the roadway. Local officials received the checks to pay for the projects at a ceremony in August 2008. While the county completed a segment on their own in 2006, the 2008 projects paved segments of the roadway outside of the national lakeshore boundaries from Buck Hill northwards. Construction in 2009 and 2010 completed the roadway inside the park boundaries, including a new bridge over the Hurricane River. The final section was dedicated at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on October 15, 2010, which marked the official opening to traffic. Final work was continued through the end of that month to complete the Hurricane River Bridge. Since the road was completed, traffic has increased. After paving, the new road has reduced travel times between Munising and Grand Marais from 90 to 45 minutes. Not all residents have been happy with the updated H-58; thousands of nails have been scattered along the road, and have led to flat tires on many vehicles. Police said at the time they believed it was intentional, but had no motive for the vandalism. Since the thoroughfare has re-opened, motorcyclists now frequent the highway, and a local group has named H-58 "one of the top five motorcycling roads in Upper Michigan", and it has been promoted by the American Motorcyclist Association in their guidebooks; riders enjoy the 198 curves and scenic vistas along the road. ## Major intersections ## See also
10,945,027	Siberian accentor	1,170,120,768	Small passerine bird that breeds in northern Russia	[ "Birds described in 1776", "Birds of North Asia", "Prunellidae", "Taxa named by Peter Simon Pallas" ]	The Siberian accentor (Prunella montanella) is a small passerine bird that breeds in northern Russia from the Ural Mountains eastwards across Siberia. It is migratory, wintering in Korea and eastern China, with rare occurrences in western Europe and northwestern North America. Its typical breeding habitat is subarctic deciduous forests and open coniferous woodland, often close to water, although it also occurs in mountains and spruce taiga. It inhabits bushes and shrubs in winter, frequently near streams, but may also be found in dry grassland and woods. The Siberian accentor has brown upperparts and wings, with bright chestnut streaking on its back and a greyish-brown rump and tail. The head has a dark brown crown and a long, wide pale yellow supercilium ("eyebrow"). All plumages are quite similar. The nest is an open cup in dense shrub or a tree into which the female lays four to six glossy deep blue-green eggs that hatch in about ten days. Adults and chicks feed mainly on insects, typically picked off the ground, but sometimes taken from vegetation. In winter, the accentors may also consume seeds or feed near human habitation. Breeding over a huge area, the Siberian accentor has a large and stable population. It is therefore evaluated as a species of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), although, as a northern breeding species, it may be affected by climate change in the long term. October and November 2016 saw an unprecedented influx of this species into western Europe, reaching as far as the United Kingdom. ## Taxonomy The accentors are a family of small ground-living insectivorous birds, most of which are found in mountainous habitats in Eurasia, although the dunnock is a lowland species. Their relationships with other bird families are uncertain. All accentors are placed in a single genus, Prunella, but within that genus, the Siberian accentor is most similar in appearance to the black-throated, brown, Kozlov's, Radde's and Arabian accentors. These are of comparable size and typically have a pale supercilium and dark markings on the head or throat. However, a 2013 phylogenetic study indicates that the closest relative of the Siberian accentor is actually the physically dissimilar Japanese accentor. On his return from his pioneering expedition to central and eastern Russia in 1768–1774, the Russia-based German zoologist Peter Simon Pallas formally described the Siberian accentor in 1776 as Motacilla montanella. The accentors were moved to their current genus by French ornithologist Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot in 1816. The Siberian accentor has two subspecies: - Prunella montanella montanella, (Pallas, 1776), the nominate subspecies, breeds in northern Russia from just inside Europe eastwards to the Lena River. It also occurs further south, from the Ob to the Amur. - Prunella montanella badia, Portenko, 1929, breeds in northeastern Siberia eastwards from the Lena, and south to the Sea of Okhotsk. "Accentor" comes from the old scientific name for the Alpine accentor, Accentor collaris. It derives from Late Latin and means "sing with another" (ad + cantor). The genus name Prunella is from the German Braunelle, "dunnock", a diminutive of braun, "brown", and the specific montanella is a diminutive of Latin montanus, "mountain". ## Description The Siberian accentor is on average 14.5 centimetres (5.7 in) long and weighs 17.5 grams (0.62 oz). The adult of the nominate race has brown upperparts and wings, with bright chestnut streaking on its back and a greyish-brown rump and tail. There are two narrow whitish bars on the folded wings. The head has a dark brown crown, a long, wide pale yellow supercilium, a blackish patch behind the eye and grey sides to the neck. The underparts are ochre yellow, becoming strongly buff on the flanks and greyish on the lower belly. There are rich chestnut streaks on the sides of the breast and the flanks. The iris is a warm red-brown, the sharply pointed bill is dark and the legs are reddish. All plumages are similar. The female has slightly duller underparts with weaker streaking, and the juvenile is overall duller with brown spots on the breast and chest. Juvenile birds in autumn also show more wear to the tail feathers and the tertials that cover the folded wing, and they often have a duller iris colour than the adults. The subspecies P. m. badia is somewhat smaller and darker than the nominate form, with richer brown upperparts, deeper buff underparts, and rustier flank streaks. Adults undergo a complete moult between July and September after breeding has finished. Juvenile birds have a partial moult in the same period, replacing the head, body and some wing covert feathers. The only species that can potentially be confused with the Siberian accentor is the related black-throated accentor, since first-autumn birds of the latter species may have a relatively inconspicuous dark throat. The Siberian accentor is still distinguishable by its rustier back colour, yellow (not off-white) supercilium and the absence of a white line below the black face mask. ### Voice The call of the Siberian accentor is a trisyllabic ti-ti-ti. The male's song, given from the top of a bush or tree, is a loud, high chirichiriri, variously described as similar to that of the Japanese accentor, the dunnock or the black-throated accentor. Breeding birds sing most vigorously early in the season, particularly at dawn, and some individuals may also sing on migration. ## Distribution and habitat The Siberian accentor breeds in a belt across northern Russia east from just west of the Ural Mountains to the Pacific coast, with a second, more fragmented, band across southern Siberia. It is migratory, wintering in east China and Korea. This species winters in small numbers in Mongolia, but only rarely in Japan. The breeding habitat is subarctic willow and birch forests, and open coniferous woodland, often close to rivers or bogs, although pairs are also found in mountains and spruce taiga. In winter, the Siberian accentor occupies bushes and shrubs, often near streams, but may also be found in dry grassland and woods. ### Movements Siberian accentors leave the north of their breeding range from mid-September onwards but may stay for a further month or two in the south. In spring, returning birds pass through Mongolia from the end of March and southeasternmost Russia in April and May, reaching their breeding grounds in May, perhaps as late as June in the far north. Vagrant birds have been recorded in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Lebanon and several European countries, as well as in North America. Most North American records have been in western Alaska and British Columbia, but as of February 2018 there had been records of single birds away from the Pacific coast in Alberta, Idaho and Montana. Alaskan records, like those in western Europe, are mainly from late September to November; occurrences in Canada are less predictable, although mostly in autumn and winter, and mostly at bird feeders. #### October–November 2016 influx October and early November 2016 saw an unprecedented influx of Siberian accentors into western Europe, including first records for Estonia, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK, in some cases attracting national attention and hundreds of twitchers. Prior to 2015, only 32 individuals had been recorded in western Europe, the majority in Finland and Sweden, but in October and early November 2016 at least 231 were reported. Records were from the Czech Republic (1), Denmark (11), Estonia (9), Finland (72), Germany (12), Hungary (1), Latvia (9), Lithuania (4), Netherlands (1), Norway (11), Poland (11), Russian Karelia (3), Sweden (71), the UK (14) and the Ukraine (2). Four additional birds in Sweden and one in Finland were not positively identified as Siberian, rather than black-throated, accentors. Those birds that were reliably aged all appeared to be in first-winter plumage. One of the UK birds lingered in Scotland, where it was found in February 2017. Most of the birds found were on well-watched coasts and islands, and 25% were trapped; in the Baltic states, the proportion of trapped discoveries were much higher, and all finds in Lithuania were of captured birds. It is likely that many more birds were present but were not detected away from the migration watch points and bird observatories, especially in the south and southeast of the Baltic region. The UK Met Office suggested that the influx of accentors was driven by strong and persistent easterly winds from Siberia, partially driven by a high-pressure area centred over Scandinavia. Another weather system produced easterlies in western Asia during the same period. The weather conditions that carried the accentors so far west also brought large numbers of other Siberian migrants, including a record arrival of yellow-browed warblers in northwest Europe and a sprinkling of extreme eastern rarities such as the UK's first pale-legged leaf warbler and the Netherlands' second eastern crowned warbler. In addition to the weather systems, other factors leading to the irruption may have included the widespread forest fires in that summer and autumn. In June, 3.5 million hectares (8.6 million acres) of woodland was burning, and by September the smoke cloud extended over several thousand kilometres and reached an altitude of 9 kilometres (5.6 mi). Migrating birds may have moved west to avoid flying through the smoke. The preceding hot summer may also have led to undetected breeding west of the known range involving birds seeking the cooler habitat preferred by this species. There have been suggestions that the accentor influx was augmented by high breeding success in Siberia in 2016, but there is no direct data to support that, and no obvious increase in numbers reaching North America. ## Behaviour Siberian accentors are typically skulking birds, readily disappearing into cover. They have an above average ability to maintain their body temperature in cold conditions, an adaptation to their sometimes cold environment. ### Breeding The breeding season of the Siberian accentor is from June to August. Little is known about territorial or breeding behaviour, but birds of the nominate subspecies tend to occur in small groups of two to six closely spaced nests. This clumping does not appear to be shown by the southern subspecies, P. m. badia. The nest is an open cup built 0.4–8 metres (1 ft 4 in – 26 ft 3 in) above the ground in a dense shrub, or where branches fork in a tree. The nest is constructed from coarse vegetation such as twigs and leaves and lined with hair or fine grasses. The eggs are a glossy deep blue-green and measure 18.6 by 13.7 millimetres (0.73 in × 0.54 in); they weigh about 1.9 grams (0.067 oz). The clutch of four to six eggs is incubated by the female for about ten days to hatching and the downy brown-black chicks are then fed by both parents. They can breed in the following year. Two broods may be produced annually in the south of the range, just one further north. ### Feeding The Siberian accentor feeds mainly on insects, typically picked off the ground, but sometimes taken from vegetation including bushes and trees, and frequently from near snow fields. Young birds are fed mainly on insects, especially the larvae of beetles, several food items being carried to the nest at each visit. Seeds may be consumed in winter, and the accentors may also then feed near human habitation. Food plants include crowberry, bistort, and members of the aramanth and birch families. ## Status The total population for the Siberian accentor is uncertain, although estimates for the small European part of the range vary from 100 to 500 breeding pairs. The breeding range is estimated as 2.2 million square kilometres (0.85 million sq mi), and the population is considered overall to be large and stable. For this reason, the Siberian accentor is evaluated as a species of least concern by the IUCN, although as a northern breeding species it may in the long term be affected by climate change. Breeding densities have been recorded as over 30 pairs/km<sup>2</sup> in northwestern Russia, depending on habitat, generally becoming lower, around 5 pairs/km<sup>2</sup> in the east of the range. Weather is also a factor, with an atypically high density of 7.4 birds/km<sup>2</sup> being recorded in the Taymyr Peninsula in 1983. The Siberian accentor is parasitised by the taiga tick, which can host the spirochaete Borrelia burgdorferi, the cause of Lyme disease.
873,218	Marcus Trescothick	1,173,158,573	English cricketer	[ "1975 births", "Cricketers at the 2003 Cricket World Cup", "Cricketers from Somerset", "England One Day International cricketers", "England Test cricket captains", "England Test cricketers", "England Twenty20 International cricketers", "English cricketers", "English cricketers of the 21st century", "English people of Cornish descent", "Living people", "Members of the Order of the British Empire", "NBC Denis Compton Award recipients", "People from Keynsham", "Somerset cricket captains", "Somerset cricketers", "Wisden Cricketers of the Year" ]	Marcus Edward Trescothick MBE (born 25 December 1975) is an English former cricketer who played first-class cricket for Somerset County Cricket Club, and represented England in 76 Test matches and 123 One Day Internationals. He was Somerset captain from 2010 to 2016 and temporary England captain for several Tests and ODIs. Since retirement he has commentated and coached at both county and international level. A left-handed opening batsman, he made his first-class debut for Somerset in 1993 and quickly established himself as a regular member of the team. Trescothick made his One Day International (ODI) debut seven years later, against Zimbabwe in July 2000. His Test debut, against the West Indies, followed in August. Although former England captain Nasser Hussain likened Trescothick's build and batting temperament to that of Graham Gooch, his stroke play is more reminiscent of David Gower. An aggressive opener, he once held the record for the most ODI centuries of any English player, and for the fastest half-century in English Twenty20 cricket. Trescothick is also an accomplished slip fielder and occasional right-handed medium pace bowler who has kept wicket for England in five ODIs, and deputised as England captain for two Test matches and ten ODIs. Trescothick was an automatic choice for England between 2000 and 2006, before a stress-related illness threatened his career and forced him to pull out of the national squad. He began rebuilding his career with Somerset in 2007 and scored two double-centuries that season. However, he remained uneasy about returning to international cricket, and announced his retirement from internationals in March 2008, opting to continue playing at county level for Somerset. Media speculation continued as to a possible international return, Trescothick repeatedly voiced his intent to remain in retirement, and has suffered recurrences of his condition in both 2008 and 2009 when Somerset toured abroad. He nevertheless continued to play for Somerset while also working as a commentator and analyst for Sky Sports in the off-season. He finally retired in 2019 holding several Somerset batting records. He is currently the lead batting coach for the England Test team. ## Early years Marcus Edward Trescothick was born on 25 December 1975 in Keynsham, Somerset. He was the younger of two children born to Martyn and Linda Trescothick; his sister, Anna, is three years older than him. His father was a good amateur cricketer, and had played two matches for Somerset County Cricket Club's second team and appeared for Bristol and District Cricket Association between 1967 and 1976, before becoming a stalwart at Keynsham Cricket Club, where his mother made the club teas. Trescothick was immersed into cricket from an early age; the notice announcing his birth in the local newspaper had a quote from his father saying "he will have every encouragement to become a cricketer when he grows up", and he received his first cricket bat when he was eleven months old. During his time at St Anne's primary school, he was chosen to play for the Avon School under-11 cricket team. He scored the first century for Avon, striking 124 against Devon, and a couple of weeks later remained not out on 183 when the coach declared the innings closed, claiming "if I let him get a double-hundred at his age, what else would he have to aim for?" That score created some interest in the local media, and Gloucestershire County Cricket Club invited him to play for their under-11 team. In his second match for the county, he scored a century against Somerset, who then discovered that Trescothick, living in Keynsham, was qualified to play for them, and he switched from Gloucestershire to Somerset, proud to play for his father's old county. His education continued at the Sir Bernard Lovell School in Oldland Common near Bristol, and by the age of 14 he was playing alongside his father for Keynsham in the Western League. Around the same time, he was selected to play for the England under-14s alongside future international team-mates Andrew Flintoff and Paul Collingwood. In his autobiography, Coming Back to Me, Trescothick recalls that he was bigger than most of the other boys his age, which gave him a strength advantage, enabling him to hit the ball harder and further than others. At the same time, concerns were raised about his "portly" figure, with suggestions that he would need to work on his fitness. The following season, aged 15, Trescothick scored 4,000 runs between all the different teams he was representing, which by this time included the Somerset under-19s. He was named as the "outstanding young cricketer of the year" by The Cricketer. He was nicknamed Tresco and Banger, the latter deriving from his diet as a young player: > My diet was sausages then, in no particular order, sausages, chips, sausages, toast, sausages, beans, sausages, cheese, sausages, eggs, and the occasional sausage. ## Early domestic career Trescothick's first full season at Somerset in 1994 was one of his best, where he scored a total of 925 runs, including two centuries and eight half-centuries at an impressive batting average of 48.63. Having played for the English U-19 cricket team against the West Indies in 1993, and Sri Lanka and India in 1994, Trescothick was named captain for the two Under-19 series against West Indies and South Africa in 1995. His career aggregate of 1,032 runs for England U-19 is second only to John Crawley's 1,058. Trescothick was not as successful in domestic cricket in 1995, although there were still some highlights including an innings of 151 against Northamptonshire (a third of his season's total), and a hat-trick, including the wicket of century-maker Adam Gilchrist, for Somerset against Young Australia. Trescothick's England Under-19 form was still excellent, averaging 74.62 with the bat in six matches. His Under-19 team mates would often mock him for wearing an England blazer after his matches; Trescothick would reply by saying that "it might be the closest I get to playing for England". The following five years were mixed for Trescothick. Averaging about 30 runs per innings, he was often criticised for a lack of foot movement. David Gower described Trescothick's technique by saying "he does not need to move a long way but needs to move enough. When he is playing well ... he is very good at transferring weight. When he is not playing well, his feet get stuck". However, Trescothick was awarded the NBC Denis Compton Award for Somerset's most promising young county player in the 1996 and 1997 seasons. In 1997, Somerset Second XI were set 612 to win by Warwickshire Second XI, and Trescothick scored 322 to bring the Seconds to 605. In 1999, Trescothick impressed Glamorgan coach Duncan Fletcher in a county match at Taunton, by scoring 167 in a low-scoring match where the next-highest innings was 50. When England opening batsman Nick Knight sustained a finger injury in 2000, Fletcher, who had been appointed England coach, called on Trescothick to make his England debut in the NatWest Series against Zimbabwe and the West Indies. Trescothick's regular selection for England meant that he was rarely available for domestic selection between 2000 and 2006, often playing only a few matches for Somerset at the start of the season. ## International career ### Debut and centuries on maiden tour Trescothick participated in two England A tours during the winter of 1999, but his full One Day International debut came against Zimbabwe at The Oval on 9 July 2000, when he scored 79. He continued his good form in the tournament with a Man of the Match-winning 87 not out against the West Indies at Chester-le-street, amassing 288 runs at an average of 48.00 and taking two wickets against Zimbabwe at Old Trafford. As a result of his good form in the NatWest series, Trescothick was given his Test match debut later that summer in the third Test against the West Indies at Old Trafford. He displayed a calm temperament when England lost early wickets, scoring 66 and forming a partnership of 179 with Alec Stewart. Journalist Thrasy Petropoulos observed that there was "poise and durability...just as there had been enterprise and verve to his impressive start in the one-day arena." He ended the Test series with an average of 47.50. England began the 2000–2001 winter tour with the 2000 ICC KnockOut Trophy at Nairobi Gymkhana Club. Trescothick did not score highly in the tournament, and England were knocked out at the quarter-final stage against South Africa. Trescothick was named the Professional Cricketers' Association Player of the Year for his performances for Somerset throughout 2000. Trescothick's maiden international century came against the Sindh Governor's XI in October 2000, during the first warm-up match to the Pakistan series. Trescothick reached his highest score (71) of the three Test matches in the opening innings of the first Test. He took his sole Test wicket in the third Test, when Ashley Giles caught the Pakistan opener Imran Nazir. Trescothick started the Sri Lanka tour with a century against a Sri Lanka 'Colts XI'. He was the top scorer in both innings of the first Test with 122 and 57, although this was overshadowed by Marvan Atapattu's 201 not out in Sri Lanka's innings. Trescothick averaged 41.33 in the Test series, but only 16.00 in the three subsequent ODIs. England played two Test matches against Pakistan in June 2001. Although Trescothick scored 117 in the second Test, it was not enough for England to win the match. His ODI form improved at the start of the 2001 NatWest Series against Australia and Pakistan, with scores of 69 and 137 respectively. However, his series ended with two consecutive ducks, and England lost all their matches in the tournament. ### England's leading batsman, 2001–02 Although Trescothick was England's second highest run scorer in the 2001 Ashes series, he displayed a tendency to give his wicket away when "well set". England lost the series 4–1, with the majority of the England batsmen's contributions being overshadowed by Mark Butcher's 173 not out to win the fourth Test. Trescothick's apparent inability to make major scores was again apparent in the 2001–02 One Day International series in Zimbabwe, where he only passed 50 on one occasion despite scoring consistently. He also captained the side for the first time in this series, deputising for the injured Nasser Hussain. Trescothick really came into his own on the winter tour of India in 2001. The three-Test series saw him averaging 48.00, with a highest score of 99. He was England's best batsman in the ODI series, averaging 53.00 with a strike rate of over 100. He scored a century in the first ODI, although England lost by 22 runs. He established a reputation for keeping his composure while the rest of the team were failing; at this point, none of Trescothick's four international centuries had resulted in an England win. He was also man-of-the-match in the final ODI, setting up an England victory, with 95 runs from 80 balls. This tour established Trescothick's reputation as one of England's best batsmen against spin bowling: according to David Gower, he was "judging line and length very well". Indian Cricket named him one of their five Cricketers of the Year for 2002. The following tour of New Zealand was less successful for Trescothick, only once reaching double figures in a poor ODI series, coupled with an average Test match performance. Trescothick had been playing well in 2002, scoring 161 in the Sri Lankan series and being awarded the Player of the Series in the tri-nation NatWest Series (including a century in the final), until his season was cut short when he fractured his thumb while fielding. He returned for the fourth Test against India, scoring two half-centuries. Trescothick had mixed fortunes in the 2002 ICC Champions Trophy; he followed his century in the NatWest final with a man-of-the-match winning 119 against Zimbabwe, but failed to score as England lost to India and exited the tournament. In October, Trescothick was one of 11 players awarded "central contracts" by the ECB, which compensate a player's county for their lack of domestic appearances. Trescothick was overshadowed by Michael Vaughan during the 2002–03 Ashes series, averaging only 26.10 with a top score of 72 in comparison to Vaughan's average of 63.30 and three centuries. Trescothick averaged 31.60 across 10 matches in the VB Series, but England were outplayed by Australia throughout the tour. Trescothick failed to excel in the 2003 World Cup as England failed to qualify for the knock-out stages. In his five matches, Trescothick's top score was 58 against Namibia, with a tournament average of 23.20. ### Continued success in 2003 and 2004 Trescothick played well against a weak Zimbabwe side in the two-Test series in May–June 2003, and scored an unbeaten century in the three ODIs against Pakistan averaging over 100. His form continued in the 2003 NatWest Series, with 114 not out against South Africa. The opening stand with Vikram Solanki of 200 runs was the highest first-wicket partnership for England and provided the first instance of both England openers scoring centuries in the same innings. Trescothick maintained his form in the South Africa Test matches; a career-best 219 at The Oval completed a successful series in which he averaged 60.87. In Bangladesh, scores in the nineties against both the President's XI and Bangladesh A were followed by a century in the first Test, and 60 in the second. He scored one half century in the three ODIs, although England only used five batsman in the comfortable victories. England played poorly against Sri Lanka, with Trescothick finding it hard to build a large innings. He attempted to take control of the match with 70 at Colombo, as England tried to get something from the series, but was also criticised for his poor catching. His form in the tour to the West Indies in March and April 2004 was mixed. After several low scores in the Test series—Trescothick started with only 20 runs from his first five innings—he reached two half-centuries, but failed to make a substantial match-winning contribution. This poor touring form may have been the start of the troubles that would rule him out of international cricket in the future. Trescothick said, "The hardest thing for me has been the pitches. So far nets and the matches have been on average surfaces and runs have been hard work...In England you get used to good practice surfaces so the rhythm of batting comes pretty easy [sic]." However, he topped the England batting averages in the 7-match one-day series, with 267 runs including 130 in the 5th ODI and 82 from 57 balls in the 7th. Back in England, Trescothick was called upon to captain England after Michael Vaughan sustained a knee injury. Although other England captains had seemed to suffer a lack of batting form, the extra authority did not affect Trescothick, and he forged a good partnership with debutant Andrew Strauss against New Zealand. This understanding developed in the second Test with a first-wicket partnership of 153; Trescothick went on to score 132, his sixth Test century. Trescothick's partnerships with Strauss were to average 52.35 in 52 innings. His first century against the West Indies followed in the second Test, and Trescothick became the first player to make centuries in both innings of a Test match at Edgbaston, and the ninth England player to score a century in each innings of a Test match. Trescothick was again England's best One Day International batsman in the 2004 ICC Champions Trophy, scoring 261 runs in just four innings, including a century in the final; he also took his fourth ODI wicket. ### 2004 and 2005 Ashes The 2004–5 tour of Zimbabwe caused several players to voice their concerns about the Robert Mugabe regime, the security issues in the country, and the standard of the Zimbabwean side. Steve Harmison was the first to boycott the tour for "political and sporting reasons", and Flintoff was reported to be considering taking a moral stand himself. The England Chairman of Selectors David Graveney denied that the selectors would leave out players unhappy with touring Zimbabwe and would put their absences down to injury. Flintoff and Trescothick were, however, "rested" allowing Kevin Pietersen to make his debut. Trescothick used the time to prepare for the following series in South Africa, even took up yoga in attempt to bolster his performances abroad. In December 2004, he made 85 not out against an N.F. Oppenheimer XI in South Africa. A partnership of 152 with Strauss in the opening Test against South Africa was followed by a partnership of 273 in the second, in which they both scored over 130. This was a record opening partnership at Durban and England's first 200 opening stand since Gooch and Mike Atherton in 1991. Before this, the difference between his home and abroad average was over 20, and his third overseas century went a long way to counter this. With regard to his touring difficulties, Trescothick stated "I wouldn't say I've put it to rest, but I've made a big step forward to putting it to rest. It's a mental battle for me, something I have to deal with and work hard to try to understand what is different. He made a further improvement with an even larger score of 180, as England won the fourth Test. After batting slowly with Ashley Giles, the fall of Hoggard's wicket soon afterwards spurred Trescothick to start "unleashing ferocious shots", setting up an unlikely victory with Steve Harmison partnering him. In the matches preceding the 2005 Ashes series, England wrapped up two easy victories against Bangladesh. Trescothick scored 194 in the first Test, and 151 in the second. He also scored an unbeaten 100 in his 100th ODI against Bangladesh, surpassing Gooch's record of eight ODI centuries for England. Trescothick fared better in 2005 than in the previous Ashes series, becoming the second highest run scorer in the series (behind the prolific Kevin Pietersen). During the third Test, he became the fastest player to reach 5,000 runs in Test cricket, and also achieved the notable feat of scoring over 1,000 Test runs in a calendar year for the third consecutive year: 1,004 in 2003, 1,003 in 2004, and 1,323 in 2005. He also had the dubious honour of becoming both Glenn McGrath's 500th and Shane Warne's 600th Test wicket during the series. Trescothick was named as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year for his achievements in 2005, and was awarded an MBE in the 2006 New Year honours list with the rest of the English team. For the Test series against Pakistan, Trescothick was offered the captaincy once more due to an injury to Vaughan. He was unsure whether to accept but realised that as "unofficial second in command...I believe it was the right thing to step up. It is exciting to think I could be in charge for a few weeks...I know there is a chance I maybe won't be a one-match wonder this time – it could be the whole series, but being very close to Michael, I've seen the things it [captaincy] does to you." As it transpired, Trescothick scored 193 in the first innings (although England lost the match), and Vaughan returned for the second Test. Trescothick had considered leaving the tour early when his father-in-law had a serious accident, but stayed in Pakistan as fellow opener Andrew Strauss returned home to attend the birth of his first child. ## Illness and depression throughout 2006 During England's tour of India in February 2006, Trescothick abruptly returned home citing personal reasons. He later blamed a virus. Trescothick returned to Test cricket in May, scoring 106 against Sri Lanka to become the first Test centurion of the 2006 English season. The century proved to be the high point of Trescothick's Test summer, however, as he reached a half-century just once in the subsequent six Tests against Sri Lanka and Pakistan. This run of form was lifted later in the year by two ODI centuries, one apiece against Ireland and Sri Lanka. In September, he withdrew from the remaining ODIs against Pakistan and asked not to be considered for the forthcoming ICC Champions Trophy squad because of a stress-related illness. It was later believed likely that Trescothick had been suffering from clinical depression, which was also the cause of much of his trouble throughout 2006. Returning once again to the international arena, Trescothick was included in the squad for the 2006–07 Ashes in Australia, and played in the first two tour matches against the Prime Minister's XI and New South Wales. On 14 November, following the match against New South Wales, England announced Trescothick was flying home due to a "recurrence of a stress-related illness". Geoffrey Boycott later stated that depression amongst cricketers is rarely documented, but with the current congested ICC schedule, player "burnout" and similar illnesses were becoming more commonplace. Trescothick's uncertainty over his place in the England squad drew varied criticism. However, he also received support from respected players, including Somerset captain Justin Langer, Alec Stewart, Mike Gatting, and Bob Woolmer. ## Recovery then international retirement in 2007–2008 Trescothick ended some speculation about his international career by announcing that he would like to be considered for a place in the national side in the future. England's management staff continued to support him, and named him in the initial 25-man squad for the 2007 Test series against the West Indies. Having recovered from a double hernia operation, and proving himself fit for the start of the county season, Trescothick began his comeback to cricket by scoring 256 from 117 balls in a 50 over match against Devon in April 2007. His comeback to the County Championship continued with a 44-ball half-century against Middlesex on 19 April 2007, while in May he hit a career-best 284 against Northamptonshire, although Trescothick stated then that he did not feel ready for an international Test match position. Trescothick followed this double century with a knock of 76 off 35 balls against Northamptonshire, with five fours and seven sixes. Debate over Trescothick's place in the England squad continued amid an end-of-series reshuffle in the England batting line-up. This included the dropping of fellow opener Strauss from the one-day side, and the rise of Alastair Cook as a Test and ODI opener for England. Trescothick stated that he would see how he progresses before committing to the international scene: "Of course I'd love to play for England again.... Clearly, if I want to continue my career I have to undertake another tour. But for now, if and when I get back to full fitness and I think I am OK and ready to play, I'll make myself available for England." He added that he was "desperate to play for England again" but was waiting until he was "as convinced as I can be that I am ready to take on the challenge of international cricket". In July 2007, Trescothick was named in the preliminary squad for the Twenty20 World Championship in South Africa, with the full squad to be confirmed on 11 August. However, Trescothick pulled himself out of the squad before the final confirmation date, stating that "[I am] now clear that I should take more time to complete my recovery". The England selectors confirmed that they remained in favour of including Trescothick at some point, looking "forward to his making himself available again for England when the time is right". Trescothick, however, said that he knows England cannot wait for him forever, and on 10 September 2007 he went into his second year without an England contract. Meanwhile, his good domestic form continued with a fast 146 and 69 not out during a four-day match against Northamptonshire, giving Somerset an unlikely victory. A score of 49 from 83 balls followed in the four-day match against Nottinghamshire, and a score of 84 from 79 balls against Durham was followed by a man-of-the-match winning 124 which saw Somerset promoted to the first division of the NatWest Pro40. Of his 2007 season, Somerset director of cricket Brian Rose stated that Trescothick had made "terrific progress". Trescothick maintained prolific form throughout the season despite a foot injury, scoring 1,343 runs at an average of 61.04 to guide Somerset to the Division 2 championship. He was awarded a benefit year in 2008, following on from successful surgery on an injured metatarsal. He remains firm, however, on his decision to stay out of the England team for the sake of his health. On 15 March 2008, Somerset announced that Trescothick had decided to pull out of the county's pre-season tour of the UAE after suffering a recurrence of his condition, leading many to speculate that, given this latest setback, it seemed increasing unlikely that Trescothick would represent England again. Somerset's director of cricket Brian Rose, however, stated that he didn't "see the setback as a major problem" and that Trescothick would be able to play for Somerset in the following season, and "for many years" after. He would never return to international level, however, and announced his retirement from international cricket on 22 March 2008. He stated that he had "tried on numerous occasions to make it back to the international stage and it has proved a lot more difficult than [he] expected" and repeated his desire to continue playing domestic cricket. He later stated that it was his decision to withdraw from Somerset's tour of Dubai that prompted his decision. In response, Angus Fraser wrote: "Obviously, it is sad to see such a dedicated, patriotic and likeable man forced to give up something that patently meant so much to him, but the inner torment that came with attempting to overcome the mental illness that prevented him from touring with England for more than two years had to be brought to an end. It was doing Trescothick and his family no good at all. Representing your country is a source of huge pride, but there are far more important things in life". Fraser also wrote: "It was in Pakistan that Marcus Trescothick's mental illness began to stir and the opener has not played an overseas test since". After an excellent domestic season for Somerset, including 184 in a 40-over match against Gloucestershire (his highest List A score), Trescothick released his autobiography, Coming Back to Me, on 1 September 2008, explaining that he had suffered from anxiety attacks since the age of 10, and that playing domestic cricket meant that, at all times, he was only ever three hours away from his family. He said, > I've not brought it out for people to use as a self-help book, to say this is how you cope with anxiety and depression. It's just to get it out in the open – there have been so many questions left unanswered and I've not helped that process. But this is the opportunity, and I hope people can understand why I did a few things I did. The book has been widely commended for its honesty, with Trescothick's difficulties drawing comparison with Harold Gimblett's similar mental health problems. Despite attempts by Pietersen to entice Trescothick back into the England set-up, Trescothick confirmed that his decision has been made and that he is putting his health and family first. In November 2008 Coming Back to Me was named the 2008 William Hill Sports Book of the Year. In April 2009, Trescothick turned down another request from new England captain Andrew Strauss to consider making himself available for England's World Twenty20 Championship campaign. ## Later county career Trescothick continued his career with Somerset into 2009, having received a benefit year from his county, as well as a new stand in his name. During his benefit year he averaged 46.59 in the 4-day game, including three centuries, and he started 2009 with 52 against Warwickshire. It was also announced on 20 April 2009 that Trescothick has become a patron of Anxiety UK, following the revelations of his biography. As the season progressed, Trescothick found success in all forms of the game. On 1 June, he scored 69 from 47 balls as part of a 129-partnership with Craig Kieswetter against Glamorgan; on 3 June he scored 52 against Worcestershire; he was stumped five short of his second Championship century of the season against Lancashire; and then scored 78 against Yorkshire on 14 June. By 16 June, he had scored a hundred apiece in the Friends Provident Trophy and the County Championship, both with averages in the high 50s. On 31 July, he became the first player in the country to accrue 1,000 first-class runs in the 2009 season during the 1st innings of the County Championship match against Nottinghamshire. He also performed well in the one day arena, taking Somerset to the final of the Twenty20 championship while continuing to reject any suggestions of returning for the final Test of the 2009 Ashes series. He finished the season as the leading run scorer in the County Championship, scoring 1,817 runs. With the departure of Justin Langer, Trescothick was named as Somerset captain from 2010 onwards. > "Being made captain is a huge honour for me, particularly as I am Keynsham-born and have been associated with the club since my school days... I've been a player for 17 years and I believe the time is right for me to take on the role. I am really looking forward to the challenge." Trescothick was also named Most Valuable Player by the Professional Cricketers' Association for his 2,934 runs in all competitions in the 2009 season, 1,745 of these in the County Championship. Over the winter he starred in a short film to promote Somerset, commissioned by inward investment agency Into Somerset. ### 2009 Champions League Twenty20 With Somerset runners-up in the English 2009 Twenty20 Cup, Trescothick and his county travelled to India to partake in the Champions League Twenty20 in October. Though both Kieswetter and Hildreth were anticipated as successes, it was Trescothick who was described as having "been in sparkling form all season" and began the tournament under media scrutiny given his previous difficulties playing on tour. There was much speculation regarding any "recurrence of his stress-related illness that originally occurred in 2006", as this was to be his first overseas outing since an aborted attempt in 2008. Trescothick himself responded to the media by making a statement to the BBC World Service which read "I know the risk and I know what happens when it goes wrong. In the last couple of times I have tried to go on tour it's failed, so of course [it is a risk]... Let's try and break the tradition of what has happened over the last few times... I can only try. It's a big competition for the players and for the club. I have got to try and make it happen." Meanwhile, Langer assured the media that Trescothick could pull out whenever he wished to. Somerset, who began the tour without Trescothick as he was arriving later than most of the squad, commenced their warm up with a victory over the Otago Volts. The opener arrived three days later, confident in his ability to complete the tour. Somerset began with a close victory against the Deccan Chargers on 10 October, winning from the last ball. Trescothick was dismissed for 14 from 12 in his first match outside England since 2006, "after offering a fleeting glimpse of his talent" according to ESPNcricinfo. Trescothick was unable to avoid a recurrence of his previous difficulties when travelling abroad, however, and returned home on 15 October, citing the same "stress related illness". Brian Rose, who Trescothick had approached initially after Somerset's defeat by Trinidad and Tobago on 12 October, released a statement to the media stating "Marcus admitted a couple of days ago that he wasn't 100% so that's fair enough. I think his future will be in domestic cricket and that may even help him with this particular form of illness. I think over the next two or three years you'll see Marcus Trescothick performing wonderfully well in county cricket." Michael Vaughan, who had by then retired from cricket, praised Trescothick's "courageous" decision, as did Vikram Solanki, then PCA chairman. Journalist Andrew Miller called for an end to the rising criticism of Trescothick's decision from the public, while Paul Hayward of the Guardian also derided those critical of the Somerset player's actions. Despite returning home, Trescothick continued to affirm his commitment to the club by signing a new three-year contract with optional fourth year, in December. He was named captain for the 2010 season. ### Captaincy 2010 – 2015 Trescothick led Somerset into the 2010 season as captain, and began strongly in the County Championship with a century and four half-centuries from his first eight games, though he struggled in the newly formed Clydesdale Bank 40 with only 95 runs from the first five matches, and in the Friends Provident T20 173 runs at 21.62 with a best of 50. This half century came on 25 June, where together with Kieron Pollard helped secure victory over Sussex, and was scored from 31 balls. Despite Trescothick's four-day form, however, Somerset struggled early on, with only one victory over Yorkshire. In a Twenty20 match against Hampshire on 9 July at Taunton, Trescothick hit a half-century from 13 deliveries, including five sixes and five fours – a record fastest fifty in English domestic Twenty20 cricket. He was eventually dismissed for 78 from only 32 balls. He went on to lead Somerset to runners-up position for all three English domestic competitions, losing out to Nottinghamshire in the County Championship, Hampshire in the Twenty20 and Warwickshire in the CB40 competition. In 2011 Trescothick started off the county championship season very strongly and was the first batsman in the country to score 1000 championship runs. He was awarded the 2011 season MVP (Most Valuable Player) award for his performances throughout the season. He ended 2011 with six centuries in the County Championship, batting with an average of 79.66 across the year. Somerset earned record financial returns that year, but again failed in the semi-final and final stages of all major competitions. Across all three formats, Trescothick took 2,518 runs for his county. ESPNcricinfo's George Dobell noted in their end of season round-up that "He continues to dominate county attacks in a way that only Graeme Hick and Mark Ramprakash – of recent batsmen – could match. There are times when he makes the bowlers' job appear impossible." However, as 2012 – Trescothick's 19th season at Somerset – approached, there was talk of resting him from the newly formed one-day cricket championship that following year. Trescothick did not travel with the rest of the side to the Champions League T20 in India. He missed part of the 2012 domestic season due to an ankle injury, and struggled for form going seven four-day matches without a half-century until passing fifty against Sussex in August and going on to score a century. By the end of the season he had played only five one day games, scoring 118 runs at 39.33, two T20 matches making only 31 runs in total, and nine County Championship games in which he scored 506 runs at 38.92, including two centuries. This was his lowest home-season aggregate since 1995. He nevertheless made a statement to the media voicing his wish to continue playing into his forties, and took up a winter commentary stint with Sky Sports to cover England's tour of India. The 2013 season, however, found Trescothick averaging only in the mid-twenties, and failed to score a century for the first time since 1998. He remained, however, the second-highest run maker for Somerset, behind only Nick Compton, and retained the captaincy for the 2014 season. He continued to appear as a commentator and analyst for Sky Sports in the off-season, in particular during coverage of the 2014 World T20. He also publicly lent his support to England's Jonathan Trott during the latter's departure from the 2013–14 Ashes series, empathising with Trott's stress-related illness in a statement to Sky Sports which recalled his own experiences, recalling that "you just can't take any more, you just can't get through the day let alone go out there and play a Test match and win a Test match." Trescothick began the 2014 season strongly. He scored 112 in a warm-up game against Middlesex, followed by 95 against a university team. Subsequent scores of 20, 17 and five in the next three innings prompted George Dobell of ESPNcricinfo to comment that "Trescothick does not look anything like the batsman he once was," but he returned to form on 28 April with a further century against Sussex. It was his first in the County Championship since 2012, and was followed on 22 May with a second hundred, against Durham at Taunton. This century came 618 days after the last time he scored a hundred at his home ground. He passed 1,000 runs for the season on 25 September against Yorkshire, in the final game of the year's County Championship. In 2015, Trescothick scored over 1,000 runs for the season, including three centuries and eight 50s, and completed the milestone yet again in July 2016 against Nottinghamshire. ### Continuing career after captaincy In January 2016 after six seasons in the job Trescothick stood down from the Somerset captaincy to let experienced new overseas signing Chris Rogers lead the team. Trescothick finished his first season without the captaincy since retiring from England duty with a season average of over 53 and also became the Somerset cricketer with the highest number of first class catches in the history of the club. He extended his contract with Somerset for the 2017 season during which he broke the record previously belonging to Harold Gimblett for most first class centuries for Somerset and signed another 12 month extension with Somerset in August 2017, to the end of the 2018 season, his 26th season with Somerset. On 25 September 2018 Trescothick took three consecutive slip catches as Craig Overton registered a hat-trick in the county championship against Notts. It was only the third time in first-class cricket all three dismissals in a hat-trick were caught by the same non wicket-keeping fielder. On 27 June 2019 Trescothick announced that he would retire from professional cricket at the end of the 2019 season. His last on-field appearance came as a substitute fielder in the final few minutes of Somerset's County Championship game against Essex at Taunton on 26 September 2019. He was greeted with a standing ovation and left the field to a guard of honour from the opposition. ## Post-playing career In retirement, Trescothick has served as batting coach for the England Test team. ## Career records and statistics ### Test matches Records: - 1,000 runs in a calendar year: 1,003 (2003), 1,004 (2004), 1,323 (2005) - First of two players to score a century in both innings at Edgbaston the other being Shai Hope (and the ninth player for England), 2004 v West Indies. - M.A. Aziz Stadium, Chittagong 1st wicket partnership record: 126 with Michael Vaughan, 2003–04 v Bangladesh - Century by both openers in same innings, and Kingsmead first wicket partnership record: 273 with Andrew Strauss, 2004–5 v South Africa - Multan Cricket Stadium second wicket partnership record: 180 with Ian Bell, 2005–06 v Pakistan - Riverside Ground third wicket partnership record: 155 with Ian Bell, 2005 v Bangladesh - The Oval third wicket partnership record: 268 with Graham Thorpe, 2003 v South Africa ### One Day Internationals Records: - Most consecutive ODIs for England: 92 (8 July 2000 – 25 September 2004). - Beausejour Stadium fourth wicket partnership record: 110 with Andrew Flintoff, 2003–04 v West Indies - Bellerive Oval first wicket partnership record: 165 with Nick Knight, 2002–03 v Australia - Civil Service Cricket Club, Stormont fourth wicket partnership record: 142 with Ian Bell, 2006 v Ireland - Riverside Ground first wicket partnership record: 171 with Alec Stewart, 2000 v West Indies - County Ground, Bristol second wicket partnership: 124 with Nick Knight, 2001 v Australia - England and The Oval first wicket partnership record: 200 with Vikram Solanki, 2003 v South Africa - Rose Bowl fourth wicket partnership record: 53 with Paul Collingwood, 2004 v Sri Lanka ## Personal life Trescothick married Hayley Rowse in Trull, Somerset, on 24 January 2004, and the couple have two daughters. He lives in Taunton, and also owns property in Barbados, near similar properties owned by Michael Vaughan and Andrew Flintoff. Trescothick is an honorary vice-president of Bristol City F.C., as well as being a keen golfer. ## Honours - He has been recognised with a Taunton Deane Citizenship Award on 21 September 2005, and was granted the Freedom of his home town, Keynsham on 3 October 2005. - He was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the Civil Division in the 2006 New Years Honours List "For services to Cricket". - In December 2018 Trescothick was awarded the Honorary Doctorate of Health at the winter graduation ceremony of the University of Bath. - In 2021 Trescothick was awarded Honorary Life Membership of the Marylebone Cricket Club.
87,610	USS Missouri (BB-63)	1,173,905,356	Iowa-class battleship of the U.S. Navy	[ "1944 ships", "Battleship museums in the United States", "Cold War battleships of the United States", "Existing battleships", "Gulf War ships of the United States", "Historic American Engineering Record in Hawaii", "Iowa-class battleships", "Korean War battleships of the United States", "Maritime incidents in 1950", "Military and war museums in Hawaii", "Military history of Japan during World War II", "Museum ships in Hawaii", "Museums established in 1998", "Museums in Honolulu", "National Register of Historic Places in Honolulu", "Naval museums in the United States", "Ships built in Brooklyn", "Ships on the National Register of Historic Places in Hawaii", "Surrender of Japan", "World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument", "World War II battleships of the United States", "World War II museums in Hawaii", "World War II on the National Register of Historic Places in Hawaii" ]	USS Missouri (BB-63) is an Iowa-class battleship built for the United States Navy (USN) in the 1940s and is currently a museum ship. Completed in 1944, she is the last battleship commissioned by the United States. The ship was assigned to the Pacific Theater during World War II, where she participated in the Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa and shelled the Japanese home islands. Her quarterdeck was the site of the surrender of the Empire of Japan, which ended World War II. After World War II, Missouri served in various diplomatic, show of force and training missions. On 17 January 1950 the ship ran aground during high tide in Chesapeake Bay and after great effort was re-floated several weeks later. She later fought in the Korean War during two tours between 1950 and 1953. Missouri was the first American battleship to arrive in Korean waters and served as the flagship for several admirals. The battleship took part in numerous shore bombardment operations and also served in a screening role for aircraft carriers. Missouri was decommissioned in 1955 and transferred to the reserve fleet, (also known as the "Mothball Fleet"). Missouri was reactivated and modernized in 1984 as part of the 600-ship Navy plan. Cruise missile and anti-ship missile launchers were added along with updated electronics. The ship served in the Persian Gulf escorting oil tankers during threats from Iran, often while keeping her fire-control systems trained on land-based Iranian missile launchers. She served in Operation Desert Storm in 1991 including providing fire support. Missouri was again decommissioned in 1992, but remained on the Naval Vessel Register until her name was struck in 1995. In 1998, she was donated to the USS Missouri Memorial Association and became a museum ship at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. ## Background and description The Iowa class of fast battleships was designed in the late 1930s in response to the US Navy's expectations for a future war with the Empire of Japan. The last battleships to be built by the United States, they were also the US Navy's largest and fastest vessels of the type. American officers preferred comparatively slow but heavily armed and armored battleships, but Navy planners determined that such a fleet would have difficulty in bringing the faster Japanese fleet to battle, particularly the Kongō-class battlecruisers and the aircraft carriers of the 1st Air Fleet. Design studies prepared during the development of the earlier North Carolina and South Dakota classes demonstrated the difficulty in resolving the desires of fleet officers with those of the planning staff within the displacement limits imposed by the Washington Naval Treaty system, which had governed capital ship construction since 1923. An escalator clause in the Second London Naval Treaty of 1936 allowed an increase from 35,000 long tons (36,000 t) to 45,000 long tons (46,000 t) in the event that any member nation refused to sign the treaty, which Japan refused to do. Missouri is 887 feet 3 inches (270.4 m) long overall and is 860 feet (262.1 m) long at the waterline. The ship has a beam of 108 ft 2 in (33 m) and a draft of 37 ft 9 in (11.5 m) at her full combat load of 57,540 long tons (58,460 t). The Iowa-class ships are powered by four General Electric geared steam turbines, each driving one screw propeller using steam provided by eight oil-fired Babcock & Wilcox boilers. Rated at 212,000 shaft horsepower (158,000 kW), the turbines were designed to give a top speed of 32.5 knots (60.2 km/h; 37.4 mph), but were built to handle a 20 percent overload. None of the Iowa's ever ran speed trials in deep water, but the Bureau of Ships estimated that they could reach a speed of about 34 knots (63 km/h; 39 mph) from 225,000 shp (168,000 kW) at a light displacement of 51,209 long tons (52,031 t). The ships had a designed cruising range of 15,000 nautical miles (28,000 km; 17,000 mi) at a speed of 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph), although the New Jersey's fuel consumption figures during her sea trials suggest that her range was at least 20,150 nmi (37,320 km; 23,190 mi) at that cruising speed. Their designed crew numbered 117 officers and 1,804 enlisted men which had greatly increased by the end of the war in 1945. Missouri's crew at that time numbered 189 officers and 2,978 sailors. ### Armament, fire control, sensors and aircraft The main battery of the Iowa-class ships consisted of nine 16 in (406 mm)/50 caliber Mark 7 guns in three triple-gun turrets on the centerline, two of which were placed in a superfiring pair forward of the superstructure, with the third aft. Going from bow to stern, the turrets were designated I, II, and III. Their secondary battery consisted of twenty 5 in (127 mm)/38 caliber dual-purpose guns mounted in twin-gun turrets clustered amidships, five turrets on each broadside. Unlike their sister ships Iowa and New Jersey that were the first pair of ships built, Missouri and Wisconsin were completed with an anti-aircraft suite of twenty quadruple mounts for 40 mm (1.6 in) Bofors AA guns, nine mounts on each broadside and one each on the roofs of Turrets II and III. Forty-nine 20-millimeter (0.8 in) Oerlikon light AA auto-cannon in single mounts were distributed almost the length of the ships. The primary means of controlling the main armament are two Mark 38 directors for the Mark 38 fire-control system mounted at the tops of the fore and aft fire-control towers in the superstructure. These directors were equipped with 25-foot-6-inch-long (7.8 m) rangefinders, although their primary sensor was the Mark 8 fire-control radar mounted on their roofs. A secondary Mark 40 fire-control director was installed inside the armored conning tower at the front of the superstructure that used the Mark 27 fire-control radar positioned on the top of the conning tower. Each turret is fitted with a rangefinder 46 feet (14 m) long and can act as a director for the other turrets. Four Mark 37 gunnery directors, two on the centerline at the ends of the superstructure and one on each broadside, control the five-inch guns. Each director was equipped with a 15-foot (4.6 m) rangefinder and a pair of radars on its roof. These were a Mark 12 fire-control system and a Mark 22 height-finder radar. Each 40 mm mount was remotely controlled by a Mark 51 director that incorporated a Mark 14 lead-computing gyro gunsight while the sailors that used the 20 mm gun used a Mark 14 sight to track their targets. A SK-2 early-warning radar was fitted on the ship's foremast; above it was a SG surface-search radar. The other SG radar was mounted at the top of the mainmast positioned on the rear funnel. The Iowas were built with two rotating aircraft catapults on their stern for floatplanes and a large crane was fitted to recover them. Initially a trio of Vought OS2U Kingfishers were carried, but these were replaced by Curtiss SC Seahawks in December 1944. ### Protection The internal waterline armor belt of the Iowa-class ships is 12.1 in (307 mm) thick and has a height of 10 ft 6 in (3.2 m). Below it is a strake of Class B homogeneous armor plate that tapers in thickness from 12.1 inches at the top to 1.62 in (41 mm) at the bottom and is 28 ft (8.5 m) high. The two strakes of armor are inclined outwards at the top 19 degrees to improve the armor's resistance to horizontal fire. In general the vertical armor plates are made from Class A cemented armor and the horizontal armor from Class B or Special treatment steel (STS). The belt armor extends to the two transverse bulkheads fore and aft of the main-gun barbettes, forming the armored citadel. Part of the lower armor belt extends aft from the rear bulkhead to protect the ships' steering gear. Its maximum thickness ranges from 13 to 13.5 in (330 to 343 mm) at the top and the plates taper to 5 inches at the bottom. Unlike the Iowa and New Jersey, the armor plates in the forward transverse bulkhead in Missouri and Wisconsin have a maximum thickness of 14.5 in (368 mm) at the top that tapers to 11.7 in (297 mm). The aft bulkhead is a consistent 14.5 inches in thickness, but does not go below the lower belt extension. The main-gun turrets has Class B plates 19.5 in (495 mm) thick on their faces and 9.5 in (241 mm) of Class A plates on their sides. The armor plates protecting their barbettes range in thickness from 17.3 in (439 mm) to 14.8 in (376 mm) and 11.6 in (295 mm) with the thickest plates on the sides and the thinnest ones on the front and back. The sides of the conning tower are 17.3 in (440 mm) thick. The main deck of the Iowas consists of 1.5 in (38 mm) of STS. Below this deck, the roof of the armored citadel is formed by 6 in (152 mm) of armor in two layers. Below this is a deck of 0.625-inch (16 mm) STS plates intended to stop splinters from shells that pierced the armored deck above it. The armor deck extends aft and the roof of the steering gear compartment is 6.2 in (160 mm) thick. The underwater protection system of the Iowa-class battleships consists of three watertight compartments outboard of the lower armor belt and another behind it. The two outermost compartment are kept loaded with fuel oil or seawater to absorb the energy of the torpedo warhead's detonation and slow the resulting splinters so they can be stopped by the lower armor belt. Behind the belt is a holding bulkhead intended to protect the ships' inner spaces from any splinters that might penetrate and the subsequent flooding. For protection against naval mines, the Iowas have a double bottom that runs the full length of the ships and increases to a triple bottom except at the bow and stern. ## History ### Construction Missouri was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named after the US state of Missouri. The ship was authorized by Congress in 1938 and ordered on 12 June 1940 with the hull number BB-63. The keel for Missouri was laid down at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on 6 January 1941 in slipway 1. The ship was launched on 29 January 1944 before a crowd of 20,000 to 30,000 spectators. At the launching ceremony, the ship was christened by Margaret Truman, the ship sponsor and daughter of Harry S. Truman, then one of the senators from the ship's namesake state; Truman himself gave a speech at the ceremony. Fitting-out work proceeded quickly, and the ship was commissioned on 11 June; Captain William Callaghan served as her first commander. Missouri conducted her initial sea trials off New York, beginning on 10 July, and then steamed south to Chesapeake Bay, where she embarked on a shakedown cruise and conducted training. During this period, she operated with the new large cruiser Alaska, which had also recently entered service, and several escorting destroyers. The ship got underway on 11 November, bound for the West Coast of the United States. She passed through the Panama Canal a week later and continued on to San Francisco. There, additional fitting-out work was carried out at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard to prepare the vessel for use as a fleet flagship. ### World War II (1944–1945) On 14 December, Missouri departed San Francisco and sailed for Ulithi in the Caroline Islands, where she joined the rest of the fleet on 13 January 1945. She became a temporary headquarters ship for Vice Admiral Marc A. Mitscher. She then joined Task Force 58, which sortied on 27 January to launch an air attack on Tokyo in support of the planned operation against Iwo Jima. Missouri served as part of the anti-aircraft screen for Task Group 58.2, centered on the carriers Lexington, Hancock, and San Jacinto, during the raid on Tokyo. In addition to guarding the carriers, Missouri and the other battleships acted as oilers for the escorting destroyers, since the fleet's logistics train could not accompany the strike force during raids. By 16 February, the task force had arrived off the coast of Japan to begin a series of airstrikes. The fleet then proceeded to Iwo Jima, which was invaded by American ground forces on 19 February. That evening, while patrolling with the carriers, Missouri shot down a Japanese aircraft, probably a Nakajima Ki-49 bomber. Task Force 58 departed in early March and returned to Ulithi to replenish fuel and ammunition. Missouri was transferred to the Yorktown task group, TG 58.4 at that time. The ships departed again on 14 March for another round of air strikes on Japan. Four days later, Missouri's anti-aircraft guns assisted in the destruction of four Japanese aircraft. American carrier aircraft struck a variety of targets around the Inland Sea, which prompted a Japanese counter-attack that struck several carriers. The carrier Franklin was badly damaged and Missouri's task group was detached to cover her withdrawal. By 22 March, Franklin had left the area of operations and the group returned to the fleet to join the preparatory bombardment for the upcoming invasion of Okinawa. Missouri was temporarily transferred to TF 59, along with her sisters New Jersey and Wisconsin, to bombard the southern coast of Okinawa on 24 March, part of an effort to draw Japanese attention from the actual invasion target on the western side of the island, during which she fired 180 rounds. Missouri thereafter returned to TG 58.4. While operating with the carriers on 11 April, Missouri came under attack from a kamikaze that struck the side of the vessel below the main deck. The impact shattered the aircraft, throwing gasoline on the deck that rapidly ignited, but it was quickly suppressed by her crew. The attack caused superficial damage and the battleship remained on station. Two crewmen were wounded on 17 April when another kamikaze clipped the stern crane and crashed in the ship's wake. Missouri left Task Force 58 on 5 May to return to Ulithi; in the course of her operations off Okinawa, she claimed five aircraft shot down and another probable kill, along with partial credit for another six aircraft destroyed. While en route, Missouri refueled from a fleet oiler that also brought the ship's new commander, Captain Stuart S. Murray, who relieved Captain Callaghan on 14 May. On 9 May, Missouri reached Ulithi, before continuing on to Apra Harbor, Guam, where she arrived nine days later. Admiral William F. Halsey Jr., the commander of Third Fleet, came aboard the ship that day, making her the fleet flagship of what was now re-designated as TF 38. On 21 May, the battleship got underway again, bound for Okinawa. She had reached the operational area by 27 May, when she took part in attacks on Japanese positions on the island. Together with the rest of the Third Fleet, she then steamed north to conduct a series of air strikes on Japanese airfields and other installations on the island of Kyūshū on 2 and 3 June. The fleet was struck by a major typhoon on the night of 5–6 June, which caused extensive damage to many ships of the fleet, though Missouri suffered only minor damage. Another round of air strikes against targets on Kyūshū took place on 8 June. The fleet then withdrew to Leyte Gulf to replenish fuel and ammunition, arriving there on 13 June. Third Fleet got underway again on 1 July to launch another series of attacks on the Japanese Home Islands. During this period, Missouri operated with TG 38.4. The carrier aircraft struck targets around Tokyo on 10 July, and then further north between Honshū and Hokkaidō from 13 to 14 July. The following day, Missouri and several other vessels were detached to form TG 38.4.2 which was tasked with bombarding industrial facilities in Muroran, Hokkaido. A second bombardment mission followed on the night of 17–18 July, by which time the British battleship HMS King George V had joined the formation. The battleships then returned to screen the carriers during strikes against targets around the Inland Sea and then Tokyo later in the month. After a brief pause, the carriers resumed attacks on northern Japan on 9 August, the same day as the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. The following day, rumors circulated that Japan would surrender, which was formally announced on the morning of 15 August. #### Signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender Over the course of the following two weeks, Allied forces made preparations to begin the occupation of Japan. On 21 August, Missouri sent a contingent of 200 officers and men to Iowa, which was to debark a landing party in Tokyo to begin the process of demilitarizing Japan. Two days later, Murray was informed that Missouri would host the surrender ceremony, with the date scheduled for 31 August. The ship's crew immediately began preparations for the event, including cleaning and painting the vessel. Missouri began the approach to Tokyo Bay on 27 August, guided by the Japanese destroyer Hatsuzakura. That night, the ships stopped at Kamakura, where a courier brought the flag that Commodore Matthew Perry had flown during his expedition to open Japan in 1853; the flag was to be displayed during the surrender ceremony. The flotilla then entered Tokyo Bay on 29 August, and Missouri was anchored close to where Perry had anchored his own vessels some ninety-two years earlier. Poor weather delayed the ceremony until 2 September. Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz boarded shortly after 08:00, and General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander for the Allies, came on board at 08:43. The Japanese representatives, headed by Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu, arrived at 08:56, 2 September 1945. At 09:02, General MacArthur stepped before a battery of microphones and opened the 23-minute surrender ceremony to the waiting world by stating, "It is my earnest hope—indeed the hope of all mankind—that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past, a world founded upon faith and understanding, a world dedicated to the dignity of man and the fulfillment of his most cherished wish for freedom, tolerance, and justice." By 09:30 the Japanese emissaries had departed. In the afternoon of 5 September, Halsey transferred his flag to the battleship South Dakota, and early the next day Missouri departed Tokyo Bay. As part of the ongoing Operation Magic Carpet she received homeward-bound passengers at Guam, then sailed unescorted for Hawaii. She arrived at Pearl Harbor on 20 September and flew Admiral Nimitz's flag on the afternoon of 28 September for a reception. ### Post-war (1946–1950) The next day, Missouri departed Pearl Harbor bound for the East Coast of the United States. She reached New York City on 23 October and hoisted the flag of Atlantic Fleet commander Admiral Jonas Ingram. Four days later, the battleship fired a 21-gun salute (the first of 3 that day) as Truman—who had since become President of the United States—boarded for Navy Day ceremonies. After an overhaul in the New York Naval Shipyard that included the replacement of the Mark 8 fire-control radars with Mark 13 models, and a training cruise to Cuba, Missouri returned to New York. During the afternoon of 21 March 1946, she received the remains of the Turkish Ambassador to the United States, Munir Ertegun. She departed on 22 March for Gibraltar, and on 5 April anchored in the Bosphorus off Istanbul. She rendered full honors, including the firing of 19-gun salutes during the transfer of the remains of the late ambassador and again during the funeral ashore. Missouri departed Istanbul on 9 April and entered Phaleron Bay, Piraeus, Greece, the following day for a welcome by Greek government officials and anti-communist citizens. Greece had become the scene of a civil war between the pro-communist-dominated left-wing resistance organization EAM-ELAS and the returning Greek government-in-exile. The United States saw this as an important test case for its new doctrine of containment of the Soviet Union. The Soviets were also pushing for concessions in the Dodecanese to be included in the peace treaty with Italy and for access through the Dardanelles strait between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. The voyage of Missouri to the eastern Mediterranean symbolized America's strategic commitment to the region. News media proclaimed her a symbol of US interest in preserving Greece and Turkey's independence. Missouri departed Piraeus on 26 April, touching at Algiers and Tangiers before arriving at Norfolk on 9 May. She departed for Culebra Island on 12 May to join Admiral Mitscher's 8th Fleet in the Navy's first large-scale postwar Atlantic training maneuvers. The battleship returned to New York City on 27 May, and spent the next year steaming Atlantic coastal waters north to the Davis Strait and south to the Caribbean on various training exercises. On 3 December, during a gunnery exercise in the North Atlantic, a star shell fired by the light cruiser Little Rock accidentally struck the battleship, killing one crewman and wounding three others. Missouri arrived at Rio de Janeiro on 30 August 1947 for the Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Hemisphere Peace and Security. President Truman boarded on 2 September to celebrate the signing of the Rio Treaty, which broadened the Monroe Doctrine by stipulating that an attack on any one of the signatory American countries would be considered an attack on all. The Truman family boarded Missouri on 7 September 1947 to return to the United States and disembarked at Norfolk on 19 September. Her overhaul in New York, which lasted from 23 September to 10 March 1948 included upgrading most of her radar suite. The SK-2 system was replaced by a SR-3 radar and both SG fire-control radars were removed, an improved SG-6 replaced the forward antenna and the aft SG was exchanged for a SP height-finding radar; Mark 25 fire-control radars replaced the combination Mark 12/22 installations on the roofs of the Mark 37 directors. After the overhaul, the ship worked up at Guantanamo Bay. The summer of 1948 was devoted to midshipman and reserve training cruises. Also in 1948, Missouri became the first battleship to host a helicopter detachment, operating two Sikorsky HO3S-1 machines for utility and rescue work. The battleship departed Norfolk on 1 November 1948 for a second three-week Arctic cold-weather training cruise to the Davis Strait. During the next two years, Missouri participated in exercises from the New England coast to the Caribbean, alternated with two midshipman summer training cruises. She was overhauled at Norfolk Naval Shipyard from 23 September 1949 to 17 January 1950. Throughout the latter half of the 1940s, the various service branches of the United States had been reducing their inventories from their World War II levels. For the Navy, this resulted in several vessels of various types being decommissioned and either sold for scrap or placed in one of the various United States Navy reserve fleets scattered along the coasts. As part of this contraction, three of the Iowa-class battleships had been de-activated and decommissioned but President Truman refused to allow Missouri to be decommissioned. Against the advice of Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, Secretary of the Navy John L. Sullivan, and Chief of Naval Operations Louis E. Denfeld, Truman ordered Missouri to be maintained with the active fleet partly because of his fondness for the battleship and partly because the battleship had been christened by his daughter Margaret. Captain William D. Brown assumed command of the battleship on 10 December while she was being overhauled. Then the only US battleship in commission, Missouri was proceeding from Hampton Roads on her first training exercise at sea since the overhaul, early on 17 January 1950 when she ran aground 1.6 mi (2.6 km) from Thimble Shoal Light, near Old Point Comfort. She hit shoal water a distance of three ship-lengths from the main channel. The error resulted from a combination of many factors, including Brown's inexperience maneuvering such a large ship. The grounding occurred during a particularly high tide making the effort to free her even more difficult as did having an abandoned anchor becoming embedded in her hull. After off-loading ammunition, fuel and food to lighten the battleship, she was refloated on 1 February with the aid of tugboats, pontoons, beach gear and a rising tide. After the subsequent Naval Board of Inquiry, Brown and three of his officers were court-martialled. Brown was relieved of command and his subordinates were reprimanded. Captain Harold Page Smith assumed command on 7 February as the Missouri's repairs were being completed. Having repaired morale aboard during his tenure as the ship was relegated to training duties in an effort to cut costs by Johnson, Page Smith was replaced by Captain Irving Duke on 19 April. ### Korean War (1950–1953) In 1950, the Korean War started, prompting the United States to intervene on behalf of the United Nations (UN). President Truman ordered US forces stationed in Japan into South Korea. Truman also sent US-based troops, tanks, fighter and bomber aircraft, and a strong naval force to Korea to support the Republic of Korea. As part of the naval mobilization Missouri was transferred to the Pacific Fleet and dispatched from Norfolk on 19 August to support UN forces on the Korean peninsula. Due to the urgency of her mission Duke took the battleship directly through a hurricane off the coast of North Carolina on 20 August that blew her helicopters off the stern and damaged her enough that she required nearly a week's worth of repairs once she reached Pearl Harbor. Missouri arrived just west of Kyūshū on 14 September, where she became the flagship of Rear Admiral Allan Edward Smith. The first American battleship to reach Korean waters, she bombarded Samchok on 15 September in an attempt to divert troops and attention from the Incheon landings. After a brief visit to Sasebo, Japan, to resupply, the ship arrived at Incheon on 19 September, and began bombarding North Korean troops as they retreated north. On 10 October she became flagship of Rear Admiral John M. Higgins, commander of Cruiser Division 5. She arrived at Sasebo on 14 October, where she became flagship of Vice Admiral A. D. Struble, Commander, Seventh Fleet. After screening the carrier Valley Forge along the east coast of Korea, she conducted bombardment missions from 12 to 26 October in the Chongjin and Tanchon areas on the west coast, and at Wonsan where she again screened carriers eastward of Wonsan. During this time, comedian Bob Hope visited the battleship and gave three performances for the crew. MacArthur's amphibious landings at Incheon had severed the Korean People's Army (KPA) supply lines; as a result, the KPA had begun a lengthy retreat from South Korea into North Korea. This retreat was closely monitored by the People's Republic of China (PRC), out of fear that the UN offensive against Korea would create a US-backed enemy on China's border, and out of concern that the UN offensive in Korea could evolve into a UN war against China. In an effort to dissuade UN forces from completely overrunning North Korea, the People's Republic of China issued diplomatic warnings that they would use force to protect North Korea, but these warnings were not taken seriously for a number of reasons. This changed abruptly on 19 October 1950, when the first of an eventual total of 380,000 People's Liberation Army soldiers under the command of General Peng Dehuai crossed into North Korea, launching a full-scale assault against advancing UN troops. The PRC offensive forced UN troops to retreat. The Missouri provided gunfire support during the Hungnam evacuation in December until the last UN troops, the American 3rd Infantry Division, departed on 24 December. In early 1951 Missouri alternated carrier escort duty and shore bombardments off the east coast of Korea until 19 March. During a visit to Yokosuka, Japan, Captain George Wright relieved Duke as commanding officer on 2 March. The battleship arrived at Yokosuka on 24 March and departed the port four days later for the United States, having fired 2,895 sixteen-inch rounds and 8,043 five-inch shells during her deployment. Upon her arrival at Norfolk on 27 April the ship became the flagship of Rear Admiral James L. Holloway, Jr., commander, Cruiser Force, Atlantic Fleet. From May to August, she engaged in two midshipman training cruises. Missouri entered Norfolk Naval Shipyard 18 October for an overhaul which lasted until 30 January 1952. Captain John Sylvester assumed command of the ship the same day her overhaul began. Missouri spent the next six months training out of Guantanamo Bay and Norfolk and made a port visit to New York in May where she participated in Navy Day celebrations, hosting nearly 11,000 visitors. She returned to Norfolk on 4 August and entered Norfolk Naval Shipyard to prepare for a second tour in the Korean combat zone. Captain Warner Edsall relieved Sylvester at the beginning of the overhaul. The battleship departed Hampton Roads on 11 September and arrived at Yokosuka on 17 October. Vice Admiral Joseph J. Clark, commander of the Seventh Fleet, brought his staff onboard on 19 October. Her primary mission was to provide naval gunfire support, codenamed "Cobra strikes", in the Chaho-Tanchon area, at Chongjin, in the Tanchon-Sonjin area, and at Chaho, Wonsan, Hamhung, and Hungnam from 25 October through 2 January 1953. One of the ship's helicopters crashed on 21 December while trying to assess the damage from a bombardment; all three men aboard were killed. Missouri put into Incheon on 5 January and then sailed to Sasebo. General Mark W. Clark, Commander in Chief, UN Command, and Admiral Sir Guy Russell, the British Commander-in-Chief, Far East Fleet, visited the battleship on 23 January. In the following weeks, Missouri resumed "Cobra" missions along the east coast of Korea. As part of these, the ship would enter Wonsan Harbor to bombard targets there. North Korea artillery fruitlessly engaged her there on two occasions, 5 and 10 March, as their shells were fused to burst in the air. In retaliation for the latter incident, Missouri's five-inch guns fired 998 shells at the North Korean positions. The last bombardment mission by Missouri was against the Kojo area on 25 March; she had fired 2,895 sixteen-inch and 8,043 five-inch shells during the deployment. The following day, Edsall suffered a fatal heart attack while conning her through the anti-submarine nets defending Sasebo Harbor. Captain Robert Brodie assumed command on 4 April. Missouri was relieved as the Seventh Fleet flagship on 6 April by New Jersey and departed Yokosuka on 7 April. Missouri arrived at Norfolk on 4 May; Rear Admiral E. T. Woolridge, commander, Battleships-Cruisers, Atlantic Fleet, hoisted his flag aboard her 10 days later. She departed on 8 June on a midshipman training cruise to Brazil, Cuba and Panama and returned to Norfolk on 4 August. Woolridge hauled down his flag in October as he transferred to another ship; Rear Admiral Clark Green, commander of Battleship Division 2 replaced him. The battleship was overhauled in Norfolk Naval Shipyard from 20 November to 2 April 1954 that included replacing her 16-inch guns and exchanging her SP radar for a SPS-8 system that required strengthening the mainmast to handle its weight. The day before the end of the overhaul, Captain Taylor Keith relieved Brodie in command of the ship. As the flagship of Rear Admiral Ruthven Libby, who had relieved Woolridge, Missouri departed Norfolk on 7 June as the flagship of the midshipman training cruise to Lisbon, Portugal, Cherbourg, France, and Cuba. During this voyage Missouri was joined by the other three battleships of her class, the only time the four ships sailed together. She returned to Norfolk on 3 August and departed on 23 August to be placed in reserve on the West Coast. The ship hosted 16,900 people at Long Beach, but more than 20,100 visited in San Francisco. Missouri arrived in Seattle on 15 September where she again hosted visitors and subsequently off-loaded her ammunition at the facility in Bangor. The ship was decommissioned on 26 February 1955 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard where she was assigned to the Bremerton group of the Pacific Reserve Fleet. Missouri retained her Mark 27 radar until the mid-1950s. #### Deactivation Missouri was moored at the last pier of the reserve fleet berthing. She served as a tourist attraction, logging about 250,000 visitors per year, who came to view the "surrender deck" where a bronze plaque memorialized the spot () in Tokyo Bay where Japan surrendered to the Allies. The accompanying historical display included copies of the surrender documents and photos. Nearly thirty years passed before Missouri returned to active duty. ### Reactivation (1984–1990) Under the Reagan Administration's program to build a 600-ship Navy, led by Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman, Missouri was reactivated and towed by the salvage ship Beaufort to the Long Beach Naval Yard in the summer of 1984 to undergo modernization in advance of her scheduled recommissioning. In preparation for the move, a skeleton crew of 20 spent three weeks working 12 to 16-hour days preparing the battleship for her tow. Over the next several months, the ship had her obsolete armament removed: 20 mm and 40 mm AA guns, their directors, and four of her ten 5-inch gun mounts. Installed in their place on the superstructure were four Mk 141 quad cell launchers for 16 RGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles, eight Mk 143 Armored Box Launcher mounts for 32 BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles, and a quartet of 20 mm Phalanx CIWS rotary cannon for defense against enemy anti-ship missiles and enemy aircraft. She also received upgrades to radar and fire-control systems for her guns and missiles, and improved electronic warfare capabilities. Additions included an AN/SPS-49 early-warning radar and an AN/SPS-67 surface-search radar while the SPS-8 radar and the mainmast were removed. The added missile capacity necessitated additional fire-support systems to launch and guide the ordnance. To fire the Harpoon anti-ship missiles, the ship was equipped with the SWG-1 fire-control system. Missouri was also outfitted with the AN/SLQ-25 Nixie to be used as a decoy against enemy torpedoes, an AN/SLQ-32 Electronic Warfare Suite electronic-warfare system that can detect, jam, and deceive an opponent's radar and a Mark 36 SRBOC system to fire chaff rockets intended to confuse enemy missiles. The ship's crew now consisted of 65 officers and 1,450 enlisted men. During the modernization the ship's 800 lb (360 kg) bell, which had been removed from the battleship and sent to Jefferson City, Missouri for sesquicentennial celebrations in the state, was formally returned to the battleship in advance of her recommissioning. Missouri was formally recommissioned in San Francisco on 10 May 1986 with Captain Albert Kaiss in command. "This is a day to celebrate the rebirth of American sea power," Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger told an audience of 10,000 at the recommissioning ceremony, instructing the crew to "listen for the footsteps of those who have gone before you. They speak to you of honor and the importance of duty. They remind you of your own traditions." Margaret Truman gave a short speech especially aimed at the ship's crew, which ended with "now take care of my baby." Her remarks were met with rounds of applause from the crew. Only briefly in command, Kaiss was relieved by Captain James A. Carney on 20 June. Three months later Missouri departed from her new home port of Long Beach for an around-the-world cruise, visiting Pearl Harbor Hawaii; Sydney, Hobart, and Perth, Australia; Diego Garcia; the Suez Canal; Istanbul, Turkey; Naples, Italy; Rota, Spain; Lisbon, Portugal; and the Panama Canal. Missouri became the first American battleship to circumnavigate the globe since Theodore Roosevelt's "Great White Fleet" 80 years before—a fleet which included the first battleship named USS Missouri (BB-11). In 1987, Missouri was outfitted with 40 mm grenade launchers and 25 mm chain guns and sent to take part in Operation Earnest Will, the escorting of reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers in the Persian Gulf. These smaller-caliber weapons were installed due to the threat of Iranian-manned, Swedish-made Boghammar cigarette boats operating in the Persian Gulf at the time. On 25 July, the ship departed on a six-month deployment to the Indian Ocean and North Arabian Sea. She spent more than 100 continuous days at sea in a hot, tense environment. As the centerpiece for Battlegroup Echo, Missouri escorted tanker convoys through the Strait of Hormuz, keeping her fire-control system trained on land-based Iranian Silkworm missile launchers. The ship returned to the United States via Diego Garcia, Australia, and Hawaii in early 1988. Captain John Chernesky relieved Carney on 6 July in Pearl Harbor during the biennial Rim of the Pacific (RimPac) exercises that had begun a few weeks earlier. Other highlights during the year included port visits in British Columbia and Washington. In the early months of 1989, Missouri was in the Long Beach Naval Shipyard for routine maintenance. A few months later she departed for the multi-national Pacific Exercise (PacEx) '89, where she and New Jersey performed a firepower demonstration off Okinawa for the Japanese and some of the other allied ships. Missouri fired 45 rounds of 16-inch and 263 of 5-inch, considerably more than her sister. The highlight of PacEx was a port visit in Pusan, Republic of Korea during which she had some trouble docking in the port's shallow water. At the end of the year, the ship visited Mazatlan, Mexico. In early 1990, Missouri again took part in the RimPac Exercise and Kaiss returned to relieve Chernesky on 13 June. ### Gulf War (January–February 1991) On 2 August 1990 Iraq, led by President Saddam Hussein, invaded Kuwait. In the middle of the month US President George H. W. Bush sent the first of several hundred thousand troops, along with a strong force of naval support, to Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf area to support a multinational force in a standoff with Iraq. Missouri's scheduled four-month Western Pacific port-to-port cruise set to begin in September was canceled just a few days before the ship was to leave; after the cruise was completed, the ship was due to begin the process of inactivation. She had been placed on hold in anticipation of being mobilized as forces continued to mass in the Middle East. As part of the preparations for combat, a detachment of AAI RQ-2 Pioneer unmanned aerial vehicles were transferred to the ship to improve her ability to direct her gunfire. Missouri departed on 13 November 1990 for the troubled waters of the Persian Gulf. She departed Long Beach, with extensive press coverage, and headed for Hawaii and the Philippines for more work-ups en route to the Persian Gulf. Along the way she made stops at Subic Bay and Pattaya, Thailand, before transiting the Strait of Hormuz on 3 January 1991. Before Operation Desert Storm began later that month, Missouri prepared to launch Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles and provide naval gunfire support as required. The ship fired her first Tomahawk missile at Iraqi targets at 01:40 am on 17 January 1991, followed by 27 additional missiles over the next five days. On 29 January, the frigate Curts escorted Missouri northward. In her first bombardment action of Desert Storm, she shelled an Iraqi command and control bunker near the Saudi border, the first time her 16-inch guns had been fired in combat since March 1953 off Korea. The battleship bombarded beach defenses in occupied Kuwait on the night of 3 February, firing 112 main-gun rounds over the next three days until relieved by Wisconsin. Missouri then fired another 60 rounds off Khafji on 11–12 February before steaming north to Faylaka Island. After minesweepers cleared a lane through Iraqi defenses, the ship fired 133 rounds during four shore bombardment missions as part of the amphibious landing feint against the Kuwaiti coast the morning of 23 and 24 February. The heavy pounding attracted Iraqi attention; in response to the battleship's artillery strike, the Iraqis fired two HY-2 Silkworm missiles at the battleship, one of which crashed shortly after launching. The other missile was intercepted by a GWS-30 Sea Dart missile launched from the British destroyer HMS Gloucester within 90 seconds and crashed into the sea roughly 700 yd (640 m) in front of Missouri. Shortly afterwards, the battleship's Pioneer drones located the missile launchers and neutralized them with about fifty 16-inch shells. During the campaign, Missouri was involved in a friendly fire incident with the frigate Jarrett. According to the official report, on 25 February, Jarrett's Phalanx CIWS engaged the chaff fired by Missouri as a countermeasure against enemy missiles, and stray rounds from the firing struck the battleship, one penetrating through a bulkhead and becoming embedded in an interior passageway of the ship. One sailor aboard Missouri was struck in the neck by flying debris and suffered minor injuries. During the operation, Missouri also assisted coalition forces engaged in clearing Iraqi naval mines in the Persian Gulf. By the time the war ended, the ship's crew had destroyed at least 15 naval mines. With combat operations out of range of the battleship's weapons on 26 February, Missouri had fired a total of 783 sixteen-inch shells and launched 28 Tomahawk cruise missiles during the campaign, and began patrolling the northern Persian Gulf until sailing for home on 21 March. Following stops at Fremantle and Hobart, Australia, the warship visited Pearl Harbor before arriving home in April. She spent the remainder of the year, hosting visitors in between training missions, the latter including a 7 December "voyage of remembrance" to mark the 50th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941. During that ceremony, Missouri hosted President Bush, the first such presidential visit for the warship since Harry S. Truman's in September 1947. ### Museum ship (1998 to present) The collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and the absence of a perceived threat to the United States came drastic cuts in the defense budget, and the high cost of maintaining and operating battleships as part of the United States Navy's active fleet became uneconomical; as a result, Missouri was decommissioned on 31 March 1992 at Long Beach. Her last commanding officer, Captain Albert L. Kaiss, wrote in the ship's final Plan of the Day: > Our final day has arrived. Today the final chapter in battleship Missouri's history will be written. It's often said that the crew makes the command. There is no truer statement ... for it's the crew of this great ship that made this a great command. You are a special breed of sailors and Marines and I am proud to have served with each and every one of you. To you who have made the painful journey of putting this great lady to sleep, I thank you. For you have had the toughest job. To put away a ship that has become as much a part of you as you are to her is a sad ending to a great tour. But take solace in this—you have lived up to the history of the ship and those who sailed her before us. We took her to war, performed magnificently and added another chapter in her history, standing side by side our forerunners in true naval tradition. God bless you all. Missouri returned to be part of the United States Navy reserve fleet at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Washington, until 12 January 1995, when she was struck from the Naval Vessel Register. She remained in Bremerton, but was not open to tourists as she had been from 1957 to 1984. In spite of attempts by citizens' groups to keep her in Bremerton and be re-opened as a tourist site, the US Navy wanted to pair a symbol of the end of World War II with one representing (for the United States) its beginning. On 4 May 1998, Secretary of the Navy John H. Dalton signed the donation contract that transferred her to the USS Missouri Memorial Association (MMA) of Honolulu, Hawaii, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. She was towed by Sea Victory from Bremerton on 23 May to Astoria, Oregon, where she sat in fresh water at the mouth of the Columbia River to kill and drop the saltwater barnacles and sea grasses that had grown on her hull in Bremerton, then towed across the eastern Pacific, and docked at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor on 22 June, 500 yd (460 m) from the Arizona Memorial. Less than a year later, on 29 January 1999, Missouri was opened as a museum operated by the MMA. Originally, the decision to move Missouri to Pearl Harbor was met with some resistance. The National Park Service expressed concern that the battleship, whose name has become synonymous with the end of World War II, would overshadow the battleship Arizona, whose dramatic explosion and subsequent sinking on 7 December 1941 has since become synonymous with the attack on Pearl Harbor. To help guard against this impression Missouri was placed well back from and facing the Arizona Memorial, so that those participating in military ceremonies on Missouri's aft decks would not have sight of the Arizona Memorial. The decision to have Missouri's bow face the Arizona Memorial was intended to convey that Missouri watches over the remains of Arizona so that those interred within Arizona's hull may rest in peace. Missouri was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on 14 May 1971 for hosting the signing of the instrument of Japanese surrender that ended World War II. She is not eligible for designation as a National Historic Landmark because she was extensively modernized in the years following the surrender. On 14 October 2009, Missouri was moved from her berthing station on Battleship Row to a drydock at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard to undergo a three-month overhaul. The work, priced at \$18 million, included installing a new anti-corrosion system, repainting the hull, and upgrading the internal mechanisms. Drydock workers reported that the ship was leaking at some points on the starboard side. The repairs were completed the first week of January 2010 and the ship was returned to her berthing station on Battleship Row on 7 January 2010. The ship's grand reopening occurred on 30 January. In 2018 a \$3.5 million project was completed to restore and preserve the superstructure. This included the lower navigation bridge on level four which includes the chart house, the captain's at-sea cabin, pilot house and conning tower and the open bridge on level five. ## Awards Missouri earned three battle stars for World War II service, five for Korean War service and further three for Gulf War service. She has also earned the following awards: ## Appearances in popular culture Cher asked to film her 1989 music video of her song "If I Could Turn Back Time" aboard a US Navy ship and the Navy's Office of information in Washington approved. The Navy intended to have it filmed aboard New Jersey because Missouri would be at sea at the planned time. Missouri's information officer told the producer: "We're the most historic battleship in the world. This is where World War II ended. You want to do it on here." Cher changed her schedule so that it could be filmed aboard Missouri. The performance was filmed over the 4th of July weekend. "The production people did a spectacular job of rigging the ship with lights; The battleship became a dramatic stage for the...video." Her performance was racier than expected with her wearing a very revealing costume and straddling one of the 16-inch guns during a part of the performance. The video was mostly well received, especially by the crew, but the Navy received some complaints. Columnist Jack Anderson wrote "If battleships could blush, the USS Missouri would be bright red". Afterwards, Missouri's captain directed that the song be played when the ship was conducting underway replenishments with other ships. The ship was central to the plot of the 1992 film Under Siege (many of the on-ship scenes were shot aboard the similar but older battleship USS Alabama). The ship was also prominently featured in the 2012 sci-fi action film Battleship. As Missouri has not moved under her own power since 1992, shots of the ship at sea were obtained with the help of three tugboats. ## See also - List of broadsides of major World War II ships - List of museum ships - U.S. Navy memorials - U.S. Navy museums (and other battleship museums)
1,614,016	Second Battle of Cape Finisterre	1,167,107,926	Naval battle in the War of the Austrian Succession	[ "1747 in Europe", "Conflicts in 1747", "Military history of the Atlantic Ocean", "Naval battles involving France", "Naval battles involving Great Britain", "Naval battles of the War of the Austrian Succession" ]	The second battle of Cape Finisterre was a naval encounter fought during the War of the Austrian Succession on 25 October 1747 (N.S.). A British fleet of fourteen ships of the line commanded by Rear-Admiral Edward Hawke intercepted a French convoy of 250 merchant ships, sailing from the Basque Roads in western France to the West Indies and protected by eight ships of the line commanded by Vice Admiral Henri-François des Herbiers. When the two forces sighted each other, Herbiers ordered the merchant ships to scatter, formed his warships into a line of battle and attempted to draw the British warships towards him. In this he was successful, the British advanced on the French warships, enveloped the rear of the French line and brought superior numbers to bear on the French vessels one at a time. Six French warships were captured, along with 4,000 of their seamen. Of the 250 merchant ships, only seven were captured. The British victory isolated the French colonies from supply and reinforcement. The war ended the following year and under the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle France recovered those colonial possessions which had been captured in return for withdrawing from her territorial gains in the Austrian Netherlands (approximately modern Belgium and Luxembourg). ## Background The War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748) involved France, Spain and Prussia fighting Britain, Austria and the Dutch Republic. The pretext for the war was Maria Theresa's right to inherit her father Emperor Charles VI's crown in the Habsburg Empire, but France, Prussia and Bavaria really saw it as an opportunity to challenge Habsburg power and gain territory. French military strategy focused on potential threats on its eastern and northern borders; its colonies were left to fend for themselves, or given minimal resources, anticipating they would probably be lost anyway. This strategy was driven by a combination of geography, and the superiority of the British navy, which made it difficult for the French navy to provide substantial quantities of supplies or to militarily support the French colonies. The expectation was that military victory in Europe would compensate for any colonial losses; if necessary, gains in Europe could be exchanged for the return of captured colonial possessions. The British tried to avoid large-scale commitments of troops to Europe, taking advantage of their naval superiority over the French and Spanish to expand in the colonies and pursue a strategy of naval blockade. ### Prelude Early in 1747 a French fleet of six ships of the line, a category of warship that included the largest and most powerful warships of the time, and five Indiamen, which were large, well-armed merchant ships, commanded by Squadron Commander Jacques-Pierre de la Jonquière, were escorting a convoy of 40 merchantmen bound for the Caribbean and North America. They were intercepted on 3 May by a British force of fourteen ships of the line, commanded by Vice-Admiral George Anson. In the ensuing five-hour first battle of Cape Finisterre the French lost all six ships of the line captured, as well as two frigates, two Indiamen and seven merchantmen. The fierce French resistance enabled most of the merchant ships to escape. On 20 June, 8 British ships under Commodore Thomas Fox intercepted a large French convoy inbound from the West Indies. The escorting French warships fled and 48 of 160 merchantmen were captured. By summer Anson was based ashore, in London, and his subordinate, Admiral Peter Warren, commander of the Western Squadron, was ill with scurvy. As a result, recently promoted Rear-Admiral Edward Hawke was given command of a squadron of fourteen ships of the line which sailed from Plymouth on 9 August. Hawke introduced a new system of signalling between ships, which had the potential to enable an admiral to handle his fleet more aggressively, and instilled into his captains something of his own desire to give getting to grips with the enemy priority over rigid adherence to Admiralty sailing orders. A large French convoy with a strong escort was assembling in Basque Roads, intending to sail for the West Indies. Hawke was tasked with intercepting it. Relatively inexperienced, he was given detailed orders, but he sailed well outside the limits laid down in them in his efforts to ensure that the convoy did not get past him. It seems that Hawke did not become aware of the contents of his orders until the day after he found and defeated the French. The French, commanded by Vice Admiral Henri-François des Herbiers, set off on 6 October. ## Battle The French sailed on 6 October. Eight days later they were sighted by the British early on the morning of the 14th, approximately 300 miles (480 km) west of Finistère, the westernmost department of France. The British squadron consisted of the 14 ships of the line which had sailed, but they were all on the smaller side for such ships; the number of guns they were rated to carry varied from 50 to 74, with only one being rated for more than 66 guns. The French convoy consisted of 250 merchant ships, escorted by eight ships of the line, an Indiaman and a frigate. The French ships were rated for 56 to 80 guns, five being rated for 70 guns or more. At first Hawke thought he was up against a much larger fleet of warships and formed a line of battle. Herbiers initially mistook the British ships for members of the French convoy; on realising his mistake he decided to use his warships to divert the British and allow the merchant ships to disperse, which he hoped would allow most of them to avoid capture. Hawke gave the flag signal for "general chase", ordering each of his ships to head towards the enemy at its maximum speed. The French had by now formed their own line of battle; the Indiaman Content, the frigate Castor and the smaller French ships stayed with the merchantmen. When within about 4 miles (6.4 km) of the French line, Hawke slowed the advance to permit his slower-moving ships to catch up. Herbiers edged his line away from the scattering merchantmen: either the British had to pursue the French warships, allowing the French merchant ships to escape, or they could pursue the merchantmen and run the risk of being attacked from the rear by Herbiers. About 11:00 Hawke again ordered "general chase" and closed with the French warships. The British attacked the French rear in a very loose formation, but three British ships were able to get on to the far side of the French line. This meant that three French ships at the rear of their line were attacked on both sides by the British. By being able to attack each of these three French ships with two of their own, the British compensated for their own ships being individually weaker; the three rearmost French ships were also their weakest. By 13:30 two of them had surrendered. The British repeated the procedure as they moved up the French line, bringing several of their ships to bear on each of the French and commencing each attack by firing canister shot into the rigging of the French ships' sails to immobilise them. The English sailors were better trained and better disciplined than the French, which enabled them to maintain a greater rate of fire and outshoot them. By 15:30 another pair of French ships had struck their colours. Of the remaining four French ships, three were engaged in running battles with superior forces of British ships and each one's mobility was restricted after damage to their rigging. The French flagship, the Tonnant, the most powerful vessel in either squadron, was holding off her opponents, but was surrounded. The leading French ship, the Intrépide, not yet having been fully engaged, turned back into the fight. With her assistance, Tonnant was able to break free and the two ships escaped to the east, fruitlessly pursued by the British. The final pair of French ships, attacked on all sides, surrendered. Most of the British ships had attacked as aggressively as Hawke had wished, closing to "pistol shot" range – that is to say, very close range. One ship which Hawke felt was less committed was the Kent; her captain was subsequently court martialled and dismissed from the navy. The British lost 170 men killed and 577 wounded in the battle. Hawke was among the wounded, having been caught in a gunpowder explosion. The French lost approximately 800 killed and wounded and had 4,000 men taken prisoner. All of the British ships were damaged; all of the captured French ships were badly damaged - four had all of their masts shot away. Hawke's force was forced to lay to for two days to carry out repairs. Herbiers did succeed in his objective of protecting the convoy; of the 250 merchantmen only seven were captured. The balance of the convoy continued to the West Indies, but Hawke sent the sloop Weazel to warn the British Leeward Islands Squadron under Commodore George Pocock of their approach. This was able to intercept many of the merchant ships in late 1747 and early 1748, and trapped many others in Caribbean ports. ## Aftermath Warren exulted to the British government "we have more French ships in our ports than remain in the ports of France". The battle convinced the French government of its helplessness at sea and it made no further efforts to fight convoys through the British blockade. This soon brought most of France's colonies close to starvation, particularly in the West Indies, where the French possessions were not self-sufficient in food. France agreed to attend peace negotiations despite victories in the Low Countries and elsewhere. A further consequence of the battle, along with Anson's earlier victory, was to give the British almost total control in the English Channel during the final months of the war. It proved ruinous to the French economy and to French national creditworthiness, helping the British to secure an acceptable peace. In 1748 the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was agreed, bringing the war to an end. France recovered those colonial possessions that had been captured by the British in return for withdrawing from her territorial gains in the Austrian Netherlands (approximately modern Belgium and Luxembourg). The psychological impact of the two battles of Cape Finisterre continued into the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), when the French King, Louis XV, was reluctant to send men and supplies to French Canada and his other colonies. ## Order of battle ### Britain (Edward Hawke) Ships of the line: - Devonshire 66 (flagship, John Moore) - Edinburgh 70 (Thomas Cotes) - Kent 64 (Thomas Fox) - Yarmouth 64 (Charles Saunders) - Monmouth 64 (Henry Harrison) - Princess Louisa 60 (Charles Watson) - Windsor 60 (Thomas Hanway) - Lion 60 (Arthur Scott) - Tilbury 60 (Robert Harland) - Nottingham 60 (Philip Saumarez) - Defiance 60 (John Bentley) - Eagle 60 (George Brydges Rodney) - Gloucester 50 (Philip Durell) - Portland 50 (Charles Steevens) Fourth rate: - Hector 44 (Thomas Stanhope) Fireships: - Dolphin 14 (Edward Crickett) - Vulcan (William Pettigrew) Sloop: - Weazel 16 ### France (Henri-François des Herbiers) Ships of the line: - Tonnant 80 (flagship, Duchaffault) – escaped - Intrépide 74 (Comte de Vaudreuil) – escaped - Terrible 74 (Comte du Guay) – captured - Monarque 74 (de la Bédoyère) – captured - Neptune 70 (de Fromentière) – captured - Trident 64 (Marquis d'Amblimont) – captured - Fougueux 64 (du Vignau) – captured - Severn 56 (du Rouret de Saint-Estève) – captured Indiaman: - Content 64 – escaped with merchant ships Frigate: - Castor 26 – escaped with merchant ships Convoy: - 250 merchant ships ## Notes, citations and sources
99,613	Frederick the Great	1,173,646,585	King of Prussia from 1740 to 1786	[ "1712 births", "1786 deaths", "18th-century German composers", "18th-century art collectors", "18th-century classical composers", "18th-century kings of Prussia", "18th-century male musicians", "Age of Enlightenment", "Children of Frederick William I of Prussia", "Crown Princes of Prussia", "Frederick the Great", "German Calvinist and Reformed Christians", "German Freemasons", "German art collectors", "German classical composers", "German classical flautists", "German critics of Christianity", "German deists", "German landowners", "German male classical composers", "German military personnel of the Seven Years' War", "German military personnel of the War of the Austrian Succession", "German military writers", "German opera librettists", "House of Hohenzollern", "People of the Silesian Wars", "People of the War of the Bavarian Succession", "Prince-electors of Brandenburg", "Princes of Neuchâtel", "Recipients of the Order of the White Eagle (Poland)", "Royal reburials", "Writers from Berlin" ]	Frederick II (German: Friedrich II.; 24 January 1712 – 17 August 1786) was King in Prussia from 1740 until 1772, and King of Prussia from 1772 until his death in 1786. His most significant accomplishments include his military successes in the Silesian wars, his reorganisation of the Prussian Army, the First Partition of Poland, and his patronage of the arts and the Enlightenment. Frederick was the last Hohenzollern monarch titled King in Prussia, declaring himself King of Prussia after annexing Royal Prussia from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772. Prussia greatly increased its territories and became a major military power in Europe under his rule. He became known as Frederick the Great (German: Friedrich der Große) and was nicknamed "Old Fritz" (German: "Der Alte Fritz"). In his youth, Frederick was more interested in music and philosophy than in the art of war, which led to clashes with his authoritarian father, Frederick William I of Prussia. However, upon ascending to the Prussian throne, he attacked and annexed the rich Austrian province of Silesia in 1742, winning military acclaim for himself and Prussia. He became an influential military theorist whose analyses emerged from his extensive personal battlefield experience and covered issues of strategy, tactics, mobility and logistics. Frederick was a supporter of enlightened absolutism, stating that the ruler should be the first servant of the state. He modernised the Prussian bureaucracy and civil service, and pursued religious policies throughout his realm that ranged from tolerance to segregation. He reformed the judicial system and made it possible for men of lower status to become judges and senior bureaucrats. Frederick also encouraged immigrants of various nationalities and faiths to come to Prussia, although he enacted oppressive measures against Catholics in Silesia and Polish Prussia. He supported the arts and philosophers he favoured, and allowed freedom of the press and literature. Frederick was almost certainly homosexual, and his sexuality has been the subject of much study. Because he died childless, he was succeeded by his nephew, Frederick William II. He is buried at his favourite residence, Sanssouci in Potsdam. Nearly all 19th-century German historians made Frederick into a romantic model of a glorified warrior, praising his leadership, administrative efficiency, devotion to duty and success in building Prussia into a great power in Europe. Frederick remained an admired historical figure through Germany's defeat in World War I, and the Nazis glorified him as a great German leader prefiguring Adolf Hitler, who personally idolised him. His reputation became less favourable in Germany after World War II, partly due to his status as a Nazi symbol. Historians in the 21st century tend to view Frederick as an outstanding military leader and capable monarch, whose commitment to enlightenment culture and administrative reform built the foundation that allowed the Kingdom of Prussia to contest the Austrian Habsburgs for leadership among the German states. ## Early life Frederick was the son of then-Crown Prince Frederick William of Prussia and his wife, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover. He was born sometime between 11 and 12 p.m. on 24 January 1712 in the Berlin Palace and was baptised with the single name Friedrich by Benjamin Ursinus von Bär on 31 January. The birth was welcomed by his grandfather, Frederick I, as his two previous grandsons had both died in infancy. With the death of Frederick I in 1713, his son Frederick William I became King in Prussia, thus making young Frederick the crown prince. Frederick had nine siblings who lived to adulthood. He had six sisters. The eldest was Wilhelmine, who became his closest sibling. He also had three younger brothers, including Augustus William and Henry. The new king wished for his children to be educated not as royalty, but as simple folk. They were tutored by a French woman, Madame de Montbail, who had also educated Frederick William. Frederick William I, popularly dubbed the "Soldier King", had created a large and powerful army that included a regiment of his famous "Potsdam Giants"; he carefully managed the kingdom's wealth and developed a strong centralised government. He also had a violent temper and ruled Brandenburg-Prussia with absolute authority. In contrast, Frederick's mother Sophia, whose father, George Louis of Brunswick-Lüneburg, had succeeded to the British throne as King George I in 1714, was polite, charismatic and learned. The political and personal differences between Frederick's parents created tensions, which affected Frederick's attitude toward his role as a ruler, his attitude toward culture, and his relationship with his father. During his early youth, Frederick lived with his mother and sister Wilhelmine, although they regularly visited their father's hunting lodge at Königs Wusterhausen. Frederick and his older sister formed a close relationship, which lasted until her death in 1758. Frederick and his sisters were brought up by a Huguenot governess and tutor and learned French and German simultaneously. Undeterred by his father's desire that his education be entirely religious and pragmatic, the young Frederick developed a preference for music, literature, and French culture. Frederick Wilhelm thought these interests were effeminate, as they clashed with his militarism, resulting in his frequent beating and humiliation of Frederick. Nevertheless, Frederick, with the help of his tutor in Latin, Jacques Duhan, procured for himself a 3,000 volume secret library of poetry, Greek and Roman classics, and philosophy to supplement his official lessons. Although his father, Frederick William I, had been raised a Calvinist in spite of the Lutheran state faith in Prussia, he feared he was not one of God's elect. To avoid the possibility of his son Frederick being motivated by the same concerns, the king ordered that his heir not be taught about predestination. Despite his father's intention, Frederick appeared to have adopted a sense of predestination for himself. ## Crown Prince At age 16, Frederick formed an attachment to the king's 17-year-old page, Peter Karl Christoph von Keith. Wilhelmine recorded that the two "soon became inseparable. Keith was intelligent, but without education. He served my brother from feelings of real devotion, and kept him informed of all the king's actions." Wilhelmine would further record that "Though I had noticed that he was on more familiar terms with this page than was proper in his position, I did not know how intimate the friendship was." As Frederick was almost certainly homosexual, his relationship with Keith may have been homoerotic, although the extent of their intimacy remains ambiguous. When Frederick William heard rumours of their relationship, Keith was sent away to an unpopular regiment near the Dutch frontier. In the mid-1720s, Queen Sophia Dorothea attempted to arrange the marriage of Frederick and his sister Wilhelmine to her brother King George II's children Amelia and Frederick, who was the heir apparent. Fearing an alliance between Prussia and Great Britain, Field Marshal von Seckendorff, the Austrian ambassador in Berlin, bribed the Prussian Minister of War, Field Marshal von Grumbkow, and the Prussian ambassador in London, Benjamin Reichenbach. The pair undermined the relationship between the British and Prussian courts using bribery and slander. Eventually Frederick William became angered by the idea of the effete Frederick being married to an English wife and under the influence of the British court. Instead, he signed a treaty with Austria, which vaguely promised to acknowledge Prussia's rights to the principalities of Jülich-Berg, which led to the collapse of the marriage proposal. ### Katte affair Soon after his relationship with Keith ended, Frederick became close friends with Hans Hermann von Katte, a Prussian officer several years older than Frederick who became one of his boon companions and may have been his lover. After the English marriages became impossible, Frederick plotted to flee to England with Katte and other junior army officers. While the royal retinue was near Mannheim in the Electorate of the Palatinate, Robert Keith, who was Peter Keith's brother and also one of Frederick's companions, had an attack of conscience when the conspirators were preparing to escape and begged Frederick William for forgiveness on 5 August 1730. Frederick and Katte were subsequently arrested and imprisoned in Küstrin. Because they were army officers who had tried to flee Prussia for Great Britain, Frederick William levelled an accusation of treason against the pair. The king briefly threatened the crown prince with execution, then considered forcing Frederick to renounce the succession in favour of his brother, Augustus William, although either option would have been difficult to justify to the Imperial Diet of the Holy Roman Empire. The king condemned Katte to death and forced Frederick to watch his beheading at Küstrin on 6 November, leading the crown prince to faint just before the fatal blow. Frederick was granted a royal pardon and released from his cell on 18 November 1730, although he remained stripped of his military rank. Rather than being permitted to return to Berlin, he was forced to remain in Küstrin and began rigorous schooling in statecraft and administration for the War and Estates Departments. Tensions eased slightly when Frederick William visited Küstrin a year later, and Frederick was allowed to visit Berlin on the occasion of his sister Wilhelmine's marriage to Margrave Frederick of Bayreuth on 20 November 1731. The crown prince returned to Berlin after finally being released from his tutelage at Küstrin on 26 February 1732 on condition that he marry Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Bevern. ### Marriage and War of the Polish Succession Initially, Frederick William considered marrying Frederick to Elisabeth of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, the niece of Empress Anna of Russia, but this plan was ardently opposed by Prince Eugene of Savoy. Frederick himself also proposed marrying Maria Theresa of Austria in return for renouncing the succession. Instead, Eugene persuaded Frederick William, through Seckendorff, that the crown prince should marry Elisabeth Christine, who was a Protestant relative of the Austrian Habsburgs. Frederick wrote to his sister that, "There can be neither love nor friendship between us", and he threatened suicide, but he went along with the wedding on 12 June 1733. He had little in common with his bride, and the marriage was resented as an example of the Austrian political interference that had plagued Prussia. Nevertheless, during their early married life, the royal couple resided at the Crown Prince's Palace in Berlin. Later, Elisabeth Christine accompanied Frederick to Schloss Rheinsberg, where at this time she played an active role in his social life. After his father died and he had secured the throne, Frederick separated from Elisabeth. He granted her the Schönhausen Palace and apartments at the Berliner Stadtschloss, but he prohibited Elisabeth Christine from visiting his court in Potsdam. Frederick and Elisabeth Christine had no children, and Frederick bestowed the title of the heir to the throne, "Prince of Prussia", on his brother Augustus William. Nevertheless, Elisabeth Christine remained devoted to him. Frederick gave her all the honours befitting her station, but never displayed any affection. After their separation, he would only see her on state occasions. These included visits to her on her birthday and were some of the rare occasions when Frederick did not wear military uniform. In 1732, Frederick was restored to the Prussian Army as Colonel of the Regiment von der Goltz, stationed near Nauen and Neuruppin. When Prussia provided a contingent of troops to aid the Army of the Holy Roman Empire during the War of the Polish Succession, Frederick studied under Prince Eugene of Savoy during the campaign against France on the Rhine; he noted the weakness of the Imperial Army under Eugene's command, something that he would capitalise on at Austria's expense when he later took the throne. Frederick William, weakened by gout and seeking to reconcile with his heir, granted Frederick Schloss Rheinsberg in Rheinsberg, north of Neuruppin. At Rheinsberg, Frederick assembled a small number of musicians, actors and other artists. He spent his time reading, watching and acting in dramatic plays, as well as composing and playing music. Frederick formed the Bayard Order to discuss warfare with his friends; Heinrich August de la Motte Fouqué was made the grand master of the gatherings. Later, Frederick regarded this time as one of the happiest of his life. Reading and studying the works of Niccolò Machiavelli, such as The Prince, was considered necessary for any king in Europe to rule effectively. In 1739, Frederick finished his Anti-Machiavel, an idealistic rebuttal of Machiavelli. It was written in French—as were all of Frederick's works—and published anonymously in 1740, but Voltaire distributed it in Amsterdam to great popularity. Frederick's years dedicated to the arts instead of politics ended upon the 1740 death of Frederick William and his inheritance of the Kingdom of Prussia. Frederick and his father were more or less reconciled at the latter's death, and Frederick later admitted, despite their constant conflict, that Frederick William had been an effective ruler: "What a terrible man he was. But he was just, intelligent, and skilled in the management of affairs... it was through his efforts, through his tireless labour, that I have been able to accomplish everything that I have done since." ## Inheritance In one defining respect Frederick would come to the throne with an exceptional inheritance. Frederick William I had left him with a highly militarised state. Prussia was the twelfth largest country in Europe in terms of population, but its army was the fourth largest: only the armies of France, Russia and Austria were larger. Prussia had one soldier for every 28 citizens, whereas Great Britain only had one for every 310, and the military absorbed 86% of Prussia's state budget. Moreover, the Prussian infantry trained by Frederick William I were, at the time of Frederick's accession, arguably unrivalled in discipline and firepower. By 1770, after two decades of punishing war alternating with intervals of peace, Frederick had doubled the size of the huge army he had inherited. The situation is summed up in a widely translated and quoted aphorism attributed to Mirabeau, who asserted in 1786 that "La Prusse n'est pas un pays qui a une armée, c'est une armée qui a un pays" ("Prussia was not a state in possession of an army, but an army in possession of a state"). By using the resources his frugal father had cultivated, Frederick was eventually able to establish Prussia as the fifth and smallest European great power. Prince Frederick was twenty-eight years old when his father Frederick William I died and he ascended to the throne of Prussia. Before his accession, Frederick was told by D'Alembert, "The philosophers and the men of letters in every land have long looked upon you, Sire, as their leader and model." Such devotion, consequently, had to be tempered by political realities. When Frederick ascended the throne as the third "King in Prussia" in 1740, his realm consisted of scattered territories, including Cleves, Mark, and Ravensberg in the west of the Holy Roman Empire; Brandenburg, Hither Pomerania, and Farther Pomerania in the east of the Empire; and the Kingdom of Prussia, the former Duchy of Prussia, outside of the Empire bordering the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. He was titled King in Prussia because his kingdom included only part of historic Prussia; he was to declare himself King of Prussia after the First Partition of Poland in 1772. ## Reign ### War of the Austrian Succession When Frederick became king, he was faced with the challenge of overcoming Prussia's weaknesses, vulnerably disconnected holdings with a weak economic base. To strengthen Prussia's position, he fought wars mainly against Austria, whose Habsburg dynasty had reigned as Holy Roman Emperors continuously since the 15th century. Thus, upon succeeding to the throne on 31 May 1740, Frederick declined to endorse the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, a legal mechanism to ensure the inheritance of the Habsburg domains by Maria Theresa of Austria, daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI. Upon the death of Charles VI on 29 October 1740, Frederick disputed the 23-year-old Maria Theresa's right of succession to the Habsburg lands, while simultaneously asserting his own right to the Austrian province of Silesia based on a number of old, though ambiguous, Hohenzollern claims to parts of Silesia. Accordingly, the First Silesian War (1740–1742, part of the War of the Austrian Succession) began on 16 December 1740 when Frederick invaded and quickly occupied almost all of Silesia within seven weeks. Though Frederick justified his occupation on dynastic grounds, the invasion of this militarily and politically vulnerable part of the Habsburg empire also had the potential to provide substantial long-term economic and strategic benefits. The occupation of Silesia added one of the most densely industrialised German regions to Frederick's kingdom and gave it control over the navigable Oder River. It nearly doubled Prussia's population and increased its territory by a third. It also prevented Augustus III, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, from seeking to connect his own disparate lands through Silesia. In late March 1741, Frederick set out on campaign again to capture the few remaining fortresses within the province that were still holding out. He was surprised by the arrival of an Austrian army, which he fought at the Battle of Mollwitz on 10 April 1741. Though Frederick had served under Prince Eugene of Savoy, this was his first major battle in command of an army. In the course of the fighting, Frederick's cavalry was disorganised by a charge of the Austrian horse. Believing his forces had been defeated, Frederick galloped away to avoid capture, leaving Field Marshal Kurt Schwerin in command to lead the disciplined Prussian infantry to victory. Frederick would later admit to humiliation at his abdication of command and would state that Mollwitz was his school. Disappointed with the performance of his cavalry, whose training his father had neglected in favour of the infantry, Frederick spent much of his time in Silesia establishing a new doctrine for them. Encouraged by Frederick's victory at Mollwitz, the French and their ally, the Electorate of Bavaria, entered the war against Austria in early September 1741 and marched on Prague. Meanwhile, Frederick, as well as other members of the League of Nymphenburg, sponsored the candidacy of his ally Charles of Bavaria to be elected Holy Roman Emperor. In late November, the Franco-Bavarian forces took Prague, and Charles was crowned King of Bohemia. Subsequently, he was elected as the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII on 24 January 1742. After the Austrians pulled their army out of Silesia to defend Bohemia, Frederick pursued them and blocked their path to Prague. The Austrians counter-attacked on 17 May 1742, initiating the Battle of Chotusitz. In this battle, Frederick's retrained cavalry proved more effective than at Mollwitz, but once more it was the discipline of the Prussian infantry that won the field and allowed Frederick to claim a major victory. This victory, along with the Franco-Bavarian forces capturing Prague, forced the Austrians to seek peace. The terms of the Treaty of Breslau between Austria and Prussia, negotiated in June 1742, gave Prussia all of Silesia and Glatz County, with the Austrians retaining only the portion called Austrian or Czech Silesia. By 1743, the Austrians had subdued Bavaria and driven the French out of Bohemia. Frederick strongly suspected Maria Theresa would resume war in an attempt to recover Silesia. Accordingly, he renewed his alliance with France and preemptively invaded Bohemia in August 1744, beginning the Second Silesian War. In late August 1744, Frederick's army had crossed the Bohemian frontier, marched directly to Prague, and laid siege to the city, which surrendered on 16 September 1744 after a three-day bombardment. Frederick's troops immediately continued marching into the heart of central Bohemia, but Saxony had now joined the war against Prussia. Although the combined Austrian and Saxon armies outnumbered Frederick's forces, they refused to directly engage with Frederick's army, harassing his supply lines instead. Eventually, Frederick was forced to withdraw to Silesia as winter approached. In the interim, Frederick also successfully claimed his inheritance to the minor territory of East Frisia on the North Sea coast of Germany, occupying the territory after its last ruler died without issue in 1744. In January 1745, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII of Bavaria died, taking Bavaria out of the war and allowing Maria Theresa's husband Francis of Lorraine to be eventually elected Holy Roman Emperor. Now able to focus solely on Frederick's army, the Austrians, who were reinforced by the Saxons, crossed the mountains to invade Silesia. After allowing them across, Frederick pinned them down and decisively defeated them at the Battle of Hohenfriedberg on 4 June 1745. Frederick subsequently advanced into Bohemia and defeated a counterattack by the Austrians at the Battle of Soor. Frederick then turned towards Dresden when he learned the Saxons were preparing to march on Berlin. However, on 15 December 1745, Prussian forces under the command of Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau soundly defeated the Saxons at the Battle of Kesselsdorf. After linking up his army with Leopold's, Frederick occupied the Saxon capitol of Dresden, forcing the Saxon elector, Augustus III, to capitulate. Once again, Frederick's victories on the battlefield compelled his enemies to sue for peace. Under the terms of the Treaty of Dresden, signed on 25 December 1745, Austria was forced to adhere to the terms of the Treaty of Breslau giving Silesia to Prussia. It was after the signing of the treaty that Frederick, then 33 years old, first became known as "the Great". ### Seven Years' War Though Frederick had withdrawn from the War of the Austrian Succession once Austria guaranteed his possession of Silesia, Austria remained embroiled in the war until the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. Less than a year after the treaty was signed, Maria Theresa was once more seeking allies, particularly Russia and France, to eventually renew the war with Prussia to regain Silesia. In preparation for a new confrontation with Frederick, the Empress reformed Austria's tax system and military. During the ten years of peace that followed the signing of the Treaty of Dresden, Frederick also prepared to defend his claim on Silesia by further fortifying the province and expanding his army, as well as reorganising his finances. In 1756, Frederick attempted to forestall Britain's financing of a Russian army on Prussia's border by negotiating an alliance with Britain at the Convention of Westminster, by which Prussia would protect Hanover against French attack, and Britain would no longer subsidise Russia. This treaty triggered the Diplomatic Revolution in which Habsburg Austria and Bourbon France, who had been traditional enemies, allied together with Russia to defeat the Anglo-Prussian coalition. To strengthen his strategic position against this coalition, on 29 August 1756, Frederick's well-prepared army preemptively invaded Saxony. His invasion triggered the Third Silesian War and the larger Seven Years' War, both of which lasted until 1763. He quickly captured Dresden, besieged the trapped Saxon army in Pirna, and continued marching the remainder of his army toward North Bohemia, intending to winter there. At the Battle of Lobositz he claimed a close victory against an Austrian army that was aiming to relieve Pirna, but afterward withdrew his forces back to Saxony for the winter. When the Saxon forces in Pirna finally capitulated in October 1756, Frederick forcibly incorporated them into his own army. This action, along with his initial invasion of neutral Saxony brought him widespread international criticism; but the conquest of Saxony also provided him with significant financial, military, and strategic assets that helped him sustain the war. In the early spring of 1757, Frederick once more invaded Bohemia. He was victorious against the Austrian army at the Battle of Prague on 6 May 1757, but his losses were so great he was unable to take the city itself, and settled for besieging it instead. A month later on 18 June 1757, Frederick suffered his first major defeat at the Battle of Kolín, which forced him to abandon his invasion of Bohemia. When the French and the Austrians pursued him into Saxony and Silesia in the fall of 1757, Frederick defeated and repulsed a much larger Franco-Austrian army at the Battle of Rossbach and another Austrian army at the Battle of Leuthen. Frederick hoped these two victories would force Austria to negotiate, but Maria Theresa was determined not to make peace until she had recovered Silesia, and the war continued. Despite its strong performance, the losses suffered from combat, disease and desertion had severely reduced the quality of the Prussian army. In the remaining years of the war, Frederick faced a coalition of enemies including Austria, France, Russia, Sweden, and the Holy Roman Empire, supported only by Great Britain and its allies Hesse, Brunswick, and Hanover. In 1758 Frederick once more took the initiative by invading Moravia. By May, he had laid siege to Olomouc; but, the Austrians were able to hold the town and destroyed Frederick's supply train, forcing him to retreat into Silesia. In the meantime, the Russian army had advanced within 100 miles (160 km) east of Berlin. In August, he fought the Russian forces to a draw at the Battle of Zorndorf, in which nearly a third of Frederick's soldiers were casualties. He then headed south to face the Austrian army in Saxony. There, he was defeated at the Battle of Hochkirch on 14 October, although the Austrian forces were not able to exploit their victory. During the 1759 campaign, the Austrian and Russian forces took the initiative, which they kept for the remainder of the war. They joined and once more advanced on Berlin. Frederick's army, which consisted of a substantial number of quickly recruited, half-trained soldiers, attempted to check them at the Battle of Kunersdorf on 12 August, where he was defeated and his troops were routed. Almost half his army was destroyed, and Frederick almost became a casualty when a bullet smashed a snuffbox he was carrying. Nevertheless, the Austro-Russian forces hesitated and stopped their advance for the year, an event Frederick later called the "Miracle of the House of Brandenburg". Frederick spent the remainder of the year in a futile attempt to manoeuvre the Austrians out of Saxony, where they had recaptured Dresden. His effort cost him further losses when his general Friedrich August von Finck capitulated at Maxen on 20 November. At the beginning of 1760, the Austrians moved to retake Silesia, where Frederick defeated them at the Battle of Liegnitz on 15 August. The victory did not allow Frederick to regain the initiative or prevent Russian and Austrian troops from raiding Berlin in October to extort a ransom from the city. At the end of the campaign season, Frederick fought his last major engagement of the war. He won a marginal victory at the Battle of Torgau on 3 November, which secured Berlin from further raids. In this battle, Frederick became a casualty when he was hit in the chest by a spent bullet. By 1761, both the Austrian and Prussian military forces were so exhausted that no major battles were fought between them. Frederick's position became even more desperate in 1761 when Britain, having achieved victory in the American and Indian theatres of the war, ended its financial support for Prussia after the death of King George II, Frederick's uncle. The Russian forces also continued their advance, occupying Pomerania and parts of Brandenburg. With the Russians slowly advancing towards Berlin, it looked as though Prussia was about to collapse. On 6 January 1762, Frederick wrote to Count Karl-Wilhelm Finck von Finckenstein, "We ought now to think of preserving for my nephew, by way of negotiation, whatever fragments of my territory we can save from the avidity of my enemies". The sudden death of Empress Elizabeth of Russia in January 1762 led to the succession of the Prussophile Peter III, her German nephew, who was also the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. This led to the collapse of the anti-Prussian coalition; Peter immediately promised to end the Russian occupation of East Prussia and Pomerania, returning them to Frederick. One of Peter III's first diplomatic endeavours was to seek a Prussian title; Frederick obliged. Peter III was so enamoured of Frederick that he not only offered him the full use of a Russian corps for the remainder of the war against Austria, he also wrote to Frederick that he would rather have been a general in the Prussian army than Tsar of Russia. More significantly, Russia's about-face from an enemy of Prussia to its patron rattled the leadership of Sweden, who hastily made peace with Frederick as well. With the threat to his eastern borders over, and France also seeking peace after its defeats by Britain, Frederick was able to fight the Austrians to a stalemate and finally brought them to the peace table. While the ensuing Treaty of Hubertusburg simply returned the European borders to what they had been before the Seven Years' War, Frederick's ability to retain Silesia in spite of the odds earned Prussia admiration throughout the German-speaking territories. A year following the Treaty of Hubertusburg, Catherine the Great, Peter III's widow and usurper, signed an eight-year alliance with Prussia, albeit with conditions that favoured the Russians. Frederick's ultimate success in the Seven Years' War came at a heavy financial cost to Prussia. Part of the burden was covered by the Anglo-Prussian Convention, which gave Frederick an annual £670,000 in British subsidies from 1758 till 1762. These subsidies ceased when Frederick allied with Peter III, partly because of the changed political situation and also because of Great Britain's decreasing willingness to pay the sums Frederick wanted. Frederick also financed the war by devaluing the Prussian coin five times; debased coins were produced with the help of Leipzig mintmasters, Veitel Heine Ephraim, Daniel Itzig and Moses Isaacs. He also debased the coinage of Saxony and Poland. This debasement of the currency helped Frederick cover over 20 per cent of the cost of the war, but at the price of causing massive inflation and economic upheaval throughout the region. Saxony, occupied by Prussia for most of the conflict, was left nearly destitute as a result. While Prussia lost no territory, the population and army were severely depleted by constant combat and invasions by Austria, Russia and Sweden. The best of Frederick's officer corps were also killed in the conflict. Although Frederick managed to bring his army up to 190,000 men by the time the economy had largely recovered in 1772, which made it the third-largest army in Europe, almost none of the officers in this army were veterans of his generation and the King's attitude towards them was extremely harsh. During this time, Frederick also suffered a number of personal losses. Many of his closest friends and family members—including his brother Augustus William, his sister Wilhelmine, and his mother—had died while Frederick was engaged in the war. ### First Partition of Poland Frederick sought to acquire and economically exploit Polish Prussia as part of his wider aim of enriching his kingdom. As early as 1731 Frederick had suggested that his country would benefit from annexing Polish territory, and had described Poland as an "artichoke, ready to be consumed leaf by leaf". By 1752, he had prepared the ground for the partition of Poland–Lithuania, aiming to achieve his goal of building a territorial bridge between Pomerania, Brandenburg, and his East Prussian provinces. The new territories would also provide an increased tax base, additional populations for the Prussian military, and serve as a surrogate for the other overseas colonies of the other great powers. Poland was vulnerable to partition due to poor governance, as well as the interference of foreign powers in its internal affairs. Frederick himself was partly responsible for this weakness by opposing attempts at financial and political reform in Poland, and undermining the Polish economy by inflating its currency by his use of Polish coin dies. The profits exceeded 25 million thalers, twice the peacetime national budget of Prussia. He also thwarted Polish efforts to create a stable economic system by building a customs fort at Marienwerder on the Vistula, Poland's major trade artery, and by bombarding Polish customs ports on the Vistula. Frederick also used Poland's religious dissension to keep the kingdom open to Prussian control. Poland was predominantly Roman Catholic, but approximately ten per cent of Poland's population, 600,000 Eastern Orthodox and 250,000 Protestants, were non-Catholic dissenters. During the 1760s, the dissenters' political importance was out of proportion to their numbers. Although dissenters still had substantial rights, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had increasingly been reducing their civic rights after a period of considerable religious and political freedom. Soon Protestants were barred from public offices and the Sejm (Polish Parliament). Frederick took advantage of this situation by becoming the protector of Protestant interests in Poland in the name of religious freedom. Frederick further opened Prussian control by signing an alliance with Catherine the Great who placed Stanisław August Poniatowski, a former lover and favourite, on the Polish throne. After Russia occupied the Danubian Principalities in 1769–70, Frederick's representative in Saint Petersburg, his brother Prince Henry, convinced Frederick and Maria Theresa that the balance of power would be maintained by a tripartite division of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth instead of Russia taking land from the Ottomans. They agreed to the First Partition of Poland in 1772, which took place without war. Frederick acquired most of Royal Prussia, annexing 38,000 square kilometres (15,000 sq mi) and 600,000 inhabitants. Although Frederick's share of the partition was the smallest of the partitioning powers, the lands he acquired had roughly the same economic value as the others and had great strategic value. The newly created province of West Prussia connected East Prussia and Farther Pomerania and granted Prussia control of the mouth of the Vistula River, as well as cutting off Poland's sea trade. Maria Theresa had only reluctantly agreed to the partition, to which Frederick sarcastically commented, "she cries, but she takes". Frederick undertook the exploitation of Polish territory under the pretext of an enlightened civilising mission that emphasised the supposed cultural superiority of Prussian ways. He saw Polish Prussia as barbaric and uncivilised, describing the inhabitants as "slovenly Polish trash" and comparing them unfavourably with the Iroquois. His long-term goal was to remove the Poles through Germanisation, which included appropriating Polish Crown lands and monasteries, introducing a military draft, encouraging German settlement in the region, and implementing a tax policy that disproportionately impoverished Polish nobles. ### War of the Bavarian Succession Late in his life Frederick involved Prussia in the low-scale War of the Bavarian Succession in 1778, in which he stifled Austrian attempts to exchange the Austrian Netherlands for Bavaria. For their part, the Austrians tried to pressure the French to participate in the War of Bavarian Succession since there were guarantees under consideration related to the Peace of Westphalia, clauses which linked the Bourbon dynasty of France and the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty of Austria. Unfortunately for the Austrian Emperor Joseph II, the French court was unwilling to support him because they were already supporting the American revolutionaries on the North American continent and the idea of an alliance with Austria had been unpopular in France since the end of the Seven Years' War. Frederick ended up as a beneficiary of the American Revolutionary War, as Austria was left more or less isolated. Moreover, Saxony and Russia, both of which had been Austria's allies in the Seven Years' War, were now allied with Prussia. Although Frederick was weary of war in his old age, he was determined not to allow Austrian dominance in German affairs. Frederick and Prince Henry marched the Prussian army into Bohemia to confront Joseph's army, but the two forces ultimately descended into a stalemate, largely living off the land and skirmishing rather than actively attacking each other. Frederick's longtime rival Maria Theresa, who was Joseph's mother and his co-ruler, did not want a new war with Prussia, and secretly sent messengers to Frederick to discuss peace negotiations. Finally, Catherine II of Russia threatened to enter the war on Frederick's side if peace was not negotiated, and Joseph reluctantly dropped his claim to Bavaria. When Joseph tried the scheme again in 1784, Frederick created the Fürstenbund (League of Princes), allowing himself to be seen as a defender of German liberties, in contrast to his earlier role of attacking the imperial Habsburgs. To stop Joseph II's attempts to acquire Bavaria, Frederick enlisted the help of the Electors of Hanover and Saxony along with several other minor German princes. Perhaps even more significant, Frederick benefited from the defection of the senior prelate of the German Church, the Archbishop of Mainz, who was also the arch-chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire, which further strengthened Frederick and Prussia's standing amid the German states. ## Policies ### Administrative modernisation In his earliest published work, the Anti-Machiavel, and his later Testament politique (Political Testament), Frederick wrote that the sovereign was the first servant of the state. Acting in this role, Frederick helped transform Prussia from a European backwater to an economically strong and politically reformed state. He protected his industries with high tariffs and minimal restrictions on domestic trade. He increased the freedom of speech in press and literature, abolished most uses of judicial torture, and reduced the number of crimes that could be punished by the death sentence. Working with his Grand Chancellor Samuel von Cocceji, he reformed the judicial system and made it more efficient, and he moved the courts toward greater legal equality of all citizens by removing special courts for special social classes. The reform was completed after Frederick's death, resulting in the Prussian Law Code of 1794, which balanced absolutism with human rights and corporate privilege with equality before the law. Reception to the law code was mixed as it was often viewed as contradictory. Frederick strove to put Prussia's fiscal system in order. In January 1750, Johann Philipp Graumann was appointed as Frederick's confidential adviser on finance, military affairs, and royal possessions, as well as the Director-General of all mint facilities. Graumann's currency reform slightly lowered the silver content of Prussian thaler from 1⁄12 Cologne mark of silver to 1⁄14, which brought the metal content of the thaler into alignment with its face value, and it standardised the Prussian coinage system. As a result, Prussian coins, which had been leaving the country nearly as fast as they were minted, remained in circulation in Prussia. In addition, Frederick estimated that he earned about one million thalers in profits on the seignorage. The coin eventually became universally accepted beyond Prussia and helped increase industry and trade. A gold coin, the Friedrich d'or, was also minted to oust the Dutch ducat from the Baltic trade. However, the fixed ratio between gold and silver led to the gold coins being perceived as more valuable, which caused them to leave circulation in Prussia. Being unable to meet Frederick's expectations for profit, Graumann was removed in 1754. Although Frederick's debasement of the coinage to fund the Seven Years' War left the Prussian monetary system in disarray, the Mint Edict of May 1763 brought it back to stability by fixing rates at which depreciated coins would be accepted and requiring tax payments in currency of prewar value. This resulted in a shortage of ready money, but Frederick controlled prices by releasing the grain stocks he held in reserve for military campaigns. Many other rulers soon followed the steps of Frederick in reforming their own currencies. The functionality and stability of the reform made the Prussian monetary system the standard in Northern Germany. Around 1751 Frederick founded the Emden Company to promote trade with China. He introduced the lottery, fire insurance, and a giro discount and credit bank to stabilise the economy. One of Frederick's achievements after the Seven Years' War included the control of grain prices, whereby government storehouses would enable the civilian population to survive in needy regions, where the harvest was poor. He commissioned Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky to promote the trade and – to take on the competition with France – put a silk factory where soon 1,500 people found employment. Frederick followed Gotzkowsky's recommendations in the field of toll levies and import restrictions. When Gotzkowsky asked for a deferral during the Amsterdam banking crisis of 1763, Frederick took over his porcelain factory, now known as KPM. Frederick modernised the Prussian civil service and promoted religious tolerance throughout his realm to attract more settlers in East Prussia. With the help of French experts, he organised a system of indirect taxation, which provided the state with more revenue than direct taxation; though French officials administering it may have pocketed some of the profit. He established new regulations for tax officials to reduce graft. In 1781, Frederick made coffee a royal monopoly and employed disabled soldiers, the coffee sniffers, to spy on citizens illegally roasting coffee, much to the annoyance of the general population. Though Frederick started many reforms during his reign, his ability to see them to fulfillment was not as disciplined or thorough as his military successes. ### Religion In contrast to his devoutly Calvinist father, Frederick was a religious sceptic, who has been described as a deist. Frederick was pragmatic about religious faith. Three times during his life, he presented his own confession of Christian faith: during his imprisonment after Katte's execution in 1730, after his conquest of Silesia in 1741, and just before the start of the Seven Years' War in 1756; in each case, these confessions also served personal or political goals. He tolerated all faiths in his realm, but Protestantism remained the favoured religion, and Catholics were not chosen for higher state positions. Frederick wanted development throughout the country, adapted to the needs of each region. He was interested in attracting a diversity of skills to his country, whether from Jesuit teachers, Huguenot citizens, or Jewish merchants and bankers. Frederick retained Jesuits as teachers in Silesia, Warmia, and the Netze District, recognising their educational activities as an asset for the nation. He continued to support them after their suppression by Pope Clement XIV. He befriended the Roman Catholic Prince-Bishop of Warmia, Ignacy Krasicki, whom he asked to consecrate St. Hedwig's Cathedral in 1773. He also accepted countless Protestant weavers from Bohemia, who were fleeing from the devoutly Catholic rule of Maria Theresa, granting them freedom from taxes and military service. Constantly looking for new colonists to settle his lands, he encouraged immigration by repeatedly emphasising that nationality and religion were of no concern to him. This policy allowed Prussia's population to recover very quickly from its considerable losses during Frederick's three wars. Though Frederick was known to be more tolerant of Jews and Roman Catholics than many neighbouring German states, his practical-minded tolerance was not fully unprejudiced. Frederick wrote in his Testament politique: > We have too many Jews in the towns. They are needed on the Polish border because in these areas Hebrews alone perform trade. As soon as you get away from the frontier, the Jews become a disadvantage, they form cliques, they deal in contraband and get up to all manner of rascally tricks which are detrimental to Christian burghers and merchants. I have never persecuted anyone from this or any other sect; I think, however, it would be prudent to pay attention, so that their numbers do not increase. The success in integrating the Jews into areas of society where Frederick encouraged them can be seen by Gerson von Bleichröder's role during the 19th century in financing Otto von Bismarck's efforts to unite Germany. Frederick was also less tolerant of Catholicism in his occupied territories. In Silesia, he disregarded canon law to install clergy who were loyal to him. In Polish Prussia, he confiscated the Roman Catholic Church's goods and property, making clergy dependent on the government for their pay and defining how they were to perform their duties. Like many leading figures in the Age of Enlightenment, Frederick was a Freemason, having joined during a trip to Brunswick in 1738. His membership legitimised the group's presence in Prussia and protected it against charges of subversion. In 1786, he became the First Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree, his double-headed eagle emblem was also used for 32nd and 33rd degree Masons following the adoption of seven additional degrees to the Masonic Rite. Frederick's religious views were sometimes criticised. His views resulted in his condemnation by the anti-revolutionary French Jesuit, Augustin Barruel. In his 1797 book, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire du Jacobinisme (Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism), Barruel described an influential conspiracy theory that accused King Frederick of taking part in a plot which led to the outbreak of the French Revolution and having been the secret "protector and adviser" of fellow-conspirators Voltaire, Jean le Rond d'Alembert, and Denis Diderot, who all sought "to destroy Christianity" and foment "rebellion against Kings and Monarchs". ### Environment and agriculture Frederick was keenly interested in land use, especially draining swamps and opening new farmland for colonisers who would increase the kingdom's food supply. He called it Peuplierungspolitik (peopling policy). About 1,200 new villages were founded in his reign. He told Voltaire, "Whoever improves the soil, cultivates land lying waste and drains swamps, is making conquests from barbarism". Using improved technology enabled him to create new farmland through a massive drainage programme in the country's Oderbruch marshland. This programme created roughly 60,000 hectares (150,000 acres) of new farmland, but also eliminated vast swaths of natural habitat, destroyed the region's biodiversity, and displaced numerous native plant and animal communities. Frederick saw this project as the "taming" and "conquering" of nature, considering uncultivated land "useless", an attitude that reflected his enlightenment era, rationalist sensibilities. He presided over the construction of canals for bringing crops to market, and introduced new crops, especially the potato and the turnip, to the country. For this, he was sometimes called Der Kartoffelkönig (the Potato King). Frederick's interest in land reclamation may have resulted from his upbringing. As a child, his father, Frederick William I, made young Frederick work in the region's provinces, teaching the boy about the area's agriculture and geography. This created an interest in cultivation and development that the boy retained when he became ruler. Frederick founded the first veterinary school in Prussia. Unusually for the time and his aristocratic background, he criticised hunting as cruel, rough and uneducated. When someone once asked Frederick why he did not wear spurs when riding his horse, he replied, "Try sticking a fork into your naked stomach, and you will soon see why." He loved dogs and his horse and wanted to be buried with his greyhounds. In 1752 he wrote to his sister Wilhelmine that people indifferent to loyal animals would not be devoted to their human comrades either, and that it was better to be too sensitive than too harsh. He was also close to nature and issued decrees to protect plants. ### Arts and education Frederick was a patron of music, and the court musicians he supported included C. P. E. Bach, Carl Heinrich Graun and Franz Benda. A meeting with Johann Sebastian Bach in 1747 in Potsdam led to Bach's writing The Musical Offering. He was also a talented musician and composer in his own right, playing the transverse flute, as well as composing 121 sonatas for flute and continuo, four concertos for flute and strings, four sinfonias, three military marches and seven arias. Additionally, the Hohenfriedberger Marsch was allegedly written by Frederick to commemorate his victory in the Battle of Hohenfriedberg during the Second Silesian War. His flute sonatas were often composed in collaboration with Johann Joachim Quantz, who was Frederick's occasional music tutor in his youth and joined his court as composer and flute maker in 1741. Frederick's flute sonatas are written in the Baroque style in which flute plays the melody, sometimes imitating operatic vocal styles like the aria and recitative, while the accompaniment was usually played by just one instrument per part to highlight the delicate sound of the flute. Frederick also wrote sketches, outlines and libretti for opera that were included as part of the repertoire for the Berlin Opera House. These works, which were often completed in collaboration with Graun, included the operas Coriolano (1749), Silla (1753), Montezuma (1755), and Il tempio d'Amore (1756). Frederick saw opera as playing an important role in imparting enlightenment philosophy, using it to critique superstition and the Pietism that still held sway in Prussia. He also attempted to broaden access to opera by making admission to it free. Frederick also wrote philosophical works, publishing some of his writings under the title of The Works of a Sans-Souci Philosopher. Frederick corresponded with key French Enlightenment figures, including Voltaire, who at one point declared Frederick to be a philosopher-king, and the Marquis d'Argens, whom he appointed as Royal Chamberlain in 1742 and later as the Director of the Prussian Academy of Arts and Berlin State Opera. His openness to philosophy had its limits. He did not admire the encyclopédistes or the French intellectual avant-garde of his time, though he did shelter Rousseau from persecution for a number of years. Moreover, once he ascended the Prussian throne, he found it increasingly difficult to apply the philosophical ideas of his youth to his role as king. Like many European rulers of the time who were influenced by the prestige of Louis XIV of France and his court, Frederick adopted French tastes and manners, though in Frederick's case, the extent of his Francophile tendencies might also have been a reaction to the austerity of the family environment created by his father, who had a deep aversion for France and promoted an austere culture for his state. He was educated by French tutors, and almost all the books in his library, which covered topics as diverse as mathematics, art, politics, the classics, and literary works by 17th century French authors, were written in French. French was Frederick's preferred language for speaking and writing, though he had to rely on proofreaders to correct his difficulties with its spelling. Though Frederick used German as his working language with his administration and with the army, he claimed to have never learned it properly and never fully mastered speaking or writing it. He also disliked the German language, thinking it was inharmonious and awkward. He once commented that German authors "pile parenthesis upon parenthesis, and often you find only at the end of an entire page the verb on which depends the meaning of the whole sentence". He considered the German culture of his time, particularly literature and theatre, to be inferior to that of France; believing that it had been hindered by the devastation of the Thirty Years' War. He suggested that it could eventually equal its rivals, but this would require a complete codification of the German language, the emergence of talented German authors and extensive patronage of the arts by Germanic rulers. This was a project he believed would take a century or more. Frederick's love of French culture was not without limits either. He disapproved of the luxury and extravagance of the French royal court. He also ridiculed German princes, especially the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, Augustus III, who imitated French sumptuousness. His own court remained quite Spartan, frugal and small and restricted to a limited circle of close friends, a layout similar to his father's court, though Frederick and his friends were far more culturally inclined than Frederick William. Despite his distaste for the German language, Frederick did sponsor the Königliche Deutsche Gesellschaft (Royal German Society), founded in Königsberg in 1741, the aim of which was to promote and develop the German language. He allowed the association to be titled "royal" and have its seat at the Königsberg Castle, but he does not seem to have taken much interest in the work of the society. Frederick also promoted the use of German instead of Latin in the field of law, as in the legal document Project des Corporis Juris Fridericiani (Project of the Frederician Body of Laws), which was written in German with the aim of being clear and easily understandable. Moreover, it was under his reign that Berlin became an important centre of German enlightenment. #### Architecture and the fine arts Frederick had many famous buildings constructed in his capital, Berlin, most of which still stand today, such as the Berlin State Opera, the Royal Library (today the State Library Berlin), St. Hedwig's Cathedral, and Prince Henry's Palace (now the site of Humboldt University). A number of the buildings, including the Berlin State Opera House, a wing of Schloss Charlottenburg, and the renovation of Rheinsburg during Frederick's residence were built in a unique Rococo style that Frederick developed in collaboration with Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff. This style became known as Frederician Rococo and is epitomised by Frederick's summer palace, Sanssouci (French for "carefree" or "without worry"), which served as his primary residence and private refuge. As a great patron of the arts, Frederick was a collector of paintings and ancient sculptures; his favourite artist was Jean-Antoine Watteau. His sense of aesthetics can be seen in the picture gallery at Sanssouci, which presents architecture, painting, sculpture and the decorative arts as a unified whole. The gilded stucco decorations of the ceilings were created by Johann Michael Merck (1714–1784) and Carl Joseph Sartori (1709–1770). Both the wall panelling of the galleries and the diamond shapes of the floor consist of white and yellow marble. Paintings by different schools were displayed strictly separately: 17th-century Flemish and Dutch paintings filled the western wing and the gallery's central building, while Italian paintings from the High Renaissance and Baroque were exhibited in the eastern wing. Sculptures were arranged symmetrically or in rows in relation to the architecture. #### Science and the Berlin Academy When Frederick ascended the throne in 1740, he reinstituted the Prussian Academy of Sciences (Berlin Academy), which his father had closed down as an economy measure. Frederick's goal was to make Berlin a European cultural centre that rivalled London and Paris in the arts and sciences. To accomplish this goal, he invited numerous intellectuals from across Europe to join the academy, made French the official language and made speculative philosophy the most important topic of study. The membership was strong in mathematics and philosophy and included Immanuel Kant, D'Alembert, Pierre Louis de Maupertuis, and Étienne de Condillac. However the academy was in a crisis for two decades at mid-century, due in part to scandals and internal rivalries such as the debates between Newtonianism and Leibnizian views, and the personality conflict between Voltaire and Maupertuis. At a higher level Maupertuis, director of the Berlin Academy from 1746 to 1759 and a monarchist, argued that the action of individuals was shaped by the character of the institution that contained them, and they worked for the glory of the state. By contrast d' Alembert took a republican rather than monarchical approach and emphasised the international Republic of Letters as the vehicle for scientific advance. By 1789, the academy had gained an international repute while making major contributions to German culture and thought. For example, the mathematicians he recruited for the Berlin Academy – including Leonhard Euler, Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Johann Heinrich Lambert, and Johann Castillon – made it a world-class centre for mathematical research. Other intellectuals attracted to the philosopher's kingdom were Francesco Algarotti, d'Argens, and Julien Offray de La Mettrie. ## Military theory Contrary to his father's fears, Frederick became a capable military commander. With the exception of his first battlefield experience at the Battle of Mollwitz, Frederick proved himself courageous in battle. He frequently led his military forces personally and had a number of horses shot from under him during battle. During his reign he commanded the Prussian Army at sixteen major battles and various sieges, skirmishes and other actions, ultimately obtaining almost all his political objectives. He is often admired for his tactical skills, especially for his use of the oblique order of battle, an attack focused on one flank of the opposing line, allowing a local advantage even if his forces were outnumbered overall. Even more important were his operational successes, especially the use of interior lines to prevent the unification of numerically superior opposing armies and defend the Prussian core territory. Napoleon Bonaparte saw the Prussian king as a military commander of the first rank; after Napoleon's victory over the Fourth Coalition in 1807, he visited Frederick's tomb in Potsdam and remarked to his officers, "Gentlemen, if this man were still alive I would not be here". Napoleon frequently "pored through Frederick's campaign narratives and had a statuette of him placed in his personal cabinet". Frederick's most notable military victories on the battlefield were the Battle of Hohenfriedberg, a tactical victory, fought during the War of Austrian Succession in June 1745; the Battle of Rossbach, where Frederick defeated a combined Franco-Austrian army of 41,000 with only 21,000 soldiers (10,000 dead for the Franco-Austrian side with only 550 casualties for Prussia); and the Battle of Leuthen, a follow-up victory to Rossbach in which Frederick's 39,000 troops inflicted 22,000 casualties, including 12,000 prisoners, on Charles of Lorraine's Austrian force of 65,000. Frederick the Great believed that creating alliances was necessary, as Prussia did not have the resources of nations like France or Austria. Though his reign was regularly involved in war, he did not advocate for protracted warfare. He stated that for Prussia, wars should be short and quick: long wars would destroy the army's discipline, depopulate the country, and exhaust its resources. Frederick was an influential military theorist whose analysis emerged from his extensive personal battlefield experience and covered issues of strategy, tactics, mobility and logistics. Austrian co-ruler, Emperor Joseph II wrote, "When the King of Prussia speaks on problems connected with the art of war, which he has studied intensively and on which he has read every conceivable book, then everything is taut, solid and uncommonly instructive. There are no circumlocutions, he gives factual and historical proof of the assertions he makes, for he is well versed in history." Robert Citino describes Frederick's strategic approach: > In war ... he usually saw one path to victory, and that was fixing the enemy army in place, maneuvering near or even around it to give himself a favorable position for the attack, and then smashing it with an overwhelming blow from an unexpected direction. He was the most aggressive field commander of the century, perhaps of all time, and one who constantly pushed the limits of the possible. The historian Dennis Showalter argues: "The King was also more consistently willing than any of his contemporaries to seek decision through offensive operations." Yet, these offensive operations were not acts of blind aggression; Frederick considered foresight to be among the most important attributes when fighting an enemy, stating that the discriminating commander must see everything before it takes place, so nothing will be new to him. Much of the structure of the more modern German General Staff owed its existence and extensive structure to Frederick, along with the accompanying power of autonomy given to commanders in the field. According to Citino, "When later generations of Prussian-German staff officers looked back to the age of Frederick, they saw a commander who repeatedly, even joyfully, risked everything on a single day's battle – his army, his kingdom, often his very life." As far as Frederick was concerned, there were two major battlefield considerations – speed of march and speed of fire. So confident in the performance of men he selected for command when compared to those of his enemy, Frederick once quipped that a general considered audacious in another country would be ordinary in Prussia because Prussian generals will dare and undertake anything that is possible for men to execute. After the Seven Years' War, the Prussian military acquired a formidable reputation across Europe. Esteemed for their efficiency and success in battle, the Prussian army of Frederick became a model emulated by other European powers, most notably by Russia and France. To this day, Frederick continues to be held in high regard as a military theorist and has been described as representing the embodiment of the art of war. ## Later years and death Near the end of his life, Frederick grew increasingly solitary. His circle of close friends at Sanssouci gradually died off with few replacements, and Frederick became increasingly critical and arbitrary, to the frustration of the civil service and officer corps. Frederick was immensely popular among the Prussian people because of his enlightened reforms and military glory; the citizens of Berlin always cheered him when he returned from administrative or military reviews. Over time, he was nicknamed Der Alte Fritz (The Old Fritz) by the Prussian people, and this name became part of his legacy. Frederick derived little pleasure from his popularity with the common people, preferring instead the company of his pet Italian greyhounds, whom he referred to as his "marquises de Pompadour" as a jibe at the French royal mistress. Even in his late 60s and early 70s when he was increasingly crippled by asthma, gout and other ailments, he rose before dawn, drank six to eight cups of coffee a day, "laced with mustard and peppercorns", and attended to state business with characteristic tenacity. On the morning of 17 August 1786, Frederick died in an armchair in his study at Sanssouci, aged 74. He left instructions that he should be buried next to his greyhounds on the vineyard terrace, on the side of the corps de logis of Sanssouci. His nephew and successor Frederick William II instead ordered Frederick's body to be entombed next to his father, Frederick William I, in the Potsdam Garrison Church. Near the end of World War II, German dictator Adolf Hitler ordered Frederick's coffin to be hidden in a salt mine to protect it from destruction. The United States Army relocated the remains to Marburg in 1946; in 1953, the coffins of Frederick and his father were moved to Burg Hohenzollern. On the 205th anniversary of his death, on 17 August 1991, Frederick's coffin lay in state in the court of honour at Sanssouci, covered by a Prussian flag and escorted by a Bundeswehr guard of honour. After nightfall, Frederick's body was interred in the terrace of the vineyard of Sanssouci—in the still existing crypt he had built there—without pomp, in accordance with his will. Visitors to his grave often place potatoes on the gravestone in honour of his role in promoting the use of the potato in Prussia. ## Historiography and legacy Frederick's legacy has been subject to a wide variety of interpretations. For instance, Thomas Carlyle's History of Frederick the Great (8 vol. 1858–1865) emphasised the power of one great "hero", in this case Frederick, to shape history. In German memory, Frederick became a great national icon and many Germans said he was the greatest monarch in modern history. These claims particularly were popular in the 19th century. For example, German historians often made him the romantic model of a glorified warrior, praising his leadership, administrative efficiency, devotion to duty and success in building up Prussia to a leading role in Europe. Frederick's popularity as a heroic figure remained high in Germany even after World War I. Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazis glorified Frederick as a precursor to Adolf Hitler and presented Frederick as holding out hope that another miracle would again save Germany at the last moment. In an attempt to legitimise the Nazi regime, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels commissioned artists to render fanciful images of Frederick, Bismarck, and Hitler together in order to create a sense of a historical continuum amongst them. Throughout World War II, Hitler often compared himself to Frederick the Great, and he kept a copy of Anton Graff's portrait of Frederick with him to the end in the Führerbunker in Berlin. After the defeat of Germany after 1945, the role of Prussia in German history was minimised. Compared to the pre-1945 period, Frederick's reputation was downgraded in both East and West Germany, partly due to the Nazis' fascination with him and his supposed connection with Prussian militarism. During the second half of the 20th century, political attitudes towards Frederick's image were ambivalent, particularly in communist East Germany. For example, immediately after World War II images of Prussia were removed from public spaces, including Frederick's equestrian statue on the Unter den Linden, but in 1980 his statue was once more re-erected on its original location. Since the end of the Cold War, Frederick's reputation has continued to grow in the now reunified Germany. In the 21st century, the view of Frederick as a capable and effective leader also remains strong among military historians. However, the originality of his achievements remains a topic of debate, as many were based on developments already under way. He has also been studied as a model of servant leadership in management research and is held in high regard for his patronage of the arts. He has been seen as an exemplar of enlightened absolutism, though this label has been questioned in the 21st century as many enlightenment principles directly contrast with his military reputation. ## Works by Frederick the Great Selected works in English Collections - (31 vols.) - (46 vols.) Editions of music
166,964	George Lansbury	1,164,688,269	British politician and reformer (1859–1940)	[ "1859 births", "1940 deaths", "Anglican pacifists", "Anglican socialists", "Chairs of the Labour Party (UK)", "Councillors in Greater London", "Deaths from cancer in England", "Deaths from stomach cancer", "English Christian pacifists", "English Christian socialists", "English feminists", "English reformers", "English republicans", "English socialist feminists", "European democratic socialists", "Independent Labour Party National Administrative Committee members", "Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies", "Labour Party (UK) mayors", "Lansbury family", "Leaders of the Labour Party (UK)", "Leaders of the Opposition (United Kingdom)", "Male feminists", "Members of London County Council", "Members of Poplar Metropolitan Borough Council", "Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom", "Parliamentary Peace Aims Group", "People from Halesworth", "Social Democratic Federation members", "Transport and General Workers' Union-sponsored MPs", "UK MPs 1910–1918", "UK MPs 1922–1923", "UK MPs 1923–1924", "UK MPs 1924–1929", "UK MPs 1929–1931", "UK MPs 1931–1935", "UK MPs 1935–1945" ]	George Lansbury (22 February 1859 – 7 May 1940) was a British politician and social reformer who led the Labour Party from 1932 to 1935. Apart from a brief period of ministerial office during the Labour government of 1929–31, he spent his political life campaigning against established authority and vested interests, his main causes being the promotion of social justice, women's rights, and world disarmament. Originally a radical Liberal, Lansbury became a socialist in the early 1890s, and thereafter served his local community in the East End of London in numerous elective offices. His activities were underpinned by his Christian beliefs which, except for a short period of doubt, sustained him through his life. Elected to the UK Parliament in 1910, he resigned his seat in 1912 to campaign for women's suffrage, and was briefly imprisoned after publicly supporting militant action. In 1912, Lansbury helped to establish the Daily Herald newspaper, and became its editor. Throughout the First World War, the paper maintained a strongly pacifist stance, and supported the October 1917 Russian Revolution. These positions contributed to Lansbury's failure to be elected to Parliament in 1918. He devoted himself to local politics in his home borough of Poplar, and went to prison with 30 fellow-councillors for his part in the Poplar Rates Rebellion of 1921. After his return to Parliament in 1922, Lansbury was denied office in the brief Labour government of 1924, although he served as First Commissioner of Works in the Labour government of 1929–31. After the political and economic crisis of August 1931, Lansbury did not follow his leader, Ramsay MacDonald, into the National Government, but remained with the Labour Party. As the most senior of the small contingent of Labour MPs that survived the 1931 UK general election, Lansbury became the Leader of the Labour Party. His pacifism and his opposition to rearmament in the face of rising European fascism put him at odds with his party, and when his position was rejected at the 1935 Labour Party conference, he resigned the leadership. He spent his final years travelling through the United States and Europe in the cause of peace and disarmament. ## Early life ### East End upbringing George Lansbury was born in Halesworth in the county of Suffolk on 22 February 1859. He was the third of nine children born to a railway worker, also named George Lansbury, and Anne Lansbury (née Ferris). George senior's job involved the supervision of railway construction gangs; the family was often on the move, and living conditions were primitive. Through his progressive-minded mother and grandmother, young George became familiar with the names of great contemporary reformers—Gladstone, Richard Cobden and John Bright—and began to read the radical Reynolds's Newspaper. By the end of 1868, the family had moved into the East End of London, the district in which Lansbury would live and work for almost all his life. The essayist Ronald Blythe has described the East End of the 1860s and 1870s as "stridently English ... The smoke-blackened streets were packed with illiterate multitudes [who] stayed alive through sheer birdlike ebullience". Interspersed with spells of work, Lansbury attended schools in Bethnal Green and Whitechapel. He then held a succession of manual jobs, including work as a coaling contractor in partnership with his elder brother, James, loading and unloading coal wagons. This was heavy and dangerous work, and led to at least one near-fatal accident. During his adolescence and early adulthood, Lansbury was a regular attender at the public gallery at the House of Commons, where he heard and remembered many of Gladstone's speeches on the main foreign policy issue of the day, the "Eastern Question". He was present at the riots which erupted outside Gladstone's house on 24 February 1878 after a peace meeting in Hyde Park. Shepherd writes that Gladstone's Liberalism, proclaiming liberty, freedom and community interests was "a heady mix that left an indelible mark" on the youthful Lansbury. George Lansbury senior died in 1875. That year young George met fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Brine, whose father Isaac Brine owned a local sawmill. The couple eventually married in 1880, at Whitechapel parish church, where the vicar, J. Franklin Kitto, had been Lansbury's spiritual guide and counsellor. Apart from a period of doubt in the 1890s when he temporarily rejected the Church, Lansbury remained a staunch Anglican until his death. ### Australia In 1881, the first of Lansbury's twelve children, Bessie, was born; another daughter, Annie, followed in 1882. Seeking to improve his family's prospects, Lansbury decided that their best hopes of prosperity lay in emigrating to Australia. The London agent-general for Queensland depicted a land of boundless opportunities, with work for all; seduced by this appealing prospect, Lansbury and Bessie raised the necessary passage money, and in May 1884 set sail with their children for Brisbane. On the outward passage, the family experienced illness, discomfort and danger; on one occasion the ship came close to foundering during a monsoon. On arrival at Brisbane in July 1884, Lansbury found that, contrary to the London agent's promises, there was a superfluity of labour and work was hard to come by. His first job, breaking stone, proved to be too physically punishing; he moved to a better-paid position as a van driver, but was sacked when, for religious reasons, he refused to work on Sundays. He then contracted to work on a farm some 80 miles inland, to find upon arrival that his employer had misled him about living conditions and terms of employment. For several months, the Lansbury family lived in extreme squalor before Lansbury secured release from the contract. Back in Brisbane, he worked for a while at the newly built Brisbane cricket ground. As a keen follower of the game he hoped to see the visiting English touring team play but, as Lansbury's biographer Raymond Postgate records, "he learned that cricket watching was not a pleasure for workmen". Throughout his tenure in Australia, Lansbury sent letters home, revealing the truth about conditions facing immigrants. To a friend he wrote in March 1885: "Mechanics are not wanted. Farm labourers are not wanted ... Hundreds of men and women are not able to get work ... The streets are foul day and night, and if I had a sister I would shoot her dead rather than see her brought out to this little hell on earth". In May 1885, having received from his father-in-law Isaac Brine sufficient funds for a passage home, the Lansbury family left Australia for good and returned to London. ## Radical Liberal ### First campaigns On his return to London, Lansbury took a job in Brine's timber business. In his spare time he campaigned against the false prospectuses offered by colonial emigration agents. His speech at an emigration conference at King's College in London in April 1886 impressed delegates; shortly afterwards, the government established an Emigration Information Bureau under the Colonial Office. This body was required to provide accurate information on the state of labour markets in all the government's overseas possessions. Having joined the Liberal Party shortly after his return from Australia, Lansbury became first a ward secretary and then general secretary for the Bow and Bromley Liberal and Radical Association. His effective campaigning skills had been noted by leading Liberals, including Samuel Montagu, the Liberal MP for Whitechapel, who persuaded the young activist to be his agent in the 1885 general election. Lansbury's handling of this election campaign prompted Montagu to urge him to stand for parliament himself. Lansbury declined this, partly on practical grounds (MPs were then unpaid and he had to provide for his family), and partly on principle; he was becoming increasingly convinced that his future lay not as a radical Liberal but as a socialist. He continued to serve the Liberals, as an agent and local secretary, while expressing his socialism in a short-lived monthly radical journal, Coming Times, which he founded and co-edited with a fellow-dissident, William Hoffman. ### London County Council elections, 1889 In 1888 Lansbury agreed to act as election agent for Jane Cobden, who was contesting the first elections for the newly formed London County Council (LCC) as Liberal candidate for the Bow and Bromley division. Cobden, an early supporter of women's suffrage, was the fourth child of the Victorian radical statesman Richard Cobden. The Society for Promoting Women as County Councillors (SPWCC), a new women's rights group, had proposed Cobden as the candidate for Bow and Bromley and Margaret Sandhurst for Brixton. Lansbury counselled Cobden in the issues of greatest concern to the East End electorate: housing for the poor, ending of sweated labour, rights of public assembly, and control of the police. Specific questions of women's rights were largely avoided during the campaign. On 19 January 1889 both women were elected; these triumphs were, however, short-lived. Sandhurst's qualification to serve as a county councillor was successfully challenged in the courts by her Conservative Party opponents on the grounds of her sex, and her subsequent appeal was dismissed. Cobden was not immediately challenged, but in April 1891, after a series of legal actions, she was effectively neutered as a councillor by being prevented from voting on pain of severe financial penalties. Lansbury urged her, during the hearings, to "go to prison and let the Council back you up by refusing to declare your seat vacant". Cobden did not follow this path. A Bill introduced in the House of Commons in May 1891 permitting women to serve as county councillors found little support among MPs of any party; women were not granted this right until 1907. Lansbury was offended by his party's lukewarm support for women's rights. In a letter published in the Pall Mall Gazette he made an open call to Bow and Bromley's Liberals to "shake themselves free of party feeling and throw the energy and ability they are now wasting on minor questions into ... securing the full rights of citizenship to every woman in the land". He was further disillusioned by his party's failure to endorse the eight-hour maximum working day. Lansbury had formed the view, expressed some years later, that "Liberalism would progress just as far as the great money bags of capitalism would allow it to progress". By 1892 the Liberals no longer felt like Lansbury's political home; most of his current associates were avowed socialists: William Morris, Eleanor Marx, John Burns and Henry Hyndman, founder of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF). Nevertheless, Lansbury did not resign from the Liberals until he had fulfilled a commitment to act as election agent for John Murray MacDonald, the prospective Liberal candidate for Bow and Bromley. He saw his candidate victorious in the July 1892 general election; as soon as the result was declared, Lansbury resigned from the Liberal Party and joined the SDF. ## Socialist reformer ### Social Democratic Federation Lansbury's choice of the SDF, from several socialist organisations, reflected his admiration for Hyndman, whom he considered "one of the truly great ones". Lansbury quickly became the federation's most tireless propagandist, travelling throughout Britain to address meetings or to demonstrate solidarity with workers involved in industrial disputes. Around this time, Lansbury temporarily set aside his Christian beliefs and became a member of the East London Ethical Society. One factor in his disillusion with the Church was the local clergy's unsympathetic approach to poor relief, and their opposition to collective political action. In 1895 Lansbury fought two parliamentary elections for the SDF in Walworth, first a by-election on 14 May, then the 1895 general election two months later. Despite his energetic campaigning he was heavily defeated on each occasion, with tiny proportions of the vote. After these dismal results, Lansbury was persuaded by Hyndman to give up his job at the sawmill and become the SDF's full-time salaried national organiser. He preached a straightforward revolutionary doctrine: "The time has arrived", he informed an audience at Todmorden in Lancashire, "for the working classes to seize political power and use it to overthrow the competitive system and establish in its place state cooperation". Lansbury's time as SDF national organiser did not last long; in 1896, when Isaac Brine died suddenly, Lansbury thought that his family duty required him to take charge of the sawmill, and he returned home to Bow. In the general election of 1900 a pact with the Liberals in the Bow and Bromley constituency gave Lansbury, the SDF candidate, a straight fight against the Conservative incumbent, Walter Murray Guthrie. Lansbury's cause was hindered by his public opposition to the Boer War at a time when war fever was strong, while Guthrie, a former soldier, stressed his military credentials. Lansbury lost the election, though his total of 2,258 votes against Guthrie's 4,403 was considered creditable by the press. This campaign was Lansbury's last major effort on behalf of the SDF. He became disenchanted by Hyndman's inability to work with other socialist groups, and in about 1903 resigned from the SDF to join the Independent Labour Party (ILP). At around this time, Lansbury rediscovered his Christian faith and rejoined the Anglican Church. ### Poor Law guardian In April 1893 Lansbury achieved his first elective office when he became a Poor Law guardian for the district of Poplar. In place of the traditionally harsh workhouse regime that was the norm, Lansbury proposed a programme of reform, whereby the workhouse became "an agency of help instead of a place of despair", and the stigma of poverty was removed. Lansbury was one of a minority socialist bloc which was often able, through its energy and commitment, to win support for its plans. Education for the poor was one of Lansbury's major concerns. He helped to transform the Forest Gate District School, previously a punitive establishment run on quasi-military lines, into a proper place of education that became the Poplar Training School, and was still in existence more than half a century later. At the 1897 annual Poor Law Conference Lansbury summarised his views on poor relief in his first published paper: "The Principles of the English Poor Law". His analysis offered a Marxist critique of capitalism: only the reorganisation of industry on collectivist lines would solve contemporary problems. Lansbury added to his public duties when, in 1903, he was elected to Poplar Borough Council. In the summer of that year he met Joseph Fels, a rich American soap manufacturer with a penchant for social projects. Lansbury persuaded Fels, in 1904, to purchase a 100-acre farm at Laindon, in Essex, which was converted into a labour colony that provided regular work for Poplar's unemployed and destitute. Fels also agreed to finance a much larger colony at Hollesley Bay in Suffolk, to be operated as a government scheme under the Local Government Board. Both projects were initially successful, but were undermined after the election of a Liberal government in 1906. The new Local Government minister was John Burns, a former SDF stalwart now ensconced in the Liberal Party who had become a firm opponent of socialism. Burns encouraged a campaign of propaganda to discredit the principle of labour colonies, which were presented as money-wasting ventures that pampered idlers and scroungers. A formal enquiry revealed irregularities in the operation of the scheme, though it exonerated Lansbury. He retained the confidence of his electorate and was easily re-elected to the Board of Guardians in 1907. In 1905 Lansbury was appointed to a Royal Commission on the Poor Laws, which deliberated for four years. Lansbury, together with Beatrice Webb of the Fabian Society, argued for the complete abolition of the Poor Laws and their replacement by a system that incorporated old age pensions, a minimum wage, and national and local public works projects. These proposals were embodied at the commission's conclusion in a minority report signed by Lansbury and Webb; the majority report was, according to Postgate, "an ill-considered jumble of suggestions ... so preposterously inadequate that no attempts were ever made to implement it." Most of the minority's recommendations in time became national policy; the Poor Laws were finally abolished by the Local Government Act 1929. ## National prominence ### Campaigner for women's suffrage In the general election of January 1906 Lansbury stood as an independent socialist candidate in Middlesbrough, on a strong "votes for women" platform. This was his first campaign based on women's rights since the LCC election of 1889. He had been recommended to the constituency by Joseph Fels, who agreed to meet his expenses. The local ILP leadership was committed by an electoral pact to support the Liberal candidate, and could not endorse Lansbury, who secured less than 9 per cent of the vote. The campaign had been managed by Marion Coates Hansen, a prominent local suffragist. Under Hansen's influence Lansbury took up the cause of "votes for women"; he allied himself with the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), the more militant of the main suffragist organisations, and became a close associate of Emmeline Pankhurst and her family. The Liberal government elected in 1906 with a large majority showed little interest in the issue of women's suffrage; when they lost their parliamentary majority in the general election of January 1910 they were dependent on the votes of the 40-odd Labour members. To Lansbury's dismay, Labour did not use this leverage to promote votes for women, instead giving the government virtually unqualified support to keep the Conservatives out of power. Lansbury had failed to win election as Labour's candidate at Bow and Bromley in January 1910; however, the continuing political crisis which developed from David Lloyd George's controversial 1909 "People's Budget" led to another general election in December 1910. Lansbury again fought Bow and Bromley, and this time was successful. Lansbury found little support in his fight for women's suffrage from his parliamentary Labour colleagues, whom he dismissed as "a weak, flabby lot". In parliament, he denounced the prime minister, H. H. Asquith, for the cruelties being inflicted on imprisoned suffragists: "You are beneath contempt ... you ought to be driven from public life". He was temporarily suspended from the House for "disorderly conduct". In October 1912, aware of the unbridgeable gap between his own position and that of his Labour colleagues, Lansbury resigned his seat to fight a by-election in Bow and Bromley on the specific issue of women's suffrage. The suffragettes sent Grace Roe to help with the campaign. He lost to his Conservative opponent, who campaigned on the slogan "No Petticoat Government". Commenting on the result, the Labour MP Will Thorne opined that no constituency could ever be won on the single question of votes for women. Out of parliament, on 26 April 1913 Lansbury addressed a WSPU rally at the Albert Hall, and openly defended violent methods: "Let them burn and destroy property and do anything they will, and for every leader that is taken away, let a dozen step forward in their place". For this, Lansbury was charged with incitement, convicted and, after the dismissal of an appeal, sentenced to three months' imprisonment. He immediately went on hunger strike, and was released after four days; although liable to rearrest under the so-called "Cat and Mouse Act", he was thereafter left at liberty. In the autumn of 1913, at the invitation of Fels, Lansbury and his wife travelled to America and Canada for an extended holiday. On his return, he devoted his main efforts to the recently founded newspaper, the Daily Herald. ### War, Daily Herald and Bolshevism The Daily Herald began as a temporary bulletin during the London printers' strike of 1910–11. After the strike ended, Lansbury and others raised sufficient funds for the Herald to be relaunched in April 1912 as a socialist daily newspaper. The paper attracted contributions from distinguished writers such as H. G. Wells, Hilaire Belloc, G. K. Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw, some of whom, Blythe notes, "weren't socialists at all but simply used [the paper] as a platform for their personal literary anarchy." Lansbury contributed regularly in support of his various causes, in particular the militant suffrage campaign, and early in 1914 assumed the paper's editorship. Before the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, the Herald took a strong anti-war line. Addressing a large demonstration in Trafalgar Square on 2 August 1914, Lansbury blamed the coming conflict on capitalism: "The workers of all countries have no quarrel. They are ... exploited in times of peace and sent out to be massacred in times of war". Lansbury's position was at odds with that of most of the Labour movement, which allied itself with the wartime coalition governments of Asquith and, from 1916, Lloyd George. In the prevailing jingoistic mood, numerous readers looked to the Herald—reduced by wartime economies to a weekly format—to present a balanced news perspective, untainted by war fever and chauvinism. During the winter of 1914–15, Lansbury visited the Western Front trenches. He sent eye-witness accounts to the paper, which supported calls for a negotiated peace with Germany in line with President Woodrow Wilson's later "peace note" of January 1917. The paper also gave sympathetic coverage to conscientious objectors, and to Irish and Indian nationalists. Lansbury used the pages of the Daily Herald to welcome the February 1917 revolution in Russia as "a new star of hope ... arisen over Europe". At an Albert Hall rally on 18 March 1918 he hailed the spirit and enthusiasm of "this Russian movement", and urged his audience to "be ready to die, if necessary, for our faith". When the war ended in November 1918, Lloyd George called an immediate general election, correctly calculating that victory euphoria would keep his coalition in power. In this triumphalist climate, candidates such as Lansbury who had opposed the war found themselves unpopular, and he failed to retake his Bow and Bromley seat. The Herald re-emerged as a daily paper in March 1919. Under Lansbury's direction it maintained a strong and ultimately successful campaign against British intervention in the Russian Civil War. In February 1920 Lansbury travelled to Russia where he met Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders. He published an account: What I Saw in Russia, but the impact of the visit was overshadowed by accusations that the Herald was being financed from Bolshevist sources, a charge vehemently denied by Lansbury: "We have received no Bolshevist money, no Bolshevist paper, no Bolshevist bonds". Unknown to Lansbury, the allegations had some truth which, when exposed, caused him and the paper considerable embarrassment. By 1922 the Heralds financial problems had become such that it could no longer continue as a private venture financed by donations. Lansbury resigned the editorship and made the paper over to the Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress (TUC), although he continued to write for it and remained its titular general manager until 3 January 1925. ### "Poplarism": the 1921 rates revolt Throughout his national campaigns, Lansbury remained a Poplar borough councillor and Poor Law guardian, and between 1910 and 1913 served a three-year term as a London County Councillor. In 1919 he became the first Labour mayor of Poplar. Under the then-existing financial system for local government, boroughs were individually responsible for poor relief within their boundaries. This discriminated heavily against poorer councils such as Poplar, where rates revenues were low and poverty and unemployment, always severe, were exacerbated in times of economic recession. Under this system, Postgate argues, "The wealthy West End boroughs were evading responsibility, as though the desolate and silent docks were the results of a failure by the Poplar Borough Council". In addition to meeting the costs of its own obligations, the council was required to levy precepts to pay for services provided by bodies such as the London County Council and the Metropolitan Police. Lansbury had long argued that a degree of rates equalisation across London was necessary, to share costs more fairly. At its meeting on 22 March 1921 the Poplar Council resolved not to make its precepts and to apply these revenues to the costs of local poor relief. This illegal action created a sensation, and led to legal proceedings against the council. On 29 July the thirty councillors involved marched in procession from Bow to the High Court, headed by a brass band. Informed by the judge that they must apply the precepts, the councillors would not budge; early in September, Lansbury and 29 fellow-councillors were imprisoned for contempt of court. Among those sentenced were his son Edgar and Edgar's wife, Minnie. The defiance of the Poplar councillors generated widespread interest and sympathy, and the publicity embarrassed the government. Several other Labour-controlled councils (including Stepney whose mayor was the future Labour leader Clement Attlee) threatened similar policies. After six weeks' incarceration the councillors were released, and a government conference was convened to resolve the matter. This conference brought a significant personal victory for Lansbury: the passage of the Local Authorities (Financial Provisions) Act, which equalised the poor relief burden across all the London boroughs. As a result, the rates in Poplar fell by a third, and additional revenues of £400,000 was gained by the borough. Lansbury was hailed as a hero; in the 1922 general election he won the parliamentary seat of Bow and Bromley with a majority of nearly 7,000, and would hold it for the rest of his life. The term "Poplarism", always identified closely with Lansbury, became part of the political lexicon, applied generally to campaigns where local government stood against central government on behalf of the poor and least privileged of society. ## Parliament and national office ### Labour backbencher In May 1923 the Conservative prime minister, Bonar Law, resigned for health reasons. In December his successor, Stanley Baldwin, called another election in which the Conservatives lost their majority, with Labour in a strong second place. King George V advised Baldwin, as leader of the largest party, not to resign his office until defeated by a vote in the House of Commons. Defeat duly occurred on 21 January 1924, when the Liberals decided to throw in their lot with Labour. The king then asked Labour's leader, Ramsay MacDonald, to form a government. Lansbury caused royal offence by publicly implying that the king had colluded with other parties to keep Labour out, and by his references to the fate of Charles I. Despite his seniority, Lansbury was offered only a junior non-cabinet post in the new government, which he declined. He believed that his exclusion from the cabinet followed pressure from the king. At the 1923 Labour Party conference, while declaring himself a republican, Lansbury opposed two motions calling for the abolition of the monarchy, deeming the issue a "distraction". Social revolution, he said, would one day remove the monarchy. MacDonald's administration lasted less than a year before, in November 1924, the Liberals withdrew their support; Blythe comments that the first Labour government had been "neither exhilarating nor competent". According to Shepherd, MacDonald's chief priority was to show that Labour was "fit to govern", and he had thus acted with conservative caution. The December general election returned the Conservatives to power; Lansbury maintained that Labour's cause "marches forward irrespective of electoral results". After the defeat Lansbury was briefly touted as an alternative party leader to MacDonald, a proposition he rejected. In 1925, free from the Daily Herald, he founded and edited Lansbury's Labour Weekly, which became a mouthpiece for his personal creed of socialism, democracy and pacifism until it merged with the New Leader in 1927 . Before the General Strike of May 1926, Lansbury used the Weekly to instruct the Trades Union Congress (TUC) on preparations for the coming struggle. However, when the strike came the TUC did not want his assistance; among the reasons for their distrust was Lansbury's continuing advocacy for the right of communist organisations to affiliate to the Labour Party—he privately opined that British communists on their own "couldn't run a whelk-stall". Lansbury continued his private campaigns in parliament, saying "I intend on every occasion to ... hinder the progress of business". In April 1926 he and 12 other opposition MPs prevented a vote in the House of Commons by obstructing the voting lobbies; they were temporarily suspended by the Speaker. During frequent clashes in the House with Neville Chamberlain, the Minister of Health responsible for Poor Law administration and reform, Lansbury referred to the "Ministry of Death", and called the minister a "pinchbeck Napoleon". However, within the Labour Party itself, Lansbury's status and popularity led to his election as the party's chairman (a largely titular office) in 1927–28. Lansbury also became president of the International League Against Imperialism, where among his fellow executive members were Jawaharlal Nehru, Mme. Sun Yat-sen and Albert Einstein. In 1928, short of money following the failure of the family business, Lansbury published his autobiography, My Life, for which he received what he termed "a fairly generous cheque" from the publishers, Constable & Co. ### Cabinet minister, 1929–31 In the 1929 general election Labour emerged as the largest party, with 287 seats—but without an overall majority. Once again, MacDonald formed a government dependent on Liberal support. Lansbury joined the new cabinet as First Commissioner of Works, with responsibilities for historic buildings and monuments and for the royal parks. This position was widely regarded as a sinecure; nevertheless, Lansbury proved an active minister who did much to improve public recreation facilities. His most notable achievement was the Lido on the Serpentine in Hyde Park; according to the historian A. J. P. Taylor "the only thing which keeps the memory of the second Labour government alive". A circular memorial plaque to Lansbury can be seen on the exterior wall of the Lido Bar and Cafe. Lansbury's duties brought him into frequent contact with the King, who as Ranger of the royal parks insisted on regular consultation. Contrary to the expectations of some the two formed a cordial relationship. The years of MacDonald's second government were dominated by the economic depression that followed the Wall Street Crash of October 1929. Lansbury was appointed to a committee, chaired by J.H. Thomas and including Sir Oswald Mosley, charged with finding a solution to unemployment. Mosley produced a memorandum which called for a large-scale programme of public works; this was rejected by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Snowden, on grounds of cost. At the end of July 1931 the May Committee, appointed in February to investigate government spending, prescribed heavy cuts, including a massive reduction in unemployment benefit. During August, in an atmosphere of financial panic and a run on the pound, the government debated the report. MacDonald and Snowden were prepared to implement it, but Lansbury and nine other cabinet ministers rejected the cut in unemployment benefit. Thus divided, the government could not continue; MacDonald, however, did not resign as prime minister. After discussions with the opposition leaders and the king he formed a national all-party coalition, with a "doctor's mandate" to tackle the economic crisis. The great majority of Labour MPs, including Lansbury, were opposed to this action; MacDonald and the few who followed him were expelled from the party, and Arthur Henderson became leader. MacDonald's move was broadly welcomed in the country, however, and in the general election held in October 1931 the national government was returned with an enormous majority. Labour was reduced to 46 members; Lansbury was the only senior member of the Labour leadership to retain his seat. ## Party leader Although defeated in the election, Henderson remained the party leader while Lansbury headed the Labour group in parliament—the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP). In October 1932 Henderson resigned and Lansbury succeeded him. In most historians' reckonings, Lansbury led his small parliamentary force with skill and flair. He was also, says Shepherd, an inspiration to the dispirited Labour rank and file. As leader he began the process of reforming the party's organisation and machinery, efforts which resulted in considerable by-election and municipal election successes—including control of the LCC under Herbert Morrison in 1934. According to Blythe, Lansbury "represented political hope and decency to the three million unemployed." During this period Lansbury published his political credo, My England (1934), which envisioned a future socialist state achieved by a mixture of revolutionary and evolutionary methods. The small Labour group in parliament had little influence over economic policy; Lansbury's term as leader was dominated by foreign affairs and disarmament, and by policy disagreements within the Labour movement. The official party position was based on collective security through the League of Nations and on multilateral disarmament. Lansbury, supported by many in the PLP, adopted a position of Christian pacifism, unilateral disarmament and the dismantling of the British Empire. Under his influence the party's 1933 conference passed resolutions calling for the "total disarmament of all nations", and pledged to take no part in war. Pacifism became temporarily popular in the country; on 9 February 1933 the Oxford Union voted by 275 to 153 that it would "in no circumstances fight for its King and Country", and the Fulham East by-election in October 1933 was easily won by a Labour candidate committed to full disarmament. Lansbury sent a message to the constituency in his position as Labour Leader: "I would close every recruiting station, disband the Army and disarm the Air Force. I would abolish the whole dreadful equipment of war and say to the world: 'Do your worst'." October 1934 saw the emergence of the Peace Pledge Union. In response to the Peace Pledge Union, the League of Nations Union conducted the 1934–35 Peace Ballot, an unofficial public referendum, which produced massive majorities in support of the League of Nations, multilateral disarmament, and conflict resolution through non-military means - though crucially, a three-fold majority supported military measures as a last resort. Meanwhile, Adolf Hitler had come to power in Germany, and had withdrawn from the international Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. Blythe observes that Britain's noisy flirtations with pacifism "drowned out the sounds from German dockyards", as German rearmament began. As fascism and militarism advanced in Europe, Lansbury's pacifist stance drew criticism from the trade union elements of his party—who controlled the majority of party conference votes. Walter Citrine, the TUC general secretary, commented that Lansbury "thinks the country should be without defence of any kind ... it certainly isn't our policy." The party's 1935 annual conference took place in Brighton during October, under the shadow of Italy's impending invasion of Abyssinia. The national executive had tabled a resolution calling for sanctions against Italy, which Lansbury opposed as a form of economic warfare. His speech—a passionate exposition of the principles of Christian pacifism—was well received by the delegates, but immediately afterwards his position was destroyed by Ernest Bevin, the Transport and General Workers' Union leader. Bevin attacked Lansbury for putting his private beliefs before a policy, agreed by all the party's main institutions, to oppose fascist aggression, and accused him of "hawking your conscience round from body to body asking to be told what to do with it". Union support ensured that the sanctions resolution was carried by a huge majority; Lansbury, realising that a Christian pacifist could no longer lead the party, resigned a few days later. His deputy, Clement Attlee, succeeded him as party leader prior to the 1935 general election; Lansbury thus contested no general elections as party leader. As of 2023, he is the last Labour leader to stand down without contesting a general election. ## Final years Lansbury was 76 years old when he resigned the Labour leadership; he did not, however, retire from public life. In the general election of November 1935 he kept his seat at Bow and Bromley; Labour, now led by Attlee, improved its parliamentary representation to 154. Lansbury devoted himself entirely to the cause of world peace, a quest that took him, in 1936, to the United States. He addressed large crowds in 27 cities before meeting President Roosevelt in Washington to present his proposals for a world peace conference. In 1937 he toured Europe, visiting leaders in Belgium, France and Scandinavia, and in April secured a private meeting with Hitler. No official report of the discussion was issued, but Lansbury's personal memorandum indicates that Hitler expressed willingness to join in a world conference if Roosevelt would convene it. Later that year Lansbury met Mussolini in Rome; he described the Italian leader as "a mixture of Lloyd George, Stanley Baldwin and Winston Churchill". Lansbury wrote several accounts of his peace journeys, notably My Quest for Peace (1938). His mild and optimistic impressions of the European dictators were widely criticised as naïve and out of touch; some British pacifists were dismayed at Lansbury's meeting with Hitler, while the Daily Worker accused him of diverting attention from the aggressive realities of fascist policies. Lansbury continued to meet European leaders through 1938 and 1939, and was nominated, unsuccessfully, for the 1940 Nobel Peace Prize. At home, Lansbury served a second term as Mayor of Poplar, in 1936–37. He argued against direct confrontation with Mosley's Blackshirts during the October 1936 demonstrations known as the Battle of Cable Street. In October 1937 he became president of the Peace Pledge Union, and a year later he welcomed the Munich Agreement as a step towards peace. During this period he worked on behalf of refugees from Nazi Germany, and was chairman of the Polish Refugee Fund which provided relief to displaced Jewish children. On 3 September 1939, after Neville Chamberlain's announcement of war with Germany, Lansbury addressed the House of Commons. Observing that the cause to which he had dedicated his life was going down in ruins, he added: "I hope that out of this terrible calamity will arise a spirit that will compel people to give up the reliance on force." Early in 1940 Lansbury's health began to fail; although unaware, he was suffering from stomach cancer. In an article published in the socialist magazine Tribune, published on 25 April 1940, he made a final statement of his Christian pacifism: "I hold fast to the truth that this world is big enough for all, that we are all brethren, children of one Father". Lansbury died on 7 May 1940, at the Manor House Hospital in Golders Green. His funeral in St Mary's Church, Bow, was followed by cremation at Ilford Crematorium, before a memorial service in Westminster Abbey. His ashes were scattered at sea, in accordance with the wish expressed in his will: "I desire this because although I love England very dearly ... I am a convinced internationalist". ## Tributes and legacy Most historical assessments of Lansbury have tended to stress his character and principles rather than his effectiveness as a party political leader. His biographer Jonathan Schneer writes: > Lansbury was a talented politician, speaker, and organizer. What made him remarkable was the stubbornness with which he clung to his principles... [He] became one of the best-loved and most-respected figures in the labour movement. Lansbury's legacy has been the adamantine insistence among an element within the Labour Party that Britain must stand for moral principles, must set the world a moral example. Concretely, this has meant demanding the total abolition of capitalism and unilateral disarmament, policies that Labour's leaders have usually thought utopian or worse. Historian A. J. P. Taylor labelled Lansbury as "the most lovable figure in modern politics" and the outstanding figure of the English revolutionary left in the 20th century, while Kenneth O. Morgan, in his biography of a later Labour leader, Michael Foot, regards Lansbury as "an agitator of protest, not a politician of power". Journalists commonly accused Lansbury of sentimentality, and party intellectuals accused him of lacking mental capacity. Nevertheless, his speeches in the House of Commons were often flavoured with historical and literary allusions, and he left behind a considerable body of writing on socialist ideas; Morgan refers to him as a "prophet". Foot, who as a young man met and was influenced by Lansbury, was particularly impressed by the older man's achievements in establishing the Daily Herald, given his complete lack of journalistic training. Nevertheless, Foot felt that Lansbury's pacifism was unrealistic, and believed that Bevin's demolition at the 1935 conference was justified. There is much agreement among historians and analysts that Lansbury was never self-serving and, guided by his Christian socialist principles, was consistent in his efforts on behalf of the poorest in society. Shepherd believes that "there could have been no better leader for the Labour Party at the collapse of its political fortunes in 1931 than Lansbury, a universally popular choice and a source of inspiration among Labour ranks". In the House of Commons on 8 May 1940, the day following Lansbury's death, Chamberlain said of him: "There were not many hon. Members who felt convinced of the practicability of the methods which he advocated for the preservation of peace, but there was no one who did not realise his intense conviction, which arose out of his deep humanitarianism". Attlee also paid tribute to his former leader: "He hated cruelty, injustice and wrongs, and felt deeply for all who suffered ... [H]e was ever the champion of the weak, and ... to the end of his life he strove for that in which he believed". After the Second World War, a stained glass window designed by the Belgian artist Eugeen Yoors was placed in the Kingsley Hall community centre in Bow, as a memorial to Lansbury. His memory is further sustained by streets and housing developments named after him, most notably the Lansbury Estate in Poplar, completed in 1951. A further enduring memorial, Attlee suggests, is the extent to which the then-revolutionary social policies that Lansbury began advocating before the turn of the 20th century had become accepted mainstream doctrine little more than a decade after his death. His name and picture (and those of 58 other women's suffrage supporters) are on the plinth of the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, London, unveiled in 2018. ## Personal and family life George Lansbury married Elizabeth Jane (Bessie) Brine on 22 May 1880 in Whitechapel, London. Four years later, in May 1884, he took his wife and their three young children to Australia as emigrants with high hopes based on British government propaganda, which suggested plentiful work and a rosy life there. The truth was otherwise, with paid work very hard to find, and terrible living conditions for many. By May 1885 they had had enough of Australia, and returned to London. Lansbury took up work in his father-in-law's Whitechapel sawmill and began his political career speaking about the harsh conditions in Australia. For most of their married life, George and Bessie Lansbury lived in Bow, originally in St Stephen's Road and from 1916 at 39 Bow Road, a house which, Shepherd records, became "a political haven" for those requiring assistance of any kind. Bessie died in 1933, after 53 years of a marriage that had produced 12 children between 1881 and 1905. Of the 10 children who survived to adulthood, Edgar followed his father into local political activism as a Poplar councillor in 1912, serving as the borough's mayor in 1924–25. He was for a time a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). After the death of his first wife Minnie in 1922, Edgar married Moyna Macgill, an actress from Belfast; their daughter Dame Angela Lansbury (1925-2022), became a stage and screen actress. George Lansbury's youngest daughter, Violet (1900–72), was an active CPGB member in the 1920s, who lived and worked as a translator in Moscow for many years. She married Clemens Palme Dutt, the brother of the Marxist intellectual Rajani Palme Dutt. Another daughter, Dorothy (1890–1973), was a women's rights activist and later a campaigner for contraceptive and abortion rights. She married Ernest Thurtle, the Labour MP for Shoreditch, and was herself a member of Shoreditch council, serving as mayor in 1936. She and her husband founded the Workers' Birth Control Group in 1924. Dorothy's younger sister Daisy (1892–1971) served as Lansbury's secretary for over 20 years. During the suffragette protests in 1913 Daisy Lansbury helped Sylvia Pankhurst to evade police capture by disguising herself as Pankhurst. In 1918 she married the left-wing writer and historian Raymond Postgate, who was George Lansbury's first biographer, and founder of The Good Food Guide. Their son Oliver Postgate was a successful writer, animator and producer for children's television. The Conservative MP Penny Mordaunt is a distant relative of Lansbury. The Lansbury home at 39 Bow Road was destroyed by bombing during the London Blitz of 1940–41. There is a small memorial stone dedicated to Lansbury in front of the current building, named George Lansbury House, which itself carries a memorial plaque. There is also a memorial to Lansbury in the nearby Bow Church, where Lansbury was a long-term member of the congregation and churchwarden. ## Books by Lansbury ## See also - List of peace activists - List of suffragists and suffragettes
977,607	Cut the Crap	1,167,831,059	null	[ "1985 albums", "Albums produced by Bernard Rhodes", "CBS Records albums", "Epic Records albums", "The Clash albums" ]	Cut the Crap is the sixth and final studio album by the English punk band the Clash, released on 4 November 1985 by CBS Records. It was recorded in early 1985 at Weryton Studios, Munich, following a turbulent period: co-founder, lead guitarist and co-principal songwriter Mick Jones and drummer Topper Headon had been dismissed by lead vocalist Joe Strummer and bassist Paul Simonon. Jones and Headon were replaced by three unknowns: guitarists Vince White and Nick Sheppard and drummer Pete Howard. During the tense recording sessions, Clash manager Bernie Rhodes and Strummer fought each other for control over the band's songwriting and musical direction. Strummer and Rhodes co-wrote most of the songs. During production, Rhodes took charge of the arrangements, track sequencing and the final mix. His production choices, which rely heavily on Strummer's preference for synthetic drum sounds and Rhodes' own inclusion of sampling, were widely derided. One writer described the album's sound as brash and seemingly "designed to sound hip and modern—'80s style!". Rhodes chose the album title, taken from a line in the 1981 post-apocalyptic film Mad Max 2. The recording process and tension between Rhodes and Strummer left other band members disillusioned. White's and Sheppard's contributions are almost entirely absent in the final mix, and Howard was replaced by an electronic drum machine. Epic Records hoped the album would advance the Clash's success in the United States, and planned an expensive video for a lead single. On release, Cut the Crap was maligned in the UK music press as "one of the most disastrous [albums] ever released by a major artist". Strummer disowned the album and dissolved the Clash within weeks of its release. He performed only one song from the album live during his solo career, and the album has been excluded altogether from most of the Clash's compilations and box sets. Although it is still generally regarded as the band's worst album, contemporary critics have praised Strummer's songwriting and vocal performance, especially on the tracks "This Is England", "Dirty Punk" and "Three Card Trick". ## Background The Clash's internal difficulties during 1983 led to two of its core members being fired: guitarist Mick Jones was seen as adopting rock star posturing that lead vocalist Joe Strummer considered anathema to what the band stood for, and drummer Topper Headon had developed a heroin addiction which left him unreliable. After the band undertook rehearsals in London during June 1983, interpersonal tensions reemerged. The two principal songwriters no longer trusted each other, due to Jones's frequent absence from rehearsals and use of synthesizers. Both Jones and bassist Paul Simonon have said that they refused to sign the contract negotiated by manager Bernie Rhodes, who had earlier been fired due to personal differences with Jones. The relationship between Strummer and Jones had broken down by this point. Not long into rehearsals, Strummer and Simonon had fired Jones. A week before the official announcement of the dismissal, Strummer, Simonon and Rhodes began to look for replacements and met Pete Howard. The band placed anonymous advertisements for replacement guitarists in the magazine Melody Maker. After auditioning over 100 candidates, they eventually hired unknown musicians Nick Sheppard and Greg White. White took the pseudonym Vince after Simonon complained that he would prefer to quit than play in a band with someone named Greg. Both were given a weekly wage of £100 rather than recording contracts. Strummer had been the band's principal lyricist, while Jones had written their music. After Jones was fired, the band assumed that anyone could write a punk song. This proved to be a mistake and, unknown to members of the Clash, Rhodes had already conceived his own solution to Jones's departure—he would take control of the music. Strummer intended the second Clash line-up to encapsulate a back-to-basics approach to punk. The new musicians largely avoided the reggae-influenced style of their two previous studio albums, Sandinista! (1980) and Combat Rock (1982). Strummer began to refer to the line-up as "the Clash, Round Two", a phrase adopted by the press as "the Clash Mark II". They booked a short tour of the US West Coast, debuting new songs, which prompted Jones to boast to concert promoter Bill Graham that he was planning his own tour with Headon as "the Real Clash". Jones's lawyers had frozen the band's earnings from both the US Festival and sales of Combat Rock (1982). In response, Strummer wrote the song "We Are the Clash", which, along with "Three Card Trick", "Sex Mad Roar" and "This Is England", was debuted during live appearances in January 1984. In all, the Clash Mark II had written around 20 new songs before entering the studio to record what became the band's final studio album. ## Recording and production The album was recorded between January and February 1985, on a 24-track mixing desk in Weryton Studios, Unterföhring, outside Munich, Germany, with some parts recorded in London. Epic Records chose the German studio because the band's finances were dependent on ongoing legal cases, including moves by Jones to prevent them recording under the name "the Clash". Rhodes hired engineer Micheal Fayne on the basis of affordability, and his prior experience with programmed drum machines, which Strummer wanted to use on the album because, according to Rhodes, "Joe wanted to compete with Mick's drum machine thing". Rhodes also employed engineers Ulrich A. Rudolf, Simon Sullivan and Kevin Whyte, who are credited on the sleeve. Strummer and Rhodes disagreed on the direction of the recordings almost from the outset. Rhodes, credited on the sleeve under the pseudonym "Jose Unidos", had no previous experience with either songwriting or record production. While Strummer had been pleased with his demo versions, he fought against his manager over the album's production. Rhodes believed he had discovered a new genre, seeking to mix electro, hip hop and cut-up technique. He replaced live musicians with synthetic sounds and layered the tracks with audio from TV programs. Fayne described Rhodes's treatment of Howard as "damaging". Rhodes would begin recording sessions by asking the drummer to play what he wanted, but would inevitably respond to Howard's parts by saying "no, not that", or "no, not that either". In one incident, Rhodes appeared in the recording room and began to "smash the drum kit up", at which point Howard stood up and left. Fayne said, "Bernie didn't want any connection with the past ... He wanted to take it forward, to control it, to mastermind the whole thing, and what they were doing was a bit too reminiscent of what it was". Disillusioned and lacking reinforcement or direction from Strummer, Howard seriously considered leaving the band at several points. Most of the Clash and the production team liked the football-style chants used in some of the choruses. They were in part inspired by the communal sing-alongs the Clash performed during their busking tour the previous year, and thus evoked memories of a less tense period in their career. The massed vocals were provided by several dozen of their friends and families, and several of the inner team remembered those sessions as the only enjoyable period during the album's recording. The only other aspect that the musicians agreed on was the quality and commercial potential of "This Is England", a song into which Rhodes allowed the musicians significant creative input. Rhodes suddenly ended the recordings and took the master tapes from the studio, after which he added further synthesizer parts. Although Jones's use of synthesizers and samplers was one of the main reasons behind his dismissal, those instruments brought him critical and public acclaim with his next band Big Audio Dynamite. When asked at the time for his opinion on the debut BAD album, Strummer described it as one of the "worst pieces of shit I have ever heard." In 1986, Strummer said that he had liked a few of the tunes but "really I hated it ... I didn't hear [the album as a whole] until it was in the shops." Strummer ultimately lost control of Cut the Crap to Rhodes, and became so disillusioned that at one point he asked Jones to rejoin the band, but was refused. Simonon does not appear on any of the final recordings; the basslines were performed by Norman Watt-Roy, former member of Ian Dury and the Blockheads, who was not credited on the sleeve. Howard's exclusion from the album has been lamented by many critics. Knowles described him as an "astonishingly powerful and prodigious" drummer, and said that replacing him with electronic percussion was "like replacing a Maserati with a Matchbox". Regretting the decision, Strummer later vowed to never use a drum machine again. ## Music and lyrics The consensus among critics is that the album's production choices distract from otherwise strong songwriting by Strummer and Rhodes. Strummer's vocals are placed low in the mix, sometimes buried underneath electronic drums, synthetic keyboards and studio effects. The sound has often been described as muddy and cluttered due to multi-layered guitar tracks and backing vocals. Many of the guitar overdubs have been considered unnecessary, given that Sheppard and White were both using Gibson Les Pauls and as such their sounds were tonally similar, and there was not significant variation in either their chord progressions or riffs. Rhodes may have felt the need to fill each channel on the 24-track mixing desk. Author Gary Jucha summed up the album as having been produced by a manager whose musical ambitions were overstretched by a lack of experience. The over-laid vocals in the choruses, which give the football chant feel, were harshly viewed by critics at the time, both because the effect seemed like low-brow rabble-rousing, and they compared unfavorably with Jones's earlier backing vocals. The drums are largely untreated with sound effects which left them sounding dull. Knowles suggested that adding reverb would have helped to create a more organic "roomy" sound, so the songs wouldn't feel "so canned and phony". Against this, the live instrumentation is tight and cohesive. Each of the new recruits was a skilled musician, and they had just come off a tour during which Rhodes had instructed them not to vary song structures or guitar leads between performances. ### Side one "Dictator", one of the earliest songs the new line-up played during their European tour, has been described as "the poorest possible choice for the opening track". Music critic Lennox Samuels wrote in 1985 that the song is "a messy mix of horns and a Pink Floyd-like voice-over". The album cut omits the live version's bridge, changes the drum pattern, and replaces most of the guitar parts with atonal synth lines. The music journalist Martin Popoff described the lyrics' depiction of a Central American authoritarian as "surprisingly flat and dead". The critic Mark Andersen described it as "one of the less successful of the new tunes". The guitar-based "Dirty Punk" is built from a basic three-chord structure reminiscent of the band's self-titled debut studio album. White believed it should have been the lead single and could have been a hit. Although generally well received, critics dismissed its synthetic drum sound as at odds with its back-to-basics sound. The track was written just after the 1984 tour, when Strummer was attending to his terminally ill mother, so it is assumed that most of the lyrics were composed by Rhodes. They are written from the point of view of a young punk who feels overshadowed by an older brother, but the story is told in such simple terms that it has been characterised as having "Neanderthal lyrics that read as if a parody of a punk rock song". The relative simplicity of the lyrics were criticised by Vulture, who described them as akin to "Mick Jagger's '80s output, bland cliché for bland cliché." The rallying cry lyrics for "We Are the Clash" are sometimes seen as a defiant response to Jones's lawsuit. The album version differs substantially from both earlier live recordings and a 1983 demo. It is more polished, the lyrics have been changed in parts, the tempo has been slowed down, the bridge changed to an intro and the call-and-response chorus removed. The song has received mixed reviews. It was criticised for its confused politics and thin sound, the guitar solo and back-in-the-mix vocal chants in particular lacking low-end frequencies. Vulture placed it last in its 2017 ranking of all 139 songs by the Clash from worst to best. Rolling Stone took issue with the song's title, calling it "an outright lie" in light of the album's exclusion of both Jones and Headon. Music critic Tony Fletcher responded to the chant of "We Are the Clash" with the words "No you're not ... you're a pale imitation of Sham 69 at the disco". Clash biographer Chris Knowles disliked Rhodes's production but admired Strummer's songwriting, and considers the album version as a lost opportunity given that the song had been a "killer" live favourite. "Are You Red..Y" had originally been titled "Are You Ready for War". "Cool Under Heat" is a reggae-ballad whose production choices have been criticised as cluttered and confused, several writers noting that its strong lyrics and tune are buried underneath a jumble of extraneous instruments and studio effects. The guitar sound is especially flat and restrained by overly compressed production. Popoff found the album version inferior to the Clash's live versions that were reminiscent of the Pogues, which the band had played on an early-1985 busking tour. The opening line of "Movers and Shakers"—"The boy stood in the burning slum"—was described by writer Sean Egan as "a piece of unconscious self-parody that is quite probably the worst line ever to appear on a Clash record". Fletcher called the lyric "excruciating" given that Strummer was then a successful rock star, but resigned himself with the observation "fortunately for [him] not enough people were listening to be truly offended." Apart from the lyrics, the song's drum programming has often been criticised as clunky, although the vocal melody has been praised. ### Side two "This Is England" opens side two, and is widely regarded as the album's stand-out track. It was released as the band's last single and Strummer himself called it the "last great Clash song". Co-written by Strummer and Rhodes, the song retains some of the reggae influences of their earlier albums. Like "We Are the Clash", its chorus is sung in a football chant, but here it is higher in the mix. The guitars are also prominent, but the percussion is again supplied by a drum machine. Lennox described it as a "tuneful, beautifully crafted overview of social decay in England, where political philosophies joust for hegemony while the country sinks into ignominious decline and millions of youths turn to the dole." The lyrics convey societal alienation, lamenting the national mood in 1985; the line "South Atlantic wind blows" refers to the Falklands War. Writing for Vulture in 2017, writer Bill Wyman described the song as the only successful track on Cut the Crap, writing that "the sound collage and the gentle, troubled synth lines undergird the song unerringly, and for once the group-shouted chorus, though still over-loud, conveys some wan meaning. This can't have been a good time for Strummer, and you can hear it in his voice, as he sings the fuck out of this." The production of the live favourite "Three Card Trick" has been praised as relatively uncluttered, although it does contain programmed hand-claps. Jucha said that the live version was good enough to have appeared on any Clash album, and that Strummer had developed a real skill for writing mid-tempo songs. The track begins as a straightforward punk song with a simple ska bassline. Writer Mark Andersen described "Fingerpoppin'" and "Play to Win" as essentially B-side-quality songs that should have been excluded from the track listing. The latter is a sound collage which Popoff views as incoherent and basically "noise, bongos, and nonsensical fragmented conversations between Joe and Vince". Although the drums are considered too low in the mix, and the shouted choruses have been described as resembling Adam and the Ants, its demo version is considered superior. The penultimate track "North and South" was written and sung by Sheppard. It features a simple guitar line and uncluttered production, and has often been highlighted as one of the album's strongest tracks. The album closer, "Life Is Wild", is the only track which had not been played live before. Its chorus, stylistically akin to the punk subgenre Oi!, was described by Popoff as a "curious thumping party rocker that makes little sense" and begged the question why a songwriter of Strummer's ability would write "such banalities". ## Sleeve art and title The album cover was conceived by Rhodes, who contracted Mike Laye to shoot the pictures. The artwork was sub-contracted to Eddie King and Jules Balme, the art director for Stiff Records, who had earlier overseen the covers for Sandinista! (1980) and Combat Rock (1982). It shows a punk, apparently King's brother, wearing a mohawk, black leather jacket and sunglasses—all markers of 1980s punk fashion. The image is rendered so that the portrait looks like a poster glued to a wall. A similar image appears on the 7-inch release of "This Is England". A lithograph of the cover is held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, who attribute an "unknown designer". Rhodes titled the album, taking the words "cut the crap" from a scene in the 1981 post-apocalyptic film Mad Max 2, when Mel Gibson's character, Max Rockatansky, insists on driving the oil tanker on which the settlers' survival depends: "Come on, cut the crap. I'm the best chance you've got." According to Jucha, the sentiment reflected the band's view of themselves in the mid-1980s: "the back-to-basics Clash, Round two—like the initial band of UK punk rockers—were going to eradicate the meaningless New Romantic bands dominating the British pop world. They were 'the best chance [the world's] got'." Nevertheless, the title is widely disliked; Jucha described it as "awful". ## Critical reception By the time the new "Mark II" line-up released Cut the Crap on 4 November 1985, they were an accomplished live band, and had written and performed several songs that would appear on the final studio album; a few had been live favourites. On the strength of their recent gigs, the UK press were optimistically waiting for the album's release. Epic Records anticipated that both the three-year gap since Combat Rock (1982) along with their updated sound, would result in critical acclaim and high sales. In the promotional lead up, Strummer told journalist Richard Cook that he was not going to release any new material until he knew it could "last ten years". Most critics and fans were disappointed on its release—especially with its sound and production values, and the omission of stand-out live tracks "In the Pouring Rain" and "Ammunition" (usually titled "Jericho" in contemporary bootleg recordings). Cut the Crap sold poorly compared to earlier Clash releases, reaching just number 16 in the UK charts and number 88 in the US. On release, British and American critics alike generally viewed the album in an unfavourable light. Melody Maker and NME both published sharply negative reviews, the latter of which was titled "No Way, Jose" in sarcastic reference to the "Jose Unidos" production credit. Reflecting the critical consensus at the time, Mike Laye—a writer, photographer and Clash insider—said the band should "just drop the 'Cut' from the title, because to me this [is] crap." Robert Christgau, a longtime champion of the Clash in the US, offered only restrained praise in a Village Voice review that alluded to the negative word-of-mouth and summarised most of the album as "stubborn and jolly and elegiac and together". Music journalist Richard Cromelin found the album's uptempo songs less effective than those on earlier Clash records, but concluded that Strummer's singing is compelling and "This Is England" and "North and South" make the record "more than passable". The absence of Jones and Headon led many to regard it as a Joe Strummer solo album—an impression further solidified by Simonon's involvement being limited only to the pre-production stage. Its shortcomings were often attributed to Strummer's evident disillusionment with the group and the fact that he was grieving over the recent deaths of his parents. Joe Sasfy of The Washington Post wrote that the "revised version of the Clash sounds like a pale and ghostly facsimile of this once-great band"; he disliked the "[tiresome] garbled choruses" and he found that "Strummer's attempt to enliven them with horn charts creates an ungainly mess of a sound." Similarly, Richard Defendorf of the Orlando Sentinel described the record as a "sometimes embarrassingly anachronistic ... attempt to rekindle the Clash's punkish, militant energy." Music critic Liam Lacey was more favourable and concluded that, given the strength of "This Is England", "in its cheesily self-aggrandizing way, the new Clash may be on to something." Cut the Crap has been favourably reevaluated in some retrospective reviews, many praising Strummer's songwriting and vocal performance. The writer Jon Savage praised the album in his influential 1991 book on the history of punk, England's Dreaming, highlighting the "innovative use of rap rhythm and atmosphere". Yet its reputation as a failure, or at least as a lost opportunity, has endured. In 2002, Stephen Thomas Erlewine described "This Is England" as "surprisingly nervy" on a record that, in his view, is otherwise "formulaic, tired punk rock that doesn't have the aggression or purpose of early Clash records". ## Aftermath Strummer was depressed by both the album's sound and critical appraisal. Asked in 1986 how the reviews affected him, he replied: "Sure I read [them] but I didn't need them to tell me. It was like when you're younger and you're trying to make a date with a girl but she won't have any of it. You keep going back, trying to fool yourself that this time will be better." He was particularly upset that people had thought the "Jose Unidos" pseudonym credited as a producer was him rather than Rhodes, and said "it wouldn't have been so bad if Bernie had just got the blame but that was unbearable." The album was cited by several contemporary reviewers as symptomatic of why punk rock had failed. Strummer said in 1988: "To someone who says I was ... 'the spokesman for your generation and you fucked it up', I say yeah, but we tried." He admitted that he had undertaken the project in part to prove that Jones hadn't been the Clash's only songwriter. Epic Records intended a tour shortly after the release, but there were practical issues that made this impossible. Foremost, Strummer was in exile in Spain and refusing to partake in promoting the record; he had even threatened to take legal action to prevent its release. After their treatment during the album's recording, White and Howard were reluctant to engage with the material. Finally, given that Rhodes had so heavily revised the original songs and utilised so many samples and studio effects, he and Strummer disagreed on how the tracks should be played live. Strummer dissolved the band that October, giving each of the remaining members a thousand pounds each as severance payments. Howard told him, somewhat bitterly, that "this is where it got you" for following Bernie's lead—a statement to which he agreed. Under pressure from Epic to get the band out on tour to promote the album, Rhodes asked the three remaining members to consider hiring a new singer, rationalising that "The Clash has always been an idea ... Now, how to take that idea to the next level!" They briefly considered the possibility; Rhodes made the suggestion to Simonon, a position the bassist resolutely refused until Strummer officially disbanded the group. Strummer then reunited with Jones for Big Audio Dynamite's second studio album No. 10, Upping St. (1986), co-producing the album with him and writing five songs together. Cut the Crap was remastered and re-released in Europe in the mid-2000s, with the bonus track "Do It Now". The reissue was unannounced and not promoted. It came after the rest of the band's catalogue had been reissued between December 1999 and January 2000 in the US. The album was not mentioned in the Clash documentary The Clash: Westway to the World (2000) and was acknowledged only briefly in the official illustrated biography The Clash (2008), not receiving an overview as the first five studio albums had. The album has been omitted from many Clash compilations, box sets and reissues, including The Story of the Clash (1988), Clash on Broadway (1991), The Singles (1991), Sound System (2013) and 5 Album Studio Set (2013).[^1] According to Simonon, Cut the Crap was excluded because it was not seen as a real Clash album, as neither Jones nor Headon were involved. Director Shane Meadows in 2006 used the title This Is England for his film and TV show centering on young skinheads and Oi! punks in England in the 1980s, in reference to the Cut the Crap song. ## Track listing The liner notes credit all songs to Strummer and Rhodes. Side one 1. "Dictator" – 3:00 2. "Dirty Punk" – 3:11 3. "We Are the Clash" – 3:02 4. "Are You Red..Y" – 3:01 5. "Cool Under Heat" – 3:21 6. "Movers and Shakers" – 3:01 Side two 1. "This Is England" – 3:49 2. "Three Card Trick" – 3:09 3. "Play to Win" – 3:06 4. "Fingerpoppin'" – 3:25 5. "North and South" – 3:32 6. "Life Is Wild" – 2:39 Bonus track''' 1. <li value="13"> "Do It Now" – 3:04 ## Personnel The Clash - Joe Strummer – lead vocals; guitars - Nick Sheppard – guitar; lead vocals on "North and South" - Vince White – additional guitars - Pete Howard – did not feature on album - Paul Simonon – did not feature on album Additional musicians - Norman Watt-Roy – bass guitar - Hermann Weindorf (as "Herman Young Wagner") – keyboards; synthesizers - Michael Fayne – drum machines; vocals on "Play to Win" Production - Bernard Rhodes – producer (credited as "Jose Unidos") ## Chart positions [^1]: "This Is England" was included on The Essential Clash (2003) and the 2007 box set reissue of ''The Singles'.
42,542,965	Union Films	1,095,065,727	Defunct Indonesian film company	[ "1940 establishments in the Dutch East Indies", "1942 disestablishments in the Dutch East Indies", "Defunct companies of the Dutch East Indies", "Film production companies of the Dutch East Indies", "Mass media companies disestablished in 1942", "Mass media companies established in 1940" ]	Union Films was a film production company located in Batavia, Dutch East Indies (now Jakarta, Indonesia). Established by ethnic Chinese businessmen Ang Hock Liem and Tjoa Ma Tjoen in 1940, it produced seven black-and-white films before it was dissolved in 1942; all are thought to be lost. The company's films were directed by four men, mostly ethnic Chinese, and launched the careers of actors such as Rendra Karno and Djoewariah. Established during the revival of the Indies film industry, Union released its first film, Kedok Ketawa, in July 1940. This was followed by a series of films penned by Saeroen which were increasingly oriented towards the Indies' growing intelligentsia and attempted to distance themselves from the theatrical conventions which were common in the contemporary film industry. This continued after Saeroen left for Star Film in 1941, with Union's final two productions emphasising realism. Following the Japanese occupation of the Indies in March 1942, Union was dissolved, though its films continued to be screened into the mid 1940s. ## History Following the commercial successes of Terang Boelan (Full Moon; 1937), Fatima (1938), and Alang-Alang (Grass; 1939), the film industry of the Dutch East Indies – which had been severely weakened by the Great Depression – was revived. Film production increased and, in 1940, four new production houses were opened, including Union Films. The company was funded by ethnic Chinese businessman Ang Hock Liem, who is credited as producer for the majority of the company's releases; daily operations, however, were handled by Tjoa Ma Tjoen. Union was headquartered in Prinsenlaan, Batavia (now Mangga Besar, Jakarta), and, according to a press release, established to "improve the quality of Indonesian art". The fledgling Union's first film, Kedok Ketawa, was released in July 1940. Following a young couple who face off against criminals with the help of a masked bandit, this film was directed by Jo An Djan and starred Oedjang, Fatimah, and Basoeki Resobowo. It received positive reviews; the journalist Saeroen wrote in Pemandangan that the film's quality was comparable to imported Hollywood productions, and a review in Bataviaasch Nieuwsblad praised the cinematography. Following these positive reviews, Union hired Saeroen – who had previously written Terang Boelan and several works for Tan's Film – as a screenwriter. He made his debut for the company with Harta Berdarah, directed by new hires R Hu and Rd Ariffien, following Jo An Djan's departure for Populair's Film. The film, in which a young man convinces a miserly hajji to be more charitable, was released in October 1940 and starred the singer Soelastri and martial artist Zonder. Union released their third production, Bajar dengan Djiwa, by February 1941. Directed by R Hu, this film – a drama in which a young woman is sold to a loan shark in order to pay her father's debt – marked the film debut of Djoewariah; she later became Union's leading lady. Ariffien, meanwhile, was tasked with directing Asmara Moerni, based on a script by Saeroen. Attempting to reach the educated audiences by casting a young doctor, Adnan Kapau Gani, opposite Djoewariah, this romance told of a young man who is ultimately able to marry his former maid after she receives an education. Released in April, the film received mixed reviews: one, in the Bataviaasch Nieuwsblad, found the film "fascinating", while another for the same paper considered the film dependent on the stage traditions which its advertisements had denounced. In July 1941 Union released Wanita dan Satria, a Djoewariah vehicle which follows a well-born womaniser who abuses his social status to gain women's trust before ultimately getting his comeuppance. In advertising Wanita dan Satria, the company again emphasised the non-theatrical background of the film's cast, which also included Moesa, Djoewita and Hidajat. The film received positive reviews; one, from the Soerabaijasch Handelsblad, wrote that Wanita dan Satria "gives a clear picture of the precarious position of Indonesian women and motivates the desire for a firmer outline of her rights in the Moslem society". This was the company's last film to be directed by Ariffien or written by Saeroen; both men migrated to rival company Star Film soon afterwards. Hu remained with Union and directed the company's next production, Soeara Berbisa, with peranakan sound technician Boen Kin Nam serving as assistant director. Written by Djojopranoto, the work followed two young men who compete for the love of a woman before learning that they are long-lost brothers. Djoewita had left the company at this point, and the studio hired Raden Soekarno for the leading role of this late 1941 release. The company's final completed production, Mega Mendoeng, was directed by Boen and announced soon after shooting for Soeara Berbisa had begun. This film, a romance starring Soekarno and new find Sofiati, was released in early 1942. In producing both films, Union emphasised realism and targeted educated audiences. By the end of 1941, the government of the Dutch East Indies were concerned that Empire of Japan could invade the colony. This fear reached the general populace, and the February 1942 edition of the film magazine Pertjatoeran Doenia dan Film reported that several studios would move away from the colonial capital of Batavia or go on a production hiatus. Union, though already beginning production of a film set in the Majapahit era titled Damar Woelan, was forced to stop filming. When the Japanese occupied the Indies in March 1942, Union was closed, never to reopen. Aside from Ariffien, who continued directing into the 1960s, none of Union's directors or producers returned to the film industry after the conclusion of the Japanese occupation in 1945. Several actors continued their careers. Djoewariah, for instance, made her first film after leaving Union, Sehidup Semati (One Life, One Death), in 1949, and continued acting until the mid-1950s. Soekarno's career lasted through the 1970s; he was mostly credited as Rendra Karno after changing his name in the 1950s. Others had careers behind the screen; Kedok Ketawa star Basoeki Resobowo, for instance, became art director on films such as Darah dan Doa (The Long March; 1950). ## Filmography In a period of two years, Union released seven films; all were feature length, made in black-and-white, and received wide releases in the Dutch East Indies. Several were screened in nearby Singapore, including Bajar dengan Djiwa and Asmara Moerni. Though its films were screened at least into the 1940s, the company's output is likely lost. - Kedok Ketawa (Laughing Mask; 1940) - Harta Berdarah (Bloody Treasure; 1940) - Bajar dengan Djiwa (Pay with [One's] Soul; 1941) - Asmara Moerni (True Love; 1941) - Wanita dan Satria (The Woman and the Hero; 1941) - Soeara Berbisa (Venomous Voice; 1941) - Mega Mendoeng (1942) ## See also - List of lost films ## Explanatory notes
69,110,286	Marmaduke–Walker duel	1,173,892,177	Duel between Confederate generals, 1863	[ "1863 crimes in the United States", "1863 in Arkansas", "Arkansas in the American Civil War", "Crimes in Arkansas", "Deaths by firearm in Arkansas", "Dueling", "September 1863 events" ]	The Marmaduke–Walker duel was fought between John S. Marmaduke and Lucius M. Walker, two generals in the Confederate States Army, on September 6, 1863, near Little Rock, Arkansas. Tensions had risen between the two officers during the Battle of Helena on July 4, 1863, when Marmaduke accused Walker of not supporting his force, and then retaliated by not informing Walker of a Confederate retreat. Marmaduke was later assigned to serve under Walker during a Union advance against Little Rock. Walker did not support Marmaduke during a retreat after the Battle of Brownsville, and Marmaduke questioned Walker's courage after the Battle of Bayou Meto on August 27. A series of notes passed between the two generals by friends resulted in a duel, during which Walker received a fatal wound. Marmaduke was arrested, but later released; he survived the war and later became Governor of Missouri. Union forces captured Little Rock later in the campaign, after the Battle of Bayou Fourche. ## Background John S. Marmaduke was born near Arrow Rock, Missouri, in 1833. Educated at Yale and Harvard, he graduated from West Point in 1857, serving in the United States Army, including service in the Utah War, until he resigned in 1861 at the outbreak of the American Civil War. He then served in a pro-Confederate militia organization in Missouri, until he resigned to join the Confederate States Army after the Battle of Boonville, which was fought on June 17. After serving as a lieutenant colonel in an Arkansas unit, he was the colonel of the 3rd Confederate Infantry Regiment at the Battle of Shiloh, where he was wounded; this caused him to miss several months of combat. He was promoted to brigadier general on November 15, 1862. Marmaduke returned to fight in the Battle of Prairie Grove, and in 1863, led two raids into Missouri and fought at the Battle of Helena in Arkansas. Lucius M. Walker, a relative of President of the United States James Knox Polk, was born at Columbia, Tennessee, in 1829. He graduated from West Point in 1850, although he resigned his military commission in 1852 to enter commerce at Memphis, Tennessee. After entering Confederate service in 1861, he became lieutenant colonel of the 40th Tennessee Infantry Regiment before being promoted to its colonel on November 11, 1861. Serving at Memphis, he became a brigadier general; the promotion was backdated to March 11, 1862, for seniority purposes. After missing Shiloh due to illness, he served at the Siege of Corinth and the Battle of Farmington. Walker developed a poor relationship with Braxton Bragg, the commander of the Army of Tennessee, and Bragg did not trust Walker's generalship. He was transferred to the Trans-Mississippi Department, where he reported for duty in March 1863. He fought in the Battle of Helena, commanding a cavalry brigade. During the fighting at Helena on July 4, 1863, Walker's brigade was supposed to protect the left flank of Marmaduke's position. During the Confederate attacks, Marmaduke's men were halted by enfilade fire, and Walker, who was concerned about the safety of his own left flank, did not move to support Marmaduke's. In turn, an angry Marmaduke chose not to inform Walker when the Confederates retreated. As a result, many of Walker's men were almost captured by a Union counterattack. In his report, Walker claimed that he properly protected Marmaduke's flank, but when Lieutenant General Theophilus Holmes issued his overall report for the battle, he wrote that Walker failed to protect Marmaduke's flank and did not provide a good reason for this, while Marmaduke's blamed Walker for his failure to capture his objective. These events at Helena led to animosity between Walker and Marmaduke. ## Duel In July 1863, Union Major General Frederick Steele took command of Union forces in Arkansas, headquartered out of Helena. Steele wanted to gain control of the Arkansas River, and the Confederates knew that an attack against the city of Little Rock was likely. When Holmes fell ill, command at Little Rock passed to Major General Sterling Price. Price ordered new defenses constructed, and sent the cavalry forces of both Marmaduke and Walker to separately observe and interfere with Union movements. Steele's men left Helena on August 10 and 11 and were reinforced by cavalry commanded by Brigadier General John W. Davidson along the way. With his men wracked by disease, Steele decided to move to a location considered to be healthier, while sending Davidson to cross the Arkansas River with his cavalry. On August 23, Price had Marmaduke join Walker's force; Walker took command as he was above Marmaduke on the seniority lists. Davidson's men drove Marmaduke's command back in an action near Brownsville on August 25. During the retreat from Brownsville, Marmaduke and Walker made a plan whereby Marmaduke's men would halt and draw the Union troops into some woods, from which Walker's men would attack. When Marmaduke made his stand, he came close to capture, as Walker continued to retreat and left Marmaduke's men isolated. Two days later, in the Battle of Bayou Meto, the Confederates held off the Union troops and burned the bridge across the Bayou Meto River. Despite this victory, the Confederates withdrew to a position less than 5 mi (8.0 km) from Little Rock that night. Marmaduke had wanted to meet with Walker during the fighting at Bayou Meto, but did not want to leave his troops during a battle, so he asked Walker to come to the front. Walker neither came nor replied, which angered Marmaduke. He asked for a transfer from under Walker, planning to resign if his request was declined; Price granted the transfer request. Two days after the Bayou Meto fight, one of Marmaduke's aides reportedly stated at Walker's headquarters that Marmaduke claimed he had "won the fight at [Bayou Meto]", as well as claiming that Walker "had acted the damned coward". Despite another one of Marmaduke's aides claiming that the statements had not been made, Walker believed that they had. Walker asked Marmaduke for an explanation of the comments. The communication occurred through a series of notes, which were passed between the two generals by friends: John C. Moore for Marmaduke and Robert H. Crockett, a grandson of Davy Crockett, for Walker. In the notes, Marmaduke stated that Walker's conduct after Bayou Meto and Brownsville was the reason for his transfer request, and that he had not used the word "coward" but, in the words of historian Helen Trimpi, "would be responsible for any inference that might be drawn on his remarks". Marmaduke also stated that he believed Walker had displayed "somewhat more than prudent care in the avoidance of all positions of danger" during the Battle of Bayou Meto. Walker did not view Marmaduke's explations as satisfactory. The exchanges resulted in an agreement to hold a duel, despite dueling being illegal in Arkansas. Sources disagree as to whether the duel was proposed by Walker and accepted by Marmaduke, or arranged by Crockett and Moore without consulting the two generals beforehand. The terms of the duel specified that each man would be accompanied by a second, another friend, and two doctors. It was also specified that the weapons used would be Model 1861 Colt Navy revolvers, using the round version of Colt's Navy revolver bullets, which could also shoot conical projectiles. It would be fought at a distance of 15 paces, and would continue until either five minutes had passed, all of the loaded rounds had been fired, or someone was hit. Historian Dick Steward has noted that the distance of 15 paces was quite close given the weapons used and suggests that the duel took place at such close range because Marmaduke was nearsighted. Marmaduke's second was Moore, and Walker's was Crockett. That night, Price learned of the planned duel, and ordered the two officers to remain at their headquarters for the next day. Walker never received the order, and Marmaduke ignored it. The duel took place on the morning of September 6, at a farm 7 mi (11 km) from Little Rock and north of the Arkansas River. Both men's first rounds missed, but Marmaduke's second shot hit Walker, whose weapon discharged while he fell. Crockett declared the duel over, and he knelt by Walker, who told him he was dying. The shot had hit Walker's right kidney and embedded in his spine, causing him to be paralyzed from the waist down. A doctor pronounced the wound mortal, and Walker was transported back in an ambulance brought by Marmaduke, which reached the city at about 10:00. Walker died the next day. Price had Marmaduke and both officers' seconds arrested, with Marmaduke's arrest being for murder. However, with the campaign ongoing and Marmaduke's subordinate officers asking for his release, Marmaduke's arrest was canceled and he was placed in command of Price's cavalry. All charges against Marmaduke were later dropped. The duel and its results caused Confederate morale to deteriorate and led to a poorer relationship between Marmaduke and Price. According to the historian Diana Sherwood, this was the "last duel of note" that took place in Arkansas. The details of the duel were not completely reported until Crockett published his account in the late 1880s. ## Aftermath On September 9 and 10, Davidson pushed three cavalry brigades across the Arkansas River, and Steele moved his men along the north bank of the river on September 10. At 11:00, Price pulled his troops back across the river, and began to evacuate the city. Marmaduke fought the Battle of Bayou Fourche, which bought time for Price to complete the withdrawal, and the Confederates were out of the city by 17:00. The city's civilian government surrendered to the Union forces at 19:00. During the fighting at Bayou Fourche, Colonel Archibald S. Dobbins, who had replaced Walker, refused to obey Marmaduke's order to charge, and was arrested, although Price later released him. Marmaduke continued to serve in the Confederate army after the duel, and was captured during the Battle of Mine Creek on October 25, 1864. While in Union captivity, he was promoted to major general. After the war, he was involved in business, journalism, and was a member of the Missouri Railway Commission. Marmaduke was also elected Governor of Missouri in 1884 and served until his death in 1887. A commemorative plaque was erected at the site of the duel in 2015.
1,143,433	O-Bahn Busway	1,171,421,348	Guided busway in Adelaide, South Australia	[ "1986 establishments in Australia", "Adelaide O-Bahn", "Bus rapid transit in Australia", "Busways", "Transport infrastructure completed in 1986" ]	The O-Bahn Busway is a guided busway that is part of the bus rapid transit system servicing the northeastern suburbs of Adelaide, South Australia. The O-Bahn system was conceived by Daimler-Benz to enable buses to avoid traffic congestion by sharing tram tunnels in the German city of Essen. Adelaide's O-Bahn was introduced in 1986 to service the city's rapidly expanding north-eastern suburbs, replacing an earlier plan for a tramway extension. The O-Bahn provides specially built track, combining elements of both bus and rail systems. Adelaide's track is 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) long and includes three interchanges at Klemzig, Paradise and Tea Tree Plaza. Interchanges allow buses to enter and exit the busway and to continue on suburban routes, avoiding the need for passengers to transfer to another bus to continue their journey. Buses can travel at a maximum speed of 100 km/h (60 mph), but are now restricted to 85 km/h (53 mph). As of 2015, the busway carried approximately 31,000 people per weekday. An additional section including a 670-metre (2,200 ft) tunnel opened in 2017 at the city end to reduce the number of congested intersections buses must traverse to enter the Adelaide city centre. The development of the O-Bahn busway led to the development of the Torrens Linear Park from a run-down urban drain into an attractive public open space. It has also triggered urban development around the north-eastern terminus at Modbury. ## Track The O-Bahn track is made of concrete; it is elevated from the ground because of the poor quality of alluvial soils along the River Torrens, which frequently move due to their high level of plasticity. On top of the pylons are concrete sleepers on which the track rests. 5,600 pylons were drilled in place to support 5,600 sleepers and 4,200 prefabricated L-shaped track pieces, sited at 12-metre (39 ft) intervals. Concrete pylons were cast into the ground to ensure stability, to a depth of up to four metres (13 ft). The width of both tracks, sitting on the sleepers, is 6.2 metres (20 ft). The O-Bahn's concrete tracks were narrower and lighter than those of the initially proposed light rail development, and put less stress on the land. The concrete components were precast and then laid onto piers. At the city end, the O-Bahn begins at East Terrace, as an extension eastwards from Grenfell Street into the parklands. The O-Bahn enters an 670-metre (2,200 ft) tunnel, completed in December 2017, which curves from east to north, emerging onto bus lanes in the middle of Hackney Road just north of the intersection with Botanic Road and North Terrace. The bus lane continues north to the Torrens River and into the original entrance of the O-Bahn on Hackney Road, opposite the East Parklands, where it enters a 60-metre (200 ft) tunnel at a speed limited to 40 km/h (25 mph), due to the tight initial corner, ensuring that the rear tyres (especially trailer tyres of articulated buses) do not 'scrub' against the track. Speed is gradually increased to 80 km/h (50 mph) for most of the trip to Klemzig Interchange. Once en route to Paradise Interchange, the speed limit was up to 100 km/h (60 mph), but has been limited to 85 km/h (55 mph) since late 2012. On some sections 115 km/h (70 mph) was achieved in tests. The average service speed including stops is about 60 km/h (35 mph). On entering interchanges the O-Bahn ends and the speed limit is 40 km/h (25 mph). In the interchange area, the speed limit is 20 km/h (10 mph). The O-Bahn is officially considered a road, due to a court ruling in the early years of the system's operation. This ruling permits the South Australia Police to install speed cameras and fine speeding drivers. Cars entering the O-Bahn are deterred by a large number of signs at entrance points and a sump buster device that rips out a car's sump (oil pan) if it gets onto the track. An average of four cars per year enter the O-Bahn and must be removed by crane. ## Buses The first buses to enter service on the O-Bahn were 41 rigid and 51 articulated Mercedes-Benz O305s. These were modified for O-Bahn use by Mitsubishi Motors' Clovelly Park plant before being bodied by Pressed Metal Corporation South Australia. The cost was included in the original \$98 million budget. Modified MAN SG280s and SL202s were later purchased. With the Mercedes-Benz O305s approaching their 25-year age limit, tenders were called in 2007 for replacements. The new buses were Scania K230UB rigid and Scania K320UA articulated buses bodied by Custom Coaches. As of May 2021, these, along with rigid Scania K280UB/K320UB buses, articulated Scania K360UA buses, one diesel/electric hybrid Scania K320UB, and one Mercedes-Benz O405NH make up the fleet. In the case of breakdowns, a specially designed vehicle nicknamed 'Dumbo' is used to tow buses from the O-Bahn. In the early stages of design it was intended that all buses would have towing ability; however, this was soundly rejected by the drivers' union and 'Dumbo' was purchased. If a tyre blows during a trip the guide-wheel prevents the bus from erratic movement, and a smaller aluminium inner tyre allows the bus to be driven to the nearest station at 40 km/h (25 mph). The guide-wheel, which protrudes just ahead of the front wheels, is the most important part of the bus when travelling on the O-Bahn. It is connected directly to the steering mechanism, and steers the bus by running along the raised edge of the track. While it is not strictly necessary for drivers to hold the steering wheel when travelling on the O-Bahn because of the guide-wheel, safety procedures require the driver to be alert to their circumstances at all times. A rumble strip before stations is a reminder that they need to resume control. The guide-wheel is the most delicate part of the system and is designed to snap off upon sharp impact; before the O-Bahn was in place, a number of buses were fitted with guide-wheels for their ordinary routes to test their durability. Drivers were forced to be more cautious on their normal trips after numerous guide-wheel-to-kerb impacts. Since June 2018, services are operated by Torrens Transit under contract to Adelaide Metro. As of 2015, the busway carries approximately 31,000 people per weekday. ## Interchanges Klemzig Interchange is the first station, three kilometres (1.8 mi) from the city centre in the suburb of Klemzig. It was built as a connector to the city loop 'Circle Line' bus service, which followed the Adelaide outer ring route. Many bus services bypass Klemzig and the station has limited capacity. It contains a park & ride carpark with 450 spaces. Paradise Interchange is the second station, six kilometres (3.7 mi) from the city centre, in the suburb of Paradise. The terminus before the completion of Stage 2, it is now served by buses from suburban streets, and has a total of 875 car parking spaces in two areas. Tea Tree Plaza Interchange is the terminus, 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) from the city centre, in Modbury. Adjacent to the Westfield Tea Tree Plaza, it is the largest O-Bahn station. Bus services from this interchange connect to areas as far away as Elizabeth and service the Golden Grove area. It has 700 car parking spaces, after a multiple level carpark was built during a redevelopment in 2013. ## Route Outbound O-Bahn bus routes travel through the Adelaide city centre along Grenfell Street, and enter the O-Bahn via the 670-metre (2,200 ft) tunnel (opened on 10 December 2017) through the Adelaide Park Lands in Rymill Park. They then exit the tunnel on Hackney Road, north of the intersection with Dequetteville Terrace, and then proceed northwards along the road in designated bus lanes. Along this stretch the Adelaide Botanic Garden is on the left, followed by Botanic Park. Hackney Road—along with the designated O-Bahn bus lanes—crosses a bridge over the River Torrens, with the bus lanes veering easterly, to the northbound entrance of the guided O-Bahn busway. The busway dips below the surface road (Park Road) to join the inbound (southbound) track, both heading northeast. The busway follows roughly the Torrens River valley, but with smoother curves. This means that it crosses the river quite often, with either a park or a few houses on a point surrounded by the river and busway. This occurs a total of eight times before the busway reaches Klemzig Interchange on the north side of the river. The busway crosses the river again soon after Klemzig and passes Lochiel Park and part of the suburbs of Campbelltown and Paradise to its north between the busway and the river before reaching Paradise Interchange. After Paradise Interchange, the busway passes under Darley Road, then over the Torrens for the last time. The terrain becomes steeper as the busway proceeds up along the outflow creek and past the northwestern side of the Hope Valley Reservoir. It proceeds north under Grand Junction Road, then swings east and north again to enter the eastern side of the Westfield Tea Tree Plaza shopping centre precinct, where the guided busway ends at Tea Tree Plaza Interchange. Most buses continue on normal roads to service suburbs further afield. All listed routes connect Adelaide City Centre to the named endpoint, but service different suburbs between the O-Bahn interchange and that endpoint. ## History ### Planning The greater Adelaide area experienced significant growth during and after World War II. Between 1944 and 1965, the area's population doubled, and the number of private motor vehicle registrations increased 43-fold. In 1955, the state government under Premier Sir Thomas Playford established a Town Planning Committee and commissioned a coordinated plan to guide the future development of Adelaide. The resulting 300-page study, "Report on the Metropolitan Area of Adelaide 1962", laid out a 30-year development plan, including a proposed 98 kilometres (61 mi) of improved roadways. Shortly before leaving office in 1965, Playford commissioned a detailed study focusing on the recommended transportation improvements. In 1968, the government received the Metropolitan Adelaide Transport Study (MATS) that envisaged a 156-kilometre (97 mi) network of 10 freeways crossing the metropolitan area, a rapid rail network, and an underground city loop railway. MATS drew massive public opposition, as it called for the acquisition of thousands of properties and would effectively supplant a number of suburbs that were to become the sites of interchanges. Arguments broke out in Parliament, and widespread images of gridlock in overseas freeway networks contributed to the furore. Nonetheless, in early 1969 Premier Steele Hall approved implementation of the plan in a modified format, and the government began to purchase property along the proposed corridors. In mid-1969, faced with ongoing opposition, the state abandoned plans for 2 of the 10 proposed freeways. Hall was voted out of office in 1970, and the new government under Premier Don Dunstan passed a 10-year moratorium on freeway development, effectively shelving MATS. The already-acquired corridors were retained for potential future use. By the mid-1970s, transportation had become a problem in the north-east suburbs. The population of the Tea Tree Gully region had increased from 2,500 in 1954 to 35,000 by 1971. A corridor of land along the River Torrens from Adelaide to Modbury, originally purchased for the Modbury Freeway proposed under the MATS plan, was the subject of a new proposal in 1973 when the State Director-General of Transport suggested building a heavy rail line that would connect the suburb to the Adelaide railway system. A subsequent study, the "North East Adelaide Public Transport Review" (NEAPTR), considered heavy rail, light rail, busways, and freeways, ultimately concluding that a light rail line or busway would be most viable. The state government decided on a light rail proposal to extend the historic Glenelg tram line. The new route was to continue along King William Street beyond what was then the terminus in Victoria Square and weave through the Adelaide Park Lands to the Modbury corridor. The light rail system would connect with feeder buses at stations along the length of the corridor to transfer passengers to suburban routes. New light rail vehicles were to be bought to replace the ageing 1929 H type trams. Public opposition to the project was broad. The Adelaide City Council objected to the plan on the basis that it would interfere with the well-designed layout of the city proper. In response, the government altered the plan to redirect the line underneath the city, at a considerable increase in cost. Residents in inner-city suburbs such as St Peters were concerned about the noise of the light rail vehicles, and protested against any disruption of the Torrens Gorge in the Modbury corridor. Test drilling commenced for the tunnel, but the entire light rail project was halted in 1980 after Premier David Tonkin appointed Michael Wilson, an opponent of the plan, as Transport Minister. ### Development In search of a replacement for the light rail project, the new Government sent experts to examine an innovative guided bus system being developed in West Germany by Daimler-Benz. From the German Omnibus (bus) and Bahn (path or way, as in Autobahn for automobiles and Eisenbahn or just Bahn for railway, e.g. S-Bahn and U-Bahn), the O-Bahn system was developed for use in tram tunnels in Essen. After extensive consultations with German authorities, State Transport Authority engineers decided the O-Bahn could be used. The system was seen as far superior to previous proposals; it used less land, made less noise, was faster and cost less. In addition, its unique feature of a non-transfer service direct from suburban streets to the city centre made it more attractive. Plans were drawn up for a length of 12 kilometres (7.5 mi): initially only three kilometres (1.9 mi) were to be constructed as O-Bahn, with the rest being conventional busway. However, safety concerns and public opposition led to O-Bahn being used for the entire length. Construction began in 1983 for the first section to Paradise Interchange. Another change of Government in 1982 resulted in uncertainty over the future of the project. The John Bannon Government, after consultations, decided to continue with Stage 1 (City to Paradise) and in 1986 proceeded with Stage 2 (Paradise to Tea Tree Plaza). The cost of the project was A\$98 million, including the buses. Stage 1 opened on 9 March 1986. Stage 2 opened on 20 August 1989. The O-Bahn had more than 4 million passenger trips in the year after completion of Stage 1 in 1986, with a 30% increase the following year. When the completed O-Bahn was opened on 20 August 1989, passenger numbers rose another 17%. The Adelaide public transport system was privatised in the 1990s and overall patronage across all systems (bus, rail and tram) dropped 25%. The exception to this was the O-Bahn with no decrease, and there were 19,500 passenger trips daily in 1996 (7.13 million a year). As of 2015, the busway carries approximately 31,000 people per weekday. ### Expansion proposals There have been a number of proposals to extend the O-Bahn to Golden Grove or build other routes, but none have progressed beyond consultation. An extension to Golden Grove would require the acquisition of extensive tracts of private property, due to the absence of an available corridor. Population increase in the area is negligible, although sprawl continues from Tea Tree Plaza Interchange for another eight kilometres to the Adelaide Hills. The current route was built with an allowance for a station at Grand Junction Road but it has not been built. A southern O-Bahn proposal attracted the most attention and has been the subject of various studies and Parliamentary Committees as to its viability since 1996. The rail route through Adelaide's far south is off-centre, without the large catchment area of a more central transport route. An O-Bahn running direct through the region would be able to take advantage of an already large population and the continuing growth in the area. One suggested route for an O-Bahn was for an alignment adjacent to the Noarlunga Centre railway line from the city to the Tonsley line. The O-Bahn would end there, with buses continuing on the Southern Expressway through the far south. Construction of this O-Bahn would require moving the railway track slightly to fit the O-Bahn alongside. In addition, Emerson Crossing and the Goodwood Overpass would require alteration. The estimated cost of construction, \$182 million, was considered too expensive, and the proposal was suspended in 2001. Since then, the Government has focused on upgrading South Road and extending the Glenelg tram line. There was a 2009 plan that bus routes serving the O-Bahn would be enhanced from Hackney Road along Grenfell and Currie Streets and extended to West Terrace on the far side of the CBD along dedicated bus lanes. However, the Federal Government announced in January 2011, as part of its response to the 2010–11 Queensland floods, that the extension would be cancelled "as a result of a significant scope reduction of the original project, resulting in only limited transport benefits". ### O-Bahn City Access Project In 2015, the Department of Planning, Transport & Infrastructure announced a \$160 million proposed O-Bahn City Access Project. The existing entry/exit at Hackney Road was retained, but upgraded bus-only lanes on Hackney Road now lead to a new tunnel portal with bus guide rails commencing near the Adelaide Botanic Garden. The tunnel passes under the Botanic Road intersection, then curves west under Rundle Park / Kadlitpina, Rundle Street and surfaces in Rymill Park leading to a redesigned intersection at Grenfell Street and East Terrace. Construction started in late 2015 and completed in 2017. The contract to complete the detailed design and construct the tunnel was let to McConnell Dowell in October 2015. Sage Automation provided expertise in the mechanical and electrical aspects of the tunnel including ventilation and safety systems. Construction started in March 2016 with the removal of the median strip and preparation of central bus lanes. The tunnel opened on 10 December 2017, with limited services starting the next day. It started full operation on 17 December. ## Effects on local development The O-Bahn has caused a clustering of commercial and community development near the Tea Tree Plaza Interchange, as service-providing organisations and businesses have sought to exploit the area's easy accessibility to public transport and the city centre. Market imperatives have also been aided by the zoning of the land around the area as commercial rather than residential. The area around Tea Tree Plaza is one of five designated regional centres within the Adelaide metropolis. According to Robert Cervero, the O-Bahn has "accelerated the conversion of Tea Tree Gully from a somewhat sterile new town designed around a regional shopping mall to an emerging urban village featuring a wide range of land uses". The large Modbury Hospital is adjacent to the interchange, and the Torrens Valley campus of TAFE was built directly to the east of the busway after it opened. One government high school, three primary schools, one Christian school and three retirement villages are within a kilometre of the interchange. In contrast, there has been opposition to the area surrounding Klemzig Interchange and Paradise Interchange being used for any purpose other than low-density housing and no transit-oriented development has occurred. ## Environment The construction of the O-Bahn, rather than the previously proposed Modbury Freeway, was motivated by a desire to reduce car dependency. \$6 million was used for the redevelopment of the Torrens Gorge, in which the Torrens Linear Park was created. About 150,000 trees, plants and shrubs were planted alongside the track for aesthetic, environmental and noise-reduction purposes; planting was completed in 1997. Walking trails and cycling paths were built along the park to encourage public use. Torrens Linear Park rejuvenated the river, which had deteriorated to the extent of being a de facto "urban drain, littered with rubbish and inaccessible to the public". Arising from environmental considerations, the O-Bahn is carbon-neutral due to the absorption of carbon dioxide by the trees alongside it. The track itself is situated in a valley due to it being near a riverbed and the elevation was further lowered by digging further depressions in order to reduce the noise impact on adjacent dwellings. The original buses ran on diesel fuel, but the system allows for buses that run on alternative energy sources. Biodiesel fuel and natural gas have been trialled; as of 2014, 20% of the Adelaide bus fleet uses compressed natural gas, 48% B20 and 32% B5 biodiesel blends. The design of the O-Bahn allows for the installation of overhead wires for trolleybuses. ## See also - Guided bus - List of bus rapid transit systems
503,189	War of the Bavarian Succession	1,171,637,940	18th-century war between the Austrian Habsburgs and a Prussian/Saxon alliance	[ "1770s in the Holy Roman Empire", "1778 in the Habsburg monarchy", "1779 in the Habsburg monarchy", "18th century in Bavaria", "Conflicts in 1778", "Conflicts in 1779", "Frederick the Great", "History of the potato", "House of Wittelsbach", "Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor", "Rebellions against the Habsburg monarchy", "Wars involving Bavaria", "Wars involving Prussia", "Wars involving Saxony", "Wars involving the Habsburg monarchy", "Wars of succession involving the states and peoples of Europe" ]	The War of the Bavarian Succession (German: Bayerischer Erbfolgekrieg; 3 July 1778 – 13 May 1779) was a dispute between the Austrian Habsburg monarchy and an alliance of Saxony and Prussia over succession to the Electorate of Bavaria after the extinction of the Bavarian branch of the House of Wittelsbach. The Habsburgs sought to acquire Bavaria, and the alliance opposed them, favoring another branch of the Wittelsbachs. Both sides mobilized large armies, but the only fighting in the war was a few minor skirmishes. However, thousands of soldiers died from disease and starvation, earning the conflict the name Kartoffelkrieg (Potato War) in Prussia and Saxony; in Habsburg Austria, it was sometimes called the Zwetschgenrummel (Plum Fuss). On 30 December 1777, Maximilian III Joseph, the last of the junior Wittelsbach line, died of smallpox, leaving no children. Charles Theodore, a scion of a senior branch of the House of Wittelsbach, held the closest claim of kinship, but he also had no legitimate children to succeed him. His cousin, Charles II August, Duke of Zweibrücken, therefore had a legitimate legal claim as Charles Theodore's heir presumptive. Across Bavaria's southern border, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor coveted the Bavarian territory and had married Maximilian Joseph's sister Maria Josepha in 1765 to strengthen any claim he could extend. His agreement with the heir, Charles Theodore, to partition the territory neglected any claims of the heir presumptive, Charles August. Acquiring territory in the German-speaking states was an essential part of Joseph's policy to expand his family's influence in Central Europe. For King Frederick II of Prussia, Joseph's claim threatened Prussian's influence in German politics, but he questioned whether he should preserve the status quo through war, diplomacy, or trade. Empress Maria Theresa, who co-ruled with Joseph, considered any conflict over the Bavarian electorate not worth bloodshed, and neither she nor Frederick saw any point in pursuing hostilities. Joseph would not drop his claim despite his mother's contrary insistence. Frederick August III, Elector of Saxony, wanted to preserve the territorial integrity of Bavaria for his brother-in-law, Charles August, and had no interest in seeing the Habsburgs acquire additional territory on his southern and western borders. Despite his dislike of Prussia, which had been Saxony's enemy in two previous wars, Charles August sought the support of Frederick, who was happy to challenge the Habsburgs. France became involved to maintain the balance of power. Finally, Empress Catherine II of Russia's threat to intervene on the side of Prussia with fifty thousand Russian troops forced Joseph to reconsider his position. With Catherine's assistance, he and Frederick negotiated a solution to the problem of the Bavarian succession with the Treaty of Teschen, signed on 13 May 1779. For some historians, the War of the Bavarian Succession was the last of the old-style cabinet wars of the Ancien Régime era, in which troops maneuvered while diplomats traveled between capitals to resolve their monarchs' complaints. The subsequent French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars differed in scope, strategy, organization, and tactics. ## Background In 1713, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI established a line of succession that gave precedence to his own daughters over the daughters of his deceased older brother, Emperor Joseph I. To protect the Habsburg inheritance, he coerced, cajoled, and persuaded the crowned heads of Europe to accept the Pragmatic Sanction. In this agreement, they acknowledged any of his legitimate daughters as the rightful queen of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia, and archduchess of Austria—a break from the tradition of agnatic primogeniture. Holy Roman emperors had been elected from the House of Habsburg for most of the previous three centuries. Charles VI arranged a marriage of his eldest daughter, Maria Theresa, to Francis III of Lorraine. Francis relinquished the Duchy of Lorraine neighbouring France in exchange for the Grand Duchy of Tuscany to make himself a more appealing candidate for eventual election as emperor. On paper, many heads of state and, most importantly, the rulers of the German states of the Holy Roman Empire, accepted the Pragmatic Sanction and the idea of Francis as the next emperor. Two key exceptions, the Electorate of Bavaria and the Electorate of Saxony, held important electoral votes and could impede or even block Francis' election. When Charles died in 1740, Maria Theresa had to fight for her family's entitlements in Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia, and her husband faced competition in his election as the Holy Roman emperor. Charles Albert, Prince-elector and Duke of Bavaria, claimed the German territories of the Habsburg dynasty as a son-in-law of Joseph I, and furthermore presented himself as Charles VI's legitimate imperial successor. If women were going to inherit, he claimed, then his family should have precedence: his wife, Maria Amalia, was the daughter of Joseph I. Both Charles VI and his predecessor Joseph I had died without sons. Charles Albert of Bavaria suggested that the legitimate succession pass to Joseph's female children, rather than to the daughters of the younger brother, Charles VI. For different reasons, Prussia, France, Spain, and the Polish-Saxon monarchy supported Charles of Bavaria's claim to the Habsburg territory and the Imperial title and reneged on the Pragmatic Sanction. Charles Albert of Bavaria needed military assistance to take the imperial title by force, which he secured the Treaty of Nymphenburg (July 1741). During the subsequent War of the Austrian Succession, he successfully captured Prague, where he was crowned King of Bohemia. He invaded Upper Austria, planning to capture Vienna, but diplomatic exigencies complicated his plans. His French allies redirected their troops into Bohemia, where Frederick the Great, himself newly King of Prussia, had taken advantage of the chaos in Austria and Bavaria to annex Silesia. Charles Albert's military options disappeared with the French. Adopting a new plan, he subverted the imperial election. He sold the County of Glatz to Prussia for a reduced price in exchange for Frederick's electoral vote. Charles's brother, Klemens August of Bavaria, archbishop and prince-elector of the Electorate of Cologne, voted for him in the imperial election and personally crowned him on 12 February 1742 in the traditional ceremony in Frankfurt am Main. The next day, the new Charles VII's Bavarian capital of Munich capitulated to the Austrians to avoid being plundered by Maria Theresa's troops. In the following weeks, her army overran most of Charles's territories, occupied Bavaria, and barred him from his ancestral lands and from Bohemia. Charles VII spent most of his three-year reign as emperor residing in Frankfurt while Maria Theresa battled Prussia for her patrimony in Bohemia and Hungary. Frederick could not secure Bohemia for Charles, but he did manage to push the Austrians out of Bavaria. For the last three months of his short reign, the gout-ridden Charles lived in Munich, where he died in January 1745. His son, Maximilian III Joseph (known as Max Joseph) inherited his father's electoral dignities but not his imperial ambition. With the Peace of Füssen (22 April 1745), Max Joseph promised to vote for Francis of Lorraine, Maria Theresa's husband, in the pending imperial election. He also acknowledged the Pragmatic Sanction. In return, he obtained the restitution of his family's electoral position and territories. For his subjects, his negotiations ended five years of warfare and brought a generation of peace and relative prosperity that began with his father's death in 1745 and ended with his own in 1777. As the Duke of Bavaria, Max Joseph was the prince of one of the largest states in the German-speaking portion of the Holy Roman Empire. As a prince-elector, he stood in the highest rank of the Empire, with broad legal, economic, and judicial rights. As an elector, he was one of the men who selected the Holy Roman Emperor from a group of candidates. He was the son of one Holy Roman Emperor (Charles VII), and the grandson of another (Joseph I). When he died of smallpox on 30 December 1777, he left no children to succeed him and several ambitious men prepared to carve his patrimony into pieces. ## Contenders ### The Heir The Sulzbach branch of the Wittelsbach family inherited the Electorate of Bavaria. In this line, the 55-year-old Charles IV Theodore, the Duke of Berg-Jülich, held the first claim. Unfortunately for Charles Theodore, he was already the Elector Palatine. By the terms of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, he had to cede the Palatine electorate to his own heir before he could claim the Bavarian electorate. He was not eager to do so, even though Bavaria was larger and more important. He preferred living in the Palatinate, with its salubrious climate and compatible social scene. He patronized the arts, and had developed in Mannheim, his capital city, an array of theaters and museums at tremendous cost to his subjects. He hosted Voltaire at one of his many palaces. During the visit, he had enticed Voltaire's secretary, the Florentine noble Cosimo Alessandro Collini (1727–1806), into his own employment, considered a coup in some of the Enlightenment circles. Thomas Carlyle referred to Charles Theodore as a "poor idle creature, of purely egoistical, ornamental, dilettante nature; sunk in theatricals, [and] bastard children". The French foreign minister Vergennes, who knew him, described Charles Theodore's foibles more forcefully: > Although by nature intelligent, he [Charles Theodore] has never succeeded in ruling by himself; he has always been governed by his ministers or by his father-confessor or (for a time) by the electress [his wife]. This conduct has increased his natural weakness and apathy to such a degree that for a long time he has had no opinions save those inspired in him by his entourage. The void which this indolence has left in his soul is filled with the amusements of the hunt and of music and by secret liaisons, for which His Electoral Majesty has at all times had a particular penchant. The Electress had provided him with a son, who had immediately died, but Charles Theodore's "particular penchant" for secret liaisons, most of whom were French actresses that he had raised to the status of countess, had produced several natural children. By the time of Max Joseph's death, he had legitimated seven of the males of his various alliances, and was considering the legitimation of two more. With this host of male offspring, although Charles Theodore certainly wished to acquire more territory, he needed it to be territory that he could bequeath through his testament, rather than territory encumbered by a legal entailment that could only pass to a legitimate child. ### Deal-maker Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, Archduke of Austria, and co-ruler with his mother, Empress Maria Theresa, coveted Bavaria. He felt the War of the Austrian Succession had shown that the House of Habsburg-Lorraine needed a wider sphere of influence in the German-speaking parts of the Holy Roman Empire. Without this, the family could not count on the election of their chosen male candidate as emperor, nor could the family count on an uncontested succession to the Habsburg territories of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia. For most of Joseph's adult life, he sought to strengthen his family's influence in German-speaking lands. For him, this meant the acquisition of German lands (generally better-developed economically), not lands in the eastern region of the Habsburg empire, even such strategic territories as Bukovina. Joseph married Max Joseph's sister, Maria Josepha, in 1765, hoping he could claim the Bavarian electorate for his offspring. After two years of unhappy marriage, Maria Josepha died without issue. When Max Joseph died ten years later, Joseph could only present a weak legal claim to Lower Bavaria through a dubious and ancient grant made by the Emperor Sigismund to the House of Habsburg in 1425. Knowing its poor legal grounds, Joseph negotiated a secret agreement with Charles Theodore shortly after Max Joseph's death. In this agreement (3 January 1778), Charles Theodore ceded Lower Bavaria to Austria in exchange for uncontested succession to the remainder of the electorate. Charles Theodore also hoped to acquire from Joseph some unencumbered parts of the Austrian Netherlands and parts of Further Austria that he could bequeath to his bastards, but this was not written into the agreement and Joseph was not a particularly generous man. Furthermore, the agreement entirely ignored the interests of Charles Theodore's own heir presumptive, Charles II August, of the House of Palatinate-Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld. Charles August was the presumptive heir of Charles Theodore's domains and titles. He had a clear and direct interest in the disposition of the Bavarian electorate, especially in its territorial integrity. ### Heir presumptive Unbeknownst to either Charles Theodore or Joseph, a widow (historians are uncertain which widow) opened secret negotiations with Prussia to secure the eventual succession of Charles II August (Charles August). Some historians maintain the active negotiator was Max Joseph's widow, Maria Anna Sophia of Saxony. Others assert it was Max Joseph's sister, Maria Antonia of Bavaria, who was also Charles August's mother-in-law and the mother of the reigning Elector of Saxony. Ernest Henderson even maintained she was the "only manly one among the many Wittelsbach parties" involved in the issue. Charles August was no great admirer of Joseph's. As a younger man, he had sought the hand of Joseph's sister, Archduchess Maria Amalia. She had been quite content to take him, but Joseph and their mother insisted she marry instead the better-connected Ferdinand, Duke of Parma. After this disappointment, Charles II August married Maria Amalia of Saxony in 1774; she was the daughter of Frederick Christian, Elector of Saxony (d. 1763) and his wife Maria Antonia, Max Joseph's sister. In 1769, the reigning Saxon elector, Frederick Augustus III, had married Charles August's sister. Charles August, sometimes called duc de Deux-Ponts (a French translation of Zweibrücken, or two bridges), was a French client and could theoretically draw on French support for his claim. However, he had especially good relations with the Saxon Elector: both his mother- and brother-in-law wanted to ensure that Maria Amalia's husband received his rightful inheritance. ## Diplomacy ### Interested parties Count Karl-Wilhelm Finck von Finckenstein, Frederick the Great's prime minister, believed that any Austrian acquisition in Bavaria would shift the balance of power in the Holy Roman Empire, diminishing Prussia's influence. Prussia's recent gains had been hard-won: thirty years earlier, Frederick had engaged in protracted wars in Silesia and Bohemia, resulting in Prussia's annexation of most of Silesia, and now, with the economy and society modernizing under his direction, Prussia was emerging as a great power. In the Silesian Wars and the Seven Years' War, Frederick had earned a new, if grudging, respect for his kingdom's military and diplomatic prowess from the European powers of France, Russia, Britain and Austria. To protect Prussia's status and territory, Finck and Frederick constructed an alliance with the Electorate of Saxony, ostensibly to defend the rights of Charles II August, Duke of Zweibrücken. Although equally interested in maintaining its influence among the German states, France had a double problem. As a supporter of the rebellious British colonies in North America, she wished to avoid a continental engagement; she could do more damage to the British in North America than in Europe. The Diplomatic Revolution in 1756 had gone against two hundred years of French foreign policy of opposition to the House of Habsburg, arguably bringing France massive territorial gains in repeated wars with Habsburg Austria and Spain. A reversal of this policy in 1756 tied French foreign policy in Europe to Vienna which, although it could give France additional influence and leverage, could also cripple the country's diplomatic maneuvers with the other power players: Britain, Russia, and Prussia. Despite this restructuring, there existed in the French Court at ]]Palace of Versailles\\|Versailles]], and in France generally, a strong anti-Austrian sentiment. The personal union (the diplomatic term for marriage) of Louis, then the Dauphin, and the Austrian Archduchess Marie Antoinette, was considered both a political and matrimonial mésalliance in the eyes of many Frenchmen. It flew in the face of 200 years of French foreign policy, in which the central axiom "had been hostility to the House of Habsburg." The French foreign minister, the Comte de Vergennes, maintained deep-seated hostility to the Austrians that antedated the alliance of 1756. He had not approved of the shift in France's traditional bonds and considered the Austrians untrustworthy. Consequently, he managed to extricate France from immediate military obligations to Austria by 1778. ### Tensions rise On 3 January 1778, a few days after Max Joseph's death, the electoral equerry proclaimed the succession of Charles Theodore. Dragoons rode through the streets of Munich, some banging drums and some blowing trumpets, and others shouting, "Long Live our Elector Charles Theodore." According to 3 January agreement between Joseph and Charles Theodore, fifteen thousand Austrian troops occupied Mindelheim, ultimately more territory than had been granted to Joseph. Charles Theodore, who had dreamed of rebuilding the Burgundian empire, realized that Joseph was not seriously planning to exchange Bavaria, or even a portion of it, for the entirety of the Austrian Netherlands. At best, he might acquire a few portions of it, perhaps Hainaut or Guelders, Luxembourg, Limburg, or various dispersed possessions in Further Austria, most of which lay in southwestern Germany, but Joseph would never release any sizable portion of territory, and certainly not any territory of strategic military or commercial value. While Charles Theodore's dream of a Burgundian renaissance receded, Joseph continued on his course to annex part of Bavaria. The widow—Max Joseph's widow or the mother-in-law or both—petitioned Prussia on behalf of Charles II August. Frederick's envoys to the heir presumptive convinced this slighted prince to lodge protests with the Imperial Diet in Regensburg. Joseph's troops remained in portions of Bavaria, even establishing an Austrian administration at Straubing, precipitating a diplomatic crisis. Austrian occupation of Bavaria was unacceptable to Charles August's champion, Frederick. Prussian troops mobilized near Prussia's border with Bohemia, reminiscent of the invasion in 1740 that so endangered Maria Theresa's succession to the Habsburg hereditary lands. Meanwhile, the French wriggled out of their diplomatic obligations to Austria, telling Joseph that there would be no military support from Paris for a war against Prussia. Britain, Prussia's strongest ally, was already mired in a war in North America, but Prussia's military had recovered from the Seven Years' War and Frederick did not require any help. Prussia's other ally, Saxony, aligned by two marriages with Charles August, was strategically prepared for war against Austria and ready to contribute twenty thousand troops. Watching from Saint Petersburg, Catherine II was willing to mop up the spoils of war for the Russian Empire but did not want to get involved in another costly European conflict. For four months, negotiators shuttled between Vienna and Berlin, Dresden and Regensburg, and Zweibrücken, Munich and Mannheim. By early spring 1778, Austria and Prussia faced each other with armies several times the size of their forces during the Seven Years' War, and their confrontation had the potential to explode into another European-wide war. ## Action When it became clear that other monarchs would not acquiesce in a de facto partition of Bavaria, Joseph and his foreign minister, Anton von Kaunitz, scoured the Habsburg realm for troops and concentrated six hundred guns and a 180,000–190,000-man Austrian army in Bohemia, Moravia, and Austrian Silesia. This amounted to most of Austria's two-hundred thousand effectives, leaving much of the Habsburg border regions with the Ottoman Empire under-guarded. On 6 April 1778 Frederick of Prussia established his army of eighty thousand men on the Prussian border with Bohemia, near Neisse, Schweidnitz, and the County of Glatz, which Frederick had acquired from the Wittelsbach contender in 1741 in exchange for his electoral support of Charles VII. At Glatz, Frederick completed his preparations for invasion: he gathered supplies, arranged a line-of-march, brought up his artillery and drilled his soldiers. His younger brother, Prince Henry, formed a second army of seventy-five to a hundred thousand men to the north and west, in Saxony. In April, Frederick and Joseph officially joined their armies in the field, and diplomatic negotiations ended. In early July 1778, the Prussian general Johann Jakob von Wunsch (1717–1788) crossed into Bohemia near the fortified town of Náchod with several hundred men. The local garrison, commanded by Friedrich Joseph, Count of Nauendorf, then a Rittmeister (captain of cavalry), included only fifty hussars. Despite the poor numerical odds, Nauendorf sallied out to engage Wunsch's men. When his small force reached Wunsch's, he greeted the Prussians as friends; by the time the Prussians were close enough to realize the allegiance of the hussars, Nauendorf and his small band had acquired the upper hand. Wunsch withdrew; the next day, Nauendorf was promoted to major. In a letter to her son, the Empress Maria Theresa wrote: "They say you were so pleased with Nauendorf, a rookie from Carlstadt or Hungary, who killed seven men, that you gave him twelve ducats." ### Invasion A few days after Wunsch's encounter with Nauendorf, Frederick entered Bohemia. His eighty thousand troops occupied Náchod but advanced no further. The Habsburg army stood on the heights of the Elbe river, nominally under Joseph but with Count Franz Moritz von Lacy in practical command. Lacy had served under Marshal Daun during the Seven Years' War and knew his military business. He established the Austrian army on the most defensible position available: centered at Jaroměř, a triple line of redoubts extended 15 kilometers (9.3 mi) southwest along the river to Königgrätz. The Austrians also augmented this defensive line with their six hundred artillery pieces. While the main Habsburg army faced Frederick at the Elbe, a smaller army under the command of Baron Ernst Gideon von Laudon guarded the passes from Saxony and Lusatia into Bohemia. Laudon was another battle-hardened and cagey commander with extensive field experience, but even he could not cover the long frontier completely. Shortly after Frederick crossed into Bohemia, Prince Henry, a brilliant strategist in his own right, maneuvered around Laudon's troops and entered Bohemia at Hainspach. To avoid being flanked, Laudon withdrew across the Iser river, but by mid-August, the main Austrian army was in danger of being outflanked by Henry on its left wing. At its center and right, it faced a well-disciplined army commanded by Frederick, arguably the best tactical general of the age and feared for his victories against France and Austria in the previous war. While his main army remained entrenched on the heights above the Elbe, Joseph encouraged raids against the Prussian troops. On 7 August 1778, with two squadrons of his regiment, the intrepid "rookie", now Major Nauendorf, led a raid against a Prussian convoy at Bieberdorf in the County of Glatz. The surprised convoy surrendered and Nauendorf captured its officers, 110 men, 476 horses, 240 wagons of flour, and thirteen transport wagons. This kind of action characterized the entire war. There were no major battles; the war consisted of a series of raids and counter-raids during which the opposing sides lived off the countryside and tried to deny each other access to supplies and fodder. Soldiers later said they spent more time foraging for food than they did fighting. The armies remained in their encampments for the campaign season while men and horses ate all the provisions and forage for miles around. Prince Henry wrote to his brother, suggesting they complete their operations by 22 August, at which time he estimated he would have exhausted local supplies of food for his men and fodder for his horses. Frederick agreed. He laid plans to cross the Elbe and approach the Austrian force from the rear, but the more he examined the conditions of Joseph's entrenchments, the more he realized that the campaign was already lost. Even if he and Henry executed simultaneous attacks on the Königgrätz heights, such a plan exposed Henry to a flanking attack from Laudon. A coordinated frontal and rear assault was also unlikely to succeed. Even if it did, the Prussian losses would be unacceptable and would demolish his army's capacity to resist other invaders. From Frederick's perspective, the Russians and the Swedes were always ready to take advantage of any perceived Prussian weakness, and the French also could not be trusted to keep their distance. For Frederick, it was a risk not worth taking. Despite this realization, the four armies—two Austrian, two Prussian—remained in place until September, eating as much of the country's resources as they could. From their advantageous height by Königgrätz, the Austrians frequently bombarded the Prussian army encamped below them. On the same day that Frederick's doctors bled him, an Austrian cannonade grew so strong that Frederick rode out to observe the damage. During the ride, his vein opened. A company medic bound his wound, an incident later depicted by the painter Bernhard Rode. In his admiring history of Frederick the Great, the British historian Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) relayed the story of Frederick and a Croatian marksman. As Frederick was reconnoitring, Carlyle maintained, the King encountered the Croat taking aim at him. Reportedly, he wagged his finger at the man, as if to say, "Do not do that." The Croat thought better of shooting the King, and disappeared into the woods; some reports maintain he actually knelt before the king and kissed his hand. Nauendorf continued his raids, the soldiers foraged for food and dug up the local potato crop, and Joseph and Frederick glared at one another by Königgrätz. Maria Theresa had sent Kaunitz on a secret mission to Berlin to offer a truce. In a second trip, she offered a settlement, and finally wrote to the Empress Catherine in Russia to ask for assistance. When Joseph discovered his mother's maneuvering behind his back, he furiously offered to abdicate. His mother enlisted the assistance she needed. Catherine offered to mediate the dispute; if her assistance was unacceptable, she was willing to send fifty thousand troops to augment the Prussian force, even though she disliked Frederick and her alliance with him was strictly defensive. Frederick withdrew portions of his force in mid-September. In October, Joseph withdrew most of his army to the Bohemian border and Frederick withdrew his remaining troops into Prussia. Two small forces of hussars and dragoons remained in Bohemia to provide a winter cordon; these forces allowed Joseph and Frederick to keep an eye on each other's troops while their diplomats negotiated at Teschen. ### Winter actions Appointed as the commander of the Austrian winter cordon, Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser ordered a small assault-column under the command of Colonel Wilhelm Klebeck to attack the village of Dittersbach. Klebeck led a column of Croats into the village. During the action, four hundred Prussians were killed, another four hundred made prisoner, and eight colors were captured. Following his successes against the Prussians in 1778, Joseph awarded Wurmser the Knight's Cross of the Military Order of Maria Theresa on 21 October 1778. In another raid, on 1 January 1779, Colonel Franz Levenehr led 3,200 men (four battalions, six squadrons, and 16 artillery) into Zuckmantel, a village in Silesia on the Prussian border, 7 kilometers (4 mi) south of Ziegenhals. There he ran against a 10,000-man Prussian force commanded by General Johann Jakob von Wunsch; the Austrians decisively defeated the Prussians, with a loss of 20 men (wounded) against the Prussian losses of 800. Two weeks later, Wurmser advanced into the County of Glatz in five columns, two of which, commanded by Major General Franz Joseph, Count Kinsky, surrounded Habelschwerdt on 17–18 January. While one column secured the approach, the other, under the leadership of Colonel Pallavicini, stormed the village and captured the Landgrave of Hessen-Philippsthal, 37 officers, plus 700 to 1,000 men, three cannon and seven colors; in this action, the Prussians lost 400 men dead or wounded. Wurmser himself led the third column in an assault on the so-called Swedish blockhouse at Oberschwedeldorf. It and the village of Habelschwerdt were set on fire by howitzers. Major General Terzy (1730–1800), who was covering with the remaining two columns, threw back the enemy support and took three hundred Prussian prisoners. Meanwhile, Wurmser maintained his position at the nearby villages of Rückerts and Reinerz. His forward patrols reached the outskirts of Glatz and patrolled much of the Silesian border with Prussia near Schweidnitz. Halberschwerdt and Oberschedeldorf were both destroyed. On 3 March 1779, Nauendorf again raided Berbersdorf with a large force of infantry and hussars and captured the entire Prussian garrison. Joseph awarded him the Knight's Cross of the Military Order of Maria Theresa (19 May 1779). ## Impact In the Treaty of Teschen (May 1779), Maria Theresa returned Lower Bavaria to Charles Theodore, but kept the so-called Innviertel, a 2,200-square-kilometer (850 sq mi) strip of land in the drainage basin of the Inn river. She and Joseph were surprised to find that the small territory had 120,000 inhabitants. Saxony received a financial reward of six million gulden from the principal combatants for its role in the intervention. The War of the Bavarian Succession was the last war for both Frederick and Maria Theresa, whose reigns began and ended with wars against one another. Although they deployed armies three to four times the size of the armies of the Seven Years' War, neither monarch used the entirety of the military force each had at their disposal, making this war-without-battles remarkable. Despite the restraint of the monarchs, some early nineteenth-century casualty estimates suggest that tens of thousands died of starvation and hunger-related disease. Carlyle's more moderate estimate lies at about ten thousand Prussian and probably another ten thousand Austrian dead. Michael Hochedlinger assesses combined casualties at approximately thirty thousand; Robert Kann gives no estimate of casualties but suggests the primary causes of death were cholera and dysentery. Gaston Bodart, whose 1915 work is still considered the authority on Austrian military losses, is specific: five Austrian generals (he does not name them), over twelve thousand soldiers, and 74 officers died of disease. In minor actions and skirmishes, nine officers and 265 men were killed and four officers and 123 men were wounded, but not fatally. Sixty-two officers and 2,802 men were taken prisoner, and 137 men were missing. Over three thousand Imperial soldiers deserted. Finally, twenty-six officers and 372 men were discharged with disabilities. Bodart also gives Prussian losses: one general killed (he does not say which), 87 officers and 3,364 men killed, wounded or captured. Overall, he assumes losses of ten percent of the fighting force. Little has been discovered of civilian casualties, although certainly the civilians also suffered from starvation and disease. There were other damages: for example, Habelschwerdt and one of its hamlets were destroyed by fire. Despite its short duration, the war itself cost Prussia 33 million florins. For the Austrians, the cost was higher: 65 million florins, for a state with an annual revenue of 50 million florins. Joseph himself described war as "a horrible thing ... the ruin of many innocent people." ### Change in warfare This was the last European war of the old style, in which armies maneuvered sedately at a distance while diplomats hustled between capitals to resolve the monarchs' differences. Given the length of time—six months—the cost in life and treasure was high. In light of the scale of warfare experienced in Europe less than a generation later in the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars, though, this six-month engagement seems mild. Yet while historians often dismissed it as the last of the archaic mode of Ancien Régime warfare, elements of the war foreshadowed conflicts to come: the sheer sizes of the armies deployed reflected emerging abilities and willingness to conscript, train, equip and field larger armies than had been done in previous generations. The war also reflected a new height in military spending, especially by the Habsburgs. After the Seven Years' War, the size of the Habsburg military shrank, from 201,311 men in arms in 1761 to 163,613 in 1775. In preparing for a second summer's campaign, Joseph's army grew from 195,108 effectives in the summer of 1778 to 308,555 men in arms in Spring 1779. Habsburg military strength never dropped below two hundred thousand effectives between 1779 and 1792, when Austria entered the War of the First Coalition. Several times it surged above three hundred thousand men in arms, responding to needs on the Ottoman border or the revolt in the Austrian Netherlands. The military also underwent a massive organizational overhaul. In the vernacular, the Austrians called the war Zwetschgenrummel ("Plum Fuss"), and for the Prussians and Saxons, it was Kartoffelkrieg ("Potato War"). In the historiography of European warfare, historians almost always describe the War of the Bavarian Succession "in dismissive or derisive terms [as] the apotheosis (or perhaps caricature) of old regime warfare," despite its grand name. Some historians have maintained that the focus on the consumption of the produce of the land gave the war its popular name. Others suggest that the two armies lobbed potatoes instead of cannonballs or mortars. A third theory maintains that the war acquired its popular name because it took place during the potato harvest. ### Resurgence of the problem The underlying problem was not solved: Joseph's foreign policy dictated the expansion of Habsburg influence over German-speaking territories, and only this, he believed, would counter Prussia's growing strength in Imperial affairs. In 1785, Joseph again sought to make a territorial deal with Charles Theodore, again offering to trade portions of Bavarian territory for portions of the Austrian Netherlands. This time it would be a straight trade: territory for territory, not a partition. Although the Austrian Netherlands was a wealthy territory, it was a thorn in Joseph's side, opposing his administrative and bureaucratic reforms and devouring military and administrative resources he desperately needed elsewhere in his realm. Despite its problems, Joseph could not afford to give up the Netherlands entirely, so his efforts to negotiate a partial territorial exchange guaranteed him some of the financial benefits of both his Netherlands possessions and the Bavarian territories. Even if Joseph had to give up the Austrian Netherlands, it meant "the barter of an indefensible strategic position and ... an economic liability for a great territorial and political gain, adjacent to the monarchy." Again, Charles II August, Duke of Zweibrücken, resented the possible loss of his Bavarian expectancy, and again, Frederick of Prussia offered aid. This time, no war developed, not even a "Potato War". Instead, Frederick founded the Fürstenbund, or the Union of Princes, comprising the influential princes of the northern German states, and these individuals jointly pressured Joseph to relinquish his ambitious plans. Rather than increasing Austria's influence in German affairs, Joseph's actions increased Prussian influence, making Prussia seem like a protector state against greedy Habsburg imperialism (an ironic contrast to the earlier stage of the Austro-Prussian rivalry, in which Frederick seized German-speaking lands with military force and without formal declaration of war, causing most of the German states to join Austria). In 1799, Bavaria and the Palatinate passed to Maximilian IV Joseph, brother of Charles August, whose only child had died in 1784. ## Long-term effect: the intensification of German dualism Joseph understood the problems facing his multi-ethnic patrimony and the ambivalent position the Austrians held in the Holy Roman Empire. Although the Habsburgs and their successor house of Habsburg-Lorraine had, with two exceptions, held the position of Emperor since the early 15th century, the basis of 18th-century Habsburg power lay not in the Holy Roman Empire itself, but in Habsburg territories in Eastern Europe, where the family had vast domains. For Joseph or his successors to wield influence in the German-speaking states, they needed to acquire additional German-speaking territories. Acquisition of Central European territories with German-speaking subjects would strengthen the Austrian position in the Holy Roman Empire. As far as Joseph was concerned, only this could shift the center of the Habsburg empire into German-speaking Central Europe. This agenda made dispensable both the Austrian Netherlands—Habsburg territories which lay furthest west—and Galicia, furthest east. It also made the recovery of German-speaking Silesia and acquisition of new territories in Bavaria essential. By the late 1770s, Joseph also faced important diplomatic obstacles in consolidating Habsburg influence in Central Europe. When the British had been Austria's allies, Austria could count on British support in its wars, but Britain was now allied with Prussia. In the Diplomatic Revolution, the French replaced the British as Austria's ally, but they were fickle, as Joseph discovered when Vergennes extricated Versailles from its obligations. Russia, which also had been an important Austrian ally for most of the Seven Years' War, sought opportunities for expansion at the expense of its weak neighbors. In 1778, that meant Poland and the Ottomans, but Joseph fully understood the danger of appearing weak in Russia's eyes: Habsburg lands could be carved off easily by Catherine's diplomatic knife. Still, Frederick of Prussia was the most definite enemy, as he had been throughout the reigns of Theresa and Franz before him, when the Prussian state's emergence as a player on the European stage had occurred at Habsburg expense, first with the loss of Silesia, and later in the 1750s and 1760s. Joseph sought to unify the different portions of his realm, not the German states as a whole, and to establish Habsburg hegemony in German-speaking central Europe beginning with the partition of Bavaria. The broad geographic outlines of European states changed rapidly in the last fifty years of the century, with partitions of Poland and territorial exchanges through conquest and diplomacy. Rulers sought to centralize their control over their domains and create well-defined borders within which their writ was law. For Joseph, the acquisition of Bavaria, or at least parts of it, would link Habsburg territories in Bohemia with those in the Tyrol and partially compensate Austria for its loss of Silesia. The Bavarian succession crisis provided Joseph with a viable opportunity to consolidate his influence in the Central European states, to bolster his financially strapped government with much-needed revenue, and to strengthen his army with German-speaking conscripts. Supremacy in the German states was worth a war, but for Frederick, the preservation of Charles August's inheritance was not. He had had sufficient war in the first years of his reign, and in its last twenty years, he sought to preserve the status quo, not to enter into risky adventures that might upset it. If he had to withdraw from engagement with Joseph's army, such a sacrifice was a temporary measure. Warfare was only one means of diplomacy, and he could employ others in this contest with Austria. The Austro-Prussian dualism that dominated the next century's unification movement rumbled ominously in the War of the Bavarian Succession. ## See also - American Revolutionary War
1,273,596	House (TV series)	1,173,758,900	American television medical drama	[ "2000s American medical television series", "2000s American mystery television series", "2000s American workplace drama television series", "2004 American television series debuts", "2010s American medical television series", "2010s American mystery television series", "2010s American workplace drama television series", "2012 American television series endings", "English-language television shows", "Fox Broadcasting Company original programming", "House (TV series)", "Narcissism in television", "Peabody Award-winning television programs", "Plainsboro Township, New Jersey", "Primetime Emmy Award-winning television series", "Princeton, New Jersey", "Television series by Bad Hat Harry Productions", "Television series by Universal Television", "Television shows about drugs", "Television shows filmed in Los Angeles", "Television shows filmed in New Jersey", "Television shows set in New Jersey" ]	House (also called House, M.D.) is an American medical drama television series that originally ran on the Fox network for eight seasons, from November 16, 2004, to May 21, 2012. The series' main character is Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), an unconventional, misanthropic medical genius who, despite his dependence on pain medication, leads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton–Plainsboro Teaching Hospital (PPTH) in New Jersey. The series' premise originated with Paul Attanasio, while David Shore, who is credited as creator, was primarily responsible for the conception of the title character. The series' executive producers included Shore, Attanasio, Attanasio's business partner Katie Jacobs, and film director Bryan Singer. It was filmed largely in a neighborhood and business district in Los Angeles County's Westside called Century City. The show received high critical acclaim, and was consistently one of the highest rated series in the United States. House often clashes with his fellow physicians, including his own diagnostic team, because many of his hypotheses about patients' illnesses are based on subtle or controversial insights. His flouting of hospital rules and procedures frequently leads him into conflict with his boss, hospital administrator and Dean of Medicine Dr. Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein). House's only true friend is Dr. James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard), head of the Department of Oncology. During the first three seasons, House's diagnostic team consists of Dr. Robert Chase (Jesse Spencer), Dr. Allison Cameron (Jennifer Morrison) and Dr. Eric Foreman (Omar Epps). At the end of the third season, this team disbands. Rejoined by Foreman, House gradually selects three new team members: Dr. Remy "Thirteen" Hadley (Olivia Wilde), Dr. Chris Taub (Peter Jacobson) and Dr. Lawrence Kutner (Kal Penn). Chase and Cameron continue to appear occasionally in different roles at the hospital. Kutner dies late in season five; early in season six, Cameron departs the hospital, and Chase returns to the diagnostic team. Thirteen takes a leave of absence for most of season seven, and her position is filled by medical student Martha M. Masters (Amber Tamblyn). Cuddy and Masters depart before season eight; Foreman becomes the new Dean of Medicine, while Dr. Jessica Adams (Odette Annable) and Dr. Chi Park (Charlyne Yi) join House's team. House was among the top 10 series in the United States from its second season through the fourth season. Distributed to 66 countries, House was the most-watched television program in the world in 2008. The show received numerous awards, including five Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, a Peabody Award, and nine People's Choice Awards. On February 8, 2012, Fox announced that the eighth season, then in progress, would be its last. The series finale aired on May 21, 2012, following an hour-long retrospective. ## Production ### Conception In 2004, David Shore and Paul Attanasio, along with Attanasio's business partner Katie Jacobs, pitched the series (untitled at the time) to Fox as a CSI-style medical detective program, a hospital whodunit in which the doctors investigated symptoms and their causes. Attanasio was inspired to develop a medical procedural drama by The New York Times Magazine column "Diagnosis", written by physician Lisa Sanders, who is an attending physician at Yale–New Haven Hospital (YNHH); the fictitious Princeton–Plainsboro Teaching Hospital (PPTH, not to be confused with the University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro) is modeled after this teaching institution. Fox bought the series, though the network's then-president, Gail Berman, told the creative team, "I want a medical show, but I don't want to see white coats going down the hallway". Jacobs has said that this stipulation was one of the many influences that led to the show's ultimate form. After Fox picked up the show, it acquired the working title Chasing Zebras, Circling the Drain ("zebra" is medical slang for an unusual or obscure diagnosis, while "circling the drain" refers to terminal cases, patients in an irreversible decline). The original premise of the show was of a team of doctors working together trying to "diagnose the undiagnosable". Shore felt it was important to have an interesting central character, one who could examine patients' personal characteristics and diagnose their ailments by figuring out their secrets and lies. As Shore and the rest of the creative team explored the character's possibilities, the program concept became less of procedure and more focused upon the lead role. The character was named "House", which was adopted as the show's title, as well. Shore developed the characters further and wrote the script for the pilot episode. Bryan Singer, who directed the pilot episode and had a major role in casting the primary roles, has said that the "title of the pilot was 'Everybody Lies', and that's the premise of the show". Shore has said that the central storylines of several early episodes were based on the work of Berton Roueché, a staff writer for The New Yorker between 1944 and 1994, who specialized in features about unusual medical cases. Shore traced the concept for the title character to his experience as a patient at a teaching hospital. He recalled: "I knew, as soon as I left the room, they would be mocking me relentlessly [for my cluelessness] and I thought that it would be interesting to see a character who actually did that before they left the room." A central part of the show's premise was that the main character would be disabled in some way. The original idea was for House to use a wheelchair, but Fox rejected this. Jacobs later expressed her gratitude for the network's insistence that the character be reimagined—putting him on his feet added a crucial physical dimension. The writers ultimately chose to give House a damaged leg arising from an incorrect diagnosis, which requires him to use a cane and causes him pain that leads to a narcotic dependency. #### References to Sherlock Holmes References to fictional detective Sherlock Holmes appear throughout the series. Shore explained that he was always a Holmes fan and found the character's indifference to his clients unique. The resemblance is evident in House's reliance on inductive reasoning and psychology, even where it might not seem obviously applicable, and his reluctance to accept cases he finds uninteresting. House's investigatory method is to eliminate diagnoses logically as they are proved impossible; Holmes uses a similar method. Both characters play instruments (House plays the piano, the guitar, and the harmonica; Holmes, the violin) and take drugs (House is dependent on Vicodin; Holmes uses cocaine recreationally). House's relationship with Dr. James Wilson echoes that between Holmes and his confidant, Dr. John Watson. Robert Sean Leonard, who portrays Wilson, said that House and his character were originally intended to work together much as Holmes and Watson do; in his view, House's diagnostic team has assumed that aspect of the Watson role. Shore said that House's name itself is meant as "a subtle homage" to Holmes. House's address is 221B Baker Street, a direct reference to Holmes's street address. Wilson's address is also 221B. Individual episodes of the series contain additional references to the Sherlock Holmes tales. The main patient in the pilot episode is named Rebecca Adler after Irene Adler, a character in the first Holmes short story, "A Scandal in Bohemia". In the season two finale, House is shot by a crazed gunman credited as "Moriarty", the name of Holmes's nemesis. In the season four episode "It's a Wonderful Lie", House receives a "second-edition Conan Doyle" as a Christmas gift. In the season five episode "The Itch", House is seen picking up his keys and Vicodin from the top of a copy of Conan Doyle's The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. In another season five episode, "Joy to the World", House, in an attempt to fool his team, uses a book by Joseph Bell, Conan Doyle's inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. The volume had been given to him the previous Christmas by Wilson, who included the message "Greg, made me think of you." Before acknowledging that he gave the book to House, Wilson tells two of the team members that its source was a patient, Irene Adler. Season 7 episode 3 includes a young adult boyhood detective book series written by the patient, whose final unpublished volume ends in an ambiguous end to the main character reminiscent of "The Final Problem". The series finale also pays homage to Holmes's apparent death in "The Final Problem", the 1893 story with which Conan Doyle originally intended to conclude the Holmes chronicles. ### Production team House was a co-production of Heel and Toe Films, Shore Z Productions, and Bad Hat Harry Productions in association with Universal Network Television for Fox. Paul Attanasio and Katie Jacobs, the heads of Heel and Toe Films; David Shore, the head of Shore Z Productions; and Bryan Singer, the head of Bad Hat Harry Productions, were executive producers of the program for its entirety. Lawrence Kaplow, Peter Blake, and Thomas L. Moran joined the staff as writers at the beginning of the first season after the making of the pilot episode. Writers Doris Egan, Sara Hess, Russel Friend, and Garrett Lerner joined the team at the start of season two. Friend and Lerner, who are business partners, had been offered positions when the series launched, but turned the opportunity down. After observing the show's success, they accepted when Jacobs offered them jobs again the following year. Writers Eli Attie and Sean Whitesell joined the show at the start of season four; Attie would stay on the show's writing staff through the series finale, which he co-wrote. From the beginning of season four, Moran, Friend, and Lerner were credited as executive producers on the series, joining Attanasio, Jacobs, Shore, and Singer. Hugh Laurie was credited as an executive producer for the second and third episodes of season five. Shore was House's showrunner. Through the end of the sixth season, more than two dozen writers had contributed to the program. The most prolific were Kaplow (18 episodes), Blake (17), Shore (16), Friend (16), Lerner (16), Moran (14), and Egan (13). The show's most prolific directors through its first six seasons were Deran Sarafian (22 episodes), who was not involved in season six, and Greg Yaitanes (17). Of the more than three dozen other directors who have worked on the series, only David Straiton directed as many as 10 episodes through the sixth season. Hugh Laurie directed the 17th episode of season six, "Lockdown". Elan Soltes was the visual effects supervisor since the show began. Lisa Sanders, an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the Yale School of Medicine, was a technical advisor to the series. She writes the "Diagnosis" column that inspired House's premise. According to Shore, "[T]hree different doctors ... check everything we do". Bobbin Bergstrom, a registered nurse, was the program's on-set medical adviser. ### Casting At first, the producers were looking for a "quintessentially American person" to play the role of House. Bryan Singer in particular felt there was no way he was going to hire a non-American actor for the role. At the time of the casting session, actor Hugh Laurie was in Namibia filming the movie Flight of the Phoenix. He assembled an audition tape in a hotel bathroom, the only place with enough light, and apologized for its appearance (which Singer compared to a "bin Laden video"). Laurie improvised, using an umbrella for a cane. Singer was very impressed by his performance and commented on how well the "American actor" was able to grasp the character. Singer was not aware that Laurie was English, due to his American accent. Laurie credits the accent to "a misspent youth [watching] too much TV and too many movies". Although locally better-known actors such as Denis Leary, David Cross, Rob Morrow, and Patrick Dempsey were considered for the part, Shore, Jacobs, and Attanasio were as impressed as Singer and cast Laurie as House. Laurie later revealed that he initially thought the show's central character was Dr. James Wilson. He assumed that House was a supporting part, due to the nature of the character, until he received the full script of the pilot episode. Laurie, the son of medical doctor Ran Laurie, said he felt guilty for "being paid more to become a fake version of [his] own father". From the start of season three, he was being paid \$275,000 to \$300,000 per episode, as much as three times what he had previously been making on the series. Laurie was earning around \$400,000 per episode by the fifth season, and \$700,000 per episode for the final season, making him one of the highest-paid actors on network television. Robert Sean Leonard had received the script for the CBS show Numb3rs as well as that for House. Leonard thought the Numb3rs script was "kind of cool" and planned to audition for the show. However, he decided that the character he was up for, Charlie Eppes, was in too many scenes; he later observed, "The less I work, the happier I am". He believed that his House audition was not particularly good, but that his lengthy friendship with Singer helped win him the part of Dr. Wilson. Singer had enjoyed Lisa Edelstein's portrayal of a prostitute on The West Wing, and sent her a copy of the pilot script. Edelstein was attracted to the quality of the writing and her character's "snappy dialogue" with House, and was cast as Dr. Lisa Cuddy. Australian actor Jesse Spencer's agent suggested that he audition for the role of Dr. Robert Chase. Spencer believed the program would be similar in style to General Hospital but changed his mind after reading the scripts. After he was cast, he persuaded the producers to turn the character into an Australian. Patrick Dempsey also auditioned for the part of Chase; he later became known for his portrayal of Dr. Derek Shepherd on Grey's Anatomy. Omar Epps, who plays Dr. Eric Foreman, was inspired by his earlier portrayal of a troubled intern on the NBC medical drama ER; his character was given the name "Eric Foreman" despite the fact that Fox was still airing That 70's Show when House premiered and had the similarly named Eric Forman as that series' main protagonist. (The two series overlapped on Fox's schedule for two seasons, though Topher Grace left That 70's Show at the end of its 7th season and House's first, only returning for that show's series finale.) Jennifer Morrison felt that her audition for the part of Dr. Allison Cameron was a complete disaster. However, before her audition, Singer had watched some of her performances, including on Dawson's Creek, and already wanted to cast her in the role. Morrison left the show when her character was written out in the middle of season six. At the end of season three, House dismisses Chase, while Foreman and Cameron resign. After an episode in which he "borrows" a janitor whom he calls "Dr. Buffer" to assist in a diagnosis, House must then recruit a new diagnostic team, for which he identifies seven finalists. The producers originally planned to recruit two new full-time actors, with Foreman, who returns in season four's fifth episode, bringing the team back up to three members; ultimately, the decision was made to add three new regular cast members. (Along with Epps, actors Morrison and Spencer remained in the cast, as their characters moved on to new assignments.) During production, the show's writers dismissed a single candidate per episode; as a result, said Jacobs, neither the producers nor the cast knew who was going to be hired until the last minute. In the season's ninth episode, House's new team is revealed: Foreman is joined by doctors Lawrence Kutner (Kal Penn), Chris Taub (Peter Jacobson), and Remy "Thirteen" Hadley (Olivia Wilde). The candidates rejected by House did not return to the show, with the exception of the last one cut: Amber "Cutthroat Bitch" Volakis (Anne Dudek), who appeared for the rest of season four as Wilson's girlfriend, and in seasons five and eight as a hallucination of House's. While Penn and Wilde had higher profiles than the actors who played the other finalists, Jacobs said they went through an identical audition process and stayed with the show based on the writers' interest in their characters. Kutner was written out of the series in episode 20 of season 5 after Penn took a position in the Obama White House Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs. The contracts of Edelstein, Epps, and Leonard expired at the end of season seven. As a cost-cutting measure, the three actors were asked to accept reduced salaries. Epps and Leonard came to terms with the producers, but Edelstein did not, and in May 2011, it was announced that she would not be returning for the show's eighth season. ### Filming style and locations House is often filmed using the "walk and talk" filming technique, popularized on television by series such as St. Elsewhere, ER, Sports Night, and The West Wing. The technique involves the use of tracking shots, showing two or more characters walking between locations while talking. Executive producer Katie Jacobs said that the show frequently uses the technique because "when you put a scene on the move, it's a ... way of creating an urgency and an intensity". She noted the significance of "the fact that Hugh Laurie spans 6'2" and is taller than everybody else because it certainly makes those walk-and-talks pop". Nancy Franklin of The New Yorker described the show's "cool, Fantastic Voyage–like special effects of patients' innards. I'll bet you didn't know that when your kidneys shut down they sound like bubble wrap popping." "Cameras and special effects travel not only down the throat" of one patient, another critic observed, "but up her nose and inside her brain and leg". Instead of relying primarily on computer-generated imagery, the interior body shots tend to involve miniature effects and motion control photography. Many of the sets are dressed with a variety of unscripted props that allow Laurie to physically improvise, revealing aspects of his character and the story. The pilot episode was filmed in Vancouver; primary photography for all subsequent episodes took place on the Fox lot in Century City, Los Angeles. Bryan Singer chose the hospital near his hometown, West Windsor, New Jersey, as the show's fictional setting. Princeton University's Frist Campus Center is the source of the aerial views of Princeton–Plainsboro Teaching Hospital seen in the series. Some filming took place at the University of Southern California for the season-three episode "Half-Wit", which guest-starred Dave Matthews and Kurtwood Smith. Part of House's sixth season was filmed at the abandoned Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, in Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey, as the fictional Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital. ### Opening sequence The opening sequence begins with an MRI of a head with an image of the boxed "H" from the logo (the international symbol for hospital) in the foreground. This is then overlaid with an image of Dr. House's face taken from the pilot episode with the show's full title appearing across his face. House's head then fades and the show's title is underlined and has the "M.D." appear next to it, producing the entire logo of the show. This was the full extent of the title sequence in the pilot episode. All subsequent episodes contain a longer sequence including the names of the six featured cast members and creator David Shore. Laurie's name appears first, followed by the names of the five other featured cast members in alphabetical order (Edelstein, Epps, Leonard, Morrison, and Spencer), then Shore. After the show's title fades, an aerial view of PPTH (actually various Princeton University buildings, primarily Frist Campus Center) is followed by a series of images accompanying each member's name; most are shown next to, or superimposed upon, illustrations of human anatomy. Laurie's name appears next to a model of a human head with the brain exposed; Edelstein's name appears next to a visual effects–produced graphic of an angiogram of the heart. Epps's name is superimposed upon a rib cage X-ray; Leonard's name appears on a drawing of the two hemispheres of the brain. The producers originally wanted to include an image of a cane and an image of a Vicodin bottle, but Fox objected. Morrison's title card was thus lacking an image; an aerial shot of rowers on Princeton University's Lake Carnegie was finally agreed upon to accompany her name. Spencer's name appears next to an old-fashioned anatomical drawing of a spine. Between the presentations of Spencer and Shore's names is a scene of House and his three original team members walking down one of the hospital's hallways. Jacobs said that most of the backgrounds have no specific meaning; however, the final image—the text "created by David Shore" superimposed upon a human neck—connotes that Shore is "the brain of the show". The sequence was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Design in 2005. The title sequence continued to credit Spencer and Morrison, even when their characters were reduced to background roles during seasons four and five, and Morrison even after hers was written out. A new opening sequence was introduced in season seven to accommodate the changes in the cast, removing Morrison's name and including Jacobson's and Wilde's. It was updated in season eight, removing Edelstein's and Wilde's names and adding Annable's and Yi's. The series' original opening theme, as heard in the United States, comprises instrumental portions of "Teardrop" by Massive Attack. The piece was used in part because of the distinct tempo which roughly mimics the sound of a beating human heart. An acoustic version of "Teardrop", with guitar and vocals by José González, is heard as background music during the season-four finale. ## Series overview Gregory House, M.D., often construed as a misanthropic medical genius, heads a team of diagnosticians at the Princeton–Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. The series is structured around a central plot with some supporting secondary stories and narratives that cross over seasons. Most episodes revolve around the diagnosis of a primary patient and start with a cold open set outside the hospital, showing events ending with the onset of the patient's symptoms. The typical episode follows the team in their attempts to diagnose and treat the patient's illness, which often fail until the patient's condition is critical. They usually treat only patients whom other doctors have not accurately diagnosed, and House routinely rejects cases he does not find interesting. Typically, the patient is misdiagnosed at least once which usually causes further complications, but the nature of the complications often provides new evidence which helps them diagnose the patient correctly. House often tends to arrive at the correct diagnosis seemingly out of the blue, often inspired by a passing remark made by another character. Diagnoses range from relatively common to very rare diseases. The team faces many diagnostic difficulties from patients' concealment of symptoms, circumstances, or personal histories, so House frequently proclaims during the team's deliberations, "The patient is lying", or mutters "Everybody lies"; such an assumption guides House's decisions and diagnoses and makes the countermeasure of housebreaking a routine procedure. Because many of his hypotheses are based on epiphanies or controversial insights, he often has trouble obtaining permission for medical procedures he considers necessary from his superior, who in all but the final season is hospital administrator Dr. Lisa Cuddy. This is especially the case when the proposed procedures involve a high degree of risk or are ethically questionable. Frequent disagreements occur between House and his team, especially Dr. Allison Cameron, whose standards of medical ethics are more conservative than those of the other characters. Like all of the hospital's doctors, House is required to treat patients in the facility's walk-in clinic. His grudging fulfillment of this duty, or his creative methods of avoiding it, constitute a recurring subplot, which often serves as the series' comic relief. During clinic duty, House confounds patients with unwelcome observations into their personal lives, eccentric prescriptions, and unorthodox treatments. However, after seeming to be inattentive to their complaints, he regularly impresses them with rapid and accurate diagnoses. Analogies with some of the simple cases in the clinic occasionally inspire insights that help solve the team's case. A significant plot element is House's use of Vicodin to manage pain, caused by an infarction in the quadriceps muscle of his right leg five years before the show's first season, which also forces him to use a cane. In the first-season 11th episode "Detox", House admits he is addicted to Vicodin but says he does not have a problem because the pills "let me do my job, and they take away my pain". His addiction has led his colleagues Cuddy and Dr. James Wilson to encourage him to go to drug rehabilitation several times. When he has no access to Vicodin or experiences unusually intense pain, he occasionally self-medicates with other narcotic analgesics such as morphine, oxycodone, and methadone. House also frequently drinks liquor when he is not on medical duty and classifies himself as a "big drinker". Toward the end of season five, House begins to hallucinate; after eliminating other possible diagnoses, Wilson and he determine that his Vicodin addiction is the most likely cause. House goes into denial about this for a brief time, but at the close of the season finale, he commits himself to Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital. In the following season's debut episode, House leaves Mayfield with his addiction under control. However, about a year and a half later, in season seven's 15th episode, "Bombshells", House reacts to the news that Cuddy possibly has kidney cancer by taking Vicodin, and he returns to his addiction. ## Cast and characters ### Main characters Throughout House's run, six of the main actors have received star billing. All of them play doctors who work at the fictional Princeton–Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), the title character, was educated at Johns Hopkins University and heads the Department of Diagnostic Medicine. House describes himself as "a board-certified diagnostician with a double specialty of infectious disease and nephrology". Dr. James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard), House's one true friend, is the head of the Department of Oncology. Dr. Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein), an endocrinologist, is House's boss, as she is the hospital's dean of medicine and chief administrator. House has a complex relationship with Cuddy, and their interactions often involve a high degree of innuendo and sexual tension. In the sixth episode of season five, "Joy", they kiss for the first time. Their physical relationship does not progress any further during the fifth season; in the season- five finale, House believes he and Cuddy had sex, but this is a hallucination brought on by House's Vicodin addiction. In the finale of season six, Cuddy tells House she loves him. They kiss and agree to try being a couple. Throughout season seven, House and Cuddy try to make their relationship work, but Cuddy eventually breaks it off because of House's addiction. House struggles to deal with this and, in the season-seven finale, drives his car into Cuddy's living room in anger. As Lisa Edelstein left the show before season eight, after this incident Cuddy leaves the hospital and House never sees her again. House's original team of diagnosticians consists of Dr. Eric Foreman (Omar Epps), a neurologist; Dr. Robert Chase (Jesse Spencer), an intensivist; and Dr. Allison Cameron (Jennifer Morrison), an immunologist. In the season-three episode "Family", Foreman announces his resignation, telling House, "I don't want to turn into you". During the season finale, House tells Chase that he has either learned everything he can, or nothing at all, and dismisses him from the team. Cameron, who has developed an affection for Chase, soon resigns. This leaves House without a team for the season-four premiere. Under orders from Cuddy to recruit a new team, House considers 40 doctors. Season four's early episodes focus on his selection process, structured as a reality TV–style elimination contest (Jacobs referred to it as a "version of Survivor"). House assigns each applicant a number between one and 40, and pares them down to seven finalists. He assesses their performance in diagnostic cases, assisted by Foreman, who returns to the department after his dismissal from another hospital for House-like behavior. While Foreman's return means only two slots are open, House tricks Cuddy into allowing him to hire three new assistants. He ultimately selects Dr. Chris Taub (Peter Jacobson), a former plastic surgeon; Dr. Lawrence Kutner (Kal Penn), a sports medicine specialist; and Dr. Remy "Thirteen" Hadley (Olivia Wilde), an internist (nicknamed for her number in the elimination contest). In the season finale, Thirteen discovers she has, as she had long dreaded, inherited Huntington's disease, which is incurable, from her mother. In the 11th episode of season five, "Joy to the World", Foreman and Thirteen engage in a passionate kiss. Thirteen is at first reluctant to start a relationship with Foreman, but the two eventually begin dating and are still together at the end of the season. They break up early in season six. In the 20th episode of season five, "Simple Explanation", Kutner is found dead in his apartment with a gunshot wound to the head. Because Kutner left no note, House suspects foul play, though the death is accepted by the other characters as a suicide. In the seventh episode of season two, "Hunting", Cameron and Chase have a one-night stand. In the middle of season three, they initiate a sexual relationship that Cameron insists be casual; when Chase declares that he "wants more", Cameron ends the affair. By the end of the season, however, Cameron recognizes that she has romantic feelings for Chase and they begin a serious relationship. After leaving the diagnostic team, they assume different roles at the PPTH, Cameron as a senior attending physician in the emergency room and Chase as a surgeon. They become engaged in the season-five episode "Saviors" (the episode immediately following Kutner's suicide) and are married in the season finale. When Chase rejoins House's team in season six, Cameron leaves her husband and the hospital in "Teamwork", the season's eighth episode. She returns as a guest character in "Lockdown", nine episodes later. Early in season seven, Thirteen takes an unexplained leave of absence. Cuddy orders House to fill her position with another woman, but eventually makes the choice for him: medical student Dr. Martha M. Masters (Amber Tamblyn), who makes her first appearance in the season's sixth episode. Thirteen returns in "The Dig"—the season's 18th episode and the show's 150th—in which the reason for her absence is revealed: she was in prison for six months for having helped euthanize her brother, who was suffering from advanced Huntington's. While Jacobson and Wilde play central characters (as did Penn), they did not receive star billing until season seven. They were credited as "Also Starring", with their names appearing after the opening sequence. In season seven, Jacobson and Wilde received star billing; new regular cast member Tamblyn did not. ### Recurring characters The first six seasons of House each included one or more recurring featured characters, who appear in multiple-episode story arcs. In season one, Edward Vogler (Chi McBride), the billionaire owner of a pharmaceutical company, appears in five episodes. He donates \$100 million to the PPTH in return for chairing its board. Vogler represented an attempt to introduce a villain, a move urged by Fox. By the time the Vogler episodes began to air, the show had become a hit and the character was soon dropped. Shore said the concept of a villainous boss was not really viable for the series: "It's called House. The audience knows he'll never get fired." Stacy Warner (Sela Ward), House's ex-girlfriend, appears in the final two episodes of the first season, and seven episodes of season two. She wants House to treat her husband, Mark Warner (Currie Graham), whom House diagnoses with acute intermittent porphyria in the season-one finale. Stacy and House grow close again, but House eventually tells Stacy to go back to Mark, which devastates her. Michael Tritter (David Morse), a police detective, appears in several season-three episodes. He tries to extract an apology from House, who left Tritter in an examination room with a thermometer in his rectum. After House refuses to apologize, Tritter brings him up on charges of unprescribed narcotics possession and forces him to attend rehabilitation. When the case reaches court, Cuddy perjures herself for House and the case is dismissed. The judge reprimands Tritter for pursuing House to excess, and tells House that she thinks he "has better friends than he deserves", referring to Cuddy's 11th-hour testimony on his behalf. House is sentenced to one night in jail for contempt of court and finishes his rehabilitation under the influence of Vicodin. The candidates for House's new diagnostics team are season four's primary recurring characters. In addition to the three who are chosen, the other four finalists are Jeffrey Cole (Edi Gathegi), a medical geneticist; Travis Brennan (Andy Comeau), an epidemiologist; Henry Dobson (Carmen Argenziano), a former medical school admissions officer; and Amber Volakis (Anne Dudek), an interventional radiologist. Each of the four departs the show after elimination, except for Volakis, who appears throughout the season, having started a relationship with Wilson. In the two-part season finale, Volakis attempts to shepherd a drunken House home when Wilson is unavailable. They are involved in a bus crash, which leads to her death. She reappears late in season five and again in the series finale as hallucinations by House. Private investigator Lucas Douglas (Michael Weston), a character inspired in part by Shore's love of The Rockford Files, appears in three episodes of season five. House initially hires Douglas to spy on Wilson, who has ended their friendship after Volakis's death (the friendship is subsequently rekindled). House later pays Douglas to look into the private lives of his team members and Cuddy. If the character had been accepted by the audience, plans existed to feature him as the lead in a spin-off show. In September 2008, Shore spoke to Entertainment Weekly about his vision for the character: "I don't want to do just another medical show. What does excite me in terms of writing is the choices people make and the nature of right and wrong... and a private investigator can approach that question much more readily than a doctor can." There was no show featuring Douglas on the fall 2009 network television schedule. He returns to House in season six as Cuddy's boyfriend. They are briefly engaged until Cuddy breaks it off, realizing that she is in love with House. ## Episodes ## Reception ### Critical reception House received largely positive reviews on its debut; the series was considered a bright spot amid Fox's schedule, which at the time was largely filled with reality shows. Season one holds a Metacritic score of 75 out of 100, based on 30 reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Matt Roush of TV Guide said that the program was an "uncommon cure for the common medical drama". New York Daily News critic David Bianculli applauded the "high caliber of acting and script". The Onion's "A.V. Club" approvingly described it as the "nastiest" black comedy from FOX since 1996's short-lived Profit. New York's John Leonard called the series "medical TV at its most satisfying and basic", while The Boston Globe's Matthew Gilbert appreciated that the show did not attempt to hide the flaws of the characters to assuage viewers' fears about "HMO factories". Variety's Brian Lowry, less impressed, wrote that the show relied on "by-the-numbers storytelling, albeit in a glossy package". Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle described it as "mediocre" and unoriginal. Mikhail Varshavski, a Russian-American Osteopathic Doctor, reviewed the medical content of House on his YouTube channel. According to Varshavski, the medical information presented on the show was usually fundamentally accurate though often highly exaggerated for dramatic effect, but he described Gregory House's tendency to quickly use invasive tests and procedures as outside the medical mainstream. General critical reaction to the character of Gregory House was particularly positive. Tom Shales of The Washington Post called him "the most electrifying new main character to hit television in years". The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Rob Owen found him "fascinatingly unsympathetic". Critics have compared House to fictional detectives Nero Wolfe, Hercule Poirot, and Adrian Monk, and to Perry Cox, a cantankerous doctor on the television show Scrubs. One book-length study of the series finds a powerful kinship between House and another famous TV doctor, Hawkeye Pierce of M\A\S\*H. Laurie's performance in the role has been widely praised. The San Francisco Chronicle's Goodman called him "a wonder to behold" and "about the only reason to watch House". Critics have also reacted positively to the show's original supporting cast, which the Post's Shales called a "first-rate ensemble". Leonard's portrayal of Dr. Wilson has been considered Emmy Award worthy by critics with TV Guide, Entertainment Weekly, and USA Today. Bianculli of the Daily News was happy to see Edelstein "was finally given a deservedly meaty co-starring role". Freelance critic Daniel Fienberg was disappointed that Leonard and Edelstein have not received more recognition for their performances. Reaction to the major shifts of season four was mixed. "With the new crew in place House takes on a slightly more energized feel", wrote Todd Douglass Jr. of DVD Talk. "And the set up [sic] for the fifth season is quite brilliant." The Star-Ledger's Alan Sepinwall wrote, "The extended, enormous job audition gave the writers a chance to reinvigorate the show and fully embrace Laurie's comic genius". Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times, on the other hand, took issue with the developments: "the cast just kept getting bigger, the stories more scattered and uneven until you had a bunch of great actors forced to stand around watching Hugh Laurie hold the show together by the sheer force of his will". USA Today's Robert Bianco cheered the season finale: "Talk about saving the best for last. With two fabulous, heartbreaking hours ... the writers rescued a season that had seemed diffuse, overcrowded and perhaps too ambitious for its own good." Season five of House was met with a more positive response in comparison to the previous season. It holds a Metacritic score of 77 out of 100, based on ten reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". It also holds a 100% approval rating on aggregate review website Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 8.1 based on nine collected reviews. USA Today praised Laurie's performance and the repercussions of the season-four finale, stating "a carry-over from last season's brilliant finale, House is firmly in the forefront. And when you have an actor of Hugh Laurie's range, depth and charisma, putting him center-stage makes perfect sense, particularly when you've written a story that explores the character and his primary relationships in a way that seems integral to the series". The New York Daily News noted that "The show pays more attention to relationships we care about, hints at a sensible number of new ones that show some promise, and thus doesn't rely on obscure medical mysteries to carry the whole dramatic burden", and noted that "the prognosis for this season could be better than last season seemed to foreshadow". Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times highlighted the performances of the cast, especially Michael Weston as detective Lucas Douglas, calling him a "delightful addition". She concluded, "So different is the premiere that the savvy House (and Fox) viewer may expect the revelation that it was all a fever dream. That does not seem to be the case, and one assumes that Laurie and the writers will be bringing a different version of their now-iconic character back to Princeton. Not too different, of course, but different enough." Conversely, The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan disliked Weston's character, calling him "An unwelcome distraction ... an irritating pipsqueak". She continued saying "House used to be one of the best shows on TV, but it's gone seriously off the rails". The Sunday Times felt that the show had "lost its sense of humour". The focus on Thirteen and her eventual involvement with Foreman also came under particular criticism. At the end of the show's run, Steven Tong of Entertainment Weekly wrote that "House had, in its final seasons, become a rather sentimental show". In New York Magazine'''s blog 'Vulture', Margaret Lyons wrote, "More than a hospital drama or a character piece or anything else, House is a complex meditation on misery." But, continued Lyons, there is a line between "enlightened cynicism" and "misery-entropy", and "as the show wore on, its dramatic flare dimmed while its agony flare burned ever brighter." Alan Sepinwall wrote, "The repetition and muck of [the] middle seasons ultimately severed whatever emotional connection I had to House's personal struggles." In 2007, House placed \#62 on Entertainment Weekly's "New TV Classics" list. The show was declared the second-highest-rated show for the first ten years of IMDb.com Pro (2002–2012). The show was ranked the 74th best-written television series in a 2013 survey of Writers Guild of America West members. #### Critics' top ten lists After its first five seasons, House was included in various critics' top-ten lists; these are listed below in order of rank. ### U.S. television ratings In its first season, House ranked twenty-fourth among all television series and was the ninth-most popular primetime program among women. Aided by a lead-in from the widely popular American Idol, the following three seasons of the program each ranked in the top ten among all viewers. House reached its peak Nielsen ratings in its third season, attracting an average of 19.4 million viewers per episode. According to Jacobs, the production team was surprised that the show garnered such a large audience. In its fifth season, the show attracted 12.0 million viewers per episode and slipped to nineteenth place overall. It remained Fox's most popular show other than American Idol. The most-watched episode of House is the season four episode "Frozen", which aired after Super Bowl XLII. It attracted slightly more than 29 million viewers. House ranked third for the week, equaling the rating of American Idol and being surpassed only by the Super Bowl itself and the post-game show. Below is a table of House's seasonal rankings in the U.S. television market, based on average total viewers per episode. Each U.S. network television season starts in September and ends in late May, which coincides with the completion of May sweeps. ### Awards and honors House has received many awards and award nominations. In 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 Laurie was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. The Emmy board also nominated House for Outstanding Drama Series in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009, but the show never won the award. For the season one episode "Three Stories", David Shore won a writing Emmy in 2005 and the Humanitas Prize in 2006. Director Greg Yaitanes received the 2008 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series, for directing "House's Head", the first part of season four's two-episode finale. The show has been nominated for six Golden Globe Awards and received two. Hugh Laurie has been nominated six times for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama; he won in 2006 and again in 2007. In 2008 the series received its first nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Drama. House was nominated for best dramatic series again the following year, but did not win in the category. The show received a 2005 Peabody Award for what the Peabody board called an "unorthodox lead character—a misanthropic diagnostician" and for "cases fit for a medical Sherlock Holmes", which helped make House "the most distinctive new doctor drama in a decade". The American Film Institute (AFI) included House in its 2005 list of 10 Television Programs of the Year. In 2011, House won four People's Choice Awards: favorite TV drama; favorite dramatic actor and actress for Laurie and Edelstein; and favorite TV doctor. Laurie won the Screen Actors Guild's award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series in both 2007 and 2009. Writer Lawrence Kaplow won a Writers Guild of America Award in 2006 for the season two episode "Autopsy". In 2007, the show won a Creative Arts Emmy Award for prosthetic makeup. In 2005, Laurie appeared on the cover of TV Guide as "TV's Sexiest Man". In 2008, Gregory House was voted second-sexiest television doctor ever, behind ER's Doug Ross (George Clooney). ## Distribution In 2008, House was distributed in a total of 66 countries. With an audience of over 81.8 million worldwide, it was the most-watched television show on the globe and far surpassed the viewership figures of the leading TV dramas the previous two years (CSI and CSI: Miami). The following year, it placed second in the world after CSI. House episodes premiered on FOX in the United States and Global in Canada, which have identical schedules. The show was the third-most popular on Canadian television in 2008. That same year, House was the top-rated television program in Germany, the number 2 show in Italy, and number 3 in the Czech Republic. The series is also very popular in France, Spain, Sweden, and the Netherlands. In the United Kingdom, the first four seasons were broadcast on Five. Sky1 acquired first-run rights beginning with season five. The original, English-language version of the show aired in Australia on Network Ten, in New Zealand on TV3, and in Ireland on 3e, TV3's cable channel. Episodes of the show are also available online for download: Amazon Video on Demand, iTunes Store and the Zune Marketplace offer episodes from all of seasons 1 through 8. In 2007, NBCUniversal (the show's distributor) and Apple Inc. (iTunes' owner) had a disagreement that temporarily kept the fourth season off iTunes. In a statement to the press, Apple claimed that NBCUniversal wanted to drive up the per-episode price to \$4.99. In September 2008, it was reported that the issue between Apple and NBC had been resolved. Some episodes are available in streaming video on Fox's official House webpage and all eight seasons were available on Netflix until April 2017. Seasons of the show and box sets were released on DVD encoded for regions 1, 2 and 4. Special features, such as anamorphic widescreen (the original release is letterboxed), depend on region. ### DVD and Blu-ray releases ## Merchandise For a charity auction, T-shirts bearing the phrase "Everybody Lies" were sold for a limited time starting on April 23, 2007, on Housecharitytees.com. Proceeds from sales of those shirts and others with the phrase "Normal's Overrated" went to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). House cast and crew members also regularly attended fundraisers for NAMI and have featured in ads for the organization that appeared in Seventeen and Rolling Stone. The show's efforts raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the charity. Jacobs said that through their association with NAMI, they hoped to take "some of the stigma off that illness". Nettwerk released the House M.D. Original Television Soundtrack album on September 18, 2007. The soundtrack includes full length versions of songs featured in House and previously unreleased songs especially recorded for the series. In 2008, the Spanish game company Exelweiss designed a cellphone game for the show, which was released in both Spanish and English versions. In June 2009, Legacy Interactive announced a licensing agreement with Universal Pictures Digital Platforms Group (UPDPG) to develop a video game based on the series, in which players step into the roles of House's diagnostic team to deal with five unusual medical cases. The game, released in May 2010, included a minigame calling upon the player to "navigate a restaurant-placemat-style maze, in which a giant sandwich must avoid hungry physicians on its way to Dr. House's office." It received an F from The A.V. Club''; however, Legacy updated the game by August 2010.
46,389	George II of Great Britain	1,173,664,584	King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1727 to 1760	[ "1683 births", "1760 deaths", "17th-century German people", "18th-century British people", "18th-century German people", "18th-century Irish monarchs", "British princes", "Burials at Westminster Abbey", "Chancellors of the University of Dublin", "Children of George I of Great Britain", "Deaths from aortic dissection", "Dukes of Bremen and Verden", "Dukes of Cambridge", "Dukes of Cornwall", "Dukes of Rothesay", "Dukes of Saxe-Lauenburg", "Electoral Princes of Hanover", "English pretenders to the French throne", "Garter Knights appointed by Anne", "George II of Great Britain", "Heirs to the British throne", "House of Hanover", "Lord High Stewards of Scotland", "Members of the Privy Council of Great Britain", "Military personnel from Hanover", "Monarchs of Great Britain", "Nobility from Hanover", "Peers of England created by Queen Anne", "Prince-electors of Hanover", "Princes of Wales", "Sons of kings" ]	George II (George Augustus; German: Georg August; 30 October / 9 November 1683 – 25 October 1760) was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover) and a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 11 June 1727 (O.S.) until his death in 1760. Born and brought up in northern Germany, George is the most recent British monarch born outside Great Britain. The Act of Settlement 1701 and the Acts of Union 1707 positioned his grandmother Sophia of Hanover and her Protestant descendants to inherit the British throne. In 1705, George married Caroline of Ansbach, with whom he had eight children. After the deaths of George's grandmother and Anne, Queen of Great Britain, in 1714, George's father, the Elector of Hanover, ascended the British throne as George I. In the first years of his father's reign as king, Prince George was associated with opposition politicians until they rejoined the governing party in 1720. As king from 1727, George exercised little control over British domestic policy, which was largely controlled by the Parliament of Great Britain. As elector he spent twelve summers in Hanover, where he had more direct control over government policy. He had a difficult relationship with his eldest son, Frederick, who supported the parliamentary opposition. During the War of the Austrian Succession, George participated at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743, and thus became the most recent British monarch to lead an army in battle. In 1745 supporters of the Catholic claimant to the British throne, James Francis Edward Stuart ("The Old Pretender"), led by James's son Charles Edward Stuart ("The Young Pretender" or "Bonnie Prince Charlie"), attempted and failed to depose George in the last of the Jacobite rebellions. Frederick died suddenly in 1751, nine years before his father; George was succeeded by Frederick's eldest son, George III. For two centuries after George II's death, history tended to view him with disdain, concentrating on his mistresses, short temper, and boorishness. Since then, reassessment of his legacy has led scholars to conclude that he exercised more influence in foreign policy and military appointments than previously thought. ## Early life ### Birth and family George was born in the city of Hanover in Germany, followed by his sister, Sophia Dorothea, three years later. Their parents, George Louis, Hereditary Prince of Brunswick-Lüneburg (later King George I of Great Britain), and Sophia Dorothea of Celle, both committed adultery. In 1694 the marriage was dissolved on the pretext that Sophia Dorothea had abandoned her husband. She was confined to Ahlden House and denied access to her two children, who probably never saw their mother again. George spoke only French, the language of diplomacy and the court, until the age of four, after which he was taught German by one of his tutors, Johann Hilmar Holstein. In addition to French and German, he also learned English and Italian, and studied genealogy, military history, and battle tactics with particular diligence. George's second cousin once removed, Queen Anne, ascended the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland in 1702. She had no surviving children, and by the Act of Settlement 1701, the English Parliament designated Anne's closest Protestant blood relatives, George's grandmother Sophia and her descendants, as Anne's heirs in England and Ireland. Consequently, after his grandmother and father, George was third in line to succeed Anne in two of her three realms. He was naturalized as an English subject in 1705 by the Sophia Naturalization Act, and in 1706 he was made a Knight of the Garter and created Duke and Marquess of Cambridge, Earl of Milford Haven, Viscount Northallerton, and Baron Tewkesbury in the Peerage of England. England and Scotland united in 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, and jointly accepted the succession as laid down by the English Act of Settlement. ### Marriage George's father did not want his son to enter into a loveless arranged marriage as he had and wanted him to have the opportunity of meeting his bride before any formal arrangements were made. Negotiations from 1702 for the hand of Princess Hedvig Sophia of Sweden, Dowager Duchess and regent of Holstein-Gottorp, came to nothing. In June 1705, under the false name "Monsieur de Busch", George visited the Ansbach court at its summer residence in Triesdorf to investigate incognito a marriage prospect: Caroline of Ansbach, the former ward of his aunt Queen Sophia Charlotte of Prussia. The English envoy to Hanover, Edmund Poley, reported that George was so taken by "the good character he had of her that he would not think of anybody else". A marriage contract was concluded by the end of July. On 22 August / 2 September 1705 Caroline arrived in Hanover for her wedding, which was held the same evening in the chapel at Herrenhausen. George was keen to participate in the war against France in Flanders, but his father refused to let him join the army in an active role until he had a son and heir. In early 1707 George's hopes were fulfilled when Caroline gave birth to a son, Frederick. In July Caroline fell seriously ill with smallpox, and George caught the infection after staying by her side devotedly during her illness. They both recovered. In 1708 George participated in the Battle of Oudenarde in the vanguard of the Hanoverian cavalry; his horse and a colonel immediately beside him were killed, but George survived unharmed. The British commander, Marlborough, wrote that George "distinguished himself extremely, charging at the head of and animating by his example [the Hanoverian] troops, who played a good part in this happy victory". Between 1709 and 1713 George and Caroline had three more children, all girls: Anne, Amelia, and Caroline. By 1714 Queen Anne's health had declined, and British Whigs, who supported the Hanoverian succession, thought it prudent for one of the Hanoverians to live in England to safeguard the Protestant succession on Anne's death. As George was a peer of the realm (as Duke of Cambridge), it was suggested that he be summoned to Parliament to sit in the House of Lords. Both Anne and George's father refused to support the plan, although George, Caroline, and Sophia were all in favour. George did not go. Within the year both Sophia and Anne were dead, and George's father was king. ## Prince of Wales ### Quarrel with the King George and his father sailed for England from The Hague on 16/27 September 1714 and arrived at Greenwich two days later. The following day, they formally entered London in a ceremonial procession. George was given the title of Prince of Wales. Caroline followed her husband to Britain in October with their daughters, while Frederick remained in Hanover to be brought up by private tutors. London was like nothing George had seen before; it was 50 times larger than Hanover, and the crowd was estimated at up to one and a half million spectators. George courted popularity with voluble expressions of praise for the English, and claimed that he had no drop of blood that was not English. In July 1716, the King returned to Hanover for six months, and George was given limited powers, as "Guardian and Lieutenant of the Realm", to govern in his father's absence. He made a royal progress through Chichester, Havant, Portsmouth, and Guildford in southern England. Spectators were allowed to see him dine in public at Hampton Court Palace. An attempt on his life at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in which one person was shot dead before the assailant was brought under control, boosted his high public profile. His father distrusted or was jealous of George's popularity, which contributed to the development of a poor relationship between them. The birth in 1717 of George's second son, Prince George William, proved to be a catalyst for a family quarrel; the King, supposedly following custom, appointed Lord Chamberlain Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, as one of the baptismal sponsors of the child. The King was angered when George, who disliked Newcastle, verbally insulted the Duke at the christening, which the Duke misunderstood as a challenge to a duel. George and Caroline were temporarily confined to their apartments on the order of the King, who subsequently banished his son from St James's Palace, the King's residence. The Prince and Princess of Wales left court, but their children remained in the care of the King. George and Caroline missed their children, and were desperate to see them. On one occasion, they secretly visited the palace without the approval of the King; Caroline fainted and George "cried like a child". The King partially relented and permitted them to visit once a week, though he later allowed Caroline unconditional access. In February 1718, George William died aged only three months, with his father by his side. ### Political opposition Banned from the palace and shunned by his own father, the Prince of Wales was identified for the next several years with opposition to George I's policies, which included measures designed to increase religious freedom in Great Britain and expand Hanover's German territories at the expense of Sweden. His new London residence, Leicester House, became a frequent meeting place for his father's political opponents, including Sir Robert Walpole and Lord Townshend, who had left the government in 1717. The King visited Hanover again from May to November 1719. Instead of appointing George to the guardianship, he established a regency council. In 1720, Walpole encouraged the King and his son to reconcile, for the sake of public unity, which they did half-heartedly. Walpole and Townshend returned to political office, and rejoined the ministry. George was soon disillusioned with the terms of the reconciliation; his three daughters who were in the care of the King were not returned and he was still barred from becoming regent during the King's absences. He came to believe that Walpole had tricked him into the rapprochement as part of a scheme to regain power. Over the next few years, Caroline and he lived quietly, avoiding overt political activity. They had three more children: William, Mary, and Louisa, who were brought up at Leicester House and Richmond Lodge, George's summer residence. In 1721, the economic disaster of the South Sea Bubble allowed Walpole to rise to the pinnacle of government. Walpole and his Whig Party were dominant in politics, as the King feared that the Tories would not support the succession laid down in the Act of Settlement. The power of the Whigs was so great that the Tories would not come to hold power for another half-century. ## Reign ### Accession George I died on 11/22 June 1727 during one of his visits to Hanover, and George II succeeded him as king and elector at the age of 43. The new king decided not to travel to Germany for his father's funeral, which far from bringing criticism led to praise from the English who considered it proof of his fondness for England. He suppressed his father's will because it attempted to split the Hanoverian succession between George II's future grandsons rather than vest all the domains (both British and Hanoverian) in a single person. Both British and Hanoverian ministers considered the will unlawful, as George I did not have the legal power to determine the succession personally. Critics supposed that George II hid the will to avoid paying out his father's legacies. George II was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 11/22 October 1727. George Frideric Handel was commissioned to write four new anthems for the coronation, including Zadok the Priest. It was widely believed that George would dismiss Walpole, who had distressed him by joining his father's government, and replace him with Sir Spencer Compton. George asked Compton, rather than Walpole, to write his first speech as king, but Compton asked Walpole to draft it. Caroline advised George to retain Walpole, who continued to gain royal favour by securing a generous civil list (a fixed annual amount set by Parliament for the king's official expenditure) of £800,000, equivalent to £ today. Walpole commanded a substantial majority in Parliament and George had little choice but to retain him or risk ministerial instability. Compton was ennobled as Lord Wilmington the following year. Walpole directed domestic policy, and after the resignation of his brother-in-law Townshend in 1730 also controlled George's foreign policy. Historians generally believe that George played an honorific role in Britain, and closely followed the advice of Walpole and senior ministers, who made the major decisions. Although the King was eager for war in Europe, his ministers were more cautious. A truce was agreed in the Anglo-Spanish War, and George unsuccessfully pressed Walpole to join the War of the Polish Succession on the side of the German states. In April 1733 Walpole withdrew the unpopular Excise Bill that had attracted strong opposition, including from within his own party. George lent Walpole support by dismissing the bill's opponents from their court offices. ### Family problems George II's relationship with his son Frederick, Prince of Wales, worsened during the 1730s. Frederick had been left behind in Germany when his parents came to England, and they had not met for 14 years. In 1728, he was brought to England, and swiftly became a figurehead of the political opposition. When George visited Hanover in the summers of 1729, 1732 and 1735, he left his wife to chair the regency council in Britain rather than his son. Meanwhile, rivalry between George II and his brother-in-law and first cousin Frederick William I of Prussia led to tension along the Prussian–Hanoverian border, which eventually culminated in the mobilization of troops in the border zone and suggestions of a duel between the two kings. Negotiations for a marriage between the Prince of Wales and Frederick William's daughter Wilhelmine dragged on for years but neither side would make the concessions demanded by the other, and the idea was shelved. Instead, the prince married Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha in April 1736. In May 1736, George returned to Hanover, which resulted in unpopularity in England; a satirical notice was even pinned to the gates of St James's Palace decrying his absence. "Lost or strayed out of this house", it read, "a man who has left a wife and six children on the parish." The King made plans to return in the face of inclement December weather; when his ship was caught in a storm, gossip swept London that he had drowned. Eventually, in January 1737, he arrived back in England. Immediately, he fell ill with a fever and piles, and withdrew to his bed. The Prince of Wales put it about that the King was dying, with the result that George insisted on getting up and attending a social event to disprove the gossip-mongers. When the Prince of Wales applied to Parliament for an increase in his allowance, an open quarrel broke out. The King, who had a reputation for stinginess, offered a private settlement, which Frederick rejected. Parliament voted against the measure, but George reluctantly increased his son's allowance on Walpole's advice. Further friction between them followed when Frederick excluded the King and Queen from the birth of his daughter in July 1737 by bundling his wife, who was in labour, into a coach and driving off in the middle of the night. George banished him and his family from the royal court, much as his own father had done to him, except that he allowed Frederick to retain custody of his children. Soon afterwards, George's wife Caroline died on 20 November 1737 (O.S.). He was deeply affected by her death, and to the surprise of many displayed "a tenderness of which the world thought him before utterly incapable". On her deathbed she told her sobbing husband to remarry, to which he replied, "Non, j'aurai des maîtresses!" (French for "No, I shall have mistresses!"). It was common knowledge that George had already had mistresses during his marriage, and he had kept Caroline informed about them. Henrietta Howard, later Countess of Suffolk, had moved to Hanover with her husband during the reign of Queen Anne, and had been one of Caroline's women of the bedchamber. She was his mistress from before the accession of George I until November 1734. She was followed by Amalie von Wallmoden, later Countess of Yarmouth, whose son, Johann Ludwig von Wallmoden, may have been fathered by George. Johann Ludwig was born while Amalie was still married to her husband, and George did not acknowledge him publicly as his own son. ### War and rebellion Against Walpole's wishes, but to George's delight, Britain reopened hostilities with Spain in 1739. Britain's conflict with Spain, the War of Jenkins' Ear, became part of the War of the Austrian Succession when a major European dispute broke out upon the death of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI in 1740. At issue was the right of Charles's daughter, Maria Theresa, to succeed to his Austrian dominions. George spent the summers of 1740 and 1741 in Hanover, where he was more able to intervene directly in European diplomatic affairs in his capacity as elector. Prince Frederick campaigned actively for the opposition in the 1741 British general election, and Walpole was unable to secure a stable majority. Walpole attempted to buy off the prince with the promise of an increased allowance and offered to pay off his debts, but Frederick refused. With his support eroded, Walpole retired in 1742 after over 20 years in office. He was replaced by Spencer Compton, Lord Wilmington, whom George had originally considered for the premiership in 1727. Wilmington, however, was a figurehead; actual power was held by others, such as Lord Carteret, George's favourite minister after Walpole. When Wilmington died in 1743, Henry Pelham took his place at the head of the government. The pro-war faction was led by Carteret, who claimed that French power would increase if Maria Theresa failed to succeed to the Austrian throne. George agreed to send 12,000 hired Hessian and Danish mercenaries to Europe, ostensibly to support Maria Theresa. Without conferring with his British ministers, George stationed them in Hanover to prevent enemy French troops from marching into the electorate. The British army had not fought in a major European war in over 20 years, and the government had badly neglected its upkeep. George had pushed for greater professionalism in the ranks, and promotion by merit rather than by sale of commissions, but without much success. An allied force of Austrian, British, Dutch, Hanoverian and Hessian troops engaged the French at the Battle of Dettingen on 16/27 June 1743. George personally accompanied them, leading them to victory, thus becoming the last British monarch to lead troops into battle. Though his actions in the battle were admired, the war became unpopular with the British public, who felt that the King and Carteret were subordinating British interests to Hanoverian ones. Carteret lost support, and to George's dismay resigned in 1744. Tension grew between the Pelham ministry and George, as he continued to take advice from Carteret and rejected pressure from his other ministers to include William Pitt the Elder in the Cabinet, which would have broadened the government's support base. The King disliked Pitt because he had previously opposed government policy and attacked measures seen as pro-Hanoverian. In February 1746, Pelham and his followers resigned. George asked Lord Bath and Carteret to form an administration, but after less than 48 hours they returned the seals of office, unable to secure sufficient parliamentary support. Pelham returned to office triumphant, and George was forced to appoint Pitt to the ministry. George's French opponents encouraged rebellion by the Jacobites, the supporters of the Roman Catholic claimant to the British throne, James Francis Edward Stuart, often known as the Old Pretender. Stuart was the son of James II, who had been deposed in 1688 and replaced by his Protestant relations. Two prior rebellions in 1715 and 1719 had failed. In July 1745, the Old Pretender's son, Charles Edward Stuart, popularly known as Bonnie Prince Charlie or the Young Pretender, landed in Scotland, where support for his cause was highest. George, who was summering in Hanover, returned to London at the end of August. The Jacobites defeated British forces in September at the Battle of Prestonpans, and then moved south into England. The Jacobites failed to gain further support, and the French reneged on a promise of help. Losing morale, the Jacobites retreated back into Scotland. On 16/27 April 1746, Charles faced George's military-minded son Prince William, Duke of Cumberland, in the Battle of Culloden, the last pitched battle fought on British soil. The ravaged Jacobite troops were routed by the government army. Charles escaped to France, but many of his supporters were caught and executed. Jacobitism was all but crushed; no further serious attempt was made at restoring the House of Stuart. The War of the Austrian Succession continued until 1748, when Maria Theresa was recognized as Archduchess of Austria. The peace was celebrated by a fête in Green Park, London, for which Handel composed Music for the Royal Fireworks. ### Planning for succession In the general election of 1747, Frederick, Prince of Wales, again campaigned actively for the opposition but Pelham's party won easily. Like his father before him, Frederick entertained opposition figures at his house in Leicester Square. When Frederick died unexpectedly in 1751, his eldest son, Prince George, became heir apparent. The King commiserated with Augusta, Dowager Princess of Wales, and wept with her. As her son would not reach the age of majority until 1756, a new British Regency Act was passed that would make her regent, assisted by a council led by Frederick's brother William in case of George II's death. The King also made a new will, which provided for Cumberland to be sole regent in Hanover. After the death of his daughter Louisa at the end of the year, George lamented, "This has been a fatal year for my family. I lost my eldest son – but I am glad of it ... Now [Louisa] is gone. I know I did not love my children when they were young: I hated to have them running into my room; but now I love them as well as most fathers." ### Seven Years' War In 1754 Pelham died, to be succeeded by his elder brother, Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle. Hostility between France and Britain, particularly over the colonization of North America, continued. Fearing a French invasion of Hanover, George aligned himself with Prussia (ruled by his nephew, Frederick the Great), Austria's enemy. Russia and France allied with Austria, their former enemy. A French invasion of the British-held island of Minorca led to the outbreak of the Seven Years' War in 1756. Public disquiet over British failures at the start of the conflict led to Newcastle's resignation and the appointment of William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire, as prime minister and William Pitt the Elder as Secretary of State for the Southern Department. In April the following year George dismissed Pitt in an attempt to construct an administration more to his liking. Over the succeeding three months attempts to form another stable ministerial combination failed. In June Lord Waldegrave held the seals of office for only four days. By the start of July, Pitt was recalled and Newcastle returned as prime minister. As Secretary of State, Pitt guided policy relating to the war. Great Britain, Hanover, and Prussia and their allies Hesse-Kassel and Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel fought against other European powers, including France, Austria, Russia, Sweden and Saxony. The war involved multiple theatres from Europe to North America and India, where British dominance increased with the victories of Robert Clive over French forces and their allies at the Battle of Arcot and the Battle of Plassey. George's son William commanded the King's troops in northern Germany. In 1757 Hanover was invaded and George gave his son full powers to conclude a separate peace, but by September George was furious at William's negotiated settlement, which he felt greatly favoured the French. George said his son had "ruined me and disgraced himself". William, by his own choice, resigned his military offices, and George revoked the peace deal on the grounds that the French had infringed it by disarming Hessian troops after the ceasefire. In the Annus Mirabilis of 1759 British forces captured Quebec and captured Guadeloupe, defeated a French plan to invade Britain following naval battles at Lagos and Quiberon Bay, and halted a resumed French advance on Hanover at the Battle of Minden. ### Death By October 1760 George II was blind in one eye and hard of hearing. On the morning of 25 October he rose as usual at 6:00 am, drank a cup of hot chocolate, and went to his close stool alone. After a few minutes, his valet heard a loud crash and entered the room to find the king on the floor; his physician, Frank Nicholls, recorded that he "appeared to have just come from his necessary-stool, and as if going to open his escritoire". The King was lifted into his bed, and Princess Amelia was sent for; before she reached him, he was dead. At the age of nearly 77 he had lived longer than any of his English or British predecessors. A post-mortem revealed that the King had died as the result of a thoracic aortic dissection. He was succeeded by his grandson George III, and buried on 11 November in Westminster Abbey. He left instructions for the sides of his and his wife's coffins to be removed so that their remains could mingle. ## Legacy George donated the royal library to the British Museum in 1757, four years after the museum's foundation. He had no interest in reading, or in the arts and sciences, and preferred to spend his leisure hours stag-hunting on horseback or playing cards. In 1737, he founded the Georg August University of Göttingen, the first university in the Electorate of Hanover, and visited it in 1748. The asteroid 359 Georgia was named in his honour at the university in 1902. He served as the Chancellor of the University of Dublin between 1716 and 1727; and in 1754 issued the charter for King's College in New York City, which later became Columbia University. The province of Georgia, founded by royal charter in 1732, was named after him. During George II's reign British interests expanded throughout the world, the Jacobite challenge to the Hanoverian dynasty was extinguished, and the power of ministers and Parliament in Britain became well-established. Nevertheless, in the memoirs of contemporaries such as Lord Hervey and Horace Walpole, George is depicted as a weak buffoon, governed by his wife and ministers. Biographies of George written during the nineteenth and first part of the twentieth century relied on these biased accounts. Since the last quarter of the twentieth century, scholarly analysis of surviving correspondence has indicated that George was not as ineffective as previously thought. Letters from ministers are annotated by George with pertinent remarks and demonstrate that he had a grasp of and interest in foreign policy in particular. He was often able to prevent the appointment of ministers or commanders he disliked, or sideline them into lesser offices. This academic reassessment, however, has not completely eliminated the popular perception of George II as a "faintly ludicrous king". His parsimony, for example, may have opened him to ridicule, though his biographers observe that parsimony is preferable to extravagance. Lord Charlemont excused George's short temper by explaining that sincerity of feeling is better than deception, "His temper was warm and impetuous, but he was good-natured and sincere. Unskilled in the royal talent of dissimulation, he always was what he appeared to be. He might offend, but he never deceived." Lord Waldegrave wrote, "I am thoroughly convinced that hereafter, when time shall have wore away those specks and blemishes which sully the brightest characters, and from which no man is totally exempt, he will be numbered amongst those patriot kings, under whose government the people have enjoyed the greatest happiness". George may not have played a major role in history, but he was influential at times and he upheld constitutional government. Elizabeth Montagu said of him, "With him our laws and liberties were safe, he possessed in a great degree the confidence of his people and the respect of foreign governments; and a certain steadiness of character made him of great consequence in these unsettled times ... His character would not afford subject for epic poetry, but will look well in the sober page of history." ## Titles, styles and arms ### Titles and styles In Britain: - From 1706: Duke and Marquess of Cambridge, Earl of Milford Haven, Viscount Northallerton and Baron of Tewkesbury - August–September 1714: His Royal Highness George Augustus, Prince of Great Britain, Electoral Prince of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay, etc. - 1714–1727: His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales - 1727–1760: His Majesty The King George II's full style was "George the Second, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Archtreasurer and Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire". ### Arms When George became Prince of Wales in 1714, he was granted the royal arms with an inescutcheon of gules plain in the Hanoverian quarter differenced overall by a label of three points argent. The crest included the single arched coronet of his rank. As king, he used the royal arms as used by his father undifferenced. ## Family ### Ancestry ### Issue Caroline's ten or eleven pregnancies resulted in eight live births. One of their children died in infancy, and seven lived to adulthood.
9,041,235	Hamlet chicken processing plant fire	1,169,988,402	1991 industrial fire in Hamlet, North Carolina, US	[ "1991 fires in the United States", "1991 in North Carolina", "1991 industrial disasters", "Accidental deaths in North Carolina", "Fire disasters involving barricaded escape routes", "Fires in North Carolina", "Food processing disasters", "Industrial accident deaths", "Industrial fires and explosions in the United States", "Meat processing in the United States", "Richmond County, North Carolina", "September 1991 events in the United States" ]	On September 3, 1991, an industrial fire caused by a failed improvised repair to a hydraulic line destroyed the Imperial Food Products chicken processing plant in Hamlet, North Carolina. Despite three previous fires in 11 years of operation, the plant had never received a safety inspection. The fire killed 25 people and injured 54, many of whom were unable to escape due to locked exits. It was the second deadliest industrial disaster in North Carolina's history. Imperial Food Products was a corporation owned by Emmett Roe, who acquired the Hamlet facility in 1980 to produce chicken products. The company had a poor safety record at one of its other plants, and the Hamlet building lacked a fire alarm or an operational fire sprinkler system. For reasons that remain disputed, Roe ordered several exterior doors of the plant locked in the summer of 1991—including a labeled fire exit—in violation of federal safety regulations and without notifying most workers. In September, the plant's maintenance workers attempted to replace a leaking hydraulic line, attached to the conveyor belt which fed chicken tenders into a fryer in the processing room, with improvised parts. On September 3 at around 8:15 am, they turned on the conveyor belt after altering the line; it separated from its connection and spewed hydraulic fluid around the room. The fluid vaporized and was ignited by the fryer's flame. Fire engulfed the facility in minutes, severing telephone lines and filling the plant with hydrocarbon-charged smoke and carbon monoxide. There were 90 workers in the plant at the time. Some were able to escape through the plant's front door, while others could not leave due to locked or obstructed exits. Brad Roe (Emmett's son and the company's operations manager) drove to the local fire station for help since the telephone line had burned; firefighters reached the scene at 8:27 am and sent a mutual aid call to other fire departments. Over 100 medical and emergency service personnel ultimately responded. A delivery truck at the loading dock and a dumpster were moved to create openings. One maintenance worker kicked through a locked door to free himself and some of his coworkers. Firefighters brought the fire under control by 10:00 a.m. Most of the dead were killed by smoke inhalation. Of those who died, 18 were female and 7 were male; one was a vending machine deliveryman and the rest were Imperial workers. The plant permanently closed and Imperial Food Products, fined a record-high state-imposed \$808,150 penalty () for safety violations, declared bankruptcy. Survivors suffered long-term adverse health effects, including respiratory ailments, muscular injuries, and cognitive impairments. Roe pled guilty to 25 counts of involuntary manslaughter and received a 20-year prison sentence, of which he served about four years. The North Carolina General Assembly passed 14 new worker safety laws, including whistleblower protections, and the state inspector corps was increased from 60 to 114 personnel. ## Background ### Imperial Food Products plant in Hamlet Emmett J. Roe founded Imperial Food Products Incorporated (commonly called Imperial) in Moosic, Pennsylvania in the 1970s after acquiring a food processing plant from his former employer, Empire Frozen Foods. The corporation supplied grocery stores and distributors with chicken products. Roe purchased the largely-decommissioned Mello-Buttercup Ice Cream plant, located along Bridges Street in Hamlet, North Carolina, in September 1980. The location was chosen for its proximity to poultry suppliers and markets, and for North Carolina's lower labor costs relative to the rest of the United States. The facility was situated in a predominantly African American area of Hamlet. A one-story building of bricks and metalwork, the plant's basic structure dated back to the early 20th century. The building was extensively renovated before becoming operational and expanded from 21,300 square feet (2,000 m<sup>2</sup>) to 37,000 square feet (3,400 m<sup>2</sup>). Seven of the changes that were made to the building required permits by law, but Roe never applied for them. Roe's son Brad became the leader at the new plant as operations manager several years after it opened; another family member, James Neal Hair, worked as his deputy as plant manager. The Roes recruited a workforce dominated by impoverished and undereducated people, including many single mothers and high school dropouts. The plant produced a variety of custom chicken products from pre-cut frozen chicken breasts, but mostly made battered deep-fried chicken tenders which were sold to restaurants in the American South, including regional locations for Long John Silver's, Red Lobster, Captain D's, and Shoney's. North Carolina law required new industrial businesses to apply for a license to operate, and any business with 11 or more employees to register with the North Carolina Department of Labor and the United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Although OSHA was a federal agency, North Carolina had assumed responsibility for enforcing its safety standards in the mid-1970s. Registering a business with the Department of Labor would add the workplace to a lottery for a surprise inspection. Roe never applied for a business license and did not register the plant with the labor department. Roe also did not register the plant with city or Richmond County taxation authorities and never paid any local property tax, despite being asked by officials to do so; Imperial Food Products ultimately owed local governments thousands of dollars for unpaid taxes and water and sewage bills by September 1991. Hamlet was economically depressed and local officials, valuing the employment it gave to residents, chose to treat Imperial with "benign neglect", according to city manager Ron Niland. By 1990 the company was one of the largest private employers in Hamlet. Niland got into a dispute with Imperial that year after it was found to be dumping excess chicken grease into the municipal wastewater system. He threatened to close the plant, but dropped the matter after the company changed its wastewater disposal methods. Roe acquired three additional meat processing plants in the late 1980s, taking on significant debt in the process. By 1990, the facility in Colorado had lost its largest customer and was operating below capacity, the facility in Cumming, Georgia had been damaged by two fires, and the plant in Alabama was forced to close after its contracted food broker rejected the low-quality nuggets it produced. Under pressure to recoup his losses and pay back his creditors, Roe devoted his attention to the Hamlet plant. He and Brad added a full second shift to increase production and sped up the line process. When repairs to equipment were necessary, Brad typically instructed the maintenance crew to improvise with spare parts to save money. ### Safety concerns The Hamlet plant experienced small fires in 1980, 1983, and 1987, but none resulted in safety inspections. One of these fires disabled the fire sprinkler system installed by Mello-Buttercup; it was never repaired. An automatic carbon dioxide fire extinguisher and hood were installed over the deep fryer vats after the 1983 incident. A state OSHA inspector visited the site several times in the 1980s to examine the small facility space leased to the plant's former owner, Mello-Buttercup, but did not visit any of Imperial's sections; the Imperial facility never underwent a workplace safety inspection. Line workers were only given partial safety guidelines in their hiring orientation, which did not cover fire safety. The only managerial staffer possessing a state-issued OSHA safety booklet found its content confusing. One worker wrote a complaint to OSHA in October 1987 alleging the presence of maggots in the breakroom and lice and detritus in the women's restroom. Questioned by an OSHA officer, Hair denied these claims and no further action was taken. In 1991 the North Carolina General Assembly passed a law requiring all local governments to appoint a fire inspector by July 1 to examine all commercial buildings within their respective jurisdictions to ensure compliance with the new state fire code. The statute did not appropriate money for the purpose and many municipalities, including Hamlet, lacked the funds to appoint such an official. The Hamlet Fire Department also had no contingency firefighting plan for the Imperial plant. Food safety inspectors from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) visited the plant daily to examine the quality of the chicken, check for insects and vermin, and ensure that the facility's workers and processes were hygienic. In 1989, the inspectors noticed a large number of flies entering the building near its loading dock and dumpster. To resolve this issue, in the summer of 1991 Imperial built a shed-like structure around the dumpster and trash compactor, without a permit. It had an interior door that opened from the plant to the dumpster and an exterior door that was to be locked from the outside at all times. The USDA approved the measure although the locked door violated workplace safety standards. One production line worker told a USDA inspector he had concerns about the facility's safety, but the inspector said that such issues were outside his purview. The maintenance worker who padlocked the door said Emmett Roe told him it was to keep workers from stealing chicken. While such thefts had occurred at the plant, this factor was later downplayed by other supervisors. Other exits at the facility, including the breakroom exterior door, were also locked; of the plant's nine exterior doors, seven were locked or obstructed from the outside, including a padlocked one marked "Fire Exit Do Not Block". Only a handful of Imperial employees, mostly maintenance workers, were aware that the doors were locked. One maintenance worker stated that their request for a key to the locks was turned down. The plant did not have a fire evacuation plan, workers had never undergone a fire drill, and there was only one fire extinguisher near the fryer. There was also no fire alarm. One line worker suggested complaining about the lack of fire precautions to the managers, but her coworkers convinced her not to, saying it would jeopardize her employment. Most workers did not know that they could have complained to OSHA, or that the federal Occupational Health and Safety Act guaranteed protection from retaliatory firings for reporting safety concerns. The plant's lack of an emergency plan, lack of a fire alarm, and the locking and obstruction of doors all violated OSHA rules. State law also prohibited the locking of workplace doors. Imperial experienced a string of safety issues with its Moosic plant in Pennsylvania in the 1980s. After a worker was severely burned by cooking oil in 1985, OSHA asked to inspect the plant. When Roe refused, the inspector obtained a search warrant and cited the corporation for several violations. Two years later, OSHA received an anonymous safety complaint, and upon further investigation found the Pennsylvania facility experienced twice the national rate of workplace injuries in food processing. An inspector again sought entry to the plant—which was refused—and obtained another search warrant. The inspector uncovered six violations and wrote in his report that Roe displayed "utter contempt for OSHA". A follow-up inspection recorded a total of 33 health and safety violations, including poorly marked and blocked emergency exits. Frustrated with the safety inspectors and a largely unionized workforce in Moosic, Roe closed the facility in 1989. The inspector noted the existence of the Hamlet plant on his report and suggested checking it, but nothing was done on this point. Because of Imperial's poor safety record, the company only obtained workers' compensation insurance in North Carolina from Liberty Mutual after being placed in the state's assigned risk pool. ## Fire ### Hydraulic line repair Over the Labor Day weekend of 1991, the plant's maintenance crew reviewed the hydraulic system of a conveyor belt which moved chicken tenders into a 29-foot-long (8.8 m), 300-gallon Stein fryer in the processing room. During the previous months one of the hydraulic lines—which connected the machine box to the belt—had periodically leaked. The plant's head mechanic, John Gagnon, asked Brad Roe for funds to purchase the specific line and connectors needed to replace the leaking hose. Roe consulted his father and denied the request, citing the high cost, and the maintenance crew instead used a spare line. Imperial workers began their shift after Labor Day at 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday, September 3, 1991. Of the 120 workers scheduled for the shift, 90 reported for work, and the other 30 were told not to come in due to ongoing repairs near the fryer. That morning the maintenance workers reconsidered their hydraulic repair, as the line they had used was longer than the standard part and the excess length lay on the floor; they figured it could be a tripping hazard. The maintenance crew decided to shorten the line with a hacksaw and reconnect it to the machine box with an improvised connector. The line was rated to 3,000 pounds per square inch (21 MPa), while normal operating pressure never fluctuated higher than 1,500 psi (10 MPa). The Stein fryer's manual advised deactivation of its heat sources before handling flammable liquids around it, such as hydraulic fluid. The cooker's temperature was controlled by thermostat and was maintained at a constant 375 °F (191 °C), which was variable by design to 15 °F (8.3 °C) either way. The repairmen decided against deactivation, since it could take up to two hours for the fryer's furnace to heat back up to 375 °F, which would delay the plant's workflow and, they feared, likely anger Brad Roe. ### Ignition and escape attempts The fire began at around 8:15 a.m., seconds after the mechanics turned the conveyor belt on. When the improvised connector was brought up to normal operating pressure, it separated from the line at 800–1,500 psi (5.5–10.3 MPa) and began wildly spraying hydraulic fluid. It spattered onto the heating lines for the fryer and immediately vaporized. This vapor went into the flame of the fryer and, because of its relatively low flash point, quickly ignited. The ruptured hydraulic line then pumped 50 to 55 US gal (190 to 210 L; 42 to 46 imp gal) of hydraulic fluid into the fire before electrical failure caused the pump to shut down. The fire kept growing, fueled by a combination of the hydraulic fluid, chicken grease (which coated the floor and walls of the processing room), and the fryer vats' soybean oil (which ignited after some delay due to the carbon dioxide fire suppression system and hood). Natural gas was added to the fire as well, when a gas regulator was burned and started leaking. Workers reported that the plant was engulfed in less than two minutes. The fire was so hot that the facility's Kemlite ceiling tiles—designed to be fire-resistant—caught fire. Within a few minutes, the fire severed power and telephone lines and burned a hole in the factory roof. A gas line in the ceiling ruptured and caught fire; another later exploded. Large quantities of hydrocarbon-charged smoke—which has the potential to disable a person within a few breaths—were produced, obscuring visibility while the fire consumed massive amounts of oxygen, while also producing large amounts of toxic carbon monoxide. The plant had open spaces between rooms, in place of doors, to allow for easy access by forklifts, the only barriers being occasional curtains of plastic strips to hold in refrigerated air. This arrangement allowed the rapid spread of smoke and heat. The walls and floor were hard, smooth surfaces, which limited the amount of material available to absorb heat and smoke. The fire effectively split the facility; workers in the marinating and packing rooms were able to flee through the unlocked front door of the plant, while those in the processing and trim rooms were forced to retreat towards the breakroom, equipment room, loading dock, and dumpster. Seven workers were trapped by the flames in the processing room. Some workers suffered trauma injuries during the rush to escape. Workers who fled toward the loading dock found the bay exit blocked by a tractor-trailer delivery truck, whose driver was asleep in its cab. The group that went to the breakroom tried to push an air conditioning unit out of a window. Failing to make an opening, some of them went to the loading dock and, finding the exit blocked, attempted to exit via the nearby doors, which were obstructed from the outside by a dumpster. Another set of doors nearby was padlocked from the outside; workers tried to kick their way through them. After this attempt, a group of workers retreated to a nearby cooler to avoid the smoke and flames, but its door would not fully shut and allowed carbon monoxide to seep into the compartment. Others stayed near the loading dock and dumpster. ### Emergency response and casualties Brad Roe attempted to call the fire department (Hamlet had no generalized 9-1-1 emergency dial system) but the telephone lines were inoperable. He then drove his car a few blocks over to the Hamlet Fire Department, arriving at 8:22 a.m.. Only two firefighters were on duty at the time, including Captain Calvin White. Roe told White, "We got a fire at Imperial Foods. Help us! Help us quick!" He did not mention that workers were still in the plant. Captain White responded to the incident at 8:24 a.m. and reached the scene three minutes later. Upon his arrival, White realized that the fire was serious and sent a mutual aid call to the Rockingham Fire Department. By this time about 20 workers were lying on the ground outside the facility; three were dead. Neighboring residents, hearing screams and seeing smoke from the plant, went to rouse the truck driver. Hamlet municipal workers chained the dumpster to a tractor and pulled it away from the building to create an opening for workers to escape. Imperial maintenance worker Bobby Quick eventually managed to kick open the north exterior door in the breakroom, rupturing discs in his spine in the process. This door allowed 10 workers to flee while Quick recovered a woman in a different room and led her outside. Another exit was opened by an employee from the outside. The first two firefighters on scene administered oxygen to the escaped plant workers and performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on a few. Once the first responders realized the extent of the emergency, they extended the mutual aid call to the East Rockingham and North Side Fire Departments. Hamlet Fire Chief David Fuller took charge of the emergency response. Fuller and the Hamlet Fire Department also asked for assistance from the Cordova Fire Department (located 8.5 miles, or 13.7 km, away), ostensibly because of their experience with complex fires. Additionally, Fuller appealed for assistance from Richmond County Emergency Medical Services units and rescue groups in Ellerbe and Hoffman. Over 100 medical and emergency service personnel ultimately went to the scene and local government resources were allocated under Hamlet's city disaster plan. Assistance was never requested from the Dobbins Heights Volunteer Fire Department. Based in the largely African American community of Dobbins Heights, five minutes' driving distance from the fire, the department had many volunteers who knew Imperial workers. Upon hearing of the fire, most of the volunteers gathered at their station and Fire Chief Ernest Cannon called Fuller to tell him they were ready to assist. Fuller told Cannon that he would call if he needed their assistance, and never called back. Cannon attempted to call Fuller twice more before driving over to the plant. Once there, Fuller told him that he needed the Dobbins Heights firefighters on standby in case he thought they were needed at the Imperial facility, or if another fire or incident in Hamlet required their intervention. More firefighters from Hamlet and throughout the county arrived and attempted to enter the building. The Hamlet Fire Department did not have a floorplan of the plant, and the fire suppression team was forced to fall back when the heat and smoke in the processing room proved too intense. The team reentered the building through the equipment room and brought the fire under control by 10:00 a.m., eventually using AFF foam to extinguish the blaze around the fryer oil vats. Search and rescue operations began at about 8:45 and ended after 12:20 p.m. when Gagnon was recovered in a final search of the building in a corner of the processing room near the freezer. Gagnon was still alive, and a doctor administered tracheotomy on site, but he died before reaching the hospital. Twelve bodies were recovered in the cooler near the loading dock. Five people there survived with injuries. Seven workers died north of the processing room, while three were killed in the trim room. Rescuers bagged deceased victims on site and loaded them into a refrigerated tractor-trailer truck owned by the Hamlet Fire Department. Casualties totaled 25 dead and 54 injured to varying degrees. Of the dead, 18 were female and 7 were male. Most were poor. Of the plant workers who died, twelve were African American and twelve were white. A white delivery driver died while at the factory to restock vending machines, and was recognized on scene by his son, a firefighter. Autopsies indicated nearly all of the fatalities were caused by smoke inhalation, rather than direct flame injury. Air ambulances from Winston-Salem, Chapel Hill, Durham, and Charlotte collected some patients from the hospital in Hamlet and delivered them to burn units in their cities of origin. The next day, Shoney's sent a truck to pick up what chicken products could be salvaged. ## Aftermath ### Reactions Later on September 3, after news of the Hamlet fire had been broadcast, OSHA received an anonymous complaint about safety at Imperial's Georgia plant. OSHA took the unusual step of inspecting that plant the same day, and found an inoperative sprinkler system, improper fire exits, and no evacuation plan. They determined the plant posed an imminent danger to workers because it lacked an automatic fire extinguisher over its cooker and Imperial voluntarily suspended its operations, pending improvements. The Georgia plant resumed operations after creating an on-site fire brigade, but before installing new fire suppression systems, without objection from OSHA. Other food processing plants across the South also decided to review their fire precautions. Regional business figures distanced themselves from Roe and characterized his company as "rogue". The similarly-named Imperial Foods, a Goldsboro-based sandwich producer, changed its name to avoid confusion with Imperial Food Products. The fire drew significant media attention, and journalists from across the country came to Hamlet. They extensively covered the fire's casualties and how it affected Hamlet. Newspapers quickly investigated Roe's background and the history of OSHA enforcement in North Carolina, painting the incident as largely the result of a breakdown in regulatory enforcement. Emmett Roe was near Atlanta, Georgia at the time and arrived in Hamlet within 24 hours of the incident. A radio journalist asked him about the locked doors, but he denied any knowledge of them. Two reporters from The Charlotte Observer attempted to enter the Imperial office across the street from the factory and meet with Roe, but he ejected them and refused to identify himself. Hamlet Mayor Abbie Covington and others who interacted with Roe reported that he seemed emotionally distraught. A few days after his arrival he wrote a brief letter to the plant employees, referring to the fire as "the accident" and calling it a "tragedy". Meanwhile, Imperial's creditors demanded that their loans be repaid. Faced with these challenges, on October 9 Roe sent another letter to his workers, stating that the plant would not reopen due to Imperial's "inability to make an arrangement to finance its short- and long-term obligations". ### Response criticism Fuller was asked to evaluate the emergency response for investigators. He said there were more than sufficient numbers of personnel and equipment with regards to the layout of the incident site. Initially, when asked why he refused help from the Dobbin Heights volunteers, Fuller said, "You can get too much help." When asked similar questions on other occasions, Fuller suggested that the Dobbins Heights firefighters were not qualified to fight the plant fire and should have felt "honored" to be placed on standby. In response, Cannon maintained that his men could have assisted the rescue effort and said, "It was a racial thing. We are just as qualified as [Fuller's] volunteers. I know they're prejudiced. Hamlet has always looked at Dobbins Heights that way." Fuller denied the accusation, saying that the emergency response team was racially diverse and arguing that he had not asked for help from Dobbins Heights because they lacked "experienced personnel and leadership". Cannon spurned this explanation, and several black residents interviewed after the fire agreed the Dobbins Heights volunteers were not deployed because of racism. Disgruntled residents later referred to the dispute as "the firehouse incident". When the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) interviewed Fuller, he reportedly told them that he knew about the locked door near the dumpster and believed it was necessary to keep plant workers from stealing. An Imperial maintenance supervisor, Kim Mangus, later swore in a notarized statement that he had supplied the Hamlet Fire Department with a key, and therefore believed that it was not a safety problem. Fuller stated publicly that his department did not have a key and did not need one, since the firefighters were equipped to make forced entries. Fuller later denied rumors that he had approved of the door's locking or that Imperial owners had bribed his men with free chicken tenders in exchange for ignoring their plant's issues. ### Investigation The SBI began an investigation into the fire on September 4. Workers who survived the disaster were interviewed. North Carolina Commissioner of Labor John C. Brooks denied OSHA access to the site. Investigators found indentations left on at least one door by people attempting to kick it down. Covington also asked North Carolina Deputy Commissioner of Insurance Timothy Bradley to conduct an investigation; his preliminary report of the state's findings was released on September 6. The report suggested that, were some of the exits not blocked, fewer workers would have died. Hamlet's medical director stated that if the plant had met safety standards, 24 of the 25 killed workers would have survived. The SBI ultimately assigned 14 agents to the case, who put in 1,800 hours of work and compiled a 2,500-page report on the fire. The North Carolina Department of Labor concluded, "The only priority of management was production and complying with USDA requirements." Asked by reporters why the USDA had ignored the fire safety issues, the agency's chief inspections administrator stated that the food inspectors were not trained to observe fire violations or responsible to report them. Brooks blamed his own department's failure to inspect the plant on shortages of money and staff, and chided the federal government for not enforcing stricter standards. The United States Fire Administration also compiled a report. It recommended that "life safety codes must be enforced" and suggested that inspectors from different state and federal agencies be cross-trained to recognize safety violations. ### Criminal proceedings and litigation Bradley's initial assessment of the situation at the plant—including the locked doors—was presented to Hamlet's municipal government a few days after the fire. Mayor Covington and Fire Chief Fuller asked for criminal charges to be filed. PhilaPosh, a Philadelphia-based union worker safety organization, printed mock wanted posters with Roe's face and accusing him of murder, and joined with other labor advocacy groups in launching a petition to arrest him. Brooks also recommended that district prosecutor Carroll Lowder pursue homicide charges against the plant's operators. Lowder convened a grand jury to consider charges against the Roes, Hair, and Mangus. The jury voted against charging Mangus, but on March 10, 1992, it indicted the Roes and Hair on 25 counts each for involuntary manslaughter. They surrendered to authorities three days later. For his defense, Emmett Roe hired attorney Joseph B. Cheshire V. According to his own account, Cheshire drove to Lowder's office to discuss some aspects of the case and investigate his chances at securing a plea bargain for Roe. Lowder was allegedly dismissive of the deceased plant workers, emphasizing cases of theft from the plant and calling them "a bunch of low-down black folks". There was no criminal trial. Emmett Roe entered a plea bargain with the prosecutor, and on September 14, 1992, pled guilty to all the manslaughter charges; no charges were pursued against his son or Hair. He was sentenced to 19 years and 11 months in prison, eligible for parole in less than five years. Many former plant workers and affected families were dissatisfied with the sentence. Roe became eligible for parole in March 1994, and was released just under four years into his sentence, retiring to Georgia in obscurity. As a result of the official investigation into the fire, the North Carolina Department of Labor imposed a \$808,150 () fine on Imperial Food Products for 83 OSHA violations, the highest such penalty in the state's history. Roe initially denounced the large citation as "absurd" and alleged that it was imposed to impress federal authorities and keep them from taking over the state-enforced OSHA program. He later wrote to the Department of Labor that "My knowledge of the operation led me to believe it was a safe place to work." Imperial ultimately declared bankruptcy and thus the fine was never paid. Lawyers flocked to Hamlet after the fire, and by December 1991 most survivors' and victims' families had retained attorneys. By early 1992, over 100 lawsuits had been filed against the Roes and Imperial. Roe declared personal bankruptcy and underwent proceedings in bankruptcy court beginning in August 1992, claiming in court that he had no cash or assets of significant value. This assertion was ultimately confirmed by the court. Victims' legal teams then focused their efforts on obtaining payments from Imperial's insurers: American International Group, U.S. Fire Insurance Company, and Liberty Mutual. Liberty Mutual paid out workers' compensation, but the three insurers initially refused to pay out more because plant conditions were so unsafe. By December 1992, a settlement was reached awarding \$16.1 million to the victims; payouts of \$175,000 to \$1 million were awarded for individual wrongful death claims; settlements ranging from \$2,500 to over \$1 million were awarded in 77 injury cases. Survivors and their families filed another suit in 1993 against 41 other companies, including Stein (the fryer manufacturer) and Kemlite (the ceiling tile producer), for contributing to the disaster. The judge eventually awarded the plaintiffs \$24 million, of which each got \$35,000 to \$70,000 after deducting court expenses. One group of plaintiffs sued Hamlet's municipal government, claiming that the fire department had failed to inspect the plant and that delays on the day of the disaster had contributed to the death toll. With the support of the city council, city insurer Harleysville Group settled and paid the plaintiffs \$250,000 to \$500,000. Others sued the North Carolina Department of Labor, alleging that negligence by the state entitled victims to compensation pursuant to the North Carolina Tort Claims Act. The North Carolina Supreme Court ultimately ruled in a 5–2 vote that, though the department's failure to inspect the Imperial plant was neglectful, it was "not the kind of negligence for which damages can be collected". ### Government reform Asked about the fire, North Carolina Governor James G. Martin suggested that the state did not need significant changes to its labor practices and deflected responsibility onto Brooks, accusing him of not exercising proper oversight as labor commissioner. Sensing growing public outrage, Martin modified his position a few days later, proposing funding for 24 more safety inspectors, the creation of a state fire inspections team, the establishment of a helpline to report safety violations, and the cross-training of USDA workers so that they could recognize and report safety problems. He rejected the AFL–CIO's suggestion that responsibility for OSHA enforcement in the state be returned to the federal government, denouncing such an action as a potential "intrusion". On September 20, Brooks met with OSHA officials. He asked them to match Governor's Martin's funding increases towards labor inspections and that they temporarily loan 24 inspectors to the state until North Carolina could train its own personnel. OSHA shortly thereafter negotiated an agreement with the state to assume jurisdiction over all discrimination complaints in the private sector. On October 4, the federal agency asked Brooks to approve several changes to the state-enforced OSHA program which would strengthen federal officials' enforcement powers. Brooks refused, and on October 23 OSHA unilaterally altered the terms of the regime, dispatching 14 of its own inspectors to North Carolina to act independently of the state program, an action it had never taken before. On January 9, 1992, United States Secretary of Labor Lynn Martin set a deadline of 90 days for North Carolina state officials to improve enforcement of job safety and health regulations, or federal agencies would take over. The North Carolina General Assembly passed 14 new worker safety laws as a result, including whistleblower protections. The inspector corps was increased from 60 to 114 personnel and the minimum penalty for willful violations of safety standards was increased. In the May 1992 Brooks faced a contested Democratic Party primary from Harry E. Payne Jr., a legislator who criticized Brooks for ineffectiveness. Payne won the election and promised to strengthen the Department of Labor. As he finished his term, Brooks remained defensive of the department's actions before the fire and praised the state government's reform, saying, "These are unparalleled initiatives. The image problem will correct itself over time." Average penalties for state-observed safety violations doubled that year. The fire prompted OSHA to review 22 state-run enforcement programs and launch a national campaign to alert employers about the necessity of fire safeguards, including alarms, sprinklers, and unlocked exits. The United States House Committee on Education and Labor also held hearings on the fire and concluded that both OSHA's and North Carolina's enforcement of safety standards were ineffective. Committee chairman William D. Ford stated that he had offered increased appropriations to OSHA in the wake of the disaster, but he was turned away by the secretary of labor. Representative Charlie Rose threatened to introduce a bill which would require food inspectors to look for safety issues. In 1994 the USDA and OSHA reached an agreement whereby USDA food safety inspectors would be trained to recognize and report workplace safety violations to OSHA. As of 2021, there is no evidence that a USDA food inspector has ever forwarded a notice to OSHA. ### Effects on Hamlet Direct response to the fire cost the city of Hamlet \$30,000 in policing expenses, \$10,000 in lost firefighting equipment, and \$8,000 in administrative costs. The Imperial plant was permanently closed, with the loss of 215 jobs. A total of 49 children were orphaned. The city council recognized 30 days of mourning and ordered flags to be flown at half-staff. Condolences from across the country were mailed to the city hall. Over 15 government agencies and nonprofit groups—including the North Carolina Division of Employment Security Commission, North Carolina Bar Association, Richmond County United Way, and Hamlet Ministerial Alliance—coordinated the establishment of a Victim's Assistance Center to provide emergency aid and unemployment benefits to surviving workers and to victims' families. Other relief funds were supplied by the labor unions including the AFL–CIO, the Social Security Administration, and Liberty Mutual, Imperial's casualty insurer. Several national corporations, local businesses, and volunteers offered money and other resources to help the victims. The Employment Security Commission funded the creation of education and job training programs for fire survivors to help them find other employment, but by September 1992 it was estimated that only about 20 of the survivors had found new jobs. Fire survivors suffered long-term adverse health effects due to the incident, including respiratory ailments, muscular injuries, and cognitive impairments. Because of the town's small size, many Hamlet firefighters knew some or all of the victims, and suffered psychological problems. Between 50 and 60 people attended counseling sessions afterwards. Psychologists discovered high rates of anxiety and behaviors associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among survivors and victims' families. A 1997 self-report study of children in the area, then between the ages of 10 and 16, found that the level of post-traumatic stress symptoms rose depending on how much exposure they had to the fire, that African American children were more at risk than white ones, and girls were more at risk than boys. By 2000, some survivors had died from complications of their injuries. Others became addicted to drugs (including painkillers) and alcohol, and some became involved in intense domestic disputes over money received from awarded damages and lawsuit settlements. In the years after, former workers and members of the African American community, including former school principal Allen Mask and minister Tommy Legrand, appealed to the city to bulldoze the plant ruins, saying the structure had negative psychological impacts on locals and posed a potential physical health hazard to the public. Several psychologists who studied the survivors believed that the plant acted as a trauma trigger for former workers who were suffering from PTSD. Municipal officials initially asked the Roes to clean up the site, but they did not respond and were financially unable to oblige. City leaders refused to pay for a demolition themselves due to budget concerns, but Mask's and Legrand's lobbying efforts got the attention of State Senator Wayne Goodwin and U.S. Representative Robin Hayes in the late 1990s. Hayes convinced the U.S. Congress to offer the city a \$50,000 grant to clean up the site, but municipal officials declined the grant and did not begin cleanup, the city attorney citing "unresolved liability issues". In August 2002 Goodwin and a PTSD researcher convinced the State Health Director to declare the Imperial facility a "public nuisance". The General Assembly appropriated \$78,000 to remove the plant ruins, and over the following months the site was cleared and eventually turned into a park. Hamlet spent a total of \$13 million from federal and state grants, both on cleaning up the site and on related efforts aimed at economic revitalization. ## Legacy In 1992 a ceremony was held at Hamlet's City Lake marking the first anniversary of the fire. Hosted by Mayor Covington, and attended by a mostly white audience, the event concluded with the unveiling of a granite monument marked with the deceased victims' names. A separate commemoration was held at a Hamlet church with politician and minister Jesse Jackson as the main speaker to a mostly African American crowd. This ceremony produced a second monument. Covington and the city council formally declined to invite Jackson to the lake-side ceremony, believing he would politicize the affair and heighten racial tensions. Some members of the African American community thought that city leaders were ignoring their concerns and that the fire had only revealed racial differences that already existed. A third monument was later erected at the former plant site. Jello Biafra and Mojo Nixon wrote a song about the incident called "Hamlet Chicken Plant Disaster" and included it on their 1994 album Prairie Home Invasion. A fictional novel on the subject, A Southern Tragedy, in Crimson and Yellow, was written by Lawrence Naumoff and published in 2005. Howard L. Craft wrote a fictional play debuting in 2017 based on the experiences of some of Imperial's female workers. This fire was the second-worst industrial disaster in North Carolina history in death toll, behind the 1925 Coal Glen mine disaster. Unlike other industrial disasters in American history, such as the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, public interest in the Hamlet fire quickly faded. Roe's manslaughter conviction was either ignored by major newspapers or only briefly mentioned. Historian Bryant Simon wrote that unlike the 1911 disaster, the Hamlet fire "didn't fundamentally change the conversation in the state or the nation. It didn't make us see the world in a different way. It did not really bring the people who do the dirty work [...] into view. It didn't change these lives on the shop floor. It didn't involve a fundamental shift in spending or priorities." Simon argued that the Hamlet fire broke out "because the nation, not just this place or these people, had essentially given up on protecting its most vulnerable [...] Above all, America became dominated by the idea [...] of cheap [...] those with power valued cheap food, cheap government, and cheap lives over quality ingredients, investment in human capital, and strong oversight and regulation. But the policies of cheap came at a cost, as this story of the fire at Imperial Food Products in 1991 makes clear". The Heritage Foundation fellow John Hood argued, "The Hamlet fire, and a few other workplace disasters, are tragic and make good copy or news footage, but they tell us virtually nothing about worker safety in the United States. And the reality is that worker safety has been improving for decades."
1,211,983	Donald Forrester Brown	1,097,036,111	Recipient of the Victoria Cross	[ "1890 births", "1916 deaths", "Battle of the Somme recipients of the Victoria Cross", "Burials at Warlencourt British Cemetery", "Military personnel from Dunedin", "New Zealand Army personnel", "New Zealand World War I recipients of the Victoria Cross", "New Zealand military personnel killed in World War I", "People educated at Waitaki Boys' High School" ]	Donald Forrester Brown, VC (23 February 1890 – 1 October 1916) was a New Zealand recipient of the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest award for valour "in the face of the enemy" that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. Born in Dunedin, Brown was a farmer when the First World War began. In late 1915, he volunteered for service abroad with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) and was posted to the 2nd Battalion, the Otago Infantry Regiment. He saw action on the Western Front, and was awarded the VC for his actions during the Battle of Flers–Courcelette in September 1916. As he was killed several days later during the Battle of Le Transloy, the award was made posthumously. His VC was the second to be awarded to a soldier serving with the NZEF during the war and was the first earned in an action on the Western Front. ## Early life Donald Forrester Brown was born on 23 February 1890 in Dunedin, New Zealand. He was one of 10 children of Robert Brown, a draper living in Oamaru, and his wife Jessie née McFarlane. His parents were migrants from Scotland who had married in New Zealand. The youngest boy in his family, Brown was educated at South School and, later, Waitaki Boys' High School in Oamaru. After completing his schooling he took up farming, and by 1913 had purchased a farm at Totara, south of Oamaru. ## First World War When the First World War broke out, Brown continued to work on his farm for a year but then sold it and volunteered for the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) on 19 October 1915. He received his training at Trentham Military Camp and embarked for the Middle East in January 1916 with the Ninth Reinforcements. By this time he had been promoted to corporal. The newly formed New Zealand Division was training in Egypt and when Brown arrived, he was posted to the 2nd Battalion, Otago Infantry Regiment. Within a few months he was on the Western Front in France with the rest of the division. On arrival in France, the New Zealanders were assigned to the Armentières sector of the Western Front. This area was considered to be a "nursery" sector, for introducing inexperienced troops to the Western Front. Brown's battalion was initially positioned to the east of Armentières. Despite being a quiet part of the front, it was still exposed to artillery and sniper fire. The battalion rotated regularly in and out of the front line, as it gained experience in trench warfare. In August 1916, the division began transferring to the Somme sector. The next month, Brown, by now a sergeant, was involved in the Battle of Flers–Courcelette, part of the Somme Offensive. On the opening day of the battle, 15 September, the 2nd Otago Battalion, alongside the 2nd Auckland Battalion, had to capture a series of German-held trenches from their position south-east of High Wood. The advance commenced at 6:20 am. While the first trench was easily captured with the assistance of effective artillery support, his company came under heavy flanking machine gun fire while advancing to the next trench, which caused many casualties in the company. Brown, together with another soldier, Corporal Jesse Rodgers, attacked one machine gun post, killing the crew and capturing the gun. The remaining soldiers regrouped and prepared for an attack on the next trench. During a covering artillery barrage they once again came under fire from a machine gun post. Brown was amongst those who attacked this second machine gun post, swiftly dealing with the threat. Once the covering barrage lifted, the New Zealanders advanced and captured their next objective, a position known as Switch Trench, by 7:00 am. Some tanks were supposed to have been assisting the infantry but these never appeared. Brown was key in immediately improving the existing defences in preparation against a possible counterattack, by digging new trenches for shelter should Switch Trench be targeted by German artillery. The following day, his battalion was relieved and withdrew from the front line. Brown's company lost 123 men from its initial complement of 180 during the opening day of the battle. After a period of rest, Brown's battalion moved back into the front line on the evening of 28 September. It was to be one of the assaulting battalions involved in an attack to clear out a German trench system near Eaucourt L'Abbaye as part of the Battle of Le Transloy that commenced on 1 October. On the opening day of the battle, Brown was again involved in the seizing of a German machine gun post at a strongpoint that was holding up the advance. Moving forward on his own, armed only with a pistol, Brown attacked the post. He managed to kill its crew and capture the gun which allowed his fellow troops to attack and capture the strongpoint. While firing at German soldiers as they fled, Brown was shot in the head by a sniper and killed instantly. ## Victoria Cross Brown's company commander had recommended him for a Distinguished Conduct Medal for his actions on 15 September. In a letter to Brown's father, his battalion commander hoped that the recommendation would be upgraded to a Victoria Cross (VC). The VC, instituted in 1856, was the highest award for valour that could be bestowed on a soldier of the British Empire. The senior leadership of the NZEF were slow to recognise Brown's gallantry and it was not until the officers of his battalion lobbied for a VC nomination that any progress was made. The award of the VC to Brown was gazetted on 15 June 1917. The citation read: > For most conspicuous bravery and determination in attack when the company to which he belonged suffered very heavy casualties in officers and men from machine gun fire. At great personal risk this N.C.O. advanced with a comrade and succeeded in reaching a point within thirty yards of the enemy guns. Four of the gun crew were killed and the gun captured. The advance of the company was continued till it was again held up by machine gun fire. Again Sjt. Brown and his comrade with great gallantry rushed the gun and killed the crew. After this second position had been won, the company came under very heavy shell fire, and the utter contempt for danger and coolness under fire of this N.C.O. did much to keep up the spirit of his men. On a subsequent occasion in attack, Sjt Brown showed most conspicuous gallantry. He attacked singlehanded a machine gun which was holding up the attack, killed the gun crew, and captured the gun. Later, whilst sniping the retreating enemy, this very gallant soldier was killed. Brown's VC was only the second to be awarded to a soldier of the NZEF and the first as a result of an action on the Western Front. Arthur Foljambe, the 2nd Earl of Liverpool and New Zealand's Governor General, duly presented the VC to Brown's father in a ceremony at Oamaru on 30 August 1917. The medal remains in the possession of his family but it has been loaned for display at Waitaki Boys' High School, the QEII Army Memorial Museum in Waiouru and the North Otago Museum. Brown is buried at Warlencourt British Cemetery, France. A memorial tablet in his honour was unveiled in the Oamaru Municipal Chambers on 27 October 1917. In 1919, as part of an effort to recognise men from North Otago who had been killed in the war, an oak tree was planted in his memory in Oamaru. There is also a plaque honouring him in Queen's Garden in Dunedin.
4,976,955	Sam & Max: Freelance Police	1,136,640,711	Unreleased 2004 video game	[ "Adventure games", "Cancelled Windows games", "LucasArts games", "Point-and-click adventure games", "Single-player video games", "Video games about dogs", "Video games about rabbits and hares", "Video games based on Sam & Max", "Video games developed in the United States" ]	Sam & Max: Freelance Police was a graphic adventure video game developed by LucasArts from 2002 until its cancellation in 2004, and the final game in the company's adventure game era. Freelance Police was originally intended for release for Windows in early 2004 as a sequel to the 1993 title Sam & Max Hit the Road. The game was based on the characters Sam & Max: an anthropomorphic dog and "hyperkinetic rabbity thing" who debuted in a 1987 comic book series created by Steve Purcell. Freelance Police was announced in August 2002, and showcased at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in 2003. Like its predecessor, Freelance Police was designed as a point-and-click adventure game, but used a 3D game engine in place of the SCUMM and GrimE engines used in older LucasArts adventure games. The project's development was led by Michael Stemmle, one of the original designers for Sam & Max Hit the Road, while Steve Purcell assisted in developing the game's plot and providing artistic direction. Although the game's development appeared to be proceeding towards completion without difficulty, LucasArts abruptly canceled production of Freelance Police in March 2004, citing economic and market conditions. The game's cancellation was received poorly by fans of the series, Steve Purcell, and the video game industry media. Many journalists viewed this move as a culmination in the decline of the adventure game genre. LucasArts later terminated its adventure game development, and many of the Freelance Police design team left to create Telltale Games and continue development of such adventure games. Steve Purcell moved the Sam & Max franchise to Telltale Games in 2005, prompting a revival of Sam & Max video games. ## Overview Sam & Max: Freelance Police was designed by LucasArts as a graphic adventure game and sequel to the 1993 title Sam & Max Hit the Road. The game was to feature 3D computer graphics rendered in real-time. The game engine contained elements from other LucasArts games, including those from Gladius, RTX Red Rock, Full Throttle: Hell on Wheels and Star Wars: Obi-Wan. Graphical features such as shaders, bump maps and lightmaps were used to give a 3D effect to 2D textures in the game. Little was revealed of the gameplay, other than that Freelance Police would not follow the same control scheme used in 3D LucasArts adventures Grim Fandango and Escape from Monkey Island, but would return to point-and-click mechanics used in the 2D LucasArts games. As in Sam & Max Hit the Road, Freelance Police would contain a mixture of optional and compulsory minigames, 19 in total. The game was designed so that the player character could not die or reach a dead end. Few details were revealed about the game's plot. In a January 2004 interview, lead designer Michael Stemmle provided a rough outline: the game's story was "really six stories, loosely held together by a thrilling über-plot". Each individual story contained a separate case for the Freelance Police, taking place in a variety of environments, including a space station and a neopagan bacchanal, and featuring "freakish bad guys". Stemmle stated that the intention was to keep the "über-plot" concealed for a while, but noted that it contained "all the barely plausible grandeur that fans have come to expect from Sam and Max". Steve Purcell, the creator of Sam & Max, assisted in the development of both the plot and the artistic direction, producing concept art of various characters and locales. Besides the return of the title characters, only one other character, Flint Paper, was confirmed for the game. Described by Stemmle as "the Freelance Police's rough 'n' tumble private detective neighbour", Paper is briefly featured in Sam & Max comics and makes an offstage appearance in Sam & Max Hit the Road. Stemmle had Paper planned for a "critical role" in the game's plot. Due to the nature of the story, LucasArts considered releasing the game in episodic fashion and using digital distribution, an option favored by the development team but opposed by the management division, who preferred the more traditional methods of retail distribution. Post-release bonus content was also considered; Stemmle remarked that such content would include new power-ups, minigames and "maybe even entirely new interactive Sam & Max cases [the player] can download". ## Development The development of a sequel to Sam & Max Hit the Road was announced by LucasArts in August 2002. In their press release, LucasArts president Simon Jeffery stated that "the Sam & Max sequel, much like the recently announced Full Throttle II, perfectly complements LucasArts' renowned adventure game legacy and lends further support to the company's commitment to investing in and developing more of our original properties". LucasArts revealed no additional details at the time beyond a projected release in the first quarter of 2004. The game was officially announced for Windows at the Electronic Entertainment Expo convention in May 2003, where the full title Sam & Max: Freelance Police was revealed. LucasArts reaffirmed the projected early 2004 release date at the convention. The game's trailer was also presented at E3, reintroducing the characters and confirming that the original voice actors for Sam and Max, Bill Farmer and Nick Jameson respectively, were set to reprise their roles. Over the following months, several minor media releases were made, revealing new information regarding the game's developmental direction and graphical style. The game's release was highly anticipated by journalists in the video game industry, who published various previews and interviews with the development team, particularly with lead designer Michael Stemmle, one of the original designers of Sam & Max Hit the Road. In August 2003, LucasArts halted production on the Full Throttle adventure game sequel Hell on Wheels, leading the magazine Hyper to speculate that Freelance Police might suffer a similar fate. LucasArts reassured the media that Freelance Police was still in production and was nearing completion, reiterating that the game would be released in 2004. Media coverage continued; for example, PC Gamer US ran an interview with Stemmle as a cover story in February 2004. However, on March 3, LucasArts abruptly announced the cancellation of Freelance Police. In a short press release, LucasArts' Acting General Manager, Mike Nelson, stated that "after careful evaluation of current market place realities and underlying economic considerations, we've decided that this was not the appropriate time to launch a graphic adventure on the PC". The reaction to the game's cancellation was overwhelmingly negative. Commentators in the industry media felt that the decision was representative of the diminishing relevance of adventure games, with many concluding that LucasArts was moving to maintain its position with low risk Star Wars-themed titles instead of the adventure games that had brought them success in earlier years. Freelance Police's cancellation is often cited as the culmination of the adventure genre's decline. The decision came so suddenly that some magazines accidentally published favorable previews of the game after LucasArts' announcement. A fan web site named "Save Sam and Max" presented a petition of 32,000 signatures to LucasArts conveying the fans' disappointment. Steve Purcell, the creator of the Sam & Max franchise, commented that he was disappointed by LucasArts' decision: > LucasArts' sudden decision to stop production on Sam & Max is mystifying. Sam & Max was on schedule and coming together beautifully. I couldn't have been more pleased with the quality of the writing, gameplay, hilarious animation and the gorgeous 3D world that Mike Stemmle's team has created. The rug has been pulled out from under this brilliant team who've so expertly retooled Sam & Max for the 21st century. I'm extremely frustrated and disappointed especially for the team who have devoted so much effort and creativity to Sam & Max. It's a shame to think that their accomplishments, as well as the goodwill that has been growing in the gaming press toward this project, will all go to waste due to this shortsighted decision. Farmer, the voice of Sam, revealed in a 2014 interview that he and Jameson were never told about the game's cancellation, and it was only when Farmer himself looked it up online that he found out. He expressed disappointment over the decision, claiming that Sam & Max Hit the Road had some of the best writing he had ever performed. According to Stemmle, the cancellation decision was prompted by the report of an external marketing analysis group hired by LucasArts, which claimed that the European market for adventure games "had simply disappeared. Not shrunk, not cratered, just... disappeared". A newly established German company, Bad Brain Entertainment, claimed to have entered negotiations with LucasArts to acquire the game, although nothing resulted from these talks. LucasArts subsequently dismissed many of the designers involved with developing their adventure games, and in 2006 stated that they did not intend to return to the adventure genre until the next decade. Some of the former Freelance Police development team formed Telltale Games in June 2004 to continue developing the sort of adventure games that LucasArts no longer wished to produce. Telltale Games later unsuccessfully attempted to buy the rights to Freelance Police from LucasArts, which would have enabled the team to finish developing the game. When the LucasArts license expired in mid-2005, Purcell took the franchise to Telltale Games, where it was developed into an episodic series of games. Very little of the work done on Freelance Police was carried over by the developers to Telltale Games; LucasArts still held onto the game's assets and Telltale was wary about using similar design patterns. The new series debuted in October 2006 with Sam & Max Save the World. Although Freelance Police was never released, Stemmle later reused its plot summary in the Telltale's Poker Night 2, where it is described as an off-screen adventure Sam and Max have during the course of the game. Based on Sam's dialogue, the game would have involved dealing with giant penguins from the land of Subarctica (renamed "Zyzobia" in Poker Night 2) who worshipped Max as their god. Bill Farmer revealed in a 2014 interview that one of the game's plot points included Sam and Max switching brains, with him and Jameson likewise doing impressions of each other's character.
37,782,942	Spanish conquest of Petén	1,171,392,146	Final stage of the conquest of Guatemala	[ "17th century in Central America", "17th century in Guatemala", "17th century in Mexico", "17th century in New Spain", "17th century in the Maya civilization", "17th-century conflicts", "Colonial Guatemala", "Colonial Mexico", "Guatemala–Spain relations", "History of Mesoamerica", "History of Petén", "Itza", "Spanish conquest of Central America", "Wars involving Guatemala", "Wars involving Spain" ]	The Spanish conquest of Petén was the last stage of the conquest of Guatemala, a prolonged conflict during the Spanish colonisation of the Americas. A wide lowland plain covered with dense rainforest, Petén contains a central drainage basin with a series of lakes and areas of savannah. It is crossed by several ranges of low karstic hills and rises to the south as it nears the Guatemalan Highlands. The conquest of Petén, a region now incorporated into the modern republic of Guatemala, climaxed in 1697 with the capture of Nojpetén, the island capital of the Itza kingdom, by Martín de Ursúa y Arizmendi. With the defeat of the Itza, the last independent and unconquered native kingdom in the Americas fell to European colonisers. Sizeable Maya populations existed in Petén before the conquest, particularly around the central lakes and along the rivers. Petén was divided into different Maya polities engaged in a complex web of alliances and enmities. The most important groups around the central lakes were the Itza, the Yalain and the Kowoj. Other groups with territories in Petén included the Kejache, the Acala, the Lakandon Chʼol, the Xocmo, the Chinamita, the Icaiche and the Manche Chʼol. Petén was first penetrated by Hernán Cortés with a sizeable expedition that crossed the territory from north to south in 1525. In the first half of the 16th century, Spain established neighbouring colonies in Yucatán to the north and Guatemala to the south. Spanish missionaries laid the groundwork for the extension of colonial administration in the extreme south of Petén from 1596 onwards, but no further Spanish entry of central Petén took place until 1618 and 1619 when missionaries arrived at the Itza capital, having travelled from the Spanish town of Mérida in Yucatán. In 1622 a military expedition set out from Yucatán led by Captain Francisco de Mirones and accompanied by Franciscan friar Diego Delgado; this expedition was a disaster, and the Spanish were massacred by the Itza. In 1628 the Manche Chʼol of the south were placed under the administration of the colonial governor of Verapaz within the Captaincy General of Guatemala. The Manche Chʼol unsuccessfully rebelled against Spanish control in 1633. In 1695 a military expedition tried to reach Lake Petén Itzá from Guatemala; this was followed in 1696 by missionaries from Mérida and in 1697 by Martín de Ursúa's expedition from Yucatán that resulted in the final defeat of the independent kingdoms of central Petén and their incorporation into the Spanish Empire. ## Geography The modern department of Petén is located in northern Guatemala. It is bordered on the west by the Mexican state of Chiapas; this border largely follows the course of the Usumacinta River. On the north side Petén is bordered by the Mexican state of Campeche and on the northwest by the Mexican state of Tabasco; Petén is bordered on the east by Belize and on the south side by the Guatemalan departments of Alta Verapaz and Izabal. The Petén lowlands are formed by a densely forested low-lying limestone plain featuring karstic topography. The area is crossed by low east–west oriented ridges of Cenozoic limestone and is characterised by a variety of forest and soil types; water sources include generally small rivers and low-lying seasonal swamps known as bajos. A chain of fourteen lakes runs across the central drainage basin of Petén; during the rainy season some of these lakes become interconnected. This drainage area measures approximately 100 kilometres (62 mi) east–west by 30 kilometres (19 mi) north–south. The largest lake is Lake Petén Itzá, near the centre of the drainage basin; it measures 32 by 5 kilometres (19.9 by 3.1 mi). A broad savannah extends south of the central lakes; it has an average altitude of 150 metres (490 ft) above mean sea level with karstic ridges reaching an average altitude of 300 metres (980 ft). The savannah features a compact red clay soil that is too poor to support heavy cultivation, which resulted in a relatively low level of pre-Columbian occupation. It is surrounded by hills with unusually steep southern slopes and gentler northern approaches; the hills are covered with dense tropical forest. To the north of the lakes region bajos become more frequent, interspersed with forest. In the far north of Petén the Mirador Basin forms another interior drainage region. To the south Petén reaches an altitude of approximately 500 metres (1,600 ft) as it rises towards the Guatemalan Highlands and meets Paleozoic metamorphic rocks. ### Climate The climate of Petén is divided into wet and dry seasons, with the rainy season lasting from June to December, although these seasons are not clearly defined in the south. The climate varies from tropical in the south to semitropical in the north; temperature varies between 12 and 40 °C (54 and 104 °F), although it does not usually drop beneath 18 °C (64 °F). Mean temperature varies from 24.3 °C (75.7 °F) in the southeast around Poptún to 26.9 °C (80.4 °F) around Uaxactún in the northeast. Highest temperatures are reached from April to June, and January is the coldest month; all Petén experiences a hot dry period in late August. Annual precipitation is high, varying from a mean of 1,198 millimetres (47.2 in) in the northeast to 2,007 millimetres (79.0 in) in central Petén around Flores (Nojpetén). The extreme southeast of Petén experiences the largest variations in temperature and rainfall, with precipitation reaching as much as 3,000 millimetres (120 in) in a year. ## Petén before the conquest The first large Maya cities developed in Petén as far back as the Middle Preclassic (c. 600–350 BC), and Petén formed the heartland of the ancient Maya civilization during the Classic period (c. AD 250–900). The great cities that dominated Petén had fallen into ruin by the beginning of the 10th century AD with the onset of the Classic Maya collapse. A significant Maya presence remained into the Postclassic period after the abandonment of the major Classic period cities; the population was particularly concentrated near permanent water sources. Although there is insufficient data to accurately estimate population sizes at the time of contact with the Spanish, early Spanish reports suggest that sizeable Maya populations existed in Petén, particularly around the central lakes and along the rivers. Before their defeat in 1697 the Itza controlled or influenced much of Petén and parts of Belize. The Itza were warlike, and their martial prowess impressed both neighbouring Maya kingdoms and their Spanish enemies. Their capital was Nojpetén, an island city upon Lake Petén Itzá; it has developed into the modern town of Flores, which is the capital of the Petén department of Guatemala. The Itza spoke a variety of Yucatecan Maya. The Kowoj were the second in importance, and they were hostile towards their Itza neighbours. The Kowoj were located to the east of the Itza, around the eastern lakes: Lake Salpetén, Lake Macanché, Lake Yaxhá and Lake Sacnab. Other groups are less well known, and their precise territorial extent and political makeup remains obscure; among them were the Chinamita, the Kejache, the Icaiche, the Lakandon Chʼol, the Mopan, the Manche Chʼol and the Yalain. The Yalain appear to have been one of the three dominant polities in Postclassic central Petén, alongside the Itza and the Kowoj. The Yalain territory had its maximum extension from the east shore of Lake Petén Itzá eastwards to Tipuj in Belize. In the 17th century the Yalain capital was located at the site of that name on the north shore of Lake Macanché. At the time of Spanish contact the Yalain were allied with the Itza, an alliance cemented by intermarriage between the elites of both groups. In the late 17th century Spanish colonial records document hostilities between Maya groups in the lakes region, with the incursion of the Kowoj into former Yalain sites including Zacpeten on Lake Macanché and Ixlu on Lake Salpetén. The Kejache occupied a territory to the north of the Itza, between the lakes and what is now Campeche. To the west of them was Acalan, inhabited by a Chontal Maya-speaking group with their capital in the south of what is now Campeche state. The Chʼolan Maya-speaking Lakandon (not to be confused with the modern inhabitants of Chiapas by that name) controlled territory along the tributaries of the Usumacinta River spanning southwestern Petén in Guatemala and eastern Chiapas. The Lakandon had a fierce reputation among the Spanish. The Xocmo were another Chʼolan-speaking group; they occupied the remote forest somewhere to the east of the Lakandon. Never conquered, the Xocmo escaped repeated Spanish attempts to locate them and their eventual fate is unknown; they may be ancestors of the modern Lacandon people. The Manche Chʼol held territory in the extreme south of what is now the Petén department. The Mopan and the Chinamita had their polities in the southeastern Petén. The Manche territory was to the southwest of the Mopan. ## Background to the conquest Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas for the Kingdom of Castile and León in 1492. By 1580 this had unified with neighbouring kingdoms to form one Spanish kingdom. Private adventurers thereafter entered into contracts with the Spanish Crown to conquer the newly discovered lands in return for tax revenues and the power to rule. In the first decades after the discovery, the Spanish colonised the Caribbean and established a centre of operations on the island of Cuba. They heard rumours of the rich empire of the Aztecs on the mainland to the west and, in 1519, Hernán Cortés set sail with eleven ships to explore the Mexican coast. By August 1521 the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had fallen to the Spanish. Within three years of the fall of Tenochtitlan the Spanish had conquered a large part of Mexico, extending as far south as the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The newly conquered territory became New Spain, headed by a viceroy who answered to the Spanish Crown via the Council of the Indies. Cortés despatched Pedro de Alvarado with an army to conquer the Mesoamerican kingdoms of the Guatemalan Sierra Madre and neighbouring Pacific plain; the military phase of the establishment of the Spanish colony of Guatemala lasted from 1524 to 1541. The Captaincy General of Guatemala had its capital at Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala and covered a wide territory that also included the Mexican state of Chiapas as well as El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica. The Spanish imposed colonial rule over Yucatán between 1527 and 1546, and over Verapaz from the 16th to the 17th centuries, leaving the area between – essentially Petén and much of Belize – independent long after surrounding peoples had been subjugated. ## Impact of Old World diseases A single soldier arriving in Mexico in 1520 was carrying smallpox and thus initiated the devastating plagues that swept through the native populations of the Americas. The European diseases that ravaged the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas also severely affected the various Maya groups of Petén. It is estimated that there were approximately 30,000 Chʼol and Chʼoltiʼ Maya in western Petén at the start of the 16th century. Between 1559 and 1721 they were devastated by a combination of disease, war and enforced relocations. When Nojpetén fell in 1697 there were approximately 60,000 Maya living around Lake Petén Itzá, including a considerable number of refugees from other areas. It is estimated that 88% of the inhabitants died during the first decade of colonial rule because of disease and war. Although disease was responsible for the majority of deaths, internecine warfare between rival Maya groups and Spanish expeditions also took their toll. ## Weaponry and armour Conquistadors often wore steel armour that included chainmail and helmets. The Spanish were sufficiently impressed by the quilted cotton armour of their Maya enemies that they adopted it in preference to their own steel armour. Maya weaponry was not sufficiently powerful to justify the discomfort of wearing European armour. Quilted cotton armour, although still uncomfortably hot, was flexible and weighed much less. The Maya armour was adapted by the Spanish, who used knee-length quilted cotton tunics and Spanish-style caps. Horsemen wore long quilted cotton leg protectors; their horses were also protected with padded cotton armour. After the final push to the Petén lakes in early 1697, the Spanish recorded that they left with their garrison over 50 Dutch- and French-made muskets, three 1-pound (0.45 kg) calibre light cannons (piezas) cast from iron and mounted on carriages, four iron and two bronze pedreros (2-chambered stone-launchers) and six of at least eight bronze light cannons (known as esmiriles). ### Native weaponry The Spanish described the weapons of war of the Petén Maya as bows and arrows, fire-sharpened poles, flint-headed spears and two-handed swords known as hadzab that were crafted from strong wood with the blade fashioned from inset obsidian; these were similar to the Aztec macuahuitl. They had a thin, wide wooden shaft with obsidian or flint blades set into channels in the wood. The shaft was up to 80 centimetres (31 in) long and was crafted from the hard, dark wood of a flowering tree (Apoplanesia paniculata) called chulul by the Maya. The bows used by the Maya were described as almost as high as a man and were made from the same chulul wood as the hadzab, with the bowstring fashioned from henequen fibre; the bow was called a chuhul. Arrows were made from reeds with flint, bone or fishtooth arrowheads and flights crafted from feathers. In hand-to-hand combat the Maya used daggers with obsidian or flint blades set into a chulul-wood handle, they were about 20 centimetres (7.9 in) long. Maya spears were referred to as nabte; sometimes the tip was fire-hardened, sometimes they were set with a stone blade. Spears were mainly used to thrust and slash but they could also be thrown as a javelin. The Maya used several different sizes of spear with the smaller spears probably employed as a missile; the longer spears were a similar size as those used by the Spanish. Distinguished Maya warriors entered battle wearing armour. The upper body was covered by a short jacket that was filled with rock salt, and the forearms and legs were protected with tight bindings of cloth or leather. The salt-packed cotton armour was tough enough that even arrows could not penetrate it. Armour could be decorated and was often adorned with feathers. Commoners did not wear armour in battle, usually only wearing a loincloth and warpaint. Warriors carried shields made from two right-angled wooden bars with deerskin stretched across them. ## Strategies and tactics The Spanish were aware that the Itza Maya had become the centre of anti-Spanish resistance and engaged in a policy of encircling their kingdom and cutting their trade routes over the course of almost two hundred years. The Itza resisted this steady encroachment by recruiting their neighbours as allies against the Spanish advance. The Spanish engaged in a strategy of concentrating native populations in newly founded colonial towns, or reducciones (also known as congregaciones). Native resistance to the new nucleated settlements took the form of the flight of the indigenous inhabitants into inaccessible regions such as the forest or joining neighbouring Maya groups that had not yet submitted to the Spanish. Those that remained behind in the reducciones often fell victim to contagious diseases. In addition to military expeditions, a contract for conquest was issued to the Dominican Order, which engaged missionaries for the peaceful pacification of native populations so they would accept Roman Catholicism and submit to Spanish rule. This tactic worked in the neighbouring mountains of Verapaz to the south, although their success there was aided by the threat of Spanish garrisons stationed within striking distance. In the lowland Petén this approach was not so successful, since the Maya could disappear easily into the rainforest leaving the Spanish with deserted settlements. Likewise, the Franciscan Order engaged in generally peaceful attempts to incorporate the Maya into the Spanish Empire via the attempted Christian conversion of native leaders. The Franciscan Order routinely embraced the practice of missionary violence, including corporal punishment and the defence of the idea of "holy war" against non-Christians. In many cases the Maya remained Christian only while the missionaries were present, and they would immediately become apostate as soon as the friars left. In Guatemala in the late 17th century, the Franciscan friar Francisco de Asís Vázquez de Herrera argued that war against apostate Indians was obligatory. Missionary penetration of Petén was not risk-free, and many missionaries were killed in the region. Independent Maya frequently attacked Christianised Maya settlements and encouraged such settlements to abandon their new religion and resist the Spanish. As Spanish military expeditions were launched against the Maya with increasing frequency, independent Maya communities began to request the presence of missionaries to avoid armed conflict. The Itza attempted to use neighbouring Maya groups, such as the Yalain, as a buffer against Spanish encroachment; they may also have instigated rebellions by neighbouring groups that were already undergoing incorporation into the Spanish Empire. With Spanish attempts to penetrate the region divided between mutually independent colonial authorities in Yucatán and Guatemala, at times the Itza would be making peaceful overtures on one front while fighting on the other. ## Cortés in Petén In 1525, after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, Hernán Cortés led an expedition to Honduras over land, cutting across the Itza kingdom in what is now the northern Petén Department of Guatemala. His aim was to subdue the rebellious Cristóbal de Olid, whom he had sent to conquer Honduras; Olid had set himself up independently on his arrival in that territory. Cortés had 140 Spanish soldiers, 93 of them mounted, 3,000 Mexican warriors, 150 horses, a herd of pigs, artillery, munitions and other supplies. He also had with him 600 Chontal Maya carriers from Acalan. They arrived at the north shore of Lake Petén Itzá on 13 March 1525. The Roman Catholic priests accompanying the expedition celebrated mass in the presence of Aj Kan Ekʼ, the king of the Itza, who was said to be so impressed that he pledged to worship the cross and to destroy his idols. Cortés accepted an invitation from Kan Ekʼ to visit Nojpetén (also known as Tayasal), and crossed to the Maya city with 20 Spanish soldiers while the rest of his army continued around the lake to meet him on the south shore. On his departure from Nojpetén, Cortés left behind a cross and a lame horse that the Itza treated as a deity, attempting to feed it poultry, meat and flowers, but the animal soon died. The Spanish did not officially contact the Itza again until the arrival of Franciscan priests in 1618, when Cortés' cross was said to still be standing at Nojpetén. From the lake, Cortés continued south along the western slopes of the Maya Mountains, a particularly arduous journey that took 12 days to cover 32 kilometres (20 mi), during which he lost more than two-thirds of his horses. When he came to a river swollen with the constant torrential rains that had been falling during the expedition, Cortés turned upstream to the Gracias a Dios rapids, which took two days to cross and cost him more horses. On 15 April 1525 the expedition arrived at the Maya village of Tenciz. With local guides they headed into the hills north of Lake Izabal, where their guides abandoned them to their fate. The expedition became lost in the hills and came close to starvation before they captured a Maya boy who led them to safety. Cortés found a village on the shore of Lake Izabal, perhaps Xocolo. He crossed the Dulce River to the settlement of Nito, somewhere on the Amatique Bay, with about a dozen companions, and waited there for the rest of his army to regroup over the next week. By this time the remnants of the expedition had been reduced to a few hundred; Cortés succeeded in contacting the Spaniards he was searching for, only to find that Cristóbal de Olid's own officers had already put down his rebellion. Cortés then returned to Mexico by sea. ## Prelude to conquest From 1527 onwards the Spanish were increasingly active in the Yucatán Peninsula, establishing several colonies and towns by 1544, including Campeche and Valladolid in what is now Mexico. The Spanish impact on the northern Maya, encompassing invasion, epidemic diseases and the export of up to 50,000 Maya slaves, caused many Maya to flee southwards to join the Itza around Lake Petén Itzá, within the modern borders of Guatemala. Dominican missionaries were active in Verapaz and the southern Petén from the late 16th century through the 17th century, attempting non-violent conversion with limited success. In the 17th century, the Franciscans came to the conclusion that the pacification and Christian conversion of the Maya would not be possible as long as the Itza held out at Lake Petén Itzá. The constant flow of escapees fleeing the Spanish-held territories to find refuge with the Itza was a drain on the workforce managed by the encomienda system. ### Missions in southern Petén The first Catholic missionaries entered southern Petén in 1596 to convert the Manche Chʼol and the Mopan. The Qʼeqchiʼ of Verapaz long had close ties with the Manche Chʼol. The colonial Maya towns of Cobán and Cahabón, in Alta Verapaz, traded quetzal feathers, copal, chile, cotton, salt and Spanish-produced iron tools with their lowland Lakandon and Manche Chʼol neighbours, receiving cacao and achiote in exchange. Many Qʼeqchiʼ from Verapaz fled Spanish control to settle among the Lakandón and Manche Chʼol. These fugitives strengthened the existing ties between the independent Chʼol and the Spanish-controlled Maya of Verapaz; the constant flow of Maya between colonial Verapaz and independent Petén led to religious syncretism that the Spanish religious authorities were unable to prevent. This relationship did not hinder the Spanish from using the Qʼeqchiʼ to help conquer and reduce the Manche Chʼol. From the middle of the 16th century the Dominican Order had been tasked with the peaceful conversion of the Chʼol of Verapaz and southern Petén, and their concentration into new colonial towns. The Itza became fearful that the newly converted Manche Chʼol would lead the Spanish to Nojpetén. In 1628 the towns of the Manche Chʼol were placed under the administration of the governor of Verapaz, with Dominican friar Francisco Morán as their ecclesiastical head. Morán favoured a more robust approach to the conversion of the Manche and moved Spanish soldiers into the region to protect against raids from the Itza to the north. The new Spanish garrison in an area that had not previously seen a heavy Spanish military presence provoked the Manche to revolt, which was followed by abandonment of the indigenous settlements. The Itza, worried about the southern approaches to their territory, may have instigated a Manche rebellion that took place in Lent 1633. Towards the end of the 17th century Spanish priorities changed, and the failure of the peaceful efforts of the Dominicans to convert the Chʼol combined with the increasing British presence in the Caribbean led the colonial authorities to end the Dominican monopoly and allow the Franciscans and other orders to enter the region; military options were also viewed more favourably. Between 1685 and 1689, the Qʼeqchiʼ of Cobán and Cahabón were forced to assist the Spanish in their armed expeditions against the Manche Chʼol and in forcibly relocating them to Verapaz. These actions depopulated the southern Petén and led to the breakdown of the trade routes linking colonial Guatemala with the independent Maya of Petén. From 1692 to 1694, Franciscan friars Antonio Margil and Melchor López were active among the Manche and Lakandon Chʼol. They were eventually expelled by the Chʼol; upon their return to Santiago de Guatemala they proposed three invasion routes into southern Petén and neighbouring Chiapas. Throughout the 17th century, Spanish missionaries encountered considerable reticence among the Manche, until the Spanish finally decided to move them to an area where they could be more easily controlled. At the time of contact there were perhaps 10,000 Manche; these were devastated by war and disease, with the survivors relocated to Rabinal in the modern department of Baja Verapaz. After 1700 the Manche Chʼol ceased to play any part in the history of Petén. The Mopan population has been estimated at between 10,000 and 20,000 people at the time of contact. In 1692 the Council of the Indies ordered that the Manche Chʼol and the Mopan be dealt with decisively. The population suffered the effects of war and disease, and the few survivors were moved into Spanish reducciones in southeastern Petén, before being moved to colonial settlements in other parts of Petén. In 1695 the colonial authorities decided to act upon a plan to connect the province of Guatemala with Yucatán, and soldiers commanded by Jacinto de Barrios Leal, president of the Royal Audiencia of Guatemala, conquered several Chʼol communities. The most important of these was Sakbʼajlan on the Lacantún River in eastern Chiapas, now in Mexico, which was renamed as Nuestra Señora de Dolores, or Dolores del Lakandon, in April 1695. This was one part of a three-pronged attack against the independent inhabitants of Petén and neighbouring Chiapas; a second group joined up with Barrios Leal having marched from Huehuetenango. The third group, under Juan Díaz de Velasco, marched from Verapaz against the Itza. Barrios Leal was accompanied by Franciscan friar Antonio Margil who served as an advisor as well as his personal confessor and chaplain to his troops. The Spanish built a fort and garrisoned it with 30 Spanish soldiers. Mercederian friar Diego de Rivas was based at Dolores del Lakandon, and he and his fellow Mercederians baptised several hundred Lakandon Chʼols in the following months and established contacts with neighbouring Chʼol communities. Resistance against the Spanish continued, and hostile Chʼol killed several newly baptised Christian Indians. In early March 1696 such was the success of the friars that captain Jacobo de Alzayaga and the Mercederians decided to try to reach Lake Petén Itzá. They headed eastwards towards the Pasión River with 150 heavily armed soldiers plus native guides, travelling in five large canoes. They got as far as the savannah to the southeast of the lake before turning back for unknown reasons. Antonio Margil remained in Dolores del Lakandon until 1697. The Chʼol of the Lacandon Jungle were resettled in Huehuetenango in the early 18th century. ## Conquest of the central lakes Nojpetén fell to a Spanish assault on 13 March 1697, more than 150 years after the conquest of the rest of the Yucatán Peninsula and more than 160 years after the conquest of the Guatemalan Highlands. The lengthy delay in conquering the Petén region was due to a combination of its geographical remoteness and inhospitality and the fierce reputation of its Maya inhabitants. During this time the Itza used the Yalain as an eastern buffer against Spanish approach from Belize. The lengthy indirect contact between the Itza and the Spanish invaders allowed the Itza to develop an understanding of Spanish strategy and tactics that was honed over the period of almost two centuries that the Itza were surrounded by European-dominated territories. This understanding distinguished the conquest of Petén from the 16th-century conquests of the Aztecs, Maya and Incas. In contrast, the Spanish had a very poor understanding of the Itza and their neighbours and viewed them as ignorant savages whose kingdom was protected by Satan from the Christianising efforts of the Spanish Empire and the Roman Catholic Church. From the time that Hernán Cortés crossed Petén in the early 16th century, the Spanish mistakenly believed the king of the Itza (the Aj Kan Ek''') was the overlord of the entire central Petén region. ### Early 17th century Following Cortés' visit, no Spanish attempted to visit the warlike Itza inhabitants of Nojpetén for almost a hundred years. In 1618 two Franciscan friars set out from Mérida in Yucatán on a mission to attempt the peaceful conversion of the still pagan Itza in central Petén. Bartolomé de Fuensalida and Juan de Orbita were accompanied by some Christianised Maya. Andrés Carrillo de Pernía, a Criollo who was the alcalde of Bacalar (a colonial official), joined the party at Bacalar and escorted them upriver as far as Tipuj, returning to Bacalar once he was certain of the friars receiving a good welcome there. After an arduous six-month journey the travellers were well received by the current Kan Ekʼ. They stayed at Nojpetén for some days in an attempt to evangelise the Itza, but the Aj Kan Ekʼ refused to renounce his Maya religion, although he showed interest in the masses held by the Catholic missionaries. Kan Ekʼ informed them that according to ancient Itza prophecy it was not yet time for them to convert. In the time since Cortés had visited Nojpetén, the Itza had made a statue of the deified horse. Juan de Orbita was outraged when he saw the idol and he immediately smashed it into pieces. Fuensalida was able to save the lives of the visitors from the infuriated natives by means of a particularly eloquent sermon that resulted in them being forgiven. Attempts to convert the Itza failed, and the friars left Nojpetén on friendly terms with Kan Ekʼ. The friars returned in 1619, arriving in October and staying for eighteen days. Again Kan Ekʼ welcomed them in a friendly manner, but this time the Maya priesthood were hostile and jealous of the missionaries' influence upon the king. They persuaded Kan Ek's wife to convince him to expel the unwelcome visitors. The missionaries' lodgings were surrounded by armed warriors, and the friars and their accompanying servants were escorted to a waiting canoe and instructed to leave and never return. Juan de Orbita attempted to resist and was rendered unconscious by an Itza warrior. The missionaries were expelled without food or water but survived the journey back to Mérida. Before the early 17th century, the western Petén had been heavily populated by Chʼol and Chʼoltiʼ Maya and was an important trade route for the Itza. By the mid-17th century, these populations had been devastated by war, disease and the enforced movement of the inhabitants into colonial settlements, negating the economic importance of the region for the Itza. At the same time the Kejache were becoming important intermediaries between the Itza and Yucatán. The Putun Acalan subgroup of the Kejache had previously traded directly with the Itza but had been relocated by the Spanish. The remaining Kejache, devastated by disease and subject to the intense attentions of Spanish missionaries, were no longer able to supply the Itza directly and became middlemen instead. #### Spanish setbacks in the 1620s In March 1622, governor of Yucatán Diego de Cardenas ordered captain Francisco de Mirones Lezcano to launch an assault upon the Itza; he set out from Yucatán with 20 Spanish soldiers and 80 Mayas from Yucatán. His expedition was later joined by Franciscan friar Diego Delgado. The expedition first camped at IxPimienta; in May they moved to Sakalum, southwest of Bacalar, where there was a lengthy delay while they waited for reinforcements. En route to Nojpetén, Delgado believed that the soldiers' treatment of the Maya was excessively cruel, and he left the expedition to make his own way to Nojpetén with eighty Christianised Maya from Tipuj in Belize. In the meantime the Itza had learnt of the approaching military expedition and had become hardened against further Spanish missionary attempts. When Mirones learnt of Delgado's departure, he sent 13 soldiers to persuade him to return or continue as his escort should he refuse. The soldiers caught up with him just before Tipuj, but he was determined to reach Nojpetén. From Tipuj, Delgado sent a messenger to Kan Ekʼ, asking permission to travel to Nojpetén; the Itza king replied with a promise of safe passage for the missionary and his companions. The party was initially received in peace at the Itza capital, but as soon as the Spanish soldiers let their guard down, the Itza seized and bound the new arrivals. The soldiers were sacrificed to the Maya gods, with their hearts cut from their chests and their heads impaled on stakes around the town. After the sacrifice of the Spanish soldiers, the Itza took Delgado, cut his heart out and dismembered him; they displayed his head on a stake with the others. The fate of the leader of Delgado's Maya companions was no better. With no word from Delgado's escort, Mirones sent two Spanish soldiers with Bernardino Ek, a Maya scout, to learn their fate. When they arrived upon the shore of Lake Petén Itzá, the Itza took them across to their island capital and imprisoned them. They escaped to a canoe by the lakeshore but the two Spanish, slowed by their bonds, were soon recaptured. Ek escaped and returned to Mirones with the news. Soon afterwards, on 27 January 1624, an Itza war party led by AjKʼin Pʼol caught Mirones and his soldiers off guard and unarmed in the church at Sakalum and slaughtered them. Spanish reinforcements led by Juan Bernardo Casanova arrived too late; the Spanish soldiers had been sacrificed, hanged and beheaded, with their corpses burned and impaled on stakes at the entrance to the village; Mirones and the Franciscan priest had been bound to the church posts and then sacrificed with their hearts cut out. A number of local Maya men and women had also been hanged but not decapitated, and the attackers had burned the town. Following these massacres, Spanish garrisons were stationed in several towns in southern Yucatán, and rewards were offered for the whereabouts of AjKʼin Pʼol. The Maya governor of Oxkutzcab, Fernando Kamal, set out with 150 Maya archers to track the warleader down; they succeeded in capturing the Itza captain and his followers, together with silverware from the looted Sakalum church and items belonging to Mirones. The prisoners were taken back to the Spanish captain Antonio Méndez de Canzo, interrogated under torture, tried, and condemned to be hanged, drawn and quartered. They were decapitated, and the heads were displayed in the plazas of towns throughout the colonial Partido de la Sierra in what is now Mexico's Yucatán state. These events ended all Spanish attempts to contact the Itza until 1695. In the 1640s internal strife in Spain distracted the government from attempts to conquer unknown lands; the Spanish Crown lacked the time, money or interest in such colonial adventures for the next four decades. ### Late 17th century In 1692 Basque nobleman Martín de Ursúa y Arizmendi proposed to the Spanish king the construction of a road from Mérida southwards to link with the Guatemalan colony, in the process "reducing" any independent native populations into colonial congregaciones; this was part of a greater plan to subjugate the Lakandon and Manche Chʼol of southern Petén and the upper reaches of the Usumacinta River. The original plan was for the province of Yucatán to build the northern section and for Guatemala to build the southern portion, with both meeting somewhere in Chʼol territory; the plan was later modified to pass further east, through the kingdom of the Itza. #### Spanish–Itza diplomatic contacts, 1695 In December 1695 the Spanish colonial authorities in Mérida received a diplomatic visit sent by the Aj Kan Ekʼ. The diplomatic contact had been negotiated by Spanish captain Francisco Hariza y Arruyo, alcalde of Bacalar-at-Chunjujubʼ. Hariza had sent a Christian Maya ambassador to Nojpetén from Tipuj in April 1695, who arrived around the same time that the Itza were preparing to defend themselves against a Spanish party entering from Guatemala; nonetheless the emissary was received in peace and despatched back to Hariza with promises of submission to Spain. In August Hariza travelled to Mérida in the company of a group of seven Tipuj natives offering submission to Spain. Four members of this party were not from Tipuj at all, but were Itza diplomats sent incognito from Yalain to discuss possible peaceful contacts with the colonial authorities. The leader of the Itza delegation was AjChan, a nephew of the Itza king. When friar Avendaño was in Mérida in September 1695 between attempts to reach Nojpetén, he met with the Itza–Yalain delegation and was able to give an account of them when he travelled through Yalain after visiting Nojpetén in January 1696. AjChan and his companions returned to Nojpetén in November but did not stay long before leaving for Mérida again. In December, Kan Ekʼ despatched AjChan to negotiate peace with Spain, with three Itza companions. They were accompanied to Mérida by a small number of Mopans from the Tipuj region. AjChan, through family ties and marriage, had a key role as a middleman between the Itza, Yalain and Kowoj; he also had family ties with the semi-Christianised Maya at Tipuj, and his mother was from Chichen Itza in the northern Yucatán. His marriage to a Kowoj woman had been an attempt, ultimately unsuccessful, to defuse Itza–Kowoj hostility. Kan Ekʼ sent AjChan to Mérida with a message of peaceful submission to the Spanish Empire in an attempt to solidify his own position as sole ruler of the Itza, even if this meant sacrificing Itza independence from Spain. The Itza king's uncle and the Kowoj were fundamentally opposed to any negotiations with the Spanish and viewed AjChan's embassy as treachery. The Spanish were unaware of the tensions between different Maya factions in central Petén, which by now had escalated into a state of inter-Maya warfare. AjChan was baptised as Martín Francisco on 31 December 1695, with Martín de Ursúa, governor of Yucatán, acting as his godfather. The arrival of AjChan and his subsequent baptism was an important diplomatic coup for Ursúa, who used the visit for his own political advancement, promoting the embassy as the peaceful final submission of the Itza kingdom to the Spanish Crown. This formal submission of the Itza kingdom to Spain was a critical turning point, since from a Spanish legal viewpoint the Itza were now subjects and the royal prohibition on military conquest could be sidestepped. AjChan left Mérida with his companions and a Spanish escort in the middle of January 1696 and arrived back at Tipuj around the end of the month. After a few days at Tipuj he learnt of violent events unfolding around Lake Petén Itzá including the battle at Chʼichʼ and the subsequent killing of two Franciscans. Fearing the response of his Spanish escort, he abandoned them and fled back to Yalain. #### García de Paredes' entry from Yucatán, March–April 1695 The governor of Yucatán, Martín de Ursúa y Arizmendi, began to build the road from Campeche south towards Petén. At the beginning of March 1695, Ursúa ordered captain Alonso García de Paredes to explore this road; García led a group of 50 Spanish soldiers, accompanied by native guides, muleteers and labourers. García had previous experience from military expeditions around Sajkabʼchen (near modern Xcabacab in southern Campeche state) The expedition advanced some way south of Sajkabʼchen into Kejache territory, which began at Chunpich, about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) north of the modern border between Mexico and Guatemala. He rounded up some natives to be moved into colonial settlements, but met with armed Kejache resistance. A skirmish ensued at a Kejache village, resulting in the deaths of eight Kejache warriors. Prisoners taken during the skirmish informed García that many independent Maya lived in the area, both Kejache and others. García decided to retreat around the middle of April, probably to escort captured Kejache back to Sajkabʼchen to be put to work on García's encomienda. Captain García reported back to Ursúa on 21 April 1695. #### Díaz de Velasco and Cano's entry from Verapaz, March–April 1695 In March 1695, captain Juan Díaz de Velasco set out from Cahabón in Alta Verapaz with 70 Spanish soldiers, accompanied by a large number of Maya archers from Verapaz, and native muleteers; four Dominican friars led by Criollo friar Agustín Cano accompanied the expedition. Theoretically the Spanish soldiers were provided solely as an escort for the Dominicans. The Guatemalan expedition, under orders of President Jacinto de Barrios Leal, were secretly trying to reach the Itzas before Martín de Ursúa could reach them from Yucatán; the existence of the expedition was carefully concealed during all communications between Guatemala and the governor of Yucatán. It formed a part of a three-pronged attack against the independent inhabitants of Petén and neighbouring Chiapas; the other two expeditions were launched against the Lakandon. The expedition proceeded northwards through Chʼol territory and into Mopan territory; there they camped at Mopan town (modern San Luis). Due to their fear of their warlike Itza neighbours, both the Chʼol and the Mopans claimed not to know of any paths to Lake Petén Itzá. The Spanish were held up at Mopan for several days by supply problems and desertions among their native carriers. The Dominicans took advantage of the delay to proselytise the Mopans and Cano wrote that he had converted four caciques (native chiefs) there, although Taxim Chan, king of the Mopans, had fled with many of the local inhabitants. Cano believed that the Mopans were ruled by the king of the Itzas. ##### First skirmish The Spanish believed that by pressing ahead to Lake Petén Itzá they would link up with a simultaneous expedition headed by President Barrios himself, unaware that Barrios had not reached the region. Díaz de Velasco sent out a scouting party of 50 musketeers accompanied by native archers on 6 April. They soon found evidence of recent Itza camps in the area, estimated to be a month old. The scouts found a clear road heading north to the Itza kingdom, and the army set off along it. The main force camped about ten leagues (26 miles or 42 km) south of the lake, while a smaller scouting party was sent off ahead; this consisted of two Spanish soldiers, two archers and two muleteers from Verapaz, with two Chʼol-speaking native interpreters. The scouting party advanced to the savannah just to the south of Lake Petén Itzá, where they encountered about 30 Itza hunters armed with spears, shields and bows, accompanied by hunting dogs. The hunters drew their weapons and prepared to fight, but the Mopan interpreter was instructed to explain that the Spanish party were traders who came in peace, accompanied by missionaries. The Spanish began to suspect that the interpreter was plotting against them with the Itza hunters, and one of the Verapaz archers dragged him out from among the hunters. The encounter degenerated into a scuffle, and the Itzas once again drew weapons. The Spanish fired their muskets, fatally wounding two hunters, and a Verapaz Indian charged the Itzas with a machete. The hunters fled, leaving the scouting party in possession of the food and arrows at the hunting camp. ##### Second skirmish Five days after this skirmish, Antonio Machuca led a party of 12 musketeers, 25 archers and 13 muleteers to try to find President Barrios, to scout a river route to the lake and to capture another interpreter, the previous one no longer being trusted. The main party arrived on the savannah near the lake. The following night one of the advance party came back into camp with an Itza prisoner, captured after a fierce struggle with the scouts. Interrogation of the prisoner revealed that he was from a high-ranking Itza lineage, and that he had been sent out to find the Spanish party and to see if they came as traders or invaders. The rest of Machuca's scouting party soon returned to the main camp, reporting that they had camped four leagues (approximately 10.4 miles or 16.7 km) from the lake, where they encountered another hunting party of about "a dozen" Itzas. The Spanish tried to use their interpreter to talk to them but the Itzas responded with a volley of arrows. The Spanish musketeers tried to respond with musketfire, but found their gunpowder too wet to fire properly. The Itza warriors charged upon them with spears, axes and machetes, and the ensuing hand-to-hand battle lasted an hour, during which six of the Itzas were killed; the rest finally retreated. Thanks to their padded cotton armour, the Spanish party received no injuries from the skirmish. The Spanish pursued the fleeing Itzas and another fierce skirmish ensued, lasting another hour during which most of the remaining Itzas were killed. Three Itzas escaped, and their leader was rendered unconscious with machete blows to the head; he was taken prisoner and later made a full recovery. Machuca's party reached the lakeshore and could see Nojpetén across the water, but saw such a large force of Itzas that they retreated south, back to the main camp. An Itza account of this encounter reached the colonial authorities in Yucatán via Tipuj. The Itza reported that the Guatemalan party approached on horseback to within sight of Nojpetén, and about thirty curious Itzas gathered to talk to the intruders, whereupon they were attacked by the Spanish, resulting in the deaths of thirty Itzas, the capture of one and yet more wounded. A Christian Maya emissary from Bacalar-at-Chunjujubʼ, Yucatán, was in Nojpetén around this time, and reported that the Itza gathered 3,000–4,000 warriors ready to repulse Díaz de Velasco's party. ##### Retreat to Guatemala On 24 April, the first prisoner escaped from the main camp; the same day that the injured second prisoner was taken in by Machuca and his men. Interrogation of the new prisoner, who turned out to be an Itza nobleman, revealed that the Itza kingdom was in a state of high alert to repel the Spanish. Friar Cano met with his fellow Dominicans to discuss what should be done, having had information from both Machuca and his prisoner that the Itza were ready for war. The Dominicans were highly critical of the Spanish soldiers' readiness to open fire on poorly armed natives who offered no real threat to them, and suspected that President Barrios was nowhere near the lake; furthermore the Spanish were beginning to succumb to sickness, and the Verapaz Indian recruits were deserting daily. Díaz agreed with the Dominicans; two muleteers had already died from sickness, and he recognised that the size of his expedition was not sufficient for a full confrontation with the Itza nation. The expedition almost immediately withdrew back to Cahabón. The new prisoner, AjKʼixaw was later taken back to Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala, where the Dominicans questioned him in detail. In Guatemala AjKʼixaw learnt Spanish and returned to Petén in 1696 as a guide and interpreter for another expedition, before turning on his captors. After the Spanish retreated to Guatemala, rumours ran rife among the Itza and Kowoj that they would return to engage in wholesale slaughter of the Maya population; large tracts of territory were abandoned in response, including many towns in an area stretching from Lake Petén Itzá eastwards to Tipuj and southwards to Mopán. #### García de Paredes' entry from Yucatán, May 1695 When captain García de Paredes unexpectedly returned to Campeche in early May 1695, governor Martín de Ursúa was already preparing reinforcements for his expedition. With García's arrival, he was immediately allocated the extra soldiers. On 11 May Ursúa ordered García to begin a second expedition southwards and was allotted 100 salaried Maya to accompany him. These workers were to be paid three pesos per month and received a suspension of their obligations to supply encomienda work and tribute. García paid for additional Spanish soldiers from his own funds, as did José Fernández de Estenos, a Campeche resident who was to serve as second-in-command. The final force numbered 115 Spanish soldiers and 150 Maya musketeers, plus Maya labourers and muleteers; the final tally was more than 400 people, which was regarded as a considerable army in the impoverished Yucatán province. Ursúa also ordered two companies of Maya musketeers from Tekʼax and Oxkʼutzkabʼ to join the expedition at Bʼolonchʼen Kawich, some 60 kilometres (37 mi) southeast of the city of Campeche. Bonifacio Us was captain of the Tekʼax company; Diego Uk was that of the Oxkʼutzkabʼ company. Marcos Pot was overall "cacique captain" of these two Maya companies; all three officers were Maya. A Maya company from Sajkabʼchen served as elite musketeers charged with rounding up forest Maya into the reducciones; this company was excused from heavy labour duties. Non-Maya soldiers were a mix of Spanish, mestizos (mixed race Spanish and native) and mulattos (mixed race Spanish and black). On 18 May Ursúa requested three missionaries to support the expedition from the Franciscan provincial superior, friar Antonio de Silva; by 30 May three friars were ready to join the Spanish force, accompanied by a lay brother who had not yet taken vows. In addition, Silva sent another group of Franciscans led by friar Andrés de Avendaño, who was accompanied by another friar and a lay brother. This second group was only to remain with García while convenient for them to do so, and were to continue onwards independently to Nojpetén to make contact with the Itzas, with the tacit approval of Ursúa. In fact Avendaño and his party left Mérida on 2 June, a week before the party assigned to García. On 23 June Ursúa received a message informing him of the occupation of Sakbʼajlan (Dolores del Lakandon) by Guatemalan troops. By this time García was at Tzuktokʼ, near the Kejache border. Although Ursúa's purported plan, as authorised by the Spanish crown, was to build a road uniting Yucatán with Guatemala, he now realised that he was in a race to conquer the Itza kingdom; President Barrios of Guatemala had reached Sakbʼajlan and was returning to Santiago to prepare another expedition, and Guatemalan soldiers had already reached the lakeshore of Petén Itzá. Any linking road to Dolores del Lakandon would have passed through sparsely inhabited territory; instead the Yucatecan surveyor plotted a route due south directly to the lake where it could connect with the south road via Cahabón in Verapaz. This route would leave Dolores del Lakandon and the Lakandon Chʼol isolated to the west. Ursúa issued new orders to García dissimulating his desire to conquer the Itza. His letter ordered García to link up with President Barrios at Dolores del Lakandon, and gave him a precise route that would take him instead to the lake. A short time after receiving these orders, García ordered the construction of a fort at Chuntuki, some 25 leagues (approximately 65 miles or 105 km) north of Lake Petén Itzá. This would serve as the main military base for the Camino Real ("Royal Road") project; the supply base was at Kawich, under the command of Juan del Castillo y Arrué. On 27 July Ursúa authorised the creation of three new militia companies of 25 men apiece to reinforce García. Two were Spanish companies and one was a mixed-race company consisting of mestizos and pardos. ##### Skirmish at Chunpich The Sajkabʼchen company of native musketeers pushed ahead with the road builders from Tzuktzokʼ to the first Kejache town at Chunpich, which the Kejache had fled, leaving behind a substantial amount of food. The company's officers sent for reinforcements from García at Tzuktokʼ but before any could arrive some 25 Kejache returned to Chunpich with baskets to collect their abandoned food. The nervous Sajkabʼchen sentries feared that the residents were returning en masse and discharged their muskets at them, with both groups then retreating. The musketeer company then arrived to reinforce their sentries and charged into battle against approaching Kejache archers. Several musketeers were injured in the ensuing skirmish, and the Kejache retreated along a forest path without injury, mocking the invaders. The Sajkabʼchen company followed the path and found two more deserted settlements with large amounts of abandoned food. They seized the food and retreated back along the path. ##### Reinforcements Around 3 August García moved his entire army forward to Chunpich, and by October Spanish soldiers had established themselves near the source of the San Pedro River. By November Tzuktokʼ was garrisoned with 86 soldiers and more at Chuntuki; in that month García once again returned to Campeche. By December 1695 Ursúa was under pressure to complete the conquest of the Itza, and he approved the despatch of reinforcements along the Camino Real to join the main garrison. The reinforcements included 150 Spanish and pardo soldiers and 100 Maya soldiers, together with labourers and muleteers. An advance group of 150 mixed Maya and non-Maya soldiers met up with García at Campeche and proceeded southwards along the Camino Real towards the San Pedro River. The rest of the reinforcements did not leave Campeche until March 1696. #### Avendaño's entry from Yucatán, June 1695 In May 1695 Antonio de Silva had appointed two groups of Franciscans to head for Petén; the first group was to join up with García's military expedition. The second group was to head for Lake Petén Itza independently. This second group was headed by friar Andrés de Avendaño. Avendaño was accompanied by friar Antonio Pérez de San Román, lay brother Alonso de Vargas and six Maya Christians recruited from Mérida and towns en route to Campeche. This latter group left Mérida on 2 June 1695 and made its way to Juan del Castillo y Arrué's supply base at Kawich, set up to support García's military expedition. On 24 June Avendaño's party left Kawich and set off across sparsely inhabited territory. On 29 June they arrived at an abandoned Maya temple, which he referred to by the name Nojku, meaning "Big Temple". The Spanish had already passed through and had broken many "idols" but the friars climbed the temple and managed to find about 50 additional ceremonial sculptures, which they destroyed; they also placed a cross inside. The other group of friars, on their way to join García, passed through Nojku a few days later and found that local Maya had already placed new offerings within. Avendaño's group continued southwards and found increasing signs of habitation and arrived at the military camp of captain José Fernández de Estenos at the deserted Maya town of Nojtʼubʼ, which had been cleared by the Spanish under García some sixteen years previously. Avendaño continued south along the course of the new road, finding increasing evidence of Spanish military activity, with the rounding up of local inhabitants and raiding of fields and orchards for provisions by Spanish troops. The Franciscans overtook García at Bʼukʼte, about 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) before Tzuktokʼ. Avendaño's party arrived at Tzuktokʼ, near the Kejache border, by 10 July and left two weeks later, around the same time that García arrived there with his captives rounded up at Bʼukʼte for forced labour. Before leaving, the Franciscans protested to García and his officers about the poor treatment of the local inhabitants; the officers promised better treatment of the Maya in future. On 3 August García advanced to Chunpich but tried to persuade Avendaño to stay behind to minister to the prisoners from Bʼukʼte. Avendaño instead split his group and left in secret with just four Christian Maya companions, seeking the Chunpich Kejache that had attacked one of García's advance companies and had now retreated into the forest. He was unable to find the Kejache but did manage to get information regarding a path that led southwards to the Itza kingdom. He met four exhausted Sajkabʼchen musketeers who were carrying a letter addressed to him from captain Fernández de Estenos. This letter explained that further south there were various deserted Maya towns with only rotten maize abandoned by their occupiers. Avendaño returned to Tzuktokʼ and reconsidered his plans; the Franciscans were short of supplies, and the forcefully congregated Maya that they were charged with converting were disappearing back into the forest daily. Additionally, the Spanish officers ignored the concerns of the friars and García was abducting local Maya women and children to be taken back to his encomienda for forced labour. The Franciscans set upon a different, ultimately unsuccessful, plan; they would follow the road back north to Jopʼelchʼen near Campeche city and attempt to reach the Itza via Tipuj. This route was blocked when the secular clergy prevented the Franciscans from attempting it. Antonio de Silva ordered Avendaño to return to Mérida, and he arrived there on 17 September 1695. The other group of Franciscans, led by Juan de San Buenaventura Chávez, continued following the roadbuilders into Kejache territory, through IxBʼam, Bʼatkabʼ and Chuntuki (modern Chuntunqui near Carmelita, Petén). #### San Buenaventura among the Kejache, September–November 1695 Juan de San Buenaventura's small group of Franciscans had arrived in Chuntuki on 30 August 1695, and found that the army had opened the road southwards for another seventeen leagues (approximately 44.2 miles or 71.1 km), almost half way to Lake Petén Itzá, but returned to Chuntuki due to the seasonal rains. San Buenaventura was accompanied by friar Joseph de Jesús María, lay friar Tomás de Alcoser and lay brother Lucas de San Francisco. With Avendaño's return to Mérida, provincial superior Antonio de Silva despatched two additional friars to join San Buenaventura's group: Diego de Echevarría and Diego de Salas. One of these was to convert the Kejache in Tzuktokʼ, and the other was to do the same at Chuntuki. Although initially reluctant to permit the group to continue into Itza territory, by late October García de Paredes had relented and acquiesced to de Silva's instructions for San Buenaventura and his original companions to continue to Nojpetén, although it appears that this never happened. On 24 October San Buenaventura wrote to the provincial superior reporting that the warlike Kejache were now pacified and that they had told him that the Itza were ready to receive the Spanish in friendship. On that day 62 Kejache men had voluntarily come to Chuntuki from Pakʼekʼem, where another 300 Kejache resided. San Buenaventura sent lay brother Lucas de San Francisco to convince them to relocate to the Chuntuki mission. Lucas de San Francisco destroyed the idols in Pakʼekʼem but the inhabitants were not brought to the mission because of worries about feeding the new arrivals. Instead, in early November 1695, friar Tomás de Alcoser and brother Lucas de San Francisco were sent to establish a mission at Pakʼekʼem, where they were well received by the cacique and his pagan priest. Pakʼekʼem was sufficiently far from the new Spanish road that it was free from military interference, and the friars oversaw the building of a church in what was the largest mission town in Kejache territory. A second church was built at Bʼatkabʼ to attend to over 100 Kʼejache refugees who had been gathered there under the stewardship of friar Diego de Echevarría; a further church was established at Tzuktokʼ, overseen by Diego de Salas. #### Avendaño's entry from Yucatán, December 1695 – January 1696 Franciscan Andrés de Avendaño left Mérida on 13 December 1695, and arrived in Nojpetén around 14 January 1696; he followed the new road as far as possible then continued towards Nojpetén with local Maya guides. He was accompanied by friars Antonio Pérez de San Román, Joseph de Jesús María and Diego de Echevarría, and by lay brother Lucas de San Francisco; some of these he collected on his journey south along the Camino Real. On 5 January they caught up with and passed the main contingent of the army at Bʼatkabʼ, continuing to Chuntuki. From Chuntuki they followed an Indian trail that led them past the source of the San Pedro River and across steep karst hills to a watering hole by some ruins, which was recorded as Tanxulukmul by Avendaño. From Tanxulukmul they followed the small Acté River to a Chakʼan Itza town called Saklemakal. They arrived at the western end of Lake Petén Itzá to an enthusiastic welcome by the local Itza. Unknown to the Franciscans, the northern Chakʼan Itza province of the Itza kingdom was allied with the Kowoj and was at war with the Itza king. The Chakʼan Itzas carried off most of the gifts that the Spanish party had brought for the Itza king, in an effort to hinder friendly relations developing. The following day, the current Aj Kan Ekʼ travelled across the lake with eighty canoes to greet the visitors at the Chakʼan Itza port town of Nich, on the west shore of Lake Petén Itza. The Franciscans returned to Nojpetén with Kan Ekʼ and baptised over 300 Itza children over the following four days. Avendaño tried to convince Kan Ekʼ to convert to Christianity and surrender to the Spanish crown, without success. The Franciscan friar tried to convince the Itza king that the Kʼatun 8 Ajaw, a twenty-year Maya calendrical cycle beginning in 1696 or 1697, was the right time for the Itza to finally embrace Christianity and to accept the king of Spain as overlord. The king of the Itza, like his forebear, cited Itza prophecy and said the time was not yet right. He asked the Spanish to return in four months, at which time the Itza would convert and swear fealty to the King of Spain. On 19 January AjKowoj, the king of the Kowoj, arrived at Nojpetén and spoke with Avendaño, arguing against the acceptance of Christianity and Spanish rule. The discussions between Avendaño, Kan Ekʼ and AjKowoj exposed deep divisions among the Itza – and the apparent treachery of the Itza king in offering his kingdom to the Spanish undermined Kan Ek's power over his own people. Kan Ekʼ learnt of a plot by the Kowoj and their Chakʼan Itza allies to ambush and kill the Franciscans, and the Itza king advised them to return to Mérida via Tipuj. The Itza king's efforts to save his Spanish guests effectively ended his power to rule; from that point on anti-Spanish sentiment governed Itza responses to the Spanish. The Franciscans were guided to Yalain where they were well received but while they were there the Yalain heard rumours of battle and a Spanish advance towards Lake Petén Itzá. The Franciscans were shown a path that led to Tipuj but their Yalain guides soon abandoned them. The Spanish friars became lost and suffered great hardships, including the death of one of Avendaño's companions, but after a month wandering in the forest found their way back to Chuntuki and from there made their way back to Mérida. #### Battle at Chʼichʼ, 2 February 1696 Kan Ekʼ had sent emissaries to Mérida in December 1695 to inform Martín de Ursúa that the Itza would peacefully submit to Spanish rule. By mid-January captain García de Paredes had advanced from Bʼatkabʼ to the advance portion of the Camino Real at Chuntuki. By now he only had 90 soldiers plus labourers and porters, with many of his soldiers deserting as the force advanced towards Lake Petén Itzá; they were further delayed by the necessity of building an oar-powered longboat (or piragua) to cross the San Pedro River. Soon after Avendaño's flight eastward from Nojpetén, a group of 60 Maya warriors entered Chuntuki in full warpaint and bearing weapons; they claimed to have been sent by Avendaño to collect religious regalia and another friar. This was not the case, and they were almost certainly a scouting party sent by the Kowoj and their Chakʼan Itza allies to see what progress the Spanish army was making along the road. They spoke with García and then rapidly departed without taking any of the items that they had supposedly been sent to collect. García despatched two Kejache scouts to the lakeshore to discover Avendaño's whereabouts; at the same time Avendaño's Kejache guides were returning to Chuntuki from Nojpetén with news of Avendaño's flight. The Itzas at the lake handed over an open letter written by Avendaño before his departure from Nojpetén as a token of friendship between the Itza and the Spanish. Friar Juan de San Buenaventura was enthused by the letter and wished to travel on to Nojpetén himself. García sent captain Pedro de Zubiaur, his senior officer, on towards the lake. He arrived at Lake Petén Itza with 60 musketeers, friar San Buenaventura and another Franciscan and allied Yucatec Maya warriors. They were also accompanied by about 40 Maya porters. On 2 February the expedition was approached by two Itza warriors who told them of a recent battle between a Guatemalan expedition and the Itza; these two Itzas guided the party to a nearby Itza settlement, and the letter from Avendaño was shown to captain Zubiaur, convincing him that he could advance safely. The port town of Chʼichʼ was abandoned but a large number of canoes approached, judged to be as many as 300 by the Spanish captain, bearing perhaps 2,000 Itza warriors. The warriors began to mingle freely with the Spanish party and began to load the Spanish supplies into the canoes with a promise of transporting the expedition across to Nojpetén, with one soldier in each canoe. The Franciscans readily boarded the canoes, with two soldiers as an escort. A scuffle then broke out; a dozen more of the Spanish party were forced into canoes, and two porters were beaten to death. One of the captured Spanish soldiers was immediately decapitated. At this point the Spanish soldiers opened fire with their muskets, and the Itza retreated across the lake with their prisoners. The Spanish party retreated from the lake shore and regrouped on open ground where they were surrounded by about 2,000 Itza warriors who attempted to disarm them; the Itzas managed to seize another Spaniard and immediately struck off his head. At this point about 10,000 Itza archers appeared from canoes concealed among the lakeside mangroves, and Zubiaur ordered his men to fire a volley that killed between 30 and 40 Itzas. Realising that they were hopelessly outnumbered, the Spanish retreated towards Chuntuki, abandoning their captured companions to their fate. A Christian Maya musketeer and six other Indians fled at the start of the battle and took news to García that the entire expedition had been slaughtered; Zubiaur and the survivors of his expedition marched back into the base camp at Chuntuki two days later. Ursúa later reported that the Spanish prisoners were taken back to Nojpetén where they were all killed; this was also confirmed by AjChan at a later date. The bones of the dead were said to have been found by the Spanish after the final assault on Nojpetén in 1697; AjKʼin Kan Ekʼ, the Itza high priest, later reported that he had bound San Buenaventura and his companion into cross shapes and cut out their hearts. This turn of events convinced Martín de Ursúa that Kan Ekʼ would not surrender peacefully, and he began to organise an all-out assault on Nojpetén. The enlistment of previously authorised reinforcements was now urgent, but was hindered when 70 of 100 soldiers mutinied and never reached García's camp. Work on the road was redoubled and about a month after the battle at Chʼichʼ the Spanish arrived at the lakeshore, now supported by artillery. Again a large number of canoes gathered, and the nervous Spanish soldiers opened fire with cannons and muskets; no casualties were reported among the Itza, who retreated and raised a white flag from a safe distance. #### Amésqueta's entry from Verapaz, February–March 1696 The Guatemalan authorities were unaware of ongoing contacts between the colonial authorities in Yucatán and the Itza. In the second half of 1695 President Barrios began planning another expedition against the Itza from Verapaz, following harsh criticism of Juan Díaz de Velasco's retreat from near Lake Petén Itzá in April of that year. Barrios died in November, and oidor José de Escals became acting head of the Guatemalan colonial administration. He appointed oidor Bartolomé de Amésqueta to lead the next expedition against the Itza. Amésqueta marched his men through torrential rain from Cahabón to Mopán, arriving on 25 February 1696; the Guatemalans were still unaware of the clashes between García's forces and the Itza. Amésqueta's expedition was suffering from shortages of native labour and supplies. Twenty-five of his 150 men were sick, and his advance stalled as the force rested up at Mopán. Captain Díaz de Velasco volunteered to lead a party of 25 men ahead to the lake; he was accompanied by Dominican friars Cristóbal de Prada and Jacinto de Vargas. He was also accompanied by AjKʼixaw, the Itza nobleman who had been taken prisoner on Díaz's previous expedition, who served as a trusted guide, scout and translator. They set out from Mopán on 7 March and left some sick soldiers with some supplies after five days, they then caught up with an advance party of roadbuilders and their military escort at Río Chakal. The two forces combined, giving Díaz a force of 49 soldiers and 34 porters and archers from Verapaz. Once they arrived at IxBʼol, near the shore of Lake Petén Itzá, AjKʼixaw was sent ahead as an emissary to Nojpetén. ##### Amésqueta's attempt to locate Díaz de Velasco Back in Mopán, Amésqueta had received additional supplies and decided to catch up with his advance party. He left Mopán on 10 March 1696 with friar Agustín Cano and about 10 soldiers. He arrived at Chakal a week later but there was still no word from Díaz or AjKʼixaw. On 20 March Amésqueta left Chakal with 36 men and four days' supplies to find Díaz's party, whom he assumed would be nearby. After two days travelling in intense heat they met up with some Verapaz porters that Díaz had left behind. They followed Díaz's trail to the shore of Lake Petén Itzá near to the Itza capital. As they scouted along the south shore they were shadowed by about 30 Itza canoes, and more Itzas approached by land but kept a safe distance. There were plentiful signs that Díaz's party had passed that way, and Amésqueta assumed that they had crossed to Nojpetén. He wrote a letter to Díaz, which was passed to an Itza onlooker who indicated he would deliver it. Various Itzas now approached the party, including a nobleman who exchanged gifts with Amésqueta. During various attempts at communication to verify Díaz's whereabouts the Itza became agitated and responded angrily, although no-one in the Spanish party could understand the Itza language. The Itzas indicated that the Spanish should proceed to the lakeshore along a narrow path and embark in the small canoes that were stationed nearby. One of Amésqueta's officers recognised an Indian among the Itzas as a Mopan who had served as a soldier in Díaz's first expedition and thought that the Mopan was trying to tell him not to trust the Itzas. Amésqueta was extremely suspicious of the small canoes being supplied, knowing that the Itza had 30-man canoes; he was also aware that tricking enemies into small canoes was a favoured tactic among the lowland Maya to separate and kill Spanish intruders. He suspected that AjKʼixaw had betrayed them and that this was precisely what had happened to Díaz and his men. As nightfall approached, low on rations, in a vulnerable location and with no sign of Díaz and his men, Amésqueta retreated from the lakeshore and his men took up positions on a small hill nearby. In the early hours of the morning he ordered a retreat by moonlight, using just a few torches. They arrived back at Chakal on 25 March and from there retreated to San Pedro Mártir on 9 April, beset by worsening conditions, a hurricane, sickness and rumours of enemies. The battered expedition set up a base camp nine leagues (approximately 23.4 miles or 37.7 km) north of Mopan. ##### Fate of Díaz de Velasco's expedition Writing after the fall of Nojpetén, friar Cano described the ultimate fate of Díaz de Velasco and his companions; he claimed to have received the information from interviews with the soldiers from Yucatán who had stormed the Itza capital and from Chʼol witnesses, although there were no Chʼol at Nojpetén. Díaz's party arrived at the lakeshore and were told by local Itza that Franciscan friars were at Nojpetén. They were wary at first and asked for proof, upon which an Itza messenger brought them a rosary as a token. Looking across the lake they saw men dressed as friars calling to them to come across, these were Itza dressed in the habits of the two Franciscans who had recently been killed at the island. Díaz and his companions then boarded the Itza canoes, leaving thirty Maya porters with their mules and supplies. Once on the lake the Itza overturned some of the canoes and killed some of Díaz's men; others were wounded and dragged ashore to be killed. Díaz, the Dominicans and two other men were in a large canoe that was not overturned and were taken to Nojpetén where a fierce struggle ensued as Díaz attempted to defend himself with his sword, killing several Itzas. The two other men were immediately killed while the friars were beaten and tied to X-shaped crosses before having their hearts cut out. Across the lake, the Itza attacked the porters guarding the expedition supplies and killed all of them. The Itza killed a total of 87 expedition members, including 50 soldiers, two Dominicans and about 35 Maya helpers. The remains of the small group that were killed on Nojpetén were later retrieved by the Spanish after the fall of the city and were taken back to Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala for burial. ##### Aftermath of Amésqueta's entry Over the following weeks scouts were sent out to try to make contact with local Mopan and Chʼol communities, including Chok Ajaw, AjMay, IxBʼol and Manche without success – most of the natives had fled, leaving the forest deserted. At San Pedro Mártir he received news of AjChan's embassy to Mérida in December 1695 and the formal surrender of the Itza to Spanish authority. Unable to reconcile the news with the loss of his men at Lake Petén Itzá, and with appalling conditions in San Pedro Mártir, Amésqueta abandoned the unfinished fort. Friar Cano recommended to the new Guatemalan president that the Chʼol be moved to Verapaz where they could be properly administered. As a result of the failed expedition, Cano's recommendation was accepted, the fort was dismantled and any Maya that could be captured across a wide swathe of southern Petén was forcibly relocated to Belén near Rabinal in Verapaz. This way this relocation was conducted was brutal and ruthless and was condemned by several high-ranking colonial officials, including oidor José de Escals and even by Amésqueta. ### Fall of Nojpetén The Itzas' continued resistance had become a major embarrassment for the Spanish colonial authorities, and soldiers were dispatched from Campeche to take Nojpetén once and for all. The final assault was made possible by the gradual opening of the road from Mérida to Petén; by December 1696 this road had reached the lake shore although it was unfinished and still almost impassable in places. By this time the deep divisions between the political leaders of the Itza were such that a unified defence of the Itza kingdom had become impossible. #### Final preparations In late December 1696 the Chakʼan Itza attacked the large Kejache mission town of Pakʼekʼem; they abducted almost all the inhabitants and burned the church. The demoralised Spanish garrison at Chuntuki buried their weapons and ammunition and retreated five leagues (approximately 13 miles or 21 km) back towards Campeche. From late December 1696 to the middle of January 1697 Ursúa sent parties of soldiers and workmen along the road towards the lake; the first group was commanded by Pedro de Zubiaur and had instructions to begin building a galeota, a large oar-powered warship. This group was followed by reinforcements bringing supplies, including light and heavy weapons, gunpowder and food. On 23 January Ursúa left Campeche with more soldiers and muleteers, bringing the total number of soldiers arriving as reinforcements to 130. The Spanish fortified their positions at Chʼichʼ and deployed heavy artillery for its defence. Martín de Ursúa y Arizmendi arrived on the western shore of lake Petén Itzá with his soldiers on 26 February 1697, and once there built the heavily armed galeota attack boat, which was assembled at Chʼichʼ over a space of 12 days in early March. The galeota had a keel of 30 cubits or 14.4 metres (47 ft); it had 12 oars on each side and a rudder with an iron screw. The galeota carried 114 men and at least five artillery pieces, including a pieza (light cannon) and four pedreros (mortars). The piragua longboat used to cross the San Pedro River was also transported to the lake to be used in the attack on the Itza capital; this boat had 6 oars and a rudder. From 28 February onwards the Spanish expedition was repeatedly approached by hostile Itzas, who sometimes shot arrows in the direction of the intruders but inflicted no casualties. At the same time, small groups of curious Itzas mingled freely with the Spanish and received trinkets from them such as belts, necklaces and earrings. #### Assault on Nojpetén On 10 March, Itza and Yalain emissaries arrived at Chʼichʼ to negotiate with Ursúa. First came AjChan who had already met him in Mérida; he was followed by Chamach Xulu, the ruler of the Yalain. Kan Ekʼ then sent a canoe with a white flag raised bearing emissaries, including the Itza high priest, who offered peaceful surrender. Ursúa received the embassy in peace and invited Kan Ekʼ to visit his encampment three days later. On the appointed day Kan Ekʼ failed to arrive; instead Maya warriors massed both along the shore and in canoes upon the lake. Ursúa decided that any further attempts at peaceful incorporation of the Itza into the Spanish Empire were pointless, and a waterbourne assault was launched upon Kan Ek's capital on the morning of 13 March. The encampment at Chʼichʼ was left defended by 25 Spanish soldiers, three Maya musketeers and several artillery pieces. Ursúa boarded the galeota with 108 soldiers, two secular priests, five personal servants, the baptised Itza emissary AjChan and his brother-in-law and an Itza prisoner from Nojpetén. The attack boat was rowed east from Chʼichʼ towards the Itza capital; halfway across the lake it encountered a large fleet of canoes spread in an arc across the approach to Nojpetén, covering about 600 metres (2,000 ft) from one shore to another – Ursúa simply gave the order to row through them. A large number of defenders had gathered along the shore of Nojpetén and on the roofs of the city. As the galeota approached, more canoes put out from the shore and the Spanish were surrounded. Once they had surrounded the galeota, Itza archers began to shoot at the invaders. Ursúa gave orders to his men not to fire but arrows wounded several soldiers; one of the wounded soldiers discharged his musket and at that point the officers lost control of their men. The defending Itza soon fled from the withering Spanish gunfire. The city fell after a brief but bloody battle in which many Itza warriors died; the Spanish suffered only minor casualties. The Spanish bombardment caused heavy loss of life on the island; the surviving Itza abandoned their capital and swam across to the mainland with many dying in the water. After the battle the surviving defenders melted away into the forests, leaving the Spanish to occupy an abandoned Maya town. Martín de Ursúa planted his standard upon the highest point of the island and renamed Nojpetén as Nuestra Señora de los Remedios y San Pablo, Laguna del Itza ("Our Lady of Remedy and Saint Paul, Lake of the Itza"). The Itza nobility fled, dispersing to Maya settlements throughout Petén; in response the Spanish scoured the region with search parties. Kan Ekʼ was soon captured with help from the Yalain Maya ruler Chamach Xulu; The Kowoj king (Aj Kowoj) was also soon captured, together with other Maya nobles and their families. With the defeat of the Itza, the last independent and unconquered native kingdom in the Americas fell to the European colonisers. #### Aftermath Martín de Ursúa had little interest in administering the newly conquered territory and delegated its control to military officers who he did very little to support, either militarily or financially. With Nojpetén safely in the hands of the Spanish, Ursúa returned to Mérida, leaving Kan Ekʼ and other high-ranking members of his family as prisoners of the Spanish garrison at Nuestra Señora de los Remedios y San Pablo, isolated among the hostile Itza and Kowoj who still dominated the mainland. The garrison was reinforced in 1699 by a military expedition from Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala, accompanied by mixed-race ladino civilians who came to found their own town around the military camp. The settlers brought disease with them, which killed many soldiers and colonists and swept through the indigenous population. The Guatemalans stayed just three months before returning to Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala, taking the captive Itza king with them, together with his son and two of his cousins. The cousins died on the long journey to Santiago; Ajaw Kan Ekʼ and his son spent the rest of their lives under house arrest in the colonial capital. When the Spanish conquered the Petén lakes in 1697, the Yalain were initially cooperative and assisted in the capture of the king of the Itza. At this time Yalain was ruled by Chamach Xulu. The Yalain leadership encouraged Christian conversion as a means of maintaining peace with the occupying Spanish forces. As time went on, Yalain cooperation with the Spanish appears to have decreased. Soon after the conquest, the Yalain fled their settlements to avoid foraging Spanish parties that were abducting Maya women for "service" at their barracks. At this time, such was the hostility that was felt towards the occupying forces that the inhabitants of the Yalain settlements preferred to burn their fields and break all their pottery rather than leave anything for the Spanish. The Yalain capital is recorded as having been burned in 1698. ## Final years of conquest In the late 17th century, the small population of Chʼol Maya in southern Petén and Belize was forcibly removed to Alta Verapaz, where the people were absorbed into the Qʼeqchiʼ population. After the conquest, the colonial administration of Petén was divided between the ecclesiastical authorities in Yucatán and secular administration as part of the Captaincy General of Guatemala. There was never a strong Spanish presence in the area, which remained remote, although the Spanish built a fortress-prison, the Castillo de Arismendi; it was finished in 1700. The distance from Nuestra Señora de los Remedios y San Pablo (formerly Nojpetén) to Mérida, combined with the difficult terrain and the hostility of the natives led to the road from Yucatán falling into a state of disrepair. In 1701 Ursúa y Arezmendi realised that the road was in such a poor state that the Spanish garrison could not be supplied from Yucatán. He wrote to the King of Spain, requesting that Petén be transferred from the jurisdiction of Yucatán to the Audiencia Real of Guatemala. In 1703 Ursúa's petition was granted, with the condition that the ecclesiastical authority over Petén would pass to the Dominican Order. Between 1703 and 1753, reducciones were established at San José and San Andrés on Lake Petén Itzá, Santa Ana just south of the lake, and at San Luis, Santo Toribio and Dolores in the south (not to be confused with Dolores del Lakandon). Each of these mission towns had its own minister who answered to the vicario general with the Spanish garrison at Nuestra Señora de los Remedios y San Pablo. In the first decades of the 18th century, churches were built in five colonial towns: Dolores, Remedios, San Andrés, San José and Santo Toribio. The church in Dolores was built in 1708; the construction was probably overseen by Juan Antonio Ruiz y Bustamante. In 1699 there were nine priests in Petén but thereafter there was usually a shortage of clergy in colonial Petén. In spite of the objections of the Dominicans who had been working in southern Petén, the Franciscans continued to provide clergy from Yucatán, and it was the Franciscans who oversaw the spiritual welfare of Petén during the colonial period. AjTut was one of the lords of the northern Chakʼan Itza province of the conquered Itza kingdom; friar Avendaño had met him during his expedition to Nojpetén. After the conquest he relocated from the north shore of Lake Petén Itzá to Mompana, a region lying between Lake Yaxha and the Classic period ruins of Tikal. For some years after the conquest he established the Mompana region as a refuge from the Spanish and engaged in internecine war against the surviving Kowoj to the south. ### Reductions around Lake Petén Itzá At the time of the fall of Nojpetén, there are estimated to have been 60,000 Maya living around Lake Petén Itzá, including a large number of refugees from other areas. It is estimated that 88% of them died during the first ten years of colonial rule owing to a combination of disease and war. Although disease was responsible for the majority of deaths, Spanish expeditions and internecine warfare between indigenous groups also played their part. Catholic priests from Yucatán founded several mission towns around Lake Petén Itzá in 1702–1703. The first towns to be concentrated into colonial reducciones were Ixtutz, which became the new town of San José, and neighbouring San Andrés, both on the north shore of Lake Petén Itzá. They were first subjugated by one of Ursúa's officers, Cristobal de Sologaistoa, before being passed into the care of the Dominican friars for the Christian conversion of the inhabitants. Surviving Itza and Kowoj were resettled in the new colonial towns by a mixture of persuasion and force. Kowoj and Itza leaders in these mission towns rebelled against their Spanish overlords in 1704 and almost retook Nojpetén, but although well-planned, the rebellion was quickly crushed. Its leaders were executed, and most of the mission towns were abandoned; by 1708 only about 6,000 Maya remained in central Petén. The reductions failed in large part because the missionaries charged with converting the inhabitants could not speak the Itza language. ## Legacy of the conquest Martín de Ursúa used his conquest of the Itza as a stepping stone to achieving the coveted post of Governor-General of the Philippines, which he took up in 1709. European-introduced diseases devastated the native population of Petén, with the effects of disease compounded by the psychological impact of defeat. The population around Lake Petén Itzá numbered between 20,000 and 40,000 in 1697. By 1714, a census recorded just over 3,000 individuals in Spanish Petén, including non-Indians. This number would not have included the so-called "wild" Maya living in the forest far from Spanish administration and control. By 1700 the new colonial capital of Petén was mainly inhabited by colonists, soldiers and convicts. During the second half of the 18th century, adult male Indians were heavily taxed, often being forced into debt peonage. Western Petén and neighbouring Chiapas remained sparsely populated, and the Maya inhabitants avoided contact with the Spanish. San José, on the northwest shore of lake Petén Itzá, is the home of the last surviving speakers of the Itza language. The surname Kowoj still survives, but the Kowoj and Itza have fully merged and no longer exist as separate ethnicities. In modern times there is a history of conflict between San José (the former Itza town of Chakokʼot) and neighbouring San Andrés (the former Kowoj-allied town of Chakʼan), and this mutual hostility probably represents ancient hostility between the Itza and the Kowoj. ## Historical sources Hernán Cortés described his expedition to Honduras in the fifth letter of his Cartas de Relación, in which he details his crossing of what is now Guatemala's Petén Department. Bernal Díaz del Castillo accompanied Cortés on the expedition to Honduras. He wrote a lengthy account of the conquest of Mexico and neighbouring regions, the Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España ("True History of the Conquest of New Spain"). His account was finished around 1568, some 40 years after the campaigns it describes; it includes his own description of the expedition. In 1688 colonial historian Diego López de Cogolludo detailed the expeditions of the Spanish missionaries Bartolomé de Fuensalida and Juan de Orbita in 1618 and 1619 in his Los trés siglos de la dominación española en Yucatán o sea historia de esta provincia ("The three centuries of Spanish domination in Yucatán, or the history of this province"); he based it upon Fuensalida's report, which is now lost. Franciscan friar Andrés Avendaño y Loyola recorded his own account of his late 17th century journeys to Nojpetén, written in 1696 and entitled Relación de las entradas que hize a la conversión de los gentiles Ytzaex ("Account of the expeditions that I made to convert the Itza heathens"). When the Spanish finally conquered Petén in 1697 they produced a vast quantity of documentation. Juan de Villagutierre Soto-Mayor was a Spanish colonial official who first held the post of relator of the Royal Chancery of Valladolid and later as that of the Council of the Indies. As such he had access to the large amount of colonial documents stored in the General Archive of the Indies. From these he produced his Historia de la Conquista de la Provincia de el Itza, reduccion, y progressos de la de el Lacandon, y otras naciones de indios barbaros, de la mediacion de el Reyno de Guatimala, a las provincias del Yucatan en la América Septentrional ("History of the Conquest of the Province of the Itza, reduction, and advances in that of the Lakandon, and other nations of barbarous indians, and the intervention of the Kingdom of Guatemala, and the provinces of Yucatan in Northern America"). This was first published in Madrid in 1701 and detailed the history of Petén from 1525 through to 1699. ## Archaeology Ursúa referred to the western port town of Chʼichʼ as Nich. The modern name for a point on the south side of the bay is Punta Nijtún, which is probably derived from the colonial Yucatec nix tun, meaning stone ramp. Archaeologists carried out excavations at the lake shore at Punta Nijtún and discovered a stone ramp there, which was probably built by Ursúa's troops to launch his galeota''.
1,952,607	Supernature (Goldfrapp album)	1,170,855,291	2005 studio album by Goldfrapp	[ "2005 albums", "Electroclash albums", "Glam rock albums by English artists", "Goldfrapp albums", "Mute Records albums" ]	Supernature is the third studio album by English electronic music duo Goldfrapp, released on 17 August 2005 by Mute Records. The album received generally favourable reviews, with most critics complimenting its blend of pop and electronic music. It debuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart with first-week sales of 52,976 copies, and has been certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). Supernature has sold one million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Ooh La La", reached number four on the UK Singles Chart, becoming the duo's highest-peaking single to date. The album spawned three further singles: "Number 1", "Ride a White Horse" and "Fly Me Away". In North America, where "Number 1" was promoted as the first single, the album was released on 7 March 2006 and reached number 138 on the charts. Supernature was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Electronic/Dance Album in 2007. ## Recording and production Supernature contains music in the same pop and electronic dance styles featured on Goldfrapp's previous studio album, Black Cherry (2003)—especially its singles "Strict Machine" and "Twist"—although it focuses on subtle hooks instead of large choruses. Lead singer Alison Goldfrapp described the album's writing process as "an electronic/glam cross between Berlin, New York and North-East Somerset". Goldfrapp and Will Gregory recorded the bulk of Supernature in late 2004 in the countryside near Bath, England—the same place they recorded Black Cherry. They had rented a small house and spent some months writing music; they later explained that the unpopulated location kept them from distractions and that the majority of the process was "very basic". Goldfrapp called their writing relationship a "democracy", playing off one another while in the recording studio. The lyrical content of the song "Number 1", which became the album's second single, is about the importance and meaning of relationships, even though they do not necessarily last. In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Goldfrapp explained that they had never intended to create pop music. However, the singles released from Black Cherry became successes across nightclubs in North America, and as a result, they decided to write a more dance-oriented album. Although this made the duo nervous, "Ooh La La" was the group's first song to feature the electric guitar. Before its composition, the duo avoided the use of the guitar because of the guitar's overly recognisable rhythm. Four-on-the-floor bass drums are also present on several of the album's tracks, and the piano ballad "Let It Take You" features evening-effects composed on a synthesiser. "You Never Know" begins with Alison Goldfrapp executing a synthesised voice, supported by both pads and synthesisers. Goldfrapp and Gregory have cited "Satin Chic" as their favourite song on Supernature. Alison Goldfrapp named the Roland String synth as one of her favourite keyboards. "Number 1" features an old synth and a bass arrangement that the group began to use frequently after recording the song. She also favours another Roland keyboard, the SH-09 monophonic synthesiser first produced in 1979; she played the duo's song "Train" on it. Goldfrapp was also impressed by a Russian synth, enamored with its Russian writing. ## Composition and music "Ooh La La", Supernature's opening track, inspired by T. Rex, was chosen as its lead single "because it was up and in your face and it carried on the theme of the glammy, discoey beat from the last album". It received positive reviews, often being noted as a highlight of the album. "Ooh La La" became Goldfrapp's most successful single on the UK Singles Chart to date when it peaked at number four, while topping the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart in the United States. The second track, "Lovely 2 C U", was compared to The Human League and Girls Aloud and received mixed reviews from critics, with one reviewer stating that it was the "worst offender of sounding by-numbers, its lazy glam affectations sounding all the worse amid a chorus striking only in its complete dullness". "Ride a White Horse", the third single, was inspired by the disco era. Like previous singles from the album, the song was another top-20 single in the UK, where it peaked at number 15. The ballads "You Never Know" and "Let It Take You" have minimal background electronics, and were generally well received by critics, who drew comparisons to Goldfrapp's debut album Felt Mountain. Goldfrapp's performance on "You Never Know" was described as "chameleonic" with odes to Debbie Harry and Siouxsie Sioux. "Fly Me Away", another synth ballad, had an accompanying music video which featured Goldfrapp as an animated doll; the video, however, was never released. Serving as the fourth and final single from Supernature, the song was not heavily promoted and was less commercially successful than the other singles, peaking at number 26 on the UK chart. "Slide In", an electroclash song about sex, and "Koko" were compared to Gary Numan's early compositions. "Satin Chic" is a disco song with glam rock and cabaret influences, similar to early Elton John. It was remixed by The Flaming Lips, and issued as a limited-edition single on 4 September 2006. The 10th track, "Time Out from the World", features an orchestra and whispered vocals by Goldfrapp. Critics liked the song, writing that it was an "exception to the prevailing style of Supernature" due to its "haunting, yet glamorous, atmospherics". The album's closing track and second single "Number 1" is about the importance and meanings of relationships. The song, which is based around a synth and bass arrangement, reached number nine on the UK Singles Chart and number one on the US Hot Dance Club Play chart. ## Release and artwork The album was released in two versions: a single-disc version, which used Opendisc technology to offer extra contents via a website, and a double-disc version which included the album in surround sound on both discs. The first disc is a hybrid SACD with 5.1 multichannel SACD audio, stereo SACD audio and stereo CD audio. The second disc, a DVD-Video, contains the multichannel version of the album in DTS 96/24 as well as a documentary and music videos for "Ooh La La" and "Number 1". The album cover, photographed by Ross Kirton, is a rear-view shot of Alison against a sparkly black backdrop, looking over her shoulder while covering her breast with her hand. The regular edition cover shows her from the waist up, whereas the US special edition shows the cover art in its entirety, with Alison wearing a long plume of peacock feathers and golden platform shoes. In late 2005, the album ranked number eight on the annual Best Art Vinyl poll. ## Critical reception Supernature received favourable reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 79, based on 27 reviews. Dorian Lynskey of The Guardian said that the album was "a brash, beautiful celebration of love and dancing". In a review for PopMatters, Adrien Begrand said that "[a]lthough Supernature lacks the imagination of Felt Mountain and the saucy brilliance of Black Cherry, it doesn't pander to the pop crowd." Lauren Gitlin of Rolling Stone said the album was "[t]oxic and delicious" and that "Supernature will make you do bad things—and like it." However, Pitchfork reviewer Nitsuh Abebe was less impressed, and wrote that the album's songs "keep feeling like exercises: too thick and melodic to work like dance music, but with melodies that refuse to stick as satisfyingly as pop." Michael Hubbard of musicOMH wrote a review for every song on Supernature, and although he felt that it was a "curious, rather than classic, record", he criticised it for "fading out early on, with poor, low quality songs at the end which leave the listener feeling cheated". AllMusic critic Heather Phares called Supernature "Goldfrapp's most accessible album" and named "Ooh La La" as its best song. In a review for Canadian-based website Jam!, Andrew Carver praised the different sounds on Supernature, which range from "a blend of future noise" to "crushed velvet corruption"; he described the album as "one sharp recording". Jessica Suarez of Spin magazine compared "Ooh La La" to Black Cherry'''s "Strict Machine", saying that "Ooh La La" sounds "so simplistic that [its] minimalist repetition occasionally teeters over into redundancy". She praised "Ride a White Horse" and "Fly Me Away" for featuring Alison Goldfrapp's "velvet-soft vocals, which stay that way even when heavily processed". A less favourable reception came from Stylus Magazine reviewer Edward Oculicz, who stated "Supernature is not a great album" and called several of its tracks too "dull". Rolling Stone magazine ranked the album at number 32 on its list of The Top 50 Albums of 2006. In January 2008, the album was included on The Daily Telegraphs list of the 120 essential pop albums. At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Goldfrapp received nominations for Best Electronic/Dance Album and Best Dance Recording for "Ooh La La". ## Commercial performance Supernature debuted on the UK Albums Chart at number two (blocked from the top position by James Blunt's Back to Bedlam), selling 52,976 copies in its first week. The album was certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) on 13 January 2006. By 20 December 2010, the album had sold 500,000 copies in the United Kingdom. The album attained moderate success across Europe, reaching the top 10 in Ireland, the top 20 in Belgium, the top 30 in Germany and Switzerland, and the top 40 in Austria, Italy, the Netherlands and Norway. In Oceania, it peaked at number 23 in Australia and number 35 in New Zealand. Supernature became Goldfrapp's first album to appear on the Billboard 200 in the United States, where it peaked at number 138. It reached number three on the Top Heatseekers chart and number five on the Top Electronic Albums chart. The album had sold 49,000 copies in the US as of August 2006. Supernature was also the duo's first release in Canada, reaching number 88 on the Canadian Albums Chart. The album had sold one million copies worldwide as of February 2008. ## Track listing European special edition bonus DVD 1. Supernature in 5.1 & Stereo 2. Little Bits of Goldfrapp: Documentary 3. Jakko & the Poet in Frappworld – animation by Andreas Nilsson 4. Photo gallery US special edition bonus DVD' 1. Supernature in 5.1 & Stereo (excluding bonus track "Beautiful") 2. Little Bits of Goldfrapp: Documentary 3. Jakko & the Poet in Frappworld – animation by Andreas Nilsson 4. "Ooh La La" (video) 5. "Number 1" (video) 6. "Ride a White Horse" (live in London) 7. "Satin Chic" (special performance film) 8. "Ooh La La": Little Pictures 9. Photo gallery ## Personnel Credits adapted from the liner notes of Supernature''. ### Goldfrapp - Alison Goldfrapp – vocals, arrangements, synths - Will Gregory – arrangements, synths ### Additional musicians - Charlie Jones – bass (tracks 1–3, 6, 7) - Adrian Utley – guitar (tracks 1, 9); bass (track 9) - Nick Batt – synth (tracks 1, 3, 4, 8, 11); additional programming (tracks 1–4, 6–11) - Daniel Miller – synth (track 3) - Dave Power – additional drums (track 3) - Ewan Pearson – additional programming (track 3) - Nick Ingman – string orchestration, string conducting - Gavyn Wright – string leader ### Technical - Alison Goldfrapp – recording, production - Will Gregory – recording, production - Mark "Spike" Stent – mixing (tracks 1–4, 6–8, 11) - Jeremy Wheatley – mixing (tracks 9, 10) - David Bascombe – mixing (track 5); vocal arrangement mixing (track 11) - Alex Dromgoole – engineering assistance (tracks 1–4, 6–8, 11) - David Emery – engineering assistance (tracks 1–4, 6–8, 11) - Richard Edgeler – engineering assistance (tracks 9, 10) - Tim Roe – engineering assistance (tracks 5, 11) - Steve Evans – additional recording engineering (track 3) - Lee Groves – additional mix programming (tracks 1–4, 7) - Gary Thomasat – recording - Mat Bartram – engineering assistance - Ted Jensen – mastering ### Artwork - Alison Goldfrapp – art direction - Mat Maitland – art direction, design - Gerard Saint – art direction - Rachel Thomas – set design - Ross Kirton – photography - Danny Emmett – digital imaging ## Charts ### Weekly charts ### Year-end charts ## Certifications and sales ## Release history
15,124,855	Samuel Adams	1,166,625,028	Founding Father of the United States (1722–1803)	[ "1722 births", "1803 deaths", "18th-century American politicians", "Adams political family", "American Congregationalists", "American civil rights activists", "American people of English descent", "American political philosophers", "Boston Latin School alumni", "Burials at Granary Burying Ground", "Candidates in the 1796 United States presidential election", "Continental Congressmen from Massachusetts", "Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences", "Founding Fathers of the United States", "Governors of Massachusetts", "Harvard College alumni", "Lieutenant Governors of Massachusetts", "Massachusetts state senators", "Members of the colonial Massachusetts House of Representatives", "Politicians from Boston", "Presidents of the Massachusetts Senate", "Samuel Adams", "Signers of the Articles of Confederation", "Signers of the Continental Association", "Signers of the United States Declaration of Independence" ]	Samuel Adams ( – October 2, 1803) was an American statesman, political philosopher, and a Founding Father of the United States. He was a politician in colonial Massachusetts, a leader of the movement that became the American Revolution, and one of the architects of the principles of American republicanism that shaped the political culture of the United States. He was a second cousin to his fellow Founding Father, President John Adams. Adams was born in Boston, brought up in a religious and politically active family. A graduate of Harvard College, he was an unsuccessful businessman and tax collector before concentrating on politics. He was an influential official of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and the Boston Town Meeting in the 1760s, and he became a part of a movement opposed to the British Parliament's efforts to tax the British American colonies without their consent. His 1768 Massachusetts Circular Letter calling for colonial non-cooperation prompted the occupation of Boston by British soldiers, eventually resulting in the Boston Massacre of 1770. Adams and his colleagues devised a committee of correspondence system in 1772 to help coordinate resistance to what he saw as the British government's attempts to violate the British Constitution at the expense of the colonies, which linked like-minded Patriots throughout the Thirteen Colonies. Continued resistance to British policy resulted in the 1773 Boston Tea Party and the coming of the American Revolution. Adams was actively involved with colonial newspapers publishing accounts of colonial sentiment over British colonial rule, which were fundamental in uniting the colonies. Parliament passed the Coercive Acts in 1774, at which time Adams attended the Continental Congress in Philadelphia which was convened to coordinate a colonial response. He helped guide Congress towards issuing the Continental Association in 1774 and the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and he helped draft the Articles of Confederation and the Massachusetts Constitution. Adams returned to Massachusetts after the American Revolution, where he served in the state senate and was eventually elected governor. Adams later became a controversial figure in American history. Accounts written in the 19th century praised him as someone who had been steering his fellow colonists towards independence long before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. This view was challenged by negative assessments of Adams in the first half of the 20th century, mostly by British historians, in which he was portrayed as a master of propaganda who provoked mob violence to achieve his goals. However, according to biographer Mark Puls, a different account emerges upon examination of Adams' many writings regarding the civil rights of the colonists, while the "mob" referred to were a highly reflective group of men inspired by Adams who made his case with reasoned arguments in pamphlets and newspapers, without the use of emotional rhetoric. ## Early life Adams was born in Boston in the British colony of Massachusetts on September 16, 1722, an Old Style date that is sometimes converted to the New Style date of September 27. Adams was one of twelve children born to Samuel Adams, Sr., and Mary (Fifield) Adams in an age of high infant mortality; only three of these children lived past their third birthday. Adams's parents were devout Puritans and members of the Old South Congregational Church. The family lived on Purchase Street in Boston. Adams was proud of his Puritan heritage, and emphasized Puritan values in his political career, especially virtue. Samuel Adams, Sr. (1689–1748) was a prosperous merchant and church deacon. Deacon Adams became a leading figure in Boston politics through an organization that became known as the Boston Caucus, which promoted candidates who supported popular causes. Members of the Caucus helped shape the agenda of the Boston Town Meeting. A New England town meeting is a form of local government with elected officials, and not just a gathering of citizens; according to historian William Fowler, it was "the most democratic institution in the British empire". Deacon Adams rose through the political ranks, becoming a justice of the peace, a selectman, and a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He worked closely with Elisha Cooke, Jr. (1678–1737), the leader of the "popular party", a faction that resisted any encroachment by royal officials on the colonial rights embodied in the Massachusetts Charter of 1691. In the coming years, members of the "popular party" became known as Whigs or Patriots. The younger Samuel Adams attended Boston Latin School and then entered Harvard College in 1736. His parents hoped that his schooling would prepare him for the ministry, but Adams gradually shifted his interest to politics. After graduating in 1740, Adams continued his studies, earning a master's degree in 1743. In his thesis, he argued that it was "lawful to resist the Supreme Magistrate, if the Commonwealth cannot otherwise be preserved", which indicated that his political views, like his father's, were oriented towards colonial rights. Adams's life was greatly affected by his father's involvement in a banking controversy. In 1739, Massachusetts was facing a serious currency shortage, and Deacon Adams and the Boston Caucus created a "land bank" which issued paper money to borrowers who mortgaged their land as security. The land bank was generally supported by the citizenry and the popular party, which dominated the House of Representatives, the lower branch of the General Court. Opposition to the land bank came from the more aristocratic "court party", who were supporters of the royal governor Jonathan Belcher and controlled the Governor's Council, the upper chamber of the General Court. The court party used its influence to have the British Parliament dissolve the land bank in 1741. Directors of the land bank, including Deacon Adams, became personally liable for the currency still in circulation, payable in silver and gold. Lawsuits over the bank persisted for years, even after Deacon Adams's death, and the younger Samuel Adams often had to defend the family estate from seizure by the government. For Adams, these lawsuits "served as a constant personal reminder that Britain's power over the colonies could be exercised in arbitrary and destructive ways." ## Early career After leaving Harvard in 1743, Adams was unsure about his future. He considered becoming a lawyer but instead decided to go into business. He worked at Thomas Cushing's counting house, but the job only lasted a few months because Cushing felt that Adams was too preoccupied with politics to become a good merchant. Adams's father then lent him £1,000 to go into business for himself, a substantial amount for that time. Adams's lack of business instincts were confirmed; he lent half of this money to a friend who never repaid, and frittered away the other half. Adams always remained, in the words of historian Pauline Maier, "a man utterly uninterested in either making or possessing money". After Adams had lost his money, his father made him a partner in the family's malthouse, which was next to the family home on Purchase Street. Several generations of Adamses were maltsters, who produced the malt necessary for brewing beer. Years later, a poet poked fun at Adams by calling him "Sam the maltster". Adams has often been described as a brewer, but the extant evidence suggests that he worked as a maltster and not a brewer. In January 1748, Adams and some friends were inflamed by British impressment and launched The Independent Advertiser, a weekly newspaper that printed many political essays written by Adams. His essays drew heavily upon English political theorist John Locke's Second Treatise of Government, and they emphasized many of the themes that characterized his subsequent career. He argued that the people must resist any encroachment on their constitutional rights. He cited the decline of the Roman Empire as an example of what could happen to New England if it were to abandon its Puritan values. When Deacon Adams died in 1748, Adams was given the responsibility of managing the family's affairs. In October 1749, he married Elizabeth Checkley, his pastor's daughter. Elizabeth gave birth to six children over the next seven years, but only two lived to adulthood: Samuel (born 1751) and Hannah (born 1756). In July 1757, Elizabeth died soon after giving birth to a stillborn son. Adams remarried in 1764 to Elizabeth Wells, but had no other children. Like his father, Adams embarked on a political career with the support of the Boston Caucus. He was elected to his first political office in 1747, serving as one of the clerks of the Boston market. In 1756, the Boston Town Meeting elected him to the post of tax collector, which provided a small income. He often failed to collect taxes from his fellow citizens, which increased his popularity among those who did not pay, but left him liable for the shortage. By 1765, his account was more than £8,000 in arrears. The town meeting was on the verge of bankruptcy, and Adams was compelled to file suit against delinquent taxpayers, but many taxes went uncollected. In 1768, his political opponents used the situation to their advantage, obtaining a court judgment of £1,463 against him. Adams's friends paid off some of the deficit, and the town meeting wrote off the remainder. By then, he had emerged as a leader of the popular party, and the embarrassing situation did not lessen his influence. ## Conflict with Great Britain Samuel Adams emerged as an important public figure in Boston soon after the British Empire's victory in the French and Indian War (1754–1763). The British Parliament found itself deep in debt and looking for new sources of revenue, and they sought to directly tax the colonies of British America for the first time. This tax dispute was part of a larger divergence between British and American interpretations of the British Constitution and the extent of Parliament's authority in the colonies. In the years leading up to and into the revolution Adams made frequent use of colonial newspapers and began openly criticizing British colonial policy and by 1775 was advocating independence from Britain. Adams was foremost in actively using newspapers like the Boston Gazette to promote the ideals of colonial rights by publishing his letters and other accounts which sharply criticized British colonial policy and especially the practice of colonial taxation without representation.The Boston Gazette had a circulation of two thousand, published weekly, which was considerable number for that time. Its publishers, Benjamin Edes and John Gill, both founding members of the Sons of Liberty, were on friendly and cooperative terms with Adams, James Otis and the Boston Caucus. Historian Ralph Harlow maintains that there is no doubt of the influence these men had in arousing public feeling. In his writings in the Boston Gazette, Adams often wrote under a variety of assumed names, including "Candidus", "Vindex", and others. In less common instances his letters were unsigned. Adams earnestly endeavored to awaken his fellow citizens over the perceived attacks on their Constitutional rights, with emphasis aimed at Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson. Hutchinson stressed that no one matched Adams' efforts in promoting the radical Whig position and the revolutionary cause, which Adams accordingly demonstrated with his numerous published and pointedly written essays and letters. In each of its issues from early September through mid-October of 1771, the Gazette published Adams' inciteful essays, one of which criticized the Parliament for using colonial taxes to pay Hutchinson's annual salary of £2,000. In a letter of February 1770, published by the New York Journal Adams maintained that it became increasingly difficult to view King George III as one who was not passively involved in Parliamentary decisions. In it he asked if anyone of common sense could deny that the King had assumed a “personal and decisive” role against the Americans. ### Sugar Act The first step in the new program was the Sugar Act of 1764, which Adams saw as an infringement of longstanding colonial rights. Colonists were not represented in Parliament, he argued, and therefore they could not be taxed by that body; the colonists were represented by the colonial assemblies, and only they could levy taxes upon them. Adams expressed these views in May 1764, when the Boston Town Meeting elected its representatives to the Massachusetts House. As was customary, the town meeting provided the representatives with a set of written instructions, which Adams was selected to write. Adams highlighted what he perceived to be the dangers of taxation without representation: > For if our Trade may be taxed, why not our Lands? Why not the Produce of our Lands & everything we possess or make use of? This we apprehend annihilates our Charter Right to govern & tax ourselves. It strikes at our British privileges, which as we have never forfeited them, we hold in common with our Fellow Subjects who are Natives of Britain. If Taxes are laid upon us in any shape without our having a legal Representation where they are laid, are we not reduced from the Character of free Subjects to the miserable State of tributary Slaves? "When the Boston Town Meeting approved the Adams instructions on May 24, 1764," writes historian John K. Alexander, "it became the first political body in America to go on record stating Parliament could not constitutionally tax the colonists. The directives also contained the first official recommendation that the colonies present a unified defense of their rights." Adams's instructions were published in newspapers and pamphlets, and he soon became closely associated with James Otis, Jr., a member of the Massachusetts House famous for his defense of colonial rights. Otis boldly challenged the constitutionality of certain acts of Parliament, but he would not go as far as Adams, who was moving towards the conclusion that Parliament did not have sovereignty over the colonies. ### Stamp Act In 1765, Parliament passed the Stamp Act which required colonists to pay a new tax on most printed materials. News of the passage of the Stamp Act produced an uproar in the colonies. The colonial response echoed Adams's 1764 instructions. In June 1765, Otis called for a Stamp Act Congress to coordinate colonial resistance. The Virginia House of Burgesses passed a widely reprinted set of resolves against the Stamp Act that resembled Adams's arguments against the Sugar Act. Adams argued that the Stamp Act was unconstitutional; he also believed that it would hurt the economy of the British Empire. He supported calls for a boycott of British goods to put pressure on Parliament to repeal the tax. In Boston, a group called the Loyal Nine, a precursor to the Sons of Liberty, organized protests of the Stamp Act. Adams was friendly with the Loyal Nine but was not a member. On August 14, stamp distributor Andrew Oliver was hanged in effigy from Boston's Liberty Tree; that night, his home was ransacked and his office demolished. On August 26, lieutenant governor Thomas Hutchinson's home was destroyed by an angry crowd. Officials such as Governor Francis Bernard believed that common people acted only under the direction of agitators and blamed the violence on Adams. This interpretation was revived by scholars in the early 20th century, who viewed Adams as a master of propaganda who manipulated mobs into doing his bidding. For example, historian John C. Miller wrote in 1936 in what became the standard biography of Adams that Adams "controlled" Boston with his "trained mob". Some modern scholars have argued that this interpretation is a myth, and that there is no evidence that Adams had anything to do with the Stamp Act riots. After the fact, Adams did approve of the August 14 action because he saw no other legal options to resist what he viewed as an unconstitutional act by Parliament, but he condemned attacks on officials' homes as "mobbish". According to the modern scholarly interpretation of Adams, he supported legal methods of resisting parliamentary taxation, such as petitions, boycotts, and nonviolent demonstrations, but he opposed mob violence which he saw as illegal, dangerous, and counter-productive. In September 1765, Adams was once again appointed by the Boston Town Meeting to write the instructions for Boston's delegation to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. As it turned out, he wrote his own instructions; on September 27, the town meeting selected him to replace the recently deceased Oxenbridge Thacher as one of Boston's four representatives in the assembly. James Otis was attending the Stamp Act Congress in New York City, so Adams was the primary author of a series of House resolutions against the Stamp Act, which were more radical than those passed by the Stamp Act Congress. Adams was one of the first colonial leaders to argue that mankind possessed certain natural rights that governments could not violate. The Stamp Act was scheduled to go into effect on November 1, 1765, but it was not enforced because protestors throughout the colonies had compelled stamp distributors to resign. Eventually, British merchants were able to convince Parliament to repeal the tax. By May 16, 1766, news of the repeal had reached Boston. There was celebration throughout the city, and Adams made a public statement of thanks to British merchants for helping their cause. The Massachusetts popular party gained ground in the May 1766 elections. Adams was re-elected to the House and selected as its clerk, in which position he was responsible for official House papers. In the coming years, Adams used his position as clerk to great effect in promoting his political message. Joining Adams in the House was John Hancock, a new representative from Boston. Hancock was a wealthy merchant—perhaps the richest man in Massachusetts—but a relative newcomer to politics. He was initially a protégé of Adams, and he used his wealth to promote the Whig cause. ### Townshend Acts After the repeal of the Stamp Act, Parliament took a different approach to raising revenue, passing the Townshend Acts in 1767 which established new duties on various goods imported into the colonies. These duties were relatively low because the British ministry wanted to establish the precedent that Parliament had the right to impose tariffs on the colonies before raising them. Revenues from these duties were to be used to pay for governors and judges who would be independent of colonial control. To enforce compliance with the new laws, the Townshend Acts created a customs agency known as the American Board of Custom Commissioners, which was headquartered in Boston. Resistance to the Townshend Acts grew slowly. The General Court was not in session when news of the acts reached Boston in October 1767. Adams therefore used the Boston Town Meeting to organize an economic boycott, and called for other towns to do the same. By February 1768, towns in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut had joined the boycott. Opposition to the Townshend Acts was also encouraged by Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, a series of popular essays by John Dickinson which started appearing in December 1767. Dickinson's argument that the new taxes were unconstitutional had been made before by Adams, but never to such a wide audience. In January 1768, the Massachusetts House sent a petition to King George asking for his help. Adams and Otis requested that the House send the petition to the other colonies, along with what became known as the Massachusetts Circular Letter, which became "a significant milestone on the road to revolution". The letter written by Adams called on the colonies to join with Massachusetts in resisting the Townshend Acts. The House initially voted against sending the letter and petition to the other colonies but, after some politicking by Adams and Otis, it was approved on February 11. British colonial secretary Lord Hillsborough, hoping to prevent a repeat of the Stamp Act Congress, instructed the colonial governors in America to dissolve the assemblies if they responded to the Massachusetts Circular Letter. He also directed Massachusetts Governor Francis Bernard to have the Massachusetts House rescind the letter. On June 30, the House refused to rescind the letter by a vote of 92 to 17, with Adams citing their right to petition as justification. Far from complying with the governor's order, Adams instead presented a new petition to the king asking that Governor Bernard be removed from office. Bernard responded by dissolving the legislature. The commissioners of the Customs Board found that they were unable to enforce trade regulations in Boston, so they requested military assistance. Help came in the form of HMS Romney, a fifty-gun warship which arrived in Boston Harbor in May 1768. Tensions escalated after the captain of Romney began to impress local sailors. The situation exploded on June 10, when customs officials seized Liberty, a sloop owned by John Hancock—a leading critic of the Customs Board—for alleged customs violations. Sailors and marines came ashore from Romney to tow away Liberty, and a riot broke out. Things calmed down in the following days, but fearful customs officials packed up their families and fled for protection to Romney and eventually to Castle William, an island fort in the harbor. Governor Bernard wrote to London in response to the Liberty incident and the struggle over the Circular Letter, informing his superiors that troops were needed in Boston to restore order. Lord Hillsborough ordered four regiments of the British Army to Boston. ### Boston under occupation Learning that British troops were on the way, the Boston Town Meeting met on September 12, 1768, and requested that Governor Bernard convene the General Court. Bernard refused, so the town meeting called on the other Massachusetts towns to send representatives to meet at Faneuil Hall beginning on September 22. About 100 towns sent delegates to the convention, which was effectively an unofficial session of the Massachusetts House. The convention issued a letter which insisted that Boston was not a lawless town, using language more moderate than what Adams desired, and that the impending military occupation violated Bostonians' natural, constitutional, and charter rights. By the time that the convention adjourned, British troop transports had arrived in Boston Harbor. Two regiments disembarked in October 1768, followed by two more in November. According to some accounts, the occupation of Boston was a turning point for Adams, after which he gave up hope of reconciliation and secretly began to work towards American independence. However, historian Carl Becker wrote in 1928 that "there is no clear evidence in his contemporary writings that such was the case. Nevertheless, the traditional, standard view of Adams is that he desired independence before most of his contemporaries and steadily worked towards this goal for years. There is much speculation among historians, with compelling arguments either way, over whether and when before the war Adams openly advocated independence from Britain. Historian Pauline Maier challenged the idea that he had in 1980, arguing instead that Adams, like most of his peers, did not embrace independence until after the American Revolutionary War had begun in 1775. According to Maier, Adams at this time was a reformer rather than a revolutionary; he sought to have the British ministry change its policies, and warned Britain that independence would be the inevitable result of a failure to do so. Adams biographer Stewart Beach also questioned whether Adams sought independence before the mid-1770s, in that Hutchinson, who despised Adams, and had reason enough to, never once in his papers accused Adams of pushing the idea of independence from Britain, though he notes that Adams had publicly promised retaliation to any British troops sent over to quell the rebellion, moreover, that Adams was never accused of treason by the Parliament before the war. Adams wrote numerous letters and essays in opposition to the occupation, which he considered a violation of the 1689 Bill of Rights. The occupation was publicized throughout the colonies in the Journal of Occurrences, an unsigned series of newspaper articles that may have been written by Adams in collaboration with others. The Journal presented what it claimed to be a factual daily account of events in Boston during the military occupation, an innovative approach in an era without professional newspaper reporters. It depicted a Boston besieged by unruly British soldiers who assaulted men and raped women with regularity and impunity, drawing upon the traditional Anglo-American distrust of standing armies garrisoned among civilians. The Journal ceased publication on August 1, 1769, which was a day of celebration in Boston: Governor Bernard had left Massachusetts, never to return. Adams continued to work on getting the troops withdrawn and keeping the boycott going until the Townshend duties were repealed. Two regiments were removed from Boston in 1769, but the other two remained. Tensions between soldiers and civilians eventually resulted in the killing of five civilians in the Boston Massacre of March 1770. According to the "propagandist interpretation" of Adams popularized by historian John Miller, Adams deliberately provoked the incident to promote his secret agenda of American independence. According to Pauline Maier, however, "There is no evidence that he prompted the Boston Massacre riot". After the Boston Massacre, Adams and other town leaders met with Bernard's successor Governor Thomas Hutchinson and with Colonel William Dalrymple, the army commander, to demand the withdrawal of the troops. The situation remained explosive, so Dalrymple agreed to remove both regiments to Castle William. Adams wanted the soldiers to have a fair trial, because this would show that Boston was not controlled by a lawless mob, but was instead the victim of an unjust occupation. He convinced his cousins John Adams and Josiah Quincy to defend the soldiers, knowing that those Whigs would not slander Boston to gain an acquittal. However, Adams wrote essays condemning the outcome of the trials; he thought that the soldiers should have been convicted of murder. ### "Quiet period" After the Boston Massacre, politics in Massachusetts entered what is sometimes known as the "quiet period". In April 1770, Parliament repealed the Townshend duties, except for the tax on tea. Adams urged colonists to keep up the boycott of British goods, arguing that paying even one small tax allowed Parliament to establish the precedent of taxing the colonies, but the boycott faltered. As economic conditions improved, support waned for Adams's causes. In 1770, New York City and Philadelphia abandoned the non-importation boycott of British goods and Boston merchants faced the risk of being economically ruined, so they also agreed to end the boycott, effectively defeating Adams's cause in Massachusetts. John Adams withdrew from politics, while John Hancock and James Otis appeared to become more moderate. In 1771, Samuel Adams ran for the position of Register of Deeds, but he was beaten by Ezekiel Goldthwait by more than two to one. He was re-elected to the Massachusetts House in April 1772, but he received far fewer votes than ever before. A struggle over the power of the purse brought Adams back into the political limelight. Traditionally, the Massachusetts House of Representatives paid the salaries of the governor, lieutenant governor, and superior court judges. From the Whig perspective, this arrangement was an important check on executive power, keeping royally appointed officials accountable to democratically elected representatives. In 1772, Massachusetts learned that those officials would henceforth be paid by the British government rather than by the province. To protest this, Adams and his colleagues devised a system of committees of correspondence in November 1772; the towns of Massachusetts would consult with each other concerning political matters via messages sent through a network of committees that recorded British activities and protested imperial policies. Committees of correspondence soon formed in other colonies, as well. Governor Hutchinson became concerned that the committees of correspondence were growing into an independence movement, so he convened the General Court in January 1773. Addressing the legislature, Hutchinson argued that denying the supremacy of Parliament, as some committees had done, came dangerously close to rebellion. "I know of no line that can be drawn", he said, "between the supreme authority of Parliament and the total independence of the colonies." Adams and the House responded that the Massachusetts Charter did not establish Parliament's supremacy over the province, and so Parliament could not claim that authority now. Hutchinson soon realized that he had made a major blunder by initiating a public debate about independence and the extent of Parliament's authority in the colonies. The Boston Committee of Correspondence published its statement of colonial rights, along with Hutchinson's exchange with the Massachusetts House, in the widely distributed "Boston Pamphlet". The quiet period in Massachusetts was over. Adams was easily re-elected to the Massachusetts House in May 1773, and was also elected as moderator of the Boston Town Meeting. In June 1773, he introduced a set of private letters to the Massachusetts House, written by Hutchinson several years earlier. In one letter, Hutchinson recommended to London that there should be "an abridgement of what are called English liberties" in Massachusetts. Hutchinson denied that this is what he meant, but his career was effectively over in Massachusetts, and the House sent a petition asking the king to recall him. ### Boston Tea Party Adams took a leading role in the events that led up to the famous Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773, although the precise nature of his involvement has been disputed. In May 1773, the British Parliament passed the Tea Act, a tax law to help the struggling East India Company, one of Great Britain's most important commercial institutions. Britons could buy smuggled Dutch tea more cheaply than the East India Company's tea because of the heavy taxes imposed on tea imported into Great Britain, and so the company amassed a huge surplus of tea that it could not sell. The British government's solution to the problem was to sell the surplus in the colonies. The Tea Act permitted the East India Company to export tea directly to the colonies for the first time, bypassing most of the merchants who had previously acted as middlemen. This measure was a threat to the American colonial economy because it granted the Tea Company a significant cost advantage over local tea merchants and even local tea smugglers, driving them out of business. The act also reduced the taxes on tea paid by the company in Britain, but kept the controversial Townshend duty on tea imported in the colonies. A few merchants in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Charlestown were selected to receive the company's tea for resale. In late 1773, seven ships were sent to the colonies carrying East India Company tea, including four bound for Boston. News of the Tea Act set off a firestorm of protest in the colonies. This was not a dispute about high taxes; the price of legally imported tea was actually reduced by the Tea Act. Protesters were instead concerned with a variety of other issues. The familiar "no taxation without representation" argument remained prominent, along with the question of the extent of Parliament's authority in the colonies. Some colonists worried that, by buying the cheaper tea, they would be conceding that Parliament had the right to tax them. The "power of the purse" conflict was still at issue. The tea tax revenues were to be used to pay the salaries of certain royal officials, making them independent of the people. Colonial smugglers played a significant role in the protests, since the Tea Act made legally imported tea cheaper, which threatened to put smugglers of Dutch tea out of business. Legitimate tea importers who had not been named as consignees by the East India Company were also threatened with financial ruin by the Tea Act and other merchants worried about the precedent of a government-created monopoly. Adams and the correspondence committees promoted opposition to the Tea Act. In every colony except Massachusetts, protesters were able to force the tea consignees to resign or to return the tea to England. In Boston, however, Governor Hutchinson was determined to hold his ground. He convinced the tea consignees, two of whom were his sons, not to back down. The Boston Caucus and then the Town Meeting attempted to compel the consignees to resign, but they refused. With the tea ships about to arrive, Adams and the Boston Committee of Correspondence contacted nearby committees to rally support. The tea ship Dartmouth arrived in the Boston Harbor in late November, and Adams wrote a circular letter calling for a mass meeting to be held at Faneuil Hall on November 29. Thousands of people arrived, so many that the meeting was moved to the larger Old South Meeting House. British law required the Dartmouth to unload and pay the duties within twenty days or customs officials could confiscate the cargo. The mass meeting passed a resolution introduced by Adams urging the captain of the Dartmouth to send the ship back without paying the import duty. Meanwhile, the meeting assigned twenty-five men to watch the ship and prevent the tea from being unloaded. Governor Hutchinson refused to grant permission for the Dartmouth to leave without paying the duty. Two more tea ships arrived in Boston Harbor, the Eleanor and the Beaver. The fourth ship, the William, was stranded near Cape Cod and never arrived in Boston. December 16 was the last day of the Dartmouth's deadline, and about 7,000 people gathered around the Old South Meeting House. Adams received a report that Governor Hutchinson had again refused to let the ships leave, and he announced, "This meeting can do nothing further to save the country." According to a popular story, Adams's statement was a prearranged signal for the "tea party" to begin. However, this claim did not appear in print until nearly a century after the event, in a biography of Adams written by his great-grandson, who apparently misinterpreted the evidence. According to eyewitness accounts, people did not leave the meeting until ten or fifteen minutes after Adams's alleged "signal", and Adams in fact tried to stop people from leaving because the meeting was not yet over. While Adams tried to reassert control of the meeting, people poured out of the Old South Meeting House and headed to Boston Harbor. That evening, a group of 30 to 130 men boarded the three vessels, some of them thinly disguised as Mohawk Indians, and dumped all 342 chests of tea into the water over the course of three hours. Adams never revealed whether he went to the wharf to witness the destruction of the tea. Whether or not he helped plan the event is unknown, but Adams immediately worked to publicize and defend it. He argued that the Tea Party was not the act of a lawless mob, but was instead a principled protest and the only remaining option that the people had to defend their constitutional rights. ## Revolution Great Britain responded to the Boston Tea Party in 1774 with the Coercive Acts. The first of these acts was the Boston Port Act, which closed Boston's commerce until the East India Company had been repaid for the destroyed tea. The Massachusetts Government Act rewrote the Massachusetts Charter, making many officials royally appointed rather than elected, and severely restricting the activities of town meetings. The Administration of Justice Act allowed colonists charged with crimes to be transported to another colony or to Great Britain for trial. A new royal governor was appointed to enforce the acts: General Thomas Gage, who was also commander of British military forces in North America. Adams worked to coordinate resistance to the Coercive Acts. In May 1774, the Boston Town Meeting (with Adams serving as moderator) organized an economic boycott of British goods. In June, Adams headed a committee in the Massachusetts House—with the doors locked to prevent Gage from dissolving the legislature—which proposed that an inter-colonial congress meet in Philadelphia in September. He was one of five delegates chosen to attend the First Continental Congress. Adams was never fashionably dressed and had little money, so friends bought him new clothes and paid his expenses for the journey to Philadelphia, his first trip outside of Massachusetts. ### First Continental Congress In Philadelphia, Adams promoted colonial unity while using his political skills to lobby other delegates. On September 16, messenger Paul Revere brought Congress the Suffolk Resolves, one of many resolutions passed in Massachusetts that promised strident resistance to the Coercive Acts. Congress endorsed the Suffolk Resolves, issued a Declaration of Rights that denied Parliament's right to legislate for the colonies, and organized a colonial boycott known as the Continental Association. Adams returned to Massachusetts in November 1774, where he served in the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, an extralegal legislative body independent of British control. The Provincial Congress created the first minutemen companies, consisting of militiamen who were to be ready for action on a moment's notice. Adams also served as moderator of the Boston Town Meeting, which convened despite the Massachusetts Government Act, and was appointed to the Committee of Inspection to enforce the Continental Association. He was also selected to attend the Second Continental Congress, scheduled to meet in Philadelphia in May 1775. John Hancock had been added to the delegation, and he and Adams attended the Provincial Congress in Concord, Massachusetts, before Adams's journey to the second Congress. The two men decided that it was not safe to return to Boston before leaving for Philadelphia, so they stayed at Hancock's childhood home in Lexington. On April 14, 1775, General Gage received a letter from Lord Dartmouth advising him "to arrest the principal actors and abettors in the Provincial Congress whose proceedings appear in every light to be acts of treason and rebellion". On the night of April 18, Gage sent out a detachment of soldiers on the fateful mission that sparked the American Revolutionary War. The purpose of the British expedition was to seize and destroy military supplies that the colonists had stored in Concord. According to many historical accounts, Gage also instructed his men to arrest Hancock and Adams, but the written orders issued by Gage made no mention of arresting the Patriot leaders. Gage had evidently decided against seizing Adams and Hancock, but Patriots initially believed otherwise, perhaps influenced by London newspapers that reached Boston with the news that the patriot leader would be hanged if he were caught. From Boston, Joseph Warren dispatched Paul Revere to warn the two that British troops were on the move and might attempt to arrest them. As Hancock and Adams made their escape, the first shots of the war began at Lexington and Concord. Soon after the battle, Gage issued a proclamation granting a general pardon to all who would "lay down their arms, and return to the duties of peaceable subjects"—with the exceptions of Hancock and Samuel Adams. Singling out Hancock and Adams in this manner only added to their renown among Patriots and, according to Patriot historian Mercy Otis Warren, perhaps exaggerated the importance of the two men. ### Second Continental Congress The Continental Congress worked under a secrecy rule, so Adams's precise role in congressional deliberations is not fully documented. He appears to have had a major influence, working behind the scenes as a sort of "parliamentary whip" and Thomas Jefferson credits Samuel Adams—the lesser-remembered Adams—with steering the Congress toward independence, saying, "If there was any Palinurus to the Revolution, Samuel Adams was the man." He served on numerous committees, often dealing with military matters. Among his more noted acts, Adams nominated George Washington to be commander in chief over the Continental Army. Adams was a cautious advocate for a declaration of independence, urging eager correspondents back in Massachusetts to wait for more moderate colonists to come around to supporting separation from Great Britain. He was pleased in 1775 when the colonies began to replace their old governments with independent republican governments. He praised Thomas Paine's popular pamphlet Common Sense, writing as "Candidus" in early 1776, and supported the call for American independence. On June 7, Adams's political ally Richard Henry Lee introduced a three-part resolution calling for Congress to declare independence, create a colonial confederation, and seek foreign aid. After a delay to rally support, Congress approved the language of the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, which Adams signed. After the Declaration of Independence, Congress continued to manage the war effort. Adams served on military committees, including an appointment to the Board of War in 1777. He advocated paying bonuses to Continental Army soldiers to encourage them to reenlist for the duration of the war. He called for harsh state legislation to punish Loyalists—Americans who continued to support the British crown—who Adams believed were as dangerous to American liberty as British soldiers. In Massachusetts, more than 300 Loyalists were banished and their property confiscated. After the war, Adams opposed allowing Loyalists to return to Massachusetts, fearing that they would work to undermine republican government. Adams was the Massachusetts delegate appointed to the committee to draft the Articles of Confederation, the plan for the colonial confederation. With its emphasis on state sovereignty, the Articles reflected Congress's wariness of a strong central government, a concern shared by Adams. Like others at the time, Adams considered himself a citizen of the United States while continuing to refer to Massachusetts as his "country". After much debate, the Articles were sent to the states for ratification in November 1777. From Philadelphia, Adams urged Massachusetts to ratify, which it did. Adams signed the Articles of Confederation with the other Massachusetts delegates in 1778, but they were not ratified by all the states until 1781. Adams returned to Boston in 1779 to attend a state constitutional convention. The Massachusetts General Court had proposed a new constitution the previous year, but voters rejected it, and so a convention was held to try again. Adams was appointed to a three-man drafting committee with his cousin John Adams and James Bowdoin. They drafted the Massachusetts Constitution, which was amended by the convention and approved by voters in 1780. The new constitution established a republican form of government, with annual elections and a separation of powers. It reflected Adams's belief that "a state is never free except when each citizen is bound by no law whatever that he has not approved of, either directly, or through his representatives". By modern standards, the new constitution was not "democratic"; Adams, like most of his peers, believed that only free males who owned property should be allowed to vote, and that the senate and the governor served to balance any excesses that might result from majority rule. In 1781, Adams retired from the Continental Congress. His health was one reason; he was approaching his sixtieth birthday and suffered from tremors that made writing difficult. But he also wanted to return to Massachusetts to influence politics in the Commonwealth. He returned to Boston in 1781, and never left Massachusetts again. ## Return to Massachusetts Adams remained active in politics upon his return to Massachusetts. He frequently served as moderator of the Boston Town Meeting, and was elected to the state senate, where he often served as that body's president. Adams focused his political agenda on promoting virtue, which he considered essential in a republican government. If republican leaders lacked virtue, he believed, liberty was endangered. His major opponent in this campaign was his former protégé John Hancock; the two men had a falling out in the Continental Congress. Adams disapproved of what he viewed as Hancock's vanity and extravagance, which Adams believed were inappropriate in a republican leader. When Hancock left Congress in 1777, Adams and the other Massachusetts delegates voted against thanking him for his service as president of Congress. The struggle continued in Massachusetts. Adams thought that Hancock was not acting the part of a virtuous republican leader by acting like an aristocrat and courting popularity. Adams favored James Bowdoin for governor, and was distressed when Hancock won annual landslide victories. Adams's promotion of public virtue took several forms. He played a major role in getting Boston to provide a free public education for children, even for girls, which was controversial. Adams was one of the charter members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1780. After the Revolutionary War, Adams joined others, including Thomas Jefferson, in denouncing the Society of the Cincinnati, an organization of former army officers. Adams worried that the Society was "a stride towards an hereditary military nobility", and thus a threat to republicanism. Adams also believed that public theaters undermined civic virtue, and he joined an ultimately unsuccessful effort to keep theaters banned in Boston. Decades after Adams's death, orator Edward Everett called him "the last of the Puritans". Postwar economic troubles in western Massachusetts led to an uprising known as Shays' Rebellion, which began in 1786. Small farmers, angered by high taxes and debts, armed themselves and shut down debtor courts in Worcester and Hampshire Counties, prompting Governor James Bowdoin to consult Adams first. Adams at a Boston town meeting oversaw the drafting of a circular letter which denounced these actions as unconstitutional and as acts treason. As Massachusetts' senator representing Boston, Adams played an important role in forming Governor Bowdoin's hard-line policy to suppress the rebellion. His old political ally James Warren thought that Adams had forsaken his principles, but Adams saw no contradiction. He approved of rebellion against an unrepresentative government, as had happened during the American Revolution, but he opposed taking up arms against a republican government, composed of fellow American citizens, where problems should be remedied through elections. He thought that the leaders of Shays's Rebellion should be hanged, reportedly saying that "the man who dares to rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death", and urged Governor Bowdoin to use military force, who obliged and sent four thousand militiamen to put down the uprising. Shays's Rebellion contributed to the belief that the Articles of Confederation needed to be revised. In 1787, delegates to the Philadelphia Convention, instead of revising the Articles, created a new United States Constitution with a much stronger national government. The Constitution was sent to the states for ratification, when Adams expressed his displeasure. "I confess," he wrote to Richard Henry Lee on Boston December 3, 1787, "as I enter the Building I stumble at the Threshold. I meet with a National Government, instead of a Federal Union of States." Adams was one of those derisively labeled "Anti-Federalists" by proponents of the new Constitution, who called themselves "Federalists". Adams was elected to the Massachusetts ratifying convention which met in January 1788. Despite his reservations, Adams rarely spoke at the convention, and listened carefully to the arguments rather than raising objections. Adams and John Hancock had reconciled, and they finally agreed to give their support for the Constitution, with the proviso that some amendments be added later. Even with the support of Hancock and Adams, the Massachusetts convention narrowly ratified the Constitution by a vote of 187 to 168. While Adams was attending the ratifying convention, his only son Samuel Adams, Jr. died at just 37 years of age. The younger Adams had served as surgeon in the Revolutionary War, but had fallen ill and never fully recovered. The death was a stunning blow to the elder Adams. The younger Adams left his father the certificates that he had earned as a soldier, giving Adams and his wife unexpected financial security in their final years. Investments in land made them relatively wealthy by the mid-1790s, but this did not alter their frugal lifestyle. Adams was concerned about the new Constitution and made an attempt to re-enter national politics. He allowed his name to be put forth as a candidate for the House of Representatives in the December 1788 election, but lost to Fisher Ames, apparently because Ames was a stronger supporter of the Constitution, a more popular position. Adams belonged to the school of revolutionary crusaders, whose purpose and influence became obscured by 1776 and all but disappeared by war's end. By the late 1780s Adams appeared to be an aging politician whose glory days were obscured by present day constitutional issues. Ames, however, belonged to the group of constructive statesmen who built up out of the wreck of revolution and strived to bring the young nation into a rapidly changing world by establishing a strong federal constitution. During this time the newspapers outlined the stark contrast in politics between Adams and Ames in their pages. Despite his defeat, Adams continued to work for amendments to the Constitution, a movement that ultimately resulted in the addition of a Bill of Rights in 1791. Adams subsequently became a firm supporter of the Constitution, with these amendments and the possibility of more. In 1789, Adams was elected Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts and served in that office until Governor Hancock's death in 1793, when he became acting governor. The next year, Adams was elected as governor in his own right, the first of four annual terms. He was generally regarded as the leader of his state's Jeffersonian Republicans, who were opposed to the Federalist Party. Unlike some other Republicans, Adams supported the suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 for the same reasons that he had opposed Shays's Rebellion. Like his fellow Republicans, he spoke out against the Jay Treaty in 1796, a position that drew criticism in a state that was increasingly Federalist. In that year's U. S. presidential election, Republicans in Virginia cast 15 electoral votes for Adams in an effort to make him Jefferson's vice-president, but Federalist John Adams won the election, with Jefferson becoming vice-president. The Adams cousins remained friends, but Samuel was pleased when Jefferson defeated John Adams in the 1800 presidential election. Samuel Adams took a cue from President Washington, who declined to run for reelection in 1796: he retired from politics at the end of his term as governor in 1797. Adams suffered from what is now believed to have been essential tremor, a movement disorder that rendered him unable to write in the final decade of his life. He died at the age of 81 on October 2, 1803, and was interred at the Granary Burying Ground in Boston. Boston's Republican newspaper the Independent Chronicle eulogized him as the "Father of the American Revolution". ## Legacy Samuel Adams is a controversial figure in American history. Disagreement about his significance and reputation began before his death and continues to the present. Adams's contemporaries, both friends and foes, regarded him as one of the foremost leaders of the American Revolution. Thomas Jefferson, for example, characterized Adams as "truly the Man of the Revolution." Leaders in other colonies were compared to him; Cornelius Harnett was called the "Samuel Adams of North Carolina", Charles Thomson the "Samuel Adams of Philadelphia", and Christopher Gadsden the "Sam Adams of the South". When John Adams traveled to France during the Revolution, he had to explain that he was not Samuel, "the famous Adams". Supporters of the Revolution praised Adams, but Loyalists viewed him as a sinister figure. Peter Oliver, the exiled chief justice of Massachusetts, characterized him as a devious Machiavellian with a "cloven Foot". Thomas Hutchinson, Adams's political foe, took his revenge in his History of Massachusetts Bay, in which he denounced him as a dishonest character assassin, emphasizing his failures as a businessman and tax collector. This hostile "Tory interpretation" of Adams was revived in the 20th century by historian Clifford K. Shipton in the Sibley's Harvard Graduates reference series. Shipton wrote positive portraits of Hutchinson and Oliver and scathing sketches of Adams and Hancock; his entry on Adams was characterized by historian Pauline Maier as "forty-five pages of contempt". Whig historians challenged the "Tory interpretation" of Adams. William Gordon and Mercy Otis Warren, two historians who knew Adams, wrote of him as a man selflessly dedicated to the American Revolution. But in the early 19th century, Adams was often viewed as an old-fashioned Puritan, and was consequently neglected by historians. Interest in Adams was revived in the mid-19th century. Historian George Bancroft portrayed him favorably in his monumental History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent (1852). The first full biography of Adams appeared in 1865, a three-volume work written by William Wells, his great-grandson. The Wells biography is still valuable for its wealth of information, although Whig portrayals of Adams were uncritically pro-American and had elements of hagiography, a view that influenced some later biographies written for general audiences. Adams' writings include letters and essays, many of which were published in colonial newspapers like the Boston Gazette. These works have been collected, edited and published in a four volume work (1906-1908), edited by Harry A. Cushing. In the preface of this work Cushing asserts that, "The writings of no one of the leaders of the American Revolution form a more complete expression of the causes and justification of that movement than do those of Samuel Adams. In the late 19th century, many American historians were uncomfortable with contemporary revolutions and found it problematic to write approvingly about Adams. Relations had improved between the United States and the United Kingdom, and Adams's role in dividing Americans from Britons was increasingly viewed with regret. In 1885, James Hosmer wrote a biography that praised Adams, but also found some of his actions troubling, such as the 1773 publication of Hutchinson's private letters. Subsequent biographers became increasingly hostile towards Adams and the common people whom he represented. In 1923, Ralph V. Harlow used a "Freudian" approach to characterize Adams as a "neurotic crank" driven by an "inferiority complex". Harlow argued that, because the masses were easily misled, Adams "manufactured public opinion" to produce the Revolution, a view that became the thesis of John C. Miller's 1936 biography Sam Adams: Pioneer in Propaganda. Miller portrayed Adams more as an incendiary revolutionary than an adroit political operative, attributing to this one man all the acts of Boston's "body of the people", and consistently calling his subject "Sam", despite the fact that Adams was almost always known as "Samuel" in his lifetime. Miller's influential book became, in the words of historian Charles Akers, the "scholarly enshrinement" of "the myth of Sam Adams as the Boston dictator who almost single-handedly led his colony into rebellion". According to Akers, Miller and other historians used "Sam did it" to explain crowd actions and other developments, without citing any evidence that Adams directed those events. In 1974, Akers called on historians to critically re-examine the sources rather than simply repeating the myth. By then, scholars were increasingly rejecting the notion that Adams and others used "propaganda" to incite "ignorant mobs", and were instead portraying a revolutionary Massachusetts too complex to have been controlled by one man. Historian Pauline Maier argued that Adams, far from being a radical mob leader, took a moderate position based on the English revolutionary tradition that imposed strict constraints on resistance to authority. That belief justified force only against threats to the constitutional rights so grave that the "body of the people" recognized the danger, and only after all peaceful means of redress had failed. Within that revolutionary tradition, resistance was essentially conservative. In 2004, Ray Raphael's Founding Myths continued Maier's line by deconstructing several of the "Sam" Adams myths that are still repeated in many textbooks and popular histories. Samuel Adams's name has been used by commercial and non-profit ventures since his death. The Boston Beer Company created Samuel Adams Boston Lager in 1985, drawing upon the tradition that Adams had been a brewer; it became a popular award-winning brand. Adams's name is also used by a pair of non-profit organizations, the Sam Adams Alliance and the Sam Adams Foundation. These groups take their names from Adams in homage to his ability to organize citizens at the local level to achieve a national goal. In her 2022 biography of Adams, Pulitzer Prize winning biographer Stacy Schiff writes that Adams "operated by stealth, melting into committees and crowd actions, pseudonyms and smoky back rooms." ## Descendants Samuel Adams married (1st) in 1749 Elizabeth Checkley, with whom he had six children, two of whom lived to adulthood: Samuel (born 1751) and Hannah (born 1756). Of these two, only Hannah married and had children, and all of Samuel Adams' known progeny descend from her. Adams married (2nd) in 1764 to Elizabeth Wells. They had no children. - Samuel Adams, signer of the Declaration of Independence (16 Sept 1722 – 2 Oct 1803); married (1st) on 17 Oct 1749 Elizabeth Checkley (15 Mar 1725 – 25 Jul 1757); children (5). He married (2nd) on 6 Dec 1764 Elizabeth Wells (26 Jan 1735–36 – 29 Apr 1808); no children. - 1-1. Samuel Adams (14 Sep 1750 – 2 Oct 1750). - 1-2. Samuel Adams (16 Oct 1751 – 17 Jan 1788); unmarried. - 1-3. Joseph Adams (23 Jun 1753 – 24 Jun 1753). - 1-4. Mary Adams (23 Jun 1754 – 3 Oct 1754). - 1-5. Hannah Adams (21 Jan 1756 – 28 May 1821); married on 25 June 1781 Thomas Wells (23 May 1754 – 30 Oct 1799); children (6), - BRANCH ONE: - 2-1. Elizabeth Wells (25 May 1783 – 29 Jan 1868); married in 1809 Dr. John Randall; children (5). - 3-1. Elizabeth Wells Randall (28 Sep 1811 – 12 Apr 1867); married in 1836 Alfred Cumming; no children. - 3-2. John Witt Randall (6 Nov 1813 – 25 Jan 1892); unmarried. - 3-3. Belinda Lull Randall (17 Jan 1816 – 14 Mar 1897); unmarried. - 3-4. Maria Hayward Randall (5 Oct 1820 – 26 May 1842); unmarried. - 3-5. Anna Checkley Randall (1 Jun 1824 – 23 Apr 1862); unmarried. - BRANCH TWO: - 2-2. Susannah Wells (10 Apr 1785 – 19 Aug 1786). - BRANCH THREE: - 2-3. Samuel Adams Wells (1 Mar 1787 – 12 Aug 1840); married in 1812 Margaret Hall Gibbs; children (8). - 3-1. Catherine Hall Wells (11 Apr 1814 – 18 May 1891); married in 1847 Gilbert Higgins O'Reilly; children (1). - 4-1. John Adams Reilly (6 Jun 1849 – 3 Mar 1931); married (1st) in 1874 Jeannie Adelaide Osborne; children (5). He married (2nd) in 1899 Myrtle Green; no children. - 5-1. Gertrude Adelaide Reilly (b 12 May 1875). - 5-2. Mabel W. Reilly (b 23 April 1877). - 5-3. Samuel Adams Reilly (b 16 Dec 1879). - 5-4. Josephine Reilly (b 30 Sep 1882). - 5-5. Lucy Eugenia Reilly (b 26 Jul 1887). - 3-2. Margaret Wells (23 Mar 1817 – 28 Aug 1891); married in 1849 Dr. Maurice O'Keefe Reedy; children (1). - 4-1. George Adams Reedy (5 Oct 1850 – 22 Jun 1869). - 3-3. Elizabeth Randall Wells (3 Dec 1818 – 5 Feb 1850); married in 1844 Francis Augustus Fuller; children (2). - 4-1. Frederick Fuller (10 Apr 1845 – 2 Oct 1908); married in 1872 Catherine Maria Carroll; children (7). - 5-1. Francis Augustus Fuller (b 31 Jul 1873). - 5-2. Frederic Edward Fuller (b 11 Aug 1874). - 5-3. Caroline Mary Josephine Fuller (b 3 Sep 1875). - 5-4. Catherine Elizabeth Fuller (b 15 Oct 1876). - 5-5. Mary Fuller (b 19 Feb 1878). - 5-6. Annie Sprague Fuller (b 27 Aug 1879). - 5-7. Jennie Fuller (b 22 May 1891). - 4-2. Henry Edward Fuller (13 Jun 1847 – 13 Jun 1909); married (1st) in 1872 Margaretta Dixon; (no children). He married (2nd) in 1875 Margaret Doughty Lewis; children (2). - 5-1. Alfred Lewis Fuller (b 14 Dec 1881). - 5-2. Adelaide Lewis Fuller (b 22 Oct 1883). - 3-4. Hannah Adams Wells (9 Apr 1820 – 12 Oct 1823). - 3-5. Hannah Adams Wells (22 Oct 1823 – 26 May 1851); unmarried. - 3-6. Samuel Adams Wells (8 Mar 1826 – 31 Mar 1865); unmarried. - 3-7. James Wells (17 Mar 1828 – 5 Dec 1888); married in 1854 Althea Maria Gantz; children (3). - 4-1. James Edward Wells (Mar 1855 – 2 Oct 1855). - 4-2. Frederick Adams Wells (13 Oct 1857 – 12 Mar 1926); married (1st) in 1884 Ada Cynthia Gallagher; children (1). He married (2nd) in 1902 Ida von Hofe; no children. - 5-1. William Hensen Wells (b 15 Apr 1886). - 4-3. Jesse C. Wells (b ca 1861 – 18 Jan 1941); married in 1882 Addie F. Smith. - 3-8. George Wells (20 Dec 1830 – unknown; presumed lost at sea ca 1860). - BRANCH FOUR: - 2-4. Susannah Wells (7 Nov 1788 – 26 Jun 1789). - BRANCH FIVE: - 2-5. Thomas Wells (27 Mar 1791 – 11 Dec 1861); married (1st) in 1814 Belinda Lull; children (3). He married (2nd) in 1821 Anna Maria Foster; children (6). - 3-1. Thomas Wells (1815 – 1815). - 3-2. Belinda Penelope Wells (13 Sep 1816 – 9 Dec 1891); married in 1832 George Arthur Simmons; children (9). - 4-1. George Arthur Simmons (28 May 1833 – 25 Oct 1874); unmarried. - 4-2. Belinda Lull Simmons (26 Jul 1835 – 22 Jun 1888); married (1st) in 1854 Samuel Simmons Phillips; children (2). She married (2nd) in 1868 Thomas Cummings Lombard; no children. - 5-1. Walter Richards Phillips (b 16 Feb 1856). - 5-2. Henry Gregory Phillips (b 17 Nov 1859). - 4-3. Louisa Tucker Simmons (5 Dec 1837 – 28 Oct 1886); married in 1859 Lorenzo Silas Cragin; children (3). - 5-1. Mary Louise Gragin (b 24 Aug 1860). - 5-2. George Arthur Cragin (b 9 Dec 1863). - 5-3. Henry Adams Cragin (b 22 May 1867). - 4-4. Maria Eastburn Simmons (10 Sep 1839 – 10 Sep 1839). - 4-5. Wentworth Seton Simmons; (14 Sep 1840 – 25 Dec 1914); married (1st) in 1865 Annette Walter; children (5). He married (2nd) in 1896 Lavinia Cole Roberts; no children. - 5-1. Virginia Wentworth Simmons (b 7 Mar 1867). - 5-2. Laura Walter Simmons (b 24 Sep 1868). - 5-3. George Arthur Simmons (b 28 Aug 1870). - 5-4. Henry Edwards Simmons (b 19 Feb 1872). - 5-5. Samuel Adams Simmons (b 7 Mar 1876). - 4-6. Samuel Adams Simmons (8 Oct 1843 – 17 Oct 1913); married in 1875 Margaret Emeline Risenhoover; children (3). - 5-1. Lucy Wells Simmons (b 27 Sep 1875). - 5-2. Elizabeth Horton Simmons (b 30 Aug 1877). - 5-3. Marguerite Louise Simmons (b 12 Nov 1889). - 4-7. Elizabeth Putnam Simmons (8 Nov 1845 – 11 Oct 1910); unmarried. - 4-8. David Allan Simmons (24 Aug 1848 – 29 May 1918); unmarried. - 4-9. Joseph Thomas Simmons (24 Aug 1848 – 25 Mar 1851). - 3-3. Thomas Wells (Aug 1817 – 25 Feb 1818). - 3-4. Thomas Foster Wells (22 Jul 1822 – 11 Dec 1861); married in 1849 Sarah Morrill; children (4). - 4-1. Mary Ingersoll Wells (23 Jul 1850 – 21 Jul 1915); married in 1876 Charles Edward Cram; children (1). - 5-1. Robert Vincent Cram (b 31 Jul 1885). - 4-2. Webster Wells (4 Sep 1851 – 23 May 1916); married in 1876 Emily Walker Langdon; no children. - 4-3. Joseph Morrill Wells (1 Mar 1853 – 2 Feb 1890); unmarried. - 4-4. Anna Foster Wells (18 Dec 1857 – 11 Jan 1920); married (1st) in 1883 Lorenzo Atwood Dunbar; children (3). She married (2nd) Thomas Eldred Holway; children (1). - 5-1. Roger Sargent Dunbar (b 24 May 1884). - 5-2. Arthur J. Dunbar (15 Mar 1888). - 5-3. Philip Wells Dunbar (b 16 Sep 1889). - 5-4. Katharine Eldred Holway (b 23 Jul 1897). - 3-5. Samuel Adams Wells (2 Apr 1824 – 30 Aug 1864); married (1st) in 1849 Angeline P. Bates; children (1). He married (2nd) in 1861 Lavinia Howard Oldfield; children (2). - 4-1 Angeline Seton Wells (20 Nov 1850 – 3 Nov 1857). - 4-2. Mary Lavinia Wells (21 Apr 1862 – 1 August 1941); married ca 1887 William M. Chapman; children (2). - 5-1. William M. Chapman (b 1888). - 5-2. Lavinia W. Chapman (b 1891). - 4-3. Samuel Adams Wells (3 Jan 1865 – unknown); married Maud Henderson; children (1). - 5-1. Vincent Oldfield Wells 31 May 1893 - 19 Dec 1971); married Agnes. - 3-6. William Vincent Wells (31 Jan 1826 – 1 Jun 1876); married in 1854 Laura Ann Jones; no children. - 3-7. Anna Maria Wells (2 Sep 1828 – 9 Jul 1860); married in 1849 James Davenport Whelpley; children (1). - 4-1. Annie Vincent Whelpley (18 Oct 1850 – 16 May 1930); married in 1871 Edward Renouf; children (2) - 5-1. Edward Davenport Renouf (b 4 Jun 1872). - 5-2. Vincent Adams Renouf (b 15 Dec 1876). - 3-8. Joseph Locke Wells (1840–1840). - 3-9. Mary Ingersoll Wells (1843–1845). - BRANCH SIX: - 2-6. James Wells (28 Jun 1792 – 4 Jul 1793). ## See also - Early American publishers and printers - Memorial to the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence
377,142	Corinna	1,170,204,515	Ancient Greek poet	[ "1st-millennium BC births", "1st-millennium BC deaths", "Ancient Boeotian poets", "Ancient Greek lyric poets", "Ancient Greek women poets", "Year of birth unknown", "Year of death unknown" ]	Corinna or Korinna (Ancient Greek: Κόριννα, romanized: Korinna) was an ancient Greek lyric poet from Tanagra in Boeotia. Although ancient sources portray her as a contemporary of Pindar (born c. 518 BC), not all modern scholars accept the accuracy of this tradition. When she lived has been the subject of much debate since the early twentieth century, proposed dates ranging from the beginning of the fifth century to the late third century BC. Corinna's works survive only in fragments: three substantial sections of poems are preserved on second-century AD papyri from Egypt; several shorter pieces survive in quotations by ancient grammarians. They focus on local Boeotian legends, and are distinctive for their mythological innovations. Corinna's poetry often reworks well-known myths to include details not known from any other sources. Though respected in her hometown, Tanagra, and popular in ancient Rome, modern critics have often regarded her as parochial and dull; her poetry is nonetheless of interest as she is one of the few female poets from ancient Greece whose work survives. ## Life Corinna was from Tanagra in Boeotia. The Suda, a tenth-century encyclopedia, records that she was the daughter of Acheloodorus and Procratia, and was nicknamed Myia (Μυῖα, "the fly"). According to ancient tradition, she lived during the fifth century BC. She was supposed to have been a contemporary of Pindar, either having taught him, or been a fellow-pupil of Myrtis of Anthedon with him. Corinna was said to have competed with Pindar, defeating him in at least one poetry competition, though some sources claim five. Since the early twentieth century, scholars have been divided over the accuracy of the traditional chronology of Corinna's life. One of the first scholars to question this was Edgar Lobel, who in 1930 concluded that there is no reason to believe she predated the orthography used on the Berlin papyrus, on which fragments of two of her poems are preserved. The debate over Corinna's date has dominated scholarship since, and the evidence remains inconclusive. Sceptics of the traditional chronology argue that there is no ancient mention of Corinna before the first century BC, and that the orthography of her surviving poetry was not established until after the mid-fourth century. This is the most common view, with Martin Litchfield West and David A. Campbell among those who believe a late date for Corinna. Campbell concludes that a third-century date is "almost certain". The alternative view, accepting the traditional fifth-century date, is set forth by scholars such as Archibald Allen and Jiří Frel. If the traditional date is correct, the lack of ancient reference to Corinna before the first century, and the later orthography, could both be explained by her being of only local interest before the Hellenistic period. According to this theory, when she was rediscovered and popularised in the Hellenistic period her poetry would have been re-spelled into contemporary Boeotian orthography, as her original fifth-century orthography was too unfamiliar to a third-century audience. An apparent terminus ante quem is established by the second-century AD theologian Tatian, who says in his Address to the Greeks that the fourth-century sculptor Silanion made a portrait-statue of Corinna. A Roman-era copy of a fourth-century statue in the Musée Vivenel in Compiègne, France, is identified by an inscription on the base as depicting Corinna, and is widely accepted by archeologists as a copy of Silanion's sculpture. Philologists continue to regard this attribution with what Thea S. Thorsen describes as "unwarranted scepticism". West, for instance, accepts that the Compiègne statuette is a copy of a fourth-century work, but suggests that it was not originally intended to depict Corinna, only gaining that association in the Roman period. Thorsen argues that the sculpture was always intended as an image of Corinna, noting that the figure is shown with five scrolls that match the five books of poetry attributed to Corinna in antiquity. ## Poetry Corinna, like Pindar, wrote choral lyric poetry – as demonstrated by her invocation of Terpsichore, the Muse of dance and chorus, in one of her fragments. According to the Suda, she wrote five books of poetry. Her works were collected in a Boeotian edition in the late third or early second century BC, and later Hellenistic and Roman texts of Corinna derived from this. This Boeotian edition was produced in a scholarly format, with titles for the poems; it may have also included accent marks and hypotheses, but is unlikely to have included line numbers. Corinna wrote in a literary dialect, which had features of her Boeotian vernacular, along with similarities to the language of epic both in morphology and in her choice of words; Daniel Berman describes it as "epic written as Boeotian". If Corinna was a contemporary of Pindar, this use of the local vernacular as a literary language is archaic – though the earlier poets Alcman and Stesichorus wrote in literary dialects based on their own vernaculars, the fifth-century choral poets Pindar and Bacchylides both wrote in Doric despite it not being their local dialect. On the other hand, if she is to be located closer to the Hellenistic period, parallels can be found in the poetry of Theocritus, who also used features of his native dialect in the Idylls. ### Poems About forty fragments of Corinna's poetry survive, more than any ancient woman poet except for Sappho, though no complete poems of hers are known. The three most substantial fragments are preserved on pieces of papyrus discovered in Hermopolis and Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, dating to the second century AD; many of the shorter fragments survive in citations by grammarians interested in Corinna's Boeotian dialect. Two fragments of Corinna's poetry are preserved on the same papyrus (P.Berol. 13284), now in the collection of the Berlin State Museums. The first of these tells the story of a singing contest between the mountains Cithaeron and Helicon. The surviving portion includes the ending of one of the mountain's songs, the gods voting on the winner of the contest, and the losing mountain, Helicon, throwing down a boulder in anger. The second poem preserved on this papyrus tells of the daughters of the river-god Asopus. It mostly consists of a prophet, Acraephen, telling Asopus how his daughters were abducted by the gods, and that they will go on to give birth to many heroes; the papyrus ends with a highly fragmentary portion in which Asopus appears to be reconciled to his daughters' fate, and he responds "happily". The third substantial fragment of Corinna's poetry, preserved on a papyrus in the Sackler Library of the University of Oxford (P.Oxy. 2370), invokes the muse of dance and choral poetry, Terpsichore. It is usually thought to be from a partheneion, a kind of poem performed by a chorus of young women for a public occasion. West suggests that it was written as an introductory poem for Corinna's collection. ### Style Corinna's language is clear, simple, and generally undecorated, and she tends to use simple metrical schemes. Her poetry focuses more on the narrative than on intricate use of language. Her use of lyric poetry to tell mythic narratives is similar to that of Stesichorus. Corinna's poetry is often ironic or humorous in tone, in contrast with the serious tone of her Boeotian compatriot Pindar. Corinna's poetry is almost entirely concerned with myth. According to a story recounted by Plutarch in On the Glory of the Athenians, she considered myth the proper subject for poetry, rebuking Pindar for not paying sufficient attention to it. Pindar was said to have responded to this criticism by filling his next ode with mythical allusions, leading Corinna to advise him, "Sow with the hand, not with the sack." Corinna's poetry concentrates on local legends, with poems about Orion, Oedipus, and the Seven against Thebes. Her "Orestes" is possibly an exception to her focus on Boeotian legends. Her poetry often reworks mythological tradition – according to Derek Collins, "the most distinctive feature of Corinna's poetry is her mythological innovation" – frequently including details which are otherwise unknown. These reworkings often present gods and heroes in a more positive light than in more common versions of the myths. Two of Corinna's most substantial fragments, the "Daughters of Asopus" and "Terpsichore" poems, demonstrate a strong interest in genealogy. This genealogical focus is reminiscent of the works of Hesiod, especially the Catalogue of Women, though other lost genealogical poetry is known from the archaic period – for instance by Asius of Samos and Eumelus of Corinth. The third major surviving fragment of Corinna's poetry, on the contest between Mount Cithaeron and Mount Helicon, seems also to have been influenced by Hesiod, who also wrote an account of this myth. Marilyn B. Skinner argues that Corinna's poetry is part of the tradition of "women's poetry" in ancient Greece, though it differs significantly from Sappho's conception of that genre. She considers that although it was written by a woman, Corinna's poetry tells stories from a patriarchal point of view, describing women's lives from a masculine perspective. Anne Klinck suggests that "a certain feminine irony is detectable" in Corinna's works, and John Heath argues that in the "Terpsichore" poem Corinna deliberately emphasises her position as a woman poet. Diane Rayor argues that although Corinna's poetry does not directly challenge patriarchal traditions, it is still "woman-identified", focusing on women's experiences and being written for a female audience. ### Performance context The circumstances in which Corinna's poetry was performed are uncertain, and have been the subject of much scholarly debate. At least some of her poetry was probably performed for a mixed-gender audience, though some may have been intended for a specifically female audience. Skinner suggests that Corinna's songs were composed for performance by a chorus of young girls in religious festivals, and were related to the ancient genre of partheneia. The poems may have been performed at cult celebrations in the places which appear in her poetry. Possible settings include the Mouseia at Thespia, proposed by West, and at the festival of the Daedala at Plataea, suggested by Gabriele Burzacchini. ## Reception Corinna was well-regarded by the people of ancient Tanagra, her hometown. Pausanias reports that there was a monument to her in the streets of the town – probably a statue – and a painting of her in the gymnasium. Tatian writes in his Address to the Greeks that Silanion had sculpted her. In the early Roman Empire, Corinna's poetry was popular. The earliest mention of Corinna is by the first-century BC poet Antipater of Thessalonica, who includes her in his selection of nine "mortal muses". Ovid gives his lover the pseudonym Corinna in his Amores, often believed to be a reference to the Tanagran poet. She is also named by Propertius as a model for Cynthia, and by Statius along with Callimachus, Lycophron, and Sophron. Alexander Polyhistor wrote a commentary on her work. From the early modern period, the example of ancient Greek women writers has been used to legitimise the writing of modern women; Corinna has been invoked in this way by Gaspara Stampa and Madeleine de Scudéry. In the nineteenth century, Corinna was still remembered as a poetic authority, Karl Otfried Müller presenting her as a preeminent ancient poet and citing the stories of her competition against Pindar. Modern critics have tended to dismiss Corinna's work, considering it dull. For instance, West describes Corinna as more gifted than most local poets, but lacking the originality that would put her on the same level as Bacchylides or Pindar. Athanassios Vergados argues that Corinna's poor reception among modern critics is due to her focus on local Boeotian traditions rather than broader subject matter, giving her a reputation of parochialism and thus limited quality. More recently, critics have begun to see Corinna's poetry as engaging with Panhellenic mythical and literary traditions, rewriting them to give Boeotian characters a more prominent role. Corinna's work has also been of interest to feminist literary historians as one of the few extant examples of ancient Greek women's poetry.
1,488,279	Shojo Beat	1,107,342,464	Shōjo manga magazine (2005–2009)	[ "Anime and manga magazines", "Defunct magazines published in the United States", "Magazines disestablished in 2009", "Magazines established in 2005", "Magazines published in San Francisco", "Monthly magazines published in the United States", "Shōjo manga", "Viz Media" ]	Shojo Beat is a shōjo manga magazine formerly published in North America by Viz Media. Launched in June 2005 as a sister magazine for Shonen Jump, it featured serialized chapters from six manga series, as well as articles on Japanese culture, manga, anime, fashion and beauty. After its initial launch, Shojo Beat underwent two redesigns, becoming the first English anthology to use the cyan and magenta ink tones common to Japanese manga anthologies. Viz launched a related imprint of the same name for female-oriented manga, light novels and anime. Targeted at teenage women, the first issue of Shojo Beat launched with a circulation of 20,000. By 2007, the average circulation was approximately 38,000 copies, with half coming from subscriptions rather than store sales. It was well received by critics, who praised its mix of manga series and the inclusion of articles on Japanese culture, though some critics found the early issues boring and poorly written. In May 2009, Viz announced that it was discontinuing the magazine; the July 2009 issue was the last released. Fans were disappointed at the sudden news. Industry experts felt its loss would leave female comic fans without a magazine of their own but praised Viz for its choice to continue using the Shojo Beat imprint and branding for its shōjo manga and anime releases. ## History In February 2005, the San Francisco-based Viz Media announced the creation of a new manga anthology, Shojo Beat. Marketed as a sister publication of Viz's existing Shonen Jump, the magazine started with six manga titles: Crimson Hero, Kaze Hikaru, Baby & Me, Godchild, Nana, and Absolute Boyfriend. Of the six titles, two each came from Japanese publishers Shueisha, Shogakukan, and Hakusensha. The first issue, released in June 2005, featured Nana Komatsu of Nana on its July cover. Yumi Hoashi was the publication's original editor-in-chief. In November 2006, Hoashi left Viz, and Marc Weidenbaum replaced him as the magazine's editor-in-chief. Weidenbaum remained the magazine's editor until February 13, 2009, when Viz announced that he had left the company, though the magazine continued to list his name in the role through the May 2009 issue. Starting with the June 2009 issue, publisher Hyoe Narita was listed as the editor-in-chief. The magazine's panda mascot, Moko, was first introduced in the October 2005 issue, though he remained nameless until the July 2006 issue. He later was given his own Myspace account run by Viz. With the July 2007 issue, a new mascot, Beat Girl, was introduced. Included in each issue on the "Editor's Letter" page as the magazine's "illustrated spokesperson," she was drawn by different artists each time. A third mascot, a star-shaped figure named Hoshiko, was introduced with the March 2008 issue as a friend for Moko. With the magazine's first anniversary issue, dated July 2006, Shojo Beat switched to using cyan and magenta ink tones for the manga pages rather than black-and-white. Though this mirrors the format of Japanese manga anthologies, it was a first for manga anthologies published in North America. Shojo Beat launched another redesign with the January 2007 issue. The new design included more vivid color schemes and fonts and introduced a new "Girl Hero" column to spotlight women Viz felt were charitable and selfless and who would inspire readers. The existing columns were also expanded. In May 2009, the magazine stopped accepting new subscriptions and ceased publication with the release of the July issue. Existing Shojo Beat subscriptions were transferred to Viz's Shonen Jump magazine. With the first copy of Shonen Jump sent to former subscribers, a letter informed them of the transfer and how to request a refund for the unfilled portion of their subscriptions if they would prefer. In a press release, Viz stated that the "difficult economic climate" was behind the magazine's cancellation. ## Features As a manga anthology, the bulk of Shojo Beat's content was its manga chapters. Additional features included a letter from the editor, manga related news, a preview chapter from another Viz manga title being published under the "Shojo Beat" imprint, and articles on Japanese culture, current trends in Japan, and fashion and beauty. Sections toward the back of the magazine featured fan-related material, including fan art, letters from readers, manga drawing lessons, and cosplay how-to guides and highlights. The magazine's official website included additional articles, downloads of templates for dressing up the magazine's panda mascot "Moko", and online previews of many of the manga series being published under the "Shojo Beat" label. ### Series Shojo Beat contained chapters from six Japanese manga series licensed and translated to English by Viz. During its run, the magazine featured fourteen series, of which seven ended their runs and were replaced by other series. Only four of those replacements remained in the magazine until all of their chapters had been published. Each title serialized in the magazine was also published in tankōbon volumes under Viz's "Shojo Beat" label. Viz noted that it periodically removed incomplete series from the magazine to help "keep the magazine fresh" and to allow it to speed up publication of the individual volumes. This is a complete list of all titles that were serialized in Shojo Beat. It does not include preview chapters. The titles that were running in the magazine when it was discontinued are highlighted. ### Imprints With the launch of the Shojo Beat magazine, Viz Media created new imprints for its manga and fiction lines. The "Shojo Beat" imprint included series featured in the magazine as well as other shōjo manga titles licensed by Viz after the magazine's conception. Viz began releasing a few Japanese light novels under a "Shojo Beat Fiction" imprint that were related to its "Shojo Beat" manga titles. In February 2006, Viz launched the "Shojo Beat Home Video" line for releasing anime titles primarily designed for female viewers. The first title under the new imprint was Full Moon o Sagashite, the anime adaptation of the same titled manga that was also released by Viz. To promote the new anime line, Viz included a preview disc of the first volume of Full Moon in the June 2006 issue of Shojo Beat. Though the magazine itself has been canceled, Viz stated in May 2009 that it will continue releasing both existing and new series under the "Shojo Beat" manga and anime imprints. ## Circulation and audience When Shojo Beat launched, it had a circulation of 20,000. In 2006, its average circulation had increased to 35,000, of which 41% were distributed through subscriptions, and the rest sold in newsstands and stores. In 2007, the circulation grew to 38,000, and subscriptions increased to 51%. The magazine's audience was overwhelmingly female, comprising 91% of its readers. Targeted towards "young women", Shojo Beat's "core audience" was between the ages of 13 and 19 and made up 61% of its readers; 47% of readers were 12–17 and 45% were 18–34. ## Reception Shojo Beat was nominated for a 2008 Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation Award in the category of "Best Publication", but lost to Japan's Newtype. In reviewing the premiere release of Shojo Beat, IGN's Jessica Chobot sharply criticized the magazine. She felt it looked and read "like a teenie-bopper magazine" and referred to the issue's cover as a "bright, hot-pink, migraine-inducing, bubble-lettered spectacle". She considered the contents boring, and disagreed with Viz's selection of series, noting, "it's as if Viz had taken everything from their backed-up reject pile and tried to pull one over on the female populace. 90% of what I was reading was either poorly drawn or poorly written (more often than not, it was both)." Comic World News' David Welsh disagreed, as he felt that the magazine had several good series, with Nana, Absolute Boyfriend and Crimson Hero as his version of the top three series of the initial issue. Greg McElhatton, co-founder of Wizard: The Guide to Comics and former reviewer for iComics.com, praised the magazine's mainstream appearance, calling it a "smart" decision, as it would draw in its target audience by visually showing them that it's a magazine for teenage girls. While he felt that two of the manga titles in the premiere issue had weak openings, he found that the magazine was "off to a good, if not great start". After its cancellation, Publishers Weekly's Heidi MacDonald reported that the common response she saw from fans was that "everyone liked it but nobody paid for it". She noted that many fans expressed sorrow over the magazine's demise while indicating that they did not subscribe to it. Katherine Dacey, the former senior manga editor for PopCultureShock, remarked that the magazine had offered "just the right mixture of new stories, continuing series, and articles" and praised it for having a "funky, DIY vibe". The staff of the School Library Journal called the magazine "one of a kind" and felt that its loss would leave a void for female fans, a generally under-acknowledged group of comic and manga readers. Staff member Brigid Alverson felt Shojo Beat was a great overall package that "featured intelligent articles that allowed the reader to be enthusiastic about Japanese pop culture without being geeky" making it distinct from other magazines for girls that were normally "filled with brainless celebrity stories or service articles tied to commercial products". Other participants praised the magazine's fashion articles for its educational articles on Japanese culture and for featuring girls of a variety of body types wearing affordable fashions. Two staffers questioned Viz's decision to drop the magazine and wondered if the company had unrealistically expected the magazine to have the same circulation numbers as Shonen Jump. ## See also - List of manga magazines published outside of Japan
2,072,335	Lambeosaurus	1,169,162,415	Hadrosaurid dinosaur genus from Late Cretaceous US and Canada	[ "Campanian genera", "Dinosaur Park fauna", "Fossil taxa described in 1923", "Lambeosaurines", "Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of North America", "Ornithischian genera", "Ornithopods of North America", "Paleontology in Alberta", "Taxa named by William Parks" ]	Lambeosaurus (/ˌlæmbiəˈsɔːrəs/ LAM-bee-ə-SOR-əs, meaning "Lambe's lizard") is a genus of hadrosaurid dinosaur that lived about 75 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous period (Campanian stage) of North America. This bipedal/quadrupedal, herbivorous dinosaur is known for its distinctive hollow cranial crest, which in the best-known species resembled a mitten. Several possible species have been named, from Canada, the United States, and Mexico, but only the two Canadian species are currently recognized as valid. Material relevant to the genus was first named by Lawrence Lambe in 1902. Over twenty years later, the modern name was coined in 1923 by William Parks, in honour of Lambe, based on better preserved specimens. The genus has a complicated taxonomic history, in part because small-bodied crested hadrosaurids now recognized as juveniles were once thought to belong to their own genera and species. Currently, the various skulls assigned to the type species L. lambei are interpreted as showing age differences and sexual dimorphism. Lambeosaurus was closely related to the better known Corythosaurus, which is found in slightly older rocks, as well as the less well-known genera Hypacrosaurus and Olorotitan. All had unusual crests, which are now generally assumed to have served social functions like noisemaking and recognition. ## History and species ### Early discoveries and names Lambeosaurus has a complicated taxonomic history, beginning in 1902 with Lawrence Lambe's naming of hadrosaurid limb material and other bones (originally GSC 419) from Alberta as Trachodon marginatus. In the same publication Trachodon altidens, a left upper jaw (GSC 1092) from the Dinosaur Park Formation was also described by Lambe. In the same volume, Henry Fairfield Osborn suggested T. altidens could belong to a new genus, which he labelled "Didanodon" without further discussion. Paleontologists began finding better remains of hadrosaurids from the same rocks in the 1910s, in what is now known as the late Campanian-age (Upper Cretaceous) Dinosaur Park Formation. Lambe assigned two new skulls to T. marginatus, and based on the new information, coined the genus Stephanosaurus for the species in 1914. Unfortunately, there was very little to associate the skulls with the scrappy earlier marginatus material, so in 1923 William Parks proposed a new genus and species for the skulls, with both generic and specific names honoring Lambe (who had died four years earlier): Lambeosaurus lambei (type specimen NMC 2869, originally GSC 2869). In the same publication, this species was made the type genus of the new subfamily Lambeosaurinae, as a replacement for the pre-existed Stephanosaurinae. ### Procheneosaurus and Tetragonosaurus Although the early workers in Alberta did not recognize it at the time, they were finding the remains of juvenile Lambeosaurus as well. These fossils of small-bodied crested duckbills were interpreted as adults of a distinct lineage of hadrosaurids, the subfamily Cheneosaurinae. In 1920, William Diller Matthew used the name Procheneosaurus (no species name) in a brief mention of a skeleton at the American Museum of Natural History, from the Dinosaur Park Formation (AMNH 5340). Parks believed that the procedure and description were inadequate for the name to be considered valid, and to address the situation, he coined the genus Tetragonosaurus. Into this genus he placed the type species T. praeceps (based on ROM 3577) and a second species T. erectofrons (based on ROM 3578) for small skulls from the Dinosaur Park Formation, and assigned Matthew's Procheneosaurus skeleton to T. praeceps. Charles M. Sternberg followed in 1935 by adding the slightly larger T. cranibrevis, based on GSC (now NMC) 8633. The use of Tetragonosaurus was rejected by Richard Swann Lull in favor of Procheneosaurus. Lull requested that the name Tetragonosaurus be suppressed in favor of Procheneosaurus, which was granted, and Procheneosaurus received official approval from the ICZN as a conserved name. In 1942 he and Wright transferred the Tetragonosaurus species and, tentatively, Trachodon altidens, to Procheneosaurus, with P. praeceps serving as the type species. This usage was generally followed until 1975, when Peter Dodson proposed all three species were actually juveniles of Lambeosaurus. "Procheneosaurus" convincens, from the Late Cretaceous of Kazakhstan, is known from a nearly complete skeleton missing only the snout and end of the tail. It was named by A. K. Rozhdestvensky in 1968. It has at times been considered synonymous with Jaxartosaurus aralensis, or deserving of its own genus. Bell and Brink (2013) made "P." convincens the type species of the new genus Kazaklambia. ### Other discoveries The "cheneosaurines" weren't the only crested duckbills being studied and named in the early 1900s. It was then the accepted practice to name genera and species for what is now seen as more likely individual variation, variation due to age or sex, or distortion from fossilization. Three more species were named during this period that relate to Lambeosaurus, all in 1935. Sternberg, in the same paper as T. cranibrevis, named a skull and partial skeleton (GSC-8705, now NMC—8705) L. magnicristatum (corrected in 1937 to magnicristatus), and a smaller skull (GSC—8705, now NMC—8703) L. clavinitialis, with a less prominent crest and reduced spine pointing from the back. Parks contributed Corythosaurus frontalis, based on skull GSC 5853 (now ROM 869), which differed from the well-known tall, straight, rounded crest of other specimens of Corythosaurus by having a low crest cocked forward. New specimens were not described for many years following the activity of the early 1900s. In 1964 John Ostrom noted that an old species named by Othniel Charles Marsh, Hadrosaurus paucidens, based on USNM 5457, a partial maxilla and squamosal from the Judith River Formation of Fergus County, Montana, was probably a specimen of Lambeosaurus. ### Dodson's two species model to present In 1975, Peter Dodson, examining why there should be so many species and genera of lambeosaurine duckbills within such a short geological time frame and small area, published the results of a morphometric study in which he measured dozens of skulls. He found that many of the species had been based on remains that were better interpreted as juveniles or different sexes, something touched on but largely ignored in older literature. For Lambeosaurus, he found that L. clavinitialis was probably the female of L. lambei, and Corythosaurus frontalis and Procheneosaurus praeceps were probably its juveniles. L. magnicristatus was different enough to warrant its own species. He interpreted Procheneosaurus cranibrevis and P. erectofrons as juvenile corythosaurs. However, restudy of the Procheneosaurus/Tetragonosaurus remains indicates that within species, assignments had become confused, and the type specimen of P. cranibrevis was a Lambeosaurus juvenile, whereas others were Corythosaurus, based on the distinctive form of the contact of the nasal bone with the premaxilla. Dodson's model would become widely accepted, and two species of Lambeosaurus are regularly recognized today, with a third sometimes accepted. L. lambei (Parks, 1923) is known from at least 17 individuals, with seven skulls and partial skeletons and around ten isolated skulls. L. clavinitialis (C.M. Sternberg, 1935), Corythosaurus frontalis (Parks, 1935), and Procheneosaurus praeceps (Parks, 1931) are all still regarded as synonyms of L. lambei in recent reviews. Some palaeontologists suggest that L. clavinitialis skulls without the backward spine may represent L. magnicristatus individuals instead,; this was rejected in the 2007 redescription of L. magnicristatus. The second species, L. magnicristatus (C.M. Sternberg, 1935) is only definitely known from two specimens, both with skulls. Unfortunately, the majority of the articulated skeleton of the type specimen has been lost. Many of the bones were extensively damaged by water while in storage and were discarded before description; other portions of this skeleton have also been lost. Its remains come from slightly younger rocks than L. lambei. The specific name is derived from the Latin magnus "large" and cristatus "crested", referring to its bony crest. Additionally, Jack Horner has identified fragmentary lambeosaurine jaws from the Bearpaw Formation of Montana as possibly belonging to L. magnicristatus; these represent the first lambeosaurine remains from marine rocks. Other less accepted species have been discussed in the 21st century. Lambeosaurus paucidens (named by Marsh 1889 and referred to Lambeosaurus in 1964) is generally regarded as a dubious name and was listed as Hadrosaurus paucidens in a 2004 review, although at least one author, Donald F. Glut, has accepted it as a species of Lambeosaurus. In this case, the specific epithet is derived from the Latin pauci- "few" and dens "tooth". The irregularities of Procheneosaurus cranibrevis, and the identity of the type as a juvenile lambeosaur, were recognized in 2005. Finally, "Didanodon altidens" has been assigned without comment to Lambeosaurus in two 21st Century reviews. During the late 1970s, Bill Morris was studying giant lambeosaurine remains from Baja California. He named them L.? laticaudus in 1981 (type specimen LACM 17715). Morris used a question mark in his work because no complete crest had been found for his species, and without it a definitive assignment could not be made. From what was known of the skull, he considered it to be most like Lambeosaurus. He interpreted this species as water-bound, due to features like its size, its tall and narrow tail (interpreted as a swimming adaptation), and weak hip articulations, as well as a healed broken thigh bone that he thought would have been too much of a handicap for a terrestrial animal to have survived long enough to heal. This species was later (2012) assigned to the new genus Magnapaulia. ## Description Lambeosaurus, best known through L. lambei, was quite similar to Corythosaurus in everything but the form of the head adornment. Compared to Corythosaurus, the crest of Lambeosaurus, largely formed by the premaxillae, was shifted forward, and the hollow nasal passages within were at the front of the crest and stacked vertically. It also can be differentiated from Corythosaurus by its lack of forking nasal processes making up part of the sides of the crest, which is the only way to tell juveniles of the two genera apart, as the crests took on their distinctive forms as the animals aged. Lambeosaurus was like other hadrosaurids, and could move on both two legs and all fours, as shown by footprints of related animals. It had a long tail stiffened by ossified tendons that prevented it from drooping. The hands had four fingers, lacking the innermost finger of the generalized five-fingered tetrapod hand, while the second, third, and fourth fingers were bunched together and bore hooves, suggesting the animal could have used the hands for support. The fifth finger was free and could be used to manipulate objects. Each foot had only the three central toes. The most distinctive feature, the crest, was different in the two well-known species. In L. lambei, it had a hatchet-like shape when the dinosaur was full-grown, and was somewhat shorter and more rounded in specimens interpreted as females. The "hatchet blade" projected in front of the eyes, and the "handle" was a solid bony rod that jutted out over the back of the skull. The "hatchet blade" had two sections: the uppermost portion was a thin bony "coxcomb" that grew out relatively late in life, when an individual neared adulthood; and the lower portion held hollow spaces that were continuations of the nasal passages. In L. magnicristatus, the "handle" was greatly reduced, and the "blade" expanded, forming a tall, exaggerated pompadour-like crest. This crest is damaged in the best overall specimen, and only the front half remains. Large adult specimens of Lambeosaurus have been estimated to be around 7–7.7 m (23–25 ft) in length and 2.5–3.3 metric tons (2.8–3.6 short tons) in body mass. Impressions of the scales are known for several specimens; a specimen now assigned to L. lambei had a thin skin with uniform, polygonal scutes distributed in no particular order on the neck, torso, and tail. Similar scalation is known from the neck, forelimb, and foot of a specimen of L. magnicristatus. ## Classification Lambeosaurus is the type genus of the Lambeosaurinae, the subfamily of hadrosaurids that had hollow skull crests. Among the lambeosaurines, it is closely related to similar dinosaurs such as Corythosaurus and Hypacrosaurus, with little separating them but crest form. The relationships among these dinosaur genera are difficult to pick out. Some early classifications placed these genera in the tribe Corythosaurini, which was found by David Evans and Robert Reisz to include Lambeosaurus as the sister taxon to a clade made up of Corythosaurus, Hypacrosaurus, and the Russian genus Olorotitan; these lambeosaurines, with Nipponosaurus. However, later researchers pointed out that due to the rules of priority set forth by the ICZN, any tribe containing Lambeosaurus is properly named Lambeosaurini, and that therefore the name "Corythosaurini" is a junior synonym. The following cladogram illustrating the relationships of Lambeosaurus and its close relatives was recovered in a 2022 phylogenetic analysis by Xing Hai and colleagues, finding it to be a close relative of Amurosaurus. ## Paleobiology ### Feeding As a hadrosaurid, Lambeosaurus was a large bipedal/quadrupedal herbivore, eating plants with a sophisticated skull that permitted a grinding motion analogous to mammalian chewing. Its teeth were continually replaced and were packed into dental batteries that each contained hundreds of teeth, only a relative handful of which were in use at any time. It used its beak to crop plant material, which was held in the jaws by a cheek-like organ. Feeding would have been from the ground up to around 4 meters (13 feet) above. As noted by Bob Bakker, lambeosaurines have narrower beaks than hadrosaurines, implying that Lambeosaurus and its relatives could feed more selectively than their broad-beaked, crestless counterparts. ### Cranial crest Like other lambeosaurines such as Parasaurolophus and Corythosaurus, Lambeosaurus had a distinctive crest on the top of its head. Respiratory tracts, ending in a nasal cavity, ran back through this crest, making it mostly hollow. Many suggestions have been made for the function or functions of the crest, including housing salt glands, improving the sense of smell, use as a snorkel or air trap, acting as a resonating chamber for making sounds, or being a method for different species or different sexes of the same species to recognize each other. Social functions such as noisemaking and recognition have become the most widely accepted of the various hypotheses. The large size of hadrosaurid eye sockets and the presence of sclerotic rings in the eyes imply acute vision and diurnal habits, evidence that sight was important to these animals. The hadrosaurid sense of hearing also appears to be strong. There is at least one example, in the related Corythosaurus, of a slender stapes (reptilian ear bone) in place, which combined with a large space for an eardrum implies a sensitive middle ear, and the hadrosaurid lagena is elongate like a crocodilian's. This indicates that the auditory portion of the inner ear was well-developed. If used as a noisemaker, the crest could also have provided recognizable differences for different species or sexes, because the differing layouts of the nasal passages corresponding to the different crest shapes would have produced intrinsically different sounds. ## Paleoecology `Lambeosaurus lambei and L. magnicristatus, from the Dinosaur Park Formation, were members of a diverse and well-documented fauna of prehistoric animals that included such well-known dinosaurs as the horned Centrosaurus, Styracosaurus, and Chasmosaurus, fellow duckbills Prosaurolophus, Gryposaurus, Corythosaurus, and Parasaurolophus, tyrannosaurid Gorgosaurus, and armored Edmontonia and Euoplocephalus. The Dinosaur Park Formation is interpreted as a low-relief setting of rivers and floodplains that became more swampy and influenced by marine conditions over time as the Western Interior Seaway transgressed westward. The climate was warmer than present-day Alberta, without frost, but with wetter and drier seasons. Conifers were apparently the dominant canopy plants, with an understory of ferns, tree ferns, and angiosperms. The anatomically similar L. lambei, L. magnicristatus, and Corythosaurus were separated by time within the formation, based on stratigraphy. Corythosaurus fossils are known from the lower two-thirds of the Formation, L. lambei fossils are present in the upper third, and L. magnicristatus remains are rare and present only at the very top, where the marine influence was greater.` ## See also - Timeline of hadrosaur research ## General bibliography
63,192,453	Partisan Congress riots	1,102,510,500	Anti-Jewish riots in Slovakia in 1946	[ "1946 in Slovakia", "1946 riots", "Anti-Jewish pogroms", "Anti-Jewish violence in Central and Eastern Europe, 1944–1946", "Antisemitism in Slovakia", "August 1946 events in Europe", "Crime in Bratislava", "History of Bratislava", "Jewish Slovak history", "Jews and Judaism in Bratislava", "Riots and civil disorder in Czechoslovakia", "Slovak partisans" ]	The Partisan Congress riots were attacks on Jews in Bratislava and other cities and towns in the autonomous Slovak region of Czechoslovakia between 1 and 6 August 1946. Nineteen people were injured, four seriously, in Bratislava alone. After World War II in Europe ended in May 1945, former Slovak partisans were often appointed as national administrators of businesses that had been Aryanized, or confiscated, from Jews by the Axis client state known as the Slovak State, leading to conflict with Jews seeking to regain their property. This conflict sporadically erupted into attacks on Jews. Tensions between Jewish and non-Jewish Slovaks were exacerbated in May 1946 by the passage of an unpopular law that mandated the restitution of Aryanized property and businesses to their original owners. Both antisemitic leaflets and attacks on Jews—many of them initiated by former partisans—increased following the restitution law. Rioting began on 1 August with the robbery of František Hoffmann's apartment. A national congress of former Slovak partisans was held in Bratislava on 2–4 August 1946, and many of the rioters were identified as former partisans. Rioting continued until 6 August. Despite attempts by the Czechoslovak police to maintain order, ten apartments were broken into, nineteen people were injured (four seriously), and the Jewish community kitchen was ransacked. Additional attacks and riots were reported in other Slovak towns and cities, including Nové Zámky and Žilina. The contemporary press played down the involvement of partisans and instead claimed that the riots were organized by "reactionary elements", Hungarians, or former Hlinka Guardsmen. In response, the government launched a crackdown on antisemitic incitement and simultaneously suspended restitution to Jews. ## Background Jews have lived in Bratislava (then known by its German name, Pressburg) since the medieval era. Although they were expelled in 1526, Jews began to settle in the suburb of Podhradie towards the end of the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century, Pressburg was the most influential Jewish community in the Kingdom of Hungary, with more than a thousand members. In the nineteenth century, traditional religious antisemitism was joined by economic antisemitism, the stereotypical view of Jews as exploiters of poor Slovaks. National antisemitism strongly associated Jews with the Hungarian state and accused them of sympathizing with Hungarian national aims at the expense of Slovak ambitions. Between the revolutions of 1848 and the end of the nineteenth century, Pressburg witnessed repeated and extensive anti-Jewish rioting, in 1850, 1882 (in response to the Tiszaeszlár blood libel), 1887, and 1889. The Jewish community of the city numbered 4,500 in 1869 and expanded to its peak of 18,000 in 1940, 13 percent of the population. Many Jews in the city spoke Hungarian and considered themselves of Hungarian nationality. In 1918, Bratislava was included in the new country of Czechoslovakia. The Slovak State, a one-party state of the far-right, fascist Hlinka's Slovak People's Party (HSĽS), declared its independence from Czechoslovakia on 14 March 1939. Although the Slovak State was an Axis client state during World War II, it enjoyed considerable latitude in domestic policy, including anti-Jewish actions. Anti-Jewish laws were passed in 1940 and 1941, depriving Jews of their property via Aryanization and redistributing it to Slovaks viewed by the regime as more deserving. The Slovak State organized the deportation of 58,000 of its own Jewish citizens to German-occupied Poland in 1942, which was carried out by the paramilitary Hlinka Guard and regular policemen. On 29 August 1944, Germany invaded Slovakia, sparking the Slovak National Uprising. The fighting, and German countermeasures, devastated much of the country; nearly 100 villages were burned by Einsatzgruppe H. Thousands of people, including several hundred Jews, were murdered in Slovakia, and at least another 10,000 Jews were deported. Anti-regime forces included Slovak Army defectors, Agrarians, Communists, and Jews. Altogether 69,000 of the 89,000 Jews in the Slovak State were murdered. About 3,500 Jews from Bratislava survived. After the war, Slovakia was reincorporated into Czechoslovakia; it retained a government in Bratislava with significant autonomy. By April 1946, 7,000 Jews were living in the city, only 1,000 of whom had lived there before the war. Conflict over Aryanization and restitution characterized postwar relations between Jews and non-Jewish Slovaks. For many Slovaks, restitution meant returning property that they had paid for under the then-existing law, developed, and considered theirs. From the perspective of Jews, however, it was the obligation of those in possession of stolen property to return it. Former partisans, veterans of the Czechoslovak armies abroad, and ex-political prisoners were prioritized for appointment as national administrators of previously Jewish businesses or residences. In some cases, national administrators were appointed even though the owners or their heirs were still alive. The newly appointed national administrators considered their gains just reward for their sacrifices during the war—a rationale that was endorsed by the government. Disputes were polarized by prewar antisemitism combined with the residual effects of the Slovak State's anti-Jewish propaganda and the economic interests of non-Jewish Slovaks in the contested properties. However, informal agreements between former Jewish owners and national managers were not uncommon and were usually approved by the authorities. The first postwar anti-Jewish riots occurred in 1945, in Košice (2 May), Prešov (July), Bardejov (22 July), Topoľčany (24 September), and Trebišov (14 November). Former partisans were involved in some of these events. There were no major anti-Jewish incidents in Bratislava between the end of the war and the summer of 1946. Most of the culprits of the attacks were not prosecuted. Top officials in the Slovak autonomous government, such as Jozef Lettrich and Ján Beharka [cs], did not issue clear condemnations of the attacks and even blamed Jews. The organizations ÚSŽNO (Central Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Slovakia) and SRP (Association of Racially Persecuted People) advocated for the rights of Holocaust survivors. The SRP advocated for the rights of people persecuted for their Jewish ancestry who did not belong to the Jewish religious community. ## Lead-up After the September 1945 Topoľčany pogrom, the central Czechoslovak government in Prague pressured the autonomous Slovak government to adopt a law for the restitution of Aryanized property. In May 1946, the Slovak autonomous government passed the Restitution Act 128/1946, which canceled Aryanizations in cases where the victim was judged to be loyal to the Czechoslovak state. Jews could regain their property via the court system, rather than local authorities, which were less favorable to their claims. At this time, most of the Aryanized property was in the hands of either the Aryanizers or national administrators. The government faced overwhelming public pressure not to implement the law and many officials refused to implement it. The restitution law triggered a resurgence of popular anti-Jewish sentiment which led to the riots at the Partisan Congress. In postwar Slovakia, anti-Jewish leaflets appeared regularly, despite mostly unsuccessful attempts by the state to seek out and prosecute their creators. Multiple leaflets gave Jews an ultimatum to leave the country by the end of July 1946; Slovak historian Michal Šmigeľ suggests that the similarities in the leaflets imply that there was a coordinated campaign. In late July and early August, leaflets appeared with the phrases "Beat the Jews!", "Now or never, away with the Jews!", and even "Death to the Jews!". During the last week of July, posters were put up around Bratislava with slogans such as "Attention Jew, a partisan is coming to beat Jews", "Czechoslovakia is for Slovaks and Czechs, Palestine is for Jews", "Jews to Palestine!" "Jews out!" and "Hang the Jews!" In early July, two former partisans in Bytča repeatedly attacked Jews; an incident involving Jews and several former partisans occurred in Humenné on 27 July. The next day, provocateurs tried to incite anti-Jewish rioting in Trenčianske Teplice. From mid-July 1946, minor anti-Jewish incidents were occurring on an almost daily basis in Bratislava. For example, on 20 July, two men publicly hounded Jews on Kapucínska Street during the day, one of them "publicly calling all Hlinka Guardsmen, Hlinka Party members, and partisans to unite against the Jews". That night, Jews were assaulted on various streets, especially Kapucínska and Zámocká Streets. The SRP complained of systematically organized anti-Jewish demonstrations which pointed towards a future pogrom, which according to Šmigeľ was "not far from the truth". The First National Congress of Slovak Partisans (Slovak: Prvý celoslovenský zjazd partizánov), also known as the Partisan Congress (Partizánsky zjazd), took place between 2 and 4 August 1946. The Slovak authorities had intelligence anticipating riots at the Partisan Congress. On 31 July, podplukovník Rudolf Viktorin [sk] of the Czechoslovak police met with ÚSŽNO leaders and told them that he expected trouble from "reactionary elements" at the congress. Masariak, a representative of the Union of Slovak Partisans, met with the SRP. He told them that a thousand politically reliable former partisans were on hand to protect the Jews in Bratislava. However, the police erred in planning the strictest security measures for the evening of 3 August to the morning of 5 August—when the main group of former partisans were expected to be in the city. Previous to that, only 250–300 delegates were scheduled to attend meetings. Contrary to expectations, two to three thousand former partisans arrived in Bratislava on 2 August; total attendance at the congress was estimated at fifteen thousand. Many of the partisans were armed. The local police went on alert and the SRP set up an observation station in the Jewish quarter to report on incidents by telephone. ## Riots ### 1–2 August The riots began close to midnight on 1 August, and bled into the early hours of 2 August. Several men identifying themselves as partisans showed up at František Hoffmann's apartment on Kupeckého Street and threatened to shoot him if he refused to open the door. The attackers beat him with canes and stole clothes, shoes, cigarettes, and 400 Czechoslovak koruna (Kčs) in cash, causing 18,000 Kčs in damage. One left behind his Czechoslovak Medal of Merit [cs]. Later that night and the following day, Jewish apartments at 30–32 Židovská Street were robbed. A effigy was hung at Sloboda Square with a sign stating "Hang all Jews", while pedestrians on Kapucínska Street were assaulted. SRP reported that these attacks were carried out by men wearing partisan uniforms as well as soldiers, officers, and civilians. The police dispersed the crowd, but did not make any arrests. Later, an apartment on Schreiberova Street was broken into, the residents beaten and the property vandalized. The Jewish community kitchen was also attacked, but the army intervened and dispersed the crowd. In the evening on 2 August, Vojtech Winterstein, SRP chairman, called Arnošt Frischer, who led the Council of Jewish Religious Communities in Bohemia and Moravia, telling him that the Jews in the city feared an increase in the rioting. He also mentioned that two hand grenades had been thrown into the Jewish community offices in Komárno and an increase in antisemitic incidents on trains and at stations. The next day, Frischer called deputy prime minister Petr Zenkl, and received assurances from Lettrich that the situation was completely under control. However, after Winterstein's call, around 20:30, a group including former partisans stopped passersby to check their identification and beat Jews. Another group of former partisans and civilians gathered on a street in order to attack Jews. The rabbi Šimon Lebovič was beaten and robbed in his home. The Jewish kitchen was attacked again; Jews present were assaulted and 15,000 Kčs was stolen. After Winterstein notified Frischer of these events, the Ministry of the Interior assured Frischer that the incidents were not serious and would not reoccur due to security measures. ### 3 August According to a police report, violence continued until 01:30 on 3 August, when two grenades were thrown into Pavol Weiss' house, where three Jewish families lived, without causing injury. During the day, Jews were attacked on the streets, especially Leningradská and Laurinská Streets. In the afternoon, a crowd of up to a thousand people shouting anti-Jewish slogans tried to break onto Židovská Street from Župné Square [cs; sk]. Slovak politicians Karol Šmidke, Ladislav Holdoš [cs; sk], and Gustáv Husák addressed the demonstrators, ineffectually attempting to calm the situation. After their departure, the rioters were stopped by the police. At 16:00, a crowd—described as about fifty "radicalized partisans" in a police report—attacked Pavol Rybár's apartment on Laurinská Street after Ružena Dobrická accused Rybár of abducting her husband. The police and a group of former partisans led by Anton Šagát intervened to stop the rioters, but not before Rybár's personal documents had been stolen along with 5,000 Kčs. Throughout the evening, small groups of rioters robbed Jewish residences on Kupeckého, Laurinská, Svoradova, and Židovská Streets. A considerable number of police had been diverted to Modra, due to a false rumor that some partisans had gone there to attack Jews. At 21:00 in October Square a crowd described as mostly partisans in the police report assaulted the Jewish businessman Manuel Landa, who had to be hospitalized after he was hit on the head. At 22:00, a crowd reported to be 300 strong in a subsequent police report chased a Jew on Kolárska Street, who took refuge in a police station. The rioters broke into the station, vandalized it, and cut the telephone line. Other Jews were injured at Sloboda Square. At 23:00, more rioters attacked Eugen Gwürt's residence on Svoradova Street and beat him, causing severe injuries, as well as robbing the apartment. Some former partisans were arrested and briefly detained at the city hall, but were released before they could be identified. ### 4–6 August On 4 August, former partisans held a parade at which anti-Jewish slogans were shouted, especially by the contingents from Topoľčany, Žilina, Spišská Nová Ves, and Zlaté Moravce. There were also riots that morning in front of the Slovak National Theater, especially by the former partisans from eastern Slovakia. Jews were physically attacked on Svoradova and Zamocká Streets, but the rioters were dispersed by police and several of the attackers arrested. On 5 August, the Jewish kitchen was attacked for the third time, reportedly by twelve partisans, causing several injuries among the Jews there. A boarding school for Jewish girls on Šrajberova Street was also vandalized; police intervened to stop the damage. Physical attacks on Jews and robbery of their apartments continued. Winterstein told Frischer that thousands of Jews had left the city for fear of being targeted. Frischer responded with more appeals to the Czechoslovak authorities, who again assured him that the situation was under control. By the time the riots ended on 6 August, participants at the congress were reported to have robbed at least ten apartments and injured at least nineteen people (four seriously). The actual number of injuries was probably much higher than this, especially as minor injuries—probably dozens—were not recorded. Along with anti-Jewish incidents, the Partisan Congress was accompanied by non-racially motivated fights and disturbances caused by persons under the influence of alcohol. Perpetrators included actual partisan veterans, people pretending to be ex-partisans, disgruntled residents of the city, and some who had come from elsewhere, including Aryanizers, peasants, national administrators, and supporters of the former HSĽS regime. Drunkenness, lax security, crowd effects, and anonymity due to the large number of visitors all played a role in the rioting. Thirty-one arrests were made, but most detainees were released quickly and without being charged. The police were reluctant to arrest partisans. Possible reasons for this include a belief that crimes committed by partisans should be dealt with internally, the difficulty of arresting armed persons, and the sympathy of some policemen with the rioters. Winterstein criticized the police response, arguing that law enforcement tended to arrive late and release detained persons quickly, who then went on to make additional attacks. ### Elsewhere in Slovakia In addition to the riots in Bratislava, other anti-Jewish incidents occurred in August 1946 in several cities and towns in northern, eastern, and southern Slovakia. These included Nové Zámky (2 August and 4 August), Žilina (4–6 August), Komárno (4 August), Čadca (5 August), Dunajská Streda, Šahy (8–9 August), Liptovský Svätý Mikuláš, Beluša, Tornaľa (11 August), Šurany (17–18 August), Veľká Bytča, and other places. Some of the partisans who had been at the congress in Bratislava went to Nové Zámky on 4 August, attacking the Ungar café at 19:30, beating the owner so severely he was unable to work, and stabbing six Jewish patrons. Other Jews were beaten or stabbed in the streets of the town by a band of ten to twenty partisans or robbed at gunpoint in their apartments. The events continued the next day, with another five or six Jews injured. In Žilina, partisans returning from Bratislava shouted anti-Jewish slogans, assaulted Jews on the streets, and made a "partisan raid" on the Hotel Metropol. About fifteen people were injured as a result of the disturbances. In Rajecké Teplice on 4 August, partisans checked the identity cards of hotel guests and insulted two of them. In Zbehy and Leopoldov, partisans returning by train attacked Jewish residences near the station. In Nitra, a uniformed partisan threatened to shoot any Jews he saw in the street on 29 August. The windows of Jewish residences were broken in Šurany and Levice, while in Čadca a bomb was thrown into the garden of a nationalized enterprise managed by a Jew. Minor anti-Jewish demonstrations took place over the following days in Topoľčany, Banská Bystrica, Trnava, Komárno and Želiezovce. Anti-Jewish leaflets reappeared in Revúca, Michalovce and in several places in eastern Slovakia. One suggested that the last of the "Ten Commandmants of the brave Slovak Catholic" was "To guard against the Jews and Czechs". Police detained only a few people as a result of these attacks. Slovak historian Ján Mlynárik suggests that the occurrence of similar events in multiple locations in Slovakia may indicate that they were planned in advance. ## Media coverage On 6 August 1946, the state-controlled Slovak News Agency denied the riots had occurred, claiming that foreign newspapers had printed incorrect information. The next day, the news agency released another report, accusing illegal organizations linked to foreign interests of conspiring to distribute anti-Jewish propaganda to partisans arriving in Bratislava by train. The Czech News Agency reported the riots, but claimed that those responsible were supporters of the Hlinka party and not partisans. The more accurate coverage by the Czech News Agency was, according to Czech historian Jan Láníček, "achieved by political negotiations and carefully crafted behind-the-scenes threats" by Frischer and the Council of Jewish Religious Communities in Bohemia and Moravia to publicize the story in foreign media. Frischer considered the release of the story and the government's promise to protect Jews to be a victory. Hungarian newspapers also covered the riots. On 20 August, the government newspaper Národná obroda claimed that Hungarians had colluded with former Hlinka Guardsmen and HSĽS members to cause the riots. The article also claimed that the grenades used on the Komárno attack were of Hungarian make and that the anti-Jewish leaflets were written in poor Slovak, indicating that their authors were Hungarians. In fact, most of the anti-Jewish rioters were Slovak, not Hungarian. Mlynárik points out that riots also took place in August 1946 in the northern and eastern parts of Slovakia, where Hungarians did not live, belying the official narrative. Čas, the newsletter of the non-Communist Democratic Party, referred to isolated incidents in its 6 August article on the rioting: "During the first congress of Slovak partisans, a few minor, insignificant incidents occurred in which the partisans showed their dissatisfaction with the resolution of pressing social issues." Čas downplayed antisemitism among the partisans, instead blaming former members of the Hlinka Guard. On 11 August, Pravda, the official daily of the Communist Party of Slovakia, published an article on the events, blaming "various influential groups" for conspiring with "anti-state elements" and fomenting unrest. Both the Democratic Party and the Communist Party officially condemned antisemitism, blaming the other party for it. On 5 September, the newsletter of the ÚSŽNO published an article on the riots, "What happened in Slovakia", which claimed that "every child in Slovakia" had known that there would be riots at the Partisan Congress. The article also stated that on 7 February 1946, a circular had been sent by the Union of Slovak Partisans in Dunajská Streda to other branches, calling for anti-Jewish actions and that the central leadership of the Union of Slovak Partisans knew of this circular but took no action. The Council of Jewish Religious Communities in Bohemia and Moravia forwarded the article to Prime Minister Klement Gottwald, asking him to investigate the allegations; Gottwald forwarded the request to his office. The resulting undated report, by Ján Čaplovič, quoted the Interior Ministry Commissioner of Czechoslovakia, Michal Ferjencik, who blamed Jews for not speaking Slavic languages, failing to reconstruct the country, and trading on the black market. Čaplovič said that the partisan villages destroyed during the Slovak National Uprising ought to be higher priority than restitution to Jewish survivors. ## Reaction The Ministry of Information successfully pressured Frischer not to hold a press conference to inform journalists of the riots, on the grounds that the dissemination of information on the riots as the Paris Peace Conference was ongoing "could harm Czechoslovakia". Jewish leaders argued that the riots were already causing bad publicity for Czechoslovakia, therefore making it an urgent matter to take action against them. On 7 August, Frischer and a group of SRP leaders met with officials in the Ministry of Information, presenting a detailed report on the riots. They were assured that the ministry "has taken and will take all necessary steps to prevent the reoccurrence of such and similar disturbances" and that the policemen who had sided with the rioters would be disciplined. Frischer disagreed, pointing out that only seventeen people had been formally arrested, of whom twelve had been since released, and the government had not actively condemned antisemitism. In response to criticism, the Slovak government did not condemn the riots but instead blamed Hungarians in Slovakia, arguing that the Hungarians were trying to discredit Czechoslovakia at the Paris Peace Conference. The coverage given to the events in the Hungarian media was supposed to substantiate this theory. On 8 August, Minister of the Interior Václav Nosek opened investigations into the riots and the role of the police in them. In September, members of the security forces were threatened with dismissal if they did not act decisively against anti-Jewish riots, and they were ordered to seek out and punish the attackers in previous demonstrations. Due to the government's concern about disturbances during the second anniversary celebrations of the Slovak National Uprising later in August, hundreds of policemen were transferred from Czechia to Slovakia. Ultimately, these disturbances did not materialize with the only antisemitic actions consisting of the distribution of leaflets. In a note dated 10 August, Main Headquarters of National Security (HVNB) claimed that the riots were "orchestrated with the intention of sullying the reputation of the [Czechoslovak] Republic at the [Paris] Peace Conference". On 19 August, the agency distributed an order to local police authorities emphasizing that anti-Jewish speeches and demonstrations were to be suppressed. Partisan organizations were also ordered to seek out and eliminate antisemites among their membership. A 1947 report, the last known official document relating to the riots, downplayed the events, asserted that the police had intervened in all of the anti-Jewish attacks, and claimed that all perpetrators of the attacks had been prosecuted—despite the fact that no known prosecutions resulted. To prevent a reoccurrence of the rioting, the commissioner of internal affairs of the autonomous Slovak government recommended dismissing or arresting members of the security forces who had participated in anti-Jewish actions, and a crackdown on public gatherings. The riots also caused a turning point in the restitution process. Justifying its actions in terms of the public interest, the government forbade informal agreements between former Jewish owners and national managers. It also suspended restitution on the grounds that it required an executive order, although the suspension was soon called off. Nevertheless, most Jewish property was not returned to the owners or heirs, a result which angered many Jews. In Frischer's words, "everything points to the conclusion that [preventing restitution] was the goal of the rioters, and the street won". In September 1946, the Ministry of the Interior announced that Jews who had declared German or Hungarian nationality on prewar censuses would be allowed to retain Czechoslovak citizenship, rather than face deportation. The government was seeking to counteract the negative coverage that it had received in the Western press, in part due to the riots in Bratislava. ## Aftermath Despite the government's security precautions, there were additional anti-Jewish riots in Bratislava on 20 and 21 August 1948. The riots originated in an altercation at a farmers' market in Stalin Square in which Emilia Prášilová, a pregnant non-Jewish Slovak woman, accused sellers of favoring Jews. Alica Franková, a Jewish woman, called Prášilová "an SS woman" and they attacked each other. After both women were arrested, passersby beat up another two Jewish women, one of whom was hospitalized. Yelling "Hang the Jews!" and "Jews out!", they sacked the same Jewish kitchen that had been attacked two years previously. Another attempted demonstration the next day was dispersed by police, and 130 rioters were arrested, of whom forty were convicted. The 1948 riots occurred at a time when antisemitic incidents were decreasing in Slovakia. About 80% of the Jews who lived in Slovakia immediately after the war had left by the end of 1949, mostly after the 1948 communist coup. The 1946 riots were one of the reasons that Bratislava Jews chose to emigrate.
23,876,381	Francis Marrash	1,171,813,652	Syrian writer and poet	[ "1830s births", "1870s deaths", "19th-century male writers", "19th-century physicians from the Ottoman Empire", "19th-century scholars", "Nahda", "Syrian Melkite Greek Catholics", "Syrian physicians", "Syrian poets", "Syrian scholars", "Writers from Aleppo" ]	Francis bin Fathallah bin Nasrallah Marrash (Arabic: فرنسيس بن فتح الله بن نصر الله مرّاش, ; 1835, 1836, or 1837 – 1873 or 1874), also known as Francis al-Marrash or Francis Marrash al-Halabi, was a Syrian scholar, publicist, writer and poet of the Nahda or the Arab Renaissance, and a physician. Most of his works revolve around science, history and religion, analysed under an epistemological light. He traveled throughout Western Asia and France in his youth, and after some medical training and a year of practice in his native Aleppo, during which he wrote several works, he enrolled in a medical school in Paris; yet, declining health and growing blindness forced him to return to Aleppo, where he produced more literary works until his early death. Historian Matti Moosa considered Marrash to be the first truly cosmopolitan Arab intellectual and writer of modern times. Marrash adhered to the principles of the French Revolution and defended them in his own works, implicitly criticizing Ottoman rule in Western Asia and North Africa. He was also influential in introducing French romanticism in the Arab world, especially through his use of poetic prose and prose poetry, of which his writings were the first examples in modern Arabic literature, according to Salma Khadra Jayyusi and Shmuel Moreh. His modes of thinking and feeling, and ways of expressing them, have had a lasting influence on contemporary Arab thought and on the Mahjari poets. ## Life ### Background and education Francis Marrash was born in Aleppo, a city of Ottoman Syria (present-day Syria), to an old Melkite family of merchants known for their literary interests. Having earned wealth and standing in the 18th century, the family was well established in Aleppo, although they had gone through troubles: a relative of Francis, Butrus Marrash, was killed by the wali's troops in the midst of a Catholic–Orthodox clash in April 1818. Other Melkite Catholics were exiled from Aleppo during the persecutions, among them the priest Jibrail Marrash. Francis' father, Fathallah, tried to defuse the sectarian conflict by writing a treatise in 1849, in which he rejected the Filioque. He had built up a large private library to give his three children Francis, Abdallah and Maryana a thorough education, particularly in the field of Arabic language and literature. Aleppo was then a major intellectual center of the Ottoman Empire, featuring many thinkers and writers concerned with the future of the Arabs. It was in the French missionary schools that the Marrash family learnt Arabic with French and other foreign languages (Italian and English). But Francis at first studied the Arabic language and its literature privately. At the age of four years, Marrash had contracted measles, and had ever since suffered from eye problems that had kept worsening over time. Hoping to find a treatment, his father had therefore taken him to Paris in 1850; Francis stayed there for about a year, after which he was sent back to Aleppo while his father remained in Paris. In 1853, Francis accompanied his father once again, on a business trip of several months to Beirut, where there was a noticeable presence and cultural influence of Europeans. Francis experienced similar cultural contact later on, when he received private tutoring in medicine for four years under a British physician, in Aleppo—he had by then developed a keen interest in science, and in medicine in particular. At the same time, he wrote and published several works. Marrash practiced medicine for about a year; however, deeming it safer for his trade to become a state-licensed physician, he went to Paris in 1866 so as to continue his medical education at a school. But his fragile health and his growing blindness forced him to interrupt his studies within a year after his arrival. He returned to Aleppo completely blind, but still managed to dictate his works. ### Literary career #### Ghabat al-haqq Around 1865, Marrash published Ghabat al-haqq ("The Forest of Truth" or "The Forest of Justice"), an allegory about the conditions required to establish and maintain civilization and freedom. This allegory relates the apocalyptic vision of a war between a Kingdom of Liberty and a Kingdom of Slavery, resolved by the capture of the latter's king and a subsequent trial before the King of Liberty, the Queen of Wisdom, the Vizier of Peace and Fraternal Love, the Commander of the Army of Civilization, with the Philosopher from the City of Light—who represents the author—as counsel. In this work, Marrash expressed ideas of political and social reforms, highlighting the need of the Arabs for two things above all: modern schools and patriotism "free from religious considerations". In 1870, when distinguishing the notion of fatherland from that of nation and applying the latter to Greater Syria, Marrash would point to the role played by language, among other factors, in counterbalancing religious and sectarian differences, and thus, in defining national identity. Although Marrash's poetical expression lacked the legal meticulousness found in works from Enlightened Europe, orientalist Shmuel Moreh has stated that Marrash became, with Ghabat al-haqq, "the first Arab writer to reflect the optimism and humanistic view of 18th-century Europe. This view stemmed from the hope that education, science and technology would resolve such problems of humanity as slavery, religious discrimination, illiteracy, disease, poverty, war, and other scourges of mankind, and it gave utterance to his hope for brotherhood and equality among peoples." Yet, his views on freedom differed from those of the French revolutionists and of his Middle Eastern contemporaries; indeed, he considered pleading for freedom on the basis of natural analogy to be superficial, for even nature responds to its own set of rules, according to Marrash. As a consequence, nothing in the universe may yearn for liberty without satisfying essential rules and needs that guarantee its existence. Being one of these, the need for progress may therefore justify the abolition of any restriction that does not serve as a regulator for a good system. In light of this reasoning, and in reference to the ongoing American Civil War, he thus in Ghabat al-haqq supported the abolition of slavery. But the significance of this work also lay in Marrash's attempt to blend European thought with his own reading of the Christian belief in universal love. Indeed, he had tried to reconcile his philosophical understanding of the concept of liberty with his belief in the benevolence of the Catholic Church's authority. As stated by Nazik Saba Yared: > He argued that only the spiritual kingdom [i.e. the kingdom centered on religion] could curb evil [...] and consequently guarantee the freedom of man. Love is one of the pillars of Christianity, and Marrash, like some Sufis and Romantics, considered it to be the basis of civilization, indeed of the entire universe [...]. Since love, for Marrash, was the general law, and freedom meant participation in that law, it followed that freedom would be inseparable from love and religion. #### Later writings In 1867, Marrash published Rihlat Baris, an account of his second journey to Paris. The book begins with a description of his progress from Aleppo to İskenderun, Latakia, Tripoli, Beirut, Jaffa, Alexandria, Cairo, and then back to Alexandria from which he had boarded a ship to Marseille, where he arrived in October 1866. The Arab cities had inspired in him revulsion and indifference, except Alexandria and Cairo, where Ismail Pasha had already begun modernization projects. He had then travelled through France, with a stopover in Lyon before ending up in Paris. Marrash was fascinated by France, and by Paris the most; everything he described in his account, from the Paris Exhibition of 1867 to gas lighting in the streets, served to praise the accomplishments of Western civilization. In Mashhad al-ahwal ("The Witnessing of the Stages of Human Life"), published in 1870, Marrash would again compare the East and the West, writing that "while the East sank deeper into darkness, the West embraced light". The optimism he had formerly expressed about the first reform currents under the reign of Sultan Abdülaziz in the Ottoman Empire gave way to pessimism in Mashhad al-ahwal, as he realized these reforms were superficial and that those he had hoped for would not soon come into being. Yet, in Durr al-sadaf fi ghara'ib al-sudaf (Pearl Shells in Relating Strange Coincidences), which he published two years later, he depicted the Lebanese social life of his day and criticised the blind imitation of Western customs and the use of the French language in everyday life. Throughout his life, Marrash composed many essays about science (especially mathematics), and about education, a subject which mattered a lot to him; indeed, he wrote in Ghabat al-haqq that "without the education of the mind, man is a mindless beast". He also wrote many articles in the popular press; in those published in Butrus al-Bustani's journal Al-Jinan, he showed himself favourable to women's education, which he restricted however to reading, writing, and a little bit of arithmetic, geography and grammar. In an 1872 issue of Al-Jinan, he wrote that it is not necessary for a woman "to act like a man, neglect her domestic and family duties, or that she should consider herself superior to the man"; he nonetheless closely followed his sister's studies. Marrash also condemned Arab men's severe treatment of their wives and daughters. In his later works, he tried to demonstrate the existence of God and of the divine law; the Sharia, as he conceived it, was not restricted to the sphere of the Islamic law alone. ## Works ### List - Dalīl al-ḥurrīyah al-insānīyah (Guide to Human Liberty), 1861. - Al-Mirāh al-ṣafīyah fī al-mabādi al-ṭabīīyah (The Clear Mirror of Natural Principles), 1861. - Tazīyat al-makrūb wa-rāḥat al-matūb (Consolation of the Anxious and Repose of the Weary One), 1864—pessimistic discourse on nations of the past. - Ghābat al-ḥaqq fī tafṣīl al-akhlāq al-fāḍilah (The Forest of Truth in Detailing Cultured Manners), c. 1865. - Riḥlat Bārīs (Journey to Paris), 1867. - Kitāb dalīl al-ṭabīah (Guide to Nature), c. 1867. - Al-Kunūz al-fannīyah fī al-rumūz al-Maymūnīyah (Artistic Treasures Concerning the Symbolic Visions of Maymun), 1870—poem of almost 500 verses. - Mashhad al-aḥwāl (The Witnessing of the Stages of Human Life), 1870—collection of poems and short works in rhymed prose. - Durr al-ṣadaf fī gharāib al-ṣudaf (Pearl Shells in Relating Strange Coincidences), 1872—a romance with songs for which he supplied the tunes. - Mirāt al-ḥasnā (The Mirror of the Beautiful One), 1872. - Shahādat al-ṭabīah fī wujūd Allāh wa-al-sharīah (Nature's Proofs for the Existence of God and the Divine Law), 1892 (posthumous). Writings published in periodicals: ### Style Marrash often included poems in his works, written in muwashshah and zajal forms according to the occasion. Shmuel Moreh has stated that Marrash tried to introduce "a revolution in diction, themes, metaphor and imagery in modern Arabic poetry", sometimes even mocking conventional poetic themes. In the introduction to his poetry book Mir'at al-hasna' (The Mirror of the Beautiful One), which was first published in 1872, Marrash rejected even the traditional genres of Arabic poetry, particularly panegyrics and lampoons. His use of conventional diction for new ideas marked the rise of a new stage in Arabic poetry which was carried on by the Mahjaris. Shmuel Moreh has also considered some passages from Ghabat al-haqq and Rihlat Baris to be prose poetry, while Salma Khadra Jayyusi has described his prosaic writing as "often Romantic in tone, rising sometimes to poetic heights, declamatory, vivid, colourful and musical", calling it the first example of poetic prose in modern Arabic literature. ## Legacy Kahlil Gibran was a great admirer of Marrash, whose works he had read at al-Hikma School in Beirut. According to Shmuel Moreh, Gibran's own works echo Marrash's style and "many of [his] ideas on enslavement, education, women's liberation, truth, the natural goodness of man, and the corrupted morals of society". Khalil Hawi has referred to Marrash's aforementioned philosophy of universal love as having left a deep impression on Gibran. Moreover, Khalil Hawi has stated that many of Marrash's recurring expressions became stock images for Arab writers of the 20th century: he has mentioned, for example, "the valleys of mental contemplation", "the wings of thoughts", "solicitudes and dreams", "the veils of history", "the Kingdom of the Spirit", "the nymphs of the forest, the spring and the dawn", "golden diadems", "the jewels of light", "the storms of days and nights", and "the smoke of revenge and the mist of anger".
8,804,408	L'Arianna	1,169,791,010	Opera by Claudio Monteverdi	[ "1608 operas", "Ariadne", "Italian-language operas", "Lost operas", "Operas", "Operas based on classical mythology", "Operas based on works by Ovid", "Operas by Claudio Monteverdi" ]	L'Arianna (SV 291, Ariadne) is the lost second opera by Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi. One of the earliest operas in general, it was composed in 1607–1608 and first performed on 28 May 1608, as part of the musical festivities for a royal wedding at the court of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga in Mantua. All the music is lost apart from the extended recitative known as "Lamento d'Arianna" ("Ariadne's Lament"). The libretto, which survives complete, was written in eight scenes by Ottavio Rinuccini, who used Ovid's Heroides and other classical sources to relate the story of Ariadne's abandonment by Theseus on the island of Naxos and her subsequent elevation as bride to the god Bacchus. The opera was composed under severe pressure of time; the composer later said that the effort of creating it almost killed him. The initial performance, produced with lavish and innovative special effects, was highly praised, and the work was equally well received in Venice when it was revived under the composer's direction in 1640 as the inaugural work for the Teatro San Moisè. Rinuccini's libretto is available in a number of editions. The music of the "Lamento" survives because it was published by Monteverdi, in several different versions, independently from the opera. This fragment became a highly influential musical work and was widely imitated; the "expressive lament" became an integral feature of Italian opera for much of the 17th century. In recent years the "Lamento" has become popular as a concert and recital piece and has been frequently recorded. ## Historical context In about 1590 Claudio Monteverdi, born in Cremona in 1567, secured a position as a viol player at the Mantuan court of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga. Over the following ten years he advanced to become the duke's maestro della musica. During that time, significant developments were taking place in the world of musical theatre; in 1598 the work generally recognised as the first in the new genre of "opera"—Jacopo Peri's Dafne—was performed in Florence. The duke was quick to recognise the potential of this new musical form, and its potential for bringing prestige to those willing to sponsor it. As part of his duties to the Gonzaga court, Monteverdi was often required to compose or arrange music for staged performances. These works included a fully-fledged opera, L'Orfeo, written to a libretto by Alessandro Striggio the Younger and presented before the court on 24 February 1607. This performance pleased the duke, who ordered a repeat showing for 1 March. A contemporary account records that the piece "could not have been done better ... The music, observing due propriety, serves the poetry so well that nothing more beautiful is to be heard anywhere". Monteverdi was then required to write several pieces for performance at the wedding of the duke's son and heir Francesco to Margaret of Savoy, planned for early May 1608. These included a musical prologue for Battista Guarini's play L'idropica and a setting of the dramatic ballet Il ballo delle ingrate ("Dance of the Ungrateful Ladies"), with a text by Ottavio Rinuccini. There was also to be an opera, though it was not initially certain that Monteverdi would provide this. Other works under consideration were Peri's Le nozze di Peleo e Tetide ("The marriage of Peleus and Thetis") with a libretto by Francesco Cini, and a new setting of Dafne by Marco da Gagliano. In the event, the former was rejected and the latter designated for performance at the 1607–08 Carnival. The duke decreed that the wedding opera should be based on the myth of Arianna (Ariadne), and that Rinuccini should write the text. Monteverdi was instructed to provide the music. ## Creation ### Libretto At the time of his commission for L'Arianna, Rinuccini was probably the most experienced and distinguished of all librettists. His writing career stretched back to 1579, when he had written verses for the Florentine court entertainment Maschere d'Amazzoni. He had become widely known through his verse contributions to the celebrated intermedi for Girolamo Bargagli's play La Pellegrina (The Pilgrim Woman), performed in May 1589 at the wedding of Ferdinando I de' Medici and Christina of Lorraine. According to Gagliano, Rinuccini was a primary influence in the emergence of opera as a genre; he adapted the conventions of his contemporary lyric poets to produce the librettos for two of the earliest operas, Dafne and Euridice—the latter set to music by both Peri and Giulio Caccini. For his Arianna libretto Rinuccini drew on a variety of classical sources, notably the tenth book of Ovid's Heroides, parts of the Carmina of Catullus, and the section in Virgil's epic Aeneid dealing with Dido's abandonment by Aeneas. He also used aspects of more recent literary works—Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Torquato Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata, and Giovanni Andrea dell' Anguillara's 1561 translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses. The libretto was extended during the rehearsals when Carlo de' Rossi, a member of the duke's court, reported the Duchess Eleonora's complaint that the piece was "very dry" and needed to be enriched with further action. The libretto published in Venice in 1622 takes the form of a prologue and eight scenes, although other arrangements of the text have been suggested. For example, the musicologist Bojan Bujić has posited an alternative of a prologue and five scenes. ### Composition Monteverdi probably began composing in late October or early November 1607, since Rinuccini's arrival in Mantua can be dated to 23 October. With rehearsals due to begin in the new year, Monteverdi composed the work in a hurry and under considerable pressure; nearly 20 years later he was still complaining, in a letter to Striggio, of the hardships he had been made to suffer: "It was the shortness of time that brought me almost to death's door in writing L'Arianna". Monteverdi had apparently completed the score by early January, and rehearsals began. However, his work was not over as he was required to write further music when the work was extended after Rossi's intervention. Among the material added or lengthened were the early scene between Venus and Cupid, and Jupiter's blessing from heaven at the end of the opera. In March 1608, well into the rehearsal period, the opera's scheduled performance was jeopardised by the death, from smallpox, of the leading soprano Caterina Martinelli. Fortunately a replacement was to hand, a renowned actress and singer, Virginia Ramponi-Andreini, known professionally as "La Florinda", who was performing in Mantua. A courtier, Antonio Costantini, later reported that she learned the part of Arianna in six days. The musicologist Tim Carter suggests that Arianna's lament may have been added to the opera at this late stage, to exploit La Florinda's well-known vocal capabilities. ## Roles The casting for the opera's premiere is uncertain. While the participation of singers such as La Florinda and Francesco Rasi can be established, sources have speculated on the involvement of other singers. There are several versions of the published libretto; the list of roles is taken from the publication by Gherardo & Iseppo Imberti, Venice 1622. ## Synopsis The action is preceded by a brief prologue, delivered by Apollo. Venus and Cupid are then discovered, in conversation, on a desolate seashore. Venus informs Cupid that Duke Theseus of Athens, together with Ariadne, will soon be arriving on the island of Naxos on their way to Athens. They are fleeing from Crete, where the pair have been complicit in the slaying of Ariadne's monster half-brother, the Minotaur, in the labyrinth below the palace of her father, King Minos. Venus is aware that Theseus intends to abandon Ariadne on Naxos, and to proceed to Athens alone. Cupid offers to rekindle Theseus's passion for Ariadne, but Venus has decided to unite her with the god Bacchus, and asks Cupid to arrange this. Cupid conceals himself, as Theseus and Ariadne arrive on the island a short distance away. Ariadne muses over her disloyalty to her father, but declares her love for Theseus. She departs to find shelter for the night, after which a fishermen's chorus compares her eyes with the stars of heaven. Theseus, alone with his counsellor, discusses his abandonment of Ariadne, and is advised that this decision is justified, as she will not be acceptable to the people of Athens as their ruler's consort. A chorus greets the dawn as Ariadne, after a troubled night's sleep, returns to the shore with her companion, Dorilla, to find that Theseus has departed. Dorilla offers her comfort. In despair at the thought that Theseus will not return, Ariadne nevertheless decides to go to the landing area to wait for him. In a pastoral interlude a chorus sings of the joys of rural life, and expresses the hope that Theseus will not forget Ariadne. Primed by an envoy with the news that Ariadne is alone and sorrowing, the chorus again sings in sympathy with her. On the beach, Ariadne sings her lament for her lost love and prepares to kill herself. At this point fanfares are heard heralding an arrival, causing Ariadne to hope that it is Theseus returning. In another interlude the chorus empathises, but a second envoy announces that it is Bacchus who has arrived, having taken pity on Ariadne. A sung ballo celebrates the anticipated betrothal of Bacchus and Ariadne. In the final scene Cupid reappears, and Venus rises from the sea before Jupiter speaks his blessing from the heavens. The union is sealed as Bacchus promises Ariadne immortality in heaven, and a crown of stars. ## Performance history ### Premiere: Mantua, 1608 The date of the Gonzaga wedding was repeatedly postponed, because of diplomatic problems which delayed the bride's arrival in Mantua until 24 May. The wedding festivities began four days later; L'Arianna was performed on 28 May 1608, the first of the several spectacular entertainments. A large temporary theatre had been built for the occasion; according to the court's chronicler Federico Follino this held 6,000 people—a figure which Carter deems unlikely. Whatever its size, the arena could not hold everyone who wished to be present. Follino's account records that although the duke had strictly limited the numbers from his household entitled to be there, many distinguished foreign visitors could not be seated and were obliged to crowd around the doors. Although contained within a single stage set, the production was lavish, with 300 men employed to manipulate the stage machinery. Follino's report described the set as "a wild rocky place in the midst of the waves, which in the furthest part of the prospect could be seen always in motion". As the action began, Apollo was revealed "sitting on a very beautiful cloud ... which, moving down little by little ... reached in a short space of time the stage and ... disappeared in a moment". Thereafter, all the performers proved excellent in the art of singing; "every part succeeded more than wondrously". Follino's enthusiasm was echoed in other reports made by dignitaries to their own courts. The ambassador for the House of Este, who referred to the work as "a comedy in music", mentioned in particular Andreini's performance which, in her lament, "made many weep", and that of Francesco Rasi, who as Bacchus "sang divinely". Monteverdi's fellow composer Marco da Gagliano wrote that Monteverdi's music had "moved the entire audience to tears". In all, the opera lasted for two and a half hours. ### Revival: Venice, 1639–40 Despite the positive reception accorded to L'Arianna at its premiere, the duke did not request a second showing, as he had with L'Orfeo the previous year". The next hint of a performance of L'Arianna is in 1614, when the Medici court in Florence requested a copy of the score, presumably with the intention of staging it. There is, however, no record of any such performance there. Early in 1620 Striggio asked Monteverdi to send him the music for a projected performance in Mantua as part of the celebration for the Duchess Caterina's birthday. Monteverdi went to the trouble and expense of preparing a new manuscript with revisions; had he had more time, he informed Striggio, he would have revised the work more thoroughly. Hearing nothing further from the Mantuan court, Monteverdi wrote to Striggio on 18 April 1620, offering to help with the staging. A month or so later, however, he learned that the duchess's celebrations had been scaled back, and that there had been no performance of L'Arianna. There is some evidence to suggest a possible performance in Dubrovnik, in or some time after 1620; a Croatian translation of the libretto was published in Ancona in 1633. However, the only known revival of the work came in Venice, in 1640. Public theatre opera had come to the city in March 1637, when the new Teatro San Cassiano opened with a performance of L'Andromeda by Francesco Manelli. The popularity of this and other works led to more theatres converting their facilities for opera; L'Arianna was chosen to inaugurate the Teatro San Moisè as an opera house during the 1639–40 Carnival (the precise date of this performance is not recorded). A revised version of the libretto had been published in 1639, with substantial cuts and revisions from the 1608 version to remove passages too specifically linked to the Mantuan wedding. The composer, who was by then 73 years old, had acquired considerable prestige in Venice, having been director of music at St Mark's Basilica since 1613. The dedication in the revised and republished libretto describes him as "[the] most celebrated Apollo of the century and the highest intelligence of the heavens of humanity". The opera was received with great enthusiasm by a Venetian audience already familiar with the lament, which had been published in the city in 1623. Within a few weeks the theatre replaced L'Arianna with Monteverdi's new opera Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, which proved an even greater success. ## Loss After the Venice revival of 1639–40 there are no further records of performances of L'Arianna. Rinuccini's libretto, which was published on several occasions during Monteverdi's lifetime, has survived intact, but the opera's music disappeared some time after 1640, with the exception of Ariadne's scene 6 lament, known as "Lamento d'Arianna". In the loss of its music the opera shares the fate of most of Monteverdi's theatrical works, including six of his other nine operas. Carter's explanation for the high rate of attrition is that "memories were short and large-scale musical works often had limited currency beyond their immediate circumstances"; such music was rarely published and quickly discarded. ## "Lamento d'Arianna" The lament was saved from oblivion by Monteverdi's decision to publish it independently from the opera: first in 1614 as a five-voice madrigal, then in 1623 as a monody, and finally in 1641 as a sacred hymn, "Lamento della Madonna". The five-voice adaptation was included in the composer's Sixth Book of Madrigals; there is evidence that this arrangement was made at the suggestion of an unnamed Venetian gentleman who thought that the melody would benefit from counterpoint. In 1868, François-Auguste Gevaert published the lament in Paris, and in 1910 the Italian composer Ottorino Respighi issued an edited, orchestral transcription, P [it] 088. In her analysis of the lament, the musicologist Suzanne Cusick asserts that "[T]o a large extent Monteverdi's fame and historical status rested for centuries on the universal appreciation of his achievement in the celebrated lament [which] was among the most emulated, and therefore influential, works of the early 17th century". In Cusick's view Monteverdi "creat[ed] the lament as a recognizable genre of vocal chamber music and as a standard scene in opera ... that would become crucial, almost genre-defining, to the full-scale public operas of 17th-century Venice" and she concludes by noting that the women of Mantua would have recognised the transformations enacted in the lament as representative of their own life stories. Monteverdi, she believes, sought to represent in music the eventual triumph of female piety over promiscuity: "Arianna's gradual loss of her passionate self in the lament constitutes a public musical chastening of this incautious woman who dared to choose her own mate". In her study The Recitative Soliloquy, Margaret Murata records that laments of this kind became a staple feature of operas until about 1650, "thereafter more rarely until the total triumph of the aria around 1670". Mark Ringer, in his analysis of Monteverdi's musical drama, suggests that the lament defines Monteverdi's innovative creativity in a manner similar to that in which, two-and-a-half centuries later, the "Prelude" and the "Liebestod" in Tristan und Isolde announced Wagner's discovery of new expressive frontiers. In its operatic context the lament takes the form of an extended recitative of more than 70 vocal lines, delivered in five sections divided by choral comments. Some of the wording is prefigured in the immediately preceding scene in which the First Envoy describes Arianna's plight to a sympathetic chorus of fishermen. The lament depicts Arianna's various emotional reactions to her abandonment: sorrow, anger, fear, self-pity, desolation and a sense of futility. Cusick draws attention to the manner in which Monteverdi is able to match in music the "rhetorical and syntactical gestures" in Rinuccini's text. The opening repeated words "Lasciatemi morire" (Let me die) are accompanied by a dominant seventh chord which Ringer describes as "an unforgettable chromatic stab of pain"; Monteverdi was one of the first users of this musical device. What follows, says Ringer, has a range and depth "comparable to Shakespeare's most searching soliloquies". The words "Lasciatemi morire" are followed by "O Teseo, O Teseo mio" (O Theseus, my Theseus"); the two phrases represent Arianna's contrasting emotions of despair and longing. Throughout the lament indignation and anger are punctuated by tenderness, until the final iteration of "O Teseo", after which a descending line brings the lament to a quiet conclusion. Among other composers who adopted the format and style of Arianna's lament were Francesco Cavalli, whose opera Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo contains three such pieces; Francesco Costa, who included a setting of Rinuccini's text in his madrigal collection Pianta d'Arianna; and Sigismondo d'India, who wrote several laments in the 1620s after the monodic version of Arianna's lament was published in 1623. Monteverdi himself used the expressive lament format in each of his two late operas, Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria and L'incoronazione di Poppea, for the respective characters of Penelope and Ottavia. In 1641 Monteverdi adapted Arianna's lament into a sacred song with a Latin text "Pianto della Madonna" (incipit: "Iam moriar, mi fili"), which he included in Selva morale e spirituale, the last of his works published during his lifetime. ## Recordings, "Lamento d'Arianna" Many recordings are available of both the five-voice madrigal and the solo voice version of the "Lamento". The solo recordings include several versions which use a tenor or baritone voice. Among leading singers who have issued recordings are the sopranos Emma Kirkby and Véronique Gens, and the mezzo-sopranos Janet Baker and Anne Sofie von Otter. ## Editions At least eight versions of the libretto were published between 1608 and 1640. The following is a list of the known editions: - Aurelio et Ludovico Osanna, Mantua, 1608. Publication of the text included in Federico Follini's report of the 1608 performance; - Heredi di Francesco Osanna, Mantua, 1608. Possibly the text circulated to the audience at the 1608 performance; - I. Giunti, Florence, 1608; - Bernardo Giunti, Giovan Battista Ciotti & Co., Venice, 1608; - Ghirardo et Iseppo Imberti, Venice, 1622; - G. F. Gundulić, Ancona, 1633. Croatian translation, prepared for possible performance in Dubrovnik c. 1620. (5 scenes version); - Angelo Salvadori, Venice, 1639. Revised version prepared for the 1640 revival; - Antonio Bariletti, Venice, 1640.
6,527,850	Blindfold Me	1,148,413,755	2006 single by Kelis featuring Nas	[ "2006 singles", "2006 songs", "Jive Records singles", "Kelis songs", "LaFace Records singles", "Music videos directed by Marc Klasfeld", "Nas songs", "Song recordings produced by Polow da Don", "Songs about BDSM", "Songs written by Nas", "Songs written by Polow da Don", "Songs written by Sean Garrett" ]	"Blindfold Me" is a hip hop song by American singer Kelis from her fourth studio album, Kelis Was Here (2006). It was written and produced by Sean Garrett and Polow da Don. A remix, featuring American rapper Nas, was released as the album's second single in the United States on October 3, 2006. Although the Neptunes were long-time collaborators of Kelis, Kelis Was Here was her first album without their involvement as she opted for a more diverse team of record producers, which included Garrett and Polow da Don. The song's lyrics focus on sex talk. Along with hip hop, music critics associated the track's style with pop rap and club music. Upon its release, "Blindfold Me" received a mixed response. While some critics cited it as a highlight from Kelis Was Here and enjoyed Kelis's sexual personality, others criticized its placement on the album's track listing as resulting in a jarring tonal shift. Marc Klasfeld directed the song's music video, which features Nas tying up Kelis. Premiering September 6, 2006, the video was shown on an episode of the documentary series Access Granted alongside a behind-the-scenes feature. The song was further promoted with a 12-inch single, released on October 3, 2006. "Blindfold Me" peaked at number 91 on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. ## Production and release Sean Garrett and Polow da Don wrote and produced "Blindfold Me" for Kelis's fourth studio album Kelis Was Here (2006). Polow da Don is credited under his legal name Jamal Jones in the liner notes. In 2006 articles for Billboard and Vibe, music critics cited Polow da Don's work on "Blindfold Me" as part of his rising popularity as a record producer. Kelis recruited new producers for Kelis Was Here, including Garrett and Polow da Don, after separating from long-time collaborators the Neptunes. She had worked with the duo since her debut studio album Kaleidoscope in 1999, and was their "diva of choice" to sing hooks on other artists' songs. In a 2020 interview, Kelis said her collaboration with other producers for her third studio album caused a rift in their professional relationship. A remix for "Blindfold Me" includes a verse written and performed by Kelis's husband Nas. They had collaborated on four other songs: "Hey Nas" (2002), "Popular Thug" (2004), "In Public" (2005), and "Not Going Back" (2006). The remix was promoted as the single; it was included on some releases of Kelis Was Here, while other editions of the album had the original solo version. Garrett said he enjoyed working with his idol Nas, saying it was: "like a dream come true. Being able to meet these people and interact with them and have them respect your craft has been great." "Blindfold Me" was recorded by Doug Wilson at the Westlake Recording Studios in West Hollywood and the Battery Studios in New York City. Brian Stanley mixed the track, with assistance from Mike Makowski, at the Chung King Studios in New York City. In September 2006, Jive and LaFace released "Blindfold Me" in the US as the second single from Kelis Was Here. A 12-inch single was released on vinyl on October 3, 2006; it includes instrumental and a cappella versions of the song, as well as two callout hooks. The single was sent to rhythmic radio a week later on October 10, 2006. "Blindfold Me" peaked at number 91 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs Billboard chart dated November 11, 2006. Despite being released as a single, "Blindfold Me" was not included on Kelis's 2008 compilation album The Hits, which was criticized by AllMusic's Andy Kellman. The music video for "Blindfold Me" was directed by Marc Klasfeld, who also shot the videos for the other Kelis Was Here singles, "Bossy" and "Lil Star". Filmed in Los Angeles in September 2006, it features Nas tying up Kelis. Scenes include Nas taking Kelis from a parking lot and using a black panther as part of foreplay. The video premiered on the documentary series Access Granted on September 6, 2006, along with a behind-the-scenes feature. Media outlets commented that the music video was about sexual fetishism, and Yahoo!'s Lyndsey Parker included it on her 2018 listicle of the kinkiest music videos of all time. Parker, as well as another Yahoo! contributor, praised the chemistry between Kelis and Nas. On the other hand, in a 2013 Vibe article, Desire Thompson criticized the video as unsuccessfully attempting to be sexy. ## Music and lyrics "Blindfold Me" is a three-minute, 48-second hip hop song. While writing for The New York Times, Kelefa Sanneh further defined it, along with "Bossy", as "space-age hip-hop". In a Billboard review for "Blindfold Me", Clover Hope discussed it as part of the magazine's R&B category; however, during a separate article, she referred to the single as pop rap. Along with these hip hop associations, music journalists connected the song's overall style with club music. The instrumental includes synthesizers, synth horns, sirens, and drums. A contributor for Rap-Up wrote that sirens are often featured in Polow da Don's productions. However, in Entertainment Weekly, Clark Collis said "Blindfold Me" sounded like music produced by Timbaland. MTV News's Doreen St. Félix said the track had a "skeletal beat", while Hope described its composition as having a "tick-tock percussion". The lyrics focus on sex talk. Music critics focused on this sexually explicit content, which is demonstrated in the line: "He refused to take a bite before I put my blindfold on." The Associated Press's Brett Johnson characterized the single as a "naughty bedroom romp", and the CanWest News Service critic T'Cha Dunlevy wrote that the lyrics are full of "bootylicious taunts". Critics compared "Blindfold Me" to Kelis's 2003 single "Milkshake", including St. Félix who said it was "more sexually literal". Hope likened Kelis's vocal style to panting, and Clark Collis said she has a husky voice. While describing Kelis's vocals as a "half-rapping/half-singing affair", Hope wrote that Nas provides "his own kinky quips" for the remix. ## Critical reception "Blindfold Me" was cited by several critics as a highlight from Kelis Was Here. Slant Magazine's Jonathan Keefe named it one of the best singles of 2006, humorously writing that Kelis and Nas singing about erotic asphyxiation and mummification would be enjoyable if those lyrics were coupled with a beat as good as "Blindfold Me". In a 2012 Complex listicle, Lauren Nostro described "Blindfold Me" as one of Sean Garrett's "classic records". Despite being critical of Kelis's rapping on the album, PopMatters' Quentin B. Huff spotlighted "Blindfold Me" and "Aww Shit!" as instances where she "excels with her rhyme schemes". Steve Hands for musicOMH encouraged his readers to listen to both songs multiple times to understand "the subtle lights behind the braggy bushels". Some critics praised the song for showcasing Kelis's sexual personality. Clark Collis described it as the "perfect launchpad for the singer’s sex-object-on-her-own-terms persona". In the Associated Press, Brett Johnson said "Blindfold Me" fit with Kelis's attitude, writing: "Few songstresses can match her hot-blooded sneer." While referring to the single as "urgent and almost crude", Tim Finney for Pitchfork identified it as the moment in which Kelis was at "her most brazenly confronting". Hope and Stylus Magazine's Mallory O'Donnell disliked the remix, criticizing the lyrics as uncomfortably voyeuristic into Kelis's sex life with Nas. O'Donnell dismissed the single as a "rote club-banger", and Hope questioned its commercial viability, saying "it is hard to see it getting much airplay outside the sweaty confines of the clubs". In New York magazine, Sia Michel panned "Blindfold Me" as a failed attempt to recapture past success, finding it "far less catchy and witty" than "Milkshake". Several reviewers were critical of the placement of "Blindfold Me" on the album's track listing, considering it a jarring shift after the more sentimental "Living Proof". Andy Kellman disliked the choice to go from "Blindfold Me", which he described as having an "anthemic kink", to a ballad like "Goodbyes". Despite these negative reviews for the track listing, some critics attributed the album's tonal shifts to Kelis's artistic versatility. Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Ann Powers said "few artists could line up an ode to bondage right next to a love song so sweet that it could be played at a wedding". ## Track listing ## Credits and personnel Credits adapted from the liner notes of Kelis Was Here: Recording locations - Recorded in Westlake Recording Studios in West Hollywood and the Battery Studios in New York City - Mixed in the Chung King Studios in New York City Personnel - Kelis – primary artist - Nas – featured artist, writer - Brian Stanley – mixing - Mike Makowski – mixing - Polow da Don – writer, producer - Sean Garrett – writer, producer - Brian Sumner – recording - Doug Wilson – recording ## Charts ## Release history
42,083,642	Israel the Grammarian	1,165,611,483	European scholar of the mid-tenth century	[ "10th-century Latin writers", "10th-century deaths", "Christian theologians", "Grammarians of Latin", "Medieval linguists", "Year of birth unknown", "Year of death unknown" ]	Israel the Grammarian (c. 895 – c. 965) was one of the leading European scholars of the mid-tenth century. In the 930s, he was at the court of King Æthelstan of England (r. 924–39). After Æthelstan's death, Israel successfully sought the patronage of Archbishop Rotbert of Trier and became tutor to Bruno, later the Archbishop of Cologne. In the late 940s Israel is recorded as a bishop, and at the end of his life he was a monk at the Benedictine monastery of Saint-Maximin in Trier. Israel was an accomplished poet, a disciple of the ninth-century Irish philosopher John Scottus Eriugena and one of the few Western scholars of his time to understand Greek. He wrote theological and grammatical tracts, and commentaries on the works of other philosophers and theologians. ## Background The reign of Charlemagne saw a revival in learning in Europe from the late eighth century, known as the Carolingian Renaissance. The Carolingian Empire collapsed in the late ninth century, while the tenth is seen as a period of decline, described as the "Age of Iron" by a Frankish Council in 909. This negative picture of the period is increasingly challenged by historians; in Michael Wood's view "the first half of the tenth century saw many remarkable and formative developments that would shape European culture and history." The Bible remained the primary fount of knowledge, but study of classical writers, who had previously been demonised as pagans, became increasingly acceptable. When Alfred the Great became King of Wessex in 871, learning in southern England was at a low level, and there were no Latin scholars. He embarked on a programme of revival, bringing in scholars from Continental Europe, Wales and Mercia, and himself translated works he considered important from Latin to the vernacular. His grandson, Æthelstan, carried on the work, inviting foreign scholars such as Israel to England, and appointing a number of continental clerics as bishops. In the 930s the level of learning was still not high enough to supply enough literate English priests to fill the bishoprics. The generation educated in Æthelstan's reign, such as the future Bishop of Winchester, Æthelwold, who was educated at court, and Dunstan, who became Archbishop of Canterbury, went on to raise English learning to a high level. ## Early life Very little is known about Israel's early life. Michael Lapidge dates his birth to around 900, while Wood places it slightly earlier, around 890. He was a disciple of Ambrose and spent time at Rome, but it is unknown who Ambrose was or whether he was Israel's tutor in Rome. In Wood's view Israel was a monk at Saint-Maximin in Trier in the 930s. Tenth-century sources provide conflicting evidence on Israel's origin. Ruotger in his life of Bruno referred to Israel as Irish, whereas Flodoard in his Chronicle described him as "Britto", which may refer to Brittany, Cornwall or Wales, all three of which were Celtic speaking refuges for Britons who had fled the Anglo-Saxon invasion of England. According to Lapidge: "The consensus of modern scholarship is in favour of an Irish origin, but the matter has not been properly investigated." He argues that the bishop of Bangor in County Down, Dub Innse, described Israel as a "Roman scholar", and that he therefore does not appear to have recognised him as a fellow Irishman. Lapidge states that Flodoard was contemporary with Israel and may have known him, whereas Ruotger wrote after Israel's death and probably did not have first hand knowledge. Giving children Old Testament Hebrew names such as Israel was common in Celtic areas in the tenth century. Lapidge concludes that Brittany is more likely than Wales or Cornwall, as manuscripts associated with him have Breton glosses, and Æthelstan's court was a haven for Breton scholars fleeing Viking occupation of their homeland. In 2007, Wood revived the Irish theory, questioning whether Flodoard's "Israel Britto" means "Breton", and stating that Ruotger knew Israel. Æthelstan's biographer, Sarah Foot, mentions Wood's view, but she rejects it, stating that Israel was not Irish and may have been a Breton. Thomas Charles-Edwards, a historian of medieval Wales, thinks he may have been Welsh. ## Æthelstan's court Israel's presence in England is known from a gospel book written in Ireland in about 1140, which contains a copy of a tenth-century drawing and explanation of a board game called Alea Evangelii (Gospel Game), based on canon tables (concordances for parallel texts of the four gospels). According to a translation by Lapidge of a note on the manuscript: Here begins the Gospel Dice [or Game] which Dub Innse, bishop of Bangor, brought from the English king, that is from the household of Æthelstan, King of England, drawn by a certain Franco [or Frank] and by a Roman scholar, that is Israel. The twelfth-century copyist appears to have changed Dub Innse's first person note to the third person. In a later passage, he interprets "Roman scholar, that is Israel" as meaning a Roman Jew (Iudeus Romanus). This has been taken by some historians, including David Wasserstein, as showing that there was a Jewish scholar at Æthelstan's court, but Lapidge argues that this interpretation was a misunderstanding by the copyist, and his view has been generally accepted by historians. Israel is thought to be Israel the Grammarian, described as a Roman scholar because of his time in the city, and the Gospel Game manuscript shows that he spent a period at Æthelstan's court. A number of manuscripts associated with Israel, including two of the four known copies of his poem De arte metrica, were written in England. In Foot's view: Israel provides a tantalising link between the spheres of masculine camaraderie of a conventional royal court and the more rarefied, scholarly atmosphere that Æthelstan may have liked both his contemporaries and posterity to think he was keen to promote. Israel was a practitioner of the "hermeneutic style" of Latin, characterised by long, convoluted sentences and a predilection for rare words and neologisms. He probably influenced the scribe known to historians as "Æthelstan A", an early exponent of the style in charters he drafted between 928 and 935. Hermeneutic Latin was to become the dominant style of the English Benedictine reform movement of the later tenth century, and Israel may have been an early mentor of one of its leaders, Æthelwold, at Æthelstan's court in the 930s. The Latin texts which Israel brought to Æthelstan's court were influenced by Irish writers, and the historian Jane Stevenson sees them as contributing a Hiberno-Latin element to the hermeneutic style in England. ## Later career Israel's poem De arte metrica was dedicated to Rotbert, Archbishop of Trier. It was almost certainly composed in England, and the dedication was probably a successful plea for Rotbert's patronage when Æthelstan died in 939. From about 940 Israel was the tutor of Bruno, the future Archbishop of Cologne and brother of the Holy Roman Emperor, Otto the Great. Froumund of Tegernsee described Israel as Rotbert's "shining light". In 947 Israel attended a synod at Verdun presided over by Rotbert, where he was referred to as a bishop, but without identification of his see. He was famous as a schoolmaster and probably played an important role in Emperor Otto's establishment of a court school at Aachen. Tenth-century sources describe Israel as a bishop; around 950 a man with this name is identified as Bishop of Aix-en-Provence, but it is not certain that he was the same person. Between 948 and 950 he may have held a bishopric in Aachen, where he debated Christian ideas about the Trinity with a Jewish intellectual called Salomon, probably the Byzantine ambassador of that name. He retired to become a monk at the Benedictine monastery of Saint-Maximin in Trier, and died on 26 April in an unknown year in the late 960s or early 970s. ## Scholarship Charters produced from 928 by King Æthelstan's scribe, "Æthelstan A", include unusual words almost certainly copied from the Hiberno-Irish poems Adelphus adelphe and Rubisca. The poems display a sophisticated knowledge of Greek and are described by Lapidge as "immensely difficult". It is likely that they were brought by Israel from the Continent, while Adelphus adelphe was probably, and Rubisca possibly, his work. Mechthild Gretsch describes Israel as "one of the most learned men in Europe", and Lapidge says that he was "an accomplished grammarian and poet, and one of the few scholars of his time to have first-hand knowledge of Greek". Greek scholarship was so rare in western Europe during this period that in the 870s Anastasius the Librarian was unable to find anyone competent to edit his translation of a text from Greek, and had to do it himself. Israel wrote on theology and collected works of medicine. In the 940s he became interested in the Irish philosopher John Scottus Eriugena, and commented on his works in a manuscript which survives in Saint Petersburg. In a manuscript glossing Porphyry's Isagoge, he recommended John's Periphyseon. His redaction of a commentary on Donatus's Ars Minor was a major teaching text in the Middle Ages, and still in print in the twentieth century.
2,144	Aaliyah	1,173,881,327	American singer (1979–2001)	[ "1979 births", "2001 deaths", "20th-century African-American women singers", "20th-century American actresses", "21st-century African-American women singers", "21st-century American actresses", "Aaliyah", "Actresses from Detroit", "African-American Catholics", "African-American actresses", "African-American dancers", "African-American female dancers", "African-American female models", "American child singers", "American contemporary R&B singers", "American female dancers", "American film actresses", "American sopranos", "American women hip hop musicians", "American women hip hop singers", "American women pop singers", "Atlantic Records artists", "Burials at Ferncliff Cemetery", "Child marriage in the United States", "Child pop musicians", "Dance-pop musicians", "Dancers from Michigan", "Jive Records artists", "Midwest hip hop musicians", "Musicians from Detroit", "Musicians killed in aviation accidents or incidents", "Progressive soul musicians", "Swing Mob artists", "Universal Records artists", "Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 2001", "Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in the Bahamas", "Virgin Records artists" ]	Aaliyah Dana Haughton (/ɑːˈliːə/ ah-LEE-ə; January 16, 1979 – August 25, 2001) was an American singer and actress. She has been credited for helping to redefine contemporary R&B, pop and hip hop, earning her the nicknames the "Princess of R&B" and "Queen of Urban Pop". Born in Brooklyn but raised in Detroit, she first gained recognition at the age of 10, when she appeared on the television show Star Search and performed in concert alongside Gladys Knight. At the age of 12, Aaliyah signed with Jive Records and her uncle Barry Hankerson's Blackground Records. Hankerson introduced her to R. Kelly, who became her mentor, as well as lead songwriter and producer of her debut album, Age Ain't Nothing but a Number. The album sold three million copies in the United States and was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). After allegations of an illegal marriage with Kelly, Aaliyah ended her contract with Jive and signed with Atlantic Records. Aaliyah worked with record producers Timbaland and Missy Elliott for her second album, One in a Million, which sold three million copies in the United States and more than eight million copies worldwide. In 2000, Aaliyah appeared in her first film, Romeo Must Die. She contributed to the film's soundtrack, which spawned the single "Try Again". The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 solely on airplay, making Aaliyah the first artist in Billboard history to achieve this goal. After completing Romeo Must Die, Aaliyah filmed her role in Queen of the Damned, and released, in 2001, her third and final album Aaliyah, which topped the Billboard 200. On August 25, 2001, Aaliyah was killed in an airplane accident in the Bahamas at the age of 22 along with eight other passengers when the overloaded aircraft, which she was traveling in, crashed shortly after takeoff. The pilot was later found to have traces of cocaine and alcohol in his body and was not qualified to fly the aircraft designated for the flight. Aaliyah's family later filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the aircraft's operator, Blackhawk International Airways, which was settled out of court. In the decades since her death, Aaliyah's music has continued to achieve commercial success, aided by several posthumous releases. She has sold 8.1 million albums in the US and an estimated 24 to 32 million albums worldwide. Billboard lists her as the tenth most successful female R&B artist of the past 25 years, and the 27th most successful in history. Her accolades include three American Music Awards and two MTV VMAs, along with five Grammy Award nominations. ## Early life Aaliyah Dana Haughton was born on January 16, 1979, in Brooklyn, New York, the younger child of Diane and Michael "Miguel" Haughton, a warehouse worker. She was of African-American descent. Her name is the feminine form of the Arabic "Ali", meaning "highest, most exalted one, the best." Aaliyah was fond of her name, calling it "beautiful" and saying she was "very proud of it" and strove to live up to her name every day. When she was five years old, her family moved to Detroit, Michigan, where she was raised along with her older brother, Rashad. In Detroit, her father began working in the warehouse business, one of his brother-in-law Barry Hankerson's widening interests. Her mother stayed home and raised she and her brother. At an early age her mother enrolled her in voice lessons. Eventually, she started performing at weddings, church choir, and charity events. Aaliyah attended a Catholic school, Gesu Elementary, where in first grade she was cast in the stage play Annie, which inspired her to become an entertainer. Aaliyah's mother was a vocalist, and her uncle Hankerson was an entertainment lawyer who had been married to Gladys Knight. As a child, Aaliyah traveled with Knight and worked with an agent in New York to audition for commercials and television programs, including Family Matters. After failing to land a role on the show she continued her acting through the Gesu Players. In 1989 at age ten she appeared on Star Search, where she performed "My Funny Valentine". Aaliyah chose to begin auditioning. Her mother made the decision to drop her surname. She auditioned for several record labels and at age 11 appeared in concerts alongside Knight. During her childhood, she had several pet animals including ducks, snakes and iguanas. Her cousin Jomo had a pet alligator, which Aaliyah felt was too much, remarking, "that was something I wasn't going to stroke." ### Education When she was growing up, Aaliyah attended Detroit schools and believed she was well-liked, but got teased for her short stature. She recalled coming into her own before age 15 and came to love her height. Her mother told her to be happy she was small and complimented her. Other children disliked Aaliyah, but she did not stay focused on them. "You always have to deal with people who are jealous, but there were so few it didn't even matter. The majority of kids supported me, which was wonderful. When it comes to dealing with negative people, I just let it in one ear and out the other. Those people were invisible to me." Even in her adult life, she considered herself small. She had "learned to accept and love" herself and added: "the most important thing is to think highly of yourself because if you don't, no one else will". During her audition for acceptance to the Detroit High School for the Fine and Performing Arts, Aaliyah sang the song "Ave Maria" in its entirety in the Italian language. Aaliyah, who maintained a perfect 4.0 grade-point average when graduating from high school, felt education was important. She saw fit to keep her grades up despite the pressures and time constraints brought on her during the early parts of her career. She called herself a perfectionist and recalled always being a good student. Aaliyah reflected: "I always wanted to maintain that, even in high school when I first started to travel. I wanted to keep that 4.0. Being in the industry, you know, I don't want kids to think, 'I can just sing and forget about school.' I think it's very important to have an education, and even more important to have something to fall back on." She did this in her own life, as she planned to "fall back on" another part of the entertainment industry. She believed that she could teach music history or open her own school to teach that or drama if she did not make a living as a recording artist because, as she reasoned, "when you pick a career it has to be something you love". ## Career ### 1991–1995: Age Ain't Nothing but a Number After Hankerson signed a distribution deal with Jive Records, he signed Aaliyah to his Blackground Records label at the age of 12. Hankerson later introduced her to recording artist and producer R. Kelly, who became Aaliyah's mentor, as well as lead songwriter and producer of her first album, recorded when she was 14. Aaliyah's debut album, Age Ain't Nothing but a Number, was released under her mononym "Aaliyah", by Jive and Blackground Records on May 24, 1994; it debuted at number 24 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling 38,000 copies in its first week. It peaked at number 18 on the Billboard 200 and it was certified two times Platinum by the RIAA. To date the album has sold over 3 million copies in the US. In Canada, the album was certified gold by Music Canada for 50,000 copies in shipments. In 2014, Vibe magazine estimated that the album had sold six million copies globally. Upon its release, Age Ain't Nothing But a Number received generally favorable reviews from music critics. Some writers noted that Aaliyah's "silky vocals" and "sultry voice" blended with Kelly's new jack swing helped define R&B in the 1990s. Her sound was also compared to that of female quartet En Vogue. Christopher John Farley of Time magazine called the album a "beautifully restrained work", noting that Aaliyah's "girlish, breathy vocals rode calmly on R. Kelly's rough beats". Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic felt that the album had its "share of filler", but described the singles as "slyly seductive". He also wrote that the songs on the album were "frequently better" than that of Kelly's second studio album, 12 Play. The single "At Your Best (You Are Love)" was criticized by Billboard for being out of place on the album and for its length. Aaliyah's debut single, "Back & Forth", peaked at number 5 on the Hot 100 and topped the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart for three weeks. Two more singles charted: a cover of the Isley Brothers' "At Your Best (You Are Love)" peaked at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100, and the album's title track, "Age Ain't Nothing but a Number", peaked at number 75. Additionally, she released "The Thing I Like" as part of the soundtrack to the 1994 film A Low Down Dirty Shame. ### 1996–2000: One in a Million and Romeo Must Die In 1996, Aaliyah left Jive Records and signed with Atlantic Records. She worked with record producers Timbaland and Missy Elliott, who contributed to her second studio album, One in a Million. Elliott recalled Timbaland and herself being nervous to work with Aaliyah, since Aaliyah had already released her successful debut album while Elliott and Timbaland were just starting out. Elliott also feared she would be a diva, but reflected that Aaliyah "came in and was so warming; she made us immediately feel like family." The album yielded the lead single "If Your Girl Only Knew", which peaked at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs for two weeks. It also generated the singles "Hot Like Fire" and "4 Page Letter". One in a Million peaked at number 18 on the Billboard 200, and was certified double platinum by the RIAA on June 16, 1997, denoting shipments of two million copies. The album went on to sell 3 million copies in the US and over eight million copies worldwide. The year after her album was released, Aaliyah was featured on Timbaland & Magoo's debut single, "Up Jumps da Boogie". In 1997 Aaliyah graduated with a 4.0 GPA from the Detroit High School for the Fine and Performing Arts, where she majored in drama. The same year, she began her acting career, playing herself in the police drama television series New York Undercover. During this time, Aaliyah participated in the Children's Benefit Concert, a charity concert at the Beacon Theatre in New York. She also became the spokesperson for the Tommy Hilfiger Corporation. During her campaign with Tommy Hilfiger, the company sold over 2,400 pairs of the red, white and blue baggy jeans she wore in their advertisements. In December 1997, she performed the Christmas carol "What Child Is This?" at the annual Christmas in Washington television special. She also contributed to the soundtrack album for the animated film Anastasia, performing a cover version of "Journey to the Past" that earned songwriters Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Aaliyah performed the song at the 1998 Academy Awards ceremony, becoming the youngest singer to perform at the event. Also in 1998, she released the song "Are You That Somebody?" which was featured on the Dr. Dolittle soundtrack. The song peaked at number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned Aaliyah her first Grammy Award nomination. In 1999, Aaliyah landed her first big-screen acting role in Romeo Must Die. She starred opposite martial artist Jet Li, playing a couple who fall in love amid their warring families. Released on March 24, 2000, the movie grossed US\$18.6 million in its first weekend, ranking number two at the box office. Aaliyah purposely stayed away from reviews of the film to "make it easier on" herself, but she heard "that people were able to get into me, which is what I wanted." In contrast, some critics felt there was no chemistry between her and Jet Li, as well as viewing the film as too simplistic. This was echoed by Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times, who wrote that while Aaliyah was "a natural" and the film was conceived as a spotlight for both her and Li, "they have so little chemistry together you'd think they're putting out a fire instead of shooting off sparks. In addition to acting, Aaliyah served as an executive producer of the film's soundtrack, for which she contributed four songs. "Try Again" was released as a single from the soundtrack; the song topped the Billboard Hot 100, making Aaliyah the first artist to top the chart based solely on airplay; this led the song to be released in a 12-inch vinyl and 7-inch single. The music video won the Best Female Video and Best Video from a Film awards at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards. It also earned her a Grammy Award nomination for Best Female R&B Vocalist. The soundtrack went on to sell 1.5 million copies in the United States. ### 2001: Aaliyah and Queen of the Damned After completing Romeo Must Die, Aaliyah began to work on her second film, Queen of the Damned. She played the role of an ancient vampire, Queen Akasha, which she described as a "manipulative, crazy, sexual being". Filming both Romeo Must Die and Queen of the Damned delayed the release of the album. Aaliyah had not intended for her albums to have such a gap between them. "I wanted to take a break after One in a Million to just relax, think about how I wanted to approach the next album. Then, when I was ready to start back up, "Romeo" happened, and so I had to take another break and do that film and then do the soundtrack, then promote it. The break turned into a longer break than I anticipated." Ultimately, she filmed Queen of the Damned and recorded her third album at the same time so that it could be released in 2001. Aaliyah enjoyed balancing her singing and acting careers. Though she called music a "first" for her, she also had been acting since she was young and had wanted to begin acting "at some point in my career", but "wanted it to be the right time and the right vehicle" and felt Romeo Must Die "was it". Connie Johnson of the Los Angeles Times argued that Aaliyah having to focus on her film career may have caused her to not give the album "the attention it merited." During the recording stages for the album, Aaliyah's publicist disclosed that the album's release date was most likely in October 2000. Eventually, she finished recording the album in March 2001; after a year of recording tracks that began in March of the previous year. Aaliyah was released five years after One in a Million on July 17, 2001, and it debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 187,000 copies in its first week. The first single from the album, "We Need a Resolution", peaked at number 59 on the Billboard Hot 100. The week after Aaliyah's death, her third album rose from number 19 to number 1 on the Billboard 200. "Rock the Boat" was released as a posthumous single. The music video premiered on BET's Access Granted, and it became the most viewed and highest rated episode in the history of the show. The song peaked at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Promotional posters for Aaliyah that had been put up in major cities such as New York and Los Angeles became makeshift memorials for grieving fans. In February 2002, the album was certified double Platinum by the RIAA. "More than a Woman" and "I Care 4 U" were released as posthumous singles and peaked within the top 25 of the Billboard Hot 100. "More than a Woman" reached number one on the UK singles chart making Aaliyah the first female deceased artist to reach number one on the UK singles chart. "More than a Woman" was replaced by George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" which is the only time in the UK singles chart's history when a dead artist has replaced another dead artist at number one. Aaliyah was signed to appear in several future films, including a romantic film titled Some Kind of Blue, and a Whitney Houston–produced remake of the 1976 film Sparkle. Houston recalled Aaliyah being "so enthusiastic" about the film; the project was shelved after she died. Before her death Aaliyah filmed some scenes for the sequels of The Matrix as the character Zee. A portion of her role in The Matrix Reloaded was filmed; these unused scenes were included in the tribute section of the Matrix Ultimate Collection series. ## Artistry ### Voice and musical style Aaliyah had the vocal range of a soprano, and with the release of her debut album Age Ain't Nothing but a Number, writer Dimitri Ehrlich of Entertainment Weekly compared her style and sound to R&B group En Vogue. Ehrlich also expressed that Aaliyah's "silky vocals are more agile than those of self-proclaimed queen of hip-hop soul Mary J. Blige." In her review for Aaliyah's second studio album One in a Million Vibe magazine, music critic Dream Hampton said that Aaliyah's "deliciously feline" voice has the same "pop appeal" as Janet Jackson's. According to Rolling Stone "the most remarkable thing about Aaliyah's voice, besides its flexibility and crisp range, was its almost preternatural poise — she always seemed to be holding her power in reserve, to know every side of the scenarios she described". Aaliyah herself once described her vocal styling saying , "My signature style is breathy, tone-y, airy. It's simple but I can ride a crazy track." From the very beginning, she opted "for an edgier, more mature sound", and her songs were often uptempo and at the same time often dark, revolving around "matters of the heart". She "easily straddled the hip-hop and pop worlds, never projecting the frilliness of her ingénue peers". In 2001, Aaliyah called her sound "street but sweet", pairing feminine vocals with a gritty urban rhythm track. In another interview she further spoke about her artistry, saying, "I love to fuse other types of music with my own". She explored a wide range of genres such as R&B, pop, hip hop, funk, soul, and dance-pop. Discussing her lyrical content in The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), Keith Harris said "When it came to sexual availability, she was between En Vogue maliciously taunting 'You're never gonna get it' and Tweet blankly cooing 'Oops, there goes my shirt.'" Lyrically, "Her first two albums carefully toed the line between adolescence and adulthood, displaying a woman exploring the terrain of love, trust, and lust; one who exuded a playful innocence while hinting at a more sultry side." Aaliyah did not usually write her own lyrics. The only time she had a hand in writing is on the song "Death of a Playa" from the "Hot Like Fire" single (1997). She co-wrote that song with her brother Rashad Haughton, and "it reflects Aaliyah's dark perspective on romance". Of her role in crafting her music, Aaliyah said, "I like to have the final say but I was trained as a singer, actress and dancer, the interpreter, bringing other people's words to life. I need the songs to reflect me in one way or another". After her R. Kelly–produced debut album, Aaliyah worked with Timbaland and Missy Elliott, whose productions were more electronic. The duo "mixed choppy, nervous rhythms over loops of computer-generated backing tracks, and incorporating harmonies which – within the genre's limited horizons – seemed daring". They also created, the "Freeze-and-stop style of singing on top of bass-heavy instrumentals" which became Aaliyah's signature style. Aaliyah's songs have been said to have "crisp production" and "staccato arrangements" that "extend genre boundaries" while containing "old-school" soul music. Kelefah Sanneh of The New York Times called her "a digital diva who wove a spell with ones and zeroes", and writes that her songs comprised "simple vocal riffs, repeated and refracted to echo the manipulated loops that create digital rhythm", as Timbaland's "computer-programmed beats fitted perfectly with her cool, breathy voice to create a new kind of electronic music." She released "musically risky singles into a notoriously fickle pop market", without being "concerned about conforming to the stereotypes of the marketplace". Her songs "gracefully walk a line between commerciality and experimentation". Reviewing her album, British publication NME felt that Aaliyah's "radical" third album was "intended to consolidate her position as U.S. R&B's most experimental artist". As her albums progressed, writers felt that Aaliyah matured, calling her progress a "near-flawless declaration of strength and independence". ABC News noted that her music was "evolving from the punchy pop-influenced hip hop and R&B to a more mature, introspective sound", on her third album. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic described her album Aaliyah as "a statement of maturity and a stunning artistic leap forward", and called it one of the strongest urban soul records of its time. She portrayed "unfamiliar sounds, styles and emotions", but managed to please critics with the contemporary sound it contained. Ernest Hardy of Rolling Stone felt that Aaliyah was displaying stronger technique, giving her best vocal performances. Altogether, Aaliyah's music can be described as alternative R&B, progressive soul, and neo soul, according to Time's Farley. ### Influences As an artist, Aaliyah said she was inspired by a number of performers. These include Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Sade, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Korn, Donnie Hathaway, Johnny Mathis, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston, and Barbra Streisand. Aaliyah said that Michael Jackson's Thriller was her "favorite album" and that "nothing will ever top Thriller." She said she had always wanted to work with Janet Jackson, to whom she had often been compared, saying, "I admire her a great deal. She's a total performer ... I'd love to do a duet with Janet Jackson." Jackson reciprocated Aaliyah's affection, saying, "I've loved her from the beginning because she always comes out and does something different, musically." Jackson also said she would have enjoyed collaborating with Aaliyah. ### Music videos According to director Paul Hunter from day one, "Aaliyah wanted her videos to stand out from clips by other R&B singers". He stated, "You can watch programming all day and see a certain type of video by female artists, "Then when one of hers comes on it's something special, something different to look at. That's what she was about." Christopher John Farley from Time stated that Aaliyah's "videos, for the most part, are about mood, not about storylines... Her videos are usually lushly shot and infused with sexual tension, though not in overt and obvious ways". Alisha Acquaye from Teen Vogue felt that, "There's much to gather while watching an Aaliyah music video" in fact, she thinks that watching them is "actually an understatement". Acquaye further explained, "There's a state of hypnosis you submit to as she envelops you through sight and sound, tugging at your heartstrings. Between a sequence of sensual, strong movements, infectious instrumentals, and intuitive lyrics that spark emotions of desire, sex, and empowerment, you are enraptured in Aaliyah's physical presence". Most of Aaliyah's videos included dance routines. While discussing her video choreography Billboard mentioned that she "coined the smooth choreography and tomboyish style that would inspire [R&B]'s future generations for years to come". Vibe praised several videos saying, "Looking back on her videos like "Try Again" and "Are You That Somebody," Aaliyah's talent in all of those techniques of dancing are apparent, as she's able to hit every syncopated word and beat with ease as if she's moving on air". Kyann-Sian Williams from NME named "Are You That Somebody?" as a visual that, "pushed the boundaries when it came to dance breaks in music videos". Williams declared, "Until that time, dance breaks were usually reserved for boybands like \*NSync and the Backstreet Boys, but Aaliyah claimed it for R&B stars too". ## Public image Aaliyah focused on her public image while protecting her private life. She felt that it was "important ... to differentiate yourself from the rest of the pack". USA Today said, "Her slinky vocal style and eye-popping videos made her a crossover star, while her persistent protection of her privacy added an air of intrigue about her". According to Aaliyah, "I put a lot of pressure on myself to be true to myself and not let anything else influence me to do what someone else is doing. Being a little edgy and sexy is me. My image isn't a put-on. I'm happy to put over that dark edge in my videos, because it's always been there. I used to wear my sunglasses or have my hair over one eye a lot more when I was younger. [Now] I'm happy with all aspects of myself." She often wore baggy clothes and sunglasses, stating that she wanted to be herself. Aaliyah also wore black clothing, starting a trend for similar fashion among women in United States and Japan. In 1998, she hired a personal trainer to keep in shape, and exercised five days a week and ate diet foods. As her career progressed, "she went through so many fashion revamps". For example, When she changed her hairstyle, Aaliyah took her mother's advice and covered her left eye, much like Veronica Lake. The look has become known as her signature and been referred to as fusion of "unnerving emotional honesty" and "a sense of mystique". In regards to her fashion choices, writer Jeff Lorez described her as a "model of understatement". According to Lorez, " She's beautiful, but hardly in a high-gloss, supermodel way—more like a really good-looking girl next door. And rather than bling-blinging her ice in a ghetto-fabulous manner befitting her Trumped-up surroundings, she blings on the down-low: A subtle bracelet here, a winking pendant there, offset by her simple black jeans and matching sweater. Trés cool". Former TRL host Carson Daly said that she was "cutting edge, always one step ahead of the curve and that the TRL audience looks to her to figure out what's hot and what's new". Aaliyah was often praised for her "clean-cut image" and "moral values". Robert Christgau of The Village Voice wrote of Aaliyah's artistry and image, "she was lithe and dulcet in a way that signified neither jailbait nor hottie—an ingenue whose selling point was sincerity, not innocence and the obverse it implies." Emil Wilbekin, told CNN: "Aaliyah is an excellent role model because she started her career in the public eye at age 15 with a gold album, Age Ain't Nothing but a Number. And then her second album, One in a Million went double platinum. She had the leading role in Romeo Must Die, which was a box office success. She's won numerous awards, several MTV music video awards, and aside from her professional successes, many of her lyrics are very inspirational and uplifting. She also carried herself in a very professional manner. She was well-spoken. She was beautiful, but she didn't use her beauty to sell her music. She used her talent. Many young hip-hop fans greatly admire her." She was also seen by others as a sex symbol and didn't have a problem with being considered one. "I know that people think I'm sexy and I am looked at as that, and it is cool with me," she stated. "It's wonderful to have sex appeal. If you embrace it, it can be a very beautiful thing. I am totally cool with that. Definitely. I see myself as sexy. If you are comfortable with it, it can be very classy and it can be very appealing." Aaliyah also felt though her image was "risque and sexy", it was important to remain respectable because she wanted to make songs that everyone could relate to without it being vulgar. When she participated in fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger's All America Tour Tommy Jean ads, she wore boxer shorts, baggy jeans and a tube top. Hilfiger's brother, Andy, called it "a whole new look" that was "classy but sexy". The single "We Need a Resolution" was argued to have transformed "the once tomboy into a sexy grown woman". ## Personal life ### Family Aaliyah's family played a major role in the course of her career. Beginning in 1995, Aaliyah's father Michael Haughton served as her personal manager, and her mother assisted him. Aaliyah's brother Rashad Haughton and her cousin Jomo Hankerson were with her when she worked. After her father became ill, her brother Rashad became her manager. Aaliyah was known to have usually been accompanied by members of her family. Her brother Rashad stated that the filming of "Rock the Boat" was the only time her family was not present during a video shoot. In October 2001, Rashad said: "It really boggles everyone [that] from Day One, every single video she ever shot there's always been myself or my mother or my father there. The circumstances surrounding this last video were really strange because my mother had eye surgery and couldn't fly. That really bothered her because she always traveled. My dad had to take care of my mom at that time. And I went to Australia to visit some friends. We really couldn't understand why we weren't there. You ask yourself maybe we could have stopped it. But you can't really answer the question. There's always gonna be that question of why." Her friend Kidada Jones said in the last year of Aaliyah's life, her parents had given her more freedom and she had spoken about wanting a family. ### Illegal marriage With the release of Age Ain't Nothing but a Number, rumors circulated about a relationship between Aaliyah and R. Kelly, including the allegation that they had secretly married without her parents' knowledge. Vibe magazine later revealed a marriage certificate that listed the couple married on August 31, 1994, in Sheraton Gateway Suites in Rosemont, Illinois. Aaliyah, who was 15 at the time, was listed as 18 on the certificate; R. Kelly was 27. The marriage was annulled by her parents in February 1995, but the pair denied the allegations, saying that neither was married and that the certificate was a forgery. Aaliyah reportedly developed an intimate relationship with Kelly during the recording of her debut album. She told Vibe magazine in 1994 that she and Kelly would "go watch a movie" and "go eat" when she got tired and would then "come back and work". She described the relationship between her and Kelly as "rather close." In December 1994, Aaliyah told the Chicago Sun-Times that whenever she was asked about being married to Kelly, she urged them not to believe "all that mess" and that she and Kelly were "close" and "people took it the wrong way". Jamie Foster Brown in the 1994 issue of Sister 2 Sister wrote that "R. Kelly told me that he and Aaliyah got together, and it was just magic." Brown also reported hearing about a sexual relationship between them. "I've been hearing about Robert and Aaliyah for a while—that she was pregnant. Or that she was coming and going in and out of his house. People would see her walking his dog, 12 Play, with her basketball cap and sunglasses on. Every time I asked the label, they said it was platonic. But I kept hearing complaints from people about her being in the studio with all those men." Brown later added "at 15, you have all those hormones and no brains attached to them". In his 2011 book The Man Behind the Man: Looking from the Inside Out, Demetrius Smith Sr., Kelly's former tour manager, revealed that Kelly married Aaliyah after she told him that she was pregnant. In the 2019 documentary Surviving R. Kelly, Smith described how he helped Aaliyah forge the necessary documents to show she was 18 to marry Kelly. Smith also said he was "not proud" of his role in facilitating their marriage. Additionally, the documentary revealed that Jovante Cunningham, a former backup dancer, claimed to have witnessed Kelly having sex with Aaliyah on his tour bus. Aaliyah admitted in court documents that she had lied about her age. In May 1997, she filed suit in Cook County seeking to have all records of the marriage expunged because she was not old enough under state law to get married without her parents' consent. It was reported that she cut off all professional and personal ties with Kelly after the marriage was annulled and ceased contact with him. In a 2014 interview, Aaliyah's cousin Jomo Hankerson said that she "got villainized" for her relationship with Kelly and the scandal over the marriage made it difficult to find producers for her second album. "We were coming off of a multi-platinum debut album and except for a couple of relationships with Jermaine Dupri and Puffy, it was hard for us to get producers on the album." Hankerson also expressed confusion over why "they were upset" with Aaliyah given her age at the time. Aaliyah was known to avoid answering questions about Kelly after the professional split. During an interview with Christopher John Farley, she was asked whether she was still in contact with him and would ever work with him again. Farley said Aaliyah responded with a "firm, frosty 'no'" to both questions. Vibe magazine said Aaliyah changed the subject anytime "you bring up the marriage with her". A spokeswoman for Aaliyah said in 2000 that when "R. Kelly comes up, she doesn't even speak his name, and nobody's allowed to ask about it at all." Kelly later said that Aaliyah had opportunities to address their relationship after they separated professionally but chose not to. In 2019, Damon Dash revealed to Hip Hop Motivation that Aaliyah did not even speak of her relationship with Kelly in private; he tried multiple times to discuss it with her, but she would only say that Kelly was a "bad man". Dash said he was unable to watch Surviving R. Kelly because its interviews with visibly traumatized girls struggling to discuss their encounters with Kelly reminded him of how Aaliyah behaved when trying to recount her relationship with Kelly. Dash later appeared in Surviving R. Kelly, Part II in 2020. Other allegations were made about Kelly regarding underage girls in the years after Aaliyah's death, and their marriage was used as an example of his involvement with them. He has refused to discuss his relationship with her, citing her death. "Out of respect for her, and her mom and her dad, I will not discuss Aaliyah. That was a whole other situation, a whole other time, it was a whole other thing, and I'm sure that people also know that." In 2016, Kelly said that he was as in love with Aaliyah as he was with "anybody else." Aaliyah's mother, Diane Haughton, reflected that everything "that went wrong in her life" began with her relationship with Kelly. After the documentary Surviving R. Kelly aired in January 2019, pressure from the public using the Mute R. Kelly hashtag escalated and RCA Records dropped Kelly from the label. In February 2019, Kelly was indicted on ten counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. In July 2019, he was arrested on federal charges of sex crimes, human trafficking, child pornography, racketeering, and obstruction of justice. When his trial began in August 2021, Kelly faced 22 federal criminal charges that involved allegedly abusing 11 girls and women between 1994 and 2018. Aaliyah's illegal marriage to Kelly was heavily featured in the court case. On September 27, 2021, a federal court jury found Kelly guilty of nine counts including racketeering, sexual exploitation of a child, kidnapping, bribery, sex trafficking, and a violation of the Mann Act. The judge ordered that Kelly remain in custody pending sentencing, which was set for May 4, 2022. On June 29, 2022, Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison. ### Relationship with Damon Dash Aaliyah was dating the co-founder of Roc-A-Fella Records, Damon Dash, at the time of her death. Although they were not formally engaged, Dash claimed the couple had planned to marry in interviews given after Aaliyah's death. In the summer of 2000, Aaliyah was introduced to Dash by his accountant and they formed a friendship. Aaliyah never publicly addressed their relationship as anything but platonic. Due to their hectic work schedules, Aaliyah and Dash were separated for long periods of time. Jay-Z mentioned Aaliyah and Dash in the remix of her song "Miss You", released in 2003. In August 2021, Dash told Entertainment Tonight's Kevin Frazier, "I was reflecting [that] there hasn't been one day since she's passed, not one in the 20 years, that I haven't either heard her name, heard her record, or seen a picture of her ... Every single day she's present in my life and I feel lucky for that." ## Death On August 25, 2001, at 6:50 p.m. (EDT), Aaliyah and some employees of her record company boarded a twin-engine Cessna 402 light aircraft at the Marsh Harbour Airport in Abaco Islands, the Bahamas, to travel to Opa-Locka Airport in Florida after they completed filming the video for "Rock the Boat". They had a flight scheduled the next day, but with filming finishing early, Aaliyah and her entourage were eager to return to the US and decided to leave immediately. The designated airplane was smaller than the Cessna 404 on which they had originally arrived, but the whole party and all the equipment were accommodated on board. The plane crashed and caught fire shortly after takeoff, about 200 feet (60 m) from the end of the runway. Aaliyah and the eight others on board—pilot Luis Morales III, hair stylist Eric Forman, Anthony Dodd, security guard Scott Gallin, family friend Keith Wallace, make-up stylist Christopher Maldonado, and Blackground Records employees Douglas Kratz and Gina Smith—were killed. The passengers had grown impatient because the Cessna was supposed to arrive at 4:30 pm. EDT, but did not arrive until 6:15 pm. Charter pilot Lewis Key claimed to have overheard passengers arguing with the pilot, Morales, before takeoff, adding that Morales warned them that there was too much weight for a "safe flight". Key added: "He tried to convince them the plane was overloaded, but they insisted they had chartered the plane and they had to be in Miami Saturday night." Key indicated that Morales gave in to the passengers and that he had trouble starting one of the engines. According to findings from an inquest conducted by the coroner's office in the Bahamas, Aaliyah had "severe burns and a blow to the head" in addition to severe shock and a weak heart. The coroner theorized that she went into such a state of shock that even if she had survived the crash, her recovery would have been nearly impossible given the severity of her injuries. The bodies were taken to the morgue at Princess Margaret Hospital in Nassau, where they were kept for relatives to help identify them. Some of them were badly burned. As the subsequent investigation determined, the aircraft was overloaded by 700 pounds (320 kg) when it attempted to take off, and was carrying one more passenger than it was certified for. The National Transportation Safety Board reported, "The airplane was seen lifting off the runway, and then nose down, impacting in a marsh on the south side of the departure end of runway 27." The report indicated that the pilot was not approved to fly the plane. Morales falsely obtained his FAA license by showing hundreds of hours never flown, and he may also have falsified how many hours he had flown to get a job with his employer, Blackhawk International Airways. Additionally, toxicology tests performed on Morales revealed traces of cocaine and alcohol in his system. ### Funeral Aaliyah's private funeral Mass was held on August 31, 2001, at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in Manhattan, following a procession from the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel. Her body was set in a silver-plated copper-deposit casket, which was carried in a horse-drawn, glass hearse. An estimated 800 mourners attended the procession. Among those in attendance at the private ceremony were Missy Elliott, Timbaland, Gladys Knight, Lil' Kim, and Sean Combs. After the service, 22 white doves were released to symbolize each year of her life. Aaliyah's brother Rashad delivered the eulogy and described his sister as giving him strength: "Aaliyah, you left, but I'll see you always next to me and I can see you smiling through the sunshine. When our life is over, our book is done. I hope God keeps me strong until I see her again." He read the names of the other victims of the crash and concluded by asking mourners to pray for them as well. As Diane Haughton and the mourners left, they sang Aaliyah's song "One in a Million". ## Posthumous releases ### 2001–2011: Aaliyah Memorial Fund, Queen of the Damned and compilations Immediately after Aaliyah's death, there was uncertainty over whether the music video for "Rock the Boat" would ever air. It made its world premiere on BET's Access Granted on October 9, 2001. She won two posthumous awards at the American Music Awards of 2002; Favorite Female R&B Artist and Favorite R&B/Soul Album for Aaliyah. Her second and final film, Queen of the Damned, was released in February 2002. Before its release, Aaliyah's brother, Rashad, re-dubbed some of her lines during post-production. It grossed US\$15.2 million in its first weekend, ranking number one at the box office. On the first anniversary of Aaliyah's death, a candlelight vigil was held in Times Square; millions of fans observed a moment of silence; and throughout the United States, radio stations played her music in remembrance. In December 2002, a collection of previously unreleased material was released as Aaliyah's first posthumous album, I Care 4 U. A portion of the proceeds was donated to the Aaliyah Memorial Fund, a program that benefits the Revlon UCLA Women's Cancer Research Program and Harlem's Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. It debuted at number three on the US Billboard 200, selling 280,000 copies in its first week. The album's lead single, "Miss You", peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart for three weeks. In August of the following year, luxury fashion house Dior donated profits from sales in honor of Aaliyah. In April 2005, Aaliyah's second posthumous album, a double CD+DVD box set titled Ultimate Aaliyah, was released in the United Kingdom by Blackground Records. Andy Kellman of AllMusic remarked "Ultimate Aaliyah adequately represents the shortened career of a tremendous talent who benefited from some of the best songwriting and production work by Timbaland, Missy Elliott, and R. Kelly." A documentary movie Aaliyah Live in Amsterdam was released in 2011, shortly before the tenth anniversary of Aaliyah's death. The documentary, by Pogus Caesar, contained previously unseen footage shot of her career beginnings in 1995 when she was appearing in the Netherlands. ### 2012–2014: Proposed posthumous album In March 2012, music producer Jeffrey "J-Dub" Walker announced on his Twitter account that a song "Steady Ground", which he produced for Aaliyah's third album, would be included in the forthcoming posthumous Aaliyah album. This second proposed posthumous album would feature this song using demo vocals, as Walker claims the originals were somehow lost by his sound engineer. Aaliyah's brother Rashad later denied Walker's claim, claiming that "no official album [is] being released and supported by the Haughton family." On August 5, 2012, Blackground Records released the track "Enough Said" online. It was produced by Noah "40" Shebib and features Canadian rapper Drake. Four days later, Jomo Hankerson confirmed a posthumous album is being produced and that it was scheduled to be released by the end of 2012 by Blackground Records. The album was reported to include 16 unreleased songs and have contributions from Aaliyah's longtime collaborators Timbaland and Missy Elliott, among others. On August 13, Timbaland and Missy Elliott dismissed rumors about being contacted or participating for the project. Elliott's manager Mona Scott-Young said to XXL, "Although Missy and Timbaland always strive to keep the memory of their close friend alive, we have not been contacted about the project nor are there any plans at this time to participate. We've seen the reports surfacing that they have been confirmed to participate but that is not the case. Both Missy and Timbaland are very sensitive to the loss still being felt by the family so we wanted to clear up any misinformation being circulated." Elliott herself said, "Tim and I carry Aaliyah with us everyday, like so many of the people who love her. She will always live in our hearts. We have nothing but love and respect for her memory and for her loved ones left behind still grieving her loss. They are always in our prayers." In June 2013, Aaliyah was featured on a new track by Chris Brown, titled "Don't Think They Know"; with Aaliyah singing the song's hook. The video features dancing holographic versions of Aaliyah. The song appears on Brown's sixth studio album, X. Timbaland voiced his disapproval for "Enough Said" and "Don't Think They Know" in July 2013. He exclaimed, "Aaliyah music only work with its soulmate, which is me". Soon after, Timbaland apologized to Chris Brown over his remarks, which he explained were made due to Aaliyah and her death being a "very sensitive subject". In January 2014, producer Noah "40" Shebib confirmed that the posthumous album was shelved due to the negative reception surrounding Drake's involvement. Aaliyah was featured on the Tink track "Million", which was released in May 2015 and contained samples from her song "One in a Million". ### 2015–present: Merchandise, catalogue rerelease and Unstoppable In September 2015, Aaliyah by Xyrena, an official tribute fragrance, was announced. In November 2015, Timbaland teased that he was working on a new mixtape; a month later on December 16, he revealed the mixtape title, cover, and track listing which included Aaliyah. The 'Kings Stay Kings' mixtape was released on Christmas 2015 and it included an unreleased Aaliyah song titled "Shakin" featuring rapper Strado. In August 2017 MAC Cosmetics announced that an Aaliyah collection would be made available in the summer of 2018. The Aaliyah for Mac collection was released on June 20 online and June 21 in stores; along with the MAC collection, MAC and i-D Magazine partnered up to release a short film titled "A-Z of Aaliyah" which coincided with the launch. The Aaliyah for Mac collectors box was priced at \$250 and sold out within minutes. On August 21, 2019, the Madame Tussauds museum revealed a wax figure of Aaliyah at their Las Vegas location. The lifesize figure was modelled on Aaliyah's iconic "Try Again" outfit and makeup. It was unveiled by her brother, Rashad, to an invited audience. Four days later, Aaliyah's family announced that they were in talks with record companies to discuss the future of her discography, with a view of making it available for download and streaming. In January 2021, it was announced that Aaliyah would have her own Funko Pop!figurine. The collectible was styled in Aaliyah's 1994 era and was released March 2021 worldwide. In August 2021, it was reported that the album and Aaliyah's other recorded work for Blackground (since rebranded as Blackground Records 2.0) would be re-released on physical, digital, and streaming services in a deal between the label and Empire Distribution. One in a Million was reissued on August 20, despite Aaliyah's estate issuing a statement in response to Blackground 2.0's announcement, denouncing the "unscrupulous endeavor to release Aaliyah's music without any transparency or full accounting to the estate". After the album's re-release, One in a Million re-entered the UK Official Hip Hop and R&B Albums Chart Top 40 at number eight. In the US, the album reached the top ten for on the Billboard 200 for the first time at number ten, selling 26,000 album-equivalent units in the week ending of August 26. On August 25, 2021, Barry Hankerson revealed in an interview with Big Tigger for WVEE that a fourth (and likely final) studio album, titled Unstoppable, would be released in "a matter of weeks". The album will feature Drake, Snoop Dogg, Ne-Yo, Chris Brown, Future and use previously unreleased vocals from before Aaliyah's passing. Hankerson shared that this will be the end of new music for the late star and added, "I think it's wonderful. It's a very emotional process to do. It's very difficult to hear her sing when she's not here, but we got through it." Aaliyah was reissued September 10, 2021. After the album's re-release, Aaliyah re-entered the UK Official Hip Hop and R&B Albums Chart Top 40 at number seven and re-entered the US Billboard 200 chart at number 13. In celebration of the reissue, Blackground released an animated commercial titled "It's Been A Long Time" (in a similar style to the album's original 2001 commercial), directed by Takahiro Tanaka, showing Aaliyah resurrecting her music from out of a large underground vault. Compilation albums I Care 4 U and Ultimate Aaliyah were reissued October 8, 2021. While the I Care 4 U album failed to rechart, Ultimate Aaliyah peaked at number 8 on the UK R&B Albums Chart Top 40 and charted for the first time in the US at number 41 on the Billboard 200. On December 14, 2021, it was announced that a new single would be released by Aaliyah, featuring The Weeknd. The mid-tempo track, "Poison", was released on December 17, 2021. The single was written by Static Major, The Weeknd and Belly and produced by DannyBoyStyles and Nick Lamb. On January 4, 2022, Hankerson confirmed that Unstoppable would be released later that month, however, there was no sign of the album, nor any announcement from the label and as of 2023 remains unreleased. ## Legacy and influence Aaliyah has been credited for helping redefine R&B, pop and hip hop in the 1990s, "leaving an indelible imprint on the music industry as a whole." According to Billboard, she revolutionized R&B with her sultry mix of pop, soul and hip hop. Peter Piatkowski from PopMatters, stated, "Much like Janet Jackson's Control set a template of sorts for dance-pop divas in the 1980s, Aaliyah's patented brand of Black pop, which was a mélange of hip-hop, electropop, and soul, set a standard against which other young urban-pop singers were judged". In a 2001 review of her third album, Ernest Hardy from Rolling Stone professed that Aaliyah's impact on R&B and pop has been enormous. Steve Huey of AllMusic wrote Aaliyah ranks among the "elite" artists of the R&B genre, as she "played a major role in popularizing the stuttering, futuristic production style that consumed hip-hop and urban soul in the late 1990s." Critic Bruce Britt stated that by combining "schoolgirl charm with urban grit, Aaliyah helped define the teen-oriented sound that has resulted in contemporary pop phenom's like Brandy, Christina Aguilera and Destiny's Child". Described as one of "R&B's most important artists" during the 1990s, her second studio album, One in a Million, became one of the most influential R&B albums of the decade. Music critic Simon Reynolds cited "Are You That Somebody?" as "the most radical pop single" of 1998. Kelefah Sanneh of The New York Times wrote that rather than being the song's focal point, Aaliyah "knew how to disappear into the music, how to match her voice to the bass line", and consequently "helped change the way popular music sounds; the twitchy, beat-driven songs of Destiny's Child owe a clear debt to 'Are You That Somebody'." Sanneh asserted that by the time of her death in 2001, Aaliyah "had recorded some of the most innovative and influential pop songs of the last five years." Music publication Popdust called Aaliyah an unlikely queen of the underground for her influence on the underground alternative music scene. The publication also mentioned that the forward-thinking music Aaliyah made with Timbaland and the experimental music being made by many underground alternative artists are "somewhat cut from the same cloth". While compiling a list of artists that take cues from Aaliyah, MTV Hive stated that it's easy to spot her influence on underground movements like dubstep, strains of indie pop, and lo-fi R&B movements. Erika Ramirez, an associate editor of Billboard, said at the time of Aaliyah's career "there weren't many artists using the kind of soft vocals the ways she was using it, and now you see a lot of artists doing that and finding success". Ramirez argued that Aaliyah's second album One in a Million was "very much ahead of its time, with the bass and electro kind of R&B sounds that they produced", and that the sound, "really stood out" at its time, was being replicated. There has been continuing belief that Aaliyah would have achieved greater career success had it not been for her death. Emil Wilbekin mentioned the deaths of The Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur in conjunction with hers and added: "Her just-released third album and scheduled role in a sequel to The Matrix could have made her another Janet Jackson or Whitney Houston". Director of Queen of the Damned Michael Rymer said of Aaliyah, "God, that girl could have gone so far" and spoke of her having "such a clarity about what she wanted. Nothing was gonna step in her way. No ego, no nervousness, no manipulation. There was nothing to stop her." On July 18, 2014, it was announced that Alexandra Shipp replaced Zendaya for the role of Aaliyah for the Lifetime TV biopic movie Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B, which premiered on November 15, 2014. Zendaya drew criticism because people felt that she was too light skinned and did not greatly resemble Aaliyah. She voiced her strong respect for Aaliyah before dropping out of the project. She explained her choice to withdraw from the film in videos on Instagram. Aaliyah's family has been vocal in their disapproving of the film. Her cousin Jomo Hankerson stated the family would prefer a "major studio release along the lines" of What's Love Got to Do with It, the biopic based on the life of Tina Turner. Aaliyah's family has consulted a lawyer to stop Lifetime from using "any of the music, or any of the photographs and videos" they own and Jomo Hankerson claimed the TV network "didn't reach out." On August 9, 2014, it was announced that Chattrisse Dolabaille and Izaak Smith had been cast as Aaliyah's collaborators Missy Elliott and Timbaland. Dolabaille and Smith both received criticism for their appearances in comparison with that of Missy Elliot and Timbaland. Despite negative reviews, the film's premiere drew 3.2 million viewers, becoming the second highest rated television movie of 2014. On August 17, 2021, Atria Books (an imprint of Simon & Schuster) published Kathy Iandoli's Baby Girl: Better Known as Aaliyah, a biography that draws on interviews with Aaliyah's friends, mentors and family, and document how her career influenced a new generation of artists. It has not been authorized by the Haughton family. On August 5, 2022, Beyoncé released "The Queens Remix" to her single "Break My Soul", in which she name-drops Aaliyah, along with other cultural icons. On June 14, 2023, Aaliyah was the subject of the documentary Superstar: Aaliyah, which was broadcast on ABC. The documentary included interviews with Damon Dash, Barry Hankerson, Sevyn Streeter, Will.i.am, Justine Skye, and author Kathy Iandoli, and discussed Aaliyah's life, career and legacy. ## Achievements Aaliyah has sold 8.1 million albums in the United States and an estimated 24 to 32 million albums worldwide. Throughout the years, she has earned several honorific nicknames, including "Princess of R&B", "Pop Princess", and "Queen of Urban Pop", as she "proved she was a muse in her own right". While Ernest Hardy of Rolling Stone dubbed her the "undisputed queen of the midtempo come-on". She also has been referred to as a pop and R&B icon for her impact on those genres. At the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards, Aaliyah was honored by Janet Jackson, Missy Elliott, Timbaland, Ginuwine and her brother, Rashad, who all paid tribute to her. Also during 2001, the United States Social Security Administration ranked the name Aaliyah as one of the 100 most popular names for newborn girls. In 2003 Aaliyah was ranked as one of "The Top 40 Women of the Video Era" in VH1's The Greatest series. Also, in 2003 in memory of Aaliyah, the Entertainment Industry Foundation created the Aaliyah Memorial Fund to donate money raised to charities she supported. In 2008, she was ranked at number 18 on BET's "Top 25 Dancers of All Time". In December 2009, Billboard magazine ranked Aaliyah at number 70 on its Top Artists of the Decade, while her album Aaliyah was ranked at number 181 on the magazine's Top 200 Albums of the Decade. In 2010 Billboard listed her as the tenth most successful female R&B artist of the past 25 years, and 27th most successful R&B artist overall. In 2011, Essence ranked her at number 14 on its 50 Most Influential R&B Starts list. In 2012, VH1 ranked her number 48 on their "Greatest Women in Music". In 2014, NME ranked her at number 18 on NME's 100 most influential artist list. In August 2018, Billboard ranked Aaliyah at number 47 on their Top 60 Female Artists of All-Time list. In 2020, the publication included her on its list of the 100 Greatest Music Video Artists of All Time. Rolling Stone ranked her at number 40 on their 200 Best Singers of All Time list. On September 24, 2023, she will be inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame. ## Discography ### Studio albums - Age Ain't Nothing but a Number (1994) - One in a Million (1996) - Aaliyah (2001) - Unstoppable (TBA) ### Compilation albums - I Care 4 U (2002) - Ultimate Aaliyah (2005) ## Filmography ## See also - List of artists who reached number one in the United States - List of awards and nominations received by Aaliyah - List of fatalities from aviation accidents
24,613,618	Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg	1,147,731,191	Habsburg military commander (1760–1799)	[ "1760 births", "1799 deaths", "Austrian Empire military leaders of the French Revolutionary Wars", "Field marshals of Austria", "Fürstenberg (princely family)", "Generals of the Holy Roman Empire", "Military leaders of the French Revolutionary Wars killed in battle", "Military personnel from Prague", "Military personnel killed in action" ]	Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg (26 June 1760 – 25 March 1799) was an Austrian military commander. He achieved the rank of Field Marshal and died at the Battle of Stockach. The third son of a cadet branch of the House of Fürstenberg, at his birth his chances of inheriting the family title of Fürst zu Fürstenberg were slight; he was prepared instead for a military career, and a tutor was hired to teach him the military sciences. He entered the Habsburg military in 1777, at the age of seventeen years, and was a member of the field army in the short War of the Bavarian Succession (1778–79). His career progressed steadily during the Habsburg War with the Ottoman Empire. In particular he distinguished himself at Šabac in 1790, when he led his troops in storming the fortress on the Sava river. During the French Revolutionary Wars, he fought with distinction again for the First Coalition, particularly at Ketsch and Frœschwiller, and in 1796 at Emmendingen, Schliengen and Kehl. He was stationed at key points to protect the movements of the Austrian army. With a force of 10,000, he defended the German Rhineland at Kehl, and reversed a bayonet assault by French troops at Bellheim; his troops also overran Speyer without any losses. By the end of the War of the First Coalition, at the age of 35, he had achieved the rank of Field Marshal. During the War of the Second Coalition, he fought in the first two battles of the German campaign, at Ostrach on 21 March 1799, and at Stockach on 25 March 1799. At the latter action while leading a grenadier regiment, he was hit by French case shot and knocked off his horse. He died shortly afterward. ## Childhood and early military training As the third son of a cadet (junior) branch of the Fürstenberg princely family, Karl Aloys was prepared for a military career. His tutor, Lieutenant Ernst, was in active service in the Habsburg military, and took six-year-old Karl Aloys on maneuvers with him. In this way, he learned as a child the Habsburg military manual, and came into contact with important military men who later furthered his education and career; he also acquired an honorary rank as Kreis-Obristen, or Colonel of the Imperial Circle, by the time he was ten years old. As a youth, in 1776, he met the Habsburg war minister Count Franz Moritz von Lacy and Baron Ernst Gideon von Laudon; he was also invited to dine with Emperor Joseph II. He started his service in 1777 as a Fähnrich (ensign) in the Habsburg military organization. He saw his first field service during the War of the Bavarian Succession (1777–78), although he was not involved in any battles. In 1780, at the age of twenty years, he was promoted to captain, and assigned to the 34th Infantry Regiment, also known as the Anton Esterházy, named for Paul II Anton, Prince Esterházy, the general of cavalry, field marshal of the Seven Years' War, and ambassador to Britain. While he was assigned to this unit, he participated in the border conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburgs, 1787–92, and stormed the fortress at Šabac (German: Schabatz) on the Sava River in Serbia on 27 April 1788. For his action at Šabac, he was personally commended by the Emperor; on the following day, he was promoted to major and given command of a grenadier battalion. On 1 January 1790, at Laudon's explicit request, Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg was promoted to major general; at the end of June of that year, he received the coveted position of second colonel of the 34th Infantry Regiment Anton Esterhazy, where he served as the executive officer for Anton I, Prince Esterházy, the 34th Hungarian Regiment's Colonel and Proprietor. This was a customary appointment in which a less prominent officer completed the day-to-day administrative duties of the Colonel and Proprietor, who was usually a noble and was often posted in a different assignment, sometimes a different staff location. Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg also received the confraternal Order of Saint Hubert from the Duke of Bavaria and married the "elegant" Princess Elisabeth of Thurn und Taxis (1767–1822), that year. ## Fight against Revolutionary France While Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg fought for the Habsburg cause in Serbia, in France, a coalition of the clergy and the professional and bourgeois class—the First and Third estates—led a call for reform of the French government and the creation of a written constitution. Initially, the rulers of Europe viewed the French Revolution as an event between the French king and his subjects, and not something in which they should interfere. In 1790, Leopold succeeded his brother Joseph as emperor and by 1791, he considered the situation surrounding his sister, Marie Antoinette, and her children, with greater alarm. In August 1791, in consultation with French émigré nobles and Frederick William II of Prussia, he issued the Declaration of Pillnitz, in which they declared the interest of the monarchs of Europe as one with the interests of Louis XVI and his family. They threatened ambiguous, but quite serious, consequences if anything should happen to the royal family. The French émigrés continued to agitate for support of a counter-revolution. On 20 April 1792, the French National Convention declared war on Austria. In the War of the First Coalition (1792–1797), France opposed most of the European states sharing land or water borders with her, plus Portugal and the Ottoman Empire. ### War of the First Coalition In the early days of the French Revolutionary Wars, Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg remained as brigade commander of a small Austrian corps, approximately 10,000 men, under the overall command of Anton I, Prince Esterházy. He was stationed in the Breisgau, a Habsburg territory between the Black Forest and the Rhine. This location between the forested mountains and the river included two important bridgeheads across the river which offered access to southwestern Germany, the Swiss Cantons, or north-central Germany. His brigade defended Kehl, a small village immediately across the Rhine from Strasbourg, but most of the action in 1792 occurred further north, in present-day Belgium, near the cities of Speyer and Trier, and at Frankfurt on the Main River. In the second year of the war, Fürstenberg was transferred to the cavalry of Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser, in the Army of the Upper Rhine, and placed in charge of the advance guard near Speyer, which was still held by the French. On 30 March, he crossed the Rhine by Ketsch at the head of the advance guard, which included 9,000 men. He took the city of Speyer on 1 April, in the absence of the commander of the city, Adam Philippe, Comte de Custine, who was away with most of his troops; those that remained behind simply abandoned the city. On the following day, Fürstenberg occupied the town of Germersheim. His first combat action of the war occurred on 3 April, when Custine's infantry attacked him in a bayonet charge near the villages of Bellheim, Hördt and Leimersheim, and afterward at Landau and Lauterbourg. During these attacks, he lost all the ground he had gained in the days before. After these events, he was again transferred, this time to the command of the Regiment Count von Kavanagh, where he continued to distinguish himself during the French counter-offensive of October–November 1793. In the action around Geidertheim, on the Zorn River, he assisted Lieutenant Field Marshal Gabriel Anton, Baron Splény de Miháldy, in repelling a French counter-attack. Shortly afterward, he became very ill and, in December 1793, was sent to the Hagenau to recover. On 22 December, he rejoined Wurmser's Corps for the Battle of Froeschwiller against Lazare Hoche and Jean-Charles Pichegru. After the French retreated over the Rhine at Huningue, near Basel, he directed the construction of its new fortifications. In June 1796, Fürstenberg commanded a division of four infantry battalions, 13 artillery pieces, and the Freikorps (Volunteers) Gyulay and secured the Rhine corridor between Kehl and Rastatt. On 26 June 1796, the French Army of the Rhine and Moselle crossed the Rhine and chased the Swabian Circle's military contingent out of Kehl. In June 1796, Archduke Charles added the contingent to Fürstenberg's command, making him the Swabian's Feldzeugmeister, or General of Infantry. Fürstenberg's troops defended the imperial line at the town of Rastatt until support troops arrived, and they could make an orderly withdrawal into the Upper Danube Valley. The Swabian contingent was demobilized in July, and Fürstenberg returned to the command of Austrian regulars during the Austrian counter-offensive. At the Battle of Emmendingen on 19 October 1796, his leadership was again instrumental in an Austrian victory. General Jean Victor Marie Moreau's Army of the Rhine-and-Moselle sought to retain a foothold on the eastern side of the Rhine, following his retreat from southwestern Germany west of the Black Forest. Fürstenberg held Kenzingen, 2.5 miles (4 km) north of Riegel on the Elz River. Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg was ordered to feint against Riegel, to protect the primary Austrian positions at Rust and Kappel. In the Battle of Schliengen (24 October 1796), Fürstenberg commanded the second column of the Austrian force, which included nine battalions of infantry and 30 squadrons of cavalry; with these, he overwhelmed the force of General of Division Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr, holding his position to prevent the French force from retreating north on the Rhine. While Maximilian Anton Karl, Count Baillet de Latour, engaged the main Austrian force at Kehl, Archduke Charles entrusted to Lieutenant Field Marshal Fürstenberg the command of the forces besieging Huningue, which included two divisions with 20 battalions of infantry and 40 squadrons of cavalry. Charles' confidence in his young field marshal was well-placed. On 27 November, Fürstenberg's chief engineer opened and drained the water-filled moat protecting the French fortifications. Fürstenberg offered the commander of the bridgehead, General of Brigade Jean Charles Abbatucci, the opportunity to surrender, which he declined. In the night of 30 November to 1 December, Fürstenberg's force stormed the bridgehead twice, but was twice repulsed. In one of these attacks, the French commander was mortally wounded and died on 3 December. Fürstenberg maintained the siege of Kehl while Archduke Charles engaged the stronger French force to the north of Kehl. After the French capitulation at Kehl (10 January 1797), Fürstenberg received additional forces with which he could end the siege at Hüningen. He ordered the reinforcement of the ring of soldiers surrounding Hüningen and, on 2 February 1797, the Austrians prepared to storm the bridgehead. General of Division Georges Joseph Dufour, the new French commander, pre-empted what would have been a costly attack, by offering to surrender the bridge. On 5 February, Fürstenberg finally took possession of the bridgehead. Francis II, the Holy Roman Emperor, appointed him as Colonel and Proprietor of the 36th Infantry Regiment, which bore his name until his death in battle in 1799. ### Peace The Coalition forces—Austria, Russia, Prussia, Great Britain, Sardinia, among others—achieved several victories at Verdun, Kaiserslautern, Neerwinden, Mainz, Amberg and Würzburg, but in northern Italy, they could neither lift nor escape the siege at Mantua. The efforts of Napoleon Bonaparte in northern Italy pushed Austrian forces to the border of Habsburg lands. Napoleon dictated a cease-fire at Leoben on 17 April 1797, leading to the formal Treaty of Campo Formio, which went into effect on 17 October 1797. Austria withdrew from the territories the army had fought so hard to acquire, including the strategic river crossings at Hüningen and Kehl, as well as key cities further north. When the war ended, Fürstenberg stayed at the Donaueschingen estate of his cousin, Karl Joachim Aloys, who had recently inherited the family title as Fürst zu Fürstenberg. Later in 1797, he traveled to Prague and remained with his family until May 1798, when he received a posting to a new division in Linz. His daughter, Maria Anna, was born after he left, on 17 September 1798. ## Activities in the Second Coalition Despite the longed-for peace, tensions grew between France and most of the First Coalition allies, either separately or jointly. Ferdinand IV of Naples refused to pay agreed-upon tribute to France, and his subjects followed this refusal with a rebellion. The French invaded Naples and established the Parthenopaean Republic. A republican uprising in the Swiss cantons, encouraged by the French Republic which offered military support, led to the overthrow of the Swiss Confederation and the establishment of the Helvetic Republic. On his way to Egypt in Spring 1798, Napoleon had stopped on the Island of Malta and removed the Hospitallers from their possessions. This angered Paul, Tsar of Russia, who was the honorary head of the Order. The ongoing French occupation of Malta angered the British, who dedicated themselves to ejecting the French garrison at Valletta. The French Directory was convinced that the Austrians were conniving to start another war. Indeed, the weaker the French Republic seemed, the more seriously the Austrians, the Neapolitans, the Russians, and the British actually discussed this possibility. As winter broke on 1 March 1799, General Jean Baptiste Jourdan and his 25,000-man Army of the Danube crossed the Rhine at Kehl. The Army of the Danube met little resistance as it advanced through the Black Forest and eventually took a flanking position on the north shore of Lake Constance. Instructed to block the Austrians from access to the Swiss alpine passes, Jourdan planned to isolate the armies of the Coalition in Germany from allies in northern Italy, and prevent them from assisting one another. His was a preemptive strike. By crossing the Rhine in early March, Jourdan acted before Archduke Charles' army could be reinforced by Austria's Russian allies, who had agreed to send 60,000 seasoned soldiers and their more-seasoned commander, Generalissimo Alexander Suvorov. Furthermore, if the French held the interior passes in Switzerland, they could not only prevent the Austrians from transferring troops between northern Italy and southwestern Germany, but could use the routes to move their own forces between the two theaters. ### Battle of Ostrach At the outbreak of hostilities in March 1799, Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg was with his troops in Bavarian territory, just north of the free and Imperial city of Augsburg. When news reached the Austrian camp that the French had crossed the Rhine, Charles ordered the imperial army to advance west. Fürstenberg moved his troops toward Augsburg, crossing the Lech River. The French advanced guard arrived in Ostrach on 8–9 March, and over the next week skirmished with the Austrian forward posts, while the rest of the French army arrived. Jourdan disposed his 25,000 troops along a line from Salem Abbey and Lake Constance to the Danube river, centered in Ostrach. He established his command headquarters at the imperial city of Pfullendorf, overlooking the entire Ostrach valley. Jourdan was expecting Dominique Vandamme's troops to arrive in time to support his far north flank near the river, but Vandamme had gone to Stuttgart to investigate a rumored presence of Austrian troops there and had not rejoined the main army. Consequently, the French left flank, under command of Gouvion Saint-Cyr, was thinly manned. Jourdan thought he had more time, expecting Charles would need still three or four days to move his troops across the Lech, and march to Ostrach, but by the middle of Holy Week in 1799, more than a third of Charles' army, 48,000 mixed troops, was positioned in a formation parallel to Jourdan's, and his 72,000 remaining troops were arrayed with the left wing at Kempten, the center near Memmingen, and the right flank extended to Ulm. By 21 March, the French and Austrian outposts overlapped, and skirmishing intensified. Charles had divided his force into four columns. Fürstenberg covered the northern flank of the Archduke's main force. Fürstenberg's force pushed the French out of Davidsweiler, and then advanced on Ruppersweiler and Einhard, 5 kilometers (3 mi) to the northwest of Ostrach. Saint-Cyr did not have the manpower to defend the position, and the entire line fell back to Ostrach, with Fürstenberg's troops pressuring their withdrawal. Fürstenberg's persistent pressure on the French left flank was instrumental in the collapse of the northern part of the French line. After their success in driving the French back from Ostrach, and then from the heights of Pfullendorf, the Austrian forces continued to press the French back to Stockach, and then another five miles or so to Engen. ### Death at the Battle of Stockach (1799) On the morning of what they suspected would be the general engagement, Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg sought out the field chaplain, and requested the sacraments because, as he told his aide, anything can happen during a battle. Although Ostrach had been a hard-fought battle, at Engen and Stockach, the Austrian and French forces were far more concentrated—more men in a smaller space—than they had been at Ostrach, where the French forces in particular had been stretched thinly on a long line from Lake Constance to north of the Danube. At Stockach, furthermore, Jourdan had all his troops under his direct control, with the possible exception of Dominique Vandamme, who was maneuvering his small force of cavalry and light infantry into position to attempt a flanking action on the far right Austrian flank. In the course of the battle, Jourdan's forces were supposed to engage in simultaneous attacks on the left, center and right of the Austrian line. On the French right, Souham's and Ferino's Corps met with strong resistance and were stopped; on the French left, Lefebvre's troops charged with such force that the Austrians were pushed back. Having stopped Souham's and Ferino's assault, Charles had troops available to counter Lefebvre's force. At that point, Vandamme's men moved into action. Because Souham's assault at the center had been stalled, Charles still had enough men to turn part of his force to fight this new threat, but the Austrians were hard pressed and the action furious. At one point, Charles attempted to lead his eight battalions of Hungarian grenadiers into action, to the dismay of the old soldiers. Fürstenberg reportedly said that while he lived, he would not leave this post (at the head of the grenadiers) and the Archduke should not dismount and fight. As Fürstenberg led the Hungarian grenadiers into the battle, he was cut down by a canister and case shot employed by the French. Although he was carried alive off the field, he died almost immediately. Charles ultimately did lead his grenadiers into battle, and reportedly his personal bravery rallied his troops to push back the French. After the battle, someone removed Fürstenberg's wedding ring and returned it to his wife in Prague, with news of his death; Fürstenberg was buried at the battlefield cemetery in Stockach, and his cousin erected a small monument there, but in 1857, his body was moved to the family cemetery, Maria Hof at Neudingen, near Donaueschingen. ## Family Upon the death of Prosper Ferdinand, Count Fürstenberg, in the War of the Spanish Succession, in 1704 the Fürstenberg inheritance was divided between the count's two youngest sons, Joseph Wilhelm Ernst and Wilhelm Egon; the eldest son was an ecclesiastic. The family of Fürstenberg was raised to princely status 2 February 1716, with the elevation of Joseph Wilhelm Ernst, as the first Prince (Fürst) of Fürstenberg (German: Fürst zu Fürstenberg). The first prince had three sons, Joseph Wenzel Johann Nepomuk (1728–1783), Karl Borromäus Egon (1729–1787), and Prosper Maria, who died in infancy. The title passed through the line of the first son, Joseph Wenzel Johann Nepomuk (as second prince), to his son Joseph Maria Benedikt Karl (third prince, who died in 1796) and then to another son of the second prince, Karl Joachim Aloys (fourth prince). The last son of Joseph Wilhelm Ernst died in 1803 without male issue. Consequently, the title passed to the male line of first prince's second son. This son, Karl Borromäus Egon, had died in 1787. Karl Borromäus Egon's oldest son, Joseph Maria Wenzel (16 August 1754 – 14 July 1759), died as a small child. The second son, Philipp Nerius Maria (Prague, 21 October 1755 – 5 June 1790), married in 1779 to his first cousin, Josepha Johanna Benedikta von Fürstenberg (sister of the third and fourth princes), at Donaueschingen. Only one of their sons survived childhood, but died at the age of 15 years. The other children of this second son were all daughters, and thus not eligible to inherit the title Prince of Fürstenberg. Consequently, the title devolved to the agnatic male descendants of Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg. In 1803, two of Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg's children were still living. Karl Egon, as the surviving son, inherited the title Prince of Fürstenberg; he and his eldest sister lived into adulthood and produced families. Children of Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg and Elizabeth, Princess of Thurn und Taxis, were: - Marie Leopoldine (Prague, 4 September 1791 – Kupferzell, 10 January 1844); married at Heiligenberg, 20 May 1813 to Charles Albert III, Prince of Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst (Vienna, 29 February 1776 – Bad Mergentheim, 15 June 1843) - Maria Josepha (9 September 1792) - Antonie (28 October 1794 – 1 October 1799) - Karl Egon II (Prague, 28 October 1796 – Bad Ischl 22 October 1854), succeeded his cousin, Joachim, as the fifth Fürst zu Fürstenberg on 17 May 1804. He married on 19 April 1818, to Amalie Christine Karoline, of Baden (Karlsruhe, 26 January 1795 – Karlsruhe, 14 September 1869). - Maria Anna, 17 September 1798 – 18 July 1799
1,754,250	Hastings line	1,170,924,304	Railway line in Kent and East Sussex, England	[ "1845 establishments in England", "Rail transport in East Sussex", "Rail transport in Kent", "Railway lines in South East England", "Railway lines opened in 1845", "Railway lines opened in 1846", "Railway lines opened in 1851", "Railway lines opened in 1852", "Standard gauge railways in England", "Transport in Hastings" ]	The Hastings line is a secondary railway line in Kent and East Sussex, England, linking Hastings with the main town of Tunbridge Wells, and London via Tonbridge and Sevenoaks. Although primarily carrying passengers, the railway also serves a gypsum mine which is a source of freight traffic. Southeastern Trains operates passenger trains on the line, and it is one of their busiest lines. The railway was constructed by the South Eastern Railway in the early 1850s across the difficult terrain of the High Weald. Supervision of the building of the line was lax, enabling contractors to skimp on the lining of the tunnels. These deficiencies showed up after the railway had opened. Rectifications led to a restricted loading gauge along the line, requiring the use of dedicated rolling stock. Served by steam locomotives from opening until the late 1950s, passenger services were then taken over by a fleet of diesel-electric multiple units built to the line's loading gauge. Diesel locomotives handled freight, also built to fit the loading gauge. The diesel-electric multiple units served on the line until 1986, when the line was electrified and the most severely affected tunnels were reduced from double track to single. ## Background The South Eastern Railway (SER) completed its main line from London to Dover, Kent in 1844, branching off the rival London, Brighton and South Coast Railway's (LBSC) line at Redhill. Construction of a single line branch from Tunbridge (modern spelling "Tonbridge") to Tunbridge Wells, a fashionable town where a chalybeate spring had been discovered in 1606, began in July 1844. At the time, Parliament had not given assent for the railway. The Act of Parliament enabling the construction of the line had its first reading in the House of Commons on 28 April 1845. The bill completed its passage through the House of Commons and the House of Lords on 28 July, following which Royal Assent was granted on 31 July by Queen Victoria. The engineer in charge of the construction was Peter W. Barlow and the contractors were Messrs. Hoof & Son. In April 1845 the SER decided that the branch would be double track. A 410-yard-long (370 m) tunnel was required 44 chains (890 m) after leaving Tunbridge. This was named "Somerhill Tunnel" after the nearby mansion. A mile and 54 chains (2.70 km) after leaving Somerhill Tunnel, a 270-yard-long (250 m) viaduct was required. Southborough Viaduct stands 40 feet (12 m) high and has 26 arches. A temporary station was built at Tunbridge Wells as the 823 yd (753 m) Wells Tunnel was still under construction. It was 4 miles 7 chains (4.09 mi; 6.58 km) from Tunbridge. The temporary station subsequently became a goods station. The first train, comprising four locomotives and 26 carriages, arrived at Tunbridge Wells on 19 September. Trains from Tunbridge had to reverse before starting the climb to Somerhill Tunnel, as there was no facing junction at Tunbridge. This situation was to remain until 1857, when a direct link was built at a cost of £5,700. The old link remained in use until c. 1913. The SER was granted permission to build a line from Ashford in Kent to St Leonards, East Sussex in 1845. The LBSC reached St Leonards from Lewes the following year. This gave the LBSC a shorter route to Hastings than the SERs route, then still under construction. The SER sought permission to extend their branch from Tunbridge Wells across the High Weald to reach Hastings. Authorisation for the construction of a 25-mile-60-chain (25.75 mi; 41.44 km) line to Hastings was obtained on 18 June 1846, Parliament deemed the line between Ashford and St Leonards to be of military strategic importance. Therefore, they stipulated that this line was to be completed before any extension was built from Tunbridge Wells. The extension into Tunbridge Wells opened on 25 November 1846 without any public ceremony. In 1847, the SER unsuccessfully challenged the condition that the line between Ashford and St Leonards be completed first. That line was opened in 1851, passing through Hastings and making an end-on junction with the LBSC line from Lewes. ## Construction The Hastings line is built over the difficult, forested, and hilly terrain across the High Weald and sandstone Hastings Beds, necessitating the construction of eight tunnels between Tonbridge and the south coast seaside resort of Hastings. The SER was anxious to construct the line as economically as possible, since it was in competition with the LBSC to obtain entry into Hastings and was not in a strong financial position in the mid-1840s. The construction of the line between Tunbridge Wells and Robertsbridge was contracted to Messrs. Hoof & Wyths, subcontracted to Messrs. H. Warden. By March 1851, the trackbed had been constructed as far as Whatlington, East Sussex, a distance of 19 miles (30.58 km). All tunnels had been completed and a single line of railway had been laid for a distance of 10 miles 40 chains (10.50 mi; 16.90 km) from Tunbridge Wells. When the 15-mile-40-chain (15.50 mi; 24.94 km) section from Tunbridge Wells to Robertsbridge opened on 1 September, a single line of track extended a further 4 miles (6.44 km) to Whatlington. On the 6-mile (9.66 km) section between Whatlington and St Leonards, 750,000 cubic yards (570,000 m<sup>3</sup>) out of 827,000 cubic yards (632,000 m<sup>3</sup>) had been excavated. Construction of the line between Tunbridge Wells and Bopeep Junction cost in excess of £500,000. ### Deficiencies in the construction of the tunnels Supervision of the construction was lax, which enabled the contractors to skimp on the lining of the tunnels. This manifested itself in March 1855 when part of the brickwork of Mountfield Tunnel collapsed. An inspection of Grove Hill, Strawberry Hill and Wells tunnels revealed that they too had been constructed with too few layers of bricks. Grove Hill Tunnel had been built with just a single ring of bricks and no filling above the crown of the brickwork. The SER took the contractors to court and were awarded £3,500 in damages. However, rectifying the situation cost the company £4,700. Although the contractors had charged for six rings of bricks, they had only used four. Due to the cost of reboring the tunnels, this had to be rectified by the addition of a further two rings of brickwork, reducing the width of the tunnels by 18 inches (460 mm). The result of this was that the loading gauge on the line was restricted, and special rolling stock had to be built, later becoming known as Restriction 0 rolling stock. This problem would affect the line until 1986. Wadhurst Tunnel collapsed in 1862 and it was discovered by the SER that the same situation existed there too. Rectification cost £10,231. By 1877, only one train was permitted in Bopeep Tunnel at a time. The tunnel was partly widened in 1934–35. In November 1949, serious defects were discovered in the tunnel. Single-line working was put in place on 19 November, but the tunnel had to be closed completely a week later. The tunnel was partially relined with cast iron segments. It reopened to traffic on 5 June 1950. Mountfield Tunnel was underpinned in 1938–39, remaining open with single-line working in operation. It partially collapsed on 17 November 1974, resulting in single-line working until 31 January 1975. The line was then closed until 17 March whilst the track was singled through the tunnel. ### Openings The line was opened by the SER in three main stages: Tunbridge–Tunbridge Wells, Tunbridge Wells–Robertsbridge and Robertsbridge–Bopeep Junction. A temporary station was opened at Tunbridge Wells on 19 September 1845 while Wells Tunnel was completed. The temporary station later became the goods depot. Tunbridge Wells (later Tunbridge Wells Central) station opened on 25 November 1846. The Tunbridge Wells–Robertsbridge section opened on 1 September 1851, with the Robertsbridge–Battle section opening on 1 January 1852. The Battle–Bopeep Junction section opened on 1 February 1852. ### Description of the route The line climbs steeply out of the Medway Valley at gradients of between 1 in 47 and 1 in 300 to a summit south of Tunbridge Wells, the line undulates as far as Wadhurst at gradients between 1 in 80 and 1 in 155 before descending into the Rother Valley, which it follows as far as Robertsbridge at gradients between 1 in 48 and 1 in 485. The line then climbs at gradients between 1 in 86 and 1 in 170 before a dip where it crosses the River Brede. This is followed by a climb to Battle with gradients between 1 in 100 and 1 in 227 before the line falls to Hastings at gradients of between 1 in 100 and 1 in 945. Bopeep Junction is the junction of the Hastings line with the East Coastway line. It lies east of Bopeep Tunnel. There is a pub in Bulverhythe called The Bo Peep. The name was a nickname for Customs and Excise men. ### Tunnels There are eight tunnels between Tonbridge and Hastings. In order from north to south they are: ### Stations The original stations on the Tunbridge Wells to Hastings section of the line are mostly in the Gothic or Italianate styles. These were designed by William Tress. Frant, Wadhurst, Witherenden, Etchingham and Robertsbridge stations opened on 1 September 1851. Other station openings are detailed below. Stations are listed under their original names. - Tunbridge Tunbridge station opened in May 1842. Following the opening of the branch to Tunbridge Wells in 1845, it was renamed to Tunbridge Junction in January 1852, then Tonbridge Junction in 1893, and to its current name in July 1929. The original station stood to the east of the road bridge, whereas the current station, opened in 1864, stands to the west. Trains leaving Tonbridge had to reverse to reach Tunbridge Wells. This arrangement lasted until 1857, when a new section of line was constructed enabling trains to reach the Hastings line without reversal. The station is 29 miles 42 chains (29.53 mi; 47.52 km) from Charing Cross via Orpington. - Southborough Southborough station opened on 1 March 1893. It was renamed High Brooms on 21 September 1925 to avoid confusion with Southborough station on the Chatham Main Line, which had already been renamed Bickley. The station is 32 miles 70 chains (32.88 mi; 52.91 km) from Charing Cross. - Tunbridge Wells The first station at Tunbridge Wells was temporary and was situated north of Wells Tunnel. It opened on 19 September 1845 and was replaced by the present Tunbridge Wells Station on 25 November 1846. It subsequently became Tunbridge Wells Goods station, later renamed Tunbridge Wells Central Goods station. The goods station closed in 1980, with a siding retained for engineers use. The original station was 44 miles 23 chains (44.29 mi; 71.27 km) from London Bridge via Redhill. The building on the up side of the station was built in the Italianate style. A new building by A. H. Blomfield was constructed on the down side in 1911. The station was renamed Tunbridge Wells Central on 9 July 1923 with the ex-LBSC station being renamed Tunbridge Wells West. Following the closure of the Tunbridge Wells–Eridge railway on 6 July 1985, the name reverted to Tunbridge Wells. The station is 34 miles 32 chains (34.40 mi; 55.36 km) from Charing Cross. - Frant Frant station is 36 miles 53 chains (36.66 mi; 59.00 km) from Charing Cross. The station building is on the down side. - Wadhurst Wadhurst station is 39 miles 23 chains (39.29 mi; 63.23 km) from Charing Cross. The station building is in the Italianate style, with a later one-bay extension. The 1893-built signal box, decommissioned on 20 April 1986, was purchased by the Kent and East Sussex Railway. - Witherenden Witherenden station is 43 miles 66 chains (43.83 mi; 70.53 km) from Charing Cross. It was renamed Ticehurst Road in December 1851, and Stonegate on 16 June 1947. - Etchingham Etchingham station is 47 miles 34 chains (47.43 mi; 76.32 km) from Charing Cross. The building is on the up side. - Robertsbridge Robertsbridge station is 49 miles 37 chains (49.46 mi; 79.60 km) from Charing Cross. On 26 March 1900, it became a junction with the opening of the Rother Valley Railway to freight. The line opened to passengers on 2 April 1900, and was renamed the Kent and East Sussex Railway in 1904. The Kent and East Sussex Railway closed to passengers on 2 January 1954 and to freight on 12 June 1962, except for a short section serving a mill at Robertsbridge which closed on 1 January 1970. - Mountfield Halt Mountfield Halt opened in 1923. It closed on 6 October 1969. The platforms were built of sleepers and were demolished in the early 1970s. The station was 53 miles 37 chains (53.46 mi; 86.04 km) from Charing Cross. - Battle Battle station opened on 1 September 1851. The buildings are in the Gothic style and stand on the up side. The station is 55 miles 46 chains (55.58 mi; 89.44 km) from Charing Cross. - Crowhurst A siding had existed at Crowhurst from 1877. The station opened on 1 June 1902 and was located at the junction for the Bexhill West branch line, which also opened the same day. Despite the line's closure on 14 June 1964, Crowhurst station remains open. The station is 57 miles 45 chains (57.56 mi; 92.64 km) from Charing Cross. - West St Leonards West St Leonards station opened on 1 October 1887. The buildings are wood framed and covered with weatherboards. The station is 60 miles 59 chains (60.74 mi; 97.75 km) from Charing Cross. - St Leonards Warrior Square St Leonards Warrior Square station opened on 13 February 1851 along with a new section of line between Hastings and the LBSCs Hastings & St Leonards station. This gave the LBSC better access to Hastings. It lies between Bopeep Tunnel and Hastings Tunnel. The station is 61 miles 55 chains (61.69 mi; 99.28 km) from Charing Cross. - Hastings Hastings station opened on 13 February 1851 along with the SER branch from Ashford. Through platforms were provided for SER services and a separate terminal platform for LBSC services. The station was rebuilt and enlarged by the SER in 1880 as it was then inadequate for the increasing seasonal traffic. In 1930 the station was rebuilt by the Southern Railway. This entailed closure of the engine sheds at Hastings, with locomotives being transferred to St Leonards. The original station building, by Tress, was demolished and a new Neo-Georgian station building by J. R. Scott was erected. The rebuilt station was completed on 5 July 1931. The new layout provided two island platforms. The station was rebuilt in 2003 by Railtrack. The 1931-built building was demolished and a new structure erected in its place. The station is 62 miles 33 chains (62.41 mi; 100.44 km) from Charing Cross via Orpington. ### Links to other lines #### Built In the late 1860s, a single track link was built between the SERs Tunbridge Wells station and the LBSCs Tunbridge Wells station, which had opened in 1866. It was 1875 before powers were granted to run a passenger service over this section of line. The junction with the main line was Grove Junction. It was removed on 7 July 1985, following closure of the Tunbridge Wells Central–Eridge line the previous day. In 1900, the Rother Valley Railway opened from Robertsbridge to Tenterden. It was extended in stages to Tenterden Town and Headcorn, which was reached in 1905. The line closed to passengers on 2 January 1954 and freight on 12 June 1961, except for access to Hodson's Mill closed in 1970. The Rother Valley Railway heritage railway are rebuilding the line between Robertsbridge and Junction Road, with completion scheduled by 2018. In 1902, a branch line was built to Bexhill West, with a new station at the junction with the main line at Crowhurst. This line closed on 14 June 1964. #### Authorised In 1903, a railway was authorised to be built from Robertsbridge to Pevensey, East Sussex. The line was authorised under the Light Railways Act 1896, but was not constructed. #### Proposed In 1856, it was proposed to build a 6-mile (9.66 km) long branch from Witherenden to Mayfield, East Sussex. In 1882, an 18-mile-40-chain (18.50 mi; 29.77 km) long railway was proposed from Ticehurst Road to Langney, East Sussex, giving access to Eastbourne. Stations were proposed at Burwash, Dallington, Bodle Street Green, Boreham Street, Pevensey and Langney. ### Planned electrification Electrification of the Hastings line was first considered by the SER as early as 1903. Lack of finance meant that no decision had been made by the time World War I broke out in 1914. It was stated in 1921 that electrification was a long-term aim. In the mid-1930s, the Southern Railway, which had been formed from the SER, LBSC, London and South Western Railway (LSWR) and London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LCDR) in 1923 under the Railways Act 1921, electrified a number of lines. The East Coastway line was electrified in 1935, with a depot being built at Ore, East Sussex. In 1937, it was proposed to electrify the line between Sevenoaks and St Leonards Warrior Square at a cost of £1,500,000. The scheme was deferred, with another proposal in 1937 costing £1,300,000 also failing to gain favour before World War II broke out. One of the main reasons that electrification was not given the go-ahead was the fact that non-standard rolling stock would be required. The Southern Railway had provided the line with 104 new carriages and six Pullman Cars between 1929 and 1934. Two electric locomotives were ordered in 1937. They were built to the Hastings line loading gauge. In October 1946, the Southern Railway announced a programme to electrify all lines in Kent and East Sussex in three stages. The Hastings line between Tonbridge and Bopeep Junction was to be part of the third stage. Track would have been slewed within the affected tunnels with only one train normally allowed in the tunnel. In an emergency, two trains would be allowed in the tunnel at the same time, but restricted to 25 miles per hour (40 km/h). Standard 9 feet 0 inches (2.74 m) wide stock would be used. Following the nationalisation of railways in the United Kingdom under the Transport Act 1947, the Southern Region of British Railways shelved new electrification schemes, concentrating on the construction of new steam locomotives. In 1952, the possibility of operating standard rolling stock on the line had been examined. The Operating Department objected to the use of single line sections through the various tunnels. The 1930s stock was refurbished with the aim of extending its service by a further ten years. The first two phases of the Southern Railway's electrification scheme were revived in 1955. This did not include the Hastings line and it was announced in 1956 that a fleet of diesel-electric trains would be constructed to operate the service until the line was electrified. At that time, the rolling stock built in the 1930s was overdue for replacement. The modernisation to the Hastings line and the introduction of the diesel-electric trains cost £797,000, of which £595,000 was the cost of the first seven trains. A further thirteen trains cost £1,178,840. Electrification was finally carried out in the 1980s, as detailed below. ## Operators From 1845, the line was operated by the SER. In 1899, the SER and LCDR entered into a joint working partnership, the South Eastern and Chatham Railway (SECR). On 1 January 1923, the Railways Act 1921 came into force, resulting in the Grouping. The SECR became part of the Southern Railway (SR). On 1 January 1948, the Transport Act 1947 came into force, and the SR became part of British Railways, with the former SR lines becoming the Southern Region. British Railways was rebranded British Rail on 1 January 1965. On 10 June 1986, Network SouthEast branded trains began operating. On 1 January 1994, the Railways Act 1993 came into force, privatising British Rail. Passenger services were taken over by Connex South Eastern on 13 October 1996. On 27 June 2003, Connex lost the franchise due to poor financial management. The Strategic Rail Authority took over the running of passenger trains from 9 November 2003, using their South Eastern Trains train operating company. On 1 April 2006, Southeastern took over the operation of passenger trains on the route. On 17 October 2021 SE Trains took over the operation of passenger trains on the route. ## Operation ### Steam era (1845–1957) From the opening of the line, passenger stock consisted of 4-wheel carriages. In 1845, there were eight passenger trains a day from Tunbridge Wells to London, with half that number on Sundays. On 23 June 1849, the Royal Train took Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to Tunbridge Wells to visit Queen Adelaide, the Queen Dowager. The train, consisting of the Royal Saloon, two first class carriages and a brake van made the journey from Bricklayers Arms to Tunbridge Wells in 75 minutes. It was driven by James Cudworth, the Locomotive Superintendent of the SER. The return journey took 70 minutes. The Royal Train visited the line again on 18 December 1849 conveying Queen Victoria and Princess Alice from Windsor, Berkshire to Tunbridge Wells on a visit to Princess Louise. The journey via Waterloo took 100 minutes. The train was driven by William Jacomb, Resident Engineer of the LSWR, and Edgar Verringer, Superintendent of the LSWR. At Waterloo, driving of the train was taken over by John Shaw, General Manager of the SER and Mr. Cockburn, Superintendent of the SER. The return journey took 105 minutes. With the opening of the extension to Robertsbridge, there were three trains a day, with two on Sundays. These were augmented by an additional train daily when the extension to Bopeep Junction opened. In 1860, there were seven up trains and six down trains daily; Hastings to London via Redhill taking two hours. From 1861, Cudworth 2-2-2 "Little Mail" class locomotives were introduced. In 1876, the Sub-Wealden Gypsum Co built a 1 mile (1.61 km) long line from a junction south of Mountfield Tunnel to a gypsum mine located in Great Wood, Mountfield. This line was still in operation as of 2007. Bogie carriages entered service on the line in 1880. In 1890, the winter service was eleven trains each way, of which five were fast. An additional two trains daily operated between Tunbridge Wells and Wadhurst. By 1910, this had increased to twenty trains each way, of which twelve were fast, plus the extra two Wadhurst services. Four trains ran on Sundays. The service was reduced during World War I, but Sunday services had increased to seven by 1922. By the 1930s the line was worked by L and L1 class 4-4-0 locomotives. The Schools class 4-4-0s were introduced in 1930; the width of these was 8 feet 4 inches (2.54 m) measured across the cab, and 8 feet 6+1⁄2 inches (2.604 m) measured across the cylinders. The service was again reduced during World War II, with fourteen trains daily in 1942, of which four were fast; there were seven trains on Sundays. As built, it was envisaged that the West Country and Battle of Britain class locomotives would be able to work the line. Forty-eight locomotives of the West Country and 22 of the Battle of Britain class were built with cabs that were 8 feet 6 inches (2.59 m) wide and paired with tenders of the same width. It was subsequently decided not to work these locomotives over the line. Locomotives from these two classes that were rebuilt gained a 9-foot-0-inch-wide (2.74 m) cab. Unrebuilt locomotives retained their narrow cab. By 1948, the service was sixteen trains, of which seven were fast. An additional three trains ran as far as Wadhurst. In 1957, the service was eighteen trains daily, of which nine were fast. There were nine trains on Sundays. The Schools Class locomotives worked the line until 1957 when steam was withdrawn on the Hastings line. Diesel-electric multiple units of what became British Rail Class 201, 202 and 203 (the "Hastings Diesels") took over working the route. Under British Railways, classes D1, E1, H, N1, M7, Q, Q1, Std 3 2-6-2T, Std 4 2-6-0 Std 4 2-6-4T and U1 were permitted to work between Tonbridge and Grove junction. Freight trains from Tonbridge West Yard were not permitted to depart until the line was clear as far as Southborough Viaduct. Other classes of locomotive known to have worked over this section of line include C, and E4. ### Diesel-electric era (1957–86) Special narrow bodied diesel electric multiple units were introduced in 1957–58 to replace steam traction. British Rail Class 201 (6S), 202 (6L) and 203 (6B) (the "Hastings Diesels") took over working the route. These units were constructed of narrow rolling stock. They were delivered in six-car formations (the 6Bs including a buffet car) and two units were often operated in multiple to form twelve-car trains. In latter years some of the units were reduced to five, and later still, to four cars. The 6S units were intended to be introduced into service in June 1957. On 5 April a fire at Cannon Street signal box disabled all signalling equipment there. As a result, locomotive-hauled trains were banned from the station. A temporary signal box was commissioned on 5 May and the 6S units were introduced on peak services the next day. Two units coupled together formed the 06:58 and 07:26 Hastings–Cannon Street services in the morning, and the 17:18 and 18:03 Cannon Street–Hastings services in the evening. From 17 June the 6S and 6L units were working services throughout the day. The 6B units entered service between May and August 1958. The Hastings Diesels had almost completely replaced steam by June 1958. With the introduction of the Hastings Diesels, an hourly service was provided. This split at Tunbridge Wells, with the front portion running fast to Crowhurst and the rear portion stopping at all stations. The service ran every two hours on Sundays. The Hastings Diesels also worked services on the Bexhill West branch line until closure on 14 June 1964. On 22 December 1958, 6L unit 1017 collided with 6B unit 1035 at Tunbridge Wells Central. In 1962, twelve Class 33/2 diesel locomotives, were also built with narrow bodies for the Hastings line. These enabled the last steam workings, overnight newspaper trains, to be withdrawn from the Hastings line. Nineteen British Rail Class 207 (3D) diesel electric multiple units were built in 1962. They operated over the Tonbridge–Grove Junction section of the line as part of a Tonbridge–Eastbourne (later Tonbridge–Eridge) service. In 1963, Frant, Stonegate, Wadhurst and Mountfield Halt were proposed to be closed under the Beeching Axe. One special working took place on 3 April 1966 when one of the ex-Great Western Railway diesel railcars, W20W, was worked between Tonbridge and Robertsbridge as an out of gauge load. The railcar had been purchased by the Kent and East Sussex Railway for £415 including delivery to Robertsbridge. After trying to "wriggle out" of the deal, British Rail eventually found a solution. The vehicle was ballasted so that it leant away from the tunnel walls by some 3 inches (80 mm) and was worked to Robertsbridge at a maximum of 20 miles per hour (32 km/h). From 1977, there were two trains an hour, one fast and one slow. In May 1980, the buffet cars were withdrawn from the 6B units, which were recoded as 5L, but retaining the Class 203 designation. The fast trains were withdrawn in January 1981, with trains now stopping at all stations. ### Electric era (since 1986) On 28 October 1983, it was announced that the Hastings line was to be electrified. Reasons that decided the issue included a commitment by British Rail to eliminate asbestos from all stock in service by 1988 and the increasing cost of maintaining the then ageing Hastings Diesels. The scheme was to cost £23,925,000. Electrification was finally completed in 1986, the line was electrified using 750 V DC third rail using standard rolling stock, and the expedient of singling the track through the narrow tunnels. The tunnels either side of Tunbridge Wells Central station were not singled because the fact that the south portal of Wells Tunnel and north portal of Grove Hill Tunnel were at the ends of the platforms meant it was impossible to install pointwork without reducing the length of platform available. A speed restriction was imposed through Wells Tunnel. Parliamentary powers were sought in 1979 to bore a second Grove Hill Tunnel, but there was much opposition from local residents. This, and the high cost, caused the proposal to be abandoned. The track in Grove Hill Tunnel was relaid on a concrete base, allowing alignment to be precisely controlled. The line was declared to conform to the standard C1 loading gauge on 14 March. The first passenger carrying train comprising C1 stock to use the line was a railtour on 15 March hauled by 50 025 Invincible. It was organised by the Southern Electric Group and ran from Paddington to Folkestone Harbour. A preview service of electric trains ran on 27 April 1986 and the full timetabled service commenced on 12 May 1986. The next day, a wrong-side failure occurred involving three signals between Tonbridge and Hastings. Contractors had made errors in the wiring of the signal heads. With the inauguration of electric services, a half-hourly service was operated, with trains departing from Charing Cross at 15 and 45 minutes past the hour. Those departing at xx:15 called at Waterloo East, Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, High Brooms, Tunbridge Wells, Wadhurst, Battle, St Leonards Warrior Square and Hastings, taking 84 minutes. Those departing at xx:45 called at Waterloo East, London Bridge, Orpington, Sevenoaks, Hildenborough, Tonbridge and then all stations to Hastings, taking 99 minutes. The Royal Train visited the line on 6 May, conveying Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. It was stabled at Wadhurst whilst she ate lunch. The train was hauled by a Class 73 diesel-electric locomotive. Upon electrification, services were operated by 4CEP, 4CIG and 4VEP electric multiple units. Class 508 electric multiple units also operated services on the line from the Redhill direction as far as Tunbridge Wells. When these units were withdrawn in the mid-2000s, they were replaced by Class 375 Electrostar, Class 465 Networker and Class 466 Networker units. Train services on the line are provided by SE Trains, and are mostly operated by Class 375 Electrostar, or occasionally Class 465/466 Networker units. The line still sees a freight service to and from British Gypsum's sidings at Mountfield. The line retains all its original intermediate station buildings, and is considered a well-preserved example of a Victorian secondary rail route. ## Accidents and incidents A number of accidents have occurred on the Hastings line, none of which have involved the death of a passenger. - On 4 October 1852, a passenger train was derailed between Ticehurst Road and Etchingham when the formation was flooded and washed away. Both engine crew members were injured. - On 21 June 1856, a passenger train derailed between Tunbridge Wells and Tunbridge Junction, killing the driver and injuring the fireman and a passenger. - On 25 October 1859, almost 250 yards (230 m) of track was washed away between St Leonards and Bexhill, affecting the Hastings line. - On 23 June 1861, a collision between SER and LBSC passenger trains occurred at Bo Peep Junction, injuring around ten people. The SER train overran signals due to excessive speed, insufficient brakes, low rail adhesion or a combination of these factors. - On 30 September 1866, the slip portion of a train, which was to be worked forwards to Hastings, failed to stop at Tunbridge due to an error by the slip guard. It crashed into a rake of empty carriages 262 yards (240 m) east of the station. Eleven of the 40 passengers were injured. - On 22 February 1892, a SER locomotive was run into by a LBSC passenger train at Hastings. The passenger train had overrun a danger signal. Both locomotives were damaged. - On 29 August 1896, the locomotive of a Charing Cross to Hastings train was derailed near Etchingham when it collided with a traction engine and threshing machine using an occupation crossing. - On 29 April 1912, SECR F1 class locomotive No. 216 was working an empty stock train when it suffered the failure of the firebox crown near Tunbridge Wells due to a lack of water in the boiler. Both engine crew were severely injured by escaping steam and jumping from the moving locomotive. - On 6 January 1930, the rear carriages of a passenger train from Hastings to London were partially buried by a landslip near Wadhurst tunnel. The train was divided and the front part continued on to Tunbridge Wells, where it arrived 100 minutes late. - On 23 December 1958, 6L unit 1017 collided with 6B unit 1035 at Tunbridge Wells Central. Eighteen people were injured, with three of them admitted to hospital. - On 8 November 2010, a passenger train operated by Class 375 unit 375 711 failed to stop at Stonegate station due to maintenance errors in respect of the train's sanding apparatus. The train overran the station by 2 miles 36 chains (2.45 mi; 3.94 km). Following the incident, Southeastern reduced the interval that the sand hoppers were to be refilled from seven days to five days. The company was fined £65,000 and ordered to pay £22,589 in costs. - On 23 December 2013, a landslip at Wadhurst was the first in a series of landslips up to February 2014 which led the line between Wadhurst and St. Leonards Warrior Square being closed and reopened three times, with speed restrictions in place following repairs. The train service was replaced by buses during closures. Southeastern was criticised by Hastings and Rye MP Amber Rudd over poor customer service during this period. By 12 March, the section between Wadhurst and Robertsbridge had reopened, with full service being restored on 31 March.
12,927,876	A Nice Day for a Posh Wedding	1,138,400,288	null	[ "2007 American television episodes", "Television episodes about weddings", "Ugly Betty (season 2) episodes" ]	"A Nice Day for a Posh Wedding" is the seventh episode of the second season of the American television dramedy Ugly Betty and the series's 30th episode overall. It was written by Silvio Horta and Marco Pennette, and directed by James Hayman. The episode was originally broadcast on ABC in the United States on November 8, 2007. Ugly Betty centers on Betty Suarez's job at the fashion magazine MODE, despite not fitting their expectations of beauty and style. In this episode, MODE's creative director Wilhelmina Slater attempts to marry the magazine's publisher Bradford Meade. Victoria Beckham guest-stars as herself in the episode, appearing as Wilhelmina's maid of honor who steals attention from the wedding. She was originally supposed to wear a fatsuit as part of a joke about weight gain. Vanessa Williams's ex-husband, retired basketball player Rick Fox, appears as Wilhelmina's bodyguard and lover. Vera Wang makes a cameo appearance, and designed Wilhelmina's wedding dress and Beckham's bridesmaid dress. Wang first drafted a larger taffeta wedding dress, but Williams felt it was inappropriate for Wilhelmina's age and requested a simpler design. The wedding was filmed over several days at the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles. The episode was publicized through a TV Guide cover and a fictional wedding announcement in The New York Times. "A Nice Day for a Posh Wedding" was well received by critics who praised Beckham's cameo and Becki Newton's cover of Kelis's 2003 single "Milkshake" during the wedding. It received two nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award and an NAACP Image Award. The scenes about Ignacio Suarez's United States citizenship ceremony attracted attention from academic scholars. The initial broadcast of the episode was viewed by 10.9 million viewers and number one in its time slot for adults between the ages of 18 and 34. ## Plot Betty Suarez (America Ferrera) has moved out of her familial home following an argument with her father Ignacio (Tony Plana) over her relationship with Henry Grubstick (Christopher Gorham), who has impregnated another woman and has decided to move to Tucson, Arizona to care for the child. As a result, Betty refuses to attend Ignacio's United States citizenship ceremony; she feels guilty about being blackmailed into lying to her boss Daniel Meade (Eric Mabius) about Wilhelmina Slater (Vanessa Williams) who is having an affair with her bodyguard Dwayne (Rick Fox) in order to get Ignacio his visa. Wilhelmina used her connection with her senator father to secure the visa in exchange for Betty's silence. Betty and Henry move in together, and he encourages her to attend her father's ceremony. Wilhelmina's assistant Marc St. James (Michael Urie) is stressed from planning her wedding to Bradford Meade (Alan Dale), the CEO of Meade Publications. Wilhelmina worries her maid of honor Victoria Beckham is stealing the spotlight, and attempts to undermine her by replacing Victoria's Vera Wang dress with a less appealing garment. Victoria, however, still attracts media attention. Meanwhile, Bradford and his daughter Alexis (Rebecca Romijn) celebrate the return of advertisers to the fashion magazine MODE, after a boycott regarding Alexis's role as its openly transgender co-editor-in-chief. Daniel feels ignored by his father, who has chosen Alexis to be his best man. Christina McKinney (Ashley Jensen), MODE's seamstress, reunites with her husband Stuart (Derek Riddell) after leaving him in Scotland years ago; he reveals he is dying of a rare disease which requires a \$100,000 operation. Daniel suspects Wilhelmina is having an affair with Dwayne, although Betty denies any knowledge of this. Prior to the ceremony, Wilhelmina has Victoria locked in a confessional booth. Following Henry's advice about the importance of family, Betty attends Ignacio's citizenship ceremony; they apologize to each other and Betty reveals how she secured his visa, and he encourages Betty to tell the truth to Daniel and stop the wedding. Betty interrupts the event to talk to Daniel in private, who then fires her for lying to him about Wilhelmina's affair. After Betty leaves the church, Daniel reveals the affair to Bradford, who refuses to believe it. During the pause in the ceremony, MODE's receptionist Amanda Tanen (Becki Newton) sings "Milkshake" while accompanied by an organ. Bradford returns to the altar and collapses, with Wilhelmina and Daniel attempting to resuscitate him. Betty watches these events from a monitor in Times Square. ## Production "A Nice Day for a Posh Wedding" has a runtime of approximately 43 minutes; it was written by Silvio Horta and Marco Pennette, and directed by James Hayman. The episode includes Jeff Buckley's cover of Leonard Cohen's 1984 song "Hallelujah", which is heard during the ending sequence. Along with Becki Newton's rendition of "Milkshake", the wedding scenes include Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney's 1982 duet "Ebony and Ivory" and Hot Chocolate's 1975 single "You Sexy Thing". In June 2007, producers requested Victoria Beckham, nicknamed "Posh Spice" during her time as a member of the Spice Girls, to appear as herself in a wedding-theme episode. Eric Mabius had met her during a London awards ceremony; when Beckham said she was a fan of Ugly Betty, Mabius suggested a possible guest appearance. She agreed to appear on the show despite her past reluctance to pursue an acting career. The casting was confirmed the following month by Pennette, who joked that Beckham's husband David would be required to come to the set. She was reportedly paid £70,000 for her appearance. According to The New Zealand Herald, she wanted her cameo to raise her popularity in the United States following her move there earlier in the year. In the episode's initial storyline, Beckham was to wear a fatsuit for a joke about her weight gain following her move to the U.S. An ABC insider said; "Everyone at the wedding will be expecting skinny, beautiful Posh to show up. But they'll be horrified to see she's piled on the pounds because of major comfort-eating and American junk food." This idea was later abandoned. Prior to the episode's release, photographs of Beckham were leaked online. In 2008, Beckham was rumored to be returning for regular guest appearances in future episodes, although further guest appearances did not materialize. As well as making a cameo appearance, American fashion designer Vera Wang created the wedding dress. It was made from ivory charmeuse fabric, and included a train and appliqué details on the neckline. Wang had originally created a larger taffeta gown that Vanessa Williams felt was too comedic for the character. Williams said the final design was more "elegant, and suitable for someone Wilhelmina's age". Wang also designed Beckham's bridesmaid's dress. The wedding scenes were filmed over several days at the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, which was used as a stand-in for a Manhattan cathedral. Alongside Beckham and Wang, Rick Fox guest-starred as Wilhelmina's bodyguard and lover. Some media outlets asked whether Fox's role was awkward given his divorce from Williams, though they said filming with each other was enjoyable. Fox said he remained friends with Williams while they were co-parenting their daughter. ## Broadcast history and release "A Nice Day for a Posh Wedding" was originally broadcast on November 8, 2007, in the United States on the ABC network. A video preview featuring Beckham's guest appearance was released prior to the episode's debut. Some media outlets promoted the episode as "The Wedding of the Year"; Ferrera, Williams, and Urie were photographed in their costumes for a TV Guide cover. ABC published a fictitious wedding announcement in the "Vows" section of The New York Times. According to Nielsen, the episode was watched by 10.9 million viewers; it was number one in its time slot for adults between the ages of 18 and 34. The Guardian partially attributed the ratings to Beckham's cameo appearance. "A Nice Day for a Posh Wedding" marked a rise in viewership compared to the previous episode "Something Wicked This Way Comes", which was viewed by 9.9 million people. There was a slight drop in ratings for the following episode "I See Me, I.C.U.", which was seen by 10.7 million viewers. "A Nice Day for a Posh Wedding" was released on DVD as part of the second season release in 2008. The episode was also made available on numerous streaming video on demand services, including Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Google Play, and Vudu. ## Reception ### Critical response "A Nice Day for a Posh Wedding" received two award nominations. It was up for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Hairstyling for a Single-Camera Series at the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards, but lost to the Mad Men first-season episode "Shoot". The episode was also nominated for a NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Writing In a Comedy Series at the 39th NAACP Image Awards, although it lost to Everybody Hates Chris for the episode "Everybody Hates Guidance Counselor". The episode received a largely positive critical response. The A.V. Club's Michaelangelo Matos praised it as one of the best of the season at that point. He described the characters and their respective storylines as well-balanced, writing that "each segment was paced to breathe, and the jokes were aimed perfectly." Denise Ward of the Los Angeles Times commended the episode for "pull[ing] our collective gut in all directions (and we're still deliciously dizzy)", and singled out its use of comedy and drama. In a 2016 Refinery29 article, Erin Donnelly cited Wilhelmina's wedding dress as one of the top 34 most memorable in television history. Entertainment Weekly's Kate Ward wrote that the episode had "all the drama with plenty of pitch-perfect comedy", citing scenes between Marc and his boyfriend Cliff St. Paul as the notable high points. Ward, however, questioned whether the time spent on Ignacio's citizenship ceremony could have been used for other characters, though she found the ending to his immigration storyline to be enjoyable. On the other hand, Amina Akhtar of Vulture dismissed the episode as one of the worst in the show's history; she criticized the script as containing numerous plot holes and the costuming as too tacky given the characters' association with a fashion magazine. Beckham's inclusion was widely praised by television critics. Matos praised the decision to use Beckham as a running gag rather than as a serious character. Dorothy Snarker of AfterEllen.com wrote that Beckham's dynamic with Wilhelmina was "destined to become a classic", but she criticized Beckham's acting. TV Guide's Aimee Deeken singled out Beckham's advertisement for an energy drink during a wedding-related press interview as her favorite part of the episode. The guest role was also praised in retrospective reviews. In a 2008 Entertainment Weekly article, Tanner Stransky cited Beckham as one of the better celebrity appearances in the series. In a 2017 listicle for Digital Spy, Sam Ashurst considered her to be one of the eleven best cameo appearances in television. He described Beckham's role as a caricature of herself that is perfect for the show's story and tone, though he was uncertain about her acting abilities. Critics had a positive response to Newton's rendition of "Milkshake". Ward preferred it over the original, writing that she "personified train wreck during her church-y rendition", and Matos referred to the performance as risky yet successful. In a 2010 article looking back on Ugly Betty, The Guardian's Kira Cochrane likened its "occasional musical moments", like "Milkshake", to "the best stage spectacles, those filled with wild outfits and wilder songs, which make you laugh with one breath before ripping out your heart with the next". Music journalist Paul Lester wrote that the inclusion of "Milkshake" on Ugly Betty and other television shows were signs of the song's "cultural penetration". On the other hand, the inclusion of "Hallelujah" had a more mixed response. The Chicago Tribune's Geoff Edgers felt its use in the episode, as well as in other television shows, proved its status as a standard. Alternatively, Mato criticized the moment as trite, referring to the song as "the biggest musical-cue cliché of the decade". ### Racial analysis Ignacio's citizenship ceremony was the subject of some scholarly analysis. According to Chicana/o studies professors Eliza Rodriguez y Gibson and Tanya González, the related scenes juxtapose Betty's and Ignacio's faith in the government. Ignacio gains faith in the United States through citizenship, despite doing it outside the established system, while Betty loses it because she no longer views "the system of citizenship as protection". Betty becomes "reduced and marginalized" as an assistant, and gets fired unfairly in a violation of the "reciprocal protections" promised by the American Dream. According to Rodriguez y Gibson, the episode sends a message that "citizenship does not guarantee against marginalization nor does it offer protection, nor friendship, nor inclusion." Communication studies professors Stacey K. Sowards and Richard D. Pineda criticized the convenience in which Ignacio obtained his citizenship for implying immigration issues could be solved by "knowing the right people or through hard work to pay for a lawyer that can address one's immigration positionality".
3,562,929	Pennsylvania State Capitol	1,169,291,237	State capitol building of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania	[ "1906 establishments in Pennsylvania", "Beaux-Arts architecture in Pennsylvania", "Buildings and structures in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania", "Government buildings completed in 1906", "Government buildings in Pennsylvania", "Government buildings with domes", "Government of Pennsylvania", "History museums in Pennsylvania", "Museums in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania", "National Historic Landmarks in Pennsylvania", "National Register of Historic Places in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania", "Pennsylvania State Capitol Complex", "Renaissance Revival architecture in Pennsylvania", "State capitols in the United States", "Terminating vistas in the United States", "Tourist attractions in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania" ]	The Pennsylvania State Capitol is the seat of government for the U.S. state of Pennsylvania located in downtown Harrisburg which was designed by architect Joseph Miller Huston in 1902 and completed in 1906 in a Beaux-Arts style with decorative Renaissance themes throughout. The capitol houses the legislative chambers for the Pennsylvania General Assembly, made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and the Harrisburg chambers for the Supreme and Superior Courts of Pennsylvania, as well as the offices of the Governor and the Lieutenant Governor. It is also the main building of the Pennsylvania State Capitol Complex. The seat of government for the state was initially in Philadelphia, then was relocated to Lancaster in 1799 and finally to Harrisburg in 1812. The current capitol, known as the Huston Capitol, is the third state capitol building built in Harrisburg. The first, the Hills Capitol, was destroyed in 1897 by a fire. The second, the Cobb Capitol, was left unfinished when funding was discontinued in 1899. President Theodore Roosevelt attended the building's dedication in 1906. After its completion, the capitol project was the subject of a graft scandal. The construction and subsequent furnishing cost three times more than the General Assembly had appropriated for the design and construction; architect Joseph Huston and four others were convicted of graft for price gouging. The Pennsylvania State Capitol is often referred to as a "palace of art" because of its many sculptures, murals, and stained-glass windows, most of which are Pennsylvania-themed or Pennsylvanian-made. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006; the boundaries of the designation were expanded to include the Capitol Complex in 2013 with the capitol as a contributing property. ## History William Penn formed the first government of the then-Province of Pennsylvania on October 28, 1682, in Chester, Pennsylvania. The government did not have a regular meeting place and often met in Quaker meeting houses or at private residences in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania's first statehouse, now known as Independence Hall, was built in Philadelphia starting in 1732 and was completed in 1753. With both the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the First and Second Continental Congresses, and the Confederation Congress, three predecessors of the modern Congress of the United States occupying Independence Hall from 1774 to 1789, the state legislature considered proposals for moving the seat of the state government. John Harris Jr. offered to give 4 acres (2 ha) and 21 square perches (5,717 ft<sup>2</sup>; 531 m<sup>2</sup>) of land near the banks of the Susquehanna River in central Pennsylvania to the state, provided that it be eventually used as the site of the capital. Harris also laid out a city in 1785, near his plot of land, and named it in honor of his father. In 1799, the legislature voted to relocate the capital to Lancaster instead of Harrisburg, because of Lancaster's greater population. From 1799 to 1812, the legislature resided in Lancaster at the Old City Hall. ### Hills Capitol The legislature voted in 1810 to relocate the capital again and moved the seat of government to Harrisburg in October 1812 onto the land originally given by Harris a decade earlier. An additional 10 acres (4 ha) was also purchased from United States Senator William Maclay. The legislature met in the old Dauphin County courthouse for the next decade until a new capitol was constructed. A competition was held to determine the design of the capitol starting in 1816, which "was the first formal contest for [designing] an American statehouse." The designs submitted, including one from William Strickland, were rejected as being too expensive. Another contest was started in January 1819. Of the seventeen designs submitted, two were selected as semifinalists. One was from Harrisburg architect Stephen Hills, and the other was from the designer of the Washington Monument, Robert Mills; Hills' design was selected. Hills had designed a "red-brick, Federal-style" capitol to "architecturally represent the function of democratic government." Construction began on the Hills Capitol in 1819, and it was completed in 1822. The capitol's construction and subsequent furnishing were estimated to have cost \$244,500. The Hills Capitol was visited by famous people, including the Marquis de Lafayette in 1825 and Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, (later King Edward VII) in 1860. Abraham Lincoln visited the capitol in 1861 as president-elect, and then his body lay in state thereafter his 1865 assassination. Pennsylvania's collection of Civil War battle flags, which were accumulated in 1866, was moved from the State Arsenal to the second floor of the capitol in 1872. The flags were moved, again, in 1895 to the Executive, Library, and Museum Building. On February 2, 1897, smoke was discovered from the Lieutenant Governor's offices around noon. By early evening, the Hills Capitol had been reduced to a "smoldering mass of debris". ### Cobb Capitol After the destruction of the Hills Capitol, the now "homeless" legislature moved to a nearby Methodist Church. There were soon demands that the capital be relocated to Pittsburgh or Philadelphia; the legislature quickly appropriated money to build a new capitol in Harrisburg. Governor Daniel H. Hastings opted for a pay-as-you-go policy to allow the construction costs to be spread over multiple annual budgets. Governor Hastings also figured that \$550,000 was enough to build "a small legislative building" that could be added onto as needed over time. After building designs were submitted by various architects in another competition, Henry Ives Cobb was chosen in 1897 to design the new capitol. Construction of the Cobb Capitol began on May 2, 1898. The legislature met in the finished building, which they had deemed complete, even though it was an "unadorned, unfinished, several-story brown brick structure that looked like a factory" on January 3, 1899. Cobb himself described the building simply as "ugly" but believed that he would be able to finish it eventually when more funding became available. ### Huston Capitol Governor William A. Stone appointed a new Capitol Building Commission in 1901. The commission then held another design competition for Pennsylvania architects only, which prevented Cobb, a Chicagoan, from submitting a design or finishing his capitol. The Building Commission also stipulated that parts of the unfinished, current capitol were to be used in the new capitol. The General Assembly had appropriated \$4 million for the construction of the capitol. It did not limit the total amount to be used in furnishing the building. This caused problems after the construction completion of the capitol. The American Institute of Architects was opposed to competition, citing that the terms of the competition were "calculated to only 'encourage favoritism and injustice' and that they in no way obligated the Capitol [Building] Commission to select the best design or the best architect." The Institute also advised that no Pennsylvania architects enter the competition; Philadelphia architect Addison Hutton was subsequently expelled from the organization after submitting an entry. Joseph Miller Huston's design was chosen from nine entries in the competition in January 1902. The ground was broken for the Huston Capitol on November 2, 1902, but the cornerstone was not laid until May 5, 1904. Ownership of the capitol was handed over to the state government on August 15, 1906, and the Capitol Building Commission was dissolved. Governor Samuel W. Pennypacker dedicated the new capitol on October 4, 1906. Former Governor Stone, who had become president of the Building Commission after leaving office, ceremoniously gave the key to the capitol to Governor Pennypacker. President Theodore Roosevelt, who had arrived earlier that morning by a special train to deliver a speech and tour the new capitol, declared it "the handsomest building I ever saw." The Pennsylvania, Northern Central, Reading, and Cumberland Valley railroads each ran special trains to accommodate the crowds traveling to and from Harrisburg for the dedication. Although the building was completed, most of the artwork in and around the capitol would not be completed for another two decades. The murals in the rotunda were not installed until 1908, and the sculptures outside the entrance to the capitol were dedicated on October 4, 1911. The collection of Civil War flags were removed from the Executive, Library, and Museum Building. After a parade and a ceremony, they were installed in glass display cases in the capitol rotunda on June 14, 1914. The decoration of the capitol was completed on May 23, 1927, when the murals in the Supreme Court Chambers were unveiled. #### Graft scandal William H. Berry was elected in 1906, shortly after the dedication, to the office of State Treasurer on a reform "fusion ticket". Berry was the only Democrat elected to a statewide office from 1895 to 1934. Governor Pennypacker deemed his successful campaign to be "one of those freaks of ill fortune". Berry began investigating the costs of the capitol project and brought its \$13 million pricetag to the attention of the public. Part of the reason for the discrepancy was Pennsylvania's "over-elaborate" and sometimes "unintelligible" method of "ordering and purchasing supplies, equipment [and] furnishings, commonly called the 'per-foot rule' ." Because the methods of measuring under the "per-foot rule" were not rigorously enforced, furnishing could be intentionally overpriced by the supplier. For example, a flagpole installed on the capitol roof was priced at \$850; Berry estimated the value of the pole to have been only \$150. Other expenses included \$1,619 for a \$125 bootblack stand and \$3,257 for a \$325 "mahogany case in the Senate barber shop". Pennypacker tried to demonstrate that costs associated with the capitol were reasonable in comparison with similar notable structures. He pointed out that the United States Capitol cost \$18 million, but had "fifty-five less [rooms] than the Capitol at Harrisburg." Pennypacker also showed how the New York State Capitol had cost \$24 million, and was still unfinished. After an investigation, a total of five people, including Huston, were convicted on December 18, 1908, and sentenced to two years in prison for "conspiring with State officials to defraud the State in the erection and furnishing of the Capitol." The Superintendent of Public Ground and Buildings James Shumaker and Auditor General William Preston Snyder were also convicted. Among the convicted, John H. Sanderson and William L. Mathues died before going to prison. #### Brunner plan From 1912 to 1917, the state acquired all of the 541 separate properties that comprise the Eighth Ward east of the capitol. The Eighth Ward was situated between the capitol and a set of railroad tracks, then owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad. Arnold Brunner was hired in 1916 to develop new accommodations for state government, which had already outgrown the capitol. He introduced his plan in 1920, which called, first, for the demolition of the Eighth Ward. Brunner planned two office buildings behind the capitol, the North and South Office Buildings, and these were separated by a courtyard he named the People's Court. The South Office Building was completed in 1921. The leveling of the Eighth Ward was finished in 1925. Although Brunner died on February 14, 1925, elements of his plans were still completed, except for his People's Court, which became a parking lot. Brunner planned a bridge to cross the railroad tracks and connect the capitol with the highest point in the city at 13th Street. Brunner had also originally planned to have another bridge span the Susquehanna River, on the west side of the capitol. After his death, parts of the bridge were redesigned and became the current State Street Bridge, which was completed in 1930. The Education Building, or Forum Building, was completed in 1931. #### Restoration and preservation The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission erected two historical markers on August 11, 1953—one commemorating the Hills Capitol and another for the current capitol. The capitol was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 14, 1977. Beginning in 1981, highly regarded historic preservation architect, Hyman Myers, of the Philadelphia architecture firm, Vitetta Group, oversaw the restoration of the capital building. In 1982, the Capitol Preservation Committee (CPC) was created "to supervise and coordinate the historic preservation of the State Capitol Building". One of the CPC's first projects was the preservation of the 390 Civil War flags and 22 flags from the Spanish–American War, which had been undisturbed since being placed in the rotunda in 1914. Between 1985 and 1987, scaffolding was erected in the rotunda and the murals removed for restoration. The statue atop the capitol dome was removed for restoration via helicopter in the summer of 1998, being returned in September of the same year. It was decided to restore the Senate Chamber after it was flooded with 26,000 US gal (98,000 L; 22,000 imp gal) of water on February 14, 1999. The capitol was declared a National Historic Landmark on September 20, 2006, during its centennial. On February 27, 2013, the boundaries of the designation were revised to encompass the grounds and surrounding buildings. ## Exterior The capitol is 520 ft (160 m) long and 272 ft (83 m) tall. It is 254 ft (77 m) wide at its center wing and its two side wings are 212 ft (65 m). The facade of the capitol is constructed out of granite from Hardwick, Vermont. The 94 ft-diameter (29 m) dome is topped by the gilded brass statue of Commonwealth by Roland Hinton Perry. Standing 14 ft 6 in (4 m) tall atop a 4 ft-diameter (1 m) ball, the statue is the personification of a commonwealth. The dome features bright green Ludowici tiles and weighs 26,000 short tons (24,000 t) and was architecturally inspired by St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. Huston designed the large bronze doors at the capitol's main entrance. They were modeled by sculptor Otto Jahnsen and were both cast in one piece using the lost wax method of casting by the Henry Bonnard Bronze Company. The doors are decorated with scenes from the history of Pennsylvania, such as the arrival of William Penn and his peace treaty with the Lenape. Busts of people who were important in the construction of the capitol, like Governor Pennypacker, Boies Penrose, and Matthew Quay, decorate the edges of the doors. The bust of Huston hides the doors' keyhole. The entrance is flanked by two sculptures, entitled Love and Labor: The Unbroken Law and The Burden of Life: The Broken Law. Both were sculpted out of Carrara marble from models created by George Grey Barnard in 1909. ### Grounds The Pennsylvania Capitol Grounds, officially the Capitol Park, comprises 45 acres (18 ha) and 26.4 square perches (7,187 ft<sup>2</sup>; 668 m<sup>2</sup>). The grounds are bounded by North Street on the north, 7th Street on the east, Walnut Street on the south and 3rd Street on the west. Arnold Brunner designed the layout of the grounds, which originally totaled only 15 acres (6 ha) from the land Harris and Maclay gave to the state. The remaining 29 acres (12 ha) were added when the state bought the Eighth Ward. A 64 ft-tall (20 m) monument, dedicated to the citizens of Pennsylvania who died in the Mexican–American War, was built in 1858. The monument was not placed onto the grounds until 1868 and was moved to the southeast corner of the grounds in 1893 when the Executive, Library, and Museum Building was built. In 1896–97, a monument, dedicated to former governor John F. Hartranft, was sculpted by Frederick Ruckstull. The 26 ft-tall (8 m) monument was unveiled on May 18, 1899, and was placed in front of the capitol. It was moved in 1927 to in front of the Executive, Library, and Museum Building. Friends of Penrose in the General Assembly, who had died in 1921, passed legislation for a memorial to Penrose. The 16 ft-tall (5 m) monument was dedicated on September 23, 1930, and is located near the corner of North 3rd and Walnut Streets. ## Interior The Pennsylvania State Capitol houses the chambers for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, the Pennsylvania Senate, and the Harrisburg chambers for the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. The Capitol contains 475 rooms and has four floors, not including a mezzanine between the first and second floors, and a basement. The bronze entrance doors of the capitol lead into the rotunda on the first floor with the grand staircase in the center. The staircase in the rotunda is an imperial staircase, similar to the one in the Palais Garnier in Paris, France. The staircase leads to the mezzanine between the first and second floors before dividing into two staircases leading to the second floor. Edwin Austin Abbey painted four allegorical medallions around the base of the capitol dome, detailing the "four forces of civilization": Art, Justice, Science, and Religion. Four lunette murals were also painted by Abbey and "symbolize Pennsylvania's spiritual and industrial contributions to modern civilization." The lunettes are situated in the recesses of each arch in the rotunda. The rotunda is paved with tiles, hand-crafted by Henry Chapman Mercer, from the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works. Mercer produced 16,000 sq ft (1,500 m<sup>2</sup>) of tile, which includes "377 mosaics, representing 254 scenes, artifacts, animals, birds, fish, insects, industries and workers from Pennsylvania history". The interiors of the rotunda and the dome are inscribed with a quote from William Penn made upon the foundation of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: > There may be room there for such a holy experiment. For the nations want a precedent. And my God will make it the seed of a nation. That an example may be set up to the nations. That we may do the thing that is truly wise and just. ### House Chamber The lower house of the bicameral General Assembly, the House of Representatives, has 203 members, elected for a term of 2 years, and presided over by the Speaker of the House. The House Chamber, or Hall of the House, is the largest of the three chambers at 90 ft (30 m) wide and 120 ft (40 m) long. It is located on the south side of the rotunda. The House Chamber was designed with an Italian Renaissance theme. William B. Van Ingen created the fourteen circular, stained-glass windows in the House Chamber, and Abbey painted its five murals. The largest of the murals is situated behind the Speaker's rostrum. Named the Apotheosis of Pennsylvania, it depicts 28 famous Pennsylvanians. ### Senate Chamber The Senate is the upper house of the state legislature and has 50 members, elected to four-year terms. The Senate is presided over by the President of the Senate, who is also the Lieutenant Governor. The 95 by 80 ft (29 by 24 m) Senate Chamber, or Hall of the Senate, is the second-largest chamber and was designed with a French Renaissance theme. It is located on the north side of the rotunda, opposite the House. Violet Oakley painted the murals in the Senate Chamber. Ingen also made 10 stained-glass windows for the Senate Chamber. Both the House and Senate Chambers are on the second floor, each with an entrance on the upper third and fourth floors leading to a press and media gallery. ### Supreme Court Chamber The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania is the court of last resort in the Commonwealth. The Superior Court of Pennsylvania is one of two intermediate appellate courts in the state. The Supreme Court Chamber, officially the Supreme and Superior Court Chamber, is used by both courts and was designed using ancient Greek and Roman themes. It is located on the fourth floor of the capitol, on the east side of the rotunda. The Supreme Court Chamber is the smallest of the three chambers at 42 by 72 ft (13 by 22 m). Violet Oakley painted the 16 murals in the "Supreme Courtroom" to depict the history of law. The cycle of 16 panels, painted between 1917 and 1927, begins and ends with Divine Law as its keystone, over the main entrance. Around the room clockwise, the murals represent the Law of Nature; Greek, Hebrew, and Christian Revealed Law; Roman Law of Reason; English Common Law; William Penn as Law-Giver; State, National, and International law, and finally, the Spirit of Divine Law. A stained-glass dome, designed by Pennsylvania native Alfred Godwin, is in the center of the ceiling. ## Capitol Complex The Pennsylvania State Capitol Complex includes the buildings owned by the Commonwealth, which are controlled by the Pennsylvania Department of General Services, and are centered on the capitol in Harrisburg. The Capitol Complex became a National Historic Landmark in 2013 when the designation was revised to include not just the capitol, but the surrounding building as contributing property—except for the East Wing. The complex and greater area is protected full-time by the Pennsylvania Capitol Police—its dedicated law enforcement agency—as well as the Harrisburg Bureau of Police, which patrols the entire city. The oldest building in the complex is the Executive, Library, and Museum Building. Situated next to the Hills Capitol and the Huston Capitol, it was built in 1894. It was designated the Matthew J. Ryan Legislative Office Building on June 14, 1999, in recognition of former Speaker Matthew J. Ryan. The Ryan Office Building is the oldest building in the complex and was initially designed to house the State Library and State Museum of Pennsylvania, as well as the Governor's Office and Reception Room. Today it houses the offices of the members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. The seven-story North and South Office Buildings are situated behind the capitol and overlook the East Wing. The South Office Building was renamed the K. Leroy Irvis Office Building on December 20, 2002, in recognition of former Speaker K. Leroy Irvis. The State Museum and State Archives buildings were constructed in 1964. A 640 by 320 ft (200 by 100 m) addition, called the East Wing, was dedicated on December 2, 1987. The East Wing replaced the decades-old parking lot and fulfilled Brunner's plan of a People's Court. It was built partially underground, such that the tallest point on the East Wing barely reaches the first floor of the capitol. ## See also - List of National Historic Landmarks in Pennsylvania - List of state and territorial capitols in the United States - National Register of Historic Places listings in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania - List of state and county courthouses in Pennsylvania - List of tallest domes
30,319,330	Allied naval bombardments of Japan during World War II	1,156,138,209	Naval attacks on Japan by the Allies during World War II	[ "1945 in Japan", "August 1945 events in Asia", "Conflicts in 1945", "Japan campaign", "July 1945 events in Asia", "Naval battles and operations of World War II", "Naval battles and operations of World War II involving the United Kingdom", "Naval battles of World War II involving Japan", "Naval battles of World War II involving New Zealand", "Naval battles of World War II involving the United States" ]	During the last weeks of World War II, warships of the United States Navy, the Royal Navy and the Royal New Zealand Navy bombarded industrial and military facilities in Japan. Most of these bombardments were conducted by battleships and cruisers, and caused heavy damage to several of the targeted factories, as well as nearby civilian areas. A major goal of the attacks was to provoke the Japanese military into committing some of its reserve force of aircraft into battle. However, the Japanese did not attempt to attack the Allied bombardment forces, and none of the involved warships suffered any damage. The major bombardments began on 14 and 15 July 1945, when US Navy warships attacked the cities of Kamaishi and Muroran. The next attack was made by a joint American and British force against the city of Hitachi during the night of 17/18 July. Groups of cruisers and destroyers subsequently shelled the Nojima Saki area on 18 July, and Shionomisaki on the night of 24/25 July. On 29 July, American and British warships attacked Hamamatsu, and on the night of 30/31 several American destroyers shelled Shimizu. The final bombardment took place on 9 August, when Kamaishi was attacked again by American, British and New Zealand warships. Two US Navy submarines conducted small-scale attacks during June and July 1945; one of the submarines also landed a small raiding party. The Allied naval bombardments disrupted industrial production in the cities targeted, and convinced many Japanese civilians that the war was lost. Up to 1,739 Japanese were killed in the attacks, and about 1,497 were wounded. The only Allied casualties were 32 Allied prisoners of war killed in the bombardments of Kamaishi. ## Background By mid-1945, during the last weeks of World War II, cities and industrial facilities in the Japanese home islands were under sustained attack from United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers based in the Mariana Islands. Attacks by Allied submarines and surface ships had also cut most of the country's trade routes, and US Navy aircraft carrier task groups had raided locations in the home islands on several occasions. Shortages of fuel had confined most of the Imperial Japanese Navy's surviving ships to port and forced them and the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service to hold its air units in reserve against the Allied invasion that was expected late in the year. Prior to the war, the Japanese military had assessed that coastal artillery was no longer suited to the country's circumstances. As a result, only a few strategic ports were protected by artillery capable of engaging enemy warships, and most of these guns were of relatively small caliber. During the Pacific War, the US Navy's fast battleships had mainly been used to escort the groups of aircraft carriers that formed the United States Pacific Fleet's main striking force. They had also occasionally bombarded Japanese positions near the shore and had fought some actions with Japanese warships. Allied naval commanders decided to use battleships to conduct a series of attacks against Japanese coastal cities in mid-1945. It was hoped that the Japanese military would respond to these bombardments by attacking the Allied forces with the aircraft that were being held in reserve to respond to the planned invasion of Japan, thereby exposing these aircraft to destruction by Allied fighter aircraft. However, the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters had anticipated that the Allies would conduct bombardments and other operations with this goal and decided to not attack naval forces operating off Japan. Instead, the aircraft would remain in reserve until Allied landing operations in the home islands began. ## Bombardments ### First attack on Kamaishi On 1 July 1945, the United States Third Fleet sortied from Leyte Gulf in the Philippines under the command of Admiral William Halsey to attack the Japanese home islands. Halsey's plans included the use of battleships and cruisers to bombard military facilities and factories. To prepare for these attacks, US Navy submarines sailed into Japan's inshore waters to search for naval mines. USAAF B-29 Superfortress and B-24 Liberator aircraft also conducted photo reconnaissance flights over much of Japan in search of airfields and facilities which could be attacked by the Third Fleet. The Third Fleet's main component, Task Force 38 (TF 38), began striking targets in Japan on 10 July under the command of Vice Admiral John S. McCain. On this day, aircraft flying from the Task Force's aircraft carriers attacked facilities around Tokyo. Task Force 38 sailed north, and on 14 July began raids on Hokkaido and northern Honshu. These areas were outside the range of the B-29 Superfortress bombers, and had at that point not been attacked in the war. The American aircraft met little opposition, and sank 11 warships and 20 merchant ships. A further eight warships and 21 merchant ships were damaged, and the carrier aviators claimed to have destroyed 25 Japanese aircraft. The first Allied bombardment of a Japanese coastal town was conducted on 14 July in conjunction with the air attacks on Hokkaido and northern Honshu. A bombardment group commanded by Rear Admiral John F. Shafroth Jr. designated Task Unit 34.8.1 (TU 34.8.1) was detached from TF 38 to attack the ironworks at Kamaishi in northern Honshu. At the time the city had a population of 40,000 and the ironworks was among the largest in Japan. However, due to shortages of coking coal and other raw materials, the ironworks was running at less than half its capacity. Allied prisoners of war had been assigned to work at the Nippon Steel Company, and were housed in two camps in Kamaishi. TU 34.8.1 comprised the battleships USS South Dakota, Indiana and Massachusetts as well as the heavy cruisers USS Quincy and Chicago and nine destroyers. The bombardment group opened fire on the ironworks at 12:10 p.m. from a range of 29,000 yd (27,000 m). The ships then moved closer to the city, but did not cross the 100-fathom line as no minesweepers were available to clear the area of mines. The bombardment lasted for over two hours, during which time the force made six passes across the mouth of Kamaishi's harbor and fired 802 16-inch (410 mm) shells, 728 8-inch (200 mm) shells and 825 5-inch (130 mm) shells. While most of the shells landed within the grounds of the ironworks, the concussion from their explosions caused kitchen fires to break out across Kamaishi. The resulting smoke prevented US Navy aircraft from being able to support or spot for the warships, which continued to fire accurately on predetermined targets. No Japanese aircraft or coastal guns responded to this bombardment. Allied aircraft photographed the ironworks following the attack, but photo interpreters underestimated the extent to which they had been damaged. This was one of the first times that the Americans had used aerial photography to assess damage from a naval bombardment, and the interpreters placed too much weight on the fact that none of the ironworks' buildings had been destroyed. The Allies learned after the war that the ironworks had been extensively damaged and forced to cease production for a period. This resulted in a loss of the equivalent of four weeks of pig iron production and 2+1⁄2 months of coke production. The attack destroyed 1460 houses in the city, and killed 424 civilians. A total of 28 Japanese naval personnel also perished when their Type 28 submarine chaser was sunk in Kamaishi harbor by shellfire. Five Allied prisoners of war were killed by the bombardment. ### Muroran On the night of 14/15 July, another bombardment unit—TU 34.8.2—was detached from TF 38 to attack Muroran on the south-east coast of Hokkaido. TU 34.8.2 was commanded by Rear Admiral Oscar C. Badger and comprised the battleships Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin, the light cruisers Atlanta and Dayton, and eight destroyers. Admiral Halsey accompanied this force on board Missouri. The targets of this attack were the Japan Steel Company's facilities and the Wanishi Iron Works. Also that night, a force of four cruisers and six destroyers cruised along the east coast of Honshu seeking to attack Japanese shipping, but did not locate any targets. TU 34.8.2's bombardment began at dawn on 15 July. The three battleships fired 860 16-inch (410 mm) shells at the city from a range of 28,000–32,000 yd (26,000–29,000 m). Aerial observation and spotting of damage was made difficult by hazy conditions, and only 170 shells landed within the grounds of the two plants. Nevertheless, considerable damage was inflicted on the industrial facilities, resulting in the loss of 2+1⁄2 months of coke production and slightly less pig iron production. Damage to buildings across the city was also extensive. As with the bombardment of Kamaishi, photo interpreters underestimated the scale of the damage. TU 34.8.2 was highly vulnerable to air attack throughout the more than six hour period in which it was visible from the shore of Hokkaido, and Halsey later wrote that these were the longest hours of his life. The failure of the Japanese to attack his ships convinced Halsey that they were preserving aircraft for use against the Allied invasion force. On 15 July, aircraft flying from TF 38's aircraft carriers struck again at Hokkaido and northern Honshu, devastating the fleet of ships that carried coal between the two islands. ### Hitachi The attacks on Hokkaido and northern Honshu ended on 15 July, and TF 38 sailed away from the Japanese coast to refuel and rendezvous with the main body of the British Pacific Fleet, which was designated Task Force 37 (TF 37). On the morning of 17 July, the British and American carriers attacked targets to the north of Tokyo. Later that day, TU 34.8.2 detached from the carrier force to bombard targets around the city of Hitachi, about 80 mi (130 km) northeast of Tokyo. This force was commanded by Rear Admiral Badger and comprised the battleships Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Alabama, and HMS King George V, light cruisers Atlanta and Dayton, and eight American and two British destroyers. King George V and her two escorts sailed astern of the American force, and operated independently. Halsey again accompanied this force on board Missouri. The bombardment of the Hitachi area took place on the night of 17/18 July. Rain and fog made locating the targets difficult and prevented spotting aircraft from flying, but several carrier aircraft flew protective patrols over the bombardment force. The Allied warships opened fire at 11:10 p.m., and aimed at their targets using radar and LORAN. The attackers targeted nine industrial facilities, and King George V was assigned similar targets to those engaged by the American battleships. By the time the bombardment ceased at about 1:10 a.m., the American battleships had fired 1,238 16-inch (410 mm) shells, and the British battleship 267 14-inch (360 mm) shells. The two light cruisers also fired 292 6-inch (150 mm) shells at radar and electronics installations south of Hitachi. All firing was conducted at a range of 23,000–35,000 yd (21,000–32,000 m). The attack on Hitachi had mixed results. Only three of the bombardment's nine targets were hit, and the overall damage to the city's industrial area was assessed as "slight". However, the attack inflicted considerable damage on the city's urban area and essential services. This damage was greatly increased by a B-29 raid on Hitachi on the night of 18/19 July that destroyed or damaged 79 percent of the city's urban area. The official history of the US Navy in World War II states that "individual Japanese" considered the naval bombardment to have been more terrifying than the air attack. ### Nojima Saki and Shionomisaki On 18 July TFs 37 and 38 conducted further air strikes in the Tokyo area, with the American force's main effort being an attempt to sink the Japanese battleship Nagato at Yokosuka Naval Base. That night, Cruiser Division 17 (CruDiv 17), which comprised the light cruisers USS Astoria, Pasadena, Springfield, and Wilkes-Barre and six destroyers under the command of Rear Admiral J. Cary Jones, fired 240 6-inch (150 mm) shells at a radar station on Cape Nojima [ja] over a five-minute period, but did not hit it. After completing its strikes on the Tokyo region, the Allied fleet conducted an at-sea replenishment from 21 to 23 July before attacking Kure and the Inland Sea from the 24th to the 28th of the month. On the night of 24–25 July, CruDiv 17 patrolled the Kii Channel and bombarded the naval seaplane base at Kushimoto, a landing field near Cape Shionomisaki, and a radio station. This attack lasted for only four minutes and caused little damage. ### Hamamatsu On 29 July, a group of warships was detached from the main body of the Allied fleet to bombard the city of Hamamatsu, which lies on the south coast of Honshu between Nagoya and Tokyo. This force comprised the same ships which had attacked Kamaishi on 14 July with the addition of King George V and the destroyers HMS Ulysses, Undine and Urania; the four British ships were designated Task Unit 37.1.2 (TU 37.1.2). The Task unit was again under command of Rear admiral John F. Shafroth Jr. The city had previously suffered extensive damage from air attacks. The British and American ships engaged their targets independently. King George V opened fire at the Japan Musical Instrument Company's Plant No. 2 (which was being used to manufacture aircraft propellers) at 11:19 p.m. from a range of 20,075 yd (18,357 m). The battleship fired 265 14-inch (360 mm) rounds at the plant in 27 minutes and was able to make use of artillery spotting aircraft, with visibility being good. Even so, little damage was inflicted on the facility. Massachusetts fired at Plant No. 1 but scored only a few hits. Despite the limited physical damage, the shelling caused increased labor absenteeism and disruption to vital services that caused the factory to cease production. The American ships also shelled the Imperial Government Railway locomotive works and three other industrial facilities. Of these targets, the locomotive works ceased operations for about three months due to damage, but two of the other facilities had almost ceased production before the attack and the third was not damaged. Two bridges on the important Tōkaidō Main Line were fired upon but not hit, though damage to rail infrastructure in Hamamatsu closed the line for 66 hours. During the bombardment Undine twice opened fire on small groups of ships that were probably fishing boats. No Japanese aircraft or shore batteries responded to the Allied attack. The bombardment of Hamamatsu was the last time a British battleship fired its guns in anger. ### Shimizu The next bombardment of Japan took place on the night of 30/31 July. On that night Destroyer Squadron 25 (DesRon 25), which was commanded by Captain J.W. Ludewig aboard USS John Rodgers, searched the Suruga Gulf for Japanese shipping to attack. No ships were located, and in the early hours of 31 July the squadron sailed deep into the gulf and fired 1,100 rounds of 5-inch (130 mm) shells during seven minutes at a railway yard and aluminum plant in Shimizu. The aluminum plant was hit, but this was of little importance as it had almost ceased production due to a shortage of raw materials. No damage was caused to the rail yard. ### Second attack on Kamaishi During the last days of July and into early August, the Allied fleet sailed away from the Japanese coast to avoid a typhoon and allow the ships to replenish their stocks of fuel and ammunition. The fleet then sailed north and, on both 9 and 10 August, the carrier aircraft attacked a large concentration of Japanese aircraft on airfields in northern Honshu. The carrier pilots claimed the destruction of 720 Japanese aircraft in this operation. As part of these operations off northern Japan, Kamaishi was bombarded again on 9 August in the mistaken belief that the ironworks had not been badly damaged. TU 34.8.1 conducted this attack, and comprised the ships that had bombarded the city in July with the addition of the heavy cruisers USS Boston and Saint Paul, British light cruiser HMS Newfoundland, Royal New Zealand Navy light cruiser HMNZS Gambia, and destroyers HMS Terpsichore, Termagant, and Tenacious. King George V did not participate in this action as mechanical problems affecting two of her propeller shafts meant that she was unable to sail at the speed specified for the bombardment force. The Allied ships opened fire on the ironworks and docks in Kamaishi at 12:54 p.m. The bombardment was conducted from an average range of 14,000 yd (13,000 m) and lasted for almost two hours. During this time, the ships made 4 passes across Kamaishi harbor and fired 803 16-inch (410 mm) shells, 1,383 8-inch (200 mm) shells, and 733 6-inch (150 mm) shells. Gambia fired the final shots of the attack. During the bombardment, several Japanese aircraft approached the Allied ships and two were shot down by Allied naval fighters. This bombardment caused more damage than the attack conducted in July, and large quantities of pig iron were destroyed. The attack was also directed against housing areas near the ironworks, destroying total of 1471 houses and killing 281 civilians. The sounds of this bombardment were broadcast live on radio in the United States via a radio relay on board Iowa. One of the prisoner of war camps in Kamaishi was destroyed by this second Allied attack, resulting in the deaths of 27 Allied prisoners. A further bombardment by King George V, three light cruisers, and escorting destroyers was planned to be conducted against an unspecified Japanese target on 13 August. This attack was cancelled for both the battleship's mechanical problems and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Allied fleet did not conduct any other bombardments, as Japan surrendered on 15 August. ### Submarine attacks Two US Navy submarines attacked locations in the Japanese home islands during June and July 1945. On 20 June USS Barb arrived off Japan's northern islands under the command of Commander Gene Fluckey. For this patrol the submarine had been fitted with an experimental 5-inch (130 mm) rocket launcher intended for shore bombardments. Shortly after midnight on 22 June the submarine fired 12 rockets at Shari in north-east Hokkaido. Barb then proceeded north, and on 2 July bombarded Kaiyo in south-east Sakhalin with its deck gun. This attack destroyed three sampans docked in the town, damaged a seal rookery and caused several fires to break out. The next day the submarine fired more rockets at Shisuka. A party of eight men from Barb was landed on the east coast of Sakhalin on 23 July and planted demolition charges on a railroad track. Shortly after the men began rowing back to the submarine the charges were triggered by a passing train; 150 people, including civilians, were killed. On 24 July, Barb fired 32 rockets at Shirutoru (:ja:知取町) and 12 rockets at Kashiho, Motodomari (:ja:元泊村). As the submarine returned to base it shelled Chiri on 25 July and Shibetoro the next day. The attack on Shibetoro targeted a shipyard building sampans, and destroyed 35 newly built vessels. The other submarine bombardment took place during the morning of 24 June, when USS Trutta fired some shells at the island of Hirado Shima in the Tsushima Strait between Japan and Korea. This attack sought to convince the Japanese that a force of American submarines that had been operating in the Sea of Japan would attempt to depart via the Tsushima Strait, instead of their actual route far to the north through the La Pérouse Strait between Hokkaido and Sakhalin. ## Results Although the naval bombardments did not result in the reaction the Allies were hoping for from the Japanese military, they disrupted the country's steel industry. While several of the factories attacked were operating at reduced capacity, the important Kamaishi and Wanishi Iron Works suffered heavy damage when they were bombarded in July and August. During both these attacks, the Allied gunnery was accurate and focused on the factories' coke batteries, which were critical to continued production. Post-war assessments found that the damage caused to industrial buildings by even the approximately 2,000 lb (910 kg) 16-inch (410 mm) naval shells was less than that which could be inflicted by the 2,000 lb (910 kg) and 1,000 lb (450 kg) general-purpose bombs that were used by Allied naval aircraft. While this supported a view put forward by Vice Admiral McCain that the aircraft assigned to protect the bombardment forces could have caused more damage than the ships themselves, the post-war United States Strategic Bombing Survey judged that the naval bombardments were justified as there had been little risk to the ships involved. The bombardments also affected Japanese morale. Japanese civilians who experienced both air and naval bombardment found the naval attacks to be more terrifying due to their unpredictability and longer duration. Several of the industrial facilities that suffered little damage in bombardments incurred a significant loss in production due to absenteeism and reduced productivity. This was not the case for all facilities that were attacked though, and the morale among workers in two of the bombarded factories was reported to have increased. The appearance of Allied warships just off the coast also convinced many Japanese that the war had been lost. However, such attitudes did not contribute to bringing the war to an end as the views of civilians had little influence on the Japanese Government's decision to surrender. In 1949, the Japanese Economic Stabilization Agency calculated that the Allied naval bombardments and other forms of attack other than bombing had caused 3,282 casualties, representing 0.5 percent of all casualties inflicted by the Allies in the Japanese home islands. The casualties attributed to naval bombardments and other causes included 1,739 fatalities, 46 persons who were still classified as missing and 1,497 people who were wounded.
1,267,838	Fightin' Texas Aggie Band	1,173,514,484	Official marching band of Texas A&M University	[ "1894 establishments in Texas", "American military bands", "Musical groups established in 1894", "Musical groups from Texas", "Southeastern Conference marching bands", "Texas A&M University student organizations", "Texas A&M University traditions" ]	The Fightin' Texas Aggie Band (also known as the Noble Men of Kyle or just the Aggie Band) is the official marching band of Texas A&M University. Composed of over 400 men and women from the school's Corps of Cadets, it is the largest military marching band in the world. The band's complex straight-line marching maneuvers are performed exclusively to traditional marches. Since its inception in 1894, its members eat together, sleep in the same dormitories, and practice up to forty hours per week on top of a full academic schedule. The Aggie Band performs at all home football games, some away games, and university and Corps functions throughout the year. The band has also participated in inauguration parades for many United States presidents and Texas governors, major annual parades across the country, and the dedication ceremony for the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library. ## History ### Early years The Aggie Band owes its existence to Joseph Holick (born in 1868 in Moravia). In 1885, Holick and his brother Louis boarded an empty boxcar bound for Orange, Texas, so that they could gain employment in a lumber mill. En route, the two stopped in Bryan, Texas, near the campus of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas. The 22-year-old Holick began to doubt his choice, stating, "I was a small boy and couldn't do lumbering work", and chose to remain in Bryan working under Raymond Blatherwick, owner of a prominent boot shop. Lawrence Sullivan Ross, the president of the nearby college and a former Governor of Texas, stopped into Blatherwick's boot shop and noted how inconvenient it was for cadets to go to Bryan for their boots. Ross requested Holick be stationed at the new military college to perform cobbler duties. Holick accepted the proposal and moved to work at Texas A&M. Shortly after his arrival, the Commandant's staff discovered his musical talents. They requested him to play the bugle for Corps functions and for US\$65 a month, he was assigned to play Reveille and Taps. Because the new job paid much more than his previous one, Holick wanted to give the school "more than just two tunes for its money and he asked the commandant for permission to start a cadet band". The commandant agreed and named Holick its first bandmaster. Under his tutelage and the leadership of subsequent bandmasters, the band grew from 13 members at its inception in 1894 to 75 bandsmen in 1924. Early drum majors are credited with inspiring the band's name. The first student drum major, H.A. "California" Morse, was asked to leave the college due to fighting. In addition, the early drum majors were chosen in physical combat; insomuch that the candidates were placed in a locked room, with the best fighter / the one emerging victorious, being named to the coveted position. This tradition of aggressiveness and physical combat was noted by band members, who then took to calling themselves the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band. ### Dunn years In 1924, Lieutenant Colonel Richard J. Dunn was appointed as bandmaster. As a former member of John Philip Sousa's Marine Band and with 26 years of military band leadership experience, Dunn quickly instituted changes within the band. The first was to the position of bugler, whose duties had fallen to the bandmaster since 1894. When informed that he was expected to fill the role, Dunn told college officials, "I have blown enough bugles. I am the Bandmaster. Someone else can blow the bugle calls." From then on, the Corps Bugler was chosen from the ranks of the Aggie Band. Dunn also instituted uniform changes which added white canvas to the band uniform, resulting in a "flash effect" every other step. Dunn tried, to no avail, to rid the band of the Senior Boots, but this tradition was too well-established. Other additions included crossed white belts, later discarded in favor of a white Sam Browne belt, silver buckles, and the addition of a bugle rank to lead the band in its maneuvers. Changes in the drills included the "Block T", the band's signature, and such intricate designs which led to talk amongst fans about the band "always winning halftime". Under Dunn's experience, the band instituted some traditions that the university uses to the present. In 1925, Marvin H. Mimms wrote the lyrics for an alma mater for the school. Dunn, who found the Aggie War Hymn "inappropriate" for social functions and solemn occasions, wrote its accompanying music and presented it to the student body titled Spirit of Aggieland. In 1926, the tradition of Elephant Walk began when two seniors in the band led a procession of seniors throughout the school grounds visiting all the important places on campus. All the seniors in one single file was "quite a sight to behold", and one junior commented that they looked like a bunch of old elephants wandering around trying to find some place to die. The name stuck and the tradition continues to the present. Beginning in 1939, the U.S. Army required all cadets to be in either infantry or field artillery units. Therefore, the band was split into two separate units at opposite ends of the campus dormitories and named Infantry and Artillery Bands. When the two units performed together, they formed the Combined Band. 1942 saw the band expand to 250 members, but the need for manpower for the war effort caused membership to plummet. By the end of the 1942–1943 school year, it dropped it to only 90 bandsmen. As "a crusty old army man", Dunn understood the nation's urgent need for troops, and he accepted the fact that the Aggie Band could only return after the war was over. Along with conducting the Aggie Band, Dunn started his own orchestra with the newly built A&M Consolidated High School on the Texas A&M Campus, called the "Little Symphony Orchestra". Dunn was also the founder of the famous A&M Consolidated High School Tiger Band in 1947. ### Adams era Dunn once told then-cadet Edward Vergne Adams, "One day I want you to direct this band." Adams thought the Colonel was joking, but "went to music school after graduation just in case he wasn't". After music school, he joined the army and put his musical skills to rest for the duration of the war, with one exception: while on regimental staff during the retreat ceremony at the end of the day, the assigned bugler had no experience and couldn't play a single note, so Adams stepped out of formation, took the bugle from the bugler's hands, blew the appropriate calls, handed the bugle back, and marched back into his spot in the formation. This intolerance for incompetence served him well when he accepted the invitation of Dunn to be his replacement as director of the Aggie Band. Adams began his tenure with an undisciplined band devoid of experience and ravaged by years of war, but in his first year of leadership, the ranks of the band quickly swelled to 225 members. Infantry and field artillery associations were no longer required by the Army and Adams changed the units' names to the Maroon and White Bands. Adams began to make the drills far more intricate and precise than they had been in the past by adding a countermarch, maneuvers from the Army Drill Manual, and established a 30-inch (76 cm) step, or six steps for every five yards (4.57m), as the band standard. Adams also added the criss-cross maneuver. First performed November 27, 1947 at the annual Thanksgiving Day game with the University of Texas, the criss-cross maneuver and its later variations (specifically the four-way cross) became the band's most anticipated maneuver. Other band directors said it was impossible to do because it required two people to be in the same place at the same time (indeed, to this day computer programs that chart band formations say that this maneuver cannot be performed). To accomplish this, band members step between each other's feet. In later years, people who did not know that the maneuver was first done in 1947 claimed that the drill was designed by a computer. Adams explained, "It's all a matter of mathematics. One man can take up only a certain amount of space at one time and moves in one direction at a predictable rate of speed." The band's reputation spread and other bands had begun to have some apprehension about performing in the same halftime as the Aggie Band. One Southwest Conference band director stated, "I dread going against the Aggie Band.... What is so humiliating is to see the Aggie Band do things band directors talk about as being impossible, and do them perfectly. It takes two weeks to recover from the trauma." In 1960, "one band gave up without a fight": the Trinity Tiger Band opted to sit instead of perform and gave the Aggie Band the entire halftime to perform. During Adams' tenure, the college acquired a new mascot, the first since the original Reveille died in 1944. Reveille II, like the original Reveille, was cared for and attended to by band members. During halftime performances, the young dog was allowed to be on the field with the band without her leash. During these breaks where she could get out and run, she had a tendency to "do her business" on Kyle Field's playing surface. This didn't bother the band members much, as Reveille stayed away from the band, but Adams discovered a gambling scheme whereby cadets were taking bets on what yard line the dog would defecate. He quickly ended the practice and turned the responsibility of caring for Reveille over to Company E-2, which has since been called the Mascot Company. On October 7, 1967, the first meeting of the Aggie Band Association took place to support the band. The organization, composed of former members and supporters, continue to assist the band through fundraising, scholarships, instrument repair, and general welfare of the cadets in the band. In 1970, Adams acquired funds and built a new band hall which was named in his honor. ### Modernization and expansion Colonel Joe T. Haney took over the band in 1973. He felt his obligation was, "not to build up the band ... [but] to keep it at its already exceptional level". During Haney's years, the band expanded to include a concert band, a symphonic band, the Aggieland Orchestra, and a Drum and Bugle Corps, and the names of the two subunits reverted to their earlier designations of Infantry and Artillery Bands. This simple philosophy was tested as Texas A&M transitioned from an all-male military college to a coeducational research university. The addition of women to the Corps presented some challenges, including one high-profile lawsuit and fierce resistance from former Corps and Band members. When women were finally admitted to the band under court order (Fall Semester, 1985); the first three women had to be housed in a separate dorm until accommodations could be made within the band dorms. Reporters were relentless and Haney finally called an open press conference with the three young ladies. The female cadets refused pictures unless their fish buddies (members of their freshman class in their unit) were included in the photos. With a band dropout rate of 33% the odds were against all of the female cadets succeeding, only Andrea Abat remained in the band through her senior year. Haney realized the separate living conditions were not conducive to good order and discipline and integrated the dorms, grouping females at one end of the dorm and designating one bathroom for exclusive female use. Amidst these drastic changes, large proportions of the freshmen classes (some as high as 30%) contained all-state high school band members. As the band's experience and musical talents grew, the quality of the music improved dramatically. Haney even rewrote the drills to include a portion where the band stopped moving and played to the audience. This innovation was well received and became a staple of the band's repertoire. In 1975, at a televised game versus the University of Arkansas, the Aggie Band was repeatedly asked to play music during lulls in the game. By the fourth quarter, the Aggie Band had played on TV during every break and Colonel Haney, trying his best to be fair, told the cameraman that they really should let the Razorback Band play a little too. The cameraman called up to the broadcast booth to get guidance and then replied, "The director doesn't want to hear the Arkansas band, he wants to hear the Aggie Band." The drills became even more complicated as Haney added formations and maneuvers never before seen. The excellence shown on the field belied its heavy dependence on precision. On October 24, 1981, the band suffered a serious misstep during the halftime show at Rice University when four members of a lead element turned early and, before anyone could make a correction, colliding band members ground the drill to a halt. With so many members doing exactly what the person in front of them does with mere inches of clearance, the cascade effect was unrecoverable and the band simply stopped and left the field. Although it was first rumored that the collision was intended to mock the Rice Marching Owl Band, and later that Rice students were using whistles to throw off the band's response to drum major whistle commands, all of the rumors proved to be unsubstantiated. Thereafter the band performed all drills in Houston without whistle commands. The following weekend the band attempted their most complicated drill and performed flawlessly. Each subsequent week, the drills became more complicated. The Bryan-College Station Eagle's editor opined, "A&M is probably the only school anywhere that throws in a free football game with its performance. One of these days, I fully expect the band to be invited to a bowl game—and to be told it can bring along its football team if it wants to." ### Into a new millennium Lieutenant Colonel Ray E. Toler, a Texas Christian University graduate, replaced Haney when he stepped down in 1989. As a veteran of many Air Force Bands and with a Grammy Award nomination under his belt, Toler was quick to realize the potential and traditions of the Aggie Band and quickly set about publicizing it. Under his direction, the Aggie Band began a weekly television show (the "Texas Aggie Band Show") that showcased the band, the Corps of Cadets, and the daily life of a band member. As of 2007, the Aggie Band is the only university or college band with its own weekly television show. The Aggie Band was recognized nationally as the 2001 recipient of the Louis Sudler Trophy for collegiate marching bands, administered by the John Philip Sousa Foundation. During Toler's leadership of the Aggie Band, its presence was personally requested by President-elect George W. Bush for his inauguration parade. During Toler's tenure, many of the drills were written by Colonel Jay Brewer who also served as the announcer for over 30 years until his retirement in 2020. In addition, many of the Aggie drills and music were written by Dr. Timothy Rhea, who succeeded Toler as Director of Bands in 2002. Rhea actively arranges and composes music, which has been published by TRN Music Publisher, RBC Music Publisher, and Arranger's Publishing Company. In the 2012–2013 school year, members of the band were first allowed to join the Fish Drill Team. After the 2018–2019 school year, the Aggie Band ceased using the Adams Band Hall and Haney Drill Field, in preparation for its move to the new Music Activities Center (MAC). This facility considerably increases rehearsal space for the band and includes a turf drill field, which is not susceptible to the ruts and holes often created on Haney due to constant marching. The move to the MAC requires the Aggie Band to vacate its traditional dormitories – Dorms 9 and 11, the latter of which was custom-built for the band in 1939 – in favor of dormitories closer to the new facility. The Haney Drill Field was used by the Aggie Band for approximately 75 years. The Fish Drill Team still uses Haney Drill Field for most practices. On December 6, 2018, a select contingent of the Aggie Band performed at the burial of U.S. President George H. W. Bush on the Texas A&M campus. The band played the presidential salute "Hail to the Chief" and the "Texas Aggie War Hymn" as Bush's casket was removed from the funeral train. Although a United States Air Force band performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" as Bush's casket arrived at the burial site, they did not play "Hail to the Chief," making the Aggie Band's performance the last time the late president was saluted with this piece. ## Directors and band staff The band is under the oversight of the director of bands at Texas A&M University, currently Dr. Timothy Rhea, who coordinates the band. ### List of directors of bands - Joseph Holick (1894) - Arthur Jenkins (1895) - George W. Gross (1895–1897) - F. H. Miller (1897–1902) - George W. Terrell (1902–1904) - Bradford Pier Day (1904–1917) - Alois Slovacek (1918–1919) - Howell Nolte (1920) - George Farleigh (1920–1924) - Richard J. Dunn (1924–1946) - E. V. Adams (1946–1973) - Joe T. Haney (1973–1989) - Lieutenant Colonel Ray E. Toler (1989–2002) - Colonel Timothy Rhea (2002–present) ### Associate Directors - Joe T. Haney (1972–1973) - Major Joe K. McMullen - Bill J. Dean (1982–1988) - Lieutenant Colonel Ray E. Toler (1988–1989) - Colonel Jay O. Brewer (1989–2020) - Major Travis Almany (2004–present) - Captain Russell Tipton (2016–present) - Dr. Lance Sample (2021–present) ### Assistant Directors - Captain Jay O. Brewer (1986–1989) - Jim McDaniel (1990–1993) - Lieutenant Timothy Rhea (1992–2001) ## Cadet life The Aggie Band is unique among college bands; no other band eats and lives together as a military unit, even at the Service Academies and military colleges. Bandsmen wear their cadet uniforms to class, drill, meetings, and other functions on campus. As a requested component of football away games, they perform at more football games than any other band. As of 1993, the band performed at 125 of the last 131 football games, including a streak of 42 straight from 1981 to 1984. Demand is extremely high for the band and one person, upon finding out the Aggie Band would not be performing at the local football game versus A&M, returned and requested a refund for 40 tickets. The Aggie Band performs a new show each week during the football season and does not generally repeat drills from week to week. During the fall semester, the Aggie Band practices for 90 minutes every weekday morning and on Saturdays every week with a football game. In addition, some components of the band also practice on Sunday afternoons and planning of the drills takes place throughout the fall semester. All told, drills can take eight to nine hours per week on top of a full academic schedule and Corps/ROTC activities. All seniors in the Corps of Cadets wear distinctive cavalry riding boots with their uniforms. These boots usually cost more than \$1,800 and are generally made at Holick's, formerly owned by the family of Joseph Holick, the first band director. ### Organization The members of the band are called BQs and, since the band's inception, are part of the Corps of Cadets. The Aggie Band is a major unit in the Corps, comparable in size to a brigade or wing. Unique among Corps units, however, the band is divided into two battalions of three "outfits" each, the Infantry Band and the Artillery Band. All BQs are assigned to one of the six outfits. Each battalion is commanded by a Cadet Lieutenant Colonel and has its own command staff; each outfit is commanded by a Cadet Major. Outfits are further divided into platoons, squads, and fire teams, led by a Cadet Captain, Cadet Staff Sergeant, and Cadet Corporal, respectively. Due to its status as a Senior Military College, all cadets are required to take ROTC classes at least their first two years, though follow-on military service is not required. From 1948, the Maroon and White Bands functioned as single outfits, with the band as a whole functioning as an independent battalion. When the Infantry and Artillery Bands were reestablished in 1976, they were divided into two outfits each: A-Company and B-Company in the Infantry Band, and A-Battery and B-Battery in the Artillery Band. C-Company and C-Battery existed briefly from 1983 to 1984, then were permanently reactivated in 2013. ### Leadership Unlike many bands, the drum majors are not in charge of the band as a whole. Since the band is part of the Corps, it has its own unit commander, a Cadet Colonel. Due to necessity for military functions, the Band Commander is accorded the privilege of the first file in bugle rank (the lead rank of the band). During formal military ceremonies, the commander carries a sabre instead of a bugle, as do all other commanders. The Infantry and Artillery Bands perform together for halftime shows, but are often split for minor performances such as local parades and functions where the entire band is not needed. Furthermore, the band is composed of three different ROTC programs and appoints commanders to manage and train the cadets within their respective ROTC affiliations. On the field, the band is led by three drum majors and the twelve members of bugle rank. Each drum major carries a mace and directs the band based on its movements and whistle commands during a drill. The head drum major is a Cadet Lieutenant Colonel, while the two side drum majors, the Infantry Band Drum Major and the Artillery Band Drum Major, are Cadet Majors. Bugle rank consists of the Band Commander and eleven other senior cadets who are well respected in the band and have impeccable marching abilities. Each bugle rank member carries a bugle with a banner, which are never played during a performance. Together, the drum majors and bugle rank lead the band through the maneuvers on the field. In addition to their primary functions within the band, the bugles and maces also serve a military ceremonial function and are used to salute commissioned officers, much as a rifleman would salute with a rifle or a commander would salute with a sabre. ### Composition The band has over 400 members, though as of 2019, a typical performance fields slightly over 300 bandsmen. Instrumentation consists of more than 60 trumpets, 40 trombones, 30 mellophones, 30 baritones, 25 bass horns, 40 drummers, and 90 assorted woodwinds, though the actual composition varies annually. There are no flutes in the Aggie Band, as their position while being played would hinder the intricate marching maneuvers. Piccolos are used instead. All members of the band must have high school marching experience, an audition during the spring semester leading into the first fall semester of attendance to include major scales and sight reading, and an individual interview with the band director. Prospective members are also encouraged to participate in the Spend the Night with the Corps program to better understand the rigors of life in the Corps of Cadets. ## Marching ### Complex maneuvers The repertoire of the Aggie Band's maneuvers is designed by the directors and drum majors and can include obliques, flanks, countermarches, and other Army marching maneuvers. The Band is generally led by the bugle rank with each person following the person in front of them, also known as follow-the-leader. Space between band members during countermarches is less than six inches (15 cm) and during other maneuvers even less. This space is insufficient for the bass horns and some members must turn their horns to complete the maneuver. According to an article in The Battalion, "some of the Aggie band's maneuvers are so complex that some drill-charting software says that the drills are impossible because they require multiple people to be in the same place at the same time." This is also discussed in a video by The Association of Former Students of Texas A&M University. The Fightin' Texas Aggie Band has performed at inauguration parades for many Presidents of the United States in Washington, D.C., including at the personal request of President-elect George H. W. Bush. Other events in which the band has participated include inauguration parades for Governors of Texas, major annual parades across the country, and the dedication ceremony for the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library. ### Typical halftime drill The halftime drill always begins with the band running into place at the command of the drum major's whistle. The announcer, an associate band director, then states, usually the crowd in unison with him says, "Ladies and gentlemen, now forming at the north end of Kyle Field, the nationally famous Fightin' Texas Aggie Band." A whoop and cheers come from the audience. The drum majors then march out in front of the band and the head drum major calls the band to attention and vocally gives directions to the band, referencing the composition of the Aggie War Hymn, by shouting, "Recall! Step off on Hullabaloo!" (Recall is a traditional Army bugle call – the first 34 notes, and intro of the Aggie War Hymn. "Hullabaloo" is the first word sung in the Aggie War Hymn.) These directions are not amplified in any way, but can be heard across the entire stadium. After another whoop, the drum majors signal for the horns to be lifted into playing position with two quick whistle blasts and the bugle rank does a flourish. The drill then begins with the band playing the opening notes of the War Hymn and stepping off into the initial formation. At some point in the drill, the band converts from Spread formation to Block formation. With no cessation of the music until the band leaves the field, the drill continues and often stops with the band playing the last stanza in place in the center of the field before moving into the signature "Block T" or "Block ATM". When done playing, the band runs off the field. Specific maneuvers in the drill can include: - The Criss Cross: the band files split into two halves and march through each other at 90° angles - The Four-way Cross: The band splits into four groups of three files and march through each other from each of the corners of the field (this maneuver is one of the more popular among fans, due to its difficulty) - Minstrel Turns: band members pass through each other by stepping between each other's feet. - Spread-to-Block: the band moves from being 30 files wide (i.e., across the width of the football field) by 12 ranks deep (i.e., along the length of the football field) to 12 files wide by 30 ranks deep - Block-to-Spread: the opposite of Spread-to-Block - Continuous Countermarch: the bugle rank leads two successive countermarches following the back of the band through the maneuver - Wheel Turns (also known as a Gate Turn): A turn of a block of the band where the people on the inside of the turn reduce their step size. This is only done during parades when going around corners. ## Music As a military marching band, the Aggie Band exclusively plays traditional marches. Among many other marches, its primary repertoire includes: - Fightin' Texas Aggie War Hymn - Spirit of Aggieland: The school's alma mater - The Noble Men of Kyle: The group's signature march; also a nickname for the band - Ballad of the Green Berets - The main theme from the movie Patton - When Johnny Comes Marching Home - Strategic Air Command March The Aggie Band frequently performs a number of standard military and circus marches: - The Trombone King (King) - Stars and Stripes Forever (Sousa) - Bravura (Duble) - National Emblem (Bagley) - Them Basses (Huffine) - Washington Post (Sousa) - Armed Forces Medley (Traditional) - St. Julien (Hughes) - Semper Fidelis (Sousa) - Americans We (Fillmore) - Pentland Hills (Howe) - Klaxon (Fillmore) Many non-military works are also commonly played by the band, arranged as marches by Dr. Rhea. These include movie themes (Theme from 1941, Parade of the Charioteers, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), concert marches (The Sinfonians, Bird’s Battlin’ Brigade, Pomp and Circumstance Marches), and even symphonic and orchestral music ("Cathedral Chorus" from Russian Christmas Music, Great Gate of Kiev). ## Notable members - General Eric Smith, 36th assistant commandant of the Marine Corps and commander of the combined band (1986-1987) - General Joe Ramirez, Commandant of the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets (2011-2021). ## See also - United States military bands - Highty-Tighties - Texas A&M Singing Cadets - Texas A&M University Century Singers - Texas A&M Wind Symphony
156,756	Planescape: Torment	1,169,636,527	1999 video game	[ "1999 video games", "Android (operating system) games", "Black Isle Studios games", "Dark fantasy video games", "Dungeons & Dragons video games", "Existentialist video games", "IOS games", "Infinity Engine games", "Interplay Entertainment games", "Linux games", "MacOS games", "Nintendo Switch games", "Planescape", "PlayStation 4 games", "Role-playing video games", "Single-player video games", "Skybound Games games", "Video games about amnesia", "Video games about angels", "Video games developed in the United States", "Video games scored by Mark Morgan", "Video games with isometric graphics", "Windows games", "Xbox One games" ]	Planescape: Torment is a 1999 role-playing video game developed by Black Isle Studios and published by Interplay Entertainment for Windows on December 12. The game takes place in locations from the multiverse of Planescape, a Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy campaign setting. The game's engine is a modified version of the Infinity Engine, which was used for BioWare's Baldur's Gate, a previous D&D game set in the Forgotten Realms. Planescape: Torment is primarily story-driven, with combat not being prominently featured. The protagonist, known as The Nameless One, is an immortal man who forgets everything if killed. The game focuses on his journey through the city of Sigil and other planes to reclaim his memories of previous lives, and to discover why he was made immortal in the first place. Several characters in the game may join the Nameless One on his journey; most of these characters have encountered him in the past or have been influenced by his actions in some way. The game was not a commercial success, but it received critical acclaim and has since become a cult classic, claimed by video game journalists to be the best role-playing video game of 1999. It was lauded for its immersive dialogue, for the dark and relatively obscure Planescape setting, and for the protagonist's unique persona, which shirked many characteristics of traditional role-playing games. It is commonly cited as one of the greatest video games of all time. An enhanced version for modern platforms was made by Beamdog and released for Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, and iOS in April 2017 and for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in October 2019. ## Gameplay Planescape: Torment is built on BioWare's Infinity Engine, which presents the player with a pre-rendered world in an isometric perspective in which player characters are controlled. The game's role-playing ruleset is based on that of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition. The player takes the role of "The Nameless One", an immortal man with amnesia on a quest to learn why he was created immortal. Exploration around the painted scenery is accomplished by clicking on the ground to move, or on objects and characters to interact with them. Items and spells may be employed through hotkeys, quick slots, or a radial menu. An alternative to armor is the use of magical tattoos which can be applied to The Nameless One and certain other characters to enhance their abilities. The game begins with character creation, where the player assigns attribute points such as strength, intelligence, and charisma to The Nameless One. The Nameless One starts the game as a fighter class, but the player may later freely change it to a thief or wizard. The player may recruit companions throughout the game to join the party. There are seven potential companions, but only a maximum of five may accompany The Nameless One at any given time. Conversation is frequent among party members, occurring both randomly and during conversations with other non-player characters. The gameplay often focuses on the resolution of quests through dialogue rather than combat, and many of the game's combat encounters can be resolved or avoided through dialogue or stealth. The Nameless One carries a journal which helps the player keep track of the game's numerous quests and subplots. The Nameless One is immortal, so running out of health points usually imposes no penalty beyond respawning in a different location. Planescape: Torment uses the D&D character alignment system, in which a character's ethical and moral perspective and philosophy are determined based on the axes of "good vs. evil" and "law vs. chaos", with neutrality bridging the two opposing sides. The Nameless One begins as "true neutral" but can be incrementally changed based on the character's actions throughout the game, with reactions from the game's non-player characters differing based on his alignment. ## Synopsis ### Setting Planescape: Torment is set in the Planescape multiverse, a Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting which consists of various planes of existence, the creatures which live in them (such as devils, modrons, and deities), and the properties of the magic that infuses each plane. A large portion of Planescape: Torment takes place in Sigil, a large city located atop an infinitely tall spire at the center of the multiverse, that connects the planes with each other via a series of portals. The city is overseen by the powerful Lady of Pain, while numerous factions control different functions of the city related to each group's world view, with The Nameless One being able to join several of these factions during the game. The story eventually moves on to other planes, such as Baator and Carceri, where The Nameless One continues to discover more about his past. Throughout the game, The Nameless One slowly learns about his previous incarnations and the influence they have had on the world. ### Characters Planescape: Torment's protagonist is known as The Nameless One, a man cursed with immortality for thousands of years. Every time he dies, another person in the multiverse dies to fuel his resurrection. Upon rebirth, The Nameless One has little to no recollection of his past life, and often with completely different personality than before. When the game starts, The Nameless One wakes in a mortuary as a result of his latest death. He then sets out on a quest to discover how he died and why he is immortal, also hoping that the adventure will help him regain memories of his past incarnations. During his quest, The Nameless One meets several characters who can join him as companions: Morte, Annah-of-the-Shadows, Dak'kon, Ignus, Nordom, Fall-From-Grace, and Vhailor. These playable characters can also interact with the Nameless One to further the game's plot. Morte is a cynical floating skull originally from Baator's Pillar of Skulls, a grotesque entity composed of the screaming heads of individuals who dishonestly advised others in their lifetime. He is introduced at the game's beginning in the mortuary. Morte loyally follows The Nameless One, partly out of guilt for having caused the deaths of some of his previous incarnations. The Nameless One meets Annah-of-the-Shadows, a young and brash tiefling rogue, outside the mortuary, but she does not join the group until a later point in the game. Dak'kon is a githzerai, who once made an oath to help The Nameless One until his death, but became enslaved to him for eternity due to not knowing of his immortality. Ignus is a pyromaniacal being who was once an apprentice mage of one of The Nameless One's past incarnations. In the Rubikon Dungeon Construct, the Nameless One can find Nordom, a modron disconnected from its species' hive mind. Fall-From-Grace is a succubus who acts as proprietress of the Brothel of Slaking Intellectual Lusts in Sigil; unlike other succubi, she is not interested in seducing mortals. Vhailor, found below the city of Curst on the plane of the Outlands, is essentially an animated suit of armor dedicated to serving merciless justice. Notable non-player characters include Deionarra, a former lover of one of the Nameless One's past incarnations who died as a result of his amoral actions; Ravel Puzzlewell, a night hag who helped the Nameless One's first incarnation to become immortal; Trias the Betrayer, a fallen deva who decides to take matters into his own hands due to his disillusionment with the gods’ stance on fighting evil forces; Coaxmetal, a giant golem confined inside the siege tower in Sigil's Lower Ward who forges weapons for the inhabitants of the planes to destroy each other in the name of entropy; and the Transcendent One, the embodiment of the Nameless One's mortality and the final boss of the game. ### Plot The game begins when The Nameless One wakes up in a mortuary. He is immediately approached by a floating skull, called Morte, who offers advice on how to escape. Morte also reads the tattoos written on The Nameless One's back, which were inked there as reminders by a previous incarnation of himself, that contain instructions to find a man named Pharod. After a conversation with the ghost of Deionarra, and passing by enslaved undead who work at the mortuary, The Nameless One leaves to explore the slums of Sigil. He finds Pharod, who is the chief of an underground village of scavengers and the adoptive father of Annah, and is asked to retrieve a magical bronze sphere for him before he will give answers. After returning, Pharod does so, giving him further hints to help piece together his forgotten past. Later on, The Nameless One learns from a powerful sorcerer named Lothar that the night hag Ravel Puzzlewell caused his immortality, but that she is imprisoned in a magical maze for committing crimes against the Lady of Pain. The Nameless One eventually finds a portal to enter the maze, but realizes that it requires a piece of Ravel to activate it; for this, he locates a daughter of hers and takes drops of her blood. Once in the maze, The Nameless One converses with Ravel, who asks him "what can change the nature of a man?" – a question that plays a prominent role throughout the game. Ravel is pleased with The Nameless One's answer because he offers his own thoughts; she claims she has killed many men in the past who, instead of giving their own answers, tried to guess what her answer, which they assumed was the only answer, might be. As the conversation progresses, Ravel explains that a past incarnation of The Nameless One had asked her to make him immortal. However, the ritual she performed was flawed, which causes The Nameless One to risk losing his memory each time he dies. She also reveals that the mortality she separated from him was not destroyed, and that as long as he was alive, his mortality must still be intact somewhere. Not knowing where it is, she suggests that the fallen deva Trias might know. Ravel then attempts to keep The Nameless One and his party there by force, with them having to defeat her in combat. After they do so and leave the maze, Ravel is revealed to have faked her death. A being known as The Transcendent One then appears, and kills Ravel after a short conversation. The portal that The Nameless One and his party found in the maze takes them to the city of Curst, a gate town on the border of the Outlands and Carceri, to find Trias. Finding him magically imprisoned underneath Curst, The Nameless One offers to help free him in exchange for answers. Doing so, Trias then claims not to know where The Nameless One's mortality lies, but points him in another direction. The Nameless One then visits the Outlands and Baator, where he learns that his mortality lies in a place known as the Fortress of Regrets, and that only Trias knows how to access it. Meanwhile, however, Curst has "slid" from the border of the Outlands to the neighboring chaotic plane of Carceri due to the chaos unleashed by Trias after The Nameless One freed him. After fights through the city against large groups of demons, The Nameless One and his party reach Trias, who they also fight. After Trias is weakened enough through combat, he tells The Nameless One that the portal to the Fortress of Regrets is located within Sigil's mortuary, right next to where The Nameless One awoke. In the Fortress of Regrets, The Nameless One encounters three of his past incarnations: one practical, one good, and one paranoid. The Nameless One learns that the "good" incarnation was the original man who was made immortal by Ravel, and learns that he had committed immeasurably terrible sins in his lifetime. Realizing that he would be damned to suffer in the Lower Planes when he dies, he sought immortality to give him time to atone for his sins. Unfortunately, the memory losses he suffered after each death and reincarnation foiled this plan. After merging with his past incarnations through dialogue or combat, gaining their combined experience and knowledge, The Nameless One confronts the embodiment of his mortality, The Transcendent One, who reveals that since being separated from The Nameless One, it has enjoyed its freedom and has been erasing clues that might lead The Nameless One to discover the truth. Depending on the player's choice, The Nameless One either slays The Transcendent One through combat, convinces it to rejoin with him, or commits suicide with a special weapon, with either option ending his immortality. The Nameless One then awakens on a battlefield in the Lower Planes, and accepts his fate to fight forever in the Blood War. ## Development In 1997, the game's designers produced a 47-page document that outlined the game's premise and vision statement, and was used to pitch the idea to management at Interplay. Initially, the game was to be called Last Rites, and they described the game as "avant-garde" fantasy to distinguish it from high fantasy. The document also contained concept artwork for characters and areas of the game. It was released for Windows on December 12, 1999, as one of three Planescape games being developed by Black Isle at the time, along with a PlayStation game by Colin McComb based on FromSoftware's King's Field, and a PC game by Zeb Cook; the other two were canceled, and only Last Rites was released as Torment. McComb, one of the designers of the overall Planescape setting, joined the Torment project after his game fell through. From the outset, Planescape: Torment's designers intended to challenge traditional role-playing game conventions: the game features no dragons, elves, goblins, or other common fantasy races; there are only three swords; the rats faced in the game can be quite challenging to defeat; and the undead sometimes prove more sympathetic than humans. The designers explained that most RPGs tend to have a "correct" approach to solving problems, which is almost always the morally good approach. They called this "predictable and stupid" and wished to make a game with greater moral flexibility, where a particular problem might have "two wrongs or two rights". The main quest is not about saving the world, but about understanding The Nameless One and his immortality. Death (of the protagonist or his companions) is often just a minor hindrance, and even necessary at times. According to lead designer and writer Chris Avellone, Planescape: Torment was inspired by books, comics, and games, including Archie Comics, The Chronicles of Amber, The Elementals, and Shadowrun. The game's 1997 outline also makes references to The Lord of the Rings to describe some characters. While working on Planescape: Torment, Avellone was simultaneously working on Fallout 2. In an interview from 2007, he says that Fallout 2 helped him rethink the possibilities of dialogue in Planescape: Torment (and in later games he was involved with, including Neverwinter Nights 2). Producer Guido Henkel commented on taking liberties with the AD&D rules by simplifying them: "I think we still take the AD&D rules very seriously and we follow those rules. We just take the liberty of removing some of the 'overhead'." The game's credits also cite Final Fantasy VII as an inspiration. On developing the character of Ravel Puzzlewell, Avellone thought a cryptic puzzle maker who was in love with the player character and who genuinely tried to help people only to have it backfire on her would make an interesting antagonist. Avellone likened Ravel's life to a branching bramble "stretching across the planes" and alluded to other incarnations of her that exist as characters in Avellone's other video game works; in a 2007 blog post, he considered his work on Ravel to be one of the experiences he is most proud of in his career, and that it informed his writing for the Knights of the Old Republic II character Kreia. Avellone remarked that many of the ideas in the game "could only have been communicated through text, simply because no one would have the budget or resources to fully realise many of these fantasy works through TV or movies". Ultimately, Avellone has expressed some regret about the game's heavy focus on dialogue, as he feels this interfered with the overall game mechanics, particularly the combat system. The game's script contains around 800,000 words, after early previews had indicated that the game would be only about 20 hours long. In several interviews, producer Guido Henkel stated that he was increasingly frustrated by the pressure the management of Interplay put on the development team after Interplay's initial public offering. Although only a few additional subplots and characters had to be discarded to meet the planned release date, he accused the Interplay management of disregarding the development team regarding things like package design and marketing. Henkel said that it was his main goal to prevent the game from being "crippled" before leaving Interplay when the game reached beta status. He also claimed that his overall influence on the game was greater than that of Avellone, Eric Campanella, or Dave Maldonaldo, but since a producer often has to make unpopular decisions, his role was later downplayed. In 2011, Henkel also revealed that The Nameless One's face on the game box art is based on his real face, because the day before the cover photo shoot was scheduled to take place, the model contracted to appear on the box backed out over a scheduling conflict, so Guido Henkel was proposed to use his face. Make up lasted for about two hours, and photography took 45 minutes, Henkel said: "My face was red as a beet and burned for the rest of the day, because of the solvent that was used to remove the appliances. Nonetheless, it was all well worth it". The game used the Infinity Engine, a game engine initially developed by BioWare for Baldur's Gate. However, Planescape: Torment was being developed using the Infinity Engine before Baldur's Gate had been released, leaving the engine's acceptance in the market still unknown. Black Isle made modifications to the engine to suit the game. For example, playable characters were able to run, and both the character sprites and backgrounds were larger and more detailed. The greater size and detail was achieved by bringing the perspective closer to the ground. Magic was also an important part of the game's design, and a team of four designers worked solely on the visuals and mechanics of spells. In addition to official localizations, for example the one by CD Projekt for the Polish market, fan communities developed Spanish, Hungarian, and Italian fan translations of the game. When Interplay dropped support for Planescape: Torment after the official 1.1 patch, several not yet fixed bugs were corrected by fan-created unofficial patches. Other mods add back items and quests omitted from the final version of the game or new features such as widescreen support. Initially, Interplay hired dark ambient musician Lustmord to create the musical score for the game. He worked on the project for four months, writing over 40 original pieces. However, just six weeks before the game released, one of the producers had a change of heart on the game's musical direction, who wanted it to sound less ambient and "more along the lines of John Williams". His first time working on a video game project, Lustmord considered the experience "terrible", eventually reusing some of the elements from the score in his 2001 album, Metavoid. Needing a replacement soundtrack done quickly, Interplay then reached out and asked Mark Morgan, who had worked on other Black Isle Studios games, to do it. Two additional themes were penned by Richard Band. The game's cast of voice actors included Michael T. Weiss, Sheena Easton, Rob Paulsen, Mitch Pileggi, Dan Castellaneta, and Tony Jay. After the game's release, a reviewer for Game Revolution praised its sound, saying that "When you're in a crowded city, it sounds like a crowded city. Walk past a bar, and you'll hear the noise of the drunken patrons inside. Wander near a slave auction, and you'll hear the auctioneer calling. Go to a party in the festival hall, and it sounds just like a party". The same reviewer also stated "Planescape has just about the best sound I've ever heard in a game." IGN gave the sound 8.5 out of 10 and noted that "The game has fantastic speech and sound effects, but what's more impressive is the way they fade in and out depending on how close you're standing to them." ## Adaptations A book by the same name was written by Ray and Valerie Vallese and released by Wizards of the Coast in 1999. The book's plot follows the game's only loosely, conferring a much bigger role to Fhjull Forked-Tongue, a minor supporting character from the game who advises the Nameless One to seek the Pillar of Skulls in the first layer of Baator for answers, and its ending differed significantly from the game's. The book also did not follow the source material in its adaptation of the game's characters; for example, in the game, the main character's lack of a name is a sign of his incomplete state and a source of protection in being anonymous. In the book, the protagonist chooses a proper name and is called "Thane" by his associates. Maciej Miszczyk from Hardcore Gaming 101 found the book to be "bland and uninteresting", offering "nothing new to those who’ve already beaten the game", and an "inferior alternative" for those who have yet to experience the game. For the game's 2010 re-release on GOG.com, a second, more accurate, novelization produced by Rhyss Hess was bundled with it, based on the game script by Chris Avellone and Colin McComb. A third novelization was completed in 2013 by fans through a combined amalgamation of the in game text, the Rhyss Hess novelization, and a text based Let's Play by the user ShadowCatboy on the forum Something Awful. The project was edited by Logan Stromberg and is widely regarded as the best adaptation of the game. ## Reception Planescape: Torment received widespread critical acclaim upon its release. GameSpot's reviewer said that "It's clearly the best traditional computer role-playing game of the year", a comment which the website would later expand to "one of the greatest ever". Allen Rausch, writing for GameSpy's 2004 retrospective "A History of D&D Video Games", commented that Black Isle Studios "went way over the top for this one, crafting an utterly unique experience that has yet to be equaled by any RPG since". The gameplay was often compared to Baldur's Gate, another Interplay game that used the same engine as Planescape: Torment. Robert Mayer of Computer Games Magazine commented that it was "one dark and interesting game. There's lots of macabre humor, some rather deviant sexual references, and enough weirdness to send the devotees of Tolkienesque fantasy running for their copies of The Hobbit." Kieron Gillen of PC Gamer UK commented that "Planescape: Torment is attempting to be iconoclastic in the most stereotyped of genres. We're cheering it on." The game's premise and writing were warmly received; a review in The New York Times noted "The game's level of detail and its emotional impact have prompted some players to cast about for literary peers." Reviewers were pleased with the ability to shape their character's journey as they wished. In 2005, GameSpot stated "Planescape: Torment has quite possibly the best implementation of role-playing an evil character ever to appear in a computer or video game to date". The heavily tattooed, egocentric, and potentially selfish Nameless One was welcomed as a change of pace from the conventional RPG hero, who was considered a predictable do-gooder. Reviewers also approved of the protagonist's ability to gain new powers by "remembering" past lives. The dark and diversified representation of the D&D setting of Planescape was lauded as a fresh departure from the traditional high fantasy of computer role-playing games. A review in Next Generation praised the game, saying that "Torment offers the best RPG gameplay anyone can find on store shelves, hands down." Uros Jojic of Actiontrip commented that "Planescape: Torment proves that it is possible to make an inventive, fun and refreshing game in this "sea of clones". Creating a computer edition of Planescape system is another triumph for Black Isle Studios." In a March 2000 article for Game Studies, Diane Carr called the game's setting "a freak show, a long story, a zoo, and a cabinet of talkative curiosities" and described the creatures and monsters in the game as "grotesque rather than scary". Cindy Yans of Computer Games Magazine describes the setting as "a world where knowledge and thoughts wield more power than the sword. Belief has the ability to reshape worlds, kill and resurrect powers and change the laws of physics." Cindy Vanous of Computer Games Magazine notes that "Planescape'''s bestiary features legions of the unknown, and its landscape is an ever-changing tapestry of the bizarre." Planescape: Torment is the first video game to be set in the Planescape universe. > [Planescape Torment's] limits are elusive. ... Even small choices have multiple and unpredictable results, leading players to incidents, to confrontations or to nothing much. The game resists resolution or even comprehension. A rambling text like Planescape Torment bounces when you try and nail it down, it resists totalisation. It has its moments of "rush" and of confrontation, but it wants to be savoured, wandered through, in the company of armed companions. The technical aspects of the game were also praised. Although by the time of its release in late 1999, Planescape: Torment's default 640x480 resolution was not considered particularly advanced, reviewers were pleased with the art design and color of the environments. The game's sound and music were described as "well above the norm" and "superb", and one reviewer stated that his only complaint about the music was that "there wasn't enough of it". Another reviewer said that Planescape: Torment had "just about the best sound" they had heard in a video game. GamePro stated, "... the characters talk with the talent of real professional voice actors during crucial bits of dialog". The game's graphics were moderately well received, with incite PC Gaming saying that "[the graphics] can be a little lackluster, although some of the spell effects certainly look very good", a statement echoed in NextGen which stated that "mind-blowing spell effects ... will remind you of a two-dimensional Final Fantasy game." The game's interface received positive remarks. The US edition of PC Gamer commented on the automap, which automatically marked important locations and allowed the user to add custom notes, and on the journal, which separated completed quests from unfinished quests. PC Gamer also praised the fine-tuning of the Infinity Engine, such as the use of a radial menu, which allowed the player to stay focused on the game instead of managing multiple screens and "messing with windows and buttons". > ... we were swept away by Planescape: Torment. It wasn't the effective engine, demented characters, or lavish lands that won us. It was the rich storyline. This tale is more a reflection of your true self than any game ever made. Criticism of the game was minimal and problems were generally described as minor, but included complaints about long load times on computers of the day, or the game slowing down during combat. Bugs were responsible for slowing down the game when a high level of graphical assets were on-screen at the same time, but it was reported that a fix was released that solved the problem. Allgame's Derek Williams considered the game's combat simplistic (with a comparison to Diablo), which made the game too easy. The most negative major review came from Eurogamer, who gave the game seven out of ten (and later increased it to eight when the game was patched). Their reviewer expressed distaste at the immortality of the player character, saying that it made the lives of characters "cheap and meaningless", although other reviews welcomed this aspect, saying it was "implemented perfectly" and did not make the game easier. Eurogamer also disapproved of the amount of experience that was awarded for certain dialogues later in the game. However, other reviews cited this as one of the main things that elevated Planescape: Torment above the standard RPG format. Some reviewers also criticized the game's pathfinding AI as being "less than impressive". ### Awards Planescape: Torment is commonly cited to as one of the greatest video games of all time and has attracted a cult following. It was given several Editor's Choice awards, was named RPG of the Year for 1999 by both GameSpot and Computer Gaming World, and won the Vault Network's Game of the Year for 1999. PC Gamer US named Planescape: Torment "Game of the Month" in their March 2000 issue (the issue in which the game's review appeared). The magazine also nominated Torment for its 1999 "Best Roleplaying Game" award, which ultimately went to System Shock 2. At the 3rd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, Planescape: Torment was named as a finalist by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences for "Computer Adventure/Role-Playing Game of the Year" and "Outstanding Achievement in Character or Story Development". In 2006, The A.V. Club included Planescape: Torment in their list of "11 of Video Gaming's Strangest Moments", due to the game's use of death as a means to advance the plot. In 2006, Gamasutra polled video game industry professionals with the question: "Which role playing game over the entire history of the genre do you think has made the biggest 'quantum leap', and why?". Planescape: Torment was ranked second overall after Fallout, earning it a "Quantum Leap Award". The game also received an honorable mention for the same awards in the "Storytelling" category. In December 2008, IGN praised the game as having "some of the best writing and characterization seen in gaming". In 2009, Bit-tech included Planescape: Torment on their list of "30 PC Games to Play Before You Die". Avellone was awarded Eurogamer's "Gaming Globe" award for Best Designer in 2000 for his work on Planescape: Torment, and The Nameless One was considered to be the Best Male Lead Character. IGN ranked Planescape: Torment second on their list of "The Top 11 Dungeons & Dragons Games of All Time" in 2014. Ian Williams of Paste rated the game \#1 on his list of "The 10 Greatest Dungeons and Dragons Videogames" in 2015. PC Gamer included Torment on their best RPGs on PC list. It was placed at No. 13 on Game Informer's "Top 100 RPGs Of All Time" list, and was included among PCGamesN's "best RPGs on PC" as well. ### Sales In the United States, Planescape: Torment sold 73,000 copies by March 2000, a figure that Desslock of Computer Gaming World regarded as substandard. Comparing the game's commercial performance to that of Ultima IX: Ascension, Desslock remarked that "most of Torment's sales have been in the year 2000, while Ascension's sales were predominently in 1999, even though Ascension was released later in 1999 than Torment." He attributed Torment's relative sales growth in its second year to positive reviews and word of mouth. In the United Kingdom, Torment appeared at \#3 on Chart-Track's weekly computer game sales list for the January 9–15, 2000 period. The game remained in the Chart-Track weekly top 5 for another two weeks, and secured a third-place debut on the firm's monthly top 10. Richie Shoemaker of PC Zone noted at the time, "January saw only one new release make an impact: the bizarre role-player from Black Isle Studios, Planescape: Torment." In the German market, the game sold 50,000 units by mid-2000, after debuting at \#6 on the charts in January. It proceeded to claim positions 12, 30 and 53 from February through April. According to PC Player, Virgin Interactive was "only slightly disappointed" by its commercial performance in the region; writer Udo Hoffman noted that the game by nature was tailored to "a more mature and therefore smaller target group." Ernest Adams of Gamasutra later described Torment's overall performance as a "commercial disappointment". According to Chris Avellone, the game was not a major monetary success, but was ultimately profitable. In 2017, Brian Fargo estimated the game's lifetime retail sales as roughly 400,000 units. ## Legacy The game was re-released on DVD in 2009, and for purchase on GOG.com on September 28, 2010. Following the announcement of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, Beamdog's Overhaul Games announced their intention to make overhauls of more games set in the Dungeons & Dragons universes, at first naming only Planescape: Torment. They said that such a release would depend on the success of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. In November 2012, Penny Arcade Report wrote that Brian Fargo, the head of inXile Entertainment, had acquired the rights to Torment. In January 2013, Brian Fargo announced that the spiritual successor, titled Torment: Tides of Numenera, was in production and would be set in the Numenera universe created by Monte Cook. The game's design was led by Colin McComb, who helped design both the Planescape setting and Torment, and was released in February 2017. ### Enhanced Edition Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition'', an upgraded version of the game, was created by Beamdog and released on April 11, 2017. It was announced in March 2017 for Windows, macOS, and Linux PCs, as well as for iOS and Android devices. It features similar improvements that Beamdog has done for the other enhanced editions. Avellone provided assistance by helping to curate the improvements to the game. Beamdog had access to the original source code and design documents for the game, and through that were able to recover and include some content that was dropped from the original release, using Avellone's assistance to flesh out parts that were incomplete or missing. They otherwise did not significantly change the game, with the studio's CEO Trent Oster saying that making larger improvements to their work would have been comparable to "basically going in and repainting the smile on the Mona Lisa here". Skybound Games, a division of Skybound Entertainment, released Beamdog's remastered version to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on October 15, 2019.
262,120	Operation Uranus	1,159,639,239	1942 Soviet strategic operation in World War II	[ "1942 in the Soviet Union", "Battle of Stalingrad", "Battles and operations of the Soviet–German War", "Conflicts in 1942", "Encirclements in World War II", "Military operations of World War II involving Germany", "November 1942 events" ]	Operation Uranus (Russian: Опера́ция «Ура́н», romanized: Operatsiya "Uran") was the codename of the Soviet Red Army's 19–23 November 1942 strategic operation on the Eastern Front of World War II which led to the encirclement of Axis forces in the vicinity of Stalingrad: the German Sixth Army, the Third and Fourth Romanian armies, and portions of the German Fourth Panzer Army. The Red Army carried out the operation at roughly the midpoint of the five-month long Battle of Stalingrad, aiming to destroy German forces in and around Stalingrad. Planning for Operation Uranus had commenced in September 1942, and developed simultaneously with plans to envelop and destroy German Army Group Center (Operation Mars) and German forces in the Caucasus. Due to the length of the front lines created by the German 1942 summer offensive, which had aimed at taking the Caucasus oil fields and the city of Stalingrad, German and other Axis forces were over-extended. The German decision to transfer several mechanized divisions from the Soviet Union to Western Europe exacerbated their situation. Furthermore, Axis units in the area were depleted by months of fighting, especially those which had taken part in the struggle for Stalingrad. The Germans could only count on the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps, which had the strength of a single panzer division, and the 29th Panzergrenadier Division as reserves to bolster their Romanian allies guarding the German Sixth Army's flanks. These Romanian armies lacked the heavy equipment to deal with Soviet armor. In contrast, the Red Army deployed over one million personnel for the offensive. Soviet troop movements were not without problems: concealing their build-up proved difficult, and Soviet units commonly arrived late due to logistical issues. Operation Uranus was first postponed by the Soviet high command (Stavka) from 8 to 17 November, then to 19 November. At 07:20 Moscow time on 19 November, Soviet forces assaulted the northern flank of the Axis forces at Stalingrad; attacks in the south began the next day. Although the Romanian units succeeded in repelling the first Soviet attacks, by the end of 20 November the Third and Fourth Romanian armies were in headlong retreat, as the Red Army bypassed several German infantry divisions. German mobile reserves proved too weak to parry the Soviet mechanized spearheads, while the Sixth Army did not react quickly or decisively enough to disengage German armored forces in Stalingrad and re-orient them to countering the impending threat. By late 22 November, the northern and southern Soviet forces linked up at the town of Kalach, encircling some 290,000 Axis personnel east of the Don River. Instead of attempting to break out of the encirclement, German leader Adolf Hitler decided to keep Axis forces in Stalingrad and to resupply them by air. ## Background On 28 June 1942, the Wehrmacht began its offensive against Soviet forces opposite of Army Group South, codenamed Case Blue. After breaking through Red Army forces by 13 July, German forces encircled and captured the city of Rostov. Following the fall of Rostov, Hitler split German forces operating in the southern extremity of the southern Russian SFSR in an effort to simultaneously capture the city of Stalingrad and the Caucasus oil fields. The responsibility to take Stalingrad was given to the Sixth Army, which immediately turned towards the Volga River and began its advance with heavy air support from the Luftwaffe's Luftflotte 4. On 7 August, two German panzer corps were able to flank and encircle a Soviet force of 50,000 personnel and approximately 1,000 tanks, and on 22 August German forces began to cross the Don River to complete the advance towards the Volga. The following day, the Battle of Stalingrad began when vanguards of the Sixth Army penetrated the suburbs of the city. By November the Sixth Army had occupied most of Stalingrad, pushing the defending Red Army to the banks of the Volga River. By this stage, there were indications of an impending Soviet offensive which would target Wehrmacht forces around the city, including increased Soviet activity opposite the Sixth Army's flanks, and information gained through the interrogation of Soviet prisoners. The German command remained focused upon finalizing its capture of Stalingrad and were unsure of where or when the counterattack would take place. Actions were taken to provide a reserve behind the Italian and Romanian armies, with 6th Panzer Division and two additional infantry divisions ordered to Russia from France. However, this move would only be completed by December. Head of Army General Staff General Franz Halder had been dismissed in September after his efforts to warn about the danger which was developing along the over-extended flanks of the Sixth Army and the Fourth Panzer Army. As early as September the Soviet Stavka (high command) began planning a series of counteroffensives to encompass the destruction of German forces in the south, fighting in Stalingrad and in the Caucasus, and against Army Group Center. Ultimately, command of Soviet efforts to relieve Stalingrad was put under the leadership of General Aleksandr Vasilevsky. The Stavka developed two major operations to be conducted against Axis forces near Stalingrad, Uranus and Saturn, and also planned for Operation Mars, designed to engage German Army Group Center in an effort to distract reinforcements and to inflict as much damage as possible. Operation Uranus involved the use of large Soviet mechanized and infantry forces to encircle German and other Axis forces directly around Stalingrad. As preparations for the offensive commenced, the attack's starting points were positioned on stretches of front to the rear of the German Sixth Army, largely preventing the Germans from reinforcing those sectors quickly where Axis units were too overstretched to occupy effectively. The offensive was a double envelopment; Soviet mechanized forces would penetrate deep into the German rear, while another attack would be made closer to the German Sixth Army in an effort to attack German units there directly in the rear. While the Red Army prepared, the German high commanders—influenced by their belief that the Red Army, building up opposite German Army Group Center to the north, was incapable of mounting a simultaneous offensive in the south—continued to deny the possibility of an impending Soviet offensive. ## Comparison of forces ### Axis Case Blue involved German and other Axis forces sprawled out across a front over 480 kilometers (300 mi) wide and several hundred kilometers deep, while the decision to conquer Stalingrad had stretched Axis forces even more thinly by drawing away personnel eastwards. For example, in early July, the Sixth Army was defending a 160-kilometer (100 mi) line, while also committing to an offensive which involved a distance of around 400 kilometers (250 mi). Army Group B, which was split from Army Group South (the forces operating around the Caucasus were named Army Group A), seemed strong on paper: it included the Second and Sixth German, Fourth Panzer, Fourth and Third Romanian, Eighth Italian, and Second Hungarian Armies. Army Group B had the 48th Panzer Corps, which had the strength of a weakened panzer division, and a single infantry division as reserves. For the most part the German flanks were held by arriving non-German Axis armies, while German forces were used to spearhead continued operations in Stalingrad and in the Caucasus. While Adolf Hitler expressed confidence in the ability of non-German Axis units to protect German flanks, in reality these units relied on largely obsolete equipment and horse-drawn artillery, while in many cases the harsh treatment of enlisted personnel by officers caused poor morale. In regard to mechanization, the First Romanian Armored Division was equipped with around 100 Czech-built R-2 tanks, armed with a 37-millimeter (1.5 in) gun ineffective against the armor of Soviet T-34 tanks. Similarly, their 37-millimeter (1.5 in) PaK anti-tank guns were also antiquated and they were largely short of ammunition. Only after repeated requests did the Germans send the Romanian units 75-millimeter (3.0 in) PaK guns; six per division. These units were extended over very large sections of front; for example, the Third Romanian Army occupied a line 140 kilometers (87 mi) long, while the Fourth Romanian Army protected a line no less than 270 kilometers (170 mi) long. The Italians and Hungarians were positioned at the Don west of the Third Romanian Army, but the German commanders did not hold in high regard the capability of those units to fight. Generally, German forces were in no better shape; they were weakened by months of fighting the Red Army, and, while Stavka raised new armies, the German high command attempted to maintain its existing mechanized units. Furthermore, during the course of the German offensive between May and November 1942, two motorized divisions, the elite Leibstandarte and the Großdeutschland, were redeployed from Army Group A to the West, to provide a mechanized reserve in case of an Allied landing in France. The Sixth Army had also suffered many casualties during the fighting in the city of Stalingrad proper. In some cases, such as that of the 22nd Panzer Division, their equipment was no better than that of the First Romanian Armored Division. German formations were also overextended along large stretches of front; the XI Army Corps, for example, had to defend a front around 100 kilometers (62 mi) long. ### Soviet The Red Army allocated an estimated 1,100,000 personnel, 804 tanks, 13,400 artillery pieces and over 1,000 aircraft for the upcoming offensive. Across the Third Romanian Army, the Soviets placed the redeployed 5th Tank Army, as well as the 21st and 65th Armies, in order to penetrate and overrun the German flanks. The German southern flank was targeted by the Stalingrad Front's 51st and 57th Armies, led by the 13th and 4th Mechanized Corps; these would punch through the Fourth Romanian Army, in order to link up with the 5th Tank Army near the town of Kalach. In total, the Soviets had amassed 11 armies and various independent tank brigades and corps. Preparations for the offensive were, however, far from perfect; on 8 November, Stavka issued orders to postpone the launch date of the operation, because transportation delays had prevented many units from being able to move into place. In the meantime, units at the front went through a number of war games to practice repelling an enemy counterattack and exploiting a breakthrough with mechanized forces. These movements were masked through a deception campaign by the Soviets, including the decrease of radio traffic, camouflage, operational security, using couriers for communication instead of radio, and active deception, such as increasing troop movements around Moscow. Troops were ordered to build defensive fortifications, to offer false impressions to the Germans, while fake bridges were put up to divert attention from the real bridges being built across the Don River. The Red Army also stepped up attacks against Army Group Center and set up dummy formations to maintain the idea of a main offensive against German forces in the center. The Soviet Stalingrad Front forces were subject to heavy bombardment, making mobilization more difficult. The 38 engineer battalions allocated to the front were responsible for ferrying ammunition, personnel and tanks across the Volga River while carrying out minor reconnaissance along sections of the front which were to be the breakthrough points of the impending offensive. In three weeks the Red Army transported around 111,000 soldiers, 420 tanks and 556 artillery pieces across the Volga. On 17 November Vasilevsky was recalled to Moscow, where he was shown a letter written to Stalin by General Volsky, commander of the 4th Mechanized Corps, who urged calling off the offensive. Volsky believed the offensive as planned was doomed to failure due to the state of the forces earmarked for the operation; he suggested postponing the offensive and redesigning it entirely. Many Soviet soldiers had not been issued with winter garments, and many died of frostbite, "due to the irresponsible attitude of commanders". Although Soviet intelligence made honest efforts to collect as much information as possible on the disposition of the Axis forces arrayed in front of them, there was not much information on the state of the German Sixth Army. Vasilevsky wanted to call off the offensive. The Soviet commanders, overruling Vasilevsky, agreed the offensive would not be called off, and Stalin personally rang Volsky, who reiterated his intention to carry out the operation if ordered to do so. ## Soviet offensive Operation Uranus, postponed until 17 November, was again postponed for two days when Soviet General Georgy Zhukov was told the air units allotted to the operation were not ready; it was finally launched on 19 November. Shortly after 5 a.m. Lieutenant Gerhard Stöck, posted with the Romanian IV Army Corps on the Kletskaya sector called Sixth Army headquarters housed in Golubinsky, offering intelligence on a pending attack which would occur after 05:00 that morning; however, because his call had come in after five and false alarms were common during this time, the duty officer on the other end of the line was not keen on waking the Army Chief of Staff, General Arthur Schmidt. Although Soviet commanders suggested postponing the bombardment due to poor visibility from thick fog, front headquarters decided to proceed. At 07:20 Moscow time (05:20 German time) Soviet artillery commanders received the codeword "Siren", prompting an 80-minute artillery bombardment directed almost entirely against the non-German Axis units protecting the German flanks. At 07:30, the Katyusha rocket-launchers fired the first salvos and were soon joined by the 3,500 guns and mortars stretching along the few breakthrough sectors in front of the Third Romanian Army and the northern shoulder of the German Sixth Army's flank. Although thick fog prevented the Soviet artillery from correcting their aim, their weeks of preparation and ranging allowed them to lay down accurate fire on enemy positions along the front. The effect was devastating, as communication lines were breached, ammunition dumps destroyed and forward observation points shattered. Many Romanian personnel who survived the bombardment began to flee to the rear. Soviet heavy artillery aimed at Romanian artillery positions and second-echelon formations also caught the retreating Romanian soldiers. ### Against the Third Romanian Army: 19 November The offensive against the Third Romanian Army began at 08:50, led by the 21st and 65th Soviet Armies and the 5th Tank Army. The first two assaults were repulsed by the Romanian defenders, and the effects of the heavy artillery bombardment had actually made it more difficult for Soviet armor to navigate through the minefields and terrain. However, the lack of heavy anti-tank artillery caused the Romanian defense to collapse; a breakthrough by the 4th Tank Corps and 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps was established by noon. Soon after, the 5th Tank Army was able to gain a breakthrough against the Second Romanian Corps, followed by the Eighth Cavalry Corps. As Soviet armor navigated through the thick fog by compass, overrunning Romanian and German artillery positions, three Romanian infantry divisions began to fall back in disarray; the Third Romanian Army had been outflanked to the west and east. After receiving the news of the Soviet attack, Sixth Army headquarters failed to order the 16th and 24th Panzer Divisions, hitherto engaged in Stalingrad, to reorient themselves to bolster the Romanian defenses; instead the task was given to the seriously understrength and poorly equipped 48th Panzer Corps. The 48th Panzer Corps had fewer than 100 serviceable modern tanks. Furthermore, they lacked fuel, and the shortage of tanks forced commanders to organize tank crews into infantry companies; the 22nd Panzer Division, which formed part of the corps, was almost completely destroyed in the fighting that ensued. The 22nd had entered the fighting with fewer than thirty working tanks, and left with a company of tanks. The Romanian 1st Armored Division, attached to the 48th Panzer Corps, engaged the Soviet 26th Tank Corps after having lost communications with their German corps commanders, and were defeated by 20 November. As the Soviets continued to advance southwards, many Soviet tank crews began to suffer from the worsening blizzard, which affected men and equipment and blocked gunsights. It was not uncommon for tanks to lose traction and for crew members to break their arm from being tossed around inside the hull. However, the blizzard also neutralized the German corps' coordination. The rout of the Third Romanian Army began by the end of 19 November. The Soviet 21st Army and 5th Tank Army captured 27,000 Romanians—the bulk of three divisions—and then continued their advance southwards. Soviet cavalry was used to exploit the breakthrough, sever communications between the Romanians and the Italian 8th Army, and to block any counterattack against the Soviet flank. While the Red Air Force strafed retreating Romanian soldiers, the Luftwaffe provided only negligible opposition. The withdrawal of the 1st Romanian Cavalry Division, originally positioned on the German 376th Infantry Division's flank, allowed the 65th Army to bypass German defenses. As German forces began to react late on 19 November, another attack was launched on the Sixth Army's southern flank. ### Against the German southern flank: 20 November In the early morning of 20 November Stavka telephoned Stalingrad Front commander Andrei Yeremenko asking if he would begin his portion of the offensive on schedule, at 08:00. He responded he would do so only if the fog lifted; although the 51st Army opened its artillery barrage on time because front headquarters could not contact the division, the rest of the forces prepared for the operation received orders to postpone the attack until 10:00. The 51st Army engaged the Romanian 6th Corps, taking many prisoners. As the 57th Army joined the attack at 10:00, the situation developed in such a way that the Stalingrad Front could throw its armored corps into battle. The German 297th Infantry Division watched as its Romanian support failed to put up resistance against the Red Army. However, confusion and lack of control caused the Soviet 4th and 13th Mechanized Corps to stumble as they began to exploit the breakthroughs achieved by the opening offensive. The Germans responded quickly by redeploying their only reserve in the area, the 29th Panzergrenadier Division. Despite initial victories against Soviet armored forces, the Romanian collapse forced the division to again redeploy in an attempt to shore up defenses to the south. The 29th Panzergrenadier Division's counterattack cost the Red Army around fifty tanks, and caused Soviet commanders to worry about the safety of their left flank. However, the German division's redeployment meant that by the end of the day only the 6th Romanian Cavalry Regiment stood between advancing Soviet forces and the Don River. ### Continued operations: 20–23 November While the Stalingrad Front launched its offensive on 20 November, the 65th Soviet Army continued to apply pressure to the German 11th Corps along the northern shoulder of the Sixth Army's flank. The Red Army's 4th Tank Corps advanced beyond the German 11th Corps, while the 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps crashed into the German unit's rear. The German 376th Infantry Division and the Austrian 44th Infantry Division began to redeploy to face the enemy on their flanks, but were hindered by shortage of fuel. The 14th Panzer Division's panzer regiment destroyed a flanking regiment of the Soviet 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps, but its anti-tank artillery suffered heavy casualties when it was overrun by Soviet forces. By the end of the day the Soviet 1st Tank Corps was chasing the retreating 48th Panzer Corps, while the Soviet 26th Tank Corps had captured the town of Perelazovsky, almost 130 kilometers (81 mi) to the northwest of Stalingrad. The Red Army's offensive continued on 21 November, with forces of the Stalingrad Front achieving penetrations of up to 50 kilometers (31 mi). By this time remaining Romanian units in the north were being destroyed in isolated battles, while the Red Army began to engage flanking portions of the German Fourth Panzer and Sixth Armies. The German 22nd Panzer Division, despite attempting a short counterattack, was reduced to little more than a tank company and forced to withdraw to the southwest. The Soviet 26th Tank Corps, having destroyed a large portion of the Romanian 1st Armored Division, continued its advance to the southeast, avoiding engaging enemy left behind, although remnants of the Romanian 5th Corps were able to reorganize and put up a hastily constructed defense in the hope that it would be aided by the German 48th Panzer Corps. Surrounded by 5th Tank Army on one side and 21st Army on the other, the bulk of 3rd Romanian Army was isolated in the region of Raspopinskaya where General Lascăr took control of the remnants of 4th and 5th Corps, whereas the neighboring 1st Armored Division was still trying to break free and link with 22nd Panzer Division. That day German General Friedrich Paulus, commander of the Sixth Army, received reports that the Soviets were less than 40 kilometers (25 mi) from his headquarters; furthermore, there were no remaining units which could contest the Soviet advance. In the south, after a brief halt, the Soviet 4th Mechanized Corps continued its advance north, removing German defenders from several towns in the area, towards Stalingrad. As German forces in and around Stalingrad were at risk, Hitler ordered German forces in the area to establish an "all-around defensive position" and designated forces between the Don and Volga rivers as "Fortress Stalingrad", rather than allow the Sixth Army to attempt to break out. The Sixth Army, other Axis units, and most of the Fourth Panzer Army's German units were caught inside the growing Soviet encirclement. Only the 16th Panzergrenadier Division began to fight its way out. Lack of coordination between Soviet tanks and infantry as the Red Army's tank corps attempted to exploit the breakthrough along the Germans' southern flank allowed much of the Fourth Romanian Army to escape destruction. On 22 November Soviet forces began to cross the Don River and continued their advance towards the town of Kalach-on-the-Don. German forces defending Kalach, mostly composed of maintenance and supply personnel, were not aware of the Soviet offensive until 21 November, and even then did not know in what strength the Red Army was approaching. The task of taking the bridge at Kalach was given to the Soviet 26th Tank Corps, which used two captured German tanks and a reconnaissance vehicle to approach it and fire on the guards. Soviet forces broke into the town by mid-morning and drove the defenders out, allowing themselves and the 4th Tank Corps to link up with the Red Army's 4th Mechanized Corps approaching from the south. Meanwhile, on a later date of Dec.13, the 26th Tank Corps split of southwards along the Liska river inlet in a small advance towards a bridge near the town of Nish Tschirskaya. The reason for the attack was not only to push the German forces away from the railroads leading to Stalingrad but to also cut the support provided to the German 6th army still surrounded near the Don. The Russian forces had attacked the German positions with a bombardment from BM-13 Katyusha rocket launchers which were followed by a tank attack of mostly T-34s. The attack lead to the retreat of the German forces in the area. The attack encirclement of German forces in Stalingrad was completed on 22 November 1942. That day Soviet formations also continued to fight pockets of Romanian resistance, such as that put up by the Romanian 5th Corps. The encirclement of 6th Army was effective on 23 November. Around 16:00, near the village of Sovetsky, the forward detachments of 36th Mechanized Brigade from the Stalingrad Front's 4th Mechanized Corps sighted the approaching tanks of 45th Brigade from the Southwestern Front's 4th Tank Corps. At first they mistook them for Germans because they did not fire green flares as was agreed for a reconnaissance signal and several tanks were damaged in a short exchange of fire. After clarification the linkup was achieved. It was reenacted later for the newsreels. The junction between the armored troops of 21st and 51st Armies from Vatutin's and Yeremenko's fronts completed the surrounding of Paulus's group of forces: two German armies among the most powerful in the Heer, 22 divisions and 150 separate regiments or battalions, and an enormous amount of materiel. Never before in the war were so many troops of the German army caught together. Such a feat was so unusual that the Stavka's own initial estimation of the encircled enemy force was only a quarter of its actual strength, because besides the fighting troops there was a huge number of extra personnel from various professions, engineer sections, Luftwaffe ground staff and others. Fighting continued on 23 November as the Germans attempted in vain to mount local counterattacks to break the encirclement. By this time Axis personnel inside the encirclement moved east towards Stalingrad to avoid Soviet tanks, while those that managed to escape the encirclement moved west toward German and other Axis forces. ## Aftermath Operation Uranus trapped between 250,000 and 300,000 Axis soldiers within an area stretching 50 kilometers (31 mi) from east to west and 40 kilometers (25 mi) north to south. The pocket contained four infantry corps, a panzer corps belonging to the Fourth Panzer and Sixth Armies, and surviving elements of two Romanian divisions, a Croatian infantry regiment and other specialist units. Trapped equipment included around 100 tanks, 2,000 artillery pieces and mortars and 10,000 trucks. The withdrawal to Stalingrad left lines of retreat littered with helmets, weapons and other equipment, and heavy equipment which had been destroyed was left on the side of the road. Bridges spanning the Don River were jammed with traffic, as surviving Axis soldiers hastily made their way westwards in the cold weather, attempting to escape Soviet armor and infantry threatening to cut them off from Stalingrad. Many wounded Axis personnel were trampled, and many of those who attempted to cross the river on foot on the ice fell through and drowned. Hungry soldiers filled Russian villages scouring for supplies, while supply dumps were often looted in search of cans of food. The last stragglers crossed the Don River by 24 November, and demolished the bridges to seal off the Fourth Panzer and Sixth Armies from the Soviets in Stalingrad. The Sixth Army, in the midst of chaos, began to build defensive lines, hampered by the lack of fuel, ammunition and rations, and further burdened by the advancing Russian winter. It was also tasked with plugging gaps in the line caused by the disintegrating Romanian forces. On 23 November, some German units destroyed or burned everything not necessary for a breakout operation and began to pull back towards the northern end of Stalingrad. However, after the Germans had abandoned their winter bunkers, the Soviet 62nd Army was able to destroy the German 94th Infantry Division on the open ground; survivors of the German division were attached to the 16th and 24th Panzer Divisions. Although German military commanders were of the opinion that Heer forces caught in the encirclement should break out, between 23 and 24 November Hitler decided instead to hold the position and attempt to resupply the Sixth Army by air. The personnel trapped in Stalingrad would require at least 680 tonnes (750 short tons) of supplies per day, a task which the depleted Luftwaffe was in no condition to carry out. Furthermore, the revived Red Air Force was a threat to German aircraft attempting to fly over the encirclement. Although by December the Luftwaffe had assembled a fleet of around 500 aircraft, this was still insufficient to supply the Sixth Army and elements of the Fourth Panzer Army with the required supplies. During the first half of December the Sixth Army received less than 20% of their daily requirements. In the meantime, the Red Army strengthened its outer encirclement with the intention of destroying the encircled German units. Soviet armies would attack German units to the east and the south, aiming to split German units into smaller groups. These orders became effective on 24 November, and were to be executed without a major regrouping or movement of reserves. The outer encirclement ran for an estimated 320 kilometers (200 mi), although only three-quarters of that distance was actually covered by Soviet troops; the distance between the outer and inner encirclements was around 16 kilometers (10 mi). The Soviet high command also began planning for Operation Saturn, which was aimed at destroying the Italian Eighth Army and cutting off German forces in the Caucasus. The Soviet Stavka planned Saturn to start on about 10 December. German forces in the area had been further split up, as German general Erich von Manstein was given command of the newly created Army Group Don, comprising the German Fourth Panzer and Sixth Armies, and the Third and Fourth Romanian Armies. Although the situation looked bleak for the Germans, a moment of relative calm had settled after the end of Operation Uranus; German and Soviet forces were planning their next movements. ## See also - Romanian Armies in the Battle of Stalingrad - Operation Little Saturn
12,748,526	Double Seven Day scuffle	1,172,109,118	1963 altercation in Saigon, South Vietnam	[ "1963 in South Vietnam", "1963 in international relations", "20th century in Ho Chi Minh City", "Buddhist crisis", "Conflicts in 1963", "Persecution of Buddhists", "South Vietnam–United States relations" ]	The Double Seven Day Scuffle was a physical altercation on July 7, 1963, in Saigon, South Vietnam. The secret police of Ngô Đình Nhu—the brother of President Ngô Đình Diệm—attacked a group of US journalists who were covering protests held by Buddhists on the ninth anniversary of Diệm's rise to power. Peter Arnett of the Associated Press (AP) was punched on the nose, and the quarrel quickly ended after David Halberstam of The New York Times, being much taller than Nhu's men, counterattacked and caused the secret police to retreat. Arnett and his colleague, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and photographer Malcolm Browne, were later accosted by policemen at their office and taken away for questioning on suspicion of attacking policemen. After their release, the journalists went to the US embassy in Saigon to complain about their treatment at the hands of Diệm's officials and asked for US government protection. Their appeals were dismissed, as was a direct appeal to the White House. Through the efforts of US Ambassador Frederick Nolting, the assault charges laid against the journalists were subsequently dropped. Vietnamese Buddhists reacted to the incident by contending that Diệm's men were planning to assassinate monks, while Madame Nhu repeated earlier claims that the US government had been trying to overthrow her brother-in-law. Browne took photographs of Arnett's bloodied face, which were published in newspapers worldwide. This drew further negative attention to the behavior of the Diệm régime amidst the backdrop of the Buddhist crisis. ## Background The incident occurred during a period of popular unrest by the Buddhist majority against the Catholic rule of Diệm. Buddhist discontent had grown since the Huế Phật Đản shootings on May 8, 1963. The government decided to selectively invoke a law, prohibiting the display of religious flags, by banning the use of the Buddhist flag on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. One week earlier, the Vatican flag had been flown at a celebration for Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục, Diệm's brother. The Buddhists defied the ban, flying their flags on Vesak and holding a demonstration, which was ended with government gunfire and eight or nine deaths. The killings sparked nationwide protests by South Vietnam's Buddhist majority against the policies of Diệm's regime. The Buddhists demanded that Diệm give them religious equality, but with their demands unfulfilled, the protests increased in magnitude. The most notable of these was the self-immolation of Thích Quảng Đức on June 11, which was iconically photographed by the media and became a negative symbol of the Diệm régime. Known as Double Seven Day, July 7 was the ninth anniversary of Diệm's 1954 ascension to Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam. In October 1955, following a fraudulent referendum, Diệm established the Republic of Vietnam, generally known as South Vietnam, and declared himself President. The night of July 6, 1963, had started in a festive mood as Diệm awarded decorations to military officers at a ceremony. Among those in the audience were Generals Trần Văn Đôn and Dương Văn Minh, the Chief of Staff of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and the Presidential Military Advisor, respectively. They had returned from observing SEATO military exercises in Thailand, where they had been informed about the regional disquiet over Diem's policies towards the Buddhists. ## Incident American pressmen had been alerted to an upcoming Buddhist demonstration to coincide with Double Seven Day at Chanatareansey Pagoda in the north of Saigon. The nine-man group, which included Arnett, Browne, AP photographer Horst Faas, David Halberstam, Neil Sheehan of United Press International, and CBS's Peter Kalischer and photographer Joseph Masraf waited outside the building with their equipment. After an hour-long religious ceremony, the Buddhist monks, numbering around 300, filed out of the pagoda into a narrow alley along a side street, where they were blocked and ordered to stop by plain-clothed policemen. The Buddhists did not resist, but Arnett and Browne began taking photos of the confrontation. The police, who were loyal to Ngô Đình Nhu, thereupon punched Arnett in the nose, knocked him to the ground, kicked him with their pointed-toe shoes, and broke his camera. Halberstam, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Buddhist crisis, was a tall man, standing around 20 centimetres (8 in) taller than the average Vietnamese policeman. He waded into the fracas swinging his arms, reportedly saying "Get back, get back, you sons of bitches, or I'll beat the shit out of you!" Nhu's men ran away without waiting for a Vietnamese translation, but not before Browne had clambered up a power pole and taken photos of Arnett's bloodied face. The police smashed Browne's camera, but his photographic film survived the impact. The other journalists were jostled and rocks were thrown at them. Photos of Arnett's bloodied face were circulated in US newspapers and caused further ill-feeling towards Diệm's regime, with the images of the burning Thích Quảng Đức on the front pages still fresh in the minds of the public. Halberstam's report estimated that the altercation lasted for around ten minutes and also admitted that the pressmen had tried to apprehend the policeman who had smashed Browne's camera but were shielded by the rock-wielding policeman's colleagues. He also claimed that the secret policemen had also tried to seize equipment from Masraf and Faas. Diem's address on Double Seven Day worsened the mood of Vietnamese society. He stated that the "problems raised by the General Association of Buddhists have just been settled." He reinforced perceptions that he was out of touch by attributing any lingering problems to the "underground intervention of international red agents and Communist fellow travelers who in collusion with fascist ideologues disguised as democrats were surreptitiously seeking to revive and rekindle disunity at home while arousing public opinions against us abroad". The remark about fascists was seen as a reference to the conspiratorial ĐVQDĐ who had long been enemies of Diem, but his address attacked all those who had criticised him in the past. He no longer trusted anyone outside his family and considered himself to be a martyr. ## Reaction The indignant reporters stridently accused the Diem regime of causing the altercation, whereas the police claimed that the journalists threw the first punch. Embassy official John Mecklin noted that even Diem's media officials were privately skeptical about the veracity of the testimony of Nhu's men. In a heated meeting at the embassy, the press corps demanded that William Trueheart, the acting US Ambassador to South Vietnam in the absence of the vacationing Frederick Nolting, deliver a formal protest to Diem on behalf of the American government. Trueheart angered them by refusing to do so and blaming both sides for the confrontation. He said that he did not believe a formal protest was possible given that it could not be proven that the violence was pre-meditated but claimed to believe the journalists' version of events. He also noted that Vietnamese officials had claimed that incident was simply a matter of "a few people lost their heads". In his report to Washington, Trueheart asserted that the uniformed policemen had tacitly helped their plainclothed counterparts, but he also had "no doubt that [the] reporters, at least once [the] fracas had started, acted in [a] belligerent manner towards [the] police". Trueheart contended that since the journalists had a long history of bad blood with the Diem regime, their word could not be taken over that of the Vietnamese police. Later on the same day, the US State Department released a statement in Washington DC, announcing that the Saigon Embassy had informally complained to and asked Diem's regime for an explanation regarding the incident, and said that officials were studying various accounts of the incident and that it was American policy to look out for the interests of their citizens regardless of their background or occupation. Since the embassy was unwilling to provide government protection against police aggression, the journalists appealed directly to the White House. Browne, Halberstam, Sheehan and Kalischer wrote a letter to US President John F. Kennedy, asserting that the regime had begun a full-scale campaign of "open physical intimidation to prevent the covering of news which we feel Americans have a right to know", which was noted by the press secretary Pierre Salinger. The protests did not garner any Presidential sympathy for the journalists, but instead resulted in trouble from their media employers. UPI's Tokyo office criticised Sheehan for trying to "make Unipress policy" on his own when "Unipress must be neutral, neither pro-Diem, pro-Communist or pro-anybody else". Emanuel Freedman, the foreign editor of The New York Times reprimanded Halberstam, writing "We still feel that our correspondents should not be firing off cables to the President of the United States without authorization." The incident provoked reactions from both the Buddhists and the Diem regime. A monk called on the US embassy to send a military unit from the American advisors already present in Vietnam to Xá Lợi Pagoda, the main Buddhist temple in Saigon and the organisational hub of the Buddhist movement. The monk claimed that the attack on Arnett indicated that Xá Lợi's monks were targets of assassination by Nhu's men, something that Trueheart rejected, turning down the protection request. Xá Lợi and other Buddhist centers across the country were raided a month later by Special Forces under the direct control of the Diem family. On the part of the South Vietnamese government, the de facto first lady Madame Nhu used her English-language mouthpiece newspaper, the Times of Vietnam, to accuse the United States of supporting the failed coup attempt against Diem in 1960. ## Arrest and interrogation Later on during the day of the altercation, the police collected Browne and Arnett from the AP bureau in Saigon and took the pair to what they described as a "safe house". The police interrogators said that they would be arrested but were unspecific about the charges. One charge was that of assaulting two police officers, but the interrogators hinted that more serious offences such as organising illegal demonstrations were being considered. The officers conversed among themselves in French, a language which the reporters did not speak, but Arnett thought that they mentioned the word espionage. After four hours of questioning, the pair were charged with assault. Browne and Arnett in turn filed charges against the police over the altercation, and demanded compensation for the damage to their photographic equipment. Arnett and Browne were temporarily released in the evening, after which the whole Saigon press corps stormed the US embassy. Browne and Arnett were called in for five hours of questioning on the following day. Arnett was accompanied by a British embassy official who, reflecting Arnett's New Zealand citizenship, provided consular assistance on behalf of Wellington. In the end, Diem agreed to have the charges against Browne and Arnett dropped after hours of heated argument with US Ambassador Frederick Nolting, who had returned from his vacation.
5,595,163	Ceres (dwarf planet)	1,173,772,934	Dwarf planet in the asteroid belt	[ "Active asteroids", "Articles containing video clips", "Astronomical objects discovered in 1801", "Background asteroids", "C-type asteroids (SMASS)", "Ceres (dwarf planet)", "Discoveries by Giuseppe Piazzi", "Dwarf planets", "G-type asteroids (Tholen)", "Minor planets visited by spacecraft", "Named minor planets", "Objects observed by stellar occultation" ]	Ceres (pronounced /ˈsɪəriːz/ SEER-eez), minor-planet designation 1 Ceres, is a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It was the first asteroid discovered, on 1 January 1801, by Giuseppe Piazzi at Palermo Astronomical Observatory in Sicily and announced as a new planet. Ceres was later classified as an asteroid and then a dwarf planet – the only one always inside Neptune's orbit. Ceres's small size means that even at its brightest, it is too dim to be seen by the naked eye, except under extremely dark skies. Its apparent magnitude ranges from 6.7 to 9.3, peaking at opposition (when it is closest to Earth) once every 15- to 16-month synodic period. As a result, its surface features are barely visible even with the most powerful telescopes, and little was known about it until the robotic NASA spacecraft Dawn approached Ceres for its orbital mission in 2015. Dawn found Ceres's surface to be a mixture of water ice, and hydrated minerals such as carbonates and clay. Gravity data suggest Ceres to be partially differentiated into a muddy (ice-rock) mantle/core and a less dense but stronger crust that is at most 30% ice by volume. Although Ceres likely lacks an internal ocean of liquid water, brines still flow through the outer mantle and reach the surface, allowing cryovolcanoes such as Ahuna Mons to form roughly every fifty million years. This makes Ceres the closest known cryovolcanic body to the Sun, and the brines provide a potential habitat for microbial life. In January 2014, emissions of water vapour were detected around Ceres, creating a tenuous, transient atmosphere known as an exosphere. This was unexpected because vapour is usually a hallmark of comets, not asteroids. ## History ### Discovery In the years between the acceptance of heliocentrism in the 18th century and the discovery of Neptune in 1846, several astronomers argued that mathematical laws predicted the existence of a hidden or missing planet between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. In 1596, theoretical astronomer Johannes Kepler believed that the ratios between planetary orbits would conform to "God's design" only with the addition of two planets: one between Jupiter and Mars and one between Venus and Mercury. Other theoreticians, such as Immanuel Kant, pondered whether the gap had been created by the gravity of Jupiter; in 1761, astronomer and mathematician Johann Heinrich Lambert asked, "And who knows whether already planets are missing which have departed from the vast space between Mars and Jupiter? Does it then hold of celestial bodies as well as of the Earth, that the stronger chafe the weaker, and are Jupiter and Saturn destined to plunder forever?" In 1772, German astronomer Johann Elert Bode, citing Johann Daniel Titius, published a formula later known as the Titius–Bode law that appeared to predict the orbits of the known planets but for an unexplained gap between Mars and Jupiter. This formula predicted that there ought to be another planet with an orbital radius near 2.8 astronomical units (AU), or 420 million km, from the Sun. The Titius–Bode law gained more credence with William Herschel's 1781 discovery of Uranus near the predicted distance for a planet beyond Saturn. In 1800, a group headed by Franz Xaver von Zach, editor of the German astronomical journal Monatliche Correspondenz [de] ("Monthly Correspondence"), sent requests to 24 experienced astronomers, whom he dubbed the "celestial police", asking that they combine their efforts and begin a methodical search for the expected planet. Although they did not discover Ceres, they later found the asteroids Pallas, Juno, and Vesta. One of the astronomers selected for the search was Giuseppe Piazzi, a Catholic priest at the Academy of Palermo, Sicily. Before receiving his invitation to join the group, Piazzi discovered Ceres on 1 January 1801. He was searching for "the 87th [star] of the Catalogue of the Zodiacal stars of Mr la Caille", but found that "it was preceded by another". Instead of a star, Piazzi had found a moving star-like object, which he first thought was a comet. Piazzi observed Ceres 24 times, the final time on 11 February 1801, when illness interrupted his work. He announced his discovery on 24 January 1801 in letters to two fellow astronomers, his compatriot Barnaba Oriani of Milan and Bode in Berlin. He reported it as a comet, but "since its movement is so slow and rather uniform, it has occurred to me several times that it might be something better than a comet". In April, Piazzi sent his complete observations to Oriani, Bode, and French astronomer Jérôme Lalande. The information was published in the September 1801 issue of the Monatliche Correspondenz. By this time, the apparent position of Ceres had changed (primarily due to Earth's motion around the Sun), and was too close to the Sun's glare for other astronomers to confirm Piazzi's observations. Towards the end of the year, Ceres should have been visible again, but after such a long time, it was difficult to predict its exact position. To recover Ceres, mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, then 24 years old, developed an efficient method of orbit determination. Within a few weeks, he predicted the path of Ceres and sent his results to von Zach. On 31 December 1801, von Zach and fellow celestial policeman Heinrich W. M. Olbers found Ceres near the predicted position and continued to record its position. At 2.8 AU from the Sun, Ceres appeared to fit the Titius–Bode law almost perfectly; when Neptune was discovered in 1846, eight AU closer than predicted, most astronomers concluded that the law was a coincidence. The early observers were able to calculate the size of Ceres only to within an order of magnitude. Herschel underestimated its diameter at 260 km (160 mi) in 1802; in 1811, German astronomer Johann Hieronymus Schröter overestimated it as 2,613 km (1,624 mi). In the 1970s, infrared photometry enabled more accurate measurements of its albedo, and Ceres's diameter was determined to within 10% of its true value of 939 km. ### Name and symbol Piazzi's proposed name for his discovery was Ceres Ferdinandea: Ceres after the Roman goddess of agriculture, whose earthly home, and oldest temple, lay in Sicily; and Ferdinandea in honour of Piazzi's monarch and patron, King Ferdinand III of Sicily. The latter was not acceptable to other nations and was dropped. Before von Zach's recovery of Ceres in December 1801, von Zach referred to the planet as Hera, and Bode referred to it as Juno. Despite Piazzi's objections, those names gained currency in Germany before the object's existence was confirmed. Once it was, astronomers settled on Piazzi's name. The adjectival forms of Ceres are Cererian and Cererean, both pronounced /sɪˈrɪəriən/. Cerium, a rare-earth element discovered in 1803, was named after the dwarf planet Ceres. The old astronomical symbol of Ceres, still used in astrology, is a sickle, . The sickle was one of the classical symbols of the goddess Ceres and was suggested, apparently independently, by von Zach and Bode in 1802. In form, it is similar to the symbol (a circle with a small cross beneath) of the planet Venus, but with a break in the circle. It had various minor graphic variants, including a reversed form typeset as a 'C' (the initial letter of the name Ceres) with a plus sign. The generic asteroid symbol of a numbered disk, 1, was introduced in 1867 and quickly became the norm. ### Classification The categorisation of Ceres has changed more than once and has been the subject of some disagreement. Bode believed Ceres to be the "missing planet" he had proposed to exist between Mars and Jupiter. Ceres was assigned a planetary symbol and remained listed as a planet in astronomy books and tables (along with Pallas, Juno, and Vesta) for over half a century. As other objects were discovered in the neighbourhood of Ceres, astronomers began to suspect that it represented the first of a new class of objects. When Pallas was discovered in 1802, Herschel coined the term asteroid ("star-like") for these bodies, writing that "they resemble small stars so much as hardly to be distinguished from them, even by very good telescopes". In 1852 Johann Franz Encke, in the Berliner Astronomisches Jahrbuch, declared the traditional system of granting planetary symbols too cumbersome for these new objects and introduced a new method of placing numbers before their names in order of discovery. Initially, the numbering system began with the fifth asteroid, 5 Astraea, as number 1, but in 1867 Ceres was adopted into the new system under the name 1 Ceres. By the 1860s, astronomers widely accepted that a fundamental difference existed between the major planets and asteroids such as Ceres, though the word "planet" had yet to be precisely defined. In the 1950s, scientists generally stopped considering most asteroids as planets, but Ceres sometimes retained its status after that because of its planet-like geophysical complexity. Then, in 2006, the debate surrounding Pluto led to calls for a definition of "planet", and the possible reclassification of Ceres, perhaps even its general reinstatement as a planet. A proposal before the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the global body responsible for astronomical nomenclature and classification, defined a planet as "a celestial body that (a) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid-body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (b) is in orbit around a star, and is neither a star nor a satellite of a planet". Had this resolution been adopted, it would have made Ceres the fifth planet in order from the Sun, but on 24 August 2006 the assembly adopted the additional requirement that a planet must have "cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit". Ceres is not a planet because it does not dominate its orbit, sharing it as it does with the thousands of other asteroids in the asteroid belt and constituting only about 40% of the belt's total mass. Bodies that met the first proposed definition but not the second, such as Ceres, were instead classified as dwarf planets. Planetary geologists still often ignore this definition and consider Ceres to be a planet anyway. Ceres is a dwarf planet, but there is some confusion about whether it is also an asteroid. A NASA webpage states that Vesta, the belt's second-largest object, is the largest asteroid. The IAU has been equivocal on the subject, though its Minor Planet Center, the organisation charged with cataloguing such objects, notes that dwarf planets may have dual designations, and the joint IAU/USGS/NASA Gazetteer categorizes Ceres as both asteroid and a dwarf planet. ## Orbit Ceres follows an orbit between Mars and Jupiter, near the middle of the asteroid belt, with an orbital period (year) of 4.6 Earth years. Compared to other planets and dwarf planets, Ceres's orbit is moderately tilted relative to that of Earth; its inclination (i) is 10.6°, compared to 7° for Mercury and 17° for Pluto. It is also slightly elongated, with an eccentricity (e) = 0.08, compared to 0.09 for Mars. Ceres is not part of an asteroid family, probably due to its large proportion of ice, as smaller bodies with the same composition would have sublimated to nothing over the age of the Solar System. It was once thought to be a member of the Gefion family, the members of which share similar proper orbital elements, suggesting a common origin through an asteroid collision in the past. Ceres was later found to have a different composition from the Gefion family and appears to be an interloper, having similar orbital elements but not a common origin. ### Resonances Due to their small masses and large separations, objects within the asteroid belt rarely fall into gravitational resonances with each other. Nevertheless, Ceres is able to capture other asteroids into temporary 1:1 resonances (making them temporary trojans), for periods from a few hundred thousand to more than two million years. Fifty such objects have been identified. Ceres is close to a 1:1 mean-motion orbital resonance with Pallas (their proper orbital periods differ by 0.2%), but not close enough to be significant over astronomical timescales. ## Rotation and axial tilt The rotation period of Ceres (the Cererian day) is 9 hours and 4 minutes; the small equatorial crater of Kait is selected as its prime meridian. Ceres has an axial tilt of 4°, small enough for its polar regions to contain permanently shadowed craters that are expected to act as cold traps and accumulate water ice over time, similar to what occurs on the Moon and Mercury. About 0.14% of water molecules released from the surface are expected to end up in the traps, hopping an average of three times before escaping or being trapped. Dawn, the first spacecraft to orbit Ceres, determined that the north polar axis points at right ascension 19 h 25 m 40.3 s (291.418°), declination +66° 45' 50" (about 1.5 degrees from Delta Draconis), which means an axial tilt of 4°. This means that Ceres currently sees little to no seasonal variation in sunlight by latitude. Over the course of three million years, gravitational influence from Jupiter and Saturn has triggered cyclical shifts in Ceres's axial tilt, ranging from two to twenty degrees, meaning that seasonal variation in sun exposure has occurred in the past, with the last period of seasonal activity estimated at 14,000 years ago. Those craters that remain in shadow during periods of maximum axial tilt are the most likely to retain water ice from eruptions or cometary impacts over the age of the Solar System. ## Geology Ceres is the largest asteroid in the main asteroid belt. It has been classified as a Ctype or carbonaceous asteroid and, due to the presence of clay minerals, as a G-type asteroid. It has a similar, but not identical, composition to that of carbonaceous chondrite meteorites. It is an oblate spheroid, with an equatorial diameter 8% larger than its polar diameter. Measurements from the Dawn spacecraft found a mean diameter of 939.4 km (583.7 mi) and a mass of 9.38×10<sup>20</sup> kg. This gives Ceres a density of 2.16 g/cm<sup>3</sup>, suggesting that a quarter of its mass is water ice. Ceres comprises 40% of the estimated (2394±5)×10<sup>18</sup> kg mass of the asteroid belt, and it has 3+1⁄2 times the mass of the next asteroid, Vesta, but it is only 1.3% the mass of the Moon. It is close to being in hydrostatic equilibrium, but some deviations from an equilibrium shape have yet to be explained. Assuming it is in equilibrium, Ceres is the only dwarf planet that is always within the orbit of Neptune. Modelling has suggested Ceres's rocky material is partially differentiated, and that it may possess a small core, but the data is also consistent with a mantle of hydrated silicates and no core. Because Dawn lacked a magnetometer, it is not known if Ceres has a magnetic field; it is believed not to. Ceres's internal differentiation may be related to its lack of a natural satellite, as satellites of main belt asteroids are mostly believed to form from collisional disruption, creating an undifferentiated, rubble pile structure. ### Surface #### Composition The surface composition of Ceres is homogeneous on a global scale, and is rich in carbonates and ammoniated phyllosilicates that have been altered by water, though water ice in the regolith varies from approximately 10% in polar latitudes to much drier, even ice-free, in the equatorial regions. Studies using the Hubble Space Telescope show graphite, sulfur, and sulfur dioxide on Ceres's surface. The graphite is evidently the result of space weathering on Ceres's older surfaces; the latter two are volatile under Cererian conditions and would be expected to either escape quickly or settle in cold traps, and so are evidently associated with areas with relatively recent geological activity. Organic compounds were detected in Ernutet Crater, and most of the planet's near surface is rich in carbon, at approximately 20% by mass. The carbon content is more than five times higher than in carbonaceous chondrite meteorites analysed on Earth. The surface carbon shows evidence of being mixed with products of rock-water interactions, such as clays. This chemistry suggests Ceres formed in a cold environment, perhaps outside the orbit of Jupiter, and that it accreted from ultra-carbon-rich materials in the presence of water, which could provide conditions favourable to organic chemistry. #### Craters Dawn revealed that Ceres has a heavily cratered surface, though with fewer large craters than expected. Models based on the formation of the current asteroid belt had predicted Ceres should have ten to fifteen craters larger than 400 km (250 mi) in diameter. The largest confirmed crater on Ceres, Kerwan Basin, is 284 km (176 mi) across. The most likely reason for this is viscous relaxation of the crust slowly flattening out larger impacts. Ceres's north polar region shows far more cratering than the equatorial region, with the eastern equatorial region in particular comparatively lightly cratered. The overall size frequency of craters of between twenty and a hundred kilometres (10–60 mi) is consistent with their having originated in the Late Heavy Bombardment, with craters outside the ancient polar regions likely erased by early cryovolcanism. Three large shallow basins (planitiae) with degraded rims are likely to be eroded craters. The largest, Vendimia Planitia, at 800 km (500 mi) across, is also the largest single geographical feature on Ceres. Two of the three have higher than average ammonium concentrations. Dawn observed 4,423 boulders larger than 105 m (344 ft) in diameter on the surface of Ceres. These boulders likely formed through impacts, and are found within or near craters, though not all craters contain boulders. Large boulders are more numerous at higher latitudes. Boulders on Ceres are brittle and degrade rapidly due to thermal stress (at dawn and dusk, the surface temperature changes rapidly) and meteoritic impacts. Their maximum age is estimated to be 150 million years, much shorter than the lifetime of boulders on Vesta. #### Tectonic features Although Ceres lacks plate tectonics, with the vast majority of its surface features linked either to impacts or to cryovolcanic activity, several potentially tectonic features have been tentatively identified on its surface, particularly in its eastern hemisphere. The Samhain Catenae, kilometre-scale linear fractures on Ceres's surface, lack any apparent link to impacts and bear a stronger resemblance to pit crater chains, which are indicative of buried normal faults. Also, several craters on Ceres have shallow, fractured floors consistent with cryomagmatic intrusion. #### Cryovolcanism Ceres has one prominent mountain, Ahuna Mons; this appears to be a cryovolcano and has few craters, suggesting a maximum age of 240 million years. Its relatively high gravitational field suggests it is dense, and thus composed more of rock than ice, and that its placement is likely due to diapirism of a slurry of brine and silicate particles from the top of the mantle. It is roughly antipodal to Kerwan Basin. Seismic energy from the Kerwan-forming impact may have focused on the opposite side of Ceres, fracturing the outer layers of the crust and triggering the movement of high-viscosity cryomagma (muddy water ice softened by its content of salts) onto the surface. Kerwan too shows evidence of the effects of liquid water due to impact-melting of subsurface ice. A 2018 computer simulation suggests that cryovolcanoes on Ceres, once formed, recede due to viscous relaxation over several hundred million years. The team identified 22 features as strong candidates for relaxed cryovolcanoes on Ceres's surface. Yamor Mons, an ancient, impact-cratered peak, resembles Ahuna Mons despite being much older, due to it lying in Ceres's northern polar region, where lower temperatures prevent viscous relaxation of the crust. Models suggest that, over the past billion years, one cryovolcano has formed on Ceres on average every fifty million years. The eruptions are not uniformly distributed over Ceres, but may be linked to ancient impact basins. The model suggests that, contrary to findings at Ahuna Mons, Cererian cryovolcanoes must be composed of far less dense material than average for Ceres's crust, or the observed viscous relaxation could not occur. An unexpectedly large number of Cererian craters have central pits, perhaps due to cryovolcanic processes; others have central peaks. Hundreds of bright spots (faculae) have been observed by Dawn, the brightest in the middle of 80 km (50 mi) Occator Crater. The bright spot in the centre of Occator is named Cerealia Facula, and the group of bright spots to its east, Vinalia Faculae. Occator possesses a pit 9–10 km wide, partially filled by a central dome. The dome post-dates the faculae and is likely due to freezing of a subterranean reservoir, comparable to pingos in Earth's Arctic region. A haze periodically appears above Cerealia, supporting the hypothesis that some sort of outgassing or sublimating ice formed the bright spots. In March 2016 Dawn found definitive evidence of water ice on the surface of Ceres at Oxo crater. On 9 December 2015 NASA scientists reported that the bright spots on Ceres may be due to a type of salt from evaporated brine containing magnesium sulfate hexahydrate (MgSO<sub>4</sub>·6H<sub>2</sub>O); the spots were also found to be associated with ammonia-rich clays. Near-infrared spectra of these bright areas were reported in 2017 to be consistent with a large amount of sodium carbonate (Na <sub>2</sub>CO <sub>3</sub>) and smaller amounts of ammonium chloride (NH <sub>4</sub>Cl) or ammonium bicarbonate (NH <sub>4</sub>HCO <sub>3</sub>). These materials have been suggested to originate from the crystallisation of brines that reached the surface. In August 2020 NASA confirmed that Ceres was a water-rich body with a deep reservoir of brine that percolated to the surface in hundreds of locations causing "bright spots", including those in Occator Crater. ### Internal structure The active geology of Ceres is driven by ice and brines. Water leached from rock is estimated to possess a salinity of around 5%. Altogether, Ceres is approximately 50% water by volume (compared to 0.1% for Earth) and 73% rock by mass. Ceres's largest craters are several kilometres deep, inconsistent with an ice-rich shallow subsurface. The fact that the surface has preserved craters almost 300 km (200 mi) in diameter indicates that the outermost layer of Ceres is roughly 1000 times stronger than water ice. This is consistent with a mixture of silicates, hydrated salts and methane clathrates, with no more than 30% water ice by volume. Gravity measurements from Dawn have generated three competing models for Ceres's interior. In the three-layer model Ceres is thought to consist of an outer, 40 km (25 mi) thick crust of ice, salts and hydrated minerals and an inner muddy "mantle" of hydrated rock, such as clays, separated by a 60 km (37 mi) layer of a muddy mixture of brine and rock. It is not possible to tell if Ceres's deep interior contains liquid or a core of dense material rich in metal, but the low central density suggests it may retain about 10% porosity. One study estimated the densities of the core and mantle/crust to be 2.46–2.90 and 1.68–1.95 g/cm<sup>3</sup> respectively, with the mantle and crust together being 70–190 km (40–120 mi) thick. Only partial dehydration (expulsion of ice) from the core is expected, though the high density of the mantle relative to water ice reflects its enrichment in silicates and salts. That is, the core (if it exists), the mantle and crust all consist of rock and ice, though in different ratios. Ceres's mineral composition can be determined (indirectly) only for its outer 100 km (60 mi). The solid outer crust, 40 km (25 mi) thick, is a mixture of ice, salts, and hydrated minerals. Under that is a layer that may contain a small amount of brine. This extends to a depth of at least the 100 km (60 mi) limit of detection. Under that is thought to be a mantle dominated by hydrated rocks such as clays. In one two-layer model Ceres consists of a core of chondrules and a mantle of mixed ice and micron-sized solid particulates ("mud"). Sublimation of ice at the surface would leave a deposit of hydrated particulates perhaps twenty metres thick. The range of the extent of differentiation is consistent with the data, from a large, 360 km (220 mi) core of 75% chondrules and 25% particulates and a mantle of 75% ice and 25% particulates, to a small, 85 km (55 mi) core consisting nearly entirely of particulates and a mantle of 30% ice and 70% particulates. With a large core, the core–mantle boundary should be warm enough for pockets of brine. With a small core, the mantle should remain liquid below 110 km (68 mi). In the latter case a 2% freezing of the liquid reservoir would compress the liquid enough to force some to the surface, producing cryovolcanism. A second two-layer model suggests a partial differentiation of Ceres into a volatile-rich crust and a denser mantle of hydrated silicates. A range of densities for the crust and mantle can be calculated from the types of meteorite thought to have impacted Ceres. With CI-class meteorites (density 2.46 g/cm<sup>3</sup>), the crust would be approximately 70 km (40 mi) thick and have a density of 1.68 g/cm<sup>3</sup>; with CM-class meteorites (density 2.9 g/cm<sup>3</sup>), the crust would be approximately 190 km (120 mi) thick and have a density of 1.9 g/cm<sup>3</sup>. Best-fit modelling yields a crust approximately 40 km (25 mi) thick with a density of approximately 1.25 g/cm<sup>3</sup>, and a mantle/core density of approximately 2.4 g/cm<sup>3</sup>. ## Atmosphere In 2017, Dawn confirmed that Ceres has a transient atmosphere of water vapour. Hints of an atmosphere had appeared in early 2014, when the Herschel Space Observatory detected localised mid-latitude sources of water vapour on Ceres, no more than 60 km (40 mi) in diameter, which each give off approximately 10<sup>26</sup> molecules (3 kg) of water per second. Two potential source regions, designated Piazzi (123°E, 21°N) and Region A (231°E, 23°N), were visualised in the near infrared as dark areas (Region A also has a bright centre) by the Keck Observatory. Possible mechanisms for the vapour release are sublimation from approximately 0.6 km<sup>2</sup> (0.2 sq mi) of exposed surface ice, cryovolcanic eruptions resulting from radiogenic internal heat, or pressurisation of a subsurface ocean due to thickening of an overlying layer of ice. In 2015 David Jewitt included Ceres in his list of active asteroids. Surface water ice is unstable at distances less than 5 AU from the Sun, so it is expected to sublime if exposed directly to solar radiation. Water ice can migrate from the deep layers of Ceres to the surface, but escapes in a short time. Surface sublimation would be expected to be lower when Ceres is farther from the Sun in its orbit, and internally powered emissions should not be affected by its orbital position. The limited data previously available suggested cometary-style sublimation, but evidence from Dawn suggests geologic activity could be at least partially responsible. Studies using Dawn's gamma ray and neutron detector (GRaND) reveal that Ceres accelerates electrons from the solar wind; the most accepted hypothesis is that these electrons are being accelerated by collisions between the solar wind and a tenuous water vapour exosphere. Bow shocks like these could also be explained by a transient magnetic field, but this is considered less likely, as the interior of Ceres is not thought to be sufficiently electrically conductive. ## Origin and evolution Ceres is a surviving protoplanet that formed 4.56 billion years ago; alongside Pallas and Vesta, one of only three remaining in the inner Solar System, with the rest either merging to form terrestrial planets, being shattered in collisions or being ejected by Jupiter. Despite Ceres's current location, its composition is not consistent with having formed within the asteroid belt. It seems rather that it formed between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, and was deflected into the asteroid belt as Jupiter migrated outward. The discovery of ammonium salts in Occator Crater supports an origin in the outer Solar System, as ammonia is far more abundant in that region. The early geological evolution of Ceres was dependent on the heat sources available during and after its formation: impact energy from planetesimal accretion and decay of radionuclides (possibly including short-lived extinct radionuclides such as aluminium-26). These may have been sufficient to allow Ceres to differentiate into a rocky core and icy mantle, or even a liquid water ocean, soon after its formation. This ocean should have left an icy layer under the surface as it froze. The fact that Dawn found no evidence of such a layer suggests that Ceres's original crust was at least partially destroyed by later impacts thoroughly mixing the ice with the salts and silicate-rich material of the ancient seafloor and the material beneath. Ceres possesses surprisingly few large craters, suggesting that viscous relaxation and cryovolcanism have erased older geological features. The presence of clays and carbonates requires chemical reactions at temperatures above 50 °C, consistent with hydrothermal activity. It has become considerably less geologically active over time, with a surface dominated by impact craters; nevertheless, evidence from Dawn reveals that internal processes have continued to sculpt Ceres's surface to a significant extent contrary to predictions that Ceres's small size would have ceased internal geological activity early in its history. ## Habitability Although Ceres is not as actively discussed as a potential home for microbial extraterrestrial life as Mars, Europa, Enceladus, or Titan are, it has the most water of any body in the inner Solar System after Earth, and the likely brine pockets under its surface could provide habitats for life. It does not experience tidal heating, like Europa or Enceladus, but it is close enough to the Sun, and contains enough long-lived radioactive isotopes, to preserve liquid water in its subsurface for extended periods. The remote detection of organic compounds and the presence of water mixed with 20% carbon by mass in its near surface could provide conditions favourable to organic chemistry. Of the biochemical elements, Ceres is rich in carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, but phosphorus has yet to be detected, and sulfur, despite being suggested by Hubble UV observations, was not detected by Dawn. ## Observation and exploration ### Observation When in opposition near its perihelion, Ceres can reach an apparent magnitude of +6.7. This is too dim to be visible to the average naked eye, but under ideal viewing conditions, keen eyes may be able to see it. Vesta is the only other asteroid that can regularly reach a similarly bright magnitude, while Pallas and 7 Iris do so only when both in opposition and near perihelion. When in conjunction, Ceres has a magnitude of around +9.3, which corresponds to the faintest objects visible with 10×50 binoculars; thus it can be seen with such binoculars in a naturally dark and clear night sky around new moon. On 13 November 1984, an occultation of the star BD+8°471 by Ceres was observed in Mexico, Florida and across the Caribbean, allowing better measurements of its size, shape and albedo. On 25 June 1995, Hubble obtained ultraviolet images of Ceres with 50 km (30 mi) resolution. In 2002 the Keck Observatory obtained infrared images with 30 km (20 mi) resolution using adaptive optics. Before the Dawn mission only a few surface features had been unambiguously detected on Ceres. High-resolution ultraviolet Hubble images in 1995 showed a dark spot on its surface, which was nicknamed "Piazzi" in honour of the discoverer of Ceres. It was thought to be a crater. Visible-light images of a full rotation taken by Hubble in 2003 and 2004 showed eleven recognisable surface features, the natures of which were undetermined. One of them corresponded to the Piazzi feature. Near-infrared images over a whole rotation, taken with adaptive optics by the Keck Observatory in 2012, showed bright and dark features moving with Ceres's rotation. Two dark features were circular and were presumed to be craters; one was observed to have a bright central region, and the other was identified as the Piazzi feature. Dawn eventually revealed Piazzi to be a dark region in the middle of Vendimia Planitia, close to the crater Dantu, and the other dark feature to be within Hanami Planitia and close to Occator Crater. ### Dawn mission In the early 1990s NASA initiated the Discovery Program, which was intended to be a series of low-cost scientific missions. In 1996 the program's study team proposed a high-priority mission to explore the asteroid belt using a spacecraft with an ion engine. Funding remained problematic for nearly a decade, but by 2004 the Dawn vehicle passed its critical design review. Dawn, the first space mission to visit either Vesta or Ceres, was launched on 27 September 2007. On 3 May 2011, Dawn acquired its first targeting image 1,200,000 km (750,000 mi) from Vesta. After orbiting Vesta for thirteen months, Dawn used its ion engine to depart for Ceres, with gravitational capture occurring on 6 March 2015 at a separation of 61,000 km (38,000 mi), four months before the New Horizons flyby of Pluto. The spacecraft instrumentation included a framing camera, a visual and infrared spectrometer, and a gamma-ray and neutron detector. These instruments examined Ceres's shape and elemental composition. On 13 January 2015, as Dawn approached Ceres, the spacecraft took its first images at near-Hubble resolution, revealing impact craters and a small high-albedo spot on the surface. Additional imaging sessions, at increasingly better resolution, took place from February to April. Dawn's mission profile called for it to study Ceres from a series of circular polar orbits at successively lower altitudes. It entered its first observational orbit ("RC3") around Ceres at an altitude of 13,500 km (8,400 mi) on 23 April 2015, staying for only one orbit (15 days). The spacecraft then reduced its orbital distance to 4,400 km (2,700 mi) for its second observational orbit ("survey") for three weeks, then down to 1,470 km (910 mi) ("HAMO;" high altitude mapping orbit) for two months and then down to its final orbit at 375 km (233 mi) ("LAMO;" low altitude mapping orbit) for at least three months. In October 2015, NASA released a true-colour portrait of Ceres made by Dawn. In 2017 Dawn'''s mission was extended to perform a series of closer orbits around Ceres until the hydrazine used to maintain its orbit ran out. Dawn soon discovered evidence of cryovolcanism. Two distinct bright spots (or high-albedo features) inside a crater (different from the bright spots observed in earlier Hubble images) were seen in a 19 February 2015 image, leading to speculation about a possible cryovolcanic origin or outgassing. On 2 September 2016, scientists from the Dawn team argued in a Science paper that Ahuna Mons was the strongest evidence yet for cryovolcanic features on Ceres. On 11 May 2015, NASA released a higher-resolution image showing that the spots were composed of multiple smaller spots. On 9 December 2015, NASA scientists reported that the bright spots on Ceres may be related to a type of salt, particularly a form of brine containing magnesium sulfate hexahydrate (MgSO<sub>4</sub>·6H<sub>2</sub>O); the spots were also found to be associated with ammonia-rich clays. In June 2016, near-infrared spectra of these bright areas were found to be consistent with a large amount of sodium carbonate (Na <sub>2</sub>CO <sub>3</sub>), implying that recent geologic activity was probably involved in the creation of the bright spots. From June to October 2018, Dawn orbited Ceres from as close as 35 km (22 mi) to as far away as 4,000 km (2,500 mi). The Dawn'' mission ended on 1 November 2018 after the spacecraft ran out of fuel. ### Future missions In 2020, an ESA team proposed the Calathus Mission concept, a followup mission to Occator Crater, to return a sample of the bright carbonate faculae and dark organics to Earth. The Chinese Space Agency is designing a sample-return mission from Ceres that would take place during the 2020s. ## See also - List of exceptional asteroids - List of Solar System objects by size
304,197	Midshipman	1,169,622,322	Officer cadet	[ "Former military ranks of Canada", "Marine occupations", "Military ranks", "Military ranks of Australia", "Military ranks of the Commonwealth", "Military ranks of the Royal Navy", "Military ranks of the United States Navy", "Naval ranks" ]	A midshipman is an officer of the lowest rank, in the Royal Navy, United States Navy, and many Commonwealth navies. Commonwealth countries which use the rank include Canada (Naval Cadet), Australia, Bangladesh, Namibia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Kenya. In the 17th century, a midshipman was a rating for an experienced seaman, and the word derives from the area aboard a ship, amidships, either where he worked on the ship, or where he was berthed. Beginning in the 18th century, a commissioned officer candidate was rated as a midshipman, and the seaman rating began to slowly die out. By the Napoleonic era (1793–1815), a midshipman was an apprentice officer who had previously served at least three years as a volunteer, officer's servant or able seaman, and was roughly equivalent to a present-day petty officer in rank and responsibilities. After serving at least three years as a midshipman or master's mate, he was eligible to take the examination for lieutenant. Promotion to lieutenant was not automatic, and many midshipmen took positions as master's mates for an increase in pay and responsibility aboard ship. Midshipmen in the United States Navy were trained and served similarly to midshipmen in the Royal Navy, although unlike their counterparts in the Royal Navy, a midshipman was a warrant officer rank until 1912. During the 19th century, changes in the training of naval officers in both the Royal Navy and the United States Navy led to the replacement of apprenticeship aboard ships with formal schooling in a naval college. Midshipman began to mean an officer cadet at a naval college. Trainees now spent around four years in a college and two years at sea prior to promotion to commissioned officer rank. Between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries, time at sea declined to less than a year as the entry age was increased from 12 to 18. Ranks equivalent to midshipman exist in many other navies. Using US midshipman or pre-fleet board UK midshipman as the basis for comparison, the equivalent rank would be a naval cadet in training to become a junior commissioned officer. Using post-fleet board UK midshipman for comparison, the rank would be the most junior commissioned officer in the rank structure, and similar to a US ensign in role and responsibility. In many Romance languages, the literal translation of the local term for "midshipman" into English is "Navy Guard", including the French garde marine, Spanish guardia marina, Portuguese guarda-marinha, and Italian guardiamarina. Today, these ranks all refer to naval cadets, but historically they were selected by the monarchy, and were trained mostly on land as soldiers. ## History ### Apprentice officers #### Royal Navy (1662–1836) ##### Origins The rank of midshipman originated during the Tudor and Stuart eras, and originally referred to a post for an experienced seaman promoted from the ordinary deck hands, who worked in between the main and mizzen masts and had more responsibility than an ordinary seaman, but was not a military officer or an officer in training. The first published use of the term midshipman was in 1662. The word derives from an area aboard a ship, amidships, but it refers either to the location where midshipmen worked on the ship, or the location where midshipmen were berthed. By the 18th century, four types of midshipman existed: midshipman (original rating), midshipman extraordinary, midshipman (apprentice officer), and midshipman ordinary. Some midshipmen were older men, and while most were officer candidates who failed to pass the lieutenant examination or were passed over for promotion, some members of the original rating served, as late as 1822, alongside apprentice officers without themselves aspiring to a commission. By 1794, all midshipmen were considered officer candidates, and the original rating was phased out. ##### Entry Beginning in 1661, boys who aspired to become officers were sent by their families to serve on ships with a "letter of service" from the crown, and were paid at the same rate as midshipmen. The letter instructed the admirals and captains that the bearer was to be shown "such kindness as you shall judge fit for a gentleman, both in accommodating him in your ship and in furthering his improvement". Their official rating was volunteer-per-order, but they were often known as King's letter boys, to distinguish their higher social class from the original midshipman rating. Beginning in 1677, Royal Navy regulations for promotion to lieutenant required service as a midshipman, and promotion to midshipman required some time at sea. By the Napoleonic era, the regulations required at least three years of services as a midshipman or master's mate and six years of total sea time. Sea time was earned in various ways, most boys served this period at sea in any lower rating, either as a servant of one of the ship's officers, a volunteer, or a seaman. By the 1730s, the rating volunteer-per-order was phased out and replaced with a system where prospective midshipmen served as servants for officers. For example, a captain was allowed four servants for every 100 men aboard his ship; many of these servants were young men destined to become officers. In 1729, the Royal Naval Academy in Portsmouth – renamed the Royal Naval College in 1806 – was founded, for 40 students aged between 13 and 16, who would take three years to complete a course of study defined in an illustrated book, and would earn two years of sea time as part of their studies. The rating of midshipman-by-order, or midshipman ordinary, was used specifically for graduates of the Royal Naval College, to distinguish them from midshipmen who had served aboard ship, who were paid more. The school was unpopular in the Navy, because officers enjoyed the privilege of having servants and preferred the traditional method of training officers via apprenticeship. In 1794, officers' servants were abolished and a new class of volunteers called 'volunteer class I' was created for boys between the ages of 11 and 13 who were considered future midshipmen and lived in the gunroom on a ship-of-the-line or with the midshipmen on a frigate or smaller vessel. Volunteers were paid £6 per year. By 1816, the rating of midshipman ordinary was phased out, and all apprentice officers were rated as midshipmen. ##### Social background and uniform In the 18th century Royal Navy, rank and position on board ship was defined by a mix of two hierarchies, an official hierarchy of ranks and a conventionally recognized social divide between gentlemen and non-gentlemen. Boys aspiring for a commission were often called young gentlemen instead of their substantive rating to distinguish their higher social standing from the ordinary sailors. Generally, aboard most warships common seamen berthed in the gundeck, while officers were quartered at the stern. Occasionally, a midshipman would be posted aboard a ship in a lower rating such as able seaman but would eat and sleep with his social equals in the cockpit. Approximately 50 percent of midshipmen were the sons of professional men, which included the sons of naval officers, and there were notable sailing families throughout the Age of Sail, such as the Saumarez, Hood, and Parker families. The niceties of preferment and promotion made family connections an obvious advantage for prospective officers. Members of the peerage and landed gentry formed the next largest group, about 27 percent of officers. The numbers were smaller, but similarly, their connections gave them excellent prospects for promotion, and they had a considerable influence on the Royal Navy. A notable member of this group was Prince William, later William IV, who served as a midshipman from 1780 to 1785. The rest were from commercial or working class backgrounds, and because of the advantages possessed by the nobility and professional sailors, their chances of promotion to lieutenant were slim. Since most midshipmen were from the gentry or had family connections with sailing ships, many used their connections to have their names placed on a ship's books. The practice, known colloquially as "false muster" was common even though it was technically illegal and frowned upon. This allowed some boys to be promoted to midshipmen, or in some cases lieutenant, without having completed the required amount of time at sea. A notable example was Thomas Cochrane, whose uncle had him entered at the age of five; his name was carried on various ships until he was 18 and received his commission. When uniforms were introduced in the Navy in 1748, midshipmen started wearing the same uniform as commissioned officers. They also began wearing their traditional badge of rank, a white patch of cloth with a gold button and a twist of white cord on each side of the coat collar. The uniform emphasized that midshipmen were gentlemen and officers under instruction. ##### Duties and promotion Midshipmen were expected to work on the ship, but were also expected to learn navigation and seamanship. They were expected to have learned already, as able seamen and volunteers, to rig sails, other duties included keeping watch, relaying messages between decks, supervising gun batteries, commanding small boats, and taking command of a sub-division of the ship's company under the supervision of one of the lieutenants. On smaller ships, midshipmen were instructed by a senior master's mate, often a passed midshipman, who taught them mathematics, navigation, and sailing lore. Larger ships would carry a schoolmaster, who was rated as a midshipman but usually was a civilian like the chaplain. Midshipmen were expected to keep detailed navigational logs, which were shown to the captain to assess their progress. Prior to promotion to lieutenant, a commissioned officer candidate in the Royal Navy had to pass a formal examination. Officially, a prospective lieutenant was at least 19, and was expected to produce proof of his service, which would include certificates from his commanders and journals kept while a midshipman. However, most midshipmen aspired to take the lieutenant examination at age 17 or 18, and the typical age of a midshipman was between 15 and 22. The candidate was summoned before a board of three captains and questioned about seamanship, navigation, and discipline. The board would ask questions such as: > An enemy is observed; give orders for clearing your ship, and make all the necessary preparations for engaging. Like the board, which might be an ad hoc affair, the actual exam questions were not standardized and their content depended mostly on individual captains. In seamanship, the candidate was expected to be able to splice ropes, reef a sail, work a ship in sailing and shift his tides. In navigation, he was expected to be able to keep a reckoning of the ship's way by plane sailing, to use Mercator projection maps and observation of the sun and stars to determine the course and position of the ship, and to understand the variation of the compass. He was also expected to be qualified to do the duty of an able seaman and midshipman. Failure usually meant six more months of sea service before the examination could again be attempted. Some men never passed it. Successful completion made the midshipman a 'passed midshipman'. From the 18th century until the second half of the 19th century, a midshipman in the Royal Navy who passed the lieutenant's examination did not automatically receive a commission. Midshipmen with political connections were promoted first, while others would wait their turn on a roster. During wartime, when large numbers of ships and men might be lost in battle, most passed midshipman would be promoted in a year or two, but during peacetime the wait might be so long that the midshipman would eventually be considered too old and lose his chance for a commission. Passed midshipmen awaiting promotion often elected to become master's mates, a high-ranking petty officer who assisted the master with his duties, served on watch as deputy to the lieutenants, and commanded small boats. A midshipman who became master's mate earned an increase in pay from £2 5s to £3 16s per month but initially reduced his chances at a commission because master's mates, along with masters, were assumed to have a working-class background. Over time, however, appointment to master's mate became considered a normal part of the path to a commission; the situation caused some confusion during the last part of the 18th century, when two parallel roles – master's mates trying to become masters, and former midshipmen working toward a commission – held the same title and responsibilities aboard ship. By the first years of the 19th century, the term 'mate', without the prefix master's, was used for passed midshipmen, to distinguish them from master's mates who had not served as midshipmen. In 1824, the rating of master's assistant replaced master's mate, and mate continued to be used unofficially by passed midshipmen. These changes helped eliminate the confusion caused by the mingling of midshipmen in the navigator's branch. In 1838 a Royal Commission, presided over by the Duke of Wellington, recommended the institution of the rank of mate as an official step between midshipman and lieutenant. In 1861 mate was abolished in favor of sub-lieutenant. #### United States Navy (1794–1845) When Congress created the United States Navy in 1794, midshipman was listed as a rank of warrant officer in the Naval Act of 1794, and they were appointed by the President of the United States. Midshipmen had similar duties and responsibilities as in the Royal Navy, and were typically young men between the age of 14 and 22 in training to become a naval officer. "Passed midshipman" was first used in 1819, and was an official rank of the US Navy. During the long period of peace between 1815 and 1846 midshipmen had few opportunities for promotion, and their warrants were often obtained via patronage. The poor quality of officer training in the US Navy became visible after the Somers Affair, an alleged mutiny aboard the training ship USS Somers in 1842, and the subsequent execution of midshipman Philip Spencer. Spencer had gained his post aboard the Somers via the influence of his father, United States Secretary of War John C. Spencer. ### Cadet officer This rank is used in Merchant Marine/Merchant Navy service. There are two types of cadet officer 1. Deck Cadet 2. Cadet Engineer 3. 4. 5. Cadet officer commonly used in maritime service. It's know as a Trainee officer on board a ship. #### Royal Navy from 1836 The original Royal Naval College closed in 1837, after which the only method for training midshipmen in the Royal Navy was aboard ships. In 1844 the rank of naval cadet was created, and to qualify as a midshipman a candidate had to be 14 years old, successfully pass an admiralty examination and have two years of service as a naval cadet or three years of service in the Navy. A decline in qualified officers prompted the Navy to order training in a ship at anchor for all cadets, which began in 1857 aboard HMS Illustrious, which was replaced by HMS Britannia in 1859. Britannia was moved to Portland in 1862, and to the present location of the Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth in 1863. Beginning in the 1840s, the normal entry age for executive officer cadets, those destined to command ships and fleets, was between 12 and 13, and instruction consisted of two years of classroom training, during which time trainees were rated as naval cadets. Cadets who received a first-class passing grade in studies, seamanship and conduct on their final examination could receive a credit for up to a year of sea time, and could be rated as midshipmen immediately after passing out of the college. After passing out of the college, cadets served aboard a special training vessel for one year. Cadets were then rated as midshipmen, and served aboard the fleet another two years. Midshipmen lived in the gunroom, kept watches, and ran the ship's boats. They received instruction in navigation every day. After five total years of training and having reached the age of 19, the midshipmen were eligible to take the examination for lieutenant. After passing the examination for lieutenant, midshipmen were commissioned as sub-lieutenants, and were transferred to the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, which opened in 1873 as the 'University of the Navy'. Beginning in 1903, officer training of military and engineering students was reformed by the Selborne-Fisher scheme, and engineering and executive officer candidates began to enter the Navy in the same way, which was termed 'Common Entry'. Previously, engineer cadets had been trained separately at the Royal Naval Engineering College, Keyham which was closed in 1910. In 1903 a new preparatory college was opened at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, in part of Queen Victoria's favorite residence but not a favorite of her successor Edward VII who had donated it to the nation in 1902. Training initially consisted of two years at Osborne and two years at Dartmouth as cadets, later four years at Dartmouth, followed by approximately 3 years of sea duty as midshipmen prior to promotion to sub-lieutenant. In 1905, a new building was completed on shore to replace Britannia, which was named Britannia Royal Naval College. In 1913, increasing demand for officers led to recruitment of 18-year-old graduates of public schools, which was called 'Special Entry', and was conducted separately from Selborne scheme cadets. Special entry cadets trained for approximately 6 months prior to service in the fleet as midshipmen. When World War I began in 1914, all the cadets at Dartmouth were quickly mobilized as midshipmen in the Reserve Fleet. During the war, two midshipmen, George Drewry and Wilfred Malleson were awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest award of the British Commonwealth for gallantry, during the Landing at Cape Helles. After World War I ended, opposition to the Selborne-Fisher scheme led to re-segregating executive and engineering officers into separate branches, while common entry and special entry were maintained. After World War II another series of reforms, influenced by the quality of officers produced by the special entry scheme and other nations' experience with training officer candidates in a university setting, were initiated to increase the quality of officers in the Navy. In 1949 the entry age was increased to 16, and by 1955 the entry age was increased to 18 and entry required a minimum of two A levels. After 1957 midshipmen no longer served in the fleet. In 1972, all cadets became midshipmen when the rank of cadet was abolished. #### United States Navy from 1845 Congress formally authorized the establishment of the United States Military Academy in 1802, but it took almost 50 years to approve a similar school for naval officers. One major reason for the delay was that Navy leaders preferred the apprenticeship system, citing famous officers such as Nelson and the captains of the War of 1812 who did not attend a formal naval school. However, after the Somers Affair, officers realized that the system for training officers had to change to be more efficient. George Bancroft, appointed Secretary of the Navy in 1845, decided to work outside of congressional approval and create a new academy for officers. He formed a council led by Commodore Perry to create a new system for training officers, and turned the old Fort Severn at Annapolis into a new institution which would be designated as the United States Naval Academy in 1851. Midshipmen studied at the academy for four years and trained aboard ships each summer. Midshipman began to mean "passed midshipman" at this time, and a student at the Naval Academy was a cadet midshipman. The rank of ensign was created in 1862, and passed midshipmen were promoted to ensign when vacancies occurred. In 1865, the Department of Steam Enginery was created and cadet engineers were admitted to the academy for the first time. In 1874, Congress changed the curriculum to include four years of classroom training and two years of sea duty aboard a regular vessel prior to examinations as warranted midshipmen. In 1882, Congress eliminated the distinction in training between engineer and naval cadets, and designated the student officers as naval cadets; the name reverted to midshipmen in 1902. By an act of Congress passed in 1903, two appointments as midshipmen were allowed for each senator, representative, and delegate in Congress, two for the District of Columbia, and five each year at large. In 1912, Congress authorized commissioning midshipmen as ensigns on graduation day, and ended the previously required two years of post-graduation sea service as warrant officers. In 1930, the Naval Academy received accreditation as an approved technological institution. In 1933, a new law enabled the Naval, Military, and Coast Guard Academies to award bachelor of science degrees, and the class of 1933 was the first to receive this degree and have it written in the diploma. In 1937, the superintendent of the Naval Academy was granted the authority to award Bachelor of Science degrees to all living graduates. #### Commonwealth navies As Dominions of the British Empire formed their own navies during the 20th century, further countries began using the rank of midshipman. Today Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, India, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Kenya use the rank. Prior to 1968 Canada also used the rank of midshipman, until the National Defence Act consolidated the Royal Canadian Navy with the Army and Air Force into a single military, called the Canadian Forces. As part of the act, the rank of midshipman was replaced with the rank of naval cadet. ### Snotty In Royal Navy slang, a midshipman is sometimes referred to as a "snotty". Two popular stories give origins for the term: the first claims that it arose from a shortage of handkerchiefs among midshipmen, who would consequently use their sleeves to wipe their noses. Prince William, later William IV, is sometimes cited as a notorious example of this practice among midshipmen. The other story claims that the three buttons formerly sewn onto midshipmen's jacket cuffs were placed there to prevent them from wiping their noses on their sleeves. ## Modern usage ### Royal Navy In the modern Royal Navy, a midshipman is the lowest rank of officer, and ranks with second lieutenant in the British Army and pilot officer in the Royal Air Force and above all enlisted and warrant ranks. A midshipman's rank insignia, which has changed little since Napoleonic times, is called a "turnback": a white patch of cloth with a gold button and a twist of white cord on each side of the coat collar. Prospective officers must have at least five GCSEs, including English and maths, plus at least 72 (new tariff) UCAS points from at least two A levels or other suitable qualifications (each qualification must be over 45 (old tariff) UCAS points). They must pass a two-and-a-half-day assessment, called the Admiralty Interview Board, and a medical examination. As of 2013, it is no longer the case that those joining the Navy as university graduates start as sub-lieutenants, with non-graduates joining as midshipmen. Graduates and non-graduates all start as midshipmen, and wait to be promoted at the same time. General basic training (initial officer training) for Royal Navy officers takes place at the Britannia Royal Naval College. Training takes up to a year depending on specialisation; all midshipmen participate in at least the first two terms, which are 14 weeks each. Until they have completed initial fleet training, both midshipmen and sub-lieutenants at Britannia Royal Naval College do not use their substantive ranks, but instead use the rank of officer cadet. During the first seven weeks of training, officer cadets learn militarisation and sea sense, focusing on learning about the military environment, along with team and leadership skills. During the second seven weeks, officer cadets learn essential sea officer skills, including navigation and the marine environment, strategic studies, and basic sea survival. During the second term officer cadets spend 6 weeks in Initial Sea Time (IST), serving aboard capital warships as junior ratings. Upon completion of Initial Sea Time, officer cadets return to Dartmouth for four weeks to complete their final leadership assessment, the Maritime Leadership Exercise (MARL). MARL may be completed prior to IST depending on scheduling. If they have been successful, officers of all branches then pass out of the college. Upon completion of initial officer training, university cadet entrants, engineering, logistics and flight specialisation officer cadets move to their second phase of training elsewhere within the Royal Navy. Midshipmen specializing in warfare remain at the college for the Initial Warfare Officer's Foundation course, which completes part of a foundation degree in naval studies (equating to two thirds of a bachelor's degree), on completion of initial professional training. Officers can complete degrees via distance learning with the Open University, although completion is not required. #### Royal Australian Navy A midshipman in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) holds a commission, which is effective from the date of their appointment. Officer candidates enter the RAN at various ranks depending on previous experience or degree qualifications; graduates from a three-year course, non-degree qualified entrants, and sailor changeovers below the rank of leading seaman enter as midshipman. On joining the RAN, midshipmen complete six months' initial officer training (New Entry Officers' Course) at the Royal Australian Naval College. Following this, all members serve six months in the fleet completing Primary Qualification (PQ) continuation training. Direct entry midshipmen continue their normal training and Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) entry midshipmen post to Canberra to study at the ADFA in their second year in the Navy. Midshipmen undertake an undergraduate degree over the course of three years, whilst also completing elements of their naval training. ADFA midshipmen are also undergraduate students of the University of New South Wales (UNSW). When they graduate from UNSW at ADFA at the completion of their three- or four-year undergraduate program, they do so with a fully recognized degree from UNSW – the same degree received by graduates of UNSW's campus in Sydney. During Single Service Training (SST) at ADFA, midshipmen have the opportunity to return to sea during the SST period as well as visiting shore establishments for PQ related training. #### Royal New Zealand Navy In the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN), midshipman is the lowest officer rank for officers under training and retained upon completion of initial training by those without a university degree. Unlike officer cadet ranks in the Army, midshipmen are treated as officers but do not hold a commission. The RNZN has approximately 60 midshipmen in service at a time. Midshipman begin their career at Junior Officer Common Training, which lasts 23 weeks. After completing their initial training course, midshipmen serve aboard ships for a short time, followed by specialty training for 16 weeks. After approximately two years in the Navy, midshipmen are promoted to ensign. Officers who entered the service with a university degree are promoted to sub-lieutenant after completion of Junior Officer Common Training. Officers without a degree have the option of earning a university degree while serving in the Navy. #### South African Navy A midshipman in the South African Navy (SAN) is an officer of the lowest rank. Officer candidates are citizens between the ages of 18 and 22, either in grade 12 or graduated from high school with an academic background in mathematics and science. Cadets initially spend a year training at the South African Naval College in Gordon's Bay, about 55 km southeast of Cape Town, and upon graduation are commissioned as midshipmen. Midshipmen can then study for three more years at the South African Military Academy, and upon graduation receive a B Mil degree from Stellenbosch University. #### Indian Navy Midshipmen in the Indian Navy begin their career as cadets at the National Defence Academy or the Indian Naval Academy, where they study for approximately three years. After graduation they receive a BTech degree from Jawaharlal Nehru University and are assigned to training ships for one year. After six months aboard the training ship, the cadets are promoted to midshipman. At the end of their training midshipmen are examined by a board and are cleared for promotion to sub-lieutenant. #### Pakistan Navy Cadets in the Pakistan Navy undertake an initial 18 months' training at the Pakistan Naval Academy. They study humanities, engineering, professional and technical subjects. After passing out they are appointed midshipmen, and undertake another six months of training at sea. They are assigned to operations, weapons engineering, mechanical engineering, or logistics. After passing the final fleet examination, they are promoted to the rank of sub-lieutenant. ### United States Naval and Merchant Marine Academies In the modern United States Navy, a midshipman is classified as an officer of the line, though their exercise of authority is limited by their training status. Legally, midshipmen are a special grade of uncommissioned officer that ranks between the senior noncommissioned enlisted grade (E-9) and the lowest grade of chief warrant officer (W-2, in the U.S. Coast Guard, which does not currently use the grade of warrant officer (W-1)) or warrant officer (W-1), U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, or U.S. Marine Corps. Students at the United States Naval Academy (USNA) are appointed to Office as midshipmen, United States Navy, by the President, alone, without Senate confirmation. Students at the United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) are appointed to Office as midshipmen, United States Navy Reserve, by the Secretary of the Navy, using delegated Presidential authority, and are likewise not subject to Senate confirmation. Students in the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) are also appointed to Office as midshipmen, United States Navy Reserve, by the Secretary of the Navy, without Senate confirmation. The student body at the USNA is the Brigade of Midshipmen, and the student body at the USMMA is the Regiment of Midshipmen. Generally, a nomination from a member of Congress or the Vice President is required to receive an appointment to the USNA. A nomination does not guarantee an appointment; in a typical year about 38% of nominees receive an appointment. Currently each member of Congress and the Vice President can have five appointees attending the Naval Academy at any time. Other nomination sources include the Secretary of the Navy, who may appoint 170 enlisted members of the regular and reserve Navy and Marine Corps to the Naval Academy each year, and the President may nominate an unlimited number of children of career military personnel for up to 100 appointments each year. Additionally, children of Medal of Honor recipients and select cadets of JROTC Honor Unit with Distinction units do not need a nomination but need only qualify for admission. The United States Merchant Marine Academy only accepts nominations from members of Congress. There are currently no Presidential, Vice-Presidential, military-affiliated, JROTC-honor unit, ROTC or Unit Commander, or Medal of Honor nominations permitted to the USMMA. Midshipmen at the US Naval Academy, US Merchant Marine Academy, and in the NROTC wear uniforms that comply with standards established for commissioned officers of the Navy, with shoulder board and sleeve insignia varying by school year or midshipman officer rank as prescribed by Chapter 6 of Navy Uniform Regulations. Midshipmen wear gold fouled anchors as the primary insignia on caps and shoulder boards and gold plain anchors as collar insignia on service dress and full dress uniforms. Marine-option midshipmen in the NROTC wear gold Eagle, Globe and Anchor insignia in place of the fouled anchor insignia worn by all other midshipmen. Midshipmen at the US Naval Academy study a core curriculum of engineering, natural sciences, the humanities, and social sciences, and participate in a required "surface cruise" with an active vessel during the summer. Upon graduation, midshipmen are commissioned as ensigns in the Navy or second lieutenants in the Marine Corps. Midshipmen at the United States Merchant Marine Academy study a similar core curriculum, except they are split into deck (navigation oriented) and engineering programs. Additionally, they typically spend a year at sea working as cadets on U.S. flagged merchant ships, visiting ports around the world. At graduation they have two options: (1) a job in the maritime industry ashore or sailing aboard commercial US-flagged vessels, plus a US Navy Reserve commission, or (2) an active-duty commission in any of the United States Uniformed Services (Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, or United States Public Health Service) as an ensign or second lieutenant. ## Other countries Today, ranks equivalent to midshipman exist in many countries. Using U.S. midshipman or pre-fleet board UK midshipman as the basis for comparison, the equivalent rank would be a naval cadet in training to become a junior commissioned officer. Using post-fleet board UK midshipman for comparison, the rank would be the most junior commissioned officer in the rank structure, and similar to a U.S. ensign in role and responsibility. The Dutch navy has since the early 17th century included a midshipman rank which literally means 'young gentleman' (Dutch: Adelborst); today, adelborsten train at the Royal Netherlands Naval College (Dutch: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Marine) for 3 years. Officer cadets in the German navy begin their training at the Naval Academy Mürwik (German: Marineschule Mürwik) in Flensburg-Mürwik holding enlisted ranks with the qualifier officer candidate (German: Offizieranwärter), abbreviated as OA. After about a year, they are promoted to Seekadetten, equivalent to the non-commissioned officer (NCO) rank Mate (German: Maat), and move to the University of the German Federal Armed Forces. About nine months later, they are promoted to Fähnrich zur See rank, equivalent to the NCO rank Boatswain (German: Bootsmann). After 30 months of total training they are promoted to the final officer candidate rank, Oberfähnrich zur See, equivalent to the NCO rank Hauptbootsmann, and after about 4 years of total training graduate with a master's degree. In many romance languages, the literal translation of the local term for "midshipman" into English is "Navy Guard", including the French garde-marine, Spanish guardia marina, Portuguese guarda-marinha, and Italian guardiamarina, and in most cases the term refers to the lowest ranking commissioned naval officer. The French rank of garde de la marine was established in 1670, when an office of the monarchy selected young gentlemen from the nobility to serve the King in the Gardes de la Marine. The concept of the Gardes was borrowed from the various guards units within the Maison militaire du roi de France. In 1686 these guards were organized into companies of cadets at the ports of Brest, Rochefort and Toulon. Unlike midshipmen in the Royal Navy, the Gardes trained mostly on shore and focused on military drill and theory rather than practical skills in gunnery, navigation and seamanship. After the succession of the Bourbon Philip V of Spain to the Spanish throne, the French system of naval officer education spread to Spain. The Spanish Navy created the rank of guardia marina in 1717, with the formation at Cadiz of the Royal Company of Midshipmen (Spanish: Real Compañía de Guardias Marinas). By restricting the French officer corps to members of the nobility, there were not enough Gardes to man all of the ships during wartime. To fill the gaps, volunteers were temporarily recruited from the merchant service; they were allowed to hold permanent rank in the navy starting in 1763. These professional officers wore blue uniforms to distinguish them from the Gardes de la Marine who wore red uniforms. After the revolution, the royal connotations of the term garde marine led to its replacement with aspirant (officer cadet), and later élèves de la Marine (naval officer candidate). Contemporary French naval officer training still reflects this structure: students at the École navale begin their first year as élève-officier, are promoted in their second year to aspirant, and in their third year are commissioned as an acting sub-lieutenant (French: Enseigne de vaisseau de deuxième classe). In a modern French-English dictionary, élève officier translates to midshipman, but both the historical term garde-marine and the modern term for an officer candidate, aspirant, are also equivalent to midshipman. ### Comparative ranks and insignia
13,083,295	Sinestro Corps War	1,144,397,393	DC Comics crossover event	[ "2007 comics debuts", "2007 comics endings", "Alien invasions in comics", "Comics by Dave Gibbons", "Comics by Geoff Johns", "Comics set on fictional planets", "Crossover comics", "Green Lantern storylines" ]	"Sinestro Corps War" is an American comic book crossover event published by DC Comics in its Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps titles. Written by Geoff Johns and Dave Gibbons and drawn by Ivan Reis, Patrick Gleason, and Ethan Van Sciver, the 11-part saga was originally published between June and December 2007. In addition to the main storyline, four supplemental "Tales of the Sinestro Corps" one-shot specials and a Blue Beetle tie-in issue were concurrently released. The story centers on the Green Lanterns of Earth—Hal Jordan, Kyle Rayner, John Stewart and Guy Gardner—and the rest of the Green Lantern Corps as they fight an interstellar war against the Sinestro Corps, an army led by the former Green Lantern Sinestro who are armed with yellow power rings and seek a universe ruled through fear. A 1986 Alan Moore "Tales of the Green Lantern Corps" story was the thematic basis of the storyline. Many characters were changed, killed off, or re-introduced as a result of the event. Critical and fan reception to "Sinestro Corps War" was highly positive. Many reviewers ranked it among the top comic books of the year and the storyline's first issue garnered a 2008 Eisner Award nomination for Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team. The storyline was also a financial success, and several issues underwent multiple printings. "Sinestro Corps War" is the second part of a trilogy in the Green Lantern storyline, preceded by the 2005 miniseries Green Lantern: Rebirth. The conclusion of "Sinestro Corps War" sets up the third and final part of the trilogy, Blackest Night, which was published in 2009. ## Plot Following his defeat in Green Lantern: Rebirth, the events of Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special \#1 see the supervillain Sinestro retreat to the planet Qward in the Antimatter Universe. There he amasses an army, the Sinestro Corps, that he selects based upon their ability to "instill great fear". Each member is armed with a yellow power ring, mirroring the green ones of the Green Lantern Corps. Amongst Sinestro's allies are Parallax and the resurrected Anti-Monitor. The Sinestro Corps then launch an all-out assault against the Green Lantern Corps and the universe itself. During the assault on Oa, the Sinestro Corps manages to inflict heavy casualties and free Superman-Prime and the Cyborg Superman from their imprisonment. Kyle Rayner is captured and transported to Qward, where Sinestro manages to separate Rayner from the symbiote Ion allowing Parallax to possess him. In Green Lantern (vol. 4) \#21 the heroes Hal Jordan, John Stewart and Guy Gardner attempt to rescue fallen comrade Kyle Rayner, but are themselves entrapped, with Jordan transported to face Sinestro and his allies. A failed bid to rescue Jordan depicted in Green Lantern (vol. 4) \#22 sees surviving members of the Green Lantern Corps forced underground and split into two groups. While one group attempts to free Jordan only to find themselves ambushed, the other successfully rescues Ion. They then re-unite with their ambushed comrades and together they escape from Qward back to the positive matter universe. Hal, John and Guy return to Earth to warn the Justice League of the Anti-Monitor's return. As the Sinestro Corps spreads out to ambush Green Lanterns across the universe, Green Lantern (vol. 4) \#23 sees the Guardians decide to rewrite their sacred text, the Book of Oa. They remove a section devoted to a prophecy concerning the "Blackest Night," against the objections of two of their number, Ganthet and Sayd. They then add ten new laws, the first of which authorizes the use of lethal force against the Sinestro Corps, while Ganthet and Sayd are expelled from Oa. As the Green Lanterns gather on Oa in preparation for a Sinestro Corps assault, the Sinestro Corps teleport themselves and their Central Power Battery instead to a new Warworld, their objective revealed to be Earth. Events in Green Lantern Corps (vol. 2) \#16 show Hal informing the Green Lantern Corps of Sinestro's plans. Green Lantern (vol. 4) \#24 continues the story, with Green Lanterns and Sinestro Corps members battling across Earth. Hal manages to free Kyle from Parallax before the entity is imprisoned in their power batteries by Ganthet and Sayd. After John and Guy arrive, the former Guardians reveal to them the prophecy of the "Blackest Night," seen in Green Lantern (vol. 4) \#25. It foretells of five more Corps arising, each based on a different color and emotion. After the five corps are established, a "War of Light" will ensue, in which all the corps are destroyed, leading to the "Blackest Night."[^1] The Guardians arrive on Earth and appoint Sodam Yat to be the new Ion. After a lengthy struggle in New York City, the Sinestro Corps are defeated by the overwhelming numbers against them. One of the Guardians sacrifices himself to send Superman-Prime to an alternate universe and another, Scar, suffers a major wound at the hands of the Anti-Monitor, while Hal and Kyle subdue and arrest Sinestro in Coast City. It is learned 440 Green Lanterns perished during the course of the war. As seen in Green Lantern (vol. 4) \#25, the Guardians decide to bring the second of the new laws into effect. After realizing that the "Blackest Night" prophecy will come to pass, Ganthet and Sayd depart after creating a blue power ring with the intention of creating their own corps, based on the spreading of hope to the rest of the universe. The Anti-Monitor's remains, having been blown across the vacuum of space at the battle's climax, lands on a dark planet where it is transformed by an unknown force into a black power battery. ## Origins "Sinestro Corps War" was based on concepts introduced by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill in the short story "Tygers", published in Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual \#2 (1986). Writers Geoff Johns and Dave Gibbons incorporated several ideas from Moore's stories into "Sinestro Corps War", including the prophecy of the Blackest Night, Sodam Yat, Ranx the Sentient City and the Children of the White Lobe. Leezle Pon, a minor character only mentioned once in Moore's "Mogo Doesn't Socialize" story from 25 years ago, also makes an appearance in Green Lantern \#25. Work began on "Sinestro Corps War" in September 2006. The structure was fluid, at one point becoming a few issues with two bookends to just one gigantic issue. The title was originally just "Sinestro Corps", but during development the creators added the word "War". Eventually the structure finalized into a one-shot special for release in June, after which the story would alternate between Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps until November. After the crossover's initial publishing successes, DC added four Tales of the Sinestro Corps one-shots to the publishing schedule. Johns and Ethan Van Sciver first announced the crossover during the DC "Big Guns" panel at the 2006 Fan Expo Canada, with Johns calling it "the next level of Rebirth". By January 2007, Johns, Gibbons and editor Peter Tomasi had planned out most of the storyline. Sterling Gates, whom Johns had met at a convention, was brought in to write a backup story for the Superman-Prime one-shot and co-write Green Lantern/Sinestro Corps Secret Files \#1. The creators called "Sinestro Corps War" "World War II with the entire universe". In a September 2007 interview, Johns compared "Sinestro Corps War" to the Star Wars trilogy, with Green Lantern: Rebirth as A New Hope and "Sinestro Corps War" as The Empire Strikes Back. References to other science fiction stories were made by artist Ivan Reis, who inserted characters such as E.T., ALF and a Predator into large two-page illustrations. The writers also included the sound "EPA" in Green Lantern \#25 as a direct reference to a scene in The Simpsons Movie where Comic Book Guy says it is the sound Green Lantern made when Sinestro threw him in a vat of acid. ## Format The main story consisted of 11 parts running through the Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps books. Expanding upon the overall story are four one-shots labeled Tales of the Sinestro Corps, as well as one tie-in with Blue Beetle \#20. Part One, the one-shot Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special \#1, was released in June 2007. Parts Two through Ten were released between August and December, alternating between Green Lantern \#21–25 and Green Lantern Corps \#14–18, with an epilogue in Green Lantern \#26. The content of Green Lantern Corps \#19 was changed to illustrate the battle between Sodam Yat and Superman-Prime in response to the fans' reaction to the story. Geoff Johns announced in October 2007 that the conclusion Green Lantern \#25 would be delayed two weeks. After the storyline concluded, Green Lantern/Sinestro Corps Secret Files and Origins \#1 was released in December. The issue further explored the back story of the opposing groups and listed every member of the Green Lantern Corps and Sinestro Corps. There was much internal discussion at DC about how the storyline would be collected. Eventually DC decided to release two hardcover volumes (a February 2008 release containing the first five parts of the story and a June 2008 release containing the last six issues) and a June 2008 hardcover collecting the tie-in issues and backstories. This follows DC Comics' recent trend of releasing durable hardcover collections initially, followed later by softcovers. ### Tales of the Sinestro Corps In addition to the main story, DC released four Tales of the Sinestro Corps one-shots in September, October and November 2007. The issues were late additions to the crossover that DC added after the initial successes of "Sinestro Corps War". A hardcover collection of the four issues was released in June 2008. The Tales of the Sinestro Corps one-shots focused on: - Parallax, written by Ron Marz and illustrated by Adriana Melo and Marlo Alquiza. - Cyborg Superman, written by Alan Burnett and illustrated by Patrick Blaine and Jay Leisten. - Superman-Prime (previously solicited as about the Anti-Monitor), written by Geoff Johns and illustrated by Pete Woods. The issue also featured the backup story "Fear is a Baby's Cry" written by Sterling Gates and illustrated by Jerry Ordway. - Ion, written by Ron Marz and illustrated by Michael Lacomb. ## Story and character changes "Sinestro Corps War" introduced the Sinestro Corps in full after allusions to them throughout the post-One Year Later Green Lantern title. Sinestro received a major thematic overhaul as a result of his leadership of his eponymous Corps, with parallels drawn with Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. Green Lantern villains Superboy-Prime (later Superman-Prime), Cyborg Superman, and the Manhunters became members of the Sinestro Corps. The Anti-Monitor also made his first reappearance since his death at the conclusion of Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985 as the "Guardian" of the Sinestro Corps and later the power source of the Black Lanterns. Superboy-Prime was renamed Superman-Prime during the event. Ostensibly to illustrate his coming of age in the story, Geoff Johns cited the ongoing legal dispute over the Superboy name as another reason for the character's new name. Some changes were also made to the heroes during the course of the storyline. The role of Ion passed from Kyle Rayner to Sodam Yat, making Yat the "strongest Green Lantern in the universe" as a result according to Johns. The Book of Oa was rewritten by the Guardians to institute 10 new laws for the Green Lantern Corps, the first of which authorized lethal force against the Sinestro Corps. The rebirth of Coast City, the process of which had been seen throughout Geoff Johns' run on Green Lantern, as "the City Without Fear" was used to symbolically represent Hal Jordan's journey towards acceptance after his resurrection. The second volume of the story's collection revealed that the original plan was for both John Stewart and Guy Gardner to be possessed by Parallax, with artwork of them facing off against Hal Jordan. However, in the midst of the story planning, Johns realized this would make Parallax's possession of Kyle less effective and the segment was dropped and redrawn. Green Lantern \#25 expanded on the "emotional spectrum" concept and introduced five new color-based corps of similar structure to the Green Lanterns and the Sinestro Corps. These corps each draw from different emotions, corresponding with the seven colors of the rainbow (red for rage, orange for avarice, yellow for fear, green for willpower, blue for hope, indigo for compassion and violet for love). Ganthet and Sayd, two Guardians of the Universe who were exiled during the course of the war, were shown as developing the corps that corresponds to the color blue and the emotion hope, while the Anti-Monitor becomes the power source for an eighth color-based corps, the "Black Lanterns", who represent death and the "absence of human drives and emotions." The issue also laid the foundations for the 2009 event Blackest Night, something the creators had been working towards since early 2007. ## Critical and financial reception Altogether, "Sinestro Corps War" turned Green Lantern into one of DC Comics' most profitable titles. Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special \#1, first released June 2007, sold out in a single day. DC later reprinted the issue four times, each time with new variant covers by Van Sciver. By August, the issue had sold over 89,000 copies, 36% of which was the result of an unusually high number of reorders. The first four parts of the storyline, Green Lantern \#21 and 22, and Green Lantern Corps \#14 and 15, were released in July and August and also sold out. The issues went to a second printing, with Green Lantern Corps \#14 going to a third printing. Green Lantern \#23 and Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Parallax \#1 later went on to second printings as well. Blue Beetle \#20 saw much higher sales than usual for the title as a result of its tie-in to "Sinestro Corps War", with sales 75% higher than in the previous month. Critical reception to "Sinestro Corps War" was highly positive. IGN.com called the story a "smash hit" and Newsarama referred to it as both an "action-packed DC adventure" and "DC's blockbuster event of the year". Comic Book Resources released an editorial in mid-October 2007 entitled "Sinestro Corps War is what World War Hulk SHOULD be", citing the former's ability to keep up and gain momentum throughout despite being both twice as large and far less publicized than the latter. Comic Book Resources placed "Sinestro Corps War" on its "Best of 2007" list, and named Geoff Johns one of its "Best Writers of 2007". In 2008, Ethan Van Sciver earned an Eisner Award nomination for his art in Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special \#1. DC Comics Executive Editor Dan DiDio praised the storyline as "the best thing that [DC Comics] put out this year. Without a doubt", and called "Sinestro Corps War" the model for crossovers in 2008 and beyond, including "Final Crisis". Didio has also stated that he would like to see a direct-to-video animated "Sinestro Corps War" film similar to Justice League: The New Frontier. Geoff Johns suggested elements of "Sinestro Corps War" will appear in DC Universe Online, on which he was collaborating with artist Jim Lee, although the comic storyline wasn't incorporated in the game. ## Collected editions The main story was first collected in two volumes, but was later collected in a single volume. Miscellaneous stories were collected in an additional volume: - Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War (336 pages, paperback, September 2011, ) - Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War Volume One (collects Green Lantern vol. 4 \#21–23, Green Lantern Corps vol. 2 \#14–15, and a story from Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special \#1; 176 pages, hardcover, February 2008, ; softcover, May 2009, ) - Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War Volume Two (collects Green Lantern vol. 4 \#24–25 and Green Lantern Corps vol. 2 \#16–19, 192 pages, hardcover, July 2008, ; paperback, June 2009, ) - Green Lantern: Tales of the Sinestro Corps (collects Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Parallax \#1, Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Cyborg-Superman \#1, Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Superman-Prime \#1, Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Ion \#1, Green Lantern/Sinestro Corps Secret Files \#1, and stories from Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special \#1 and Green Lantern vol. 4 \#18–20; 200 pages, hardcover, July 2008, ; paperback, June 2009, ) ## In other media In an interview with Newsarama in 2008, DC Comics executive editor Dan DiDio expressed interest in making an animated adaptation of Sinestro Corps War as part of the DC Universe Animated Original Movies. During the early development of the cancelled Green Lantern sequel in 2012, the main plot was based on the Sinestro Corps War'' storyline. [^1]: Geoff Johns (w), Ivan Reis & Ethan Van Sciver (p), Oclair Albert, Julio Feirreira, & Ivan Reis (i), Moose Baumann & Rod Reis (col). The Sinestro Corps War" part 11. Green Lantern (vol. 4) \#25, DC Comics.
1,911,723	Telopea speciosissima	1,144,742,073	Large shrub in the plant family Proteaceae endemic to New South Wales in Australia	[ "Flora of New South Wales", "Plants described in 1793", "Proteales of Australia", "Telopea (plant)" ]	Telopea speciosissima, commonly known as the New South Wales waratah or simply waratah, is a large shrub in the plant family Proteaceae. It is endemic to New South Wales in Australia and is the floral emblem of that state. No subspecies are recognised, but the closely related Telopea aspera was only recently classified as a separate species. T. speciosissima is a shrub to 3 or 4 m (9.8 or 13.1 ft) high and 2 m (6.6 ft) wide, with dark green leaves. Its several stems arise from a pronounced woody base known as a lignotuber. The species is well renowned for its striking large red springtime inflorescences (flowerheads), each including hundreds of individual flowers. These are visited by the eastern pygmy possum (Cercartetus nanus), birds such as honeyeaters (Meliphagidae), and various insects. The floral emblem for its home state of New South Wales, Telopea speciosissima has featured prominently in art, architecture, and advertising, particularly since Australian federation. Commercially grown in several countries as a cut flower, it is also cultivated in home gardens, requiring good drainage yet adequate moisture, but is vulnerable to various fungal diseases and pests. A number of cultivars with various shades of red, pink and even white flowers are available. Horticulturists have also developed hybrids with T. oreades and T. mongaensis which are more tolerant of cold, shade, and heavier soils. ## Description Telopea speciosissima, the New South Wales waratah, is a large, erect shrub up to 3 or 4 metres (9.8 or 13.1 ft) in height with one or more stems. Arising vertically or near vertically from a large woody base, or lignotuber, the stems are little branched. In late spring, there is a spurt of new growth after flowering, with new shoots often arising from old flowerheads. The dark green leaves are alternate and usually coarsely-toothed, ranging from 13 to 25 cm (5 to 10 in) in length. Enveloped in leafy bracts, the flowerheads develop over the winter and begin to swell in early spring, before opening to reveal the striking inflorescences. The exact timing varies across New South Wales, but flowering can begin as early as August in the northern parts of its range, and finish in November in the southern, more elevated areas. Spot flowering may also occur around March in autumn. Containing up to 250 individual flowers, the domed flowerheads are crimson in colour and measure 7–10 cm (3–4 in) in diameter. They are cupped in a whorl of leafy bracts which are 5 to 7 cm (2 to 3 in) long and also red. Variations are not uncommon; some flowerheads may be more globular or cone-shaped than dome-shaped, and the bracts may be whitish or dark red. The tips of the stigmas of some inflorescences may be whitish, contrasting with the red colour of the rest of the flowerhead. An individual flowerhead reaches full size about two weeks after first emerging from the bracts, and lasts another two weeks before the flowers fade and fall. In the first phase, the individual small flowers, known as florets, remain unopened—and the flowerhead retains a compact shape—before they mature and split open, revealing the stigma, style, and anther. The anther is sessile, lacking a filament, and lies next to the stigma at the end of the style. The outermost florets open first, with anthesis progressing towards the centre of the flowerhead, which becomes darker and more open in appearance, and begins attracting birds and insects. The ovary lies at the base of the style and atop a stalk known as the gynophore, and it is from here that the seed pods then develop. Meanwhile, a crescent-shaped nectary lies at the base of the gynophore. The seed pods grow to 8–15 cm (3–6 in) long. As the pods mature, they range from green, to yellow and finally turn russet red-brown. The pods become leathery before splitting open during early winter,. The pods contain winged seeds inside. In the wild, only two or three seed pods develop per flowerhead, but there may be anywhere from 5 to 50 in cultivated plants. ## Taxonomy Telopea speciosissima, the New South Wales Waratah, was first described by botanist James Edward Smith in his 1793 book A Specimen of the Botany of New Holland, from "very fine dried specimens sent by Mr. White". He gave the species its original binomial name of Embothrium speciosissimum. The specific epithet is derived from the superlative of the Latin word speciosus "beautiful" or "handsome", hence "very-" or "most beautiful". Embothrium had been a wastebasket taxon at the time, and Robert Brown suggested the genus Telopea for it in 1809, which was published in 1810. Richard Salisbury had published the name Hylogyne speciosa in 1809, but Brown's name was nomenclaturally conserved. Telopea speciosissima is one of five species from southeastern Australia which make up the genus Telopea. Its closest relative is the very similar Gibraltar Range waratah (T. aspera) from northern New South Wales, which was only recognised as a separate species in 1995, having previously been considered an unusual northern population of T. speciosissima. The genus is classified in the subtribe Embothriinae of the Proteaceae, along with the tree waratahs (Alloxylon) from eastern Australia and New Caledonia, and Oreocallis and the Chilean firetree (Embothrium coccineum) from South America. Almost all these species have red terminal flowers, and hence the subtribe's origin and floral appearance must predate the splitting of Gondwana into Australia, Antarctica, and South America over 60 million years ago. Although no subspecies are recognised within Telopea speciosissima itself, geographical variations within its range have been noted. Forms toward the northern limits of its range have more prominently lobed leaves. A population from Waterfall has darker red, wider inflorescences, and a population at West Head in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park has paler inflorescences. Leaf shape varies widely. The common name waratah was first applied to this species before being generalised to other members of the genus Telopea and, to a lesser extent, Alloxylon. Waratah is derived from the Eora Aboriginal people, the original inhabitants of the Sydney area. The Dharawal people of the Illawarra region knew it as mooloone, and mewah is another aboriginal name. A former common name from around 1900 is "native tulip", possibly derived from Telopea. ## Distribution and habitat The species is found in New South Wales (Australia) from the Watagan Mountains southward to Ulladulla, with a relatively widespread distribution in the Central Coast region. It usually occurs as an understory shrub in open forest on sandy soils in areas with moderately high rainfall, receiving on average around 1,200 mm (47 in) a year. Dappled shade from eucalyptus (Eucalyptus) trees reduces sunlight by around 30%. Much of its range occurs in the Sydney Basin, an area with one of the highest human populations and most intense development in Australia. The impact of habitat fragmentation and decreased fire interval (time between bushfires) on the gene pool of Telopea speciosissima, which relies on outcrossing, is unclear. Although largely protected within National Parks and conservation reserves in the Sydney area, most populations are small, numbering under 200 plants, and are often located near urban developments. ## Ecology Telopea speciosissima is a pyrogenic-flowering species, relying on post-fire flowering followed by production and dispersal of non-dormant seeds to take advantage of favourable growing conditions in the altered environment following a fire. Of the woody resprouter species of southeastern Australia, it is one of the slowest to produce seedlings after bushfires, taking at least two years. The species resprouts from a lignotuber, a swollen woody base largely under the soil, that stores energy and nutrients as a resource for rapid growth of new shoots after a bushfire. Waratahs dominate the understorey around two years after a fire, but are later overtaken by the slower-growing banksias (Banksia) and wattles (Acacia). Fire also serves to strip away diseases and pests. Flowering may be prolific at this time. The prominent position and striking colour of Telopea speciosissima and many of its relatives within the subtribe Embothriinae both in Australia and South America strongly suggest it is adapted to pollination by birds, and has been for over 60 million years. Honeyeaters, in particular the New Holland honeyeater (Phylidonyris novaehollandiae) and the crescent honeyeater (P. pyrrhopterus), are frequent visitors. However, a field study conducted at Barren Grounds showed New Holland honeyeaters to carry relatively little pollen. The eastern pygmy possum (Cercartetus nanus) also forages among the flowerheads. The New South Wales waratah had been considered to be protandrous (that is, with male parts concluding sexual activity before female parts become receptive on the same plant), but analysis of the timing of pollen viability and stigma receptivity has shown significant overlaps. The species has been shown to be self-incompatible, requiring cross-pollination with plants of other genotypes to reproduce successfully. ## Cultivation The New South Wales waratah was a popular garden plant at the beginning of the 20th century. It had been introduced early (1789) into the United Kingdom, and was reported flowering for the first time in 1809 at Springwell, the villa of one E. J. A. Woodford Esq. The Royal Horticultural Society awarded it an Award of Merit in 1914, and a First Class Certificate in 1922. Initially, waratahs were picked from the bushland for market, but by the early 20th century, a few plantsmen grew concerned at the development of urban areas at the expense of bush, particularly areas noted for wildflowers. Percy Parry of Floralands in Kariong developed the idea of "Preservation by Cultivation" and investigated the commercial cultivation of waratahs and other native plants. Meanwhile, the New South Wales Government was looking to curb flower and plant collecting from the wild, and considered prohibition in 1944, but after witnessing the ability of Parry to manage and develop cultivation, introduced compulsory licences for wildflower collecting the following year. With his wife Olive, Percy promoted and developed knowledge over fifty years and received the Order of Australia medal in 1981. Following on from the Parrys were Howard Gay and Arch Dennis, who pioneered growing waratahs at Monbulk in the Dandenong Ranges in the 1940s, Sid Cadwell and Frank Stone, who did likewise in Dural and the Blue Mountains respectively. The growing movement for cultivating and preserving native plants led to the establishment of the Society for Growing Australian Plants in 1957, and the waratah was featured heavily in the first edition of its journal Australian Plants. Today, New South Wales waratahs are grown commercially in Australia north of Sydney and in the Dandenong Ranges near Melbourne. They are also grown commercially in New Zealand and in Israel, and also in Hawaii, where they have been grown since 1961. One major challenge in commercial production is that in any one location the flowering season is generally short (five weeks total, with only small numbers in the earliest and latest weeks). The season for cut flowers may be extended, however, by growing plants at different latitudes. The vase life of a cut waratah is 10 to 14 days, and cut flower waratahs can be revived somewhat by water. Although they grow naturally on deep sandy soils, the species has proved adaptable to other deep, well-drained soils, especially where natural slopes assist drainage. Despite their natural occurrence in woodland, waratahs flower best in full sun, although they tolerate the dappled shade of eucalypts. Heavy pruning after flowering reinvigorates the plants and promotes more profuse flowering in the next season. Waratah blooms are highly susceptible to damage from wind, and benefit from some protection from prevailing winds. Waratah blooms attract birds to the garden. The species is readily propagated from fresh seed, but cultivars must be reproduced from cuttings to remain true-to-type. Several species of fungi infect the roots of waratahs, causing significant plant morbidity or death. Typical symptoms include yellow leaves, wilting, blackening and dieback or part or all of the plant, or lack of proteoid roots. The most common pathogen is the soil-borne water mold Phytophthora cinnamomi, which appears to be more problematic in cultivated plants than in wild populations. Mass plantings at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney and at Mount Annan planted before the 2000 Summer Olympics were devastated by the disease. Rhizoctonia solani can cause damping off or root rot, and is an uncommon pathogen. Cylindrocarpon scoparium and C. destructans (now Nectria radicicola) are also uncommon causes of infection and result in decay of the crown of the plant. Although significant problems, fungi are less likely to be the cause of plant morbidity than poor drainage or soil conditions. The larvae of the Macadamia leafminer (Acrocercops chionosema), a moth, burrow along and disfigure the waratah's leaves, and are mainly a problem in lowering the value of cut flower crops. More problematic is the larger caterpillar of another moth, the Macadamia twig girdler Macadamia twig girdler (Xylorycta luteotactella) which can burrow into and disfigure the developing flowerhead. ### Cultivars A number of natural variants of Telopea speciosissima have been selected for cultivation as follows: - Telopea 'Brimstone Blush' is a shrub of smaller size than the species, reaching a metre (3 ft) tall, and was originally found growing on a property of Ben Richards in Oakdale, southwest of Sydney. Flowering takes place in October. The flowerhead is globular with a pink crown and has 160 individual flowers, the styles of which are pink and white towards the ends. Three rows of whorled dark red bracts surround the flowerheads. - Telopea 'Cardinal' is a form originally found on the property of Lucille Pope in Werombi, from where it was propagated and made available commercially. The original plant was a vigorous specimen reaching 3 by 3 m (9.8 by 9.8 ft) and producing 100 to 120 flowerheads each year. It is named for its large dome-shaped cardinal red flowerheads, which bear 210 individual flowers and are surrounded by two rows of dark red bracts. These blooms have long vase life. - Telopea 'Corroboree', a form with longer styles, has compact inflorescences measuring 12 cm (4.5 in) high and wide, and is a vigorous grower. It was selected for commercial propagation in 1974 by Nanette Cuming of Bittern, Victoria, and registered with the Australian Cultivar Registration Authority in 1989. It is grown principally for the cut flower industry. - Telopea 'Fire and Brimstone' is a vigorous form with large inflorescences selected by waratah grower and author Paul Nixon of Camden, New South Wales. It is a shrub which may reach 3–4 m tall and 2 m wide, with large leaves with more heavily toothed margins. Each flowerhead is cone-shaped and has up to 240 florets. The stigmas are a light red and tipped with white. The bracts surrounding the flowerheads are relatively small, while the leaves are large and can reach 44 cm (17.5 in) in length. The cultivar is thought to be tetraploid. With a long vase life of 17 days, the cultivar is suitable for the cut flower industry. - Telopea 'Galaxy' has flowerheads with pinkish red tepals and white tips to the styles, surrounded by large bracts. - Telopea 'Olympic Flame' is a form with prominent bracts around the flowerheads. It has large leaves with toothed margins and flowers in early spring. Also known as 'Sunburst', it arose as a seedling in a breeding program conducted by Cathy Offord, Peter Goodwin and Paul Nixon under the auspices of the University of Sydney. - Telopea 'Parry's Dream' was a chance seedling in the early 1970s. It gave rise to this cultivar, a vigorous plant with red-pink flowerheads which reach a diameter of 10 cm × 10 cm (4 in × 4 in) surrounded by pink bracts. - Telopea 'Shade of Pale' is an unusual pale-pink flowered form of T. speciosissima. It is less vigorous than the parent plant. It was initially promoted as 'Light Shade of Pale' but there can only be three words in a registered cultivar name. - Telopea 'Sunflare' is an early-flowering form. It has large leaves with toothed margins and flowers in early spring. It also arose as a seedling in the same breeding program by the University of Sydney mentioned above. Selected in 1981, it has red flowerheads with white-tipped styles which reach 9 cm (3.5 in) in diameter. - Telopea 'Wirrimbirra White' is a white form from Kangaloon near Robertson. Aboriginal legends of white waratahs existed, and several had been encountered, but none had been previously preserved in horticulture. Joseph Maiden had previously found a white waratah near Kurrajong, and others had been sighted near Narara on the Central Coast in 1919, and Colo Vale in the 1950s. Horticulturalist Frank Stone reported one in his garden, possibly propagated from the latter plant. 'Wirrimbirra White' was brought into cultivation in 1972 by cuttings from the original plant, which grew on water catchment property. It has pale greenish buds which open to a cream-white inflorescence. It is less vigorous than the parent species and vulnerable to borers. It is also highly vulnerable to the Macadamia twig girdler. In addition, a number of interspecific Telopea hybrids have also been produced. These have been bred or used as more frost- or shade-tolerant plants in cooler climates such as Canberra, Melbourne or elsewhere. - Telopea 'Braidwood Brilliant' is a frost-tolerant hybrid between a male T. speciosissima and female T. mongaensis. Dr Boden of the Canberra Parks Administration began investigating this hybrid in 1962, and it was registered in 1975 by Richard Powell. It is a lignotuberous shrub to 3 m (9.8 ft) high and has oblanceolate leaves to 20 cm (8 in) long. The red blooms are 6–8 cm (2.5–3 in) in diameter, intermediate in size between the parent species. It has grown well in cooler climates such as Canberra. - Telopea 'Canberry Coronet' is a cross between T. speciosissima from Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains and T. mongaensis intended for increased cold tolerance. It has red flowerheads to 6–8 cm (2.5–3 in) in diameter. Reaching 3–4 m (9.8–13.1 ft) high, it is a larger plant than 'Braidwood Brilliant'. It was bred by Doug Verdon of the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra. - Telopea 'Champagne' is a cultivar registered under Plant Breeders Rights (PBR) in 2006. Its creamy yellow flowerheads appear from October to December. It is a three-way hybrid between T. speciosissima, T. oreades and the yellow-flowered form of T. truncata. - Telopea 'Golden Globe' is a cultivar registered under PBR in 2006. Larger than 'Champagne', it is also a three-way hybrid between T. speciosissima, T. oreades and the yellow-flowered form of T. truncata. It has been propagated and sold as 'Shady Lady Yellow'. It was originally bred in the Dandenongs east of Melbourne. - Telopea 'Shady Lady' is a larger shrub which may reach 5 m (16 ft) high and 2 or 3 m (6.6 or 9.8 ft) wide. A hybrid of T. speciosissima and T. oreades, it arose by chance in a Melbourne garden. The flowerheads are smaller and lack the bracts of the speciosissima parent. As its name suggests, it tolerates more shade. It is vigorous and more reliable in temperate and subtropical areas, and grows in semi-shade or sun. 'Shady Lady Crimson', 'Shady Lady Red' and 'Shady Lady Pink' are three selected commercially available colour forms. - Telopea 'Shady Lady White' is a white hybrid between T. speciosissima and T. oreades. ## Symbolic and artistic references The New South Wales waratah featured prominently in the folklore of the Darug and Tharawal people in the Sydney basin and Gandangara people to the southwest. A dreamtime legend from the Eora tells of a female wonga pigeon searching for her husband who has been lost while out hunting. A hawk attacks and wounds her, and she hides in a waratah bush. Her husband calls and as she struggles in the bush her blood turns the white waratah blooms red. A tale from the Burragorang Valley tells of a beautiful maiden named Krubi, who wore a red cloak of rock wallaby adorned with the feathers of the gang-gang cockatoo. She fell in love with a young warrior who did not return from battle. Grief-stricken, she died, and up from the ground grew the first waratah. The Dharawal people regarded it as a totem, using it in ceremonies and timing ceremonies to its flowering. The striking form of the New South Wales waratah became a popular motif in Australian art in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and was incorporated in art nouveau designs of the time. Matchboxes, paperweights and especially tins have been decorated with the flower. Arnott's often used the waratah as an alternative to their parrot logo on biscuit and cake tins from the early 1900s. Shelleys soft drinks, established in 1893 in Broken Hill, also displayed it on their label. The French artist Lucien Henry, who had settled in Sydney in 1879, was a strong proponent of a definitive Australian art style incorporating local flora, particularly the waratah. His most famous surviving work is a triptych stained glass window of Oceania flanked by numerous waratahs overlooking the Centennial Hall in Sydney Town Hall. In 1925, artist Margaret Preston produced a hand-coloured woodcut depicting waratahs. The species also appeared on an Australian 3 shilling stamp in 1959 designed by botanical illustrator Margaret Jones and a 30c stamp in 1968. The Sydney suburb of Telopea takes its name from the Waratah, as does the Newcastle suburb of Waratah and the Super Rugby team, the Sydney-based NSW Waratahs. After Australian federation in 1901, the upsurge in nationalism led to the search for an official national floral emblem. The New South Wales waratah was considered alongside the wattle Acacia pycnantha, and debate raged between proponents of the two flowers. The economist and botanist R. T. Baker proposed that the waratah's endemism to the Australian continent made it a better choice than the wattle, as well as the prominence of its flowers. He was nicknamed the "Commander in Chief of the Waratah Armed Forces". The South Australian Evening News also supported the bid, but to no avail. Decades later, in 1962, Telopea speciosissima was proclaimed as the official floral emblem of New South Wales by the then-governor Sir Eric Woodward, after being used informally for many years. The species has also been adopted by others, including the New South Wales Waratahs rugby union team since the 1880s, and the former department store Grace Bros in a stylised form for their logo in the 1980s. Contemporary clothing designers Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson produced waratah-inspired fabric designs in the 1970s and 1980s during a resurgence of Australian motifs. From 1956 the annual Waratah Festival was held in Sydney, run by the Sydney Committee. It took place from late October to early November, coinciding with the blooming of the waratahs. It was an important cultural event which included a parade, a popular art competition, beauty contests, exhibitions and performances. A highlight was the Lord Mayor's reception at the Sydney Town Hall for which the floral displays were made of hundreds of waratahs culled by Park Rangers from the national parks. In 2009, the Premier of New South Wales, Nathan Rees, commissioned a state logo based on the floral emblem. The resultant logo design has been criticised as resembling a lotus rather than the New South Wales Waratah. ## See also - List of Australian floral emblems
23,883,287	Nelson's Pillar	1,157,822,728	Former column and statue in Dublin, Ireland	[ "1809 establishments in Ireland", "1966 disestablishments in Ireland", "Buildings and structures completed in 1809", "Buildings and structures demolished in 1966", "Columns related to the Napoleonic Wars", "Demolished buildings and structures in Dublin", "Destroyed sculptures", "History of Dublin (city)", "Improvised explosive device bombings in the Republic of Ireland", "Monumental columns in the Republic of Ireland", "Monuments and memorials to Horatio Nelson", "Neoclassical architecture in Ireland", "Outdoor sculptures in Ireland", "Removed statues" ]	Nelson's Pillar (also known as the Nelson Pillar or simply the Pillar) was a large granite column capped by a statue of Horatio Nelson, built in the centre of what was then Sackville Street (later renamed O'Connell Street) in Dublin, Ireland. Completed in 1809 when Ireland was part of the United Kingdom, it survived until March 1966, when it was severely damaged by explosives planted by Irish republicans. Its remnants were later destroyed by the Irish Army. The decision to build the monument was taken by Dublin Corporation in the euphoria following Nelson's victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The original design by William Wilkins was greatly modified by Francis Johnston, on grounds of cost. The statue was sculpted by Thomas Kirk. From its opening on 29 October 1809 the Pillar was a popular tourist attraction, but provoked aesthetic and political controversy from the outset. A prominent city centre monument honouring an Englishman rankled as Irish nationalist sentiment grew, and throughout the 19th century there were calls for it to be removed, or replaced with a memorial to an Irish hero. It remained in the city as most of Ireland became the Irish Free State in 1922, and the Republic of Ireland in 1949. The chief legal barrier to its removal was the trust created at the Pillar's inception, the terms of which gave the trustees a duty in perpetuity to preserve the monument. Successive Irish governments failed to enact legislation overriding the trust. Although influential literary figures such as W. B. Yeats and Oliver St. John Gogarty defended the Pillar on historical and cultural grounds, pressure for its removal intensified in the years preceding the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising, and its sudden demise was, on the whole, well-received by the public. Although it was widely believed that the action was the work of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the police were unable to identify any of those responsible. After years of debate and numerous proposals, the site was occupied in 2003 by the Spire of Dublin, a slim needle-like structure rising almost three times the height of the Pillar. In 2000, a former republican activist gave a radio interview in which he admitted planting the explosives in 1966, but, after questioning him, the Gardaí decided not to take action. Relics of the Pillar are found in Dublin museums and appear as decorative stonework elsewhere and its memory is preserved in numerous works of Irish literature. ## Background ### Sackville Street and Blakeney The redevelopment of Dublin north of the River Liffey began in the early 18th century, largely through the enterprise of the property speculator Luke Gardiner. His best-known work was the transformation in the 1740s of a narrow lane called Drogheda Street, which he demolished and turned into a broad thoroughfare lined with large and imposing town houses. He renamed it Sackville Street, in honour of Lionel Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset, who served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1731 to 1737 and from 1751 to 1755. After Gardiner's death in 1755 Dublin's growth continued, with many fine public buildings and grand squares, the city's status magnified by the presence of the Parliament of Ireland for six months of the year. The Acts of Union of 1800, which united Ireland and Great Britain under a single Westminster polity, ended the Irish parliament and presaged a period of decline for the city. The historian Tristram Hunt writes: "[T]he capital's dynamism vanished, absenteeism returned and the big houses lost their patrons". The first monument in Sackville Street was built in 1759 in the location where the Nelson Pillar would eventually stand. The subject was William Blakeney, 1st Baron Blakeney, a Limerick-born army officer whose career extended over more than 60 years and ended with his surrender to the French after the siege of Minorca in 1756. A brass statue sculpted by John van Nost the younger was unveiled on St Patrick's Day, 17 March 1759. Donal Fallon, in his history of the Pillar, states that almost from its inception the Blakeney statue was a target for vandalism. Its fate is uncertain; Fallon records that it might have been melted down for cannon, but it had certainly been removed by 1805. ### Trafalgar On 21 October 1805, a Royal Naval fleet commanded by Vice Admiral Lord Nelson defeated the combined fleets of the French and Spanish navies in the Battle of Trafalgar. At the height of the battle Nelson was mortally wounded on board his flagship, HMS Victory; by the time he died later that day, victory was assured. Nelson had been hailed in Dublin seven years earlier, after the Battle of the Nile, as defender of the Harp and Crown, the respective symbols of Ireland and Britain. When news of Trafalgar reached the city on 8 November, there were similar scenes of patriotic celebration, together with a desire that the fallen hero should be commemorated. The mercantile classes had particular reason to be grateful for a victory that restored the freedom of the high seas and removed the threat of a French invasion. Many of the city's population had relatives who had been involved in the battle: up to one-third of the sailors in Nelson's fleet were from Ireland, including around 400 from Dublin itself. In his short account of the Pillar, Dennis Kennedy considers that Nelson would have been regarded in the city as a hero, not just among the Protestant Ascendancy but by many Catholics among the rising middle and professional classes. The first step towards a permanent memorial to Nelson was taken on 18 November 1805 by the city aldermen, who after sending a message of congratulation to King George III, agreed that the erection of a statue would form a suitable tribute to Nelson's memory. On 28 November, after a public meeting had supported this sentiment, a "Nelson committee" was established, chaired by the Lord Mayor. It contained four of the city's Westminster MPs, alongside other city notables including Arthur Guinness, the son of the brewery founder. The committee's initial tasks were to decide precisely what form the monument should take and where it should be put. They had also to raise the funds to pay for it. ## Inception, design and construction At its first meeting the Nelson committee established a public subscription, and early in 1806 invited artists and architects to submit design proposals for a monument. No specifications were provided, but the contemporary European vogue in commemorative architecture was for the classical form, typified by Trajan's Column in Rome. Monumental columns, or "pillars of victory", were uncommon in Ireland at the time; the Cumberland Column in Birr, County Offaly, erected in 1747, was a rare exception. From the entries submitted, the Nelson committee's choice was that of a young English architect, William Wilkins, then in the early stages of a distinguished career. Wilkins's proposals envisaged a tall Doric column on a plinth, surmounted by a sculpted Roman galley. The choice of the Sackville Street site was not unanimous. The Wide Streets Commissioners were worried about traffic congestion, and argued for a riverside location visible from the sea. Another suggestion was for a seaside position, perhaps Howth Head at the entrance to Dublin Bay. The recent presence of the Blakeney statue in Sackville Street, and a desire to arrest the street's decline in the post-parliamentary years, were factors that may have influenced the final selection of that site which, Kennedy says, was the preferred choice of the Lord Lieutenant. <div class="quotebox pullquote floatright " style=" width:350px; ; background-color: #E0E6F8; "> > > BY THE BLESSING OF ALMIGHTY GOD, To Commemorate the Transcendent Heroic Achievements of the Right Honourable HORATIO LORD VISCOUNT NELSON, Duke of Bronti in Sicily, Vice-Admiral of the White Squadron of His Majesty's Fleet, Who fell gloriously in the Battle off CAPE TRAFALGAR, on the 21st Day of October 1805; when he obtained for his Country a VICTORY over the COMBINED FLEET OF FRANCE AND SPAIN, unparalleled in Naval History. This first STONE of a Triumphal PILLAR was laid by HIS GRACE CHARLES DUKE OF RICHMOND and LENNOX, Lord Lieutenant General and General Governor of Ireland, on the 15th Day of February in the year of our Lord, 1808. and in the 48th Year of our most GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN GEORGE THE THIRD, in the presence of the Committee appointed by the Subscribers for erecting this monument. <cite class="left-aligned" style="">Wording of memorial plaque laid with the foundation stone, 15 February 1808'</cite> </div> By mid-1807, fundraising was proving difficult; sums raised at that point were well short of the likely cost of erecting Wilkins's column. The committee informed the architect with regret that "means were not placed in their hands to enable them to gratify him, as well as themselves, by executing his design precisely as he had given it". They employed Francis Johnston, architect to the City Board of Works, to make cost-cutting adjustments to Wilkins's scheme. Johnston simplified the design, substituting a large functional block or pedestal for Wilkins's delicate plinth, and replacing the proposed galley with a statue of Nelson. Thomas Kirk, a sculptor from Cork, was commissioned to provide the statue, to be fashioned from Portland stone. By December 1807 the fund stood at £3,827, far short of the estimated £6,500 required to finance the project. Nevertheless, by the beginning of 1808 the committee felt confident enough to begin the work, and organised the laying of the foundation stone. This ceremony took place on 15 February 1808—the day following the anniversary of Nelson's victory at the Battle of Cape St Vincent in 1797—amid much pomp, in the presence of the new Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Richmond, along with various civic dignitaries and city notables. A memorial plaque eulogising Nelson's Trafalgar victory was attached to the stone. The committee continued to raise money as construction proceeded; when the project was complete in the autumn of 1809, costs totalled £6,856, but contributions had reached £7,138, providing the committee with a surplus of £282. When finished, the monument complete with its statue rose to a height of 134 feet (40.8 m). The four sides of the pedestal were engraved with the names and dates of Nelson's greatest victories. A spiral stairway of 168 steps ascended the hollow interior of the column, to a viewing platform immediately beneath the statue. According to the committee's published report, 22,090 cubic feet (626 m<sup>3</sup>) of black limestone and 7,310 cubic feet (207 m<sup>3</sup>) of granite had been used to build the column and its pedestal. The Pillar opened to the public on 21 October 1809, on the fourth anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar; for ten pre-decimal pence, visitors could climb to a viewing platform just below the statue, and enjoy what an early report describes as "a superb panoramic view of the city, the country and the fine bay". ## History 1809–1966 ### 1809–1916 The Pillar quickly became a popular tourist attraction; Kennedy writes that "for the next 157 years its ascent was a must on every visitor's list". Yet from the beginning there were criticisms, on both political and aesthetic grounds. The September 1809 issue of the Irish Monthly Magazine, edited by the revolution-minded Walter "Watty" Cox, reported that "our independence has been wrested from us, not by the arms of France but by the gold of England. The statue of Nelson records the glory of a mistress and the transformation of our senate into a discount office". In an early (1818) history of the city of Dublin, the writers express awe at the scale of the monument, but are critical of several of its features: its proportions are described as "ponderous", the pedestal as "unsightly" and the column itself as "clumsy". However, Walker's Hibernian Magazine thought the statue was a good likeness of its subject, and that the Pillar's position in the centre of the wide street gave the eye a focal point in what was otherwise "wastes of pavements". By 1830, rising nationalist sentiment in Ireland made it likely that the Pillar was "the Ascendancy's last hurrah"—Kennedy observes that it probably could not have been built at any later date. Nevertheless, the monument often attracted favourable comment from visitors; in 1842 the writer William Makepeace Thackeray noted Nelson "upon a stone-pillar" in the middle of the "exceedingly broad and handsome" Sackville Street: "The Post Office is on his right hand (only it is cut off); and on his left, 'Gresham's' and the 'Imperial Hotel' ". A few years later, the monument was a source of pride to some citizens, who dubbed it "Dublin's Glory" when Queen Victoria visited the city in 1849. Between 1840 and 1843 Nelson's Column was erected in London's Trafalgar Square. With an overall height of 170 feet (52 m) it was taller than its Dublin equivalent and, at £47,000, much more costly to erect, despite the absence of an internal staircase or viewing platform. The London column was the subject of an attack during the Fenian dynamite campaign in May 1884, when a quantity of explosives was placed at its base but failed to detonate. In 1853 the queen attended the Dublin Great Industrial Exhibition, where a city plan was displayed that envisaged the removal of the Pillar. This proved impossible, as since 1811 legal responsibility for the Pillar had been vested in a trust, under the terms of which the trustees were required "to embellish and uphold the monument in perpetuation of the object for which it was subscribed". Any action to remove or resite the Pillar, or replace the statue, required the passage of an Act of Parliament in London; Dublin Corporation (the city government) had no authority in the matter. No action followed the city plan suggestion, but the following years saw regular attempts to remove the monument. A proposal was made in 1876 by Alderman Peter McSwiney, a former Lord Mayor, to replace the "unsightly structure" with a memorial to the recently deceased Sir John Gray, who had done much to provide Dublin with a clean water supply. The Corporation was unable to advance this idea. In 1882 the Moore Street Market and Dublin City Improvement Act was passed by the Westminster parliament, overriding the trust and giving the Corporation authority to resite the Pillar, but subject to a strict timetable, within which the city authorities found it impossible to act. The Act lapsed and the Pillar remained; a similar attempt, with the same result, was made in 1891. Not all Dubliners favoured demolition; some businesses considered the Pillar to be the city's focal point, and the tramway company petitioned for its retention as it marked the central tram terminus. "In many ways", says Fallon, "the pillar had become part of the fabric of the city". Kennedy writes: "A familiar and very large if rather scruffy piece of the city's furniture, it was The Pillar, Dublin's Pillar rather than Nelson's Pillar ... it was also an outing, an experience". The Dublin sculptor John Hughes invited students at the Metropolitan School of Art to "admire the elegance and dignity" of Kirk's statue, "and the beauty of the silhouette". In 1894 there were some significant alterations to the Pillar's fabric. The original entry on the west side, whereby visitors entered the pedestal by a flight of steps taking them down below street level, was replaced by a new ground level entrance on the south side, with a grand porch. The whole monument was surrounded by heavy iron railings. In the new century, despite the growing nationalism within Dublin—80 per cent of the Corporation's councillors were nationalists of some description—the pillar was liberally decorated with flags and streamers to mark the 1905 Trafalgar centenary. The changing political atmosphere had long been signalled by the arrival in Sackville Street of further monuments, all celebrating distinctively Irish heroes, in what the historian Yvonne Whelan describes as defiance of the British Government, a "challenge in stone". Between the 1860s and 1911, Nelson was joined by monuments to Daniel O'Connell, William Smith O'Brien and Charles Stewart Parnell, as well as Sir John Gray and the temperance campaigner Father Mathew. Meanwhile, in 1861, after decades of construction, the Wellington Monument in Dublin's Phoenix Park was completed, the foundation stone having been laid in 1817. This vast obelisk, 220 feet (67 m) high and 120 feet (37 m) square at the base, honoured Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, Dublin-born and a former Chief Secretary for Ireland. Unlike the Pillar, Wellington's obelisk has attracted little controversy and has not been the subject of physical attacks. ### Easter Rising, April 1916 On Easter Monday, 24 April 1916, units of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army seized several prominent buildings and streets in central Dublin, including the General Post Office (GPO) in Sackville Street, one of the buildings nearest the Pillar. They set up headquarters at the GPO where they declared an Irish Republic under a provisional government. One of the first recorded actions of the Easter Rising occurred near the Pillar when lancers from the nearby Marlborough Street barracks, sent to investigate the disturbance, were fired on from the GPO. They withdrew in confusion, leaving four soldiers and two horses dead. During the days that followed, Sackville Street and particularly the area around the Pillar became a battleground. According to some histories, insurgents attempted to blow up the Pillar. The accounts are unconfirmed and were disputed by many that fought in the Rising, on the grounds that the Pillar's large base provided them with useful cover as they moved to and from other rebel positions. By Thursday night, British artillery fire had set much of Sackville Street ablaze, but according to the writer Peter De Rosa's account: "On his pillar, Nelson surveyed it all serenely, as though he were lit up by a thousand lamps". The statue was visible against the fiery backdrop from as far as Killiney, 9 miles (14 km) away. By Saturday, when the provisional government finally surrendered, many of the Sackville Street buildings between the Pillar and the Liffey had been destroyed or badly damaged, including the Imperial Hotel that Thackeray had admired. Of the GPO, only the façade remained; against the tide of opinion Bernard Shaw said the demolition of the city's classical architecture scarcely mattered: "What does matter is the Liffey slums have not been demolished". An account in a New York newspaper reported that the Pillar had been lost in the destruction of the street, but it had sustained only minor damage, chiefly bullet marks on the column and statue itself—one shot is said to have taken off Nelson's nose. ### Post-partition After the Irish war of Independence 1919–21 and the treaty that followed, Ireland was partitioned; Dublin became the capital of the Irish Free State, a Dominion within the British Commonwealth of Nations. From December 1922, when the Free State was inaugurated, the Pillar became an issue for the Irish rather than the British government. In 1923, when Sackville Street was again in ruins during the Irish Civil War, The Irish Builder and Engineer magazine called the original siting of the Pillar a "blunder" and asked for its removal, a view echoed by the Dublin Citizens Association. The poet William Butler Yeats, who had become a member of the Irish Senate, favoured its re-erection elsewhere, but thought it should not, as some wished, be destroyed, because "the life and work of the people who built it are part of our tradition." Sackville Street was renamed O'Connell Street in 1924. The following year the Dublin Metropolitan Police and the Dublin Civic Survey demanded legislation to allow the Pillar's removal, without success. Pressure continued, and in 1926 The Manchester Guardian reported that the Pillar was to be taken down, "as it was a hindrance to modern traffic". Requests for action—removal, destruction or the replacement of the statue with that of an Irish hero—continued up to the Second World War and beyond; the main stumbling blocks remained the trustees' strict interpretation of the terms of the trust, and the unwillingness of successive Irish governments to take legislative action. In 1936 the magazine of the ultra-nationalist Blueshirts movement remarked that this inactivity showed a failure in the national spirit: "The conqueror is gone, but the scars which he left remain, and the victim will not even try to remove them". By 1949 the Irish Free State had evolved into the Republic of Ireland and left the British Commonwealth, but not all Irish opinion favoured the removal of the Pillar. That year the architectural historian John Harvey called it "a grand work", and argued that without it, "O'Connell Street would lose much of its vitality". Most of the pressure to get rid of it, he said, came from "traffic maniacs who ... fail to visualise the chaos which would result from creating a through current of traffic at this point". In a 1955 radio broadcast Thomas Bodkin, former director of the National Gallery of Ireland, praised not only the monument, but Nelson himself: "He was a man of extraordinary gallantry. He lost his eye fighting bravely, and his arm in a similar fashion". On 29 October 1955, a group of nine students from University College Dublin obtained keys from the Pillar's custodian and locked themselves inside, with an assortment of equipment including flame throwers. From the gallery they hung a poster of Kevin Barry, a Dublin Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer executed by the British during the War of Independence. A crowd gathered below, and began to sing the Irish rebel song "Kevin Barry". Eventually members of the Gardaí (Irish police) broke into the Pillar and ended the demonstration. No action was taken against the students, whose principal purpose, the Gardaí claimed, was publicity. In 1956, members of the Fianna Fáil party, then in opposition, proposed that the statue be replaced by one of Robert Emmet, Protestant leader of an abortive rebellion in 1803. They thought that such a gesture might inspire Protestants in Northern Ireland to fight for a reunited Ireland. In the North the possibility of dismantling and re-erecting the monument in Belfast was raised in the Stormont parliament, but the initiative failed to gain the support of the Northern Ireland government. In 1959 a new Fianna Fáil government under Seán Lemass deferred the question of the Pillar's removal on the grounds of cost; five years later Lemass agreed to "look at" the question of replacing Nelson's statue with one of Patrick Pearse, the leader of the Easter Rising, in time for the 50th anniversary of the Rising in 1966. An offer from the Irish-born American trade union leader Mike Quill to finance the removal of the Pillar was not taken up, and as the anniversary approached, Nelson remained in place. ## Destruction On 8 March 1966, a powerful explosion destroyed the upper portion of the Pillar and brought Nelson's statue crashing to the ground amid hundreds of tons of rubble. O'Connell Street was almost deserted at the time, although a dance in the nearby Hotel Metropole's ballroom was about to end and brought crowds on to the street. There were no casualties—a taxi driver parked close by had a narrow escape—and damage to property was relatively light given the strength of the blast. What was left of the Pillar was a jagged stump, 70 feet (21 m) high. In the first government response to the action, the Justice minister, Brian Lenihan, condemned what he described as "an outrage which was planned and committed without any regard to the lives of the citizens". This response was considered "tepid" by The Irish Times, whose editorial deemed the attack "a direct blow to the prestige of the state and the authority of the government". Kennedy suggests that government anger was mainly directed at what they considered a distraction from the official 50th anniversary celebrations of the Rising. The absence of the pillar was regretted by some who felt the city had lost one of its most prominent landmarks. The Irish Literary Association was anxious that, whatever future steps were taken, the lettering on the pedestal should be preserved; the Irish Times reported that the Royal Irish Academy of Music was considering legal measures to prevent removal of the remaining stump. Reactions among the general public were relatively light-hearted, typified by the numerous songs inspired by the incident. These included the immensely popular "Up Went Nelson", set to the tune of "John Brown's Body" and performed by a group of Belfast schoolteachers, which remained at the top of the Irish charts for eight weeks. An American newspaper reported that the mood in the city was one of gaiety, with shouts of "Nelson has lost his last battle!" Some accounts relate that the Irish president, Éamon de Valera, phoned The Irish Press to suggest the headline: "British Admiral Leaves Dublin By Air". The Pillar's fate was sealed when Dublin Corporation issued a "dangerous building" notice. The trustees agreed that the stump should be removed. A last-minute request by the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland for an injunction to delay the demolition on planning grounds was rejected by Justice Thomas Teevan. On 14 March the Army destroyed the stump by a controlled explosion, watched at a safe distance by a crowd who, the press reported, "raised a resounding cheer". There was a scramble for souvenirs, and many parts of the stonework were taken from the scene. Some of these relics, including Nelson's head, eventually found their way into museums; parts of the lettered stonework from the pedestal are displayed in the grounds of the Butler House hotel in Kilkenny, while smaller remnants were used to decorate private gardens. Contemporary and subsequent accounts record that the army's explosion caused more damage than the first, but this, Fallon says, is a myth; damage claims arising from the second explosion amounted to less than a quarter of the sum claimed as a result of the original blast. ## Aftermath ### Investigations It was initially assumed that the monument was destroyed by the IRA. The Guardian reported on 9 March that six men had been arrested and questioned, but their identities were not revealed and there were no charges. An IRA spokesman denied involvement, stating that they had no interest in demolishing mere symbols of foreign domination: "We are interested in the destruction of the domination itself". In the absence of any leads, rumours suggested that the Basque separatist movement ETA might be responsible, perhaps as part of a training exercise with an Irish republican splinter group; in the mid-1960s the explosives expertise of ETA was generally acknowledged. No further information was forthcoming until 2000, when during a Raidió Teilifís Éireann interview a former IRA member, Liam Sutcliffe, claimed he had placed the bomb which detonated in the Pillar. In the 1950s Sutcliffe was associated with a group of dissident volunteers led by Joe Christle (1927–98), who had been expelled from the IRA in 1956 for "recklessness". In early 1966 Sutcliffe learned that Christle's group was planning "Operation Humpty Dumpty", an attack on the Pillar, and offered his services. According to Sutcliffe, on 28 February he placed a bomb within the Pillar, timed to go off in the early hours of the next morning. The explosive was a mixture of gelignite and ammonal. It failed to detonate; Sutcliffe says that he returned early the next morning, recovered the device and redesigned its timer. On 7 March, shortly before the Pillar closed for the day, he climbed the inner stairway and placed the refurbished bomb near to the top of the shaft before going home. He learned of the success of his mission the next day, he says, having slept undisturbed through the night. Following his revelations, Sutcliffe was questioned by the Garda Síochána but not charged. He did not name others involved in the action, apart from Christle and his brother, Mick. ### Replacements On 29 April 1969 the Irish parliament passed the Nelson Pillar Act, terminating the Pillar Trust and vesting ownership of the site in Dublin Corporation. The trustees received £21,170 in compensation for the Pillar's destruction, and a further sum for loss of income. In the debate, Senator Owen Sheehy-Skeffington argued that the Pillar had been capable of repair and should have been re-assembled and rebuilt. For more than twenty years the site stood empty, while various campaigns sought to fill the space. In 1970 the Arthur Griffith Society suggested a monument to Arthur Griffith, founder of Sinn Féin, and Pearse, whose centenary would fall in 1979, was the subject of several proposals. None of these schemes were accepted by the Corporation. A request in 1987 by the Dublin Metropolitan Streets Commission that the Pillar be rebuilt—with a different statue—was likewise rejected. In 1988, as part of the Dublin Millennium celebrations, businessman Michael Smurfit commissioned in memory of his father the Smurfit Millennium Fountain, erected close to the site of the pillar. The fountain included a bronze statue of Anna Livia, a personification of the River Liffey, sculpted by Éamonn O'Doherty. The monument was not universally appreciated; O'Doherty's fellow-sculptor Edward Delaney called it an "atrocious eyesore". 1988 saw the launch of the Pillar Project, aimed at encouraging artists and architects to bring forward new ideas for an appropriate permanent memorial to replace Nelson. Suggestions included a 110 metres (360 ft) flagpole, a triumphal arch modelled on the Paris Arc de Triomphe, and a "Tower of Light" with a platform that would restore Nelson's view over the city. In 1997 Dublin Corporation announced a formal design competition for a monument to mark the new millennium in 2000. The winning entry was Ian Ritchie's Spire of Dublin, a plain, needle-like structure rising 120 metres (390 ft) from the street. The design was approved; on 22 January 2003 it was completed, despite some political and artistic opposition. During the excavations preceding the Spire's construction, the foundation stone of the Nelson Pillar was recovered. Press stories that a time capsule containing valuable coins had also been discovered fascinated the public for a while, but proved illusory. ## Cultural references The destruction of the Pillar brought a temporary glut of popular songs, including "Nelson's Farewell", by The Dubliners, in which Nelson's airborne demise is presented as Ireland's contribution to the space race. During its more than 150 years, the Pillar was an integral if controversial part of Dublin life, and was often reflected in Irish literature of the period. James Joyce's novel Ulysses (1922) is a meticulous depiction of the city on a single day, 16 June 1904. At the base of the Pillar trams from all parts of the city come and go; meanwhile the character Stephen Dedalus fantasises a scene involving two elderly spinsters, who climb the steps to the viewing gallery where they eat plums and spit the stones down on those below, while gazing up at "the onehandled adulterer". Oliver St. John Gogarty, in his literary memoir As I Was Going Down Sackville Street, considers the Pillar "the grandest thing we have in Dublin", where "the statue in whiter stone gazed forever south towards Trafalgar and the Nile". That Pillar, says Gogarty, "marks the end of a civilization, the culmination of the great period of eighteenth century Dublin". Yeats's 1927 poem "The Three Monuments" has Parnell, Nelson and O'Connell on their respective monuments, mocking Ireland's post-independence leaders for their rigid morality and lack of courage, the obverse of the qualities of the "three old rascals". A later writer, Brendan Behan, in his Confessions of an Irish Rebel'' (1965) wrote from a Fenian perspective that Ireland owed Nelson nothing and that Dublin's poor regarded the Pillar as "a gibe at their own helplessness in their own country". In his poem "Dublin" (1939), written as the remaining vestiges of British overlordship were being removed from Ireland, Louis MacNeice envisages "Nelson on his pillar/ Watching his world collapse". Austin Clarke's 1957 poem "Nelson's Pillar, Dublin" scorns the various schemes to remove the monument and concludes "Let him watch the sky/ With those who rule. Stone eye/ And telescopes can prove/ Our blessings are above". ## See also - Monuments and memorials to Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson - List of public art in Dublin
63,153,672	New York Stock Exchange Building	1,166,593,026	Building in Manhattan, New York	[ "1903 establishments in New York City", "Buildings and structures completed in 1903", "Buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Manhattan", "George B. Post buildings", "Historic district contributing properties in Manhattan", "Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register in New York (state)", "National Historic Landmarks in Manhattan", "Neoclassical architecture in New York City", "New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan", "New York State Register of Historic Places in New York County", "New York Stock Exchange", "Sculptures carved by the Piccirilli Brothers", "Stock exchange buildings" ]	The New York Stock Exchange Building (also the NYSE Building), in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City, is the headquarters of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). It is composed of two connected structures occupying part of the city block bounded by Wall Street, Broad Street, New Street, and Exchange Place. The central section of the block contains the original structure at 18 Broad Street, designed in the Classical Revival style by George B. Post. The northern section contains a 23-story office annex at 11 Wall Street, designed by Trowbridge & Livingston in a similar style. The marble facade of 18 Broad Street contains colonnades facing east toward Broad Street and west toward New Street, both atop two-story podiums. The Broad Street colonnade, an icon of the NYSE, contains a pediment designed by John Quincy Adams Ward and Paul Wayland Bartlett, depicting commerce and industry. The facade of 11 Wall Street is simpler in design but contains architectural details similar to those at 18 Broad Street. Behind the colonnades at 18 Broad Street is the main trading floor, a 72-foot-tall (22 m) rectangular space. An additional trading floor, nicknamed the Garage, is at 11 Wall Street. There are offices and meeting rooms in the upper stories of 18 Broad Street and 11 Wall Street. The NYSE had occupied the site on Broad Street since 1865 but had to expand its previous building several times. The structure at 18 Broad Street was erected between 1901 and 1903. Within two decades, the NYSE's new building had become overcrowded, and the annex at 11 Wall Street was added between 1920 and 1922. Three additional trading floors were added in the late 20th century to accommodate increasing demand, and there were several proposals to move the NYSE elsewhere during that time. With the growing popularity of electronic trading in the 2000s, the three newer trading floors were closed in 2007. The building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978 and designated a city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1985. The building is also a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District, a National Register of Historic Places district created in 2007. ## Site The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Building is in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, occupying the city block between Broad Street to the east, Wall Street to the north, New Street to the west, and Exchange Place to the south. The lot has a total area of 31,350 square feet (2,913 m<sup>2</sup>). Nearby buildings include 1 Wall Street to the west; 14 Wall Street to the north; Federal Hall National Memorial to the northeast; 23 Wall Street and 15 Broad Street to the east; Broad Exchange Building to the southeast; and 30 Broad Street to the south. The Broad Street station of the New York City Subway, served by the , originally contained two staircases that led to the sidewalk directly outside the New York Stock Exchange Building. One stair was closed in 2002, following the September 11 attacks, while the other was closed in 2012. A security zone created after the September 11 attacks surrounds the NYSE Building. In addition, a pedestrian-only zone was established along several blocks immediately surrounding the building. Bollards were installed at several intersections around the building in the mid-2000s. In 2017, community group Downtown Alliance proposed improvements to the pedestrian-only zone surrounding the NYSE Building. The plans included a series of benches placed around the Fearless Girl statue on the Broad Street side of the building. The improvements also included the removal of the Broad Street subway entrances, which was approved in 2019. ## Architecture The building houses the New York Stock Exchange, the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies. It is at the same location as the NYSE's previous headquarters, which had dated to 1865. The NYSE Building is composed of two primary structures. The southern one, at 18 Broad Street in the center of the block, was designed by George B. Post in the Classical Revival style and completed in 1903, directly replacing the former headquarters. The northern structure, at 11 Wall Street on the northern end of the block, has a frontage directly on Wall Street; it was designed by Trowbridge & Livingston and completed in 1922. Due to the site's sloping topography, the first floor is at ground level at the corner of Wall and New Streets, but is one level above Broad Street. ### Facade #### 18 Broad Street 18 Broad Street, the older structure in the modern building, is at the center of the block. The structure has a facade of white Georgia marble and a roof 156 feet (48 m) above sidewalk level. 18 Broad Street has a frontage of 152 feet 10 inches (47 m) on New Street and 137 feet 8.5 inches (41.974 m) on Broad Street. The facade on Broad Street is inspired by ancient Roman sources, and writer Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis compared the facade to that of the Maison Carrée in southern France. The original structure contains colonnades along both Broad and New Streets. Unlike the Roman sources from which the design of 18 Broad Street's facade is derived, the building has entrances at basement level on both sides, rather than grand staircases leading to the colonnades. On Broad Street is a two-story podium made of granite blocks. It is divided vertically into seven bays of doorways at the basement, which on Broad Street is at ground level. There are arched windows with balconies on the first story. A decorative lintel tops each of the basement openings, while brackets support each short balcony. South of the podium is a two-bay-wide extension with a double-height arch at basement level, providing access to the offices near the trading floor. On New Street, rusticated marble blocks clad the basement and first stories, and the openings are simpler in design compared to the Broad Street facade. Above the podiums on Broad and New Streets, the colonnades span the second through fifth stories. Both colonnades consist of two flat pilasters flanking six columns; each of the columns is 5.5 feet (1.7 m) in diameter and 52 feet (16 m) tall. The columns on Broad Street are fluted, while those on New Street are not. There are wrought-iron railings between each column. The colonnade on Broad Street supports an entablature with the words "New York Stock Exchange" in capital letters. Behind the colonnades are massive windows, each measuring about 96 feet (29 m) wide by 50 feet (15 m) tall. Each window has vertical iron mullions that can support its weight and resist wind pressure on each of them. The two southernmost bays on Broad Street, outside the colonnade, contain pairs of windows on each of the second through eighth stories. Above the colonnade on Broad Street is a triangular pediment, originally carved by the Piccirilli Brothers and designed by John Quincy Adams Ward and Paul Wayland Bartlett. The pediment measures about 100 feet (30 m) above the sidewalk and about 110 feet (34 m) wide. It is composed of eleven figures representing commerce and industry. The central figure is a female representation of integrity, flanked by four pairs of figures depicting planning/building, exploring/mining, science/industry, and agriculture. Two small children, also described as putti, sit at Integrity's feet. The figures were originally fashioned in marble from 1908 to 1909; they were replaced in 1936 with sheet metal carvings coated with lead. A cornice with egg-and-dart moldings and lions' head carvings runs atop the Broad Street facade. A parapet with a balustrade runs above the cornice on Broad Street. The New Street facade has a simple cornice. #### 11 Wall Street The northern annex at 11 Wall Street is 22 stories tall, or 23, including the ground-level basement on Broad Street, and is constructed of Georgia marble. It occupies an irregular lot extending 58 feet (18 m) on Broad Street, 156 feet (48 m) on Wall Street, and 100 feet (30 m) on New Street. 11 Wall Street has an overall height of 258 feet (79 m). The building's massing, or general form, incorporates setbacks at the ninth, nineteenth, and twentieth stories, as well as a roof above the twenty-second story. A heavy cornice runs above the eighteenth story. The annex's main entrance is a chamfered corner at Wall and New Streets. It consists of a rectangular doorway with Doric columns on each side, above which are a transom, entablature, and balustrade. The windows on 11 Wall Street are largely paired rectangular sash windows. The annex contains design elements that visually connect it to the older building. On Broad Street, a belt course above the first story, two floors above street level, connects with the top of the podium on 18 Broad Street. The balustrade at the ninth story, ten floors above street level, connects with those atop 18 Broad Street. Additionally, on the Wall Street facade, there is a small row of Corinthian pilasters flanking the second- through fifth-story windows. These pilasters are similar in design to the colonnades of 18 Broad Street. ### Interior The exchange is the locus for a large amount of technology and data. When the building was first completed, pneumatic tubes and telephones were installed on the trading floor and other parts of the building to facilitate communications. Some 25,000 feet (7,600 m) of pipes were used to heat and cool the offices. Four boilers generated a combined 800 horsepower (600 kW) of steam, while three power generators were capable of a combined 1,040 horsepower (780 kW). In addition, numerous elevators were constructed in the building's constituent structures. Six passenger elevators, three lifts, and five dumbwaiters were provided at 18 Broad Street. Eleven elevators were installed at 11 Wall Street. A 2001 article noted that the trading floor required 3,500 kilowatts (4,700 hp) of electricity, 8,000 phone circuits on the trading floor alone, and 200 miles (320 km) of fiber-optic cables below ground. #### Basement There are four basement levels. The machinery, electric and steam plants, maintenance workers' rooms, and vaults are in the basement and subbasement underneath the first-story trading floor. The building was constructed with a steel safe deposit vault measuring about 118.58 feet (36 m) wide, 21 feet (6 m) long, and 9 feet 10 inches (3 m) high, weighing 776 short tons (693 long tons; 704 t) when empty. A basement corridor led to the Wall Street station of the city's first subway line (now the ), under Broadway. The lowest basement level is 42 feet (13 m) below Wall Street. The basement is surrounded by a concrete cofferdam resting on solid rock. The surrounding area had an atypically high water table, with groundwater being present a few feet below ground, partially because Broad Street was the former site of a drainage ditch. As a result, caissons were used to excavate part of the 18 Broad Street site, and the remainder of the basement and subbasements were then excavated. The caissons were built of wood and measured 30 by 8 by 50 feet (9 m × 2 m × 15 m) each. #### Trading floors The main trading floor (formerly the boardroom) on the first story at 18 Broad Street covers 15,000 square feet (1,400 m<sup>2</sup>). The room extends the width of the block between New and Broad Streets. The trading floor was laid out to maximize usable space and, as a result, had minimal space for visitors on the floor itself. There was originally a narrow gallery for smokers on the New Street side and an admission area for guests on Broad Street. The room's floor is at the same level as New and Wall Streets; as built, a marble double stair from the basement at Broad Street provided an entrance for members. The floor surface was originally covered with wood. Interrupting the main trading floor are eight iron columns, the placement of which was decided after twenty to thirty drawings. The lowest 20 feet (6.1 m) of the walls are clad in marble, with arched alcoves for access to other rooms. The marble panels contain bluish-brownstone centers and pink-marble metopes at the top. Four transverse trusses spanning the width of the room, measuring 115 feet (35 m) long and 15 feet (4.6 m) thick, support the ceiling. These trusses are carried on pairs of pilasters at each end and subdivide the ceiling into coffers. The center of the ceiling is fitted with a 30-by-30-foot (9.1 by 9.1 m) skylight, while the rest of the ceiling was gilded upon the building's completion. As constructed, there were 500 telephones in the room, as well as annunciators clustered around the New Street end and surrounding the large columns on the floor. The northern and southern walls originally had colored "checkerboards" with over 1,200 panels, which could be lit in a variety of patterns to flash messages to members on the floor. Each of the four primary trading areas contain the NYSE's opening and closing bells (originally just one bell), which are rung to mark the beginning and the end of each trading day. Abutting the trading floor, but on higher levels, were doctors' rooms, baths, and barbershops for NYSE members. A passageway leads north to the other trading floors at 11 Wall Street; another passage once led south to 20 Broad Street. There is another trading floor at the northeast section of 11 Wall Street, nicknamed "the Garage". This floor is 106 feet (32 m) long and 50–80 feet (15–24 m) wide, while the ceiling is 43 feet (13 m) high. The decoration is similar to that of the main trading floor. Gray marble is used for the walls and public corridors, while the private corridors have Dover marble wainscoting and Alabama marble floors. Until 2007, there were three additional trading floors. The "Blue Room" and the "Extended Blue Room" were in 20 Broad Street, immediately south of the NYSE Building. There was also a trading room at the Continental Bank Building on 30 Broad Street. #### Upper stories Post included a large interior light shaft on 18 Broad Street's upper stories as part of the building's design. The location of this shaft, and that of the trading floor, is affected by the planning of the various rooms in the upper stories. On the sixth story, above the trading floor, is the boardroom (formerly the Bond Room). This room has a skylight and coffered ceiling. The walls are adorned with white and gold decorations and contain arches supported by flat pilasters. While the room was originally outfitted with semicircular tiers surrounding a dais, these have since been removed. The seventh story of 18 Broad Street contained the Luncheon Club facing New Street, which covered 12,055 square feet (1,119.9 m<sup>2</sup>). The Luncheon Club's main dining room measured 76 by 40 feet (23 by 12 m), with an 18-foot (5.5 m) high ceiling. A smaller dining room was provided for non-smokers, separated from the main dining room by a lounge. The eighth story along New Street contained the club kitchen with a mezzanine-level serving gallery. After the Luncheon Club shut down in 2006, the room was converted into an event space called Freedom Hall. The other rooms on the sixth story of 18 Broad Street included the Governor's Room on the Wall Street side, as well as the president's and secretary's rooms, committee rooms, and offices on the New Street side. The Committee on Arrangements and Admission room featured two large brass chandeliers. The other committee rooms on this story were similarly ornate. The seventh and eighth stories facing Broad Street contained committee rooms and offices. There are also offices on the upper floors at 11 Wall Street. Up to the 17th floor, a typical floor at 11 Wall Street contains 7,500 square feet (700 m<sup>2</sup>) of space, but each of the top six floors spans 3,661 square feet (340.1 m<sup>2</sup>) on average. The upper stories of both structures contain several event spaces. ## History Goods had been traded on Wall Street as early as 1725. Auctioneers had intermediated securities exchanges until 1792, brokers signed the Buttonwood Agreement to form an organization for securities trading, which later became the NYSE. In 1817, the organization re-formed as the New York Stock and Exchange Board. The broker organization began renting out space exclusively for securities trading, using several locations for the next half-century, including the Tontine Coffee House. Ten years later, the organization moved into the Merchants' Exchange at 55 Wall Street. Rapid growth in securities trading during the latter half of the nineteenth century was reflected in the growth of the Stock and Exchange Board. ### Previous structure In December 1865, the Stock and Exchange Board moved to 10 Broad Street, between Wall Street and Exchange Place. The New York Stock Exchange Building Company owned the structure and the Exchange itself used a second-story room. The board's membership nearly doubled from 583 to 1,060 when it acquired the Open Board of Stock Brokers in 1869. The Stock and Exchange Board, originally a minor shareholder in the Building Company, bought all the company's stock in November 1870. The company acquired the lot at 12 Broad Street, and the two buildings were combined and expanded to designs by James Renwick Jr. The Stock Exchange Building reopened in September 1871. Within eight years, even the expansion was insufficient for the overcrowded NYSE. The exchange's governing committee thus purchased additional land on Broad and New Streets in late 1879. Renwick was hired for another extension of the previous Stock Exchange Building, which was completed in 1881. The expanded quarters provided better ventilation and lighting, as well as a larger board room. By 1885, the city's sanitary engineers described the plumbing and ventilation as inadequate. The board room, nearer New Street, was expanded yet again in 1887 toward Broad Street. An 1891 guidebook characterized the Stock Exchange Building as a five-story French Renaissance marble structure, with a spur toward Wall Street, adjoining the Mortimer Building to the northeast. Even though the building sat largely on Broad and New Streets, it had become more closely associated with Wall Street. The building was largely shaped like a letter "T" and had a much longer frontage on New Street than on Broad Street. By the end of the 1890s, the structure was again overcrowded. ### Replacement #### Planning and construction The NYSE acquired the plots at 16–18 Broad Street in late 1898 after two years of negotiation. The NYSE was planning yet another expansion to its building, which started in 1903 after the plots' existing lease expired. The following January, the NYSE acquired the lot on 8 Broad Street. The land cost \$1.25 million in total (equivalent to \$ million in ). Eight architects were invited to participate in an architectural design competition for a replacement building on the site. This competition involved a brief by architects William Ware and Charles W. Clinton. The foremost consideration was that the trading floor had to be an open space with few to no interruptions. The NYSE solicited proposals for a structure that had banking space on the ground floor, as well as proposals with no such space. The plans had to consider the lot's complex topography, unusual shape, underlying ground, and the removal of the large deposit vault. Publicist Ivy Lee wrote that the structure was to "be both monumental architecturally and equipped with every device that mechanics, electricity or ingenuity could supply with every resource needed to transact the security trading for the commercial center of the world". The NYSE governors ultimately decided against including a ground-level banking room, which they felt would restrict movement during emergencies. In December 1899, the NYSE's governing committee unanimously approved the submission by George B. Post. That month, a committee was formed to oversee the construction of the new building. Post continued to revise his design during the next year. By July 1900, the NYSE had arranged to move to the New York Produce Exchange at Bowling Green while the replacement NYSE Building was being constructed. Post filed plans for the building with the New York City Department of Buildings on April 19, 1901. Eight days later, the traders stopped working at the old building. The cornerstone was laid on September 9, 1901. The contractors excavating the site had to work around the old vault, which not only had to be preserved while the new vault and foundations were being built, but had to be delicately demolished afterward. Initially, the contractors had planned for the new structure to be completed within one year of the old building's closure. Various issues delayed the opening by one year, including difficulty in demolishing the old building, as well as alterations made to the original plan during construction. R. H. Thomas, a chairman of the committee that oversaw construction, justified the delay by saying, "Where so many of our members spend the active years of their lives, they are entitled to the best that architectural ingenuity and engineering skill can produce." Over two thousand guests attended the building's dedication ceremony on April 22, 1903. The event included speeches from Rudolph Keppler, the president of the New York Stock Exchange, and Seth Low, the mayor of New York City. The trading floor opened for business the following day. The New York Times reported, "When the gavel fell many brokers vied with each other for the honor of making the first business transaction." #### Early years and annex In the years after the NYSE Building's completion, the exchange encountered difficulties, including the Panic of 1907, when the NYSE had dropped by almost fifty percent from the previous year's peak. In addition, the onset of World War I in Europe in 1914 led many investors to liquidate their securities for gold. As a result, the NYSE trading floor was fully closed for four months in 1914, the first time such a prolonged closure had occurred. The trading of wartime stocks led to an increase in business at the New York Curb Exchange outside the NYSE Building and, by 1916, the NYSE was contemplating allowing the Curb to move inside. This plan failed, and the Curb built its own structure at 86 Trinity Place, several blocks to the west, in 1921. In addition, the Wall Street bombing occurred outside the building on September 16, 1920, killing thirty-eight people and injuring hundreds more. In its first two decades, and especially following the end of World War I, the NYSE grew significantly. The rebuilt 18 Broad Street quarters quickly became insufficient for the exchange's needs. In December 1918, the NYSE bought the Mortimer Building northeast of its existing structure, giving the exchange an additional 3,220 square feet (299 m<sup>2</sup>). The annex would give the building a full frontage on Wall Street, whereas previously 18 Broad Street only ran along Wall Street for 15 feet (4.6 m). The Mortimer Building's demolition commenced in mid-1919. The NYSE also leased the Wilks Building northwest of its existing structure in January 1920; the lot was assessed at \$1.9 million (equivalent to \$ million in ). Demolition of the Wilks Building began in June 1920. Trowbridge and Livingston received the commission to design an annex on the Mortimer and Wilks sites, while Marc Eidlitz and Son received the contract for the construction of the annex. Plans for an annex at 11 Wall Street, reaching twenty-two stories above a basement, were finalized in February 1920. The NYSE would lease the first eight stories and the basement, including several stories for an expanded trading floor known as the "Garage", while the upper stories would be leased to office tenants. By August 1922, the annex was nearly complete, and several firms had already signed leases for about 60 percent of the available office space. The annex's trading floor opened during the last week of December 1922. ### Later operations and expansions #### 1920s to 1940s The office annex was insufficient to accommodate the long-term growth of the NYSE. In mid-1926, the exchange leased three floors at the neighboring Commercial Cable Building on 20 Broad Street. The ground floor was planned to be connected to that of 18 Broad Street, while the first and second floors of that building would be combined into a single bond trading room with a high ceiling. These stories were internally connected to 18 Broad Street, although they remained separate buildings. In 1928, the NYSE bought not only the Commercial Cable Building but also the Blair Building, taking control of all the property on the city block. The NYSE's growth stopped suddenly with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, when share prices on the exchange dropped 23 percent in two days, in what was cited as one cause of the Great Depression. The NYSE trading floor was closed for over a week during the Depression, in March 1933, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Emergency Banking Act. The marble sculptures of the pediment on Broad Street, which had deteriorated over the years, were replaced in 1936. The new figures were made of metal, though this was kept secret for eighteen years. At the end of the Great Depression, the NYSE grew again. During World War II, women were allowed to trade in the building for the first time in the Exchange's history. #### 1950s to 1980s By 1954, the NYSE was planning to replace the building at 20 Broad Street with a skyscraper, a portion of which would contain auxiliary facilities for the NYSE. The exchange formally held an option to expand its trading floor to 20 Broad Street if the need arose. The structure, designed by Kahn & Jacobs and Sidney Goldstone, was completed in 1956 with 27 stories and 421,000 square feet (39,100 m<sup>2</sup>). The NYSE initially used the second through fourth floors at 20 Broad Street, corresponding to the first through third floors of its main building, as exhibition space. The new building was not part of the NYSE Building, and the New York Life Insurance Company bought 20 Broad Street in 1959. By the early 1960s, the NYSE needed to expand its operations again and was considering moving out of its main building entirely. Previously, the structure had housed some securities firms that were also members of the exchange, but the NYSE needed the space for itself, and the last firm moved out during late 1961. At that time, the NYSE's leadership hoped to acquire land in Lower Manhattan and construct a new building within five years. The NYSE made several proposals for new headquarters, none of which were carried out. The exchange selected a site in Battery Park City in 1965 but dropped plans for the site the next year. The NYSE's governors voted in 1967 to expand the trading floor into 20 Broad Street. The expansion, nicknamed the "Blue Room", opened in July 1969. It provided 8,000 square feet (740 m<sup>2</sup>) of additional space to the 23,000-square-foot (2,100 m<sup>2</sup>) trading floor, which could accommodate almost two hundred more clerks. In addition, some of the computer facilities were moved to Paramus, New Jersey, between 1967 and 1969. The NYSE looked to build a new headquarters along the East River, at the eastern end of Wall Street, in the long term. These plans were postponed indefinitely in 1970 due to the recession of 1969–1970. In 1977, the media published rumors that the NYSE and the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) would merge and construct a new combined facility; however, the merger did not occur at that time. As a temporary measure, the NYSE renovated its visitors' center in 1979, adding a multi-story gallery with various displays adjacent to the main trading floor. Still short on space, the NYSE rented some offices at 100 Broadway, one block away, in 1980. The NYSE was looking to expand its trading floor again and, in 1985, announced an \$11 million (equivalent to \$ million in ) extension of the Blue Room at 20 Broad Street, which would add 7,000 square feet (650 m<sup>2</sup>) to the trading floor. This expansion was completed by 1988. In addition, the original bell inside the main trading floor was replaced in the late 1980s. #### 1990s to present The NYSE, AMEX, and J.P. Morgan & Co. proposed the creation of a financial "supercenter" on the block immediately east of the NYSE Building, across Broad Street, in 1992. The supercenter, to be developed by Olympia and York and designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), would have consisted of a 50-story tower above two 50,000-square-foot (4,600 m<sup>2</sup>) trading floors. After Olympia and York severed their involvement because of financial difficulties, and team composed of J.P. Morgan & Co., Lewis Rudin, Gerald D. Hines, and Fred Wilpon took over the project. The NYSE withdrew from the supercenter in 1993. The NYSE resumed its search for alternate sites for its headquarters in mid-1996. During the previous five years, over a thousand companies had been listed on the exchange's board, and trading volume had more than doubled. At one such site, along the East River at the end of Wall Street, developer Donald Trump proposed a 140-story building designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox for the NYSE, which would have been the world's tallest building. Other sites under consideration included the Broad Exchange Building immediately to the southeast, as well as Bowling Green at the southern end of Manhattan. The NYSE also considered relocating to the World Financial Center in nearby Battery Park City, as well as a site in Jersey City across the Hudson River. City authorities offered substantial tax incentives to keep the NYSE in the Financial District, which in turn increased the cost of the new building. In late 1996, the NYSE proposed expanding the existing building eastward above Broad Street, closing it to vehicular traffic and creating a glass-covered atrium above the street. The initial plan for the atrium by HLW International was widely criticized, as was a modification by Hugh Hardy, and the NYSE ultimately dropped the atrium proposal. As an interim measure, the NYSE looked into opening a trading floor at 30 Broad Street less than a block to the south in 1988. The expansion, which opened in late 2000, consisted of a 10,000-square-foot (930 m<sup>2</sup>) facility designed by SOM. The same year, the NYSE and the city and state governments of New York agreed to acquire the block to the east. The plan included demolishing all structures except for 23 Wall Street to make way for a 50-story skyscraper designed by SOM. The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks resulted in only the third multi-day closure of the NYSE's trading floor in the building's history. The Lower Manhattan expansion was ultimately canceled in 2002 because the NYSE wanted to build a trading floor elsewhere, which would allow the exchange to continue operating even if terrorists targeted the main building. Over the following years, the increase in electronic trading made physical trading space redundant. The floor accounted for fewer than half of trades in 2007, down from 80 percent in 2004. As a result, the 30 Broad Street trading floor closed in February 2007. The Blue Room and Extended Blue Room were announced for closure later that year, leaving only the main floor and the Garage. The NYSE Building's trading floor was closed for two months in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, but electronic trading continued throughout. ## Impact ### Critical reception When the 18 Broad Street building was completed, publicist Ivy Lee wrote: "In outer contour it suggests the columnar, monumental architecture of the ancient Greeks. But this exterior shelters the very essence of the strenuous energy of this twentieth century." Percy C. Stuart of Architectural Record said in 1901: "It will be the first great commercial edifice to be built in New York in the twentieth century, a fitting precursor of an age destined for great buildings." Architectural critic Montgomery Schuyler appraised the building as a "very brilliant and successful piece of work". Schuyler especially appreciated that the colonnades' columns visually divided the large windows behind them; his only negative criticism was that the carving of the basement was incongruous with the rest of the design. After the annex was completed, the Downtown League declared it to be the "best building" erected in Lower Manhattan in 1922. Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis said in 2021: "The massive building imbued the NYSE with authority, reflecting its view of itself and its role in the economy" while also providing space for a trading floor. Some commentary focused on specific parts of the design. Stuart of Architectural Record wrote that, with the colonnades and large trading-floor windows, "the new Exchange will have a scale of its own, at once so simple and impressive as to readily signalize it among its surroundings". Conversely, Scribner's Magazine wrote in 1903 that the pediment on Broad Street was disadvantaged by its location opposite several tall buildings, "which has caused Ward to give to his figures very great scale and to diminish their number". An Architectural Record article the following year pointed out a similar issue, stating that a front view was extremely difficult unless one entered a nearby building, and that "neither architect nor sculptor could have expected many persons to examine the building in that way". Architectural writer Robert A. M. Stern said that the pediment's sculptures gave the building "an air of magisterial calm as it presided over the financial world's most important intersection". ### Cultural impact The NYSE's logo, on which the NYSE holds a trademark, depicts the columns on the 18 Broad Street building. This has led to disputes when coupled with the building's status as an icon of the NYSE. For instance, in 1999, the NYSE unsuccessfully sued the New York-New York Hotel and Casino for trademark infringement after the hotel's developers built the "New York-New York \$lot Exchange", loosely based on 18 Broad Street. The NYSE Building's prominence has also made it the location of artworks. In 1989, artist Arturo Di Modica installed his sculpture Charging Bull in front of the building, in an act of guerrilla art. The sculpture was removed within a day and ultimately reinstalled at Bowling Green, two blocks south. Subsequently, in 2018, Kristen Visbal's bronze sculpture Fearless Girl was installed outside the NYSE Building on Broad Street. The Fearless Girl sculpture was originally installed in 2017 facing Charging Bull at Bowling Green, but it was moved to the NYSE because of complaints from Di Modica. ### Landmark designations As early as 1965, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) had considered designating the 18 Broad Street building, but not the 11 Wall Street annex, as a landmark. It was one of the first buildings the LPC had proposed for landmark status, as the commission had just gained the authority to designate the city's structures as landmarks. At the time, the NYSE and several private owners opposed landmark status for their respective buildings, since any proposed modification to a landmark would require a cumbersome review by the city government. The LPC hosted a second landmark hearing in 1980 but again declined to designate the building. In 1983, The New York Times cited the NYSE Building as one of several prominent structures that had not been designated by the LPC in the agency's first eighteen years, alongside Rockefeller Center and the Woolworth Building. The LPC reconsidered designation for 18 Broad Street in 1985. After numerous public hearings, the LPC finally granted landmark status to 18 Broad Street on July 9, 1985, as landmark number 1529. Both 18 Broad Street and 11 Wall Street were added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) as a National Historic Landmark on June 2, 1978. The building was designated as a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District, a National Register of Historic Places district, in 2007. ## See also - List of National Historic Landmarks in New York City - List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan below 14th Street - National Register of Historic Places listings in Manhattan below 14th Street
58,255,510	History of the Office of the Inspector General of the United States Army	1,116,348,455	History of the internal investigative branch of the U.S. Army	[ "Inspectors General of the United States Army", "Lists of American military personnel", "United States Army generals", "United States Army lists", "United States Inspectors General" ]	The Office of the Inspector General of the United States Army (OTIG) is the agency tasked with investigating the United States Army. Its stated mission is to "provide impartial, objective and unbiased advice and oversight to the army through relevant, timely and thorough inspection, assistance, investigations, and training". The position of Inspector General (IG) has existed since 1777, when Thomas Conway was appointed, and the office has been reorganized many times, varied in size dramatically, and abolished on several occasions before being reinstated. In its early days, the inspectorate was frequently merged with, or proposed to be part of, the Adjutant General's department. The office expanded greatly in the late 19th century after the American Civil War, undertaking increasing numbers of inspections. Upon the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, the War Department was ill-prepared, and much of the blame fell upon the inspectorate. Nevertheless, it continued to expand in the early 20th century, peaking during World War I, with the caseload of the department rising 360 percent from 1916 to 1917. The scope of the department rose further between the world wars. Work undertaken fell during the 1920s and rose again during the 1930s. During World War II, the department increased in size to the point that it had around 3,000 officers in 1945. The inspectorate decreased in size to about 2,000 officers in 1986. ## Background The first modern military inspectors were French Army "inspecteurs", first appointed in 1668. Frederick the Great of Prussia had appointed inspectors by the 1770s, as had the British Army. Historian David Clary argues that "by the mid-eighteenth century, military inspection had become essential to modern armies". The French Army had a system of independent inspectors, who reported directly to the king. They had geographical assignments and during times of war ranked equal to generals, brigadiers, or colonels. There was also an inspector of construction. Fredrick the Great similarly appointed men to directly inspect his army, reporting directly to him and inspecting specific units. This system was adopted by much of Europe. In the British system of inspection, officers were detailed to inspect various parts of the Army, and there was a separate inspector general of recruits and of the cavalry. Commanding officers were also responsible for inspecting their troops. The detailing of officers meant that there was no formal bureaucracy dealing with inspection. When the Continental Army was formed, it was largely modeled on the British Army. None of the European systems of inspecting worked well for the Continental Army. The British was inadequate as it relied on an experienced, highly trained and well disciplined army; the French because it interfered with the chain of command; and the Prussian as it relied on uniform units and practices. The Massachusetts Bay Colony and Colony of Virginia both had militias with muster masters and muster masters-general respectively serving as inspectors. Elements from all five systems were eventually incorporated. The Continental Army was very disorganized from the start of the American Revolutionary War in 1775. After George Washington arrived at Boston to lead the army in a siege of the city, on July 4, 1775, it had taken him a week to produce an accurate count of the soldiers in the army, which was 16,600, far fewer than the 24,500 he had expected. Poorly trained and organized, by 1777, the army was, in Washington's opinion, in need of an inspector general. Members of the Continental Congress noted "the absence of a regular inspector," and on April 18, 1777, Congress requested the establishment of a position to "inspect the magazines of provisions under the care of Commissary Wharton." ## Early history (1777–1865) Augustin de la Balme arrived in the United States in 1777, and on July 8, the Continental Congress resolved "that Lieutenant-Colonel Mottin de la Balme be appointed inspector-general of the cavalry of the United States of America, with the rank and pay of colonel." He resigned after Casimir Pulaski was promoted to Chief of Cavalry ahead of him, viewing Pulaski as an inferior cavalry leader. Philippe-Charles-Jean-Baptiste-Tronson Du Coudray was similarly appointed to Inspector General of Ordnance and Military Stores on August 11, 1777. At the time, the position was "mere flattery that meant nothing in military terms." Coudray drowned in the Schuylkill River on September 16. On October 29, 1777, Washington recommended the permanent establishment of an inspector general post to the Continental Congress. On December 13, Congress established such a position, naming Thomas Conway as the first inspector general. Washington objected to the Continental Congress's choice, instead favoring the Prussian Henry Leonard d'Arendt, who had been first to propose the position. He had a personal dislike of Conway, and had come into conflict with him during what is known as the Conway Cabal, when Washington felt there was a conspiracy against him, aiming to remove him from his position as Commander-In-Chief. On April 28, 1778, Conway resigned. Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, a Prussian, was then selected by Washington as the next inspector general. As the first inspector general to serve a significant term, he played a large part in defining the role of the position. His book, Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States, served as the official guide to military training and maneuvers in the United States Army until the War of 1812. On February 18, 1779, the Continental Congress formally created a charter for the Office of Inspector General. It gave the holder of the position the rank of major general and specified the role of the position as creating regulations for maneuvers and discipline, periodically inspecting and reporting on the condition of troops and introducing new maneuvers. Washington could appoint as many sub-inspectors as he felt necessary. On June 22, 1779, the Continental Congress temporarily directed the Adjutant General of the United States Army to serve as assistant inspector general. By 1780, the inspector general served as de facto Chief of Staff of the United States Army. On January 12, 1780, Congress resolved that the inspector general would also manage the mustering of troops in the Continental Army. Congress further clarified the role of the office on September 25, 1780, making it responsible for regulations of the army, and again in 1782, this time shrinking the department. Steuben and his aide (later successor), William North, were heavily involved in the demobilization of the Continental Army. North was made inspector general in April 1784, and is known to have done little in the role. Following North's departure in late October 1787, the office was vacant until June 25, 1788, when Congress resolved "that the Office of Inspector of troops in the service of the United States immediately cease, and be discontinued, and that the secretary of war report what mode may be most eligible for having the troops inspected in the future." The United States Department of War was created by an act of Congress on August 7, 1789, and John Stagg and Francis Mentges, the latter serving as inspector of contracts, performed most of the inspector general's duties. Until 1792 the army functioned much like a militia. As a result of the escalation of the Northwest Indian War in 1790, Congress began expanding the army. Mentges served as de facto inspector general, as did Winthrop Sargent, for Arthur St. Clair's army. On March 5, 1792, after St. Clair's Defeat, the army was reorganized again. When Anthony Wayne took over St. Clair's role, a few days later Henry de Butts was appointed acting inspector general. He was then followed by Edward Butler, Michael Rudolph, Jonathan Haskell and John Mills. The army was reorganized on November 1, 1796, with new legislation providing for an inspector general who would also perform the duties of adjutant general. Thomas Humphrey Cushing was next appointed as an acting inspector general, and would remain until 1798, when he was replaced by Alexander Hamilton, who acted as the de facto head of the army during the Quasi-War. The position was abolished by legislation passed on May 14, 1800. Hamilton resigned on June 15, 1800, and was followed by Cushing, who served as acting inspector general. In 1807, Cushing was replaced by Abimael Youngs Nicoll as an acting inspector general. The position was reestablished upon the outbreak of the War of 1812 with the rank of brigadier general, and Alexander Smyth was appointed. Smyth performed poorly in the role, to the point that on March 3, 1813, it was abolished by Congress, and replaced by an Inspector General's Department. The newly formed department combined the adjutant general's and inspector general's departments. It had one adjutant and inspector general (generally the most senior inspector, who led the department), eight inspectors and adjutants and 16 assistant inspectors and 16 assistant adjutants. Zebulon Pike was appointed adjutant and inspector general in 1813, before being killed in an explosion on April 27, 1813. After Pike's death, the duties of inspector general were performed by Abimael Y. Nicoll, then the most senior inspector. Later John R. Bell and various assistant adjutants general acted as inspector general. In 1814, the position was filled by William H. Winder and Daniel Parker. After several reorganizations, by 1816, the United States Army was divided into North and South divisions, with Arthur P. Hayne inspector general in the South and John E. Wool in the North, with Parker remaining adjutant and inspector general. Hayne resigned in 1820, and was replaced by James Gadsden. In 1821, the army was reorganized, with two inspectors general, having the rank, pay and emoluments of colonels of cavalry. Parker's position was eliminated. From 1821 to 1861, the position had little change. During the Mexican–American War, the inspector general served as second in command of the army. Upon the outbreak of the American Civil War, all inspectors had retired or defected to the Confederate States of America and as a result new inspectors were appointed in 1861, largely doing what their superiors requested. There were many informally appointed inspectors and by late 1862, "nearly 1,400 other officers were on orders at one time or another to perform various types of inspection duties." In January 1863, Delos Bennett Sackett was assigned as the de facto head of the Office of the Inspector General, which, until then had not existed. In total, two major generals, seven brigadier generals, 18 colonels, 118 lieutenant colonels, and 149 majors of the regular army served official inspector duty during the Civil War. ## Reorganization (1866–1903) On January 22, 1866, a War Department order re-defined the duties of inspector general to be to inspect: > the condition as to efficiency, discipline, supplies, etc., of bodies of troops, and the resources, geographical features, lines of communication and supply, the military wants, etc., of any section of the country; the military status in any field of operations; the condition and supply of military materials of various classes; the condition of the administrative or disbursing departments of the service; the efficiency and conduct of military commanders and agents; the cause of failure or delay in movements or operations; of losses by accidents, disasters, etc., and in general, all matters pertaining to the military art or having interest in a military point of view. In July 1866, the number of inspectors general with the rank of colonel was fixed at four, assistant inspectors general with the rank of lieutenant colonel at three, and the number with rank of major at two. In 1866, Edmund Schriver was named inspector general of the United States Military Academy and senior inspector general. He led the movement to give the position authority equivalent to other offices of the army. That same year, he published the first Annual Report of the Inspector General's Department. On March 3, 1869, when the army was dramatically reduced in size, the unofficial Inspector General's Department was retained, and any new appointments or promotions being prohibited. Randolph B. Marcy took over from Schriver in 1869. By 1871, the inspectorate was being criticized by many, particularly for its "useless" reports. An anonymous letter written to the Army and Navy Journal criticized "that parasite of the army called the Inspector General's Department." On October 5, 1872, the inspectorate was formally attached to the War Department and given an independent office. In 1874, it was reduced in size by a law spearheaded by Senator John A. Logan. That same year, the Inspector General's Department was formally recognized as existing, with the adoption by the United States Congress of the Revised Statutes, which treated the department as existing, though it had never formally been established. On December 12, 1878 Congress declared that the rank of the senior inspector general of the United States Army would be brigadier general, placing it on an equal footing with other army departments. On February 5, 1885, the department was expanded. From then, it remained largely the same size and structure, until Joseph Cabell Breckinridge Sr. became the senior inspector general on January 30, 1889. Breckinridge, working with Secretary of War Redfield Proctor sponsored the release of a series of general orders altering the scope of the inspectorate, culminating in the amendment of paragraph 955 Army Regulations, by General Order No. 38 of 1890, which dictated that the entire military establishment was to be inspected annually. During the late 19th century, the inspectorate engaged in many special inspections, several at the behest of Congress, and did much to safeguard public property. In 1894, the Department undertook "928 disbursement accounts involving over \$68 million and inspections of 90 posts; 50 staff facilities, prisons, and ungarrisoned posts; 82 military colleges; 51 national cemeteries; 27 recruiting stations; and 28 special investigations, for a total of 1,256 inspections." On March 30, 1895, the United States was divided by Secretary of War Daniel S. Lamont into six inspections districts, and the department was made independent, reporting directly to the secretary of war and commanding general of the United States Army, instead of department commanders. The then Commanding General Nelson A. Miles disliked the inspectorate and in 1898 he nearly succeeded in removing the inspection districts and the independence of the department. Upon the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, the War Department was shown to be ill-prepared; and much of the blame fell on the Inspector General's Department, for not noticing problems in the army. During the war, the department was increased in size, with 36 temporary inspectors being appointed, and three permanently appointed later. There was little oversight, as Breckinridge was fighting in the war, and the department has been described by historian David Clary as mostly existing on paper. After the war, the inspectorate was increased in size and was revitalized. By 1901, it had one brigadier general, three colonels, four lieutenant colonels, and nine majors. In 1902, an Act to Increase the Efficiency of the Army was passed, which originally contained a clause to abolish the Inspector General's Department. ## Continued growth (1903–1939) The General Staff Bill, passed in 1903, had, as originally drafted, abolished the office of inspector general, but the provision was removed. In 1906, Ernest Albert Garlington replaced George H. Burton, and became senior inspector general. Under them, the office came to be seen as an extension of the secretary of war and chief of staff, the inspector general collaborating closely with them and often sharing their opinions. The scope of the inspectorate increased significantly, to the point that anything affecting the army's efficiency was within its scope. The inspector general similarly became a more respected role; Thomas Henry Barry, commander of the Army of Cuban Pacification, considered his inspector to be one of his most important staff officers. In 1911, Secretary of War Jacob M. Dickinson submitted a plan to merge the Adjutant and Inspector General's Departments; another was presented by the General Staff in 1914, and again in 1915 in what led to the National Defense Act of 1916. Through those years, the inspectorate under Garlington was one of the most vocal advocates of motorizing the army. With the passage of the National Defense Act, the size of the inspectorate was increased to a maximum of thirty-three officers, and the army itself was dramatically increased in size. The inspectorate became responsible for oversight of the education and training of both officers and men, and its reports largely shaped changes in the education of officers. The army was poorly prepared upon the entrance of the United States into World War I in 1917, and was restructured, with the Overman Act giving the president greater authority over the army. By July 1917, the caseload of the inspectorate had increased 360 percent from the previous year and by 65 percent in three months after the declaration of war. To meet the increased caseload, the inspectorate was dramatically expanded, to the point that it struggled to find suitable inspectors to add, and began requesting that former inspectors come out of retirement. In September, there were 89 officers (30 regulars, 10 recalled regulars, and 49 reservists). In November, the department was again increased to 164 officers and 125 enlisted men. It rose to 216 officers on November 12, 1918. Andre W. Brewster was selected as inspector general of the American Expeditionary Forces. In the period after World War I, the inspectorate dealt with many problems, including complaints over misdirected mail, misconduct by soldiers and damage to civilian property. Inspectors were active in France (until 1919), Russia (until 1920) and Germany (until 1923). The inspectorate peaked at 248 officers in 1919, the same year a plan to severely limit the Department's responsibilities was proposed. By 1920, 33 officers were in the Office of the Inspector General, while 54 remained at camps or in the geographical departments. In 1915 the office had handled about 9,500 actions, while by 1921 it processed nearly 17,700. In the National Defense Act of 1920, the inspectorate was reorganized, with an inspector general and 61 inspectors. The secretary of war could shrink or increase the office by 15% without Congress passing a new law, and the department shrunk from 62 to 56 officers in June 1922 and, after several further rounds of downsizing, ended at 40 in 1923. In 1925, the inspectorate allocated the additional responsibility of inspecting ten monuments and twelve parks. To obtain better training for inspectors general, they would often receive training at civilian businesses and schools, including Sears & Roebuck. The department inspected finances and troops, the number of inspections increasing dramatically at the beginning of the 1930s, under Hugh Aloysius Drum and his successors. By the mid 1930s the War Department inspectorate was averaging about sixty major investigations annually. The department became responsible for inspecting the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1933. ## Later history (1940–2023) By 1940, all subordinate commanders from division level were given an inspector general under their control to conduct inspections and investigations as needed. The army grew during World War II, and by 1945, there were about 3,000 inspectors general serving in the army. The rapid reduction in the size of the army from about 9 million in 1945 to a few hundred thousand in 1946, caused the inspector general to receive thousands of requests for help from soldiers being released from the army, largely because they were not being released quickly enough. The statutory basis for the current inspectorate system comes from the 1950 Army Reorganization Act, which replaced the Inspector General's Department with the Office of the Inspector General (OTIG). The inspector general was responsible to the chief of staff, and responsive to the secretary of the army. The reorganization made the inspector general responsible for investigating the discipline, efficiency and economy of the army. They were particularly focused on training and combat readiness. In 1952, the OTIG initiated an orientation course for officers selected to be inspectors general. Before this there was no provision for formal instruction, although the old Inspector General Department had maintained and distributed instructional material to each inspector general; including guides, handbooks and other procedural material. The qualifications for inspectors general were first formally codified in 1957. In May 1956, the secretary of the army directed the Department of the Army to assume responsibility for technical proficiency inspections of the army's nuclear surety program worldwide, which ensure the safety of the army's nuclear weapons. General Order No. 40, dated August 24, 1956, placed these inspections under the jurisdiction of the inspector general. The March 1960 revised Army Regulation 20-1, created a policy for inspector general technical proficiency inspections. The work of the inspector general was shared with allies, when the OTIG gave a course of instruction to groups composed entirely of foreign officers. In 1961, instruction was delivered to Republic of Korea Army officers in Seoul, Korea, and to Nationalist Chinese Army officers in Taipei, Formosa. The 1978 IG Act created 12 statutory cabinet-level inspectors general across a range of government departments outside the Department of Defense, which led to the creation of the Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Defense. In 1986 the Goldwater-Nichols Reorganization Act reversed a portion of the 1950 Army Reorganization Act, making the inspector general responsible to the secretary of the army and responsive to the chief of staff. The inspector general system also became automated. The first effort was called the Inspector General Management Information Resource System (IGMIRS). IGMIRS was later replaced by the Inspector General Worldwide Network (IGNET). The inspector general has since "inspected or reviewed soldier readiness programs, risk management programs, anti-terrorism and force protection, extremist group activities, homosexual conduct policy implementation, and the No Gun Ri massacre during the Korean War". In 1993, the inspectorate had about 2,000 inspectors, consisting of officers, NCOs and department of the army civilians. Since the creation of the IGNET, the inspectorate has remained relatively unchanged, with a revision to Army Regulation 20-1 in 2010 adjusting the OTIG's scope. Donna W. Martin has been the inspector general since she was appointed on September 2, 2021.
564,099	Philip Seymour Hoffman	1,173,793,722	American actor (1967–2014)	[ "1967 births", "2014 deaths", "20th-century American male actors", "21st-century American male actors", "American film producers", "American male film actors", "American male stage actors", "American male television actors", "American male voice actors", "American people of German descent", "American people of Irish descent", "American theatre directors", "Best Actor Academy Award winners", "Best Actor BAFTA Award winners", "Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (film) winners", "Circle in the Square Theatre School alumni", "Cocaine-related deaths in New York (state)", "Deaths by heroin overdose in New York (state)", "Drug-related deaths in New York City", "Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead winners", "Male actors from Rochester, New York", "Method actors", "Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role Screen Actors Guild Award winners", "People from Fairport, New York", "Theatre World Award winners", "Tisch School of the Arts alumni", "Volpi Cup for Best Actor winners" ]	Philip Seymour Hoffman (July 23, 1967 – February 2, 2014) was an American actor. Known for his distinctive supporting and character roles— eccentrics, lowlifes, underdogs, and misfits—he acted in many films and theatrical productions, including leading roles, from the early 1990s until his death in 2014. He was voted one of the 50 greatest actors of all time in a 2022 readers' poll by Empire magazine. Hoffman studied acting at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. He gained recognition for his supporting work, notably in Scent of a Woman (1992), Boogie Nights (1997), Happiness (1998), The Big Lebowski (1998), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), and Almost Famous (2000). He began to occasionally play leading roles, and for his portrayal of the author Truman Capote in Capote (2005), won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Further Oscar nominations came for playing a brutally frank CIA officer in Charlie Wilson's War (2007), a priest accused of pedophilia in Doubt (2008), and the charismatic leader of a Scientology-type movement in The Master (2012). While he mainly worked in independent films, including The Savages (2007) and Synecdoche, New York (2008), Hoffman also appeared in Hollywood blockbusters, such as Twister (1996) and Mission: Impossible III (2006). He played Plutarch Heavensbee in the Hunger Games series (2013–2015), in one of his final roles. The feature Jack Goes Boating (2010) marked his debut as a filmmaker. Hoffman was also an accomplished theater actor and director. He joined the off-Broadway LAByrinth Theater Company in 1995, where he directed, produced, and appeared in numerous stage productions. His performances in three Broadway plays—True West (2000), Long Day's Journey into Night (2003), and Death of a Salesman (2012)—all led to Tony Award nominations. Hoffman struggled with drug addiction as a young adult and relapsed in 2012 after many years of abstinence. In February 2014, he died of combined drug intoxication. Remembered for bringing nuance, depth, and humanity to the versatile roles he inhabited, Hoffman was described in his New York Times obituary as "perhaps the most ambitious and widely admired American actor of his generation". ## Early life Philip Hoffman was born on July 23, 1967, in the Rochester suburb of Fairport, New York. His mother, Marilyn O'Connor (née Loucks), came from nearby Waterloo and worked as an elementary school teacher before becoming a lawyer and eventually a family court judge. His father, Gordon Stowell Hoffman, was a native of Geneva, New York, and worked for the Xerox Corporation. Along with one brother, Gordy, Hoffman had two sisters, Jill and Emily. His ancestry included German and Irish. Hoffman was baptized a Catholic and attended Mass as a child, but did not have a heavily religious upbringing. His parents divorced when he was nine, and the children were raised primarily by their mother. Hoffman's childhood passion was sports, particularly wrestling and baseball, but at age 12, he attended a stage production of Arthur Miller's All My Sons and was transfixed. He recalled in 2008, "I was changed—permanently changed—by that experience. It was like a miracle to me". Hoffman developed a love for the theater, and proceeded to attend regularly with his mother, who was a lifelong enthusiast. He remembered that productions of Quilters and Alms for the Middle Class, the latter starring a teenaged Robert Downey, Jr., were also particularly inspirational. At the age of 14, Hoffman suffered a neck injury that ended his sporting activity, and he began to consider acting. Encouraged by his mother, he joined a drama club, and initially committed to it because he was attracted to a female member. Acting gradually became a passion for Hoffman: "I loved the camaraderie of it, the people, and that's when I decided it was what I wanted to do." At the age of 17, he was selected to attend the 1984 New York State Summer School of the Arts in Saratoga Springs, where he met his future collaborators Bennett Miller and Dan Futterman. Miller later commented on Hoffman's popularity at the time: "We were attracted to the fact that he was genuinely serious about what he was doing. Even then, he was passionate." Hoffman applied for several drama degree programs and was accepted to New York University's (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts. Between graduating from Fairport High School and beginning the program, he continued his training at the Circle in the Square Theatre's summer program. Hoffman had positive memories of his time at NYU, where he supported himself by working as an usher. With friends, he co-founded the Bullstoi Ensemble acting troupe. He received a drama degree in 1989. ## Career ### 1991–1995: Early career After graduating, Hoffman worked in off-Broadway theater and made additional money with customer service jobs. He made his screen debut in 1991, in a Law & Order episode called "The Violence of Summer", playing a man accused of rape. His first cinema role came the following year, when he was credited as "Phil Hoffman" in the independent film Triple Bogey on a Par Five Hole. After this, he adopted his grandfather's name, Seymour, to avoid confusion with another actor. More film roles promptly followed, with appearances in the studio production My New Gun, and a small role in the comedy Leap of Faith, starring Steve Martin. Following these roles, he gained attention playing a spoiled student in the Oscar-winning Al Pacino film Scent of a Woman (1992). Hoffman auditioned five times for his role, which The Guardian journalist Ryan Gilbey says gave him an early opportunity "to indulge his skill for making unctuousness compelling". The film earned US\$134 million worldwide and was the first to get Hoffman noticed. Reflecting on Scent of a Woman, Hoffman later said, "If I hadn't gotten into that film, I wouldn't be where I am today." At this time, he abandoned his job in a delicatessen to become a professional actor. Hoffman continued playing small roles throughout the early 1990s. After appearing in Joey Breaker and the critically panned teen zombie picture My Boyfriend's Back, he had a more notable role playing John Cusack's wealthy friend in the crime comedy Money for Nothing. In 1994, he portrayed an inexperienced mobster in the crime thriller The Getaway, starring Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, and he subsequently appeared with Andy García and Meg Ryan in the romantic drama When a Man Loves a Woman. He then played an uptight police deputy who gets punched by Paul Newman—one of Hoffman's acting idols—in the drama Nobody's Fool. Still considering stage work to be fundamental to his career, Hoffman joined the LAByrinth Theater Company of New York City in 1995. This association lasted the remainder of his life; along with appearing in multiple productions, he later became co-artistic director of the theater company with John Ortiz, and directed various plays over the years. Hoffman's only film appearance of 1995 was in the 22-minute short comedy The Fifteen Minute Hamlet, which satirized the film industry in an Elizabethan setting. He played the characters of Bernardo, Horatio, and Laertes alongside Austin Pendleton's Hamlet. ### 1996–1999: Rising star Between April and May 1996, Hoffman appeared at the Joseph Papp Public Theater in a Mark Wing-Davey production of Caryl Churchill's The Skriker. Following this, based on his work in Scent of a Woman, he was cast by writer–director Paul Thomas Anderson to appear in his debut feature Hard Eight (1996). Hoffman had only a brief role in the crime thriller, playing a cocksure young craps player, but it began the most important collaboration of his career. Before cementing his creative partnership with Anderson, Hoffman appeared in one of the year's biggest blockbusters, Twister, playing a grubby, hyperactive storm chaser alongside Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton. According to a People survey of Twitter and Facebook users, Twister is the film with which Hoffman is most popularly associated. He then reunited with Anderson for the director's second feature, Boogie Nights, about the Golden Age of Pornography. The ensemble piece starred Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, and Burt Reynolds; Hoffman played a boom operator, described by David Fear of Rolling Stone as a "complete, unabashed loser", who attempts to seduce Wahlberg's character. Warmly received by critics, the film grew into a cult classic, and has been cited as the role in which Hoffman first showed his full ability. Fear commended the "naked emotional neediness" of the performance, adding that it made for compulsive viewing. Hoffman later expressed his appreciation for Anderson when he called the director "incomparable". Continuing with this momentum, Hoffman appeared in five films in 1998. He had supporting roles in the crime thriller Montana and the romantic comedy Next Stop Wonderland, both of which were commercial failures, before working with the Coen brothers in their dark comedy The Big Lebowski. Hoffman had long been a fan of the directors, and relished the experience of working with them. Appearing alongside Jeff Bridges and John Goodman, Hoffman played Brandt, the smug personal assistant of the titular character. Although it was only a small role, he claimed it was one for which he was most recognized, in a film that has achieved cult status and a large fan base. Between March and April 1998, Hoffman made 30 appearances on stage at the New York Theatre Workshop in a production of Mark Ravenhill's Shopping and Fucking, portraying an ex-heroin addict. Hoffman took an unflattering role in Todd Solondz's Happiness (1998), a misanthropic black comedy about the lives of three sisters and those around them. He played Allen, a strange loner who makes crude phone calls to women; the character furiously masturbates during one conversation, producing what film scholar Jerry Mosher calls an "embarrassingly raw performance". Jake Coyle of the Associated Press rated Allen as one of the creepiest characters in American cinema, but critic Xan Brooks highlighted the pathos that Hoffman brought to the role. Happiness was controversial but widely praised, and Hoffman's role has been cited by critics as one of his best. His final 1998 release was more mainstream, as he appeared as a medical graduate in the Robin Williams comedy Patch Adams. The film was critically panned, but one of the highest-grossing of Hoffman's career. In 1999, Hoffman starred opposite Robert De Niro as drag queen Rusty Zimmerman in Joel Schumacher's drama Flawless. Hoffman considered De Niro the most imposing actor with whom he had appeared, and he felt that working with the veteran performer profoundly improved his own acting. Hoffman's ability to avoid clichés in playing such a delicate role was noted by critics, and Roger Ebert said it confirmed him as "one of the best new character actors". He was rewarded with his first Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. Hoffman then reunited with Paul Thomas Anderson, where he was given an atypically virtuous role in the ensemble drama Magnolia. The film, set over one day in Los Angeles, features Hoffman as a nurse who cares for Jason Robards' character. The performance was approved of by the medical industry, and Jessica Winter of the Village Voice considered it Hoffman's most indelible work, likening him to a guardian angel in his caring for the dying father. Magnolia has been included in lists of the greatest films of all time, and it was a personal favorite of Hoffman's. One of the most critically and commercially successful films of Hoffman's career was The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), which he considered "as edgy as you can get for a Hollywood movie". He played a "preppy bully" who taunts Matt Damon's Ripley in the thriller, a character which Jeff Simon of The Buffalo News called "the truest upper class twit in all of American movies". Hoffman's performance caught the attention of Meryl Streep, another of his cinematic idols: "I sat up straight in my seat and said, 'Who is that?' I thought to myself: My God, this actor is fearless. He's done what we all strive for—he's given this awful character the respect he deserves, and he's made him fascinating." In recognition of his work in Magnolia and The Talented Mr. Ripley, Hoffman was named the year's Best Supporting Actor by the National Board of Review. ### 2000–2004: Established star Following a string of roles in successful films in the late 1990s, Hoffman had established a reputation as a top supporting player who could be relied on to make an impression with each performance. His film appearances were likened by David Kamp of GQ to "discovering a prize in a box of cereal, receiving a bonus, or bumping unexpectedly into an old friend". According to Jerry Mosher, as the year 2000 began, "it seemed Hoffman was everywhere, poised on the cusp of stardom". Hoffman had begun to be recognized as a theater actor in 1999, when he received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actor for the off-Broadway play The Author's Voice. This success continued with the 2000 Broadway revival of Sam Shepard's True West, where Hoffman alternated roles nightly with co-star John C. Reilly, making 154 appearances between March and July 2000. Ben Brantley of The New York Times felt that it was the best stage performance of Hoffman's career, calling him "brilliant", and the actor earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play. The following year, Hoffman appeared with Meryl Streep, Natalie Portman, and John Goodman in a Delacorte Theater production of Chekhov's The Seagull—although Brantley felt that this performance was less fully realized. As a stage director, Hoffman received two Drama Desk Award nominations for Outstanding Director of a Play: one for Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train in 2001, and another for Our Lady of 121st Street in 2003. In a 2008 interview, Hoffman opined that "switching hats" between acting and directing helped him improve in both roles. David Mamet's comedy State and Main, about the difficulties of shooting a film in rural New England, was Hoffman's first film role of 2000 and had a limited release. He had a more prominent supporting role that year in Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe's popular coming-of-age film set in the 1970s music industry. Hoffman portrayed the enthusiastic rock critic Lester Bangs, a task by which he felt burdened, but he managed to convey the real figure's mannerisms and sharp wit after watching him in a BBC interview. The following year, Hoffman featured as the narrator and interviewer in The Party's Over, a documentary about the 2000 U.S. elections. He assumed the position of a "politically informed and alienated Generation-Xer" who seeks to be educated in U.S. politics, but ultimately reveals the extent of public dissatisfaction in this area. In 2002, Hoffman was given his first leading role (despite joking at the time "Even if I was hired into a leading-man part, I'd probably turn it into the non-leading-man part") in Todd Louiso's tragicomedy Love Liza (2002). His brother Gordy wrote the script, which Hoffman had seen at their mother's house five years earlier, about a widower who starts sniffing gasoline to cope with his wife's suicide. He considered it the finest piece of writing he had ever read, "incredibly humble in its exploration of grief", but critics were less enthusiastic about the production. A review for the BBC wrote that Hoffman had finally been given a part that showed "what he's truly capable of", but few witnessed this as the film had a limited release and earned only US\$210,000. Later in 2002, Hoffman starred opposite Adam Sandler and Emily Watson in Anderson's critically acclaimed fourth picture, the surrealist romantic comedy-drama Punch-Drunk Love (2002), where he played an illegal phone-sex "supervisor". Drew Hunt of the Chicago Reader saw the performance as a fine example of Hoffman's "knack for turning small roles into seminal performances" and praised the actor's comedic ability. In a very different film, Hoffman was next seen with Anthony Hopkins in the high-budget thriller Red Dragon, a prequel to The Silence of the Lambs, portraying the meddlesome tabloid journalist Freddy Lounds. His fourth appearance of 2002 came in Spike Lee's drama 25th Hour, playing an English teacher who makes a devastating drunken mistake. Both Lee and the film's lead Edward Norton were thrilled to work with Hoffman, and Lee confessed that he had long wanted to do a picture with the actor, but had waited until he found the right role. Hoffman considered his character, Jakob, to be one of the most reticent characters he had ever played, a straight-laced "corduroy-pants-wearing kind of guy." Roger Ebert promoted 25th Hour to one of his "Great Movies" in 2009, and along with A. O. Scott, considered it to be one of the best films of the 2000s. The drama Owning Mahowny (2003) gave Hoffman his second lead role, starring opposite Minnie Driver as a bank employee who embezzles money to feed his gambling addiction. Based on the true story of Toronto banker Brian Molony, who committed the largest fraud in Canadian history, Hoffman met with Molony to prepare for the role and help him play the character as accurately as possible. He was determined not to conform to "movie character" stereotypes, and his portrayal of addiction won approval from the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Roger Ebert assessed Hoffman's performance as "a masterpiece of discipline and precision," but the film earned little at the box office. Hoffman's second 2003 appearance was a small role in Anthony Minghella's successful Civil War epic Cold Mountain. He played an immoral preacher, a complex character that Hoffman described as a "mass of contradictions". The same year, from April to August, he appeared with Vanessa Redgrave, Brian Dennehy, and Robert Sean Leonard in a Broadway revival of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night. Director Robert Falls later commented on the dedication and experience that Hoffman brought to his role of alcoholic Jamie Tyrone: "Every night he ripped it up to an extent that he couldn't leave [the role]. Phil carried it with him." Hoffman received his second Tony Award nomination, this time for Best Featured Actor in a Play. In 2004, he appeared as the crude, has-been actor friend of Ben Stiller's character in the box-office hit Along Came Polly. Reflecting on the role, People said it proved that "Hoffman could deliver comedic performances with the best of them". ### 2005–2009: Critical acclaim A turning point in Hoffman's career came with the biographical film Capote (2005), which dramatized Truman Capote's experience of writing his true crime novel In Cold Blood (1966). Hoffman took the title role for a project that he co-produced and helped bring to fruition. Portraying the idiosyncratic writer proved highly demanding, requiring significant weight loss and four months of research—such as watching video clips of Capote to help him affect the author's effeminate voice and mannerisms. Hoffman stated that he was not concerned with perfectly imitating Capote's speech, but he did feel a great duty to "express the vitality and the nuances" of the writer. During filming, he stayed in character constantly so as not to lose the voice and posture: "Otherwise," he explained, "I would give my body a chance to bail on me." Capote was released to great acclaim, particularly regarding Hoffman's performance. Many critics commented that the role was designed to win awards, and indeed Hoffman received an Oscar, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award, BAFTA, and various other critics' awards. In 2006, Premiere listed his role in Capote as the 35th-greatest movie performance of all time. After the film, several commentators began to describe Hoffman as one of the finest, most ambitious actors of his generation. Hoffman received his only Primetime Emmy Award nomination for his supporting role in the HBO miniseries Empire Falls (2005), about life in a New England town. He ultimately lost to castmate Paul Newman. In 2006, he appeared in the summer blockbuster Mission: Impossible III, playing the villainous arms dealer Owen Davian opposite Tom Cruise. A journalist for Vanity Fair stated that Hoffman's "black-hat performance was one of the most delicious in a Hollywood film since Alan Rickman's in Die Hard ", and he was generally approved of for bringing gravitas to the action film. With a gross of nearly US\$400 million, it exposed Hoffman to a mainstream audience. Returning to independent films in 2007, Hoffman began with a starring role in Tamara Jenkins's The Savages, where Laura Linney and he played siblings responsible for putting their dementia-ridden father (Philip Bosco) in a care home. Jake Coyle of the Associated Press stated that it was "the epitome of a Hoffman film: a mix of comedy and tragedy told with subtlety, bone-dry humor, and flashes of grace". Hoffman received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance in The Savages. He next appeared in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, the final film by veteran director Sidney Lumet, where he played a realtor who embezzles funds from his employer to support his drug habit. Mosher comments that the character was one of the most unpleasant of Hoffman's career, but that his "fearlessness again revealed the humanity within a deeply flawed character" as he appeared naked in the opening sex scene. The film was received positively by critics as a powerful and affecting thriller. Mike Nichols's political film Charlie Wilson's War (2007) gave Hoffman his second Academy Award nomination, again for playing a real individual—Gust Avrakotos, the CIA agent who conspired with Congressman Charlie Wilson (played by Tom Hanks) to aid Afghani rebels in their fight against the Soviet Union. Todd McCarthy wrote of Hoffman's performance: "Decked out with a pouffy '80s hairdo, moustache, protruding gut and ever-present smokes ... whenever he's on, the picture vibrates with conspiratorial electricity." The film was a critical and commercial success, and along with his Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, Hoffman was nominated for a BAFTA and a Golden Globe Award. The year 2008 contained two significant Hoffman roles. In Charlie Kaufman's enigmatic drama Synecdoche, New York, he starred as Caden Cotard, a frustrated dramatist who attempts to build a scale replica of New York inside a warehouse for a play. Hoffman again showed his willingness to reveal unattractive traits, as the character ages and deteriorates, and committed to a deeply psychological role. Critics were divided in their response to the "ambitious and baffling" film. Sonny Bunch of The Washington Times found it "impressionistic, inaccessible, and endlessly frustrating", likening Hoffman's character to "God, if God lacked imagination". Conversely, Roger Ebert named it the best film of the decade and considered it one of the greatest of all time, and Robbie Collin, film critic for The Daily Telegraph, believes Hoffman gave one of cinema's best performances. Hoffman's second role of the year came opposite Meryl Streep and Amy Adams in John Patrick Shanley's Doubt, where he played Father Brendan Flynn—a priest accused of sexually abusing a 12-year-old African-American student in the 1960s. Hoffman was already familiar with the play and appreciated the opportunity to bring it to the screen; in preparing for the role, he talked extensively to a priest who lived through the era. The film had a mixed reception, with some critics such as Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian suspicious of it as Oscar bait, but Hoffman gained second consecutive Best Supporting Actor nominations at the Oscars, BAFTAs, and Golden Globes, and was also nominated by the Screen Actors Guild. On stage in 2009, Hoffman played Iago in Peter Sellars' futuristic production of Othello (with the title role by John Ortiz), which received mixed reviews. Ben Brantley, theatre critic of The New York Times, found it to be "exasperatingly misconceived", remarking that even when Hoffman is attempting to "manipulate others into self-destruction, he comes close to spoiling everything by erupting into genuine, volcanic fury". Hoffman also did his first vocal performance for the claymation film Mary and Max, although the film did not initially have an American release. He played Max, a depressed New Yorker with Asperger syndrome, while Toni Collette voiced Mary—the Australian girl who becomes his pen pal. Continuing with animation, Hoffman then worked on an episode of the children's show Arthur and received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Performer In An Animated Program. Later in the year, he played a brash American disc jockey opposite Bill Nighy and Rhys Ifans in Richard Curtis's British comedy The Boat That Rocked (also known as Pirate Radio)—a character based on Emperor Rosko, a host of Radio Caroline in 1966. He also had a cameo role as a bartender in Ricky Gervais's The Invention of Lying. Reflecting on Hoffman's work in the late 2000s, Mosher writes that the actor remained impressive, but had not delivered a testing performance on the level of his work in Capote. The film critic David Thomson believed that Hoffman showed indecisiveness at this time, unsure whether to play spectacular supporting roles or become a lead actor who is capable of controlling the emotional dynamic and outcome of a film. ### 2010–2014: Final years Hoffman's profile continued to grow with the new decade, and he became an increasingly recognizable figure. Despite earlier reservations about directing for the screen, his first release of the 2010s was also his first as a film director. The independent drama Jack Goes Boating was adapted from Robert Glaudini's play of the same name, in which Hoffman had starred and directed for the LAByrinth Theater Company in 2007. He originally intended to only direct the film, but decided to reprise the main role of Jack—a lonely limousine driver looking for love—after the actor he wanted for it was unavailable. The low-key film had a limited release, and was not a high earner, though it received many positive reviews. However, Dave Edwards of the Daily Mirror remarked that "Hoffman's directing debut delivers a film so weak I could barely remember what it was about as I left", while critic Mark Kermode appreciated the cinematic qualities that Hoffman brought to the film, and stated that he showed potential as a director. In addition to Jack Goes Boating, in 2010 Hoffman also directed Brett C. Leonard's tragic drama The Long Red Road for the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. Steven Oxman of Variety described the production as "heavy handed" and "predictable", but "intriguing and at least partially successful". Hoffman next had significant supporting roles in two films, both released in the last third of 2011. In Bennett Miller's Moneyball, a sports drama about the 2002 season of the Oakland Athletics baseball team, he played the manager Art Howe. The film was a critical and commercial success, and Hoffman was described as "perfectly cast" by Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post, but the real-life Art Howe accused the filmmakers of giving an "unfair and untrue" portrayal of him. Hoffman's second film of the year was George Clooney's political drama The Ides of March, in which he played the earnest campaign manager to the Democratic presidential candidate Mike Morris (Clooney). The film was well-received and Hoffman's performance, especially in the scenes opposite Paul Giamatti—who played the rival campaign manager—was positively noted. Hoffman's work on the film earned him his fourth BAFTA Award nomination. In the spring of 2012, Hoffman made his final stage appearance, starring as Willy Loman in a Broadway revival of Death of a Salesman opposite Andrew Garfield. Directed by Mike Nichols, the production ran for 78 performances and was the highest-grossing show in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre's history. Many critics felt that Hoffman, at 44, was too young for the role of 62-year-old Loman, and Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune felt that the character had been interpreted poorly. Hoffman admitted that he found the role difficult, but he nevertheless earned his third Tony Award nomination. Hoffman collaborated with Paul Thomas Anderson for the fifth time in The Master (2012), where he turned in what critic Peter Bradshaw considered the most memorable performance of his career. Set in 1950s America, the film featured Hoffman as Lancaster Dodd, the charismatic leader of a nascent Scientology-type movement who brings a troubled man (Joaquin Phoenix) under his tutelage. Hoffman was instrumental in the project's development, having been involved with it for three years. He assisted Anderson in the writing of the script by reviewing samples of it, and suggested making Phoenix's character, Freddie Quell, the protagonist instead of Dodd. A talented dancer, Hoffman was able to showcase his abilities by performing a jig during a surreal sequence; Bradshaw called it an "extraordinary moment" that "only Hoffman could have carried off." The Master was praised as an intelligent and challenging drama, and Drew Hunt of the Chicago Reader also felt that it contained Hoffman's finest work: "He's inscrutable yet welcoming, intimidating yet charismatic, villainous yet fatherly. He epitomizes so many things at once that it's impossible to think of [Dodd] as mere movie character". Hoffman and Phoenix received a joint Volpi Cup Award at the Venice Film Festival for their performances, and Hoffman was also nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA Award and a SAG Award for the supporting role. A Late Quartet was Hoffman's other film release of 2012, where he played a violinist in a string quartet whose members (played by Christopher Walken, Catherine Keener, and Mark Ivanir) face a crisis when one is diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. The drama received favorable reviews, and Stephen Holden of The New York Times called Hoffman's performance "exceptional". In 2013, Hoffman joined the popular Hunger Games series in its second film, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, where he played gamemaker Plutarch Heavensbee. The film finished as the 10th-highest grossing in history to that point, and Hoffman became recognizable to a new generation of film-goers. In January 2014, shortly before his death, he attended the Sundance Film Festival to promote two films. In Anton Corbijn's A Most Wanted Man, a thriller based on John le Carré's novel, Hoffman played a German intelligence officer. His performance was praised by Xan Brooks as one of "terrific, lip-smacking relish: full of mischief, anchored by integrity." The other was God's Pocket, the directorial debut of actor John Slattery, in which Hoffman played a thief. In November 2014, nine months after his death, Hoffman was seen in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1. At the time of his death, Hoffman was filming The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, the fourth film in the series, and had already completed the majority of his scenes. His two remaining scenes were rewritten to compensate for his absence, and the film was released in November 2015. Hoffman was also preparing for his second directorial effort, a Prohibition-era drama titled Ezekiel Moss, which was to star Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal. In addition, he had filmed a pilot episode for the Showtime series Happyish, in which he played the lead role of an advertising executive, but plans for a full season were put on hold following his death. The role was later passed on to Steve Coogan. ## Personal life Hoffman rarely mentioned his personal life in interviews, stating in 2012 that he would "rather not because my family doesn't have any choice. If I talk about them in the press, I'm giving them no choice. So I choose not to." For 14 years, he was in a relationship with costume designer Mimi O'Donnell, whom he had met in 1999 when they were both working on the Hoffman-directed play In Arabia We'd All Be Kings. They lived in New York City and had a son, Cooper, and two daughters. While some reports stated Hoffman and O'Donnell separated in late 2013, O'Donnell later said she and Hoffman were both committed to their relationship, but he had moved out of their longtime residence to a nearby apartment to protect their children from the effects of his relapse into substance abuse. He felt that keeping his personal life private was beneficial to his career: "The less you know about me the more interesting it will be to watch me do what I do". Hoffman was also discreet about his religious and political beliefs, but it is known that he voted for the Green Party candidate Ralph Nader in the 2000 presidential election. He also donated to Al Franken's senate campaign and the Democratic National Committee. In a 2006 interview with 60 Minutes, Hoffman revealed he had engaged in drug and alcohol misuse during his time at New York University, saying he had used "anything I could get my hands on. I liked it all." Following his graduation in 1989, he entered a drug rehabilitation program aged 22, and remained sober for 23 years. However, he relapsed in 2012, and admitted himself to drug rehabilitation for about ten days in May 2013. ## Death On February 2, 2014, Hoffman was found dead in the bathroom of his Manhattan apartment by his friend, the playwright and screenwriter David Bar Katz. He was 46 years old. Although friends stated that Hoffman's drug use was under control at the time, detectives searching the apartment found heroin and prescription medication at the scene and revealed that he had a syringe in his arm. Hoffman's death was officially ruled an accident caused by "acute mixed drug intoxication, including heroin, cocaine, benzodiazepines, and amphetamine". Michael Schwirtz of The New York Times said, "Whether Hoffman had taken all of the substances on the same day, or whether any of the substances had remained in his system from earlier use, was not reported." A funeral Mass was held at St. Ignatius Loyola Church in Manhattan on February 7, 2014, and was attended by many of his close friends and former co-stars including Amy Adams, Cate Blanchett, Ellen Burstyn, Louis C.K., Ethan Hawke, Laura Linney, Julianne Moore, Mike Nichols, Joaquin Phoenix, Chris Rock, Diane Sawyer, Jerry Stiller, Meryl Streep, Marisa Tomei, and Michelle Williams. At the end of the ceremony, Hoffman was cremated, with his ashes given to his partner and children. He left his fortune of around \$35 million to Mimi O'Donnell in his October 2004 will, trusting her to distribute money to their children. Hoffman's death was lamented by fans and the film industry and was described by several commentators as a considerable loss to the profession. On February 5, 2014, the LAByrinth Theatre Company honored his memory by holding a candlelight vigil, and Broadway dimmed its lights for one minute. Three weeks after Hoffman's death, Katz established the American Playwriting Foundation in Hoffman's memory. With the money received from a libel lawsuit against the National Enquirer which inaccurately claimed that Hoffman and Katz were lovers, the foundation awards an annual prize of \$45,000 to the author of an unproduced play. Katz named this the "Relentless Prize" in honor of Hoffman's dedication to the profession. He would later remember Hoffman with a poem published in The Guardian in December 2014. At the 90th Academy Awards, Sam Rockwell dedicated his win for Best Supporting Actor to Hoffman. In another tribute, actress Cate Blanchett dedicated her BAFTA trophy to Hoffman when she received the award for Blue Jasmine on February 16. ## Reception and acting style Hoffman was held in high regard within both the film and theater industries, and he was often cited in the media as one of the finest actors of his generation. In a 2022 readers' poll by Empire magazine, he was voted one of the 50 greatest actors of all time. With his being overweight, one writer considered Hoffman to be "too pudgy to look romantic or heroic"; however, the actor claimed that he was grateful for his appearance, as it made him believable in a wide range of roles. Joel Schumacher once said of him in 2000, "The bad news is that Philip won't be a \$25-million star. The good news is that he'll work for the rest of his life". The Aiken Standard of South Carolina referred to him as an "anti-star", whose real identity remained "amorphous and unmoored". Hoffman was acutely aware that he was often too unorthodox for the Academy voters. He remarked, "I'm sure that people in the big corporations that run Hollywood don't know quite what to do with someone like me, but that's OK. I think there are other people who are interested in what I do." Most of Hoffman's notable roles came in independent films, including particularly original ones, but he also featured in several Hollywood blockbusters. He generally played supporting roles, appearing in both dramas and comedies, but was noted for his ability to make small parts memorable. Peter Bradshaw, film critic for The Guardian, felt that "Almost every single one of his credits had something special about it". David Fear of Rolling Stone wrote that Hoffman "added heft to low-budget art films, and nuance and unpredictability to blockbuster franchises. He was a transformative performer who worked from the inside out, blessed with an emotional transparency that could be overwhelming, invigorating, compelling, devastating." Hoffman was praised for his versatility and ability to fully inhabit any role, but specialized in playing creeps and misfits: "his CV was populated almost exclusively by snivelling wretches, insufferable prigs, braggarts and outright bullies" writes the journalist Ryan Gilbey. Hoffman was appreciated for making these roles real, complex and even sympathetic; while Todd Louiso, director of Love Liza, believed that Hoffman connected to people on screen because he looked like an ordinary man and revealed his vulnerability. Xan Brooks of The Guardian remarked that the actor's particular talent was to "take thwarted, twisted humanity and ennoble it". "The more pathetic or deluded the character," writes Gilbey, "the greater Hoffman's relish seemed in rescuing them from the realms of the merely monstrous." When asked in 2006 why he undertook such roles, Hoffman responded, "I didn't go out looking for negative characters; I went out looking for people who have a struggle and a fight to tackle. That's what interests me." ### Work ethic The journalist Jeff Simon described Hoffman as "probably the most in-demand character actor of his generation", but Hoffman claimed never to take it for granted that he would be offered roles. Although he worked hard and regularly, he was humble about his acting success, and when asked by a friend if he was having any luck he quietly replied, "I'm in a film, Cold Mountain, that has just come out." Patrick Fugit, who worked with Hoffman on Almost Famous, recalled the actor was intimidating but an exceptional mentor and influence in "a school-of-hard-knocks way", remarking that "there was a certain weight that came with him". Hoffman admitted that he sometimes appeared in big-budget studio films for the money, but said, "ultimately my main goal is to do good work. If it doesn't pay well, so be it." He kept himself grounded and invigorated as an actor by attempting to appear on stage once a year. Hoffman occasionally changed his hair and lost or gained weight for parts, and he went to great lengths to reveal the worst in his characters. But in a 2012 interview, he confessed that performing to a high standard was a challenge: "The job isn't difficult. Doing it well is difficult." In an earlier interview with The New York Times, he explained how deeply he loved acting but added, "that deep kind of love comes at a price: for me, acting is torturous, and it's torturous because you know it's a beautiful thing ... Wanting it is easy, but trying to be great—well, that's absolutely torturous." This struggle was confirmed by the author John le Carré, who met Hoffman during the adaptation of his novel A Most Wanted Man. While praising the actor's intelligence and intuition, le Carré acknowledged the burden that Hoffman felt: "It was painful and exhausting work, and probably in the end his undoing. The world was too bright for him to handle." ## Filmography, awards, and honors Hoffman appeared in 55 films and one miniseries during his screen career spanning 22 years. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for Capote (2005), and was nominated three times for Best Supporting Actor for Charlie Wilson's War (2007), Doubt (2008), and The Master (2012). He also received five Golden Globe Award nominations (winning one), five BAFTA Award nominations (winning one), four Screen Actors Guild Awards (winning one), and won the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival. Hoffman remained active in theater throughout his career, starring in ten and directing 19 stage productions (predominantly in New York). He received three Tony Award nominations for his Broadway performances: two for Best Leading Actor, in True West (2000) and Death of a Salesman (2012), and one for Best Featured Actor in Long Day's Journey into Night (2003). In 2022, a statue of Hoffman was unveiled in his hometown of Fairport, New York. The statue was sculpted by David A. Annand and commissioned by James Declan Tobin, a film producer who befriended Hoffman's mother at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. Originally on loan from a gallery in New York City, the statue was permanently installed outside the George Eastman Museum in 2023. Hoffman’s mother, Marilyn O'Connor, called the sculpture "a loving memorial" to her son.
23,505,559	July 2009 Ürümqi riots	1,164,636,246	Protest events in Xinjiang, China	[ "2009 in China", "2009 riots", "Anti-Chinese sentiment in Asia", "Articles containing video clips", "Ethnic riots", "History of Ürümqi", "Indigenous rights protests", "July 2009 events in China", "Persecution of Uyghurs", "Protests in China", "Riots and civil disorder in China", "Xinjiang conflict" ]	A series of violent riots over several days broke out on 5 July 2009 in Ürümqi, the capital city of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), in northwestern China. The first day's rioting, which involved at least 1,000 Uyghurs, began as a protest, but escalated into violent attacks that mainly targeted Han people. A total of 197 people died, most of whom were Han people or non-Muslim minorities, with 1,721 others injured and many vehicles and buildings destroyed. Many Uyghurs disappeared during wide-scale police sweeps in the days following the riots; Human Rights Watch (HRW) documented 43 cases and said figures for real disappearances were likely to be much higher. Rioting began following the Shaoguan incident, where false accusations of rape of a Han woman by Uyghur men led to a brawl between ethnic Han and Uyghur factory workers in Shaoguan, resulting in the deaths of two Uyghurs who were both from Xinjiang. Official Chinese government investigations stated that the riots themselves were planned from abroad by the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) and its leader Rebiya Kadeer, while Kadeer denies fomenting the violence in her fight for Uyghur "self-determination". Chinese media coverage of the Ürümqi riots was extensive and was compared favourably by foreign media to that of the unrest in Tibet in 2008. When the riots began, telephone and internet connections within Xinjiang were cut off. In the weeks that followed, official sources reported that over 1,000 people were arrested and detained; Uyghur-run mosques were temporarily closed. The communication limitations and armed police presence remained in place as of January 2010. By November 2009, over 400 individuals faced criminal charges for their actions during the riots. Nine were executed in November 2009. According to China News Service, they were executed for crimes such as murder or arson. By February 2010, at least 26 had received death sentences. ## Background Xinjiang is a large central-Asian region within the People's Republic of China comprising numerous ethnic groups. Its two largest ethnic groups are the Uyghurs and Han, who make up 45 and 40 per cent of the population, respectively. Its heavily industrialised capital, Ürümqi, has a population of more than 2.3 million, about 75 per cent of whom are Han, 12.8 per cent are Uyghur, and 10 per cent are from other ethnic groups. In general, Uyghurs and the Han-dominated government disagree on which group has greater historical claim to the Xinjiang region: Uyghurs believe their ancestors were indigenous to the area, whereas government policy considers present-day Xinjiang to have belonged to China since around 200 BC. According to Chinese government policy, Uyghurs are classified as a National Minority rather than an indigenous group—in other words, they are considered to be no more indigenous to Xinjiang than the Han, and have no special rights to the land under the law. The Chinese government has presided over the migration into Xinjiang of millions of Han, who dominate the region economically and politically. During the Qing Dynasty, the Qianlong Emperor had ordered the genocide of Dzungar tribe to punish their leader Amursana for rebelling against Qing rule. After the genocide of Dzungar people, the Qing empire had sponsored Han, Hui, Uyghur, Xibe, and Kazakh colonists in settling into the region, which resulted in a major regional demographic change, with 62 percent Uyghurs concentrated in the southern Xinjiang's Tarim Basin, and around 30 percent Han and Hui people in the north. Professor Stanley W. Toops noted that today's demographic situation is similar to that of the early Qing period in Xinjiang. At the start of the 19th century, 40 years after the Qing reconquest of the area, there were around 155,000 Han and Hui Chinese in Xinjiang and somewhat more than twice that number of Uyghurs. A census of Xinjiang under Qing rule in the early 19th century tabulated ethnic shares of the population as 30% Han and 60% Turkic, while it dramatically shifted to 6% Han and 75% Uyghur in the 1953 census. However, the recorded population, which had increased to 18.64 million people, was 40.57% Han and 45.21% Uyghur by 2000. Although the Chinese government's minority policy, which is based on affirmative actions, has reinforced a Uyghur ethnic identity that is distinct from the Han population, some scholars argue that Beijing unofficially favours a monolingual, monocultural model that is based on the majority. The authorities also crack down on any activity that appears to constitute separatism. These policies, in addition to long-standing cultural differences, have sometimes resulted in "resentments" between Uyghur and Han citizens. On one hand, as a result of Han immigration and government policies, Uyghurs' freedoms of religion and of movement are curtailed, while most Uyghurs argue that the government downplays their history and traditional culture. On the other hand, some Han citizens view Uyghurs as benefiting from special treatment, such as preferential admission to universities and exemption from the one-child policy, and as "harbouring separatist aspirations". Tensions between Uyghurs and Han have resulted in waves of protest in recent years. Xinjiang has been the location of several instances of violence and ethnic clashes, such as the Ghulja Incident of 1997, the 2008 Kashgar attack, widespread unrest preceding the Olympic Games in Beijing, as well as numerous minor attacks. ### Immediate causes The riots took place several days after a violent incident in Shaoguan, Guangdong, where many migrant workers are employed as part of a government programme to alleviate labour shortages. According to state media, a disgruntled former worker disseminated rumours in late June that two Han women had been raped by six Uyghur men. Official sources later said they found no evidence to support the rape allegation. Overnight on 25–26 June, tensions at the Guangdong factory led to a full-blown ethnic brawl between Uyghur and Han workers, during which two Uyghurs were killed. Exiled Uyghur leaders alleged the death toll was much higher. While the official Xinhua News Agency reported that the person responsible for spreading the rumours had been arrested, Uyghurs alleged that the authorities had failed to protect the Uyghur workers, or to arrest any of the Han people involved in the killings. They organised a street protest in Ürümqi on 5 July to voice their discontent and to demand a full government investigation. At some point the demonstration became violent. A government statement called the riots a "pre-empted, organised violent crime ... instigated and directed from abroad, and carried out by outlaws." Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang regional government, said on 6 July that overseas separatist forces had taken advantage of the Shaoguan incident "to instigate the unrest [of 5 July] and undermine ethnic unity and social stability". The government blamed the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), an international organisation of exiled Uyghur groups, for coordinating and instigating the riots over the internet. Government sources blamed Kadeer in particular, citing her public speeches after the Tibetan unrest and phone recordings in which she had allegedly said that something would happen in Ürümqi. Chinese authorities accused a man who they alleged to be a key WUC member of inciting ethnic tensions by circulating a violent video, and urging Uyghurs, in an online forum, to "fight back [against Han Chinese] with violence". Jirla Isamuddin, the mayor of Ürümqi, claimed that the protesters had organised online via such services as QQ Groups. China Daily asserted that the riots were organised to fuel separatism and to benefit Middle East terrorist organisations. Kadeer denied fomenting the violence, and argued that the Ürümqi protests and their descent into violence were triggered by heavy policing, discontent over Shaoguan and "years of Chinese repression", rather than by the intervention of separatists or terrorists. Uyghur exile groups claimed that violence erupted when police used excessive force to disperse the crowd. All parties, then, agree that the protests were organised beforehand; the main points of contention are whether the violence was planned or spontaneous, and whether the underlying tensions reflect separatist inclinations or a desire for social justice. ## Events ### Initial demonstrations Demonstrations began on the evening of 5 July with a protest in the Grand Bazaar, a prominent tourist site, and crowd reportedly gathering at the People's Square area. The demonstration began peacefully, and official and eyewitness accounts reported that it involved about 1,000 Uyghurs; the WUC said approximately 10,000 protesters took part. On 6 July, XUAR chairman Nur Bekri presented an official timeline of the previous day's events, according to which more than 200 demonstrators gathered in People's Square in Ürümqi at about 5 pm local time, and about 70 of their leaders were detained. Later, a crowd gathered in the mostly Uyghur areas of South Jiefang Road, Erdaoqiao, and Shanxi Alley; by 7:30 pm, more than one thousand were gathered in front of a hospital in Shanxi Alley. At about 7:40 pm, more than 300 people blocked the roads in the Renmin Road and Nanmen area. According to Bekri, rioters began to smash buses at 8:18 pm, after police "controlled and dispersed" the crowd. How the demonstrations became violent is unclear. Some say the police used excessive force against the protesters; the World Uyghur Congress quickly issued press releases saying that the police had used deadly force and killed "scores" of protesters. Kadeer has alleged that there were agents provocateurs among the crowds. Others claim that the protesters initiated the violence; for example, a Uyghur eyewitness cited by The New York Times said protesters began throwing rocks at the police. The government's official line was that the violence was not only initiated by the protesters, but also had been premeditated and coordinated by Uyghur separatists abroad. The local public security bureau said it found evidence that many Uyghurs had travelled from other cities to gather for the riot, and that they had begun preparing weapons two or three days before the riot. ### Escalation and spread After the confrontation with police turned violent, rioters began hurling rocks, smashing vehicles, breaking into shops and attacking Han civilians. At least 1,000 Uyghurs were involved in the rioting when it began, and the number of rioters may have risen to as many as 3,000. Jane Macartney of The Times characterised the first day's rioting as consisting mainly of "Han stabbed by marauding gangs of [Uyghurs]"; a report in The Australian several months later suggested that religiously moderate Uyghurs may also have been attacked by rioters. Although the majority of rioters were Uyghur, not all Uyghurs were violent during the riots; there are accounts of Han and Uyghur civilians helping each other escape the violence and hide. About 1,000 police officers were dispatched; they used batons, live ammunition, tasers, tear gas and water hoses to disperse the rioters and set up roadblocks and posted armoured vehicles throughout the city. During a press conference, Mayor Jirla Isamuddin said that at about 8:15 pm, some protesters started to fight and loot, overturned guardrails and smashed three buses before being dispersed. At 8:30 pm, violence escalated around South Jiefang Road and Longquan Street area, with rioters torching police patrol cars and attacking passers-by. Soon, between 700 and 800 people went from the People's Square to Daximen and Xiaoximen area, "fighting, smashing, looting, torching and killing" along the way. At 9:30 pm, the government received reports that three people had been killed and 26 injured, six of whom were police officers. Police reinforcements were dispatched to hotspots of Renmin Road, Nanmen, Tuanjie Road, Yan'An Road and South Xinhua Road. Police took control of the main roadways and commercial districts in the city at around 10 pm, but riots continued in side streets and alleyways, with Han civilians attacked and cars overturned or torched, according to the mayor. Police then formed small teams and "swept" the entire city for the next two days. A strict curfew was put in place; authorities imposed "comprehensive traffic control" from 9:00 pm on 7 July to 8:00 am 8 July "to avoid further chaos". The official news agency, Xinhua, reported that police believed agitators were trying to organise more unrest in other areas in Xinjiang, such as Aksu and Yili Prefectures. Violent protests also sprang up in Kashgar, in southwestern Xinjiang, where the South China Morning Post reported many shops were closed, and the area around the mosque was sealed off by a People's Liberation Army platoon after confrontations. Local Uyghurs blamed the security forces for using excessive force – they "attacked the protesters and arrested 50 people". Another clash was reported near the mosque on 7 July and an estimated 50 people were arrested. Up to 12,000 students at the Kashgar Teaching Institute were confined to campus after the 5 July riots, according to the Post. Many of the institute's students had apparently travelled to Ürümqi for the demonstrations there. ### Casualties and damage During the first hours of the rioting, state media only reported that three people had been killed. The number rose sharply, though, after the first night's rioting; at midday on 6 July, Xinhua announced that 129 people had died. In the following days the death toll reported by various government sources (including Xinhua and party officials) gradually grew, with the last official update on 18 July placing the tally at 197 dead and 1,721 injured. The World Uyghur Congress has claimed that the death toll was around 600. Xinhua did not immediately disclose the ethnic breakdown of the dead, but journalists from The Times and The Daily Telegraph reported that most of the victims appeared to have been Han. For instance, on 10 July Xinhua stated that 137 of the dead (out of the total of 184 that was being reported at that time) were Han, 46 Uyghur, and 1 Hui. There were casualties among the rioters as well; for example, according to official accounts, a group of 12 rioters attacking civilians were shot by police. In the months following the riots, the government maintained that the majority of casualties were Han and hospitals said that two-thirds of the injured were Han, although the World Uyghur Congress claims that many Uyghurs were killed as well. According to the official count released by the Chinese government in August 2009, 134 of the 156 civilian victims were Han, 11 Hui, 10 Uyghur, and 1 Manchu. Uyghur advocates continue to question these figures, saying that the number of ethnic Uyghurs remains understated. Nevertheless, third-party sources confirm that most of the casualties were Han Chinese. Xinhua News Agency reported that 627 vehicles and 633 constructions were damaged. The Ürümqi municipal government initially announced that it would pay ¥200,000 as compensation, plus another ¥10,000 as "funeral expense" for every "innocent death" caused by the riot. The compensation was later doubled to ¥420,000 per death. Mayor Jirla Isamuddin estimated that the compensations would cost at least ¥100 million. ### After 5 July The city remained tense while journalists invited into the city witnessed confrontational scenes between Chinese troops and Uyghurs demanding the release of family members who they said had been arbitrarily arrested. Uyghur women told The Daily Telegraph reporter that police entered Uyghur districts in the night of 6 July, burst through doors, pulled men and boys from their beds, and rounded up 100 suspects. By 7 July, officials reported that 1,434 suspected rioters had been arrested. A group of 200 to 300 Uyghur women assembled on 7 July to protest what they said was "indiscriminate" detention of Uyghur men; the protest led to a tense but non-violent confrontation with police forces. Kadeer claimed that "nearly 10,000 people" had gone missing overnight. Human Rights Watch later documented 43 cases of Uyghur men who disappeared after being taken away by Chinese security forces in large-scale sweeps of Uyghur neighbourhoods overnight on 6–7 July, and said that this was likely to be "just the tip of the iceberg". Human Rights Watch alleges that young men, mostly in their 20s, had been unlawfully arrested and have not been seen or heard from as of 20 October 2009. On 7 July, there were large-scale armed demonstrations by ethnic Han in Ürümqi. Conflicting estimates of the Han demonstrators' numbers were reported by the western media and varied from "hundreds" to as high as 10,000. The Times reported that smaller fights were frequently breaking out between Uyghurs and Han, and that groups of Han citizens had organised to take revenge on "Uyghur mobs". Police used tear gas and roadblocks in an attempt to disperse the demonstration, and urged Han citizens over loudspeakers to "calm down" and "let the police do their job". Li Zhi, party secretary of Ürümqi, stood on the roof of a police car with a megaphone appealing to the crowd to go home. Mass protests had been quelled by 8 July, although sporadic violence was reported. In the days after the riots, "thousands" of people tried to leave the city, and the price for bus tickets rose as much as fivefold. On 10 July, city authorities closed Ürümqi mosques "for public safety", saying it was too dangerous to have large gatherings and that holding Jumu'ah, traditional Friday prayers, could reignite tensions. Large crowds of Uyghurs gathered for prayer anyway, however, and police decided to let two mosques open to avoid having an "incident". After prayers at the White Mosque, several hundred people demonstrated over people detained after the riot, but were dispersed by riot police, with five or six people arrested. Over 300 more people were reported arrested in early August. According to the BBC, the total number of arrests in connection with the riots was over 1,500. The Financial Times estimated that the number was higher, citing an insider saying that some 4,000 arrests had already taken place by mid July, and that Ürümqi's prisons were so full that newly arrested people were being held in a People's Liberation Army warehouse. According to the Uyghur American Association, several other Uyghur journalists and bloggers were also detained after the riots; one of them, journalist Gheyret Niyaz, was later sentenced to 15 years in prison for having spoken to foreign media. In the most high-profile case, Ilham Tohti, an ethnic Uyghur economist at Minzu University of China, was arrested two days after the riots over his criticisms of the Xinjiang government. ## Reactions and response ### Domestic reaction #### Communications black-out Mobile phone service and internet access were limited both during and after the riots. China Mobile phone service was cut "to prevent the incident from spreading further". Outbound international calls throughout Xinjiang were blocked, and Internet connections in the region had been locked down or non-local websites blocked. Reporting from Ürümqi's Hoi Tak Hotel on 9 July, Al Jazeera reported that the foreign journalists' hotel was the only place in the city with Internet access, although the journalist could not send text messages or place international phone calls. Many unauthorised postings on local sites and Google were removed by censors; images and video footage of the demonstrations and rioting, however, were soon found posted on Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr. Many Xinjiang-based websites became inaccessible worldwide, and internet access within Ürümqi remained restricted nearly a year following the riots; it was not restored until 14 May 2010. #### Government Chinese state-controlled television broadcast graphic footage of cars being smashed and people being beaten. Officials reiterated the party line: XUAR chairman Nur Bekri delivered a lengthy address on the situation and on the Shaoguan incident, and claimed that the government of both Guangdong and Xinjiang had dealt with the deaths of the workers properly and with respect. Bekri further condemned the riots as "premeditated and planned"; Eligen Imibakhi, chairman of the Standing Committee of the Xinjiang Regional People's Congress, blamed 5 July riots on "extremism, separatism and terrorism". Chinese media covered the rioting extensively. Hours after troops stopped the rioting, the state invited foreign journalists on an official fact-finding trip to Ürümqi; journalists from more than 100 media organisations were all corralled into the downtown Hoi Tak Hotel, sharing 30 internet connections. Journalists were given unprecedented access to troublespots and hospitals. The Financial Times referred to this handling as an improvement, compared to the "public-relations disaster" of the Tibetan unrest in 2008. In an effort to soothe tensions immediately after the riots, state media began a mass publicity campaign throughout Xinjiang extolling ethnic harmony. Local television programmes united Uyghur and Han singers in a chorus of "We are all part of the same family"; Uyghurs who "acted heroically" during the riots were profiled; loud-hailer trucks blasted slogans in the streets. A common slogan warned against the "Three Evils": terrorism, separatism and extremism. Chinese President and General Secretary of the Communist Party Hu Jintao curtailed his attendance of the G8 summit in Italy, convened an emergency meeting of the Politburo, and dispatched Standing Committee member Zhou Yongkang to Xinjiang to "guid[e] stability-preservation work in Xinjiang". South China Morning Post reported a government source saying Beijing would re-evaluate the impact on arrangements for the country's forthcoming 60th anniversary celebrations in October. Guangdong's CPC Provincial Committee Secretary, Wang Yang, noted that the government policies towards ethnic minorities "definitely need adjustments", otherwise "there will be some problems." A security planner said the authorities planned to fly in more troops from other stations to raise the number of armed police presence to 130,000 before the 60th anniversary celebrations in October. After the riots, the Chinese government exercised diplomatic pressure on nations that Kadeer was scheduled to visit. In late July, India declined Kadeer a visa "on the advice of Beijing", and Beijing summoned the Japanese ambassador in protest of a trip Kadeer made to Japan. When Kadeer visited Australia in August to promote a film about her life, China officially complained to the Australian government and asked for the film to be withdrawn. #### Internet response The response to the riots on the Chinese blogosphere was markedly more varied than the official response. Despite blocks and censorship, Internet watchers monitored continued attempts by netizens to publish their own thoughts on the causes of the incident or vent their anger about the violence. While some bloggers were supportive of the government, others were more reflective of the event's cause. On numerous forums and news sites, government workers quickly removed comments about the riots. Common themes were calls for punishment for those responsible; some posts evoked the name of Wang Zhen, a 20th century general who is respected by the Han but feared by many Uyghurs for his repression in Xinjiang after the communist takeover of the region in 1949. ### International reactions #### Intergovernmental organisations - United Nations: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged all sides to exercise restraint, and called on China to take measures to protect the civilian population as well as respect the freedoms of citizens, including freedom of speech, assembly and information. Human rights chief Navi Pillay said she was "alarmed" over the high death toll, noting this was an "extraordinarily high number of people to be killed and injured in less than a day of rioting." She also said China must treat detainees humanely in a way that adheres to international norms. - Shanghai Cooperation Organisation: said it sympathised with the family members of those innocent people killed in the riot; it said that its member states regard Xinjiang as an inalienable part of the People's Republic of China and believe the situation in Xinjiang is purely China's internal affairs. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov condemned rioters for "Using separatist slogans and provoking ethnic intolerance. Officials from both neighbouring Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan said they were braced for "an influx of refugees" and tightened border controls. Despite the Kazakh government support, over 5,000 Uyghurs protested on 19 July in former capital Almaty against Chinese police use of deadly force against the rioters. - Organisation of the Islamic Conference: decried the "disproportionate use of force", calling on the Chinese government to "bring those responsible to justice swiftly" and urging China to find a solution to the unrest by examining why it had erupted. - European Union: leaders expressed concern, and urged the Chinese government to show restraint in dealing with the protests: German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged respect for the rights of minorities; Italian President Giorgio Napolitano brought up human rights at a press conference with Hu Jintao, and said that "economic and social progress that is being achieved in China places new demands in terms of human rights." #### Countries Turkey, a Turkic-majority country with a significant Uyghur minority, officially expressed "deep sadness" and urged the Chinese authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the incident was "like genocide", while Turkish Trade and Industry Minister Nihat Ergün unsuccessfully called for a boycott on Chinese goods. Several protests against the Chinese government's response to the riots also occurred in front of Chinese embassies and consulates in Turkey. The Turkish government's stance sparked a significant outcry from Chinese media. Afghanistan, Cambodia and Vietnam said they believed the Chinese government was "taking appropriate measures," and their statements backed "the territorial integrity and sovereignty of China." Micronesian Vice-president Alik Alik condemned the riots as a "terrorist act." Iran said it shared the concerns of Turkey and the OIC and appealed to the Chinese government to respect the rights of the Muslim population in Xinjiang. Japan stated that it was monitoring the situation with concern; Singapore urged restraint and dialogue; while Taiwan strongly condemned all those who instigated the violence. Taiwanese premier Liu Chiao-shiuan also urged restraint and expressed hope that the Chinese authorities will demonstrate the "greatest possible leniency and tolerance in dealing with the aftermath" and respect the rights of ethnic minorities. Taiwan denied a visa to Kadeer in September 2009, alleging she had links to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, classed as a terrorist organisation by the United Nations and United States. Switzerland called for restraint, and sent condolences to the families of victims and urged China to respect freedom of expression and the press. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia urged restraint to bring about a "peaceful settlement to this difficulty." Serbia stated that it opposed separatism and supports the "resolution of all disputes by peaceful means." Belarus noted with regret the loss of life and damage in the region, and hoped that the situation would soon normalise. There was violence in the Netherlands and in Norway. The Chinese embassy in the Netherlands was attacked by Uyghur activists who smashed windows with bricks and burned Chinese flags. There were 142 arrests, and the embassy was closed for the day. About 100 Uyghurs protested outside the Chinese embassy in the Norwegian capital Oslo. Eleven were detained and later released without charges. Protesters from a coalition of Indonesian Islamist groups attacked guards at the Chinese embassy in Jakarta and called for a jihad against China. Pakistan said that certain "elements" were out to harm China-Pakistan relations, but they would not succeed in destabilising the interests of the two countries. Sri Lanka stressed the incident was an internal affair of China and was confident that efforts by the Chinese authorities would restore normalcy. Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon urged "dialogue and goodwill" to help resolve grievances and prevent further deterioration of the situation. A U.S. government spokesman said the U.S. regretted the loss of life in Xinjiang, was deeply concerned and called on all sides to exercise restraint. U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly, said "it's important that the Chinese authorities act to restore order and prevent further violence." The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom expressed "grave concern" over repression in China and called for an independent investigation on the riots and targeted sanctions against China. #### Non-governmental organisations - Amnesty International: called for an "impartial and independent" inquiry into the incident, adding that those detained for "peacefully expressing their views and exercising their freedom of expression, association and assembly" must be released and others ensured to receive a fair trial. - Human Rights Watch: urged China to exercise restraint and to allow an independent inquiry into the events, which would include addressing Uyghur concerns about policies in the region. It also added that China should respect international norms when responding to the protests and only use force proportionately. - Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb: called on its supporters to attack Chinese workers in North Africa. ### Media coverage Chen Shirong, China editor on the BBC World Service, remarked at the improvement in media management by Xinhua: "To be more credible, it released video footage a few hours after the event, not two weeks." Peter Foster of the Daily Telegraph observed that "long-standing China commentators have been astonished at the speed at which Beijing has moved to seize the news agenda on this event," and attributed it to his belief that "China doesn't have a great deal to hide". A University of California, Berkeley academic agreed that the Chinese authorities had become more sophisticated. The New York Times and AFP recognised the Chinese learnt lessons from political protests around the world, such as the so-called colour revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, and the 2009 Iranian election protests, and concluded that Chinese experts had studied how modern electronic communications "helped protesters organize and reach the outside world, and for ways that governments sought to counter them." But Willy Lam, fellow of the Jamestown Foundation, sceptically said that the authorities were "just testing the reaction". He believed that if the outcome of this openness was poor they would "put the brakes on" as they did after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. There were instances of foreign journalists being taken into custody by the police, to be released shortly thereafter. On 10 July, officials ordered foreign media out of Kashgar, "for their own safety." Xia Lin, a top official at Xinhua, later revealed that violence caused by both sides during and after the riots had been downplayed or wholly unreported in official news channels, for the fear that the ethnic violence would spread beyond Ürümqi. A People's Daily op-ed rebuked certain western media outlets for their "double standards, biased coverage and comments". It said that China failed to receive fair "repayment" from certain foreign political figures or media outlets for its openness and transparent attitude. The author said "a considerable number of media outlets still intentionally or inadvertently minimised the violent actions of the rioters, and attempted to focus on so-called racial conflict." However, D'Arcy Doran from Agence France-Presse welcomed the increased openness for foreign media, but contrasted their reporting to Chinese media, which closely followed the government line to focus mainly on injured Han civilians whilst ignoring the "Uyghur story" or reasons behind the incident. Many early reports of the riots, starting with one from Reuters, used a picture purporting to show the previous day's riots. The photo, showing large number of People's Armed Police squares, was one taken of the 2009 Shishou riot and originally published on 26 June by Southern Metropolis Weekly. The same picture was mistakenly used by other agencies; it was on the website of The Daily Telegraph, but was removed a day later. In an interview with Al Jazeera on 7 July, WUC leader Rebiya Kadeer used the same Shishou photograph to defend the Uyghurs in Ürümqi. A World Uyghur Congress representative later apologised, explaining that the photo was chosen out of hundreds for its image quality. On 3 August, Xinhua reported that two of Rebiya Kadeer's children had written letters blaming her for orchestrating the riots. A Germany-based spokesman for the WUC rejected the letters as fakes. A Human Rights Watch researcher remarked their style was "suspiciously close" to the way the Chinese authorities had described rioting in Xinjiang and the aftermath. He added that "it's highly irregular for [her children] to be placed on the platform of a government mouthpiece ... for wide dispersion." ## Aftermath and long-term impact ### Arrests and trials In early August, the Ürümqi government announced that 83 individuals had been "officially" arrested in connection with the riots. China Daily reported in late August that over 200 people were being charged and that trials would begin by the end of August. Although this was denied both by a provincial and a local Party official, Xinjiang authorities later announced that arrest warrants had been issued to 196 suspects, of which 51 had already been prosecuted. Police also requested that the procuratorate approve the arrest of a further 239 people, and detention of 825 more, China Daily said. In early December, 94 "fugitives" were arrested. The state first announced criminal charges against detainees in late September, when it charged 21 people with "murder, arson, robbery, and damaging property". 14,000 security personnel were deployed in Ürümqi from 11 October, and the next day a Xinjiang court sentenced six men to death, and one to life imprisonment, for their roles in the riots. All six men were Uyghurs, and were found guilty of murder, arson and robbery during the riots. Foreign media said the sentences appeared to be aimed at mollifying the anger of the Han majority; the WUC denounced the verdict as "political", and said there was no desire to see justice served. Human Rights Watch said that there were "serious violations of due process" at the trials of 21 defendants relating to July protests. It said the trials "did not meet minimum international standards of due process and fair trials" – specifically, it said that the trials were carried out in a single day without prior public notice, that the defendants' choice of lawyers was restricted, and that the Party had given judges instructions on how to handle the cases. Xinhua, on the other hand, noted that the proceedings were conducted in both the Chinese and Uyghur languages, and that evidence had been carefully collected and verified before any decisions were made. By February 2010, the number of death sentences issued had increased to at least 26, including at least one Han and one female Uyghur. Nine of the individuals sentenced were executed in November 2009; based on previous government statements, eight were Uyghur and one was Han. ### Later unrest and security measures Starting in mid-August, there was a string of attacks in which as many as 476 individuals may have been stabbed with hypodermic needles. Officials believed that the attacks were targeting Han civilians and had been perpetrated by Uyghur separatists. In response to both concern over the attacks and dissatisfaction over the government's slowness in prosecuting people involved with the July riots, thousands of Han protested in the streets. On 3 September, five people died during the protests and 14 were injured, according to an official. The next day, the Communist Party secretary of Ürümqi, Li Zhi, was removed from his post, along with the police chief, Liu Yaohua; the provincial Party secretary Wang Lequan was replaced in April 2010. While the city became calmer after these events, and the government made great efforts to show that life was returning to normal, an armed police presence did remain. As late as January 2010, it was reported that police were making patrols five or six times a day, and that patrols were stepped up at night. Shortly before the first anniversary of the rioting, the authorities installed more than 40,000 surveillance cameras around Ürümqi to "ensure security in key public places". ### Legislation and investigation In late August, the central government passed a law outlining standards for the deployment of armed police during "rebellion, riots, large-scale serious criminal violence, terror attacks and other social safety incidents." After the protests in early September, the government issued an announcement banning all "unlicensed marches, demonstrations and mass protests". The provincial government also passed legislation banning the use of the internet to incite ethnic separatism. In November, the Chinese government dispatched some 400 officials to Xinjiang, including senior leaders such as State Council secretary general Ma Kai, Propaganda department head Liu Yunshan, and United Front chief Du Qinglin, to form an ad hoc "Team of Investigation and Research" on Xinjiang, ostensibly intended on studying the policy changes to be implemented in response to the violence. In April 2010, party secretary Wang Lequan was replaced by Zhang Chunxian, a more conciliatory figure. The government authorised transfer payments totalling some \$15 billion from eastern provinces to Xinjiang to aid in the province's economic development, and announced plans to establish a special economic zone in Kashgar. China has installed a grassroots network of officials throughout Xinjiang, its predominantly Muslim north-west frontier region, to address social risks and spot early signs of unrest: Hundreds of cadres have been transferred from southern Xinjiang, the region's poorest area, into socially unstable neighbourhoods of Ürümqi. A policy has been implemented where if all family members are unemployed, the government arranges for one person in the household to get a job; official announcements are calling upon university students to register for those payouts. The areas around slums are being redeveloped to reduce social risks, opening way to new apartment blocks. However, independent observers believe that fundamental inequalities need to be addressed, and the mindset must change for there to be any success; Ilham Tohti warned that the new policy could attract more Han immigration, and further alienate the Uyghur population. ### Public services and Internet access It took until at least early August for public transport to be fully restored in the city. According to Xinhua, 267 buses had been damaged during the rioting; most were back in operation by 12 August. The government paid bus companies a total of ¥5.25 million in compensation. Despite the resumption of transportation services, and the government's efforts to encourage visitors to the region, tourism fell sharply after the riots; on the National Day holiday in October, Xinjiang had 25% fewer tourists than it did in 2008. Ürümqi public schools opened on schedule in September for the fall semester, but with armed police guarding them. Many schools began first-day classes by focusing on patriotism. On the other hand, Internet and international telephone service in Ürümqi remained limited for nearly a year after the riots. As late as November, most of the Internet was still inaccessible to residents and international phone calls were impossible; as late as December, most web content hosted outside the region remained off-limits to all but a few journalists, and residents had to travel to Dunhuang 14 hours away to access the Internet normally. Within the city, only about 100 local sites, such as banks and regional government websites, could be accessed. Both incoming and outgoing international phone calls were disallowed, so Ürümqi residents could only communicate by calling intermediaries in other cities in China who would then place the international calls. The communications blackout generated controversy even within China: Yu Xiaofeng of Zhejiang University criticised the move, and many Ürümqi locals said it hurt businesses and delayed recovery, whereas David Gosset of the Euro-China forum argued that the government had the right to shut down communications for the sake of social stability; some locals believed that getting away from the Internet even improved their quality of life. In late December, the government began restoring services gradually. The websites for Xinhua and the People's Daily, two state-controlled media outlets, were made accessible on 28 December, the web portals Sina.com and Sohu.com on 10 January 2010, and 27 more websites on 6 February. But access to websites was only partial: for instance, users could browse forums and blogs but not post on them. China Daily reported that limited e-mail services were also restored in Ürümqi on 8 February, although a BBC reporter writing at approximately the same time said e-mail was not accessible yet. Text messaging on cell phones was restored on 17 January, although there was a limit to how many messages a user could send daily. Internet access was fully restored in May 2010. ## See also - List of massacres in China
50,236	Battle of Towton	1,170,876,502	1461 battle in the Wars of the Roses	[ "1461 in England", "Battles involving Yorkshire", "Battles of the Wars of the Roses", "Civil parishes in North Yorkshire", "Conflicts in 1461", "Edward IV of England", "Registered historic battlefields in England", "Selby District" ]	The Battle of Towton took place on 29 March 1461 during the Wars of the Roses, near Towton in North Yorkshire, and "has the dubious distinction of being probably the largest and bloodiest battle on English soil". Fought for ten hours between an estimated 50,000 soldiers in a snowstorm on Palm Sunday, the Yorkist army achieved a decisive victory over their Lancastrian opponents. As a result, Edward IV deposed the Lancastrian Henry VI and secured the English throne. Henry VI succeeded his father Henry V when he was nine months old in 1422, but was a weak, ineffectual and mentally unsound ruler, which encouraged the nobles to scheme for control over him. The situation deteriorated in the 1450s into a civil war between his Beaufort relatives and Queen Margaret of Anjou on one side, with those of his cousin Richard, Duke of York, on the other. In October 1460, Parliament passed the Act of Accord naming York as Henry's successor, but neither the queen nor her Lancastrian allies would accept the disinheritance of her son, Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales. They raised a large army, who defeated and killed York and his second son Edmund at Wakefield in December. Financed by the City of London, York's son and heir, Edward, found enough backing to denounce Henry and declare himself king. The Battle of Towton was to affirm the victor's right through force of arms to rule over England. On reaching the battlefield, the Yorkists found themselves heavily outnumbered, since part of their force under the Duke of Norfolk had yet to arrive. The Yorkist leader Lord Fauconberg turned the tables by ordering his archers to take advantage of the strong wind to outrange their enemies. The one-sided missile exchange, with Lancastrian arrows falling short of the Yorkist ranks, provoked the Lancastrians into abandoning their defensive positions. The ensuing hand-to-hand combat lasted hours, exhausting the combatants. The arrival of Norfolk's men reinvigorated the Yorkists and, encouraged by Edward, they routed their foes. Many Lancastrians were killed while fleeing; some trampled one another and others drowned in the rivers, which are said to have run red with blood for several days. Several high-ranking prisoners were also executed. The strength of the House of Lancaster was severely reduced as a result of this battle. Henry fled the country and many of his most powerful followers were dead or in exile after the engagement, leaving a new king, Edward IV, to rule England. In 1929 the Towton Cross was erected on the battlefield to commemorate the event. Various archaeological remains and mass graves related to the battle have been found in the area centuries after the engagement. ## Setting In 1461 England was in the sixth year of the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars between the houses of York and Lancaster over the English throne. The Lancastrians backed the reigning King of England, Henry VI, a weak and indecisive man who suffered from intermittent bouts of madness. The leader of the Yorkists was initially Richard, Duke of York, who resented the dominance of a small number of aristocrats favoured by the king, principally his close relatives, the Beaufort family. Fuelled by rivalries between influential supporters of both factions, York's attempts to displace Henry's favourites from power led to war. After capturing Henry at the Battle of Northampton in 1460, the duke, who was of royal blood, issued his claim to the throne. Even York's closest supporters among the nobility were reluctant to usurp the dynasty; the nobles passed by a majority vote the Act of Accord, which ruled that the duke and his heirs would succeed to the throne upon Henry's death. The Queen of England, Margaret of Anjou, refused to accept an arrangement that deprived her son—Edward of Westminster—of his birthright. She had fled to Scotland after the Yorkist victory at Northampton; there she began raising an army, promising her followers the freedom to plunder on the march south through England. Her Lancastrian supporters also mustered in the north of England, preparing for her arrival. York marched with his army to meet this threat but he was lured into a trap at the Battle of Wakefield and killed. The duke and his second son, Edmund, Earl of Rutland, were decapitated by the Lancastrians and their heads were impaled on spikes atop the Micklegate Bar, a gatehouse of the city of York. The leadership of the House of York passed to the duke's heir, Edward. The victors of Wakefield were joined by Margaret's army and marched south, plundering settlements along the way. They liberated Henry after defeating the Yorkist army of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, in the Second Battle of St Albans and continued pillaging on their way to London. The city of London refused to open its gates to Henry and Margaret for fear of being looted. The Lancastrian army was short of supplies and had no adequate means to replenish them. When Margaret learned that Richard of York's eldest son, Edward, Earl of March, and his army had won the Battle of Mortimer's Cross in Herefordshire and were marching towards London, she withdrew the Lancastrians to York. Warwick and the remnants of his army marched from St Albans to join Edward's men and the Yorkists were welcomed into London. Having lost custody of Henry, the Yorkists needed a justification to continue the rebellion against the king and his Lancastrian followers. On 4 March Warwick proclaimed the young Yorkist leader as King Edward IV. The proclamation gained greater acceptance than Richard of York's earlier claim, as several nobles opposed to letting Edward's father ascend the throne viewed the Lancastrian actions as a betrayal of the legally established Accord. The country now had two kings—a situation that could not be allowed to persist, especially if Edward were to be formally crowned. Edward offered an amnesty to any Lancastrian supporter who renounced Henry. The move was intended to win over the commoners; his offer did not extend to wealthy Lancastrians (mostly the nobles). The young king summoned and ordered his followers to march towards York to take back his family's city and to depose Henry formally through force of arms. The Yorkist army moved along three routes. Warwick's uncle, Lord Fauconberg, led a group to clear the way to York for the main body, which was led by Edward. The Duke of Norfolk was sent east to raise forces and rejoin Edward before the battle. Warwick's group moved to the west of the main body, through the Midlands, gathering men as they went. On 28 March, the leading elements of the Yorkist army came upon the remains of the crossing in Ferrybridge crossing the River Aire. They were rebuilding the bridge when they were attacked and routed by a band of about 500 Lancastrians, led by Lord Clifford. Learning of the encounter, Edward led the main Yorkist army to the bridge and was forced into a gruelling battle: although the Yorkists were superior in numbers, the narrow bridge was a bottleneck, forcing them to confront Clifford's men on equal terms. Edward sent Fauconberg and his horsemen to ford the river at Castleford, which should have been guarded by Henry, Earl of Northumberland, but he arrived late, by which time the Yorkists had crossed the ford and were heading to attack the Lancastrians at Ferrybridge from the flank. The Lancastrians retreated but were chased to Dinting Dale, where they were all killed, Clifford being slain by an arrow to his throat. Having cleared the vicinity of enemy forces, the Yorkists repaired the bridge and pressed onwards to camp overnight at Sherburn-in-Elmet. The Lancastrian army marched to Tadcaster, about 2 miles (3.2 km) north of Towton, and made camp. As dawn broke the two rival armies struck camp under dark skies and strong winds. Although it was Palm Sunday, a day of holy significance to Christians, the forces prepared for battle and a few documents named the engagement the Battle of Palme Sonday Felde but the name did not gain wide acceptance. Popular opinion favoured naming the battle after the village of Towton because of its proximity and it being the most prominent in the area. ## Force compositions The armies gathered at Towton were among the largest at the time. Contemporary sources (like Gregory's Chronicle) claimed that the soldiers on each side numbered in the hundreds of thousands. These figures are thought to be exaggerated, and modern historians believe that a combined figure of 50,000–65,000 is more likely, between one and two per cent of the English population at the time. An analysis of 50 skeletons found in mass graves between 1996 and 2003 showed most were 24 to 30 years old and many were veterans of previous engagements. Henry's physical and mental frailty was a major weakness for the Lancastrian cause, and he remained in York with Margaret. In contrast the 18-year-old Edward was a tall and imposing sight in armour and led from the front: his preference for bold offensive tactics determined the Yorkist plan of action for this engagement. His presence and example were crucial to ensuring the Yorkists held together through the long and exhausting struggle. Approximately three-quarters of English peers fought in the battle; eight were with the Yorkist army, whereas the Lancastrians had at least nineteen. Of the other Yorkist leaders, Warwick was absent from the battle, having suffered a leg wound at Ferrybridge. Norfolk was too old to participate and his contingent was commanded by Walter Blount and Robert Horne; this may have been an advantage, since he was regarded as an unpredictable ally. Edward relied heavily on Warwick's uncle, Lord Fauconberg, a veteran of the Anglo-French wars, highly regarded by contemporaries for his military skills. He demonstrated this in a wide range of roles, having captained the Calais garrison, led naval piracy expeditions in the Channel, and commanded the Yorkist vanguard at Northampton. The senior Lancastrian general was Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, an experienced leader credited with victories at Wakefield and St Albans, although others suggest they were due to Sir Andrew Trollope. Trollope was an extremely experienced and astute commander, who served under Warwick in Calais, before defecting to the Lancastrians at Ludford Bridge in 1459. Other notable Lancastrian leaders included Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter, and northern magnates the Earl of Northumberland, Lord de Ros and Lord Dacre. Another leading Lancastrian, Lord Clifford, had been killed by an arrow in the throat at Ferrybridge. ## Deployment Very few historical sources give detailed accounts of the battle and they do not describe the exact deployments of the armies. The paucity of such primary sources led early historians to adopt Hall's chronicle as their main resource for the engagement, despite its authorship 70 years after the event and questions over the origin of his information. The Burgundian chronicler Jean de Waurin (c. 1398 – c. 1474) was a more contemporary source, but his chronicle was made available to the public only from 1891, and several mistakes in it discouraged historians at that time from using it. Later reconstructions of the battle were based on Hall's version, supplemented by minor details from other sources. The battle took place on a plateau between the villages of Saxton (to the south) and Towton (to the north). The region was agricultural land, with plenty of wide open areas and small roads on which to manoeuvre the armies. Two roads ran through the area: the Old London Road, which connected Towton to the English capital, and a direct road between Saxton and Towton. The steeply banked Cock Beck flowed in an S-shaped course around the plateau from the north to west. The plateau was bisected by the Towton Dale, which ran from the west and extended into the North Acres in the east. Woodlands were scattered along the beck; Renshaw Woods lined the river on the north-western side of the plateau, and south of Towton Dale, Castle Hill Wood grew on the west side of the plateau at a bend in the beck. The area to the north-east of this forest would be known as Bloody Meadow after the battle. According to Gravett and fellow military enthusiast Trevor James Halsall, Somerset's decision to engage the Yorkist army on this plateau was sound. Defending the ground just before Towton would block any enemy advance towards the city of York, whether they moved along the London–Towton road or an old Roman road to the west. The Lancastrians deployed on the north side of the dale, using the valley as a "protective ditch"; the disadvantage of this position was that they could not see beyond the southern ridge of the dale. The Lancastrian flanks were protected by marshes; their right was further secured by the steep banks of the Cock Beck. The width of their deployment area did not allow for a longer front line, depriving the Lancastrians of the opportunity to use their numerical superiority. Waurin's account gave rise to the suggestion that Somerset ordered a force of mounted spearmen to conceal itself in Castle Hill Wood, ready to charge into the Yorkist left flank at an opportune time in battle. The Yorkists appeared as the Lancastrians finished deployment. Line after line of soldiers crested the southern ridge of the dale and formed up in ranks opposite their enemies as snow began to fall. Edward's army was outnumbered and Norfolk's troops had yet to arrive to join them. The Yorkist vanguard was commanded by Lord Fauconberg. Hall names John Wenlock and John Dinham and others as commanders of the Yorkist rearguard. Sources variously mention the Duke of Somerset, Trollope, the Earl of Northumberland and the Duke of Exeter as the commanders of the Lancastrian host, but show little agreement as to which portion of the host each of them was assigned. ## Fighting As Somerset was content to stand and let his foes come to him, the opening move of the battle was made by the Yorkists. Noticing the direction and strength of the wind, Fauconberg ordered all Yorkist archers to step forward and unleash a volley of their arrows from what would be the standard maximum range of their longbows. With the wind behind them, the Yorkist missiles travelled farther than usual, plunging deep into the masses of soldiers on the hill slope. The response from the Lancastrian archers was ineffective as the heavy wind blew snow in their faces. They found it difficult to judge the range and pick out their targets and their arrows fell short of the Yorkist ranks; Fauconberg had ordered his men to retreat after loosing one volley, thus avoiding any casualties. Unable to observe their results, the Lancastrians loosed their arrows until most had been used, leaving a thick, prickly carpet in the ground in front of the Yorkists. After the Lancastrians had ceased loosing their arrows, Fauconberg ordered his archers to step forward again to shoot. When they had exhausted their ammunition, the Yorkists plucked arrows off the ground in front of them—arrows loosed by their foes—and continued shooting. Coming under attack without any effective response of its own, the Lancastrian army moved from its position to engage the Yorkists in close combat. Seeing the advancing mass of men, the Yorkist archers shot a few more volleys before retreating behind their ranks of men-at-arms, leaving thousands of arrows in the ground to hinder the Lancastrian attack. As the Yorkists reformed their ranks to receive the Lancastrian charge, their left flank came under attack by the horsemen from Castle Hill Wood mentioned by Waurin. The Yorkist left wing fell into disarray and several men started to flee. Edward had to take command of the left wing to save the situation. By engaging in the fight and encouraging his followers, his example inspired many to stand their ground. The armies clashed and archers shot into the mass of men at short range. The Lancastrians continuously threw fresher men into the fray and gradually the numerically inferior Yorkist army was forced to give ground and retreat up the southern ridge. Gravett thought that the Lancastrian left had less momentum than the rest of its formation, skewing the line of battle such that its western end tilted towards Saxton. The fighting continued for three hours, according to research by English Heritage, a government body in charge of conservation of historic sites. It was indecisive until the arrival of Norfolk's men. Marching up the Old London Road, Norfolk's contingent was hidden from view until they crested the ridge and attacked the Lancastrian left flank. The Lancastrians continued to give fight but the advantage had shifted to the Yorkists. By the end of the day, the Lancastrian line had broken up, as small groups of men began fleeing for their lives. Polydore Vergil, chronicler for Henry VII of England, said combat lasted for a total of 10 hours. ## Rout The tired Lancastrians flung off their helmets and armour to run faster. Without such protection, they were much more vulnerable to the attacks of the Yorkists. Norfolk's troops were much fresher and faster. Fleeing across what would later become known as Bloody Meadow, many Lancastrians were cut down from behind or were slain after they had surrendered. Before the battle, both sides had issued the order to give no quarter and the Yorkists were in no mood to spare anyone after the long, gruelling fight. A number of Lancastrians, such as Trollope, also had substantial bounties on their heads. Gregory's chronicle stated 42 knights were killed after they were taken prisoner. Archaeological findings in the late 20th century shed light on the final moments of the battle. In 1996 workmen at a construction site in the village of Towton uncovered a mass grave, which archaeologists believed to contain the remains of men who were slain during or after the battle in 1461. The bodies showed severe injuries to their upper torsos; arms and skulls were cracked or shattered. One exhumed specimen, known as Towton 25, had the front of his skull bisected: a weapon had slashed across his face, cutting a deep wound that split the bone. The skull was also pierced by another deep wound, a horizontal cut from a blade across the back. The Lancastrians lost more troops in their rout than from the battlefield. Men struggling across the Cock Beck were dragged down by currents and drowned. Those floundering were stepped on and pushed under water by their comrades behind them as they rushed to get away from the Yorkists. As the Lancastrians struggled across the beck Yorkist archers rode to high vantage points and shot arrows at them. The dead began to pile up and the chronicles state that the Lancastrians eventually fled across these "bridges" of bodies. The chase continued northwards across the River Wharfe, which was larger than Cock Beck. A bridge over the river collapsed under the flood of men and many drowned trying to cross. Those who hid in Tadcaster and York were hunted down and killed. A newsletter dated 4 April 1461 reported a widely circulated figure of 28,000 casualties in the battle, which Charles Ross and other historians believe was exaggerated. The number was taken from the heralds' estimate of the dead and appeared in letters from Edward and the Bishop of Salisbury, Richard Beauchamp. Letters from an ambassador and a merchant from the duchy of Milan broke this number down into 8,000 dead for the Yorkists and 20,000 for the Lancastrians; in contrast, bishops Nicholas O'Flanagan (Elphin) and Francesco Coppini reported only 800 dead Yorkists. Other contemporary sources gave higher numbers, ranging from 30,000 to 38,000; Hall quoted an exact figure of 36,776. An exception was the Annales rerum anglicarum, which stated the Lancastrians had 9,000 casualties, an estimate Ross and Wolffe found to be more believable. A more recent analysis of the sources and archaeological evidence, which posits that accounts of Towton were combined with those of the actions of Ferrybridge and Dintingdale, suggests total casualty figures in the range 2,800–3,800. The Lancastrian nobility sustained heavy losses. The Earl of Northumberland, lords Welles, Mauley and Dacre, and Sir Andrew Trollope fell in battle, while the earls of Devon and Wiltshire were afterwards taken and executed. Lord Dacre was said to have been killed by an archer who was perched in a "bur tree" (a local term for an elder). In contrast, the Yorkists lost only one notable member of the gentry, Horne, at Towton. ## Aftermath On receiving news of his army's defeat, Henry fled into exile in Scotland with his wife and son. They were later joined by Somerset, Ros, Exeter, and the few Lancastrian nobles who escaped from the battlefield. The Battle of Towton severely reduced the power of the House of Lancaster in England; the linchpins of their power at court (Northumberland, Clifford, Ros, and Dacre) had either died or fled the country, ending the house's domination over the north of England. Edward further exploited the situation, naming 14 Lancastrian peers as traitors. Approximately 96 Lancastrians of the rank of knight and below were also attainted: 24 of them members of parliament. The new king preferred winning over his enemies to his cause; the nobles he attainted either died in the battle or had refused to submit to him. The estates of a few of these nobles were confiscated by the crown but the rest were untouched, remaining in the care of their families. Edward also pardoned many of those he attainted after they submitted to his rule. Although Henry was at large in Scotland with his son, the battle put an end (for the time being) to disputes over the country's state of leadership since the Act of Accord. The English people were assured that there was now one true king; Edward. He turned his attention to consolidating his rule over the country, winning over the people and putting down the rebellions raised by the few remaining Lancastrian diehards. He knighted several of his supporters and elevated several of his gentry supporters to the peerage; Fauconberg was made the Earl of Kent. Warwick benefited from Edward's rule after the battle. He received parts of Northumberland's and Clifford's holdings, and was made "the king's lieutenant in the North and admiral of England." Edward bestowed on him many offices of power and wealth, further enhancing the earl's considerable influence and riches. By 1464, the Yorkists had "wiped out all effective Lancastrian resistance in the north of England." Edward's reign was not interrupted until 1470; by then, his relationship with Warwick had deteriorated to such an extent that the earl defected to the Lancastrians and forced Edward to flee England, restoring Henry to the throne. The interruption of Yorkist rule was brief, as Edward regained his throne after defeating Warwick and his Lancastrian cohorts at the Battle of Barnet in 1471. ## Literature In the sixteenth century William Shakespeare wrote a number of dramatisations of historic figures. The use of history as a backdrop, against which the familiar characters act out Shakespeare's drama, lends a sense of realism to his plays. Shakespeare wrote a three-part play about Henry VI, relying heavily on Hall's chronicle as a source. His vision of the Battle of Towton (Henry VI, Part 3, Act 2, Scene 5), touted as the "bloodiest" engagement in the Wars of the Roses, became a set piece about the "terror of civil war, a national terror that is essentially familial". Historian Bertram Wolffe said it was thanks to Shakespeare's dramatisation of the battle that the weak and ineffectual Henry was at least remembered by English society, albeit for his pining to have been born a shepherd rather than a king. Shakespeare's version of the battle presents a notable scene that comes immediately after Henry's soliloquy. Henry witnesses the laments of two soldiers in the battle. One slays his opponent in hope of plunder, only to find the victim is his son; the other kills his enemy, who turns out to be his father. Both killers have acted out of greed and fell into a state of deep grieving after discovering their misdeeds. Shakespearian scholar Arthur Percival Rossiter names the scene as the most notable of the playwright's written "rituals". The delivery of the event follows the pattern of an opera: after a long speech, the actors alternate among one another to deliver single-line asides to the audience. In this scene of grief, in a reversal of the approach adopted in his later historical plays, Shakespeare uses anonymous fictional characters to illustrate the ills of civil war while a historical king reflects on their fates. Michael Hattaway, emeritus professor of English Literature at the University of Sheffield, comments that Shakespeare intended to show Henry's sadness over the war, to elicit the same emotion among the audience and to expose Henry's ineptitude as king. The Battle of Towton was re-examined by Geoffrey Hill in his poem "Funeral Music" (1968). Hill presents the historical event through the voices of its combatants, looking at the turmoil of the era through their eyes. The common soldiers grouse about their physical discomforts and the sacrifices that they had made for the ideas glorified by their leaders. They share their superiors' determination to seek the destruction of their opponents, even at the cost of their lives. Hill depicts the participants' belief that the event was pre-destined and of utmost importance as a farce; the world went about its business regardless of the Battle of Towton. An episode in C. J. Sansom's historical novel Sovereign, set in 1541, sixty years after the battle, concerns a Towton farmer appealing to King Henry VIII to be compensated for the time and effort he has to spend on turning over to the Church the skeletons discovered nearly every day on his land. ## Legacy Obtaining an accurate figure for casualties has been complicated: remains were either moved or used by farmers as fertiliser, and corpses were generally stripped of clothing and non-perishable items before burial. However some survived when later buildings were constructed over their graves; the first were uncovered in 1996 and excavations have so far uncovered more than 50 skeletons from the battle. An analysis of their injuries shows the brutality of the contest, including extensive post-mortem mutilations. 15th-century documents confirm some casualties were reburied in graveyards at Saxton and a chapel constructed for the purpose by Richard III in 1484. His death at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 meant the building was never completed and eventually collapsed. In 1929 stones allegedly from the chapel were used to create the Towton Cross, also known as Lord Dacre's Cross, which commemorates those who died in the battle. Lord Dacre was buried at the church of All Saints in Saxton and his tomb was reported in the late 19th century to be well maintained, although several of its panels had been weathered away. The tree from which Dacre's killer was supposed to have shot his arrow had been cut down by the late 19th century. In 2010 fragments from what are some of the earliest known handguns found in Britain were discovered on the battlefield. Views of the Wars of the Roses in general and of the battle as a charnel house were formed by Shakespeare and endured for centuries. However at the start of the 21st century the battle was no longer prominent in the public consciousness. Journalists lamented that people were ignorant of the Battle of Towton and of its significance. According to English Heritage the battle was of the "greatest importance": it was one of the largest, if not the largest, fought in England and resulted in the replacement of one royal dynasty by another. Hill expressed a different opinion. Although impressed with the casualty figures touted by the chroniclers, he believed the battle brought no monumental changes to the lives of the English people. The Battle of Towton was associated with a tradition previously upheld in the village of Tysoe, Warwickshire. For several centuries a local farmer had scoured a hill figure, the Red Horse of Tysoe, each year, as part of the terms of his land tenancy. Although the origins of the tradition have never been conclusively identified, it was locally said this was done to commemorate the Earl of Warwick's inspirational deed of slaying his horse to show his resolve to stand and fight with the common soldiers. The tradition died in 1798 when the Inclosure Acts implemented by the English government redesignated the common land on which the equine figure was located as private property. The scouring was revived during the early 20th century but has since stopped.
5,058,323	Kevin O'Halloran	1,165,783,215	Australian freestyle swimmer	[ "1937 births", "1976 deaths", "20th-century Australian people", "Accidental deaths in Western Australia", "Australian male freestyle swimmers", "Deaths by firearm in Western Australia", "Firearm accident victims", "Medalists at the 1956 Summer Olympics", "Olympic gold medalists for Australia", "Olympic gold medalists in swimming", "Olympic swimmers for Australia", "People educated at Guildford Grammar School", "People from Katanning, Western Australia", "Sportsmen from Western Australia", "Swimmers at the 1956 Summer Olympics", "Western Australian Institute of Sport alumni", "World record setters in swimming" ]	Kevin O'Halloran (3 March 1937 – 5 July 1976) was an Australian freestyle swimmer of the 1950s who won a gold medal in the 4×200-metre freestyle relay at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. The first Western Australian to win Olympic gold, O'Halloran learnt to swim in his hometown of Katanning. He moved to Perth to attend secondary schooling at Guildford Grammar School, where he became more committed to swimming. Competitive swimming was not well developed in Western Australia; races were held in muddy river pools. So in late 1955, O'Halloran moved to the east coast to support his attempt to qualify for the Olympics. His new coach, Frank Guthrie, overhauled his training regimen, and within a year O'Halloran had reduced his times by approximately ten percent. He gained Olympic selection in the relay and the 400-metre freestyle. O'Halloran led off the Australian quartet on the way to a new world record, before placing sixth in the 400-metre. Thereafter, O'Halloran's career was beset by ear problems, and he retired in 1958 after failing to qualify for the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games. In 1976, O'Halloran died after tripping and accidentally shooting himself. ## Early years Born in Katanning, O'Halloran grew up in Kojonup, 40 km (25 mi) to the west of his Katanning. He had two brothers and a sister, and the family lived on a 9,000-acre (36 km<sup>2</sup>) sheep farm established by his grandfather in 1900. But after his father enlisted during the Second World War, his mother could no longer run the farm and raise the children by herself, so the family returned to Katanning and stayed there for seven years. It was one of the few country towns in Western Australia that had a public swimming pool. Along with his siblings, O'Halloran learned to swim there, often defeating local boys who were four years his senior. At the age of eight, he was taught to swim competitively by his teacher at Katanning State Primary School. She had been an age group champion in her youth. The boom in wool prices at the time of the Korean War inflated his family's income, allowing them to send O'Halloran to Guildford Grammar School in Perth, the state's capital city. At the age of 14, he won five events in the school championships and led the school to its first state championship in 29 years. He also competed for his school in Australian rules football and rowing. O'Halloran attracted the attention of the leading Western Australian coach, Don Gravenall, but his schoolwork limited him to a few weeks of intense training over Christmas. In 1952, at the age of 15, O'Halloran began to make his mark at the state level. He played a major role in Guildford's win at the interschool championships, placing second in the individual points tally. He won the 100 m freestyle, 50 m breaststroke and 400 m freestyle. Competitive swimming was slow to develop in Western Australia; the Western Australian Championships second event was held in 1952. And O'Halloran's state debut came in that year. He won the junior 110 yd freestyle and butterfly and the 220 yd freestyle and was second in the open 110 yd freestyle. The competition took place in a muddy pool on the Swan River in the Perth suburb of Crawley. The arena was such that the bottom could not be seen and jellyfish lurked in the area, sometimes climbing onto the swimmers' bodies. When O'Halloran returned to his home, he often trained in a muddy waterhole. ## Swimming career In 1953, O'Halloran placed second in the 110 yd and 440 yd freestyle events at the Western Australian Championships in the open division and won the 110 yd breaststroke and the 110- and 220 yd freestyle in the junior division. In the process, he cut six seconds from the state record in the 440 yd event. He was selected by the Western Australian team to compete in the Australian Championships, but his parents and headmaster decided that his schooling was more important, much to Gravenall's chagrin. In 1954, O'Halloran was the state champion in the 110 yd and 220 yd freestyle, and in 1955 he added the 440 yd individual medley title to the successful defence of his freestyle crowns. In his final year at Guildford, O'Halloran was the School Captain, led the swimming and shooting team, and was a member of the rowing eights in the Head of the River. O'Halloran made his national debut at the 1955 Australian Championships in Adelaide; he finished fifth in the 110 yd freestyle behind future Olympians Jon Henricks and John Devitt. Upon the recommendation of his parents, O'Halloran moved to Sydney in late 1955 to train with Frank Guthrie in an attempt to qualify for the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. He boarded with a host family and worked in a wool store to pay his expenses. But his initiation into Guthrie's training program was difficult. After seeing O'Halloran's freestyle technique for the first time, Guthrie asked him, "Can you swim any other stroke? If you are going to swim for me, you'll have to learn all over again." O'Halloran refined his style and increased his workload to around 10 km a day, something that was normal for competitive swimmers in the eastern states, but uncommon in Western Australia. In one month, he cut 17 s off his personal best time in the 440 yd freestyle, reducing it to 4 min 55 s. At the 1956 New South Wales Championships, he finished third in the 220 yd freestyle behind Gary Chapman and John Devitt; his time of 2 min 12.6 s was 10 s faster than the times he had recorded in Western Australia. He came in fourth in both the 110 yd and 440 yd. In the 110 yd event, he breached the 60 s barrier for the first time. And his time in the 440 yd was more than 30 s faster than his best time in Western Australia. At the Australian Championships, he came third in the 440 yd freestyle in a time of 4 min 37.8 s behind Murray Rose and Murray Garretty. He did this despite suffering from ear trouble, making him the fifth-fastest swimmer in the world for the 1956 calendar year, which earned him an individual berth in the 400 m event at the Olympics. O'Halloran came fourth in the 220 yd in a time of 2 min 9.2 s to earn a berth on the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay squad. With Rose, Henricks, and Chapman regarded as certain selections for the final quartet, O'Halloran was expected to battle for the fourth relay position. At the end of the trials, Guthrie claimed that O'Halloran was "the find of the recently held Australian Championships and the future swimmer for Australia. I am confident that we did not see Kevin's best times this season." ## 1956 Melbourne Olympics Having arrived in Melbourne, O'Halloran was rested, along with Rose and Henricks, in the heats of the relay. Devitt, Chapman, Graham Hamilton and Garretty finished third in their heat behind Great Britain and the Soviet Union, and qualified fifth-fastest behind Japan and the United States. Australia led from the start and reached the midpoint of the race with a lead of 4.5 s. Hamilton swam a very slow third leg of 2 min 15.4 s and conceded 8.8 s to the British. Australia's final quartet was much stronger, with Rose winning the 400 m freestyle, and Henricks and Devitt winning the gold and silver medals respectively in the 100 m freestyle. Devitt had forced his way into the team with his heat swim of 2 min 7.5 s, which was the second-fastest among all of the swimmers in the heats. With four of the five fastest individual swimmers in the calendar year for the event, Australia was heavily favoured to win the relay; Sports Illustrated predicted a world record and a victory margin of around 14 metres. O'Halloran's inclusion at the expense of Chapman was the subject of controversy, because Chapman had won bronze in the 100 m event and was the national 220 yd freestyle champion. O'Halloran's selection also broke up the team of Devitt, Rose, Chapman and Henricks, which had won the relay for New South Wales at the Australian Championships. O'Halloran led off and put Australia in the lead with an Olympic record time of 2 min 6.8 s, opening a gap of 0.7 s over the Soviet Union and 1.2 s over the United States. The fourth-placed Italians were already a full three seconds in arrears. Australia never relinquished the lead and steadily increased it, as Devitt, Rose, and Henricks set the three fastest splits in the race, faster than all the non-Australian swimmers. O'Halloran's split was the fifth-fastest in the race; the Soviet anchor swimmer was the only non-Australian to swim faster, and only by 0.1 s despite having the benefit of a flying start. This resulted in Australia winning gold in a world record time of 8 min 23.6 s, almost eight seconds ahead of the second-place Americans and 13 ahead of the Soviets. The win made O'Halloran the first Western Australian to win any Olympic medal. In his only individual event, O'Halloran qualified for the 400 m final, having won his heat in a time of 4 min 36.8 s, 0.5 s ahead of Japan's Koji Nonoshita. However, his heat was relatively slow, meaning that he was the sixth-fastest qualifier. Swimming from lane seven, O'Halloran cut almost 4 s off his personal best but lost the bronze medal to the United States' George Breen by 0.4 s, in a race won by Rose. O'Halloran reduced Breen's margin by 1.3 s in the last 100 m, but it was not enough; he finished with a time of 4 min 32.9 s. O'Halloran returned to Perth after the Olympics to be welcomed by a motorcade and a civic reception. He was named as one of the five Western Australian Sportspeople of the Year in recognition of his winning performance. Despite his achievements, the state government ignored calls for Western Australia to build an Olympic standard swimming pool until 1962, when they constructed one for the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Perth. ## Later years In 1958, O'Halloran's parents travelled across the continent to watch him swim at the Australian Championships in Sydney, but a recurring ear infection hindered his performances. He missed selection for the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff and retired after the long car journey back across the Nullarbor. Upon arriving in Kojonup, O'Halloran was reported to have said, "I've had enough". O'Halloran then worked full-time on the family property. In 1976, his body was discovered next to a rifle, near a fence on the property; he had tripped as he climbed through the fence, and he accidentally shot himself. O'Halloran never married. The 50 m pool at Kojonup was named the Kevin O'Halloran Memorial Pool in his honour, and he was posthumously inducted into the Western Australian Hall of Champions. ## See also - List of Olympic medalists in swimming (men) - World record progression 4 × 200 metres freestyle relay
762,860	Operation Mincemeat	1,168,811,374	British Second World War deception operation	[ "1943 in the United Kingdom", "Allied invasion of Sicily", "Classified documents", "Code names", "Ian Fleming", "Mediterranean theatre of World War II", "Operation Mincemeat", "United Kingdom intelligence operations", "World War II deception operations" ]	Operation Mincemeat was a successful British deception operation of the Second World War to disguise the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily. Two members of British intelligence obtained the body of Glyndwr Michael, a tramp who died from eating rat poison, dressed him as an officer of the Royal Marines and placed personal items on him identifying him as the fictitious Captain (Acting Major) William Martin. Correspondence between two British generals that suggested that the Allies planned to invade Greece and Sardinia, with Sicily as merely the target of a feint, was also placed on the body. Part of the wider Operation Barclay, Mincemeat was based on the 1939 Trout memo, written by Rear Admiral John Godfrey, the Director of the Naval Intelligence Division, and his personal assistant, Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming. With the approval of the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, and the military commander in the Mediterranean, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the plan began by transporting the body to the southern coast of Spain by submarine and releasing it close to shore, where it was picked up the following morning by a Spanish fisherman. The nominally neutral Spanish government shared copies of the documents with the Abwehr, the German military intelligence organisation, before returning the originals to the British. Forensic examination showed they had been read and Ultra decrypts of German messages showed that the Germans fell for the ruse. German reinforcements were shifted to Greece and Sardinia before and during the invasion of Sicily; Sicily received none. The full effect of Operation Mincemeat is not known, but Sicily was liberated more quickly than anticipated and losses were lower than predicted. The events were depicted in Operation Heartbreak, a 1950 novel by the former cabinet minister Duff Cooper, before one of the intelligence officers who planned and carried out Mincemeat, Ewen Montagu, wrote a history in 1953. Montagu's work formed the basis for the 1956 British film The Man Who Never Was. A second British film based on the events was released in 2021 under the title Operation Mincemeat. ## Background ### Inspiration for Mincemeat On 29 September 1939, soon after the start of the Second World War, Rear Admiral John Godfrey, the Director of Naval Intelligence, circulated the Trout memo, a paper that compared the deception of an enemy in wartime to fly fishing. The historian Ben Macintyre observes that although the paper was published under Godfrey's name, it "bore all the hallmarks of ... Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming", Godfrey's personal assistant. The memo contained a number of schemes to be considered for use against the Axis powers to lure U-boats and German surface ships towards minefields. Number 28 on the list was titled: "A Suggestion (not a very nice one)"; it was an idea to plant misleading papers on a corpse that would be found by the enemy. > The following suggestion is used in a book by Basil Thomson: a corpse dressed as an airman, with despatches in his pockets, could be dropped on the coast, supposedly from a parachute that has failed. I understand there is no difficulty in obtaining corpses at the Naval Hospital, but, of course, it would have to be a fresh one. The deliberate planting of fake documents to be found by the enemy was not new; known as the Haversack Ruse, it had been practised by the British and others in the First and Second World Wars. In August 1942, before the Battle of Alam el Halfa, a corpse was placed in a blown-up scout car, in a minefield facing the German 90th Light Division. On the corpse was a map purportedly showing the locations of British minefields; the Germans used the map, and their tanks were routed to areas of soft sand where they bogged down. In September 1942 an aircraft flying from Britain to Gibraltar crashed off Cádiz. All aboard were killed, including Paymaster-Lieutenant James Hadden Turner – a courier carrying top secret documents – and a French agent. Turner's documents included a letter from General Mark Clark, the American Deputy Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, to General Noel Mason-MacFarlane, British Governor and Commander in Chief of Gibraltar, informing him that General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander, would arrive in Gibraltar on the eve of Operation Torch's "target date" of 4 November. Turner's body washed up on the beach near Tarifa and was recovered by the Spanish authorities. When the body was returned to the British, the letter was still on it, and technicians determined that the letter had not been opened. Other Allied intelligence sources established that the notebook carried by the French agent had been copied by the Germans, but they dismissed it as being disinformation. To British planners, it showed that some material that was obtained by the Spanish was being passed to the Germans. ### British Intelligence and the inspiration for the plan A month after the Turner crash, the British intelligence officer Charles Cholmondeley outlined his own variation of the Trout memo plan, codenamed Trojan Horse, after the Achaean deception from the Trojan War. His plan was > A body is obtained from one of the London hospitals ... The lungs are filled with water and documents are disposed in an inside pocket. The body is then dropped by a Coastal Command aircraft ... On being found, the supposition in the enemy's mind may well be that one of our aircraft has either been shot or forced down and that this is one of their passengers. Cholmondeley was a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force (RAF) who had been seconded to MI5, Britain's domestic counter-intelligence and security service. He had been appointed as the secretary of the Twenty Committee, a small inter-service, inter-departmental intelligence team in charge of double agents. In November 1942 the Twenty Committee turned down Cholmondeley's plan as being unworkable, but thought there may have been some potential in the idea. As there was a naval connection to the plan, John Masterman, the chairman of the committee, assigned Ewen Montagu, the naval representative, to work with Cholmondeley to develop the plan further. Montagu – a peacetime lawyer and King's Counsel who had volunteered at the outbreak of the war – worked under Godfrey at the Naval Intelligence Division, where he ran NID 17(M), the sub-branch which handled counter-espionage work. Godfrey had also appointed Montagu to oversee all naval deception involving double agents. As part of his duties, Montagu had been briefed on the need for deception operations to aid the Allied war aims in a forthcoming invasion operation in the Mediterranean. ### Military situation In late 1942, with the Allied success in the North African campaign, military planners turned their attention to the next target. British planners considered that an invasion of France from Britain could not take place until 1944 and the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, wanted to use the Allied forces from North Africa to attack Europe's "soft underbelly". There were two possible targets for the Allies to attack. The first option was Sicily; control of the island would open the Mediterranean Sea to Allied shipping and allow the invasion of continental Europe through Italy. The second option was to go into Greece and the Balkans, to trap the German forces between the British and American invaders and the Soviets. At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, Allied planners agreed on the selection of Sicily – codenamed Operation Husky – and decided to undertake the invasion no later than July. There was concern among the Allied planners that Sicily was an obvious choice – Churchill is reputed to have said "Everyone but a bloody fool would know that it's Sicily" – and that the build-up of resources for the invasion would be detected. Adolf Hitler was concerned about a Balkan invasion, as the area had been the source of raw materials for the German war industry, including copper, bauxite, chrome and oil. The Allies knew of Hitler's fears, and they launched Operation Barclay, a deception operation to play upon his concerns and to mislead the Germans into thinking the Balkans were the objective, diverting resources from Sicily. The deception reinforced German strategic thinking about the likely British target. To suggest the eastern Mediterranean was the target, the Allies set up a headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, for a fictional formation, the Twelfth Army, consisting of twelve divisions. Military manoeuvres were conducted in Syria, with numbers inflated by dummy tanks and armoured vehicles to deceive observers. Greek interpreters were recruited and the Allies stockpiled Greek maps and currency. False communications about troop movements were generated from the Twelfth Army headquarters, while the Allied command post in Tunis – which was to be the headquarters of the Sicily invasion – reduced radio traffic by using landlines wherever possible. ## Development ### Examining the practicalities; locating a corpse Montagu and Cholmondeley were assisted by an MI6 representative, Major Frank Foley, as they examined the practicalities of the plan. Montagu approached the pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury to determine what kind of body they needed and what factors they would need to take into account to fool a Spanish pathologist. Spilsbury informed him that those who died in an air crash often did so from shock and not drowning; the lungs would not necessarily be filled with water. He added that "Spaniards, as Roman Catholics, were averse to post-mortems and did not hold them unless the cause of death was of great importance". Spilsbury advised that a person could have suffered one of many different causes of death, which could be misconstrued in an autopsy. Montagu later wrote > If a post mortem examination was made by someone who had formed the preconceived idea that the death was probably due to drowning there was little likelihood that the difference between this liquid, in lungs that had started to decompose, and seawater would be noticed. This meant that not only would they have a better degree of success than they previously thought, but that there would be a larger number of corpses potentially available for selection when the time came. When Montagu discussed the possibility of obtaining a corpse with Bentley Purchase, the coroner for the Northern District of London, he was told there would be practical and legal difficulties: "I should think bodies are the only commodities not in short supply at the moment [but] even with bodies all over the place, each one has to be accounted for". Purchase promised to look out for a body that was suitable, with no relatives who would claim the corpse for burial. On 28 January 1943 Purchase contacted Montagu with the news he had located a suitable body, probably that of Glyndwr Michael, a tramp who died from eating rat poison that contained phosphorus. Purchase informed Montagu and Cholmondeley that the small amount of poison in the system would not be identified in a body that was supposed to have been floating in the sea for several days. When Montagu commented that the under-nourished corpse did not look like a fit field officer, Purchase informed him that "he does not have to look like an officer – only a staff officer", more used to office work. Purchase agreed to keep the body in the mortuary refrigerator at a temperature of 4 °C (39 °F) – any colder and the flesh would freeze, which would be obvious after the body defrosted. He warned Montagu and Cholmondeley that the body had to be used within three months, after which it would have decomposed past the point of usefulness. #### Identity of the corpse Montagu refused to identify the individual and only described him as "a bit of a ne'er-do-well, and that the only worthwhile thing that he ever did he did after his death". In 1996 Roger Morgan, an amateur historian from London, uncovered evidence in the Public Record Office that the identity of the corpse was Michael. An alternative theory to the corpse's identity was suggested in the history book The Secrets of HMS Dasher (2004) that in March 1943 there was an explosion on HMS Dasher, which sank, killing 379 men; one of these corpses was purportedly used. The military historian Denis Smyth dismisses the suggestion and observes that the official records of the operation state that Glyndwr Michael was the body. ### Developing the plan; the corpse's new identity Montagu selected the code name Mincemeat from a list of centrally held available possibilities. On 4 February 1943 Montagu and Cholmondeley filed their plan for the operation with the Twenty Committee; it was a re-working of Cholmondeley's Trojan Horse plan. The Mincemeat plan was to place documents on the corpse, and then float it off the coast of Spain, whose nominally neutral government was known to co-operate with the Abwehr, the German military intelligence organisation. The plan was passed by the committee, who passed it up the chain of command to the senior Allied strategists; Montagu and Cholmondeley were ordered to continue with their preparations for the operation. Montagu and Cholmondeley began to create a "legend" – a fictitious background and character – for the body. The name and rank chosen was Captain (Acting Major) William Martin, of the Royal Marines assigned to Combined Operations Headquarters. The name "Martin" was selected because there were several men with that name of about that rank in the Royal Marines. As a Royal Marine, Major Martin came under Admiralty authority, and it would be easy to ensure that all official inquiries and messages about his death would be routed to the Naval Intelligence Division. Additionally, Royal Marines would wear battledress, which was easily obtainable and came in standard sizes. The rank of acting major made him senior enough to be entrusted with sensitive documents, but not so prominent that anyone would expect to know him. To reinforce the impression of Martin being a real person, Montagu and Cholmondeley provided corroborative details to be carried on his person – known in espionage circles as wallet or pocket litter. These included a photograph of an invented fiancée named Pam; the image was of an MI5 clerk, Jean Leslie. Two love letters from Pam were included in the pocket litter, as was a receipt for a diamond engagement ring costing £53 10s 6d from a Bond Street jewellery shop. Additional personal correspondence was included, consisting of a letter from the fictitious Martin's father – described by Macintyre as "pompous and pedantic as only an Edwardian father could be" – which included a note from the family solicitor, and a message from Lloyds Bank, demanding payment of an overdraft of £79 19s 2d. To ensure that the letters would remain legible after immersion in seawater, Montagu asked MI5 scientists to conduct tests on different inks to see which would last longest in the water, and they provided him with a suitable list of popular and available ink brands. Other items of pocket litter placed on Martin included a book of stamps, a silver cross and a St. Christopher's medallion, cigarettes, matches, a pencil stub, keys and a receipt from Gieves for a new shirt. To provide a date that Martin had been in London, ticket stubs from a London theatre and a bill for four nights' lodging at the Naval and Military Club were added. Along with the other items placed on him, an itinerary of his activity in London could be constructed from 18 to 24 April. Attempts were made to photograph the corpse for the naval identity card Martin would have to carry, but the results were unsatisfactory, and it was obvious that the images were of a cadaver. Montagu and Cholmondeley conducted a search for people who resembled the corpse, finding Captain Ronnie Reed of MI5; Reed agreed to be photographed for the identity card, wearing a Royal Marine uniform. As the three cards and passes needed to look not too new for a long-serving officer, they were issued as recent replacements for lost originals. Montagu spent the next few weeks rubbing all three cards on his trousers to provide a used sheen to them. To provide a used look to the uniform, it was worn by Cholmondeley, who was about the same build. The only non-issue part to the uniform was the underwear, which was in short supply in war-rationed Britain, so a pair of good-quality woollen underwear, owned by the late Herbert Fisher, the Warden of New College, Oxford, was used. ### Deception documents Montagu outlined three criteria for the document that contained the details of the falsified plans to land in the Balkans. He said that the target should be casually but clearly identified, that it should name Sicily and another location as cover, and that it should be in an unofficial correspondence that would not normally be sent by diplomatic courier, or encoded signal. The main document was a personal letter from Lieutenant General Sir Archibald Nye, the vice chief of the Imperial General Staff – who had a deep knowledge of ongoing military operations – to General Sir Harold Alexander, commander of the Anglo-American 18th Army Group in Algeria and Tunisia under General Eisenhower. After several attempts at drafting the document did not generate something that was considered natural, it was suggested that Nye should draw up the letter himself to cover the required points. The letter covered several purportedly sensitive subjects, such as the (unwanted) award of Purple Heart medals by US forces to British servicemen serving with them and the appointment of a new commander of the Brigade of Guards. Montagu thought the result was "quite brilliant"; the key part of the letter stated that > We have recent information that the Boche [the Germans] have been reinforcing and strengthening their defences in Greece and Crete and C.I.G.S. [Chief of the Imperial General Staff] felt that our forces for the assault were insufficient. It was agreed by the Chiefs of Staff that the 5th Division should be reinforced by one Brigade Group for the assault on the beach south of CAPE ARAXOS and that a similar reinforcement should be made for the 56th Division at KALAMATA. The letter went on to identify Sicily and the Dodecanese as "cover targets" for the assaults, along with justifications for their selection. There was also a letter of introduction for Martin from his putative commanding officer, Vice-Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, the chief of Combined Operations, to Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew Cunningham, the commander-in-chief Mediterranean Fleet and Allied naval commander in the Mediterranean. Martin was referred to in the letter as an amphibious warfare expert on loan until "the assault is over". The document included a clumsy joke about sardines, which Montagu inserted in the hope that the Germans would see it as a reference to a planned invasion of Sardinia. A single black eyelash was placed within the letter to check if the Germans or Spanish had opened it. Montagu considered that there would be a possible "Roman Catholic prejudice against tampering with corpses", which could miss the documents stored in the corpse's pockets, so they added them to an official briefcase that would not be overlooked. To justify carrying documents in a briefcase, Major Martin was given two proof copies of the official pamphlet on combined operations written by the author Hilary Saunders – then on Mountbatten's staff – and a letter from Mountbatten to Eisenhower, asking him to write a brief foreword for the pamphlet's US edition. The planning team first thought of having the handle clutched in the corpse's hand, held in place by rigor mortis, but the rigor would probably wear off and the briefcase would drift away. They therefore equipped Martin with a leather-covered chain, such as was used by bank and jewellery couriers to secure their cases against snatching. The chain unobtrusively runs down a sleeve to the case. To Montagu it seemed unlikely that the major would keep the bag secured to his wrist during the long flight from Britain, so the chain was looped around the belt of his trench coat. ### Technical considerations; strategic approval Montagu and Cholmondeley gave consideration to the location of the corpse's delivery. It had long been assumed by the pair that the western coast of Spain would be the ideal location. Early in the planning they investigated the possibility of Portuguese and French coasts, but rejected those in favour of Huelva on the coast of southern Spain, after advice was taken from the Hydrographer of the Navy regarding the tides and currents best suited to ensure the body landed where it was wanted. Montagu later outlined that the choice of Huelva was also made because "there was a very active German agent ... who had excellent contacts with certain Spaniards, both officials and others". The agent – Adolf Clauss, a member of the Abwehr – was the son of the German consul, and operated under the cover of an agriculture technician; he was an efficient and effective operative. Huelva was also chosen because the British vice-consul in the city, Francis Haselden, was "a reliable and helpful man" who could be relied upon, according to Montagu. The body was supposed to be the victim of an aeroplane crash, and it was decided that to try to simulate the accident at sea using flares and other devices could be too risky and open to discovery. After seaplanes and surface ships were dismissed as being problematic, a submarine was chosen as the method of delivering the corpse to the region. To transport the body by submarine, it needed to be contained within the body of the boat, as any externally mounted container would have to be built with a skin so thick it would alter the level of the waterline. The canister needed to remain airtight and keep the corpse as fresh as possible through its journey. Spilsbury provided the medical requirements and Cholmondeley contacted Charles Fraser-Smith of the Ministry of Supply to produce the container, which was labelled "Handle with care: optical instruments". On 13 April 1943 the committee of the Chiefs of Staff met and agreed that they thought the plan should proceed. The committee informed Colonel John Bevan – the head of London Controlling Section, which controlled the planning and co-ordination of deception operations – that he needed to obtain final approval from Churchill. Two days later Bevan met the prime minister – who was in bed, wearing a dressing gown and smoking a cigar – in his rooms at the Cabinet War offices and explained the plan. He warned Churchill that there were several aspects that could go wrong, including that the Spaniards might pass the corpse back to the British, with the papers unread. Churchill replied that "in that case we shall have to get the body back and give it another swim". Churchill gave his approval to the operation, but delegated the final confirmation to Eisenhower, the overall military commander in the Mediterranean, whose plan to invade Sicily would be affected. Bevan sent an encrypted telegram to Eisenhower's headquarters in Algeria requesting final confirmation, which was received on 17 April. ## Execution In the early hours of 17 April 1943 the corpse of Michael was dressed as Martin, although there was one last-minute hitch: the feet had frozen. Purchase, Montagu and Cholmondeley could not put the boots on, so an electric heater was located and the feet defrosted enough to put the boots on properly. The pocket litter was placed on the body, and the briefcase attached. The body was placed in the canister, which was filled with 21 pounds (9.5 kg) of dry ice and sealed up. When the dry ice sublimated, it filled the canister with carbon dioxide and drove out any oxygen, thus preserving the body without refrigeration. The canister was placed in the 1937 Fordson van of an MI5 driver, St John "Jock" Horsfall, who had been a racing champion before the war. Cholmondeley and Montagu travelled in the back of the van, which drove through the night to Greenock, west Scotland, where the canister was taken on board the submarine HMS Seraph, which was preparing for a deployment to the Mediterranean. Seraph's commander, Lt. Bill Jewell, and crew had previous special operations experience. Jewell told his men that the canister contained a top secret meteorological device to be deployed near Spain. On 19 April Seraph set sail and arrived just off the coast of Huelva on 29 April after having been bombed twice en route. After spending the day reconnoitring the coastline, at 4:15 am on 30 April, Seraph surfaced. Jewell had the canister brought up on deck, then sent all his crew below except the officers. They opened the container and lowered the body into the water. Jewell read Psalm 39 and ordered the engines to full astern; the wash from the screws pushed the corpse toward the shore. The canister was reloaded and the submarine travelled 12 miles (19 km) out where it surfaced and the empty container was pushed into the water. As it floated, it was riddled with machine gun fire so that it would sink. Because of the air trapped in the insulation, this effort failed, and the canister was destroyed with plastic explosives. Jewell afterwards sent a message to the Admiralty to say "Mincemeat completed", and continued on to Gibraltar. ## Spanish handling of the corpse and the ramifications The body of "Major Martin" was found at around 9:30 am on 30 April 1943 by a local fisherman; it was taken to Huelva by Spanish soldiers, where it was handed over to a naval judge. Haselden, as vice-consul, was officially informed by the Spaniards; he reported back to the Admiralty that the body and briefcase had been found. A series of pre-scripted diplomatic cables were sent between Haselden and his superiors, which continued for several days. The British knew that these were being intercepted and, although they were encrypted, the Germans had broken the code; the messages played out the story that it was imperative that Haselden retrieve the briefcase because it was important. At midday on 1 May an autopsy was undertaken on Michael's body; Haselden was present and – in order to minimise the possibilities that the two Spanish doctors identified that the body was a three-month-old corpse – Haselden asked if, in the heat of the day and smell of the corpse, the doctors should bring the post mortem to a close and have lunch. They agreed and signed a death certificate for Major William Martin for "asphyxiation through immersion in the sea"; the body was released by the Spanish and, as Major Martin, was buried in the San Marco section of Nuestra Señora cemetery in Huelva, with full military honours on 2 May. The Spanish navy retained the briefcase and, despite pressure from Adolf Clauss and some of his Abwehr agents, neither it nor its contents were handed over to the Germans. On 5 May the briefcase was passed to the naval headquarters at San Fernando near Cadiz, for forwarding to Madrid. While at San Fernando the contents were photographed by German sympathisers, but the letters were not opened. Once the briefcase arrived in Madrid, its contents became the focus of attention of Karl-Erich Kühlenthal, one of the most senior Abwehr agents in Spain. He asked Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head of the Abwehr, to personally intervene and persuade the Spanish to surrender the documents. Acceding to the request, the Spanish removed the still-damp paper by tightly winding it around a probe into a cylindrical shape, and then pulling it out between the envelope flap – which was still closed by a wax seal – and the envelope body. The letters were dried and photographed, then soaked in salt water for 24 hours before being re-inserted into their envelopes, without the eyelash that had been planted there. The information was passed to the Germans on 8 May. This was deemed so important by the Abwehr agents in Spain that Kühlenthal personally took the documents to Germany. On 11 May the briefcase, complete with the documents, was returned to Haselden by the Spanish authorities; he forwarded it to London in the diplomatic bag. On receipt, the documents were forensically examined, and the absence of the eyelash noted. Further tests showed that the fibres in the paper had been damaged by folding more than once, which confirmed that the letters had been extracted and read. An additional test was made as the papers – still wet by the time they returned to London – were dried out: the folded paper dried into the rolled form it had when the Spaniards had extracted it from the envelope. To allay any potential German fears that their activities had been discovered, another pre-arranged encrypted but breakable cable was sent to Haselden stating that the envelopes had been examined and that they had not been opened; Haselden leaked the news to Spaniards known to be sympathetic to the Germans. Final proof that the Germans had been passed the information from the letters came on 14 May when a German communication was decrypted by the Ultra source of signals intelligence produced by the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park. The message, which had been sent two days previously, warned that the invasion was to be in the Balkans, with a feint to the Dodecanese. A message was sent by Brigadier Leslie Hollis – the secretary to the Chiefs of Staff Committee – to Churchill, then in the United States. It read "Mincemeat swallowed rod, line and sinker by the right people and from the best information they look like acting on it." Montagu continued the deception to reinforce the existence of Major Martin, and included his details in the published list of British casualties which appeared in The Times on 4 June. By coincidence, also published that day were the names of two other officers who had died when their plane was lost at sea, and opposite the casualty listings was a report that the film star Leslie Howard had been shot down by the Luftwaffe and died in the Bay of Biscay; both stories gave credence to the Major Martin story. ## German reaction On 14 May 1943 Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz met Hitler to discuss Dönitz's recent visit to Italy, his meeting with the Italian leader Benito Mussolini and the progress of the war. The Admiral, referring to the Mincemeat documents as the "Anglo-Saxon order", recorded > The Führer does not agree with ... [Mussolini] that the most likely invasion point is Sicily. Furthermore, he believes that the discovered Anglo-Saxon order confirms the assumption that the planned attacks will be directed mainly against Sardinia and the Peloponnesus. Hitler informed Mussolini that Greece, Sardinia and Corsica must be defended "at all costs", and that German troops would be best placed to do the job. He ordered that the experienced 1st Panzer Division be transferred from France to Salonika, Greece. The order was intercepted by GC&CS on 21 May. By the end of June, German troop strength on Sardinia had been doubled to 10,000, with fighter aircraft also based there as support. German torpedo boats were moved from Sicily to the Greek islands in preparation. Seven German divisions transferred to Greece, raising the number present to eight, and ten were posted to the Balkans, raising the number present to 18. On 9 July the Allies invaded Sicily in Operation Husky. German signals intercepted by GC&CS showed that even four hours after the invasion of Sicily began, twenty-one aircraft left Sicily to reinforce Sardinia. For a considerable time after the initial invasion, Hitler was still convinced that an attack on the Balkans was imminent, and in late July he sent General Erwin Rommel to Salonika to prepare the defence of the region. By the time the German high command realised the mistake, it was too late to make a difference. ## Aftermath On 25 July 1943, as the battle for Sicily went against the Axis forces, the Italian Grand Council of Fascism voted to limit the power of Mussolini, and handed control of the Italian armed forces over to King Victor Emmanuel III. The following day Mussolini met the King, who dismissed him as prime minister; the former dictator was then imprisoned. A new Italian government took power and began secret negotiations with the Allies. Sicily fell on 17 August after a force of 65,000 Germans held off 400,000 American and British troops long enough to allow many of the Germans to evacuate to the Italian mainland. The military historian Jon Latimer observes that the relative ease with which the Allies captured Sicily was not entirely because of Mincemeat, or the wider deception of Operation Barclay. Latimer identifies other factors, including Hitler's distrust of the Italians, and his unwillingness to risk German troops alongside Italian troops who may have been on the point of a general surrender. The military historian Michael Howard, while describing Mincemeat as "perhaps the most successful single deception operation of the entire war", considered Mincemeat and Barclay to have less impact on the course of the Sicily campaign than Hitler's "congenital obsession with the Balkans". Macintyre writes that the exact impact of Mincemeat is impossible to calculate. Although the British had expected 10,000 killed or wounded in the first week of fighting, only a seventh of that number became casualties; the navy expected 300 ships would be sunk in the action, but they lost 12. The predicted 90-day campaign was over in 38. Smyth writes that as a result of Husky, Hitler suspended the Kursk offensive on 13 July. This was partly because of the performance of the Soviet army, but partly because he still assumed that the Allied landing on Sicily was a feint that preceded the invasion in the Balkans, and he wanted to have troops available for fast deployment to meet them. Smyth observes that once Hitler gave up the initiative to the Soviets, he never regained it. ## Legacy Montagu was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1944 for his part in Operation Mincemeat; for masterminding the plan, Cholmondeley was appointed a Member of the Order in 1948. Duff Cooper, a former cabinet minister who had been briefed on the operation in March 1943, published the spy novel Operation Heartbreak (1950), which contained the plot device of a corpse – with papers naming him as William Maryngton – being floated off the coast of Spain with false documents to deceive the Germans. The British security services decided that the best response was to publish the story of Mincemeat. Over the course of a weekend Montagu wrote The Man Who Never Was (1953), which sold two million copies and formed the basis for a 1956 film. The security services did not give Montagu complete freedom to reveal operational details, and he was careful not to mention the role played by signals intelligence to confirm that the operation had been successful. He was also careful to obscure "the idea of an organised programme of strategic deception ... with Mincemeat being presented as a 'wild' one-off caper". In 1977 Montagu published Beyond Top Secret U, his wartime autobiography which gave further details of Mincemeat, among other operations. In 2010 the journalist Ben Macintyre published Operation Mincemeat, a history of the events. A 1956 episode of The Goon Show, titled "The Man Who Never Was", was set during the Second World War, and referred to a microfilm washed up on a beach inside a German boot. The play Operation Mincemeat, written by Adrian Jackson and Farhana Sheikh, was first staged by the Cardboard Citizens theatre company in 2001. The work focused on Michael's homelessness. In his book The Double Agents, the writer W. E. B. Griffin depicts Operation Mincemeat as an American operation run by the Office of Strategic Services. Fictional characters are blended with Ian Fleming and the actors David Niven and Peter Ustinov. In 2015 the Welsh theatre company Theatr na nÓg produced "Y dyn na fu erioed" (The Man who Never Was), a musical based on the operation and Glyndwr Michael's upbringing in Aberbargoed. The musical was performed by primary school children from Caerphilly County Borough during that year's Eisteddfod yr Urdd. Another musical, Operation Mincemeat, is based on the operation; it was initially staged in 2019 at the New Diorama Theatre, London, then moved to the Fortune Theatre in 2023. In 2014 a BBC television miniseries, Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond , dramatised some aspects of Operation Mincemeat, and Fleming's connection to the operation. In 2022 the film Operation Mincemeat was released, with Colin Firth as Montagu and Matthew Macfadyen as Cholmondeley. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission took responsibility for Major Martin's grave in Huelva in 1977. In 1997 the Commission added the postscript "Glyndwr Michael served as Major William Martin RM". In November 2021 the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, working with the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women and the London Borough of Hackney, placed a memorial at the Hackney Mortuary. ## See also
1,554,274	Golden jackal	1,171,678,211	Species of mammal	[ "Carnivorans of Asia", "Carnivorans of Europe", "Extant Late Pleistocene first appearances", "Golden jackal", "Jackals", "Least concern biota of Asia", "Least concern biota of Europe", "Mammals described in 1758", "Mammals of Central Asia", "Mammals of South Asia", "Mammals of Southeast Asia", "Mammals of West Asia", "Pleistocene mammals of Asia", "Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus" ]	The golden jackal (Canis aureus), also called common jackal, is a wolf-like canid that is native to Southeast Europe, Central Asia, Western Asia, South Asia, and regions of Southeast Asia. The golden jackal's coat varies in color from a pale creamy yellow in summer to a dark tawny beige in winter. It is smaller and has shorter legs, a shorter tail, a more elongated torso, a less-prominent forehead, and a narrower and more pointed muzzle than the Arabian wolf. It is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List due to its widespread distribution and high density in areas with plenty of available food and optimum shelter. Despite its name, the golden jackal is not closely related to the African black-backed jackal or side-striped jackal, which are part of the genus Lupulella. It is instead closer to wolves and coyotes. The ancestor of the golden jackal is believed to be the extinct Arno river dog that lived in southern Europe . It is described as having been a small, jackal-like canine. Genetic studies indicate that the golden jackal expanded from India around 20,000 years ago, towards the end of the last Last Glacial Maximum. The oldest golden jackal fossil, found at the Ksar Akil rock shelter near Beirut, Lebanon, is 7,600 years old. The oldest golden jackal fossils in Europe were found in Greece and are 7,000 years old. There are six subspecies of the golden jackal. It is capable of producing fertile hybrids with both the gray wolf and the African wolf. Jackal–dog hybrids called Sulimov dogs are in service at the Sheremetyevo Airport near Moscow, where they are deployed by the Russian airline Aeroflot for scent-detection. The golden jackal is abundant in valleys and beside rivers and their tributaries, canals, lakes, and seashores, but rare in foothills and low mountains. It is a social species, the basic social unit of which consists of a breeding pair and any young offspring. It is very adaptable, with the ability to exploit food ranging from fruit and insects to small ungulates. It attacks domestic fowl and domestic mammals up to the size of domestic water buffalo calves. Its competitors are the red fox, steppe wolf, jungle cat, Caucasian wildcat, the raccoon in the Caucasus and in Central Asia, and the Asiatic wildcat. It is expanding beyond its native grounds in Southeast Europe into Central and Northeast Europe into areas where there are few or no wolves. ## Etymology and naming The word 'jackal' appeared in the English language around 1600. It derives from the Turkish word çakal, which originates from the Persian word šagāl. It is also known as the common jackal. ## Taxonomy The biological family Canidae is composed of the South American canids, the fox-like canids, and the wolf-like canids. All species within the wolf-like canids share a similar morphology and possess 78 chromosomes, allowing them potentially to interbreed. Within the wolf-like canids is the jackal group, which includes the three jackals: the black-backed jackal (Lupulella mesomela), the side-striped jackal (Lupulella adusta), and the golden jackal (Canis aureus). These three species are approximately the same size, possess similar dental and skeletal morphology, and are identified from each other primarily by their coat color. They were once thought to have different distributions across Africa with their ranges overlapping in East Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania). Although the jackal group has traditionally been considered as homogenous, genetic studies show that jackals are not monophyletic (they do not share a common ancestor), and they are only distantly related. The accuracy of the colloquial name "jackal" to describe all jackals is therefore questionable. Mitochondrial DNA (mDNA) passes along the maternal line and can date back thousands of years. Thus, phylogenetic analysis of mDNA sequences within a species provides a history of maternal lineages that can be represented as a phylogenetic tree. A 2005 genetic study of the canids found that the gray wolf and dog are the most closely related on this tree. The next most closely related are the coyote (Canis latrans), golden jackal, and Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis), which have all been shown to hybridize with the dog in the wild. The next closest are the dhole (Cuon alpinus) and African wild dog (Lycaon pictus), which are not members of genus Canis. These are followed by the black-backed and side-striped jackals, members of the genus Lupulella and the most basal members of this clade. Results from two recent studies of mDNA from golden jackals indicate that the specimens from Africa are genetically closer to the gray wolf than are the specimens from Eurasia. In 2015 a major DNA study of golden jackals concluded that the six C. aureus subspecies found in Africa should be reclassified under the new species C. anthus (African wolf), reducing the number of golden jackal subspecies to seven. The phylogenetic tree generated from this study shows the golden jackal diverging from the wolf/coyote lineage 1.9 million years ago and the African wolf diverging 1.3 million years ago. The study found that the golden jackal and the African wolf shared a very similar skull and body morphology and that this had confused taxonomists into regarding these as one species. The study proposes that the very similar skull and body morphology is due to both species having originated from a larger common ancestor. ### Evolution The Arno river dog (Canis arnensis) is an extinct species of canine that was endemic to Mediterranean Europe during the Early Pleistocene around 1.9 million years ago. It is described as a small jackal-like dog and probably the ancestor of modern jackals. Its anatomy and morphology relate it more to the modern golden jackal than to the two African jackal species, the black-backed jackal and the side-striped jackal. The oldest golden jackal fossil was found at the Ksar Akil rock shelter located 10 km (6.2 mi) northeast of Beirut, Lebanon. The fragment of a single tooth is dated approximately 7,600 years ago. The oldest golden jackal fossils found in Europe are from Delphi and Kitsos in Greece and are dated 7,000–6,500 years ago. An unusual fossil of a heel bone found in Azykh Cave, in Nagorno-Karabakh, dates to the Middle Pleistocene and is described as probably belonging to the golden jackal, but its classification is not clear. The fossil is described as being slightly smaller and thinner than the cave lynx, similar to the fox, but too large, and similar to the wolf, but too small. As the golden jackal falls between these two in size, the fossil possibly belongs to a golden jackal. The absence of clearly identified golden jackal fossils in the Caucasus region and Transcaucasia, areas where the species currently resides, indicates that the species is a relatively recent arrival. A haplotype is a group of genes found in an organism that is inherited from one of its parents. A haplogroup is a group of similar haplotypes that share a single mutation inherited from their common ancestor. The mDNA haplotypes of the golden jackal form two haplogroups: the oldest haplogroup is formed by golden jackals from India, and the other, younger, haplogroup diverging from this includes golden jackals from all of the other regions. Indian golden jackals exhibit the highest genetic diversity, and those from northern and western India are the most basal, which indicates that India was the center from which golden jackals spread. The extant golden jackal lineage commenced expanding its population in India 37,000 years ago. During the Last Glacial Maximum, 25,000 to 18,000 years ago, the warmer regions of India and Southeast Asia provided a refuge from colder surrounding areas. At the end of the Last Glacial Maximum and the beginning of the warming cycles, the golden jackal lineage expanded out of India and into Eurasia to reach the Middle East and Europe. Outside of India, golden jackals in the Caucasus and Turkey demonstrate the next highest genetic diversity, while those in Europe indicate low genetic diversity, confirming their more recent expansion into Europe. Genetic data indicates that the golden jackals of the Peloponnese Peninsula in Greece and the Dalmatian coast in Croatia may represent two ancient European populations from 6,000 years ago that have survived into modern times. Jackals were absent from most of Europe until the 19th century, when they started to expand slowly. Jackals were recorded in Hungary with the nearest population known at that time being found in Dalmatia, some 300 kilometers away. This was followed by rapid expansion of jackals towards the end of the 20th century. Golden jackals from both Southeast Europe and the Caucasus are expanding into the Baltic. In the Middle East, golden jackals from Israel have a higher genetic diversity than European jackals. This is thought to be due to Israeli jackals having hybridized with dogs, gray wolves, and African golden wolves, creating a hybrid zone in Israel. ### Admixture with other Canis species Genetic analysis reveals that mating sometimes occurs between female jackals and gray wolves, producing jackal-wolf hybrids that experts cannot visually distinguish from wolves. Hybridization also occurs between female golden jackals and male dogs, which produces fertile offspring, a jackal–dog hybrid. There was 11–13% of ancient gene flow into the golden jackal from the population that was ancestral to wolves and dogs, and an additional 3% from extant wolf populations. Up to 15% of the Israeli wolf genome is derived from admixture with golden jackals in ancient times. In 2018, whole genome sequencing was used to compare members of the genus Canis. The study supports the African wolf being distinct from the golden jackal, and with the Ethiopian wolf being genetically basal to both. There is evidence of gene flow between African golden wolves, golden jackals, and gray wolves. One African wolf from the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula showed high admixture with the Middle Eastern gray wolves and dogs, highlighting the role of the land bridge between the African and Eurasian continents in canid evolution. There was evidence of gene flow between golden jackals and Middle Eastern wolves, less so with European and Asian wolves, and least with North American wolves. The study proposes that the golden jackal ancestry found in North American wolves may have occurred before the divergence of the Eurasian and North American wolves. ### Subspecies and populations The golden jackal was taxonomically subordinated to the genus Canis by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 publication Systema Naturae. 13 subspecies were described since then. ## Description The golden jackal is similar to the gray wolf but is distinguished by its smaller size, lighter weight, more elongated torso, less-prominent forehead, shorter legs and tail, and a muzzle that is narrower and more pointed. The legs are long in relation to its body, and the feet are slender with small pads. Males measure 71–85 cm (28–33 in) in body length and females 69–73 cm (27–29 in). Males weigh 6–14 kg (13–31 lb) and females weigh 7–11 kg (15–24 lb). The shoulder height is 45–50 cm (18–20 in) for both. In comparison, the smallest wolf is the Arabian wolf (Canis lupus arabs), which weighs on average 20 kg (44 lb). The skull is most like that of the dingo, and is closer to that of the coyote (C. latrans) and the gray wolf (C. lupus) than to that of the black-backed jackal (L. mesomalas), the side-striped jackal (L. adustus), and the Ethiopian wolf (C. simensis). Compared with the wolf, the skull of the golden jackal is smaller and less massive, with a lower nasal region and shorter facial region; the projections of the skull are prominent but weaker than those of the wolf; the canine teeth are large and strong but relatively thinner; and its carnassial teeth are weaker. The golden jackal is a less specialized species than the gray wolf, and these skull features relate to the jackal's diet of small birds, rodents, small vertebrates, insects, carrion, fruit, and some vegetable matter. Occasionally, the golden jackal develops a horny growth on the skull referred to as a "jackal's horn", which usually measures 1.3 cm (0.51 in) in length and is concealed by fur. This feature was once associated with magical powers by the people of Sri Lanka. The jackal's fur is coarse and relatively short, with the base color golden, varying seasonally from a pale creamy yellow to a dark tawny. The fur on the back is composed of a mixture of black, brown, and white hairs, sometimes giving the appearance of the dark saddle like that seen on the black-backed jackal. The underparts are a light pale ginger to cream color. Individual specimens can be distinguished by their unique light markings on the throat and chest. The coats of jackals from high elevations tend to be more buff-colored than those of their lowland counterparts while those of jackals in rocky, mountainous areas may exhibit a grayer shade. The bushy tail has a tan to black tip. Melanism can cause a dark-colored coat in some golden jackals, a coloring once fairly common in Bengal. Unlike melanistic wolves and coyotes that received their dark pigmentation from interbreeding with domestic dogs, melanism in golden jackals probably stems from an independent mutation that could be an adaptive trait. What is possibly an albino specimen was photographed in southeastern Iran during 2012. The jackal moults twice a year, in spring and in autumn. In Transcaucasia and Tajikistan, the spring moult begins at the end of winter. If the winter has been warm, the spring moult starts in the middle of February; if the winter has been cold, it begins in the middle of March. The spring moult lasts for 60–65 days; if the animal is sick, it loses only half of its winter fur. The spring moult commences with the head and limbs, extends to the flanks, chest, belly and rump, and ends at the tail. Fur on the underparts is absent. The autumn moult occurs from mid-September with the growth of winter fur; the shedding of the summer fur occurs at the same time. The development of the autumn coat starts with the rump and tail and spreads to the back, flanks, belly, chest, limbs and head, with full winter fur being attained at the end of November. ## Adaptation ### Distribution and habitat In South Asia, the golden jackal inhabits : - Pakistan, - Sri Lanka, - Bangladesh, - India, - Nepal - and Bhutan. In Southeast Asia it inhabits: - Myanmar, - Thailand, In Central Asia it inhabits : - Afghanistan - Tajikistan - Turkmenistan - and Uzbekistan. There have been two reported sightings from Cambodia, three from southern Laos, and two from Vietnam – each sighting made only in lowland, open deciduous forest, and no specimens were presented. In (South)Western Asia it inhabits : - Armenia, - Azerbaijan, - Iran, - Iraq, - Israel, - Jordan, - Kuwait, - Lebanon, - Oman, - Saudi Arabia, - Qatar, - Syria, - Turkey, - United Arab Emirates, - and Yemen. In Europe it inhabits : - Albania, - Austria, - Bosnia and Herzegovina, - Bulgaria, - Croatia, - Estonia, - Georgia, - Greece, - Hungary, - Italy, - Kosovo, - Latvia, - Lithuania, - Macedonia, - Moldova, - Montenegro, - Poland, - Romania, - the Russian Federation, - Serbia, - Slovakia, - Slovenia, - Switzerland, - Turkey, - and Ukraine. It has been sighted in Belarus, the Czech Republic, and Germany. It was first recorded in Denmark in 2015, likely a natural migrant from further south, and the species has since been confirmed from several locations in Jutland. It has been reported in the media in the Netherlands but it is unclear if this jackal was an escapee from a private zoo. In July 2019, golden jackal was sighted in Eastern Finland, about 100 kilometers from the Russian border, and subsequently evidence was discovered of an earlier 2018 sighting near Kajaani in Central Finland. In 2020, one individual was recorded by a camera trap in northern Norway, making it the northernmost sighting of the species so far. In 2022, the northernmost established population of golden jackals was identified in Estonia; this population is largely isolated from the more southern populations. The golden jackal's omnivorous diet allows it to eat a large range of foods; this diet, together with its tolerance of dry conditions, enables it to live in different habitats. The jackal's long legs and lithe body allow it to trot over great distances in search of food. It is able to go without water for extended periods and has been observed on islands that have no fresh water. Jackals are abundant in valleys and along rivers and their tributaries, canals, lakes, and seashores, but are rare in foothills and low mountains. In Central Asia they avoid waterless deserts and cannot be found in the Karakum Desert nor the Kyzylkum Desert, but can be found at their edges or in oases. On the other hand, in India they can be found living in the Thar Desert. They are found in dense thickets of prickly bushes, reed flood-lands and forests. They have been known to ascend over 1,000 m (3,300 ft) up the slopes of the Himalayas; they can withstand temperatures as low as −25 °C (−13 °F) and sometimes −35 °C (−31 °F). They are not adapted to snow, and in snow country they must travel along paths made by larger animals or humans. In India, they will occupy the surrounding foothills above arable areas, entering human settlements at night to feed on garbage, and have established themselves around hill stations at 2,000 m (6,600 ft) height above mean sea level. They generally avoid mountainous forests, but may enter alpine and sub-alpine areas during dispersal. In Turkey, the Caucasus, and Transcaucasia they have been observed up to 1,000 m (3,300 ft) above mean sea level, particularly in areas where the climate supports shrublands in high elevations. The Estonian population, which marks the only population of this species adapted to the boreal region, largely inhabits coastal grasslands, alvars, and reed beds, habitats where wolves are seldom present. ### Diet The golden jackal fills much the same ecological niche in Eurasia as the coyote does in North America; it is both a predator and a scavenger, and an omnivorous and opportunistic forager with a diet that varies according to its habitat and the season. In Keoladeo National Park, India, over 60% of its diet was measured to consist of rodents, birds, and fruit. In the Kanha Tiger Reserve, 80% of its diet consists of rodents, reptiles and fruit. Vegetable matter forms part of the jackal diet, and in India they feed intensively on the fruits of buckthorn, dogbane, Java plum, and the pods of mesquite and the golden rain tree. The jackal scavenges off the kills made by the lion, tiger, leopard, dhole, and gray wolf. In some regions of Bangladesh and India, golden jackals subsist by scavenging on carrion and garbage, and will cache extra food by burying it. The Irish novelist, playwright and poet, Oliver Goldsmith, wrote about the golden jackal: > ... Although the species of the wolf approaches very near to that of the dog, yet the jackal seems to be placed between them; to the savage fierceness of the wolf it adds the impudent familiarity of the dog ... It is more noisy in its pursuits even than the dog, and more voracious than the wolf. In the Caucasus and Transcaucasia, golden jackals primarily hunt hares and mouse-like rodents, and also pheasants, francolins, ducks, coots, moorhens, and passerines. Vegetable matter eaten by Jackals in these areas includes fruits, such as pears, hawthorn, dogwood, and the cones of common medlars. The jackal is implicated in the destruction of grape, watermelon, muskmelon, and nut crops. Near the Vakhsh River, their spring diet consists almost exclusively of plant bulbs and the roots of wild sugar cane, while during winter they feed on wild stony olives. Around the edges of the Karakum Desert, jackals feed on gerbils, lizards, snakes, fish, muskrats, the fruits of wild stony olives, mulberry, dried apricots, watermelons, muskmelons, tomatoes, and grapes. In Dalmatia, the golden jackal's diet consists of mammals, fruits, vegetables, insects, birds and their eggs, grasses and leaves. Golden jackals change their diet to more readily available foods. In Serbia, their diet is primarily livestock carcasses that are increasingly prevalent due to a lack of removal, and this may have led to the expansion of their population. In Hungary, 55% of their diet is composed of common voles and bank voles, and 41% is composed of wild boar carcasses. Information on the diet of the golden jackal in northeastern Italy is scant, but it is known to prey on small roe deer and hares. In Israel, golden jackals are significant predators of snakes; during a poisoning campaign against golden jackals there was an increase in human snakebite reports, but a decrease when the poisoning ceased. ### Behavior #### Social behavior Golden jackals exhibit flexible social organization depending on the availability of food. The breeding pair is the basic social unit, and they are sometimes accompanied by their current litter of pups. In India, their distributions are a single jackal, 31%, two jackals, 35%, three jackals, 14%, and more than three jackals, 20%. Family groups of up to 4–5 individuals have been recorded. Scent marking through urination and defecation is common around golden jackal den areas and on the trails they most often use. Scent marking is thought to assist in territorial defense. The hunting ranges of several jackals can overlap. Jackals can travel up to 12–15 km (7.5–9.3 mi) during a single night in search of either food or more suitable habitat. Non-breeding members of a pack may stay near a distant food source, such as a carcass, for up to several days before returning to their home range. Home range sizes can vary between 1–20 km<sup>2</sup> (0.39–7.72 sq mi), depending on the available food. Social interactions such as greetings, grooming, and group howling are common in jackals. Howling is more frequent between December and April when pair bonds are being formed and breeding occurs, which suggests howling has a role in the delineation of territory and for defense. Adult jackals howl standing and the young or subordinate jackals howl sitting. Jackals are easily induced to howl and a single howl may solicit replies from several jackals in the vicinity. Howling begins with 2–3 low-pitched calls that rise to high-pitched calls. The howl consists of a wail repeated 3–4 times on an ascending scale, followed by three short yelps. Jackals typically howl at dawn and in the evening, and sometimes at midday. Adults may howl to accompany the ringing of church bells, with their young responding to sirens or the whistles of steam engines and boats. Social canids such as golden jackals, wolves, and coyotes respond to human imitations of their howls. When there is a change in the weather, jackals will produce a long and continuous chorus. Dominant canids defend their territories against intruders with either a howl to warn them off, approach and confront them, or howl followed by an approach. Jackals, wolves and coyotes will always approach a source of howling. Golden jackals give a warning call that is very different from their normal howling when they detect the presence of large carnivores such as wolves and tigers. #### Reproduction Golden jackals are monogamous and will remain with the one partner until death. Female jackals have only one breeding cycle each year. Breeding occurs from October to March in Israel and from February to March in India, Turkmenistan, Bulgaria, and Transcaucasia, with the mating period lasting up to 26–28 days. Females undergoing their first estrus are often pursued by several males that may quarrel among themselves. Mating results in a copulatory tie that lasts for several minutes, as it does with all other canids. Gestation lasts 63 days, and the timing of the births coincides with the annual abundance of food. In India, the golden jackal will take over the dens of the Bengal fox and the Indian crested porcupine, and will use abandoned gray wolf dens. Most breeding pairs are spaced well apart and maintain a core territory around their dens. Den excavations commence from late April to May in India, with dens located in scrub areas. Rivulets, gullies, and road and check-dam embankments are prime denning habitats. Drainage pipes and culverts have been used as dens. Dens are 2–3 m (6.6–9.8 ft) long and 0.5–1 m (1.6–3.3 ft) deep, with between 1–3 openings. Young pups can be moved between 2–4 dens. The male helps with digging the den and raising the pups. In the Caucasus and Transcaucasia, the burrow is located either in thick shrub, on the slopes of gullies, or on flat surfaces. In Dagestan and Azerbaijan, litters are sometimes located within the hollows of fallen trees, among tree roots, and under stones on river banks. In Central Asia, the golden jackal does not dig burrows but constructs lairs in dense tugai thickets. Jackals in the tugais and cultivated lands of Tajikistan construct lairs in long grass, shrubs, and reed openings. In Transcaucasia, golden jackal pups are born from late March to late April, and in northeastern Italy during late April; they can be born at any time of year in Nepal. The number of pups born in a single litter varies geographically. Jackals in Transcaucasia give birth to 3–8 pups, Tajikistan 3–7 pups, Uzbekistan 2–8 pups, and Bulgaria 4–7 pups; in India the average is four pups. The pups are born with closed eyes that open after 8–11 days, with the ears erecting after 10–13 days. Their teeth erupt at 11 days after birth, and the eruption of adult dentition is completed after five months. Pups are born with soft fur that ranges in color from light gray to dark brown. At the age of one month, their fur is shed and replaced with a new reddish-colored pelt with black speckles. The pups have a fast growth rate and weigh 0.201–0.214 kg (0.44–0.47 lb) at two days of age, 0.560–0.726 kg (1.23–1.60 lb) at one month, and 2.700–3.250 kg (5.95–7.17 lb) at four months. Females possess four pairs of teats, and lactation lasts for up to 8–10 weeks. The pups begin to eat meat at the age of 15–20 days. Dog pups show unrestrained fighting with their siblings from 2 weeks of age, with injury avoided only due to their undeveloped jaw muscles. This fighting gives way to play-chasing with the development of running skills at 4–5 weeks. Wolf pups possess more-developed jaw muscles from 2 weeks of age, when they first show signs of play-fighting with their siblings; serious fighting occurs during 4–6 weeks of age. Compared to wolf and dog pups, golden jackal pups develop aggression at the age of 4–6 weeks, when play-fighting frequently escalates into uninhibited biting intended to harm. This aggression ceases by 10–12 weeks when a hierarchy has formed. Once the lactation period concludes, the female drives off the pups. Pups born late remain with their mother until early autumn, at which time they leave either singly or in groups of two to four individuals. Females reach sexual maturity after 10–11 months and males at 21–22 months. #### Foraging The golden jackal often hunts alone, and sometimes in pairs, but rarely hunts in a pack. When hunting alone, it trots around an area and occasionally stops to sniff and listen. Once prey is located, the jackal conceals itself, quickly approaches its prey and then pounces on it. Single jackals hunt rodents, hares, and birds. They hunt rodents in grass by locating them with their hearing before leaping into the air and pouncing on them. In India, they can dig Indian gerbils out from their burrows, and they can hunt young, old, and infirm ungulates up to 4–5 times their body weight. Jackals search for hiding blackbuck calves throughout the day during the calving period. The peak times for their searches are the early morning and the late evening. When hunting in pairs or packs, jackals run parallel to their prey and overtake it in unison. When hunting aquatic rodents or birds, they will run along both sides of narrow rivers or streams and drive their prey from one jackal to another. Pack-hunting of langurs is recorded in India. Packs of between 5 and 18 jackals scavenging on the carcasses of large ungulates is recorded in India and Israel. Packs of 8–12 jackals consisting of more than one family have been observed in the summer periods in Transcaucasia. In India, the Montagu's harrier and the Pallid harrier roost in their hundreds in grasslands during their winter migration. Jackals stalk close to these roosting harriers and then rush at them, attempting to catch one before the harriers can take off or gain sufficient height to escape. ### Cooperation In Southeastern Asia, golden jackals have been known to hunt alongside dhole packs. They have been observed in the Blackbuck National Park, Velavadar, India, following Indian wolves (Canis lupus pallipes) when these are on a hunt, and they will scavenge off wolf kills without any hostility shown from the wolves. In India, lone jackals expelled from their pack have been known to form commensal relationships with tigers. These solitary jackals, known as kol-bahl, will associate themselves with a particular tiger, trailing it at a safe distance to feed on the big cat's kills. A kol-bahl will even alert a tiger to prey with a loud "pheal". Tigers have been known to tolerate these jackals, with one report describing how a jackal confidently walked in and out between three tigers walking together. Golden jackals and wild boar can occupy the same territory. ### Competition The jackal's competitors are the red fox, wolf, jungle cat, wildcat, and raccoon in the Caucasus, and the steppe wildcat in Central Asia. Wolves dominate jackals, and jackals dominate foxes. In 2017 in Iran, an Indian wolf under study killed a golden jackal. In Europe, the range of wolves and jackals is mutually exclusive, with jackals abandoning their territory with the arrival of a wolf pack. One experiment used loudspeakers to broadcast the calls of jackals, and this attracted wolves at a trotting pace to chase away the perceived competitors. Dogs responded to these calls in the same way while barking aggressively. Unleashed dogs have been observed to immediately chase away jackals when the jackals were detected. In Europe, there are an estimated 12,000 wolves. The jackal's recent expansion throughout eastern and western Europe has been attributed to the extermination of the local wolf populations. The present diffusion of the jackal into the northern Adriatic hinterland is in areas where the wolf is absent or very rare. In the past, jackals competed with tigers and leopards, feeding on the remains of their kills and, in one case, on a dead tiger. Leopards and tigers once hunted jackals, but today, the leopard is rare, and the tiger is extinct in the jackal's range. Eurasian lynxes have also been known to hunt jackals. Red foxes and golden jackals share similar diets. Red foxes fear jackals, which are three times bigger than them. Red foxes will avoid close proximity to jackals and fox populations decrease where jackals are abundant. Foxes can be found only at the fringes of jackal territory. Striped hyenas prey on golden jackals, and three jackal carcasses were found in one hyena den. A 2022 study indicated that the presence of golden jackals in portions of Eastern Europe leads to a decrease in the population of invasive raccoon dogs (Nyctereutes procyonoides), indicating a potentially positive consequence of the jackal colonization of Europe. ## Diseases and parasites Some golden jackals carry diseases and parasites harmful to human health. These include rabies, and Donovan's Leishmania that is harmless to jackals but may cause leishmaniasis in people. Jackals in southwestern Tajikistan can carry up to 16 species of parasitic cestodes (flatworm), roundworms, and acanthocephalans (thorny-headed worms), these are: Sparganum mansoni, Diphyllobothrium mansonoides, Taenia hydatigena, T. pisiformis, T. ovis, Hydatigera taeniaeformis, Dipylidium caninum, Mesocestoides lineatus, Ancylostoma caninum, Uncinaria stenocephala, Dioctophyma renale, Toxocara canis, Toxascaris leonina, Dracunculus medinensis, Filariata and Macracanthorhynchus catulinum. Jackals infected with Dracunculus medinensis can infect bodies of water with their eggs, which cause dracunculiasis in people who drink from them. Jackals may also play a large part in spreading coenurosis in sheep and cattle, and canine distemper in dogs. In Tajikistan, jackals may carry up to 12 tick species (which include Ixodes, Rhipicephalus turanicus, R. leporis, R. rossicus, R. sanguineus, R. pumilio, R. schulzei, Hyalomma anatolicum, H. scupense and H. asiaticum), four flea species (Pulex irritans, Xenopsylla nesokiae, Ctenocephanlides canis and C. felis), and one species of louse (Trichodectes canis). In Iran, some golden jackals carry intestinal worms (helminths) and Echinococcus granulosus. In Israel, some jackals are infected with intestinal helminths and Leishmania tropica. In Romania, a jackal was found to be carrying Trichinella britovi. In northeastern Italy, the jackal is a carrier of the tick species Ixodes ricinus and Dermacentor reticulatus, and the smallest human fluke Metagonimus yokogawai that can be caught from ingesting infected raw fish. In Hungary, some jackals carry dog heartworm Dirofilaria immitis, and some have provided the first record in Hungary of Trichinella spiralis and the first record in Europe of Echinococcus multilocularis. ## Conservation The golden jackal is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List due to its widespread distribution, with it being common throughout its range and with high densities in those areas where food and shelter are abundant. In Europe, golden jackals are not listed under the 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora nor the 1979 Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals. Golden jackals in Europe fall under various international legal instruments. These include the 1979 Berne Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats, the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity, and the 1992 European Union Council Directive 92/43/EEC on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora. The Council Directive provides both guidance and limits on what participating governments can do when responding to the arrival of expanding jackals. These legislative instruments aim to contribute to conserving native wildlife; some governments argue that the golden jackal is not native wildlife but an invading species. The Golden Jackal informal study Group in Europe (GOJAGE) is an organization that is formed by researchers from across Europe to collect and share information on the golden jackal in Europe. The group also has an interest in the golden jackal's relationship with its environment across Eurasia. Membership is open to anyone who has an interest in golden jackals. In Europe, there are an estimated 70,000 golden jackals. They are fully protected in Albania, North Macedonia, Germany, Italy, Poland and Switzerland. They are unprotected in Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Estonia, and Greece. They are hunted in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine. Their protection in Austria and Turkey depends on the part of the country. Their status in Moldova is not known. The Syrian jackal was common in Israel and Lebanon in the 1930s–40s, but their populations were reduced during an anti-rabies campaign. Its current status is difficult to ascertain, due to possible hybridisation with pariah dogs and African golden wolves. The jackal population for the Indian subcontinent is estimated to be over 80,000. In India, the golden jackal occurs in all of India's protected areas apart from those in the higher areas of the Himalayas. It is included in CITES Appendix III, and is listed in the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, under Schedule III, thus receiving legal protection at the lowest level to help control the trade of pelts and tails in India. ## Relationships with humans ### In folklore, mythology and literature Golden jackals appear in Indian folklore and in two ancient texts, the Jakatas and the Panchatantra, where they are portrayed as intelligent and wily creatures. The ancient Hindu text, the Mahabharata, tells the story of a learned jackal who sets his friends the tiger, wolf, mongoose, and mouse against each other so he can eat a gazelle without sharing it. The Panchatantra tells the fable of a jackal who cheats a wolf and a lion out of their shares of a camel. In Buddhist tales, the jackal is regarded as being cunning in a way similar to the fox in European tales. One popular Indian saying describes the jackal as "the sharpest among beasts, the crow among birds, and the barber among men". For a person embarking on an early morning journey, hearing a jackal howl was considered to be a sign of impending good fortune, as was seeing a jackal crossing a road from the left side. In Hinduism, the jackal is portrayed as the familiar of several deities with the most common being Chamunda, the emaciated, devouring goddess of the cremation grounds. Another deity associated with jackals is Kali, who inhabits the cremation ground and is surrounded by millions of jackals. According to the Tantrasara scripture, when offered animal flesh, Kali appears in the form of a jackal. The goddess Shivaduti is depicted with a jackal's head. The goddess Durga was often linked to the jackal. Jackals are considered to be the vahanas (vehicles) of various protective Hindu and Buddhist deities, particularly in Tibet. According to the flood myth of the Kamar people in Raipur district, India, the god Mahadeo (Shiva) caused a deluge to dispose of a jackal who had offended him. In Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli stories collected in The Jungle Book, the character Tabaqui is a jackal despised by the Seeonee wolf pack due to his mock cordiality, his scavenging habits, and his subservience to Shere Khan the tiger. ### Attacks on humans In the Marwahi forest division of the Chhattisgarh state in eastern India, the jackal is of conservation value and there were no jackal attacks reported before 1997. During 1998–2005 there were 220 reported cases of jackal attacks on humans, although none were fatal. The majority of these attacks occurred in villages, followed by forests and crop fields. Jackals build their dens in the bouldery hillocks that surround flat areas, and these areas have been encroached by human agriculture and settlements. This encroachment has led to habitat fragmentation and the need for jackals to enter agricultural areas and villages in search for food, resulting in conflict with humans. People in this region habitually chase jackals from their villages, which leads to the jackals becoming aggressive. Female jackals with pups respond with an attack more often than lone males. In comparison, over twice as many attacks were carried out by sloth bears over the same period. There are no known attacks on humans in Europe. ### Livestock, game, and crop predation The golden jackal can be a harmful pest that attacks domestic animals such as turkeys, lambs, sheep, goats, domestic water buffalo calves, and valuable game species like newborn roe deer, hares, coypu, pheasants, francolins, grey partridges, bustards and waterfowl. It destroys grape, coffee, maize, sugarcane, and eats watermelons, muskmelons, and nuts. In Greece, golden jackals are not as damaging to livestock as wolves and red foxes but they can become a serious nuisance to small stock when in great numbers. In southern Bulgaria, over 1,000 attacks on sheep and lambs were recorded between 1982 and 1987, along with some damage to newborn deer in game farms. The damage by jackals in Bulgaria was minimal when compared to the livestock losses due to wolves. Approximately 1.5–1.9% of calves born in the Golan Heights die due to predation, mainly by jackals. The high predation rate by jackals in both Bulgaria and Israel is attributable to the lack of preventative measures in those countries and the availability of food in illegal garbage dumps, leading to jackal population explosions. Golden jackals are extremely harmful to fur-bearing rodents, such as coypu and muskrats. Coypu can be completely extirpated in shallow water bodies. During 1948–1949 in the Amu Darya, muskrats constituted 12.3% of jackal fecal contents, and 71% of muskrat houses were destroyed by jackals. Jackals also harm the fur industry by eating muskrats caught in traps or taking skins left out to dry. ### Hunting During British rule in India, sportsmen conducted golden jackal hunting on horseback with hounds, with jackal coursing a substitute for the fox hunting of their native England. They were not considered as beautiful as English red foxes, but were esteemed for their endurance in the chase with one pursuit lasting 3+1⁄2 hours. India's weather and terrain added further challenges to jackal hunters that were not present in England: the hounds of India were rarely in as good condition as English hounds, and although the golden jackal has a strong odor, the terrain of northern India was not good in retaining scent. Also, unlike foxes, jackals sometimes feigned death when caught and could be ferociously protective of their captured packmates. Jackals were hunted in three ways: with greyhounds, with foxhounds, and with mixed packs. Hunting jackals with greyhounds offered poor sport because greyhounds were too fast for jackals, and mixed packs were too difficult to control. From 1946 in Iraq, British diplomats and Iraqi riders conducted jackal coursing together. They distinguished three types of jackal: the "city scavenger", which was described as being slow and so smelly that dogs did not like to follow them; the "village jack", which was described as being faster, more alert, and less odorous; and the "open-country jack", which was described as being the fastest, cleanest, and providing the best sport of all three populations. Some indigenous people of India, such as the Kolis and Vaghirs of Gujarat and Rajasthan and the Narikuravas in Tamil Nadu, hunt and eat golden jackals, but the majority of South Asian cultures consider the animal to be unclean. The orthodox dharma texts forbid the eating of jackals because they have five nails. In the area of the former Soviet Union, jackals are not actively hunted and are usually captured only incidentally during the hunting of other animals by means of traps or shooting during drives. In Transcaucasia, jackals are captured with large fishing hooks baited with meat and suspended 75–100 cm (30–39 in) from the ground with wire. The jackals can only reach the meat by jumping, and are then hooked by the lip or jaw. ### Fur use In Russia and the other nations of the former Soviet Union, golden jackals are considered furbearers of low quality because of their sparse, coarse, and monotonously colored fur. Jackal hairs have very little fur fiber; therefore, their pelts have a flat appearance. The jackals of Asia and the Middle East produce the coarsest pelts, though this can be remedied during the dressing process. Elburz in northern Iran produces the softest furs. Jackal skins are not graded to a fur standard, and are made into collars, women's coats, and fur coats. During the 1880s, 200 jackals were captured annually in Mervsk and in the Zakatal area of the Transcaucasus, with 300 jackals being captured there during 1896. In this same period, a total of 10,000 jackals were taken within Russia and their furs sent exclusively to the Nizhegorod fair. In the early 1930s there were 20,000–25,000 jackal skins tanned annually in the Soviet Union, but these could not be utilized within the country, and so the majority were exported to the United States. Commencing from 1949, they were all used within the Soviet Union. ### Sulimov dog The golden jackal may have once been tamed in Neolithic Turkey 11,000 years ago, as there is a sculpture of a man cradling a jackal found in Göbekli Tepe. French explorers during the 19th century noted that people in the Levant kept golden jackals in their homes. The Kalmyk people near the Caspian Sea were known to frequently cross their dogs with jackals, and Balkan shepherds once crossed their sheepdogs with jackals. The Russian military established the Red Star kennels in 1924 to improve the performance of working dogs and to conduct military dog research. The Red Star kennel developed "Laikoid" dogs, which were a cross-breed of Spitz-type Russian Laikas with German Shepherds. By the 1980s, the ability of Russia's bomb and narcotic detection dogs were assessed as being inadequate. Klim Sulimov, a research scientist with the DS Likhachev Scientific Research Institute for Cultural Heritage and Environmental Protection, began cross-breeding dogs with their wild relatives in an attempt to improve their scent-detection abilities. The researchers assumed that during domestication dogs had lost some of their scent-detection ability because they no longer had to detect prey. Sulimov crossed European jackals with Laikas, and also with fox terriers to add trainability and loyalty to the mix. He used the jackal because he believed that it was the wild ancestor of the dog, that it had superior scent-detecting ability, and, because it was smaller with more endurance than the dog, it could be housed outdoors in the Russian climate. Sulimov favored a mix of one quarter jackal and three-quarters dog. Sulimov's program continues today with the use of the hybrid Sulimov dogs at the Sheremetyevo Airport near Moscow by the Russian airline Aeroflot. The hybrid program has been criticized, with one of Sulimov's colleagues pointing out that in other tests the Laika performed just as well as the jackal hybrids. The assumption that dogs have lost some of their scent-detection ability may be incorrect, in that dogs need to be able to scent-detect and identify the many humans that they come into contact with in their domesticated environment. Another researcher crossed German Shepherds with wolves and claimed that this hybrid had superior scent-detection abilities. The scientific evidence to support the claims of hybrid researchers is minimal, and more research has been called for.
16,304,850	U.S. Route 2 in Michigan	1,145,204,014	U.S. Highway in Michigan	[ "Lake Michigan Circle Tour", "Lake Superior Circle Tour", "Transportation in Delta County, Michigan", "Transportation in Dickinson County, Michigan", "Transportation in Gogebic County, Michigan", "Transportation in Iron County, Michigan", "Transportation in Mackinac County, Michigan", "Transportation in Menominee County, Michigan", "Transportation in Schoolcraft County, Michigan", "U.S. Highways in Michigan", "U.S. Route 2" ]	US Highway 2 (US 2) is a component of the United States Numbered Highway System that connects Everett, Washington, to the Upper Peninsula (UP) of the US state of Michigan, with a separate segment that runs from Rouses Point, New York, to Houlton, Maine. In Michigan, the highway runs through the UP in two segments as a part of the state trunkline highway system, entering the state at Ironwood and ending at St. Ignace; in between, US 2 briefly traverses the state of Wisconsin. As one of the major transportation arteries in the UP, US 2 is a major conduit for traffic through the state and neighboring northern Midwest states. Two sections of the roadway are included as part of the Great Lakes Circle Tours, and other segments are listed as state-designated Pure Michigan Byways. There are several memorial highway designations and historic bridges along US 2 that date to the 1910s and 1920s. The highway runs through rural sections of the UP, passing through two national and two state forests in the process. The route of what became US 2 was used as part of two Indian trails before European settlers came to the UP, and as part of the Michigan segments of the Theodore Roosevelt International Highway and the King's International Highway auto trails in the early 20th century. The state later included these trails as part of M‐12 when the first state highway trunklines were designated in 1919. Most of M‐12 was redesignated as part of US 2 when the US Highway System was created on November 11, 1926. Since the 1930s, several changes have reshaped the highway's routing through the UP. One such alteration eventually created a business loop that connected across the state line with Hurley, Wisconsin, and others pushed an originally inland routing of US 2 closer to the Lake Michigan shoreline. With the creation of the Interstate Highway System, part of US 2 was rerouted to coincide with the new Interstate 75 (I‐75), though in the 1980s, the U.S. Highway was truncated and removed from the I‐75 freeway, resulting in today's basic form. ## Route description According to a 2006 regional planning committee report, US 2 is a key highway for Michigan, providing its main western gateway. The roadway plays "an important role in the transportation of goods across the northern tier of states in the Midwest", and is listed on the National Highway System (NHS) for its entire length. The NHS is a network of roadways important to the country's economy, defense, and mobility. Together with M‐28, US 2 is part of a pair of primary trunklines that bridge the eastern and western sides of the UP. The 305.151 miles (491.093 km) of roadway in Michigan is divided into a 109.177-mile (175.703 km) western segment and a 195.974-mile (315.390 km) eastern segment, interrupted by a section that runs for 14.460 miles (23.271 km) in the state of Wisconsin. ### Western segment US 2 enters Michigan from Wisconsin for the first time north of downtown Hurley, Wisconsin, and Ironwood, Michigan, over the state line that runs along the Montreal River. The highway crosses the river into Gogebic County and passes a welcome center on the way into a commercial district north of downtown. Running along Cloverland Drive, US 2 meets its only business route in Michigan at Douglas Boulevard. The business route was previously a full loop that ran west through downtown Ironwood and crossed the border into Hurley and back to the main highway. The Wisconsin Department of Transportation has removed the signage on their side of the border, which reduced the loop to a business spur that ends at the state line. US 2 continues eastward through UP woodlands to the city of Bessemer. While bypassing the community of Ramsay, the highway crosses a branch of the Black River. The roadway enters Wakefield on the south side of Sunday Lake, meeting M‐28 at a stoplight in town. As the US Highway leaves Wakefield, it turns southeasterly through the Ottawa National Forest, crossing Jackson Creek and two branches of the Presque Isle River. US 2 and M‐64 merge and run concurrently over the second branch of the Presque Isle in the community of Marenisco. This concurrency has the lowest traffic volume along the entire length of the highway within the state; in 2010 the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) recorded a daily average usage along the stretch of 770 vehicles, compared to the overall average of 5,188 vehicles for the highway. At the end of the concurrency, M‐64 turns northerly to run along Lake Gogebic. The highway continues parallel to the state line from the Marensico area through the national forest toward Watersmeet. That unincorporated community is the home of the Watersmeet High School Nimrods, the basketball team featured on a series of ESPN commercials and a documentary series on the Sundance Channel. The area is also where the waters meet; the rolling hills drain to Lake Superior via the Ontonagon River, to Lake Michigan via the Brule and Menominee rivers, or to the Gulf of Mexico via the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers. Also located in the area are the Sylvania Wilderness, and the Lac Vieux Desert Indian Reservation, which includes the Lac Vieux Desert Casino and Resort. The highway travels southeasterly from Watersmeet around the many lakes and streams in the area and crosses into rural Iron County. US 2 intersects Federal Forest Highway 16 (FFH 16) near Golden Lake in Stambaugh Township in the middle of the national forest. The trunkline then runs along the Iron River as it approaches the city of the same name and meets M‐73. In town, US 2 intersects M‐189 before crossing the river and turning northeast out of the city. US 2 leaves the Ottawa National Forest at Iron River, and the highway continues eastward through forest lands near several small lakes to Crystal Falls, the county seat of Iron County. On the west side of town, US 2 meets US 141; the two highways run concurrently along Crystal Avenue. The combined highway turns south onto 5th Street and meets M‐69's eastern terminus at the intersection between 5th Street and Superior Avenue next to the county courthouse at the top of the hill. US 2/US 141 runs south out of Crystal Falls to the west of, and parallel to, the Paint River. The roadway passes Railroad, Kennedy and Stager lakes and leaves the state of Michigan at the Brule River, crossing into Florence County, Wisconsin for about 14 miles (23 km). ### Eastern segment US 2/US 141 re-enters Michigan where it crosses the Menominee River and subsequently meets M‐95 in Breitung Township north of Iron Mountain and Kingsford. The highways merge in a triple concurrency and run south on Stephenson Avenue into Iron Mountain along the west side of Lake Antoine, parallel to a branch line of the Escanaba and Lake Superior Railroad (ELS Railroad). The road crosses through a retail corridor and over a flooded pit of the Chapin Mine. In downtown Iron Mountain at Ludington Street, M‐95 turns west off Stephenson Avenue to run across town to Kingsford. US 2/US 141 exits downtown and turns east along a second retail corridor near the Midtown Mall. The highway re-enters Breitung Township where US 141 separates to the south to re-enter Wisconsin. US 2 continues eastward parallel to a branch of the Canadian National Railway (CN Railway). Both road and rail travel through the community of Quinnesec, where they pass near the largest paper mill in the UP. The trunkline runs along the main street of Norway, where the highway meets the eastern terminus of US 8. Then US 2 continues east through rural Dickinson County to Vulcan, passing north of Hanbury Lake through the Copper Country State Forest, before crossing the Sturgeon River in Loretto and passing into Menominee County. In Menominee County, the environment takes on a more agricultural character along US 2. The highway passes through the edge of the community of Hermansville before entering Powers. US 2 comes to a three-way intersection and turns northeast merging onto US 41. The concurrent highway runs from Powers through the communities of Wilson and Spaulding on the south side of the CN Railway. At Harris, the trunkline enters the Hannahville Indian Community. Harris is on the Menominee County side of the reservation, but as the highway continues east, it crosses over to Bark River on the Delta County side. The county line in between not only separates the two communities, but also serves as the boundary between the Central and Eastern time zones. East of Bark River, the highway crosses the community's namesake waterway before intersecting the eastern terminus of M‐69. The roadway crosses the Ford River prior to turning due east into the outskirts of Escanaba. US 2/US 41 widens to four lanes along Ludington Street, which forms the east–west axis of the Escanaba street grid. Near downtown, the highway meets M‐35, which runs along the city's north–south axis, Lincoln Road. The trunklines merge and run north, bypassing the traditional central business district for a different business corridor. Lincoln Road runs north carrying four lanes of traffic past the Upper Peninsula State Fairgrounds, site of one of the two state fairs for the state of Michigan, the only state to have twin fairs. US 2/US 41/M‐35 continues north on Lincoln Road past the campus of Bay de Noc Community College. The four-lane highway crosses the Escanaba River just upstream from its mouth near the large Verso Esky Paper Mill and shifts to run immediately next to Little Bay de Noc. The section here carried the highest traffic counts along all of US 2 in the state: an average of 23,977 vehicles used this segment of roadway daily in 2011. The road turns inland again, and US 2/US 41/M‐35 passes to the west of downtown Gladstone. The highway through here is an expressway, four lanes divided by a central median and no driveway access. Unlike a freeway, the expressway has standard intersections and not interchanges. The highway intersects the eastern terminus of County Road 426 (CR 426) and crosses the ELS Railroad south of the stoplight for 4th Avenue North, where M‐35 separates from the US Highways and turns to the northwest. The expressway continues north parallel to the CN Railway, crossing the Days River. From Gladstone to St. Ignace, US 2 carries a speed limit of 65 mph (105 km/h) for all traffic. This was, before 2017, the only road in the UP with a speed limit higher than 55 mph (89 km/h) besides I-75, which has a speed limit of 75 mph (121 km/h). The expressway segment runs around the upper end of Little Bay de Noc before ending at Rapid River. In this location, US 41 separates to the north, and US 2 returns to an easterly track as a two-lane road, crossing the Rapid and Whitefish rivers and turning southeast around the head of the bay. As US 2 crosses southern Delta County, it passes through the western unit of the Hiawatha National Forest. Near Garden Corners, the highway runs along the shore of Big Bay de Noc. After the intersection with the northern terminus of M‐183, US 2 turns inland cutting across the base of the Garden Peninsula and enters Schoolcraft County. As the highway approaches Thompson, US 2 leaves the western unit of the Hiawatha National Forest and enters the Lake Superior State Forest. The roadway runs along Lake Michigan to Manistique, crossing the Manistique River. The trunkline turns inland approaching Gulliver and then turns north-northeast to Blaney Park. The community of Blaney Park is a former logging town-turned-resort at the southern terminus of M‐77; the resort was active from the late 1920s but declined by the 1980s. From Blaney Park, US 2 turns due east and crosses into Mackinac County west of Gould City. Where it intersects a former routing, the main highway crosses the CN Railway one last time and runs to the south of Engadine to follow the Lake Michigan shoreline through Naubinway. After passing the community of Epoufette, US 2 crosses the Cut River Bridge, 147 feet (45 m) over the Cut River. The highway crosses into the eastern unit of the Hiawatha National Forest near Brevort, running between Lake Michigan and Brevoort Lake in the process. The road continues along the Lake Michigan shoreline, passing Mystery Spot near Gros Cap and turning inland immediately west of St. Ignace. The US 2 designation ends at the highway's partial cloverleaf interchange with I‐75. The roadway continues easterly into downtown St. Ignace as Business Loop I‐75 (BL I‐75). ## History ### Indian trail through auto trails In 1701, the first transportation routes through what became the state of Michigan were the lakes, rivers and Indian trails. Two of these trails followed parts of the future US 2. The Sault–Green Bay Trail roughly followed the Lake Michigan shoreline routing of US 2 between Escanaba and St. Ignace. The Mackinac Trail connected St. Ignace with Sault Ste. Marie. In the age of the auto trail, the roads that later formed US 2 through the UP were given a few different highway names. When the original roadways between Ironwood and Iron River were completed in late 1915, the Upper Peninsula Development Bureau (UPDB) named the area Cloverland and the highway the Cloverland Trail. Later the name was extended over the highway to Escanaba, and to all highways in the area in the early 1920s; the name was phased out by the UPDB completely in 1927. The roadways were also used for the Theodore Roosevelt International Highway, named for former US president Theodore Roosevelt after his death in 1919. Overall, this highway ran from Portland, Oregon, to Portland, Maine, by way of Michigan and the Canadian province of Ontario. Through the UP, the southern branch followed the immediate predecessors to US 2, including the section through Florence County, Wisconsin. The Great Lakes Automobile Route was established in 1917 by the UPDB. A predecessor of the Great Lakes Circle Tours by seventy years, the route followed "a circular journey along the banks of lakes Michigan and Superior and Green Bay ..." This route followed the modern US 2 from Ironwood to the M‐94 junction in Manistique, using the modern M‐69 and M‐95 to stay in Michigan. Branches of the route followed US 41 and M‐35 between Powers and Escanaba. The route was originally intended to entice motorists to drive around Lake Michigan. The name fell out of use before its first anniversary because of World War I. One Canadian auto trail was routed through the UP as well. In 1920, the King's International Highway linked Vancouver, British Columbia, to Halifax, Nova Scotia, but there was no highway to carry it around the north side of Lake Superior. Motorists had to ship their cars by boat between Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and Thunder Bay or enter the United States to continue along the auto trail. The routings varied on the maps of the time, but its basic route used US 2 through the UP from Ironwood to Sault Ste. Marie until a highway north of Lake Superior was opened in 1960; by that time, the auto trail had taken on the Trans-Canada Highway name. ### State trunkline The first state trunkline highway designated along the path of the modern US 2 was M‐12, a designation that was in use by July 1, 1919, between Ironwood and Sault Ste. Marie. The first roadside park in the country was created by Herbert Larson near what is now US 2 near Iron River in 1919–20. When the US Highway System was created on November 11, 1926, US 2 partially replaced M-12. Between Crystal Falls and Iron Mountain, US 2 was routed through Florence, Wisconsin. The former routing of M‐12 from Crystal Falls to Sagola became a new M‐69 when the former M‐69 became US 102 (now US 141). M‐12 from Sagola south to Iron Mountain was made a part of an extended M‐45, which is now M‐95. By the next year, M‐48 was added along US 2 from Rexton to Garnet as part of a larger extension. The first changes to the routing of US 2 itself were made in 1930 with a bypass of downtown Escanaba. A larger rerouting was completed in 1933 between Rogers Park and Sault Ste. Marie. The new routing followed Mackinac Trail instead of turning east to Cedarville and north to Sault Ste. Marie; the former routing was given the M‐121 designation. Another realignment in the Iron Mountain area shifted US 2/US 141 to a new bridge over the Menominee River between 1932 and 1934. Downtown Ironwood was bypassed in 1934, and the former route was initially designated M‐54. The Michigan State Highway Department (MSHD) changed the routings and designations of the highways around Cooks, Thompson and Manistique in the mid-1930s. The agency rerouted US 2 between Cooks and M‐149 in Thompson, turning the old road back to county control. The section between M‐149 and M‐125 was redesignated as an extension of M‐149 to Thompson, and M‐125 was replaced by a further extension of M‐149. The last change was to route US 2 along its current alignment in the area, completing the changes on August 2, 1936. The MSHD started construction in 1936 on a new road that rerouted US 2 into St. Ignace for the first time. Between Brevort and Moran, US 2 previously followed Worth Road inland to the Tahquamenon Trail to meet the northern extension of US 31 into the Upper Peninsula. The new routing took US 2 along the lakeshore into St. Ignace. US 31 was truncated to the state ferry docks in Mackinaw City and US 2 was routed through St. Ignace along the former US 31 to Rogers Park; the connection in St. Ignace to the state ferry docks became M‐122. Further changes in the early 1940s straightened the roadway out near Watersmeet and Crystal Falls. Additional realignments were completed by the MSHD to move US 2 to its modern lakeshore routing between Gould City and Epoufette in 1941. The new highway traveled due east from Gould City to Naubinway and then along the lake to Epoufette. The former route through Engadine was turned back to local control as far east as Garnet. From there east, it was numbered just M‐48, removing US 2 from a concurrency. Another former section into Epoufette was added to extend M‐117. The new highway was detoured around the Cut River Bridge until it was completed in 1946 after construction delays over steel shortages during World War II. The western end of US 2 took on two changes in the 1940s. M‐28 was extended along US 2 to the state line at Ironwood from its western terminus at Wakefield. A similar extension was made from M‐28's eastern terminus to Sault Ste. Marie in 1948. The M‐54 designation was renumbered as Business US 2 by 1945. The eastern M‐28 extension was reversed in 1950, and the western extension to the state line was shifted to a new location by 1952. ### Interstate era With the coming of the Interstate Highway System in Michigan, the MSHD planned to convert the eastern section of US 2 to a freeway between St. Ignace and Sault Ste. Marie. In planning maps from 1947, this highway corridor was included in the system that later became the Interstates. It was also included in the General Location of National System of Interstate Highways Including All Additional Routes at Urban Areas Designated in September 1955, or Yellow Book after the cover color, that was released in 1955 as the federal government readied plans for the freeway system. The proposed number in 1958 was Interstate 75 (I‐75). The first section of freeway was built in late 1957 or early 1958 between Evergreen Shores and M‐123 north of St. Ignace. The Mackinac Bridge was opened to traffic on November 1, 1957; a new section of freeway and an interchange connected US 2 to the bridge. In 1961, another new freeway segment closed the gap between the Mackinac Bridge and Evergreen Shores sections. At the time, the I‐75 designation supplanted US 27 on the bridge, and US 2 was shifted to follow I‐75 along the freeways in the St. Ignace area. The former routing of US 2 in downtown St. Ignace was redesignated BL I‐75. More sections of freeway were opened in 1962 immediately to the south of the newly constructed International Bridge in Sault Ste. Marie as well as between Dafter and Kinross. The last two sections opened in 1963 connected the northern end of the freeway at M‐123 to Kinross, and the section between Dafter and Sault Ste. Marie. At this time, all of US 2's former routing became a county road known as Mackinac Trail (H-63). The Department of State Highways expanded US 2/US 41 into an expressway between Gladstone and Rapid River in 1971. The state built a new bridge over the Manistique River in 1983, bypassing downtown. MDOT disposed of the former routing of US 2 into downtown in two ways. The western half was initially an unnumbered state highway until it was later transferred to local control. An extension of M‐94 replaced the remainder, including the Siphon Bridge, through downtown. In that same year, the department truncated US 2 to end in St. Ignace by removing it from the I‐75 freeway. The last changes were made to US 2's routing through Iron River in 1998, bypassing the bridge that formerly carried the highway over the river in town. In 2011, MDOT raised the speed limit along the expressway section in Delta County from 55 to 65 mph (89 to 105 km/h), although the speed limit for trucks remained 55 mph (89 km/h) until 2017. That year the highway's speed limits were raised to 65 mph (105 km/h) between Wakefield and Iron River as well as between Rapid River and St. Ignace. In 2020, MDOT announced the slight relocation of US 2 in Mackinac County just west of the Cut River Bridge due to sinkholes and shoreline erosion on Lake Michigan near the roadway. ## Memorial designations and tourist routes On July 1, 1924, the State Administrative Board named M‐12, the predecessor to US 2 in Michigan, the Bohn Highway to honor Frank P. Bohn, a prominent local citizen who later served in Congress from 1927 to 1933. In 1929, the residents of Escanaba created a memorial to the veterans of World War I called Memory Lane. The project consisted of elm and maple trees planted along US 2/US 41 west of town. The American Legion sold the trees to local businesses and individuals who could honor specific soldiers. Later in 1949, the Bessemer Women's Club created a tribute in the form of a permanent living memorial to the area veterans. Also called Memory Lane, the group planted 140 elms and 1,840 evergreens, trees and shrubs as a landscaped parkway along 2.3 miles (3.7 km) of US 2 east of Bessemer. Most of US 2, along with US 23 in the Lower Peninsula, was designated the United Spanish War Veterans Memorial Highway in 1949. To connect the gap in the routing where US 2 cuts through Wisconsin, M‐95 and M‐69 were used in place of US 2 between Iron Mountain and Crystal Falls. Signs marking the highway were not erected until 1968 when Governor George W. Romney had them installed. The Amvets Memorial Drive designation was created for the section of US 2/US 41/M‐35 between the northern Escanaba city limits and County Road 426 (CR 426) in Delta County. The American Veterans (AMVETS) organization in Michigan petitioned the Michigan Legislature to grant this designation, which was assigned under Public Act 144 in 1959. Two sections of US 2 are part of the overall Great Lakes Circle Tour (GLCT): the segment from the Wisconsin state line near Ironwood to the M‐28 junction in Wakefield is part of the Lake Superior Circle Tour (LSCT), and the segment from the southern M‐35 junction in Escanaba to the eastern terminus in St. Ignace is part of the Lake Michigan Circle Tour (LMCT). These two tours were created in May 1986 through a joint effort between MDOT and its counterparts in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Ontario. The section of US 2 between Iron River and Crystal Falls has been named the Iron County Heritage Trail. This Pure Michigan Byway was designated to honor the "rich history of two industries that built a state and nation: mining and logging." On August 26, 2007, MDOT announced that the section of US 2 that runs concurrently with M‐35 in Delta County was being included in the UP Hidden Coast Recreational Heritage Trail. The segment between Thompson and St. Ignace along the northern shore of Lake Michigan was designated the Top of the Lake Scenic Byway in the Pure Michigan Byways program on October 9, 2017. ## Historic bridges There are six bridges along current or former sections of US 2 that MDOT has added to its listing of Michigan's Historic Bridges; two of these are also listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). A third bridge added to the NRHP in late 2012 has not been added to MDOT's listing however. The first of these historic bridges is the crossing of the Iron River, which has since been bypassed by a new bridge. The original structure, dating to 1918, is a 55-foot-long (17 m) spandrel arch span that was built by the MSHD as Trunk Line Bridge No. 191. The structure was listed on the NRHP on December 9, 1999, for its architectural and engineering significance. In December 2012, the National Park Service approved the listing of the Upper Twin Falls Bridge that crosses the Menominee River northwest of Iron Mountain. The structure is a single-span, pin-connected, camelback, through-truss bridge, and it is the only known example of its type in Michigan. It was built between 1909 and 1910 because the Twin Falls Power Dam would flood an existing river crossing. The span cost \$5,106 (equivalent to \$ in ), paid equally by Dickinson and Florence counties. Until the 1930s, the Upper Twin Falls Bridge carried US 2 across the Menominee River. In 1934, a new bridge was built about a mile downstream, and the highway was rerouted over the new span. The bridge closed to automobile traffic in September 1971, and the nomination process for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places began in 2012. In 2003, MDOT replaced the Sturgeon River Bridge in Waucedah Township, Dickinson County. As of October 2011, even though the old bridge was demolished and replaced, MDOT retained it on their historic bridge list. It was built in 1929. Before 1983, US 2 used a different routing through Manistique and crossed the Manistique River on what is nicknamed the "Siphon Bridge". Built as a part of a raceway flume on the river, the water level is actually higher than the road surface. This produces a siphon effect, giving the bridge its nickname. The Manistique Pulp and Paper Company was organized in 1916 and needed a dam on the Manistique River to supply their mill. This dam would require a large section of the city to be flooded, and shallow river banks meant difficulties in any bridge construction. Instead of expensive dikes, a concrete tank was built lengthwise in the river bed; the sides of this tank provided man-made banks higher than the natural banks. The Michigan Works Progress Administration described the bridge as having "concrete bulkheads, formed by the side spans of the bridge, [that] allow the mill to maintain the water level several feet above the roadbed." The Manistique Tourism Council stated: "At one time, the bridge itself was partially supported by the water that was atmospherically forced under it," and that the bridge has been featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!. The eight-span structure is 294 feet (90 m) long. The Cut River Bridge carries US 2 across the Cut River in Hendricks Township, Mackinac County. This structure was built during World War II but completion was delayed due to war-induced steel shortages. The span uses 888 short tons (793 long tons; 806 t) of structural steel to bridge the 641 feet (195 m) over the river and its gorge at a height of 147 feet (45 m) above the river. The Cut River Bridge is one of only two cantilevered deck truss bridges in the state. On either side of the bridge, there are picnic areas and trails down to the river. Listed on the NRHP on December 17, 1999, the Mackinac Trail–Carp River Bridge carries H-63, the modern successor to US 2, over the Carp River north of St. Ignace. The bridge is another spandrel arch structure 60 feet (18 m) in length and built in 1920. Increasing traffic along Mackinac Trail prompted the MSHD to "widen its deck by five feet [1.5 m] and install new guardrails in the 1929–1930 biennium" along with the addition of decorative retaining walls. The last of the historic bridges along a former segment of US 2 is the structure carrying Ashmun Street (BS I‐75) over the Power Canal in Sault Ste. Marie. Built in 1934, it is one of only three steel arch bridges in the state. The 42-foot-wide (13 m) and 257-foot-long (78 m) structure is described by MDOT as "massive" with an "innovative" construction method: the previous structure was used as a falsework for the current bridge before removal. ## Major intersections MDOT has erected milemarkers along the two Michigan segments of the highway that use the total mileage starting at the state line in Ironwood; the signs on the eastern segment reflect the mileage in Florence County, Wisconsin. ## Business route Business U.S. Highway 2 (Bus. US 2) is a 1.270-mile (2.044 km) business route that runs from the Wisconsin state line at the Montreal River. The route extends through downtown Ironwood on Silver and Aurora streets before turning northward along Suffolk Street. Bus. US 2 stays on Suffolk Street for a short while until it turns onto Frederick Street. On Frederick Street, Bus. US 2 bears north through a residential area along Douglas Street. The eastern terminus of the route is at its junction with US 2 at the corner of Cloverland Drive and Douglas Street north of downtown. The business route was created in August 1942 when former M‐54 in Ironwood was renumbered as a business loop of US 2. It was originally a bi-state business connection before the Wisconsin Department of Transportation decommissioned Bus. US 2 in Hurley westward along State Trunk Highway 77 and northward along US 51 in 2002. ## See also

Subsets and Splits